Wednesday, May 14, 2003
Happy Birthday, Noah!
Noah Sifry, the little bull (he's a Taurus) arrived yesterday, which also happens to be the birthday of my favorite sister. If this astrology crap means anything, the boy will be fine. (Context: the very first thing my wife heard me say was "I'm a Leo, so I don't believe in astrology." But that's another story.)
That thing between your seats? It's a ticketholder now.
Howard Greenstein points to progress, or lack of same, on a New Jersey law that would illegalize drinking coffee while driving your car.
Is that a FireHose in your pocket, or are you glad to store me?
It looks like a public mailbox, but Marc says Gizmodo says it's a 2,000 GB (two terrabyte, no?) FireWire drive. The challenge: try to find out anything about it, or to buy it.
While we're off the subject, this looks cool too.
Xs and Os
You go girl!
Esther, one of the most on-the-go humans who isn't a stumping politician, is keeping up with her blog. This is good.
There's an interesting report on a talk given by her brother George:
George's talk, which delighted the other people there as much as it did me, touched on the Institute's history and its luminaries, including Janos von Neumann, Einstein, Oppenheimer and (recently died) Julian Bigelow, of whom George is a great champion. In short terms, Bigelow built the machine that von Neumann designed. But a lot of what George has discovered in the archives is touchingly human - memos about the computer guys taking too much sugar at the Institute teatime in the great hall, discussions of where to put their offices - next to Goedel in a spare room, or in more spacious digs in the basement next to the men's lavatory... (there was a certain prejudice amongst some of the scientists against mere engineers.) And my favorite memo - the one banning children under 10 years old from dining privileges!
Makes me wish George would hurry up and start a blog too.
Beating the DRM
Dr. Weinberger offers the best case against DRM I've read yet. Complete with a graphic of the author that I thought at first was J.D. Lasica. (See?)
Uh oh
Yes, I know they're just serving a market (a clueless, brain-dead market, yet one with some money to burn on market-limiting ideas), but it appears that Cisco doesn't understand The Symmetrical Net.
Time to revisit Death From Above, in which John Perry Barlow warned us about this very thing, more than eight years ago.
Ultimate graffiti
NASA has a way for you to get your name on a comet. Or blown to mist in deep space, anyway. Thanks to Mary for the pointer.
Enough, cont'd
Some follow-up on yesterday's post from Dave Aiello, Susan Kitchens, Dan Shafer, Evan Williams.