CSI Fragment

We continue to perform the routine motions of our life until the moment of our death.

How Long do I Have Left

The Proceeding of the Athanasius Kircher Society has a story about a patent for a watch that tells you how many years, months, days and secounds you have left alive. Doesn't this sound alot like the Heinlein story, Life-Line. In the story Life-Line an inventor creates a machine that tells how much time you left and then is murdered on day, hour that he predicts.

Sad Little Kiwi

Topographical Map Server

Canada now has put its entire topographic map database online. The map server, Toprama, does two things better than Google maps. You can get the contour elevation and spot elevation. And the best feature is that you can distances that don't depend on driving directions. Not that driving directions are not useful but if want to find out the width of a bay you want the distance from two points not the drivable distance betweeen them.

The limitation is that the source for the Top maps can be out of date. Google depends on satellite information that is relatively un processed. The map above has the elevation in feet. I was looking at Toronto and the Greenwood Racetrack was still showing.

Genealogy of Influence

We all know the philosopher family tree of Socrates to Plato to Aristotle. That is Socrates taught Plato who taught Aristotle. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great, but that is another story. People can be influenced by people long deadby shards of thought fossilized in books. This chart, the Mike Love Genealogy of Influence, is meant to chart the interconnection and relationship between such disparate individuals as Votaire, Dickens and Asimov. Andart has some outtakes and analysis of the Genealogy of Influence.

More on the cultural genealogy from AndArt. Even more network trees from AndArt.

Why is There Combat in Gaming

Tim Carter answers the question of why games are continued to be overstuffed with combat in an effort to please the players.

"I've always been one to believe we put things into games for reasons other than pandering to some animalistic, self-propogating desire on the part of gamers."

Warning Signs for a New Age

A Swede has come out with a new line of warning signs. Anders Sandburg has explains the need for all of these new signs along with logarithmic scaling of risk. Here is explaination for the sign above, Lack of Internet Connectivitity. Anders Sandburg's blog, Andart, is so choke full of cool, cool stuff that goes on regular rotation.

Lack of internet connectivity: today a nuisance, tomorrow a serious problem and possibly even damage risk. As our exoselves become more and more dynamic and linked to our biological minds a loss of connectivity could cause breakups of our extended minds.

(thanks RG)

Dark Redwall

I have enjoyed the various Redwall TV series. It is set in a medival world populated by funny animals. In the Alt history discussion board is a timeline for a Dark Redwall. The story of Redwall is of a good triumphing over evil, in this timeline evil wins. Cue evil laughter.

New Phrase

New phrase of the day is Intentional Community. I wonder if this phrase was coined to get away from the dirty hippie connotations of commune. But why use a 8 syllable phrase when a 2 syllable word is available.

Odd Tolkien Bio

At Wikipedia while trying to get to the JRR Tolkien page I ended up on an alternative bio. Don't look now it was only there for a short time. Here are the highlights:

Famous director, author, actor, politician, biologist and hockey player (as well as frequent mentor to Batman's younger cousin Manbat), J.R.R.S.F.B.A.B.C.D.E.F.X.Y.Z. Tolkien is the historian who discovered that the true history of the earth was being covered up by the world's governments, who did not want the general population to know of the existence of dragons, elves, hobbits, magic, etc, in order to maintain control over their people.


His written work is characterized by disputes over the ownership of jewelry, and the hand injuries that occur as a result.

He was also reputed to be the head of a secret society of monarchists who use film to undermine democracy and return the West to the Dark Ages. This secret order is called The Royal Society for Counter-Strike revolution.

Ate a lot of corn and peas.

Advertising and the Maladjusted

For advertising award program, ShowSouth, a site was created to show how advertising types are not really suited for any other line of work.

Biblical Passage to live for .

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. reference

Indian Ocean Slave Trade

The Middle Passage has been covered in many stories, books and histories but their is another story. The other half of the story of the western slave trade is the arab slave trade that wasn't limitied to Africa. Saudi Arabia only outlawed the slave trade officially in 1962. The blog Trade Routes concentrates on the history trade routes here is a story about the Indian Ocean Slave Trade.

Ad for Restraint

I saw this ad earlier this year on Best Ad on TV. The problem is that it doesn't promote one condom brand over another.

Proto Typical Campaign Ad

Here is an ad for some kid that looks like every other American election ad.

The New Beetles

Nosing around in the Rummy's Wiki entry I see that a slime-mode beetle is named after him, agathidium rumsfeldi. One blogger has provided a comparison of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld and their beetle namesakes.

Monkey Death Wish

Monkey Death Wish, a very silly monkey teases equally silly but more dangerous tigers.

YouTube Hits and Intellectual law

Slate recently had a feature on the top hits of YouTube. Now that YouTube has real money behind it, after the purchase by Google, much of the features, clips of copyrighted material, of it are disappearing. Comedy Central clips have been pulled. On the show On The Media there was a discussion of the expected content drought on YouTube. It all turns on a content rights, there is copyright material, copyfree material, and copyright material that is free to use, sort of. If you consider land the same way as copy rights, there is public space, there is private space, and there is some private space that can be used by the public.

There are No Accidents

There is a great new ad put out by what used to be called Workman Comp. A woman has a bad accident and then points out her "accident" was expect because she and the store wasn't following the correct safety procedures.

Do You Have Feelings of Inadequency?

Listen to this ad which is an promotes booze in the same manner as a pharma ad.