lessons from star trek
so, i'm not sure about this guy, yet, but this page brings up some very good points that i have long expressed myself, though probably not as eloquently as steve here.
it's an interesting read.
--cid
0wn yourself
is flash growing on me?
okay, if you know me, you know i'm generally not a very big fan of flash, but this is freakin' sweet.
it's a slick little flash applet that picks up feeds from most of the aerial/satellite imagery feeds and lets you swap back and forth between them. _and_ it seems _stable_!! shouts go out to http://www.flashearth.com/ for sure.
--cid
0
replies
meta :
dhtml applications,
flash,
hacks,
satellite tracking
here's to removing the restrictions. breaking through the barriers that have stopped me from achieving the things i know i'm capable of.
fear can be a powerful thing, but it can also manifest that power in very subtle ways. the fear of what might happen or what might not happen, what someone might think or say can be a silent deterrent of progress.
apathy, like fear, can also grab us by the insides and prevent our actions. 'oh, well, there's nothing i can do about it anyway, so i might as well just make the best of the situation.' 'well, it doesn't really affect me or my family, so i guess it's not really my problem.'
i feel that i've let myself fall victim to both of these snares, lately, and it's something i intend to overcome. i've got a lot of ideas in me, bursting to come out, and when i let fud and apathy and distraction set in, that's not good for anyone.
it halts my growth, and it prevents anyone from benefiting from whatever it is i have to offer. so, once again, i'm picking myself up and pointing back at (what i believe) is the right direction. looking for the right thing.
if these words mean anything to you--if you've ever felt like you weren't making use of all your capabilities, i hope you can take this knowledge that you're not the only one and reinspire yourself at whatever it is that you do.
'til then.
--cid
trying to 0wn myself
somebody once told me that if every person in china could be coordinated to jump at exactly the same time, they would produce enough force to permanently alter the earth's orbit.
i've never heard any definitive proof on the matter, but inside i always believed it. the society we've built for ourselves promises us so much--stability, security, entertainment. all of these things are made possible through the application of order on a massive scale. society provides certain structures or constructs to achieve certain desirable conditions.
just who the conditions are desired by depends on a lot of things, most notably the motives and understanding of those creating and imposing the social limitations.
in an ideal world, the only social limitations in effect would be those whose pros outweighed their cons. in other words, the only laws would be laws which provided a maximum benefit to the maximum amount of people at a minimum cost to a minimum amount of people. that should be the ultimate goal of any law--fixing whatever required the enactment of a new law in the first place, with as small an amount of harm done as possible. minimum force required. make the most people happy. needs of the many....golden rule--whatever you wanna call it.
in reality, it is not always (or some would say frequently) the goal of the individuals and bodies responsible for governing these social impositions which are supposed to be for the betterment of all mankind, but are all to often invoked (and sadly enforced) for the betterment of only a small part of mankind.
my point in beginning this post was that we all seem to be pushing and pulling in our own selfish directions a lot of the time, but if we could somehow coordinate our efforts to push together for some of the more useful goals, we would be able to accomplish more.
a thought.....
--cid
| somebody (prolly someone much handier with a soldering iron than i) hacked together this little beauty. yes, that _is_ a portable playstation two. *drool* my hat is off to you sir. --cid just trying to own myself.... | |
cool program. that's what the heading on the post said.
i had no idea what i was in for. _this_ is the kind of program i've been waiting for for a while, now. this is something new and fresh added to a layer of the familiar and old. taking two powerful techniques for taking ideas from one persons brain and conveying these ideas to the minds of others.
now need to come tools and techniques to make more complex and more refined drawing/simulations. simulations in three and four dimensions. tools to take the rough human defined drawings and adjust the size/shape/positioning to make it cleaner. oooooh.... i love this stuff, man.
--cid
0wn your computer (and make it do cool things)
/.'s talking about it. reuters is reporting it. california's suing auto manufacturers for global warming.
hmmmm....
--cid
0wn yourself
share the knowledge. information wants to be free, right? ibm says they think so. i've talked about open course ware from mit before. things like this seem to be good for the future of our species.
i hope these kinds of projects and ideas continue to gain in popularity and depth. open information.
