Adam Fields (weblog)

I now feel compelled to share this, since many people have now discovered Jamie’s writing due to that whole thing. But for me, it started long ago with just a single link. Time melts away in an instant when viewing web pages meant to be rendered in Netscape, and now it’s hard to believe that was 16 years ago. It’s a real gem, and for me it was one of my first exposures to both effective use of hypertext (as opposed to theoretical academic use) and internet oversharing.

Start here. Click click click.

“Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he got so he wouldn’t hardly notice the other dudes. Dudes would come miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any dude in that country. Strange dudes would stand with their mouths open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Dudes is always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, Jim would happen in and say, ‘Hm! What you know ’bout witches?’ and that dude was corked up and had to take a back seat.”

We used to have a 6-at-a-time Netflix plan. We’d get 6 movies, but then sometimes we’d go months before watching them, or even just deciding that enough was enough and sending them back. And frequently, even among those 6 movies, there would be nothing we wanted to watch on any given night. And then an interesting thing happened. As part of a general cost trimming in our house, we dropped down to a 3-at-a-time plan. And suddenly we started watching a lot more Netflix movies. With 6 movies to choose from, there was always “something else” to watch, and we didn’t have to worry about clearing out all of the cruft to make room for something we really wanted to watch. As a result, we didn’t think as carefully about whether we’d really want to watch a new movie, because just renting something wouldn’t really block something else that we wanted to see more if it came along. But when we introduced a little artificial scarcity into the mix, a slot became something worth protecting from something we didn’t really want to see, and we started thinking more about which movies to put to the top of the queue, and then actually being more aggressive about watching them and sending them back.

This seems like a strange effect to me – we’re paying less, we’re technically using less (3 out instead of 6 out), but we’re turning over more, so the net effect is probably that we’re heavier users now than at 6-out. Because the pricing is only on the number out instead of the turnover, we’re unarguably paying less and using more, even though we’re technically on a “lower usage” plan. At this point, even if we wanted to spend the extra money, I have no desire to go back to a 6-out plan, because I like the extra sense of urgency that comes from having the out slots be a scarce resource, and it makes me want to use the service more.

I don’t know if this makes me a better Netflix customer or not, from their perspective. Obviously I’m paying less money to them per month and using more in mailing fees, but I’m also holding onto premium movies for a lot less time than I used to, freeing them up to be sent to other customers.

Anyone notice the same thing?

Nasa:

http://www.nasaimages.org/index.html

Museum of Natural History:

http://images.library.amnh.org/photos/index.html

400+ forms used by the NSA:

http://www.thememoryhole.org/2008/07/over-400-nsa-forms/

London Bananas:

http://www.londonbananas.com/

How to make an inkjet print that will last 10000 years:

http://blog.longnow.org/2008/07/24/edward-burtynsky-the-10000-year-gallery/

Dear Netflix:

I would very much like your website to stop redirecting me to a page that tells me that Im using an unsupported browser. I know I use Opera. I like it. I understand if you dont want to support it, but at least set a cookie so I can just tell you once that I dont care, instead of making me click through your tedious “only browsers we like are supported” splash page every time I want to check my queue.

Thanks. Have a wonderful day.

Tags: netflix, supported browsers, splash page, stopthatnow

Crappy DRM company says the DMCA forces you to buy their technology instead of building your own because not buying their technology is a circumvention of an effective copyright tool.

The thing is, I think they’re right. I mean, it’s stupid, but then so is the DMCA.

There are some other provisions (which seem to not apply), but the crux of it is:

“No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that–

`(A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of
circumventing a technological measure that effectively
controls access to a work protected under this title;”

It explicitly does NOT say “copy the work”, it says “circumvent the technology”. “Circumvent” is not the word they were looking for.

In fact, now that I think about it, convincing someone that DRM is bad is also a violation, as that may be interpreted as offering a service that is primarily design for the purpose of circumventing technological protection. Crap.

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2007/05/10/afx3708595.html

(via boingboing.)

