Channel Troy 2-25-07

Yet another new type of post here at Man Bites Dog. Posts that are just about the videos I come across on the internet. Enjoy.

Right Wing Mobius strip

I should first mention that I loathe the elitist terms Mainstream Media and Old Media. It sounds like scenester nonsense jargon, and until blogging really gets its wings, I don't think that it should be integrated into actual news.

Another reason why we should hold off on blogging joining broadcast news is that nobody seems to know how to use it right. CNN had people reading computers on screen. Faaaaaascinating. Now, Fox News will have a show reacting to blogs that are in turn reacting to news. A closed circuit of closed minds.

I'm really looking forward to their version of the Daily Show, though. Conservatives have never been very funny, and Joel Surnow's 24 writing never struck me as laden with humor potential.

From Variety:

"It's Out There," a half-hour of stories derived from blogs, will get a half-hour test run following Joel Surnow's satirical take on news.

Show, fronted by conservative blogger-columnist Michele Malkin and former Clinton administration operative Kirsten Powers, will take on political and cultural issues enflaming the blogosphere.

Hyper Intelligent Legos

I've always wanted to be a writer, and science fiction was a genre I was particularly in love with. I just find it hard to write about it, what with all of the weird things already going on in our world today. A good example of this science fiction realism is the Superbot. Be sure to check out the many videos of this odd machine at work.

From PhysOrg:

"Superbot consists of Lego-like but autonomous robotic modules that can reconfigure into different systems for different tasks. Examples of configurable systems include rolling tracks or wheels (for efficient travel), spiders or centipedes (for climbing), snakes (for burrowing in ground), long arms (for inspection and repair in space), and devices that can fly in micro-gravity environment."

Weird Science

A very interesting interview with the director of DARPA, the military technology agency.

from Wired:

"We're on the verge of having computers with densities approaching a monkey's brain, and it won't be long before we'll have a computer with the density of transistors, or equivalent to neurons and almost human. What we're missing is the architecture."

Breeding requirement for married couples under Wash. initiative

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance have a thing for irony. Would this be called putting your money where your womb is?

from NWCN.com:

Under the initiative, marriage would be limited to men and women who are able to have children. Couples would be required to prove they can have children in order to get a marriage license, and if they did not have children within three years, their marriage would be subject to annulment.


“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage exists solely for the purpose of procreation ... The time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own medicine," said WA-DOMA organizer Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage because they can not have children together, it follows that all couples who cannot or will not have children together should equally be barred from marriage."

external short-term memory 2-04-07

I don't think I really explained what the point of the external short-term memory posts was.

In a nutshell, there are things I find on the internet that, while interesting, aren't particularly worthy of an individual post. It can also be described as blogging that's even more ADD friendly.

Without further ado, more external short-term memory:

The Ad Generator
Oddly addictive and hypnotic impromptu web-art. From the site:
"A generative artwork that explores how advertising uses and manipulates language. Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed and randomized to generate invented slogans. These slogans are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby generating fake advertisements on the fly."

How to be a Cryptozoologist
A how-to. Useful, until the X-Files calls me back about my application.

Things To Come
A 1936 British SciFi film, directed by William Cameron Menzies, but more importantly, written by H.G. Wells. It's old school, and I'm a huge fan of old school.

Michael Crichton invented

Rarely do I see a change in the direction of George Orwell's 1984 and not cringe so badly. The change this time is literary rather then political. I do appreciate something other then another visible push towards draconian authoritarianism, but I still grumble about the further diluting of creativity.

Enough pedantic nonsense. Here's your auto-novel.

From Discovery News:

The program, called MEXICA, is the first to generate original stories based on computerized representations of emotions and tensions between characters.