--cid
looks like france is sticking to their guns so far.
apple isn't gonna be happy about this if for no other reason than the precedent it could set.
0wn your music
--cid
or so sayeth the cia (as quoted by cnn international. hmm...
not to say that saddam's a nice guy or anything, or that we shouldn't have been over there (for other reasons), but it still kinda makes you think, huh?
--cid
0wn your country
bmw announced that it will be releasing a hydrogen powered car. now, it's important to note that this is a hydrogen internal combustion engine, not a fuel cell. but, it's a start.
apparently, it will be able to burn either gasoline or hydrogen, but when running on hydrogen, they claim it will release only vapors, unlike our hydrocarbon spewing, gas-burning mainstays. zero emission would prolly be better for the atmosphere, but like i said it's a start.
at least if we could start switching people to burning hydrogen, we could stop burning oil (which we need for other things).
just a thought.
--cid
bull.
here is another blazing example of how the media is only out for entertainment--not real news. and i usually like tech news world. i'm disappointed guys... :(
wanna see what kinds of things _hackers_ have _really_ been up to? go check out the h.o.p.e. conference.
hackers aren't the people who steal credit card numbers (at least not for personal gain--maybe as proof of concept or for pen testing or something). the people who steal credit card numbers are known as thieves or, a more generalized word--criminals.
now, hackers are people just like anyone else--they can be good or bad--but, unless this criminal( or criminals) figured out a clever solution to at&t's security measures--i.e. a hack (used as a clever or elegant solution to a problem)--then this person or persons is hardly a hacker.
if they used somebody else's pre-made hack to commit this caper, then there's a word for that, too--script kiddie.
some people might say that i'm making too big a deal out of this. others might suggest that they agree with me, but that we've already lost the true meaning of the word, but i believe in sticking up for what you believe in.
i also believe that articles like the above mentioned are bad for the general populace as they encourage suspicion of one of our nation's most valuable resources--creative, resourceful free thinking human beings--hackers.
i also believe that tripe like this allows unjust (and dangerous) laws extra leeway in getting passed. 'well, we've gotta stop these digital terrorists, now don't we?'
i give you the paragraph surreptitiously slipped in near the end of this article referring to movements for laws that would make it easier for corporations to conceal these sort of slip ups from their customer base.
i'm gonna stop now before i really get myself worked up, but i hope i've at least made you think a little. whether you agree with me or not, if i've done that then i have succeeded.
--cid
0wn your world
ok. round two.
i was reading the beginning of a book the other day--the theory of almost everything: the standard model, the unsung triumph of modern physics--and he said something pretty simple, yet profound.
he was talking about how we understand things on different levels.
and it kind of hit me upside the head. i believe the metaphor he was making involved being able to explain how computers worked by talking about how the electrons flowed in certain order through their electronic pathways to form gates of logic, and how completely useless that model of understanding would be if one were trying to understand an error message from windows nt.
point is, the way we can get our head around things depends not only on the things we're trying to get our heads around, but also on the context of the situation in which the things (and our heads) are currently existing.
part of what i was trying to get out in that last post was that this network model of understanding can connect to several levels (often at once).
this can be very useful. it can also be a great hindrance.
if you can't already tell, i _love_ me some wikipedia. love it. i can seriously get lost in there for _hours_, and have a grand old time while i'm at it. i have learned so much from that site over the years that i don't know what i'd be like without it.
now, i realize that you have to take wikipedia with a very large grain of salt. but, if you keep your wits about you and understand where this stuff is coming from and what it is that you're reading, then it is not only a very rich and entertaining source of information, but a phenomenal jumping off point.
and there's the rub...
i find so many wonderful links to other articles and external sites that before i know it, i'm so off topic that i'm not getting anything done. and worse, i have to choose. it's not just that my attention is drifting from the topic i summoned the wiki world for, but my attention is drifting in _multiple_ directions.
