This site shows it from 1983 to 2009. It’s fun and amazing to see how much cell phones have evolved in a very short period of time. If you are like me, you will go through it and think, “oh, I remember THOSE!” :). For example, I still remember being so impressed when I saw this for the first time:
Anyone wanting to make predictions about the future of mobile technology might want to review this and see just how much changes and how dramatically are the changes.
I am a big fan of Microsoft Project: I think it is fantastic not just for work, but for home. If for some reason you can’t get a copy of that software, I highly recommend that you consider this software: OpenProj – Project Management | Free Business & Enterprise software downloads at SourceForge.net. It’s free, and it looks very similar to the software from Microsoft. It will even open and work with files that come from Microsoft Project.
I highly recommend both tools.
So, working backwards from this, Paul Krugman Bankruptcy Story False, Spreads – Business Insider, I go to here, Paul Krugman Files Chapter 13 Bankruptcy | Stock Market Summary (NSDQ, NYSE, AMEX and more) on Boston.com, which got it from this Austrian paper, here Paul Krugman ist pleite • format.at,
which got it from…..The Daily Currant – The Global Satirical Newspaper of Record. Yes, the Daily Currant! The one that states it is satirical right up front. To be fair, I have fallen for the Currant’s posts before, but I also don’t work for a newspaper.
Krugman is having fun with this, as you can see here: Breitbarted – NYTimes.com.
As for the other writers that ran with this… well, I fact checked that in a couple of minutes. Not sure why they couldn’t.
This is not a ubiquitous idea, but it could be. It’s also one of the better uses of QR codes that I have seen. Ideally if I had one major medical condition (e.g. a specific allergy), then I would like to see it written next to the QR code. Of course the advantage of the QR code is the ability to contain alot of information on a very small place, which is ideal for people who do have a number of medical conditions. Plus the stickers are cheap and you can have them everywhere.
For more information on this, go here: Lifesquare. Found via this article: Personal QR codes could help first responders get vital patient information | IBM Smarter Trends
This article, This Story Stinks – NYTimes.com, received some bad comments itself, mostly for stating the obvious (or at least the obvious to some people on twitter). I think it is worth reading, though, because it verifies what we suspected: negative comments have an effect on a reader. Indeed, as the article states
The results were both surprising and disturbing. Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself.
It would be great if more people learned to not read the comments, but they do. Bad comments, like spam, are one of the awful things about the Internet. It needs to be treated seriously and tackled with energy. Studies like this will help us decide how to do this and proceed.
According to this, Algorithmic Rape Jokes in the Library of Babel | Quiet Babylon, the T shirts were generating automatically and the company that sold them, Solid Gold Bomb, is saying that they not responsible because, hey, algorithms. I agree with the article: this is a bogus excuse. It’s like someone saying I wasn’t responsible for my car putting you in the hospital if it hit you because, hey, the car hit you, not me. Just like you are the operator of the vehicle and you are responsible for the operation of that vehicle, so too are companies and the people that run them responsible for their algorithms / computer technology as a whole.
You are responsible for the technology you deploy, and if you don’t understand that, you shouldn’t deploy it.
Also, Amazon needs to act, too. It’s a great company in many ways, but this and other practices that occur on their web site needs to be cracked down on.
First, a couple of paragraphs of background. While I have written a little about drones, John Robb has a blog called Global Guerrillas where he writes alot about it and other topics. Well worth reading. In his blog he talks about something called Dronet (Drone Net) and it got me thinking about the idea of a network of drones and how it will interact with what we think of as the Internet.
That said, I expect there will be resistance to the idea of Drone Net. I also think even if it is built, it will pivot away from drones and warfare to something bigger and broader, just like the Internet pivoted away from ARPAnet to something bigger and broader. Drone Net will just be a part, a small part, of a newer and bigger Internet.
That brings me to the subject of this post: the next Internet.
This new and bigger Internet will be physical. It won’t be focused on just being threatening or military. It won’t be Skynet or Dronet. It will be called something neutral like Courier-Net or ExpressNet or simply the Net. Just like Apple evolves a device but keeps the same name, we too will do the same thing with the Internet.
Some of the ways the new drone enabled Internet will work are:
Then check out this post: (Feb 2013) How Many People Use the Top Social Media, Apps & Services?
A comprehensive compilation of social media stats. Very impressive.
I mention this because Daniel Gross (@grossdm) on twitter pointed out this article, which was written in March, 2009: Michael Boskin Says Barack Obama Is Moving Us Toward a European-Style Social Welfare State and Long-Run Economic Stagnation – WSJ.com. Is this true?
