...more recent posts
Slashdot had this great link to a Christian Science Monitor article speculating that today (October 31) will be the last day with no human in space. The 7:53 GMT lift off of the Soyuz rocket carrying 2 cosmonauts and 1 astronaut to the International Space Station is planned to be the beginning of humankinds continual habitation of space.
"I'd say there's a decent chance that Oct. 30 may be the last day we don't have humans in space," says John Curry, the station's flight director at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston."Maybe this is a little overblown, sure, but it's fun to think about. Space colonization seems realistic to me, but of course we don't have too much experience yet, so it's probably too early to tell. My favorite argument against humans ever colonizing space is based on an idea called the "Copernican principle" (I can't remember who argued this, I'll try to find out.) It seems like bull at first, but if you really think about it there is some sense to it: There is very little chance that your particluar point of view is very special, and therefore it would be highly unlikely that you would be living in a time during the span of the human species that is in any way special. Yet if we do go on to colonize space and spread throughout the galaxy then it would be true that right now we are living at the very start of this incredible celestial journey. Your short life span would just happen to fall exactly at the birth of humans as a spacefaring civilivationl. But as we assumed to start, this sort of special perspective is highly unlikely, and therefore it follows that humans won't colonize space and live far far into the future. If we were going to colonize space, it would be overwhelmingly more likely that you woulld have been born in the vast chunk of time that makes up the middle 90% of spacefaring humankinds existence, in other words, you would have been born somewhere during the fantastically long ride we would have to go through to get anywhere in space. But since you (and me) were born right here on the home planet, it's highly likely that we are falling somewhere in the middle of our life span as a species, and therefore won't live that much longer than we have already been around, or again, in other words, not long enough to spread out through the galaxy.
Well, I said it sounded like bull. But the guy I'm paraphrasing argued this as a statistical argument. If you see the math, it's a little more convincing (deceiving?) Anyway, I don't buy it because I like being a bit more of an optimist. Perhaps this date actually will become significant in the far future as the day we first left home.
You can find out more about the ISS here. And here's the slashdot thread.
Aha! Maybe this helps explain Verizon's missed appointments.
"...the Department [of Justice] noted that Verizon's performance in providing DSL lines to its competitors appeared to be discriminatory with respect to installation times, quality of service, and repairs."A covad operator told me that Verizon was showing up for only 50% of their scheduled appointments. But I'm sure now that the government is involved everything will be worked out in a timely manner ;-)
Selected "Astronomy pictures of the day" (index): here, here, here, here, here, and here. Plus this big one of Mars.
Mark Pesce weighs in on the Sony Playstation II
"Doing the math, this 3-D revision of Moore's Law predicts that every five years computer graphics should improve in performance a thousandfold. My own experience over the last half-decade confirms this.... Alvy Ray Smith, one of the pioneers of computer graphics (now toiling away at Microsoft's research lab), told Howard Rheingold that 'reality is eighty million polygons a second.' To re-create scenes indistinguishable from reality, the computer needs to send that many of the tiny triangles to the screen. We're less than two years away from reaching that target, and there's no sign that things are slowing down."
The end of rapid technological change? Intriguing argument. (from HTP)
"It's important for us to explain to our nation that life is important. It's not only life of babies, but it's life of children living in, you know, the dark dungeons of the Internet."--Arlington Heights, Ill., Oct. 24, 2000Huh? Dark dungeons? Does he mean that thing with the dragons and the funny dice? That's so pre-internet, but I guess he's got the right social group. Come to think of it, I seem to remember my mother warning me about Dungeons and Dragons as well. If only I had gotten into it, I'd probably be some sort of unix wizard by now, writing obfuscated one line perl programs to calculate the amount of hit point damage my stock options could do against a heavily armed phalanx of suited capitalists. Instead I wasted many years trying to fit in and kiss girls. Oh well.
Is Kid-A the pro-Napster argument the industry can't deny?
