In one of those marvellous coincidences usually dreamed up only by screenwriters, immediately after hitting ‘publish’ on my previous post, an email from my colleague Allegre Hadida popped into my inbox, pointing me at this intriguing video about her recent research paper on the deficiencies of conventional metrics of movie performance. Her findings are intriguing, but so also is this way of drawing attention to one’s research. Other academics could learn a lot from this.
Category Archives: Asides
Nostalgia isn’t a business model
On a whim, we went to see The Artist last night, and enjoyed it a lot. It’s a nicely-made, cleverly-written, amusing movie about technological transition in a media industry — the switch from silent movies to “talkies”. It stars Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, a matinee idol of the silent era who cannot come to terms with the fact that the technology has moved on, and the stunningly beautiful Bérénice Bejo as a young actress who adapts easily to talkies and becomes as big a star as Valentin once was. There are three other memorable performances: George Goodman as Al Zimmer, the boss of Kinograph Studios — an archetypal Hollywood mogul; James Cromwell as Clifton, Valentin’s faithful chauffeur; and Valentin’s entrancing dog, played by a canine named Uggie. Personally, I would have given the dog an Oscar.
Two things struck me about the film. Firstly, it took me back to Tim Wu’s book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires (Borzoi Books)
The story line of the film is centred on Valentin’s obstinate refusal to accept the reality created by the new technology. It’ll never catch on, he sneers. People don’t want to hear actors talking. And here I was immediately reminded of the way print journalists reacted to the Internet — and the way academics reacted to Wikipedia. The only difference is that Valentin is rescued from his own obdurate torpor at the last minute, and learns to turn a new trick, whereas some journalists and academics would sooner die than change their minds.
But then, that’s life.
Google’s glass eye
From The Register:
Google has been showing off the expected capabilities of the augmented reality spectacles that it is calling Project Glass.
The early concept designs show wire-framed glasses with a display above the right eye which shows off personal schedules and location-based information. Also included is a camera, a microphone for calls and voice recognition, a GPS, and (presumably) a wireless connector to make the whole thing work. The Chocolate Factory has set up a page on Google+ to get feedback and released a video about a ukulele-playing hipster to show how the glasses would likely work.
What to do in Venice when you’re not bored
From Quentin, who’s visiting the Queen of the Adriatic:
Venice, as you may know, is made up of about 100 islands connected by lots of little bridges. That’s roughly how the little network here in my Venice hotel room works, too.
The hotel charges for a wifi connection – only a one-off charge, but it is per-machine, so I only paid for my Macbook to be connected. With recent versions of OS X you can easily create a PAN (a ‘Personal Area Network’) using Bluetooth, so Rose’s laptop and my iPad could then get access by using my Mac as a Bluetooth < -> Wifi gateway. All very cool.
However, I could not get my iPhone to connect that way. I don’t know whether it should work or not – the general expectation is that you’re more likely to use your phone to provide connectivity for your laptop than the other way around! But I wanted a connection for the phone because I needed to download maps and other reference materials to have in my pocket as we explored, and I didn’t want to pay roaming data charges.
And then I realised that, just as my laptop was sharing its wifi connectivity to Rose’s laptop using a Bluetooth PAN, so her machine could then share that connectivity as a wifi network again! And, hey presto, my phone had a network, so I can now download maps to my heart’s content!
What else would one be doing in Venice, after all?…What else, indeed?
Twittering
Hmmm… Just discovered that I have over 3,000 followers on Twitter. I will have to behave responsibly. Sigh.
The evolution of the 419 scam
Once upon a time, much of my unsolicited email came from relatives, descendants or former colleagues of African despots, all of whom had left vast fortunes which needed to be expatriated from their countries of origin without incurring the wrath of those jurisdictions’ tax officials. My assistance in this matter was solicited: all that was required was that my current account should become a temporary parking garage for these vast sums, after which a substantial consideration (for example “$15,000,000 (FIFTEEN MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS”) would be paid to compensate me for services so briefly rendered. This was the 419 Scam or the Advance Fee Fraud.
