Andre Venter: World

Anomalous nearby 'cannonball' pulsar

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 02:00:54 GMT

(via NewsIsFree) [Robot Wisdom]

EPIC Releases Report on Global Privacy

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 01:49:46 GMT

(Epic.org) [via STOP1984]

Six million cyber-Egyptians and not a single Web log?

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 01:44:42 GMT

[Blogalization Community]

Asian nations to help develop rivals to Windows

Mon, 08 Sep 2003 01:16:44 GMT

"Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to cooperate in a project to boost research and development of software for operating systems other than industry leader Microsoft's Windows, a Japanese trade ministry official said Friday. The project, proposed by Japan's Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma at a conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Wednesday, is intended to bolster the popularity of Windows' rivals, such as Linux, and boost their share in such markets as digital cameras, mobile phones and car navigation systems," reports AP.

Comment: although this is most likely to benefit Linux, it will be interesting to see whether the project is also used to promote TRON (The Real-time Operating system Nucleus), which was launched by Professor Ken Sakamura in 1984. TRON -- available in numerous versions -- was part of the Japanese plan to take over the world, crushing American microprocessor manufacturers and software developers along the way. (As The Japan Lawletter noted at the time, foreigners were not welcome to join in.)

This year, Japanese sources reckon that TRON is used in about half Japan's digital appliance products, such as phones, which would mean it already ships far more copies than Windows. According to Trends in Japan: "in terms of machine numbers, TRON is the most widely used OS in the world."
[onlineblog.com]

For the privileged few...

Sat, 06 Sep 2003 01:41:37 GMT

.Just how rich are you? The worlds 225 richest people have a combined wealth greater than the poorest 2.5 billion people. Where do you fit into the picture?
(via b3ta) [MetaFilter]

Selected 0xDECAFBAD Quick links

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 16:03:14 GMT

Mind-Expanding Machines: Science News Online, Aug. 30, 2003
cvs2rss - an RSS feed of CVS checkins
Projects - SVG TT Graph, SVG Pie charts, SVG Bar graphs and SVG Line graphs
Jenny Everywhere, Open Source Superhero
DiaWebLog: IRC Weblog bot
PythonToolbox - Matt Croydon::Postwiki
Raggle: Screenshots
Zoom: Z-machine for OS X. Check out frotz, too. Play classic Infocom text adventures and new interactive fiction.
Lantern : Installation: XPath visualisation tool

(Produced by BookmarkBlogger.) [0xDECAFBAD]

Anonymizing Iranian Internauts

Wed, 03 Sep 2003 03:33:16 GMT

Online proxy server offered to breach great firewall of China.
[Blogalization Community]

Antipodean Flash Blogging

Tue, 02 Sep 2003 02:23:50 GMT

Christmas caroling in high summer down the Brazilian blogstreet.
[Blogalization Community]

Stupid Microsoft Tricks

Tue, 02 Sep 2003 01:46:42 GMT

Why the Richest Company on Earth Feels it Needs to Cheat
By Robert X. Cringely [via Daypop Top 40]

One Cosmic Question, Too Many Answers

Tue, 02 Sep 2003 01:43:25 GMT

Generations of physicists have hoped that at the end of their labors there would be one answer to all the big questions. For 20 years, hopes have lodged in string theory.
By Dennis Overbye. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

19th-century German Stories

Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:45:29 GMT

... there are a lot of them. Enjoy.
[The Cartoonist]

First Draft

Mon, 01 Sep 2003 11:22:18 GMT

Today I found another source of experienced opinion on the changing face of print communications -- Tim Porter, a fellow traveler into the future of print.
From his web page bio:

"I am an editor and writer who entered newspapering as a reporter with a typewriter and left it as an editor building websites. Today, I work independently but retain a passion for newspapers and the pursuit of quality journalism."

The website he built belonged to the San Francisco Examiner, and he was formerly the city editor there as well.

