Technology
pharyngula | October 29, 2008I'm afraid I just can't take this seriously. Army intelligence analysts are concerned that terrorists might tweet each other. Or text each other. Or put Islamic wallpapers on their cell phones. Oooh.
Yes, they could. So? We're living in a world where communications technologies are advancing rapidly and where people can talk to each other constantly over long distances. This is a neutral technology; bad guys can use it, and so can good guys, and so can boring ordinary people who just want to chat about the weather.
Latest threat: Air. Terrorists could use this medium to respire and fuel…
evolvingthoughts | October 28, 2008
One of the downsides to being old is that your favourite teachers die. I learned most of what I know about the Empiricists, in particular John Locke, from a book by C. B. Martin, who passed away recently. Hat tip to Leiter. I didn't know he spent so much time in Australia.
John Lynch is tantalising me with a workshop I very much want to go to but can't: The 2009 ASU-MBL History of Biology Seminar: Theory in the Life Sciences. It looks like enormous fun (hey, I'm a philosopher: I use philosophical values of "fun"). I Have Views on what counts as a theory in life sciences, and I'd love to…
evolvingthoughts | October 28, 2008
As I feared, the internet filtering issue has now been taken up by special interests. The conservative Christian political party Family First, run largely by the Hillsong evangelical denomination, has one senator, but the balance of power is so tight they wield disproportionate power, and as PM Kevin Rudd and several of his cabinet colleagues are themselves religious, the FF interests are likely to be pandered to, as they were by the conservative Howard government. Senator Steve Fielding wants the filtering to include pornography and gambling, both of which are legal for adults in Australia…
drorzel | October 28, 2008Over at Dot Physics (which might be the best physics blog in the world at the moment), Rhett Allain has a pair of posts exploring the physics of Fantastic Contraption.
The posts don't really lend themselves to excerpting, so you need to go over there and read them, but I think they're brilliant, and deserve better than just a spot in a links dump. These may be the best example of the scientific mindset that you'll find on a blog.
What he does is to set out to determine whether the world of Fantastic Contraption obeys a consistent set of physical laws, by coming up with ingenious experiments…
clock | October 28, 2008'Voter-Verifiable' Voting System Ensures Accuracy And Privacy:
Approximately two-thirds of Americans voting in the November Presidential election will cast their votes on paper ballots. How can voters be assured their votes are counted and kept private?
Victorian Manchester Home To First Youth Gangs:
A historian at the University of Liverpool has uncovered extensive archive material detailing the activities of the 'scuttlers' - one of Britain's earliest youth cults.
Youth From Poor Neighborhoods 4 Times More Likely To Attempt Suicide:
Youth in their late teens who live in poor neighbourhoods…
evolvingthoughts | October 26, 2008
Users, or Lusers as they are known, learn early not to piss off the sysadmin, who is God. Federal minister Stephen Conroy's ham-fisted attempt to gag critics of his stupid paternalistic and ultimately failure-ridden net filter scheme has managed to piss off the whole lot of them. This could be fun. Anyone got the popcorn? I have the beer...
This, by the way, puts Australia in the company of such civil liberties havens as China, North Korea, and Burma. Yay us.
drorzel | October 26, 2008I tagged Ethan Zuckerman's post abpout video "windows" to other places in a links dump recently. The idea is to put big video screens and cameras in fast-food restaurants around the world, and provide virtual "windows" into other restaurants in other countries. In talking about the idea, Ethan threw out a great aside:
(If I were Cory Doctorow, say, I'd write a short story about the idea rather than wondering how to build it, where a group of kids in Brazil befriend another group in China that they meet randomly over the monitor. The keep returning to the restaurant at pre-agreed times, hoping…
clock | October 25, 2008There is an interesting post (and comment thread) on Kevin Kelly's blog about the exponential growth of available information. It is quite thought-provoking, but there are a couple of issues I have with it.
First issue is that Kevin took the old adage that "every answer leads to at least two new questions", perhaps tongue-in-cheek (I hope), as if it was true:
Yet the paradox of science is that every answer breeds at least two new questions. More answers, more questions. Telescopes and microscopes expanded not only what we knew, but what we didn't know. They allowed us to spy into our…
clock | October 25, 2008Peter Suber, James Love and Glyn Moody have already blogged about this, but we need to make sure this spreads far and wide:
The AAP and Copyright Alliance want to prod the next President of the US to tilt the unbalanced US copyright law further toward publishers. According to a letter the AAP sent to its members (thanks to James Love and Glyn Moody), the two organizations are trying to identify the positions "that will influence intellectual property policy", and will then "offer suggestions regarding appropriate candidates for these positions to both presidential campaigns."
