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I think this has been done already. My understanding is that VM Labs has made a chip, and has already begun making partnerships with other companies like Motorola. Here's my source of info:

Here's an article from Wired magazine interviewing and profiling VM Labs

Here's VM Labs's url:

Is it just me or isn't the VM Labs chip pretty much the same thing?

Has anyone have current news of VM Labs progress in getting it's chip in devices?

B.

Listen, we had to bomb the stupid embassy because the Chinese stole our nuclear secrets. Some general got pissed off so we fired a missile their way. Considering all the shit the US has had to put up with from China, and the fact that we still deal with them at all, China can certainly accept a few bombs. I mean, they brought it on themselves.

Anyway, if you read the story that was reported on Wired ( here), you'll see that they were attacking the site of this religious sect which was not even in the US.

The United States would be so much better off if we severed all ties with China. Most-Favored-Nation? Are you fucking kidding me? How can we give MFN status to the country that is the antithesis of everything for which we stand? I can sit here and say, "Fuck Clinton, Fuck Gore, Fuck Jesus, Fuck God." That's because of freedom of speech. Try "Fuck Mao!" in China and see what kind of a response you get. What good does China do the US? Do they help us at all? Mostly everything made in China sucks, as opposed to things made in Taiwan, which are generally of high quality.

We should send some snipers over to China to take care of things. I'd say bomb them, but a couple of billion people is too much to waste for the asinine actions of a few. Of course, most of the Chinese actually seem to like living like slaves, so maybe they'd be better off.

I mean, everyone seems to have the impression that an IPO like RedHat just can't lose. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Look at what happened to MP3.Com (ticker symbol MPPP); they've been in a tailspin since the day their stock started trading.

Not to nitpick, as I agree with the general thrust of your post, but the MP3.com example is a really bad one. On the day of their IPO, their stock valuation jumped to - stand back - seven billion dollars . This is a company whose revenue stream comes almost entirely from advertising dollars, and earned a total of about $.7 million (and took losses of $1.5M) on the previous quarter. Wired News ran a pretty good article on the whole thing.

My point (and yes, I do have one) is that to say MP3.com's stock went into a tailspin might not be the best way to put it. I'd prefer to say that it normalized after a ridiculously lucrative IPO.

I mean, everyone seems to have the impression that an IPO like RedHat just can't lose. That is wrong, wrong, wrong. Look at what happened to MP3.Com (ticker symbol MPPP); they've been in a tailspin since the day their stock started trading.

Not to nitpick, as I agree with the general thrust of your post, but the MP3.com example is a really bad one. On the day of their IPO, their stock valuation jumped to - stand back - seven billion dollars . This is a company whose revenue stream comes almost entirely from advertising dollars, and earned a total of about $.7 million (and took losses of $1.5M) on the previous quarter. Wired News ran a pretty good article on the whole thing.

My point (and yes, I do have one) is that to say MP3.com's stock went into a tailspin might not be the best way to put it. I'd prefer to say that it normalized after a ridiculously lucrative IPO.

Actually your wrong, there is *far* more then enough food in the world to feed everyone. In fact the state of Iowa *alone* is capable of feeding everyone on the planet. Right now, food production capability is growing more than twice as fast as human population (more advanced techniques, genetics, etc).

The problem is that some countries are run by corrupt power mongers, with out the constitutional and democratic safeties that protect us from the corrupt power mongers running *this* country (the US). so for right now, nudity is not really *that* bad a thing. and most people I know get nude to take showers as well, witch is *defiantly* a good thing....

for more information check out the Doomslayer in wired archives, or in wired 5.02 with nice little graphics and stuff : )
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"

Actually, they don't plan on making money on it just yet. Wired did an article on this, mentioning that a VC had beamed $3 million to the creators with his palm. You can find it here.

If you offered me software that implemented true crypto-cash, I wouldn't have to trust an intermediary bank -- but I would have to trust that the software implemented a secure crypto-cash protocol in a correct way. Even if I had the source code in front of me, I couldn't verify that myself, so I'd have to trust some experts in the field to verify the program's reliability for me.

Furthermore, the average palmtop owners don't have a clue about who to trust on crypto issues, but they do trust the name "Merrill Lynch". So a pseudo-ecash system backed by Merrill Lynch is likely to go farther in the marketplace than a true ecash system backed by, say, Bruce Schneier.

