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Is it just me, or are dotcom bubble things back in fashion?
This was back in '99

yes, I got that wrong for some reason, but it suprises me how mnay people can't learn to 'patch' a link :(

Akamai NOC tour

Wired article about Akamai's 'gods-eye' view of the Slammer virus

While Tufte is often longer on criticism than he is on constructive thought (aren't we all), on this one he does give us one example. See the figure near the bottom on the left.

I don't know about really obscure stuff, but we could take another look at something obvious: power.

• Pebble bed modular reactors are very safe, very clean, and ready right now. Come up with some improvements on them.
• Fuel cells. They're still not good enough for general use, but they have good prospects -- look at vanadium redox batteries.
• Solar panels. They're already the best solution for most remote stuff in relatively sunny climates (navigational buoys, spacecraft), and they're still not very efficient (15%?).
• Energy transmission by microwave or laser (e.g. for orbital solar power).
• Floating seawater-cooled reactors. Don't laugh.
• Passive or semi-passive stuff: tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric, weird-ass solar chimneys, etc.
• Why muck around? Go for cold fusion. Yes, the most famous attempt was a fraud. Yes, it's not going to be ready tomorrow, even given a huge breakthrough. But the potential is amazing.

There are three basic kinds of power: grid power, which comes in bulk; portable fueled power, like a car engine; and embedded power, like a battery. All of could be a lot safer, cheaper, and cleaner. Happy research.

I don't know about really obscure stuff, but we could take another look at something obvious: power.

• Pebble bed modular reactors are very safe, very clean, and ready right now. Come up with some improvements on them.
• Fuel cells. They're still not good enough for general use, but they have good prospects -- look at vanadium redox batteries.
• Solar panels. They're already the best solution for most remote stuff in relatively sunny climates (navigational buoys, spacecraft), and they're still not very efficient (15%?).
• Energy transmission by microwave or laser (e.g. for orbital solar power).
• Floating seawater-cooled reactors. Don't laugh.
• Passive or semi-passive stuff: tidal, geothermal, hydroelectric, weird-ass solar chimneys, etc.
• Why muck around? Go for cold fusion. Yes, the most famous attempt was a fraud. Yes, it's not going to be ready tomorrow, even given a huge breakthrough. But the potential is amazing.

There are three basic kinds of power: grid power, which comes in bulk; portable fueled power, like a car engine; and embedded power, like a battery. All of could be a lot safer, cheaper, and cleaner. Happy research.

Those points aside, I have been amazed by the research in nanotechnology and find the realm of mapping the human genome to be interesting as well. Perhaps subjects such as these would interest Amos? Perhaps these are not as obscure as other fields but these are certainly interesting studies.

I didn't see many folks here recommending Keynote in place of PowerPoint, but Byrne might well adopt it. That's because it is even more concerned with style over substance than PowerPoint. Which is not to dismiss Keynote. All slideware has the ultimate goal of allowing one to collect whatever bits of graphics and text one would like on a series of frames, and I for one think that is a very useful set of requirements for a software tool. PowerPoint, at least, works quite well for large format posters, as well. But a slide program isn't a page layout program for printed media, and it shouldn't be used that way.

Perhaps the most useful capability of PowerPoint is "save as a web page", which actually makes a set of web pages and links between them that create a web presentation in a jiffy.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but good software is good software, no matter who develops it. PowerPoint is now over 15 years old and it has just continued to get better and better. It's well out ahead of whatever is second best, even if it is not "foolproof".

Tufte's site only has the first couple of paragraphs. Wired has the full article.

>Now I have to teach wretched PowerPoint
>[...] but PP still sucks

PowerPoint may make it hard to be original, but not impossible: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,61485,00. htm

1) PowerPoint makes you dumb
2) David Byrne has been getting his PowerPoint on, to produce art.
3) Therefore, art makes you dumb?
Hmmm... do we also believe guns kill people, not the people pulling the triggers?

The thing about free wireless (that I love) is that it keeps the Ashcroft-types up at night worrying about anonymous "terrorist" freespeech, and it gives the telco-types and the WISP-wannabes the middleman middle finger.

Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it. It's similar to how FedEx thought they could own the Fax business in the 80s. Can't blame 'em for trying I guess.

--

"...The system failed to correctly identify airport employees 53 percent of the time, according to test data that was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under Florida's open records law...."

Dartmouth is packing:

Wired story from 2001. Dig it.

