Clare Townhill

The Hitler Meme

I love this. The first one hit my inbox a couple of months ago. Still going strong, very, very, strong.

Some stats:

Hitler gets banned from Xbox Live: 4,260,975

Hitler finds out Kanye West Disses Taylor Swift: 1,067,024

Usain Bolt Breaks 100m World Record: 1,096,241

Ronaldo leaves Utd: 1,439,671

Hitler Finds Out Sarah Palin Resigns: 497,903

Stats taken on 13 April. Source: YouTube

A pretty thorough review of how this has all unfolded on a global scale here courtesy of the Beeb.

Master of the Nerdiverse

 Old article from Wired about Craig of Craigslist. Still brilliant despite being 5 years old.

'Craig Newmark could become a dot-org millionaire. He'd rather help you find a cheap sublet, a cool job, and maybe even a date.

By Josh McHughPage 1 of 1 

It started as a free email list that tracked art events, job listings, and apartment rentals in San Francisco. Nine years later, craigslist serves 45 cities and has 5 million visitors a month. Now a Web site, it's still mostly free, which may account for the loyalty of craigslisters, who turn to it for everything from finding dates to selling cars and, oh, "lickable boots." Craigslist.org brings in about $7 million a year by charging Bay Area companies for job listings. (This summer it began hitting up New York and Los Angeles employers, too.) But there's a lot of untapped potential - 100,000 new listings a day - and that's making would-be buyers salivate. Wired talked with Newmark about the "Halliburton crime syndicate," his crusade against unscrupulous apartment brokers, and his superhuman ability to resist the pull of filthy lucre.

WIRED: What is craigslist's greatest contribution to society?
NEWMARK: Just by being good guys, we've created a culture of trust and fairness. The site makes it easier for people to get everyday stuff done, like selling things and finding an apartment. Then there's another aspect - it has helped people who have a hard time meeting other people. They're using the site and becoming friends, lovers, and every possible twist on those two situations.

In the late '90s, everyone wanted a piece of craigslist. How many times did you refuse venture capital funding?
Somewhere in the low tens of times. But we needed to stay the course. That's hard to do if someone else owns 51 percent of your shares. On the other hand, I had to take measures to keep myself from going nuts, so in 2000 I hired Jim Buckmaster as CEO, and as a consequence I now own less than 50 percent. It was a good investment.

You've also had a couple dozen buyout offers for craigslist. Aren't you tempted to cash out, move from your foggy neighborhood, and buy an island somewhere?
I admit that when I think of the money one could make from all this, I get a little twinge. But I'm pretty happy with nerd values: Get yourself a comfortable living, then do a little something to change the world.

There must be some little luxury you covet?
Really, the only thing I'm missing in terms of quality of life is a permanent parking space.

I bet Jeff Bezos has a parking space. How would you compare yourself to Amazon's CEO?
Amazon is great. But Jeff decided he wanted to make a business. Craigslist was a happy accident.

What could Bezos learn from craigslist?
I'd like Jeff to listen to customers a little more. I'm a sucker for mystery series, but I still can't get a straightforward list of my favorite stuff. Ninety percent of the function of our site is based on suggestions from users.

Google's touchy-feely corporate mantra is "Don't be evil." What's yours?
Give people a break.

A break from what?
A break from how difficult our lives are. It's like, if you're walking out of your apartment building and somebody is coming the other way with an armful of groceries, you hold the door. It feels good - it's the neighborly thing to do. And our species survives by cooperating.

What poses the major threat to that survival?
Kleptocrats and sociopathic organizations that have the almighty dollar as their only goal.

Are you saying that capitalism is flawed?
We've seen that people in corporations often make moral compromise - what I like to call the Halliburton crime syndicate. They're the epitome of being unfair.

Has anyone made moral compromises that have affected craigslist users?
Apartment brokers in Manhattan.

Now you're talking evil.
They can be very aggressive. We get complaints that they'll list apartments on craigslist as having no fees, then try to extract a fee when people show up. That's a difference of two months' rent.

I've dealt with those folks. They're pretty tough. How do you stand up to them?
I call them. I say this is Craig from craigslist. They say "Oh yeah, and I'm the Easter Bunny."

Then what?
I reason with them. And if that doesn't work, we block their listings.

Does that work?
Well, since we're the most popular listing service there - 800,000 listings a month in the New York metro area - it's effective.

You spend a lot of time on enforcement. Is that why people trust the transactions they make on craigslist as much as those on, say, a cooler-looking site with a fully developed reputation-ranking system?
People can see that when they report a problem to us, we take it seriously. We want life to be fair, even though it's not.