It’s true that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was low when that article was written, dropping to a relative low of 6,626.94. However, Obama took office in January, 2009. During the summer and fall of 2007, the DJIA was just over 14,000. It then proceeded to fall month after month, with big drops in the fourth quarter of 2008. And just who was in office in 2007 and 2008? President Bush.
What has happened since March, 2009? The DJIA has been rising consistently, with a small dropoff in July, 2010, after which it recovered and now stands at just over 14,000 as of February, 22, 2013.
There is still too much unemployment as well as other problems with the U.S. economy. But the stock market has been the beneficiary of President Obama and his form of governing.
And by the way, who is Michael Boskin? According to the article, “Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.“
All DJIA come from here: Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) History
If this works, the recipe is here: https://ifttt.com/myrecipes/personal/2934895
It may seem odd to talk about the success of these two devices. Many of the reviews that I (and likely, you) have read have said that the Pixel is a great device, but too expensive and to be avoided. And Google Glass is not even shipped yet. Given that, how can I talk about their success?I think their success can be measured in another way. Regardless of the success of these or other offerings, Google is successfully positioning itself as a leader with regards to emerging technology. This is important for IT companies. If you are perceived as failing, then regardless of how good your technology is, it will always be framed in terms of your failing to lead. (see RIM/Blackberry or Microsoft). Likewise, if you are someone like Apple, a perceived leader, then whatever you do is measured in those terms. Given that, Google succeeds on the whole even if individual products do not. Furthermore, Google was gaining a reputation for missing the mark (Wave, Google+). Products like these can help change that perception.The Verve has two good reviews of these products here (Chromebook Pixel review) and here (I used Google Glass: the future, but with monthly updates). If you want to know more about these products, I recommend those articles.Finally, since this is IT related, I should state these are my opinions only and do not and do not necessarily represent the positions, strategies or opinions of my employer (IBM).
Why? Because it will be soon the end of Posterous (R.I.P. Posterous). The good news is that you can migrate from Posterous to other platforms, but you may want to do so soon.
The great Mark Bittman has 7 Ways to Make Lentil Soup, and if you want to start out with making any of these, I think you will have a delicious meal when you are done.
An even easier version is this. Take this list of ingredients
Add them all to a slow cooker (4 quart / 4 litre) size or bigger, stir, then cook on low (8-10 hours) or high (4-5 hours). Remove bay leaves before serving. That’s it! Easy.
Now I say seven million ways to make lentil soup because you really can substitute greatly for very different soups. For example:
The lentils and the stock make up the foundation of the soup. The rest is seasoning and vegetables (and possibly non vegetables). Feel free to experiment and make the soup your own (and use up the left overs in your fridge or pantry).
As an IBM employee, I am happy to see IBM has their own tumblr: IBMblr | IBM Innovation on Tumblr. There’s lots of good stuff on it, including this:
I also like this:
>
I came across this entry about Melba Roy from this tumblr, Vintage Black Glamour. I tried to do searches on her to see if I could find more information about her, but I couldn’t. This is a terrible shame, since Ms Roy appears to be very accomplished, from what I read on the Tumblr. Not to take anything away from the tumblr, but here’s what it said:
Melba Roy, NASA Mathmetician, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland in 1964. Ms. Roy, a 1950 graduate of Howard University, led a group of NASA mathmeticians known as “computers” who tracked the Echo satellites. The first time I shared Ms. Roy on VBG, my friend Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a former postdoc in astrophysics at NASA, helpfully explained what Ms. Roy did in the comment section. I am sharing Chanda’s comment again here: “By the way, since I am a physicist, I might as well explain a little bit about what she did: when we launch satellites into orbit, there are a lot of things to keep track of. We have to ensure that gravitational pull from other bodies, such as other satellites, the moon, etc. don’t perturb and destabilize the orbit. These are extremely hard calculations to do even today, even with a machine-computer. So, what she did was extremely intense, difficult work. The goal of the work, in addition to ensuring satellites remained in a stable orbit, was to know where everything was at all times. So they had to be able to calculate with a high level of accuracy. Anyway, that’s the story behind orbital element timetables”. Photo: NASA/Corbis.
I think this is an impressive story and we should know more about her. If anyone does, please post it here or the original tumblr. The world should know more about her.
P.S. Yes, I happen to love the IBM computer behind her. That makes her even better IMHO.
