The new EricMartindale.com is an experiment in data aggregation, and might have a few bugs. Feel free to explore, and then provide feedback directly to @martindale.
I'm scheduled to weight in as a middleweight (171 - 185 lbs.), which is a step up from my normal weight (170). I've been lifting heavy and training hard, gaining some weight to meet Brian Ward in the ring in my third mixed martial arts fight. Since my last fight against Will Estes was deemed the most exciting fight of the night by StarNews, I've been training harder and working more towards my professional career as a mixed martial arts fighter.
Rest days start after my last training session on Thursday night, so I'll be getting some well-needed rest and relaxation Friday to prepare for the weighin on Saturday morning at the Greenville Convention Center. Afterwards, my friends and I are meeting one of my RolePlayGateway staff members at the Olive Garden in Greenville to enjoy my pre-fight lunch. Then it's off to rest (hoorah for naps), and then later that night - it'll be fight time.
Get in touch with me if you're out in Greenville and you're interested in having lunch with us or if you want to show up for the fight (which is at the Greenville Convention Center, tickets will be available at the doors), you're more than welcome to come.
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You're right, +Debbie Coultis. The problem is that more often than not, any customizations made to the existing open resources (+MIT OpenCourseWare, for example) never make their way back "upstream", or otherwise made available to future educators or students who might have use of them. I talked a bit about how +Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specifically with software, was involved in the open-source community very early on, but perhaps I should've gone into more depth here.
There are many free (and some open) educational resources emerging, but we need deeper interchangeability between them if their innovations are to be capitalized on.
+Bob Calder I don't know if Robert Panoff was in the audience or not, but you're right. +Coursera isn't the answer, but it is at least a step forward in increasing the availability of the delivery system. Once we're able to edit that content and the processes (e.g., make everything hackable), we'll close the loop on collaboration in education.
Thanks, +Nathan Greenling! Once +Coursefork ships more robust composition features, I'll attach the slides into the YouTube video at their corresponding points and perhaps include some further speaker notes.
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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time. While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].
It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate. It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.
Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.
One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education. I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.
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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time. While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].
It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate. It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.
Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.
One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education. I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.
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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time. While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].
It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate. It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.
Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.
One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education. I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.
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Why isn't education open-source in the first place? I recently gave a talk at +The Research Triangle Park about education and open source, and how the freedoms that are necessary for a healthy education system were systematically removed over time. While the slides aren't available in the video, I've uploaded them to +Coursefork [1].
It's incredibly powerful to lay out the data and show how increased spending and manpower has impacted the quality of education over time: aptitude measurements have stayed flat (or negative!) while test scores and grades continue to inflate. It seems as if we've built a system of education that is extremely good at—wait for it—_getting people to pass standardized tests_.
Companies like +Khan Academy and +Coursera are really chipping away at the problem of making the resources available, both content and services (i.e., actual teaching), but making the content interchangeable and hackable is of critical importance to building the healthy open source ecosystem that we've seen emerge in the software community (a la +GitHub) within the world of education.
One day, we'll see the equivalent of the pull request in education. I'm hoping to build it with +Coursefork.
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Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality +Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year. We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].
The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.
These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved. The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion. This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].
Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story. The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups". In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software. I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.
It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].
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Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality +Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year. We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].
The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.
These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved. The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion. This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].
Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story. The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups". In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software. I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.
It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].
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Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality +Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year. We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].
The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.
These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved. The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion. This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].
Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story. The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups". In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software. I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.
It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].
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Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality +Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year. We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].
The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.
These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved. The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion. This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].
Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story. The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups". In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software. I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.
It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].
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Running a role playing game online presents a large of amount of flexibility in the way you run the game. You no longer need individual sessions where all players are present, and there are a plethora of options as to where you are going to run it - if you want to run it in any one place.
One of the number one questions I receive relates to the medium for online RPGs. There are tons of different ways of communicating online, mainly grouped into a few categories. We have instant messenger, chats, message boards, and emails. There are a few custom services out there, but I'm going to touch on the four that I've mentioned.
On RolePlayGateway, we have a set of roleplaying forums as well as a roleplaying chat. When you're running an RPG, there are a few items you should consider when deciding where you're going to keep everything.
Forums have the benefit of being static and always available - users can post to forums at any time during the day and be sure that other users (and roleplayers) can see their message. Forums are also very flexible, they allow you to embed images and other multimedia within your posts, allowing you to share any experience with your players. However, it is post based - forums are often not the quickest way to communicate, as it is not a live feed of information like a chat.
Chats, on the other hand, have the benefit of being real time. Games can be run in chat (and instant messenger) on a moment's notice, and work best when all of the players can be available at the same time. Because it is real time, short blip-based sessions such as character conversations and interactions work extraordinarily well with chats. Players can get the chance to interject into other player's actions and statements without the worry of too much time going by. It is for this reason that the longer posts, such as those that exceed a paragraph, are often too large and unwieldy for chats - players end up waiting too long for each post, and will get bored.
Longer posts do very well on forums, where writing an individual post can take half an hour or longer to refine and perfect - just enough time for the players to go look at other games and other topics before they come back and begin formulating their response.
If you're running a game with a detailed and/or complicated storyline or characters, it is always good to post something on a forum for player reference. This lets the players have a place to communicate out of character (OOC) - such as when they won't be able to make a chat session, or when they want to discuss plans for character interaction, growth, or development. Even if your game is already on a forum - it is a good idea to create a place for OOC discussion. For chat-based games - this gives a perfect opportunity for players to jump in at the middle of a game with little trouble, as they simply need to read over the history of the game on the forum, which they can do at any point in time, and less time is needed explaining the game to the player.
Instant messenger works well when dealing with one on one sessions, such as when two characters are the only ones in an interaction or a meeting needs to be private. These interactions can be summarized or written into a cinematic format and then posted to the forum, for other players to enjoy as well. Instant messenger (as well as Private Messages) does very well at asking questions of the other players, which is convenient when you have a question about how they're playing a role or a reference they made in character.
