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| compos mentis. Concision. Media. Clarity. Memes. Context. Melange. Confluence. Mishmash. Conflation. Mellifluous. Conviviality. Miscellany. Confelicity. Milieu. Cogent. Minty. Concoction. |
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Quote about Internet Bandwidth, from WSJ |
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| Topic: Technology |
12:25 am EST, Nov 20, 2003 |
... as much as 60% of the Internet's total bandwidth is eaten up by 5% of users engaged in file swapping ... Has this figure been substantiated somewhere? |
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Getting a Job in the Valley Is Easy, if You're Perfect |
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| Topic: Tech Industry |
12:17 am EST, Nov 20, 2003 |
As the economy bounces back, even Silicon Valley's job market is showing signs of revival. But it has a long way to go. Employers are being extremely picky, the few jobs being offered pay less than they once did, and they do not come with the bountiful benefits and sterling opportunities of the 1990's boom, job seekers say. "They give you a list of the 30 things they want, and if you're not an identical match, they move on immediately." "One of the current favorite tricks of companies is to say, 'We're laying off you, and you, and you. Now you, you get to keep your job, but you have to go to India or teach a bunch of Indians your job.'" Based on the pull-quote above, one could easily confuse this with an article about Friendster, Tickle, or Match.com. Getting a Job in the Valley Is Easy, if You're Perfect |
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Lawmakers Approve Expansion of FBI's Antiterrorism Powers |
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| Topic: War on Terrorism |
12:15 am EST, Nov 20, 2003 |
Congressional negotiators approved a measure on Wednesday to expand the FBI's counterterrorism powers, despite concerns from some lawmakers who said that the measure gave the government too much authority and that the public had been shut out of the debate. Lawmakers Approve Expansion of FBI's Antiterrorism Powers |
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Terror futures market back in business |
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| Topic: Technology |
9:38 pm EST, Nov 17, 2003 |
A US government plan to create a market allowing traders to bet on the likelihood of terror attacks and other events in the Middle East has been revived by the private firm that helped develop it. The market, called the Policy Analysis Market (PAM), will allow traders to buy and sell contracts on political and economic events in the Middle East, including assassinations, the overthrow of regimes and terrorist attacks. The market is scheduled to start trading next spring. CNN picks up the PAM story. Sooner than later, the market gets what the market wants ... Terror futures market back in business |
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| Topic: Technology |
9:19 pm EST, Nov 17, 2003 |
The intended March 2004 launch of the Policy Analysis Market has sparked some interest of late. Some comments and clarifications are in order. A good analogy for what will be launched in March 2004 is an opinion survey based on a long questionnaire; however, you need only fill out the parts of the survey that you find interesting. Respondents, who will be called traders, will have an incentive to focus on the subset of questions about which they feel they have the best information. [PAM seeks to improve] the way distributed information on matters of public importance is gathered and measured. [More details] will be made public in January. I'm worried about the future. Should I buy or should I sell? Should I stay or should I go? What ever shall I do about all this uncertainty? Isn't there someone out there with all of the answers? Of course; I'll just ask PAM! She'll know ... Policy Analysis Market |
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Terrorism futures market gets second lease on life |
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| Topic: Technology |
9:16 pm EST, Nov 17, 2003 |
The Policy Analysis Market in terrorism futures that created such a stir that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency dropped it like a hot potato in July is back. The market, which is intended to be an analysis tool to track and predict events in the Middle East, was developed for DARPA by Net Exchange of San Diego. The storm of congressional and public protest when the program was revealed resulted in its being shut down within 24 hours. But Net Exchange apparently has decided to launch PAM on its own next spring. Hi, I'm PAM. Is there something you'd like to tell me? "I know something you don't know! I know something you don't know!" Terrorism futures market gets second lease on life |
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Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society |
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| Topic: Futurism |
8:09 pm EST, Nov 17, 2003 |
