...more recent posts
Cory Doctorow's book Down And Out In The Magic Kingdom was released. You can download a free digital version here. He's utopian like that. Salon also published a shorter story Liberation Specturm. He also is the man behind boing boing which might be the best site on the internet. And he's also the outreach coordinator for the Electronic Freedom Foundation. You should give them some money.
Bruce Sterling had a really interesting quote about Sci-Fi being in a strong position right now to influence policy because of it's power to flesh out the complex technical questions we face today. Except his words were to the point and made you think "wow, that's a good point" whereas mine were probably a little more on the "huh?" side. But because I haven't been keeping up I don't have the link.
This is what you get.
So I have been thinking more in terms of science fiction. Not that I could write a book, but it's fun to think about. My story would have these whiz-bang wireless communicators. They're cigarette pack size, except all the corners are rounded. Like a bar of soap at perfect mid life. Fits right in your hand.
It uses a software defined radio. Speaks any flavor of wireless you download into it. It's all screen on the outside. High resolution. Touch sensitive.
It's our latest techo approximation of the philosopher's stone. Or at least the pocket Palantiri. Now what will the user interface look like?
Dear Operating System Vendor, I no longer want to know where my files are stored....
I've been laughing to defectiveyeti, maccers, and mimi smartypants which is sure better than a poke in the eye.
I still take my guilty pleasure in debka, and now thanks to dave I have added defensetech to the list of politico/military sites I don't know why I read.
Kevin Werbach's blog is a must for telecommunication industry watchers. Reiter's Wireless Data Web Log is just that. And you already knew about Glenn Fleishman's 802.11b News, even if you didn't know that it's been renamed Wi-Fi News.
I mentioned this before, but don't forget William Gibson's new blog. If you miss a day make sure you hit the archive, because he only shows the most recent day on the first page.
And if you really can't get enough Apple in your life Dave Hyatt (formerly of mozilla followed by Chimera fame, and now one of the men behind Apple's new Safari browser) has a (new) weblog Surfin' Safari. OSXAudio keeps up with - yes it's true - the world of OS X Audio. And speaking of which, here are a bunch of applescripts for iTunes. And also, OS X now has it's own category at freshmeat so you can find cool free software that you may or may not be able to figure out how to get running.
Don't say I never did anything for you. Updated sidebar links for this page coming real soon now.
Well, I'm finally getting something done. Unfortunately it involves building DHTML pop up menus which I knew would be a pain. And I wasn't wrong. Seems to be working, but I'm sure there is some browser/OS combo out there that will break it. This kind of work is not very satisfying for me. The problem is too artificial (working around the various rendering bugs in all the different browsers.) But I do want to make these people happy. And it might be something I can repurpose for other uses.
Did you ever read something you knew was only mildly funny, yet it stuck in your head and made you laugh out loud on multiple occasions when, let's say, maybe you shouldn't have been laughing? Like, because it wasn't really that funny? Still, sometimes I can't help myself.
From defective yetti:
ConfessionI don't even have to finish the sentence. To my brain, that's funny.
Tonight for dinner I ate both pasta and antipasta...
David Weinberger has put together an excellent Open Specturm FAQ. You should read it.
Alex and I went to the Apple store yesterday. They didn't have the new powerbooks on display (real soon now they said.) I should have figured, since the ship dates are still a few weeks. But you'd think they'd have demo models at least. Oh well. Seems like those models won't be the right size anyway.
Had a mini college reunion last night with a friend visiting from Colorado. Great time. Makes me want to spend more time with the folks who are always here.
I couldn't possibly be in a worse mood.