Wednesday, September 04, 2002

Cool.  Caltech course notes and homework assignments for a course on Quantum Computing.  You gotta love the way Caltech and MIT are putting course notes online (althought MIT hasn't launched yet from what I have seen).  Does anyone have any links to advanced courses in the Humanities that are online? [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 4:27:50 PM     Big push to outlaw spam.  The problem isn't the spam, its the ability of people to send unsolicited e-mails without paying for the priviledge.  If all unsolicited e-mail cost $0.05 to send (with $0.03 going to the person getting the mail), spam would dry up quickly.  The costs of dealing with spam are all currently being borne by the recipient.  That's completely wrong.  If Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail instituted a $0.05 policy tomorrow (all except for the addresses you entered into your buddy list), they would probably generate tens of millions of $$ in a year in revenue.  People would be happier, they would build accounts that could be used to buy Portal services and most spam would slowly wither and die.  A simple sign up process in order to be registered to send e-mail (to register your address on the server as one that can send e-mail) would be all it would take.  I bet Paypal would be a great way to do this. [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 4:14:21 PM     Interesting. Chaos theory is beginning to explain many complex processes, from economics to biology, but the chaotic underpinnings of blogging might not result in orderly patterns of thought right away. I think the question is not "how can we incorporate more people", but rather how can large groups act toward a shared worthwhile goal rather than mindless destruction, as they usually have? Anybody want to do the math?  Is it just me or is weblogspace looking more and more like a group mind?  A new organism.  If so, this is the first example of this ever.  Why not write about the mechanics of this?   How can a 1/2 million smart people (1/3 on UserLand, 1/3 on Blogger, and 1/3 on other systems) and 5-10 m readers cooperate to create a new paradigm for conscious life?  How can we incorporate more people without becomming too chaotic for any advancement?  Is this worthwhile? [John Robb's Radio Weblog] 4:10:32 PM     Hugo Awards results announced. The 2002 Hugo Awards, given by the voting membership of the World Science Fiction Convention, were announced Sunday night at the San Jose Civic Auditorium in San Jose, California. [kuro5hin.org] 3:55:59 PM

© Copyright 2002 Gail Marsella. Last update: 10/2/02; 7:11:24 AM.

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