There are also emails - many games aren't run by email anymore, but email is still a very valuable tool. RolePlayGateway like many forums offers you the ability to subscribe to topics. Subscriptions will let you receive an immediate email update whenever someone replies to the thread. This is extraordinarily helpful when there's an RPG with only a few players that can only reply every once in a while, but it requires that people, y'know, actually check their email. RolePlayGateway also has the special ability to instant message you when there's an update to a subscribed thread. All you need is a Jabber account (GMail accounts work, too) and to set up the notifications. We'll send you a message as soon as there's an update.
What methods have you used to manage your online roleplaying games? Are you a fan of forum or chat? Both? What helps you determine where you're going to hold your game? Discuss!
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Today, BitPay is excited to announce the general availability of Bitcore, an open-source library to interact directly with #bitcoin. If you're building anything related to #cryptofinance, I'm happy to answer questions. Happy Valentine's Day, crypto-lovers.
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Connecting invites to circles is a good idea. Added to whiteboard. The real magic of the app is to organize a group via polling their availability. Great for any sort of hangout, personal or business. +FindPeopleOnPlus
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totally. emoticons are to teeny jpgs like real breasts are to a boob jobs, you know what I mean? but not only that, you CAN use emoticons and still be cool. I've stopped worrying that people might think that I must be a bozo since I use 'em. Things can get really charged up online, and emoticons are the ONLY shorthand available to help telegraph (there's an obsolete term!) your actual "body english" behind what you're saying.... :0)
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Today, +Bitpay is excited to announce the general availability of Bitcore, an open-source library to interact directly with #bitcoin . If you're building anything related to #cryptofinance , I'm happy to answer questions. Happy Valentine's Day hacking, crypto-lovers!
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Today, +Bitpay is excited to announce the general availability of Bitcore, an open-source library to interact directly with #bitcoin . If you're building anything related to #cryptofinance , I'm happy to answer questions. Happy Valentine's Day hacking, crypto-lovers!
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Today, +Bitpay is excited to announce the general availability of Bitcore, an open-source library to interact directly with #bitcoin . If you're building anything related to #cryptofinance , I'm happy to answer questions. Happy Valentine's Day hacking, crypto-lovers!
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Today, +Bitpay is excited to announce the general availability of Bitcore, an open-source library to interact directly with #bitcoin . If you're building anything related to #cryptofinance , I'm happy to answer questions. Happy Valentine's Day hacking, crypto-lovers!
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Well, it looks like Google is rolling out Google+ Pages now. The link to "Create a Google+ Page" [1] on the first page I found [2] (coincidentally, for Google+ itself) apparently "isn't ready for everyone", but I deleted the lightbox using my DOM inspector and was able to play around with the interface. Here are some screenshots of the options available when you create a Google+ Page.
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Well, it looks like Google is rolling out Google+ Pages now. The link to "Create a Google+ Page" [1] on the first page I found [2] (coincidentally, for Google+ itself) apparently "isn't ready for everyone", but I deleted the lightbox using my DOM inspector and was able to play around with the interface. Here are some screenshots of the options available when you create a Google+ Page.
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Well, it looks like Google is rolling out Google+ Pages now. The link to "Create a Google+ Page" [1] on the first page I found [2] (coincidentally, for Google+ itself) apparently "isn't ready for everyone", but I deleted the lightbox using my DOM inspector and was able to play around with the interface. Here are some screenshots of the options available when you create a Google+ Page.
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+AmyLynn Arrington You should be able to, if it doesn't come standard. I myself haven't really learned python but it's on my list. So thanks +Akshay Bist for reminding me of the resources available. From what I can tell the reasoning is that python is powerful yet has a low learning curve for entry. I can't imagine anything being easier to learn than Perl but I'll have to save that judgement for when I actually learn it.
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Alright, so MIT has this #physics professor named Walter Lewin [1]. He teaches (among other things) Classical Mechanics (lectures, slides, and notes all available on OCW [2]) and he appears to be a chalkboard wizard. ♪♫
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Alright, so MIT has this #physics professor named Walter Lewin [1]. He teaches (among other things) Classical Mechanics (lectures, slides, and notes all available on OCW [2]) and he appears to be a chalkboard wizard. ♪♫
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Alright, so MIT has this #physics professor named Walter Lewin [1]. He teaches (among other things) Classical Mechanics (lectures, slides, and notes all available on OCW [2]) and he appears to be a chalkboard wizard. ♪♫
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Alright, so MIT has this #physics professor named Walter Lewin [1]. He teaches (among other things) Classical Mechanics (lectures, slides, and notes all available on OCW [2]) and he appears to be a chalkboard wizard. ♪♫
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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges
You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.
As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.
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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges
You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.
As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.
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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges
You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.
As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.
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“Programming is, without a doubt, the most mentally rewarding thing I've ever done.” -- +Randall Degges
You should learn to write code. It is the new language of this information age, in which our systems of commerce become increasingly focused on trading information, buying and selling it with ease thanks to our burgeoning ability to transmit and receive this information.
As with all increases in the available bandwidth of communication throughout human history, it is a time for change and innovation. Just as with the telegraph and Gutenberg's printing press before it, we are undergoing a revolution in the way we live, the way we work, and the way we love. You have two options; become literate and help shape the world, or stand by and be content with letting others define it for you.
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There's a large number of Content Management System, Bulletin Board, and Blog solutions available, all with amazing functionality that simply can't be missed on today's rapidly advancing internet(s).
My challenge is this:
What is the smallest full-featured CMS, BB, or Blog that you can create?
Contest submissions must include the following features:
User Accounts
Article Posts (or "Topics" in BB-land)
Comment System
Submissions will be accepted in any language, so long as the content can be served up over HTTP. To submit, comment on this post with a link to your project!