Tags: drm, dmca, violation

“This work began on the day when we had made a extra big candy like a bowling ball by ourselves.
Since that day, we had been licking the candy day after day for about six months.’

http://homepage.mac.com/m_plus_n/candy.html

Tags: candy, big, bowl, licking

I used to get a Cadbury Creme Egg a year about the same time I had my annual McRib. Since I’ve realized over the course of the past few years that you’re only supposed to eat food, I didn’t know that Cadbury reduced the size of the Creme Egg this year. And then they lied about it! And they blamed it on the increasing size of their consumers (possibly from eating too many Creme Eggs)! And then they got busted on National TV! At least they could have had the dignity to release the “New Creme Egg”, and then release the “Creme Egg Classic” in the smaller form factor when people complained about the new formula.

http://consumerist.com/consumer/cadbury/cadbury-our-eggs-arent-smaller-you-are-bigger-250559.php

Tags: creme egg, stupid, smaller, insulting, lying, cadbury

Robert Anton Wilson is dead.

http://robertantonwilson.blogspot.com/2007/01/raw-essence.html

I can’t say enough about the importance of his writing to our national culture of weirdness. He will be missed.

Tags: robertantonwilson, raw, illuminatus

This is a great video of the ZDNet Executive Editor explaining what’s wrong with DRM.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKI_w_VBoTQ&search=d.r.m.%20crap

Tags: zdnet, drm, crap

Instead of corporate logos, they leave behind pretty floral patterns.

http://www.gnr8.biz/product_info.php?products_id=182

Tags: coffee, cups, coffee cups, rings, logos, floral, pattern, lucent

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/17/arts/music/17paul.html?ex=1308196800&en=51c8ced2d4c73b63&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Tags: paul mccartney, beatles, 64

Some sort of canonical list of bad 80s videos on YouTube.

http://www.milinkito.com/los80.php

Tags: 80s, videos, iwantmymtv, youtube, totally

I have no idea what this is about, but it is… pink.

http://www.r243g197b208.net/video/pink_adicolor_large.mov

(Via Doc)

Tags: doc searls, pink, video

Apparently, crooks have been breaking into vacation homes, stealing the >OVEN DOORS<, repackaging them in real flat screen TV boxes, and selling them to dupes on the street.

Words fail me.

http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/consumer-alert/dont-take-any-wooden-flat-screens-165345.php
http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/scam/update-dont-take-any-wooden-flat-screens-165526.php

Tags: oven door, flat screen tv, theft, scam, everythingbuttheovendoor

Interesting tidbit from Snopes, via (Kottke).

Apparently, it’s about the same price to take a perpetual cruise as it is to live in a nursing home, and at least a few people have been doing this for years.

http://www.snopes.com/travel/trap/retire.asp

Tags: retirement, cruiseline, senior discount

http://cuteoverload.com/

I don’t remember who originally sent this to me, but I got it a few times. This is apparently a patent for a warp drive.

” A cooled hollow superconductive shield is energized by an electromagnetic field resulting in the quantized vortices of lattice ions projecting a gravitomagnetic field that forms a spacetime curvature anomaly outside the space vehicle. The spacetime curvature imbalance, the spacetime curvature being the same as gravity, provides for the space vehicle’s propulsion. The space vehicle, surrounded by the spacetime anomaly, may move at a speed approaching the light-speed characteristic for the modified locale.”

They’re off their rocker.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,960,975.WKU.&OS=PN/6,960,975&RS=PN/6,960,975

Conclusion: tinfoil hat makes it easier for the gummint to read your brain. It’s a conspiracy!

http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Well that’s just cute. Apparently, Sony’s DRM rootkit process hider can be used to circumvent Blizzard’s cheating spyware.

http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/34

And, yet again, I feel the need to say that everything I said here still applies:

http://www.aquick.org/blog/2004/12/23/the-eff-backs-tor/

World of Warcraft was recently revealed to have a piece of spyware hidden in it called Warden, that tracks a large amount of information about other things running simultaneously on the machine, in order to prevent cheating.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004076.php

There’s been some commentary on Dave Farber’s IP list that Warden was found by someone trying to hack the game, implying that that somehow justifies its existence.

I wrote the following in response to that:

And SO WHAT?

The fact that this piece of spyware was found by someone trying hack the game is totally irrelevant to what it is, and the fact that there are people in an arms race over hacking the game doesn’t justify Blizzard’s raising the bar on that race to trample the privacy of legitimate users who are probably unaware that this is even going on.

As has been previously stated, Blizzard’s assertion that it’s not doing anything with the information is little comfort. What if the next round of arms race escalation is to hack Warden and release all of that information? How long will it be before Blizzard can properly respond? How much data will get out, because of the infrastructure that Blizzard has constructed?

