E-donkey complains of stuffed broadband
E-tales has been intrigued by the Second Life element of the Digital Summit scheduled for later this month. This involves participants using avatars to take part in the debate, if they so wish. This led one of our e-talers to speculate on what miniature digital clones of various participants might be like and how moderator Rod Oram might play it as an avatar. Definitely no offence intended, but our e-taler thought the veteran financial journalist might like a toy donkey as an avatar — then he could call himself e-Oram.
A scenario like the following might then ensue, to paraphrase AA Milne, writer of Winnie-the-Pooh: “E-Oram took his wi-fi equipped laptop and his 3G cellphone, and walked slowly down the stream for 20 yards, splashed across it and walked slowly back to the other side. ‘As I thought,’ he said. ‘No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that’s what it is’.”
From the sublime to the ridiculous
It’s been a weird and wonderful week in the world of science and technology.
First the sublime: New Scientist magazine reported on the Royal Society photographing and transcribing 10 key pages of a 320-year-old manuscript by English physicist (and rival to Isaac Newton) Robert Hooke which was discovered in January 2006. Apparently, the 600 pages of Hooke’s manuscript — written in traditional scientist’s appalling handwriting — describe the intellectual ferment of the earliest days of the Society, of which he was appointed secretary in 1677.
And, now the ridiculous: the Russians have just sent a female “boss” astronaut into space with a whip, to keep the boys in line. Biochemist Peggy Whitson, who is taking charge of the International Space Station, was presented with a traditional Kazakh riding whip before blasting off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome. She laughingly said she would take it just in case.
Lego lads caught on film
When you see it, you think: it’s obvious, why didn’t someone (or me) do this before? In this case, it’s a series of short films featuring characters made out of Lego, which went on show in Sweden last week.
The films are the brainchild of Henrik of Brickfilms, who says: “I’ve started the first Lego animation festival in Northern Europe and it takes place ... in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden ... The festival will feature not only 20-plus independent brickfilms, but there will also be stands with computers and cams where people can try out Lego animation themselves if they want.”
Thanks to Boing Boing for alerting us to this cool happening. Check it out at: http://brickfilmsfestivalen.se/
Boozer home-from-home
And now for something really serious… ever found yourself travelling the world, and in a new and exciting city looking out for a boozer just like your favourite watering hole back home? Well, Swiss boozers (sorry, computer experts) have just set up a website, called localina.com, to guide you to such. Mind you, E-tales reckons travelling thousands of miles to have an experience just like one could have any day at home is, well, sad.
Girlspeak interpreted
Still in the world of blokedom, when a woman says, “Do whatever the .... you want” she doesn’t always mean it, as one poor bloke recently found out when he bought a £29,000 Nissan Skyline GT-R boy-racer car… and then found himself flogging it online, after misunderstanding the music — rather than the literal message — his missus was playing him.
Our disappointed boy writes plaintively: “Reason for selling? Purchased without proper consent from the wife. Apparently, ‘Do whatever the .... you want’ does not mean what I thought.” Ah well, if you’re a married boy-racer and want to stay that way, you might want to upgrade your communication skills, rather than just concentrating on what goes on under various bonnets.