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I've been in the market for my dream phone for almost a year now. Products have been released left and right, but none of them seem to have the functionality that I am desiring. Okay, I admit - "phone" is a bit misleading. What I'm really looking for is a smartphone... no, not a smartphone, a digital companion.
Things I'm looking for:
Phone
Camera
Media Player
Freedom
Phone I want a mobile phone with what has become industry standards, including the dual-mode functionality of GSM and WiFi connections. I should be able to take this phone to any service provider, and get service using this device, keeping both my number and my contacts.
Camera I want a decent camera that gets decent lighting. While a 2 megapixel camera is about the range I'm looking for, most important is the quality of the resulting pictures. The functionality of a modern-day camera should be available, including light temperature and balance. I should be able to record video using this, as well.
Media Player I should be able to play any format of media on this device as I can play using my home Linux box. OGG, MP3, MPEG, AVI...
Freedom I wish to be able to install software freely, from wherever I may choose. If I choose to install emulators and play me some NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games, I should be able to do this freely, and have the necessary hardware resources to do this. I want to be able to make changes to my device's software at any point in time. I should be able to sync my calendar, to do list, and contacts with my choice of repositories.
I'll grow and review this as necessary. Until then, the Apple iPhone looks bitterly disgusting, while the Motorola Q's use of Windows continues to push me away.
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Definitely an interesting read. Whenever i work at a Diabetes camp, one of the questions i have received from parents is "How do you make sure the remote is controlling the right pump? Currently, Medtronic/Minimed uses a device ID to pair the meter, CGM, or remote to the pump. I believe Johnson & Johnson/Animas One Touch Ping uses a similar method - i would have to ask my brother. The Insulet Omnipod uses a proximity registration method, which i don't fully understand (I haven't played with it much), but I have a feeling that this pairing method might be vulnerable to an attack, possibly of a man-in-the-middle design.
I also do not see how interfering with the CGM signal could cause any issue - the only integrated CGM/pump combo that is FDA approved for sale in the USA (Minimed 522/722 or 523/723 ("Revel")) does nothing with the CGM information beyond display it on the pump and alert you to changes. Let me reiterate: the US CGM/pump combo does not use CGM data to alter insulin patterns - at this point in time, the FDA simply will not allow it. Now, assuming the insulin pump is Medtronic's European model, I have been told (by a Medtronic Diabetes sales representative) that the european model features an "auto-off" switch - if the wearer's blood glucose level drops below a certain threshold, the insulin pump will immediately suspend insulin delivery. I do not know the specifics of how this works, if it is all insulin or just the basal levels, but it is a potential vulnerability, but leads to the risk of a high blood sugar (which leads to long-term complications if uncontrolled).
Now the flipside of the auto off, would be an automatic insulin increase. Theoretically, if we wanted a closed-loop insulin delivery system that mimics the natural function of the pancreas, we need to automatically reduce insulin delivery when blood glucose levels are dropping, as well as increase insulin delivery when BG levels are rising. The current technology has its known issues, so I am not sure if the FDA (or any similar agencies worldwide) will even allow this functionality with the available technology, but it is still a valid concern for biomedical programmers.
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Here's a fun little bookmarklet that I use from time to time. It selects every available element on a webpage and changes it to a random color at an interval.
Click it to see a sample, or click and drag it to your bookmarks bar for use on other sites.
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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!
The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH
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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!
The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH
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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!
The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH
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Wow, the 28th episode of my weekly show, thank you guys for being so supportive of my weekly on air G+ variety show +That Show with Billy Wilson (TSBW). The show brings together some of the most interesting people you can find on G+ for a hangout! This week I'll have joining me Entrepreneur, Entertainer, and Geek +Chris Pirillo; Creator of the Uglydoll Brand +David Horvath; +Liz Krane of LearningNerd.com; Strategist +Gareth Kay; Linux System Admin +Liz Quilty; Engineer +Eric Martindale; and Special Musical Guest +Meri Amber ! You can talk with us and other people watching the show by commenting on this event once the show is live!
The episode will be live on this event and the recording will be available immediately afterwards. You can watch previous episodes here: http://goo.gl/ceHtH
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250 GB 5400 RPM SATA II (I considered a bigger hard drive, but I have a NAS at the house and honestly plan on taking advantages of synchronized OSes like ChromeOS in the very near future, so I decided against it)
So far, I'm absolutely lovin' it. The hardware is very clean and Apple-like, with no disgusting third-party stickers plastered all over the thing. There's a System76 logo sticker on the back, which I could easily remove with some isopropyl if I so chose. Part of System76's sales pitch is pre-built Ubuntu boxes (which is what sold me, to be honest), so it came with Ubuntu 10.04, my day-to-day operating system of choice (especially since Backtrack makes things oh-so-awesome.)
I do have some minor complaints:
I had a dead pixel on my LCD. They won't replace it unless "there are more than 6 dead pixels. :(
As a result of the hinge design, the screen won't fold back more than ~35°. A bit of a pain in specific use scenarios.
A lack of one-button volume controls. The volume controls are only available through function keys, sadly. Some buttons on the top right for volume up, down, and mute would make this already awesome laptop perfect.
I don't know how much control System76 has over these hardware-design issues, but fixing them would seal the deal on any of my future purchases. ;)
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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online. Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1]. If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space. This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.
What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2". CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years. This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.
Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players". Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.
Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online. Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1]. If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space. This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.
What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2". CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years. This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.
Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players". Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.
Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
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Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online. Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1]. If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space. This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.
What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2". CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years. This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.
Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players". Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.
Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Of Space, War, and Virtual Reality +CCP Games has always been on the right track with their most successful project, the single-server, fully persistent world of +EVE Online. Having launched +DUST 514 as an extension that exists within the same game world, CCP has raised the bar of innovation already, and continues to carve out territory with the announcement of +EVE: Valkyrie.
