The New Wikipedia Gotcha Tool

Via the WIRED blog Threat Level, the Wikipedia Scanner tracks changes to Wikipedia and the originating IP of those edits.

A few items that I found interesting:

• someone at the neo-conservative "think" tank, the American Enterprise Institute (right around the corner, literally, from my office - I can feel the evil sometimes), contributed some nice embellishments of the entry for David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter.
• ADM trumpeting their development of some kind of bio-degradable plastic.
• Best Buy, defending their shitty employees and even shittier service plans and business practices.

Fun stuff, eh?

Geekotourism

Here's a brief vacation guide for your inner geek. I would argue that a trip to CERN is easily the geekiest on this list. As for me, it would be a tough choice between the New Zealand LOTR locations and Chernobyl. But if I honestly had to choose between nuclear radiation and Hobbits, I'd probably pick Hobbits nine times out of ten.

Interested in Destroying the Planet?

Not so fast! You should read this first.

KSR Redux, Calling all Kinetinauts

A few weeks late, but here's a quick recap of the Kinetic Sculpture Race. It was a long and tiring day of volunteering, but Jenny and I both had a great time, and would definitely do it again next year [but for other plans, potentially - see below]. From the opening ceremonies - the Star-Spangled Banner sounds pretty good on kazoo! - to lavish and grotesque trophies at the very irreverent award ceremony, it was a blast.

There were really no surprises when it came to my tasks at the mud pit: go to pile of dirt, wet dirt, rake/shovel, repeat. We didn't snare as many sculptures as we would have liked, but we did have a very strong, vocal crowd of a few-hundred spectators, most of them rooting for the sculptures while we secretly rooted for the mud. We really are kind of the bad guys of the race, and I know that we all heartily enjoyed that role. Jenny and I also met some fantastic people amongst our fellow volunteers; in retrospect we wish we would have gotten better (read: any!) contact information for them. I feel obliged to link to one of the web sites of an artist and fellow mud-connoisseur, both because she was so friendly and because her latest project is so cool.

We'll have some photos up before too long on Jenny or my Flickr pages (or on both), but until then here are the official race photos and re-cap.

Looking forward to the 2008 KSR, which will be the tenth running of the Baltimore edition of the race, we're thinking why volunteer if we could be competing instead? Competing might be the wrong word for a "race" with the grand prize going to the team that finishes in the middle, but you know what I mean. So take a look at the race web site, read through the rules, and then let us know if you're interested in being on the team. We're going to have to start building this summer, and all we're starting with are a few solid ideas, plus our soaring dreams of artistic and kinetic adequacy. No really, we are serious about this, please let us know if you want in.

Borat as Art, Geekiest Credit Card Ever?

A Canadian artist is producing a series of Borat portraits. Cool? I think so, but what do I know. Strange? Well, he's producing 999 of them in the series, that's kinda weird.

Meanwhile, in consumerland, World of Warcraft obsessives finally have their own credit card. If I were still playing....sorry, still wouldn't sign up. I'm already enough of a geek, in my own manner, without broadcasting it to cashiers everywhere.

Uncomfortable Questions

Was the destruction of the Death Star an inside job? Even so many years after the fact, many questions remain.