Flutterby™! From 1998-07-01 to 1998-07-10

So I was reading Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images, and I ran across this doozy:

To deconstruct a "text" (a term defined broadly enough to include the Declaration of Independence and a Van Gogh painting) means to pick it apart, in search of ways in which it fails to make the points it seems to be trying to make. Why would someone want to "read" (defined equally broadly) like that? In order to experience the impossibility of anyone writing or saying (or painting) something this is perfectly clear, the impossibility of constructing a theory or method of inquiry that will answer all the questions or the impossibility of fully comprehending weighty matters, like death.

-- Jacques Derrida

I think that pretty much sums up Postmodernism: Pick a piece of art with a simplistic enough message that you can sum it up in a sound bite, then look for flaws in the mechanics of the execution until you can convince yourself that it's saying the opposite.

If you're a game developer, this is interesting:

Team 47 GoMan Source Code

47-TEK would like to thank the gaming community for its support over the years and hopes that the memory of our work can live on by releasing out the source code and shareware versions of our titles for free to the public.

The following links will allow you to download the source code for Team 47 GoMan, tools to convert 3DS rev 4 to our proprietary model & animation format, as well as the original models for the game. We are releasing this code for the purpose of helping out any software or hardware company that is working with DirectX. There are no restrictions for the use of this code. It can be incorporated into any product you wish, including products you will sell commercially. 47-TEK does not warrant or guarantee any of this material and will not support it in any way. You cannot use any of the original art or sound resources. The characters and storyline remain the exclusive property of 47-TEK, Inc and its shareholders. The interactive rights based on this content remain the exclusive property of Coconuts Entertainment Japan Inc.

http://www.47-tek.com/source.htm

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Games Animation ]

Susie Bright in Salon magazine this morning on Teen Sex again, a bit of backpedaling from the last column.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

The National Coalition for Sexual Freedom presents the 1st National Survey of Violence & Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Privacy Sexual Culture ]

AP reports that Fox Interactive has pulled ads for the N2O: Nitrious Oxide video game that had tags such as "Never trip alone" and "Breathe in, breathe out".

[ related topics: Games ]

JUST SAY N₂O!

You just can't make this stuff up: Amish Buy Cocaine From Motorcycle Gang

[ related topics: Drugs ]

If you're an SF resident, the Pride Parade is on Sunday.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Jon Katz has an interesting rant in Wired. What if you lived in a country where the officials elected to highest office belonged to an organization which believed that a woman should "submit herself graciously" to her husband? Chances are good that you do.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

The folks in the south bay are planning to Launch Win98, or at least a rocket using the CDs from two beta versions as fins.

[ related topics: Free Software Music ]

As of today, I've survived 30 revolutions of the earth around the sun! Who'd a thunk?

Just got a new Club Norm. I suppose if your newspaper isn't hip and cutting edge, you wouldn't understand, but I live in Marin!

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Oh yes, and there's pictures of the Linux folks at the Fry's midnight Win98 event at http://hugin.imat.com/svlug/

[ related topics: Free Software ]

Jamie Zawinski is a programmer at Netscape who's done a bunch of cool stuff. His homepage goes into detail, but it opens with this cool quote:

``We all enter this world in the same way: naked; screaming; soaked in blood. But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop there.''

-- Dana Gould

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

The folks at Crypt news point out that the risks of lone terrorists influencing government policy in bad ways is far more likely than, say, biological attacks by isolated terrorist groups.

[ related topics: Privacy ]

Oh, the arrogance. Bug in Windows exposes the source of server side scripts to the world.

"It's not a bug in Windows that's doing anything," said Jason Garms, product manager for Windows NT security. "There are a number of bugs that only happen on one platform, and it's the responsibility of the vendor to understand the platform that they're running on. An application vendor is responsible for the security of their applications."

"There are a number of bugs that only happen on one platform...", but it's not the fault of the platform? Typical Microsoft arrogance.

[ related topics: Business Web development Microsoft ]

Forwarded humor of the day:

The moon is moving away a tiny, although measurable, distance from the earth every year. Do the math and you will clearly see that 85 million years ago it was orbiting the earth at a distance of about 35 feet from the earth's surface. This would explain the death of the dinosaurs. The tallest ones, anyway.

[ related topics: Humor ]

Dave Winer has an explanation of the Windows security hole that's been plaguing various servers recently.

