Monday, January 20, 2003

world-changing tech. The MIT Review lists 10 Technologies that will change the world. Hm. I'm always skeptical of far-reaching predictions like these. I keep thinking back to really simple things, like email, which were never considered "revolutionary" (and even now it's not given it's proper due)... they just happened. Things like email changed the world, and no one noticed, but suddenly you can't go back to the way it was before. Some of the technologies listed in the article might reach that status, but some will simply sound cool and remain achievements available only for the few rich. IMO, a technology changes the world when it's accessible to everyone. [Abort, Retry, Fail?] 7:36:36 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

After the Steelers lost two weekends ago, I found it hard to get back into the playoffs and Super Bowl until I found Robyn at tampatantrum.com.  She is as much a Tampa Bay fan as I am a Steeler fan.  Which is nice just from a fan perspective, but then to have a female fan like me.  I will be rooting for the Bucs on Super Bowl weekend!  [Michelle McBride's Radio Weblog] 1:12:32 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

BuddySpace: How cool is this?!.   While looking on the Jabber.org website for some info related to a project that I am working on, I discovered BuddySpace. It's on version 2.x, so I don't know why I never noticed it before. Anyway... Like all great ideas, the concept is very simple: extend the ideas of pervasive presence found in IM systems and display graphically where people who matter to you are geographically located. It's funny after all the work that has been to make physical location transparent on the internet, we are now swinging back in the direction of physically locating our peers with tools like GeoURL and now this. I might further add that this is application #4 on my list of Swing apps that prove client-side Java is alive and well. (NetBeans, IDEA, Spaces, and BuddySpace) I just downloaded it, so now I'm off! [Ray Grieselhuber's Weblog] 1:06:25 PM    trackback []     Articulate []

bladerunner and neuromancer. William Gibson writes about some of his thoughts on Bladerunner and its relationship to Neuromancer. He writes: BLADERUNNER came out while I was still writing Neuromancer. I was about a third of the way into the manuscript. When I saw (the first twenty minutes of) BLADERUNNER, I figured my unfinished first novel was sunk, done for. Everyone would assume I’d copped my visual texture from this astonishingly fine-looking film. But that didn’t happen. Mainly I think because BLADERUNNER seriously bombed in theatrical release, and films didn’t pop right back out on DVD in those days. The general audience didn’t seem to get it, relatively few people saw it, and it simply vanished, leaving nary a ripple. Where it went, though, was straight through the collective membrane to Memetown, where it silently went nova, irradiating everything from clothing-design to serious architecture. The paralels in the vision of Bladerunner and Neuromancer are quite striking. What's interesting is that 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?', the Philip K. Dick book on which Bladerunner was based, doesn't really create the ambience that Neuromancer achieves so perfectly. Bladerunner's visuals (in large part the work of visual futurist Syd Mead, enhanced by Ridley Scott's direction) are, then, more than anything, a product of their age, of the ability to tap into the subconscious of imagined futures where Gibson's works live comfortably... [Abort, Retry, Fail?] 11:00:30 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Mike Amundsen has been cranking along this weekend. Today he added support for the MetaWeblog API in his latest EraBlog.net weblog service. I'm gonna try out his service tomorrow. Anyone who can add several features in a weekend is worth watching. Oh, Mike's been around the .NET block a few times, though. He was the principle author on the "IBuySpy" .NET demo that shipped before .NET did. He tells me he worked on this weblog tool for a few months in his spare time. [The Scobleizer Weblog] 10:44:31 AM    trackback []     Articulate []

Speaking of .NET, I've been most impressed by INETA (International .NET Association), a group of .NET User's Groups. They've been bringing world-class speakers to the local Silicon Valley .NET user group (folks that you usually have to pay $1000 to hear). This group started without real support from Microsoft, although now Microsoft is supporting them. Here's a GotDotNet article about INETA. (GotDotNet.com is a Web site produced by Microsoft). [The Scobleizer Weblog] 10:43:32 AM    trackback []     Articulate []