The fact that this is justified by text buried in a long EULA is deplorable. The fact is, few people read EULAs at all, and even fewer read them for >games< . There ought to be full disclosure right up front in large capital letters - "If you want to play this game, you have to agree to let us spy on you, because we assume everyone's a cheater. YOU'VE BEEN ADEQUATELY WARNED. To agree, and be allowed to play the game, type: 'I UNDERSTAND THAT BLIZZARD IS SPYING ON ME TO CATCH CHEATERS'." Let's have no more of this "Press OK to continue" crap.

All this talk about plays written in the dark ages made me reread the skit I wrote in high school with my friend Tristan.

I give you The ELF invades Sears.

It still makes me laugh.

http://www.hedge.net/fields/elf.html

(It’s an homage. Read a book!)

Hah.

My friend Nat’s screenplay “Republic Dogs”, a Plato/Tarantino mashup, is making the blog rounds:

http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/d/r/dryfoo/www/Funny-pages/republic-dogs.html
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/10/perhaps_the_ult.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/28/platos_republic_meet.html
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006952.html#006952
http://yglesias.typepad.com/matthew/2005/10/republic_dogs.html
http://blog.org/archives/001337.html1/
http://tjic.com/blog/2005/10/29/boats-boats-boats-boats-boats-boats-boats-hence-the-trojan-war/

There seems to be some contention over when it was actually written. I can personally attest to being present around the time of the original writing and presentation, at or near Columbia’s Philolexian Society (Columbia’s oldest student organization, founded in 1802), sometime between 1992 and 1996. Nat says 1994, and I believe him.

In fact, I made a poster for its theatrical (okay, in the basement of River) performance as part of a series of one-act plays, Onion Days and Starry Nights in the Zero-Sum Republic:

Hah!

> N

There is a PAPER CLIP here.

> ROLL CLIP

I do not know what a CLIP is.

> ROLL PAPER CLIP

You roll up the PAPER CLIP.

You are standing on the floor of a bedroom.

> LOOK KATAMARI

Your Katamari is 10.2cm.

And so forth.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/katamari_damacy/262676.html

A project to determine just how much money you’d lose if you bought every penny stock you got spam about.

http://www.spamstocktracker.com/

That’s pretty funny.

http://www.vrway.com/vrmag_issue_22_hotlist_fullscreen/fullscreen/VR000007222.html

“Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Booyah.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1577753,00.html?gusrc=rss

Kottke has a post about how to make microwave popcorn without a microwave. Letting aside the possibility that this is just a sick joke of some kind, it’s wrong for a number of reasons.

1. Microwave popcorn is, itself, the hack.
2. Microwave popcorn is a sticky glumpy mess because it’s full of all kinds of things you shouldn’t eat. Also, it’s far more expensive than just buying even really high quality popcorn, which it isn’t.
3. This AskMe thread has some great suggestions for how to make stovetop popcorn, including how to make regular popcorn in a microwave without buying “microwave popcorn”.

http://www.kottke.org/05/09/popcorn-hacks

On a mailing list I’m on, someone pointed out the ipodmyphoto site, which I won’t link to out of common decency. Someone else followed up with ‘I want an ipodded shirt that says “hipster asshole”. Orange and Black please. ’.

I just couldn’t resist, and you shouldn’t either.

http://www.cafepress.com/adamf.29467430

The Onion weighs in:

“Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, ‘God’ if you will, is pushing them down,” said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2

Project Steve is a collection of scientists named Steve who support evolution, to demonstrate the stupitidy of compiling lists of scientists who don’t. 580 so far!

http://www.ncseweb.org/article.asp?category=18

http://www.backlesslingerie.com/index.html

Cam Barrett (one of the first bloggers) and his twin brother Damien are auditioning for The Amazing Race, some kind of reality show on that other medium. To boost their chances, they’re blogging the whole thing.

http://www.bloggertwins.com/

http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/266

http://waxy.org/random/video/family_guy_-_take_on_me.avi

They missed a huge naming opportunity here – it should have been called Cat-amari Damacy.

http://www.stuffonmycat.com/

“Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him.”

http://www.venganza.org/

This PDF entitled “Sony to Include Blu-ray in PS3: HD-DVD Green with Envy” is $1500 on Amazon. It’s one page.

