Underbelly of the web

It's called the Deep Web:

Mike Bergman, founder of BrightPlanet and credited with coining the phrase, said that searching on the Internet today can be compared to dragging a net across the surface of the ocean: a great deal may be caught in the net, but there is a wealth of information that is deep and therefore missed. Most of the Web's information is buried far down on dynamically generated sites, and standard search engines do not find it. Traditional search engines cannot "see" or retrieve content in the deep Web—those pages do not exist until they are created dynamically as the result of a specific search. As of 2001, the deep Web was several orders of magnitude larger than the surface Web.

Time Magazine recently reported on it in a cover story titled "The Secret Web: Where Drugs, Porn and Murder Live Online."  The white paper, "The Deep Web: Surfacing Hidden Value (Bergman, Michael K., Journal of Electronic Publishing)," offers some unbiased information about the Deep Web.

To access the Deep Web you need Tor --

...free software and an open network that helps you defend against traffic analysis, a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

Developed to ensure privacy online,

Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location.

Tor's about page offers some history and the site offers a wealth of information on how to set up the browser. Here's an example of a Tor network:

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Rezonansowy, Tor network map, Wikimedia Commons

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There are a number of reasons why the Deep Web is invisible; BrightPlanet offers a primer.  One of the reasons is dynamic web pages.  To get an approximate idea of how a page is dynamically generated, try Hypergurl's HTML generator; but keep in mind that a page on the Deep Web would be generated by code using data from a database, when the destination address is touched.

Be careful out there -- you may see more than you want to.

-- Marge

Just have this to say...

Christmas is over and the year is winding down.  No more deadlines for a while, so I'm taking a break.  Here's what I have to add the mix today.

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Randy Bish, "Thank You," Political Carnival

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-- Marge

My 2013 Christmas Greeting

WooHoo!  This year I finished it in time for Christmas Day.  Most of the work in this video is mine with the help of Corel clipart.  The Sun segment was purchased at Envato's VideoHive.

Have a happy Christmas and the best New Year's celebration ever.

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 --Marge

BTW, here's the full text of the poem --

Beneath the glitter and gold
Wrappings of Christmas today,
For each of us lies,

One heart at center
Perfect, unhurt, joyous --
Beating synchronous time with,
Singing in tune with
   the Source.
It's yours.
Own it.

Santa's many names

Seeing a spattering of news reports on Santa traditions, I began to wonder how many identities he has.  The Fact Monster has this list of Santa's names in various countries.  Some of them with pages in Wikipedia are Ded Moroz (Russia), Mikulás (Hungary and adjacent countries), Père Noël (France and French-speaking countries), Saint Nicholas (originally Greek, he is commemorated and revered among Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, and Orthodox Christians), and Joulupukki (Finnish).  There are more, so check the list at Fact Monster.

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Bjoertvedt, St Nicholas (270 AD), Wikipedia

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The version of Christmas most practiced in America and Britain is based on Yuletide, a religious festival from the Germanic peoples.  According to Wikipedia:

The events of Yule are generally held to have centred around Midwinter (although specific dating is a matter of debate), and feasting, drinking, and sacrifice (blót) were involved. Scholar Rudolf Simek comments that the pagan Yule feast "had a pronounced religious character" and comments that "it is uncertain whether the Germanic Yule feast still had a function in the cult of the dead and in the veneration of the ancestors, a function which the mid-winter sacrifice certainly held for the West European Stone and Bronze Ages." The traditions of the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar (Sonargöltr) stilll reflected in the Christmas ham, Yule singing, and others stem from Yule customs, and customs which Simek takes as "indicat[ing] the significance of the feast in pre-Christian times."

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Mark Grant, "Stonehenge Sunrise 1980s," Wikipedia

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At Santa's Net you can find a list of Christmas traditions around the world.  In Japan the gift-bringer is Hotei-osho (to me he looks a lot like Budai, a representation of contentment).  In China Santa is called Dun Che Lao Ren (Christmas Old Man).