Valkyrie is a virtual reality game originally designed for +Oculus VR [1]. If you're not familiar with Oculus, they're the makers of the Oculus Rift. The Rift is a 3D display device that you wear like a pair of glasses, and literally move your head to look around the space. This interaction makes it feel like you are actually in the virtual space, and represents a huge step forward in immersion.
What interests me most about EVE is the fact that it's a truly alternative reality; a simulated universe, of which only one exists, and to which there will never be a sequel or a "version 2". CCP has committed to simply improve the game over time rather than ever introduce an "EVE 2", building the universe iteratively over the past 10 years. This means that the time you invest in the alternative reality has a degree of permanence and importance, rather than the transience and fragmentation of other sharded universes.
Let's hope this integrates directly into the EVE Universe, in the capacity of participating in actual fights, and not just "conquer this asteroid field to make it available to EVE players". Anything less would be a grave disappointment and moreover, a potentially critical business mistake as the two games, EVE Online and Valkyrie, operate in the same space.
Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how this pans out.
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So, Firefox allows you to open favorites in a sidebar - which is great for things like FriendFeed, Google Talk, Twitter, or even Facebook chat. It lets you use a good web service as what essentially becomes an extension for your browser, so you can browse your regular pages while still participating in the conversation.
I recently switched over to the social browser, Flock - with great success and elation. Flock is built from the Firefox codebase, but they are massively more social in what the browser does - drag and drop images, open media feeds, view your friends in their People and Places sidebar, among many other really cool things.
Then there's Friendfeed - which is a web service that recently took off (but I must say, I've been using long before the hype. :D) because it allows you to combine all of your social media connections (Web 2.5, if you will) and even cross-post responses between them (closer to Web 3.0, minus filtering and duplicate content issues...). After putting in a request to Flock's develpment team to start moving in this direction, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
When you bookmark something in Firefox, you can open the properties of the bookmark and hit a checkbox, "Open this link in the sidebar." However, this option is not available in Flock (by default). So let's open our trusty about:config:
Do a filter on "sidebar", and you'll find a value called "flock.favorites.loadPageInSidebar" - which is set to false by default. Right click this value, and click "toggle".
Bingo. Now you will have the checkbox on all your bookmarks that will allow you to open links in your sidebar!
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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My list of entrepreneurial shortcomings includes Mirascape, which aspired to be a ubiquitous augmented reality (AR) operating system for the real world. The problems we were solving (and our packaged solution) would have been the backbone for all of the [imagined] technology you see in this Samsung promo video for a new tech they're excited about, transparent and flexible OLED displays. [1]
If you're not familiar with augmented reality; it is the visual overlay of otherwise hidden information on the real world, as you observe it.
While you can ogle over ostentatious technologies like the embedded-display contact lenses the University of Washington is so proud of [2], it's exciting to see companies like TDK [3] and Laster Technologies [4] bring these kinds of stepping stone technology to bear. We can all download and install the awkward and barely applicable consumer-level AR applications on our smartphones ([5], [6], and [7]), but they will all remain novelty applications until we see major innovation in the display space.
One of the more practical examples I've seen of augmented reality in the real world is WordLens [8] (sadly only available for iOS), which provides instantaneous video translation through your device. It's not hard to imagine a pair of Oakley glasses with this display technology built-in, providing you with always-on translation while in an unfamiliar foreign location. Or perhaps even displaying your friend's tweet as a speech bubble above their head for a few seconds -- imagine if it were built right, how amazing it could be.
I genuinely hope to see more of this transparent display technology built in to more consumer-level products, and eyewear in particular. We need a lot more developers playing with the practical applications of augmented reality, and not just displaying compass-aligned markers over a geotagged Wikipedia article or Flickr photo. The high-power hardware necessary to do real-time computer vision processing is coming, and the applied software world needs to be ready for it.
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I often get asked for my Skype address, sometimes in relation to business or casual conversation. I politely decline with some degree of hand-waving about my reasons, and suggest an alternative form of communication (typically either Google Talk or Google Hangouts, depending on the context—both are built right in to Gmail!). I'd like to outline some of the reasons why I've made the decision to avoid Skype, primarily so I have something to link to when someone asks me about it.
First and foremost, we don't really know what Skype actually does. The binary (the actual program you run on your computer) is obfuscated, so attempts at disassembling it [PDF] to verify some of its strange behavior and the information it is transmitting have so far come up with very little. This is an issue, because Skype produces encrypted traffic even when you are not actively using Skype. This means we can only speculate on what information Skype is collecting about you after you've so graciously chosen to install it, and perhaps more importantly who it is sending that information to.
When a Skype client is not in a call and is running on a machine with public IP address, it has on the average 4-8 active TCP connections and atleast one UDP connection.
While connecting to external IP addresses is normal for a server/client architecture and necessary for receiving notifications, the volume of traffic and number of connections is concerning, considering the compounding issues between Skype's peer-to-peer architecture [PDF] and the "reasonable level of detection accuracy" in snooping on voice calls in Skype [PDF], despite the [purportedly] encrypted nature of the Skype protocol.
Speaking in general terms, Skype is "black box" software which has undergone no public review despite very concerning observed behavior. When new Skype malware (like Skype IMBot, of which an analysis is available, or the more recent Skype account hijacking) is released, there are very few options to protect ourselves if we've got Skype installed. On Linux, tools like AppArmor and TOMOYO exist, but without the ability to easily view the source and understand the attack (per perhaps even fix it proactively, before it occurs) we are at the mercy of Skype's new maintainers to provide a timely resolution in a reactive approach.
If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.
— Richard Stallman
In conclusion, while Skype may be convenient, it presents a series of questions that must be asked and implications to be considered before choosing it over other chat, VoIP, and video chat solutions. I can only hope that more people consider these things before doing so.