However, I think Apple forming an artist-friendly label is MUCH more likely (or at least advantageous) than artists doing it themselves because artists haven't got the money to start it and Apple could split the money gained by muscling out the RIAA (if it somehow could) between themselves and the artists.

However, I think Apple forming an artist-friendly label is MUCH more likely...

Is it so hard to give a link instead of a broken string?

Clicky, clicky

For example, Allen has discovered that Apple uses a sophisticated video-monitoring system to automatically count the number of customers who enter the store, and to document their behavior once inside.

According to Allen, Apple uses a ShopperTrak system to count the number of people passing the store, the percentage who enter, and the percentage of those who make a purchase. Allen declined to state his source. An Apple spokeswoman confirmed that the company carefully tracks consumer traffic and buying patterns, but wouldn't discuss its methodology.

Neat, though I'm not much on the motorcycle thing after witnessing an acquaintance fatally crash. A HUD wouldn't have saved him, but perhaps a personal radar displayed on that HUD could give (motor and muscle) cyclists the information they need to avoid similar accidents. Combined with a wireless medical alert system, drivers - heck, regular folks - will have a much better chance of surviving an accident.

Quick google search turned up Wired News:Games Elevate Hate to Next Level, hate crime games have been around for quite some time, most don't make enough money to interest lawyers and groups that are playing the "victim" card, but are actually playing the "I want money" card.

Been there, done that. In australia.

Citing poor security, Ohio has canceled plans for installing e-voting systems for use in 2004. They are going to use punch cards instead.

link here.

have been able to stop light for a very brief period of time

I am just building my reasoning backwards. To understand what happens to the Photon when it stops, let's first see what happens to the photon when it moves at - well - the speed of light.

From the quickest reference I could dig thru http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.07/es_warp.ht ml?pg=3&topic=

Einstein also predicted that time itself must slow down for objects in motion. The faster you move, the slower your clocks would appear to tick - relative to someone watching from a remote location. If you could actually reach light speed, time would crawl to a stop. It's wildly counterintuitive, but experiments have proved it true.

So, the faster the photon moves the slower the clocks would appear to move. Then, I guess, the slower the Photon moves the faster the clock would appear to move. And when the photon STOPS, the clock must be moving INSANELY FAST. So how could it be a very brief period of time ? .. I think it is a very very very long period of time.

Guess, it all depends on which perspective you are looking at, and how you are measuring time ...

In fiber connections typically when a line is spliced connection is cut. According to historic sources, quotes, etc., the NSA managed to cut through fiber, get a tap in, without causing any flux or attenuation. First I would think some form of either mirroring or perhaps the use of a gem diamond, etc., but there would have to be some flux somewhere along the line, unless of course they hit up some of the repeaters or junctions in order to accomplish their goal. Think about a direct line of sight clearly... Even with Quantum crypto your line of sight is passing through channels, equipments, and if the NSA managed to break that light, sniff keys, AND THE CIPHERTEXT, etc., using a quantum computer themselves (the eavesdropper(s)), they'd be able to reconstruct a message (perhaps), maybe even using a distributed quantum network.

Strangely I wish I had this link up for Los Alamos' Quantum crypto labs but it looks like it was taken down.

So long as the parties on both ends use their key only once and know that they are the only owners of this key -- a certainty which quantum crypto provides -- then they are guaranteed security. Source for italics is an older Wired Article

The ACT is a administrative territory for the national capital, and we also had an OSS electronic voting system at our last election that is based on Linux

Xix.

One million dollars eh? Recall the Wired article this summer of the bigger penis spammer the nets a half million or more a month. A million dollar bond often costs 5 to 10% of the value. So, for a couple days profits, that spammer is back up and running with FTC approval. And this is how Congress expects the CAN SPAM act to stop the madness? Sigh...

Then Paul Twomey should send Kofi Annan a 200 foot high message through the Hello World project. Here are webcam pics of the four displays in different parts of the world. One is in Geneva.

Maybe by the time this puppy lifts off they'll have enough knowledge from these babies to send people along.

Anybody remember the slugbot from a while back?

Wired has a story about a huge screen that you'll be able to send messages to. Apparently it's within line of sight of Kofi Annan's hotel room, so if you want to sound off, why not drop him a text?

However he certainly doesn't have the corporate image to upkeep like Gates, Ballmer, McBride, whoever.