[ related topics: Web development Dave Winer Microsoft ]

A History And Mythos Of The Knights Templar

Making Windows^tm tolerable (something I'm hard pressed to believe is possible, having just set up an NT box): http://www.cs.rochester.edu/u/zsh/unix_win.html

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

Bears in Bondage Land, more than just teddies in teddies.

[ related topics: Web development ]

An image of the exalted Bill leading the masses forward into the future.

Did the earth move for you, too? Not if you believe the folks at http://www.fixedearth.com/ who staunchly claim that "The Earth is not Moving".

over 400 years of deception exposed! The bible told the truth all along.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

And SnogWeb is a "who's-done-whom" server, kind of "six degrees of less separation" sort of thing.

Buzzword Bingo!

[ related topics: Web development ]

Philip Greenspun, host of http://www.photo.net/photo/, is writing a book, and to test out the parts on electronic commerce he's selling two prints for a $20 donation to the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital.

[ related topics: Books ]

A new Net Future, some thought provoking stuff on the ethics of genetic manipulation, monitoring technology, distance learning.

[ related topics: Web development Technology and Culture ]

Oh dear god, make it stop. Through a new technique in composite video technology, your child can star with Barney in his or her own personalized video about a surprise party!

[ related topics: Religion ]

A new Rumor Mill, bemoaning land costs in the valley and Sun's recent land grab in Santa Clara where Sun managed to get a bunch of property for $412k/acre, as opposed to Intel paying $2.2 million per acre last year, and Cisco paying $1.74 million per acre.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

A pro-Linux rant from elsewhere: Are You Fed Up With Your OS?

[ related topics: Free Software Web development ]

>From a forward originally attributed to the /dev/null mailing list. "Men or married couples please apply..." Hmmm... http://www.theatrics.com/doughenning/dougtoday.html

Now as you know, I am working to create Maharishi Veda Land world class theme park, a magical theme park which will bring enlightenment, knowledge a entertainment to everyone. I believe this new project will be the height of my career, and will bring wonder to generations of people of all ages.

Doug Henning is looking for CG artists. India, anyone?

Softimage animators wanted

Experienced computer graphics artists wanted to work in Bhopal, India with world-renowned illusionist and entertainment technology expert Doug Henning who is assembling a world class, state of the art digital film/video studio. The studio will produce films and videos on the themes of enlightenment, knowledge and entertainment for theme parks and universities around the world. The films and videos are based on the knowledge and inspiration of his Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhis program, Maharishi Vedic University and Maharishi Ayur-Vedic University.

Applicants should be experienced with Alias and/or Softimage. Men or married couples please apply by sending email to gleete@fairfield.com or by faxing +1 515 472 9056 with your experience, education and desired salary. A one year commitment is required.

[ related topics: Web development ]

They also claim Teletubbies merchandise is outselling Godzilla merchandise 3-1. I'm not sure whether that's good or bad.

Aaaaand, in case you have been living in a cage, Wired has been sold to Condé Naste. The revolution is not only way over, it's going to make its way into high school history books real soon.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Books ]

In Salon Magazine today, Susie Bright ponders a link between sexual repression and violence, especially as it applies to the recent killings in Springfield Oregon. I agree with her, but in this case I don't think she shows a strong enough link.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Byte Magazine is gone. It's been a long time coming, they outstayed their usefullness by many years, but it's still a sobering reminder of how the computing world's changing. I hear the biotech folks are hiring...

[ related topics: Web development ]

Most of you probably won't care about this, but I, at least, am interested in the politics and practice of the computer animation world. This piece was forwarded around the Pixar internal lists with original attribution stripped but one of several from PDI people today.

Have you or your cohorts have got wind of today's Hollywood Reporter article(front page) about CG films? As usual there's a misquote that seems to pit our studios against one another in the bug film race.

At the end of the article, when asked if he though we could match the success of Disney/Pixar, one of our producers, Brad Lewis, is quoted as saying, "You can enter a race in a Ferrari, but I can beat you in a Chevy Nova if you're a shitty driver."

The original question was "What do you think of the quality of your software?", and Brad used the above analogy to say that it's the animator and not the software that makes good animation. Unfortunately the writer thought it would be more interesting if it sounded like a big squirt in a pissing match. Guess it just shows once again that you can't be too careful talking to the press.

Anyhow, regrets. I think that I can speak for all of us when I say that we want this to stay friendly.

