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"Als Ruccola noch Rauke hiess,...

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:32:50 CEST

"Als Ruccola noch Rauke hiess, wurde es an die Ziegen und nicht an Hipster verfüttert."

(dyfustic)

Can Larry reboot Google?

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:19:31 CEST

Interesting story on Larry Page and Google. He of course is one of two founders, and the CEO of Google.

He says Google is its own biggest problem.

As an observer of BigCo's in the tech business for over 30 years (oy) I think I know at what point in the cycle he is in.

Here's the story, from an outsider's point of view.

When Google started it was great. They had a winning product, search, and it was connecting with users bigtime. Then they added mail, maps, bought YouTube and discovered ads.

The company grew and hired from the general talent pool of Silicon Valley. That means it was able to operate at huge scale, but the tradeoff was that great new ideas didn't make it there anymore.

Great ideas don't sound like great ideas before they happen. They sound unlikely. Egotistic. People find ways of dismissing them even if like Page you have a track record of recognizing, developing and promoting great ideas. The people at Google would recognize a fine new search engine or Twitter clone. Or a new YouTube, Dropbox, eBay or Skype. These are, today, proven ideas. And that's what Google invests in.

Larry Page is brilliant. And great ideas are addictive. And great ideas aren't just light bulbs. The transcontinental railroad was a great idea because of its scope and its ability to transform human civilization. To make something like that happen you have to do a lot more than "have" an idea. You have to develop it, make it work, and then convince everyone else to use it. Often without having the thing itself to help you sell it. (In other words to sell the idea of the transcontinental railroad you had to wave your arms a lot. Steve Jobs doesn't have to sell anything until he can put one in your hands.)

The people who sold JFK on going to the moon were some of the most accomplished tech leaders ever. I think Page probably could have been one of those people.

Anyway, he loves great ideas. Has done some and wants to keep going. But he has this huge ball and chain around his neck called Google. It's so large you or I couldn't comprehend it. He has had time to get used to it, but I bet it's incomprehensible to him too. You can't grok the totality of something as big as Google, no matter how great your mind is.

Bill Gates got to this point with Microsoft, tried to re-whip the intelligence of his early days, failed, and went on to be a philanthropist.

Steve Jobs was fired before Apple could get to this point. He spent years in the wilderness, came back and somehow got Apple to turn the corner. Probably because he had no reason not to fire the losers who accumulate in BigCo's. There was a huge purge at Apple in 1997 and 1998.

Larry Page and Mark Zuckerberg are there now. Neither of them has made it over the hump. Will they be Steve or will they be Bill? Or something else.

I would love to see a video of Page's talk. I hope that makes its way to YouTube.

BTW, feature request. If I search for "google coffee mug" one of the first hits should be a blog-ready image of a google coffee mug.

The Deleted City

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 21:23:03 CEST

spatial Geocities visualization with MIDI pulled from neighboring pages, built with Archive Team's backup [via]

A Softer World: 719

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:47:57 CEST

back	buy this print

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A park on top of the world.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 21:58:37 CEST

Are you afraid of extreme heights? Are you comfortable with lounging in a beach chair on top of a skyscraper? Do you trust a giant swimming pool that is perched at over 600 feet above the ground? These are all questions that you should be asking yourself if you want to spend some of your R & R time at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

All images courtesy of Marina Bay Sands.

This hotel has 2,561 rooms and suites in 55 floors beneath the Sands SkyPark, a 1.2 hectare area for guests to relax atop the cityscape. The hotel boasts to be one of the most complex hotels ever built with the towers at points sloping as steep as 26 degrees. The SkyPark is large enough to fit 3 football fields or four and a half A380 jumbo jets, whichever sounds bigger to you…go with it.

This behemoth was built faster than any other building of its size in Singapore, with a new floor being completed every four days. It does not get much better than this for luxury. The Hotel has views of both the South China Sea and the Marina Bay, but of course is one of the best places to view the Singapore skyline.

For those seeking luxury, there are 230 luxury suites. They come with butler service and privileged access to the VIP areas. It is the largest hotel in Singapore and because of it, those VIPs have the ability to stay in at the hotel with 24-hour room service, and a choice of over 30 different restaurants, lounges and snack bars.

What else, you ask? How about a casino, shows, clubs, bars, a shopping mall, skating rink, and Sampan rides. In a city like Singapore with tons of attractions, culture, and excitement, this place is an island in itself. With its sheer size and amount that is packed inside, you could take a vacation from Singapore inside. So be careful, while the SkyPark might be intimidating for those afraid of heights, you also might want to get a map so you don’t get lost inside.

In A Strong Return, 'The Office' Finds Its Footing Without Steve Carell

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 14:01:00 CEST

by Linda Holmes

Chris Haston/NBC

Rainn Wilson and James Spader in "The List," the season premiere episode of NBC's The Office.

It should go without saying that this discussion of last night's episode of The Office discusses last night's episode of The Office. If you haven't seen it, intend to watch it, and want to discover what happens for yourself, you should come back and read this later.

The producers of The Office were careful about keeping last night's season premiere under wraps. Critics didn't see it, and while some details had come out, they successfully maintained the suspense over the biggest question fans were likely to have with Steve Carell and Michael Scott gone: What now?

Back when Carell announced he was leaving, there was a lot of back-and-forth about whether the show would go with an internal candidate, promoting an existing character to Michael's job, or whether they'd bring in an outside name. There were arguments for both: Bringing in a new face, if they found the right one, would be a shot in the arm at a time when they might need it. But picking an internal candidate presented the opportunity to build on the characters the writers have known for years and also might soothe the sense that a new and unfamiliar character was supposed to instantly fill Michael's shoes.

Wisely, the show managed to have it both ways. James Spader came in to play Robert California, a blunt, off-putting oddball who's the new CEO — the job Kathy Bates' character used to have. And in the end, Ed Helms' Andy Bernard beat out Dwight and Darryl for the job of Regional Manager, Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

At first, the writing of Andy as boss, particularly as he dealt with the intimidating Robert, seemed tentative and a little too reminiscent of the way Michael was written: ingratiating, terrified, clumsy, and trying to do right by the staff in a way that just made everyone more anxious. When he leaned over to a very pregnant Pam (the show jumped ahead quite a bit) and said "Chins up," then held awkwardly for the laugh that didn't come, it seemed like something straight out of the book of Michael Scott insults, and not like Andy's substantially gentler nature.

But by the end, Andy discovered that indeed, he is not Michael — or at worst, he is already the substantially evolved Michael from later seasons, and is not the craven Michael who would, early on, have caved to a guy like California out of rank status insecurity.

After the staff discovered that California had divided them into "winners" and "losers," the button on the story first seemed to have gone to Spader, in a speech about how even the "losers" shouldn't worry, because he was only giving first impressions and would be fine with being proved wrong. It seemed like the story had concluded as one about California — who he was and wasn't, and whether he was truly a bad guy or not.

But then Andy took a deep breath and went in to defend the "losers," making smart and true — but also very funny — defenses of the merits of employees like Stanley, Meredith, and Pam. The entire office overheard him, and in a lovely and understated sequence, at the end of the day, the people Andy manages all smiled and said good night with evident gratitude, and the fist-bump he got from Darryl will, you just know, keep him going for quite a while.

At the same time, the story about Pam's high emotions during pregnancy, which could have played out as nothing but pathetic, paid off at the end, too. Already feeling hormonal, out of sorts and worried about transitioning fully into middle age as a mom of two kids, Pam was devastated to be branded a "loser." In the final moments, she got a note from Jim that was the first thing the show has written in a couple of seasons that had as much charm and simple affection to it as the things that were written for Jim and Pam back when they were just friends. What made them compelling from the start was their ability to support each other in exactly the right way, and Jim's note demonstrated that he still knows his wife, not only as her husband, but also as her very best friend. (This was also the first episode in a while where Jim seemed entirely like himself; for a season or two, he's seemed unpleasantly off, kind of smug and angry.)

On top of a couple of storylines that paid off nicely, the episode was also satisfyingly and consistently funny. A running gag about "planking" could have been really dumb, but it took the show back to the physical comedy it has actually always done quite well (remember the frenetic fire sequence at the beginning of the post-Super-Bowl episode), right down to Dwight blowing Meredith off the top of the restroom partition with a fire extinguisher, which may have been one of their most audacious physical gags ever.

What was particularly important about the episode was that it didn't feel overwritten or panicky. It didn't feel like they were trying to cover up the loss of Carell with gimmicks. It felt, in short, like a strong episode of The Office. It was both warmly funny and wickedly funny, and it retained the sense of flawed humanity that always distinguished Carell's best work, even without him there.

The curse of recent seasons of The Office has been unevenness, so until they've made it through a few episodes, it's tough to give a diagnosis of the post-Carell show. But that was about as good a first outing as they could have hoped to have.

The X-factorisation of the Web

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:01:56 CEST

Over the last few years I’ve noticed a strange and disturbing trend amongst web practitioners.

There was a time—not so long ago—when passionate individuals would blog about their work for no other reason than to share their discoveries. The more prolific of these individuals built up an online reputation and became seen as experts. Some of the more articulate ones were asked to write books or present their thoughts at conferences, and received a modicum of success.

After years of sharing their knowledge freely, some were able to capitalise on their notoriety by securing jobs at interesting companies or setting up small agencies. A few even managed to make a living off publishing books and speaking at conferences, although how they managed this is anybodies guess. However unlike many professional vocations, being a well known designer wasn’t especially well paid, so most folks did it for love not money.

The early web was a meritocracy. Some people became nodes in the network, sharing information freely, and everybody benefited.

As the industry matured, more blogs started popping up, making it harder to get noticed. Micro blogging services like Twitter favoured the early adopters and amplified the voice of a small group of established “names”. This helped create a more personality driven focus which in retrospect may not have been so helpful.

Those arriving late to game didn’t understand the effort that had been put in. To them it must have felt like the industry was already sown up. That there was an existing hegemony bourn not from merit but from being part of a specific cast or social circle.

Many of these people were angry at the elders, crying foul and blaming back room dealings. “The only reason you’re invited to speak at conferences or write articles” they would argue, “is because you’re friends with the organisers.” While it is true that this can help remove some barriers and give people a way in, it’s not the real answer. The real reason why these people continue to be engaged is simple; they’re good at what they do and bring in the crowds.

Iconically what seems to be a long standing hegemony is changing all the time. There are plenty of “usual suspects” on the speaking circuit who were unknowns just a few years ago. However a chronic lack of talent means that once somebody shows a small amount of aptitude, they are pushed into the limelight and quickly become over exposed. So in a few short months you can go from being a new face on the circuit to part of the establishment.

Without seeing or understanding how people got to where they were, a sense of entitlement started to form. “Why should these people get all the fame and fortune” people would think, “when I’m almost certainly as good as they are”. This is said with no irony considering there is little fame, and almost no fortune to be had. Some of this comes from a sense of youthful ignorance. The Dunning-Kruger effect writ large.

Even if you happen to be a genius in the waiting, there are no Svengali’s to pluck you from obscurity and put you on the pedestal you know you deserve. No Simon Cowell’s in the web equivalent of X-factor. Success, as the saying goes, is 1% talent and 99% effort. So if you want to contribute to articles, write books and speak at conferences, you’re the only person in the way.

Just like the bands of old, you need to play the small gigs first. So tweet interesting thoughts, write good content on your blog and speak at local community events. Don’t wait to be asked to speak as these people aren’t mind readers. Instead approach conference organisers with proposal. My first ever public speaking opportunity was at SXSW, not because I was asked but because I offered.

The cream rises to the top so if you’re good, there’s a strong chance you will be discovered eventually. However if you’re mediocre, don’t expect to get noticed and don’t blame others for you short fallings. The industry doesn’t own you a living and you have to make your own luck.

More importunity, you should consider your motivations. Are you wanting to write books, submit articles, talk at conferences or run a successful start-up because you have a burning desire to share your knowledge and experience with the world? To push the industry forward in some tangible way? Or are you simply doing it to make a name for yourself?

Just like musicians, fame is the medium for sharing your talent with the world, not the end goal. Otherwise you’ll end up like just another X-factor hopeful—tomorrows chip wrapper.

10 Jahre…

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 17:42:21 CEST

Shared by DonDahlmann
9/11 aus der Sicht eines Piloten

45° Westlicher Länge. Unterwegs nach Boston sitze ich im Cockpit und nippe an einem Kaffee. Draussen ist es blau. Oben etwas heller als unten. Alles normal. Der nächste Fuelcheck steht in einer halben Stunde an, ebenso die nächste Kontaktaufnahme mit Gander.

Plötzlich meldet sich ein KLM Flug auf der allgemeinen Sprechfrequenz 123.45 MHz. Lapidar teilt der fliegende Holländer allen mit, dass gemäss Informationen, die er von seiner Firma erhalten hat, ein Flugzeug ins World Trade Center geflogen sei. Ich schaue den Kapitän an und er mich. „Wohl irgend ein Depp mit einer Cessna“ sagen wir gleichzeitig. Doch es sollte nicht sein. Kurz darauf meldet sich ein British Airways Pilot: „All stations. This is Speedbird XY. You better listen to BBC on frequency ….“

Ich schraube die angegebene Frequenz in unseren Kurzwellenempfänger und zwischen Rauschen und Geknatter hören wir in den BBC World News, dass mittlerweile zwei Passagierjets in die Zwillingstürme in New York gekracht sind. Sofort ist uns klar, dass dies nur ein Terroranschlag sein kann und dass wir heute Boston wohl nicht erreichen werden.

