] While consumers have learned to delete cookies, most are
] unaware of shared objects, and don't know how to disable
] them.
]
] Mookie Tanembaum, founder and chief executive of United
] Virtualities, says the company is trying to help
] consumers by preventing them from deleting cookies that
] help website operators deliver better services.
]
] "The user is not proficient enough in technology to know
] if the cookie is good or bad, or how it works," Tanembaum
] said.

[ Lame. -k]

Company Bypasses Cookie-Deleting Consumers

abaddon wrote:
] I think I have made it clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that
] CherryOS.exe, shipped as the core of cherryos is
] nothing but a recompiled version of PearPC...it has at most
] minor changes, most to strip attribution, hide the theft, or
] remove debugging output...

I think abaddon just won the award for most 'leet post to MemeStreams evar.

[ For real. I read that and in my head i heard "DOMINO, MOTHERFUCKER!" Nice work. -k]

RE: Advanced binary analysis of CherryOS: proof of theft

] zipdecode
]
]
] This project began a very short sketch (a few hours) that
] I created because I was curious about how the numbering
] works for zip codes in the states.
]
]
] This version adds several features over the original,
] including zoom, some new colors (thanks to Eugene Kuo for
] suggestions), and a better zip code database (because of
] all the people who emailed and were sad that they
] couldn't find themselves).
]

k-rad

[ I'm not sure it has a use, but it's damn cool with the zooming and the realtime... the one feature I'd add is the ability to click the dots and see where that is, or else toggle on and off place names at the highest zoom level... -k]

zipdecode | ben fry

Decius wrote:
] Wow, someone finally commercialized body pan technology!
]
] Now, here is the issue. If my bluetooth system had the same
] cryptographic properties would I need this. I could still use
] touch as a user interface in most device applications. You
] could have a doorknob detect when it was touched. And an RF
] transceiver is going to be more comfortable then something
] which must make good physical contact with the skin.
]
] The only applications for which this would not work would be
] person to person handshake data sharing...

[ That's a good point. I have a general bias against radio things, which I can't really explain completely, but I just feel better when the data is point to point over a physical medium. From a pure application standpoint, however, you're right that the convenience of a short range wireless transciever probably trumps this, while offering a lot of the same functionality.

In the midst of their demo page, they note some other applications, like making medecine bottles transmitters, and having them trigger an alarm on your terminal if you picked up medecine not meant for you. That doesn't really work over radio as well.

Also, they note that radio technology gets more complicated in crowded spaces. If you're in a train station, and want to buy a ticket, for example, the radio space is going to be congested. The logistics become easier if the linkage is made by touch.

I agree though, that the key hurdle here is how to attach a transceiver without it being either invasive, uncomfortable, or a burden. Not to mention the wire you'd need to connect from the transceiver to your device. The simplest and least cool way would be have the device in a holster and a little wire over the edge of your pants, where the transceiver could sit on your waist or hip. That's not useful for someone who wants to wear a dress, or not look like a geek, of course. It's the one thing i didn't really see them tackle amongst the rest of their info.

The best idea i've come up with is a watch. That has good skin contact and wouldn't offend our existing fasion modes. As a PDA, a watch offers a bad form factor, but with 10Mb, you might be able to make the watch into the cpu and storage, and then simply make the hip-top/palm-top/smart-phone act as something like a dumb terminal -- a remote display device for the actual computer that's inside the watch. For automatic things, in which devices autonegotiate (authentication, etc) or for those requiring simple input (like authorizing data transfers/purchases/etc.) the watch could easily handle that with even a small display and a couple of buttons. Obviously, putting that much gear into a watch would require some impressive miniaturization, but not revolutionary changes, i don't think. -k]

RE: RedTacton

Google Maps is extremely cool. Great interface. The maps are very good, however they are missing a few things, such as the direction of one way streets. It also does not support Safari yet.

