I only have one word to describe the opening ceremony to the Beijing 2008 Olympics - Spectacular!
China certainly knows how to put on show and with Zhang Yimou at the helm you wouldn’t really expect anything less. London now has a lot to live up to but I can already guarantee you it’ll be tame in comparison to this.
I’ll let the photos do the talking… can’t wait to download this in HD!
All photos © Getty Images - larger versions can be found at The Big Picture
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Google Street View, the system that provides interactive panoramic pictures of streets in Google Maps, has recently been causing a stir in the UK with privacy groups fearing it might breach data protection laws. After assurances from Google that it would blur peoples faces and numberplates they have been allowed to proceed and there have been multiple sightings of its high-tech cars roaming the streets in and around London.
Some relatives of mine spotted one of the cars while they were having a walk in Surrey (just south of London) and had a chat with the driver as well as taking some pics of the gear he was driving around with.
Apparently the array has 7 cameras at the top with laser range finders just below (to record geospatial 3D information) and an extremely accurate GPS receiver to record the position. All the data is saved to a computer in the boot with 1Tb storage discs which he said he used several of each day!! It’s controlled by a simple touch screen interface which sits in the passenger seat.
Not the most fun job in the world but the technology is pretty cool!
The amount of data they must be archiving alone defies belief and strongly reminds me of the philosophical issues raised by Jean Baudrillard in his book ‘Simulacra and Simulation‘ whereby he questions how can you tell the difference between what is real and what is a copy when the copy is as detailed as the original?
The territory no longer precedes the map, nor survives it. Henceforth, it is the map that precedes the territory - PRECESSION OF SIMULACRA - it is the map that engenders the territory, and if we were to revive the fable today, it would be the territory whose shreds are slowly rotting across the map. It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges subsist here and there, in the deserts which are no longer those of the Empire, but our own. The desert of the real itself.
There’s a warning in there somewhere for Google!
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Many years ago when I was at school we were made to take fairly crude psychometric tests (I think one was Myers-Briggs) in order to supposedly help us find what career we might like and understand our personality traits. I never found them particularly helpful and have always thought of the field as rather lacking in credibility.
I also usually disdain online quizzes so it was with an air of dubiousness that I tried out Signal Patterns Personality Patterns survey which aims to help “people develop a deeper understanding of their personality and preferences. By fostering self-discovery and expression, Signal Patterns gives people new ways to make powerful connections to the world around them.” They claim to have some solid research underpinning the way in which the it can infer connections between personality, behaviour and preferences so I took the test, taking about 10 minutes to complete, by asking how much you feel a set of statements are like you.
At the end it outputs an interactive chart (mine above) which you can then use to examine your traits in more detail. Apparently I’m Independent, Private, and Conscientious which surprisingly accurate and in general seems to have done a good job of profiling me. You can also take this one step further by linking the results to your Facebook profile to facilitate comparison between friends and finding “people like you”. I’ve not tried it myself yet but could be interesting. At the very least it’s a cool way of visualising your personality!
P.s. I have invites if anyone wants them - just leave a comment below.
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Whilst being more of a toy than having any tangible application Wordle is a cool way of generating “word clouds”. Words are given more prominance depending on how many times they occur in the source text. I generated the cloud above using tags from my blog - simple but effective.
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