The Search for Intelligence on the Internet: My man Mark Rayner plugs the numbers into the Drake equation, predicts that there should be 2.7 intelligent blogs in cyberspace. Keep watching the skies!
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This is the online home of Rob MacDougall, historian and robot fancier. -
The Good Old
A few of my favorites:
- Hit By A Fish
“You will be stabbed with ten swords! Then given seven coins! Then you will become a juggler! Then you will die!”
- France part Un: Le Vrai Thing
How we accidentally dined at the best restaurant in the world.
- Gakutensoku
Japanese robots and the gaijin who keep stealing them. Plus blood sacrifice by index card to begin the information age.
- All That Camp
Write up and reflection on THATCamp 2008, an excellent “unconference” on digital technology and the humanities.
- Bon Appetit
The cat eater and cannibal who gave the world “Ta-ra-ra boom-de-ay!”
- Hit By A Fish
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The New Old
Most recent posts:
- That Is All
Is John Hodgman the last observer of Gilded Age telephone etiquette? I WOULD NOT PUT IT PAST HIM.
- All That Camp
Write up and reflection on THATCamp 2008, an excellent “unconference” on digital technology and the humanities.
- THATCamp
I’m psyched for this weekend’s digital humanities conference but feel a bit the phony.
- Light in Captivity
Just a cool little story about electrification from the early days of the USSR.
- On A Planetary Scale
Synopsis of my new course on science, technology, and global history.
- That Is All
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The Old Old
In loose Borgesian categories:
- Academia
- Alternate History
- Asides
- Ben Franklin
- Blogging
- Books
- Canadian Content
- Carnivals
- Comics
- Concept Courses
- Cranks
- Daddyhood
- Digital History
- Early Internets
- Eye Candy
- Favorites
- Found History
- Games and Gaming
- Geek Archaeology
- Gilded Age
- GTD
- History@Play
- LiveJournal
- Old Blog
- Old Weird America
- Real Life
- Robots
- Robots Prepare To Torch Gene Autry
- Russia is Neat
- Science!
- Squirrels
- Teaching
- Technology
- Telephony
- Travel
- TV
- Visualization
- War and Peace
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Seek!
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The New New
Interwob links to confound and bemuse:
Depends. Is Hayden Christensen In It?
“Would you rather go see the latest Star Wars movie, or a giant card catalog?” NYT on the Mundaneum, the cardboard internet noted here a few months ago.Lousy Cheapskates
Guess my so-called friends were outbid: that first telephone book sold for $170,500. I would have “settled” for the ENIGMA machine which went for $104,500.City of Shadows
Long-exposure photographs of St. Petersburg turn the bustle of urban crowds into beautiful shoggoths of human smoke.My Name Is Charles Guiteau
Garfield without words was inspired. Garfield without Garfield was, I thought, kinda gilding that lily. But Garfield plus Garfield is the winner.Shan Carter and Amanda Cox Have A Posse
Another swell interactive graphic from the people who did the box office one, this time showing demographic margins for Clinton and Obama.Good Luck Getting the DeLorean to 88 MPH
Tyler Cowen and his readers discuss survival tips in case you are unexpectedly stranded in the year 1000 AD. Would it surprise you to learn that I think about this all the time?Oral History of the Internets
Because I get all my history of technology from Vanity Fair. (No, actually, it’s not half bad.)Captured Monsters
“Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee…” A blog of stills from old monster movies.The Financephalograph
Your war bonds at work: Brett Holman at Airminded follows up my link to MONIAC with more history, smart analysis, and lots of pictures.The Telectroscope
It’s no giant mechanical elephant (what is?), but, yes, the telectroscope is wicked boss keen. Once again, I live in the wrong London. Some Of Our Corky Chums
- Chapati Mystery
Decolonize your head: Sepoy & his fellow mutineers blog about South Asia's past, Pakistan's future, and everything else worth knowing. - Imaginary Vestibule
Movies, roleplaying, and the indispensable Heroes punch-in-the-face index. - Voyages Extraordinaires
Scientific romance, retro-futurism, gothic horror, pulp fiction, imperialist adventure, &c. - The Daily Kraken
Nick Milne is far too grumpy, pious, and erudite to be a member of his generation. But he is a delight to read. - Uncovering Information Labor
Greg Downey's scholarly blog on information/communication technology, knowledge production, and the lived world of human labor.
- Chapati Mystery
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Behind the Curtain
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© 2001–2007 Rob MacDougall
5 responses so far ↓
1 Jeffwik // May 13, 2008 at 9:37 am
Rookie mistake! Unit analysis error!
6e6 websites per year times a lot of unitless numbers times 3e0 months equals not 2.7 websites but 2.7 website-months per year. Divide by 12 months in a year for the actual value.
2 Rob // May 13, 2008 at 9:48 am
So at any given time there should be ~0.225 intelligent weblogs out there? That sounds more accurate.
3 Jeffwik // May 13, 2008 at 10:22 am
About a one in five chance that, at any given time, there is an intelligent blog somewhere in the Internet, yeah.
4 Brett // May 13, 2008 at 10:25 am
We have the technology! Let’s set up SITI@home and start looking for them in earnest.
5 Foxtown // May 13, 2008 at 11:30 am
/smile
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