Ebenso schnell ist klar, dass der Treibstoff für eine Rückkehr nach Europa nicht ausreicht, dass aber eine Landung in Montreal problemlos machbar wäre. Also fliegen wir weiter Richtung Neufundland. BBC spricht mittlerweile von bis zu 50 Flügen, die eventuell entführt wurden. Ein mulmiges Gefühl macht sich breit. Wir verschliessen die Cockpittüre. Placebo für’s Gemüt, denn mit einem Fusstritt lässt sich die Tür locker aufbrechen. Wir rufen den Maître Cabin ins Cockpit und bitten ihn die Kabinenbesatzung zu informieren und das in Kürze anstehende, zweite Essen nicht zu verteilen, da wir dieses später eventuell noch nötiger bräuchten. Auf eine Information der Passagiere verzichten wir vorerst.

Eine knappe halbe Stunde später haben wir endlich VHF-Funkkontakt mit Gander Radio und uns wird mitgeteilt, dass wir in Gander landen müssen. Unser Antrag nach Montreal auszuweichen wird mit den Worten „Every aircraft lands at the nearest airport possible. So you proceed to Gander to land – immediately!“ quittiert. „Verstanden!“ Wir drehen nach Gander ab und suchen die Anflugkarten raus.

Jetzt müssen wir wohl oder übel auch die Passagiere informieren. Aber was sollen wir sagen? Mit der ganzen Wahrheit wollen wir noch nicht rausrücken, unsere Bedenken eine Panik auszulösen sind zu gross. Aber irgendeine Lügengeschichte wollen wir auch nicht auftischen, da sonst später niemand mehr unseren Informationen glaubt. Also irgendetwas dazwischen. Auch wenn es nach einer dünnen Ausrede tönt, teilen wir mit, dass der US Luftraum nach einem grossen Flugunfall geschlossen sei und wir deshalb in Kanada zwischenlanden müssen. Nachfragen würgen wir mit dem Hinweis ab, dass wir mit dem Anflug beschäftigt seien und nach der Landung weitere Informationen geben werden.

Mittlerweile hat uns der Dispatcher in New York einen Telex geschickt und uns angewiesen Halifax anzusteuern. Nach der rüden Abfuhr, die wir bei der Anfrage für Montreal kassiert haben, verzichten wir aber auf diesen Antrag. Kurz nach dem Einleiten des Sinkflugs nach Gander hören wir, wie der Controller einem hinter uns befindlichen Flugzeug mitteilt der Flugplatz Gander sei überfüllt und es müsste neu Halifax ansteuern. Dies nehme ich zum Anlass ebenfalls eine Landung in Halifax zu verlangen. Nach einer kurzen Nachfrage des Controllers bei jemandem mit Entscheidungsgewalt, erhalten wir die Freigabe und steuern Richtung Halifax, wo wir um 13:00 Uhr auf der Piste 24 aufsetzen und anschliessend auf der Querpiste 15 zum Parkieren eingewiesen werden.

In zwei Reihen, jeweils um eine halbe Rumpflänge versetzt, damit sich die Flügel nicht berühren, werden die Flugzeuge auf der Piste aufgestellt. Unser rechtes Hauptfahrwerk befindet sich knapp einen Meter vom Pistenrand, als wir als Nummer 16 die Triebwerke abschalteten. Von meinem Sitz im Cockpit sehe ich im Minutentakt weitere Maschinen landen, bis schliesslich 40 Airliners aus aller Welt, dichtgedrängt auf der Piste stehen. „We have no more planes on our radar“ meldet der Tower im denkwürdigen Moment, als der Flugverkehr über Nordatlantik endgültig zum Stillstand kommt. Uns ist klar, dass dies ein Moment von historischer Tragweite ist und dass wir von hier nicht so schnell wieder wegkommen…

Etwa 8000 Passagiere und gut 400 Besatzungsmitglieder harrten nun der Dinge, die da kommen. Klar dass das Handynetz sofort zusammenbrach. Aber auch das Satellitentelefon und der Telex funktionierten nicht mehr. Die Kommunikation erfolgte deshalb über den Tower und eine Air Canada Frequenz. Zudem fand ich einen lokalen Mittelwellen Radiosender, den ich auf dem ADF Radionavigationsempfänger hören konnte.

Der Kapitän hatte mittlerweile die Passagiere informiert und die Cabin Crew begann den verschobenen zweiten Service. Die Passagiere trugen das Ganze mit erstaunlich viel Fassung. „We are in this together“ war das Motto. Auch der Informationsfluss kehrte sich zum Teil um. Weil das mit unseren GSM Handys nicht kompatible, amerikanische Mobilfunknetz noch funktionierte, erfuhren wir von unseren Passagieren was sich in den USA abspielte.

In der Zwischenzeit handelten die Kanadier schnell und vorbildlich. Toilettentanks wurden geleert, Hunde aus den Frachträumen gerettet und fehlendes Catering aufgestockt, während das rote Kreuz Unterkünfte für die gestrandeten Passagiere organisierte. Sportstadien, Schulen und Ausstellungshallen wurden requiriert und mit Feldbetten und Schlafsäcken ausgestattet. Um etwa 19:30 Uhr durften wir als fünftes Flugzeug unsere Passagiere ausladen. Diese mussten sich in zwei Gliedern, mit dem Handgepäck vor ihren Füssen, auf der Wiese neben dem Flugzeug aufstellen. Danach wurden alle mit Sprengstoffhunden durchsucht, bevor sie in Busse verfrachtet und weggefahren wurden. Unser Vorschlag die Passagiere zu begleiten wurde mit „You will be of little help!“ zurückgewiesen.

Da uns keine Unterkunft in Aussicht gestellt wurde, richteten wir uns für eine Nacht im Flugzeug ein. Immerhin konnte ich nach zweimaliger Intervention beim Chef der Flughafensicherheit erreichen, dass wir unsere Koffer aus dem Frachtraum ins Flugzeug holen durften…

Der 12. September brach mit einem strahlenden Sonnenaufgang an. Bei einem Kaffee führten wir eine erste Lagebesprechung durch. Danach betätigten wir uns als Putzmannschaft um für einen allfälligen Weiterflug bereit zu sein. Nach einem Frühstück, das uns freundlicherweise ans Flugzeug geliefert wurde, sammelten wir weitere Informationen. Zum ersten Mal konnten wir nun auch wieder mit unserer Einsatzleitstelle in Zürich telefonieren. Zur Mittagszeit stellten wir die ersten Anzeichen von Röhrenkoller fest. Deshalb bestellten wir eine Treppe und begaben uns in den Terminal, wo wir von Air Canada ein kleines Büro zur Verfügung gestellt kriegten, in dem wir zum ersten Mal die Bilder der Anschläge vom Vortag sehen konnten.

Es folgte ein weiteres Briefing und danach ging es, nachdem ich mir, als Ersatz für die zu Hause gelassene Fotokamera, eine Wegwerfkamera besorgt hatte, zurück ins Flugzeug, wo wir vom Cockpit uns mit Infobeschaffung und taktischem Vorschlafen ablösten, während sich die Kabinenbesatzung mit Filmen aus der Bordunterhaltung die Zeit vertrieb. Um 18 Uhr stellte uns Air Canada Unterkünfte in Aussicht. Also begaben wir uns wieder in den Terminal, wo wir mitten in ein unangekündigtes Pilot Briefing platzten. Wir erhielten eine Kontaktnummer des Emergency Operation Centers (EOC) und die Info dass es „anywhere between three and ten days“ dauern könne, bis wir wieder von hier weg kämen. Nach der noch nicht absehbaren Wiedereröffnung des Luftraums würde ein Flugzeug nach dem anderen abgefertigt und man rechne mit etwa 4 Stunden Abfertigungszeit pro Flugzeug… Danach erhielten wir in einem kurz vor der Eröffnung stehenden, requirierten und zwangseröffneten Hotel Doppelzimmer zugeteilt. Nach einem gemeinsamen Nachtessen in der Stadt endete unser zweiter Tag.

Der dritte Tag begann mit einer Telefonkonferenz mit Zürich. Wir erfuhren, dass die meisten unserer Passagiere mit Bussen und Fähren Richtung Boston geführt würden und das EOC teilte uns mit, dass eventuell am Mittag der Flugbetrieb Richtung Europa wieder aufgenommen würde. Allerdings sei unser Start für diesen Tag noch nicht vorgesehen. Bei einem weiteren Briefing mit der Kabine beschlossen wir dem Swissair 111 Memorial im Peggy’s Cove ein Besuch abzustatten. Nach ein paar besinnlichen Worten unseres Kapitäns versuchte jeder mit seinen Emotionen ins Reine zu kommen. Ein trauriger, aber auch versöhnlicher Moment inmitten einer wunderschönen Landschaft…

Danach ging es zurück in die Stadt, wo wir den Abend bei einem weiteren gemeinsamen Nachtessen mit der Besatzung und vier zufällig angetroffenen Business Passagieren ausklingen liessen. Nach etwa drei Stunden Schlaf wurden wir um 01:30 von einem Anruf aus den Träumen gerissen. Air Canada teilte uns mit, dass unser Start auf 08:00 angesetzt sei. Check in am Flugplatz um 06:00. Also hiess es Crew Call und Taxis organisieren und nach nochmals zwei Stunden Schlaf begann um 04:00 endgültig der vierte Tag unserer Odyssee.

Am Flughafen begab sich die Kabine sofort zum Flugzeug, während wir bei Air Canada den Flug planten. Danach wurden wir der genauesten Sicherheitskontrolle unterzogen, die ich je erlebt habe. Selbst die Nadeln aus meinem Not-Nähset wurden entfernt. Alles dauerte unendlich lang. Auf dem Flugzeug angekommen konnten wir das Flugzeug nicht betanken, da der Flügel zu weit in die Wiese hinausragte. Um 9 Uhr war der Weg endlich freigeräumt und wir wurden auf einen regulären Standplatz geschleppt. Nun klappte die Betankung und danach wurde das Flugzeug mit Sprengstoffhunden durchsucht. Nach mehrmaligen Nachfragen bei Air Canada und einigen Telefonaten mit einem der Passagiere, die wir am Vorabend kennengelernt hatten, erschienen schliesslich gerade mal fünf der 42 angekündigten Passagiere. Dem Rest wurde der Rückflug mit uns verweigert, weil sie gemäss Passagierliste auf dem Hinflug nicht mit uns geflogen waren. Ebenso wurde uns mitgeteilt, dass wir nur Gepäck von Passagieren transportieren dürften, welche auch an Bord seien. Da aber bisher das Gepäck vom Hinflug noch nicht ausgeladen wurde, mussten wir sämtliche Container ausladen, wodurch unser Trim ausserhalb jedes Limits fiel. Also flogen auch noch drei Tonnen Mangos raus, bevor wir kurz vor Mittag endlich Richtung Zürich abhoben, wo wir um 22:50 Uhr, müde, aber glücklich wieder wohlbehalten zu Hause zu sein, landeten.

By: recurse

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:03:55 CEST

I want to take a few minutes to discuss javascript at a slightly higher level, and how it fits in to the modern programming world, with a little history on the evolution of languages.

In the early days of software development, everyone was breaking new ground and pioneering new ideas. There were no "patterns" or "best practices", there were just new and novel ways of telling clever transistor (or diodes, in the early, early days) configurations how to combine themselves to do some basic logic oprations: AND, OR, NOT etc... this started with sliding paper cards with holes punched in them in certain configurations so that photoresistors could pick up an "instruction" and the clever configuration of transistors/diodes could do neat things, like math. The holes would represent 1's or 0's, and by allowing light to pass through would indicate a current "on" or "off" condition, which would cascade through the clever transistors and end up with another series of 1's in 0's, that would represent an answer to a question.

Over time, the configuration of the transistors became more and more clever, and punching holes in a piece of paper to write a program was clearly not an effective means of software development (if you made a mistake, you start over with a new card). So the very smart people in the industry figured out that you could add an additional layer on top of the holes in paper, called a "programming language". This "language" would, in turn, be converted by another program (called an assembler) into a virtual series of holes. One of the cool things about representing things as a series of holes, is that we can apply some math theory on alternate numbering systems to it, and do neat tricks. We can treat the holes, or 1's and 0's as a base 2 numbering system called 'binary'. Binary is tough to work with all by itself, it looks like this: 0000 0001 0000 1000 0000 0011 1101 1000. That get's confusing fast, so as a shortcut we can easily convert binary into a base 16 numbering system called "hexadecimal". So, instead of all those 1's and 0's, we can represent the same thing as: 0108 03D8. Much easier right?

Remember though, 0108 03D8 still just represents a bunch of "virtual holes". When we send these virtual holes to the CPU (the central processing unit) the clever transistors output some sort of value. We call this an "instruction". Numbers like 0108 03D8 are hard to remember though, so (as I mentioned above) we can assign names to those numbers, and have a program translate our names back into virtual holes. One of the earliest languages, called Assembly, did just that. We can write an 'instruction' in Assembly, like "ADD AX, BX" which will add two numbers together. That instruction gets translated into the same series of virtual holes above: 0108 03D8, or 0000 0001 0000 1000 0000 0011 1101 1000 as the computer sees it.

Assembly is still in common use today (I use it frequently in various microcontrollers) but not for larger applications. Assembly is a whole lot easier than remembering a bunch of 1's and 0's, but it would be next to impossible to write something like a web page in it (unless you were very patient).