I grew up as a Red Sox fan. Not just a casual fan, I was one of the Fenway faithful. I loved the Bo Sox. Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Dwight Evans, Carleton Fisk, Luis Tiant, Rick Burelson (sp?), Butch Hobson, George Scott, Jerry Remey, Bill Lee (!), Carl Yastremski... These were the big league heros I grew up on. So I'm sure it would come as quite a shock to some of my playground pals that I now live in New York, and while I'm certainly not so fixated on baseball, I do route for the Yankees when it comes down to it. The Yankees! How could this be you ask? Those spoilers of so many Red Sox dreams. Those evil tyrants of the A.L. East. Those Bronx Bullies. My defense rests on the head (and what a head it is) of one man. A man who thoroughly signifies baseball - if not through his deeds at least through his posture - Don Zimmer. That's right, Joe Torre's right hand man, and former Red Sox head coach. The man who, at least for me, ties it all together. From the always losing Sox, to the never fail Yankees, it's really Don Zimmer I've been routing for all along. See? There's no conflict. So congratulations to the Don, and the rest of the Yanks. Now no more baseball talk for a year.
November 3rd is my new "committed" installation date for DSL from Verizon. The email actually said, "All previously received committed delivery
dates, if any, should be considered canceled." To (sort of) quote the princess bride: "You keep using that word 'committed,' I do not think it means what you think it means."
Forget the elections. Vote for something really important.
Microsoft cracked. I guess it's big news because everyone has it.
Here's an in depth first look at the Apple's long awaited new DV codec (it's part of the new Quicktime 5.0.) Seems like they're making good progress.
Has anyone else caught that snickers commercial? It is very funny to me that our two Presidential candidates [sic] are being openly mocked in a candy commercial. "I wear the same pants as my Dad." "- well, I invented pants." LOL.
Just so crazy it might work. slashdot has a great link to a spherical projection system for virtual reality applications. That seems like it would solve a lot of problems with the whole VR thing. Maybe not too practical for home use though.
Last night in a dream I was talking to some guy. I can't remember what we were talking about, probably because I wasn't really paying attention. I was too busy being amazed by his shirt which was covered in multi-colored fractal patterns that kept morphing into new shapes and designs and colors. The harder I looked at the fabric, the more swirling activity I saw. It seemed to be eminating from far down in the shirt and then rushing out toward me, growing bigger, as if the surface of the shirt itself was somehow three dimensional, and the patterns were fireworks, exploding somewhere far below, and rocketing up toward me, out of the shirt. I remember being very pleased by this, and thinking matter of factly, "I'm going to get one of those shirts."
Sirius (a.k.a the dog star) is a very interesting star. Here's the story of one mystery surrounding it (namely: how did an ancient West African tribe know details about the star that western science did not learn until 1970?) Not covered in the article is the popular fringe science belief that Sirius (which is actually a two star system consisting of Sirius and a smaller white dwarf star Sirius B) could be collapsed to form a blackhole that could then be used in the construction of spacetime machine. Probably we better check with the dog gods before we try that one.
More David McCusker. Today it's how to get rich. My comment: exactly. Dig the last paragraph:
"You can slowly work yourself into this kind of arrangement by starting some distributed cooperation over some kind of project, which can be undertaken in non profit terms while you work someplace else."
What a bizarre game. Sure the Yanks are up 2-0, so I'm happy about that, but some of the steam seems to have been taken out of the series. What was Clemens doing? Not too smart. I hope we can put that behind us, but I fear that even if the Yankees go on to win, a lot of the boasting that should go along with that will have to be toned down. A little humble remorse seems called for on the part of the Yankees faithful, and that takes most the fun out of the subway series. Still, you have to admit, Clemens can sure pitch.
Is it true that more batters get hit in the head in the American league? The announcers sort of implied this at one point when they were talking about the DH rule, and saying that if pitchers in the American leauge had to bat, there would be less head hunting. Sounds reasonable, but is it true?
I love how David McCusker can say fairly radical things so politely.
"...I don't want to change the basic rules that folks get rewarded for work, and the more work they do then the more reward. Make no mistake, all our systems are just patterns of rules that suit us in their application. They can be changed, and they do tend to change, but slowly. I wish folks would see value in future changes that cause less compounded acceleration of wealth in the hands of wealthy without doing any work...."
It might be legal, but it's probably not too good for your health.
I think I saw a show on PBS about this woman a long time ago. Really cool person. She's building a village out of bottles. Nice stuff.
