dissecting experiences with a critical eye
“Stocks plunged today after a sell-off in China rattled markets worldwide and fanned fears that the economy may be vulnerable to a downturn.” [See the NYTimes article]
After hearing this news that the recent stock market utopia isn’t as rapturous as Jim Cramer would like you to believe, I went to Google Finance to check the impact.
Apparently it’s wider than expected…
Here’s a beautiful image, a “map” of the internet, found at The Opte Project site…
I thought of this map when I read this post today, from Smart Mobs…
Hackers briefly overwhelmed at least three of the 13 computers that help manage global computer traffic Tuesday in one of the most significant attacks against the Internet since 2002, reports Associated Press via Engadget.
Experts said the unusually powerful attacks lasted as long as 12 hours but passed largely unnoticed by most computer users, a testament to the resiliency of the Internet. Behind the scenes, computer scientists worldwide raced to cope with enormous volumes of data that threatened to saturate some of the Internet’s most vital pipelines.
The Homeland Security Department confirmed it was monitoring what it called “anomalous” Internet traffic.
“There is no credible intelligence to suggest an imminent threat to the homeland or our computing systems at this time,” the department said in a statement.
The motive for the attacks was unclear, said Duane Wessels, a researcher at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis at the San Diego Supercomputing Center. “Maybe to show off or just be disruptive; it doesn’t seem to be extortion or anything like that,” Wessels said.
The production value of Ms. Dewey is pretty fab. As is Ms. Dewey herself (I can imagine the casting call on Craigslist now: “Software geeks seek generically ethnic model for new viral site and rounds of Parcheesi“).
Other than production, the site is lame — there’s nothing unique here, such as the the sense of Eliza-like two-way conversation. Ms. Dewey doesn’t even have a unique response to what I’m sure most people search for: “Want to make out?”
But… here I am blogging about it… so I guess the marketeers win? Either way, this is still just the digital equivalent of tits and ass in beer ads (well, except there’s more clothing involved here!)
Hi, my name is Ross and I’m a design strategist, and I'm passionate about studying how audiences connect with products and ideas. I've worn many hats: a market researcher and consultant at Forrester Research, a game designer at Harmonix, a grad student at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, a composer and teacher at New England Conservatory. You can reach me at ross.spw@gmail.com, or follow me on twitter.