Porter's weblog, First Draft, chronicles the triumphs and travails of the newspaper industry. Newspapers -- like their ailing sisters in the printing industry -- are another industrial-age giant trying desperately to cope with a geriatric future. Their road into the future of print won't be easy, but for a lot of reasons they'll figure out how to survive. It just may not look anything like it does today. And the lessons they learn may be important to all of us.
[b.cognosco]

The Israeli Blogs & Journals Index

Mon, 01 Sep 2003 00:35:22 GMT

Eureka! A report of Hebrew and English blogs from Israel. Add to wiki.
[Blogalization Community]

Addiction

Sun, 31 Aug 2003 03:39:47 GMT

However much .... it's Never Enough! Listening to The Cure - Love Song all day long...
[hebig.org/blog] Never Enough

Fresh Glimpse in 9/11 Files of the Struggles for Survival

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 13:11:55 GMT

The Port Authority released more than 1,800 pages of transcribed radio transmissions, much of them from people in and around the World Trade Center. By Jim Dwyer.
[New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Blocker Tags to Protect Privacy From RFID Tags

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 12:55:56 GMT

geekee writes "According to an article at CNET, RSA Security is developing a 'blocker' tag that disrupts RFID tag transmissions, protecting a person's privacy ...
[Slashdot]

The future of money: private complementary currencies

Fri, 29 Aug 2003 00:03:13 GMT

Bernard Lietaer, co-designer of the convergence mechanism of the Euro, talks in a interview about the problem of conventional money systems, what money is, and private complementary currencies.
[kuro5hin.org]

Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg says: "Switch to Mac!"

Thu, 28 Aug 2003 22:09:13 GMT

(via MacAddict.com) [MacOSX.nl]

Close Mars Means Close-Up Pictures

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:23:41 GMT

Guttata writes: "space.com has posted 1 of 2 images taken by Hubble last night, dubbed the best Mars globe photo ever taken. The second image will be posted at 4 p.m. ET..."
[Slashdot]

The gift of sight

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 14:37:48 GMT

The gift of sight is easy to take for granted. Not for Mike May, blinded in infancy, Mike had partial vision restored at the age of 43. This is his journal, written with infectious delight for his new gift and documenting the unexpected problems that the miracle brings. There's much, much more to vision than just the data and Mike is an unprecedented opportunity to better understand how perception works.
[via the Guardian and previously mentioned here]
[MetaFilter]

Stunning photographs

Wed, 27 Aug 2003 14:36:03 GMT

Stunning photographs by Kurt Ross.
These glorious images have lifted my spirit today.
[MetaFilter]

Illustrating Genji

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 23:32:48 GMT

An eighteenth-century scroll illustrating the first sixteen chapters of Lady Murasaki Shikibu's The Tale of Genji. (In Japanese, anyone? Don't forget to take the photographic tour.) A couple of images from an important twelfth-century scroll are here. UNESCO hosts a full set of seventeenth-century woodblock prints by Harumasa Yamamoto. For the nineteenth century, see a set of color sixteen woodblock prints by Kunisada; and for the twentieth, Shuseki's illustrations of the first eleven chapters. (Those in search of some artistic context should revisit this post by y2karl.)
[MetaFilter]

NASA's most-precise-ever worldmap

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 21:45:37 GMT

(via NewsIsFree) [Robot Wisdom]

Who uses Free MIT?

Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:29:14 GMT

Two years ago, MIT "open sourced" its course-catalog, putting online the kind of course that most universities charge big bucks for as part of a "distance ed" program. Wired'd got a great piece on who uses MIT-free and why:

"Lam Vi Quoc negotiates his scooter through Ho Chi Minh City's relentless stream of pedal traffic and hangs a right down a crowded alley. He climbs the steep wooden stairs of the tiny house he shares with nine family members, passing by his mother, who is stooped on the floor of the second level preparing lunch. He ascends another set of even steeper steps to the third level and settles on a stool at a small desk, pushing aside the rolled-up mat he sleeps on with one of his brothers. To the smell of a chicken roasting on a grill in the alley and the clang of the next-door neighbor's metalworking operation, Lam turns on his Pentium 4 PC, and soon the screen displays Lecture 2 of Laboratory in Software Engineering, a course taught each semester on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Here," he says, pointing at the screen. "This is where I got the idea to use decoupling as a way of integrating two programs"."

(Wired) [Boing Boing Blog]

How Objective Is Microsoft's Search?