It quickly became obvious that more sophisticated languages were needed, and a bunch of incredibly smart people invented some very cool things in the 70's and 80's. Of all the languages that were invented during that time, one took hold more than any of the others, a language called "C". C was neat for a lot of reasons, you could write a program in C and run it on lots of different processor architectures (clever configurations of transistors, but put together in different and incompatible clever ways). It had a straight forward syntax, and used curly braces and semi colons to define blocks of instructions and statements. It was also pretty easy to write a "compiler" for it: a program that translates the C language into a whole bunch of virtual holes that the processor can use to execute.

C had (and still has) a huge impact on software development, and many languages since C have borrowed heavily from it's syntax, including javascript (remember javascript? this is a discussion about javascript). It was quickly found, however, that C had some limitations. Again, for very large complex programs, unless the C code was written by talented and consistent developers, the programs could become difficult or impossible to maintain. In C you wrote functions (sub routines of code that could be called from the main execution flow). This was a style known as "procedural" programming.

In the real world, we don't have teams of talented and consistent developers, we just have people who program, and they are normal people who have bad days, problems at home, get bored and lazy, and are faced with different degrees of pressures from the business and varying levels of competence from management. The result can be a total mess.

In an attempt to address some of the problems with C (and people), some very smart people came up with a new paradigm for development called "Object Oriented Programming" or OOP. OOP was a way to develop software that could be modeled and diagrammed effectively, before development ever started! There were also many claims of code reuse, but it was quickly found that this rarely, if ever, actually happened any more than old-fashioned C code. One of the biggest benefits to OOP was that once you had designed your software, and if you followed good OOP principals, even mediocre developers were constrained by what they were able to do, and they weren't able to really cause too much damage to a project (if they followed the design). Because of this, OOP quickly became the Next Big Thing(tm), and the biggest most important language of them all became the most popular language in the world: C++.

C++ was a great language that took a C style syntax, and added all of the concepts of OOP. It allowed you to encapsulate functionality, enforce certain ways of accessing code, and still gave you close to the speed of execution of C.

Unfortunately, C++ had a lot of problems too. The compilers (translating the code to virtual holes) were a nightmare to write (because of things like multiple inheritence), and tricky bits of code were still left up to the developer to deal with. Things like memory management, pointers etc... were the biggest cause of software bugs when writing in C++.

To solve these issues, some very smart people at Sun came up with the idea of running all of the code inside of a "Virtual Machine" (this wasn't a new idea) that would deal with all of the fiddly bits for you. The developed a language that was entirely structured around the concepts of OOP and released it to the world. The language was called Java.

Many other languages that were in the main stream Big Business development limelight came out around the same time, using many of the same concepts. Microsoft developed their own version of Java, but named the virtual machine ".Net" and called their language "C#". Other variants also existed.

For the huge bulk of "Enterprise Software Development" this the the current state of things. Java, C# and C++ are the "big three" languages, and considered by many to be "real" languages, while other languages are considered "toys". This is a dangerous, but common, mistake. Also, OOP has many weaknesses as well. In trying to enforce rigidity, strict typing and modelling, programs can quickly become a mass of what is kindly referred to as "spaghetti code". OOP can require you to jump though many hoops to do seemingly simple things, and it requires you tell tell the compiler a ton of information about your code (data types, interfaces, classes, structures etc...) this all means writing a lot of code. Over time, because of these limitations, tools have sprung up with help with this. Tools that automatically generate a bunch of code for you. Frameworks that try to ease the burden of repetitive development that OOP forces on you. Design patterns with esoteric names like "flyweight" and "chain of responsibility" that are needed just so programmers can explain the structure of the code. AOP, which is a mechanism to try to bypass the fundamentals of OOP by dynamically "swapping" implementations. If this all seems confusing, trust me - it is. The complexity that has built around overcoming fundamental issues with static typing and OOP can make your head spin, and more are invented every day, it seems.

Some visionaries very early on foresaw some of these problems with OOP. Around the same time that the theories of OOP were being developed, these very smart people were developing some alternate theories of how languages should work. At the end of the day, all of these languages end up as a bunch of virtual holes to a CPU, but to the people who are writing the programs, the theories of software development are very important.

One of the alternate theories used a paradigm known as "functional programming". Unlike OOP, functional programming is not strictly defined, it is more a style, or set of techniques, that do things in different ways than OOP. Many languages support these techniques, and over time some of the concepts have crept into mainstream OOP languages like Java and C# (more rapidly in C#, because Java has had some trouble evolving). Neat languages like LISP (and it's derivatives), Python, F# and many others focus on these function programming (FP) techniques. They allow you use techniques to process data that is wildy different than OOP, in many fewer lines of code. In general, they are loosely typed (meaning you don't have to tell the compiler a whole lot of information about the code itself, like "meta-code", the compiler/vm/interpreter is expected to be able to figure it out), dynamic languages that are fast to develop in, and easy to use. They are all generally Frowned Upon Strongly by the OOP folks, because the systems that are build out of them aren't as rigidly defined.

This finally brings us to Javascript. Remember Javascript? Yes, this is a discussion about javascript.

Javascript has a brilliant approach to solving all of these problems. Javascript let's you do some of the OOPy things, like inheritance, while giving you the freedom to use a more functional style, if you like.

Javascript doesn't bother you with strict data types, it expects you to be smart enough to not need a compiler to tell you "no, you can't use that variable as a string, you told me it was a number before, neener neener".

It allows you to treat subroutines as data, and pass functions around as if they were any other piece of data. It allows you to do wonderfully complex things in very little code. For example, my Auto Pollock joke took me less than an hour to write, and is only about 50 lines of "real code".

Javascript is wonderfully expressive and free, and as a result some amazing new development paradigms and techniques have been developed from it, like John Resig's jquery library.

The main "problem" with javascript, is really the same "problem" that existed with C - if not written by talented, consistent developers, it can be a total mess.

The current state of javascript is interesting. See, the OOP/static language crowd pretty much all passionately hate javascript. I hear comments from developers that call it "one of those mushy languages". The people who seem to dislike it the most, are people who really have never taken the time to learn it properly. I'm frequently confused by this, because these sorts of comments and emotions come from otherwise quite intelligent people. I'm also confused, because an experienced developer can learn the innards of javascript in less than an afternoon of study. Prototype based inheritance, closures and anonymous inlines really aren't complex subjects. Understanding how "this" works and variable scoping in js really isn't complex either, it's just different.

I'm amused that one of Google's main criticisms of javascript (used as a justification for Dart, their new language) is that it can't be easily "tooled". What this means, is that it isn't easy for the mess of code generators, frameworks, IDE's and other things that the OOP people rely on so much to work with javascript. The reason I find this amusing is because that's the whole point! when you're doing it right, you don't need any of that stuff!

Javascript is currently undergoing some revisions and enhancements that will (hopefully) make it even better. Actually, this would have already happened if it hadn't been for some political infighting between Adobe and Microsoft.

In closing, I find javascript to be the next evolution in language technology and software development theory. Sure, in the end it all ends up as virtual holes in punch cards, but the process of creating those holes can be rewarding and elegant. As we learn more about software development and languages, really what we're learning about is people. We're trying to find ways to make people more productive, both developers and users. We're trying to improve people's lives by eliminating redundancies and frustrations.

Developers (and people) will always be resistant to change and new paradigms, we don't like to see the skills we've worked so hard to develop fade and become obsolete. In the case of learning Javascript however, the change is well worth the effort.

-Clay Gulick

Monkeymaster Newmedia and Other Thai Facebook Names

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:30:31 CEST

I recently made a discovery about the youth of Thailand — when signing up for Facebook, they have their own unique way of creating a nickname that evokes Hollywood coolness.

I have wasted plenty hours going from Thai Facebook friend to Thai Facebook friend to find these weird names. A few highlights:

Hypercasual: when the web gets a little too friendly

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 17:40:59 CEST

You’ve probably noticed it over the years; I certainly have. You’ve seen the companies who are way too friendly on the web. You click on their website and it’s stuffed with messages like “Yay!” and “w00t!” You look at their Twitter accounts and they’re asking what crazy capers everyone got up to this weekend. On Facebook, it’s all “why not look at this funny cat video? LOL!”

It’s everywhere, and it drives me crazy.

Katy Lindemann, a friend of mine who’s a communications strategist in London, made an interesting point about the growth of this approach in a recent blogpost. Too often, she says, companies simply decide to let their standards slide when it comes to social media, opting to drop their usual voice for one that I call hypercasual.

She refers to one example noticed by U.K. developer Phil Gyford. He spotted that his bank, Smile.co.uk was polling web users on a topic that felt oddly casual.

“Smile.co.uk, I know you want to be friendly,” he said. “But is a poll on the front page about your favourite A-Team character appropriate for a bank?”

I’m not entirely sure when this extremely casual voice started being used by companies online, but I remember when it seemed novel: back when Flickr launched, for example, using a playful, personal voice that seemed like a breath of fresh air. It wasn’t pretending to be a person, exactly, but it had a personality. In Britain, we had Innocent Drinks, a company that has spent the last decade making a virtue of its cute copywriting.

Through the Web 2.0 boom, the friendly voice was rapidly copied. In fact, it became synonymous with social media presence — even though it was rarely done as well as those who led the way. Now it feels as if everything is trying to be friendly, from fashion outlets to banks to your kid’s school.

But it doesn’t always work. As Lindemann puts it, it’s the result of people getting their “content strategy” wrong:

It’s partly the Innocentification of cutesy, zany copy where it’s just not plausible or appropriate for the brand… But it’s also suggestive of a complete lack of content strategy… Of not really understanding what kind of relationship the people they’re trying to engage want to have with their brand. Whether they want a brand to be useful, helpful and deliver against their brand promise – or whether they want a brand to be their mate.

The question of tone is important because sometimes the hypercasual approach ends up not simply being inappropriate, but downright offensive. Remember when Kenneth Cole made an inappropriate joke during the Egyptian uprising? Or when Microsoft urged people to buy Amy Winehouse downloads just hours after the singer was found dead? There are dozens of examples of companies getting it wrong in social media.

And while some of these problems are individual failings — giving the wrong person the ability to post messages on your company’s behalf, or posting to a company account when they mean to post to a personal one — they are all, on a broader scale, the result of trying to take a hypercasual approach.

The discussion reminded me of a recent New York Times piece arguing that the late novelist David Foster Wallace was really the man to blame for over-casual. In the article, writer Maud Newton argues that Wallace’s popularity was emblematic of the language that evolved from the web; the equivocations, the postmodern inflections of IIRC and IMHO.

While the argument itself is a little tricky — I’m not sure whether she’s suggesting that a large proportion of bloggers have actually read David Foster Wallace, or merely that he captured the voice of a generation — she is right to point out that his prose is full of the sort ofs and pretty muches that define hypercasual. He is, in some ways, its patron saint. From the article:

I suppose it made sense, when blogging was new, that there was some confusion about voice. Was a blog more like writing or more like speech? Soon it became a contrived and shambling hybrid of the two. The “sort ofs” and “reallys” and “ums” and “you knows” that we use in conversation were codified as the central connectors in the blogger lexicon… It’s fascinating and dreadful in hindsight to realize how quickly these conventions took hold and how widely they spread.

When the hypercasual is used properly, it can be very powerful. Betfair, a British gambling website, started experimenting with a new Twitter voice earlier this year. The result was a riotous stream of consciousness, jokes about corporate life or tales of dogs and strippers. It was the manic, unbalanced voice of somebody on the verge of madness, trying to escape office life through the magic portal of Twitter. It was great.

So perhaps these clunky examples of the hypercasual voice — the A-Team polls and the bad taste jokes — are actually part of a strategy. It’s just a strategy that has gone wrong.

More likely, I suspect, they are merely evidence that many people companies confuse being friendly with being flippant. Trying to “do social” means trying to be friendly, which in turns means sounding like an ordinary person — and it’s very easy to imagine that the best way of sounding like an ordinary person is to simply let an ordinary person take over your Twitter account and do whatever comes to mind.

But thinking that hypercasual is synonymous with not trying is a terrible mistake. David Foster Wallace didn’t just write the first thing that came into his head; he agonized over the text. Flickr’s playfulness with words represents something of the company’s culture, even now that it’s part of Yahoo.

Lots of businesses want to be friendlier, but that doesn’t mean you can just slap up a few jokes and I’ll be your lifelong buddy. The truth is, I don’t want brands to tell me what they were doing this weekend or share funny video mashups with me. That’s what my real friends — what real people — are for.

Photograph of Yay! sticker from Moo used under Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Richard Moross

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By: BrendanEich

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:32:10 CEST

So Netscape said to a guy named Brendan, who worked at Netscape, "Please make us a programming language. Also, you have to call it Javascript.

The "look like Java" mandate came early, but the name was "Mocha" from May 1995 until around September, IIRC, where it became "LiveScript" (to match Netscape's "LiveWire" server authoring CMS PHP-like offering with browser-based HTML editor). Only in early December did "Bill Joy, Founder" sign on the trademark license allowing Netscape to call it JavaScript. I heard he was a hunted man at Sun the next day.

In the early May timeframe, Bill and Marc Andreessen were among the notable few high-level management supporters of "Mocha", with Marc and I meeting at the Peninsula Creamery to plan grandly: not just annoying blink tag analogues but img rollovers. We had a drawing of an L.L. Bean online catalog with a shirt image. You'd pick your color and client-side JS would instantly update the img src.

Even in 1995 and 1996, early trailblazers were building big client-side JS apps that used hidden frames containing forms to do background I/O, prefiguring Ajax by 10 years.