Remember, worse is better.

http://www.wired.com/new s/news/technology/story/20958.html

According to this article, you beam your account number across Palms, and when the user synchs, your account is billed n dollars. So if you do a hard reset on your Palm, you just have to re-enter your account information. You don't "lose" any money.

My first impression when I saw this was "Wow, how long before someone writes an IR sniffer?" Luckily, they seem clueful. Dan Boneh and Martin Hellman (as in Diffie-Hellman encryption) both helped develop the software, so I imagine its reasonably secure. Plus, they use the high-test encryption, opting for security over exportability. IMHO more companies need to take this attitude. Then again, the government needs to get a clue and so do most software houses (hint, XORing passwords is NOT secure!).

I'll probably wait a little while for them to get the bugs out of a nationwide rollout, but I can't wait to be able to buy a jolt with my Palm III!

It was really rude for AOL to cut Micorsoft off like that. Almost as rude as... as... as changing SMB to break Samba! What kind of company would do such a vile thing!

Also, one wonders how much reverse engineering the poaching required on the part of Micorsoft, ever the stalwart defender of Intellectual Property rights.

Finally, one is struck by this quote from the Wired coverage:

MSN Messenger is the company's first entry into an already popular category of messaging services.

What was that bit about The Road Ahead, Bill? Missed the boat again, didja?

They seem to have found a way of cashing in the MP3 craze. Provide high-bandwith Net access, let user download on his own, charge for the CD-R.
- - -

That's simply not true. Attacking China's firewall is childish. First it is up to the Chinese citizens to attack it, as an act of rebellion against dictatorship. It's not a bunch of teenage Americans who should decide the politics in the world ! Second, in our societies, where everyone is basically free (it's the oppposite in China), it is not acceptable to vandalize, or perform illegal actions, in order to express an opinion: you are free to write them and publish them (journal, WWW), if you are doing something illegal instead, all you deserve is to go in jail.


*I agree whith you that hacking is definantly a crime. A crime that is punishable by law, and rightfully so.

*I would like to elaberate more one what i preveously stated.
"the public views them as more humane and less malicous, and maybe even more positive human beings."
...Maybe this assumption is wrong, but IMO the public would be more likely to frown upon random acts of malicousous against innocent corporations ....Than that of a pollitically motivated assault on Chinas oppressive firewalls that "will only provide access to Chinese information sources, therefore shutting out others from around the world." -Wired News . While i would love to argue with you for days on end about Chinas oppressiveness, i will leave that for another forum / thread.

No . Crackers are a nuisance, period.
* This maybe a very sound argument, one i may adopt when i grow older (wiser?)...I have no real response other than to state that i did not say other wise in my original post.

Buy yourself a good book about HTML or Java, and start doing something productive. The uninformed public may find crackers "cool", but real geeks know how little skill it takes to crack, and how lame it is anyway. And nobody will ever take them seriously, there is a difference between television and reality, my son.

At this point you really loose me. The above comment seems to be a personal (unsubstantiated) attack. You make conjectures and accusiations on topics i did not even mention. If you really do have some book suggestions, i would be happy to hear them.


Just send them to (zackr@cs.cmu.edu || zkr@salsgiver.com)

There was a Wired.com article earlier yesterday about (more) Buy.com computer problems. If someone made a purchase under $5, Buy.com's computers would continually deduct $40 from the customer's credit card every half-hour!!

I've plenty of articles about Buy.com's terrible customer service and experienced it first hand. I ordered some books from them because they were a few bucks cheaper than Amazon.com. The problem? Maybe books didn't arrive for another month !! Their customer service reps gave me the run-around. I'll never buy from Buy.com again.

The story as it appears at Wired quotes Chris Cutter, an Apple spokesman as saying, "[This] just continues to add to the ubiquity of QuickTime."

Maybe, maybe not. IMHO, it will become ubiquitous when users of platforms other than Windows and Mac are able to actually able to display this nifty content.

After all, what good is a server that streams content that your users can't see? Answer: no damned good at all.

"Why all of sudden has the United States become so concerned with privacy? Privacy was never a concern before the Web."

We have always been concerned about privacy. It is more along the lines of "Why are there suddenly so many privacy invasions and disregard for everyones basic want for privacy?"

