In the 1980s and 1990s, the term ‘virtual reality’ was understood to mean the creation of reality inside the computer – and thus we would need to experience it using complex imaging and interaction systems (3D googles, cursors mapped to the movement of a glove etc.) The implication behind this was the reality itself would be untouched. The real world would simply be a home for the VR equipment: Star Trek imagines it holodeck as a big empty room, for instance. Moreover, since VR ran inside the computer, it only worked when you turned it on – and in movies such as The Lawnmower Man, the nightmare scenario was not being able to get out.
Few people imaginged that when VR came to pass, it would actually involve computers altering the way we acted in reality. The video below shows 100 dancers in central London recreating the dance from Beyonce’s music video for her song ‘Single Ladies’ (which Peter Sagal called ‘a wonderful, brilliantly performed dance number set to an irresistably catchy pop tune’). As a piece of PR in reality, it holds very little value – few people would have the chance to actually see it, as it the dancers and organisers take pains for it to appear to happen spontaneously on the street. It’s over in three minutes, and few of the people who happened to be walking by would actually be able to make sense of it because it only works if you’ve seen the original music video. Indeed, the behaviour of the dancers only really works if it’s watched as a video, passed around virally on the web. It is, essentially, VR: actions in reality that are targeted at, and only make sense when experienced virtually.
Another excellent set of photos on The Big Picture today, focussing this time on animals in the zoo. As always with The Big Picture, there’s a real (if subtle) sense of a narrative running through the post, thanks to the ordering of the shots. I couldn’t help but be grabbed by this one of a six-week-old North Chinese Leopard from Hagenbeck Zoo in Hamburg, Germany.
It makes a very strong impact thanks to the strength of the subject. At first it’s funny and cute, thanks to the disparity between the dinky little cub, doing his best to snarl, and the photographers. The wicker basket makes him appear all the sweeter, as if he’s a pet on a picnic or something.
Look at it longer though and there’s a toughness to it – there’s a predator’s cruelty in the leopard’s eyes. Cub or not, there’s no mistaking the fact he’s (supposed to be) a hunter and a killer, which makes the way he’s trapped quite poignant. Increasing this sense are the partially obscured faces of the photographers leering out of the blown, smudgy white highlight on the right. The super-saturated light gives a feeling, I think, of the outside forces shaping the cub’s life.
Other highlights from the post include shot 23, which features some very clever use of shadows and picture 26 which is a flat out super composition – the human hand makes it a much more interesting shot than 27, despite the fact that 27 is, on the surface, more action packed.
If you’re looking for a quick, concise summary of the rules for the 2009 F1 season, look no further than here. Let’s hope they don’t change them again before the season starts.
Like many people I suspect, I’ve been wondering about the credit crunch. About what it is – other than a little lego block of language – about how real it is, how real all these stratospheric amounts of money being talked about. Wondering, I think, about what, in context of the CC, ‘money’ is. Digits on a screen, years of work, part of a company…
I’ve read quite a few articles on the crisis, so I thought I’d put down a few of the best links. The title of this post comes from a comment on a Metafilter post, which has consistently produced some of the best discussion of the events I think. People trying to get to grips with it. Told you so’s, cynics, wits, fascinated students.
This particular post links to a great article on Wired about the role of maths geeks in the economic implosion, but before you get there I’d recommend some other links:
1. The Crisis of Credit Visualised is a good 10 minute intro to the basics.
It’s quite US focussed (and centred very much on housing) but is an excellent indication of how seemingly disaparate parts of the economy become interlinked.
2. To get a better sense of the delicate complexity involved in modern economic instruments, set aside an hour of your time for a brilliant episode of This American Life, aptly titled ‘Another Frightening Show About The Economy.’ You can stream it from their site for free.
3. Once you’ve listened to that, you begin to get some idea of the role of instruments such as Credit Default Swaps in this mess. And that means we’re now on to the role of computers, quants, algorithms and far out maths. This NY Times article frames the CC as quite possibly the first time that humanity on a large scale has been out-thought by computers.
4. Wired’s aforementioned piece is less scifi, and frankly, just plain excellent. It makes it clear that while algorithms played a role, two age old factors really drove it: the desire to trust in systems, and, of course, greed.
Courtesy of Red Bull Racing, and narrated by Sebastian Vettel, here’s a handy CG animation of the main differences between 2008’s F1 cars and the 2009 models. [via James Allen.]
