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February 29, 2004
Up, up and away!
Match stick rockets for fun and pleasure. Found through Boing Boing.
You too can build Thunderous and Exciting (Actual size more or less) Matchstick Rockets!
Got to try this!
February 27, 2004
Spongmonkeys hits primetime
Our favorite artists, the spongmonkeys, appear iin an ad for sub sandwiches.
Grade: A. You're either gonna give this one an A or an F, and I respect those of you who go with F. The spongmonkeys are no doubt divisive characters. But what can I say? I love the subs! They got a pepper bar!
My grade? Excellent!
February 21, 2004
Why RSS is good for you
Excellent presentation on why RSS is a great thing.
Aimed at new users nnot familiar with RSS, this presentation does a great job of explaining why RSS is better than slilced bread...
Special character sets for group communication
Girls i Japan are actually developing a more cumbersome way of typing messages on their cells in order to feel more artistic and keep a specific feeling of group belonging.
At the same time it protects from bystander screen-reading. The post linked below also mentions what seems to be the total opposite:
Recently a new trend to send personalized messages was introduced by these girls. They do not send emails to friends anymore. Instead, they jot down their message on a piece of paper, take a photo of it and send it as a picture message to their friends.
Hey, makes it a whole lot harder to snoop the messages as well. ;) I am looking forward to trying out the handwriting functionality of the P900. If I understand correctly I will be able to write on the screen and send the writing as pictures.
Year of the robot
This will be an interesting year at the movies. I, Robot by Asimov and this, Robot Stories, reviewed in WIRED will among others bring a different kind of robots to the big screen.
That tradition, exemplified by the short stories of Ray Bradbury, is rooted more deeply in fiction than cinema, Pak said, and emphasizes emotional and psychological content over high-tech nuts and bolts. Robot Stories' tagline is "science fiction from the heart," a phrase author and genre specialist Steven Schneider finds appropriate.
Taglined "Everything ic changing... Except the human heart" it really gives med classical Sci Fi-vibes. With a dash of Telia, "Nothing changes. Everything is new", or whatever their slogan was...
Robot Stories will probably not reach cinemas in Halmstad, have to keep a watch out for advertising in Gothenburg or Malmö perhaps.
February 20, 2004
FlipStart PC: I Want One Of Those!
My dream (and Niklas' at Enkelriktat as it turns out) of mo' mobility just took one step closer to reality.
The Vulcan mini PC project was born. Paul's team previewed the Vulcan mini PC (now called Flipstart) at DEMO 2004, the premiere forum for new product innovation. Flipstart combines the performance and functionality of the Microsoft Windows® XP operating system with always-on connectivity that fits in the palm of your hand. This combination re-defines mobile computing for users who want access to business-critical software, email, and the Web while on the go.
This is very close to the machine I was dreaming of a few years back (and still have sketches and component listings for in my Little Grey Book). Now all that is needed is the virtual screen attached to my glasses and the finring mouse control device, communicating with the FlipStart using Bluetooth of course.
Apparently the prices is not yet set, but I will be prepared to pay quite a lot for such a small yet powerful device with built in WLAN, Bluetooth and GSM. And a 1.3 MP camera...
Watch that space for commentary on Iranian election
This is an extremely interesting development, an effort to make Iranian bloggers collaborate to report on the election.
I'm trying to encourage Iranian blogger to go out tomorrow, the election day, and report what they see and hear in their city and blog it. I also plan to gather all posts related to it in one place either in my own Persian blog or in Sobhaneh, the collective news blog.
If this works it will in a way show the power of weblogging, how blogs can provide an alternative to mainstream media. Granted, the bloggers aren't journalists, but that's the whole point, isn't it...
February 18, 2004
Yahoo collects RSS feeds in their new index
If I wasn't feeling so sick (serious cold) I would rave all over this. Yahoo actually presents RSS feeds where available in their search listing and makes it really easy to subscribe to My Yahoo.
The Shifted Librarian reports:
So Yahoo has connected its beta news aggregator to its search engine and the database behind it and then some. In the immortal words of Neo, "Whoa!"
I show up right at the top if you search for "Magnus Hultberg", my feeds linked on the front page doesn't show though.
Regardless, this is exactly what RSS needs to go mainstream.
Read all about it:
Autonomous moblogging
A lot of moblogging stuff today. Found this at Joi Ito's blog, a guy programmed his Aibo to send picture to his site.
phillip m. torrone's mobile photo web journal, a robotic dog also posts images here.
