web-goddess

Happy Riot Day! Well, actually it’s May Day, but I guess for a lot of people the two are equivalent. Violence has already erupted in Australia and Europe, and England will be no exception. This year the police say they’re ready, but for lots of morning commuters, the problems have already started. The BBC has a photo gallery that should fill up as the day progresses. The thing that amuses me most about all this is the “May Day Monopoly” plan that the media keep mentioning. The protestors are supposed to be targeting streets and locations on the British Monopoly board, which basically means that everybody (including the police) knows exactly where they’re going to strike. If they know where the violence is going to be, why can’t they stop it?

It’s sad how out of touch with American culture I’m becoming. When I first saw the phrase “disrespecting the Bing”, I thought it had something to do with Chandler from “Friends.”

Gael linked to a fascinating Antiques Roadshow article about Atari games. The last time I played an Atari was New Year’s Eve 1997. I was at my aunt’s house and all the grown-ups were having a jolly time. I wasn’t feeling well though, so I holed up in her guest bedroom and discovered my uncle’s Atari. He seriously had about 30 games, ranging from “Combat” and “Pac-Man” to more obscure titles like “Stampede” and “Kaboom!”. Needless to say, I spent all night in there. Fast-forward about two summers, when my dad calls me to let me know that my aunt is selling the Atari in her annual garage sale. “WHAT?” I scream. I haul ass to her place, only to find that she’s just sold it to some random guy… for ten dollars. She didn’t even realize that it was worth more! I’m still bitter about the whole thing.

Kim pointed to an interesting article on Generation X. Despite the author’s “whining,” I really really liked what he had to say, and I agree with pretty much all of it. The Internet did feel like our thing and the bitterness a lot of us feel isn’t just for our own lost jobs and stock options. We’re depressed because we blew our chance.

Wee Ben just IMed me with an amazing link: WM Team. It’s a German internet company of some sort. They have one of the coolest Flash sites I’ve ever seen. (If you knew how much I hate Flash, you’re realize what a compliment that is.) Make sure you watch the whole intro and then click through the different areas. You can even change the music on the boom box!

The Notre Dame Observer picked up on that “Irish is an ethnic slur” story I mentioned the other day. As expected, nobody on campus agreed.

New Poll: Just to make sure that you’ve all tried out my theme functionality, this week’s poll asks which is your favorite. Personally, I like the green.
 
Results from the old poll: Out of 19 respondents, 10 had positive feelings towards IKEA and 8 had negative. One person had never been to IKEA. I find that… disturbing and sad. There’s nothing wrong with mass-produced, pseudo-European flat-packed modular furniture! (Actually, when I put it that way, it does sound kinda crappy.)

ZDNet mentioned Disturbing Search Requests in a story recently, so if you’re discovering my site via that route, welcome! (And for regular visitors who didn’t know, I get lots of DSR‘s that I share on that site.)

John linked to an interesting story in the Financial Times about personal electronics and the “beauty zone.” The author, Peter Martin, argues that with mobile phones appearance has become as important as functionality. He wonders, though, why that hasn’t happened with PDAs and computers. Personally, I think this guy is a little too dismissive of the steps Apple‘s made in this direction. For example, if you walk down Tottenham Court Road in London on any Sunday afternoon, you’ll discover a crowd – yes, a crowd – of people standing outside the Micro Anvika drooling over Titanium iBooks and Power Mac G4 Cubes with 15-inch flatscreen cinema displays. Computers are more beautiful now than they ever have been before. With any complex mass-produced item, the first versions are always the clunkiest and ugliest (the Model T Ford, the early telephones and televisions, the first radios). Mobiles have had an accelerated pace of aesthetic development because they’re A) relatively cheap and B) show-offable. I mean, when you whip out brushed steel Nokia the size of a matchbox on the Tube, people notice. How many people ever see my iMac? Pretty much just me and Snookums. She’s still damn beautiful though.

It looks like the DeCSS code-crack dispute is back in court. I have more than a passing interest in this case, considering that I possess an illegal copy of the DVD decryption code. Of course, it is on the back of a T-shirt. 🙂