Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

"It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds"

Spielberg's whack at War of the Worlds is drawing nigh, and I refuse to be drawn in.  Partly because I dislike him as an extremely overrated director.  Partly because the novel is magnificent, and easily filmable.  Partly for the tradition of great or inspired adaptations of it, like the radio play, or the 1970s rock opera.  Partly because the tidbits of info sound bad:

Cruise plays Ray Ferrier, a divorced, blue-collar guy more interested in fast cars than in his young daughter (Dakota Fanning) and teenage son (Justin Chatwin). But then huge alien tripods begin destroying everything in their path, and Ray finds himself on the run with his kids...
Which is not to say that Cruise never gets the chance to be a stud. When NEWSWEEK visited the set in February, a shirtless Cruise was strapped into a stunt harness for the film's climax. The harness suspended him, face down, high above the concrete floor....

I'm not a Harlan Ellison follower, but I do like this bit of snarling:

"What annoys me is that Spielberg is such an egomaniac these days that it has to be 'Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds. No, you puss-bag. It's H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, and it wouldn't kill you to put his f--king name on it."

I don't want to get into the book adaptation purist thing - I love some great adaptations that either complement or surpass the source material (start with Blade Runner).  And I'm fully aware of the problems inherent in discussion a work one hasn't yet experienced.  Yet we can bring to bear a textual tradition.  And every indicator makes this sound like another trashing of a fine work, apparently for the purposes of blowing stuff up real good..
Instead, go read the novel.  Listen to the radio play. Look at the terrifying, haunting Edward Gorey illustrations.

Phones from the grave

Picking up on our earlier theme of haunted telephones: Snopes has a fine article on phones and being buried alive.  It starts with the story of Mary Baker Eddy requesting a telephone be buried with her possibly reviving body (false, alas), and includes some romantic stories.

(thanks to Vikki Cravens)

Google purchases

A story on past and potential Google purchases is useful as a record of the company's serial acquisitions. The speculation is just that, of course, but springs from a good sense of what Google has been up to.

Sites to starve yourself: another form of internet fear

The New York Times ran an article last week (now safely hidden behind the archivewall) about pro-anorexia websites.  The thrust of the piece seems to be: just how dangerous are these sites?  It's another form of the evil web page meme, among other things.

''Caution... This site contains pro-eating disorder images and information. If you do not have an eating disorder or are in recovery, do not enter..."

(via Jesse)

Interestingly, the Wikipedia entry is disputed.

Story clues from tv to Web: blogs meet ARGs via the Wolf

Bad Wolf is the name of a website, referring to a series of mysterious references in the current suite of Doctor Who episodes.  Linked from the BBC, it's further marketing for the show. 

Bad Wolf's textual structure should remind us of the serial mystery format of so many web narratives.  The site teases out a series of clues (images, snatches of dialogue), which are inexplicable (so far) references to the titular lupine.  They are decontextualized from their episodes, at least in the ones I've seen so far - graffitti on the Tardis, which has nothing to do with that particular alien invasion plot, for example.  We're encourage to compose another pattern, which cuts across these texts, constituting another narrative - which, presumably, is to be embedded in some later televised episode.

This is alternate reality game territory, where we treat all documents and environments with suspicion, looking for pattern pieces to extract and accrue to our own plots.  There is also a budding distributed interpretive community, where puzzle-solvers share information.  It's based on blogs where posts noted the pattern, then garnered comments, such as the sites of Matthew Newman and Behind the Sofa Again.  Has the ARG paradigm progressed further into marketing?

Because it relies on tv shows - or, put another way, because of the serial nature of its referential contents - the Bad Wolf site is somewhat bloglike, reminding us of blog mysteries, like Dionaea House.  The audience is situated in time, looking forward to the staggered release of new pieces in the mystery.  Those who can see the shows on BBC TV follow the broadcast sequence; the rest of us cobble together watching based on torrent seeds and downloads.  We watch each release, much as did the readerships of Collins and Dickens, anticipating further developments.  Has the blog textual concept now reached across other media?

The Wolf's disclaimer page has further treats, like some hidden text (hint: it's an old HTML trick), and the arch sarcasm of:

This website has been made by the BBC. It is placed on the Internet.The Internet is an information superhighway based on the sharing of information between computers using wires. The Internet is used by kind permission of GeoComtex.

(Geocomtext claims to be a fake site, too.  It also sports "Lupus and Nocens" products.    I'm reminded of last year's great Matrix alternate reality game, which started with a similarly cheery corporate website)

Does the new Intel chip support DRM?

Does the new Intel Chip, the Pentium D, support digital rights management (DRM) systems?
An Australian journal argued that this was the case, and that report was widely read.  Intel has since denied the charge.
I can see reasons for Intel to have built this either way.  On the one hand, DRM is clearly a rising and already present technology, from Adobe's PDF controls to Apple iTunes' Fairplay.  Microsoft is getting into the act.  The multicore hardware could support a core include remote attestation mechanisms.  On the other, DRMware might suffer market problems, especially in areas resisting DRM.
Comment away?

Blogging, blogwalking: Infocult heads to Austria

Later this month I'm giving a talk at Microlearning 2005, in Innsbruck.  Afterwards I'll join the Blogwalk.  This should be a good chance to explore ideas about collaboration, mobility, social software, and learning.    "explore" meaning both talk about and use.

Instructional technology at Philadelphia

Two days at Bryn Mawr College this week were delightful, not least because of conversations with people immersed in teaching with technology: Laura Blankenship, Bill Condon, David Berque .  The event was David Ross' idea.

(Which is the exact opposite of current experience at the hellish Philadelphia Airport.  We're currently stranded on the runway, and have been for an hour.  The pilot informs us that he has "no idea what the control tower is doing."  Philly is the worst airport in North America.)

Wikipedia as it grows, live

Will Richardson spotted this fascinating application, a live update of changes to the Wikipedia.  It creates a text line for each change happening, anywhere in that vast project.  It looks like a fine way of showing an audience how the Wikipedia changes, and that it's frequently edited. 

It reminds me of other live information observation tools, like MetaSpy.
I can imagine some visualization tools built on this, showing edits to the same entry, or by category, or whatever.

Hotels, WiFi, and the inversion of class

Staying for work at the Melrose Hotel in New York, I see another instance of what seems to be a general rule about hotels and wireless: the more expensive the place, the less likely they are to offer good wifi.  Lower end hotels are likely to set up free wireless for guests, in my experience of the past year.  In contrast, expensive places tend to prefer ethernet, charge for it, and/or have problems with access speed and reliability.

I'm not sure what this means.  Are higher end hotels trying to eke out a further aspect to their branding, refusing an aura of geekishness?  Is internet access so popular now that it can be looked down upon?