...more recent posts
Interesting (well, if you find artificial intelligence interesting) slashdot interview with Dr. Richard Wallace, creator of Alicebot. You can talk to Alice yourself here. And here is the A.L.I.C.E. (Aritificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) website. Don't miss the cool visualizations of Alice's brain.
Early non functional Apple Newton prototypes on eBay. Like a keyboardless emate in a duo 210 body. No, I don't know why you'd be interested either.
Weird. Someone from the Building and Fire Research Laboratory just emailed me about my World Trade Center photos.
...We are conducting an investigation to see if we can learn some lessons from the World Trade Center fire and collapse. I came across the photographs on your site during a WEB search. These images are very interesting with regard to the fire. I have a few questions. Would you be willing to make your images available to our investigation? Are the images at their full resolution, or did you compress them? We are interested in as much detail as possible. If compressed, would it be possible to obtain full resolution versions? Do you have accurate time stamps for the images? Are all of your images posted?...Looking at them again I can't really see what help they could be. On the other hand, what do I know about building and fire research? Guess I'll have to find that DV footage.
Here's two things I've been trying to write more about:
Aside from the fact that it won't happen, why wouldn't Apple open source all the iApps? Is there even a single disadvantage?
And unrelated, in regards to the WTC site reconstruction planning, I propose a fibre optic cable stretching from the top of whatever tower gets built up to a high altitude balloon (or geo synchronous satellite, but I'm not sure they could do that strentgth to weight ratio wise). The whole contraption is a WLAN antenna for a public wireless network. A virtual city commons. They could make it so the fibre thread would light up in different colors depending upon the bandwidth being used. I imagine it looking something like the input/output towers from the movie Tron.
Paul Ford has an interesting magazine article from the future (2009) about Google. Good overview of RDF and how meta data might actually work in the future. Plus Paul Ford wrote it, so it's bizarre in a friendly amusing way. I still laugh when I think about that older piece where he finds the googlebot in his shower. "I am the googlebot! I'm indexing your apartment."
40 Gigabyte Seagate Barracuda ATA/100 hard drive: $74.95!
Looks like Apple will be able get the superdrive into the Powerbook soon. I wonder if I'd ever burn DVD's if I could. Seems like a nice way to archive I guess. Regardless, it's cool for sure, and I want one.
This is my tech lust strategy. I want all the stuff, but of course can't afford it. So I just admit to wanting it, but instead of also admitting that I can't afford it, I just say I'm waiting for some new feature X to appear. When that feature finally does appear, there will be some new X on the horizon to postpone my collision with fiscal reality.
So I'm going to buy a Powerbook. I'm just waiting for the superdrive. Or I'm waiting for airport reception to be improved. Or I'm waiting for a higher pixel density on the screen. This way I'm not poor, I just have very high demands.
Went to see The Fast Runner last night at the Sunshine theatre on Houston. The theatre is a winner for sure, as others have noted. I liked the film too. The long running scene is beautiful.
This one takes the cake.
A SPAMMERS LETTER OF RESIGNATION:And it goes on for like three more pages telling you how terrible spammers are, how you can never get off their lists by replying, while at the same time repeatedly asking you to send them your email address. I'm surprised these people don't explode in a puff of logical contradiction.
Dear Spam hater:
We are quitting, but before we do we are going to expose detailed information about the largest spam operators in the USA that ripped us off so bad we had to get a bank loan to get out of credit card debt.
Do you want to know how to send the crap back to them?
OF course you do!
Forget about clicking REPLY...you know by now that doesn't work. We know what DOES work.
For more information please email us at: Cleanbox@fastermail.com...
Holy hell is it hot. We had to sleep in the office (in the basement, with an AC) last night. Every time I sleep somewhere else I'm reminded that we have the greatest bed in the world. You might think you have a nice bed, but that's only because you've never slept on this one. Of course when you put that bed on the fifth floor of a five floor tenament - with no AC and it's 100 degrees out - it looses several points of awsomeness. But that's not really the bed's fault, is it?
Why we don't just get the AC fixed is an interesting question. Part of it is stubbornness. Part is just being lazy. But I think the real reason has something to do with the satisfaction of having very simple concrete problems. Sure it's blazing hot and uncomfortable, but that's a pretty easy problem to understand, and maybe it forces out any thoughts of dealing with other sneakier problems that are more difficult to get a handle on. "If I can just make it through this heat..." Kind of gives you something to focus on.
I wonder how many stupid problems in the world are semi manufactured like this just so people don't have to deal with the really hard stuff? Anyway, did I mention it was hot? I'll think about this in the fall when it's cooler.