Oh my god. it’s beautiful and I want one.

I found this after following a link in an article about a Werewolf Hunting Kit on Boing Boing. I normally stay well away from Boing Boing for inspiration, you all read it anyway, but this was too incredible to pass up.

it’s made by Andrew Leman and it’s a a working computer (a mac) based on the computers in Tery Gilliam’s Brazil.

According to Wired Magazine:

“Despite the ridiculous amount of abuse I subjected it to,” Leman says, “and despite the fact that all its components are now exposed to the air, the 1988 Macintosh SE which forms the heart of this piece still works just fine.” The typewriter is a 1923 Underwood, and that’s a working Fresnel lens that can be pulled down over the screen, something early Macs really could have used.

According to Wikipedia, Steampunk is a “subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction which came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy”, and Steampunk objects “employ appropriate materials (such as polished brass) with design elements and craftsmanship consistent with the Victorian era.”

Rich will love this.

Got a ‘Service Message’ type text today from ‘Promo’ which contained a message saying ‘Claim your 1,000 Text Messages! Connect & Collect’ followed by a link.

I had never received a ‘Service Message’ type text before, they come in looking different, and as such might fool you into thinking they are from your service provider. But on calling Vodafone they confirmed it was not from them.

What’s more they advised me to call back on Monday so they could confirm I had not been billed for RECEIVING the message!!! I’m not sure how the hell that could happen, the Vodafone operator was extremely helpful and nice but I was in the middle of something and didn’t have time to chase up the details.

I hope to get more info on Monday when I call to check my Bill.

So don’t be fooled by this type of message - from my chat with Vodafone they reckon if you click on the link you will most likely end up subscribed to a premium rate text service of some kind. I’ll post more info as I get it.

If in doubt call your service provider and ask them if they are running a promotion.

Of course the domain involved was registered through Domains by Proxy, Inc. with GoDaddy… if anyone has any suggestions of how I should proceed, let me know - I’d like to make an official complaint if I can figure out who to complain about!

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.

DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: QQ1.CC

It’s only a matter of time before the Viagra offers start beeping in….

The iPhone. Why did nobody design a phone like this before? Yes, it has issues and the pros and cons are being debated all over the gaff. But just look at the features:

Occasionally you come across something on youtube that you really want to stick on your iPod. Or maybe you come across a video that you just know isn’t going to remain on-line for too long. There are plenty of methods and tools out there to pull down the content and convert it to whatever format you want, but this is by far the handiest method I’ve come across.

You basically just copy and paste the url into the text entry box at the top of the page (not limited to youtube videos), select whether you want it for your ipod, computer or phone, and it does the rest. This makes downloading content a lot more accessible to a lot of people, I can only guess Google or Adobe will find a way to prevent it working either legally or technically, so enjoy it while you can.

Back in the 80’s ‘Max Headroom’ was (supposedly) an animated computer talk show host. The show was successful in the UK. Its origins were in the USA, where the TV/Movie was actually based on a reporter being replaced by a computer generated version of himself. This was set in a TV dominated future world. So much for TV’s dominance, thank you YouTube!

Today we are interacting with computer generated customer service systems and animations. For example AT&T have Ask ‘Allie’, I wouldn’t even click on it again. IKEA have ‘Anna’. I’ve taken the piss out of Anna a lot, due to an IKEA created frustration but there doesn’t seem to be any real AI behind her.

Now we have a truly animated, somewhat AI bot called ‘George’ over at Jabberwacky. The animation is shite but George is based on millions of chat room interactions and mathematical things like algorithms etc. George is learning from human chat interaction all the time. He gives appropriate and somewhat weird answers but can hold a conversation. Hopefully George or his programmer will work out some of our human quirkiness he has inherited over time. (Bif you’re his stunt double! lol) Our near future it seems, will have more intelligent AI’s giving us tech support online, which is good for 24/7 communication. But what do we do with our human frustrations?