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Zaius13, Dun Che Lao Ren, tumblr

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It's beginning to look like gift-giving is the key theme of Christmases around the world.

-- Marge

 

Cartoons: the NSA online

With recent news of the NSA spying on World of Warcraft and Secondlife, you'd think online gamers would be more upset.  Maybe they're too intent on gaming.  Then there's rule no.1:  Nobody is who they say they are online.  Getting to know other players may reveal a real person, but continually fighting MOBs doesn't reveal much.  There's some humor to be found in the whole situation, too.

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Drew Sheneman, USNews

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Pauly D, Memegenerator

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"Operation Spycraft," actiontrip.com

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By the way, a n00b is "A inexperienced and/or ignorant or unskilled person. Especially used in computer games."  And what about the result of gathering all this information?

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Patrick Chappatte, "Huge Data Collection By NSA," Cagle

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While I was looking for these cartoons, I came across the NSA's site for kids.  In its Google listing it advertises, "How to make your own secret codes, games and activities from the National Security Agency for America's future codemakers and codebreakers." Looks like they're recruiting people early.

-- Marge

DIY: animate

According to the dictionary animate means bringing to life; animation brings artwork to life.  It can be 2D, 3D, Gif, or any combination -- the possibilities are many.  According to the LA Times, Fred Seibert, producer of YouTube's Cartoon Hangover, foresees 'next golden age of animation' on Internet.  Here's a short piece from Seibert's channel:

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DIY.org has a page on animation that introduces different methods and offers some challenges for developing skills.  It could be a good way to get started. There's a free online app at PowToon for creating simple animations with a nice library of text effects, images, characters, and such.  You have to sign up to use it.  It's a lot like putting a video together in a video editor.  Here's my test video:

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To do animated motion, such as what you see in animated films (mostly 2D), you need a good animation application. Most of them are fairly expensive.  Toon Boom is a leader in the market. Below is a rather long tutorial that gives you a good idea of how to handle such an application when creating a character walking.  Note that the ability to observe and apply your observations to your craft is important as well.

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This list at about.com gives links to sources of free animation software.  Some are 30-day trials, some are 3D.  Pencil is an open source, free application well worth a try.

-- Marge

Art: 1.26

Artist Janet Echelman planned to give painting exhibitions in Mahabalipuram, a fishing village famous for sculpture, but her paints never arrived.  So she seeded her art with what she learned from the fishermen there and took it to the city.  In fact, to many cities.

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Janet Echelman, 1.26/Tsunami, Tumblr

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Janet's site has a glorious array of her many sculptures.  She also maintains a studio on Tumblr.  To see how one of her pieces is set up, take a look at this video slideshow about the installation of 1.26/Tsunami:

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And for a truly inspiring talk about her work and taking imagination seriously, here's her talk given at TED.

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This is a person who really knows how to make lemonade from a serving of lemons.

-- Marge

Cartoon goulash

The cartoons I'm offering today are a mixture of ones that tickled my funny bone or hit green on my truth meter.

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Marshall Ramsey, "The Christmas Miracle," US News

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Ken Catalino, "Got Milk," US News

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Jack Ohman, "GOP Candidate School," The Week

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Michael Ramirez, US News

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Scott Stantis, 'Bull run," the Week

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-- Marge

DIY: tie dye

Remember this, fellow oldsters?

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Tie-dye shirt (~1970), Sharing the Hippie Love

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Crafters still tie-dye, and new methods are available.  Generally the look today is a little more subdued, rainbow colors being somewhat out of style.  Some of the samples below are well worth trying.  You don't have to limit yourself to t-shirts either -- save some money on a scarf of your own design; or dye tissue paper for a fancy box; or make custom cloth covers from old, white cotton sheets for your notebooks.  Some cultures have a tradition of tie-dye, such as the Thai art form Mudmee:

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ThaiDye Artists, Mudmee design, Wikipedia

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The most used American method relies on Rit Dye.  They have a page with basic instructions and supplies and color techniques.  Here's a shirt done using the Shibori method:

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Rit Dye, Shibori t-shirt

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If you'd like to try using all natural dyes, take a look at Playful Learning.  With this method you can use such spices as turmeric and plants such as red cabbage.

