Did anyone else see the infomercial on cable for the CueCat? It was on last night, and I was ROTFLing. Here's a couple of quotes so you can get an idea of the stupidity of this infomercial...
"The Cat is where it's at"..
(I swear to God I will kill the first person that actually says that to me in a conversation).
"anything else is just a copycat."..
(Sounds like fear of competition to me =)
I don't remember much else other than the really stupid window of the future where the kids sit in classroom of 2100 and are compeled to hit a button that generates a tone before answering each question. I had to ask myself, in Digital Convergences world are the kids so passive and stupid that they must have an audible que before they speak? It was a truly a sad commentary on what the future could look like with too much corporate influence.
I think I'll start building a free barcode database =).
I would be very concerned about this announcement.
Needless to say that I'm not a FreeBSD user, so I don't really know the whole story. However, while commercial backing usually means more resources for a project, you have to question commercial entities on their interest in a project to see if it's goals match your own and if those goals are good for your community. It's a sure bet that BSDI is only interested in FreeBSD because it feels that it can gain financially from the merger. If a good balance is maintained and BSDI makes worthwhile contributions to the FreeBSD codebase then I would say this is a "Good Thing (TM)", however if BSDI comes in and hijacks the FreeBSD codebase without making any contributions back to the community then I would have a different opinion.
In any event, it's up to the FreeBSD community to make sure that BSDI isn't taking unfair advantage of them. So, when things are getting started I would urge the FreeBSD people to be cautious and watchful.
I've read alot of hype about the Lego Mindstorm and while it looks fun I have found the Basic Stamp to be much more interesting. For those of you who don't know the Basic Stamp is a small microcontroller with a built in interpreter, and memory unit. The interpreter understands a version of Basic called PBasic (stands for Parallax Basic), and it's very simple to program. For those of you interested in Electronics and Embedded computing this is a great way to get started at a fraction of the cost (the stamp unit only costs around 35 bucks). I highly recommend these two books for starters:
"Getting Started in Electronics" By Forest M. Mims III (Published by Radio Shack).
"Programming, and Customizing the Basic Stamp Computer" By Scott Edwards.
also Nuts and Volts magazine has a monthly column dedicated to the Basic Stamp. This is the ultimate in hacker toys =).
What do you see as the real message comming from Australia's censorship policies today? And how are these messages going to affect the decisions of the policy makers in other countries? And is fighting censorship even a possibility at this point or would it be better to try to focus our efforts on softening the censorship blow by taking a more active role in shaping government policies?
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Did anyone else see the infomercial on cable for the CueCat? It was on last night, and I was ROTFLing. Here's a couple of quotes so you can get an idea of the stupidity of this infomercial...
"The Cat is where it's at"..
(I swear to God I will kill the first person that actually says that to me in a conversation).
"anything else is just a copycat."..
(Sounds like fear of competition to me =)
I don't remember much else other than the really stupid window of the future where the kids sit in classroom of 2100 and are compeled to hit a button that generates a tone before answering each question. I had to ask myself, in Digital Convergences world are the kids so passive and stupid that they must have an audible que before they speak? It was a truly a sad commentary on what the future could look like with too much corporate influence.
I think I'll start building a free barcode database =).
I would be very concerned about this announcement.
Needless to say that I'm not a FreeBSD user, so I don't really know the whole story. However, while commercial backing usually means more resources for a project, you have to question commercial entities on their interest in a project to see if it's goals match your own and if those goals are good for your community. It's a sure bet that BSDI is only interested in FreeBSD because it feels that it can gain financially from the merger. If a good balance is maintained and BSDI makes worthwhile contributions to the FreeBSD codebase then I would say this is a "Good Thing (TM)", however if BSDI comes in and hijacks the FreeBSD codebase without making any contributions back to the community then I would have a different opinion.
In any event, it's up to the FreeBSD community to make sure that BSDI isn't taking unfair advantage of them. So, when things are getting started I would urge the FreeBSD people to be cautious and watchful.
I've read alot of hype about the Lego Mindstorm and while it looks fun I have found the Basic Stamp to be much more interesting. For those of you who don't know the Basic Stamp is a small microcontroller with a built in interpreter, and memory unit. The interpreter understands a version of Basic called PBasic (stands for Parallax Basic), and it's very simple to program. For those of you interested in Electronics and Embedded computing this is a great way to get started at a fraction of the cost (the stamp unit only costs around 35 bucks). I highly recommend these two books for starters:
"Getting Started in Electronics" By Forest M. Mims III (Published by Radio Shack).
"Programming, and Customizing the Basic Stamp Computer" By Scott Edwards.
also Nuts and Volts magazine has a monthly column dedicated to the Basic Stamp. This is the ultimate in hacker toys =).
www.parallaxinc.com has more info. Enjoy.
What do you see as the real message comming from Australia's censorship policies today? And how are these messages going to affect the decisions of the policy makers in other countries? And is fighting censorship even a possibility at this point or would it be better to try to focus our efforts on softening the censorship blow by taking a more active role in shaping government policies?