Amber Sparks » technology

Hacker panic: love it.

Amber Sparks — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:58:38 +0000

Summer Reading for Science Geeks from Wired

Amber Sparks — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:43:04 +0000

I’m not a science geek–though I wish I were. I wish I were so brilliant at science that I got to wear the robot hands to handle terrifyingly deadly diseases in sealed-off rooms like the scientists in movies. Of course, then something would surely go wrong and my suit would get punctured and I’d be the first to die of Ebola or the rage disease or whatever escaped from that robot-hand area. So, you know, it’s probably a good thing I was borderline learning-disabled when it came to anything science-y in school. (This is true. My SAT scores for English and for Science were so radically different (top of the scale/bottom of the scale) that test administrators were initially suspicious about the results. Oddly enough I’m not so bad when it comes to math, though I hate most math unless it’s logic.)

Anyway, my idiocy doesn’t stop me from being fascinated by all things scientific, particularly anything to do with space, physics, black holes, parallel dimensions, relativity, dark matter, etc, etc. I know half of that stuff is probably not real, and by god I couldn’t explain almost any of it to you, but it’s fascinating just the same. I like reading books on science designed for dummies like me, and pretending to myself that I know just as much as Stephen Hawking.

So, you know, this reading list Wired put together is perfect for amateurs like me. Entertaining books about science that require no real knowledge of science. I love it. The one I’m most excited to read? Naturally, Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema, by David Kirby. Maybe I can finally find out how one goes about becoming a robot-hand operator–and the odds of deadly viruses escaping in real life versus film life.

How Are We Being Censored?

Amber Sparks — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 19:32:33 +0000

Like this.

Twitter, I Guess. Hmm.

Amber Sparks — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 22:08:47 +0000

I am very ambivalent about Twitter. I really don’t know if I like it or hate it. It certainly wastes an awful lot of my time. But often with such interesting things! And people are funnier on Twitter, generally, probably because their relatives aren’t getting all of their tweets. And Roger Ebert has the officially best tweets ever. I also like being able to respond to things instantly, but I keep forgetting this shit is public, unlike Facebook, and so I have to be nicer. Which I’m not very good at. I’m a very nice person but not very good at being nice. Which I think are two different things.

Anyway, I quit Twitter for a while but I’m trying it again. If you’re on Twitter, follow me and I’ll probably follow you unless you look really skeevy or something. Like, if you have zero followers and follow 15,000 people.

We’ll see how this goes. Picture me squinting right now in slight suspicion.

Choose Your Own Adventure Goes Digital

Amber Sparks — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:33:31 +0000

This is epic. Choose Your Own Adventure books, an absolute childhood staple for people my age, are now for sale on iTunes. They’re fully interactive and that means you don’t have to turn the page and be fumbling around for where you left off just in case that choice totally sucks. (And come on. We all did that, right?)

Best of all, my super-all-time favorite CYOA, The Forbidden Castle, is going to be one of the first selections. I’ll have to wait for the Mystery of Chimney Rock, The Throne of Zeus, Return to Atlantis, The Cave of Time, and Who Killed Harley Thrombowe?, my other favorites. Also, I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain that I can remember these off the top of my head, but I have no idea what I ate for lunch yesterday. Useless organ.

What are some of your favorite CYOA books?

Wired Readers School BP on the Proper Use of Photoshop

Amber Sparks — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:12:07 +0000

I love that half these readers sent in Godzilla-flavored mashups. Also love the MST3K reference.

Congress Investigating Genetic Testing Companies

Amber Sparks — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:01:30 +0000

I say good. I’m glad to see that Congress is looking into this…there’s no proof that these genetic testing kits work, and while maybe they do, they could also be a huge expensive rip-off taking advantage of people’s worry over disease and death. Which is very not cool.

In the Long Ago Techless Days

Amber Sparks — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:10:48 +0000

So as I’m out walking down K Street today to grab lunch, this chick walks by wearing striped black and white tights and big, clunky Doc Marten mary janes. And this huge, massive wave of nostalgia hits me so hard it almost knocks me right into the guy selling fake Gucci purses off the sidewalk. I was like, oh, man, remember when I used to wear EXACTLY THOSE THOSE TOGETHER? That was back in college. Many many years ago.

So many years ago, in fact, that although I wanted to immediately go home and find a picture of myself in witch tights and Docs, I couldn’t. Because there are very few pictures of me in college, even in late high school. (Which is, no doubt, for the best.) Why? Because not only was there no such thing as a camera on a phone–there was practically no such thing as a cell phone on campus. I sure didn’t know anybody who had one. No MP3 players, either. Just lots of people hanging out and talking to each other.

And while I do love my iPhone, and I couldn’t live without it, probably, I am a little nostalgic for those long ago days when people couldn’t take pictures of each other and post them on Facebook every five minutes; when there was no such thing as a social network except for the people you met at the afterparty; when nobody wore headphones or had their ear glued to a phone, and where nobody was Tweeting where they where and what they were doing every sixteen seconds. I mean, if I traveled back in time to then, I’d probably die of boredom–my attention span has shrunken like a hunger victim’s stomach. But I’m kind of glad I was young then. It was nice to have all the time in the world.

Bradbury’s Stories Still Sing

Amber Sparks — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:16:47 +0000

Great piece in Slate on the continuing relevance of one of my favorites, Ray Bradbury:

…the reason Bradbury’s stories still sing on the page is that, despite all his humanoid robots, automated houses, and rocket men, his interest is not in future technologies but in people as they live now—and how the proliferation of convenient technology alters the way we think and the way we treat each other.

Read the whole thing here.

The Digital Book Wars

Amber Sparks — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:38:48 +0000

Interesting article in the New Yorker on ebook pricing wars and Apple’s pricing strategy re: iBooks.