Here’s a puzzle for you: what is it you can hear but cannot hear, creates noise to make you sleep, and is a key feature of some 35 iPhone / iPod Touch applications that represent some of the most high-tech snake oil ever invented?
The answer is Binaural Beats, an aural illusion created when you listen to two different tones, one in each ear, that your brain interprets as something else entirely — a beat. [Read more →]
I am not a Luddite. I love my MacBook, my iPod, and my Blackberry Curve. I have my doubts about the effects on literature and music through digitization, the Kindle, downloading, etc., but I accept the premise that, on balance, such technological progress is a good thing. I also eagerly await the progress of medical science in the areas of Alzheimer’s and hip replacement, two things I worry about. Now, a recent article in The New Scientist reports on a recent conference on Neuroscience, and proclaims, “It will soon be possible to boost human brainpower with electronic ‘plug-ins’ or even by genetic enhancement.” [Read more →]
I propose that book publishers allow readers to download individual short stories, similar to iTunes providing the means to download individual songs without having to buy the entire album. In fact, it seems that Apple may be able to compete with Amazon’s superiority in the e-book market, as book downloads has increased by 280% in Apple’s iPhone App Store. [Read more →]
Facebook Status: Upset about the election.
Tweet: Taking a break from fomenting a revolution to enjoy a scone.
I’m slowly getting sucked into Facebook and I’m beginning to suspect that it’s a cult. First, they want to know way too much about me. Like, what I listen to and what I read and which movies I like best. They want details about me I didn’t know I had (I’m apparently somehow just like Judy Garland and yet also a Ren Faire dork) — which makes me want to stay up all night telling them and ignoring my family and buying weird things from the ads down the sides. Creepy attention, sleep deprivation, isolation, handing over money — the only thing different from a cult is that Facebook has crappy singalongs. [Read more →]
It’s very easy to be an overprotective parent. I remember walking with a friend of the family when I was only a teenager and criticizing (in my head) the mother we were with as she let her 4-year-old run ahead of her at a busy amusement park. Her kid is now 18 and doing just fine. Was I wrong? I think about how crazy some parents get, baby-proofing like mad, knee pads and elbow pads to get on any moving object, and don’t get me started on those kid-leashes! [Read more →]
Okay… I am absolutely addicted to Twitter. Every time I talk to someone that is active online, I talk to them about Twitter. I love the fact that it forces people (myself included) to edit themselves to 140 characters. If you are one of the few people who still doesn’t know what Twitter is, just click on the the word Twitter — anywhere in this first paragraph — and you’ll see some explanation from around the web. [Read more →]
There is a characteristically gracious tribute by Roger Ebert in today’s Chicago Sun-Times to the memory of his colleague, counterpart and rival, Gene Siskel, who died ten years ago.
Part of what makes this encomium so affecting and sincere is that Ebert makes no secret of the fact that he and Siskel fought constantly and pretty much hated each other, though they genuinely loved and respected each other as well. They were like ill-matched brothers.
I was a witness to the “hate” half of the equation, having taken a couple of classes from Ebert in the early 80s, one of them on the films of Hitchcock and his imitators, and the other devoted entirely to profoundly esoteric and unclassifiable movies that Ebert was smart enough, and brave enough, to champion. During the classes, during the breaks, and even once while he and I were at adjacent urinals, Ebert compulsively uttered nasty but very funny cracks about Siskel that struck at the very core of Siskel’s personality and his predilections.
Ebert rarely alluded to what I suspect was his real objection to Siskel: While the two of them were for many years yoked together in the public eye as the pair of bickering film critics on their TV show “At the Movies,” there was nothing symmetrical about the relationship whatsoever. And I don’t just mean this in the clichéd sense that Ebert was “the fat one” and Siskel was “the skinny one.”
Ebert was, and remains, one of the best short-form essayists in America today, on any subject. The quality of his movie reviews over the years — written, remember, on a very strict deadline and in response to movies that are, in a few cases, literally beneath comment — has been close to miraculous.
Siskel, on the other hand, was a terrible writer. I used to know a Chicago Tribune reporter who would say, “you think his stuff is bad? You should see it before the editors get ahold of it.” [Read more →]
A friend wrote me the following yesterday, in response to my piece about the iPod. He suggested I do a follow-up, but I can’t improve on this.
Thesis: Technophoria, rather than technophobia, is what led us to the current dismal state of the music industry. It isn’t so much (or only) that the big labels failed to respond to the technological innovations of Napster and other digitizing file sharers, it’s that the digitizing, in and of itself, carried the seeds of music’s destruction, in terms of the weakening of the influence of the major labels, the de-professionalization of music, the cheapening and commoditization of music, the lower sampling (bit) rates of digital versus analogue, the poorer sound quality, and on and on.