I assumed that it had declined, on the grounds that even the dimmest half-wit must by now be alert to it. But an intriguing new version has surfaced. This time the deceased billionaire whose fortune needs to be dispersed is not an African despot, but my friend, the late, great Roger Needham.
NOTIFICATION OF BEQUEST
PARTNER MANAGING
KEITH OVERLANDEROn behalf of the Trustees and Executor of the estate of Late Prof Roger
Michael Needham. I once again try to notify you as my earlier letter
was returned Undelivered. I hereby attempt to reach you again by this
Same email address on the WILL.I wish to notify you that late Prof Roger Michael Need ham made you a
beneficiary to his WILL.
He left the sum of Fifteen Million, One Hundred thousand United States
Dollars to you in the Conductibility and last testament to his WILL.These may sound strange and unbelievable to you with the current upsurge
in cyber crime and the likes, but it is for real and true.
Being a widely traveled man, he must have been in contact with you in
the past or simply you were nominated to him by one of his numerous
friends abroad who wished you good.Prof Roger Michael Needham, an engineer/Computer scientist who worked
as Director, Microsoft Research limited, Cambridge before he died on 1st
March in the year 2003 and was patron of the Royal Academy of
Engineering and also member of various societies and organizations.He was a very dedicated Christian who loved to give out. His great
Philanthropy earned him numerous awards during his life time one of which
was the Commander of the Order of the British Empire.Late Roger Michael Needham died on the 1st March in the year 2003 at
the age of 68 years, and his WILL is now ready for execution. According
to him this money is to support humanitarian/philanthropic activities
and to help the poor and the needy in our society. Please if I reach you as
I am hopeful, endeavor to get back to me as soon as possible to enable
me conclude my job. I hope to hear from you in no distant time.In your response, please provide the following information.
FULL NAMES AND ADDRESS
TELEPHONE AND FAX NUMBER
SEX
OCCUPATIONThe requested information shall enable me authenticate the ones in the
WILL and my file.I await your prompt response.
Yours in Service
KEITH OVERLANDER.
Some random thoughts:
1. A quick Google search reveals that there is a Keith Overlander whose LinkedIn profile says that his current position is “Managing Director at Lehman Brothers”. I’m sure that this Keith Overlander — assuming he exists — has nothing to do with this particular little fraud, but given that Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in 2008, it doesn’t exactly improve one’s confidence in LinkedIn profiles. Perhaps that Keith Overlander concluded that he wouldn’t need another job after the bankruptcy, and consequently had no need to update his LinkedIn profile.
2. When he died, Roger was Managing Director of the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge and moderately well off. But he and his wife Karen Sparck-Jones gave most of their money away to educational charities like the Cambridge College of which they were Fellows.
3. I particularly enjoyed the revelation that Roger was “a very dedicated Christian” though it is true that he enjoyed giving money away. When I asked him about it once, he replied: “Well, we figured why should our executors have all the fun?”
4. You’d have thought that by this time the scammers would have figured out that if they don’t get capitalisation, titles and grammar right then even the average half-wit will smell a rat.
Thanks to Bill Thompson, who got one of these before I did and alerted me to the ironies therein.
Quote of the day: lucky you, lucky me
From Daniel Dennett, who is 70 today.
Every living thing is, from the cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky simply to be alive. Most, 90 percent and more, of all the organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth, suffered that normal misfortune. You spring from an unbroken line of winners going back millions of generations, and those winners were, in every generation, the luckiest of the lucky, one out of a thousand or even a million. So however unlucky you may be on some occasion today, your presence on the planet testifies to the role luck has played in your past.
From his book, Freedom Evolves
The key(board) to the future
Lovely spoof.
BBC Micro @30 birthday cake
Very tasty it was too.
