iblog

Jo: Have you ever wondered what your soul is like? Given the opportunity to meet your soul, would you take it?

These were not questions I thought about much until I read Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman. In the novel, and the others in the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, Pullman conjures up worlds where humans’ souls live on the outside of their bodies as animals. These animals, dæmons, speak to their humans, and accompany them throughout their lives and adventures. As I put Northern Lights down, I realised with a sigh how much I would love to have a dæmon of my own.

Almost eight years have passed, but my wish for a dæmon has not faded away at all. In the books, as children pass into adulthood, their dæmon ceases changing shape into different animals, and remains in one shape. I was propelled through the trilogy by a burning desire to know if Pantalaimon, (dæmon of the story’s heroine, Lyra) would ever stop changing his shape – and which animal he would finally stay as. I wonder what animal my own would be – and at what point in my life it stopped changing. And yesterday, I came a step closer to finding out.

His Dark Materials has been adapted for the stage, and now a film is coming out, resplendent with a magical website to accompany it. Grit your teeth for the American adaptation of ‘Northern Lights’ to “Golden Compass Movie”, visit www.goldencompassmovie.com, and…you too can meet your dæmon.

Virgil: How many times have you been assaulted by some geek or geeky advert saying “Get Firefox! It’s better than Internet Explorer, faster, safer, and it’s standard’s compliant!” (Just so you know, Firefox is a web browser published by a non-Microsoft company.) Likewise, how many times have you heard a similar line deriding Windows? “Run Linux, it’s cheaper, more stable, and more secure!” or “Mac OS is smoother, faster, and more user-friendly!”

If these “alternatives” were really so good, why are they not as popular as the Windows variants? I remember when I first came across the Get Firefox campaign. I thought, wow, I’ve been blissfully unaware, but I’m joining the revolution! I downloaded it and had loads of fun. But then I realised that the product was slower and had less features (possibly because they don’t have the cash Microsoft have), and was incompatible with everything else I was using.

I recently got a new PC with Windows Vista pre-installed, and I think it’s fantastic. It’s pretty, user-friendly, organised, neat, fast, responsive… I could go on. What on earth could be so bad about it that people the net wide have to label it “crippleware” that can barely keep up with the competition? For all I care, the ridiculously-named Ubuntu can support the MegaRidiculous WhoCares Standard v7.3 all it likes, my Windows does the job perfectly well and doesn’t need geeky campaigns to attest its worth.

Rushda: Being on an intense course at Cambridge and having exams in just under a month’s time for which I haven’t yet done much work (oops), naturally I spend most of my time playing games on the computer and doing mindless browsing. One cool procrastination site I’ve found is Wikihow, recommended to me by a friend. It’s a “how-to” manual that anyone can edit, and each manual consists of a list of steps. So if you want to find out how to make a 3D paper snowflake, get an upgrade to first class in a plane, or even just have a great conversation, that’s where you go to. Now, I wonder if they have a list on how to stop procrastination… hmmm… Bingo. Fun fun.

Alex: In 2004, German media artist Aram Bartholl created an installation where he placed life-size replicas of the crates from the famous Counterstrike PC game map de_dust around cities. The crates were constructed on a one pixel, one centimeter basis and provoked bewildered reactions from the public. Computer games already occupy much of the time of many of us, and have been blamed for causing real life violence and making mainly children unable to understand the difference between reality and the game. This is, then, a quirky yet actually provocative work, that is preceded by his first person shooter glasses, which simulate the experience of playing Counterstrike in the real world. These are better at getting at the point he seems to be trying to make.

The recently deceased and brilliant philosopher Jean Baudrillard would have loved his work, his own concerns (among many others) being the bleeding of the realms of the image into reality, particularly as a result of the media, so that the two can no longer be properly discerned and that effectively reality itself is fantasied and fantasy made reality: the real has become hyperreal. You can download a PDF of Baudrillard: Selected Writings from Mark Poster’s University of California homepage and revel in the strange beauty of his prose, which for me was one of his main attractions. Baudrillard’s essay ‘The Animals’ is one of my favorites of all time.

All of this is naturally not as cool or as fun as Pacmanhattan, where players take part in a fast paced game of Pacman in the streets of New York. No amount of theorising can destroy the pure fun of doing this!

Alex: Hot on the heels of concerns regarding mobile phone signals, Wi-Fi signals, the low-level electromagnetic radiation used to enable wireless networks, is now thought by some to cause headaches in children and teachers exposed to them. Writing to Alan Johnson, the education secretary, the Professional Association of Teachers asked that scientific research be conducted into the effects of these signals and recommended that schools refrain from installing wireless networks until they have been determined safe, particularly in the case of primary schools.