JS was never intended by Sun or most of Netscape's management to be more than the sidekick to Java, but I had to make it work even if Java wasn't there or was inside the "plugin prison", and in doing so I created the DOM level 0 and a whole bunch of stuff (e.g., the same origin policy, mixed with cross-site script loading, used for analytics and advertising and security attacks now) that helped JS overtake Java in browsers.

Sun's mismanagement of Java didn't hurt, either, but even if they'd made it the best plugin ever, it would only ever have been Flash.

/be

Einige Grundsatzbemerkungen zu der Größe von Eiern

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:31:46 CEST

Shared by Dominik
"Einige Grundsatzbemerkungen zu der Größe von Eiern" einself

Die Stevensons haben wieder Chocolate Chip Cookies (CCC) gebacken. Dabei ist diesem Autor die Frage gekommen, ob die vorgeschriebenen „zwei Eier“ in den USA und Deutschland wirklich die gleiche Größe haben. Nachher braucht man für germanische CCCs eineinhalb Eier oder so etwas.

Diese Frage haben sich zum Glück schon andere gestellt. Die kurze Antwort: Ein large Ei in den USA ist ein M-Medium Ei in Europa. Und dann hätten wir noch die europäischen Riesen-Eier:

European XL eggs are larger than any class of egg in the U.S. What do they do with these super-sized eggs?

Wie auch immer, da Rezepte für CCC in den USA nach large eggs verlangen und wir im Kühlschrank der Schönsten Germanin die europäische M-Klasse gefunden haben, ist alles gut. Bei den wichtigen Dingen im Leben kann man einfach nicht vorsichtig genug sein.

Actual Lines From Wikipedia

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 18:32:58 CEST

Destructoid’s Jim Sterling ranked it among the 30 “rubbish Pokémon” in Red and Blue and called it retarded-looking.

— Slowpoke and Slowbro

David is probably best known by children as the sarcastic head elf Bernard from The Santa Clause (1994) and its 2002 sequel The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs Clause, but due to filming overlap with NUMB3RS was unable to take part in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause.

— David Krumholtz

The song was used to score the love-making scene from the movie Knocked Up when the characters Ben and Alison mate and end up reproducing.

— Rock Lobster (via Cole Stryker)

Skills and abilities

— Tarzan (section heading)

Soon after, Lionel starts feeling nauseous and throwing up, eventually doing so onto Segoynia Savaka (Joan Prather), one of his immigrant students.

— Rabbit Test (film)

The painting is parodied on the cover of American Skathic, a 1995 collection of ska music from the Midwest with cover art by Evan Dorkin.

— American Gothic

He also owned two bulldogs, named Bud and Lou, after the famous comedy team Abbott and Costello. Both dogs have died; one from a rattlesnake bite.

— George Clooney

Spectators have traditionally shouted to the krewe members, “Throw me something, mister!”, a phrase that is iconic in New Orleans’ Mardi Gras street argot. Just as iconic is a request for women to expose their breasts as an incentive to receive the best throws.

— Mardi Gras throws

West Coast rapper, Game, released a diss track ”Uncle Otis” where he criticized Kreayshawn for her supposed use of the n-word.

— Kreayshawn

Hollywood home movies, 1965

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:25:33 CEST

An unbelievable collection of Roddy McDowall's never-before-seen silent home movies from the summer of 1965 were uploaded onto YouTube yesterday, featuring impossibly young, impossibly gorgeous stars like Natalie Wood, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Hope Lange, and Rock Hudson frolicking on the beach. You simply MUST go to the website and watch them all. The takeaway for me, though, is Sal Mineo slinking out the back door with a guilty-looking blond who may or may not be Bobby Sherman. What were THEY up to? Also mesmerizing: The closeup of Natalie Wood's freckles, Jane Fonda sticking out her tongue, and Paul Newman's hunky son.

Vorsteiner GTRS3 BMW M3 Wide Body

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 22:52:09 CEST

Vorsteiner GTRS3 Modifications ($24,995)
2011 BMW M3 Coupe
Vorsteiner GTRS3 Carbon Fiber Wide body Conversion
Vorsteiner Vented Carbon Fiber Race Hood
Vorsteiner VRS Carbon Fiber Boot Lid
Vorsteiner Lightweight Titanium Exhaust System
Vorsteiner V-309 Forged 5 Spoke Concave Centers 20×10.5J | 20x12J Wheels
Vorsteiner Red Piping Logo Embroidered Floor Mats
Michelin PS2 Sport Tires 285/25/20 325/25/20
Brembo GTR Big Brake Kit System Front and Rear
KW V3 EDC Coil over Suspension System
AA E9X M3 Supercharger 620hp Stage II

For more info, visit Vorsteiner.

The Goal

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 18:27:46 CEST

I tried to solve the problem by leaving Silicon Valley, and writing software I believe in, and doing the best I can. For me it's never been primarily about money. I like money, up to a point -- but I'm really in it for the wonderful things you can do with the tech. It's an end in itself, not a means to an end.

That's Dave Winer, in a post that's nominally about Michael Arrington and venture funding and Silicon Valley culture, but that's really about what those of us who love the web strive to do. It's remarkable how well those thoughts parallel the recent conversations I've had with friends who are among the best entrepreneurs around.

Sometimes it feels overwhelmingly difficult to communicate these values to a new generation of entrepreneurs who aren't being shown good role models, but I remain optimistic that we can make this mindset the default.

A Teenage George R. R. Martin’s Letter to Stan Lee

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:00:32 CEST

You may know George R. R. Martin from his blockbuster fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and its current television adaptation as A Game of Thrones, but his written work from before that series is actually quite good, I think. In fact, if you look back to his teenage years, you can find what may be his best work — this letter to Marvel Comics’ Stan Lee. In it (click above for a bigger version), he praises Avengers #9 as a masterpiece, recommends some other villains for reappearances in the comics, and has some harsh words about villains like Diablo and the Moleman. It’s pretty adorable. And it doesn’t even have any sex or violence in it. Or page-long descriptions of food, for that matter. Who knew?

Michael Sacco is a freelance editor and writer, currently working as senior editor at WoW Insider, part of the Joystiq network.

Jam - The Story So Far

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 04:26:32 CEST

I've been making a lot of jam recently.

Here's some of my creations so far. I will be doing a jam-themed event at some point so if you like bread and you like things on bread, stay tuned :)

Most of these are super easy but total crowd-pleasers! There's really nothing not to like about wads of pork or crab smothered over bread.

Arugula and Parsley Jam

Herbal, peppery and sweet, it's a really interesting combination.

Recipe here: http://cookpad.it/recipes/arugula-parsley-jam

Carrot Jam

A really simple French-style dish. I could even serve this alongside chicken or fish.

Recipe here: http://cookpad.it/recipes/carrot-jam

Chilli Crab Jam

I made a tub of this for a house party recently and it was wolfed down in about 10 mins.

Recipe here: http://cookpad.it/recipes/chilli-crab-jam

Xiao Long Bao Jam

This hits all the right spots. It's meaty, brothy, but at the same time you have the hit of vinegar and ginger. Awesome.

Recipe here: http://cookpad.it/recipes/xiao-long-bao-jam

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The Jellyfish that Conquered the Earth

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:39:05 CEST

Myxozoa are microscopic parasites that infect fish, amphibians, and now, birds and at least one terrestrial mammal. For over a hundred years they were classified at protozoa. More recent research reveals that classification to be wide of the mark: They're jellyfish.

Jellyfish week on Metafilter continues:

Myxozoa have a complex life cycle that involves infecting two different hosts at different times, an aquatic invertebrate (usually a worm) and a vertebrate (usually a fish).

In the early 1990s, it was confirmed that, tiny as they are, myxozoa are multicellular. So they're not protists after all. Furthermore, they have special harpoon cells that look like the nematocysts, or stinging cells of cnidarians — the group that includes jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals.

Early on, the animal kingdom diverged into those with radial symmetry which includes the cnidarians; and those with bilateral symmetry, which includes all the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods -- and worms.

Enter Buddenbrockia plumatellae, a myxozoa that appears as an active, muscular, parasitic worm inside its host, the bryozoan, or moss-animal (which are pretty weird themselves).

Buddenbrockia has rarely been seen since its discovery in 1851, and as a 'worm' has always been classified as a bilaterian (at least). But in 2002, genetic analysis placed it with the myxozoa.

Then in 2007, further study revealed:

The Buddenbrockia worm is not bilaterally symmetrical: 'It has no mouth, no gut, no brain and no nerve cord. It doesn't have a left or right side or a top or bottom. We can't even tell which is end is the front!' -- Peter Holland (Oxford University) It has two axes of symmetry and four longitudinal bands of muscle, so it's actually a tetra-radial worm.
They have cnida (stingers) like all cnidaria.
Further genetic analysis indicates they're related to medusozoans — the jellyfish.

This means that the worm-like body shape evolved at least twice from two completely different kinds of animal. "It is one of the most striking examples of convergent evolution you will ever see. . . convergent evolution [not] of individual organs or body parts, such as eyes or wings, but of the whole body shape."-- Peter Holland

Why we should care
Myxozoa are parasitic animals that live in marine and freshwater aquatic habitats. They are found in virtually all fish. Currently the most economically damaging species Myxobolus cerebralis is the cause of the "whirling disease" in salmon and trout, with up to 90 percent mortality in farm-reared fish.

Mxyozoa are responsible for the decline of native endemic Australian frogs. The introduced Cane Toads did not seem to have brought the parasite with them, but do act as a "spillback" carrier.

Mxyozoa were previously believed to infect only invertebrates and cold-blooded vertebrates. However, researchers at Oregon State University have discovered a new species that infects birds (ducks).

In the Czech Republic, a myxozoa parasite has been confirmed for the first time in mammals (the common shrew).

"It's pretty clear it has now moved into warm-blooded animals, which some other research has suggested may include moles, shrews and even humans with compromised immune systems.

"The Cnidaria have undergone a niche expansion that allows the exploitation of warm-blooded terrestrial vertebrates by essentially aquatic animals". -- Jerri Bartholomew (Oregon State University)

So there you have it

Long ago, an ancestor of the jellyfish took an evolutionary detour into a parasitic lifestyle.
A radially-symmetrical cnidarian somehow evolved into a wriggling elongated worm.
Jellyfish are invading dry land as microscopic parasites in frogs, ducks, shrews and. . . ???

Electronic Publication

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:53:20 CEST

note to self: wie man in lion aus einem rtf ein epub macht

^ (1) den Automator öffnen, ‘Arbeitsauflauf’ auswählen ᵛ

^ (2) das zu verbuchende RTF in den Arbeitsablauf ziehen ᵛ

^ (3) links beim Suchfeld für Aktionen nach ‘epub’ suchen und die (einzige gefundene) Aktion ‘Text in EPUB-Datei’ unter das RTF ziehen ᵛ

^ (4) ggf. noch Titel und Autor ergänzen, oben rechts auf ‘Ausführen’ klicken und voila. Kann wunderbar in iBooks importiert und gelesen oder bei Amazon für den Kindle publiziert werden.

(thx. kai)

# publishing epub howto

Wonderputt

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:35:40 CEST

Timewaster of the day: Wonderputt (via)

/via @kottke # games

Maciej Cegłowski on why Arabic is terrific

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:34:29 CEST

entertaining and educational, as always

Der Charme der Google-Übersetzungen

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:07:38 CEST

Die Beschreibung eines Android-Games auf einer spanischen Webseite:

Gemeint ist natürlich, dass die App nicht auf einem HTC Wildfire funktioniert. Andererseits: Faktisch ist es durchaus korrekt, dass eine Android-App im Fall eines Waldbrands wenig nützt…

Why men blog their clothes

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 23:40:17 CEST

Via Put this On comes this waaaay-inside baseball men's fashion blogging discussion at Park & Bond about whether men are dressing for themselves or dressing for women or dressing for other fashion bloggers.

via www.sippey.com

Here's my pet hypothesis about men's style blogs: guys do it to get thanks and congrats from someone, anyone.

Hear me out: if you're schlubby 35 year old guy that wears t-shirts and cargo shorts, and you suddenly go out and buy $150 shirts that fit right and look nice and you start wearing tailored pants and smart shoes, barely anyone will notice. You might get some jeers from coworkers at suddenly becoming a dandy and/or your significant other might say you are looking nice, but for the most part, deciding to dress like a grownup doesn't result in much of any instant gratification, because HELLO: 35 YEAR OLD MEN ARE SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE ADULTS NOT TEENAGED SLOBS.

It's kind of demoralizing at first, because if you make a huge change in your life and you think you are looking better, you expect instant results and a night/day difference, but the changes are more subtle and take months to even notice. Strangers will respect what you say more, people in restaurants and shops will treat you better, and yes, possibly people will flirt with you a bit when they never did before. But it's not an overnight sea change, and might be too subtle for most guys given the expense and effort that goes into ironing your shirts every day and picking the right things each morning.

Guys in the US don't have a good culture of supporting each other or being comfortable in general with telling each other they look nice, so men's style blogs (at least the ones I've browsed) that show lots of photos of a headless guy wearing "today's look" and are filled with positive back-slapping comments serve a definite purpose: reassuring dudes that they are making the right choice, they look great, and yes, we noticed you are wearing those special french-made striped socks that you can only buy online.

The software heist of the century, or a modern art masterpiece?

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:02:30 CEST

Is it the software heist of the century? Actually, it’s modern art.

A new exhibit at the Art 404 gallery, 5 Million Dollars, 1 Terabyte, blurs the boundaries of between sculpture and skullduggery, conspicuously displaying a hard drive with $5 million of stolen property.