[ Wow. Just the other day i was remarking that mapquest seemed to have gotten a lot better lately, but this kinda kicks its ass. The ability to pan around is big for me, because i always want to get a feel for the roads, and try to decide if i can do a better job than the automatic directions (which is pretty common, actually). This interface makes that a *LOT* easier.

Also, like other google tools, it makes a best guess, so you can be pretty vague. I put in my office address as "2920 brandywine 30341" and it didn't hesitate at all. Mapquest always has that "The address was not found but this other ONE is similar..." by which it means, the exact address, but with the proper zip+4, etc. Really just an irritating extra click is what it is. Google is also somewhat tolerant of mispellings too - spelling "branywine" as "brandwin" worked fine, altho "brandwie" and "branwin" did not. I'm not sure how this compares to the other tools.

The main thing mapquest has that I find superior is the driving directions inclusion of highway numbers and directions as traffic sign icons... that makes following them from a printout just a little easier, since you don't have to look carefully at the text. -k]

Google Maps

noteworthy wrote:
] As your once and future agent will kindly tell you, 2005 will
] be remembered as the year that remembrance agents went
] mainstream.
]
] This essay by Steven Johnson appears in the Sunday NYT Book
] Review.

Linked here is a related post from his blog...

[ Interesting... this is an area of particular interest to me. I downloaded the tool under discussion, called DEVONthink, and gave it a whirl.

Initial impressions :

* johnson is right, it's useless for large documents. It'll certainly tell you that a word or phrase exists in that document, but then you still have to seach that document for the relevant locations. some mechanism for automatically breaking the imported docs up into segments (i.e. on a paragraph break) would make this more useful.

* it shows all the imported files in folders and so forth on the left. this is kinda dumb. if i wanted a hierarchical folder structure, i would use one with actual hierarchies of folders. oh, right, i do that, and it sucks. the whole point of a program like this is that hierarcies don't work well for complex data, and rigid groupings are completely contrary to the task. this leads me to my next point...

* the groupings should have nothing to do with the folders the documents were in orignially, nor should i *have to* create groupings on my own. the computer should categorize them for me. yes, i know, this is hard. if it was easy, i'd have done it 2 years ago, and someone else would certainly have done it by now. if i *really* want to create my own category, and add objects to it, the software should let me, but by default, it should be able to say "this document is about 'internet', 'law' and 'file sharing'" and put that document object in those catogories. in fact, really, it should break all documents into pieces and do that with every single piece, and anytime a piece is displayed, provide a button to show the whole document, if i want it. mostly though, if i'm interested in finding things about the legal issues surrounding file sharing, i don't give a fuck where the file is on disk based on my previous shitty filing scheme, or, in fact, about the 75% of the document that doesn't pertain to my current query. ok, enough.

* it doesn't handle pdfs. oh, it imports them, but they may as well be images. that's not useful to me. i can search filenames already, and, again, i don't want to have to categorize things myself. i do that now, with folders. i can appreciate that this may require paying money to adobe (does it?), but still, for a 40$ product, i'd like to be able to search the actual content of my pdf.

i don't want to sound like i'm bashing it too hard. in a sense, yeah, i'm complaining that my ford focus doesn't go 200mph and get 500 mile to the gallon, but i need to be honest about the utility of this kind of product. it's about as good, and probably better, than other similar products of it's type, and as a kind of jot board, for storing and managing notes and short rants or whatever, that you type directly into it, it looks to be extremely useful, but it's not yet what I need. Which is to say, an external memory with recall that's akin to, but better than, my own brain, which has trouble remembering things that it's seen before.

if he's right, and this is the year for this kind of stuff, i feel pretty sure that someone else will implement what i want well before i do, but i'm pretty confident that i'll know it when i see it. -k]

RE: Tool for Thought, by Steven Johnson

Feel free to add your own pixel!