Other methods include using bleach (Design Mom) or glue (Sweet Verbana at U Create).  To dye tissue paper for gifts, take a look at Jade Harrington's post at I Love to Create.  This method could be adapted to notebook covers with a little experimentation and ingenuity.  I'm guessing find the right glue will be important.  A layer of gel medium would seal it.

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Jade Harrrington, I Love to Create

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-- Marge

Digital art up for auction

A recent article in TIME Magazine, "Digital Art Clicks on the Auction Block (subscription needed to read the whole article)," clued me into a new phenomenon -- selling digital artwork as, well, art with a capital A. Curious, I checked out the artists and pieces mentioned.

Rafaël Rozendaal, who could be labelled 'internet denizen', does screensavers, web sites, haiku, and more.  'If no yes.com' is the site that was offered for auction (be sure to click on the page to see it interact).  Apparently the artist has been selling sites for a while: "Artist Rafael Rozendaal Sells Web Art Through Domains." And apparently 'If no yes.com' was purchased by Benjamin Palmer & Elizabeth Valleau.  You can find a report on this purchase and past exhibits of digital art at NPR. 

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Rafaël Rozendaal, ifnoyes.com, NPR

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More about the auction is on the Tumblr page for "Paddles On," where the other artists and their submissions are listed.

Another one of the pieces being offered is a YouTube video via webcam, titled "rgb, d-lay," by Petra Cortright.  According to the TIME article in the magazine, she

markets her work with an equation: video's current view count x amount per view = total current price. That encourages collectors to keep circulating the artwork online to increase its value.

The video is not available for showing here, but you can find it at YouTube.

An artist of note is Wade Guyton, who prints his digital art with an Epson ink-jet printer for showing in a gallery.  According to the Wikipedia article about him --

As of 2013, Guyton's works regularly sell for more than $1 million at auction and privately.  An untitled Epson UltraChrome inkjet on linen of 2005 established an auction record for the artist when it sold for $2.4 million at Christie's New York in 2013.

Here it is.

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Wade Guyton, untitled (2005), Petzel Gallery

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Now, if I can just convince myself that I can do art for money.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Amazon drones

Have you heard?  Headlines this week reported "Amazon unveils futuristic plan: Delivery by drone."  Other companies plan to do the same: "Amazon is not alone: UPS, Google also testing delivery drones." What could happen?  This collection of cartoons at Mercury News explores the question; here are some samples.

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Dan Wasserman, Mercury News

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David Fitzsimmons, Mercury News

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John Cole, Mercury News

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Mike Luckovich, Mercury News

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Milt Priggee, Mercury News

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My question is -- will we soon need air traffic controllers for drones?  They appear to be multiplying.

-- Marge

DIY: Christmas trees for the venturous

Here is a sampling of the Christmas trees you can make (and decorate) from collections published at TrendHunter and BuzzFeed. There's also a spiral tree from Designing With LEDs.  They're great alternatives for those of us who find themselves short on funds this season.  And they're fun, too.

Blogger at NotMartha.org, Megan Reardon, assembles an airy collection of Christmas ornaments into a mobile in the shape of a tree. Sweet.

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Megan Reardon, Ornament mobile, TrendHunter

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New England Design and Build re-purposes a ladder. 

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Ladder as Christmas tree, nedesignbuild.com

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My favorite is this LED Christmas tree designed by Margery Connor at Designing With LEDs. It's a little more complicated, requiring a store-bought spiral tree form, a five-meter string of LEDs, a small power supply, a connector, and an Arduino.  Margery has published an excellent how-to at her site. Here's what you can do with one:

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Warning: Several comments about LEDs on the web say they're BRIGHT!