In the twenty-first century, a network society is emerging. Fragmented, visually saturated, characterized by rapid technological change and constant social upheavals, it is dizzying, excessive, and sometimes surreal. In this breathtaking work, Steven Shaviro investigates popular culture, new technologies, political change, and community disruption and concludes that science fiction and social reality have become virtually indistinguishable. Connected is made up of a series of mini-essays-on cyberpunk, hip-hop, film noir, Web surfing, greed, electronic surveillance, pervasive multimedia, psychedelic drugs, artificial intelligence, evolutionary psychology, and the architecture of Frank Gehry, among other topics. Shaviro argues that our strange new world is increasingly being transformed in ways, and by devices, that seem to come out of the pages of science fiction, even while the world itself is becoming a futuristic landscape. The result is that science fiction provides the most useful social theory, the only form that manages to be as radical as reality itself. Connected looks at how our networked environment has manifested itself in the work of J. G. Ballard, William S. Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, K. W. Jeter, and others. Shaviro focuses on science fiction not only as a form of cultural commentary but also as a prescient forum in which to explore the forces that are morphing our world into a sort of virtual reality game. Original and compelling, Connected shows how the continual experimentation of science fiction, like science and technology themselves, conjures the invisible social and economic forces that surround us. If this book were music, it would be called radio-friendly. It is the linear traversal of a dense network of ideas, compactly if incompletely expressed in 1.2-page nuggets, richly laced with a wide variety of samples both well-known and obscure. The author, Steven Shaviro, has a weblog at http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/ Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society |
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Slides from the HIP BOF at IETF 58 [PDF] |
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| Topic: Computer Networking |
12:15 pm EST, Nov 17, 2003 |
Cisco and Ericsson presented these 32 slides from the BOF on the Host Identity Protocol (HIP) at the 58th IETF meeting in Minneapolis. HIP is described as being a combination of naming, location ID, mobility, security, and multi-homing. One slide goes so far as to call HIP "the new waist of TCP/IP." First mover advantage, anyone? Slides from the HIP BOF at IETF 58 [PDF] |
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| Topic: TV |
10:07 pm EST, Nov 16, 2003 |
Let's get real. Sure, "24" is the CIA drama that gets all the buzz, but "Alias," so audacious and so plastic fantastic, is really the bee's knees. [While] "24" baits you, ... "Alias" never pretends to reality as it joyously celebrates the genre ... It's a comic-book explosion of global fashion, cloned villains, kickboxing babes, and fierce emotionality. A season of "24" is work, [but] ... "Alias," which entirely reinvented itself this season -- again -- is pure, crazy, spy fantasy fun. Alias rocks. Spy vs. spy |
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Social discrimination by iTunes playlist | Wired News |
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| Topic: Technology |
7:53 pm EST, Nov 16, 2003 |
Playlistism, Aubrey explained, is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone's terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library. Aubrey said an iTunes music library tells a lot more about people than the clothes they wear or the books they carry. Aubrey said Wesleyan students are enjoying a new parlor game -- going through music libraries trying to guess what their owners are like. At any one time, 30 or 40 iTunes libraries are available on the campus network, which is shared by about 2,000 students. Students are starting to realize they must manage their music collections, or at least prune them, to maintain their image, Aubrey said. He confessed to deleting a lot of stuff himself. Everything seems to devolve into Friendster, sooner or later. I would disagree with Aubrey that music is a better indicator than books, if not for the relative lack of critical mass in the book collections of young people today. I think there is a message in here about the evolution of our interaction with media. Popular music is a dominant cultural currency, but in an age in which spending an hour just listening to an entire album (without simultaneously running, driving, eating, playing, or otherwise) seems like an exceptional commitment, the individual "track" has become the denomination of choice. When an outstanding five minute song needs a sub-four minute "radio edit" in order to even compete for airtime, we are collectively suffering from a serious case of attention deficit disorder, coupled with a "super size!" programmer mentality that selects two mediocre-but-short tracks over one great-but-"long" track. Music used to be an event, not a product. For the iPod generation, music as Art is being increasingly devalued, even as it becomes pervasive to the point of ubiquity. Social discrimination by iTunes playlist | Wired News |
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