Apparently Bell Atlantic has found a "problem in my loop." Just thought you might want to know.
Hung out last night with some really nice friends of MB's who were visiting from Colorado. I was actually surprised to learn that, apparently, people in the rest of the country hate the Yankees. This comes as quite a shock to me. And now I see Dave Winer has been bad mouthing the Yankees as well, saying they "have no philosophy." I'm really not sure what that means, but frankly, not having a "philosophy" doesn't seem like a real stopper for a baseball team. One thing's for sure: we're going to enjoy the world series here in NYC.
Why oh why does Sony insist on foisting the memory stick on us? This is such a great new camera, but with slower, smaller, more expensive, and proprietary storage I don't see how anyone could buy it. This is a shame, because otherwise it's a really great package.
Here's a little sketch of the desk I want for the new office. Well, this hasn't actually been approved, but I don't think there will be any problem ;-)
The adventure begins
(Phone rings)
Me: Hello?
other guy: This is Orlando from covad, are you aware that bell atlantic has an appointment today to begin the installation of your DSL line?
Me: (hopefully) Yes.
other guy: Is there someone at the location to let them gain access?
Me: Yes.
other guy: Well, the bell atlantic tech said there is no one there.
Me: (getting up and starting down the stairs) Well, there is a large note on the front door with multiple buzzers for him to ring, one of which is the apartment I've been in all morning.
other guy: (pause) Hold on.
[cut to me standing in the street looking around]
other guy: O.K., he said he stepped a block away to make the phone call. Let me give you my private line. If he's not there in 10 minutes, call me back.
Me: Is it the number you're calling me from? I've got it.
other guy: O.K., good.
[10 minutes of me waiting around pointlessly in the street... then me dialing phone number]
other guys voicemail: I'm away from my desk at the moment...
[20 minutes later...]
other guys voicemail: I'm away from my desk at the moment...
[1 hour later...]
other guys voicemail: I'm away from my desk at the moment.
Done, and done. Is it Friday yet?
It must be a pretty cold day for the dark lord because I left my computer running last night and it seems to have successfully pulled all 69.6 megabytes of developers tools over my often sporadic 56k dial up connection. I've never even been able to get the 13 meg Mozilla through my browser before (had to connect through my FTP program which wasn't possible in this case,) but for some reason Netscape decided to just keep going and going and going... And it did in all over HTTPS, so I assume it was 128 bit encrypted as well? Strange. I estimate it took over 6 hours, although like I said, I was asleep for most of it. All this computer work really takes it out of you.
OS X is working out great, except I need Apple to release the developer tools so that I can install PHP and my database. Luckily I just learned they have been posted on Apple's developer site (which I wisely signed up for a few weeks ago.) Unluckily, it is a single 69 megabyte download! I guess real developers (of which I am not one) have fast connections. I decided what the hell, and gave it a shot on my 56k (yeah, right) but at first I got no response, and now the site seems overloaded. No doubt you are on the edge of your seat, entranced by this and other incredible tales of adventure. Have no fear, lots more excitement to come, and I will probably continue to insist on documenting it all right here. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to futz around in the morning wasting too much time reading other sites, and then in the afternoon I might complain some more about the office not being ready. In between I'll procrastinate some more on the latest job. So stay tuned for all the news!
Here's seven pages of pictures of new geek gadgets shown at a recent trade show in Japan. I guess the video phone is coming soon. I'm not sure what all the other things do, but must of them look supremely cool. Beam me up. (from /.)
Wow. I just got confirmation that my DSL installation begins next Tuesday. Bell Atlantic comes first, and then (supposedly) about a week later Covad comes, and then I'll be all set. Of course, things mights still go wrong (see Oct. 2 entry.) And the office isn't ready yet. And I still have to decide what to do about the server situation (thinking about valinux recently.) But hearing anything from these companies must be a good sign, right?
There was an interesting idea here about the growing problem of backing up data. Because drives are growing in size much faster than their data transfer speeds are increasing, it will soon take prohibitively long to copy all of your data to a second disk. But, maybe that's not really a problem. Or maybe it is. Or, maybe not.