Please feel free to post this.

[ related topics: Pixar Interactive Drama Politics Animation ]

Salon Magazine reports on the doomsayers heading for the hills over the Y2K problem. Anyone notice how it always seems to be the same people scrambling for the hills anytime anyone reports prophecies of doom? I'm not optimistic enough to think that civilization will eat itself on the Y2k, I'll be hangin' out inside the society.

[ related topics: Web development ]

David Chun tried to buy a computer without Windows. 12 vendors told him they couldn't sell him one.

[ related topics: Web development Microsoft ]

Mary Anne Mohanraj has been writing an online diary. Note especially My Corporation Is A Jealous Lover.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic ]

Dave Winer rambles a bit on why governments fear communication. One of his better DaveNets in a while.

[ related topics: Web development Dave Winer ]

The only religion that will matter in the next millennium: The First Presleyterian Church. He has a hunka-hunka burnin' love for whosoever believeth in Him.

[ related topics: Religion Web development ]

In Nerve Magazine, the trials and tribulations of gay seeming straight males. Not that any of you flannel wearing lumberjack types out there would have this problem.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Sallie Tisdale in Salon Magazine has a column on raising children that struck a chord this morning. Second in a three part series.

[ related topics: Children and growing up Web development ]

The Avalon Project at the Yale Law School puts historical documents on the web, pre-18th century on. This looks like a wonderful resource.

[ related topics: Children and growing up ]

Just in case you always wanted to be one of the minions of the dark lord and laze down rebel scum, here's how to build a stormtrooper costume

I'll be gone to SIGGRAPH in Orlando next week, probably with limited 'net access. So while I'll try to send updates, I don't promise anything. Full report when I get back and decompress, I expect lots of loud techno and cool eye candy.

A new Rumor Mill, product pitches described as keynotes at Internet World.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

Well, I guess Excite's getting a good ad out of these updates. Electronic theatre last night, as usual Loren Carpenter's demonstration of humans in the hive mind was awesome (the audience is divided into two halfs which votes on which direction to move a controller playing "pong", for instance). No real "wow" technology, some interesting talks on art. More in a bit, now for some free Excite advertising...: Greetings from alternately sunny and cloudy Florida. SIGGRAPH has started, although only at the course level, and as usual most of those seem to begin at the "This is a pixel" level. No loud thumping techno yet, and just a few clips from various movies and tests to illustrate technique. More as I run across it. I may add some more stuff today, but I'm off to SIGGRAPH, so any updates to these pages for the next week are gonna be a surprise to me, too. If you're one of the few people to whom I've revealed the key in an off-hand manner (and you know who you are), feel free, NEWWWSBOY is pretty stable (and maybe on the airplane I can finish the docs so I can release it when I get back).

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Content Management ]

Phil Specter: "The difference between the Spice Girls and a porno film is that the porno film has better music."

[ related topics: Music ]

Microsoft products bring us closer to world peace: By know I'm sure you've all seen the US Navy unconvincingly trying to blame the failure of the new smart ship on something other than the OS (which happens to be Windows NT) http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/July13/cov2.htm

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Salon laughs at The Next World War, and rightfully so. From their review it sounds like it replays all the tired clichés of the "info war".

[ related topics: Web development Books ]

A standard response to all those pesky problem reports.

[ related topics: Web development ]

From http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/bs/22/rentschler.html

Some men tell us we must be patient and persuasive; that we must be womanly. My friends, what is a man's idea of womanliness? Is it to have a manner which pleases him -- quiet, deferential, submissive, approaching him as a subject does a master. He wants no self-assertion on our part, no defiance, no vehement arraignment of him as a robber and a criminal ... while every right achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force; while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on women -- shall men tell us to be patient, persuasive, womanly?

-- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1870.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Blue laws are alive and well in the US. Shop owners in New York City have lost a decision which would allow them to stay in business while new zoning laws are under appeal.

Susie Bright complains in Salon Magazine that because of Viagra now all those trophy wives will have to have sex.

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]

The "bill sux" Intel hoax disclosed: The original image came from this book cover at http://www.amazon.com/covers/0/69/102/125/0691021252.l.gif My spies tell me that the "Bill Sux" graffiti is a hoax.

