In the early evening, a great number of Radio 4′s listeners are vehicle-bound commuters, making their weary way home. The Radio 4 news marathon starts in earnest at 5pm and continues for 90 minutes until 6:30pm when the importance of global wrangling is put to one side, and half an hour of lighter entertainment begins, enabling daddies, mummies, husbands and wives to arrive home with a less furrowed brow!

In the moments between the news ending and the next programme being announced there is a short Schroedinger’s pause, where all the possible following programmes exist in equal probability of being aired. During that period, I’ve never once hoped for anything but I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.

In millions of cars, in many thousands of commuter traffic jams, over many many years, the welcoming monologue of the show’s host, Humphrey Lyttleton, has never once failed to crack through the countless grey immovable faces of travel tedium and raise the warmest smile.

Humph was taken ill last week and died this morning. In life, is impeccable comedic timing was rare. He specialised in the silly and the unexpected, giving just enough opportunity to appreciate the gravity or sincerity of his sentiments, before deftly revealing a surprise ending. He’ll be missed for all the right reasons. Thanks for the laughter Humph.

Kick-Off

To get the members of this alliance acquainted all of the the sales force, and technical consulting groups were invited to gather at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, near Route 101, just south of San Francisco airport. This involved considerable expense, flying the small consulting groups in from all over the USA, from Europe, the far east, and even Australia. It was, without doubt, an expensive and important shindig.

So, we flew in, we transferred, we checked in and headed for the bar. Our bodies were telling us it was midnight, but the wallclock said 4pm, we had to stay awake, so social interaction provided safety in numbers, and beer helped explain the woozy disjointed feeling of a timezone shift.

A corporate kickoff is a very special time if you’re a consultant because you get the opportunity to meet people who have only ever been email addresses up to that point. In many cases these email addresses have been really helpful and you owe them a pint for their troubles, or vice versa. This can result in the corporate kickoff being a rather happy and celebratory affair.

Added to this mixture was the fact that there were a whole bunch of new people to meet and politely buy drinks for, and vice versa, and, well, you can see how things might expand to the point where, upon counting the empty bottles the next morning, one could be forgiven for thinking that the hot-tub had played host to several hundred people until well after 4am; all supping on cold beers gazing at the stars and wondering if there is a better or happier place anywhere in the world.

Not everyone can make it for the first night of course, so it would be churlish not to welcome the late comers with similar bonhomie, so generally every night is party night.

The Auditorium

Picture the scene then on the first morning after: 9am in an auditorium below the hotel, the lights are mercifully dimmed and an expectant hush descends on the seated crowd, a great number of whom are rather hungover having continued the celebration with the email-addresses-made-flesh and new-best-friends until the bitter end, because it would be rude to duck out on such a good vibe.

This is an audience that has pulled itself from a strange bed, eaten a strange breakfast, had a strange hot brown beverage, and is strangely out of sorts due to an ill advised combination of timezones and alcohol.

Nobody is quite prepared for the audio visual assault of a max-volume inspirational music video projected onto the 50 food screen above the stage.

Know How

The offending audio-visual feast was called “Know-How”, a specially penned ditty describing “the truth in the net economy” and “technology borderin’ on mythology”, it was made for this specific occasion.

Whoever commissioned it had not bargained on the two companies being so friendly and generous around the bar the previous night.

During the following two and a half minutes, the entire assembled auditorium first wondered if there was a quieter and happier place anywhere in the world, then made an honest resolution to never ever drink alcohol again, then realised that they might need alcohol to get over what they were witnessing and resolved to drink more, as soon as the bar reopened.

It was seat gripping stuff, and pop-music dynamite, but, a typically bad corporate anthem. “Bad” because corporations should not force phrases like “right on course, primary source, in a technology evolution” into pop tunes. “Pop-music dynamite” because it was…

Some years later, I heard a song by an American performer called Justin Timberlake, and couldn’t help but notice the similarity. I remarked upon it to a couple of ex-netscape folk at the time, but without being able to compare the tracks we never really got to point the finger.

MC Sun|Netscape Alliance vs Justin Timberlake

Then today I found a copy of the video on an old hard-drive; so here, for your enjoyment, is the track in its entirety.

Without the volume and the hangover it’s entirely palatable, though still remarkably bad, and thanks to the wonders of you-tube, I can now compare and contrast the aforementioned Justin Timberlake track too.

They are remarkably similar, so I’m assuming that the guitar riff must be sampled from a common source – or was Justin Timberlake a secret Sun|Netscape Alliance fan?

