...more recent posts
Microsoft released a patch for that browser hole (the cookie one.) You should probably try to install this if you're using ie on windows. (via blogger)
huh? New trend in interface design? (Requires Flash 4.)
I am an idiot. This afternoon I've been building the editing system for the individual pages, and I accidently erased my apple page that was underneath this one. I am going to take it as a sign that I shouldn't have that page. Luckily I didn't erase the whole database. Must be careful with that mysql delete command!
I'm listening to: Louis Armstrong Hot Fives and Sevens
Most recent book purchace: Cascading Style Sheets: the definitive guide
Mailing lists I'm still on: CHI-web (computer, human interface)
Mailing lists I'm no longer on: Blueworld Dreamweaver list, and that ridiculously high volume Flash list.
old computer I'm using now: Power Computing Power Center pro (with 128 megs ram and a 19'' Radius monitor.)
Newer computer I will get back soon from the lovely MB: Blue and white G3 400 with 256meg ram and 37gigs of storage.
Favorite recent blog topic: riotHero's soul searching about whether he should experiment with drugs.
Most overpriced meal I've had lately: Tabla
Best restaurant that is so crowded I don't want to go anymore: 71 Clinton St.
Slow day so far (from where I sit) so I'm digging this one out of the vaults: The Hobbes' Internet Timeline, the self described "definitive internet history." Bland and dry with just a hint of geekish excitement. For instance, today's picture is supposedly the diagram of the first imp to host connection set up in September of 1969 at UCLA. Good thing they had it so well planned out.
IBM, and Altavista have combined on a web mapping project. One of the more cartoon like results is featured as today's picture. Here's a short explanation from the IBM site:
Our analysis reveals an interesting picture (Figure 9) of the web's macroscopic structure. Most (over 90%) of the approximately 203 million nodes in our crawl form a single connected component if hyperlinks are treated as undirected edges. This connected web breaks naturally into four pieces. The first piece is a central core, all of whose pages can reach one another along directed hyperlinks -- this "giant strongly connected component" (SCC) is at the heart of the web. The second and third pieces are called IN and OUT. IN consists of pages that can reach the SCC, but cannot be reached from it - possibly new sites that people have not yet discovered and linked to. OUT consists of pages that are accessible from the SCC, but do not link back to it, such as corporate websites that contain only internal links. Finally, the TENDRILS contain pages that cannot reach the SCC, and cannot be reached from the SCC. Perhaps the most surprising fact is that the size of the SCC is relatively small -- it comprises about 56M pages. Each of the other three sets contain about 44M pages -- thus, all four sets have roughly the same size.
O.K., I finally read that feed piece about weblogs. Dave and Alex both told me to, but I guess we all take our own time. Right on, though, I think.
Very interesting piece at the EETimes about the cable industry adopting MPEG-4 as their streaming media standard (over closed proprietary systems from microsoft, real and apple.) Sounds like some good thinking. I like this part: "...with channels 1 to 300 dedicated to broadcasting digital TV programs and channels 301 to 3 million [reserved] for streaming high-quality video on demand." I can hear it now, "Please tune in to channel one million seven hundred and fifty thousand four hundred and twenty three..."
Here's a link to the Foresight Institute's Engines of Creation 2000 Confronting Singularity conference page. The conference is happening next weekend. The page outlines some of the thinking behind the event. Here's a blurb:
In the next one-to-three decades we expect to see these capabilities:
"strong" nanotechnology
genetic engineering of humans
the end of aging
advanced machine intelligence (call it what you will)
encrypted private currencies
thorough surveillance and sensing, able to detect what you ate,drank, and smoked last night
bio/chem/nano weapons of mass destruction
human civilization expanding into space
Such a future is so different from human history that we can barely imagine it. Some call it a "Singularity" beyond which our best projections are useless...
Heady stuff from some very well respected researchers.
I am having some email problems today. Try my inch account if you need to get me.