API - Time Magazine reports an interesting case of high-tech
graffiti. It seems that a couple of Intel engineers working
on the design of a recent version of the Pentium microprocessor
included a message that describes their feelings about Bill Gates,
president of Microsoft, a good corporate pal of Intel's.
The "flaw" in the chip was only discovered by accident well after
the chip was  released into the market, too late for Intel to
prevent the chip from being used in the manufacture of tens of
thousands of PCs.
When a portion of the Pentium chip is examined under a powerful
scanning  electron microscope, the phrase "bill sux" is clearly
visible, etched into the surface of the chip.
Intel says that both engineers responsible were former employees
of Motorola, makers of the chips that are the heart of the Apple
Macintosh.
Both engineers have since been fired by Intel.
Full picture on http://www.idt.mdh.se/kpt/billsux.jpg

[ related topics: Apple Computer Web development Books Microsoft ]

A new NETFUTURE.

It's funny that I should find your NETFUTURE newsletter now, when I'm hitting my head against the overwhelming emptiness of my career connecting people with computers. I find here eloquent expression of what have been formless and nagging doubts .... So what is a person to do when all her skills are tied to computers? Start over at McDonalds?

-- Joan Cole

[ related topics: Technology and Culture McDonald's ]

Susie Bright on outdoor sex in Salon.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Salon Magazine today has an article by Jeff Stryker about the CRACK organization run by Barbara Harris, which offers $200 to any drug-addicted person willing to be sterilized. To whom do I write the check?

[ related topics: Web development ]

Like all anti-"New World Order" folks they miss the obvious contradiction between their stated beliefs and what they're fighting against, mainly that if majority rule is bad on a large scale, why is it okay on a small scale? But it's still fun anti-conspiracy reading at Eagle Net.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

Included for completeness only. My first reaction was "wonder which porn site is trying for cheap publicity." My second was "This could be a recipe for real disaster." http://www.ourfirsttime.com/ I think you can puzzle out the premise from the URL and the recent publicity over having the baby on the Internet...

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

The real story of the Darwin Awards Rocket Car? We'll probably never know, but like the original it's a fun read. I've got to check, I think I found one historical inaccuracy. http://www.teisprint.com/~eric/ROCKIT.HTML

[ related topics: Humor Web development ]

Walter Jon Williams, the cyberpunk novelist, is at war with Wired magazine, they're trying to convince him that they've got the rights to Hard Wired, despite the fact that his book Hardwired was published in 1986. Yet another reason to not hang with the technofetishists.

[ related topics: Books ]

http://www.yforum.com/ has lofty goals: a forum where people can openly talk about their differences, ask questions of other races, religions, whatever. It's interesting mainly because it's less instructive than you think; the answers really are as simple as we get every day in real life. Worth a look nonetheless.

A particularly good experience at a Good Vibrations workshop last night, learning how to breathe (amazing how much there is to learn about supposedly reflex actions), was the inspiration to dig up these sites:

http://www.tantra.com/hotlinks.html is a bunch of links to Tantra organizations, including Celebrations of Love, and the Source School of Charles and Caroline Muir.

catherine yronwode talks about one of the Celebrations of Love courses in Venus Takes A Refresher Course off of her Sacred Sex page.

And the teacher last night was affiliated with Margo Anand's SkyDancing tantra school.

[ related topics: Religion Children and growing up Good Vibrations Web development Erotic Sexual Culture Dan's Life ]

I think I posted this before when their web site sucked, but it's better now. http://www.imagek.com/ has a 35mm film cartridge shaped digital insert, turn any camera into a digital camera. Looks like they've got some fringing problems, but this puppy has potential.

[ related topics: Photography ]

And, as expected, the first parody of http://www.ourfirsttime.com/ has shown up: http://www.ourfirstanalsex.com/home.html

[ related topics: Web development ]

http://www.battle1066.com/ is a huge site on the Battle of Hastings. Book size and scope.

[ related topics: Books ]

Emptying my pockets in between sessions at SIGGRAPH, I've got a bunch of URLs and art sites to update y'all with sometime this weekend or early next week. The one that comes out first is Jeremy Sutton's interactive portrait painting with Fractal Design's Painter class, http://www.portrayals.com/ I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I found talking with him and seeing the tail end of his speech interesting because he's solving many of the problems inherent with distance learning, not by trying to duplicate regular classroom situations, but by making the new medium do what it does well.