"There are backup plans in place to discover new
paradigms." Ahhh, the old backup plan of discovering a new paradigm - very clever.
Reasonable thoughts on the future of P2P (or, what comes after music piracy?)
Cloning keeps heating up. Weirder and weirder. And we're just getting started. (via robotwisdom)
Doc Searles is offering ebay a free ride on the cluetrain. I hope they take it (to heart.) And speaking of ebay (which a few of us were just the other night,) how does it work exactly? Do they get a percentage of the sale price, or is it just a flat fee to list your auction? Bill? I thought it was just the flat fee, but as usual I could be wrong...
Here's one for MB, or anyone else into the wide world of fonts. (via kottke)
It's unbelievable how many distributed file and resource sharing apps are popping up. I think this one has a shot. Here's a nice chart comparing some of the different players.
Harrumph has some nice photo pages. Here is the clever photostickerbooth project from Fray Day 4, and here is her (simple, straightforward, and charming) behind the curtain page.
The second coming, techno futurist style. Assuming any of the "holy relics" are real, I can't think of any reason why this wouldn't be possible.
Alex's last two picture posts are amazing. He's making me look bad because I had always blamed my poor shots on the camera, and clearly it is possible to take amazing shots with that thing (no, really, if I just had the 4 megapixel camera....)
In case you're ever wondering why the web became so big so fast (while being so decentralized,) you can read a good explanation here. (link via kottke) Basically, it boils down to two words: view source.
But what about linked style sheets? Aren't they really a step in the wrong direction? (Away from transparency?) If I ever get around to cleaning up the html on this site (its all dynamically generated, and I've never taken the time to make sure it formats nicely) I'm going to put the style sheets in line (not that anyone wants to learn any design tips from this site, but it's for the principle of the thing.)
I just found var/system.log! Oh my god this unix stuff is so cool. If I knew what I was doing I could probably solve a lot of problems by looking through these logs. Even without knowing much I think I figured out what was going wrong with my PPP connection today. This makes what I do to troubleshoot older Macs look like a large order of mumbo-jumbo with a side of fuzzy intuition. Throw out the prefs and pray. Check for damaged fonts and pray. Drag the system folder off its drive and back (and pray.) Throw out objectsupportlib (again) and pray. With OS X I can go in and actually see what is happening. Knowing what to do after you see what is happening is another story, of course, but at least we are in the realm of science. Knowing how to keep pre-X Macs running is more like superstition. I know the incantations to chant, and I've got my various rabbits feet at the ready, but knowing that stuff never taught me anything about how the system really works in there. It seems like I won't be able to help learning a lot about how unix works by learning to run the system. Or maybe I'm just carried away by the novelty of it all...
I really like this site. This is the place that had the informative article on space elevators a few weeks (months?) ago. Today /., linked to this great one on using magnetic bubbles for traveling in space.
"Last week's test was a success. We were able to completely fill the vacuum chamber with a magnetic bubble. The only thing that stopped the expansion was the presence of the chamber walls. In space this same experiment might create a mini-magnetosphere 15 km across.I love the artists conception of what such a spacecraft would look like. I wonder if it has anything to do with a scientists conception of how it would look.
Maintaining such a bubble in space would require about 1 kW of power and less than 1 kg per day of helium propellant for the plasma source. In return, the bubble would intercept about 600 kW of solar wind power."
Here is the real audio stream, or downloadable mp3 of J. R. R. Tolkien reading from "The Two Towers."
I used to think he just changed his mind about certain posts. I would go to his site, read a post, then go back later and it would be gone. Now I'm thinking that this is a brilliant new web tactic. I now find myself checking the site multiple times a day, just so I don't miss one of the soon to be retracted posts. Sort of a clever version of the "hurry, this special offer ends soon..." ploy used by some retailers.