You're being sarcastic, right?
Some corporate image.

But you're right that those guys are very "corporate". Their antics are for money. Linus is making the world a little better.

"With the US legal system, it's always hard to tell what the hell is going to happen," Torvalds says. "So I can't just dismiss the lawsuit as the complete crapola I think it is."

Source: Wired

Don't you get it? Cameras are cheap and getting cheaper. They have a useful purpose to *somebody* almost anywhere.

When a camera costs $0.05, takes a megapixel frame, 30x per second, and a week of media costs only $0.05, why wouldn't you record just about everything around you?

Assuming Moore's law continues, (and it has for 30 years!) we're only a decade or two from that point!

There's an interesting article which for me was the first the make it all clear. Privacy as we once new it will cease to exist in any form within a century, and as we know it today, will disapear within a few decades.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. People frequently will willingly choose power over privacy. It's happened many times before: The telephone, the VCR, the "public place" camera, the cell phone. Each time, people gave up some privacy for some new ability they felt was worth it.

Since privacy has been losing ground for over 100 years, it's not safe to assume things will suddenly turn around.

I suggest you read the above article. It makes very clear the things we need to keep in mind as this natural progression continues.

Don't you get it? Cameras are cheap and getting cheaper. They have a useful purpose to *somebody* almost anywhere.

When a camera costs $0.05, takes a megapixel frame, 30x per second, and a week of media costs only $0.05, why wouldn't you record just about everything around you?

Assuming Moore's law continues, (and it has for 30 years!) we're only a decade or two from that point!

There's an interesting article which for me was the first the make it all clear. Privacy as we once new it will cease to exist in any form within a century, and as we know it today, will disapear within a few decades.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. People frequently will willingly choose power over privacy. It's happened many times before: The telephone, the VCR, the "public place" camera, the cell phone. Each time, people gave up some privacy for some new ability they felt was worth it.

Since privacy has been losing ground for over 100 years, it's not safe to assume things will suddenly turn around.

I suggest you read the above article. It makes very clear the things we need to keep in mind as this natural progression continues.

Well this may happen with Wi-Fi (802.11 and 802.16), first in major cities then elsewhere. Then content may migrate on the people's net. This article of Negroponte is interesting.

AFAIK, The first reference to "computers" in IT meant the women who programmed the huge machines in ?Blackney? House where the enigma messages were decrypted. Lemme see if I can find a link... look for Eniac here (wired).

At that stage, when we started seeing Internet postings, something had to be done," said Lesniak. "It's just not legal to try and destroy somebody's share value."

*rant* Thats a bit rich. Run for cover everyone, the mega corps are taking over *end rant*

Am I the only one who thinks that this is a bit rich?

I am sure that it is colmpletey legal to destroy a companies share value - after all many executives do that all the time and get away with it - provided you do it legally - the problem in the article is that the person is treading the fine line between extortion and publication.

from the top of my head I can think of the following ways to destroy share value legally:

* Compete effectively with them (ie drive them out of bussines by running your own business and winning their customers

* Air their dirty laundry (much like the article) - provided its the truth.

* Start protest movements (eg anti-nike etc)

* Subvert their product - such as with que cat.

Sorry for the rant but the attitude implied from the quite is just shocking - I could understand if the person was talking about it being illegal to steal trade secrets or to extort money - but to "Destroy share value" - as though share value is a right (and we've all seen RIAA and MPAA try to keep their share value haven't wee...) instead of the way it is meant to be - a reflection of its "value" (market rates, supply demand etc) - is just plain wrong.

* sigh *

oh well, back to reality

This is what you remember I think.

Sera

And to believe that the media claimed that Gore seriously thought he could take credit for the "invention" of the Internet is likewise silly.

Hardly. It was Wired which made a big ideal out of all this. This article by Declan McCullaugh, which I understand is the first instance of the use of the word "invent", strongly suggests that Gore thought he could take credit for the invention:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,18655,00 .html

Does anyone remember the whole Dot-Com Bubble?

Billions in venture capital were sent to silicon valley back in the late 90s in the hope that anything and everything internet-related could be profitable, and were worth investing in the same style that brick-and-mortar companies were. We heard all kinds of great things from leading economists who were really misleading us to manipulate the market, short the stock, and fuck everyone else over. Then, in 1999, after the Microsoft ruling, the whole thing kind of collapsed.

