November 15, 2008 06:08 AM
deusx : Skyline Drive - San Francisco Travel Story - IgoUgo - "From San Francisco: - Head south on I280 towards San Jose - Exit onto Hwy 92 heading west towards Half Moon Bay - Stay on Hwy 92 for about 2 miles - Make a left turn onto Hwy 35 heading south. You are now on Skyline Drive. From San Jose: - Head sou
あるAnonymous Coward 曰く、
builder by ZDNet Japanの記事によると、Windows 7の初期のベンチマーク結果はWindows Vistaのそれとさほど変わらないという。(参考：InfoWorldの記事)
ただし、この記事を書いた記者はWindows 7を「職場環境での試用を進めている」ところだそうで、「初期のビルドにしては、信じられないほど安定している」と評価している。
Permalink | 続きを読む | コメントを読む | コメントを書く
<p>DragonFly BSD Digest says:<br /> <blockquote>User &#8220;dark0s Optik&#8221; has put together a graphical tool for managing pkgsrc, called &#8220;pkgsrcgfe&#8221;. I&#8217;d say to give it a whirl, but I don&#8217;t recall seeing a download link yet. </p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2008/11/11/3378.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/8VTjMngairk" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>DragonFly BSD Digest says:<br /> <blockquote>User &#8220;dark0s Optik&#8221; has put together a graphical tool for managing pkgsrc, called &#8220;pkgsrcgfe&#8221;. I&#8217;d say to give it a whirl, but I don&#8217;t recall seeing a download link yet. </p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2008/11/11/3378.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/mNHT2koHIDg" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>DragonFly BSD Digest says:<br /> <blockquote>The newest BSDTalk is about trying various BSDs (including DragonFly) on a EeePC 900A. Little netbooks are this close to being an acceptable price/performance combination for me&#8230;<br /> Will Backman, the host, is going to be at MeetBSD, which is happening in 5 days&#8230; </p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2008/11/11/3376.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/5YHn9uR_lgE" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6134990750731157418 says:<br /> <blockquote>Note that this free <a href="http://www.ebusinesscluster.com/_news/news_64.php">event</a> is being held in Ottawa on November 19:</p> <p>Successful e-commerce is all about finding, keeping and converting website traffic. While first time visitors are likely your largest underperforming segment of website traffic, investments in search and email also make them your most expensive. So whether your conversion is about revenue, registrations or downloads, how can you improve the online experience to optimize results? Join Carolyn Gardner, Director of Customer Experience at Sitebrand, as she discusses the realities of driving traffic, building visitor personas and creating personalized messaging to maximize the conversion of first-time visitors.</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://osbrca.blogspot.com/2008/11/e-commerce-finding-keeping-and.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/GOVgsUFo34k" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6134990750731157418 says:<br /> <blockquote>Tristan Rhodes has an interesting <a href="http://useopensource.blogspot.com/2008/11/evolution-of-open-source-software.html">post</a> on the trend of proprietary vendors becoming more open and open source vendors becoming more closed. As stated, &#8220;The line between these categories is going to become very blurred as they converge around a common middle-ground.&#8221;</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://osbrca.blogspot.com/2008/11/evolution-of-open-source-software.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/BT1S_nGAo3g" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>DragonFly BSD Digest says:<br /> <blockquote>I have a number of things to link which probably can all go together:</p> <p>Useful (Stupid) BlackBerry Tricks, to go with the previous ones for Unix, Vi, Emacs, and Regexes.<br /> Dru Lavigne brings work of the November OSBR issue: &#8220;Health and Life Sciences&#8220;, along with something else I didn&#8217;t know the BSD Fund was supporting: Events.<br /> BoingBoing is [...]</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2008/11/12/3384.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/6j0jJUQ7bAc" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6134990750731157418 says:<br /> <blockquote>These events didn&#8217;t make the publication deadline for the November issue:</p> <p><span style="font-weight:bold;">November 25</span></p> <p><a href="http://carletoninnovation.com/sic/">2008 Social Innovation Challenge</a></p> <p><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Ottawa, ON</span></p> <p>Those attending will have the opportunity to vote for the top ideas from the following six finalists:</p> <p>* Forming a Community Institute in the Mayfair Theatre Building<br />* Helping Ottawa&#8217;s Street Youth to Redefine Themselves<br />* Ottawa Blue Book Search Engine Tool<br />* Royal Ritchie Drummers (a music initiative for youth at risk)<br />* Transit Library Kiosk in Ottawa<br />* YUP - The Youthful Useful Program</p> <p>Please <a href="mailto:engage@cfo-fco.ca"> RSVP</a> by November 17th</p> <p><span style="font-weight:bold;">&#8212;</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight:bold;">December 1</span></p> <p><a href="http://www.barcamp.org/DemoCampOttawa11">DemoCampOttawa11</a></p> <p><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ottawa, ON</span></p> <p>At a DemoCamp you can show off your software or hardware and get feedback from an informed audience. A DemoCamp is a small unconference-style event. The demos listed so far are:</p> <p>*Dex - a business relationship management tool for professionals &#038; small businesses<br />*ChoiceBot for e-Retailers v2.0 - decision-assisting tool for shopping sites that allows shoppers to figure out which TV, car, washing machine, etc. to buy in under 2 minutes.</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://osbrca.blogspot.com/2008/11/upcoming-events-ottawa.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/X85AsvnZ7Vg" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>A Year in the Life of a BSD Guru says:<br /> <blockquote>BSD Fund announced two projects this month. For those not familiar with the Fund, it is a 501(c)(3) non-profit (i.e. can issue US tax receipts) which funds cross-BSD projects, events and initiatives. The two active projects are:</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://networking.ittoolbox.com/r/rss.asp?url=http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/bsd-guru/bsdfund-projects-28251'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/HvpkUUg7y0c" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32797070 says:<br /> <blockquote>I&#8217;m in California this weekend for MeetBSD, celebrating FreeBSD&#8217;s 15th birthday!<br /><a href="http://www.meetbsd.com/"><img src="http://meetbsd.com/images/banners/meetbsdskyscraper.png"></a><br />Come on out and join the fun.</p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2008/11/meetbsd.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/3v3f1bE9xn0" height="1" width="1"/></content>