When are you going to run for office?
My focus is on restoring democracy to America. We have to restore the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. That said, I have no interest in running for office. That kind of job sucks.

You're very concerned with upholding ethical standards. What sacred texts shape your worldview?
The songs of Leonard Cohen. John Irving's books.

You're also a cyberpunk buff. How has, say, William Gibson's Neuromancer influenced the way you've run craigslist?
Those books talk about a future that's exciting technologically but darker, where everyday people have less of a voice and are increasingly controlled by big organizations. I figure we can be a counter-example.

At the end of Neuromancer, the hacker cowboy hero gets a huge payday. When's yours?
I'm not in a hurry. Our planning horizon is 200 years, or until the singularity.

Wired Article: Craig of Craigslist: Master of the Nerdiverse

iPods in Afghanistan: a soundtrack for war

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

'Strange Meeting', Wilfred Owen

'Escape in some form or another is never far from the thoughts of a soldier serving overseas. In Strange Meeting, one of Wilfred Owen’s most haunting poems, the only escape from the trenches is a dreamlike death, a measure perhaps of the monotonous horror of the conflict in which he found himself immersed.

In contrast to his 1914-18 predecessor, the British Tommy in Helmand— even on the ever-shifting front line, where he occupies for the night some eerily abandoned compound before pushing on through the green zone the next morning — has a surprisingly wide array of technological means of keeping le cafard at bay hidden somewhere in his backpack.

Soldiers listen to the radio wherever they can get their hands on one and BFBS does sterling work broadcasting to troops from the Falklands to Fallingbostel.

But, I always found it a little cruel that Friday nights, which would otherwise have gone unremarked (as any sense of “weekend” is quickly lost on grinding six-month tours in Iraq and Afghanistan) were given over to long sets of commercial house and euphoric trance music that is being played in the sort of clubs across Europe that we couldn’t have been farther from.

Moreover, with radio you’re dependent on someone else’s playlist, so you crave something a little more personal. Gnarly Ulster veterans smile with fond memories of the early waterproof and shockproof Sony Walkmans but in truth these were too bulky and too battery-hungry to be ideal for anyone pushing too far from base. With the advent of the modern MP3 player, tiny and light with a huge memory and low battery consumption, the infantryman has an ideal companion.

The value of being able to retreat into little white headphones during precious downtime or — for the truly well prepared — to pump out through tinny portable speakers something a little more upbeat for a sunny morning in an FOB lies not just in the distraction from what otherwise might be, at best, monotonous hard work and, at worst, the most intense and extreme experiences of young soldiers’ lives, but beyond that in music’s therapeutic capacity to transport us from wherever we are.

One of the most striking things I took away from my brief experiences of close combat was how similar being ambushed, for example, felt to being in a large nightclub — the overwhelming noise, adrenalin surge, confusion and sensory overload.

Perfect, therefore, that the iPod my team had rigged up to our vehicle would, almost unfailingly, be playing something suitably hardcore when a contact flared up. Until, that is (with a sense of mischief that makes you wonder if there’s something Apple isn’t telling us), we were engaged by the Taleban for about the tenth day in a row and the shuffle function brilliantly selected Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 as we started to return fire.

I found that being able to escape like this was most useful in the long periods spent in a twilight zone of rest. Sleep comes in irregular and ill-timed little chunks to those on operations, and it’s difficult just to drift off out on the roof of some compound, marvelling at a clear night sky and wondering about the enemy, probably trying just as unsuccessfully to get some rest a few hundred metres away.

In such moments, trying to calm down after a long patrol and a big fight or, worst of all, reflecting on comrades on their way home with injuries or worse, the calming effect of a playlist redolent of happier times and home cannot be overestimated.

CNN reported this week that US troops in Afghanistan are falling victim to le cafard. Having been spoilt by the incredible welfare support structures that existed throughout the Iraq war, they had become used to internet links home, daily video calls to loved ones and the comfort and entertainment of a weekly movie night (a treat we Brits were kindly invited to join whenever we were in Camp Shorabak until we spoilt it by stealing all the popcorn).

The austerity of Helmand has taken aback some of the Americans as they readjust to the old-fashioned two-week wait for precious “snail mail”.

But the natural ingenuity of soldiers usually means that, before long, they can find a way to tamper with communications devices, rigging laptops so that DVDs can be watched in short-episode bursts while sharing a single generator point with something more important, or bypassing systems so that signallers can play solitaire to pass the long hours on radio duty.

In the rear, the popularity of handheld games consoles and even larger systems is obvious. Tent buddies club together to buy full-size TVs, a worthwhile investment at the start of a long six months, with bargains to be had in the thriving trade that goes on between incoming and outgoing formations during any handover period. This guarantees that, for at least a couple of hours a week, through a game or a movie, they will be briefly somewhere else.

