Nick's shared items in Google Reader

Apple's $30 Time Capsule Discount Could Point at 2TB Time Capsule? [Apple]

2009-04-07T18:07:54Z

Shared by Nick
...or they've realized that the $320 is not a competitive price for a 1TB drive.

Apple's offering a $30 discount to MobileMe users on both OS X Leopard and Time Capsule. This makes us think that a 2TB Time Capsule is coming soon. Here's why.

• Snow Leopard is due out soon, so Apple needs to clear out Leopard inventory via a $30 discount
• 2TB hard drives just hit the market relatively recently, so NASes and other storage devices using 2TB are the next logical step
• ClubMac and MacMall both showed rendered box shots of a 2TB Time Capsule drive

So with the above points, it seems likely to conclude that Apple's either phasing out the 500GB Time Capsule units in order to make room for the 2TB ones, or just want to reward the people who have been MobileMe customers for a while.

Comic for April 5, 2009

2009-04-05T07:00:00Z

04/06/09 PHD comic: 'If TV Science was more like REAL Science'

2009-04-06T19:40:25Z

Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham		www.phdcomics.com

title: "If TV Science was more like REAL Science" - originally published 4/6/2009 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE!

Comic for April 7, 2009

2009-04-07T07:00:00Z

A product I would really like to see...

2009-04-01T22:16:23Z

I would love to have a set of noise-canceling head phones that could filter out bureaucratese and administrative noise from academic and other meetings, so that only relevant and interesting information reaches the wearer's ears.

(Yes, I initially sent this to some collaborators as an April Fool's joke. But eventually, this could really be done.)

As an academic and a technologist, I inevitably have to sit through many meetings of a bureaucratic nature, characterized by a low information signal-to-noise ratio, slow tempo and endless repetitions. As Brad Delong has described it, "an academic meeting is not over when everything has been said, but when everything has been said by everyone."

Imagine a collaboration with a good search technology company, such as FAST (now Microsoft) and a good headphone company, such as BOSE. Noise-canceling headphones work by recording the ambient sound picture and then filtering out noise (characterized by an irregular wave pattern), only letting well-modulated sound waves, such as voices and music, through.

It is a small step to strengthen this filtering by using advanced search technologies such as sentiment analysis, which applies automated semantic analysis to words and phrases. It is now mostly used to automatically evaluate blog comments, but it could be used directly on the audio patterns coming in, perhaps initially using speech-to-text conversion. Since administrative and bureaucratic language is characterized by many easily recognizable phrases and a high degree of repetition, it should lend itself well to filtering both in an initial phase and through collaborative techniques (easily implementable with a red "banish" button on the head phones themselves.) Personalization could also add value, by filtering out stuff you have heard before and only letting through things that are new to you.

Response time might be a problem, but professors are deemed to be a bit slow in their reaction to external stimuli anyway, so I doubt if anyone would notice any difference.

(Initial responses from my collaborators suggested dealing with this by skipping the meetings altogether, which I must admit is an attractive alternative. But not everyone can do that, and besides, there is always the chance that something might slip through the filter.) And imagine the market opportunities, for students, journalists, politicians, parents (at PTA meetings). Not to mention how this would put the final nail in the TV advertising coffin. I suppose seeing a movie such as Groundhog Day would be hard, but personalization would eventually fix that.

Ah, the dreams of reason...

How-to: Fix your stupid internet

2009-04-01T19:41:50Z

Dear Hack a Day,
Websites keep publishing poorly executed jokes today; how can I fix this?

We’ve been getting a lot of questions on the tip line like the one above, so we put together this one-step illustrated how-to. If you’re not the physical labor type, you can use [Steve Lambert]’s SelfControl.

It ain't braggin', if you...

2009-04-01T15:45:00Z

...can do it...

“Since the dawn of the nuclear age, we have not had a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest. People say that they’ll behave like any other nuclear power."

"Can you take the risk?"

UltraDNS Service Brought Down by DOS Attack

2009-04-01T14:33:20Z

UltraDNS, a managed domain name service (DNS) service owned by NeuStar, went offline on Tuesday because of a distributed denial of service attack, reports NetworkWorld magazine.

Early this morning, our monitoring systems detected a significant denial of service attack, which affected a small subset of our customers, in some cases for as long as a few hours.

