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Microsoft-Excel-generated art!
This is wonderful: This airplane runs Linux as its onboard-display operating system, and as someone documented in a picture on Flickr, it crashed out. As Aaron Suggs noted:
I like how white this photo is … like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. Except for the flight attendant.
Actually, I think the flight attendant is a nice touch — straight outta 2001: A Space Odyssey! But seriously, I’m fascinated by the fact that the airlines base their display systems on Linux. Every time I fly somewhere and I use the seat-view entertainment system to play those godawful versions of Tetris and Poker (why in hell can’t they just run Flash and get some decent casual games?), I always feel a shudder of fear. “Yeah, apparently some guy tried to play Hangman in Row 34 and the system brought the whole plane down.”
Check out the threat on the Flickr page for endless speculation about precisely what that airplane system was doing when it went down.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
A long German word for “noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history”
“El Ajedrecista” — an analog chess-playing computer from 1912
“How did you find my site?” and Vannevar Bush’s memex
» visit the Collision Detection archives
May 20, 2011 » 02:28 PM
From Christopher Kennedy’s very droll book “Neitzsche’s Horse”.
July 28, 2010 » 07:35 AM
“Wr” - S
July 06, 2010 » 10:05 AM
My Xbox broke, and I was trying to Google some possible technical solutions, when I noticed that Google appears to be encouraging me to make a typo. I suppose it’s possible that Google’s algorithms know that typing “wont” instead of “won’t” would produce better results.
June 29, 2010 » 05:00 PM
On the other hand, when I tried the test for multitasking, I was pretty abysmal. I performed worse than people who identify themselves as heavy multitaskers, and those who identify as low multitaskers.
June 29, 2010 » 04:58 PM
I finally got around to trying out the interactive “test your distractability and multitasking” page at the New York Times, which they put up alongside their story earlier this month about how computer distractions are eroding our lives.
According to the test, I guess I have good focus — I’m not very distractable!
» see all of my photos on Flickr
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A long German word for "noticing when ads are being customized based on your surfing history"