Neat. A moblogging watchdog. Needs to look scarier though, in order to not only document the thieves stealing all your stuff. ;)
He's coming to London!
Cory Doctorow, writer extra-ordinaire and blogger galore, is moving to London.
I'm leaving the Bay Area. Specifically, I'm emigrating to London, UK, to work for EFF and Creative Commons on a variety of European licensing, standards, treaty and regulatory issues.
Do not, I repeat NOT, miss his latest book.
WaveBlog: now we're talking mobile reporting
Remember all the talk about geo-positioning your blog entries, photoblogging with added EXIF information (like Mie did at Tokyo Tidbits)? Now it is all coming together. Location based blogging is becoming a reality. Enter WaveBlog.
The location information is the hard part, and the piece of the puzzle my company fills in. First, you can use the J2ME app (called Wavespotter) to locate a position on a map with crosshairs for a one-click post to your weblog, or in the coming months we're going to be announcing deals with American and international carriers who will provide the location information on the back end which will geo-tag email and web posts automagically. I've also added a geo-encoding form to the site as well, so at the worst case you can just enter the address information and it'll look up the location info for you.
This is so cool. Adam Greenfield talked about the 3P of moblogging six months ago at the 1imc, the first international moblogging conference:
Adam Greenfield defines what to him is the defining aspects of moblogging: the intersection of people, place and information. Hey, make it 3P instead: People, Places, Postings. ;)
When people can start tagging the world with information for everyone to read as they pass by, what will happen? A group blog on every street corner, a guest-book in every restaurant for all to post and read...
Wireless cam catches child abuser
Remember the early wireless phones, how you sometimes accidentally could hear your neighbour talk or some other conversation between total strangers? No you can get pictures.
This is actually an example of a terrible violation of privacy and integrity that led to something good.
A neighbor with a new wireless camera accidentally caught an alleged case of child abuse at a foster home in Milwaukee where the children were forced to hold their hands in the air for more than an hour.
Perhaps this whole wireless thing will change how we build our houses and apartments. Life in a Faraday cage anyone? Lots of benefits:
- Minimize risk for being spied at or having your network snooped.
- Protect yourself from microwave radiation. It's everywhere! And 3G is making it even worse!
- Find a sanctuary from always being connected. No more texts, no incoming calls on your cell phone... Bliss.
Jokes aside, wireless and security is certainly becoming a big potential problem. People need to be careful with their new toys, or invest in some magnetic wood for their house walls. But then again, hopefully child abusers, wife beaters and mega-corp executives will remain totally technology clueless...
local6.com - News - Alleged Child Abuse Caught On Neighbor's Wireless Cam
February 17, 2004
A tear falls from my eye
The Webmonkey is dead. They finally shut down the respirator.
They finally pulled the plug. Webmonkey, the site that turned humble Web developers into attention-grabbing authors, said last week it is closing down following a round of layoffs in the U.S. division of its parent company, Terra Lycos (also the parent company of Wired News). Judging by blog posts and e-mails, the site's fans aren't surprised. Still, they're sad to see the end of an era.
This is really sad. I learned so much from the wonderful, whacky, weird articles and how-tos over at Webmonkey.
On the plus side though: perhaps I now stop receiving those newsletter emails that I have tried unsubbing from several times...
February 15, 2004
Life of a Microsoft Program Manager
Chris Pratley describes what a Program Manager does over at Microsoft.
Sounds a lot like what I do every day, and what I like most about my work. Sometimes I wish I could focus solely on this role, trying to match up customer / market demands with designers and developers through various methods and means of communication.
He defined his role as a person who would go and figure out what these marketing people were really talking about and understand the customer needs or business problems so he could interpret those into actions the dev team had to take using his technical knowledge of what was possible and what was hard.
Unfortunately I have to do a lot of other stuff as well, like sales and marketing related activities. I do really enjoy those parts of my job too but sometimes it gets distracting. What can I say, I am easily confused. ;)
February 14, 2004
Excellent article on the security issues of Open Source development
This is a response to another article, questioning the security of Open Source.
Too often people assume that secrecy equals security. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today's strong cryptography is based on the assumption that an "adversary" will know both that something is encrypted, and what the encryption scheme is. The notion that hiding the means of encryption will somehow make the data in question more secure is a notion that has been obsolete since World War II. Strong crypto assumes, rather, that despite the fact that the encryption algorithm is a matter of public knowledge, that the data in question will remain encrypted and secure. Open Source software is based on a similar notion of security. Hiding source code is a bad way to assume you'll achieve security, because even a powerful and highly proprietary company can't guarantee that source code won't leak out. Instead, security should be based on a worst-case scenario: assume your "adversary" has access to the source code. Starting from worst-case assumptions is just plain common sense. Any other security plan is simply madness.
