I had to laugh at this spam I received.
To: "$user" <$user@netjeff.com>
Subject: FREE offer for $user
From: "" <>
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 16:24:01 +0-200
Clearly their "spam-send" tool needs a little work on the $user thing. :-)
Be happy
This is a little off-topic from my usual technology-oriented items. Not sure who the author is, it seems to have been floating around the internet for several years at least…
We convince ourselves that life will be better after we get married, have a baby, then another. Then we are frustrated that the kids aren't old enough and we'll be more content when they are. After that, we're frustrated that we have teenagers to deal with. We will certainly be happy when they are out of that stage.We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our spouse gets his or her act together, when we get a nicer car, are able to go on a nice vacation,or when we retire.The truth is, there's no better time to be happy than right now. If not now, when? Your life will always be filled with challenges. It's best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. Happiness is the way. So, treasure every moment that you have and treasure it more because you shared it with someone special, special enough to spend your time with… and remember that time waits for no one.So, stop waiting
until your car or home is paid off
until you get a new car or home
until your kids leave the house
until you go back to school
until you lose ten pounds
until you gain ten pounds
until you finish school
until you get a divorce
until you get married
until you have kids
until you retire
until summer
until spring
until winter
until fall
until you die…There is no better time than right now to be happy.
Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
Software as magic
Jakob Nielsen's 9 Dec 2002 issue of Alertbox compares software to the world of magic as described in the Harry Potter series. Although Nielsen is not the first to make the comparison to magic (see Vernor Vinge's excellent novella True Names), I liked this insight:
In the Harry Potter books, the population consists of two distinct groups — a small group of wizards, and a much larger group of Muggles (standard-issue humans) who know nothing about magic or the dealings of wizards.
Similarly, in our world, the vast majority of people don't understand computers or technology. Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke once said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Unfortunately, computers and the Internet are this "advanced technology" as far as most people are concerned. Things appear on their screens, computers deliver the desired results, and how it happens is all just so much magic.
In the Harry Potter books, the ethical wizards have agreed to leave the Muggles alone and not do magic tricks on them. It seems that computer wizards have something to learn from Harry Potter, because they often use their power in ways that are harmful to regular people.
Big friggin' spider web
10 million spiders built a web that completely covers a 60-acre field in Canada.
Using device location for wireless security
What if you used the location of a wireless device as part of authentication/authorization?
Location-based security for wireless apps (Nov 2002)
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/wireless/library/wi-loc/ However for this to solve any problems, the location technology would have to be network-based not device based. You can't use device-based location (like GPS), because the problem is that you don't trust the device in the first place; you can't be sure that somebody isn't spoofing their location in the device's response. So passive (for the device) network-based solutions (triangulation, time difference of arrival, RF fingerprinting, …) are the only ones you can rely on because they are much harder to "spoof".
Interactive Seattle waterfront: 1907 and 2002
Two panoramic photographs of the waterfront of Seattle, Washington, taken from the same vantage point – 95 years apart. Using IE, you can interactively drag a slider to compare the waterfront in 1907 with today.
http://www.kokogiak.com/projects/se
Why didn't we see the market meltdown coming.
Wired Magazine interviewed George Akerlof, a UC Berkeley economics professor, in the Dec 2002 issue. They asked him why we didn't see the market meltdown coming. Below is part of his answer:
the public and the government went wild with the idea that we should have very free markets. But free markets mean you have more regulation and more monitoring. If you keep your toddler in a playpen, you don't need to monitor them. When you let the toddler out of the playpen, you need to watch them much more. …
Dasher: a "zooming" text entry tool
It's designed to compete with handwriting, not a keyboard. It's designed more for PDAs or for those with disabilities that limit the use of keyboards.
It's kind of hard to explain, so take a look at it here:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dash
It's open source, and it's a research project, so it's a little bit "interesting" to say the least. But still pretty cool. Although after I used it for a few minutes, I started to get a bit dizzy. Definitely not for everybody, but it's very creative.
Iridigm displays: pixels based on butterfly wings
An interesting way of creating displays by taking advantage of interference effects similar to the way butterfly wings generate color:
http://www.iridigm.com/tech_overview.ht
It's also nice because if pixels in the display are not changing, the display requires almost now power; power is used mostly to change pixels. This is much better than LCD and CRT displays which draw the same (large) amount of power regardless.
Slashdot discussed this technology: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/1
Leg-Way (Segway using Legos)
From a slashdot article, this guy built a two-wheeled self balancing
device using a Lego robotics kit. He has some videos of it following a
black line on white paper. Very cool.
http://www.geocities.com/stevehassenplu
His site is being slashdot'ed right now. If it still is when you read this, here are some mirrors you can try.
http://perso.freelug.org/legway/Leg
http://legway.armorica.biz
http://home1.gte.net/res1g289/StevesLeg