Listening to: Message In A Bottle - The Police

The Economist has an article on
the Japanese attitudes to robots. There is nothing terribly new there… but it is
good to see all the major thoughts collected there. The one new thing (for me) was
the theory about the impact of Shintoism:

Most Japanese take an eclectic approach to religious beliefs, and the
native religion, Shintoism, is infused with animism: it does not make clear distinctions
between inanimate things and organic beings. A popular Japanese theory about robots,
therefore, is that there is no need to explain why Japanese are fond of them: what
needs explaining, rather, is why westerners allow their Christian hang-ups to get
in the way of a good technology. When Honda started making real progress with its
humanoid-robot project, it consulted the Vatican on whether westerners would object
to a robot made in man’s image.

I found this interesting because of some events at the
2005 Provoke conference. Pablo gave a fascinating
presentation on the DS Nintendogs product. While the presentation covered a vast range
of issues from business strategy to technology the biggest hang up people had was
“why would you want a simulated dog? a real one would be better.” The obvious answer
was that if you live in a built up area like Tokyo… a real dog isn’t too practical.
I now wonder if the impact of Shintoism adds another dimension to the attraction of
virtual pets in Japan. Maybe it allows them to be seen as being more real than westerners
see them. Maybe it ensures that they are considered to be almost acceptable substitutes
for the real deal.

Listening to: Porcelian - Strawpeople

I have been curious about Ruby for a while
now… but have never gotten around to looking too deeply at the language itself.
IBM develperWorks has a simple,
but insightful comparison of Ruby syntax and Java syntax.

Listening to: Sleepless - Strawpeople

As I am now starting to realise Apple has been this endless source of soap opera for
me… one of the most interesting periods (for me) was the 500 days that Gil Amelio
ran the company. At the time I was a fervent fan of BeOS and was very keen to see
it become the next OS for Apple. This story tells
of how Amelio arrived, the decisions he made and then his exit… in between it highlights
the massive mistake Be and JLG made.

Listening to: Beautiful Day Without You - Röyksopp

This is a seriously neat idea. You give
a little bit of cash and a family in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda or South Africa
gets a goat, chicken and/or a sheep. I like it a lot… a very sustainable way of
helping people up. 2 x goat, 2 x chook for less than a hundred quid, downstream benefits
- priceless. Awesome!

Listening to: So Here We Are - Bloc Party

Merry Christmas everyone

Listening to: BBC Radio 1

Who didn’t spend 5th Form Math class drawing maps/spaceships/airplanes on grid paper?
(Oh! Just me?) Now the spaceships are about to come to life:

Listening to: 1999 - Prince

Mase is now the Vice President of ITANZ. Congrats.

Listening to: Mr Brightside - The Killers

(for those readers outside NZ) Telecom ran an ad a few months back to promote their
high-speed data tools. It basically featured a hyper-enthused kid in a suit (anyone
who knows Rod won’t have missed the similarities). From Rod’s team to Rod:

Listening to: BBC Radio 1

I’m a little concerned about this myself, but I derive “hand-clapping-jiggling-on-couch”
delight from watching Mythbusters (just
ask The Missus… she’ll confirm the sight of a 30 year old male behaving like a 4
year old in a Lego store, we’re talking cat with catnip here). As TV goes it is just
wonderful (I rate it up there with The Sopranos and The West Wing), as science media
goes it is a phenomenal success. For me the key (other than the explosions) is the
fact that they don’t dumb down the science and they treat the audience as being 1st
degree participants in the conversation.

If you get a chance, check out the interview
with Adam Savage in Skeptic Magazine (it’s not online… but hey! Any excuse to
loaf around in a bookstore or library I figure). They provide some stats on the relative
success of Mythbusters (i.e. 2 x as many people watch Mythbusters as read Scientic
American).

UPDATE: From David. The /. interview with Jamie
and Adam.

Listening to: Take Me Out - Franz Ferdinand

21122005(016)

Originally uploaded by near
near future.>

I love Keith Haring… his work is zesty. The
piece above is fantastic!