Technology
evolvingthoughts | December 7, 2008So it looks like Australia won't be the sole idiot child of the Internet. FCC chair Kevin Martin wants... you guessed... an "opt out" smut filter at the ISP. In your face American First Amendment!
All you smug Mericans, wipe of that goofy smile, now, OK?
gregladen | December 7, 2008
So how do you get your stickers? We may be all about speedy electronic communication, but this time we're going old school with snail mail. Just send a self-addressed stamped envelope (along with a note if you're so inclined) to:
Send me some Gmail stickers already
P.O. Box 391420
Mountain View, CA 94039-1420
gregladen | December 6, 2008Oliver G. Selfridge, an innovator in early computer science and artificial intelligence, died on Wednesday in Boston. He was 82.
The cause was injuries suffered in a fall on Sunday at his home in nearby Belmont, Mass., said his companion, Edwina L. Rissland.
Credited with coining the term "intelligent agents," for software programs capable of observing and responding to changes in their environment, Mr. Selfridge theorized about far more, including devices that would not only automate certain tasks but also learn through practice how to perform them better, faster and more cheaply.
NYT
gregladen | December 6, 2008The much-anticipated next incarnation of the popular Python programming language -- voted favorite scripting language in the 2008 Linux Journal Readers' Choice Awards -- slithered onto the scene on Wednesday with the release of Python 3.0. Known popularly as Python 3000 or Py3k, Python 3.0 bears the distinction of being the first release in the language's history to deliberately break compatibility with previous versions.
The Python 3.0 change everyone is talking about is without a doubt the break with backwards-compatibility.... details
Everything I've heard about 3.0 makes me think this…
evolvingthoughts | December 6, 2008I just love this:
Cambridge University's Space Flight club got local school children to make space suits for these teddy bears, which were attached to a helium balloon that rose to 30km, enough to see the curvature of the earth. All teds were recovered safely. I expect Prof. Steve Steve to take the next flight up...
evolvingthoughts | December 6, 2008At my other blog here.
Also see Ars Technica:
Here's an idea: if the Australian government actually finds child porn, nuclear bomb making manuals, and the like on the Internet, why not do their best to find the perpetrators and put them behind bars? That way we get to keep our free speech and have less crime and terrorism, rather than less of the former without actually reducing the latter. Then again, imposing restrictions on what local taxpayers can do is a lot easier than tracking down and rounding up international criminals and terrorists, and the filtering plan is moving forward despite…
clock | December 6, 2008You build a mine where the ore is. And facilities right next to the mine, to extract the metals from it. And a factory next to it that turns the raw metal into parts and objects. And a train station or a port next to it, so you can move the objects to the stores you built where the people are. And you also build a town where all your employees will live.
That's how it's always been done.
You cannot work the land, without living on it and getting your boots muddy. If you are hoarding something valuable, you need to hire night-guards who will actually show up at work. I understand, there…
gregladen | December 5, 2008IBM launches first Linux-OpenOffice desktop with virtualization features ...
IBM has added a Linux desktop with new virtualization capabilities to its portfolio.
The Virtual Desktop, which bundles Canonical's Ubuntu Linux, Virtual Bridges' KVM-based desktop virtualization software and IBM's Open Collaboration Client Solution, is available now, Big Blue announced on Thursday.
None of the pieces are new. But the bundled solution makes it easier and cheaper for companies to deploy a complete VDI solution on Linux, IBM maintains. IBM's OCCS includes Lotus Symphony, its implementation of the ODF…
gregladen | December 4, 2008Windows OS last month took its biggest market share dive in the past two years, erasing gains made in two of the past three months and sending the operating system's share under 90% for the first time, an Internet measurement company reported today.
source
In the mean time, Linux grew from 0.71 to 0.83%, and Mac OS X grew by 0.66 percent to reach 8.9 percent.
That's a whopping big change for Linux, percentage-wise.
gregladen | December 4, 2008I want the peek.
Watch CBS Videos Online
Hat tip: Bora, a real technology ladies man.
gregladen | December 3, 2008... or at least much improved.
Two packages arrived today. One containing samples of the Cafe Press merchandise that I created in order to provide a suitable award for the 20 thousandth commenter on this blog plus or minus one. The central commenter and her/his standard deviates will each receive a hat or a mug or whatever. Right now I'm sitting here wearing my iThink hat and my iThink shirt and sipping a cappuchino from my iThink coffee mug.
But who cares about any of that. The other package contained my Avant Stellar keyboard! My original Avant Stellar keyboard totally crapped out…
evolvingthoughts | December 3, 2008
Note the careful ambiguity there: this is not a blog of another antipodean philosopher, but another blog of this antipodean philosopher. The ins and outs of Australian politics and policies are not of interest to much more than 0.3% of the world, so my asseverations are even less interesting to you all. Hence I have started an intermittent blog, The Drought Resistant Philosopher, wherein I will whine (or as we say here, whinge) about the latest stupidity from our representatives and public service, and so on. All ISP filtering posts will go there from now on.
No more mister nice silverback…
evolvingthoughts | December 3, 2008
When my kids were in school, I noticed an interesting phenomenon that went something like this:
Headmaster: No, your kids can't be being bullied. We have a policy against bullying.
I came to call this the "Policy policy": so long as there's a Policy in place for some longstanding problem, action is unnecessary and complainants can be silenced by reference to the Policy.
The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that the present government (AKA the Clean Feed Censorship Party) wants to establish a Bill of Rights in Australia to protect citizens against laws that are unconstitutional and…
clock | December 3, 2008I landed in SF twice (it's a great visual spectacle approaching the Bay), but I had no idea what was going on in front of me, in the cockpit:
evolvingthoughts | December 2, 2008
Because Apple posted an advisory [a while back now] suggesting that an antivirus program be used, the Windows bigots have erected a strawman: Apple says it is immune from viruses, so now it looks like Macs aren't so great huh?
Of course, that's not what is happening at all. I have used a virus checker for years, largely so I don't pass on Windows viruses. Not Linux viruses. Not Unix viruses. Not Mac viruses. Windows.
It's not that there can't be Mac, *nix and other non-Windows viruses. It's that they are harder to do than a Windows virus. Almost in all cases there aren't the security…
gregladen | November 30, 2008If that headache plaguing you this morning led you first to a Web search and then to the conclusion that you must have a brain tumor, you may instead be suffering from cyberchondria.
This is about a Microsoft publication (in the 'journal' Microsoft Research), here, and written up in the New York Times.
gregladen | November 29, 2008Do you know what Cyber Monday is? If not, find out here. But don't wait 'till Tuesday.
cevans | November 28, 2008
g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.
In a grand new tradition of using Universe as lodging for really interesting "supplemental material," I present to you the history (and mystery) of g-speak, an incredible new spatial operating environment, as told to me by John Underkoffler, chief scientist at Oblong Industries. Underkoffler designed the fantasy computer systems in Minority Report, then made g-speak, an almost frighteningly futuristic interface that will throw the proverbial brick through the computer screen. Check out the video above to get a sense of it in its…