“5 Million Dollars 1 Terrabyte” (2011) is a sculpture consisting of a 1 TB Black External Hard Drive containing $5,000,000 worth of illegally downloaded files. A full list of the files with clickable download links can be found by visiting this link. Fair warning: when I tried to open the PDF, it crashed my browser.

The 5 Million Dollars 1 Terrabyte exhibit, and it’s companion, Google Search for Meaning, ask us to interrogate what technology means in our lives, and how we interact with objects that are either functional or fashionable, but are rarely seen as both.

ART 404 IS AN ONLINE PORTAL AND EXHIBITION SPACE INTERESTED IN THE CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGICAL ART MOVEMENT. THROUGH ART 404′S EXHIBITION SPACE,
LOW BUDGET GALLERY, ART 404 ACTS AS A MEDIUM FOR ARTISTS TO SHOW WORK AS WELL AS A PLACE FOR GLOBALLY ACCESSIBLE EXPERIMENTAL ART PROJECTS

There might be a lesson in this for illegal downloaders. If you get busted, just say that your hard drive is a work of art, and see if you can skate.

Flickr Is Dying. Here’s the Graph.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:39:37 CEST

For a few years after its 2004 launch, Flickr was inarguably the best place to share photos. But now Facebook and Tumblr are more socially useful, Instagram is more fun for the webtards, and newer sites are stealing pro photographers. At least that’s my theory on why Flickr uploads for popular events are falling.

I searched for some popular tags over the years.

Click through for the big-ass version.

What we learned

Christmas and New Year’s Eve peaked in ’07, Halloween in ’09. February sunk. The specialty events, Austin’s SXSW and the New York’s Mermaid Parade, are holding on. But the bigger tags are falling.

Spring is the lone constant grower here (though it just plateaud). Why? I don’t know, and we haven’t finished another full season this year to adequately compare. Summer2011 just has 72 thousand photos to Summer2010‘s 124 thousand.

Apparently Burning Man is full of early adopters, but they’ve moved on.

People seem to split New Year’s Eve tags between the old year and the new year.

Judging by the few photos tagged before Flickr’s 2004 launch, people don’t upload and tag old photos that much, and/or they just didn’t take as many photos back then.

Now don’t put too much stock in this, because it’s not representative, it’s just the above handpicked tags combined. But there’s a recent plateau, maybe even a dip:

So if we extrapolate wildly from this, we could say Flickr peaked in 2008. Tech blogs and external traffic meters seem to agree.

And that’s no fun. Because none of my friends use the other photo-centered semi-public sites. And Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter all make photos more private by default, or are much less searchable.

Unless that changes, when Flickr dies, so will the photo commons.

Data and methods

Here’s the raw data:

I searched for certain tags that cycle annually. To keep it simple, I made one tag of each event name plus the year: “BurningMan2001″, “BurningMan2002″, etc. (New Year’s Eve became “NYE”.) Many Burning Man photos aren’t tagged this way, but we’re only comparing like to like. Also, while Flickr started in 2004, I went back to 1998.

Note that if you redo these searches, some numbers fluctuate. Numbers also change if you sort by “recent” instead of “interesting”, which tells me it’s just a quirk in the database. (I dunno. Magnets.) I double-checked these numbers a few weeks after my original searches, and they’re stable within the thousands.

“Das schwarze Auge” und “Nydenion” oder: Die ermüdende Suche nach dem deutschen Genrekino

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:00:19 CEST

Es hat was von journalistischer Recherche, von detektivischer Feinarbeit, manchmal auch von epischer Schatzsuche – wenn man wirklich sucht, kann man die Pioniere und Vordenker, die Gescheiterten und Geläuterten des deutschen Fantasyfilms tatsächlich finden. Dann kann man sich an “Astro-Saga” abarbeiten, an “Nydenion“, aber auch am “Stahlwerkmassaker” und an “Virus Undead“.

Manchmal ist die Entdeckung reiner Zufall. Wie hier.

Eigentlich wollte ich nur wissen, wann “Nydenion” auf DVD erscheint. Regisseur Moik verwies mich an den KSM-Vertrieb, auf dessen Webseite ich ein paar Infos finden konnte – und einen Verweis aus die bevorstehende Kinoadaption des beliebten Rollenspiels “Das schwarze Auge”.

Das überraschte mich jetzt doch – ich hatte noch nie von dieser Verfilmung gehört. Auch dass ein erfolgreicher DVD-Vertrieb selbst in die Kinoproduktion einsteigt, ist nicht gerade Standard. Ich kann mich noch gut erinnern, dass ich um 1998 herum versucht hatte, ProSieben von so einem Projekt zu überzeugen. Damals dachte ich allerdings eher an eine Umsetzng von “Deutschland in den Schatten” als dystopische Miniserie.

Noch baffer war ich, als ich nicht nur Bilder zur Verfilmung von “Das schwarze Auge” fand, sondern auch noch einen Promo-Trailer, der mit einigem Aufwand und durchaus bekannten Darstellern aufwarten konnte:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Das Ding war demnach schon fertig gedreht? Und ich hatte nirgendwo in der Blogosphäre oder einer Filmzeitschrift davon gelesen? Ich begann ernsthaft, an meiner Eignung als allwissender Klugscheißer zu zweifeln. Doch eine kurze Recherche beruhigte mich – man hatte bisher nur ein Promo gedreht mit Szenen, wie “Das schwarze Auge” aussehen könnte. Das Material war dann auf einer Gamer-Messe im Frühjahr erstmals einem limitierten Publikum vorgestellt worden.

Damit ihr mitreden könnt, solltet ihr euch nun 15 Minuten Zeit nehmen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Okay, hier ist nicht alles Gold, was im Licht des Lagerfeuers glänzt, aber es hat bildschirmfüllende Bilder und ein paar beeindruckende Effekte. Letztere von Tobias Richter (The Light Works), den ich noch aus früheren Zeiten kenne und dem das Filmbusiness wahrlich eine größere Karriere schuldet:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Was ich von der ganzen Angelegenheit halte? Zuerst einmal Respekt vor KSM – die sind entschlossen, ein beeindruckend großes Projekt zu stemmen und dafür auch erstmal in Vorkasse zu gehen. Hat man in dieser Branche wahrlich selten. Und das Potential für einen fetzigen Fantasy-Kracher besitzt das schier uferlose DSA-Universum allemal. Es ist nicht “Herr der Ringe”, sollte aber allemal besser werden als “Dungeons & Dragons”.

Grund genug, noch genauer in die Materie einzusteigen. Ich kontaktierte also Tobias und KSM, um etwas mehr über das Projekt “Das schwarze Auge” heraus zu finden – wer dreht 15 Minuten samt Kostümen und Effekten, nur um Interesse für einen Kinofilm zu generieren? Das kostet ja auch eine Stange Geld. Und wieso wurde dafür bisher nicht lauter getrommelt?

Erfreulicherweise zeigte sich KSM sehr kooperativ, stellte mir Bilder und Videos offiziell zur Verfügung. Es wurden einige Fragen beantwortet, einige Mails ausgetauscht. Win win. Auch Tobias gab sich gesprächig und besorgte mir die Email-Adresse des Regisseurs, mit dem ich doch mal ein paar Wörtchen reden wollte.

Tobias Richter ist ja bisher nur einmal beim Wortvogel erwähnt worden, und daran hatte ich in diesem Moment gar nicht gedacht…

Es stellte sich heraus, dass der Regisseur der Promo-Szenen von “Das schwarze Auge” tatsächlich Wolf Wolff ist – jener Wolf Wolff, dessen “Zombies in der Zone”-Kracher “Virus Undead” vor ein paar Jahren bei mir eine derart vernichtende Kritik kassiert hatte, dass sie noch heute in so manch lauer Runde diskutiert wird. Tobias hatte die Effekte dafür gemacht. Ich habe den Film seinerzeit in eine Reihe mit dem Holocaust gestellt.

Und jener Wolf Wolff war nun der Kopf hinter dem Promo von “Das schwarze Auge”! Ausgerechnet! Warum muss das Schicksal mich nur so prüfen? Habe ich des Karmas kleinen Hund überfahren? Arrrrrghhhh!!!

Mein erster Reflex: Die Sache auf sich beruhen lassen. Muss man Ärger suchen, wenn man gerade mal keinen hat? So groß KANN mein Interesse an “Das schwarze Auge” nicht sein, dass ich in dieses Wespennest noch mal steche. Oder doch? Bin ich euch das schuldig? Bin ich MIR das schuldig? Vielleicht eine Gelegenheit, etwas Licht in die Sache mit “Virus Undead” zu bringen? Hin und her, hin und her…

Es gehört zum Handwerkszeug des Journalisten, auch mal Kreide fressen zu können: Ich schrieb Wolf eine Email, verwies präventiv auf meine “Virus Undead”-Kritik und bat um ein Interview – mit dem Hinweis, dass ich verstehen könne, wenn er ausgerechnet mit MIR kein Wort wechseln wolle.

Wolf bewies Größe und sagte zu. Ich schickte meine patentierte Sackladung Fragen raus.

Ein paar Tage später rief er an, um sich zu entschuldigen, dass es mit den Antworten etwas dauern könne, er sei gerade mitten im Dreh. Kein Problem. Wir kamen ins Gespräch und so ungern ich das vom “Virus Undead”-Verbrecher sagen mag: Er ist ein Netter. Schlimmer noch: Es ist bisher mit dem Teufel zugegangen, dass wir uns nicht kennen. Wir haben in den frühen 90ern im Rheinland mit den selben Leuten an teilweise den selben Amateurfilmen gearbeitet: Stefan Lenzen, Uli Fleischer, Markus Metzler, Tobias Richter – unsere Schnittmenschen sind enorm und so hatten wir erstmal eine Stunde Anekdoten zu dreschen. Ich erfuhr auch einige interessante Details über die Entstehungsgeschichte von “Virus Undead”, die ich hier aber nicht wiedergeben darf. Die Angelegenheit ist ein für allemal durch.

Mittlerweile haben wir mehrfach telefoniert, wollen uns auch in Berlin während des FFF treffen. Er hat mir ausführlich und spannend alle Fragen beantwortet, noch mehr exklusives Material zur Verfügung gestellt – und darum werde ich euch in den nächsten Tagen noch mit viel mehr Fun & Facts zum Thema “Das schwarze Auge” belästigen. Es wird Interviews mit Tobias Richter und Wolf Wolff geben, ein kleines “Making of”, ein Video über die Action-Choreographie, etc. pp.

Alle Fragen werden beantwortet – sogar die nach “Nydenion”:

In ferner Zukunft hat die Menschheit mit Hilfe revolutionärer Raumschiff-Antriebe unbekannte Teile des Weltalls besiedelt. Eine dieser Kolonien hat sich im Laufe weniger Generationen zu einem riesigen Sternenreich entwickelt. Dieses Reich, das Sykon Imperium, liegt im Krieg mit der Konföderation Freier Welten. Die Auseinandersetzung dauert seit 57 Jahren an und hat schon Milliarden Opfer gefordert. Frieden ist seit langem vergessen und die Erde nur noch eine Legende…
Rick Walker, Ex-Kampfflieger der nun als freischaffender Pilot arbeitet, wird angeheuert um Cynthia Perkins an ein geheimnisvolles Ziel zu bringen. Auf ihrem Weg werden Walker und Perkins von einer Gruppe Raumjägern abgefangen und Walker ist gezwungen seine schwer beschädigte Maschine auf einem Mond des abgelegenen Planeten Nydenion notzulanden. Während die beiden versuchen den feindlichen Suchtrupps zu entkommen, enthüllt Perkins Walker die Wahrheit über Ihre Mission. Walker und Perkins Weg zu den Verhandlungen wird ein Kampf gegen die Zeit und gegen einen Feind den Walker nur zu gut kennt…

VÖ-Datum: 7.10.2011.

How to Punctuate Usernames on Sites Other Than Twitter

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 14:00:51 CEST

#OkCupid
!Facebook
¡Facebook.au
;Salon
‽Reddit
⊘Snopes
‿Amazon
⁂4chan
ဩDiesel Sweeties
✈Tripadvisor
ɷSomethingAwful
¢Craigslist
/.Slashdot
✜Kotaku
█CIA.gov
❤Match.com
༕LiveJournal
✪Daring Fireball
⁁YouPorn
࿕FreeRepublic
ψPitchfork
∰Epicurious
✄Wikipedia
༒Tribe.net
▧GifSoup

Riot psychology

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:41:13 CEST

In the coming weeks we can expect to see politicians and pundits lining up to give us their smash-and-grab clichés for the recent urban riots in the UK.

They’ll undoubtedly give a warm welcome to our old friends economic decay, disengaged youth and opportunistic crime, and those of a more psychological persuasion might name drop ‘deindividuation’ – the process where we supposedly lose self-awareness and responsibility in large crowds.

This belies the fact that crowd behaviour is a complex area that is surprisingly poorly researched.

But what we do know about is the interaction between large crowds and the police and you could do much worse than check out the work of psychologist Clifford Stott who researches how crowds react to policing and what triggers violence.

In his 2009 report on the scientific evidence behind ‘Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing,’ commissioned by the UK constabulary, he summarises what we know about public disorder and how the authorities can best manage it (you can download it as a pdf).

He notes that the old ideas about the ‘mob mentality’, deindividuation and the loss of individual responsibility are still popular, but completely unsupported by what we know about how crowds react.