Asides
Some of the other things I found interesting, more recently than the research I've linked in this post, include Skype's role in the Syrian conflict, in which a claim was made as follows:
A media activist in Idlib named Mohamed said a rebel informant working for the government was killed in Damascus six months ago after sending warnings to the Free Syrian Army on Skype.
“I saw this incident right in front of my eyes,” Mohamed said. “We put his info on Skype so he was arrested and killed.”
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[K]r.github.com. Keith Rarick's GitHub redirect. Total ass-kicker.
[L]inkedIn. Pretty straightforward, between hiring for our team at @Mirascape and the travel to and from various conferences and Meetups lately.
[M]irascape. The augmented reality platform I'm responsible for.
[N]oxBot. A nice PHP-powered IRC bot with various plugins. A bit out of date, but very powerful. Been using it for a couple things lately.
[O]K, QR Me!. A QR Code-generating link shortener I built.
[P]ostmark. Best Email delivery service I've used. Nice RESTful API, flat rate for emails sent.
[Q]uora. These guys nail Q&A, and they're doing it pretty well. Check out all their buzz, too. But for some reason, I just don't stick.
Google [R]eader. “From your 1,040 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 21,549 items, clicked 274 items, starred 853 items, shared 37 items, and emailed 8 items.” -- </stats>
[S]erver Stats for Mirascape. Powered by Munin, it's how I keep track of the status and metrics of all my servers.
[T]witter. Not surprising. I love their webapp for my personal use, but own and manage at least five accounts using SplitTweet.
[U]serVoice. Pretty sweet tool I use for giving the communities I manage a good way to build a consensus on what they desire most. Examples I run: for RolePlayGateway, and EVE UserVoice for EVE Online.
[X]DA Developers. An indisposable resource for getting rid of carrier-installed crap and running my own choice of software on the hardware I purchased!
[Z]ecco. Where I trade most of my public stocks. :)
Surprisingly populist, and there's a lot of Google-owned properties in there. I'm also using Chromium, so I think it prefers the roots of the sites I visit instead of searching through my history for individual pages.
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RPGChat is one of the other large roleplaying forums out there, and they've been around since about May, 2001. Since then, RPGChat has gone through many evolutions, and has expanded rapidly - they started with a forum, grew into a decent sized roleplaying chat, and finally removed the chat and went back to forums.
You'll immediately notice the large number of forums, which for most boards isn't an issue. In today's roleplaying world, RPGChat's index fits right in.
They've got four basic navigation options at the top of the page, which are images instead of text, which isn't very good for SEO. The four menu options are Home, Forums, Chat, and Rules. I gave each of them a shot, but it looks like only the "Home" and "Rules" link work.
I'm going to take a look at their code, because using images for links isn't horrible if you specify the right attributes. Let's have a glance:<a href="http://forums.rpgchat.com/index.php">
<img src="header/but_home.jpg" border="0">
</a>
Yikes! Not only does the anchor not have a title attribute, but the image doesn't have an alt attribute! Search engines won't be able to understand the context of these links, and the flow of link juice to the two working links won't be very beneficial.
I participated on these forums for a few months as the username Alighieri, for that period, I became the single most active user in their welcome forum. I posted in several other topics, but got pretty frustrated with the limitation on the length of a post (20,000 characters).
When attempting to post a profile for one of my characters, I was immediately snubbed by the limitation. This makes well-researched posts difficult to make, specifically with the citations that must be put in place for accurate references. Ultimately, I was forced to cut out portions of my character's history to fit it into the post.
After posting for a few weeks nonstop in the Welcome Forum, I headed off to the The Arena area, where turn-based fighting is largely popular. I opened a topic with a list of the top turn based fighters, placed into a neat little image and posted right into the topic. It took a few days to get any response at all, (save for a few people who contacted me over AIM) and when I did get a response, I logged in to RPGChat to find that I had been banned for "advertising on multiple occasions", much to my surprise.
However, while my visit was cut short, I met some good friends, and had some great discussions. Unfortunately, the forum does not allow any links to external sites of any kind, and also does not allow signatures, which makes it very difficult to spread the word about the topics you start there. This isn't very good for encouraging member interaction, and makes it very difficult for momentum of any sort to be gained within the community.
After speaking with someone who had messaged me on AIM prior to my banning, I confirmed my worst fears - RPGChat is a closed community, and is not very open to outside communities or positive interaction with those communities. This is the number one concern mentioned to me about RPGChat and their future, and there is ongoing fear of the community continuing to stagnate without any growth other than direct referral.
I sent a request via the site's contact form, as listed at the bottom every page, which merely opened a new email to their support address, forums@rpgchat.com - I sent a couple questions in my email, and I identified who I was, but I haven't yet received a response. It'd be great if we could get an interview with an admin from RPGChat on the history of the site!
In terms of organic visitors, a search for pages on RPGChat has about 16,200 results. When digging through the pages, I noticed that only 477 pages were in the primary index, with the remainder in the supplemental index. That's scary!
Let's take a look at their search results:
As you can see from the above search, we can confirm that there is some duplicate content problems. However, from what we've seen - most of RPGChat's traffic is a result of direct referral. We can identify with the importance of defensible traffic, but organic traffic is also a high-quality method of driving laser-targeted traffic to your site, and it looks like RPGChat is seriously missing out on this.
RPGChat has a relatively active forum; 63,708 threads, 1,925,709 posts, and 59,352 "active" members. While that's only an average of about 30 posts per thread and only about 32 posts per user, they do have some great quality and style elements in their posts that you simply don't see in many other places in roleplaying forums these days. I think it would be a great move for them to deactivate a lot of their older and inactive members, and send out reminders to these users to come back and join in on the fun.
It also seemed like a consensus that the single best area on RPGChat was the Clans & Guilds forum, which most users simply called "C/G" for short. It looks like most other forums' version of a multiverse, where roleplay is freeform, and most action is player-driven with rules being defined by the status quo.