-- Marge

Counting down to longer days

Here in Alaska, as the days grow shorter and darkness takes over, we begin to count the days until the winter solstice.  There are things to see in winter, though, like the snowplows performing a pas de deux in the center of my circle.

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Snowplow pas de deux (pic taken through the window screen)

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Anchorage, today about noon, light fog layer

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Barrow, today about noon, looking out to sea

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Counting the days...

-- Marge

Cartoons: Black Thursday

Thanksgiving is the new Black Friday.  See below.

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Paul Combs, US News

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Scott Stantis, US News

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Drew Sheneman, US News

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Chan Lowe, US News

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There's an article by Kevin Roose giving "5 Black Friday Shopping Myths" with the photo below. (Not everyone agrees with him, so take a look at the comments.)

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Daily Intelligencer, Black Thursday/Friday crowd at Macy's

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-- Marge

DIY: building an emotional robot

Using the word combination emotional robot is, according to our perceptions of robot behavior, an oxymoron.  Usually they are portrayed and viewed as unemotional data-crunchers. Most of the robots currently being shown by AI (artificial intelligence) development labs feature calculated responsiveness.  Personally I doubt that robots, as we know them today, can be truly emotional, since emotions spring from a subjective, conscious response to stimuli.  There has to be a beating heart in there somewhere (vertebrates vs invertebrates).  Check out the Wikipedia article "emotion in animals" for an illuminating discussion.

However, this all could change.  Scientists are working to produce robots capable of self-generated artificial intelligence.  Some thoughts on 'artificial' emotions can be found at the Nautilus site.  Tested.com features an article title "Emotions Reconsidered: How Robots May Experience Feelings." J.Kevin O'Regan has posted online his talk given at CogSys 2010 and titled "How to build a robot that feels" in which he presents a feet-on-the-ground discussion of consciousness and perception.

Current technology is certainly intriguing -- meet Nao.

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The news has featured Actroids developed by Osaka University and manufactured by Kokoro Company Ltd.  Actroid-F is shown below.

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Watching the video above, you get an idea of how much technological know-how it take to produce such a robot.

And, of course, there's Data from Star Trek Next Generation (Star Trek TNG, CBS Studios).

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-- Marge

Bake fail equivalent

A bake fail in Second Life may seem trivial but it could be where we're headed in real life -- a point where what we know as real no longer resolves into what we see as real and vice versa. 

The term being applied to this moment is technological singularity and it seems to be fast approaching:

The technological singularity, or simply the singularity, is a theoretical moment in time when artificial intelligence will have progressed to the point of a greater-than-human intelligence, radically changing civilization, and perhaps human nature. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence may be difficult for a human to comprehend, the technological singularity is often seen as an occurrence (akin to a gravitational singularity) beyond which the future course of human history is unpredictable or even unfathomable.

Mathematician John von Neumann (1903-1957) may have said it best.  He was the first to postulate singularity, calling it accelerating change. Stanislaw Ulam reports:

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

Ray Kurzweil -- author, inventor, futurist, a director of engineering at Google, and another supporter of the singularity theory -- wrote the book The Singularity Is Near, which is part fiction, part non-fiction.  In it he interviews 20 big thinkers like Marvin Minsky.

So far the references have been artificial intelligence and software, but hardware is also fast approaching a point of singularity, as exhibited by Moore's Law.

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Benzirpi, Microprocessor Transistor Counts & Moore's Law, Wikipedia

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Concerns about society being overwhelmed by rampant artificial intelligence (think SkyNet) are being addressed by such organizations as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI).

Personally, I wonder if our effectively living in virtual worlds, such as Second Life or your favorite MMORPG, is really preparing us for a completely virtual life.  Others are looking at the possibility, too.  Futurist Thomas Frey asks "Are We Destined to Merge With Our Avatars?"  And columnist James Wagner Au reports in New World Notes, "Scientists Testing to See if First Life is Really Second Life."  He, in turn is quoting an article in the Huffington Post:

The theory basically goes that any civilisation which could evolve to a 'post-human' stage would almost certainly learn to run simulations on the scale of a universe. And that given the size of reality - billions of worlds, around billions of suns - it is fairly likely that if this is possible, it has already happened.

