Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Monday, September 30, 2002

What is the benefit of blogging? -- Comment()
I have posted 438 messages here on Universal Rule. According to Organica, this site contains 701 web links, almost two for each post. Blogdex reports the number of links to be 491. Probably the true number is somewhere between.

I have managed to make this site heavily dependent on other web sites. Most of this information will be out of date quite soon.

So, what is the point? What is the benefit of blogging? Well, at least blogging hasn't drastically reduced the amount of other writing I have done. In fact blogging has helped to filter the information available at a multitude of sources. Perhaps blogging is a good tool for organizing information inside your head: into categories, into cross-referenced datums.

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OSI Approves Two New Licenses: "The Open Source Initiative approved two new licenses. One, the Academic Free License is a MIT/BSD-like license . The other one, the Open Software License is an apparently GPL-incompatible "viral" license with some obnoxious clauses." [Slashdot]

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Kyocera Finecam S3L & S5: "Kyocera has announced the new Finecam S3L and S5. Both cameras are based on the previous ultra-compact Finecam platform but now feature a new silver body design and new features." [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

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Konica introduce Revio KD-500Z & C2: "Konica has introduced the five megapixel Revio KD-500Z and the ultra thin Revio C2. The KD-500Z is based on the dual-slot four megapixel KD-400Z but now features a new five megapixel..." [Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)]

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.Mac Outage; Reliability Issues Persist: "I think this is despicable behavior on Apple's part, especially after forcing people to fork out $50-$100 for a completely unreliable mail 'solution.'" (MacNN via MyAppleMenu) [MyAppleMenu]

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Porn Spam: It's Getting Raunchier: "Disturbing, explicit and sometimes-illegal pornographic images are popping up more and more, unsolicited, in e-mail boxes everywhere. Observers worry even the sickest perversions may become more mainstream as a result. By Julia Scheeres. " [Wired News]

Unfortunately, spam filters don't block all unsolicited e-mail. I have disabled the download of images in HTML mails, which also helps a bit in minimizing this nuisance.

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I added a Google search form to the Radio template of this weblog. It at least works, and seems to find old postings without too much trouble.

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Underwater high-voltage photography: "My brother's friend Sue plays with high voltage. The linked-to page shows the gadget she used to photograph high voltage discharges in *water*." [Boing Boing Blog]

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John Robb has unleashed a Google search box for weblogs and a Google stock quote macro for Radio. [Matt Croydon::postneo]

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As Security Cameras Sprout, Someone's Always Watching: "... the surveillance equipment is everywhere, not just in big cities and at obvious places like Times Square or outside the White House, but also in Porterville and Mishawaka, Ind., and hundreds of other places." [Daypop Top 40]

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The Real Tragedy of the Commons: "In 1968, Science magazine published The Tragedy of the Commons, by Garrett Hardin. The article struck a resonant chord; it gave a fresh and modern face to the discredited alarmism of Thomas Malthus. Today there is hardly a school-child who has not been carefully taught about the tragedy of the commons, and had explained to him why human cooperation and sharing do not work in practice. Unfortunately for the trusting student, not only does this fly in the face of historical fact, but it has led to a wide-spread amnesia about the true tragedy of the commons: the Enclosure Movement." [kuro5hin.org]

Discovering new drugs -- Comment()
Tomorrow I'm taking part in a steering group meeting of a drug discovery project. The project is promising, and nicely fits in the function of the group I'm managing. This project is a partnership, and currently a Ph.D. candidate from the project is working in my group. This project is developing a new approach to drug discovery, which may significantly decrease the computational effort. That is, if the project reaches the target.

Currently there are four people working in drug discovery in my group, and we have plans for extending our activities by getting additional funding for graduate students, forming partnerships, and getting involved in expert networks.

I wrote a few thoughts about drug discovery to prepare for the meeting tomorrow. If you are interested in the subject, have a look. The text is a draft, so don't expect world-class prose.

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Apple releases iSync beta: "ith the iSync beta users can synchronize Address Book contacts and iCal calendars across Mac OS computers and devices, such as an iSync-compatible mobile phone, an iPod or a Palm OS device." [MacCentral]