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Webitz - Checking out the Web from an amateur's point of view
New Zealand filmmaker Peter Jackson, of The Lord of the Rings fame, may well be interested in an exhibit at Auckland’s Museum of Transport and Technology, since it has such close links with his up and coming remake of The Dam Busters.
On display is one of the two known original and complete Differential Analysers left in the world. These machines, an analogue forerunner of the modern computer, were used for a variety of computational purposes such as creating artillery firing tables and calculating soil erosion. Strangely enough, this surviving model happens to be the one that Barnes Wallis used to help design his famous bouncing bombs for the attack by the Dam Busters on German hydro electric dams.
In an ironic coincidence, this machine was brought to New Zealand in 1950 and used to help build the Benmore Hydro Dam. By contrast, it was also used to calculate the extent of the rabbit problem in New Zealand! After years of not disuse it came to MOTAT in the 1970s, was
restored, and is now the centerpiece of an exhibition entitled Machines that Count.
For those who remember the days before Lego was king of the building blocks, there was a building system for children known as Meccano. Many adults used it as well, and curiously enough, the Differential Analyser is primarily made – apart from ground glass integrators and some cord - of Meccano parts. It was built by J B Bratt at the Cambridge University in 1935.
Those who want to know how the Differential Analyser works, and who are technically minded, can read an excellent article on line by William Irwin of the NZ Federation of Meccano Modellers.
I read in the Guardian yesterday that someone had used a digital camera to photograph all 600 pages of the latest Harry Potter in order to put it on the Net. What were they thinking of? Quite apart from the risk of being caught and convicted of a crime – theft, I imagine – who did they imagine would want to read a 600 page book on their computer? Or print out the 600 pages? It would be cheaper to wait another day and buy the book.
I’ve had a copy of Harry Potter since
yesterday, and I’m a pretty quick reader, but even I have had to take frequent breaks. Holding the book up while sitting, or leaning over reading it at a table – neither of these, or any other ways of sitting reading, are comfortable over a long stretch. Reading a book off the computer would drive me crazy.
I can’t read anything substantial on the computer. Even with relatively short articles I tend to skim a lot, something I don’t do anywhere near as much with books.
I’ve yet to meet anyone who feels comfortable reading for any length of time at a computer. The angles just don’t seem right. Staring straight ahead of you while reading means you have to sit up straight, or else eventually you get into a slouch position and your back starts to ache. Your neck is at an uncomfortable angle. To me it’s the equivalent of the posture hundreds of students in Guinea have to adopt when studying. (Pardon me if it wasn’t Guinea; I got the information secondhand when looking at the picture.)
In the picture I saw of these students they’re sitting at the airport studying because that’s one of the few places where the electricity is on continually. I admire their stamina and determination. It’s great. But the posture they have to adopt is one of sitting up straight because the seats (whatever sort they are) have no backs. The books and materials are on their lap, meaning they have to lean over to read. These people are doing it because it’s their best choice. If you give me the choice between reading at a computer and reading the old-fashioned way, from a book, give me the latter anytime.
The great picture comes from a blog called The Ergonomenon - where human meets machine.
Wow, no more sitting around researching for me! I can get Wikipedia, the fount of all knowledge to do it for me.
In one of Jurgen Wolff’s recent short articles, he mentions Wikipedia’s new mindmapping tool. I’ve always been a fan of mindmapping, though I haven’t always taken the time to use it properly. Nevertheless, it remains a creative thinking approach that I know works – as opposed to some other creative thinking approaches that don’t work for me at all, including many of de Bono’s methods (Six Thinking Hats and such.) Maybe I’ve never given de Bono’s methods enough time, or maybe they’re better used with a group of people, in a brainstorming arena.
Anyway, back to the Wikipedia tool. Whatever you think of it, or of mindmapping, there’s no doubt that firstly this is a lot of fun, secondly it really does take you off in interesting directions research-wise, and thirdly, it shows that Wikipedia isn’t just a huge number of web pages that contain useless information. Everything I turned up was well laid out and informative.
It’s called the WikiMindMap and tends to default to the German version, something I didn’t realise until I’d tried a couple of entries. However, the English version is second in line, and there are several other languages available as well.
While I was trying to remind myself of de Bono’s name (I find names don’t zip to the front of my brain as readily as they used to do), I put in red hat, and Six Thinking Hats was one of 14 possibilities that came up, including biretta, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Kagyu (a Buddhist idea which I haven’t had time to check out as to how it relates to a red hat yet), the US Air Force (do they wear red hats?) and the Red Hat Society.
And it doesn’t stop there. Each item that turns up is itself a mindmap to other subjects. When you click a little green button it will take you to a new mindmap with new possibilities. And running your mouse over the main subject gives you more information, so that you can decide whether it’s worth pursuing further.
A great toy!
How long will the Internet remain a place where freedom abounds?
In the seaside resort of Xiamen, in China, people posting on blogs, websites and chat sites will soon have to sign their full names and provide information from their identity cards. This has come about because of significant opposition to a local chemicals plant by thousands of
demonstrators who were mobilized by mobile phone text messages and an internet-based campaign.
The new law goes by the absurd name of The Measures for Management and Disposition of Harmful and Unhealthy Information on the Internet, and its instigator, a certain Tian Feng, the vice-director of the Xiamen Bureau of Industry and Commerce, has boasted that the prosperous city of Xiamen is the first in the whole of China to do this
[ Click here to read more ]
Here’s something for the greenies to shout about. Sainsbury’s, one of the biggest supermarket chains in the UK, has begun trialling an American invention to make use of the energy generated by the thousands of vehicles that pass by its depot in Northampton. The Dragon Power System uses plates in the road to capture the energy produced by vehicles as they drive over them. The energy gained is then used produce up to two percent of the electricity required each day by the company. A single truck running over the plates is reckoned to produce more than three kilowatts per hour. Because thousands of vehicles pass by the depot each year, the company expects to produce enough energy to boil 5.7 million kettles - of particular importance in the UK tea-drinking society. Hopefully the energy will go to other things besides keeping kettles hot, but it’s a start.
Trucks provide the most energy because of their weight, and weight is what makes the system work. Even vehicles moving slowly have an impact, as do those idly over the plates.
Originally found in The Northampton Herald & Post, Thursday 5th July, 2007.
[ Click here to read more ]
I’ve always been interested in art galleries and museums whenever I travel anywhere, so it was good to discover that I could ‘travel’ to a large number of them from my chair at home (or from anyone else’s home as happens to be more the case at the moment) by using my computer.
The Museum of Online Museums is hosted by coudal.com (coudal’s own site is well worth visiting for its variety of ideas and artistic approaches) and it lists some hundred sites around the world. Most of them are in English, but occasionally
there’s one in a foreign language, like the Dexia Art Gallery in Belgium, or Toutes les autos de Tintin. (Go on, you can translate it easily!)
The wealth of artistic material available online has to be seen to be believed. I don’t know when I’ll get time to work my way through all these sites, but it would prove to be a worthwhile experience. Maybe a site a day is the way to go! (especially while I’m on holiday
[ Click here to read more ]
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213 Posts dating from January 2007
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restored, and is now the centerpiece of an exhibition entitled Machines that Count. 
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