Which in turn reminds me of the old, old theory, jokingly made, that our world is only a molecule in a frying pan.

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Mike, Technological Singularity, demotivationalposters.net

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-- Marge

Humor: Stock market drama

On Monday, the "Dow Jones industrial average topped 16,000 for the first time ever" reported CNN Money. Considering how the stock market affected the world economy in 2008, I'm not impressed, neither is Jack Ohman:

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Jack Ohman, NYSE vs Unemployment, US News

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As Will Rogers said in December, 1929 (more quotes are here) --

I tell 'em that this Country is bigger than Wall Street, and if they don't believe it, I show 'em the map.

Seems to me, Republicans and Wall Street go hand in hand.  For a zany alternate view of Republicanism, take a look a College Humor's video, "The Mad (Republican) Tea Party:"

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In his radio broadcast in 1931, "Bacon and Beans and Limousines," Will Rogers noted,

So here we are in a country with more wheat and more corn and more money in the bank, more cotton, more everything in the world—there’s not a product that you can name that we haven't got more of it than any other country ever had on the face of the earth—and yet we’ve got people starving. We'll hold the distinction of being the only nation in the history of the world that ever went to the poor house in an automobile. The potter's fields are lined with granaries full of grain. Now if there ain't something cockeyed in an arrangement like that then this microphone here in front of me is—well, it's a cuspidor, that's all.

In closing, here's one from About.com's Political Humor:

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BTW, there's a handsome book about Will Rogers, titled The Quotable Will Rogers, by Joseph H. Carter at Google Books. You can buy a copy if you like.

-- Marge

DIY: give someone you love a thimble

For crafters and DIYers Christmas is fast approaching.   Consider a gift with a message that's a simple (and inexpensive) project from CountryLiving -- a thimble necklace.

An inexpensive score at flea markets and on Etsy—usually less than $5—a vintage thimble can become a playful pendant in no time. Just use a small hammer and a two-penny nail to punch a tiny hole in the center of the thimble's top. Insert a flat head pin through the hole from the inside, so the pin's head remains inside the thimble. Twist the pin's exposed wire into a closed loop with needle-nose pliers, then use the pliers to attach a 6-mm jump ring to the loop.

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Thimble Necklace, CountryLiving

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So, what are you saying when you're giving someone a thimble? It depends on what background story you have in mind (and perhaps you should relay that info to the recipient).  Some of the symbolic references are...

Peter Pan. When Wendy wanted to give Peter Pan a kiss he held out his hand, thinking he would receive a material thing. So she gave him the thimble she was wearing and called it a kiss.

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Universal Studios, Peter Pan, 2003

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Shakespeare.  According to an article by Stephanie Appleton in the Finding Shakespeare series, "Shakespeare’s World in 100 Objects,"

In his 1596 play, The Life and Death of King John, Shakespeare makes reference to the thimble as a symbol of female domesticity...

Colonial America.  In the article, "Engagement Ring Symbolism through the Ages," marc posts:

During the Colonial period in America, all forms of jewelry were prohibited due to Puritanical restrictions and the apparent moral degradation of such jewelry items.  Women were offered a thimble to symbolize the conjugal union, although it wasn’t uncommon for women to remove the top of the thimble to form a type of ring.

Dreams. (These references are a bit far-fetched, but interesting.)  A number of sites that offer dream interpretations show ones for dreaming about a thimble.  Every interpretation is different, so I'll just list the pages on the sites:  Dream Moods, Dream Symbols, experience project.

If you decide you'd rather buy a thimble necklace or charm, there's a fine selection at Etsy.

-- Marge

In his 1596 play, The Life and Death of King John, Shakespeare makes reference to the thimble as a symbol of female domesticity - See more at: http://findingshakespeare.co.uk/shakespeares-world-in-100-objects-number-21-a-thimble#sthash.bYs7o8Y1.dpuf