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20 January, 2003

Old TV Ads

Retroactive TV Party has lots of old TV ads, in Real Media format.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Spiral Logos

Grant Hutchinson has a collection of company logos that use a spiral.

What is with the current profusion of spiral logotypes of late? Are they being derived from the constant spin control that internet speed companies have to put on their insane valuations? Or is it symbolizing the way technology drains away our time from family and the more important things in life?

If you like that, check out LogoHell, for a collection of "orbital crescent swish" logos.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Attention Guitar Players

A few years ago I took a risk and bought a guitar without even seeing it or playing it (it's pictured on the left).

The guitar was made by Alex Csiky, of Zachary Guitars. As it turned out, it was an excellent decision. It's a beautiful guitar that sounds great. I'd say it's my second-favorite guitar (here's #1).

Each guitar is hand-made and one-of-a-kind. Alex is an interesting guy, and has his own opinions about guitars. People either love him or hate his guts.

I hadn't visited Alex's web site in quite a while. The site was originally designed by a professional, but Alex has added tons of new material, and only a few remnants of the original design remain. It's now best described as "eclectic."

If you're a guitar player, check it out. You can even see photos of my guitar being made. And don't overlook the cool-looking Home Depot Dumpster Guitar. But I think I'll pass on the Busywood Guitar.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

Read the winners of the 2002 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Goal: To write the worst opening sentence for a novel.

A few noteworthy examples:

"The blood dripped from his nose like hot grease from a roasting bratwurst pierced with a fork except that grease isn't red and the blood wasn't that hot and it wasn't a fork that poked him in the nose but there was a faint aroma of nutmeg in the air and it is of noses we speak not to mention that if you looked at it in the right profile, his nose did sort of look like a sausage."

* * *

"As she lay in the embrace of her lover's arms following their ardent lovemaking, Sharon quietly hoped the moment could last forever, well, not really forever, since she had a pedicure in two hours, followed by lunch with her former college roommates, but at least for a long while or so."

* * *

"This is a story of twin Siamese kittens, or, more specifically, of their shared appendage; it is a tail of two kitties."

* * *

The moon looked like a discarded toenail clipping submersed in a puddle of saliva on a black formica countertop.

(via Wastrel Division)

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is...

... a multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started on 15 January 2001 and are already working on 99876 articles in the English version. Visit the help page and experiment in the sandbox to learn how you can edit any article right now.

Thanks to Zaine Ridling, who pointed this out. According to Zaine, "it's one of the few remaining unique visions of the web and what is great about it." I agree.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Ignorance: An Excellent Starting Point For Learning

Excel users will appreciate this excellent article by Jan Nordgreen. He describes a problem-solving experience that many of us can relate to -- or maybe even learn from.

And if you like that, check out his other articles at the Mathematical Ulterior Motives (Mum) site.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Life Magazine Covers

View the covers of Life magazine, from 1936 through 1972. You can search by date, or go straight to the Classic Covers or Wacky Covers collections.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

How Fast Can You Type?

Take a one-minute typing test.

On the "Huckleberry Finn" test, I had a gross speed of 75 WPM, with four errors. This worked out to a net speed of 71 WPM with 84% accuracy.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Zippo Lighter Tricks

Check out hundreds of Zippo lighter tricks, and learn how to perform them to impress your friends. The tricks are categorized as easy, medium, or hard.

Posted on 20 January, 2003

SBC Claims Patent Infringement

Like millions of other web sites (including the one you're reading right now), the Museum Tour uses a vertical list of links for site navigation. But there's one difference: Harlie D. Frost at SBC Communications sent them a letter demanding a licensing fee, claiming that they own the patent for "Structured Document Browser."

Hey SBC, if you really think that you have a claim, why not go after Microsoft?

Posted on 20 January, 2003

Total Information Awareness: A Diagnosis Problem

Benjamin Kuipers is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He wrote an interesting article: Total Information Awareness as a diagnosis problem.

According to Kuipers, the TIA's "hunt for terrorists" is basically a mass screening approach, similar in concept to diagnosing a rare disease.

Suppose the tests are highly accurate and specific. 99.9% of the time, examining a terrorist, the test says "terrorist". 99.9% of the time, examining an innocent civilian, the test says "innocent civilian".

If we assume that 250 people in the U.S. are terrorists, the diagnostic program would have the following results.

When the tests are applied to the terrorists, they will be detected 99.9% of the time, which means there is about a 25% chance of missing one of them, and the other 249 will definitely be detected. Great! However, out of the remaining 249,999,750 innocent civilians, 99.9% accuracy means 0.1% error, which means that 250,000 of them will be incorrectly labeled "terrorist". Uh, oh!

In other words, the government plans to spend billions of dollars in an attempt to identify a small number of terrorists. And in the process, the lives of a quarter of a million innocent citizens will put through the ringer.

Posted on 20 January, 2003