I was skeptical of this, but Carl Franzen pointed out this detailed article: ChromeBook as Developer Machine. It makes a good case for how a developer can get alot of use out of a Chromebook for their development needs. I think the same can be said for anyone with a tablet or iPad with a bluetooth keyboard as well.
Well done. Worth reading.
As this article points out, Why Russians Are Obsessed With Dash-Cams, Russian roads are a lawless place, and your best chance of limiting your liability when you are driving on them is with a dash-cam. Hence, the proliferation of them in that country.
I would not be surprised to see them in North American cars soon. Our roads may be more lawful, but there’s still enough bad driving and bad driving conditions here to make for some interesting footage.
Can be found here: Doing beautiful things with self-tracking data « RescueTime Blog.
I thought turning self quantified data like this….
….to be a brilliant idea. But there are numerous brilliant ideas on that blog: well worth a look.
(Thanks to AmritaMathur on twitter for that)
It’s simple. Go to a Starbucks. Pick up one of those cards that has free apps/movie/song of the day. On the back is a code. Use that as your password. Keep the code in your wallet. Do this on a frequent basis.
Want to make it more secure? Add numbers and punctuation to the beginning or the end.
Worried the code isn’t random enough? Type it in backwards or add punctuation and random characters in the middle (e.g. after the first three characters).
For example, here is the code on the card I have: A63RKXMEWWJ6. (No, it is not used on any of my passwords.)
If I go to a site like this, How Secure Is My Password?, and type it in, it tells me it will take 37 years to break it using a PC. If I add !123 to the end of that, it will take essentially forever to break it (16 billion years).These times are based on using a PC to break it. But even if the hackers had an enterprise class computer, it will still take a long long time. Furthermore, if you change your password very often, you will make it next very difficult to hack your password the way the passwords were hacked at the New York Times.
There are ways to get your password that doesn’t requiring stealing and cracking the password database. But you can practically eliminate this way if you take this approach.
It’s a very retro moment that Sly Stallone has a new movie out in 2013 with Walter Hill! In 1984, almost 30 years ago, Hill had a big movie out that was also very retro at the time called Streets of Fire. Here’s a clip from that film
While this HuffPo piece is about a new service from Vine, Twitter’s ‘Vine’ App Users Can No Longer Find Friends Via Facebook, it also has a great rundown of all the feuding going on between social media companies these days. For example…
(Facebook and Twitter) have been feuding since this summer, when Facebook announced it would buy Instagram for $1 billion despite Twitter’s reported prior offer, supposedly worth $525 million, for the photo-sharing service. Twitter responded to the snub by preventing Instagram users from syncing with their Twitter followers. Facebook followed up by making it impossible for Twitter users to embed Instagram pictures in their tweets.
Twitter and Facebook are certainly not the only feuding tech companies. In August, Craigslist stopped allowing search engines to index user’s ads in order to try to defeat competitors like Craiggers. In early January, Google experimented with blocking Google Maps on Windows phones, although that experiment didn’t take.
I expect alot more of these to go on over the next few years. Eventually there will be winners, but also the social media business will be disrupted and displaced by other technology waves (think: mobile platforms and cloud computing and that the social media companies will no longer be a central/go to place. It will happen: ask AOL and various portal sites left by the side of the road). Until that happens, expect sharing to get harder, not easier.
O’Reilly media is doing something I haven’t seen before: using github as a repository for a book. Github is a famous code repository, and I have seen it extended to include government data. But this sees like a new way to use it. Expect more non-traditional uses of github. In the meantime see: http://radar.oreilly.com/2013/01/open-government-files-released.html
There’s a fascinating study here highlighted in Nature News & Comment that dogs and their domestication may have been a result of farming. Key quote:
Most humans have also evolved to more easily digest starches2. Lindblad-Toh suggests that the rise of farming, beginning around 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, led to the adaptations in both species. “This is a striking sign of parallel evolution,” she says. “It really shows how dogs and humans have evolved together to be able to eat starch.”
Another interesting fact is that dogs have a gene that allows them to digest starch, a gene that the wolf does not have.
Well worth a read.
Really? Really! Amy Webb was not having much luck (to put it mildly) with dating sites, so she applied her excellent data analytical skills to come up with the best way to redo her profile to find her perfect match. See Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart – WSJ.com, for the details on how she did it. Well worth reading.
I am not familar with what other companies — including IBM — are doing in this area, but I think this story is impressive: Microsoft Global Foundations Services Blog : Microsoft Recycles Waste to Provide Clean Power for Data Center R&D.