<p>DragonFly BSD Digest says:<br /> <blockquote>Matthew Dillon is adding versioning support to Hammer; it&#8217;ll support in-place version upgrading. The gory details of his current plan are available, with an interesting tidbit: Hammer directory lookups remain the same speed even with 2 billion files in a directory, while UFS will be O(N^3) speed after several hundred thousand. </p></blockquote> <p><b>More:</b> <a target='_blank' href='http://www.shiningsilence.com/dbsdlog/2008/11/13/3388.html'> continued here </a></p> <img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bsdnews/GjyA/~4/ts7KRPdNQco" height="1" width="1"/></content>
あるAnonymous Coward 曰く、
フィリップスが、体内で効果的に投薬するための器具「iPill」を発表しました（Reutersの記事、プレスリリース）
CPU、バッテリー、無線装置、各種センサー、ポンプ、薬液タンクなどを小さなカプセルに詰め込んだもので、患部で直接投薬できるため少ない薬量で効果が得られ、それゆえ副作用も軽くて済むそうです。たとえば、クローン病患者の場合は、腸内の酸性度をセンサーで検知して、必要に応じて炎症抑制剤を投薬するということが可能になるとのこと。体内温度を計測して無線でレポートするといった機能も持つそうです。
特定部位にどうやって留まらせるのかわからなかったのですが、便と一緒に出てきたりしないのでしょうか。
Permalink | 続きを読む | コメントを読む | コメントを書く
Googleがインフルエンザの流行状況を可視化するシステム「Google Flu Trends」を開発した。
米国の各州ごとにグラフを表示することができる。Google Trendsを応用したもので、キーワード「flu」（インフルエンザ）による検索数とインフルエンザの流行度合いに高い相関性があるという発見に基づくもの（実際にはflu以外のキーワードの結果も加味してあるようだ）。しかも、米国疾病対策予防センター（CDC）が発表するレポートよりも1～2週間早くインフルエンザの流行状況を把握できるとのこと。
検索キーワードのトレンドが実社会のトレンドを反映しているのは言われてみればきわめて自然なことだが、ほかにも有用な応用ができそうだ。
Permalink | 続きを読む | コメントを読む | コメントを書く
Girl #1: I didn't think that Newark was actually a place. I thought it was just an airport and a factory. But apparently it has, like, government-funded housing or something.
Girl #2: So, like, poor people?
Girl #1: Yeah!
--Greenwich Village
The first Unity3D on Linux screenshot:
The above program was built on MacOS, the result copied to Linux and then executed using the LinuxPlayer.
I followed Joachim's advise and added a tiny script to update the cube on the screen. See the video of the cubes in action: ogg and wmv.
Bush salió a recibir al presidente a la puerta de la Casa Blanca, se dieron un apretón de manos y se dirigió a Zapatero con un: "Hola, ¿cómo estás amigo?". Leer
Guy #1: How many times did I come?
Guy #2: Well, you came really fast freshman year.
Girl: Uhh...are we just going to ignore that phrasing?
--East Village
Las pelucas y máscaras dejarán de venderse en la plaza Mayor porque el Ayuntamiento quiere recuperar el "espíritu navideño". Leer. Escuchar
Well. I got a very nice note from Gene Quinn. He's reading Groklaw. I'm reading what he is writing, because it's fascinating, and it's an opportunity to speak directly with a patent attorney who is a true believer.
His most recent article is one I think we should answer, since his fundamental question is this: why should software *not* be patentable?
From a conceptual standpoint why not allow for software to be patented. What is the harm? I know many of you reading this have now gone into an apoplectic rage, but conceptually why should software be treated any differently? Isn't the problem that patent offices, particularly the United States Patent Office, are increasingly doing a poor job of finding relevant prior art and weeding out what is new and non-obvious from what is old and obvious? If prosecution were more meaningful, what is the harm in granting software patents? I see none because there is none....Software is not a mathematical equation, nor is it a mathematical language. How anyone who writes software or professes to understand software could argue to the contrary is beyond me. Do people who write software actually think they are sitting down and writing mathematical equations and stringing them together? It is absurd to have such a narrow view of software. When you write software you are trying to enable a device, such as a computer, to provide certain functionality given a certain stimulus. So you are writing instructions for a computer or other device and explaining how the computer or device needs to process information. You do not explain how to process information with mathematical equations.
If you would read his article in full and then answer him here, in members-only space, I'll collect the best comments and try to tie it all together, if it works out well. It's an opportunity to reach not only Quinn but all the other patent attorneys who do read what he writes.
Game on?
Update 2: I'm reading your comments, and I don't think I can improve on them. So I'll let you all speak directly, by making this article public now.
Andy Baio : Esquire's hosting Between, the new two-player networked game by Jason Rohrer - from the creator of Passage
Cramer told viewers he does not want to be anywhere near a casino company.
La inmobiliaria logró un beneficio de 356,9 millones en el mismo periodo de 2007. Su política de saneamiento pasa por la venta de Riofisa. Leer
Space shuttle Endeavour safely blasted off from Kennedy Space Center this evening, delivering extra living space for the International Space Station and the promise of cold, refreshing recycled urine on tap.…
Space shuttle Endeavour safely blasted off from Kennedy Space Center this evening, delivering extra living space for the International Space Station and the promise of cold, refreshing recycled urine on tap.…
A British woman is divorcing her husband after catching his Second Life avatar having cybersex with other virtual women.…
A British woman is divorcing her husband after catching his Second Life avatar having cybersex with other virtual women.…
Cramer says ahead of a General Motors fall, you have two choices: Sit on the sidelines or sell ahead of the news.
jcgregorio : Data Catalog - Wow, live Atom feeds of DC gov't data, sweet.