Really!

I’m not sure if the one page is the pictured cover page, or there’s another page after that.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002XWAGW/buyadam-20

Um.

No, this doesn’t seem like a good idea at all.

http://www.spermcube.org/

Funny little livejournal blog with cartoons mocking the Prequels. How can you go wrong?

This one’s my favorite so far:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/iharthdarth/2867.html#cutid1

http://www.livejournal.com/users/iharthdarth/

Uhhhh…

“We generate money by serving Google text advertisments on our website GWEI.org. With this money we automatically buy Google shares via our Swiss e-banking account. We buy Google via their own advertisment! Google eats itself – but in the end we will own it!”

http://www.gwei.org/gwei/

Awaiting further instructions from the Doctor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/4077698.stm

There’s something deeply wrong with this product image.

That’s just too funny.

http://spamusement.com/index.php/comics/view/245

“Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after duelling with lightsabres made by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol.”

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/showbiz/tm_objectid=15552841&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=light-sabre-duel-puts-two-in-hospital-name_page.html%5B/url%5D

Underwear that moisturizes your skin while you wear it.

http://www.popgadget.net/2005/05/moisturizing-underwear.html

Oh no.

http://imagebank.ipcmedia.com/imageBank/s/shaved%20cat.jpg

http://spamusement.com/view.php?id=234

Yick.

http://www.rent-a-dildo.com/howitworks.htm

(Given their rental model, I’d have gone with something like “NetPrix” instead of the name they chose.)

Josh Rubin found knockoff bags clearly labeled “FAKE” over the counterfeit designer pattern. I like it.

http://www.joshrubin.com/coolhunting/archives/2005/04/call_it_what_it.html

http://www.never-nude.com/

Nice.

http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/april_first_2005/grates

John Malkovich sells very stylish clothing on his website.

http://www.johnmalkovich.org/

Dapper!

http://www.johnmalkovich.org/site/shop-hats.html

Apparently, the entirety of Extraordinary Machine is now available for download.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/03/16/notes031605.DTL

‘BigChampagne, which monitors songs available on file-sharing services, found that at any one time about 38,000 users in the United States are downloading songs from Extraordinary Machine. The most popular track is “Please Please Please,” with more than 20,000 simultaneous downloads, according to the company.’

http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66926,00.html

Just what the hell is going on here?

A bunch of guys are really into playing Storm Troopers in Star Wars Galaxies. The gamemasters decided to reward them for this, and sent them a virtual Darth Vader to give them a surprise inspection and pep talk. Of course, it couldn’t have been the real Vader, since no one got strangled to death…

Via boingboing:

http://swg.warcry.com/scripts/columns/view_section.phtml?site=13&id=25

CGI-animated lego batman starring Adam West, Mark Hamill, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Dick Van Dyke.

Nice.

http://www.daveschool.com/BATMAN/index.html

Ancient Chinese bronze dildos.

http://www.danwei.org/archives/001346.html
http://cul.sina.com.cn/s/2004-04-14/52694.html

Miskatonic Acid Test is an independent horror movie being made about a group of students in Arkham, MA in 1969 who try to recreate the swinging west coast acid scene, but instead fall prey to the unknowable evils of the nameless one as their professor tries to turn their experiment to his own twisted ends by dropping the radio in the tub just as White Rabbit is peaking, er… reading summoning incantations from the Necronomicon.

http://miskatonic.americanentropy.com/about.html

Al Qaeda had plans to kidnap Russell Crowe as part of a “cultural destabilization plan”.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12475653-26618,00.html

Trippy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1316982.htm

The E-Z Catch is an industrial chicken moving machine.

Via boingboing:

“The video clip is a must see.”

Indeed.

http://www.brightcoop.com/livehaul/c_e-z_catch.htm

This is pretty funny, but maybe only if you’re a Pearljam fan:

http://home.comcast.net/~angelalb/ledbetter.swf

New York Metro piece on “Thundercut”, the Brooklyn couple who deface the Walk/Don’t Walk signs downtown.

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/11022/index.html

I’ve photographed their handiwork (without knowing who they were) before.

“Real” meaning “physical”, of course. It is, after all, Pizza Hut.

http://everquest2.station.sony.com/pizza/

Bugs Bunny to be reincarnated as a solarized time traveling martial arts expert who shoots laser beams from his eyes.