According to UltraDNS competitor Dynamic Network Services, which first reported the outage, the downtime impacted big UltraDNS customers such as Amazon.com, Salesforce.com, Advertising.com and Petco.com. It came on the heels of a DDOS-induced outage at GoGrid that was launched Monday afternoon.

Missing the Point

2009-04-01T15:00:00Z

Darren's coworker: "I understood your point about minimum privileges. So, now service user need be in only one group: Administrators."

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HP considers dropping Windows for Android in netbooks

2009-04-01T15:44:23Z

HP, the dominant PC manufacturer, could potentially be preparing to develop a netbook product with Google's Linux-based Android software platform. According to multiple reports, HP has confirmed that it is studying Google's operating system, but has not disclosed specific plans for adoption yet.

When Google opened the source code of Android's Cupcake development branch, the company revealed that it had implemented preliminary support for running the operating system on the x86 architecture, thus opening the door for Android to be used on Atom-based netbooks. Android could also potentially be adopted on next-generation ARM-based netbooks.

Click here to read the rest of this article

Suddenly, Miss Universe is channelling Mark Steyn

2009-04-01T14:20:00Z

In case you miss this story in your cyber-wanderings: read this.

And now, open the floodgates of Galloway supporters who will insult and demean Miss Universe... let's fill in their blanked outrage for them:

"Miss Universe? Stick to mall openings! You obviously don't have a clue!"

"Miss Universe? She probably wears fur... the monster!"

"What was her talent.... denying reality?"

"She should be tried for war crimes complicity!"

"More like Miss Alternate Universe!"

"Oh yeah, who funded the Miss Universe contest... Halliburton?"

"Climate Change Denier!"

New York’s ‘Not Austere’ Budget

2009-04-01T12:55:00Z

“Not Austere” is how the New York Times is describing the state’s $131.8 billion budget for 2009-2010. As a colleague pointed out to me, “how bad does a budget have to be for the New York Times to call it ‘not austere’?” Apparently, pretty bad.

In addition to an estimated $7 billion in tax and fee increases, total state spending would increase almost 9% when federal “stimulus” money is included. Supporters dismiss the inclusion of bailout money in the totals, but for those who think the “temporary” federal bailout money won’t foster otherwise higher state spending going forward, I’ve got a lot for sale in Poughkeepsie.

The Albany Times-Union reported that Gov. Paterson cited public employee labor contracts as a reason for the budget increase. Once again, the needs of the productive class (i.e., taxpayers) take a back seat to the bureaucratic class living at their expense. Of course, New York’s policymakers were also able to find money for critical expenditures on “gun clubs, churches, a yoga foundation and the Wantagh American Legion Pipe Band, among thousands of other projects.”

The biggest tax increase is a surcharge on personal income taxes paid by “the wealthy” that is supposed to net state coffers $4 billion. (Note to New York personal income tax payers: New Hampshire doesn’t have one.) But other tax increases will hit all walks of New York life including an increased assessment on utilities, a motor vehicle registration fee increase of 25 percent, an increase in driver’s license fees of 25 percent, increased taxes on beer and wine, a tax increase on auto rentals of 1 percent, and possibly the most insulting — a new $100 fee on tax preparers (guess who’s going to ultimately pay that one?).

So Much for the Promise of Financial Transparency

2009-04-01T12:56:30Z

President Barack Obama promised transparency and accountability for how the federal government spends the trillions — or is it quadrillions (I’ve lost count)? — in bail-out money, stimulus outlays, and expanded government programs. Alas, his administration doesn’t seem interested in living up to his promises.

Reports ABC News:

The watchdog for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the government’s financial rescue plan, said today that the Treasury Department has not been cooperating with oversight efforts up to this point.

“We do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department,” the Congressional Oversight Panel’s Elizabeth Warren told a Senate Finance Committee hearing today.

“We have sent letters. We have requested that there be someone named so that we can get technical information. And so far, we have not been a first priority,” Warren said. “We use what you give us, and we will exercise the leverage given to us by Congress. In part, that’s why I’m here today. I’m here to talk to you about what’s happened so far, what we have discovered so far, the inquiries that we have in mid-stream and for which we continue to await responses.”

Warren, visibly frustrated with a lack of cooperation from the administration, emphasized, “This problem starts with Treasury.”

Obviously, this isn’t the first time that a presidential commitment has gone aglimmering. But given the extraordinary opportunity for pervasive waste, fraud, and abuse in the tsunami of new federal spending, few presidential commitments have been as important.

