Monthly Archives: November 2005

Digital Shakespeare

Digi-Shakespeare strikes back

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This is a good one:

find embarrass yours speaking.
hard how here he?
light wife teach pride anything sugar? yours side development parents slow. studied filled thats pretty.
reading evening thats yours speaking allow. black turning suddenly somewhere night?
evening sugar night mentioned edge. disappoint leader commit servants music. nothing rich he music fire?

This is a great example of why I love these things.

For those who weren’t around when I started this, Digital Shakespeare (abbreviated to Digi-Shakespeare or DS) is the name I’ve given to the random-word constructions that are sent to me to sneak malicious pieces of software through my junk mail filter. Every email has a small attachment but I’m damned if I’m opening them to find out what they are! Initially the words appeared in three-line verses, resembling haikus, but more recently I’ve been getting five-line constructions.

They are, of course, just random collections of words, but there is frequently enough of a link to assume that there is some sort of English language filter somewhere in the viral program that defines the way a sentence should look and so picks related words to form the poems… And they do often read like poems.

I really enjoy the challenge of approaching and interpreting a poem that has no author. Sometimes they have a strong sense of melancholy, as if DS were really alive somewhere in the network of computers and trying to communicate. It’s a thought experiment really, and an enjoyable one. I think it does us good to look at the world with the assumption that art can be everywhere and that it doesn’t have to be something man-made.

I think today’s DS poem is one of my favourites so far and definitely the best five-line one I’ve seen. Interestingly, this one didn’t fool my junk mail filter, so obviously there is a mini-war happening between the two systems, the author virus and the defence program. For me, the best section has got to be ‘black turning suddenly somewhere night?’ I’ll be honest here and say that I would have been quite proud of that line if I had written it. I can imagine this one being read out in all seriousness in a jazz bar somewhere, heads nodding appreciatively.

Stuff

Are you a B.L.O.T.O. shopper?

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Apparently seven per cent of British people know someone who has shopped online while drunk, in a syndrome with the catchy acronym BLOTO, or Buying Loads Of Tat Online, and six per cent ‘know someone’ who has shopped online while naked.

I think that there is a slight inaccuracy coming through in these figures, because I think that most people have bought something rubbish online while a bit tipsy, and most people with a private internet connection have probably been online naked, even if it’s just while waiting for a bath to run. I think the true reading should be that seven per cent of British people admit to buying rubbish online while drunk.

Source article here.

Stuff

Walk like an Egyptian zombie thing…

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Well… Walk like a mummy, but in modern clothing… Okay, that was just a rubbish excuse for a catchy topic title.

http://www.zombiewalk.com/forum/

Zombiewalk.com organise get-togethers of people who dress up like zombies them shamble through cities scaring the bejeezus out of everyone. Personally I have a bit of a fear of zombies (it’s more rational than having a fear of spiders – spiders are all over the place so being afraid of them is just impractical!), but the whole idea sounds very amusing to me!


Here’s a great photo of a recent walk. Doesn’t it look fun? If anyone decides to go along to one of these please take some photos and let me see them!

Weird science

1.5 million great grandchildren*

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*plus a few more ‘greats’.

Through studying genetics in China they’ve found that one chap from the beginning of the Qing dynasty, 500 years ago, is the direct ancestor of 1.5 million people today. Blimey!

He is thought to have been from the Qing dynasty ruling class, so had many wives and concubines, whose offspring stood a good chance of survival due to the status of their father, and so on through the ages.

With ruling-class families that size it’s no wonder that religion is banned by the communist state, can you imagine the number of presents you’d have to give out at times religious celebrations? The list of your relatives would take all year just to write out, nothing would ever get done, the whole country would fall into disrepair, and the west would have to spend more money on their clothes. On the bright side, card manufacturers would do extremely well out of it.

A slightly more serious version of events can be found here.

Cool things

Make your own music station

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Here’s a nice little idea:

http://www.pandora.com/

You type in the name of a band that you like then they generate a streaming radio station with tracks that are similar to the band that you like. You get ten hours free, after that you have to pay, but I think it’s a really neat idea, and the application of it is brilliant. Give it a try next time you fancy some tunes.