This picture is not for the weak of heart. If roadkill bothers you, don't go there.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Apple is no longer the only company with "core competencies in the fashion and design areas": http://www.rockcity.net/01specs/01a-overview.html

[ related topics: Apple Computer Web development ]

For users of Numerical Recipes (the book):

http://cfata2.harvard.edu/nr/ - the official NR home page

http://math.jpl.nasa.gov/nr/nr.html - "Why not use Numerical Recipes?"

[ related topics: Web development Books ]

http://onastick.net/ The effects of Altoids on oral sex? Hello Kitty 40,000: In the grim future of Hello Kitty there is only war. And more!

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

http://www.powazek.com/ including http://www.powazek.com/zdinterview.html

[ related topics: Web development ]

A Cat Scan contest: http://www.unrealnation.com/crackhouse/catscan.html This contest will feature cat-loving owners across the world holding their felines on their flatbed scanners in the name of ART.

[ related topics: Web development ]

http://intellectualcapital.org/

The founders of this website (see 'credits') created it to stimulate thinking about all aspects of Intellectual Capital. None of the founders have any formal credits regarding Intellectual Capital, but have built successful businesses and have experienced first hand the value of recognizing, harvesting and managing Intellectual Capital to improve their companies and the efficiency of their business.

In case you missed it on TV, here's a transcript of Sex, Drugs and Consenting Adults with John Stossel which I found from the (Peter McWilliams home page.

[ related topics: Drugs Erotic Sexual Culture Technology and Culture ]

I was commended via e-mail yesterday for having links to mature, straightforward, non-commercial sex websites. Well, so much for that: The Kama Sutra Animated. Partially commercial, computer animations of all the major positions. But worthy of note if only for the reason that this is the first large-scale application of 3d models of computer animation I've seen applied to sex. Maybe I'm just sheltered.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development Erotic Sexual Culture Animation ]

I'm not sure exactly who this is news to, but http://www.sjmercury.com/world/center/organ073098.htm describes a paper by Dr. Helen O'Connell in the current issue of the Journal of Urology describing the clitoris as an internal organ much larger than previously thought. It's a note of the really sad state of our attitudes towards sex that we're only making these basic anatomical discoveries now.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Welcome to Condom Country with your guide, Porphylactic Pete. An online store worth reading just for the patter.

I am so jealous. I've talked about writing a camera simulator so that people could get a feel for how exposure worked for a while. Now someone's gone and done a truly superb bang-up job of it. Bravo! http://www.eece.maine.edu/Power/Java/javacam/javacam.html

[ related topics: Web development Photography ]

My Word's Worth is Marylaine Block's weekly column. I don't always agree with them, but they usually make me think, and I can't ask for more than that. She also has a great index of places to start looking for reference materials on the web called Where the Wild Things Are which should be high up in any list of indices.

[ related topics: Web development Marylaine Block ]

Once again, if you're interested in security, L0pht Heavy Industries is a resource you can't afford to be without:

"That vulnerability is completely theoretical."

-- Microsoft

L0pht, Making the theoretical practical since 1992.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Microsoft ]

A variation on an old theme:

THE PENGUIN:

A vacationing penguin is driving through Arizona when he notices that the oil-pressure light is on. He gets out to look and sees oil dripping out of the motor. He drives to the nearest town and stops at the first gas station.

After dropping the car off, the penguin goes for a walk around town. He sees an ice-cream shop and, being a penguin in Arizona, decides that something cold would really hit the spot. He gets a big dish of vanilla ice cream and sits down to eat. Having no hands, he makes a real mess trying to eat with his little flippers. After finishing his ice cream, he goes back to the gas station and asks the mechanic if he's found the problem.

The mechanic looks up and says, "It looks like you blew a seal."

"No, no," the penguin replies, "it's just ice cream."

[ related topics: Interactive Drama ]

Salon Magazine bemoans the loss of summer from air conditioning.

[ related topics: Web development ]

I'm gonna give it a rest for the long weekend. Have a good one! And I just thought I'd share this sign I saw in Berkeley with you:

[ related topics: Privacy ]

http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms98-003.htm is a note from Microsoft on the security problem I posted about Wednesday. Thanks, Robert!

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

Susie Bright in Salon: Submit to me, Trent!

