Blog Posts

April 2008

• 2008-04-02

  Doomsday Cult

  Scott Adams as usual is hillarious in this post Doomsday Cult from The Dilbert Blog: "A Russian cult emerged from the cave they were hiding in while waiting for the end of the world.

  http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2008/04/01/doomsday-cult.html?ref=rss

  Allow me to give you some advice: If you ever decide to join a cult, the first thing you should ask about is the quality of their doomsday cave. A poorly constructed cave could kill you, and that would take most of the fun out of doomsday."

  #blogging

March 2008

• 2008-03-31

  Use Google Sets for competitive analysis

  I bet you’ve not heard of another crazy-cool service from Google, Google Sets. I first read about Google Sets some months ago but didn’t bother looking until today, Sunday, when i saw this interesting article about Google Set’s patents. This is from that article:

  “Google Sets is one of the first services that were added to Google Labs and it’s a cool way to find list of related terms. Google Sets is a tool that generates lists from a small number of examples by using the web as a big pool of data. You enter some items and Google Sets finds other items that tend to co-occur frequently with your examples. For...

  Read more →
• 2008-03-30

  More about Leopard, Apple’s answer to Vista

  For you slow pokes who have not yet upgraded to Leopard, my continuing experience might be of interest (then again it may not.) If you are a real slow poke you may not know that Leopard is Apple’s new generation operating system for the Mac line. My reference above to Vista is mostly tongue-in-cheek. Here’s what my log book says so far:

  Tried to upgrade my old iBook G4. The DVD spent a long time making reading noises but nothing seemed to happen. Waited about 4 hours. Then gave up. Couldn’t get the DVD out – the iBook continued to book back to the DVD. Called Apple. Got a barely trained tech on the phone that really annoyed me. Finally figured it out myself.

  Leopard doesn’t like getting installed on a 4 year old iBook with 256M of memory. Duh. Why didn’t it just say so?

  Next upgraded my 2 year old Mac G5 tower. Went, soup to nuts, with no hiccups at all. Wonderful.

  Next post: What’s different that matters in Leopard, at least to me.

  #computing
• 2008-03-27

  Finally updating to Leopard

  Usually more on the bleeding edge than this, I decided to wait until now to upgrade my macs to Leopard which is the name of the new Mac OS X release. If anything interesting happens I will let you know. Hopefully nothing interesting will happen 🙂

  Why does the Leopard update begins with an exhaustive and lengthy “checking of the DVD for consistency”? process? I haven’t heard much about DVDs getting mysteriously turned inconsistent. Maybe they are doing something else and just making up a more tolerable exuse for the 30 minute do-nothing delay.

  I have a 4 year old iMac G4 notebook. I wonder if Leopard will like it.

  #computing
• 2008-03-26

  How GPS devices are being used to detect and avoid traffic

  This is relevant to the discussion about congestion pricing, mesh networks and avoiding traffic jams, a topic that I am getting interested in as you could see from this previous post. [… snip] Now help is at hand. As satellite-navigation devices become more widely used, networking effects are making them more powerful. This is because vehicles themselves are starting to relay real-time traffic data—and he more that do so, the more accurate traffic information will become. [snip…] (from The Economist)

  Read the whole article and you will see that it’s more than just GPS devices that are being called to duty: cell phones as well as verbal reports can get integrated together into an overall picture of where the traffic is and how to avoid it.

• 2008-03-25

  How stonehenge was built

  It’s rare that I watch/listen to a whole Youtube. But here you go… [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRRDzFROMx0&hl=en]

  #science
• 2008-03-22

  What does Urban Congestion have to do with Mesh Networks?

  Check out this very interesting article that suggests that placing mesh network nodes in cars is a far better way to implement congestion pricing than what has been tried so far. The short paraphrase is that you can place mesh network nodes in cars and they can talk to an urban network to gain access and pay for access to the cngestion pricing zone.

  And, here’s the cool wrinkle, in doing that also get an urban wifi network ‘for free’.

  You have to read the whole article to follow the chain of reasoning but it’s quite interesting.

• 2008-03-21

  Verizon opening up it’s network somewhat

  I am starting to follow the world of mesh networks and things related to that. One immediate question that has popped up is: now that there are cell towers everywhere, what advantage might there be to creating a new national or global or mobile network based on mesh technology? I am just an ignoramus so far on this, but in that quest, I came across this article.

  “It was the first step in an initiative Verizon began last fall in an effort to open up its network to entrepreneurs interested in creating devices and mobile applications not sold through the company’s retail stores.” (from Verizon Details Its Open Wireless Plans)

  Does this allow the creation of a new class of device placed in homes or cars or what-not that uses the cell network as it’s backbone?

• 2008-03-20

  More e-Voting shenanigans

  You know I follow the vagaries of computer voting machines, right? Here’s an interesting article about how one e-voting machine maker is trying to prohibit a researcher from studying the security (= trying to hack into) one of their machines: “Princeton Professor Edward Felten astonished Congress and increased doubts about electronic voting two years ago when he showed a House committee how easily he could open a Diebold touch-screen machine, insert new software and alter vote totals.

  Now, Sequoia Voting Systems, the other large voting-machine maker, has sent Felten an email suggesting legal action if he tries the same thing on its equipment.” (from the Wall Street Journal)

• 2008-03-19

  Casinos in Mass? Please, No!