People don’t become irrational and they do keep thinking for themselves, but that doesn’t mean that the influence of the crowd has no effect.

In terms of policing, one of the clearest effects to emerge from studies of riots and crowd control is that an indiscriminate kicking from riot police can massively increase the number of people in the crowd who become violent.

This is probably because the social identity of people in a group is fluid and changes according to the relationship with other groups.

For those into academic jargon, this is known as the Elaborated Social Identity Model of crowd behaviour – a well-supported theory with an overly complicated name but which is surprisingly easy to understand.

Imagine you’ve just got on a bus. It’s full of people and you have to jam into an uncomfortable seat at the back. There are people going to work, some vacant students heading home after a night on the beers, some annoying teenagers playing dance music through their tinny mobile phone speakers and some old folks heading off to buy their groceries.

You’re late and you missed your train. You feel nothing in common with anyone on the bus and, to be honest, those teenagers are really pissing you off.

Suddenly, two of the windows smash and you realise that a group of people are attacking the bus and trying to steal bags through the broken windows.

Equally as quickly, you begin to feel like one of a group. A make-shift social identity is formed (‘the passengers’) and you all begin to work together to fend off the thieves and keep each other safe.

You didn’t lose your identity, you gained a new one in reaction to a threat.

The problem police face is that in most large threatening crowds only a minority of people are engaging in anti-social acts. Lots of people ‘go along for the ride’ but aren’t the hardcore that kick-off without provocation.

If the police wade in with batons indiscriminately, lots of these riot wannabes suddenly start to feel like they’re part of the bigger group and feel justified in ripping the place apart, mostly to throw at the coppers.

Suddenly, it’s ‘them’ against ‘us’ and a small policing problem just got much much bigger – like attacking a beehive because you just got stung.

The trick for the police is to make sure they’re perceived as a legitimate force. When they have to charge in, they’re doing so for a reason – to target specific criminals. The ‘them and us’ feeling doesn’t kick in because most individuals don’t feel that the police are targeting them. It’s the other idiots the police are after.

And herein lies the problem. The psychology of crowd control is largely based on the policing of demonstrations and sports events where the majority of people will give the police the benefit of the doubt and assume their status as a legitimate force.

Clifford Stott’s report has lots of advice for forces who want to establish and maintain this impression. The cops should start out in standard uniforms, should be scattered around the crowd and should make an effort to interact. If trouble looks like it’s brewing, non-violent folks should be allowed to leave and the police ‘have a word’ with the specific people involved. Force is only ramped up in proportion to the threat.

I’m no expert and I’ve been watching the UK riots from 5,000 miles away from the safety of Colombia (a sentence I never thought I’d write) but it strikes me that most of the rioters probably never thought of the police as a legitimate force to begin with.

This goes beyond establishing police legitimacy on the day and means many of the standard assumptions of behind crowd control probably don’t work as well.

But the fact that thousands of young people across the country don’t have faith in police is a much deeper social problem that can’t be solved through street tactics.

I have no easy answers and I suspect they don’t exist. Politicians, start your clichés.

Link to homepage of psychologist Clifford Stott.
pdf of ‘Crowd Psychology and Public Order Policing’.

And then new ages begin.

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:01:52 CEST

Share and Enjoy:

4 ways technology can enable your inner introvert

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:27:50 CEST

In the Atlantic, Philip Bump outlines four ways that introverts can make good use of technology to give them the space they need.

For introverts like myself, it takes energy to engage with other people. Doing so requires thoughtfulness. It’s tiring. Expending energy, for us, isn’t energizing. Please note: we’re not talking about shyness, some character flaw. The problem isn’t with the introvert — it’s with the demands you make on the introvert. An introvert can’t force an extrovert to sit quietly in a room and read a book, but extroverts (and the stigmas they’ve inadvertently created) can impose social demands with ease.

…Email is often fingered as a key factor in the lamentable perpetual accessibility characterizing modern American communication. But it isn’t. It allows you to respond when you’re ready to do so. In fact, sometimes not responding to email in a timely fashion can give the impression that you’re already busy doing other things. Which helps create the space that introverts need.

I agree. I don’t like talking on the phone. Email is the best way to reduce the amount of time I spend talking to people who insist on using the phone to communicate with me.

4 ways technology can enable your inner introvert

Scientific study confirms that Mondays suck

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 22:11:12 CEST

File this under things that we already knew, but a confirmation by science doesn’t hurt. A scientific study by Marmite has revealed that Mondays do indeed suck.

The findings fo the study, as reported by The Telegraph, indicate that many people don’t smile on Mondays until 11:16 am, and that half of us won’t turn up to work on time, either. Mondays also tend to be fairly unproductive, with only about three and a half hours of actual work getting done. And those in the 45 to 54 year-old demographic will moan for about 12 minutes on Mondays, making them the most susceptible to the suck that is Monday.

Experts indicate that the reason behind our hatred of Mondays is a result of humans being “governed by deep-rooted tribal habits” and that we prefer to ease into the week rather than tackle it head-on first thing Monday morning. In fact, those that do the latter may end up burning themselves out before Friday hits.

Want to make Mondays suck less? Marmite also revealed the top five ways you can try to do that:

Watching TV
Sex
On-line shopping
Buying chocolate or make-up
Planning a holiday

So when you start off the week with a little less enthusiasm than your employer or coworkers might like, just tell them that it’s a proven scientific fact that Mondays generally suck.The Telegraph, Image Source

Mini-doc tells the story behind the Eli Porter rap battle viral video

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 08:43:05 CEST

even if you've never seen the original, watch this now; I want this treatment for every meme [via]

Don’t Fear The Internet

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:00:46 CEST

Jessica Hische and Russ Maschmeyer are the masterminds behind Don’t Fear The Internet, a site that aims to teach basic HTML and CSS for non-web designers.

Through short tutorial videos, you’ll learn how to take a basic wordpress blog and manipulate the css, html (and even some php!) to match your aesthetic. You’ll feel empowered rather than crippled by the internet and worst case scenario you’ll at least end up having a better idea of how professional web designers turn your design dreams into a reality on screen.

dontfeartheinternet.com

Korea solves mystery of shaking skyscraper (spoiler: not an earthquake)

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 19:47:24 CEST

BB pal Syd Garon, who shared this with me, notes: "On the Venn diagram of science and comedy this fits right smack in the middle." From SFGate.com:

Korean scientists think they have determined what caused a 39-story Seoul skyscraper to shake violently for 10 minutes, causing the building to be evacuated for two days. Earthquake? Nope. Gale-force winds? Sorry. Volcanic activity? Unh-uh.
No, the culprit, they say, was 17-middle-aged gym rats working off the midriff bulge in a Tae Bo class.
Apparently, while dancing and boxing to "The Power" by Snap on July 5, the exercisers not only shook their booties, they shook the building.

[Video Link]

Sachbearbeiter Venom Painful, Rarely Fatal

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:41:24 CEST

Greg Edgecombe of the British Natural History Museum describes mid-level German government bureaucrats:

"It would be unfair to call them cranky little bastards," said Edgecombe, strongly implying that they are cranky little bastards. They're not heavy on brain matter, and it looks as though there's not much leisure or pleasure in their lives. Since they don't copulate, there's no opportunity for ecstatic sexual release, though [they] do know how to slow-dance. The male reaches out his antennae and taps the last segment of a female. He performs some gyrations to signal that he's making a sperm packet. There's a special organ for spinning the packet, which Edgecombe referred to as "a sad ass little willy."

Er, that was actually about centipedes. Click here for an amazing video of a B-6 Ministerialdirigent hanging from the roof of a cave catching and eating bats.

Dear Scoble: Twitter should be boring

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:15:03 CEST

Scoble, my longtime friend, and someone whose chutzpah I admire, says that Google-Plus is making Twitter boring.

Yes, I agree -- and that's a good thing.

He says Twitter should evolve to be more like Google, but I disagree. Twitter could tweak a bit here and there, fix performance bugs, clean up the UI where possible, remove limits. But beyond that, they should just add hooks and callbacks that allow new stuff to be integrated to what they have. And they should do what all maturing tech companies should do -- get into services and investment banking.

It isn't until a technology becomes boring that it becomes truly useful. Because it's the things people do with tech that are interesting. Tech for its own sake doesn't go so far. What I want is tech that fades into the background, serves as a stage for the ideas of the performers, the people.

Who ever said that the stage at Lincoln Center is interesting? Maybe for the first few days. Then you think about the acoustics. The comfort of the audience. The way the creative people feel about it.

Same with a baseball stadium. I went to my fourth game at Citi Field this weekend. I'm starting to get over my bitterness over the thoughtless destruction of my beloved Shea Stadium. I appreciate the cushioned seats, and the beer they bring to your seat, and the great views you get. I don't like so much the money you pay for your seat, but what the hell, you can't have everything.

As with Twitter, you want the stadium to be boring -- so the players can be exciting!

Twitter has been interesting for far too long. What they should want now is to be used as an almost invisible, taken-for-granted but indispensible piece of the workings of the Internet.

It's way past time for it to be the precocious upstart. It's used for all kinds of mission-critical communication. Reliability would be a better measure of its success over interestingness.

PS: We should all write posts that begin Dear Scoble.

5 Jahre Twitter

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 06:56:41 CEST

Shared by Dominik
(via RTL II)

(suche nach twitter)

hui, heimlich still und leise wurde Twitter (das öffentliche, das private schon vor ein paar wochen) 5 Jahre alt, happy birthday, siehe meinen allerersten Eintrag dazu.

(via RTL II)

# twitter birthday

Why Sita Sings The Blues Is Perfectly Legal In Germany, But You Still Can't Watch It On YouTube

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:21:12 CEST

Nina Paley, who regularly writes for Techdirt (as well as plenty of other publications) passed along this video she put up about how her movie, Sita Sings the Blues is blocked by YouTube in Germany, thanks to GEMA, the music collection society in Germany. Since I know a little bit about the ongoing fight between GEMA and YouTube in Germany, I asked Nina if it was okay to do a post, discussing some of the details. We've written about GEMA a few times before, and last year, I went to Berlin and interviewed YouTube's Patrick Walker on stage at PopKomm/All2gethernow, specifically discussing YouTube's ongoing fight with GEMA. The details are a little different than what Nina suggests in the video, though she's absolutely correct that this is very much GEMA's fault. Even though Nina has a paid-in-full license with the various music companies that say displaying/performing her movie for free in Germany is entirely legal, GEMA has taken a ridiculous hardline stance with regards to YouTube. It believes that YouTube needs to pay it ridiculous sums of money for every video on the site that includes any GEMA-licensed music.

Other collection societies around the world have made agreements with YouTube, and worked out reasonable royalty rates for performances. Except GEMA. If I remember correctly, GEMA may be the only major remaining collection society which has not worked out a royalty rate with YouTube, and instead has been fighting a battle in German courts against YouTube. Because of that, and because of some clearly ridiculous court rulings, which suggest that YouTube (rather than its users) are liable for any infringement on the site, YouTube is blocking all videos that it comes across that include GEMA music.

Thus, I believe that the reason Sita Sings the Blues has been taken down is not, as Nina suggests, because of a direct takedown notice by GEMA (though, that's possible), but more likely because of YouTube needing to avoid liability from crazy German court rulings and GEMA's overinflated belief in what a "reasonable" royalty rate would be. Now, notice the key part here: the artist in this case wants the video to be online. Nina is pissed off that it's offline. She's paid quite a bit of money to the various music publishing entities to have the rights to show the movie worldwide, and the one blocking that is GEMA.

This is not an uncommon occurrence in Germany, unfortunately. Because of the way the laws work in Germany, those who have deals with GEMA effectively give up all of their own rights on such things. When I was in Germany, I spoke with multiple artists who were freaking out because they couldn't give away their own music, because GEMA didn't allow it. Aritst would show me their official webpage, without free music, and then their "secret, unofficial" web page with the music they wanted people to download. GEMA, which seems to be run by people entirely out of touch with how music works today, simply insists that no one can give away music for free... because then GEMA doesn't get to collect money. Furthermore, for those who try to get around GEMA and used alternative licenses, GEMA has been known to ignore such licenses, and insist that people still need to abide by GEMA's rules.

This is not a healthy situation. You basically have an out of touch bureaucracy that thinks it gets to set all the rules, even if they don't match the reality in the marketplace. Because of that, artists are suffering. And the fact that YouTube is blocking Sita..., despite it being fully licensed and perfectly legal in Germany, should really wake some people up to the fact that GEMA is not helping artists at all. It's stifling them massively.

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Ten Principles To Live By In Fiercely Complex Times

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:52:46 CEST

If you're like most people I work with in companies, the demands come at you from every angle, all day long, and you have to make difficult decisions without much time to think about them. What enduring principles can you rely on to make choices that reflect openness, integrity and authenticity?

Here are ten that work for me:

1. Always challenge certainty, especially your own. When you think you're undeniably right, ask yourself "What might I be missing here?" If we could truly figure it all out, what else would there be left to do?

2. Excellence is an unrelenting struggle, but it's also the surest route to enduring satisfaction. Amy Chua, the over-the-top "Tiger Mother," was right that there's no shortcut to excellence. Getting there requires practicing deliberately, delaying gratification, and forever challenging your current comfort zone.

3. Emotions are contagious, so it pays to know what you're feeling. Think of the best boss you ever had. How did he or she make you feel? That's the way you want to make others feel.

4. When in doubt, ask yourself, "How would I behave here at my best?" We know instinctively what it means to do the right thing, even when we're inclined to do the opposite. If you find it impossible, in a challenging moment, to envision how you'd behave at your best, try imagining how someone you admire would respond.