Richard Rutter : Accessible Forms using WCAG 2.0 - Useful examples, backed up with video evidence.
Richard Rutter : Fieldset legends – too much accessibility - Interesting reminder that JAWS repeats the legend with each form control.
Susie: (singing)
Father: How old are you, Susie?
Susie: Nine.
Father: No...
Susie: Okay, I'm six.
Father: Do you want to live to be seven?
Susie: Mhmm...
Father: Then shut up.
--Post Office, 112th b/w Broadway & Amersterdam
Overheard by: Kristina
Iceland Via Paul Kedrofsky, here's a gorgeous and heartbreaking account of economic collapse in Iceland: "Trust in the banks had evaporated and people were trying to find a safe haven for their cash. One man had waited for six hours...
Mozilla's open source Firefox browser accounts for 20 per cent of the worldwide browser market. So there's no doubt Reg readers are outside the norm.…
Mozilla's open source Firefox browser accounts for 20 per cent of the worldwide browser market. So there's no doubt Reg readers are outside the norm.…
In horse race betting there's a concept called 'steam'. A once-popular way of scamming a local off track betting place was to go to an actual horserace, bet big on a guaranteed loser horse, then go to an off track betting place and place a yet even bigger bet on the horse which was likely to win. Because off track betting placed didn't used to routinely use the same pool as at the track, they'd simply mimic the odds add the track, and by using steam you could induce them to place an extremely unfavorable bet.
What does this have to do with the mortgage market? Well, as it happens the credit default swap market is many times the size of the actual mortgage market. How'd that happen? Well, overzealous investors ran out of actual mortgages to invest in, so they simply started placing side bets on how the mortgage market would do, totally many times how big the actual market underneath is. AIG is in a position of being the biggest insurer of the garbage. These two facts put together make for an interesting possible scenario. Since the amount of money on the line is greater than the actual size of the underlying market, AIG could potentially agree to cover every mortgage company's loss in any short sale (a short sale is where the mortgage company agrees to forgive part of a loan to make a sale happen, as a way of avoiding forecloser). That would immediately result in the number of foreclosures being near zero, and AIG would magically have made it so it didn't have to pay out on any of its side bets.
Chances are that the numbers don't work out for this to be a winning proposition. Maybe the CDO insurance industry as a whole, rather than just the largest player, could manage to get away with it. In any case, it sure would be funny.
Credit reference agency Equifax has launched an online identity card scheme that aims to reduce consumer security and password headaches.…
Credit reference agency Equifax has launched an online identity card scheme that aims to reduce consumer security and password headaches.…
Many technology vendors would go very far to be allowed to speak at one of the major analyst conferences for CIOs and other enterprise technology buyers.
So, in our case, an unsolicited invitation to speak at such a conference showed up in my e-mail inbox a couple of months ago. Then, a reminder, a few weeks later. And another repeat invitation. The jackpot, many vendors would say.
Except, that thanks to the spam-fighting wisdom of my e-mail program, I never got to see any of those e-mail invitations. Clearly, the spam filter must have thought, these guys are just trying to sell me something.
So here I am, having repeatedly sleighted this invitation from a major analyst firm, without even realizing it. I only found out yesterday, by accident.
Can one apologize on behalf of one's spam filter? Would anybody right in their mind accept such an apology?
Life used to be simpler ...
The bump in Archer Daniels Midland shows that agriculture is still in play.
In a case that could have important implications for law enforcement investigations throughout the US, a federal judge has ruled that the cryptographic fingerprinting of suspects' hard drives constitutes a search for purposes of the Constitution.…
In a case that could have important implications for law enforcement investigations throughout the US, a federal judge has ruled that the cryptographic fingerprinting of suspects' hard drives constitutes a search for purposes of the Constitution.…
factoryjoe : Will OpenID catch on? (ZDNet.com) - Coverage of my blog post... begging the question: "Will OpenID catch on" (in spite of its current quirks). Saved By: Chris Messina | View Details | Give Thanks Tags: openid, identity,:mento.info
deusx : Nov. 13, 1982: Teen Sets 'Asteroids' Record in 3-Day Marathon - "His mother drove him to the event and lent him a quarter, which he dropped into the machine Nov. 13. Some three days later, having taken only brief bathroom and food breaks, Safran finished his game with 41,336,440 points, nudging out the previous
Andy Baio : "What's that buzzing noise from my BBQ?" - he thought he was killing a few bees, but ends up annihilating an entire colony
ABC in this case stands for Atmospheric Brown Clouds, and they are in part skewing with both climate research and also happen to be a big part of it. Man made pollution is so severe over part of the Asian land mass that it is both exacerbating and nullifying the normal atmospheric balancing of forces that tends to give the Earth a more moderate and livable for us climate. Some particulates absorb heat, increasing global warming, whereas other atmospheric aerosols reflect it, tending to make things cooler. The overall depth and opacity of these huge clouds of burning everything in all manners reduce sunlight hitting the surface, which makes it bad for the plant life, which will certainly make it bad for us. And breathing the stuff and soaking in it is obviously contraindicated. Trying to analyze these forces has been the goal of a large UN project, with the Atmospheric Brown Cloud Report.
The trading panel looks at what the high rollers are buying.
Stephanie Link, director of research for the Action Alerts Plus Portfolio, divulges the best stock to buy on the heels of China's $586 billion stimulus package.
Shares of some top financial companies were down at the close of trading.
