...more recent posts
Bunch of links for your weekend viewing pleasure. Here is a story about the great Sage synthesizer fraud which might appeal to any budding multi-media product forgers. Here is the scoop on why some numbers are less random than others which is some mind blowing math, although someone else had a good explanation about why it can't be applied to horseracing as is jokingly mentioned. And here is some far out stuff on the biological wireless internet. That reminds me of the amazing sci-fi book I am in the middle of right now, Greg Egan's diaspora. It takes place in a distant future and some of the intelligent life lives inside computers, having put themselves in there centuries before. (Sort of, it's much more complex than that of course.) Others have taken on cyborg bodies, but still inhabit the physical world as we know it. Others have stayed in the flesh. Really interesting so far. If you like that kind of book, then you'll like this book. Sez me.
Here is a brutal appraisal of Microsoft's .NET strategy. "...This stuff is so abstract it's impossible to criticize. Who doesn't want an operating system that supports productivity? Great feature! Get me one of those spiffy new operating systems with the productivity feature!" (via scripting news)
I've been doing so well on my new plan to not get overly agitated by political stories that I clearly am not going to mention that the U.S. government has found that the U.S. government did nothing wrong in Waco. And, according to todays New York Times, they are "100% certain" of their innocence. Oh, you're 100% sure? Why didn't you say so? Good enough for me. I mean, if I was going to comment on the story at all which of course I'm not...
Move along, nothing to see here.
Stephen King has already released one book (albeit quite a short one) over the web. Apparently he was dismayed to find that he could not read it on his own computer. He uses a Mac, and of course the encryption software his publishers used to encode his book only works on Windows machines. So this time around he is releasing his new work on his own site without any of the encryption (or any of the publishers.) He is going to use the honor system, hoping enough people will cough up the $1 per section (released sequentially.) Oh my god. Somebody rich and powerful is doing something reasonable. Has he been talking to that troublemaker Courtney Love or something? The publishing industry must be extruding red rock based rectangular building blocks about now, if they even know what is happening. "This is the end... beautiful friend."
Made it safely back to workstation 1 (NYC.) Had a great time on Long Island last week. We treated it as a first test of the idea that with computer based free-lance jobs, we should be able to work anywhere. Well, yes and no. It's definitely not as productive to be at your computer staring out the window across a sun filled deck into a beautiful garden. Not to mention the pool. I get more done here with my shades drawn. Still, it's pretty nice on the head to get away. My croquette (sp?) game sure improved. Thanks to V & S for taking a vacation of their own, and leaving us their beautiful house. Just let us know when you are going away again... :-)
Do you really get live spam (telemarketing?) on ICQ? This transcript is just too bizarre to not be true. Maybe it's my blood sugar level or something, but I couldn't stop laughing.
Please use my inch address to email me today and tomorrow. Thanks.
Looks like Apple (yes, today is Macworld NYC) has released the machine I've been waiting for (or, actually, the machine I've been making MB wait for) the dual processor Powermac. I guess they had no choice but to release this machine with the intel/amd crowd pushing well past 1 GHZ. The 500 MHZ G4 wasn't seeming so strong any longer. They've had these MP (multiple processor) machines ready for awhile, but OS 9 doesn't really support MP. I thought they might wait for OS X release (which should blaze on multiple chips) but I guess they decided to jump a little early. That's fine by me. And did someone say standard gigabit ethernet? Holy cow. But the best part, and frankly, the part I don't really believe yet, is that Jobs said these machines are available today, at the same price points as current (now old) G4 powermacs. Could this be true? We've come to expect a little gouging from Apple, is this a change of heart? Giving the faithful an insanely great deal? More as news develops...
Maybe because I am not such a hard core coder, I like to follow the personality conflic... err, synergies between the various "leaders" of the free/open software movements. Here's a good article/discussion about the big three: RMS, ESR, and Linus. (I think it's 'good' because it supports RMS. I like the comment that he should/might get a Nobel prize someday. He's definitely in that sort of class I think.)
Here's a great faq about landing discount airfares. Seems very informative. I will never use Priceline.com if this info is correct. What a rip-off.