For those who don't want to read it, the Supreme Court (United States) in refusing to hear the case, upheld a decision by a Federal court saying that West, the people who publish all those law books, does not have the exclusive copyright on publishing laws and judicial issues (court decisions, etc).

In addition, others will now also be allowed to use West's page numbering system which has become so standard in the legal system, it's almost a second language.

My argument is this: If domain names are like "page numbers" (indicators of where to find something, such as an IP address), and their registration information is public domain information (as are court opinions. the REASON I SAY THIS is not to usurp privacy concerns, but my contention that WHOIS is like a phone book, hence your "information" is public), then doesn't this mean that NSI does not have copyright protection for this information and database collection, and, hence, its' "restrictions" are invalid?

Now, this might not have held before other registrars were allowed, but since they are, this is more a shared system than ever, and so is more like a phone book than a private listing of customers.

#include " its_all_about_the_pentiums.wierd_al"

>I tend to think that in time, the concept of
>channels will disappear.

This, in consideration of an old wired article that struck a nerve
( "The Internet will be just like television:
There may be 60 or 70 main sites out there, but the audience ends
up going to only six or seven on a regular basis.").

And with the Nielsen's trying to demonstrate advertising can
happen in a web-style manner ( Nielsen Comes to the Net)
we've got some pretty wacky paradigm-buzzword throwdowns ahead of us.

>I tend to think that in time, the concept of
>channels will disappear.

This, in consideration of an old wired article that struck a nerve
( "The Internet will be just like television:
There may be 60 or 70 main sites out there, but the audience ends
up going to only six or seven on a regular basis.").

And with the Nielsen's trying to demonstrate advertising can
happen in a web-style manner ( Nielsen Comes to the Net)
we've got some pretty wacky paradigm-buzzword throwdowns ahead of us.

Wired's got an interview with CmdrTaco regarding the sale of Slashdot. It's right over here

Here is a Wired story about a study actually sponsored by the cell-phone industry. They suggest that they may cause genetic damage, probably either from RF or non-ionizing radiation. How strict are the FCC regulations on RF emissions from electronics? (And I must admit that I'm not sure exactly what non-ionizing radiation is...)

(The article also mentions the various PalmPilot hacks like opening electronic car door locks.)

It's good to see X10 doing something to build an established user base before Micros~1 kicks into gear and tries to dominate this industry

it's funny i was just reading about m$~oft's early attempts to get into multimedia set-top box's back in the early 90's (94 to be precise) last week. It was in an old wired article [2.09-Sep1994]. (wired's cool its all online even from back in '94). here's a summary of what the boss at http://www.microware.com (Microware President Ken Kaplan ) thought at the time...

I don't know what other people think, but I just don't think Microsoft's gonna be a player. I just think it's too late. We've been working on this for two, three years. We've got real product. By the time they figure out how to put Windows on a set-top box, we'll have a couple of million boxes out there and working.

wonder if it still holds?

This is indeed a great article. The printable version is easier to read, IMHO, since it doesn't involve relentless clicking.
--

Its interesting. This was almost the review I was going to write about the book. I finished it yesterday, in an attempt to get it out of my system. Its one of those books thats so good, as you read it it starts to affect your outlook, and you continually muse over the characters and scenes.

I've been a diehard Stephenson fan for a while. What makes him cool, beyond being an excellent storyteller - action, humor, tech - is that he really does his homework, and he tries to present ideas that he's been working on for a while. This was obvious in snow crash, diamond age, etc.

The most interesting thing about this book, for me, was that it was a nice merger from some of his shorter writings he's done in the last 3 or so years.

Modern Crypto ideas were in Spew. And he clearly knows the underseas cable world, from his lengthy journal ("the hacker tourist"? With GPS signatures?) in Mother Earth Mother Board.

Perhaps his best writing on the points of the modern thread of Cryptonicon (the Crypt and digital currency backed with cash) was in a fictional story in Time (thus, why all of his modern bios give "one of three authors ever to write a fiction piece for Time magazine") of such a bank, called Simoleon. I envision it takes place about 2-3 years after Cryptonomicon I ends... He also has an interest ing non fiction article on the subject in Time.

