] If you talk to people who want academic careers and want
] to get degrees, an example of a hot topic might be
] quantum computing, which seems exciting. And I think it
] is exciting, but to me, what's much more important is how
] we fundamentally conceive of software.

Jaron Lanier thinks creatively about software.

Coding from Scratch: A Conversation with Virtual Reality Pioneer Jaron Lanier, Part One

] "The adoption of the new name means that we will no
] longer use the term Palladium. There are several reasons
] for this. As a code name, Palladium was successful in
] gaining widespread attention. Unfortunately, it was also
] imprecise. “Next-generation secure computing base” more
] accurately describes what we are working toward — to help
] build a more secure Microsoft Windows operating system.

Spin Spin Spin....

There is too much going on in this space for it all to be a coincidence. Someone decided on a counter PR effort.

Palladium Name Change; Mission Still Same

] About 70 percent of all the queries were either
] identical, or repeat requests for addresses within the
] same domain. About 12 percent of the queries received by
] the root server on Oct. 4, were for nonexistent top-level
] domains. In addition, 7 percent of all the queries already
] contained an IP address instead of a host name.

All bad code and misconfigured firewalls.

Unnecessary Traffic Saturating A Key Internet 'Root' Server

] Presumably man's spirit should be elevated if he can
] better review his shady past and analyze more completely
] and objectively his present problems. He has built a
] civilization so complex that he needs to mechanize his
] records more fully if he is to push his experiment to its
] logical conclusion and not merely become bogged down part
] way there by overtaxing his limited memory. His
] excursions may be more enjoyable if he can reacquire the
] privilege of forgetting the manifold things he does not
] need to have immediately at hand, with some assurance
] that he can find them again if they prove important.

Vannevar Bush's 1945 Memex article, in which he explains a hypertext like system involving microfiche. Unfortunately, the Atlantic neglected to include the illustrations.

Whats most interesting about this article is the capability, such as annotation, which does not exist on the web. The MemeStreams thread bookmarket is supposed to provide an annotation function.

As We May Think by Vannevar Bush

] This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally,
] where the old notion of "filter, then publish" is giving
] way to "publish, then filter." There is no need for
] Slashdot's or Kuro5hin's owners to sort the good posts
] from the bad in advance, no need for Blogdex or Daypop to
] pressure people not to post drivel, because lightweight
] filters applied after the fact work better at large scale
] than paying editors to enforce minimum quality in
] advance.

Its often really infuriating to see someone else get a lot of credit for saying something that you've been saying for, well, at least a year and a half now. Someday, hopefully, enough people will be using this site that I can actually go to the music industry and negotiate the proper rights needed to do memestreams with music.

And, BTW, I don't happen to think that Slashdot/Kuro5hin have "solved" the filtering problem. :)

Shirky: The Music Business and the Big Flip

] Government officials and communications experts are
] assessing the public safety and security implications of
] a newly posted online article that provides directions
] for making cheap devices that can jam Global Positioning
] System (GPS) signals.

Classic Bill Joy moment here. The availability of that article is not what creates the risk associated with relying on GPS. Its the insecurity of the system that creates the risk. If that article was published in scientific american instead of phrack the wording of this article would be tremendously different.

Notice how the author goes around to different subject matter experts searching for someone who is willing to say "this is bad." Each expert says "this has no effect on my space, but it might cause problems in that space over there." The author then asks someone who works in that space, and is told the same thing over again. Basically, yes the authorities know this is a risk and they mitigate it like any other risk.

Homemade GPS jammers raise concerns - Computerworld

] "Arnold Kling, in his article, Content is Crap, writes,
] 'While there are many Net-heads who share Dan Gillmor's
] [and Larry Lessig's] enthusiasm for Creative Commons, I
] do not. It has little or no significance, because it is
] based on a strikingly naive 60's-retro ideological view
] of how content intermediaries function.'

I recommend this for two reasons. First, and a minor observation, here Slashdot attempts to assemble a thread between a number of bloggers. If all of these people were using MemeStreams, the thread would already be organized and would be much easier to follow. :)

Second, Kling is wrong for all the right reasons. He argues that the Creative Commons License is useless because its simply a way to end run around the publishing industry, and the publishing industry is very important as a filter for the the mass of information available to us. However, and it is probably well understood by the readers of this site, the publishing industry is not a very good filter. They don't find the content we really want, because its too risky or too expensive or because it threatens them in some fundamental way.

We need to put the power to filter in the hands of the people, as we have put the power to elect a government in the hands of the people, and for exactly the same reasons.

And with the power to filter in the hands of the people there is a need, a requirement, for looser copyright restrictions. Artificial Scarcity, in this environment, it what prevents people from getting a hold of your ideas, not the thing that incents you to make those ideas available. And for this reason I think systems like Creative Commons may be quite important.

You're not selling artifically scarce "copy" for cash. You are giving copy away for reputation. Reputation is attention, and you can turn attention in cash.

Slashdot | Carping Over Creative Commons

] "Bell Canada recently started converting public pay
] phones in Toronto, Montreal, and Kingston into terminals
] for "Wi-Fi" Internet connections. Some U.S. phone
] companies may soon follow suit."

I previously stated here that I think that most of the POTS infrastructure will be converted into interconnections for short range wireless systems...

Fortune.com - Technology - Making Pay Phones Pay

Earl Grey tea. Hot.

L25- The idea of printing a light bulb may seem
L25- bizarre, but US engineers are now
L25- developing an ink-jet printing technology
L25- to do just that. The research at the
L25- University of California in Berkeley will
L25- allow fully assembled electric and
L25- electronic gadgets to be printed...

'Gadget printer' promises industrial revolution

A DVD full of european PC demos! Sweet!

MindCandy Volume 1: PC Demos