[Update: The video is no longer embeddable, probably for copyright reasons, so it's available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cPQ75fgWhk ]

Jedi leaders from Coruscant to Endor say its teachings prevent its masters placing children with lifeform collectives that only comprise one or two genders and have threatened to close their adoption centres if bound by the Imperial Senate’s rules.

The Equality Act, due to come into effect in all star systems this April (no matter how far they are from the bright centre of the Universe) outlaws discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services on any basis to any lifeform (excluding droids); so families with any number of genders will be able to adopt, even those with only one or two.

Jedi Master Leia Skywalker and a counterpart in The Empire, Grand Admiral Nooka, have written to Galactic Senator Shubi. They say “rights of conscience are insignificant compared to the power of the force, however well-meaning”, citing the late Lord Vader’s tragic personal story of poverty and neglect at the hands of a supposedly loving humanoid family comprising only two genders, which has resulted in the channeling of his anger for dictatorial gain.

Much of the evidence supporting the Jedi/Sith case was gathered by Jedi Master Kenobi during long term field research where he monitored the cognitive and emotional development of Lord Vader, who was then known only as “The Boy”.

Matter of conscience

The former arch-enemies point out that Lord Vader’s wayward tendencies can be directly attributed to his adoptive family having only two genders.

They also highlight that exceptions have already been made for those whose conscience dictates they cannot take part in certain work, such as doctors unwilling to perform surgery on gungans. There is the famous case where Jedi Master Kenobi himself refused to take part in the culmination of a duel with Lord Vader, becoming more powerful than his foe could possibly imagine as a result.

In a holo-chat earlier today Grand Admiral Nooka suggested that “when you over legislate and intervene too much in people’s private lives, in the long run you end up with a Death Star being used to cure all ills which it cannot”. Leia concurred, observing “the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

Han Solo could not be reached for comment, be we assume he might have said: Hokey religions and ancient prejudices are no match for good legislation.

Source: BBC News – Churches unite over adoption row
Image: Lucasfilm
See also: Richard Dawkins

“I’m horrified at the very idea anyone might want to harm these gentle creatures. I myself was raised by pigeons after being abandoned in Trafalgar Square as a young nipper.” – Fancy Coo-Coo

“Let’s just relax here – they’re just PIGEONS, bear that in mind. They’re just fluffy little critters who are cute and tickle you with their whiskers … ah no, that’s kittens. Sorry.” – The Kod

I can’t help but think that the old solution for “not losing your mittens” would help here – you know, the bit of string that connects your mittens via the arms of your anorak… Exchange the mittens for the Wii nunchuk controller, and exchange the anorak for a nice wicking top that helps keep player one cool.

When I saw the Swansea Tango Advert I laughed long and loud; the shots from the original are carefully copied and you don’t initially realise that it’s not the bravia advert. It’s perfect tango stuff, and follows the “metaphor” advert brilliantly.

Bravia Advert

In case you missed it, or just fancy seeing it again, here’s the original Bravia advert, featuring a 170,000 bouncy balls; filmed in San Francisco.

Tango Advert

The Tango advert, featuring several hundred pieces of fruit, filmed in Uplands, Swansea.

Residents Anger

The link that led us to the advert was from the website of the outraged residents association who were not happy about the damage to their property that all the free-falling fruit had caused.

The road on which it’s filmed (Cambridge Street, Swansea) is just down the road from where a school friend used to live, so I know the area, and the residents association being in “Swansea North” didn’t seem right. A little digging around quickly confirmed that the residents association website is owned by the advertising company.

Viral Marketing

It’s a beautfully done piece of viral marketing. The site is resplendent with dodgy background, low frame rate animated gifs, broken and irrelevant links, missing pictures, poor formatting, a broken feedback form and some truly dull copy.

It’s the attention to the small details that’s makes it so enjoyable, and probably very convincing.

They’ve even gone so far as to create two satellite spoof news sites (Brecon Beacons Herald and Swansea Press) with what look like real stories.

Marketing of this kind can only get more elaborate from here. Almost full marks go to CHI Advertising for their work.

The only magazine big enough to be seen from space – and only in Vegas!

That’s beautiful… only in Vegas… and maybe Paddington, West Australia.

Seen from Outer Space!

Here’s what Maxim has to say on the subject:

Constructed near Vegas out of vinyl mesh to celebrate our 100th issue, this colossal babe can be seen from outer space using Google Earth.

This is utter nonsense, but brilliant marketing.

Invisible from space.

When I was composing the backstory for the iPod gag, one thing I was very careful of was to give it enough factual basis that the silly bits could be believed, so I checked about the height where space officially begins, and I checked that the tailings dam was visible from that height in Google Earth, without magnification.