5. If you do what you love, the money may or may not follow, but you'll love what you do. It's magical thinking to assume you'll be rewarded with riches for following your heart. What it will give you is a richer life. If material riches don't follow, and you decide they're important, there's always time for Plan B.

6. You need less than you think you do. All your life, you've been led to believe that more is better, and that whatever you have isn't enough. It's a prescription for disappointment. Instead ask yourself this: How much of what you already have truly adds value in your life? What could you do without?

7. Accept yourself exactly as you are but never stop trying to learn and grow. One without the other just doesn't cut it. The first, by itself, leads to complacency, the second to self-flagellation. The paradoxical trick is to embrace these opposites, using self-acceptance as an antidote to fear and as a cushion in the face of setbacks. 8. Meaning isn't something you discover, it's something you create, one step at a time. Meaning is derived from finding a way to express your unique skills and passion in the service of something larger than yourself. Figuring out how best to contribute is a lifelong challenge, reborn every day.

9. You can't change what you don't notice and not noticing won't make it go away. Each of us has an infinite capacity for self-deception. To avoid pain, we rationalize, minimize, deny, and go numb. The antidote is the willingness to look at yourself with unsparing honesty, and to hold yourself accountable to the person you want to be.

10. When in doubt, take responsibility. It's called being a true adult.

Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers, and book excerpts.

Reprinted from Harvard Business Review

Tony Schwartz is President and CEO of The Energy Project, a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus, and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance. Tony's most recent book, The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance, was published in May 2010 and became an immediate The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. Follow him on Twitter @TonySchwartz.

Bored People Quit

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 07:30:03 CEST

Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It's written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don't have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they've either never done the work or have forgotten how it's done. These are the people who show up when your single best engineer casually and unexpectedly announces, "I'm quitting. I'm joining my good friend to found a start-up. This is my two weeks' notice."

You call on the motivation and retention police because you believe they can perform the legendary "diving save". Whether it's HR or a well-intentioned manager with a distinguished title, these people scurry impressively. Meetings that go long into the evening are instantly scheduled with the disenfranchised employee.

It's an impressive show of force, and it sometimes works, but even if they stay, the damage has been done. They've quit, and when someone quits they are effectively saying, "I no longer believe in this company". What's worse is that what they were originally thinking was, "I'm bored".

Boredom is easier to fix than an absence of belief.

Detecting Boredom

There are many reasons other than boredom that someone will quit. Your company might suck or be headed towards suck. This person might randomly get an offer that fulfills their life's dream. There is a bevy of unpredictable reasons that someone will leave, but boredom is an aspect of their daily professional life you can not only easily assess, but also fix. More importantly, boredom is not initially catastrophic. Boredom shows up quietly and appears to pose no immediate threat. This makes it both easy to address and easy to ignore.

My three techniques for detecting boredom:

Any noticeable change in daily routine. A decrease in productivity is a great early sign that something's up, but what you are looking for is any change in their routine. Increased snark? Unexpected vacations? Later arrivals? Earlier departures? Anything that strikes you as out of the ordinary for someone whose day you are familiar with is worth considering. The root cause of this change may have nothing to do with boredom, and the best way is figure that out is...

You ask, "Are you bored?" Even if you don't have a gut feeling, it's a good question to randomly ask your team. When I ask, I look you straight in the eyes and if you can't stare me in the face and answer, I'm going to keep digging until you look me in the eye. Remember, the goal here is to discover boredom before they know it, and the act of a simple question might be just the mental impetus they need to see the early signs in themselves.

They tell you. And you listen. You'd think that someone walking into your office and stating that they're bored would set off all sorts of alarms in your head, but that's because you're halfway through this article wondering when I'm going to cut to the chase and explain how to fix bored people. The reality is that someone is going to tell you they're bored quietly and when you least expect it. They'll tell you halfway through your 1:1 and they won't use the word bored. They'll say something innocuous like, "...and I really don't know what to do next," and you're going to blow right by the most important thing they've said in a while because you're worried about your next meeting.

As I've reflected on the regrettable departures of folks I've managed, hindsight allows me to point to the moment the person changed. Whether it was a detected subtle change or an outright declaration of their boredom, there was a clear sign that the work sitting in front of them was no longer interesting. And I ignored my observation. I assumed it was insignificant. He's having a bad day. I assumed things would just get better. In reality, the boredom was a seed. What was "I'm bored" grew roots and became "I'm bored and why isn't anyone doing anything about it?" and sprouted "I'm bored, I told my boss, and he... did nothing," and finally bloomed into "I don't want to work at a place where they don't care if I'm bored."

I think of boredom as a clock. Every second that someone on my team is bored, a second passes on this clock. After some aggregated amount of seconds that varies for every person, they look at the time, throw up their arms, and quit.

A Boredom Plan of Action

Whether someone is bored or not, you always need to be able to answer two questions regarding each person on your team:

Where are they going?
What are you currently doing to get them there?

In your head, answers sound like this:

Francis wants to be a senior engineer and we're getting him there by giving him increasingly more responsibility.
Ronald wants to build his own company, so I'm going out of my way to include him the meetings where he can learn how the sausage is really made.
Brooke has no idea what she wants to do, so I'm throwing curveballs at her until she hits a home run.

Knowing the answers to these questions makes the rest easier, but if you don't have answers, you can start figuring them out by:

Keeping an interesting problem squarely in front of them. Walk through your team right now and tell me the project they are working on that floats their boat. It doesn't need to always be their main project, but there must be a piece of work on their plates that when they talk about it, their eyes light up. If their eyes aren't lighting up, if there is no project in mind that will get them rambling endlessly, you...

Let them experiment. Let them obsess. Let them scratch that itch. If there is no project on their plate that you know is engaging them, create time for them to explore whatever they want to obsess about. I absolutely guarantee there is an investigation somehow related to their work that they are dying to tinker with. The business justification for this wild-ass effort is likely not obvious, so I'll define it: the act of exploration is as valuable as the act of building.

Exploration is hard to justify because it's hard to measure. When exploration is complete, you often have nothing to hold up to your project manager to explain or justify the expenditure of time. Here's what you tell them, "My job isn't just building product; I also build people."

They can only 'take one for the team' for so long. There are legitimate and frequent situations where someone needs to suck it up and dig into crap work for longer than they'd like. This is an inevitable function of teams of people working together -- work becomes stratified by perceived importance. There's no shit work when the work is all yours, there's just work you like to do and work you have to do.

Occasional stints on the latter are a good perspective reset for everyone on the team, but being left too long on "have to" work is a guarantee of eventual boredom. What isn't obvious is that there are folks who aren't going to complain because they believe the right thing to do is to take one for the team. They worry that that the act of complaining is tantamount to saying, "I don't believe I should do shit work" or they're simply wary of being accused of not being a team player.

We all get shit work, but it's the responsibility of the guy or gal in charge to dole this work out fairly and consistently. That means they're constantly aware and communicating to the person who is currently taking one for them, knowing how long they've been taking it, and when they're going to be done.

Protect their time. Embrace the ambiguity of their experiment. Agreeing to let them experiment and obsess about a fascinating project is only half the game. The business day is full of previously undiscovered "things to do", and your knee-jerk response when you find this new, urgent piece of work is to saddle it on the guy who is working on... something. You don't know what it is because he can barely describe it himself, so please handle this urgent task. I swear when you're done you can get back to... whatever it is you're doing.

A terrific way to accelerate the boredom clock is a promise of productive and creative time that is then taken away. In the heat of the moment, the ambiguous nature of their experiment makes the decision easy: Get this urgent, unplanned task done or make progress on the unmeasurable? The only thing this decision teaches your team is how little you value the cultivation of your people.

Aggressively remove noise. In addition to previously undiscovered work, a daily set of distractions courtesy of exhausting people will pull your engineer away from their work. Random meetings, phone calls, interviews. These 30- to 60-minute tasks feel transactional and brief and there is no way you can fully remove a team member from them, but you manage them. Similar to crap work, it's your job to evenly spread the load of daily noise across the team. More importantly, it's your job to remember that productivity costs surrounding these micro-tasks aren't just the 30 minutes necessary to get them done, it's the context-switching tax involved in stopping their work, preparing for the task, doing the task, and then rebuilding the context regarding the work that floats their boat.

There are two aspects of interesting work that equally fire up the nerd brain: the identification of interesting work and making progress on that work. And progress is not measured in interrupt-driven minutes, it's blocks of delicious, uninterrupted hours.

Tell them what the hell is going on. Much of the above activity implies that you're paying attention, but your attention is only half the solution. The other half is regularly keeping folks in the loop regarding your thoughts. In terms of a low-cost means of keeping your team content, the simple act of saying, "I know where you want to be and I'm thinking about how to get you there" is a way to demonstrate you care about the growth of your team.

Don't Forget What It's Like to Build a Thing

This piece might read like I believe that engineering is some privileged artisan class and that I'm overly protective, and that is exactly what I believe. My gig is the care and feeding of engineers, and their productivity is my productivity. If they all leave, I have exactly no job.

Part of your credibility as a leader is your public and repeated declaration that it's your job to help your team succeed, but you have another task: you need to keep building stuff.

I've gone back and forth on whether managers should code and my opinion is: don't stop coding. Each week that passes where you don't share the joy, despair, and discovery of software development is a week when you slowly forget what it means to be a software developer. Over time it means you'll have a harder time talking to engineers because you'll forget how they think and how they become bored.

The Space Shuttle: Goodbye To A Slacker Space Program

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 13:00:11 CEST

Characterization of the NASA's Space Transportation System, what we commonly call the Space Shuttle program, as nothing but a glorified Greyhound—even better yet, "space carpooling"—is common. Even today, as the shuttle program wraps up for good, it’s hard to escape a certain feeling of underwhelmed-ness, especially if you try to review all of the accomplishments of the program. (Give it a try.) What did the Space Shuttle do besides carry things back and forth? Well, obviously carrying things back and forth has its importance, but considering that our space program has long been a point of pride, what are the high points to which we can point proudly?

The final launch that will happen today (barring delays for weather or other exigencies), is an event made almost entirely of Lasts. The last training simulation. The last pre-mission quarantine of the crew. The last traffic jam on Route 1 heading for Cape Canaveral. The last countdown, and then a quick series of lasts as the last space shuttle makes the last mission: two hundred miles of vertical assent covered in less time than it takes to eat a grouper sandwich, a streak of smoke heading eastward (using the rotation of the planet for added thrust) visible for miles.

After that, there are no more. The existing shuttles will be carted off to their various resting places, where they will be viewable as artifacts. NASA will stay in the business of tossing cargo into orbit with its various rockets, but if it’s a person that you need in near space, you’ll have to hire a Soyuz from Russia, or wait for the futurist/entrepreneurs like Richard Branson catch up. But for the shuttle program, it’s last last call.

It’s an instinctive opportunity for nostalgia. The Space Transportation System was planned for ten years, and has been operational for thirty. A wide swath of the population has grown up knowing nothing but the space shuttle, as far as space programs go. But it is hard to look at this as a triumphal moment, and not just because endings are messy.

From the earliest days, the shuttle program seemed to underperform, and expectations were low before the first launch. Representative of the leeriness is Gregg Easterbrook’s
detailed feature for Washington Monthly from 1980 that reads today as ominously prescient. In 1980 the initial launch was still a year away, and the program had been plagued with cost overruns and delays, all lovingly catalogued by Easterbrook. He also tells of how the mission of the shuttle program was purposely modest, to create a vehicle with no higher purpose than to carry things and people back and forth:

"First you have to get the horse," said Dr. Jerry Gray, former NASA scientist and now public policy director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, "then you decide where to ride him."

To call the space shuttle a high-tech eighteen-wheeler is not slander; it was the point all along. It's a space shuttle, not a space limousine. After the moon had been attained, there was a scarcity of inspirational goals, and NASA, funds being squeezed by an administration with no ownership of the accomplishments that just happened, settled on plans for a (comparatively) low-cost, reusable launch vehicle that would ferry astronauts back and forth into low earth orbit. And that's what the shuttle program did, eventually, less cheaply, less reliably and less safely than intended. Over 130 missions is nothing to sneeze at, but aside from carrying passengers to the International Space Station and repairing the Hubble Space Telescope, there's not a whole lot of (nor has there been since the moonshot) need to put humans up there. The space shuttles can carry satellites into orbit, but the really good ones, the geosynchronous ones that are in an orbit that keeps them over one fixed point on the globe at all times, are placed 22,000 miles above the planet. The space shuttles could only go about 600 miles up, and NASA single-use launch vehicles (rockets, we call them) are just a cheaper way of doing it.

The space shuttle mission goals were predicated on the assumption, the belief, that there would be a need to transport men and women up and down the gravity well. And now, 40 years later, that need is primarily to man/unman the ISS, a project schedule for decommissioning (de-orbiting, more like) in less than ten years. The reason that NASA decided not to replace the shuttle program with a NASA-run manned launch vehicle is that NASA forgot to create the necessity for one. (To be fair, a "Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle" was recently announced, scheduled to be mission-ready by the 2020s, if it survives the budgetary reluctance of the House Appropriations Committee.)