Apple executive-in-waiting Mark Papermaster is countersuing his former employer IBM for attempting to bar his employment in Cupertino.…
Apple executive-in-waiting Mark Papermaster is countersuing his former employer IBM for attempting to bar his employment in Cupertino.…
PEGGY NOONAN WRITES HUMDRUM COLUMN THIS SEVEN-DAY!: Can you even believe it? She just has a bunch of modestly valid points jumping all over the place, but nothing about seeing a Mexican or viewing a “rabbity forest creature darting among the hedgerows” on her television machine. Has our Miss Noonington been reading Wonkette’s weekly scholarly criticism of “Declarations” and decided to tone down the neo-Victorianisms? ‘Twoud be a shame! FREE PEGGY NOONAN! [WSJ]
Thanks to this week's kottke.org RSS sponsor, 20x200, a site that sells limited edition art for low prices...it's "art for everyone". Each week the site features two pieces of new art for sale in small-sized editions of 200 for $20, medium-sized editions of 20 for $200, and large-sized editions of 2 for $2000. This is real art -- all prints are signed and numbered by the artist -- for about the same as you would spend for a poster or wall decoration at Target or Ikea.
The best way to enjoy 20x200 is to sign up for the newsletter or follow the site's RSS feed and when something you like comes along, nab it. My wife and I have bought a few things from 20x200 this way, most recently a special edition $50 print of 132 Birds at The American Museum of Natural History by Jason Polan.
(link)
Thanks to this week's kottke.org RSS sponsor, 20x200, a site that sells limited edition art for low prices...it's "art for everyone". Each week the site features two pieces of new art for sale in small-sized editions of 200 for $20, medium-sized editions of 20 for $200, and large-sized editions of 2 for $2000. This is real art -- all prints are signed and numbered by the artist -- for about the same as you would spend for a poster or wall decoration at Target or Ikea.
The best way to enjoy 20x200 is to sign up for the newsletter or follow the site's RSS feed and when something you like comes along, nab it. My wife and I have bought a few things from 20x200 this way, most recently a special edition $50 print of 132 Birds at The American Museum of Natural History by Jason Polan.
(link)A filing challenges two patents associated with Emtriva, a component of Truvada.
deusx : Nebraska fears rush to drop off kids before haven law change - CNN.com - "All but six have been older than 10, according to a Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services analysis. The safe haven law was meant to protect infants, but there is no age limit under the current law. Five of the abandoned children were brou
Drunk suit #1: My dick is so big my girlfriend sucks it everyday.
Drunk suit #2: Your girlfriend lives in Canada! Your dick isn't that big.
--Daisy's Diner, Park Slope
Overheard by: peej
Now that the Flip has released their handheld digital HD video camera, here's a little rundown of the offerings currently out there and coming soon.
Kodak Zi6 - 128MB of built-in memory, expandable to 32GB, 720p, 1280x720 at 60 fps, 2.4 in. LCD, AA rechargable batteries. $180. (Video sample.)
Flip Video MinoHD - 4GB of built-in memory (~60 min of video), 720p, 1280x720 at 30 fps, 1.5 in. LCD, very slim handheld. $229. (Video sample.)
Nikon D90 SLR - expandable SD memory, 720p, 1280x720 at 24 fps for 5 minutes at a time, 3 in. LCD, and almost every single setting and control that's available on a SLR camera. $1200. (Video samples.)
Canon 5D Mark II SLR - expandable CF memory, 1080p, 1920x1080 at 24 fps for 30 minutes at a time, 3 in. LCD, and almost every single setting and control that's available on a SLR camera. $2700. (Video sample.)
Red One - Not going to list the specs on this one, except to to say that you can shoot whole feature length movies on this thing at a higher resolution for less money than pretty much any other camera out there, digital or otherwise. $17500. (Gorgeous video sample.)
Now that the Flip has released their handheld digital HD video camera, here's a little rundown of the offerings currently out there and coming soon.
Kodak Zi6 - 128MB of built-in memory, expandable to 32GB, 720p, 1280x720 at 60 fps, 2.4 in. LCD, AA rechargable batteries. $180. (Video sample.)
Flip Video MinoHD - 4GB of built-in memory (~60 min of video), 720p, 1280x720 at 30 fps, 1.5 in. LCD, very slim handheld. $229. (Video sample.)
Nikon D90 SLR - expandable SD memory, 720p, 1280x720 at 24 fps for 5 minutes at a time, 3 in. LCD, and almost every single setting and control that's available on a SLR camera. $1200. (Video samples.)
Canon 5D Mark II SLR - expandable CF memory, 1080p, 1920x1080 at 24 fps for 30 minutes at a time, 3 in. LCD, and almost every single setting and control that's available on a SLR camera. $2700. (Video sample.)
Red One - Not going to list the specs on this one, except to to say that you can shoot whole feature length movies on this thing at a higher resolution for less money than pretty much any other camera out there, digital or otherwise. $17500. (Gorgeous video sample.)
New York Times Grand Inquisitor Deborah Solomon has her way with Karl Rove this week, and naturally the interview concludes with Rove in hysterics and offering to send Solomon a transcription of all the ways that she hurt him, irrecoverably. “You’re the one who hurt my feelings by saying you didn’t trust me,” Rove said, exemplifying the bizarre lows into which the interview delves.
Before that, she asks him, hypothetically, if he has any words of advice for Bush. Rove, a twelve year old girl, responds that he’s better friends with Bush than Solomon is, and if he wanted to say something to him he just would, okay, he doesn’t need her to act like their friendship has anything to do with her.
The most revealing admission by Rove is a throwaway line in which he displays an almost maternal instinct to conceal details about his dumb stamp collection, which no one cared about in the first place until he brought it up out of nowhere. Observe:
Are you going to send [Obama] a little note congratulating him?
I already have. I sent it to his office. I sent him a handwritten note with funny stamps on the outside.What kind of funny stamps?
Stamps.
It should be noted that this isn’t the first time Karl Rove’s filthy stamp fetish has announced itself unto the world. In a 2006 Vanity Fair profile, Todd Purdam reported that a letter sent by Rove was “plastered with a hodgepodge of vintage stamps from his collection, including an eight-center with a stylized image of a bobsled, commemorating the Sapporo Olympics, in 1972.”
What is wrong with this deviant?