[ Neat... -k]

Experiments - Pixelfest collaborative artwork

] The secret to programming is not intelligence, though of
] course that helps. It is not hard work or experience,
] though they help, too. The secret to programming is
] having smart friends.
]
] Once we had a plausible way to ship, Apple became the
] ideal work environment. Every engineer we knew was
] willing to help us. We got resources that would never
] have been available to us had we been on the payroll.

Totally Amazing. Gold Star!

[ Yeah, this is a hell of a tale... I love this sorta stuff... -k]

Skunkworks At Apple -- The Graphing Calculator Story

] There is a story behind every electronic gadget sold on
] the QVC shopping channel. This one leads to a ramshackle
] farmhouse in rural Oregon, which is the home and circuit
] design lab of Jeri Ellsworth, a 30-year-old high school
] dropout and self-taught computer chip designer.

This is kind of a cool story, although I continue to be frustrated by the propagation of Richard Stallman's lie about the definition of the word hacker.

[ My interest in the politics of the word hacker has reached an all time low. It's a losing battle, like every other silly flamewar topic. this one's got so much traction because of the culture associations people have invested in it, but i think the hacker-as-intruder definition has won in the public conciousness. too bad.

sidetrack asisde, the story's interesting because it shows what a motivated individual can do, without the generally presumed benefits of a formal degree. it's impressive. i wish more people were like that. shit, i wish *i* was like that. -k]

The New York Times - A Toy With a Story

noteworthy wrote:
] ] If you are taken in by all the fanfare and hoopla
] ] that have attended Google's latest project, you would think
] ] Sergey and and Larry are well on their way to godliness.
] ]
] ] I do not share that opinion.

Nor do I, but for entirely different reasons then this author.

Google is getting a lot of attention for doing something that a lot of other people have been doing for years. Thats the point where you are too famous to be cool.

But this author seems to be confused about the greater point, which is that books and buildings full of them are rapidly going the way of the horse and carriage.

The old romance of books was always tied to the information that they contain. But as the information is moved online the romance continues, shucked of its meaning, and we see people who love what books are rather then what they do. These people are going to be very disappointed as time goes on.

Brewster Kahle, who ought to be celebrated by the mainstream, instead of Google, for this kind of work, gave a wonderful talk at the Library of Congress on monday which was carried on CSPAN under the heading "Digital Future" which I memed previously. (Search my memestream for "span" and you can probably watch the video online.)

The fact is that you can print a bounded book, and digital paper technologies mostly elminiate the need. Neither of these things are in widespread adoption, but they are available, and you'll have them soon. The ability to search, sort, organize, recontextualize, and recommend this information with computers will be a vast improvement on row after row of dusty, decaying stacks of paper that previously served as our information infrastructure. The ability to provide instant access to all of this information anywhere in the world will be a revolution in many quarters of the planet that have suffered for lack of knowledge. No longer will your social status prevent you from learning if you are sufficiently motivated, and the motivation to learn will be the greatest determining factor in the quality of one's life.

This is the potential of human knowledge coupled with information technology, and to oppose it for aesthetic reasons is despicable.

The reasonsable objection raised here is that of Intellectual Property. But what common sense cannot kill in a court room history will kill in the marketplace. People will use the information they have access to, and there is a lot of really valuable stuff which is unencumbered by copyright. As this change carries forward the information that matters will be the information that is free. The LA Times is not often blogged simply because it requires registration. By requiring registration they deminish their value in the blogosphere. The WSJ, a really good paper, is almost never blogged, because no one can afford to access it. Online, the WSJ doesn't matter.

There is a substantial need to pay people to produce information products full time. Figuring out how to do that in the context of the new technologies is hard. Our process thus far has consisted of a power struggle more then a dialog. Those who want to get paid have yet to feel particularly incented to present a reasonable way of doing so that doesn't skuttle the value of what they are being paid for. The changes I discuss here will press the issue further. Over the course of several decades the tables will turn, and those who make their living by keeping information bottled up will be forced to find an answer or become irrelevant and die.

RE: Google and God's Mind