When it actually happens, it tends to be a little more subtle than what was imagined (feared, hoped for,) but nonetheless, I think one of those things has happened. We have crossed a line. Not that it is bad necessarily, but we sure aren't going back. Human embryo chosen for its tissue type. From the story submission at /.:
"A couple conceived their son in vitro, no big deal -- but they chose that particular embryo because its tissue type would provide a match for their dying 6-year-old daughter. When their new baby was born, the umbilical cord's blood was transfused into the daughter immediately."I thought it would take longer for this sort of thing to happen. I guess this case is not really such a big deal (when just thinking specifically about this one case - I mean, of course the parents are going to do whatever they can to save the dying daughter,) but the implications of selecting an embryo for certain characteristics are staggering. Seems like we are grabbing a whole bunch of power over the future of our species that is usually assigned to "nature" or "chance" or "god" or whatever you want to call it. I'm all for stealing the fire (so to speak) but I'm having one of those vertigo moments where the boundaries of what is possible (and not possible) are all dissolving. Wow. Just how fast could evolution be accelerated? And in what direction(s)?
Here's the direct link to the NY Times story (with the as of right now still working partners.nytimes.com link trick,) or here is the regular incredibly annoying and un-web like mandatory sign in link.
We were wondering about the seven wonders of the ancient world at dinner. Bruno almost got them all.
Hmmmm, seems there's a new animal leaving tracks around here:
compatible; MSIE 5.5b2; Mac_PowerPC
"So anyway, uh great, now folks are trying to patent simple operations on graph connectivity relations. Lord save us. " Yeah, what he said. Here's a follow up in the same thread. Reading David McCusker comments always makes my day. Now if I could just figure out what exactly he is building.
Here's the best look at OS X Public Beta (from Ars Technica's Mac Wizard John Siracusa.) Listen up Apple. This guy knows what he is talking about. (Long article, with some nice screen shots if you're wondering what the new Mac world is going to look like.)
Space fungus eating Mir. (Well, they are common earth fungi, but they are eating the aging space station.) Here's the slashot thread. My favorite quote is
"...he added that the station had 'a strong smell of fungal contamination' - a smell he called 'mushroomy' in his book - and that 'there were areas you wouldn't want to stick your hand in.'"
It's here!
I am trying to be patient. The new machine (cerebus? It has two brains after all) was loaded on the FedEx van this morning at 7:45. This means it is somewhere in Manhattan, winding its way through the crowded streets. But I don't know when it will find its way to the lower east side. This reminds me of a time in high school when I was at my parents house on Cape Cod waiting for my then girlfriend to arrive for the weekend (driving from NYC.) I had only a rough idea of her arrival time (pre cellphone days,) but at one point, for no apparent reason, I stood up from the kitchen table, and not knowing what I was doing, walked out to the end of the driveway. As soon as I got there her car appeared over the top of the hill down the end of the street. Strange. Made me tingle all over.
From the not-quite-getting-it department: IOC disappointed with Olympic internet use. This is from the same group that went out of their way to stop independent web coverage of the games (i.e., athletes who were set up to run blog-like pages detailing their personal experiences at the games were stopped by those in power, I guess in fear that they would take away viewers from the incredibly bad and much over-hyped, and over sentimentalized, major media coverage.) Huh? Repeat after me: The web is not a replacement for T.V.
Took a really long walk yesterday up through midtown. I used to walk around (and bike around) the city more than I do now. Yesterday's trek brought back all sorts of memories.
Housing is always tricky here, and at one point (years ago now) I didn't have a real place to live. I had lots of places I could stay, but no real home. That's when I really walked around a lot. As if the whole city was my home. Now those days seem far away, but on the right day, if I walk far enough, I'll find myself back there again.
Anyway, I was going to say: Took a long walk yesterday and ended up stopping into CompUSA on 5th in the 40's. I was looking to see a Sony Monitor MB is thinking about buying (GDM-W900,) and although they didn't have that, I did get a chance to play with the Mac OSX Public Beta. Sure, I've seen all the screen shots, but it was nice to see it in action. Looks sweet I think. It was running on a G4 tower, but I couldn't tell if it was a Multi-Processor or not. If it wasn't, then I don't know what everyone is complaining about in terms of speed, because the desktop seemed very responsive. Quicktime movies played well (and I've heard they don't.) I cannot wait to get it (looks like tomorrow, as FedEx is saying it has left the sort facility in Newark, NJ.) You, gentle reader, will be the second to know.
This weather is too good. I love the fall. Perfect. Now if we could just hold it right here until about April...