mako is currently certified at Master level.

Name: Benjamin Mako Hill
Member since: 2005-06-16 06:25:53
Last Login: 2011-10-08 22:58:41

FOAF RDF Share This

Homepage: http://mako.cc

Projects

Articles Posted by mako

Recent blog entries by mako

Syndication: RSS 2.0

Internet Immortality

Kim Jong-Il is gone. That said, he continues to live on, looking at things, on the popular blog Kim Jong-Il Looking At Things which continues to be updated with new content from the archives.

It is now joined by Kim Jong-Un Looking At Things. I think I agree with João Rocha, creator of the original, that the younger Kim seems to be missing some hard-to-pin-down quality that made the original work well.

Syndicated 2012-01-20 16:31:33 from Benjamin Mako Hill

Mystery Hunt

I've mentioned before that I compete every year in the MIT Mystery Hunt -- an enormous, multi-day, round-the-clock puzzle competition held in January at MIT each year.

Last year, my team Codex won the hunt. The reward (punishment?) for winning is the responsibility to write the 100+ puzzles, (and meta-puzzles, and meta-meta-puzzles, and theme, and events) and to put on the whole event the following year.

So over the last year, I've worked with a huge group of folks to put together this year's hunt which had a theme loosely based on The Producers. My own role was small compared to many of my teammates: I contributed to some puzzle writing and to a bunch of "test-solving" of candidate puzzles to make sure they were solvable, not too easy, fun, and well constructed. During the hunt, I visited competing teams, verified answer submissions, and took advantage of my jet-lag from my return from Japan on the day of the hunt to work the night shift distributing items to teams.

To get an idea of what the hunt is like, you can check out a puzzle I wrote for this years hunt. The solution is linked from the corner of that page.

Syndicated 2012-01-16 02:27:37 from Benjamin Mako Hill

The Influence of the Ecstasy of Influence

/copyrighteous/images/andy-warhol-mickey.jpg

Back in 2007, Harpers Magazine published The Ecstasy of Influence: a beautiful article by Jonathan Lethem on reuse in art and literature. Like Lewis Hyde in The Gift (quite like Hyde, as readers discover) Lethem blurs the line between plagiarism, remix, and influence and points to his subject at the center of artistic production. Lethem's gimmick, which most readers only discover at the end, is that the article is constructed entirely out of "reused" (i.e., plagiarized) quotations and paraphrases.

A couple months ago, I suggested to my friend Andrés Monroy-Hernández a very similar project: a literature review on academic work on remixing and remixing communities constructed entirely of text lifted from existing research.

After some searching around, Andrés pointed out that Lethem had essentially beaten us to the punch and linked me to his article. Only after I visited the link did I remember that I had read Lethem's article when it was published and loved the idea then. Over time, I'd forgotten I read ever it.

Without knowing it, I had read, loved, forgotten, and then -- influenced, if unconsciously -- copied and reproduced the idea myself in slightly modified form.

And I suppose that was the point.

Syndicated 2011-12-19 02:30:59 from Benjamin Mako Hill

Wide Scream

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Aspect-ratio-4x3.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Aspect-ratio-16x9.svg

It seems that nearly all computer monitors have now switched from a 4:3 aspect ratio popular several years ago to a "wide screen" 16:10 and now mostly to an even wider 16:9.

But screen sizes are usually measured by their diagonal length and those sizes have not changed. For example, before I had my Thinkpad X201, I had a X60 and a X35. They are similar laptops in the same product line with 12.1" screens. But 12.1" describes the size along the diagonal and the aspect ratio switched from 4:3 to 16:10 between the X60 and the X201. As the screen stretched out but maintained the same diagonal length, the area shrunk: from 453 square centimeters to 425.

But screens are not only getting smaller, they are also getting less useful. The switch to wider aspect ratios is done so that people can watch wide screen movies while using a larger proportion of their screens. Of course, the vast majority of people's time on their laptops is not spent watching wide screen movies but in programs like browsers, word processors, and editors. Because most of our writing systems lay out documents from top to bottom, the tools we most frequently use to display (and then scroll through) the things we read primarily use vertical screen space -- the dimension that is shrinking.

If you have a desktop monitor, you might rotate the whole thing 90 degrees and "solve" the problem. If you're on a laptop though (as I usually am) this is clearly not an option.

I am not the first person to be annoyed by this trend. In fact, many recent desktop UI changes are designed to work around this issue. In the free software world, both Unity and GNOME 3 have made efforts to hide, merge, or otherwise get ride of title bars, menu bars, and panels that take up dwindling vertical space. I use Awesome which I've mostly set up to do two side-by-side terminals with very little in the way of menu bars.

/copyrighteous/images/awesome_screenshot_2011-small.png

Applications are the worst offenders and the solutions for those things that won't run in a terminal (or people that don't want to live there) are still lacking. I have been using Firefox's Tree Style Tab extension to move tabs to the side and hand-customized toolbars that squeeze everything I need (i.e., back, forward, stop, refresh, and URL bar) onto a single menu bar.

/copyrighteous/images/iceweasel_menu_eg_screenshot_2011-small.png

But the situation still drives me crazy. I'd love to hear what others are doing.

Syndicated 2011-12-07 22:40:01 from Benjamin Mako Hill

Winter Travels in Seattle and Japan

/copyrighteous/images/space_needle_christmas-small.jpg /copyrighteous/images/sapporo_winter-small.jpg

Mika and I will be traveling this winter in the Seattle area and in Japan. The current plan is to be in Seattle December 19 through 28 and then in Japan from December 28 through January 12. After that, we will fly back to Boston for the MIT Mystery Hunt where, as punishment for winning last year, our team is running this year's hunt.

