Just got sent this footage of a train which runs directly through the middle of a market in Bangkok (found on Break.com). Although it doesn’t go particularly fast, it smacks of health and safety issues. no mention of which market it is in Bangkok, drop me a line if you know…
You need to watch the video to the end (it’s only forty seconds long) to fully appreciate it; the market stall holders immediately re-setting up their stands and resuming trade - brilliant stuff.
I read on Yahoo today that a Chinese guy from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou died after playing internet games for three consecutive days! Wow - playing games for three days solid without sleep, that’s hardcore dedication. No mention of what the game was, it would sure be interesting to know (aswell as knowing which avatar he chose).
Maybe one to add to the wikipedia list of unusual deaths? (which is well worth a read if you’ve never seen it before). It’s an article which made me think about my own death - when will I die? How will I die? How would I want to die?
And then I started thinking about life again - what exactly is it that I want to accomplish before I die? Would I happy with my life if I died tomorrow? Anyway, no internet gaming for me for a while, so it goes.
One of the most exciting aspects of people being able to come together via the internet is choosing an avatar to represent you in an online world (once you’ve managed to choose the online world you wish to inhabit that is, there are over 120 according to wikipedia at the time of writing).
My last article was on body modifications - when the body you’re modifying is made of pixels, well, I guess the modification is going to be a whole lot quicker, easier, cheaper and versatile. I was recently given a great book on this subject - Alter Ego; Avatars and their creators. It explores the identities of a few chosen characters who inhabit such metaverses - who are they, where do they live, what do they do for a living and crucially, why did they choose the online world that they did, and what drew them to their character?
The book shows a photograph of the person on one page, with their avatar on the opposite page, here is my favourite, Jason Rowe from Crosby in Texas:
From the book: “in Star Wars Galaxies I can ride an Imperial speeder bike, fight monsters, or just hang out with friends at a bar”. That’s just so cool - good work Jason (Rurouni Kenshin), maybe I’ll meet you online one day…
Great article over on Deputy Dog a couple of weeks ago - the “Top 10 physically modified people”, including the person who struck me most, Kala Kaiwi:
I think that there is more to the post than merely being freaked-out/laughing at people who look very different. There are two points here for me personally.
The first is around the how - how exactly do these people accomplish some of their mods in the first place? There’s some serious surgery going on for some of these modifications, and some logistical/ergonomic issues surrounding the various spikes/piercings/hoops/tats etc.
The second is of course around the why - why exactly would you spend time (and money!) to achieve this kind of look? (a look that most people find pretty disturbing). Judging from the comments, a lot of people have some very strong (mainly negative) views about such drastic physical bodily modifications.
Personally, I think these people are GREAT. Granted, they may scare kids, and most probably the occasional adult too, but I think it’s fantastic that (a) we have the ability to perform such mods in the first place, and (b) that they’ve got the courage to be at the leading edge of such a practice (the leading edge of anywhere is a pretty exciting place to be dontchathink?).
May there someday be a time when we all look exactly how we want to look…
I only just learnt that there is a word which describes the mis-hearing of a phrase, in such a way that it acquires a new meaning. The word is “mondegreen” and it is itself a mondegreen. The American writer Sylvia Wright coined it in an essay “The Death of Lady Mondegreen”, which was published in Harper’s Magazine in November 1954.
On the Ning Nang Nong Where the cows go Bong!
And the monkeys all say Boo!
There’s a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping
And the tea pots Jibber Jabber Joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang!
And you just can’t catch ‘em when they do!
So it’s Ning Nang Nong!
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning!
Trees go Ping!
Nong Ning Nang!
The mice go Clang!
What a noisy place to belong,
Is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!
Which was came top in a poll of the UK’s favourite poems according to this 1998 BBC article.
If you’re ever stuck for something to do, there’s worse things to do than attempting to escape from the Minotaur’s maze, in this neat game by Toby Nelson.
The modern day equivalent of browsing through a book of interesting facts (Guiness book of records, Schott’s miscellany etc.), is surfing sites like wikipedia for interesting articles, Flickr and Photobucket for interesting photos, and social networking sites for people you know.
I reckon we can add one more to the list - surfing through the facebook “Common Interest - Beliefs and Causes” groups (they tend to be more interesting than the other groups).
Here’s a collection of ten such groups that caught my little pigeon eye recently…