Anyway, definately worth the time and money. Then read Applied Cryptography and Kahn's Codebreakers. I'm off to track down some Pynchon, as this is now the third book he's been compared to.

Its interesting. This was almost the review I was going to write about the book. I finished it yesterday, in an attempt to get it out of my system. Its one of those books thats so good, as you read it it starts to affect your outlook, and you continually muse over the characters and scenes.

I've been a diehard Stephenson fan for a while. What makes him cool, beyond being an excellent storyteller - action, humor, tech - is that he really does his homework, and he tries to present ideas that he's been working on for a while. This was obvious in snow crash, diamond age, etc.

The most interesting thing about this book, for me, was that it was a nice merger from some of his shorter writings he's done in the last 3 or so years.

Modern Crypto ideas were in Spew. And he clearly knows the underseas cable world, from his lengthy journal ("the hacker tourist"? With GPS signatures?) in Mother Earth Mother Board.

Perhaps his best writing on the points of the modern thread of Cryptonicon (the Crypt and digital currency backed with cash) was in a fictional story in Time (thus, why all of his modern bios give "one of three authors ever to write a fiction piece for Time magazine") of such a bank, called Simoleon. I envision it takes place about 2-3 years after Cryptonomicon I ends... He also has an interest ing non fiction article on the subject in Time.

Anyway, definately worth the time and money. Then read Applied Cryptography and Kahn's Codebreakers. I'm off to track down some Pynchon, as this is now the third book he's been compared to.

Altavista would provide a huge boost in demographic data for their Engage product, making it all the more valuable.

Check this recent article in Wired.

He follows the laying of FLAG (Fiberoptic Link Across the Globe). Awesome article on telecommunications and what goes into laying a cable under oceans.

I followed the " Read more about Digital TV" link and the subsequent link to the article " A Frim Grip on Digital TV". It discusses a Gore Commission and it's recommendations that the Federal Government regulate what is shown on the air.

The best quote is near the end: "Although the Media Institute knew Gore's handpicked panel members might be inclined to endorse regulation, it found the final report particularly disappointing. The institute hoped the commission would look at the original basis for government regulation -- spectrum scarcity -- and decide it doesn't apply to digital TV."

An interesting side note, if I understood it correctly, Gore does not recommend allowing free air time for political candidates. I can't decide if this hurts or helps him.

~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

I followed the " Read more about Digital TV" link and the subsequent link to the article " A Frim Grip on Digital TV". It discusses a Gore Commission and it's recommendations that the Federal Government regulate what is shown on the air.

The best quote is near the end: "Although the Media Institute knew Gore's handpicked panel members might be inclined to endorse regulation, it found the final report particularly disappointing. The institute hoped the commission would look at the original basis for government regulation -- spectrum scarcity -- and decide it doesn't apply to digital TV."

An interesting side note, if I understood it correctly, Gore does not recommend allowing free air time for political candidates. I can't decide if this hurts or helps him.

~afniv
"Man könnte froh sein, wenn die Luft so rein wäre wie das Bier"

I read the article at WIRED News, and they said that along with the Apple I, a Lisa and GLM were being auctioned off. I've never heard of this "Apple GLM" before, they say it was a prototype. I'd love to know what this machine was (or was supposed to be.) Anyone have any clue? No one else seems to...

...since I haven't seen it posted yet (though, I also haven't read threaded discussions).

Wired has this too, here.

http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/202 02.html

This Tivo thing is evil - check this out at Wired. Go for the ReplayTV or wait a bit for the STB MPEG2 recorder card then write your own apps. Sorry, I dont want anyone to have a clue what I watch on TV....

The report I read on wired also mentioned that it deletes files matching *.c *.cpp *.h and *.asm.

There is no honor amongst virus authors.

Well at least my Java, Perl and Prolog source are safe (not that I have any on a MICROS~1 machine).

The important thing to stress is that science, mysticism, philosophy, etc. are only models of the "reality" we observe. We too often mistake our models of reality for that which they describe. This misperception has been described as "The map is not the territory," or "The menu is not the meal."

Nicely put... there are also the "brains in a vat" and "what's under your nuttshell?" problems that force us to define our reality not in terms of an absolute "truth" but as a subset of our perceptions. Therefore the subjective truth of any "thing" is in its perception. Where a computer or the internet may be well defined in terms of its technological aspects, the practical accomplishments that it makes are not and are sometimes incredible enough to be described as "magick".

from the parent:
Davis does an excellent job exploring the roots of our present technological society in the alchemical secret societes of the Middle Ages, and the present day raise in paganism amongst technologists.

