Assorted Udderances

Penile plethysmograph

ben — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:44:54 +0000

Good lord; until today, it was a routine practice by a service of the B.C. Ministry for Children and Family Development to assess a convicted sex offender by "attach[ing] a device to his penis [and then] play[ing] images of adults having sex and of naked children while monitoring the youth's level of arousal".

Sounds like something from the early half of this century.

Cow Clicker

ben — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:17:13 +0000

Ian Bogost has created Cow Clicker, a Facebook game in which you get a cow, and can click on it. Six hours later, you can click on it again.

The article is an insightful essay on the cyclical and insipid phenomenon of today's "social gaming".

I post this as a follow-up to earlier linkage of a couple weeks ago, an essay exploring why people play FarmVille. (via Marco)

Bill Murray will see you now

ben — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 18:52:58 +0000

Great interview with Bill Murray by Dan Fierman of GQ.

Interesting – though fitting – that he hates Los Angeles, and purports to have never seen any episodes of Sienfeld except the last (and thought it was terrible).

Alberta family’s cat found in Yukon

ben — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 19:05:55 +0000

I love reading unusual yet oddly heart-warming articles like this, wherein a cat managed to travel over 1100 km north to Whitehorse.

Update: Not two days later, a similar story where a doggie makes his way home over 80 km south to Winnipeg!

Why people play FarmVille

ben — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 18:45:42 +0000

Good essay here on why people are apparently drawn to that Facebook game, and musing on its reflection of our societal problems.

Code that makes any song swing

ben — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 01:00:50 +0000

Some dude has developed a Python tool that will apply a swing rhythm to any waveform. Some nifty examples. Crazy talk.

(via Andrew)

When we were young

ben — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 22:39:07 +0000

What people mis-heard as youngsters. I enjoy.

Elephants Gerald.

My iPad delivery is late

ben — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:14:15 +0000

I pre-ordered an iPad a few weeks ago, and delivery was promised by today coincident with the international launch. I received a shipment notification at the start of the week, and everything looked on track until yesterday when I received an e-mail from Apple stating that "FedEx has informed us that, due to a flight delay, your package will not deliver on May 28th as planned" and will instead arrive, perhaps, on Saturday.

In and of itself this is not really a big deal, and it doesn't make much of a difference to me. However, it rankles for two reasons:

FedEx's own status page, for a full day following this message from Apple, was still advising on-time delivery for May 28 at 12:00 noon. It also detailed a non-sensical and discontiguous itinerary of departures and arrivals between Anchorage, Memphis, and now Mississauga.
Since today is significant only as a marketing date and the shipments were ostensibly ready to go well before this time, Apple could have erred on the side of customer satisfaction and shipped a few days early.

It seems unusual for Apple to over-promise and under-deliver, although its neurosis of trying to orchestrate a precise and coordinated world-wide reveal is unsurprising.

Weird news day

ben — Fri, 28 May 2010 19:01:50 +0000

From the CBC:

Feces-squirting thieves sought in Toronto, after a spate of spraying bank-machine customers with liquid shit and then stealing their money. Bizarre.

And, Gary Coleman was apparently in hospital on life support (update: now dead. RIP.)

Iron Baby

ben — Thu, 27 May 2010 20:07:05 +0000

Awesome short (mock trailer) – IRON BABY: