Google Earth Gets High Res In Vancouver

Vancouver is coming into focus from outer space. Cool, maybe we can watch the cops-a-beating and the junkies-a-shooting in glorious lurid detail...if only it was live.

bonus: the first person to leave a comment with the name of the building pictured gets to borrow my copy of Andy Letcher's Shroom.

The Criterion Contraption

Matthew Dessem out of LA has a great blog, The Criterion Contraption, in which he is attempting to review all the films that have been released under the Criterion banner. No small feat with close to 300 films so far in the collection. The 60-some-odd reviews on the site are very insightful and well written. Required reading for film students and cinemaphiles. Check out his review of Rushmore.

source: kottke.org

RIAA.....enough already

I think it's high time the RIAA stop making such asses of themselves and move away from their antedeluvian business models which make no sense at all in the digital age. If it can be seen or heard or read or played on a computer it can and will be copied freely. Unlike degenarate marijuana smokers, surely all P2P'ers can't be unethical monsters. The defendant's lawyers are catching on too. Slam those dinosaur noggins together and try to think of something quick....your ship is sinking.

update: Consumerist's readers have voted the RIAA the worst company in the world.

Bad Boy of Wearable Cam: Justin Kan

SAN FRANCISCO-- Justin TV has been live for 4 days. Seattle-native in San Francisco, Justin Kan (23), wears a hat-camera 24/7 in pursuit of a world where, “hundreds of employees, thousands of cameras and tens of thousands of shows” run from his 2-bedroom North Beach apartment.

Although Kan’s equipment is similar to University of Toronto professor Steve Mann’s wearable computer and reality mediator, the 23-year-old sets a noticeably more playful tone. Unlike the academically heralded Mann, Justin Kan has not yet publicly referred to himself as a “cyborg”, at least not while sober. Instead, JustinTV has a Real World feel, albeit with far fewer bikinis, on a real world budget.

Justin Kan's cellphone number is 415-948-3219. I am considering inviting him to my champagne croquet match.

update from Shenanigoat: apparently these guys are getting prank'd a lot. Someone spoofed the caller id of the Justin.tv official cell phone number, called the San Francisco police department and reported a stabbing in the North Beach apartment. link to video at TechCrunch

Paxil + Alcohol = Paxihol?

In celebration of their 10th anniversary, Slate is publishing a 'best of' anthology, which, after reading Seth Stevenson's candid and lucid account of his encounter with Paxil, I immediately ordered from their site Amazon. I was well impressed.

link to article here
download MP3 audio of Seth Stevenson reading this story here

Social Networks Are Dead...Long Live Social Networks

Over at Ning.com, any jackass with basic mouse clicking abilities can make their own MySpace'ish social network....so that's just what I did. Anyone interested in the future of humanity via cognitive and biological enhancement can join my Transhumanist Network for frank talk on how to defeat the neoLuddites by overpowering them with our vastly superior technologies....it's gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel..with laser eyes and photonic mindbeam blasts.

update: I decided to ditch my newly created network...social networks are sooo web
2.0

update: okay...it's back up...let's see where this thing goes. go there

Great Free Poker Site

"If you look around the table and you can't tell who the sucker is, it's you"
- Paul Scofield, playing the role of Mark Van Doren in Quiz Show

I've been spending a lot of late nights trolling the tables of gpokr for some easy marks. There is no money changing hands on gpokr but there is a fun ranking system (my ranking is on the sidebar and links to my profile) and a sort of social network which allows you to add friends, etc. It also has a cool stat system so you can analyze your playing.


...also watch this old video on card cheating

Cory Doctorow's Vancouver Lecture Now Online

Cory lectured to a capacity crowd at the SFU downtown campus last week. It was concise, poignant, funny, and urgently relevant. You can listen to (or download) the audio of the lecture here.

Litterbox Psychosis Unveiled

I'm posting this to push my last post down. I had a feeling it was putting off my more sensitive reader demographic. Also, I post this because it's bloody fascinating.

From Boing Boing:

"Cory Doctorow: Vann sez, "As a follow-up to Cory's entry in January of last year on how toxoplasmosis may alter people's moods (women become more friendly; men become more paranoid), recent studies suggest that infection by the parasite may also cause people to become more prone to feeling guilty, develop schizophenia, have auto accidents, or be born male."

U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kevin Lafferty has linked high rates of toxoplasmosis infection in 39 countries with elevated incidences of neuroticism, suggesting the mind-altering organism may be affecting the cultures of nations.

...more