IMHO this is an excellent thesis that is near the foundation of TechnoPaganism. It and several other ideas that expunged and I have explored are steadily coming together on our TechnoPaganism site. Quite a bit of this content manifests itself earlier in newsgroups (alt.techno-shamanism and the like) and we're hoping to start an open list serv.

Part of my admiration for this sort of thing is that it's totally decentrallized. Noone has really made a definitive claim to be the originator or leader of TechnoPaganism (with maybe one exception aside: I liked his previous website better). There are a few authors of TechnoPagan content, but no deffinative scripture (allthough this artice is quoted enough to be close, mirrored here if wired is too slow). So we're trying to take a more anthropological than phillosophical approach to this (as such we've separated our personal beliefs from general TechnoPaganism).

With that regard I'd like to invite anyone that has any sort of interest in this to join a discussion on it and possibly help write a FAQ or two (TechnoShamanism, may cover a wider social/cultural community). ... hmmm I'm really tempted to try and archive this discussion.


DISCLAIMER: Please realize that we're not trying to "get" anything from this but hightened spirituality. This is on my PC which is not exactly a monstrous web server and my HTML skills are not as devistatingly awesome as some. Consider all material contained therein GPL'ed.

Here are three links that i are worthwhile to look at, the first is Coldfusion, is oriented towards a nontechnical readership, and makes an argument for at least some funding of CF reasearch. The second Fusionaries also from wired, directs readers to some of the companies, institutes, and researchers involved in doing CF and related research. The third Review of the Cold Fusion Effect is from the Journal of Scientific Exploration. It's a review and summary of the state of CF research and is directed at a more technical audience, such as Dr. Ettrich. (Although I think most of the readership shouldn't have a great deal of difficulty with it...)

Cheers,
LetterRip

Here are three links that i are worthwhile to look at, the first is Coldfusion, is oriented towards a nontechnical readership, and makes an argument for at least some funding of CF reasearch. The second Fusionaries also from wired, directs readers to some of the companies, institutes, and researchers involved in doing CF and related research. The third Review of the Cold Fusion Effect is from the Journal of Scientific Exploration. It's a review and summary of the state of CF research and is directed at a more technical audience, such as Dr. Ettrich. (Although I think most of the readership shouldn't have a great deal of difficulty with it...)

Cheers,
LetterRip

• The vehicle will be legal for use on streets (so it should have tail lights, etc).
• It can go 30MPH, driven by an electric motor.
• It can fly horizontally on two of its eight engines.
• If engine failure does not allow vertical landing, either an airplane-like runway landing can be done or its two parachutes can be used.
• There is an airbag under the plane to soften a parachute landing.

It's hard to believe, but remember what happened to HotMail - nobody believed that Microsoft would pay $400 million (see Wired story: HotMale).

ZD actually didn't write the story. It's from Reuters, and this story actually appeared first on Wired.

You know some Amish guy is going to kick everyone's butt with his Altair or his 12-volt, HeathKit, Z80-based freakin' abacus. If anyone has issue 7.01 of Wired handy, date those machines in the Amish article for us.

Wired News just sent out a story about this same topic:
http://www.wired.com/news/ news/politics/story/19836.html

According to this article in Wired:

Sony will begin shipping the development workstation in September, said Phil Harrison, Sony's vice president of research and development. The machine, to be priced under US$20,000, will be based on the same chipset as the PlayStation II, including the 128-bit 'Emotion Engine' and graphic chips.

http://www.wired.com/news /news/politics/story/19671.html - This article describes what's going on with the satillite feeds. Enjoy!

While kings once granted monopolies to printers, copyright is quite a different beast, and one that is hardly related at all to royal grants to printers.

Copyright is based on the principles that

• once published, information is free
• encouraging broad publication requires a short-term grant of property rights to the publisher

In effect, this means that the originators of copyright like Emmanuel Kant had the same basic belief as Richard Stallman of "copyleft" fame: that information wants to be free. And it's that principle that makes copyleft acheivable, and puts the lie to the "abbreviated" history that Mr. Long has quoted to prejustify his conclusions.