The Maxim advert which covers 697 square metres is a tiddler in comparison to “the iPod” which is more than 1000 times bigger, covering 893240 square metres.

If the advert exists (and I’m assuming it does) it has an absolute zero chance of being spotted by an orbiting astronaut taking a walk after lunch. As commercial ventures/hoaxes go, however, it’s a total success, because it’s got press coverage, and it’s got web coverage.

The journalists at C|Net, Yahoo etc. may be feeling a little used right now over the whole “from space” thing. This however, is the world of entertainment, where facts don’t matter and a good story is the only thing of importance.

So what is this Maxim thing really?

If you use Google Maps to go to the spot where the magazine is supposed to be you find a big plain empty patch of ground.

To create this image I used this bookmark from Google Earth to show the spot where the magazine is supposed to be – look for the remarkably small white rectangle just above right of centre.

No evidence?

There are no images currently in Google Earth that show the existence of a giant magazine cover. You can’t see it without an overlay.

The lack of evidence from a trusted third party (in this case Google) is what has prompted many to cry hoax. This is also the reason why the iPod gag took off – it was visible in Google Earth and Google Maps without any overlays, people believed they could verify its existence, so they believed the story.

Maxim have had to create an overlay that you can load, which adds the image of the magazine onto the desert, and for good measure, it adds a bit of desert too. This is probably so you don’t wonder why the nearby desert is in such low resolution when looking at the magazine in relatively high resolution. The downside of this is that although it looks nice, people don’t trust it.

Ultimately, Size Does Matter

So did they really create it? It’s feasible. It’s not particularly big, so it could be done. Remember this is 1000 times smaller than the iPod; but why bother when photo manipulation can do it so effectively?

One theory (which I’m enamoured with) is that we are seeing a preview of higher resolution data that has not yet made it into Google Earth; in which case Maxim have spent a lot of money on an advert that seems to have arrived too late. Hence the need for the overlay. Supporting this theory is the fact that this image can be downloaded from earth.google.com.

If that’s not the case, then it’s a pure unadulterated and massively successful hoax.

One not so giant leap for advertising

If the tailings dam really were an advert, then it really would be visible from space, but whatever the full story is behind the Maxim magazine cover, it’s not visible from space (as is claimed on the cover itself), because it’s just way too small, which is a shame.

In the centre you’ll see that little white rectangle again. That’s the size of the magazine.

You can try taking Google Earth to the edge of space and looking for it (62 Miles/100Km high), but you won’t see it. In fact, to make it simpler, I’ve shifted the maxim overlay to Australia so you can see one within the other. The size remains the same, only the magazine’s positioning has been transposed (which is why it appears upside-down). The height is set at 62 miles up to get you started, then you can zoom in.

And the winner is…

Google, obviously.

It’s another wonderful example of Google Earth becoming the advertisers dream, which, oddly enough I sort of I predicted back in October 2004 when I wrote:

Virtual billboards here we come.

Ah well.

Digg this.

It’s not really a giant iPod; and no, there was no high-stakes poker game between Kerry Packer and Steve Jobs, I made that bit up.

Space really does “begin” at 100Km high, so the dam really could be visible, but is most likely indistinguisable.

What’s also true is that it’s Apple‘s 30th Anniversary on April 1st 2006 – and in Australia it already is April 1st, ’cause Brisbane is 10 hours ahead of GMT, so although this server’s time zone tells me it’s still 31/3, I have no doubt Dad is (probably at this very moment) attaching an exploding cork to someone’s hat and hiding a plastic novelty spider under a toilet seat.

See it in Google Earth (Free Mac & PC versions available here).

Thanks

If you believed; if you wanted to believe, or if you blogged it or reported it, thanks!, it was fun to watch a small April fool that was intended for a few family and friends as it went global!

Getting mentioned in Engadget, Gizmodo, the Grauniad, CNN Money and InternetNews was great. There are too many others and I’ve not had time to see them all yet.

A special mention is also due to Leon who kindly contacted me and put me straight thus:

I already read this somewhere, I cant remember where but when I saw this and read that it was an exclusive story; I have to correct you, it isn’t, I already read it and that it was aquired in a poker match, and saw it on google maps, sorry mate.

Having someone believe the story so much that they let me down gently about not being an exclusive, especially highlighting the bit about the poker; that made my week.

Thanks are also due to Apple afficionado Steve Woolley for proof reading the original article and also to the people kind enough to point out that the structure is a tailings dam (there were remarkably few of you). I didn’t know this when I made up the story, but assumed there was some kind of evaporation happening because of the pattern.

Tailings

So you may well ask: since it’s not an iPod, what is a tailings dam?