Lack of availability aside, RPGChat leaves a pretty strong impression, and if you're careful to follow their 500 wordlist of rules, you can likely make some friends and enjoy some great high-quality roleplay. The administration needs to do some overhauling if they're going to keep the community healthy, but for the time being - RPGChat makes for a great roleplaying destination.
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I've been relying heavily on node.js this past year to provide a robust set of tools to solve the problems I encounter on a daily basis. I was pleased to see honorCipherOrder was added to node's TLS library in node.js v0.7.6, and released with node.js v0.8.0.
Late last year, security researcher Juliano Rizzo announced a new attack against the AES encryption used in the SSL/TLS transaction he dubbed BEAST. The details are interesting to those who care, but it turns out that we can mitigate this attack in node.js by enforcing honorCipherOrder on the server. Let's take a look.
If you have an HTTPS server that looks like this:
var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');
var options = {
key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.pem')
};
https.createServer(options, function (req, res) {
res.writeHead(200);
res.end("hello world\n");
}).listen(443);
...you can now manage the cipher order by using the ciphers option. In the following code snippet we're going set the options for the above server to use Steve Caligo's cipher order, which prefers TLS 1.2 ciphers (which are not vulnerable to the BEAST attack) for clients that support TLS 1.2 but falls back to the RC4 ciphers on TLS 1.0 clients.[...]
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Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].
“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.” — Kevin Mandia
The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.
Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4]. Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5].
These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins. You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9]. These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable. The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.
The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12]. These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.
“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.” — +The New York Times
Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16]. The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.
While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale. I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].
Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms? Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].
“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.” — Kevin Mandia
The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.
Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4]. Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5].
These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins. You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9]. These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable. The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.
The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12]. These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.
“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.” — +The New York Times
Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16]. The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.
While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale. I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].
Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms? Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].
“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.” — Kevin Mandia
The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.
Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4]. Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5].
These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins. You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9]. These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable. The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.
The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12]. These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.
“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.” — +The New York Times
Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16]. The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.
While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale. I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].
Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms? Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.… The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].
“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.” — Kevin Mandia
The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.
Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4]. Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5].
These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins. You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9]. These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable. The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.
The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12]. These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.
“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.” — +The New York Times
Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16]. The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.
While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale. I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].
Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms? Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.
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Thing is: that's yet another area that can/will backfire horribly, eventually. But with "eventually" likely being outside one or two elected terms, who cares... It's a high-value thing today, and publicizing about it (unusual) serves a purpose.
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+Eric Martindale I primarily use it for some hobby AI projects at this point. Since it was designed as the catch-all language for high-reliability systems in the military including thermonuclear devices and airplanes, it seemed like the reasonable choice here :)
There's sadly not much commercial interest in Ada :(
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In addition to the expansion of the FLIBE salts when they are heated, the system is at low pressure, so a loss of 'containment' results in a liquid leak at low pressure (2-3x atm pressure), instead of flashing water to steam at high pressures (100x atm pressure).
In this liquid leak, it is spilled into a catch pan that channels it into holding tanks (this is the walkaway safe design). Simply turn it off, walk away, and it is safe. Stab a hole in it and it leaks down and is safe. Remove power, safe.
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“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.” -- +Justin Uberti
Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!
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“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.” -- +Justin Uberti
Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!
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“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.” -- +Justin Uberti
Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!
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“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.” -- +Justin Uberti
Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!
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Yes I am also agreed with this post that “Education must be Open source and Free for all”; there are many potential students who are not able to get proper education because of high Tuition fees. However recently one of my friend got online Life experience degree from his professional Experience , This Good thing which universities have started to offer. You can more info here http://www.usauniversitiesonline.com/degree/awarding-honorary-doctorate-degree/ or you can Google it about online life experience degree.
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FIC has announced an on-sale date for its Neo1973, expected to be the first low-cost, high-volume phone with a user-modifiable Linux-based operating system. Additionally, the OpenMoko project building open-source software for the phone has published a wealth of technical resources.
See the link for more information. This is a huge step towards my dream phone.
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Recently on DigitalPoint, I posted in response to someone who had some old domains forwarding email to his Gmail account - high traffic domains that received tens of thousands of spam messages per day.
I presented him a solution, which might work for you, too, if you're in a similiar situation.
Up at the top of your Gmail, click "Create a Filter". It's to the right of the search box.
In the "From:" box, type the domain name of the affected domain. Click "Next Step".
Select "Delete It". Click "Create Filter" and you're done.
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An awesome list of applications for Linux that is mainly for my use (when I get home tonight), but you might get some use out of it, too.
Some of the better ones are mumble and murmer, some Teamspeak and Ventrilo replacements that I've never heard of. And the list is forcing me to finally get around to using Deluge (woot).
I think I might end up doing a full reinstall of Ubuntu tonight, just because I've mucked with the system so damn much it isn't even funny. Maybe this time around, I'll get my Motorola Q, in all of its new screen goodness (I recently replaced the LCD screen), to actually charge while connected via USB to my Linux box. And, if I really wish to aim high, maybe I can get sync working!
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Oooh, someone's a clever cat. I was thumbing through Google Analytics today (like I do every day), and I was looking at what keywords people were using to find my site. I came across an interesting one:"social media" "search engine optimization" (inurl:resume | intitle:resume)
Either someone is researching competition, or there's someone looking to hire people for a job they could do themselves. My guess is the former. Whoever you were, good job!
I bet you could do a search like, "lead developer" (inurl:resume | intitle:resume) and get some pretty tasty results. Or, perhaps someone wants to develop a custom search engine that utilizes Google to find highly ranked resumes? There's some nice and crunchy ideas.
