Category: Entertainment

The early ’90s sci-fi novel Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson, has found a second life, as a readable virtual book, in SecondLife (SL). The ground-breaking novel, with its Metaverse virtual world that mirrored the real one, was one of the inspirations for SecondLife, so it’s especially poignant to have it show up there as a virtual book. W. James Au, an “embedded journalist” working in SL, explains the book’s upcoming e-publication:

“The SL edition was created with the approval of Stephenson himself, then brought in-world by Fizik Baskerville of UK virtual world branding company Rivers Run Red, working with Penguin, Stephenson’s publisher.

“”We have only two hundred of them,’ Baskerville tells me, after offering an advance peek at the SL edition Snowcrash. ‘One is going in the Welcome Area. The others will be ‘lottery’ picks for discerning communities.’

“The SL edition, it should be said, only contains the book’s first forty pages, displayed on an accompanying HUD, with buttons to launch an hour of the book’s audio recording (or an ambient music channel for background reading music), and a button that launches a web browser, taking you straight to the Amazon page where you can buy the full version.”

James’s posting goes on to include a story about another Linden Labs employee’s encounter with Stephenson where he appeared dramatically under-enthused with the idea of a real-world answer to his fictional Metaverse. Worth checking out.

Interesting piece on Ars Technica about Verizon’s recent announcement that it will be offering free game server hosting as part of its PlayLinc service:

“PlayLinc was designed by Super Computer International, in which Verizon now owns a stake, and the client allows gamers to chat (using VoIP or AOL instant messaging), browse for game servers, manage teams, and launch games. But the real surprise is that the client also allows gamers to configure and launch their own servers for popular games—free of charge.”

They add:

“The servers can be made private or public, depending on whether you want to shoot at people you know or people you don’t know.”

Read the rest of the piece here.
Read the WSJ’s take here (paid sub required)

Boing Boing hipped us to a hysterical Channel 101 series called Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager. So far, there are two episodes about Chad, Darth’s slighty less ambitious brother, who’s had to don the familar black cyborg suit after a particularly nasty bicycle accident. When he gets a job as the day manager of a grocery store, hilarity ensues. I had some really good laughs with this one. Definitely worth the download time.

Here’s the link to Episode 1.
Here’s the link to Episode 2.

I just got a note from Netflix that they’ll be putting on an outdoor screening of the crapclassic Warriors on August 2nd at the Asser Levy Amphitheater in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Yeah, I’m looking forward to the trip home after that show….

Check out Netflix Roadshow to see if some outdoor screenings are coming to your locale this summer.

PVRWire links to an “interesting” article from Canada about a CBS research exec giving a presentation to a luncheon of TV critics. In the presentation the exec cites a bunch of stats on digital video recorder usage. The article doesn’t say where the research comes from. Here are a few highlights (taken from the PVRWire piece):

* The public is adopting DVRs at a slower rate than some observers predicted, and the idea that a DVR revolution would sweep away the networks’ scheduling power has “been thoroughly discredited.”
* DVR penetration in the United States is at 12% to 15% of households, versus 8% last year. The prediction is for steady growth to 20% and then a slowdown.
* DVR-equipped viewers of the big four U.S. networks still watch 90% of their shows live, although this figure drops to 82% for prime time.
* Sixty-six per cent of viewers who have recorded a show on DVR watch it by 6 a.m. the next morning, and 80% watch within two days.
* Overall viewership of cable and network TV is a roughly even split, but people with DVRs record 77% of their shows from the networks and only 23% from cable.

We’d be interested to know how this data tracks with Street Tech readers who have DVRs. I watch almost nothing live, altho for things like the evening news, I watch on about a 20 minute delay so I can FF commercials. I rarely watch a show that I’ve recorded the same night I’ve recorded it, but I do watch it within 2-3 days after recording. I definitely record more cable shows than network. How about you?

Personally, I wasn’t very impressed with that folk ditty a MySpacer did in response to Ted Stevens’s bizarre explanation for how the Internet works (which one blogger aptly described as “Flinstonian”). This techno video remix, using a lot of vintage tech imagery, is more like it.

If you really want to short your circuits (and raise your panic level over this guy being in a position of power concerning the internets), check out this longer Senate floor babaloney from Stevens, laid over swirly graphics and trip-hoppy beats.

Oh, now THIS I need to have. If you’re gonna go wacky with the useless USB widgetry, why not bring office security and Federal law enforcement down on your ass in the process? This official-looking Big Red Button has the…ah… necessary security key and safety toggle switches you’d expect, and a protective cover over The Button so that you don’t let the missiles fly (hallelujah, hallelujah) until you’re ready. If the need to go “nucular” does arise, the unit counts out a four-minute beep sequence so you have time to get to the Executive Bomb Shelter. As The Reg points out: “The unit… conveniently doubles as a four-port USB hub during peacetime.” It’s expected to go on sale later this month in Japan and cost around US$45.

Thanks, Jay!

You’ve got to love it when a NewScientist headline reads:

Einstein in no-sock shock

Nitrozac and Snaggy offer their advice for turning Microsoft’s much-blogged-about wireless media player into the “iPod killer” in their latest Joy of Tech comic.

Here’s a very cool retro-futuristic way of sending a message to someone, send them a Retro-Gram. Choose which style of “telegram” you want, enter in your message, and pay the nice telegraph operator US$3.95. They’ll print out your ‘gram, in all of its blue ink, crummy manual typewriter chic, and mail it to the recipient, through good ol’ parcel post (you remember parcel post, don’t you?). For free, you can fill out online retro-grams that get sent as PDFs via email.