[ related topics: Web development Sexual Culture ]

Julie points us to this critique of the science in Armageddon. It ends with: Disclaimer: Armageddon was made by Touchstone Pictures, a part of Disney. ABCNEWS is also a division of Disney. But that doesn't mean we have to say anything nice about Armageddon.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Further evidence that the revolution is history, in Wired, Jon Katz writes about the ascension of the geek. Great, now we're a targetable demographic. I've got a mildly negative review of Commodify Your Dissent written that I'll post soon, but they're right: Pretty much any sub-group will eventually be identified as a potential market and assimilated.

[ related topics: Web development ]

Just in case you think that wire tapping and publicity should take precedence over friendship and common decency, Linda Tripp has a web site and is begging for money for her legal defense fund.

Reuters reports that Beate Uhse, Germany's largest sex merchandise firm, is planning an IPO. Count me in.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

AOL has partnered with the White House on a new anti-(some)drug campaign, news.com reports.

[ related topics: Business Web development ]

Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1998 17:09:26 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tom Lokovic <tdl@pixar.com>
To: Dan Lyke <danlyke@pixar.com>
Subject: wisdom

If you collect random bits of wisdom for your web page, I humbly offer one of my own:

The insides of pecans look like little brains. I wonder what they think about. -- Tom Lokovic

[ related topics: Pixar Interactive Drama Animation ]

Perhaps a good portion of our enjoyment comes with the challenge of trying something new. One of the things that amazed me nearly 15 years ago was the evolution of programming techniques on a signle platform; the difference between the first Apple ][ games and the last ones was huge. Now those of us intrigued by software can't possibly keep up with what hardware is doing every year. When much of the new has been discovered is the challenge gone? I think there's still unknown territory, but I see glimmerings of the borders occasionally.

[ related topics: Apple Computer Books Games ]

If there's anyone you'd expect to luck into a couple of million bucks, it's Mark Pesce, but the poor guy doesn't seem to be much on coherent thoughts. His piece in Salon today bears that out:

Hardly a single graphics-heavy blockbuster has been produced without Softimage

And then he goes on to talk about "the look" of Softimage as a primarily visual thing.

[ related topics: Interactive Drama Web development ]

A coworker mentioned that Steve Jobs was able to wander through the Bug's Life mall show at the Pleasanton mall unrecognized, but this? Time magazine reports that he was denied entrance to Mac World by a security guard who noticed that he didn't have a badge...

[ related topics: Pixar Web development Animation ]

Media spoofing can be fun. For instance, check out this gem: Ocean Fund International Hires Stephen Michael Cohen to Run Sex.com. Continuing from the press release as published in CNN:

ROAD TOWN, Tortola, British Virgin Islands, July 15 /PRNewswire/-- Ocean Fund International, a British Virgin Island International Corporation announces today the appointment of Stephen Michael Cohen at a record salary of 17,000,000.00 a year and $100,000,000 in stock options to run its' wholly owned subsidiaries SEX .COM and Sand Man Internacional in Tijuana, Mexico.

Ummmm... 17 million what? Pesetas? One hundred million in stock options? Gimme a break, perhaps "stock options valued at...", but I didn't see any ticker symbols anywhere in it. It'll be fun to see how far this one goes.

[ related topics: Erotic Sexual Culture ]

Someone's got a cool page up on the Bug's Life Mall Tour

[ related topics: Pixar Web development Animation ]

Sig file of the day:

Merijn Broeren    | Running Windows NT as a server because it's easy
Rover & Newton    | to use is like hiring Miss America to run your
Lunatech Research | payroll because she's cute.

[ related topics: Microsoft ]

If you're into debates about filtering software, there's an article in Salon Magazine about the Scientology filter, provided to Scientology members. The "think for yourself" religion (isn't that an oxymoron to begin with?) asks that members:

"agree to use the specific Internet Filter Program that CSI has provided to you which allows you freedom to view other sites on Dianetics, Scientology or its principals without threat of accessing sites deemed to be using the Marks or Works in an unauthorized fashion or deemed to be improper or discreditable to the Scientology religion."

[ related topics: Religion Interactive Drama Web development Privacy ]

I'm sorry, it's like watching a train wreck. But the media hype surrounding that http://www.ourfirsttime.com/ publicity stunt is so much fun. Tish Williams' column in Upside is a fun read:

"Before 18 days of Internet scrutiny are up, Mike will have run off with the night cashier at Tastee Freeze, and Diane will gain her first lesbian experience with her consoling best friend."

More soft porn parody, the obvious one, too the tune of John Cougar's "Jack and Diane"...

[ related topics: Web development Erotic Sexual Culture ]