Saturday 26 September 2009

How stupid do you think I am?

Dear Account User,

This Email is from Gmail customer care and we are sending it to every Gmail accounts owner for safety. We are having congestion due to the anonymous registration of Gmail accounts so we are shutting down some Gmail accounts and your account was among those to be deleted. We are sending this email to you so that you can verify and let us know if you still want to use this account. If you are still interested please confirm your account by filling the space below.Your User name, password, date of birth and your country information would be needed to verify your account.

Due to the congestion in all Gmail users and removal of all unused Gmail Accounts. Gmail would be shutting down all unused Accounts, you will have to confirm your E-mail by filling out your Login Information below after clicking the reply button or your account will be suspended within 24 hours for security reasons.

* User name: .............................

* Password: ................................

* Date of Birth: ............................

* Country Or Territory: ....................

Warning!!! Account owner that refuses to update his or her account within Seven days of receiving this warning will lose his or her account permanently. Thank you for using Gmail ! The Gmail Team G MAI L BETA

This was sent to my Gmail account from 'Goole Email Team'. How stupid do they think I am?? They can't even spell Google right!

Posted via web from nat ma's posterous

Saturday 19 September 2009

Conflux Festival Turns New York Into a Digital Playground - Bits Blog

It might be hard to envision the gritty, weathered blocks of Manhattan and New York City’s outer boroughs as a canvas, but this weekend, more than 100 artists, urban explorers, interactive technologists and public space advocates will treat it that way. They are creating a citywide art installation as part of the annual geek-art event known as the Conflux Festival.

Conflux IPhone users will be able to play Gigaputt at Conflux.

Conflux was first held in 2003, when it was more of a festival on “psycho-geography, or the study on the geographic environment of behavior,” said David Darts, an art professor at New York University who is also the curatorial director for this year’s event. “Since then, it’s evolved to more of an art and technology fest, fusing urban public spaces with exploration and experimentation,” he said.

Events, which include workshops, performances, interactive installations and games, will begin Friday and run through Sunday.

Here are some of this weekend’s highlights:

Gigaputt: Avenues become fairways and a series of local bars are transformed into greens as New York turns into a giant 18-hole golf course and iPhones turn into golf clubs. Players swing their iPhone to take a shot and then examine a map on the phone to find their “ball” and continue through the course.

The Urban Disorientation Game: Players are challenged to find their way back to the Conflux headquarters after being blindfolded and driven to remote parts of the city. Players will be asked to create maps and explore their surroundings as they make their way back to the starting point.

Fish ‘n microChips: As part of an effort to spark public interest in New York’s waterways, a New York University professor, Natalie Jeremijenko, installed an array of LEDs and floating buoys at a site on the East River. The buoys have sensors to monitor water quality, temperature and activate the lights when fish swim by.

Waterpod: The photographer and sculptor Mary Mattingly’s 3,000-square-foot self-sustaining, solar-powered, floating living space and art barge will be on display and open for tours to help facilitate a discussion about living in a future where resources are increasingly scarce and eco-friendly habitats are a necessity.

Human Scale Chess Game: While two chess masters play an actual game of chess, each move will be mimicked by human players posing as knights, rooks and bishops. The photojournalist Sharilyn Neidhardt has mapped out an eight-block-by-eight-block section of the city, with each intersection representing a square on the chessboard. As the chess masters complete their moves, 32 volunteers equipped with cellphones and maps will move around to reflect the location of the pieces in the game.

Conflux

IPhone Drum Circle: Mike Koller hopes to create the “First, Possibly Only and Probably Last” iPhone drum circle in Brooklyn this weekend. The artist invites anyone with an iPhone to download a drumkit application and join him in an impromptu musical session. Mr. Koller plans to have amplifiers in place for participants to plug their phones into and play.

Will you attend any of this year’s festivities? Feel free to e-mail photographs and your written impressions to bitsfeedback@nytimes.com, subject to the note below. If we get enough submissions, we’ll post the best ones on Bits on Monday.

NOTE: If you submit anything to us, you are promising that the content is original, doesn’t plagiarize from anyone or infringe a copyright or trademark, doesn’t violate anybody’s rights and isn’t libelous or otherwise unlawful or misleading. You are agreeing that we can use your submission in all manner and media of The New York Times and that we shall have the right to authorize third parties to do so. And you agree to the rules of our Member Agreement, found online at http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/agree.html.

Posted via web from nat ma's posterous