that's the same thing that often happens in the web (and networked environments in general), but i find my interest frequently, and often painfully divided by the little blue trails of wonder when i don't immediately leave a wikipedia article. (and, like i said, i love the 'pedia, so it seemed like a good example...)
but i've been getting this picture in my head of how this paradigm is working and the concept of depth was something i was missing before. i mean, it was there, but i couldn't put it into words.
the network method of communication connects us to many things all at once.
we've got the subject of whatever it is we're talking/thinking/reading about. and we've got related metadata there with it. we've also got linking to other related thoughts and ideas and concepts (all with their own (often overlapping) metadata). but not only do we have this interconnected web of information, but we also have different levels of representing it.
if you take a web-style network topology from a top down view, that's only part of it. four degrees of freedom. these interlinks can keep going infinitely in four separate directions, along the whole plane.
but the concept of different levels of description or understanding add depth to that model.
i'm not quite sure where i'm going with this, but it feels right and i just wanted to get it down before i lost it.
i'll be back for this one.
--cid
0wn yourself
a new way of writing?
the advent of decentralized, computer aided communication over networks has changed the way we talk to each other. it's changed the way we collect and process information. and it's done this very quickly (relative to known history).
it's a tough concept to disagree with.
but just how pervasive is this networking idea. how far will it go? how far has it gone already?
i've been hearing a lot of talk lately about the so-called 'semantic web' and network society and bruce sterling's concept of spimes and it's all seeming to point to the same direction.
as we make computers more able to sift through piles of data and sift through it in more productive ways, and scan more content into machine-readable formats, the more content gets interwoven into this web or network.
simultaneously, we (as humans) are adapting to new ways of dealing with all this info (with the help of our newly bolstered computer-powered data crunchers and vast info warehouses) as well as new types of human to human relationships.
physical borders and boundaries don't mean quite the same thing as they used to. the interactions and connections between humans don't always have to work the same as they used to. we can be connected instantly to multiple people (on multiple levels of interaction) in any location (so long as it's attached to the grid) and then pool our resources.
we don't have to come together in the traditional sense to come together in the virtual, networked sense.
and along with this new networked way of looking at the world, with the aid of computers to crunch all the numbers we don't want to crunch, and remember where all the data is that won't fit in our heads anymore, we are getting the side effect of multimedia content presented in a relational way.
take a web page for instance.
a web page is sent to your browser and rendered according to a set of rules and then you get to utilize (or interact) with it.
it's comprised of words, images, audio and video, all of which are independant media types in their own right. but what makes it different than the traditional incarnations these formats took is the metadata and the relationships which are represented.
you get (along with the text/pics/audio/video) to see other sources and the different directions they go, the different things that this content is _related_ to. you also get to see other metadata such as timestamps, location indicators, categories the media falls into, language indicators, the type of platform it was designed to work with. all kinds of extra data which help enrich our understanding of where and how a particular idea (or set of ideas) fits and integrates into the rest of what we know.
by maintaining these relationships and including this metadata in our understanding of what it is we are digesting, we can achieve a new level of depth in our understanding of the actual ideas that we're processing.
'cause let's get right down to brass tacks--that's what communication is about in any form. transferring an idea from one human's brain into some other media type so it can be picked up and ingested by the mind of another.
ideas.
transferring ideas. that's what communication is.
there are other side effects to this new networked, indexed, computer enhanced way of looking at the world and exchanging ideas, but i'm gonna have to revisit this topic. i'm running out of time....
--cid
0wn yourself
0wn your ideas
mram.
magnetoresistive random access memory.
they say it's fast. it's also nonvolatile. both good things when you're talking about ram. freescale's making it. it seems to be aimed at the mobile market (like most consumer products lately), but i guess we'll see how well it does pretty soon.
--cid
0wn yourself
i'm still not sure what he did to incur the wrath of cbs, but he's going to satellite, it seems.
--cid
green energy, to be precise.
actually, that wouldn't really be precise at all. but it's a start.
and dammit, at least the concept of 'alternative energy sources' are finally making their way into the spotlight. it apparently took soaring oil prices to make the general populace realize that burning oil and coal isn't a good thing.
will we do something about it now that this is becoming a buzzword?
