Friday, March 14, 2003

10 Years of the World Wide Web [Slashdot] 11:45:33 AM    comment []

Microsoft explores self-managing software. The company takes on competitors with a new initiative for developing "autonomic" business applications. [CNET News.com] 11:44:23 AM    comment []

Vendors publish new Web services specs. Message delivery spec, Web services roadmap unveiled [InfoWorld: Top News] 11:38:57 AM    comment []

Panel: Terrorists won't hit Internet. NATO, vendors say threat overstated [InfoWorld: Top News] 11:38:28 AM    comment []

e=mc^2. Happy Birthday Albert Einstein [MetaFilter] 11:38:02 AM    comment []

Analysis of SCO vs. IBM [Slashdot] 11:36:18 AM    comment []

It's about self-destruction. The most powerful narcotic invented by humankind is war . Former NYT war correspondent Chris Hedges talks about WAR. Frightening and timeless interview. [MetaFilter] 9:52:59 AM    comment []

The future of the blog is Raging Platypus. From the Raging Platypus FAQ: What is Raging Platypus? Raging Platypus is so hip, so innovative, so revolutionary, it can be difficult to describe to the uninitiated. In fact, it is best described by what it is not. * It is not a weblog publishing tool. * It is not a Linux distribution. * It is not a Flash game. * It is not a Matrix ripoff. * It is not an MP3 player. * It is not an insipidly-marketed soft drink. Raging Platypus is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room... It is at the core of what you are, and what you can become. It believes in you, it adores you, it worships you. And it can be yours, all yours. Oh yes, my friend. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 9:51:33 AM    comment []

Will ultrawideband (finally) kill Bluetooth?. Ultrawideband is emerging as a low-power, high-bitrate, long-range alternative to Bluetooth, a technology that's been teetering on the brink of collapsing under the weight of its own hype forever. The impression that UWB is going to deal Bluetooth the final blow was intensified this week in meetings in Dallas, at which major manufacturers -- among them Intel and Sony -- were considering which technology of those submitted to them by leading wireless communication companies to settle on as the new standard to compete, and possibly knock out, Bluetooth. One technology has caught everyone's eye -- UWB. WPANs create wireless connections in the home over short distances, which allow for synchronization among PDAs, computers, television sets, cable TV box, etc. Allied Business Intelligence estimates that the winning technology behind the standard, to be designated 802.15.3a, will likely generate $1.39 billion in revenue by 2007. The IEEE will not make its decision until June at the earliest, but there is a consensus that UWB has emerged as the clear winner from this week's meetings: The technology was used by 95 percent of the proposals submitted, according to Ben Manny, an Intel director of wireless technology development. UWB is simpler, cheaper, less power-hungry, and 100 times faster than Bluetooth (currently the leading WPAN technology), adopted by makers of cell phones and PDAs, as well as by companies such as Microsoft and Apple Computer. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 9:50:50 AM    comment []

Turncoats in Bermuda shorts.. Turncoats in Bermuda shorts. Arianna Huffington continues to skewer offshore tax shelters in her latest Salon opinion piece. Despite her patriot-speak denouncing these corporations for avoiding taxes while our young men are getting ready to die for their country, she does shine the light on a growing problem – “basic fairness and economic justice” – or, the lack of it. How can the average American not be outraged at this, when so many of us are expected to be able to account for even the smallest charitable donation we would dare to use as a tax write-off? [MetaFilter] 9:50:09 AM    comment []

Iraq's side of the story. While I haven't checked out the videos (which is sans translation anyway), it's interesting to hear that the Iraqi government has put up their version of the Saddam-Rather interview from a few weeks back, on their almost blog-like gov't site. I wish there was an english translation, to see how the other side lobs their spin of propaganda in this new media war. [MetaFilter] 9:49:21 AM    comment []

Spartacus sucks you in - Happy Historical Hyperlinkation. Wow. Spartacus Educational is a masterwork of hyperlinked history with a rather eclectic list of focus topics that can suck you in and never let go. Start anywhere, and then just click, and click, and click... In light of recent events, you might begin, if you wish, with a brush-up on the 1914 assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and from there go on to find out more about the Black Hand secret society responsible for the killing. You may attempt to sidestep politics by going to cartoonists, or U.S. novelists and poets, but you will find that the site is organized against a backdrop of world politics (viewed chiefly from a British perspective), a point of view that weaves its own endlessly looping and mesmerizing mesh. [MetaFilter] 9:47:47 AM    comment []