As for today, just a few of the giants of e-commerce stand... so many companies went out of business on the predictions not far off from the ideas that we'd have groceries delivered to us over the internet (WebVan) or that we could actually stream TV-quality video over 28.8 kbps (Pixelon). It's never going to happen again, so the golden age of marketing ideas on the internet and obtaining massive capital influx is over.

Does anyone remember the whole Dot-Com Bubble?

Billions in venture capital were sent to silicon valley back in the late 90s in the hope that anything and everything internet-related could be profitable, and were worth investing in the same style that brick-and-mortar companies were. We heard all kinds of great things from leading economists who were really misleading us to manipulate the market, short the stock, and fuck everyone else over. Then, in 1999, after the Microsoft ruling, the whole thing kind of collapsed.

As for today, just a few of the giants of e-commerce stand... so many companies went out of business on the predictions not far off from the ideas that we'd have groceries delivered to us over the internet (WebVan) or that we could actually stream TV-quality video over 28.8 kbps (Pixelon). It's never going to happen again, so the golden age of marketing ideas on the internet and obtaining massive capital influx is over.

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,1484,00. html

Nope he never said that.. sorry... popular myth

Here's a Wired.com article with some more details

does a much better (professional) job of reviewing things like this, by the way.

Consider this:Silicon Crackers Tackle Casinos or Revenge On the One-Armed Bandit The fact is, in nevada there is a cottage criminal industry which revolves around ripping off slot machines. These are just individuals. Imagine if they were an organization with the resources of a modern political party trying to game the system. Now imagine if the people making the slot machines were contributing to and had a vested interest in that organization.

Consider this:Silicon Crackers Tackle Casinos or Revenge On the One-Armed Bandit The fact is, in nevada there is a cottage criminal industry which revolves around ripping off slot machines. These are just individuals. Imagine if they were an organization with the resources of a modern political party trying to game the system. Now imagine if the people making the slot machines were contributing to and had a vested interest in that organization.

Wired has an article on it as well.

Personally, I'll give it a chance. When I was a kid, there was an early 2-hour episode and I pestered my parents to leave the pizza place so I could make it back in time. We returned to find the rug burning in front of our fireplace. Our parents ran into the kitchen to fill pots and pour it on the fire. Us kids ran into the t.v. room to huddle under the smoke and watch our show.

I now refer to the tale as the time Battlestar Galactica saved our house.

another beautiful, visionary speech followed up by jack squat. This man has vision to spare, but no ability to back up his words with funding or personnel. For example: $15B to fight AIDS in Africa - great concept, but less than 1/3 of the promised money was actually spent. Same with "No Child Left Behind". Another example: He promised that we would rebuild Afghanistan - beautiful words, but the NATO forces there have just THREE helicopters backing up their mission. This new space vision, as much as I'm passionate about this (and mark my words, he will sound passionate too!), will be a non-starter. Okay, I'm feeling sad now.

<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09/vis ion.html">http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.09 /vision.html</a>

It's my belief that this failure is largely a result of hardware and not software. Current analysis of the processing power of the human brain suggests that the raw computation power available to AI scientists have been pathetically inadequate. In the 80's researchers using PCs would have had the processing power of approximately a worm. There's only so much you can do with a small brain: tasks truly useful to humans (visual recognition, for example) are going to be impossible without similar processing abilities. There are good reasons that ants use chemical detection to identify other members of the colony instead of visualy recognizing them. This is starting to change.

It's all handwaving, the nano pundits can't put forward any kind of actual theoretical design for a universal contsructor.

Actually, several people have proposed designs for nano factories (and thus universal constructors). Incremental progress towards the components of these nanofactories is being made every day.

how about Linus' recent make over? Talk about queer eye for the geek guy. The guy looks a lot better now

Not to undermine open source, but the guy used to look like a complete dork.

Maybe Linus can help remove the geek stereotype that is so often associated with Linux

It should be obvious that Linus was a complete dork. That is not trolling but instead a clear statement. Perhaps, if anything, this is so obvious that it should have been modded down "-1, Redundant". Quite truly, I respect Linus and I respect Bill Joy as well but they used to both be fairly nerdy (haven't checked on Bill Joy recently so I cannot comment on if he still is a dork).

Perhaps the most amazing part is that the insightful parent post was modded down yet this obvious troll was modded "2, Insightful" as the time of my posting right now.

This just shows how fucked the system is here at Slashdot and is the reason I started trolling in the first place...