“What we’re doing is taking Bugs Bunny, a classic and changing him for the kids – making him fresh, cool and hip.”

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/02172005_ent_loonatics.html

But does he speak “leet”?!

Microsoft instructional page on how to speak “leet”.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

Awesome. I love Rice to Riches! Manmade Mascarpone, baby!

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/ny-bc-ny–gamblingarrests0203feb03,0,467055.story

http://trenchant.org/daily/2005/1/20/

Apparently, the latest Japanese fad is little keychain plants. Marvels of miniaturization!

http://akiba.sorobangeeks.net/news_9086.html

Pulpgeeks rejoice! Snapper Carr is the Kevin Bacon of comic books.

http://www.whiterose.org/howlingcurmudgeons/archives/007385.html

“Why would I ever want to do this? Lots of people have asked me this, and I really have no idea why.”

http://www.igrill.co.uk/how.php

Not much here yet, but they claim that there’s more coming. I like the spelling potatoes.

http://www.hanttula.com/exhibits/freakyfood/index.htm

Via Calista:

http://oldeenglish.org/puppy.html

A Columbia librarian walked every street in Manhattan between May 2002 and December 2004.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?050103ta_talk_mcgrath

His website, with lots of pictures, is here:

http://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/

Heh.

http://www.viceland.com/issues_au/v2n3/htdocs/the_vice.php

“On March 2, 2003 at 4:12 pm, I disappeared.
My name is isabella v.
I’m twentysomething and I am an international fugitive.
My name is isabella v. But it isn’t.”

As jwz says: “Short version: heiress runs to escape arranged marriage; launders money, flees private security forces, hangs out with smugglers, blogs.”

http://shes.aflightrisk.org/mt-archives/000002.html

“Whole Foods Markets is reconsidering whether to continue selling a line of microwaveable stuffed animals that an educator said could lead children to believe there is nothing wrong with putting their pets in household appliances.”

How did this get past the focus groups?!?

http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_359083759.html

“I understand that in the movie, Zaphod’s second head is inside his nostril. And this all ties in with the increased prominence of the Church Of Arkleseizure in the movie (a race with fifty noses, and the first to develop the aerosol deodorant before the wheel) and their leader John Malkovich, who also has a second head, and Zaphod’s unwillingness to sneeze.” Update: I’m informed that this isn’t true. It still looks good!

http://aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=19008
http://www.douglasadams.se/movie/

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3137139

" After wearing, clothes are chucked on the stylish Laundry Rug, where they will stay until wash-day comes around. At this point chords around the edge of the rug are pulled together to form a handy carry bag for transporting the lot to the washing machine. It’s a bedroom must have for lazy people everywhere!"

http://www.addject.com/products/laundry_item.asp

Ummm… duh.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/11/30/lava.lamp.death.ap/index.html
http://www.ci.kent.wa.us/police/pressreleases/index.asp

"This quality mousepad features a uh, CLEVER ergonomic wrist rest on a pair of gel boobs."

That’s just too funny.

http://www.bustymousepads.com/

Via chrisd, who says "Please, please, make them stop this":

http://www.customizedclassics.com/romeo-juliet.asp

"Authorities in Sweden arrested a man who shot mobile phones into the yard of a high-security prison with a bow and arrows, police said Saturday."

Clever!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=816&e=3&u=/ap/20041128/ap_on_re_eu/sweden_prison_archer

That’s great. They go into a Verizon building to steal telephony circuit boards, but inadvertently disable large chunks of the 911 system, so the cops come over to investigate, and catch them in the act.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/nyregion/27theft.html

Via Boingboing:

http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A41118/high/tattoo4.jpg

Strange.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/nyregion/15allegany.html

"This is is a car advertisement from Germany . When they finished
filming the ad, the people who made it, noticed something moving along
the side of the car, like a ghostly white mist."

http://www.westcoastpirate.com/weblog/archives/2004/11/real_ghost_sigh.html

http://www.polizeros.com/2004/11/10.html#a4686

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/nyregion/05strafe.html

"Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950’s Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control. People induce the blender to spin by sounding the sounds of its motor in action."

You have to watch the video.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~monster/blendie/

(Via Popgadget.)

http://denicelewis.com/index.html

Freaky!

Via Anne:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3070756a10,00.html