CodeSOD: Rly, Rly, Rly Tru

2009-04-01T14:15:00Z

A.C. found this in a project:

public override bool IsActive() {
  return true && true && true; 
}

Now that's some serious truth.

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Major Woz Dancing With the Stars Development! (Spoilers) [This Sucks]

2009-04-01T02:39:07Z

Spoilers Ahead!

After long weeks of dancing his heart out, propped up on his busted up legs by only his resolve, courage and legions of SMS-voting geeks, Steve "ThunderToes" Wozniac is booted from Dancing With the Stars.

For some, he was hard to watch dancing. OK, maybe for most. But not to me.

To me he was a giant (but rapidly decreasing in weight, mind you) bundle of circuit board, segway riding, love bouncing around with the enthusiasm of a child on two barely-functioning legs. The man who could out design professional mainframe builders in his early teens found dancing impossible, but here he was trying, bucking what fate handed him (genius, riches) for what nearly everyone else took for granted (having fewer than two left feet). Woz is a deep geek—ours—with the accompanying social awkwardness. And he lost, and lost perhaps more badly than any contestant in the history of the show. But I don't think anyone else faced such overwhelming odds. And who can resist cheering for the underdog?

Lets see if we can get Woz on Survivor or American Gladiators. [Newsday]

*Sorry for spoiling the ending, ladies and dudes. I figured it was not so much a "spoiler" as a "save-you-from-having-to-watch-bad-TV-ler".

Rush Limbaugh quoting Ayn Rand

2009-04-01T03:16:13Z

I'm not always a fan of Rush, but he's on fire in this particular monologue. For the full effect, listen to the audio. Here's a partial transcript with some juicy bits:

When you vote for politicians who take from your back pocket to give to others, you think it's compassionate, you think it's caring? It's not. It's depriving the recipient of his own quest for self-interest. The brilliant writer and novelist, Ayn Rand, has written about this. Let me give you a couple quotes from Ayn Rand on this. "It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master." That is President Obama. "Where there is sacrifice, there's somebody collecting the sacrificial offerings." What does it mean? President Obama says, "We all need to sacrifice," for this reason or that reason. What it means is we all need to pay more; we need to have less affluent lives; we need to dial down our prosperity, and we need to give the money to him, not a charity. He's going to eliminate, for all intents and purposes, the tax deductibility, it's going to be 28 cents for every dollar, charitable donations. He wants to be the distributor of the charitable donations. He wants to be the distributor of the goods because he wants the glory.

Again, check out the audio. Perhaps Rush will become a libertarian someday! (No, not really.)

Colleges Open Doors Wider

2009-04-01T03:08:51Z

Private schools, worried about recession's effect on families, hedge bets by admitting more applicants.

Pensioner banned from driving after being caught doing 10mph on shopping trip

2009-04-01T03:08:30Z

Shared by Nick
This needs to happen way, way more often. Elderly drivers are often more dangerous than young drivers. Young drivers wrap themselves around telephone poles. Elderly drivers cause accidents around them due to their constant unexpected maneuvers and incredibly slow driving.

Pensioner banned from driving after being caught doing 10mph on shopping trip

Cellphone-Smuggling Pigeons Are a Jailbird's Best Friend [Cellphones]

2009-04-01T02:40:00Z

Hey you jailkeepers, you know how the inmates been asking about keeping harmless little pigeons around? Well, it's a con: They're using them to smuggle in cellphones.

The AP reports that at the Danilio Pinheiro prison in Sorocaba, Brazil, inmates were raising pigeons, having them smuggled out, strapped with packs on their legs containing cellphone parts and, in one instance, an entire cell charger. The pigeons' weakness? Food. Guards were able to lure them down from the high fences, and foil the dastardly schemes of the as-yet-unknown culprits.

It's a funny story, but it's not super hilarious when you learn that the cellphones are smuggled into prisons so that the imprisoned gang leaders can carry out horrific attacks on police and public transportation, as Sao Paolo's First Capital Command gang did in 2006, killing over 200 people.

So if you see a pigeon chilling on the prison wall, shoot first, and then frisk it for cell parts. [SF Gate/AP]

Why mothers in a cold climate are more likely to have boys

2009-04-01T01:06:48Z

Women living in cooler climates are more likely to give birth to boys than those in the tropics, a study has shown.