Wednesday, February 6, 2002
Nobel Laureate Perutz Dead at 87
Max Perutz, who won the Nobel Prize for pioneering work in molecular biology, died of cancer Wednesday in Cambridge, England, his research organization announced. He was 87.
I remember hearing him speak at Harvard years ago. He gave a mostly historical lecture about his determination of the structure of hemoglobin, which I suspect might have been a bit boring to some of the more learned members of the audience, but I was just in awe of this guy who was actually in my textbook.
Google Programming Contest
Google has just announced its first annual programming contest!
Have I ever mentioned that I think Google is really cool? Too bad I couldn't program myself out of a, um, out of... Too bad I'm considerably less witty than I think I am.
Radio blog fight!
Well, not a fight, but a heated exchage between Brian Lenihan at Half Priced Whine and yours truly at Skywave.
I have to agree with Doc on this one - Real sucks! And I'm not just saying that because I primarily use Mac OS X, which (as far as I can tell) isn't supported (it might be, but who can tell? - I can't find anything on their website, except for popup ads, of course...). I've been equally disgusted with their products under Mac OS Classic (any version) and Windows (any version). I know of no other program that so thoroughly tries to take over my computer. I have complaints about Apple's QuickTime Player and Microsoft's Windows Media Player, but at least they work!
Lots of fun stuff at Freedom Keys. I discovered this site while googling for eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. I thought Thomas Jefferson said that, but apparently it was Wendell Phillips, a Boston abolitionist.
Info-Activists Call Off Dogs
Now the EFF says it will take the industry at its word that it did not want to silence Felten or any other scientists.But it's not like we're going away, cautioned Cindy Cohn, the foundation's legal director.It's not like we won't be there if they try to interfere with scientific process anymore...
Lance Knobel
When I was at the Forum, I argued that every participant should be given a weblog and encouraged to write up her or his experiences. I'm sure only 5-10% would have taken up the offer, but those 100-200 running perspectives on the event would give a fascinating insight into both the participants and the meeting. The other executives at the Forum didn't see the point, and a number of them, in fact, worked reasonably hard to get Klaus Schwab to prohibit me from writing my Davos Newbies.No one's approving what he's writing, they complained. Klaus, to his credit, told me he'd looked at the site and enjoyed it.
I'm starting to grasp just how destabilizing weblogs could be to the top-down hierarchy of most organizations.
Dave Winer
Referer logs are so cool. This image from 9/11 is getting a lot of hits today for some reason. The hits are coming from Google's image search page. I can't tell what the query is.
My referer log is not so cool - it's completely empty! Come on people, what's a guy have to do to get a hit around here? You don't even have to read anything...
Radio 8.0.4
Radio 8.0.4 is an app-only release that adds Simple Cross-Network Scripting, a feature that was designed four years ago, that pushes Radio to the leading-edge in simple client-side scripting of XML-RPC (today) and SOAP (later this month). It has an open driver-based architecture so support for new protocols can be added without kernel changes.
South Carolina
North Carolina
10/25/02; 8:55:10 PM
I need to stare at these examples for a while. My poor puny brain...
What It Is Ain't Exactly Clear
If you are a blogger and you want to get angry, then read John Dvorak's piece about blogging. Who is he to tell us why we blog. The arrogance of it all. Doc does it because it's fun and serious. Shelly does it because it's fun. Jeff offers his thoughtful rebuttal and positive thoughts. I shared my reasons here and they included fun.
My reasons: It's fun. I'm learning more about myself.
BanScrewdrivers
From the FAQ
Q. For pity's sake, if we allow the regulation of screwdrivers, what won't be regulated anymore in theland of the free and home of the brave?
A. That's a ridiculous argument on its face. Freedom must be balanced against safety, and being brave doesn't excuse unnecessary risk-taking.
If only humans didn't have opposable thumbs - then we never would have developed tools and we'd all be running around naked in the Garden of Eden. Of course we probably would have been wiped out by the saber-toothed tiger...
PC unreliability rears its ugly head again
Dan Gillmor
We also don't want to pay for quality. Clearly, penny-pinching customers would rather spend a few dollars less when they buy and then get furious when they need support that, to put it mildly, frequently fails to meet expectations.
Clearly, I'm in the minority, but I want to pay for quality. With computers it's not all that easy to do. My current solution is to buy my computers from Apple. Yes, I know their computers are not perfect either, but I've been consistently satisfied that the extra money I pay up front is well worth it.
