Delicious LiveJournal Links for 1-6-2010

[andrewducker]

• A Chess program in 1K
  Actually, in 672 bytes.
  (tags: programming history software games zx81 assembly chess)
• The Gentle Seduction - a short story
  The Singularity, as experienced by a non-geek.
  (tags: fiction scifi science singularity transhumanism nanotechnology)
• Stunning pictures of the world's newest tallest building's opening ceremony
  (tags: photography pretty architecture)
• Kodak wireless picture frames are trivially easy to read over the internet and update. For anyone. Oh dear.
  (tags: EpicFail technology kodak)
• The Things - a short story telling the story of The Thing from its point of view.
  (tags: sf short_story writing)
• Heroes is a hit as the most pirated TV show that is
  It (and Dexter) have more people pirating it than watching it live...
  (tags: tv piracy copyright)
• What's up with the Beep driver in Windows 7?
  (tags: windows audio history computers hardware)
• Obama makes first trans-gendered appointment
  (tags: transgender usa politics)

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Be more selective?

[andrewducker]

Dear Dr Musicaux, I would like to listen to music in my home. What would you suggest as a method of doing so? I have heard of modern devices such as "CD Players" which would allow access to a wide variety of music. Is this what I need?

Yours,

Intrigued By Music

=====

Dear Intrigued,
CD players are just pieces of pointless carbon-burning headed for eventual tech landfill. If you wish to listen to a wide variety of different music then I suggest you learn how to play the piano.

Yours,

Dr Musicaux

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

A) Is not quite the same thing. You need electronics to play CDs in the first place.

B) Thank you. That is just what I did. :p

Seriously, come on. They really are technical gizmowank for the arse of it.

[andrewducker]

a) You don't need electronics to play music though. Any more than you need electronics to see pictures.
b) Yes. It is.

No more than CD players are. If you want to listen to a huge range of music very easily then you have a machine that plays music. If you want to carry around (or display) a huge range of pictures very easily then you have a machine that displays pictures. Certainly, not everyone has a need for this, but when my cousin came back from Kenya he carried around a photoframe-like device for a while because it meant he could show people his holiday snaps without either printing off hundreds of pictures of needing to be near a PC. It was very handy. I'm not sure why you object to this.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

Heh. Okay, that's a use of the thing that hadn't occurred to me. So far I've only seen them on people's desks where they just sit there cycling through photos and aren't even looked at -- hence a total waste of everything and just another bit of desk gadgetry.

[andrewducker]

Anything sitting there unobserved is, indeed, a waste of electricity and space. So yeah, ones on desks that are never off are a waste. Probably not any worse than all the energy taken up by people watching awful TV though :->