Questions for Karl Rove [New York Times]
Karl Rove’s Split Personality [Vanity Fair]
The South Financial Group on Friday said it had received preliminary approval for $347 million in federal aid, despite controversy surrounding a $12 million golden parachute for its former CEO.
Several interesting things are happening in the wild world of digital photography as it's colliding with digital video. Most notably, the new Canon 5D Mark II (roughly $2700) can record 1080p video and the new Nikon D90 (roughly $1000) can record 720p video. At the higher end, Red just announced some cameras that will ship next year that will be able to record full video (as fast as 120 frames per second in some cases) at far greater than HD resolutions (for $12K, you can record video at a staggering 6000x4000 pixels). You can configure a Red camera as a still camera or as a video camera.
Recently, well-known photographer Vincent Laforet (perhaps best known for his aerial photographs, such as "Me and My Human") got his hands on a pre-production Canon 5D Mark II and filmed a "mock commercial" called "Reverie", which shows off what the camera can do, particularly its see-in-the-dark low-light abilities. If you read Laforet's blog, you'll see that he's quite excited, not just about the technical aspects of the camera, but about what this means to him as a professional photographer. Suddenly, he can leverage all of the expensive lenses that he already owns and capture professional-quality video "for free." This has all kinds of ramifications for what it means to cover an event.
For example, at professional sporting events, video rights are entirely separate from the "normal" still photography rights given to the press. It's now the case that every pro photographer is every bit as capable of capturing full resolution video as the TV crew covering the event. Will still photographers be contractually banned from using the video features of their cameras? Laforet investigated while he was shooting the Beijing Olympics:
Given that all of these rumours were going around quite a bit in Beijing [prior to the announcement of the Nikon D90 or Canon 5D Mark II] - I sat down with two very influential people who will each be involved at the next two Olympic Games. Given that NBC paid more than $900 million to acquire the U.S. Broadcasting rights to this past summer games, how would they feel about a still photographer showing up with a camera that can shoot HD video?
I got the following answer from the person who will be involved with Vancouver which I’ll paraphrase: Still photographers will be allowed in the venues with whatever camera they chose, and shoot whatever they want - shooting video in it of itself, is not a problem. HOWEVER - if the video is EVER published - the lawsuits will inevitably be filed, and credentials revoked etc.
This to me seems like the reasonable thing to do - and the correct approach. But the person I spoke with who will be involved in the London 2012 Olympic Games had a different view, again I paraphrase: “Those cameras will have to be banned. Period. They will never be allowed into any Olympic venue” because the broadcasters would have a COW if they did. And while I think this is not the best approach - I think it might unfortunately be the most realistic. Do you really think that the TV producers and rights-owners will “trust” photographers not to broadcast anything they’ve paid so much for. Unlikely.
Let's do a thought experiment. Red's forthcoming "Scarlet FF35 Mysterium Monstro" will happily capture 6000x4000 pixels at 30 frames per second. If you multiply that out, assuming 8 bits per pixel (after modest compression), you're left with the somewhat staggering data rate of 720MB/s (i.e., 2.6TB/hour). Assuming you're recording that to the latest 1.5TB hard drives, that means you're swapping media every 30 minutes (or you're tethered to a RAID box of some sort). Sure, your camera now weighs more and you're carrying around a bunch of hard drives (still lost in the noise relative to the weight that a sports photographer hauls around in those long telephoto lenses), but you manage to completely eliminate the "oops, I missed the shot" issue that dogs any photographer. Instead, the "shoot" button evolves into more of a bookmarking function. "Yeah, I think something interesting happened around here." It's easy to see photo editors getting excited by this. Assuming you've got access to multiple photographers operating from different angles, you can now capture multiple views of the same event at the same time. With all of that data, synchronized and registered, you could even do 3D reconstructions (made famous/infamous by the "bullet time" videos used in the Matrix films or the Gap's Khaki Swing commercial). Does the local newspaper have the rights to do that to an NFL game or not?
Of course, this sort of technology is going to trickle down to gear that mere mortals can afford. Rather than capturing every frame, maybe you now only keep a buffer of the last ten seconds or so, and when you press the "shoot" button, you get to capture the immediate past as well as the present. Assuming you've got a sensor that let's you change the exposure on the fly, you can also now imagine a camera capturing a rapid succession of images at different exposures. That means no more worries about whether you over or under-exposed your image. In fact, the camera could just glue all the images together into a high-dynamic-range (HDR) image, which yields sometimes fantastic results.
One would expect, in the cutthroat world of consumer electronics, that competition would bring features like this to market as fast as possible, although that's far from a given. If you install third-party firmware on a Canon point-and-shoot, you get all kinds of functionality that the hardware can support but which Canon has chosen not to implement. Maybe Canon would rather you spend more money for more features, even if the cheaper hardware is perfectly capable. Maybe they just want to make common feature easy to use and not overly clutter the UI. (Not that any camera vendors are doing particularly well on ease of use, but that's a topic for another day.)
Freedom to Tinker readers will recognize some common themes here. Do I have the right to hack my own gear? How will new technology impact old business models? In the end, when industries collide, who wins? My fear is that the creative freelance photographer, like Laforet, is likely to get pushed out by the big corporate sponsor. Why allow individual freelancers to shoot a sports event when you can just spread professional video cameras all over the place and let newspapers buy stills from those video feeds? Laforet discussed these issues at length; his view is that "traditional" professional photography, as a career, is on its way out and the future is going to be very, very different. There will still be demand for the kind of creativity and skills that a good photographer can bring to the game, but the new rules of the game have yet to be written.
I've been checking out various attempts to install Ubuntu on the Thinkpad W500 series... The system can't switch on-the-fly between the two graphics chips, but it can use the 3D card, which is what I need for OpenGL work. Thinking I'd go for 2.53GHz and as much RAM as she'll hold, with the higher-resolution screen.