The evidence for this concern is largely anecdotal and circumstantial, with no serious research yet undertaken. However, by simple measurement of the output of Wi-Fi devices and comparison with the internationally agreed standards of radiation exposure, some conclusion may be reached. As Dr. Michael Clark of the HPA, states, “When we have conducted measurements in schools, typical exposures from Wi-Fi are around 20 millionths of the international guideline levels of exposure to radiation. As a comparison, a child on a mobile phone receives up to 50 percent of guideline levels. So, a year sitting in a classroom near a wireless network is roughly equivalent to 20 minutes on a mobile”.

Is this another example of corporations putting the rush to get products out before safety or another example of luddite scare-mongering?

Lottie: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is one of the latest ‘cool new people’ to join up to the MySpace network. In his details he lists that he is here for ‘friends’ and ‘networking’. Well, I would be surprised if he were looking for a relationship or someone to go to gigs with…

This is clearly an attempt to reach the yoof of America and, well, as uncomfortable and out of place as all politicians seem in youthful forums, I was still tempted to take a look and judging by the encouraging posts on his wall (with excessive use of exclamation marks) I wasn’t the only one.

Anna: The internet has revolutionised the way we plan and book our holidays, which is all very well, but sometimes it is quite nice to have a brochure to flick through. Somehow, it’s more exciting and relaxing to leaf through paper-based media when planning your hols. And if you can’t face a high street travel agent, then why not order brochures directly online? Thanks to a great site called Brochure Bank you don’t even need to contact the tour operator directly, or even know which companies feature the destinations you are interested in. You can simply browse the site, select up to 7 brochures that take your fancy and, hey presto, they’ll be delivered to your door free of charge. So you can put your feet up and peruse the pretty pictures over a cup of home-brewed coffee - all very genteel, really. No need to traipse along to high-street agencies or prise your kids off the family PC in your quest for web-based info. And the range of brochures is huge - covering everything from Guernsey to Guadeloupe. Get planning!

Rushda: Following Virgil’s interesting blog about the old man who made it big on YouTube, I thought I should blog about how incredible it is that YouTube gets so many otherwise-unknown people famous. One particular field that interests me is that of singers who have been noticed because they’ve been singing on YouTube and been appreciated by users worldwide. Many of them are ordinary teenagers who have been nothing more than bathroom singers before. One of the most popular ones right now is Esmee Denters, an 18 year old from The Netherlands. Her songs have been viewed over 11 million times. Since she joined a few months back, she’s acquired thousands of fans and been on TV, even flying to the States to negotiate her record deal. Another is Mia Rose who’s also been signed recently and is the third most subscribed user on YouTube. With the attention of the whole world and without the humiliation of shows like X-factor, I think it’s great how this site has opened up the path for all sorts of talents worldwide.

Anna: We’re always being told to log on, check out a website or surf the net for more information about a product or topic. How frustrating it must be if you are not able to use the internet because of visual impairment. Well, to address the problem an online cruise agency now has one of the most forward-thinking internet sites around. Ideal Cruising allows users to “listen to this page”, with a computer-generated voice to talk them through the sites information and features, inlcuding a whopping 6000 itineraries.

In 1999, the Disability Discrimination Act came into force which required website operators to make content more accessible for disabled people. As yet, very few have risen to the challenge - the Disability Rights Commission reported in April 2004 that 81% of websites surveyed failed to meet minimum standards for disabled web access. Even the average home page contains 108 barriers which impede access by disabled people. So three cheers for Ideal Cruising, I hope lots more companies follow in their footsteps and that the government stumps up some cash to enable smaler businesses to improve web accessibility too.

Virgil: A video of some very cute otters has become extremely popular on YouTube - in fact, so much so that the BBC actually made a report about it! The video is of two otters drifting in water, holding hands, and is admittedly rather adorable! It is now the most viewed animal video on the entire website. An expert has explained that they do this naturally to avoid drifting apart when in currents, but there is nevertheless something extremely warm about it. Near the end they become seperated for a moment, and one of them reaches out for the other’s hand like one of those scenes in a movie - grabs it, and then appears to nestle it to its face, almost like a kiss. This is probably a case of us stupid humans anthropomorphising our animal friends, but I can’t resist the urge to suppose that what we have is a video of two otters in love.