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I've been working for an industrial company that's still struggling with the very idea of open-source, so unfortunately there's nothing on github I can point a potential employer at. I guess in theory I ought to be doing something on the side just for that reason, but after writing code all week long, it's not exactly high on the list of priorities in my free time. :-)
100% agree with the sentiment though -- résumés are almost worthless for Software Engineers. Once in a while I can tell that someone's not completely inept, based on the specific way they describe their current/past work on a CV. But even then, it's hardly worth the time it takes to sift through the pile, vs. just bringing people in to talk for a bit.
A few lines of code are worth a thousand words. HR at large companies tends to get bogged down with the specifics of which languages/technologies they know, but that's missing the point entirely. If you can just have someone design a small system in pseudocode that solves some simple problem, the orders-of-magnitude difference in talent between individual programmers becomes obvious.
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+John Reiher Well, strictly speaking, that's only true because the target language is Mandarin, which has different part-of-sentence semantic rules than English. Translating English to German should be mostly doable on the fly because almost all English constructs map well to German in the same order (conventional sentence order of subject verb indirect object direct object). Doing the same thing German to English isn't feasible because in German the use of an auxillary or modal verb pushes a word to the end of the sentence, so you can't start translating till you get there. So translating "I've forgotten much of my German" is easy to translate to german, but "Ich habe viele Deutch vergessen" can't be translated back until you hit that last word.
(Man, high school german was 35 years ago, amazing how much I haven't forgotten) ;)
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While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.
Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.
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While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.
Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.
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While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.
Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.
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While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.
Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.
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Venezuela would need to transport the gold in several trips, traders said, since the high value of gold means it would be impossible to insure a single aircraft carrying 211 tonnes. It could take about 40 shipments to move the gold back to Caracas, traders estimated.
“It’s going to be quite a task. Logistically, I’m not sure if the central bank realises the magnitude of the task ahead of them,” said one senior gold banker.
So the challenge is this: how can Venezuela safely retrieve 211 tons of gold from its European stores? What solutions can you come up with using lateral analysis?
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Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+
I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.
My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.
And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.
On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.
So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.
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Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+
I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.
My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.
And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.
On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.
So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.
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Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+
I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.
My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.
And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.
On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.
So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.
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Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+
I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.
My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.
And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.
On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.
So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.
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If you don't control the program, the program controls you. Help support a mass-algorate society, in which everyone knows how to code, by signing your name at code.org.
“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.” — +Douglas Rushkoff
I've talked about the mass-algorate societies in the past [1], but this new non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education really shines with the support of +Mark Zuckerberg, +will.i.am, and +Eric Schmidt. Take a look at the video and lend a hand in this endeavor!
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If you don't control the program, the program controls you. Help support a mass-algorate society, in which everyone knows how to code, by signing your name at code.org.
“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.” — +Douglas Rushkoff
I've talked about the mass-algorate societies in the past [1], but this new non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education really shines with the support of +Mark Zuckerberg, +will.i.am, and +Eric Schmidt. Take a look at the video and lend a hand in this endeavor!
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If you don't control the program, the program controls you. Help support a mass-algorate society, in which everyone knows how to code, by signing your name at code.org.
“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.” — +Douglas Rushkoff
I've talked about the mass-algorate societies in the past [1], but this new non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education really shines with the support of +Mark Zuckerberg, +will.i.am, and +Eric Schmidt. Take a look at the video and lend a hand in this endeavor!
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If you don't control the program, the program controls you. Help support a mass-algorate society, in which everyone knows how to code, by signing your name at code.org.
“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.” — +Douglas Rushkoff
I've talked about the mass-algorate societies in the past [1], but this new non-profit foundation dedicated to growing computer programming education really shines with the support of +Mark Zuckerberg, +will.i.am, and +Eric Schmidt. Take a look at the video and lend a hand in this endeavor!
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So, entirely not in light of any recent events, I was integrating the chat rules that Vexar wrote into RolePlayGateway's Rules, and I was looking for some examples of forum etiquette that other forums use. In searching, I found this perfectly humorous video:
(I found it on Neil Boortz's website, but since headed over to videojug to get the original. PS, Neil? You're awesome.)
That was probably the best one I found, above and beyond the video I came across that seemed geared towards the Steam forum community, which was a bit too NSFW to actually embed here on my blog. If you'd like, you can go check out posting a new thread on AlbinoBlackSheep.
I'm admin on several online forums, and I'm a moderator on many more; not counting the countless other communities where I'm an active member. I was pretty proud of the rules I put together on Gateway, and I think they're clean, simple, and easy to follow. No one likes being bombarded and tacked down by rules, so I try to keep them as simple as possible. What do you think of them?
How do you manage forum users and set rules? I know Martin Reed has some good tips on forum rules, and there are many others out there that learned a lot from running forums. The best thing that we can do is learn from others, and gather experience on how to handle these issues. What is your approach to forum etiquette?
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The author of the particularly famous Wheel of Time series passed away yesterday due to cardiac amyloidosis. Diagnosed with the disease in March of 2006, Jordan, born James Oliver Rigney Jr., vowed to fight the disease and continue his legendary writing career for many years to come. It is a great loss to the fantasy community, and on behalf of RolePlayGateway, we send our condolences to his family and friends, who will no doubt be the most affected by his passing.
It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain. In the years he had fought this, he taught me much about living and about facing death. He never waivered in his faith, nor questioned our God’s timing. I could not possibly be more proud of anyone. I am eternally grateful for the time that I had with him on this earth and look forward to our reunion, though as I told him this afternoon, not yet. I love you bubba.
Our beloved Harriet was at his side through the entire fight and to the end. The last words from his mouth were to tell her that he loved her.
Thank each and everyone of you for your prayers and support through this ordeal. He knew you were there. Harriet reminded him today that she was very proud of the many lives he had touched through his work. We’ve all felt the love that you’ve been sending my brother/cousin. Please keep it coming as our Harriet could use the support.
Jason will be posting funeral arrangements.
My sincerest thanks.
