garbage in garbage out

/.'s talking about it. reuters is reporting it. california's suing auto manufacturers for global warming.

hmmmm....

--cid

0wn yourself

ibm open source learning

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

eff stirring up trouble in washington

tnw's talking about the eff again. *salute* god bless you boys. (and girls).

--cid

france v. apple - when kingdoms collide

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

female space tourist

0wn yourself

female space tourist. sweet.

--cid

saddam != al-qaeda

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

beamer hydrogen seven - it's a start

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

hackers steal at&t customers' data

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

networked thoughts

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