Now the same thing is on the verge of happening to books. As in music, we’re beginning to do things only because they’re possible, not because they’re desirable. But do we really want to see all books digitized (and their contents commoditized and cheapened) merely because we’re all afraid of being accused of being old fogeys and technophobes? Do we really want to throw away thousands of years of printed history just because it’s possible to digitize books? Not all technological innovations are good ones (cf. nukes and frozen burritos.) E-books, in and of themselves, are not a bad idea — but the possibility that printed books and other forms of printed literature will as a result entirely disappear will be very, very bad for literature, in my opinion.
The irony is that the techno geeks who want to shove everything analogue into the shadows are themselves less capable of envisioning the future than the old-fogey technophobes. Because they clearly didn’t see what digitization would do to music, and they can’t see how digitization will destroy books the way it’s destroyed music.
Now, I am not a Luddite. I love my MacBook and my Blackberry Curve. But, in terms of the quality of experience, it seems to me self-evident that:
A home library is better than a Kindle.
The New York Times paper is better than the New York Times online.
The New York Times Book Review is better than the book review section of Popmatters. (And I write for the latter!)
Compact Discs are better than Mp3s.
A stereo sound system is better than an iPod.
Talking on the phone is better than texting.
A letter is better than email.
A great bookstore is better than Amazon.
A great record store is better than iTunes.
But, in ten years, we’re likely not to have the New York Times, CDs, and book and record stores, while talking on the phone (at least for my 17 year old), the letter (we call it “snail mail”!), and home stereo systems are virtually gone already. And, as my friend suggests, will books be far behind? What is it about our culture that we happily trade quality of experience for convenience, portability, and quantity of experience?
I invented the iPod. Or, at least, I invented the iPod that’s currently on my desk. In 1970, an avid music-lover, with hundreds of LP’s in my collection (no, for those of you too young to know, I won’t define LP), I dreamed of having a portable way of listening to all of my music. I called it my “universal jukebox.” I couldn’t envision the actual technology, of course, but I imagined a kind of personal radio, with me as the DJ, spinning only my records, at the touch of a button. (I also invented the compilation CD, but that’s another story.)
Today, I have 3 iPods. One has all my contemporary classical, from Karlheinz Stockhausen to John Adams. One has approximately 20,000 tracks, mostly from the last 10 years, ripped from CDs, downloaded from iTunes, and free downloads (not a single one illegal) from sites like 3Hive and Daytrotter. My universal jukebox, though, is my 30 gig iPod classic with 670 albums, all ripped from CDs, every great album from the 60’s, 70’s and a few from later decades, what I call the “canon.” [Read more →]
When Falls the Coliseum is now on Twitter. So you can follow us, or twit us, or re-tweet us, or whatever the hell it is people do on Twitter. Go here and click “follow” and then share the love (you can choose how to receive updates — mobile phone, Web, RSS feed).
Our Coliseum Twitter Team will post links to entertaining and interesting sites and news and strangeness from across the Web throughout the day. Follow us. Tell your friends. You know you want to.
What is Twitter, you ask? We have no idea. But Wikipedia knows all.
Texting while you drive is dumb. I mean, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to realize that your eyes should be on the road and your hands (hopefully both of them) should be on the wheel. I have people close to me who text while they drive and it infuriates me. It would be one thing if all you were doing was taking your life into your hands, but you’re not! Philippa Curtis found out, while driving in England, you might just kill someone else on the road.
Curtis, 21, made a couple of calls, sent a flurry of text messages, and then smashed into Victoria McBryde’s car, which was stopped because she had a flat tire. Even after McBryde’s death Curtis claimed she could send and receive messages without taking her eyes off the road. Is that just a bad defense? I mean, I can probably send a text message without looking at my phone, but does anyone know how you would receive a message without actually looking at the phone? And I don’t mean just accepting the text, I mean, how did she know what to write back if she didn’t read the text?
Curtis told the court “I can’t really describe in words how bad I actually feel. I just feel awful that I was involved and I can’t really imagine how the family must feel.” Honey — you weren’t only involved — you were the cause of the accident. Had you not been on the road and had you not been using your phone, this 24-year-old woman would likely still be alive today. Certainly, you wouldn’t have killed her. Twenty-one months in jail and a three-year driving ban does not make up for the young life lost.
People, if you need to send a text, just pull over or let the person on the other end of the line wait. It’s not Jack Bauer waiting for information that will save the world. Really, what you have to say is just not that important.
I just discovered that Facebook has a breast controversy.
According to several news sources, the social networking site deletes photos of women if they are breastfeeding… or is it that their babies are breastfeeding? Okay, I’m a bit confused on the verbiage, but Facebook is not confused about the Terms of Use. If you have a Facebook account, you agreed to the Terms of Use, which includes the provision that “photos containing a fully exposed breast” are subject to removal from the site. No caveat for when the breast is being employed in a mammary fashion versus the Girls Gone Wild display that was certainly the impetus for the rule in the first place. And thus, controversy.
It won’t be long now before the post-apocalyptic future, as shown in the Terminator movies, comes to pass.