Essentially Microsoft is using manure/poop/call it what you will to deliver power that they use to drive their data centers. I think this is impressive. I hope this solution spreads (no pun intended) to other power users. Kudos to them.
George Benson used to be huge. And for good reason.
This video is not special, but this song is, to me. Here’s George Benson- Give Me The Night
It seems incredible, but you can see the results in the video below.
Details on how Ben Krasnow built the CT Scanner can be found via clicking through.
Even though it is only a chicken, it is amazing to think about it being hacked like this. It also points the way to lower cost scanners.
(Via Tim O’Reilly.)
Yes, the Royal Canadian Mint has produced a Million Dollar Coin.
There are not many of them (five in all). And “why did the Royal Canadian Mint make the world’s purest and largest gold bullion coin? Because we can.”.
If that’s a good enough reason for a million dollar coin, it should be a good enough reason for a trillion dollar coin. 🙂
…then you should read this: The Top Five Career Regrets – Daniel Gulati – Harvard Business Review. What’s the number one regret? I wish I hadn’t taken the job for the money.It’s a good article and one anyone looking at their career should read.
If you are like me, you are getting more and more spam with little in it but a request to open a file. There’s two reasons for this. First, the less text, the more likelihood the spam will get past spam filters. Second, the opening of that file will potentially infect your computer with any number of problems. For example, if you open a PDF file, this page – — PDF Security Issues — describes some of the problems that could occur. Here’s a snippet from that page:
Javascript: Adobe Reader (and possibly other readers) contains a Javascript engine similar to the ones used by web browsers, but with a slightly different API to manipulate PDF content dynamically or to control some viewer features. Potentially dangerous features are restricted for obvious security reasons. However, this means that PDF documents are not purely static, and for example some actions may be used to fool a user (popups) or to send e-mails and HTTP requests automatically. Furthermore, experience shows that many recent vulnerabilities have been exploited using Javascript in PDF. Launch actions: a PDF file may launch any command on the operating system, after user confirmation (popup message). Different command lines may be specified for Windows, Unix and Mac. On Windows only, parameters can be provided for the command. Until Adobe Reader 9.3.2, the CVE-2010-1240 vulnerability made it possible to fool users by modifying the text of the popup message. Since Adobe Reader 9.3.3, a blacklist restricts file formats that can be opened, blocking executable files by default (but a way to bypass it has been found, and finally fixed in v9.3.4). Embedded files: a PDF file may contain attached files, which can be extracted and opened from the reader. This trick may be used to hide malicious executables in order to bypass some antivirus and content analysis engines. Fortunately, Adobe Reader refuses to open embedded files if their extension is part of a blacklist, such as EXE, BAT, CMD, etc. However, this blacklist is not perfect and formats such as HTML or Python scripts may be embedded in PDF and launched from Adobe Reader.
This is for PDF files. Similar things can happen with other files that can launch actions or embed files.
If you don’t know the person sending you the email, don’t open the file, even if you are curious. Just delete it.
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog. (Thanks, Helper Monkeys! :))
Here’s an excerpt:
19,000 people fit into the new Barclays Center to see Jay-Z perform. This blog was viewed about 160,000 times in 2012. If it were a concert at the Barclays Center, it would take about 8 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Over at the Root is a superb conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Henry Louis Gates on a wide range of topics, first and foremost being Tarantino’s new film, but also such things as:
A Django Unchained and Inglourious Basterds trilogy? The historical accuracy of the n-word in Django? The unlikely connection between the slavery-themed film and The Birth of a Nation? How Django fits into Hollywood’s overplayed, often offensive white-savior stereotype? You name it, and The Root‘s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Quentin Tarantino — whose latest film, Django Unchained, a “postmodern slave-narrative Western,” as Gates describes it, opened on Christmas Day — likely covered it in this exhaustive interview.
Well worth a look. But note: spoilers. They try to avoid them, but they appear in the interview.
Why? As this article shows:
In summary, files encrypted with BitLocker, PGP and Truecrypt are safe from this product as long as volumes are opened or mounted and then closed and demounted in an orderly way; doing this destroys the insecure memory dump. For extra safety, hibernation should be disabled.
In other words, to be safe, prevent as little as possible from being left hanging out in memory.
Taken from BitLocker, PGP and TrueCrypt encryption weakened by new attack tool – Techworld.com
There has been much talk about the violence in Quentin Tarantino’s new film, “Django Unchained”. I think two things should be mentioned.
