Nancy’s Blog

Hear it performed!

Say a prayer for all the lost information. / Fight the growing entropy. / We’re on the lookout for divine confirmation; / But you know that things aren’t always what they seem. / If you believe in ancient wisdom, / Then gather up the knowledge still around. / When you receive it, check the checksum; / Make sure it’s what they really handed down. / Say a prayer for all the lost information. / Face the growing apathy. / An endless war rages against degradation / As distant as the local library. / If you believe in ancient wisdom, / Accumulate the knowledge that you’ve found. / When you receive it, check the checksum; / Make sure it’s what they really handed down.

I’m not saying it’s good, just that it exists.

In the video store the other day — 2 little girls about 4 and 5. The older one was holding a video (I couldn’t see what it was) and, hitting it with each word, said loudly and intensely: “Bam, bam, Walmart!”  The littler one took the video and repeated.

Billy and Lucy contemplate

Originally uploaded by NVH

Some of these are very funny (though many are not — we are dealing with amateurs, after all). The idea is to be filmed (often in a public place, like on the subway) “singing” along to music on your MP3 player, and then add the music to the video before posting it.  Go to vimeo.com and search for clips tagged “lip dubbing” — works best on a high speed connection (with sound on).  Joining helps — my DLS at home worked better when I joined and could get rid of the animated ads, so the bandwidth was devoted to the clips, but was much better where I first saw it, with a faster connection.

Here’s an example from Jakob Lodwick who I think started this:
http://vimeo.com/clip:144562

Or — you don’t have to SING, just do SOMETHING. See http://vimeo.com/clip:138598

Thanks to mroth for telling me about this.

Gmail’s newest service: gmail paper.

(April fool’s from Gmail.)

Lucy’s favorite channel is Animal Planet

Originally uploaded by NVH.

Animal Planet’s counter-Superbowl programming was a day (not just a few hours) of Puppy Bowl III. The hafltime show was the Kitty Show.  Yes, she does watch TV.  Chases things that move on the screen.

It’s not just elders who could use this…

Interpretive Flexibility: the laptop as cat bed

Originally uploaded by NVH.

Infinite cat

Originally uploaded by NVH.

Or, why I’m not getting any work done just now.

Video of embarrassing attempted-demo of Microsoft’s new speech recognition system: http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/08/03/dear-aunt-lets-set-so-double-the-killer-delete-select-all/