I for one rather have a digital society built on code open to scrutiny for all. Especially when it comes to areas such as online voting.
February 09, 2004
Tips for writers / speakers
Cory Doctorow dispenses some valuable advice when it comes to getting peoples attention.
...try cutting the first 10 percent (the "throat clearing") then making (does Cory per chance mean "moving" // Manne) the last 30 percent (the payoff) to the beginning of the talk...
February 08, 2004
Learning to blog
This is really interesting. Via mymarkup.net I found a new blog called "Moving experiences". Christian Lindholm is the author, and right now he is thinking a lot about what it means "to blog".
Since I am thinking about how to motivate people to blog in a corporate environment, explaining the concept and finding arguments to use I find Christian's thoughts very interesting to follow.
I am somewhat nervous what I have now started. Publishing on-line for everyone to see and read is daunting. Will anyone want to read, what will I rant about and most of all how frequent will I blog. Is this a fad that I grow tired of or will I actually build a digital ego. I guess only time will tell, and as Mena said you do it for yourself.
The blod design is really great. Looks good, uses words in filenames instead of numbers (I really should change that in my setup...) and feels good. :)
ChristianLindholm.com: Reborn on-line...
ChristianLindholm.com: A blog - what's that? - My first demo of Moving experiences
ChristianLindholm.com: Reflecting on my blog motivation while preparing for ETech
February 07, 2004
Totally crazy spam numbers
This sounds a lot like the problems we face every day at work. Lately our mail servers are working harder fencing off spam than delivering proper email.
I have a small domain I run for my personal e-mail. On Saturday, January 26, I received 114 legitimate e-mail messages from friends, business associates, and various mailing lists. (I know that this number is kind of low, but it was a weekend!) On that same day, I received 174 pieces of spam that were automatically identified by Spam Assassin, the open-source anti-spam filter. So I am running 60 percent spam, a little worse than the Brightmail average. Except that even my 60 percent number underestimates the problem. That's because my computer automatically rejects e-mail that's sent to invalid addresses at the domain. Indeed, on that same Saturday, my server rejected 1,699 e-mail messages because they were sent to mailboxes on the computer that do not exist. Add those to the running total, and the amount of spam that my system was exposed to on January 26 rises to 94 percent of all received e-mail. But even that number doesn't tell the whole story.
Insane. Very interesting article about the increasing spam problem.
It’s no surprise that my server is being hassled by spammers from Japan. At the Spam Conference, Geoff Hulten from Microsoft’s anti-spam technology and strategy group said that much of the spam that Hotmail receives comes from China and Japan—in fact, those countries are now the second and third largest senders of spam. The United States is still Number 1, of course, but our Asian cohorts are moving up fast. What’s particularly troubling is that while spam from the United States runs roughly 50/50 with legitimate e-mail, spam from Asia outweighs legitimate e-mail by nearly 10-to-1.
Not only is the amount insane, the spam mail sent is getting more and more clever and also used to hijack account information from users:
Some of the spammers are getting very clever—and very dangerous. Brightmail CTO Ken Schneider says that some spammers have taken legitimate account e-mail from Citibank, modified a single HTML link in the body of the message so that instead of pointing at Citibank’s server, it points at a pirate server in China, and then sent out the e-mail to millions of addresses. All of the other links on the e-mail, including Citibank’s contact information and its privacy policy, properly point to the Citibank server. But a person who unsuspectingly clicks on that one rogue link will end up on the pirate server in China. Try to log in there with a valid username and password, and the pirates gain full access to the user’s Citibank account. This is spam in the service of organized crime. Ironically, when Brightmail blocks these e-mails, unsophisticated users sometimes complain that Brightmail is blocking a legitimate message—the spoofs are that good.
So what can be done? Proposals on creating digital signatures for servers exist, Yahoo! for example has devised such a method. Another method is called SPF, where the sending server is verified against its registered IP address. None of these methods are perfect or fool proof however.