But first they…
razib | October 24, 2008Linux Is Making Me Insane: Grappling with Ubuntu, the free, open-source operating system. I have Ubuntu on my PC through a dual-boot. I also purchased a USB wireless card which was guaranteed to be compatible with Ubuntu plug-and-play. It does work...80% of the time. The problem is that it "drops" the connection every half hour or so and I might have to end up rebooting the system to get it to work again. No thanks. There are some programs which only run on Linux systems that I keep Ubuntu around for (VMware is way too slow), but for browsing the internet it is just not useful for me.…
evolvingthoughts | October 24, 2008
I told you so 1: High cost of internet filtering and controls stricter than Iran's, oh and critics bullied.
I told you so 2: Terrorism laws unsafe, court rejects charge of breaking laws that did not exist when the "crime" was done
laelaps | October 24, 2008Now this is some pretty cool news. The HMS Beagle Project announced yesterday that NASA has agreed to track the progress of the reconstructed HMS Beagle as she makes her way around the globe. According to a press release issued about the joint venture, this partnership will not only benefit the scientific mission of those on board the ship, but also help students all around the world keep track of the ship's journey;
Using satellite link-ups, students in classrooms and laboratories will be able to follow the voyage, and interact with scientists as they apply the tools and techniques of modern…
clock | October 20, 2008This I first posted on June 24, 2004 on www.jregrassroots.org, then republished on August 23, 2004 on Science And Politics. I love re-posting this one every now and then, just to check how much the world has changed. What do you think? Was I too rosy-eyed? Prophetic?
In the beginning there were grunts, tom-tom drums, smoke signals, and the guy on the horse riding from village to village reading the latest King's Edict. That is Phase I in the evolution of media.
Phase II was ushered in by Gutenberg. Remember the beginning of Protestantism? Luther nailing copies of his pamhlet on the doors…
edyong | October 20, 2008
Moving robots are becoming more and more advanced, from Honda's astronaut-like Asimo to the dancing Robo Sapien, a perennial favourite of Christmas stockings. But these advances are still fairly superficial. Most robots still move using pre-defined programmes and making a single robot switch between very different movements, such as walking or swimming, is very difficult. Each movement type would require significant programming effort.
Robotics engineers are now looking to nature for inspiration. Animals, of course, are capable of a multitude of different styles of movement. They have…
clock | October 18, 2008I am back from the 4th ConvergeSouth, the do-not-miss Greensboro conference about the Web, blogging, journalism and community (and the model/inspiration for our own science blogging conferences, including the third one) . Big kudos to Sue Polinsky, Ed Cone and the cast of thousands for putting together the meeting again, making it better and better every year. And of course, thanks to Dave Hoggard for hosting the legendary BBQ with (even more legendary) banana pudding.
I rode to Greensboro with Kirk Ross and came back home with Anton Zuiker, having interesting conversations with each.
Dave…
evolvingthoughts | October 17, 2008
The Labor plan to interrupt Australian internet access, which I have previously excoriated, has been, as I feared, extended. Electronic Frontiers Australia reports that the government has a second, secret, list that even opting out doesn't free you of. So the technical overhead is still there and there's no control or oversight on what gets put on that black list. Who gave the government this power?
As I said last time I mentioned this:
And of course once it's in place, no government will be able to resist blocking other unpleasant sites, like those that, say, give the Arab perspective…
purepedantry | October 16, 2008Lawrence Lessig, co-founder of Creative Commons, writes in the WSJ in defense of piracy -- or more aptly the culture of remixing of which blogging is certainly a part:
The return of this "remix" culture could drive extraordinary economic growth, if encouraged, and properly balanced. It could return our culture to a practice that has marked every culture in human history -- save a few in the developed world for much of the 20th century -- where many create as well as consume. And it could inspire a deeper, much more meaningful practice of learning for a generation that has no time to read a…
gregladen | October 14, 2008'Would Richard Stallman insist that the baby be called GNU/Linux? Does a baby named Linux go to sleep and wake up without problems? How often does he outgrow his footwear and require a reboot?'
All the answers and more are here.