Famed technologist Ray Kurzwell is predicting that machines will have evolved enough to match man’s cognitive abilites in just another 20 years. I think he is being overly optimistic about the time we have left, based on the launch of our Overlord’s surveillance construct, iSentry.
The successful test of a hovering anti-missile device called, aptly enough, the Multiple Kill Vehicle, is just the latest nail in the coffin that is our mastery of this planet.
Combine the iSentry and an MKV with the Israeli’s new offensive robot, and you have a wonderful tool with which to control the masses!
Sure, call me a nutcase, but I swear my toaster has been acting mighty uppity.
Like a lot of Americans, I was glued to the television on Tuesday night. I flipped from network to network evaluating the coverage, ripping apart the guests, and loving the graphics — which were just insane and over the top… but fantastic. It was great that, for a moment, Brian Williams had his director drop out the graphics so viewers could see the green screen Ann Curry was walking on. Those designers certainly deserve a round of applause.
But, by far, the most outrageous bit of new news technology came from CNN with their hologram import of guests and correspondents. Slate V remixes Wolf Blitzer’s debut encounter with this technology into an encounter with Princess Leia. It had me laughing out loud.
Personally, I think I would have rather seen these images sharp and clear on any one of the many HD TVs they had all around the set, but I have to admit, part of me liked it. Did you think the graphics were cool… or just unnecessary and distracting?
For those of us who see politics as something other than a game of capture the red/blue flag, presidential debates become fairly tedious affairs right about the time voters begin winnowing out marginal candidates — you know, the ones who bum focus groups out with things like “facts” and “the truth.” Whatever your politics, however, thanks to the creators of PALINdrome this year’s vice-presidential debate can be different. Tonight, have it your way. Whenever Gwen Ifill finally cuts off whatever delusion of grandeur Joe Biden is caught up in, hit the mute button and create your own response out of a series of phrases Sarah Palin culled from either the perfect RNC speech or the opposite-of-perfect Katie Couric interview. (My actual advice for Palin is up at Culture 11.) If you’re a Republican, you can help Palin bring the pain to Biden like he was some innocent furry Alaskan woodland creature. If you’re a Democrat…well, you could do worse than a verbatim transcript of the Couric interview, but feel free to get more creative if you like.
I just finished my own practice run, torturing my wife as she readied herself for work with a hitherto undelivered Palin speech that included the lines “It is obvious I desire Henry Kissinger, he is my New York love Holocaust — I think that’s the word — I want to has him inside my backpack, because I think I am beyond bad” (Oh yeah, naughty girl!); “I have a message for you: Styrofoam is evil, John McCain is the haberdasher of war”; and “The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick. The difference between al-Qaeda and special needs children? Guns.”
Any better ideas? Please share.
These cell phone companies are going to be in for some trouble one day when someone doesn’t receive a voice mail message on time. Can you imagine waking up one day to receive some big, potentially life changing news, only to realize that the news is a few days old? Depending on the circumstances, things could get messy.
Here’s a harmless example of that. I had off this past Thursday, so I called my mother to see if she would let me hang out at her place for a bit. A few hours passed and I didn’t hear from her, so I decided to just drive home anyway to beat traffic and hope things would be ok. As I was driving by my apartment building searching for a place to park, I saw my mother walking in, so I knew all was well. When I got upstairs, mom told me that she had just left me a voice mail saying that it was, indeed, ok for me to visit. She left me that message around 4 PM on Thursday… I received it around 11 PM on Saturday.
To my knowledge, my mother doesn’t have any special powers that would allow her to manipulate the AT&T network, so I’m chalking it up to the company’s error. Think about it though — down the road, someone could miss out on important, time sensitive information like an illness in their family or a potential job interview. It sounds like a recipe for a lawsuit to me.
My wife made a comment the other day that stuck in my head. She said, “I can’t watch the news anymore. I used to turn the TV on first thing in the morning and catch up on what went on overnight. Now I just can’t stand it! I refuse to watch any of it anymore, it just gets me too upset.” [Read more →]
I spent most of last week traveling to attend a biker get-together. Nothing unusual in that, except that this group, and by extension the meet itself, was the product of relationships developed online.
The hours I spent on the road gave me, as it always does, a lot of time to ponder my belly button. The topic that got the most mileage was the changing nature of friendships in my life. [Read more →]
This afternoon I went to the Bucks County Historical Society to do some genealogy research for a writing project I’m working on. When I called the BCHS yesterday to find out their hours I was excited to find out that it’s housed not just in Doylestown, which I knew, but right inside the Mercer Museum.
The Mercer Museum, if you’ve never been to it, is awesome. It’s a feat of Victorian geekery. At the turn of the 20th century crackpot collector Henry Mercer had the idea to compile as many handmade (not machine-made) objects as he could since, as he saw it, these things were on their way out. He assembled his huge collection inside a cement castle (!), with all the various objects of old-school interest divided into separate little warrens that wind around the perimeter of the building and up to the top. There’s tin smithing, whaling, the healing arts; on the top-most level is a gallows. Yikes. [Read more →]