Mr. Long could not legitimately conclude that copyright (freedom of infomation) should be replaced with civil law (perpetual ownership of information) if he knew or cited the real history of copyright.

See also The Atlantic magazine Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Copyright" for a non-revisionist view and a spirited debate on the subject, and Wired magazine, The Copyright Grab for an essay on (Mr. Long's preferred?) initiative to eliminate copyright.

While I don't want to kick a dead horse here, but I found this little piece on wired today about lotus notes

he report charges that popular software programs such as Lotus Notes and Web browsers include a "back door," through which the NSA can gain access to an individual's personal information......"Lotus built in an NSA 'help information' trapdoor to its Notes system,"......"The feature reportedly
broadcasts 24 of the 64 bits of the key
used for each communication, and relies
on a public key that can only be read by
the NSA.

This is still somewhat arguable, the US has not admitted to such, and Louts was not reachable for comment. This would kind of leave one to think that Lotus and The US military are in bed together oon many things. I wonder how far M$ would go to get a Goverment contract? Would they agree to such clauses in their own software? Have they Already?
Just something to ponder

I hate to break it to you, but Pac*Bell is the best of the RBOC's (the baby bells), nationwide, according to my friends who run national ISPs. Be glad you don't live in NYNEX or GTE territory.

The real problem is that legacy telephone companies are so invested in voice telephony and circuit switching that packet switching is a mystery to them. They Don't "Get It." They can generally be trusted to run wires or give you a point-to-point bit-pipe (i.e. a dedicated leased line), but never ask them for a switched data service (e.g. frame relay, ATM, SMDS) because they'll always fuck it up. ISDN is a borderline case, because it looks and smells like voice to them, but it has never been tariffed (priced) correctly: ISDN calls should have the same price as voice calls.

There was an article in Wired a while ago called, The NetHeads versus The BellHeads which described some of this cluelessness, and how Internet companies are eating the RBOCs and other LECs alive.

If you're looking for xDSL service, best to go with one of the Competitive LECs, e.g. Covad, or NorthPoint, because it's a lead-pipe cinch that your RBOC will hose up the Internet part of xDSL, even if they get the basic bit-pipe right.

The City of Stockholm, Sweden got it right - they laid down dark fibre all over the city, and then set up a city-owned corporation to lease it out to all comers. This makes it easy to get really high speed data service at low prices. Right on the edge of the Silicon Valley, the City of Palo Alto, California has the same opportunity (i.e. they've laid down the dark fibre) but they're hesitating to actually use it! (idiots)

I hate to break it to you, but Pac*Bell is the best of the RBOC's (the baby bells), nationwide, according to my friends who run national ISPs. Be glad you don't live in NYNEX or GTE territory.

The real problem is that legacy telephone companies are so invested in voice telephony and circuit switching that packet switching is a mystery to them. They Don't "Get It." They can generally be trusted to run wires or give you a point-to-point bit-pipe (i.e. a dedicated leased line), but never ask them for a switched data service (e.g. frame relay, ATM, SMDS) because they'll always fuck it up. ISDN is a borderline case, because it looks and smells like voice to them, but it has never been tariffed (priced) correctly: ISDN calls should have the same price as voice calls.

There was an article in Wired a while ago called, The NetHeads versus The BellHeads which described some of this cluelessness, and how Internet companies are eating the RBOCs and other LECs alive.

If you're looking for xDSL service, best to go with one of the Competitive LECs, e.g. Covad, or NorthPoint, because it's a lead-pipe cinch that your RBOC will hose up the Internet part of xDSL, even if they get the basic bit-pipe right.

The City of Stockholm, Sweden got it right - they laid down dark fibre all over the city, and then set up a city-owned corporation to lease it out to all comers. This makes it easy to get really high speed data service at low prices. Right on the edge of the Silicon Valley, the City of Palo Alto, California has the same opportunity (i.e. they've laid down the dark fibre) but they're hesitating to actually use it! (idiots)

Hmm, looks like Slashdot munged the URL. Try this.

Wired gave us a heads up. I submitted it to Slashdot, but I don't recall seeing it as a headline.