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 22:50:40 GMT

bot writes "There have been a number of stories on Microsoft trying to do a 'Netscape' on Google.. what would a world in which Microsoft provides search look like?... [Slashdot]

Asian Historical Architecture

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 21:36:08 GMT

"Here you can view over 6500 photos of 462 sites in seventeen countries, with background information and virtual tours." [MetaFilter]

My Boston Globe op-ed on net-politics

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 20:05:25 GMT

I've got an op-ed in today's Boston Globe about the relationship between the Internet and poltiics:

"When Trent Lott's revealing faux pas about Strom Thurmond was lightly touched upon by the press, the Internet's howling masses seized on the story, reviving it with a fresh angle -- Lott backhandedly endorses segregation! -- and kept the news cycle going long beyond its expected lifespan, until Lott crashed and burned and lost his post as Senate majority leader. Huzzah. Of course, Lott is still a senator. In fact, every scandal exposed by or through the net -- INS witchhunts, stubbornly illusory WMDs, awarding of war-pork to Halliburton -- has yielded a decidedly hollow victory. Information is power, but it's not enough. Modern emperors have learned the knack of spinning revelations of wrongdoing and bouncing back. Thus far, the Internet has lacked the follow-through necessary to make a lasting difference. That's changing. As the Internet matures as a place for political action, services like the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Action Center (punch in your ZIP and e-mail your lawmaker), MeetUp's coordinated nationwide kaffeeklatsches for every Democratic candidate (but especially Howard Dean) and MoveOn's thronged mailing list millions (who can conjure the budget for a major media-buy on 24 hours' notice) are providing the bodies, budget and means for advancing proposals and seeing them through to their ends."

Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog]

Columbia Newsblaster

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 19:48:12 GMT

...just visited Newsblaster for the first time in a bit. Two new things jump out at me: a search engine, and more significantly, the ability to compare articles about an event written in different countries. [Puzzlepieces]

Visual Human Server

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 18:44:49 GMT

... a virtual anatomy lesson using java.
[MetaFilter]

Technological Acceleration - A Hidden Law of Nature?

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 03:53:45 GMT

"What will happen if technology is, as Ray Kurzweil claims, exponentially accelerating?..."
[Meerkat: An Open Wire Service: O'Reilly Network Weblogs] Also see: Institute for Accelerating Change

Re: WIPO

Sun, 24 Aug 2003 02:36:11 GMT

Slashdot and Canada’s National Post have chimed in on Professor Lessig’s post about the World Intellectual Property Organization… [Lessig News]

Obsolete computers

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 03:31:50 GMT

[MetaFilter]

Jon's Radio

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 03:15:37 GMT

Microsoft senior developer Chris Brumme doesn't post often to his weblog often, but every one of his essays is a lengthy, authoritative, and candidly self-critical exploration of .NET and CLR arcana, the sort of thing you might expect to read on MSDN (minus the self-criticism, that is). And in fact, the absence of this material from MSDN is controversial.
[Daypop Top 40]

Brazilian rocket explodes on pad

Sat, 23 Aug 2003 00:44:30 GMT

A Brazilian rocket being prepared for a launch attempt next week exploded on Friday afternoon... [spacetoday.net]

What did Pavlov's dog think about Pavlov?

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 23:03:39 GMT

"Look at the poor man, every time I am hungry, instead of bringing me food, he rings the bell!" Some people just figure it out, but here on MeFi we already knew it.
[MetaFilter]

Say Hello to the New X-Men

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 22:43:54 GMT

The Mountain Dew-fueled all-nighter is history. Today's supercoders work 40-hour weeks, two to a computer. Welcome to extreme programming, the latest revolution to rock the software world. (by Martha Baer) [Wired News]

Movable Type meets Mujahedeen

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:43:26 GMT

Ben Hammersley -- adventurer, athlete, programmer, RSS-wonk, reporter -- has decided to pull up stakes and become a freelance reporter for a while. In Afghanistan. And he's going to report it all in his blog. Jeez.