And out on the line, the guys trying to sleep will, if they’re anything like I was, rely on the iPod shuffle function to throw up more surprises: Girls Aloud as flares light up the evening and the choppers thunder low across the valley. Now that’s what I call escapism.'

How the iPod became essential infantry kit Whether it’s hardcore songs for battle or rigging up a DVD, soldiers in Helmand choose a personal escape route from war

One Nation, Seven Deadly Sins

A geographers methodology for measuring propensity for evil:

Greed was calculated by comparing average incomes with the total number of inhabitants living beneath the poverty line. On this map, done in yellow, Clark County is bile (see map on Page 2).

Envy was calculated using the total number of thefts -- robbery, burglary, larceny and stolen cars. Rendered in green, of course, Clark County is emerald.

Wrath was calculated by comparing the total number of violent crimes -- murder, assault and rape -- reported to the FBI per capita. Vought and his colleagues used the color red to illustrate wrath, so Clark County looks like a fresh welt. Washoe is slightly statistically duller. Everywhere else is a friendly pork pink.

Lust was calculated by compiling the number of sexually transmitted diseases -- HIV, AIDS, syphilis, chlamydia and gonorrhea -- reported per capita. Here again, Clark and Washoe counties are worst. Carson City County is a close third.

Gluttony was calculated by counting the number of fast food restaurants per capita, and this is one category where Clark County is bested. First in deep fry goes to Carson City.

Sloth was calculated by comparing expenditures on arts, entertainment and recreation with the rate of employment. Here again Clark County is beat, scoring only average on the scale of sloth.

And pride, lastly, is most important. The root of all sins, in this study, is the aggregate of all data. Vought and his Kansas colleagues combined all data from the six other sins and averaged it into an overview of all evil. So pride, mapped in purple, shows the states two darkest bruises: counties Clark and Carson City.

Thanks to Alistair for this.

Full slideshows of sins and states here

Butterflies and Benylin

The MET in New York are doing a special season ofmatinee performances streamed live in HD to cinemas around the world. Yesterday, after glugging down a hearty measure of Benylin - noone likes a cougher at the opera - I went to see Madama Butterfly at a sell-out showing at the Imax on Charlie Chaplin Walk. Now, I've never been to the opera (I'm not really sure if I have now) but I will definitley be going to more screenings. It was absolutely wonderful if a little uncanny at times: the audience were dressed for a nght at the opera, we also clapped along with the 'real' audience in New York. We definitely all cried along too. Madama Butterfly sang in New York and cinema audiences wept.
I've put a link to the programme if you fancy a shufty.
Download Madamabutterfly

A Welcome Tweetment

One of the things I enjoy most about the internet as a mass form of communication is its ability to counterbalance: for every site raising money and posting well-wishes for Jade Goody is another taking bets on her death date. And, thankfully for us, for every Twitter there is a FML. F**k My Life is perfect for these troubled times: wince-enducing honesty from its contributors and warm glow of schadenfreude it bestows upon its gleeful voyeurs.

The Dark Side

This morning you need only ask yourself one question: 'Are you ready to become the Queen of Bimbos?!?'

Welcome to Miss Bimbo. Create a virtual doll, keep her 'waif' thin with diet pills and buy her implants and facelifts.

Welcome to Miss Bimbo. Enter the exciting world of the first ever, virtual fashion g-com!
Become the most famous, beautiful, talented, independent and charming bimbo across the globe!

• Find your own cool place to live.
• Find a fun challenging job to pay for your needs - all the clothes an independent Bimbo could possibly want a nice pad and nights out with friends.
• Shop for the latest fashions and become the trendsetting bimbo in town!
• Become a socialite and skyrocket to the top of fame and popularity.
• Date that famous handsome man you've had your eye on and show the Bimbo world the social starlet you are!
• Challenge other bimbos and see whose bimbo is most popular - as voted by other players!
• Do all you can to make it to the top of Bimbo world!
• Tackle your 130 tasks as quick as possible to become the rising star bimbo!!

What are we waiting for girls?

The UK's Digital Obsession

Our digital addiction: 727 hours surfing, 27 phoning and 972 texts
We love camera phones, digital TVs and recorders more than anyone else

'In the heyday of rock music, no stadium gig was complete without a slow number that prompted the crowd to hold aloft their cigarette lighters to create hundreds of flickering points of light. Now the same effect is created by hundreds of people holding up their mobile phones as the audience takes photo after photo to prove they were there.'

