A new report which finds photo-messaging seems to be the next breakout capability
of new-generation mobile phones is adding fuel to the fiery debate over the privacy implications of multimedia devices
Photos of my new kitten Jasper in a purple bag.
Handwriting experts fear that the wild popularity of email and IM, particularly among kids, could erase cursive within a few decades. I personally hate writing in cursive, I print faster and neater and have my own personal shorthand that negates any cursive benefits. I refused to continue cursive writing when I hit high school and got in quite a bit of trouble due to my stubbornness
Scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory have created a working plasma force field
While the number of those who have fallen victim to fraud when using online auctions remains low, the number is growing
Seduced by the siren song of wireless access throughout the home, many a user has experienced the discrepancy between the manufacturer’s advertised claims (150 feet indoors, 300 outside) and real-world implementation (the living room and upstairs bedroom may as well be on different continents). In steely-eyed determination to exercise his inalienable right to network access anywhere on his property, Paul Boutin hired a WiFi engineer to help him bathe his property in 802.11 waves, using only mass-market consumer hardware — via Slashdot
Mobile phone users should be able to keep their phone numbers if they switch to other wireless carriers, a federal court ruled yesterday, rejecting an appeal from big US mobile phone providers
Harry Evans, the Senate’s most senior official, warns that John Howard‘s proposed changes to the parliamentary voting system would deliver absolute power
to the Prime Minister
The .zip compression format has known remarkable stability and compatibility for many years, but that may soon change. PKWare and WinZip, makers of competing compression and encryption products, are fighting over the .zip standard — which means that .zip archive files created by one program may not be accessible by the other
A patent underlying the popular GIF format is set to expire soon. That could make PNG, created as a royalty-free alternative, obsolete — unless other issues come into play
In the past four years, ever lighter electronics and a growing grid of satellites, along with a network of programmers, tinkerers and trekkers, have brought real-time connectedness to the world’s most remote places
I was looking at my mate Ray‘s reading list today and noticed that he has some mighty fine and weighty tomes awaiting his attention. Mine, on the other hand, is more eclectic, quite likely to scare people on public transport and mostly full of crap.
I recently discovered two books that stopped most people from reading over my shoulder. The first was Jhonen Vasquez’s ultra cool Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. I also got a copy of Squee the other day but am yet to get stuck into it. I don’t know if it’s that I’m reading a graphic novel — bound collection of comics for the uninitiated — or the rather violent nature of the content that proves the perfect train neighbour foil.
The other title that causes people to cease eye contact and back away slowly is Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition by Barry Burg, a rather heavy going, but interesting, thesis about homosexual society in the seventeenth century. I found it in the bargain bin at the Co-op and couldn’t resist the title. I bought Howling Mad by Peter David and One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre for the same reason. Give me a title that amuses me and I’ll buy your book.
Another reason I grab books is the artwork; To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust ended up in the collection that way, as did Catspaw by Joan Vinge and Roofworld by Christopher Fowler.
Despite the random nature of picking new books by their title or artwork, it has never led me wrong and has ensured that I will likely end up in debt as it keeps adding amazing authors like Chris Brookmyre and Chris Fowler to my must have reading list. Unlike some scary encounters that were recommendations by friends; Bloody Bones by Laurell Hamilton was dross made even more unbearable by never ending wardrobe descriptions, A Song of Stone by Iain Banks was self-obsessed waffle, but the most god awful thing I ever read was Grunts! by Mary Gentle which led me to believe that Americans understand neither parody nor satire. Fortunately recommendations are usually of the good kind and have led me to brilliant authors like Neil Gaiman and William Gibson.
Movies are another source of reading material. Queen Margot made me curious enough to seek out the little known La Reine Margot by Alexandre Dumas — I liked the darkness and the violence of the film over the politics and social niceties of the book. Roman Polanski’s gorgeous The Ninth Gate made me hunt down Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Club Dumas, which I couldn’t find locally. I kind of lost the plot at the end of the film, so I’m hoping the book will fill in the blanks when I’ve finished it.
Then there’s always the piles of reference books kicking around my place, the last two were Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL by Kevin Yank and Inkle Weaving by Helene Bress. Make of that pairing what you will.
I really really need more bookshelves.
UK boffins have demonstrated unbreakable quantum cryptography over fibre links longer than 100km for the first time. Researchers at Cambridge-based Toshiba Research Europe say their work paves the way for commercial quantum cryptography systems within three years
So what does a Canadian cabinet maker who’s a closet techie do during those long winter months? You modify a 17″ monitor case to house your computer and call it the iMike
George Ziemann’s last installments of his series on Thomas Edison, Intellectual Property and the Recording Industry
show that the controllers of the media bullied folk back then as they do now — and it didn’t work; The Industry Evolves, Copyright and the Grand Illusion and Bringing the Past Into the Present
I’ve been wondering if male dogs are all missing the gene that prevents them rolling off things.
If they are lying on a raised surface — bed, lounge, back seat of the car — their preferred position is to lie with their back to the edge. And sooner or later the urge to roll over means they hit the floor with a thump.
The first time Husky showed this lack of spatial awareness, he scared the hell out of me. He was in such a deep sleep that he didn’t wake on impact and I rushed over to check he was still alive. He was fine, of course, just a little confused at being woken by a concerned human.
Oddly enough he doesn’t learn from his falls. I’m always catching him lying in strange places and have to shove him back before he succumbs to the laws of gravity again.
Malamute never drops off the furniture. Neither do the other two female malamutes in the clan. This behaviour is limited to the male dogs in the family but, admittedly, I am working with a very small pool of two out of five dogs.
It’s all very peculiar.
Bruce Sterling refers to the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness plan as Poindexter’s nutty scheme
: You have more privacy if everyone’s illiterate, but you wouldn’t really call that privacy. That’s ignorance
Telstra may pay a rebate to ADSL customers affected by a major outage on Wednesday evening, and will soon introduce a service level guarantee for cable customers following unstable network performance this year
Applying modern technology to the task of corralling chickens for the slaughterhouse results in a chicken-catching machine that surprisingly is not as gruesome as it appears. Scientists are already researching ways for the chickens to fight back
A shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed in Biloxi, Mississippi between 1982 and 1988 by Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb and Chris Strompolis. What’s particularly amazing is that the trio began filming the project when they were twelve and finished six years later when they were eighteen. The complete film isn’t available online, but a trailer that gives a bit of the feel of the finished project is available — via Slashdot
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