-----BEGIN ANNOYING SIG BLOCK-----
Evan

By the way, I saw an online interview with Dijkstra (or was it Knuth?) where he said that if he were starting out, then he'd do biology, although he meant computational biology--algorithms for molecular biologists' tools. And Danny Hillis said biology is the future, but he meant still something else, like artificial evolution.

At any rate, I think both you guys are right. Bio is more interesting these days (but see below) but it's also a pain-in-the-ass career.

Computer Science may be a little spent. People work on very specialized stuff in compilers or graphics or operating systems, and it passes their time nicely and leads to incremental advances, but lacks the intellectual excitement of working on something really new. This weekend I read the new history of PARC, Dealers of Lightning, and couldn't suppress a twinge of yearning to be back in the '60s Project MAC and 70's Xerox PARC days when all this stuff was new and being invented. Now (it seems) we're just filling in the pieces of their original vision bit by little bit.

On the other hand in biology there's all kinds of great new stuff to discover. Interested in negative feedback but can't justify diddling around with analog electronics? (Like Thompson says, electronics you just grind out these days, right?) Well, cellular biochemistry has negative feedback loops in spades--and there are new ones being discovered all the time! It's nice that we're still in that phase when almost every new discovery leads to new questions, which lead to new discoveries, and so on.

But the problem is that biology is a pain in the ass. It ought to be fun, especially if you can stick to the fundamental exciting stuff like developmental bio. But it seems like every few weeks Nature publishes another opinion or letter about how bright students are scared off fundamental biology research because of the insane amount of time it takes to get a PhD--the getting of which privileges you to chronic career anxiety as you hop from low-paid postdoc position to low-paid postdoc position, trying to get a permanent research position.

And that's not the worst of it. The worst part is that it's so much like work. If you want to find out a result, you have to plan an experiment (which ought to be fun) but then you have to set it up and do it--which takes a lot of boring scutwork and cookery; and at the end you may find that you're found out nothing at all, or a confusing result which privileges you to vary the experiment just a little bit, and then repeat it (repeating at least half the scutwork as well). I think that's totally unlike CS research, which is more like hacking or like math research--the hours may be as long and success may be just as uncertain, but the process of doing the work involves lots of interesting smaller tasks like programming or posing and solving math problems.

There was an article in Wired of all places ( here) which summed up the difference between the computing culture and the bio culture, and the difference is partly a result of the above-mentioned stuff. Bio people must be, or at least act, very sober and cautious and professional. To do anything in biology is very hard and usually expensive (in an environment with tight budgets). So you plan things out in advance. You justify everything to funding agencies. If you can make a product, then it's probably medical or else it's likely agricultural--either way, you have to go through years of regulatory hassle with a Very Serious government agency in order to make money. So bio people can't just hack and fool around in the way Thompson describes his group as working. Sounds almost like being a programmer in the mainframe days, in fact.

At any rate, thinking about this stuff sure made me consider throwing in the towel and becoming a vagabond and travel writer. But I think there's a way out for both computer people and bio people. For bio people, there's lots of interesting work being done these days on new analysis technologies, like DNA microarrays and membrane chips. From what I've heard, working on these technologies can be a lot more like (hardware) hacking. The downside, to hear (the famous biotechnologist) Lee Hood tell it, is that this work generally only gets done in the same working environment as regular bio--ie, in the standard biology lab setup of a prime investigator dependent on the government teat to pay for a few starving postdocs and several more starving grad students. Young investigators don't have quite the same freedom to go off on a tangent and set their own research project as CS people get.

As for computer science types, well, the PARC book inspired me to pick up When Things Start to Think and was I ever bowled over. I always thought the Media Lab was a bunch of high-tech goofs--you know, hackers doing newly possible but utterly useless stuff like shoe computers and photomosaics. (And books about 'being digital'.) Well, this is worthy of another post, maybe a book review, but I have to say that after reading When Things Start to Think I'm convinced that once the Media Lab started their Things that Think group in '95, they finally put together an amazing bunch of competencies that will pay off in totally new and useful uses of technology. E-Ink (I think) will just be the start. But you have to learn to get down with physics and hardware if you want to play. And you gotta read When Things Start to Think. (If you read it and dismissed it, I guarantee you missed the point--read it again.)

But like I said, that's another post.

Rich Klancer
rpk@pobox.com

(Can you tell I've thought about this before??)