Here's the Guardian's opening paragraph on the results of Ofcom's International Communications Audit. Findings reveal that this 'digital-lighter' effect is more likely to occur amongst a British crowd than amongst any other nation. We use our phones as cameras more than any other nation in the world, including Japan.

Here's a link to the key points.

(The picture was taken by me last Thursday at a gig; the little blue lights towards the bottom of the image are digital-lighters/camera-phones)

Mutate Britain

The latest in a series of odd jobs for me this year. Working with my friend Reuben making coffee from a machine stationed in a Russian military side-car. Why? Why to warm the cockles of visitors to the Mutoid Waste show 'Mutate Britain' of course. The exhibition is set in four-floors of warehouse on Curtain Road, there's another private view this Thursday as last weeks opening rather typically forgot to invite any press. The gallery is open for the next three weekends. Well worth a visit.

www.mutatebritain.co.uk

Mystery on Fifth Avenue

Here is another post inspired by last week's Playful Event. I was tempted to call this post 'Rekindling of Faith' which is the feeling I had after hearing Eric Clough talking about his architectural-puzzle-wonder on Fifth Avenue in NY. Eric was commissioned to apply his architectural and design talents to create a 'non-cookie-cutter style apartment' for the Klinsky-Sherry family. What followed was this:

1. The architectural designer Eric Clough embedded 18 clues in the Fifth Avenue apartment of the Klinsky-Sherry family, leading them on a scavenger hunt through the rooms of their home.

But not all at once. One of the things I love about this is the patience, the ability to hold back, wait:

Finally, one day last fall, more than a year after they moved in, Mr. Klinsky received a letter in the mail containing a poem that began:

We’ve taken liberties with Yeats

to lead you through a tale

that tells of most inspired fates

in hopes to lift the veil.

The letter directed the family to a hidden panel in the front hall that contained a beautifully bound and printed book. The book led them on a scavenger hunt through their own apartment.

 

3. A rectangular panel in the den and guest room opens to reveal acrylic slices, far left, that fit together to form a cube. When the chamfered magnetic cube lodged above the slices is dragged over the 24 panels on a nearby wall, they open.

4. Behind the panels, large white letters laser-cut into teal blue acrylic spell out the words of a poem written years ago by Steven B. Klinsky, the apartment's owner, for his wife, Maureen Sherry, and their children.

5. Decorative leather molding stamped with letters in a hallway can be popped out and wrapped around a rod removed from the foot of Ms. Sherry and Mr. Klinsky’s bed so that the letters on the coiled leather spell out a clue.

Here's something else that I love about this story; here's a little piece from the full NYT article:

'Another evening, Ms. Sherry and Mr. Klinsky were lying in their custom-made bed when a rod running along its foot snapped off. “I’m thinking, What the heck kind of cheap bed is this?” said Ms. Sherry, who phoned Mr. Clough the next day.

His response, which might have taken a less adventurous person aback, was that she take a wait-and-see attitude, that the bed bit was part of a larger “story” and that all would be revealed in good time. Oh, and he told her to just snap the piece back into the bed.'

And she did.

6. Behind a drawing of a plane that hangs in a hallway is a little niche containing a scale model of the kitchen, a clue that leads to a musical score written for the apartment, which is hidden in a drawer above the stove.

7. Millwork panels in a hallway were designed to look like Le Corbusier’s Modular Man and da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Puzzle pieces hidden in one fit together to make a key that opens the other.

8. In assembling talents for his project, Mr. Clough aimed high. His first choice for the author of the book that contains clues to the scavenger hunt in addition to the mystery story, was Jonathan Safran Foer, whose work contains its own sort of coded narrative pyrotechnics. Mr. Clough sent him a puzzle cube similar to this one, stamped with his firm’s phone number and the word “Please.”

9. Photographs of the apartment’s original interiors have secret writing on the back that reveals the number of salamanders in the apartment. The salamander is a motif that is part of the puzzle and appears throughout the apartment.

10. Door knockers on opposite walls of a hallway initially seemed pointless. They can be removed and joined to create a crank that opens hidden panels in the dining room sideboard.

11. The custom-made sideboard has hidden panels on either side that can be cranked open to display keys and keyholes.

12. When the correct keys are used, hidden drawers are revealed.

13. The drawers contained acrylic letters and a table-size cloth imprinted with the beginnings of a crossword puzzle. The answers to the crossword puzzle led to the panels in the guest room, behind which were the words of the poem.

14. The children’s bedrooms have radiator covers with poems written specifically for each child cut into them in code. The Caesar Shift cipher in the bedroom of the oldest child, Cavan, was broken by a friend.

All pictures taken from the NYT slideshow 'Cracking the Code'. Full 'Mystery on Fifth Avenue' article and narrative here.

Bloody wonderful.