There's a $700 discount if I order today but the site says it would take > 4 weeks to ship! Heck, the normal price might drop by that much in 4 weeks! Apparently the DVD drive is what will delay it... sigh, only $560 dollars extra to get a Blu-Ray that could ship immediately... sheesh, just ship the drive a few weeks later!
Still, may decide to take the plunge, it's not as uber as the new Alienware 17", but it should be a lot lighter to carry around 
.
Check out the winners of the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 competition...lots of amazing photography here. Warning: the winning image is a little disturbing for the faint of heart.
Check out the winners of the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2008 competition...lots of amazing photography here. Warning: the winning image is a little disturbing for the faint of heart.
Alaska Air and Genzyme are upgraded; Berkshire Hathaway and Valhi are downgraded.
Bob Bruggeworth, CEO for RF Micro Devices, explains what measures his company is taking to weather the economic downturn.
Learn how to make your wedding day special without going over budget.
FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * Yesterday was nice, but today was yet another ugly day on Wall Street, with the Dow closing down over 330 points. * Speaking of ugly economic news, consumer spending completely collapsed last...
This page has some of the best and coolest Firefox wallpapers that I've seen.
OK NOW IT’S TIME TO START HATING NATE SILVER: Remember how Nate Silver was working on a two-book deal? Well GOOD GOD: “New intelligence says Mr. Silver’s advance is in the neighborhood of $700,000, give or take a few grand. Now Mr. Silver just has to choose which imprint he likes best, a process that is unlikely to be resolved before next week.” Nate Silver is the only person in American history to realize the American Dream. [NY Observer]
Alix Steel details the most popular searched stocks on TheStreet.com.
One of the most exciting projects around is CouchDB. We’ve been playing with it for months, and we even used it in Speeqe for group chat logging. It is built like the Web; it scales like the Web; and it’s as cool as the Web.
CouchDB is schema-less, eventually consistent, and speaks HTTP and JSON natively. One of the coolest pieces is the view layer, which uses MapReduce(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapreduce) with map and reduce functions provided by JavaScript.
It replicates well in any topology you desire. Finally, we have master-master replication that works well. It can do this because it doesn’t assume away the problem of data conflicts. Instead, CouchDB provides tools to deal with conflicts.
Still not convinced? CouchDB is a peer-to-peer to application server out of the box, thanks to its well done Web interface. It also has the coolest logo of any project I’ve seen in quite some time.
So relax, and check out CouchDB.
Troubled insurer The Hartford on Friday said it reached a deal to acquire Federal Trust Corp. and had applied to become a savings and loan, potentially opening it up to receive federal bailout money.
In a diverse panel of voters, even those who voted for John McCain said they found cause for optimism in Barack Obama's victory. For some blacks in the group, the election's outcome also brought a longed-for sense of acceptance.
Last night we began hearing that Hillary Clinton was under serious consideration to be Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, and that she flew to Chicago to meet with him about possibilities. This being Hillary Clinton, we of course are now engulfed in a wave of rumors, leaks, trial balloons, anonymous sources… Drama. It is how the Clintons, or any stories remotely involving them, tend to roll out. Let’s see what the latest gossip’s telling us about old Hillary. It ranges anywhere from Ronald Reagan retroactively appointing her to be assistant manager at a Baskin Robbins in Utah to her going on food stamps to her having sex with Monica Lewinsky and Vince Foster on a pile of moon rocks, for Obama.
HuffPo goes all in!
President-elect Barack Obama offered Sen. Hillary Clinton the position of Secretary of State during their meeting Thursday in Chicago, according to two senior Democratic officials. She requested time to consider the offer, the officials said.
This is one monstrous trial balloon we have here, kids! Yes, we have reservations. The “two senior Democratic officials” are probably Bill Clinton and his slob brother, Roger. It would be in Hillary’s best interest — which Bill has always understood better than her, see — to make it appear as though she would be the one turning down a job that may not ever be offered to her. She needs some “time to consider the offer” because she doesn’t need to rush anything for anyone — not even the President! Or maybe it is true. We just know that when “two senior Democratic officials” have been the source for a scoop this election, the scoop is really that the reporter got played.
Politico, you guys must be all over this, right? Oh yes, yes you are:
A person close to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton says she would seriously consider serving as Secretary of State if an offer was made — adding, “I wouldn’t bet against” her accepting a cabinet invitation.
Clinton, the person said, had been hearing rumors about the State Department job for about a week, but didn’t take it seriously — until Obama’s transition team initiated serious discussions in the last day or two.
“She didn’t ask for it,” added the source. “It was all from their side.”
So here we have no offer being made, but that it could be made and — according to “a person close to Hillary Rodham Clinton,” which is perhaps the biggest red flag we’ve ever read — Hillary may or may not take it, because she’s so cool and above “all that.” Hillary don’t need no dumb diplomat poop job! It’s just that that kiddie-president keeps stalking her about it, and it’s really creepy, so she might have to take it for safety reasons.
Officials: Obama Offered Clinton Secretary Of State [HuffPo]
Clinton ’serious’ about SoS [Ben Smith]
Thousands of people are evacuated and more than 100 homes are destroyed by a raging wildfire in the wealthy California coastal community of Montecito near Santa Barbara. It's a celebrity enclave filled with multimillion dollars estates and ranches belonging to the likes of Oprah Winfrey.
Stocks in New York retreated from a brief afternoon rally to close with losses Friday, as traders assessed the worst retail-sales decline on record and companies continued to signal that economic hardship would hurt future profit.
Retail sales fell sharply in October. It was the fourth straight month in which overall retail activity declined. The October decline of 2.8 percent looks worse than it actually is, however. Take out gas prices, which are declining, and retail sales decline 1.5 percent.
A list of final photographs taken of people before they died. Included Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, and Adolf Hitler. (via cyn-c)
(link)
A list of final photographs taken of people before they died. Included Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, and Adolf Hitler. (via cyn-c)
(link)
Twenty nations responsible for 90 percent of the world economy meet this weekend to grapple with the global financial crisis. The leaders will begin the process of coming up with a new approach to international financial regulation.
» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
En el naturaBlog (debería haber inaugurado un nuevo blog de ciencias en El Mundo, pero las cosas siempre llevan su ritmo... más sobre esto dentro de unos días) cuento un poco lo de las imágenes de exoplanetas:
Imágenes que avanzan la ciencia
En la búsqueda de planetas extrasolares se muestra la poderosa herramienta de la astronomía moderna: las observaciones precisas, acompañadas de un soporte teórico basado en la física, permiten comprender qué está pasando en lugares muy lejanos (a distancias astronómicas, como solemos llamarlas). Hace 400 años, los Galileo, Kepler o Newton, comenzaron a crear esta herramienta para describir el movimiento de los planetas alrededor del Sol. Y desde hace menos de quince años, esto ha permitido conocer ya más de trecientos mundos en torno a otras estrellas.
Por supuesto, nadie ha ido hasta allí para poder comprobar cómo son esos planetas, pero por diferentes métodos, hay una constancia razonable para saber que la luz que nos llega corresponde a uno o varias exoplanetas orbitando en torno a su sol, una estrella de la que analizamos su luz precisamente con ese objetivo. El método primero, y el que más planetas extrasolares ha añadido a la Enciclopedia, es el del análisis de la velocidad radial: en él se analiza el vaivén que la estrella hace debido a que, como explicó Newton, al existir un planeta orbitando en torno a ella, ella también realiza una órbita en torno al planeta. Ambos, de hecho, orbitan en torno al centro de masa del sistema, en unas elipses como las que Kepler usó para describir el sistema Solar. Para entender cómo se deteca ese movimiento hay que avanzar en la historia de la ciencia, y reconocer el trabajo de físicos como Doppler y Fizeau, que comprobaron cómo la frecuencia de una onda cambia conforme el emisor se acerque o se aleje. Ese efecto, permite analizar cómo se acerca y se aleja la estrella, es decir, una parte del movimiento que nos ayuda a inferir la presencia de uno o varios planetas. De los más de 100 proyectos que actualmente se dedican en todo el mundo a la búsqueda de planetas extrasolares, este de la velocidad radial sigue ocupando a más de la mitad.
Otro método muy efectivo en los últimos años (la primera detección de este tipo se hizo desde Canarias en 2004, el exoplaneta TrES-1) ha sido el análisis de los tránsitos de esos planetas delante de sus estrellas. Como nos sucede por aquí, Mercurio y Venus, vistos desde la Tierra, pasan de vez en cuando por delante del disco solar. Durante esos tránsitos, la luz que nos llega de nuestro Sol se ve disminuida, un poquito, una minúscula fracción. Suficiente, sin embargo, si estuviéramos mirando desde mucho más lejos, como para ser notado. Hace más de tres siglos, el astrónomo inglés Edmund Halley propuso el estudio de los tránsitos de los planetas para conocer el tamaño real del Sistema Solar. Ahora, esos tránsitos de exoplanetas permiten conocer mundos de los que no tendríamos noticia de otra manera. No solamente eso, porque del análisis de cómo varía la luz los astrofísicos también obtienen información sobre los tamaños de esos planetas, su densidad o la existencia de atmósfera en ellos.
Los dos métodos permiten localizar más fácilmente planetas grandes que orbiten cerca de sus estrellas. Cuando aparecieron los primeros en torno a la estrella 51 Pegasii, se les comenzó a llamar "Júpiteres calientes" por esta razón. Poco a poco, esos métodos han permitido encontrar planetas menos grandes y que orbiten más lejos de sus soles. A veces usando, como comentábamos, la teoría y la observación de la mano. El pasado mes de abril, Ignasi Ribas, astrofísico del Instituto de Estudios Espaciales de Cataluña (CSIC), presentaba un nuevo exoplaneta obtenido del análisis de esos datos, de una manera similar a la manera en que los astrónomos europeos encontraron Neptuno en el cielo calculando dónde debía estar primero a partir del análsis del movimiento de Urano. Lo contaba El Mundo y yo escribí un comentario sobre el particular. Con estos análisis, cabe pensar, se podrán inferir nuevos planetas extrasolares.
Por no ser exhaustivo, pero sí justo, debo incorporar otro método más exótico de detección. Exótico porque involucra las lentes gravitacionales, objetos masivos que cambian la dirección de los rayos de luz en la manera en que se describió por vez primera con la Teoría General de la Relatividad desarrollada por Albert Einstein en 1915. Pequeñas lentes gravitatorias son usadas también para encontrar evidencia de planetas, y desde 2005 -cuando con él se descubrió un planeta en torno a una estrella a 17.000 años-luz- este método se ha unido a los más empleados. Aunque los otros métodos proporcionan información sobre estrellas más cercanas, estos, y de hecho también uno de los primeros análisis que empleaba la emisión de estrellas de neutrones, los llamados púlsares, para inferir la presencia de planetas orbitando alrededor suyo, permiten adentrarse mucho más en nuestra Vía Láctea. (De hecho, el primer planeta extrasolar de la historia fue en torno al púlsar PSR 1257+12, en 1995)
A mucha gente le puede parecer curioso que la forma más directa de detección haya sido la que no se ha usado. Es evidente que si hablamos de planetas en torno a otras estrellas, cualquiera puede pensar que con un telescopio lo suficientemente "grande" o "potente", bastaría apuntar a una estrella y mirar cuidadosamente dónde están orbitando esos exoplanetas. Ay, las cosas no suelen ser tan fáciles, y podemos entender por qué si analizamos dos factores fundamentales: las distancias por un lado y, por otro, la emisión de luz. La distancia de la Tierra al Sol es de unos 150 millones de km (cantidad denominada unidad Astronómica precisamente). La distancia a las estrellas cercanas es, para poder comparar, cientos de miles de veces mayor que esa unidad. Alfa Centauri, es unas 210.000 veces esa unidad. Por lo tanto, para separar un planetita tan pegado a la estrella deberíamos tener un telescopio de resolución inimaginable: por el momento no los tenemos, aunque podrían ser la próxima generación de telescopios gigantes de la siguiente década quienes la alcancen.