We will be in Tokyo for New Years and then traveling around Japan for much of the rest of the time. We hope to visit Hokkaido and Aomori and to travel there from Tokyo along Japan's Western coast through Kanazawa and Niigata.

We're still figuring out where we will visit and what we will do in both places. If you are interested in meeting up for dinner or drinks in either place (or in organizing a talk or meeting), please get in touch and let's try to figure something out.

Syndicated 2011-12-05 22:00:59 from Benjamin Mako Hill

296 older entries...

 

mako certified others as follows:

  • mako certified joolean as Apprentice
  • mako certified dgh as Journeyer
  • mako certified Burgundavia as Journeyer
  • mako certified jsgotangco as Journeyer
  • mako certified jamesh as Master
  • mako certified zotz as Journeyer
  • mako certified Dionys as Apprentice
  • mako certified branden as Master
  • mako certified kov as Journeyer
  • mako certified macricht as Journeyer
  • mako certified mbucc as Apprentice
  • mako certified stalens as Journeyer
  • mako certified schoen as Master
  • mako certified voltron as Journeyer
  • mako certified bcollins as Master
  • mako certified Joy as Journeyer
  • mako certified walters as Journeyer
  • mako certified srivasta as Master
  • mako certified dark as Journeyer
  • mako certified wichert as Master
  • mako certified MichaelCardenas as Journeyer
  • mako certified asuffield as Apprentice
  • mako certified robster as Journeyer
  • mako certified thom as Journeyer
  • mako certified omnic as Journeyer
  • mako certified fxn as Journeyer
  • mako certified robogato as Journeyer
  • mako certified mjg59 as Master
  • mako certified cjwatson as Master
  • mako certified moray as Journeyer
  • mako certified hanna as Journeyer
  • mako certified RossBurton as Master
  • mako certified Jordi as Journeyer
  • mako certified BrucePerens as Master
  • mako certified bdale as Master
  • mako certified mdz as Master
  • mako certified jbailey as Journeyer
  • mako certified seb128 as Master
  • mako certified tfheen as Master
  • mako certified jdub as Master
  • mako certified vorlon as Master
  • mako certified neuro as Master
  • mako certified joey as Master
  • mako certified doogie as Journeyer
  • mako certified lilo as Master
  • mako certified schultmc as Journeyer
  • mako certified Netsnipe as Apprentice
  • mako certified bod as Journeyer
  • mako certified daniels as Journeyer
  • mako certified jono as Master
  • mako certified aaronsw as Master
  • mako certified weasel as Journeyer
  • mako certified mstone as Journeyer
  • mako certified gopal as Journeyer
  • mako certified Barbwired as Journeyer
  • mako certified cdlu as Journeyer
  • mako certified ElectricElf as Journeyer
  • mako certified csurchi as Journeyer
  • mako certified dieman as Journeyer
  • mako certified willy as Journeyer
  • mako certified gwolf as Journeyer
  • mako certified infinity as Journeyer
  • mako certified StevenRainwater as Journeyer
  • mako certified Schuyler as Journeyer
  • mako certified mattl as Journeyer
  • mako certified djbclark as Journeyer

Others have certified mako as follows:

  • uriel certified mako as Journeyer
  • Fyndo certified mako as Master
  • drasko certified mako as Master
  • metaur certified mako as Journeyer
  • aicra certified mako as Master
  • jsgotangco certified mako as Master
  • jblack certified mako as Journeyer
  • ondrej certified mako as Master
  • Burgundavia certified mako as Master
  • Rin certified mako as Master
  • enerv certified mako as Master
  • kclayton certified mako as Master
  • adl certified mako as Master
  • jgbillings certified mako as Master
  • Dionys certified mako as Apprentice
  • Liedra certified mako as Journeyer
  • i0lanthe certified mako as Journeyer
  • belmo certified mako as Journeyer
  • dmerrill certified mako as Journeyer
  • voltron certified mako as Journeyer
  • Joy certified mako as Journeyer
  • weasel certified mako as Journeyer
  • Netsnipe certified mako as Journeyer
  • besfred certified mako as Master
  • MichaelCardenas certified mako as Journeyer
  • thom certified mako as Master
  • Barbwired certified mako as Master
  • arrowood certified mako as Journeyer
  • fxn certified mako as Journeyer
  • srl certified mako as Apprentice
  • jono certified mako as Journeyer
  • avassalotti certified mako as Master
  • nixnut certified mako as Master
  • Jordi certified mako as Master
  • adulau certified mako as Master
  • raph certified mako as Master
  • dwmw2 certified mako as Master
  • yosch certified mako as Master
  • mattl certified mako as Journeyer
  • eopadoan certified mako as Master
  • vern certified mako as Master
  • GabrielSaldana certified mako as Master
  • russell certified mako as Master
  • Miod certified mako as Master
  • murajov certified mako as Master
  • ittner certified mako as Master
  • lfaraone certified mako as Master
  • xxv certified mako as Master

[ Certification disabled because you're not logged in. ]

New Advogato Features

New HTML Parser: The long-awaited libxml2 based HTML parser code is live. It needs further work but already handles most markup better than the original parser.

Keep up with the latest Advogato features by reading the Advogato status blog.

If you're a C programmer with some spare time, take a look at the mod_virgule project page and help us with one of the tasks on the ToDo list!

X
Share this page