*shrugs*
who knows?
but articles like this one give me at least a little hope. it seems as if we might finally be paying attention to this issue (prolly for the wrong reasons, but hey--a means to an end, no?).
whether you're looking for clean energy, green energy, energy independence, the furthering of technology, hedging your bets by diversifying what methods we get our power from or any other number of reasons, looking at different sources and methods of power needs to be done, and it needs to be done soon.
--cid
0wn your energy
...relatively speaking.
sure, we saw the asteroid coming. but if it was headed for impact rather than a near miss, would we have realized with enough time to do anything about it?
--cid
i love stephen hawking. the guy's a genius.
and he always seems to have some good points. this time, it's a point i've talked about before. humanity needs to spread out.
whether it's nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, a meteor or whatever, it greatly raises our odds of survival.
the more self-sufficient human civilizations that we can set up, and the more places we can do it in, the better our chances of species survival.
to paraphrase orson scott card, we need to spread ourselves over a thousand worlds and make peace with each other, and we'll be all but impossible to destroy.
keep asking questions...
--cid
could it be true?
so far it's just a rumor--apple merging with nintendo?
apple's a company i've got mixed feelings about, but nintendo has more or less stayed true to its consumer base. they've kept their roots strong, they didn't dick people over with prices, and they've continued to strive for creative new ways of interacting with games (motion controllers in the wii, touchscreen on the ds).
while, technologically speaking, i am an apple fan, and i'll even give them style points, but idealogically, i haven't felt at home with an apple product in a long time.
from a marketing standpoint, i think this hypothetical merger could do the nintendo name some good, but i guess that's what worries me. apple is a marketing machine and i shudder to think what would become of nintendo if this happens.
i guess we'll just have to wait and see.
--cid
0wn your console
so, wi-fi's an open book, and wep's like using a proverbial slice of swiss to stop others from reading your book.
well, there're a couple of new standards to take over where wep fell short, but not everybody can seem to agree.
in fact, china just walked out of talks about their wireless encryption standard, wapi. they said that the ieee (i triple e) uses dirty tactics to push their standards. they said that since the talks clearly weren't really accomplishing anything, the whole setup was unfair, and there was no point in continuing.
*shrugs*
--cid
we're (at least some of us) always struggling to refine our picture of the universe and how it works. every new little thing we learn helps to shape our overall understanding of this reality we live in.
space dot com has an interesting article recently talking about the new info being compiled on andromeda. as we study other galaxies, we gain tools which assist our understanding of the way galaxies move and work--including our own.
we've got some relatively close cosmic neighbors to study, but these are all local astronomical phenomena. it's kind of tough to get a good view of our own galaxy since we're right down in it. kind of a 'forest for the trees' thing.
but by figuring out how lots of _other_ galaxies do their thing, we can get some ammo to help figure out what's happening in our neck of the woods.
keep learning.
--cid
0wn yourself
we're (at least some of us) always struggling to refine our picture of the universe and how it works. every new little thing we learn helps to shape our overall understanding of this reality we live in.
space dot com has an interesting article recently talking about the new info being compiled on andromeda. as we study other galaxies, we gain tools which assist our understanding of the way galaxies move and work--including our own.
we've got some relatively close cosmic neighbors to study, but these are all local astronomical phenomena. it's kind of tough to get a good view of our own galaxy since we're right down in it. kind of a 'forest for the trees' thing.
but by figuring out how lots of _other_ galaxies do their thing, we can get some ammo to help figure out what's happening in our neck of the woods.
keep learning.
--cid
0wn yourself
okay. first, i've got to apologize for two things--harping on sony's love of proprietary formats and my hitting you with something else from slashdot.
but with good reason. this article presents a balanced (and objective) view of sony's current (apparent) plan with regards to the ps3, their decision to include a blu-ray drive in the console, and their love of proprietary technologies (and the history that illustrates it).
so, that's it. just saw a good one and thought i'd point it out. i'm finished now.
