Archive for May, 2007
Cecil has posted more of his cycling diary
May 28th
Reading this guy’s stories still kills me. He is having some incredible experiences and I was glad to see another update on his site.
He is out of the desert now and is continuing to experience the real Africa. On a rest day they rented a little scooter to do some sight seeing:
“Two guys on a tiny scooter; here it is the norm, but it was a bit uncomfortable. We drove 90km to Banfour. On our way there the police stopped us. This big guy said we had to pay for two infringements. We didn’t have our passports and we didn’t have papers for the bike. We asked him to take us to the place we have to pay, because we don’t want to pay him. He said he is not going to, but we are not allowed to continue like this, so we have to pay him. We told him that we didn’t mind not continuing and we sat with him. After a few minutes he got fed up and told us that if we could get his photo on the background of his phone he would let us go. We took his phone, captured a picture of the proud man in uniform and set it as his background. We were set free!”
At another point they cycled into an unfenced game reserve and encountered some not so gentle giants:
“
After our rest we cycled out on the same road we came in on. We were joking about how funny it would be to see the elephants in the road. I told Philip I could smell them… I really could. Sure enough, around the next corner they were standing in the middle of the road. If we were not aware of them, we might have cycled straight into them. We slammed on brakes and stood dead still. They just looked at us for a while, the bull then decided that we were too close for comfort and he came for us. Lance Armstrong would have had a hard time keeping up. We cleared some distance, stopped and checked out the situation. There was no other road. At that time guy on a scooter came in the same direction that we wanted to go. He first laughed at our situation and then he took us through the bush to another road that would lead us back to the main road. It was an amazing experience, but it could have been dangerous.”
There are only two kinds of work
May 28th
I recently read a 1932 essay by the philosopher Bertrand Russell called “In Praise of Idleness”. Basically he is arguing that as we become more efficient and productive workers we should be working less and less.
His argument (although he doesn’t make it this clear) is that when we become more efficient workers we have two choices:
- Work the same hours and produce more;
- Work fewer hours and produce the same amount.
Russell argues that we shouldn’t be obsessed with growth, and should rather take more time for leisure. Not really a sustainable idea because there would always be incentives more people to produce more while others settle for the same. And as Jack Sparrow told us – when there are incentives people will take them.
My favorite part of the essay however is pretty cool. Mr Russell says that there are only two types of work:
- Altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface;
- Telling other people to do so.
He goes on to say that the second group can be indefinitely expanded – “there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice as to what orders should be given.” Very cool way of looking at things – and largely true.
Remember to check out my shared articles
May 25th
I read a lot of news and articles using the brilliant product Google Reader. Reader collects and allows you to view RSS feeds from millions of sites. So each morning I log onto Google Reader and scan through all of the new articles for the day.
One of the cool features of Google Reader is that you can choose to “share” articles that you find interesting. So whenever I see an interesting article that I’m not gonna explicitly blog about -I just click share.
There is a link to my shared articles page on the right (under the heading Blogroll). Check it out from time to time.
Cool cooperative game played in cinemas
May 24th
Using a camera and some cool software these guys have set up a multi player game in a cinema. The whole audience plays by swaying to the left or right. It’s meant to keep the audience going while waiting for the movie to start, and I’m sure they will build in advertising.
It’s a really cool idea and it looks like a lot of fun too.
Artist puts his whole life online for all to see
May 23rd
Wired has an article on this guy who was put onto the FBI’s terrorist watchlist. As a response to the invasion of his privacy he decided to take things to extremes by giving the FBI complete rundown on his daily life.
Every day he posts about 100 photos of everything he does. The toilettes he uses, the food he eats, the rooms he sits in, everything. He also puts his credit card records onto the site so you can see everything he buys. He wears a little GPS tracker so you can see where in the world he is in real-time (currently in New Jersey). It’s like the ultimate alibi.
It seems bizarre but it is also a commentary (he’s an artist) on the way that modern people have such serious online presences. Between my blog, my Picassa album, and my Facebook account quite a lot of my life is available for examination online. Kinda freaky but I don’t have anything to hide.
20 most frequently edited Wikipedia articles
May 22nd
I was surprised by some of the articles which are most frequently revised in the Wikipedia. Very frequent revisions would be caused by:
- Vandalism
- Controversy
- Current events
So, I can understand why Adolf Hitler is so high in the list, but “October 2003″ really surprised me. I would also be interested to see just how many revisions these articles take. I took a look at the history of the Jesus article and it gets revisions every single day. Most days there are about 10 revisions to the article. So the Wikipedia entry on Jesus is updated several times a day, every day.
Top 20 Most Hotly Revised Articles
- Jesus
- Adolf Hitler
- October 2003
- Nintendo revolution
- Hurricane Katrina
- India
- RuneScape
- Anarchism
- Britney Spears
- PlayStation 3
- Saddam Hussein
- Japan
- Albert Einstein
- 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake
- New York City
- Germany
- Muhammid
- Pope Benedict XVI
- Ronald Reagan
- Hinduism
Online presence lives on when real-world people die
May 22nd
People are increasingly building personal presences online. For instance, I have this blog, a Picassa web album, a Facebook account, etc. I have an online life, people communicate with me online, I have stores, opinions and photos online. So do millions of other people around the world.
What hadn’t occurred to me until today is that thousands of those people die every year, and their web presences will just go on. This article is from a guy whose friend committed suicide. The guy’s MySpace page has actually been pretty active since his death – it’s become like a shrine to the guy. His online presence lives on after his death.
Apparently Facebook has profiles for the students killed in the Virginia Tech massacre which are also still active. Strange…
Battle at Kruger – Lions, Crocs and Buffalo do battle
May 21st
I recently came across this incredible video on YouTube. If you have the bandwidth I highly recommend watching it – all 8 minutes are well worth it. It’s an incredible running battle between a pride of lions, a herd of buffalo and a couple of crocs.
Body x-rays being used in Amsterdam’s Schiphol
May 21st
Schiphol airport in Amsterdam has introduced a new x-ray based body scanner for added security. The scanner reveals body contours and is supposed to reveal any concealed dodgy items. Apparently people are actually going for it because it speeds up the whole security process -people will do almost anything for convenience.
I know I would have this scan if it would speed things up at the security check points.
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