***

The blind spot in the mission of the shuttle program was not unknown to NASA. In 1990, they released a Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program, which was not just a look forward, but also a review of the program’s first nine years. The chief concern of the report is a “lack of a national consensus as to what should be the goals of the civil space program and how they should in fact be accomplished,” a concern that was no doubt as true at the conception of the shuttle program as it is now. Should the space program be a delivery service for private satellites, or leading the charge into space-based manufacturing? Should manned vehicles be used at all, considering that technology had gotten to the point where automation could be more effective in extreme environments? The report naturally had its suggestions, all with acronyms, seemingly constructed to cover all the bases and satisfy all stripes of critics, which suggestions do not resemble 2011 at all.

The report also isolates perhaps the deepest flaw of the shuttle program, or at least the most important lacking ingredient:

Yet perhaps the most important space benefit of all is intangible — the uplifting of spirits and human pride in response to truly great accomplishments — whether they be the sight of a single human orbiting freely around the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour, or a picture of Uranus' moon Miranda transmitted 1.7 billion miles through space, and taking some 2-1/2 hours merely to arrive at our listening stations even when traveling literally at the speed of light. Such accomplishments have served to unite our nation, hold our attention, and inspire us all, particularly our youth, as few other events have done in the history of our nation or even the world.

***

I was born not three months after Neil Armstrong decamped from Apollo 13 11, dropping a [sic] on live television. When I was a little kid, astronauts garnered a big bite of the imagination bandwidth. We little kids played with astronaut toys and dressed up like astronauts when we went door-to-door on Halloween. We wanted to be astronauts when we grew up. The moon landing informed us that we had something to look up to and aspire to be—not just an explorer, and not a cosmonaut, that little linguistic sleight-of-hand connoting the competition of nations, no. We wanted to be an astronaut, with a fishbowl on our heads and an Old Glory patch on our uniforms.

The United States climbed space exploration and planted a flag in it like it was a mountain. In fact one of our noted alternative historians, Sarah Palin, claims that it was the space race in the '60s that toppled all the Soviet Socialist Republics. Our post-Sputnik dominance of space was an unmistakable emblem of the preeminence of the United States, of the exceptionalism that is now ingrained, of Americanism. There are guns and there is butter, but who else could devote a tenth of their GDP to accomplish something unimaginable and mythic? Who else put boots on the ground on something that was literally not of this Earth? That was us.

And then came the shuttle program. Ambitions whittled down, and then perpetually over-budget, it limped into the '80s. In the 30 years since, it has provided a fraction of the missions that were originally intended. And sadly, it also provided a generational moment as vivid as the moonshot, and then another one, mysteriously less vivid, less than ten years later.

Boomers got Apollo 11, the Xers got Challenger disintegrating live on televisions dragged in front of elementary school students to see the first teacher in space, and then the Millennials got the awkward apathy following the break-up of Columbia on re-entry in 2003. And whatever we will call the generation that are kids now, they will get silence.

Which silence starts today, assuming the Atlantis mission goes off as planned. Coverage will not be as hundred-year-flood as the most recent royal wedding. There will be coverage, and there will be odes spoken and songs sung, delivered by many people with expensive haircuts/teeth on television newscasts. Many will be watching the live NASA feed. It will be a passing curiosity. Saturday will be a slow news day in summer, as they can be. Maybe a baseball story will come out, or maybe something political. Maybe another trial in Florida. We seem to love those.

But we will watch, those of us old enough to care, if only for the awe-inspiring visuals, and the bittersweetness.

Brent Cox is a writer living in—you guessed it—Brooklyn. He is a proud contributor to the Awl. He will be appearing at the Cornelia Street Café in late July. He tumbls. That’s not a word.

1988 photo of Atlantis by NASA,, via Wikimedia Commons.

---

See more posts by Brent Cox

19 comments

Strange lights in the sky

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 21:40:10 CEST

This amazing video was shot at an astronomical observatory in Hawaii. It's real, according to Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait. In fact, there's another camera that captures the same phenomenon from a different angle. So the question becomes, "What the hell is that?" Plait details a possible explanation, worked out by members of the Astronomy Picture of the Day forum.

... what leaps out is that the expanding halo is limb-brightened, like a soap bubble, and fades with time. That strongly points toward something like a sudden impulse of energy and rapid expansion of material, like an explosion of some kind. Note that the ring itself appears to be moving, as if whatever caused it was moving rapidly as well.

Asterix board member calvin 737 was the first to suggest it might be related to a Minuteman III missile launch around that time. As more people on the forum dug into it, the timing was found to be right. The missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base (in California) at 03:35 Hawaii time, just minutes before the halo was seen. I noticed the stars of Cassiopeia are visible in the webcam, so the view was to the northeast, which is the right direction to see the missile as well. OK, the timing and direction are perfect, so the rocket is clearly the culprit... but how, exactly?

[An idea posted by board member neufer] was that this was from a detonation charge in the missile's third stage. There are ports, openings in the sides of the third stage. Those ports are sealed for the flight until the right time, when they're blown open by explosive charges. This allows the fuel to escape very rapidly, extinguishing the thrust at a precise time to allow for accurate targeting of the warhead. At this point, the missile is above most of the Earth's atmosphere, essentially in space. So when that gas suddenly released from the stage expands, it blows away from the missile in a sphere. Not only that, the release is so rapid it would expand like a spherical shell -- which would look like a ring from the ground (the same way a soap bubble looks like a ring). And not only that, but the expanding gas would be moving very rapidly relative to the ground since the missile would've been moving rapidly at this point in the flight.

In his original post, Plait also explains why he thinks this is the true explanation, and why several alternate ideas don't hold up.

Be careful of the peepers when you dress in short skirt

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:59:54 CEST

From Tianya:

MM(Girls) should be aware of peepers. If you want to prevent peeping, you should know how it is worked. The following content is from the Internet, which do not represent my views and and Sister Xibai’s views. It is only to pass on information. I wish sisters be aware of it at anytime and keep yourself away from peeping perverts.

Let us assume the distance between the knees and the upper edge of the skirt is 4 cm, and the distance between the outside edge of the skirt and the private part is 12 cm. Then from one side, the target peeping area will form a right angled triangle ABC.

If the peeper’s eyes are in the extension line of BC, for example E, then he will see B. If we draw an extension line across E through BC and vertical to AC, then it’s easily to find that ABC and CDE are similar triangles.

In triangle ABC, the length of AB is 1/3 of the length of AC, so in triangle CDE, the length of DE should also be 1/3 of the length of DC. And because DC is the distance between the peeper’s eyes and skirt, so DE will be 53.3cm if we assume DC equals 1.6 m

But the distance between a 170 cm tall peeper’s eyes and the upper edge of the skirt will be 70 cm. In another words, he has to lower his head by 17 cm and move his ass 45 cm forward to achieve his goal.

Wherever you go, you will find beautiful ladies going up and down on the stairs. Looking at the white legs, perverts probably want to follow her closely and fantasize of seeing something beautiful. Many perverts will surely dream about that, but this has to be some rules and techniques. What inside the short skirts is approximately the same as the picture shows below.

Normally, the peeper wants to see the area of hemispheroid with 10 cm radius. But the skirt is tangent to the hemispheroid and has a length of 15 cm from the center of the hemispheroid, which aptly shield the peeper’s vision.

From the picture above, the triangle OPQ and triangle ORQ is congruent. If we draw an extension line of QR and make another triangle TSQ, then we can calculate that its height is 8.3 cm and the height is 0.415 times of the bottom.

So if the peeper wants to see the private part inside the skirt, he should at least make the angle of elevation more than angle TQS, which will make the height 0.415 times the bottom.

Then we should discuss the issue of triangle AEQ. Assume the height of the eyes of the peeper (170 cm tall) is 160 cm, and the height of the edge of the skirt is 80 cm. Since the height of the eyes and the height of the skirt have a difference of 80 cm, so the difference (section of line) between the edge of the skirt and the peeper’s eyes is 80 cm less than the difference (section of line CD) of the stairs.

So Right angle triangle AEQ’s height and bottom can be shown by the two formulas below:

Height: AE = 20* number of stairs – 80

Bottom: QA= 25*( number of stairs – 1)

The height and the bottom should satisfy this formula: AE ≥ OA * 0.415

Here is a list of different stairs:

│number of stairs│ １ │ ２ │ ３ │４ │ ５ │ ６＞│ ７ │ ８ │

│AE │ -60 │ -40│ -20 │０│ 20 │ 40 │ ＞ 60 │ 80 │

│QA │ ０ │ 25 │ 50 │75│ 100 │ 125 │ ＞ 150 │ 175 │

│ratio │ ＊ │ -1.6 │ -0.4│０│ 0.2 │ 0.32│ ＞ 0.4 │0.457│

If AE is below zero, it means that the skirt is under the eyes. So when the difference of the stairs is less than 4, the peeper cannot see the private part. But when it comes to 5 or 6, the private part can almost be seen. When the difference is 8, the barrier is removed.

Of course, the wider the difference, the wider the vision, But do remember, what you see is less and less.

Comments of the post:

娼毒将传：why should you pick up such an old story?

渝州棒棒：I don’t understand, what can be seen by these freaks. Women are not wearing underwear? what is the attraction of underwear?

天涯调情师：we should not blame men to peep, we should prepare ourselves.

我是西北狼1号: hahaha, your children’s math is so good, you should be a gun man.

渝州棒棒：If you really want to prevent peeping, you should wear this kind of skirt. But it seems a little non-stream and strange.

你们上我掩护：You can see everything in porn films, they even shave the pubic hair.

Baby's first license agreement

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:26:57 CEST

A couple days ago while surfing the Family and Kids section of Netflix instant, I found a show I knew my daughter would love. We watched a couple episodes and it was then I noticed the small print in the Netflix interface: available for streaming until June 23.

It's a cartoon about horses and pretty innocuous, but I knew we would quickly have to have The Talk, you know the one, where you explain the Hollywood studio system, the complicated license agreements between online delivery services like Netflix, and the byzantine world of paying the creators of programs based on the slivers of monthly fees of Netflix customers.

Tonight, perhaps I'll tuck her into bed and read from one of her favortes, the latest iTunes End User Software License Agreement.

Roomba shares all of its daily activity on the web

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:01:24 CEST

Instructables user [matchlighter] wanted to see what he could program his Roomba to do, so he decided he would make his little cleaning machine report its status on Twitter whenever something happened.

He popped open the Roomba’s case to access its serial connector, crafting a simple interface cable from some spare Cat5 he had sitting around. He added a small voltage regulator between the Roomba and his Arduino in order to protect it from the high power output present while the Roomba is charging. Once the proper bits were in place, he hooked the Roomba’s serial interface to the Arduino and attached a SparkFun WiFly shield to allow for wireless communications. After a bit of coding, the Roomba was sharing its activities with the entire world on Twitter.

Not only did he want the Roomba to tweet, but he decided that he also wanted the ability to control it from the web. He created a simple interface using a handy library he found online and was sending cleaning commands to the Roomba in short order.

While there is no video of the Roomba in action, you can check out what it is up to here, and there’s plenty of code to be had on his Instructables page.

Filed under: arduino hacks, home hacks

In Afghanistan Troops Eat the Meals of Home

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:08:30 CEST

Since the war first began in 2001, many soldiers of the almost 50 nations in Afghanistan have survived on pre-packaged meals filled with as many calories as possible and seasoned with the unique tastes of home. Called an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) in the United States, these hardcover book sized packages serve two functions: to nourish the hard working troops and to give them a happy reminder of home. Each country’s MRE includes staple ingredients to fill the belly, along with tasty dessert items and the obligatory moist towelette. For more on what the troops are eating and additional pictures by photojournalist Ashley Gilbertson see the excellent article by the New York Times.

Denmark (below): meatballs in brown sauce, tuna pate, hot chocolate powder, instant coffee, tea bag, sugar, salt, pepper, toothpicks, moist towelette, sponge.

France (below): pork, rice and pineapple dish, cassoulet (sausages, duck confit and beans), venison pate, fish soup, vanilla rice pudding, country biscuits, fruit jelly, fruit nougat, caramels, chocolate, powdered lemon beverage, tea bags, instant coffee, hot chocolate powder, sugar, salt and pepper, napkins.

Germany (below): goulash with potatoes, cevapcici (a ground beef dish), rye bread, bauernwurst, beef pate, soft cheese, fruit salad, crackers, sour cherry and apricot marmalade, chocolate, exotic beverage powder, instant coffee, powdered tea, sugar, skim milk creamer, moist towelette, matches, salt, chewing gum.

Italy (below): pasta and bean soup, beef tortellini, mackerel in olive oil, canned sausages, fruit salad, fruit bar, fruit jelly, sweet and savory crackers, chocolate, salt, whole fiber tablets, vitamin tablets, instant coffee, sugar, sweetened condensed milk, matches, three toothpicks, three toothbrushes.

Ukraine (below): barley porridge with beef, “Tourist’s breakfast” canned beef, dry biscuits, European herring in oil, sausage meat, chicken broth, iced tea powder, orange beverage powder, suger, moist towelette.

United States (below): pork ribs, barbecue sause, tortillas, potato cheddar soup, blackberry jam, peanut butter, Skittles, nut raisin mix, chewing gum, sugar, instant coffee, creamer, lemon lime beverage powder, salt, moist towelette, toilet paper, matches.

Via: lensculture.com

How Not to Be a Publicist

http://lostfocusnet.com/dominik — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:00:17 CEST

"The Redner Group's official Twitter account posted something you almost never see: an open threat stating that outlets who reviewed Duke Nukem Forever poorly may not receive review copies of games in the future. Anyone who has done this job for any amount of time has suffered through a dry spell after giving a publisher a bad review, but this is the first time the threat of a blacklist has been made public." They've since apologized, but, yow. (via

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