The article ends in quite an ominous and depressive tone:
In the long term, however, these fixes are sure to fail. And there’s a worrisome lesson here. E-mail and Internet-based communications are powerful tools - and just a few people have figured out ways to turn them against the vast majority of Internet users, at a cost to businesses that is now estimated at over a billion dollars. What will happen when the new powerful tools of biotechnology and nanotechnology become widespread? If we can’t tackle the spam problem, then the future may be quite bleak.
More fascinating photos
These are done up in photoshop to create a time-machine effect: half face child, half face adult.
Two photographs of the same person, from different periods of time (child and adult) are spliced together. In this fusion a jump-of-time is established at the tear.
Found via BoingBoing.
February 06, 2004
Incredible photos
Best Photos Of The Past Year 2003. Some of these photos are truly remarkable.
These photos were voted by readers as the best images of year...
Beautiful!
This is your brain on jokes!
Why do we laugh at jokes? Laughlab knows, they have located the funnybone of the brain.
This is what it looks like:
The part of the brain shown in the image above (called the Prefrontal cortex) plays a vital role in the type of flexible thinking needed to understand a joke. It makes sense of the punchline and produces a strong sense of surprise.
Now you know. Found this via hakank.blogg.
February 04, 2004
Eastern Standard Tribe - new book by Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow, blogging at boingboing.net, has released a new book. Like his last, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (great read, get it!), it is released under Creative Commons and available for free download.
His last book was an excellent read, and has been distributed far and wide over the Internet:
The thing that's extraordinary about that first novel is that it was released under terms governed by a Creative Commons license that allowed my readers to copy the book freely and distribute it far and wide. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the book were made and distributed this way. Hundreds of thousands.
Whether he has gotten paid, I don't know. I for one still have a huge IOU in my mental drawer with things to take care of for Cory. This time I am going to make up for it, by now I know that Cory's work is worth some of my hard earned cash. If I help Cory being able to produce, I will get more good thoughts, reads and boingboing-bouncy stuff.
If you liked the book, that's good to know (you can email me to tell me so, if you'd like, but please don't be offended if I don't get a chance to answer; I love to read the messages even if I don't have time to respond to all of them). If your sense of duty demands that you compensate me, well, you can always buy a copy, which gets me my royalty and gets my publisher some sales-figures that show that this kind of thing is a good idea. If you don't care to own the dead-tree edition, you can always donate it to a shelter or a school or a public library.
Get it. Read it. Pay for the paper edition if you like it. Please let this model work and spill over on the music industry.... ;) And hey, if you don't need the paper copy, sign up over at BookCrossing and send the book on a journey!
The future is my business, more or less. I'm a science fiction writer. One way to know the future is to look good and hard at the present. Here's a thing I've noticed about the present: more people are reading more words off of more screens than ever before. Here's another thing I've noticed about the present: fewer people are reading fewer words off of fewer pages than ever before. That doesn't mean that the book is dying -- no more than the advent of the printing press and the de-emphasis of Bible-copying monks meant that the book was dying -- but it does mean that the book is changing. I think that literature is alive and well: we're reading our brains out! I just think that the complex social practice of "book" -- of which a bunch of paper pages between two covers is the mere expression -- is transforming and will transform further.
February 03, 2004
Don't have a fit about the tit
If it weren't so tragically ridiculous I would laugh.
Powell said he was watching the game Sunday evening with his two children and found the incident "outrageous." "I knew immediately it would cause great outrage among the American people, which it did," he said, citing "thousands" of complaints received by Monday morning. "We have a very angry public on our hands." Powell said MTV and the CBS network's more than 200 affiliates and company-owned stations could be fined $27,500 apiece. "I think it's all of their problem," he said. "The law allows you to reach many of the different parties." He said he would like to see the enforcement penalties strengthened to 10 times their current amount.
"Outrageous"? Half of the worlds population has them. The mothers of the for ever morally corrupted children all have them. What's the problem?
"We all as a society have a responsibility as to what the images and messages our children hear when they're likely to be watching television," he said. "I don't think that's being moralistic, and I don't think that's government trying to tell people how to run their businesses. I don't think you need to be a lawyer to understand the basic concepts of common decency here."
On the other hand, you have to be a stupid, christian, right wing white man not to grasp that seeing a woman's breast is no big deal.
I would understand it if the outrage was related to a man ripping a woman's bra off, and if the setting was very intimidating towards the woman, but the comments all seem related to the simple fact that a nipple was shown on nation wide television.
Perhaps the average conservative person in America gets too little nookie. Relax.
CNN.com - Apologetic Jackson says 'costume reveal' went awry - Feb. 3, 2004