--cid
here's one that i'm having trouble digesting. net neutrality.
both sides have some really good arguments.
on the one hand, i agree with sonia arrison in her articles on the matter of regulations usually being a bad thing. i understand that the internet (and all of the concepts, ideas and paradigms that have sprung from it) happened largely because of the hard-to-control nature of the decentralized network. it's headless, so it's very resiliant, and simultaneously, anyone can introduce and idea from any point and have it spread to any (or even every) other point on the network without much time, effort, or way to stop it.
basically, it's a more level playing field.
and i also understand that there are ways to alter that level playing field to once again stack the proverbial deck in a particular entity or interested party's favour.
but i can also see that large entities controlling a large portion of the infrastructure can institute certain practices (for whatever reasons) that can have effects on performance and usability.
and what i mean by that is that an entity which controls a large enough portion of the backbone, can effectively disrupt, cripple or break sites and services which run over their channels.
now the real question becomes one of the lesser of two (actually three) evils--allow these companies to do as they will (i.e. throw network neutrality right out the window and forget about it), allow the government to regulate the backbone providers (and i think we all know about some of the perils that one contains), or to come to some other solution...maybe the honour system? some kind of independent (and unbiased) third party audit scheme? *shrugs*
i understand how _i_ feel about the matter--i just don't know which of the two apparent factions i fit into.
actually, i guess i don't necessarily have to pick one of the existing sides. i've never been very good at fitting in anyway...
besides, pretty soon we'll get to see what all the politicians think. hehe.
as always, i'm still learning.
--cid
a paper by tim wu--the guy who coined the term 'network neutrality'
platform equality and remedies for rights holders in music. that's the latest clever acronym to disguise a piece of legislation being put in place by a very specific (and coincidentally filthy rich) corner of an industry we all know and love...
what's this one all about, you ask?
perform, at first glance, seems to be there for two reasons--firstly, the riaa wants more money from satellite radio providers, and secondly, because it's an opportunity to set more precedents and get a little more case law going their way.
specifically, riaa is pissed about the hybrid satellite radio/mp3 player combos coming down the pipe. the reason they're mad is because these devices allow you to timeshift and/or your paid for subscription content so it can be listened to at a different time or setting. well, both of these practices (timeshifting and placeshifting) fall under the concept of 'fair use' and if you've followed the anything about the riaa, you prolly know how they feel about fair use...
anyway, it seems that they're still unhappy with current laws covering fair use (not to mention relatively recent laws--such as the dmca--which attack the legal basis of such concepts as fair use) and are still persuing methods of weakening consumers' rights, ensuring their ability to squeeze unfair percentages out of both the artists whose work they're getting rich off and their own customers who are making it possible, and to strengthen their own abilities to control (through legal means and business tactics) market variables, release (and the disabling of functions) of new technologies.
announcements like this make me want to redouble my efforts in opening people's eyes (my own as well as others) and to go out and find (or make!) more alternative media choices.
you don't like what's on tv? get a camcorder and go make your own video. don't like the crap clearchannel puts on most of the radio stations in america? go find an internet radio show you do like. go _make_ your _own_ internet radio show. go volunteer at your local public station. get a short wave and listen to international broadcasts. go to the library and read a book. _write_ a book. draw a picture. go for a walk. reassess the media you consume on a daily basis and think about why you're into what you are.
think about how it used to be. think about how it is. think about how it might be soon. think about how that makes you feel.
don't forget that we _do_ still have power. we do still have functioning brains and independent wills. we can do things on our own. we can bond together and accomplish things. amazing things.
new products and ideas don't have to come from some corporation.
we are the people and knowing that makes me feel vibrant and alive.
--cid
0wn your media consumption habits
if you want to read more about the perform act (and other laws pertaining to the rights of citizens) please check out the following...
if you know me, you know i'm always pimpin' the eff. and there's the hrrc and and article about the situation (and another). oh, and an arstechnica article, too. and, the actual text.
keep your eyes 0pen....
google (an entity which i like to talk about) has announced plans for how it wants to end up. and it sounds strangely like the end of neuromancer.
apparently, they are envisioning a sort of artificial intelligence to interpret, understand, and respond to queries. hmm.
there are about a million different directions this topic could bleed into, but right now, i simply don't have the time. i will continue this later.