Las luminosidades dan un segundo problema: las estrellas son cientos de millones de veces más brillantes que los planetas, como pasa en el caso Solar en luz visible. Solemos decir que los planetas reflejan la luz solar, con lo que una reflexión en un cuerpo millones de veces más pequeños que la estrella, es una cantidad de luz diminuta, comparada con el faro de esa estrella. Hay una manera de disminuir esa diferencia de luminosidad: observar en el infrarrojo, donde la relación de potencias emitidas está algo más equilibrada.
Las noticias que publica esta semana la revista Science sobre la detección de nuevos planetas extrasolares, precisamente, avanzan este complejo campo del saber astrofísico. Como cuenta Ángel Díaz en El Mundo, por un lado, dos equipos diferentes han obtenido imágenes infrarrojas del brillo de planetas en torno a otras estrellas, con datos suficientes para saber que no se trata de una casualidad. Estrictamente hablando no es la primera vez. Ya en 2004 se anunció la primera imagen de un exoplaneta, pero posteriores análisis catalogaron ese objeto más dentro de las estrellas enanas marrones, al ser más masivo que 13 veces la masa de Júpiter, que es el límite físico para la masa de un planeta. Recientemente, a mediados de septiembre, como recogía El Mundo, se anunció también la "primera imagen" de un planeta en torno a una estrella denominada 1RXS J160929.1-210524, en este caso en un complejo de estrellas muy jóvenes.
Ahora, observando en el infrarrojo la estrella HR 8799, a 130 años-luz de distancia, se ha conseguido obtener imágenes de tres planetas en torno suyo. La imagen sobrecoge, aunque justo se vea en ella unos pequeños puntitos de color. Basta imaginar que estamos mirando a una distancia seis millones de veces superior a la que se sitúa nuestro Sol. Con los grandes telescopios, sin embargo, se ha podido localizar ese sistema planetario que nos hace pensar en el nuestro, y en la eterna pregunta de si habrá allí un mundo como la Tierra, habitado...
Con otro gran telescopio, el Telescopio Espacial Hubble (recientemente "operado" en órbita para que siga funcionando adecuadamente), ha conseguido una imagen de un planeta en torno a una de las escasas estrellas con nombre: Fomalhaut, (Alfa PsA). De las seis mil estrellas que se pueden ver a simple vista en el cielo, menos de una sexta parte tienen nombres propios. Gran parte de ellos son árabes, pues la tradición astronómica allí permitió hacer ese enorme trabajo de nomenclatura descriptiva (Fomalhaut significa "boca de la ballena"). Por cierto, que esa imagen de esta estrella a 25 años-luz donde además se ve la nube de polvo que envuelve al sistema planetario, recuerda poderosamente un ojo (en la Red ya están hablando del "Ojo de Saurón" -el poder malvado del Señor de los Anillos).
Los descubrimientos mencionados, ahora noticia, tienen la fuerza de la imagen, pero además llevan el soporte observacional y teórico tan poderoso que hace cuatro siglos comenzó a cambiar la forma en que entendíamos el Universo. Ahora, los datos de esos sistemas planetarios permitirán desarrollar modelos más exactos de cómo son los procesos de formación de los planetas en torno a las estrellas, y entender mejor así si vivimos en un sistema planetario único o más o menos del montón. La ciencia avanza despejando dudas y afianzando aquellas especulaciones razonables que finalmente se demuestran acertadas. No cualquier afirmación desmelenada tiene el rango de ciencia, ni siempre es posible encontrar lo que queremos. Por eso da gusto encontrarse con noticias como esta, donde todo muestra que el camino de la ciencia sigue con buen paso.
US President-elect Barack Obama plans to use YouTube to modernize the traditional White House weekly radio address.…
US President-elect Barack Obama plans to use YouTube to modernize the traditional White House weekly radio address.…
PALIN LEFT OUT OF RGA LEADERSHIP.... The Republican Governors Association announced the members of its new leadership team today. One name was noticeably absent. South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was voted RGA chairman, taking over the top job from Texas...
The Troubled Asset Relief Program's deadline today for banks to apply for preferred equity investments is likely to end up deciding which banks survive and which either fail or get acquired at a bargain basement price.
Stocks on Wall Street end the week with sizable losses as credit troubles continue to rock the ailing financial sector. Alix Steel reviews the action in The Real Story video (above).
High-ranking Microsoft and Intel executives were involved in a plan to re-write the Windows Vista Capable program to save both companies - and OEMs - millions of dollars, according to unsealed court documents.…
High-ranking Microsoft and Intel executives were involved in a plan to re-write the Windows Vista Capable program to save both companies - and OEMs - millions of dollars, according to unsealed court documents.…
Next week I hope to get the new mirror machine in service, get the log replay script running better (currently taking too long; it isn't forking or performing queries properly), and continue working on getting the CVS creation scripts running from a job runner.
Smart investors who achieve outsized profits: See what the best CAPS players recommend now.
The rotten liberals are gonna eat up this little Hope announcement like none other: “President-elect Obama’s office gave the media a new way to present him as Franklin Roosevelt 2.0 by announcing Friday that it will be posting weekly addresses - fireside chats for the web generation - on YouTube.” The reason: enhanced transparency. YAY!…??
Our current warmonger president is a dumb technological Philistine who only gives his weekly address on the “radio.” Who’s he supposed to be, THE SHADOW? Piss off old man! Radios are for grandfathers. If this weekly address is on YouTube instead then we’ll just watch the fuck out of that. Very vague, politically calculating speeches on the radio? UMM die. Very vague, politically calculating speeches on the YouTubes? HOPE HOPE HOPE HOPE.
Obama’s Transparent Presidency: Weekly YouTube Addresses [HuffPo]