  [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfWsfDweeM4&hl=en]I found my way onto Robin Chase’s blog, Network Musings. She writes about lots of stuff I am interested in. Starting with the top post right now, “Should Casinos Subsidize Car Travel?” where she says: “The Governor of Massachusetts has asked state legislators to seriously consider encouraging the building of several new large casinos in the state in order to raise revenues, the majority of which will be used for transportation shortfalls.” (from Network Musings)

  In the Youtube video, which is short and worth a listen, the bon mot:

  “Legalizing Casinos in Massachusetts […] is introducing a second addiction to pay for our first addiction: low cost driving”

  #politics
• 2008-03-17

  [Geeky] Doing popups in Rails and elsewhere

  So my little toy pedagogical application needed a pretty popup box. Actually I wanted one so I could see close up some of the alternatives. In the process I came across three different code snippets, each one doing it in a little bit different way. For you and me, here are the links:

  The DOM-popup kit, by Stuart Rackham

  The FAMSPAM Facebox package by Chris Wantrath

  The Bubble Tooltip kit by Alessandro Fulciniti with an assist by Annalisa Afeltra

  I tried the first two, but the third looks cool too. I liked Facebox the best. Your mileage may/will vary.

  #programming
• 2008-03-16

  A True Horror Story About Why We Need Authentication Standards

  I am constantly downloading applications and utilities off the web to try this or that out. I am as paranoid as the next guy so I do think about where this app came from and what havock it may or may not be planning. Still, I often will choose to ignore my most paranoid impulses and go ahead. I came across a story of such a utility which in addition to doing something useful for the user, was stealing passwords.

  It is altogether expected that this kind of thing is going on and still, it’s a chilling story.

  This is an excerpt this post from ReadWriteWeb:

  “…...

  Read more →

  #blogging
• 2008-03-15

  25 George W. Bush Facts

  List of Lists is an entertaining blog. He doesn’t post that often but when he does it’s usually interesting. Check out this post from A List of Lists: “[….]in keeping with A List of Lists factual theme I’ll try to shy away from United States government and The Bush Administration, and instead focus on George W Bush himself and so here are 25 facts about George W. Bush.[…snip]

  […snip] Fact #16. In the days immediately following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, Bush denied having received warnings about the possibility of floodwaters breaching the levees protecting New Orleans. However, the presidential videoconference briefing of August 28 shows Max Mayfield warning the president that overflowing the levees was “obviously a very, very grave concern.”

  (from: 25 George W. Bush Facts)

  #politics
• 2008-03-14

  Mars Avalanche photos

  “The new image shows tan clouds moving away from the foot of a 700-metre slope, where dust and material made of water ice and frozen carbon dioxide have just tumbled down.” (from New Scientist)

  This is one of those times when a picture is worth 1,000 words 🙂

  #science
• 2008-03-13

  Contributing to the purient interest

  No less an authority as the Freakonomics dudes offer an article about “A Call Girl’s View of the Spitzer Affair” Read this Q & A and many more like it. “Q. Have you ever had a client as powerful or well-known as Eliot Spitzer? (You haven’t had Spitzer himself as a client, have you?)

  A. I have clients that are professional athletes,artists, and entertainers. They are probably better known, but obviously not as powerful. I don’t believe I have ever seen Eliot, or as I like to call him, Number 9.” (from A Call Girl’s View of the Spitzer Affair)

  #politics
• 2008-03-11

  30% to Apple for folks selling iPhone apps??

  Check out this post from Planet RubyOnRails: I doubt few of my readers have missed that Apple just released the iPhone SDK. How many read through the fine print? Bottom line is: If you want to sell apps for the iPhone you gotta give Apple 30%. Thirty percent!? Why?! Apple is making ridiculous money off selling the iPhone. The more apps the iPhone gets, the […]

  (from: tirsen: Apple doesn’t get it)

  Update from Pito : Seems like I jumped the gun a little. Such are the risks of blogging I guess. If you look at the ...

  Read more →

  #computing
• 2008-03-10

  Once more confirming my cynicism

  Sorry, but for some reason it seems that the cynics win out once more: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligation to my family and violates my or any sense of right or wrong,” said Mr. Spitzer…” (from The New York Times)

  #politics
• 2008-03-10

  I Don’t Believe in COO’s

  I agree with this post from Feld Thoughts:

  Overall, titles don’t (and shouldn’t) matter much in an early stage company, other than for helping people on the outside of the company understand who does what to whom. In my experience, the idea of a COO almost always muddies the water. (from: I Don’t Believe in COO’s)

  #business
• 2008-03-09

  What about social networks?

  An interesting post by Cringely, forseeing the imminent demise of most 350 social networks. This quote, only tangentially relevant is good, but you should read the whole post from I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS: ** "Marshall McLuhan argued that obsolete communication technologies survive as art forms. This is true, I’d say, for Morse code and movable type printing and perhaps even for your venerable Rolodex or typewriter. But it isn’t yet true for CB radio, nor for most Internet technologies. Maybe they aren’t old enough yet to be appreciated**. In the case of CB I think range of reception limits the possible population of players to something less than an artistic critical mass." (from: Antisocial)

• 2008-03-08

  Dilbert blog does it again (photo added)

  Check out this funny post from The Dilbert Blog: A reader sent me a link to a story about a Japanese woman who was accused of kicking a hole in some guy’s door, crawling through the hole, and destroying his property. She was acquitted when the court realized that her breasts were too big to allow her to fit through the hole.

  (from: Right Up My Alley)