--cid
0wn yourself
i knew better. i really did. i mean, i've _seen_ the first two, haven't i? i knew.
but i went anyway.
x-men 3:the last stand. sigh.... i can't claim to be the nerdiest of x-men nerds. after all, they're older than me. but i do have my fair share (and probably a few other shares) of useless marvel trivia stored up here and that story just didn't sit very well with me.
maybe i'm wrong. maybe there's some part of the story that i was never exposed to. maybe there are more important things i should be worrying about, but i'm offended. my childhood legends (and many others' before me) seem to have be exploited by hollywood.
i've gotta stop right now....
--cid
lemme know how you feel, ok?
shouts to one of my new favourite projects--the denver zine library.
this is one of the coolest projects i've seen in awhile. a simple idea, but a great one. at present, they've got over six and a half thousand zines from all over the place, on just about any topic you can think of.
the zines are all donated, and the library itself is run by volunteers, but from what i can tell, it's growing by leaps and bounds. so, shouts guys--keep up the good work.
and if you have a zine you want to get out there, give 'em a copy. let ppl hear your voice.
if you live in the area, you might think about volunteering, and if you don't, maybe you could start your own local library of independent media.
it's a good thing.
later.
--cid
0wn yourself
stankDawg is baaack...
and i'd just like to say it's good to have you back. and i also wanna say thanks to blackRatchet and strom carlson for keeping binrev radio going this whole time.
they've got a good community at binary revolution. if you've never been there, you should check it out.
and (on a side note) there's now a ddp blawg.
anyway, that's it--shouts where they belong (you know who you are)...
--cid
sony, sony, sony...
you've done it again--i'm simultaneously amazed by your technical prowess and your overwhelming lack of touch with your customer base.
there was a time, when the only thing that worried me about the ps3 was the funny looking boomerang controller.
the cell processor has shown itself to be more than sufficient for truly crunching some numbers. integrated wireless. the blu-ray next gen storage promised plenty of storage, plus the nifty (supposedly screwdriver-tested scratch-proof) coating that tdk makes for them.
it all looked so good.
and then the prices were announced. i don't know who sony thinks they are, but i think that's outrageous. i would be willing to put up with all their silly drm-loving proprietary (you've-gotta-buy-it-from-us) attitude only so far. and five or six hundo is a bit too far, methinks.
is it gonna be cool? prolly.
am i gonna find out? prolly.
am i gonna drop half a grand to hop on the next gen wave? ahh...no.
playstation and me are gonna be buddies no more.
i've got no doubt that the hardware's gonna be impressive, and the games will almost certainly be sweet, but there's no way i'm doing the retail thing at that price. used--a price drop--whatever, but i think sony's been a little more pretentious than usual with this one.
i guess we'll see.
--cid
p.s. pardon the rant, but it's been building awhile and it hadda come out somewhere.
the subpeona's have started. google, among others, have had their records subpeonaed (however you spell that) by 'federal investigators'--whatever that means.
these mysterious investigators have claimed the info they're after isn't anything personal, but this just underscores the potential for abuse of subpeonas (or illegitimate access to the massive databases that google and other massive info warehouses maintain).
if we let this happen, we'll be opening the door for more invasive uses of technology that we might end up regretting....
i've gotta give 'em shouts for refusing to comply with the order (which is cool) but it's like the eff said--if search companies (and other dataminers) keep keeping all this info, the government (and criminals) are gonna keep trying to get at it.
if you don't understand why this is a problem, go read nineteen eighty-four again.
interesting times we're living in...
--cid
0wn yourself
maybe this kind of thing will finally put it into perspective to people.
both sides have completely valid points--yes, piracy is basically stealing. on the other hand, we, as consumers know that it _does not_ cost seventeen dollars to press that record.
the industry is in the unenviable (and unnecessary) position of being a middle man. the artists don't really need a label to press an album anymore (even to get play), but they've made so much money for so long, that they don't wanna just give up and go away.
what's it gonna be?
--cid
0wned yourself, lately?
