unfiltered

Bell's telegraph killer

Word is trickling out of Bell Labs that Alexander Graham Bell is developing a device that will supplant the telegraph.

While the technology behind the Telephone is new, the design is reassuringly old-fashioned, reminiscent of a phrenologist's horn or ear-candle in form. We found the experience far more comfortable than the one we had with the Telegraph, though fatigue from magnetic waves is inevitable in the use of each. This is a minor complaint, however, as we could scarcely imagine using such a device for more than a few minutes a day.

Update: Meanwhile, back in the real world, F. Marion Crawford had this to say back in 1896:

The old fashioned novel is really dead, and nothing can revive it nor make anybody care for it again. What is to follow it?...A clever German who is here suggested to me last night that the literature of the future might turn out to be the daily exchange of ideas of men of genius -- over the everlasting telephone of course -- published every morning for the whole world....

The everlasting telephone!

Tags: alexandergrahambell   telegraph   telephony

Bell's telegraph killer

Originally from kottke.org by Jason Kottke

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Another test, this one very meta.

testing, please ignore. apologies for the spam.

I told you to ignore this...and I even apologized for the spam. Why did you click through?

faster pussycat blog blog!

Mashable: Spam In Twitter Trends, Again (Update: Not Really Spam)

We’ve seen this done before via an onslaught of spammy or malware-infected messages send through dozens of bogus accounts, but this time the spammer seems to have reached trending topics with other methods. In any case, the topic will probably soon be removed, but Twitter definitely needs to work on better spam prevention methods.

TechCrunch: Once Again, Twitter Trending Topics Polluted By Spam (Or Not)

Really curious to find out how this is done exactly, but someone somewhere has managed to change a real trending topic on Twitter - #MrsSlocombe - into something childish, as you can tell from the screenshot above. Strangely enough, when you do a search for the less appropriate trending topic, not a single result pops up (for now).

Update: ok apparently it’s a legitimate trending topic (see origin here, it was meant as a tribute to British comic actress Mollie Sugden on the occasion of her death, so fans, celebrities and Brits in general started to tweet it) but Twitter is just blocking search results from appearing (which is good). Update 2: I’m not ‘pro-censorship’, but in this particular case it’s understandable behavior on Twitter’s behalf, period. I’m sure they didn’t mean to interrupt or ban tributes to a deceased person.

I'm testing something out. Please to be ignoring.

alain de botton comments on the personal blog of the guy who wrote a negative review in the nytimes

From Steamboats Are Ruining Everything: Review of Alain de Botton's "Pleasures and Sorrows of Work", here's de Botton's comment:

Caleb, you make it sound on your blog that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment. In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a review driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon - so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a reviewer. You have now killed my book in the United States, nothing short of that. So that's two years of work down the drain in one miserable 900 word review. You present yourself as 'nice' in this blog (so much talk about your boyfriend, the dog etc). It's only fair for your readers (nice people like Joe Linker and trusting souls like PAB) to get a whiff that the truth may be more complex. I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. I will be watching with interest and schadenfreude.

Emphasis mine.  Something tells me this wasn't too smart of a move on de Botton's part.  (Via The Observer.)

roger ebert on the transformers

Roger Ebert's Journal:

The action scenes can perhaps best be understood as abstract art. The Autobots® and Decepticons®, which are assembled out of auto parts, make no functional or aesthetic sense. They have evolved into forms too complex to be comprehended. When two or more of the Bots are in battle, it is nearly impossible to distinguish one from the other. You can't comprehend most of what they're doing, except for an occasional fist flying, a built-in missile firing, or the always dependable belching of flames. Occasionally one gets a hole blown through it large enough to drive a truck through, pardon the expression.

I was thinking about quoting the whole damned thing.  It's that good.  Go read it.  

omg those burgers are so cute!

The Times' Moment blog discovers that those cute provincial folks in Portland actually put burgers on their donuts.

Before you go, make sure you are on the high end of the self-esteem meter that day. Maybe you take along a handsome partner in crime to share it with?

Grooooaaaaannnnn. Sometimes (more often, lately) the Times drives me NUTS with its provincialism. I loved this comment from Minnie.

Note to all New Yorker writers: STOP stalking us. -Love Portland

fn+opt+cmd+ctrl+F13

the view last night was spectacular

very.

Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » The King Is Dead .

He missed his childhood and now he’s gonna miss his old age. How fucked up is that?

this is the one that always kills me

stop what you're doing and go contribute to this post

.tiff: For the Lost Fanatics - Lost: The NES Game.

I know you Lost fanatics out there would pick this baby up in a heartbeat. The bigger question is, what are the selling features of a Lost NES game? My ideas below, but please, I could use some help from all you Losties. Oh and uh, **spoilurz** be up ahead, so you know, be weary:

i would love it if this turned out to be a hoax

Wouldn't it be great it this turned out to be a hoax? Where the newsperson is fake, the newsroom is fake, and the whole thing is intended to dupe smirkier-than-thou bloggers into thinking that someone actually aired Lost screencaps as found photos.

i know this is old news...

...but this is still fun to watch.

twaaaaiiinnn

bryan boyer's train video

exhausted just reading this

I have a profound sense of respect for David Hudson, blogger for IFC, who does a tremendous job rounding up reviews of new movie releases.  Go read this one just to marvel at scale of this task:  Transformers: The Binge is Appallin'.

hey look i'm blogging

this is sippey.typepad.com: a little google in my spotlight?.

I haven't built a habit of searching on the phone, though, despite the very clever swipe-to-go-left UI placement of Spotlight. I don't have enough content on the phone to make search worthwhile, and the "normal" mode of navigation through each of the individual apps (Contacts, Mail, iPod, etc.) works well enough (for me). I think I'd be swiping left a lot more if they included a little Google in my Spotlight.

note to self: stop time and re-read the fermata

The Joys of Nicholson Baker : Edward Champion’s Reluctant Habits.

The Fermata arrived more than a decade before The Office became a transatlantic triumph of cringe comedy and Joshua Ferris mined the minutiae of office life for his celebrated 2007 novel, Then We Came to the End. Baker, however, took considerably more chances than his followers. In describing his feelings for an office manager, Arno observes, “You have to be extremely careful about complimenting a thirty-five-year-old temp who has achieved nothing in his life.” But it was not mere prurience that beckoned my attention. What made The Fermata work so well was its remarkable willingness to be absolutely specific about the darker side of human consciousness. There were no limits to what seemingly ordinary people thought about.