"So, anyway. I figure it's about the time this nano-publishing journalism-of-the-future meme started to get off its collective bottom. So I'm off to Afghanistan for your education and pleasure. I fly to Islamabad tomorrow, and from there by train or bus to Peshawar. On Saturday I'll be crossing the Khyber Pass and making my way to Kabul. All being well, technology and men-with-guns willing, I'll be posting from every stop, and weblogging from Afghanistan for ten days or so. Movable Type meets Mujahedeen. It's going to be fun."

[Boing Boing Blog]

Beyond Fear: Required reading for Ashcroft's America

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 00:40:19 GMT

One of the books I'm delighted to have had the chance to read here is Bruce Schneier's latest, Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World. I reviewed three or four drafts of this while Bruce was working on it, and I am completely delighted with how it turned out. In Beyond Fear, Schneier has utterly demystified the idea of security with a text aimed squarely at nontechnical individuals. He takes his legendary skill at applying common sense and lucidity to information-security problems and applies it to all the bogeymen of the post-9/11 world, and asks the vital question: What are we getting in exchange for the liberties that the Ashcroftian authorities have taken away from us in the name of security? This is possibly the most important question of this decade, and that makes Schenier's book one of the most important texts of the decade. This should be required reading for every American, and the world would be a better place if anyone venturing an opinion on electronic voting, airline security, roving wiretaps, or any other modern horror absorbed this book's lessons first.
[Boing Boing Blog]

Chinese Government Cuts Out Microsoft

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 21:19:09 GMT

And Brits to switch from MS Word to PDF.
[Blogalization Community]

Interesting 600k Martian-crater closeup

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 20:51:52 GMT

(via NewsIsFree) [Robot Wisdom]

So you want to be a brain surgeon...

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 12:35:35 GMT

The Harvard Brain Atlas has a veritable plethora of images of the brain, whether normal or diseased. Tours, 3-D Java exploration and a [very difficult] quiz are available. Plus: the top 100 brain structures!
[MetaFilter]

Finland: Information Economy, Multilingualism, and Public-Private Partnership

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:58:53 GMT

"Finland is seen as a pioneering adapter and an important research centre of the new technology. " But you know you've been in Finland too long when ... [Blogalization Community]

Net censorship in India?

Wed, 20 Aug 2003 11:56:35 GMT

"The thought police is gearing up to storm the virtual world. In what appears to be its first serious attempt to monitor the Internet, the Government of India has outlined an official procedure for blocking websites."
[Blogalization Community]

Chinese Government to Use Only Local Software

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 10:41:33 GMT

owlmon writes "CNET Asia is reporting that China has outlawed foreign software in government applications. I expect that software buyers outside of the ... [Slashdot]

Images of Native Americans

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 01:33:04 GMT

from UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library, is comprehensive online exhibit of over 400 years of text and images of Native American history. [via a Berkleyan article that has sample images and more info] [MetaFilter]

Online Readings in Psychology and Culture

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 23:59:02 GMT

available at the Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington U.S.A. [Oliver Wrede]

"You talkin' to me?..."

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 11:16:44 GMT

Listen, you fuckers, you screwheads, here's a man...
[Industrial Technology & Witchcraft]

On the %$*& Moon...

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:33:11 GMT

Here's what Neil Armstrong really said when he walked on the moon (Flash).

In 1969, Neil Armstrong made history by becoming the first man to walk on the moon, uttering the immortal phrase, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Or did he? Previously suppressed footage discovered by blogjam shows that Armstrong's reaction was a great deal more uninhibited than history suggests, and that a hasty editing job was needed to prepare the astronaut's moment of glory for broadcast. Via linkfilter. [thanks to The Cartoonist] %$*& funny!

He who lives in stained glass houses...

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 10:16:22 GMT

According to the London Observer, they have obtained a 69 page, 1962 document ordering bishops worldwide to the utmost secrecy on sexual abuse cases, and threatens anyone who breaks that silence with excommunication. The document has the seal of Pope John Paul XXII, which kind of limits their avenues for... [Teal Sunglasses]

Another Chinese satelite hijacked

Sat, 16 Aug 2003 14:13:38 GMT

Heise reports on the hijacking of a Chinese state television satelite by the Falun Gong movement (German text) [heise online news]