First, Tarantino is no less violent than other directors such as Steven Spielberg. If anything, Spielberg can be more violent at times. I think Spielberg gets a pass on the amount of violence in his films for a number of reasons: the violence is seen as historic and not exploitive, he doesn’t have violence in all his films, and many of his films have an overall positive theme or message. That aside, when he uses violence, it is (at least to me) more shocking than Tarantino’s. For example, here is part of the Omaha Beach scene from “Saving Private Ryan”.
The actual scene goes on for much longer, culminating in the Americans slaughtering the Germans (or more like Romanians) coming out of the pill box. It’s a very long extended scene of hyper violence, and it is only one of many in the film. This can also be seen in his film, “Schindler’s List”. This is not to say the violence is wrong: it is very appropriate for the film he is making. But this is also true of Tarantino.
Second, as bad as it was in the film, the treatment of slaves and later freed slaves could be much worse than anything Tarantino depicted. As one example, this story of Henry Smith has stuck with me as a result of reading just how horrific it was. This passage is from Wikipedia, but if you follow the New York Times link at the bottom of the page in Wikipedia, you can read more detail of the story. Henry Smith was accused on killing a young white girl named Myrtle. He fled the town the crime occurred in, but..
was captured and brought back to Paris (Texas) by train, where a mob of an estimated 10,000 whites placed him on a carnival float and carried him through town and out into a prairie. There, he was placed upon a scaffold and tortured for fifty minutes by members of the girl’s family, who thrust hot iron brands into his flesh, starting with his feet and legs and working upward to his head. The family members involved included Myrtle’s father, uncles, and twelve-year-old brother. A February 2, 1893 article in the New York Sun stated that, “Every groan from the fiend, every contortion of his body was cheered by the thickly packed crowd.” Eventually, the hot irons were thrust into his eye sockets and down his throat. Afterwards, finding he was still breathing, the crowd poured oil on him and set him on fire. According to some newspaper accounts, Smith remained alive during the burning. He is said to have torn himself away from the post and fallen off the scaffolding, where he perished. The crowd then fought over the hot ashes to collect his bones and teeth as souvenirs.
Tarantino uses violence as part of how he communicates a story, as well as to viscerally engage his audience. It may seem shocking and excessive to some, but in the context of other filmmakers and in the context of the story he is telling, it makes sense in his latest film.
…then you likely should be very wary about what you share there too.
Randi Zuckerberg, Mark’s sister and former marketing director of Facebook, posted a photo to her Facebook. She was less than thrilled when someone reposted it to Twitter.
Yes, she is not just the CEO’s sister, but she worked there.
I like this photo, though I can see why she didn’t like to have it shared. She should talk to her brother, who is infamous for saying “Privacy is Dead – Deal With It” (Mark Zuckerberg – contentgroup).
For more, including the photo, see Buzzfeed’s article, Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Complains Of Facebook Privacy Breach.
This is a must read story on how Jack Klugman used his TV show, “Quincy”, to overcome political opposition and help people with orphan disaeases get the medicines they desparately needed: Jack Klugman’s secret, lifesaving legacy. It’s an great story, well told.
Jack Klugman recently died. May he rest in peace and may he be remembered as much as for this as being a much beloved actor.
Yes it is, despite everything. And speaking of It’s a Wonderful Life, it looks like the entire thing is posted on YouTube:
Merry Christmas and god bless.
It’s December 20th. You need Christmas music. Good Christmas music. Here you go:
If you want to buy it, you can get it here.
This New York Times article has a good summary of where things stand with G.M. It starts with this: NYT: U.S. to Sell Stake in G.M., and it has this money quote
Nearly four years after what became a $49.5 billion bailout, the Treasury Department announced on Wednesday that it would sell 200 million shares back to the company for $5.5 billion, then sell an additional 300 million shares by early 2014.
Currently, the exit would produce a loss of more than $12 billion for taxpayers
It’s seems to me that while the timing of this is partly a post-electoral move, it is also a realization on the U.S. Government’s part that it was never going to get its money back from G.M. directly. It was time to cut the strings and move on. Also, I think Americans do benefit from the auto industry still being alive, and while Ford didn’t benefit directly the way G.M. did, Ford did indirectly benefit from having others in the automotive business besides themselves. I think Americans benefit from having Ford and G.M. competing, assuming that the latter can turn itself around. Finally, if G.M. does sink in the future instead of swim, then it has no one to blame but itself.
(Thanks to Jaimewoo for this link.)
Smart People I Know 