… in 1989, Chinese army troops stormed Tiananmen Square in Beijing to crush the pro-democracy movement; hundreds – possibly thousands – of people died.
Bet most of the sports fanatics travelling to Beijing for the Olympics won’t remember that. Or give a hoot about it if they do.
Bah! Just when I thought I’d got my bearings in the micro-video market, here comes an even smaller device from Flip Video.
Launched yesterday, it’s described as:
Thinner and smaller than its popular sibling, the Flip Video Ultra, the Mino crams similar technology into a more compact, more attractive package.
Most of the Mino is about redesign. The USB connector now flips straight up, rather than to the side, for an overall more compact footprint that should fit better in a crowded USB environment. Though it has a slightly smaller LCD display–1.4 inches compared to 1.5–the back navigation controls look a mite more sophisticated than before. Pure Digital has also punted the replaceable battery in favor of a nonremovable Lithium Ion model. The company claims you can shoot for 4 hours on a charge.
Like the 60-minute version of the Ultra, the Mino comes equipped with 2GB of memory, capable of storing 60 minutes of its VGA-resolution video. The company has moved up to a later generation image-processing architecture, so in theory the Mino should provide a bit better image quality, and the company says that the camcorder includes an updated–more sensitive–microphone with improved signal processing. And, of course, it comes with in-camera software that provides the plug-in-and-upload simplicity which endears these camcorders to sharers on sites like YouTube and mySpace; the latter is a new partner for the company. In addition, the Mino now supports direct operation on a Mac, without requiring software installation. It also provides a TV-out connector.
Invaluable advice from Patrick House.
Rule 1:
To understand what makes the perfect caption, you must start with the readership. Paging through The New Yorker is a lonesome withdrawal, not a group activity. The reader is isolated and introspective, probably on the train commuting to work. He suffers from urban ennui. He does not make eye contact. Laughing out loud is, in this context, an unseemly act sure to draw unwanted attention. To avoid this, your caption should elicit, at best, a mild chuckle. The first filter for your caption should be: Is it too funny? Will it make anyone laugh out loud? If so, throw it out and work on a less funny one.
Rule 2:
Remember that the Cartoon Editor’s Assistant is “an outsider who has never trod in the cemented garden he protects. He had to look up “urban ennui” when he arrived in New York—he didn’t learn it riding the subway for 25 years. Exploit the fact that Farley is working off the same stereotypes of The New Yorker readership as you are”.
Rule 3:
Apply Advanced Joke Theory.
You must aim for what is called a “theory of mind” caption, which requires the reader to project intents or beliefs into the minds of the cartoon’s characters. An exemplary New Yorker theory of mind caption (accompanying a cartoon of a police officer ticketing a caveman with a large wheel): “Yeah, yeah—and I invented the ticket.” The humor here requires inference about the caveman’s beliefs and intentions as he (presumably) explains to the cop that he invented the wheel. A non-theory-of-mind caption (accompanying a cartoon of a bird wearing a thong), however, requires no such projection: “It’s a thongbird.”
Lovely stuff. My favourite New Yorker cartoon btw shows a giant chesspiece in the middle of a desert, surrounded by cacti and boulders. The caption: “Interesting chess moves, #367. King’s Pawn to Albuquerque, New Mexico.”
If you’re puzzled or shocked to learn that Ted Kennedy was kept awake during the operation to remove his brain tumour, then here’s why. And, no, it isn’t grisly.
Nice Washington Post piece by Eugene Robinson.
Recall that the Michigan primary, like the Florida contest, was not legitimate. Period. As far as the party was concerned — and as far as Clinton herself was concerned, before she fell behind Barack Obama — the primary never happened. None of the candidates campaigned in Michigan. Obama’s name wasn’t even on the ballot.
Yet, in the interest of party unity, the rules committee came up with a formula that gave Clinton credit for 69 delegates that she “won” running virtually unopposed in a vote that technically never took place. Ickes and the angry Clinton supporters who protested the committee meeting objected to the fact that Obama was awarded Michigan delegates that he didn’t win. But Clinton, too, was awarded delegates she didn’t win, because — remember? — there was no legitimate Michigan primary…
As I write, Clinton still hasn’t conceded. My guess is that it’s because Bill still can’t come to terms with the thought that he might no longer be the world’s leading Alpha Male.
Richard Cohen, meanwhile, is pessimistic.
So I see little to be happy about, little that pleases my jaundiced eye. Yes, voter participation is way up and in the end, the Democrats will choose a woman or an African American and, to invoke that tiresome phrase, history will be made. But this messy nominating process has eroded the standing of both candidates. It has highlighted the reality that racism still runs deep and that misogyny, although more imagined than real, is not yet a wholly spent force. This is an ugly porridge that has been placed before us, turned rancid since the cold, pristine days of Iowa only five months ago. We were, with apologies to Bob Dylan, so much younger then.
Reading between his lines, he thinks that the latent racism of many Americans will hand the presidency to John McCain.
MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable, flexible, and secure. It is loosely based somewhat on previous versions of MINIX, but is fundamentally different in many key ways. MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability
This new OS is extremely small, with the part that runs in kernel mode under 4000 lines of executable code. The parts that run in user mode are divided into small modules, well insulated from one another. For example, each device driver runs as a separate user-mode process so a bug in a driver (by far the biggest source of bugs in any operating system), cannot bring down the entire OS. In fact, most of the time when a driver crashes it is automatically replaced without requiring any user intervention, without requiring rebooting, and without affecting running programs. These features, the tiny amount of kernel code, and other aspects greatly enhance system reliability…
You don’t know what MINIX is? Hint: it’s what got Linus Torvalds started on the project that eventually became Linux. It was originally a ‘toy’ Unix-like OS written by Andy Tannenbaum for teaching purposes. I tell the story in my book.
[Source]
From Register Hardware…
Asus has announced the anticipated Intel Atom-based Eee PC – and a pair of new models that, the company claimed, boost battery life to more than seven hours. Oh, and they sport 10in displays, hard drives and 802.11n Wi-Fi.
As expected, the new version of the current 8.9in Eee PC 900 is the 901, while the 10in versions are dubbed the 1000 and 1000H – the former has Linux, the latter Windows XP Home. Both have a keyboard that’s only eight per cent smaller than a standard laptop keyboard…
No firm info on UK prices, but my guess is >£300+VAT.
Now a 7-hour Linux sub-notebook would be something…
The government is seeking approval from Parliament to allow terrorist suspects to be held for 42 days without charge. The thing that puzzles me is: why 42? Why not 40? Or 45? Is it because 6×7=42? So it’s six weeks. Or is it that — as devotees of Douglas Adams will tell you — 42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything?
Aw, isn’t that nice. A posh new institute named after little ol’ me.
Er, there seems to be some mishtake (as Bill Deedes used to say). It’s named after some other guy just because he gave TCD five million Euros. Pshaw!
Hooray! The OU is on iTunesU — one of the first three major European universities to join the project. (The others coming on board today are University College, London and Trinity College, Dublin). At last we have a proper global distribution channel for our stuff.
BBC Report here.
Tony Hirst tells the story behind this (in itself an interesting case study of how old-style media relations teams have difficulties engaging with viral-blog-type media).
Stuart Brown puts the iTunesU project in a wider context.
Martin also blogged it.
One of the interesting things about the OU offering is that we offer downloadable texts (in pdf format) as well as audio and video.