Friday, March 31, 2006

Device warns you if you're boring or irritating. "A device that can pick up on people's emotions is being developed to help people with autism relate to those around them. It will alert its autistic user if the person they are talking to starts showing signs of getting bored or annoyed. One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Failure to notice that they are boring or confusing their listeners can be particularly damaging, says Rana El Kaliouby of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'It's sad because people then avoid having conversations with them.'" (New Scientist) [Follow Me Here...] 11:48:40 PM    comment []

The Holy Grail of Office Chairs. Wired magazine selects the choicest nerd throne, the trippiest wireless router and the least taxing tax software in this week's Test. [Wired News: Top Stories] 11:36:35 AM    comment []

Missing Byrne/Eno track "Qu'ran" appears on blogs. Following up on yesterday's post about the remixable re-release of David Byrne and Bryan Eno's masterpiece My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, reader Blake Leyh sez: I have made the Eno/Byrne track "Qu'ran", referred to earlier as the missing track from "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts", available for download at my blog. Enjoy. Anonymous says, me too. Link. And E.W. Brenner says, here is a link of interest to people who are fond of the song "Qu'uran." This was my favorite song on the record. I just bought my copy of the newly remastered version here: Link. [Boing Boing] 11:35:52 AM    comment []

would you be a warlord or a field marshal?. Esther recently finished her PhD on first world war culture, and now, among other pursuits, she’s turned her attention to World of Warcraft and its constructions of war and conflict. Recently she’s written about the symbolism of the Horde’s Zeppelins versus the Alliance’s sailing ships, about the tension of deforestation, colonialism and exploitation from either side, and about the implications of a military parade by one faction during a peaceful Faire. When I checked out the PvP ranks - that is, the titles you get when you score points in player-versus-player fights, so by killing players of the opposite faction - I had to laugh at the way the same symbolism is expressed here. One of the lower ranks, for instance, is “Corporal” for the Alliance and “Grunt” for the Horde. Would you like to be a Grunt? Near the top of the scale, your Horde character might be a Warlord while your Alliance equivalent is a Field Marshal. See, I might rather be a Warlord than a Field Marshal. Sure, “Warlord” is what we always call the Other side’s bosses, it’s a little derogatory, they’re primitive, really, is what we’re saying, but it also sounds a lot more fun and powerful than the repressedly WASPish Field Marshall. I know very little about the miliary, but based on my vague understandings from popular culture and a war movie or two I’m convinced all Field Marshals speak British, are deeply boring, are sticklers for rules and very picky about tidiness and orderliness. Now I’m wishing I knew more German and French so I could see what words they’ve chosen to use in the translations. [jill/txt] 11:35:25 AM    comment []

Inventor of the Web's lecture on "The Future of the Web" MP3.  Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, gave a stirring speech at the Oxford Internet Institute that makes subjects related to Internet freedom accessible to non-geeks and geeks alike. The audio is available as an MP3. Link Coral Cache Link to 70MB MP3 (Thanks, Rich!) [Boing Boing] 11:35:14 AM    comment []