Today I had to visit Harrods to buy some presents for relatives and friends I’ll soon be visiting overseas (don’t ask me why, but they all want Harrods tote bags); while there, I spotted this monstrosity – an oversized armchair made from minced up teddy bears.
Children walking past it were both fascinated and shocked. This is not surprising given that it looks like someone’s taken several armfuls of cuddly bears, chucked them in a rubbish compactor, mashed them up good and proper, and then stretched their furry little pelts over a threateningly large chair.
More pics of the monstrous Chair ‘O Bears after the jump.
A short post about what I’ve been reading this week. Hence the name. This week, blogs about the American election. I’ve always had an interest in politics, and this election has completely drawn me in. It has all the elements of fine drama – a hopeful protagonist and a shady nemesis, stunning reversals and Hollywood celebrities demanding one of the central characters talks about how old the dinosaurs are. So, how to keep up to date? This is an issue at the moment, because there’s a lot happening, but not a lot easily spinnable into a news story, so quite a lot of the story hasn’t appeared in the UK media.
* Firstly, a blog called Marbury. The best of the lot for me: it’s written from a British perspective, it’s not too opinionated, and it’s not written by a political hack on from one of the papers so it feels a little different. Mixes latest stories and videos culled from US TV with some very on-point analysis.
* Secondly, and this is if you’re really keen, Andrew Sullivan’s blog. You’ll need to be fast on your RSS reader to keep up to to date with this – think 30 updates a day (!!) – and he’s no fan on McCain and Palin. But it’s passionately written and makes you feel this election really is a titanic struggle. Today’s quote of the day:
“John McCain isn’t running against Barack Obama. He’s running against reality.”
* Third, a bit of a cheat because it’s a podcast, so you can’t read it. Slate’s Political Gabfest. A weekly update that usually strikes a fine balance between chat and analysis.
It’s a bit late, because of course the season has started already, but I was going to predict Robert Kubica was going to be great this year, honest. First up when making any predictions, it’s important to inspire confidence in the quality of judgement, both by stating your qualifications and by pointing out how successful past predictions have been. Sadly, my expertise is limited to being a reasonable player of F1 computer games. However, my Formula 1 predictions from 2007 weren’t too inaccurate – I went for Ferrari for the constructor’s championship (correct), but guessed Alonso for the driver’s (nope). And of course, despite getting one right, I had no clue about how it would happen. So what about 2008? (more…)
1984 was one of the first novels I read that really grabbed me: I hit it at just the right age and at just the right time of year – a quiet teenager holding the book in a blowy spring that was full of bright cold days and people buttoned down into their coats, with pale, fluorescent-light skin. Ever since finishing it, stories about mad, crazy despotic regimes have always interested me – both for the tales of the audacious lunatics who usually run the show, and also for the insights of what it’s like for people to live in a country run by leaders who consult astrologers, spend all the cash on gold plated palaces and think nothing of training thousands of school kids to display coloured placards in sync so you can spell out your name.
No discussion of bleak, barmy regimes would be complete without a mention of North Korea, a place which my friend Lawrence recently went to as part of his travels in Asia. He’s posted about the trip, on his blog, here. Meanwhile, Burma has been in the news more recently: the Times had a good piece up on Naypyidaw, the random, completely new capital the Junta recently constructed. Also worth reading is a blogger’s take on his trip to the new Burmese captial, complete with pictures.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I stopped link-blogging on this site – as I was using Delicious, everything I ever saved was getting posted here, which was both ugly and lazy. Delicious certainly had its plus points though; regular blogging is good, and using it made me think about the links I was saving. Ultimately, though, the form and the function didn’t quite work.
I’ve been thinking about what to do with this site quite a bit, and one of the things which has occurred to me is how much I like keeping notebooks in the real world – you can see a big pile of the last few years’ worth above – and that if I could find a web app that was similar, I’d be very happy. As a result, I started experimenting with Tumblr. It’s yet another linguistic crime of a name, but the actual program is very nifty; a lightweight, easy to use, and simple blogging app made for handling links, videos and pictures.
Best of all however, is the way in which it handles quotes. Tumblr has a specific way of dealing with little pieces of text, which fits very well with my current thinking on what I’m going to use the main blog for next. There are a lot of design-influenced tech blogs, but far fewer that look at text, writing and reading and how they intersect with technology
But I’m getting ahead of myself… For the moment, behold The Wired Jester’s Jumps & Tumbles, a companion link-log / web scrapbook to this main blog.
