Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Is This Art?

Try searching Google Images for “Is this art?” to find art, anti-art, and everything inbetween. And this, by the way – even though it looks like art – is just a captcha.

Is This Art? by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

Plagiarism Round Two

Here’s what might be the end to the story about the student who plagiarized, and then got blogged and heavily linked from all over the place (her name has been changed from Laura K. Pahl to Laura K. Krishna now). We’re becoming transparent, or as Momus was singing:

“Axiom 1 for the world we’ve begun:

Your reputation used to depend on
What you concealed
Now it depends on what you reveal

The age of secretive mandarins who creep on heels of tact
Is dead: we are all players now in the great game of fact instead
So since you can’t keep your cards to your chest
I’d suggest you think a few moves ahead
As one does when playing a game of chess

Axiom 2 to make the world new:

Paranoia’s simply a word for seeing things as they are
Act as you wish to be seen to act
Or leave for some other star

Somebody is prying through your files, probably
Somebody’s hand is in your tin of Netscape magic cookies
But relax:
If you’re an interesting person
Morally good in your acts
You have nothing to fear from facts

Axiom 3 for transparency:

In the age of information the only way to hide facts
Is with interpretations
There is no way to stop the free exchange
Of idle speculations

In the days before communication
Privacy meant staying at home
Sitting in the dark with the curtains shut
Unsure whether to answer the phone
But these are different times, now the bottom line
Is that everyone should prepare to be known
Most of your friends will still like you fine”
– Momus: The Age of Information (from the 1997 album Ping Pong)

Plagiarism Round Two by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

Gmail Rich Formatting

Gmail is rolling out a new feature, as Pierre in the forum points out: Rich Text (HTML) formatting. This means you will now or soon be able to write emails with bold, cursive, underlined or colored text. A full feature list is available.

Gmail Rich Formatting by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (4)

Goodiesblog’s First Goodies

The Goodiesblog received its first box of goodies from Old Orchard Brands LLC! Iolaire McFadden writes:

“Enclosed was a short letter describing the new Old Orchard Organics Juice line, two Old Orchard six-pack cooler bags, nine paper cups, one bottle of Old Orchard Organics Red Raspberry 100% (juice) and one bottle of Old Orchard Organics 100% Concord Grape. (...)

Over the next few days, I will rate the goodies individually, this will give me time to drink, test , and evaluate them.”

Again, the idea as postulated here is that Goodiesblog sends out letters to semi-random companies whose addresses were found on products within the household, asking them to send gifts which will then be presented exclusively in the blog. After three unreturned letters, the first item Goodiesblog received shows it worked, and I think it’s a lot of fun!

Goodiesblog’s First Goodi ... by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (0)

Google’s Van Gogh Logo

Artist Vincent van Gogh was born in the Netherlands March 30, 1853, and today Google celebrates his birthday with a special logo. As usual, the top-ranked site for the search result the logo links to is completely googledotted.

Google’s Van Gogh Logo by Philipp Lenssen | Comments (5)

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