There are an estimated 300 tailings dams in Australia, but fewer than 100 are in operation.

The exact content of a tailings dam depends on the geological composition of the ore that is being mined and any chemicals (explosives, corrosives and catalysts) that are employed in the mining and extraction process.

Paddington is actually a gold mine (not a disused mineral mine at all, I made that up too), so the tailings will be commensurate with a gold extraction process. Close up, the (highly acidic) tailings dam in Paddington looks like this.

The general cosensus is that tailings dams are among the most toxic man made areas on Earth. As liquids are absorbed into bedrock or evaporate, the dessiccated tailings can become airbourne, leading to long-term widespread pollution of the area surrounding a tailings facility.

Discovering the iPod

Several people have asked how I came across the thing in the first place, and that’s down to the fact that searching for locations in Google Earth is sometimes a bit hit and miss. I was looking for Paddington, a residential area of Sydney which I now know is about 2.5K SSE of Sydney Opera House.

I tried entering “Paddington, Sydney, Australia” into the GE search bar and it came back with no match. So then I tried “Paddington, Australia“.

If you have GE installed, give it a go, you basically land slap bang on top of the Paddington gold mine with the iPod (tailings dam) in full view.

Apple

So there you have it. Sadly there’s no gargantuan iPod, but we can at least be happy that Apple make lovely looking machines, and have contributed immensely to the public understanding that Human-Computer Interaction should have a strong emphasis on the “Human” side of the equation, so thanks and happy 30th anniversary to everyone at Apple, past and present.

I wonder what they’re really going to announce.

I was a bit taken aback this week to discover that my card has now been modified and put up for sale on EBay as a mothers day card (by at least three separate people). What’s more, based on feedback left for the sellers, it’s proving to be a remarkably popular card.

The original card looked like this:

I spotted the first card on Ebay yesterday. It’s been altered to say “Mothers Day” but it’s basically the file from my site with a hacky attempt at replacing the words and image.

I say it’s hacky because the artist doesn’t appear to have matched the Tesco blue for the text (though it’s difficult to tell from the poor quality pic), and the image of the flower hasn’t had it’s white levels properly adjusted, so you can see the square border where it’s been pasted on.

The second card turned up a day later, with a different photo.

It may be that someone’s bought the card then thought what a good idea it would be to resell it, or it may be that it’s the same guy selling it twice – the kink in the bottom of the card suggests that it’s the same card in each picture.

The third card is basically just the first card, being resold by someone who’s clueless about the design/technology aspect, and is just jumping on the cash bandwagon (the Q&A indicates this quite clearly: Q: “Can I add text to it for example my mother in law’s name? Or mother in law? ” A: “Hiya, I’m not quite sure,I’ve opened the card with…).

The fourth card is an altogether different design, with a big red overlay where the artist has used entirely the wrong font for both the main message and also when replacing the “sincerity guaranteed” message.

So how do I know the fourth card is also based on mine? Easy. Look at the C in Tesco. I drew that logo by hand, and never got the C quite right, there’s too much weight in it’s body, and that’s what gives it away as a derivative of mine. I could have spent time prefecting it, but this was a quick joke, a parody, and certainly not something that was going to be sold.

Now, I couldn’t care less if someone takes my parody and modifies it, I think I’m flattered really; but I do feel distinctly sorry for all the people that have had to shell out for their copy, when they could have downloaded the original free version here!

Happy Mothers Day!

Update 2006-03-23 20:41

Someone was kind enough to send me a copy of the file from ebay, which is, without a shadow of a doubt, derived from my parody work.

You’ll notice, when you look at the large version that (as I’d originally thought):

1. the “artist” hasn’t matched the text colour at all,
2. the image is indeed in need of a little white balancing because the edges of the flower picture are clearly visible and
3. happily, my logo had been removed from the item that was sold.

A series of articles in BoingBoing have recently highlighted the fun that can be had by using anagrams of station names on tube maps, and one article in particular described how Transport for London (TFL) were attempting censor the publisher of one such anagram map because it infringed on their copyright.

It’s a bit of a kneejerk reaction, but I can understand their desire to protect what must be a jolly good revenue stream.

The revenue stream is, of course, linked to that specific map, and the relevance of that map is now diminishing, in part thanks to a fabulous example of what can be done with Google Earth – where the route of every London Underground line has now been modeled.

It was whilst looking at this insanely cool map (and wondering if TFL could claim copyright on it because they own the design of the track, and therefore the shape) that the clue became apparent, writ large over, under and throughout the whole of Greater London.

Here’s what the London Underground network looks like when viewed from the north west:

Anyone familiar with pastafarianiam will immediately spot that TFL cannot claim copyright because of prior art; and not just any old prior art, but the original drawing of the FSM Himself.