Advice for Conscientious Objectors in the Armed Forces. Advice for Conscientious Objectors in the Armed Forces (html version). "A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to applying for conscientious objector status. This edition....builds upon a tradition which began in 1970 with the First Edition. Advice has since reached over 40,000 military men and women who had decided that they could no longer in good conscience remain in the military. The 1970 Advice spoke to a generation troubled by the war in Vietnam. This generation of conscientious objectors, too, has seen war--most recently in the Persian Gulf, and before that in Panama. It has experienced the end of the Cold War and the flowering of hopes for peace; and it has watched as those hopes turned to disappointment in the chaotic, dangerous post-Cold War world." The G.I. Rights Hotline has recently reported they "fielded a record number of calls, mostly from military personnel and families seeking advice on conscientious-objector and other discharges." [MetaFilter] 9:46:34 AM    comment []

ELOG Electronic Web Logbook 2.3.3 [freshmeat.net] 9:45:57 AM    comment []

Reporter Takes His Weblog to War. A Manhattan journalist is raising money online so he can travel to Iraqi Kurdistan to cover the impact of a U.S.-Iraq war on the Kurds. His reports and photos will appear not in mainstream media but on his weblog. By Mark Baard. [Wired News] 9:45:00 AM    comment []

Whither Mono?. A healthy software ecosystem has to create niches where commercial and open-source projects can thrive. Java does that, but is neither an open standard nor a first-class citizen of the Windows platform. The Common Language Infrastructure is, at least in theory, both. Whether theory will become practice is an important question that makes Project Mono worth watching. [Full story at InfoWorld.com] ... [Jon's Radio] 9:44:08 AM    comment []

The South Shall Rise Again: The Dream of Lost Causes What if Netscape had won?. On the eve of the anniversary of the Mosaic Web browser, CNET News.com's Charles Cooper ponders how things might have evolved had the browser wars turned out differently. [CNET News.com] 9:43:01 AM    comment []

`Matisse Picasso' Curator Is Named to Major Post. The Museum of Modern Art has appointed John Elderfield chief curator of the department of painting and sculpture. By Michael Kimmelman. [New York Times: Business] 9:41:21 AM    comment []

Brazilian Leader Introduces Program to End Slave Labor. The plan calls for stepping up police raids on ranches, logging operations and mines that lure poor and often illiterate peasants into servitude. By Larry Rohter. [New York Times: Business] 9:40:18 AM    comment []

Microsoft Discovers the Ultimate Tool for Fighting Piracy: Software Piracy is Terrorism MPAA, Microsoft Testify Piracy Funds Terrorism [Slashdot] 9:38:33 AM    comment []

Playing God Again At Play With DNA. The 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix is now being celebrated visually, with six different exhibitions in Manhattan. By Sarah Boxer. [New York Times: Technology] 9:36:29 AM    comment []

Mozilla Web Browser Updated : Version 1.3 brings junk-mail filtering, image auto-sizing, an API for rich text editing in Web pages, newsgroup filters, dynamic profile switching, nearly 2000 bug fixes, and more. (MacMinute via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu] 9:33:01 AM    comment []

KM's father figure: Robert Buckman. 'Chaos makes serendipity' in the world of knowledge management [InfoWorld: Top News] 9:31:14 AM    comment []

Knowledge managing. The technology to make KM work is available -- now is the time to reconsider old implementation hurdles and reap the benefits of knowledge sharing [InfoWorld: Top News] 9:30:38 AM    comment []

Who has the Peace Blog? Live warblogging from Iraq: CNN's Kevin Sites launches blog at kevinsites.net. CNN foreign correspondent Kevin Sites, whose first-person accounts we've posted here on BoingBoing previously, now has a blog at www.kevinsites.net. Recent journal entries from Kuwait are available at this site, and Kevin's now also phoning in live audblog reports via his mobile phone, as he travels throughout the region covering the apparently imminent conflict. Internet access in Iraq and the other countries he's traveling in is -- as one might imagine -- unavailable or extremely poor. This makes text blogging difficult or impossible. But by using audblog and his somewhat more reliable satellite phone connection to speak his blog posts (I understand that the CNN crews there are using Iridiums and Thurayas), Kevin's able to share these quick, immediate first-hand reflections of what it's like to be a reporter on the ground. Audblog post: crossing the border into northern Iraq I'm calling in from the highly-guarded border of Iran and Kurdistan. A truck is waiting for us to transport CNN staff, our personal belongings, and our television gear into Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. We're crossing into this region to cover the northern front of a potential war with Iraq, in an area dense with oil-rich fields along the northern no-fly-zone. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 9:29:02 AM    comment []