] "We are on the cusp of perfection of extreme evil -- an
] evil whose possibility spreads well beyond weapons of
] mass destruction," Joy warned recently in Wired magazine.

Bill Joy makes the Weekly World News! Preparing to put tongue firmly into side of cheek. Ahem..

Just for the public record... I still think Bill Joy is wrong, but I do feel there is reason for concern. I will continue to help the process along. Long live "The Man" who oppresses me, long live "The Machine" who oppresses us all; At least until I see a major difference between the two. The worst the machines have done to me has been to make me wait on hold for a very long time, then hang up one me, forcing me to put my trust and time in the hands of the machines again. Man has done much worse to us all at one point or another. The definition of insanity being to do the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, the problem may very well be with Man and not the Machines.. We program them to do the same thing over and over, hence making them insane. Then, we get surprised when our errors come back at us with effects multiplied 10 fold.

The Grey Goo. Really. Just remember how much The Grey Goo loves us. Take your left hand and salute your computer, say "sig bit!" Then take your right hand, salute your TV and say, "sig band!" Then after you have done that a few times, repeat "my god can beat up your god" 50 times while bowing at high speed.

And most importantly, after that, if you find anyone who can't take a good joke in the face of total destruction (distraction?), beat them up.

Yahoo! Top Stories - Super-Robots Will Wipe Out Mankind!

This is a video of a dog that can skateboard. Yes, you read that right. Skateboard.

Ahem.. Let me make one of those predictions that I make all the time, and tend to be right. Either that, or they tend to be forgotten. But whatever, I make them all the time and I only seem to get called on them when they are right.

Either via David Lettermen's stupid pet tricks, or some random television advertisement, America will be exposed to this dog. Maybe this Windows Media file will be the vector. It doesn't matter. America will love this dog. As another example of "asking for techno" we will be pounded over the head with stuff involving this dog until we want to see it hung in our respective local town squares.

Just a hunch.

(... this is pretty neat.)

Skateboarding Dog - Future Animal Star we will eventually be sick of

DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS
DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS

DomoKun Developers Video [WMV]

Rummy-Fu. He is using Defense Secretary technique.

POE News: Rumsfeld Fighting Technique

I got this sinus infection thing that is really annoying the hell out of me. I have sickness angst. What makes it worse, is that in the mist of a point when I had a fever like thing happening, I pull out my best joke-fu, try to compose the ultimate troll, and I get nothing. Nada. Not one damn response. Not even a good "screw you Rattle". You are all no fun. Really. There are so many ways to cut at that one. It was a good setup. I really wanted to see how people would approach/attack it.

So yeah, the people on the DiseaseSter message boards are _not_ cool. They take everything way too seriously. Can't say a damn thing to these people!

I know what we need.. We need some site that integrates a "Screw You" button into the browser. When you are on an article/post/site/page that you don't like, you hit the "Screw You" button, and it doesn't do anything to "screw" the person, it just keeps a public log of what you think sucks. After you configure your friends, It can act as a collaborative filter, building an exclusive community. Or maybe it could just import FOAF and leverage other sites...

Someone just smack me already. Really? Please?

Temperature at posting time: normal
Temperament at posting time: still not happy about being sick

DiseaseSter - Now I'm just annoyed

DiseaseSter is social software site where you track what diseases you got from what people. Got AIDS? Know who you got it from? Blog it! TB? Get connected with the community. Its not just about long term and fatal diseases on DiseaseSter. Their site is setup extremely good for tracking common cold type things. You can make note of people you suspect of infecting you, people you think you may have infected, etc. Its the start of the flu season, and I expect this will be the point where DiseaseSter goes mainstream. Due to the way people become connected on DiseaseSter, it more closely tied with your real life friends then any other social network site. The people you interact with every day are surely the ones you will infect and be infected by. This is really limited by real world connections, in a way no other social sites are, and that's pretty interesting.

This site is still very new. Like most of the other social network sites, they have not implemented FOAF yet, but they say it is on the way. I'm sure there are many researchers that will find ways to use this information to track epidemics. This site could be used for a sort of distributed open research.

In the intro flash (which is very funny, in an all too surreal sort of way) they list off a bunch of ways they see this site being used to curtail infection. At my last jobby-job, there were many people who traveled frequently, and we were always infecting each other with various flu type crap. They allude to this tool being useful for quickly alerting you of an infection risk in your immediate social network. I'm not sure how useful that would be. They seem focused on using this as a coordination tool for businesses (telling people to say home who have been exposed to something?), and some lofty goals for health care services integration. They say nothing about the site being used for people with compatible VD hooking up, but the site seems geared for that too. I could see why they would leave that out. People are going to have no problem figuring it out.

So this idea of tracking diseases as links using an artificial network model is pretty neat, abet really strange. There is a disturbing big brother aspect to this. It may be a perfect example of a way these sites, and IT in general, are mutating concepts of privacy. This site encourages people to snitch on people you suspect of being sick, but it also keeps track of how accurate you are. Something in the FAQ seemed to denote they remove links from people who's links are often disputed. I guess only time will tell how well it works..

What does everyone here think about this?

Update: Clearly, the secret is out.. The site isn't responding to requests anymore. This must be going around the blogs..

DiseaseSter - Where the network gets biological

] Once upon a time, there was a SPC Schwarz stationed with
] the Army in the Balkans. SPC Schwarz was either very
] clever or very bored; but probably both, since he managed
] to attempt or be warned about 213 things he wasn't
] allowed to do. He collected those things into a
] hillarious list and posted them to the web. The site
] hadn't been updated in a couple of years and has since
] gone away; but the list is classic, so I saved it.

There are some great ones in here..

87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

I live by that rule.. :) [ Its more like 30 seconds. -ed ]

213 things you can't do in the Army

I'm still loving every minute of this.. This is like the technology super bowl! Let me translate this to unix geek..

] For Spirit, part of the cure has been deleting thousands of
] files from the rover's flash memory -- a type of rewritable
] electronic memory that retains information even when power
] is off. Many of the deleted files were left over from the seven
] -month flight from Florida to Mars. Onboard software was
] having difficulty managing the flash memory, triggering
] Spirit's computer to reset itself about once an hour.

Cleaning out a directory with too many files ... ON MARS!!

] Two days after the problem arose, engineers began using a
] temporary workaround of sending commands every day to put
] Spirit into an operations mode that avoided use of flash
] memory. Now, however, the computer is stable even when
] operating in the normal mode, which uses the flash
] memory.

Single user mode ... ON MARS!!!

] "To be safe, we want to reformat the flash and start
] again with a clean slate," Adler said. That reformatting
] is planned for Monday. It will erase everything stored in
] the flash file system and install a clean version of the
] flight software.

PXE/bootp Automated Installs ... ON MARS!!!!

Alright guys, now just keep the webcam working... ON MARS!!!

Update: Looking at the press images section right now is a great reminder that we got way more then a webcam over there. Hot damn. Once these things start really moving around, I'll break out the RC car jokes!

Shout with me . . . ON MARS!!

ROCK THE VOTE!!@#%!

Remix culture! YeeeeeaaaaaaaAaaAaahhhHhhhhhh!@#!

http://www.command-post.org/2004/2_archives/009752.html

HARDCORE DEAN!!! (MP3 via The Command Post)

I used that Maestro rover software to hack into NASA last night. I didn't do anything harmful, because that's not cool, but I did find some pictures they are not releasing to the public that some might find surprising.

Mars surface, new photo