TFL may argue that their track shape existed before Bobby Henderson’s 2005 drawing of the FSM, but the FSM must have existed before TFL’s track, in order to first create the universe in which the track resides; so if any copyright is held on the shape, then it must be with the FSM Himself!

Yarrrr!

This is without doubt, one of the largest clues that the FSM has ever left for His loyal pirate followers, who will surely redouble their pirately activities, prime the beer kegs and await the coming of the FSM, for the London Underground Network is indeed designed in the shape of His Noodly Self.

This similarity is not a wind up, that really is the shape of the london underground, and that really is Bobby Henderson’s unaltered drawing from his open letter to the Kansas School Board.

I’m off to get my pirate costume dry cleaned; I want to look my best when He arrives.

I was therefore especially pleased today to read of Kirsher’s Hall of Mirrors for cats.

Schrödinger never saw fit to describe the interior decoration of the box, so it struck me that if the box were a hall of mirrors, such as Kirsher’s, then the cat could observe itself; thus collapsing it’s own probability wave and therefore, either

1. instaneously ceasing to exist, the moment the isoptope decays, or
2. continuing to exist, and spending an hour in a private preening booth (surely this is cat heaven?).

Ok, so there’s unlikely to be a Nobel prize for this one, but if I keep coming up with ideas then the probabilty has to increase, and if I sit in a room full of mirrors whilst I think…

They’re actually in a soundproofed hangar, on a disused US Airbase in Suffolk, and will be aboard the same movie set that was used in Space Cowboys and Armageddon, among other movies.

Various news reports have described how the nine participants have been incommunicado since (at least) mid-November – before the teaser trailers began to be broadcast. The poor things have actually been in quarantine since the very start of the month so their family and friends could be consulted, and where necessary give their consent to the hoax.

As well as two actors who will “pilot” the shuttle, the participants have also been infiltrated by actors since the earliest parts of the selection process, to help ensure the success of the hoax on all levels. For the show itself, three participants will be selected, and they will be accompanied by one of the actors for the mission – if they rumble the hoax, three more will get to go up. If the hoax is rumbled three times, Channel 4 will have to revert to broadcasting repeats of Friends, which they do for the rest of the time.

The possibility occurred to me that an elaborate double-bluff would be easier and more controllable than what has been described (because it could all be pre-recorded for perfection), and others have thought likewise. Either way, it should make great entertainment.

Space Cadets begins tonight at 9pm, on Channel 4.

Location

Photo of the exterior of Hush House, the soundproof hangar. Source.

• RAF Bentwaters Air Base Map
• Bentwaters Air Base in Google Earth
• Bentwaters Air Base aerial photo in 2003. – Source.

If you’ve ever wondered if your ‘blog is actually worth anything, then this may be your cup of tea.

Caveat Blogger
If your blog is not registered with Technorati (free sign up here), then you will get a zero valuation.

Valuations Explained
Earlier this month a chap called Tristan Louis looked at the deal between AOL and WebLogs Inc. and was able to conclude the value of a link from an external website. Soon after this, a fellow called Dane Carlson wrote a “how much is your blog worth” script which used this base figure and combined it with link information from Technorati (a kind of social network/ranking website). It’s a very nice example of what can be done by adding two very simple things on different sides of the web. The only problem with the system was that the valuation was in US Dollars, and I’m a Sterling kind of guy: so here, for British bloggers and ex-pat’s everywhere is a version gives the valuation in Sterling.

The fact that supporters of intelligent design are casting doubt on evolutionary theory is fine, it’s an important part of scientific method that our theoretical models are challenged; however, I must register my strong disapproval that the board has deemed it necessary to redefine “Science” in order to shoehorn justify their decision.

the board rewrote the definition of science, so that it is no longer limited to the search for natural explanations of phenomena.

Does anyone know where the new definition lives? I ask because it must be the same place that stores the new definitions for “bungling, botch, floundering, idiot, ignoramus, incompetent, inadequate, incapable, inept, negligent, unqualified, unobservant” and the phrase “Board of Education”.

The issue was discussed on BBC Radio 4 yesterday [requires Real Player].

Emeritus Professor Derek Denton (Biology, Univ. of Melbourne) presents a wonderful biological counter argument to the theory of intelligent design, suggesting that if it’s designed, then it wasn’t particularly intelligent.

Perhaps the Flying Spaghetti Monster will be pleased that His design is being critiqued in order that He may create a patch for Humanity 2.0 when He arrives on Earth.

Q. Why is pirates called pirates?

A. Because they Yaaaarrrr!