We have now published the new website for The Alien Abduction Lamp, and we are showing a picture of a prototype for the first time! The picture shows the last prototype, and there will only be very small changes (if any) before production starts.
If you have been following the progress for this lamp since the start, you will notice that we have managed to produce a lamp that is very true to my original 3D renderings. The way from concept to prototype has gone very well, without having to compromise on any important details. The few changes that have been made from the renderings to the final products have been by will and by listening to your feedback in my little survey rather than by necessity. The most noticeable change is the removal of the ornaments and pattern to arrive at a more timeless and clean result. You probably also noticed that it has taken quite a while, but seeng the beautiful result, I think it has been worth the extra time.
The UFO itself is very solid and cast in metal with a beautiful black pearl finish (you can’t really see how nice the finish is in this otherwise great photo). The antenna functions as the on off switch, and it also has a third position for pulsing light. And of course it comes complete with glow-in-the-dark aliens, real fake grass and a poor removable bovine abductee!
The Alien Abduction Lamp. Photo by Tiger Global
Now, pull out your 3D glasses and head over to abductionlamp.com to take a look for yourself!
(Those of you who have sent me a message with your email from the old website do not need to send a new one now.)
This great little video shows how people who believe in certain ’supernatural’ concepts often think they are open minded, when in fact they have misunderstood the concept of an open mind altogether, and would benefit from learning critical thinking to protect their minds from collecting too much rubbish.
Twitter is a microblogging community that lets you follow other people’s updates, and maybe have others follow yours back. I have been on twitter for a while, and I have found it quite useful and entertaining.
Lately I find that there is an overwhelming amount of people who seem to get a kick out of collecting followers just to expand their audience. There are also a number of theories on how to increase the amount of followers.
A Twitter Bot Contest
I am not too interested in the quantity of followers myself, but I do find this interesting from a strategical point of view. I think it would be very interesting to test different theories on maximizing the amount of followers by setting up a number of twitter bots with different strategies to see how well they perform.
The idea for a twitter bot contest comes from reading Robert Axelrod’s book “The Evolution of Cooperation” many years ago. The book described different algorithms competing to perform best at Prisoner’s Dilemma (among many other things). Competing to get twitter followers is very different from the tit-for-tat competition, and many times more entertaining since (mostly) real people are involved on the other end.
The graphic above was displayed in place of the image in a series of pictures I imported from Canon 5D Mark II. This kept me puzzled for a while until I remembered that I had switched from RAW to sRAW because I knew I would not need the full 21 Megapixels. I did a test by taking a picture at each RAW setting, and it turned out that sRAW1 and sRAW2 are unsupported by Apple in Aperture. This apparently goes for all other Canon cameras with the sRAW option too.
I am posting this because others might be wondering why they get this lovely burgundy rectangle instead of their images. My first thought was that the images were corrupted, but the images open just fine in Photoshop.
I have not been able to verify if Lightroom supports sRAW. If you know, please drop a comment below!
Charles Darwin was born 200 years ago today. This event is celebrated all over the world. The following little recommendation will be my little celebration of Darwin’s birthday, and a small contribution to science, reason and critical thinking.
Skeptoid Podcast
I have been looking around for a good skeptic podcast, and my search ended with Skeptoid. It is well presented and entertaining and it is a good example of applied critical thinking. So many of the others, including the skeptic society, is simply a pain to listen to because of terrible sound quality. But you might want to check out James Randi’s podcast, which is also good.
Are you wondering what to do while you are waiting for the Alien Abduction Lamp?
Maybe a short stay with our green or grey little friends could be a good way of killing time. I don’t have any connections to help you get there, but I have put together this t-shirt for you to wear so that you can let them know who to get if they are in the neighborhood…
The text is glow-in-the-dark, and it is printed to be easily viewed from space.
Freshome were among the first to write about the Alien Abduction Lamp back in june 2007, and I have been following them since then. They have now included the Alien Abduction Lamp in their list of 40 of the most creative lamp designs ever. I recommend this article to get a look at the other lamps. I am very happy to see the Alien Abduction Lamp in such great company.
