Countless blogging opportunities have passed while Media Serial lay dormant.  Now that I’m settled in at Radical, I’m ready to resurrect Media Serial and radicalize it.

Parts in the models I didn’t create (from Google 3D Warehouse):
Wall Sconce by Google
Bench by Shinnah
Chair by de Blac
Table by Acorn
Bed by anonymous

The collection includes products like these:

This investigation into personal computing options for small children was precipitated by an article on Bits two days ago about the Fisher-Price iXL, an $80 iPad imitation — let’s call it the iPadlet — complete with apps, a touch screen, an SD-card slot and a USB port.  Utter insanity.  That it ‘opens like a book’ is an ironic slap-on-the-face for those dinosauric purists who might argue that such products represent yet another turn away from the bona fide book and the literacies it engenders.

During Doppelgänger Week, one changes his or her Facebook profile picture to the photograph of one’s celebrity look-alike, usually at the suggestion of friends (or the people on the street who mistook you for said celebrity) or, you know, if you do say so yourself. While a proliferation of Angelinas, Blake Livelys and Natalie Portmans is to be expected, one also comes across the occasional historical figure, cartoon, or animal. Most of us don’t look like famous people.

If nobody’s ever said you look like so-and-so, you can also use sites like My Heritage and Picitup, where you can upload an image of yourself and a program will spit out a few possibilities (I tried both: according to one picture I uploaded on My Heritage, I was 83% Angelina, according to another photo, 73% Emma Watson… I look like neither of these people, and Picitup couldn’t find me a match).

The origins of Dopelgänger Week are mysterious.  According to ABC News, a spokesperson from Facebook wrote in an e-mail that they could not track down any single source and that it was likely a person or group of friends who, through the crowdsourcing power of News Feed, caught the attention of others.  In a fictional interview that has fooled a fair share of people (and news sources), Alex Grossman of the Huffington Post invents the character of Bob Patel, who started Doppelgänger Week as a retaliatory joke when his coworkers kept telling him he looks like Tom Selleck (Patel, 19 years old and Indian, figures ‘maybe it’s the mustache’ that sparked the comparison).  Whoever did bring us Doppelgänger Week, thank you.  Our egos are grateful.