Peace and Light be with each of you,
Wilson
Brother/Cousin
4th of 3
To Catalyst: Never, never loose faith. RJ did not. Harriet hasn’t. I haven’t. Going through what we have, our faith is only strengthened. Besides, if God didn’t exist, we would have never had Jim. We did. God does. Remember my Brother/Cousin, my friend, think of him fondly and glorify God’s name.
Editor’s Note:
The entire staff of Dragonmount.com would like to extend its most deepest sympathies to Robert Jordan’s family. He touched all of our lives in some way and we wish him the rest and peace he deserves. We will be posting information in the near future about where you can send condolences. Please check the News Section for these updates.
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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A favorite quote of mine from my favorite physicist, Richard Feynman, on the importance of play. Dr. Feynman was a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who was notorious for being multi-faceted, in both his personal hobbies and his grasp of science. He worked on the Manhattan Project with Einstein, was part of the panel that investigated the Challenger Disaster, and his work plays a major role in the modern understanding of quantum computing.
“Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn’t have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I’d see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn’t have to do it; it wasn’t important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn’t make any difference. I’d invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.
So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.
Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.
I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ‘Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?’
I don’t remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.
I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ‘Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it’s two to one is ...’ and I showed him the accelerations.
He says, ‘Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?’
‘Hah!’ I say. ‘There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’ His reaction didn’t discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.
I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there’s the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ‘playing’ - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.
It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.”
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I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.
In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].
Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.
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I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.
In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].
Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.
In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].
Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.
In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].
Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.
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There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project, DMOZ. There have been many attempts to unseat the directory project from its position as the most authoritative listing resource, such as the Yahoo Directory. Many of these attempts have fallen by the wayside, as Rand Fiskin points out, but none have remained more controversial than DMOZ. More recently, Chris Crum's post on WebProNews about his lack of respect for DMOZ has stirred up a hornet's nest of DMOZ criticism, including a particular post claiming DMOZ is a waste of time.
I forwarded a lot of this on to Philip Nicolcev, known by username as "frug", who is the editor of several roleplay-oriented categories on DMOZ. He responded to me directly with a highly insightful email, and I was fortunate enough to receive his permission to share its contents.
I've been editing the pbp category at DMOZ for what... 4 years now? About that. This article is a big whiny complaint which misses the mark. They are both correct and sadly mistaken.
Yes, dmoz is outdated and yes, it fails because of attitude problems, but not silly allegations of 'corruption' or people who are bitter because they didn't get listed. We don't list everything, I don't list even half of the submissions I get, and anyone who has been an administrator or an editor for a similar type of project knows better than to take these kinds of complaints seriously.
One thing they say is definitely correct: Apply once carefully following their rules if you wish and then, as Will suggested, forget about them.
This is exactly the approach that should be modeled for any directory, regardless of its state or condition. When you are submitting a link to a directory, you are being offered the privilege to be listed as a resource by the owners and management of that directory. They are not obligated to list your link, let alone review it in a timely fashion--but this would be genuinely appreciated and would reflect on the directory's position as a "good" resource.
DMOZ is the primary source for Google's Directory, and you must respect the opinion of such a large and successful company. It's obvious that the idea behind an open directory like DMOZ is good, but where they fail is in execution. More on that later.
He continues:
That is what you should do. Apply once and forget about it, don't claim anybody is corrupt because whether you believe my opinion or not, there's no corruption. Nobody cares enough about dmoz anymore for it to be valuable for extortion. Don't be ridiculous. Furthermore if you were to speak to some of the senior editors you'd discover that they are pretty damn uptight, even obsessive.
The problems with dmoz are, in my opinion, twofold. First off, you have the dated trashy look of the website which is a relic of the 1990's. It's not user friendly, it doesn't entice anyone to go browsing, and it hasn't adapted or added features that would help people understand the structure of the directory or find what they're looking for. The editor forums still use phpBB2, and you should see the editing panel. You wouldn't believe how dated this stuff is. Frankly it has needed an overhaul for years now.
I largely agree with him. The phpBB team deprecated the phpBB2 branch at the beginning of this year, ending support for the outdated platform. AOL would do well to do a complete overhaul of the site's design now that "Web 2.0" has come and gone (and I could referencepostsallday on that) - and AOL has completely missed their opportunity to latch on and ride the wave.
Philip finishes his correspondance with the frightening truth that has been plaguing many post-Web2.0 sites and services:
The second problem, attitude, is partially the cause of the first problem. It's a stagnant atmosphere where nothing gets done and nobody gets listened to. They would rather leave a directory as a cluttered mess of garbage than risk breaking its structure by overhauling it. Fixing my category took me about two years before I had approval to restructure it, and I'm in a small niche category nobody pays much attention to. Since becoming an editor I have deleted about 60% of the outdated links listed. Had I not joined, they'd still be there cluttering things up with linkspam geocities pages from 10 years ago.
So yeah, dmoz is failing, but not because of corruption or because some guy didn't get what he wanted. And, honestly, if the author of this article was applying to dmoz just to 'test how fair it was' then I'm glad they rejected him. Somehow they made the right decision because he's wasting their time.
And that's the exact problem - the DMOZ community has completely stagnated, which has resulted in the puddle of goop that the directory has become. In my personal opinion, I think that AOL could do a lot better job at community management (all reputation management aside) by setting up a more rigid structure of responsibility. The editors need to be held responsible for a timely review specified by their superiors, and there needs to be cross-checking of the editor's work by other qualified editors.
All said and done, DMOZ needs some love if it's going to survive as anything more than a relic of trust and authority in the Web 2.0 bubble. As Philip points out, it has both good and bad traits and deserves further attention, but it needs to be attention in (and from) the right direction. The questions remain; where has AOL been? What can be done about the editors (or lack thereof)? How can DMOZ be improved?
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I often get asked for my Skype address, sometimes in relation to business or casual conversation. I politely decline with some degree of hand-waving about my reasons, and suggest an alternative form of communication (typically either 
There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project,