Sunday, October 10, 2004

October Census: Alphaville is officially dead. Following up on our February and May Census, here are the results for Alphaville in October (taken Oct. 10) and it isn't pretty. Following are... [The Second Life Herald] 10:00:01 PM    comment []

The Health Care Clash Moves to the Next Aisle. Supermarkets face a new showdown as labor unions determined to keep health benefits spar with management trying to compete with Wal-Mart. By By RUSS MITCHELL. [The New York Times > Business] 5:43:14 PM    comment []

Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #27. Here is my weekly collection of articles that were not commented here -- except if I missed them.  [ . . . ] Network TV bigwigs rail against bloggers At a panel discussion sponsored by The New Yorker magazine on Saturday in New York, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw and ABC anchor Peter Jennings lashed out at Internet bloggers in defense of CBS anchor Dan Rather, according to reports from the Associated Press and Reuters. Brokaw compared the bloggers' attacks on Rather's "60 Minutes II" report about President Bush's National Guard service to a "political jihad." Source: Marguerite Reardon, CNET News.com, October 4, 2004  [ . . . ] But my favorite story for this week is about a new way to use cell phones. Cell-phone system lets zoo visitors see animals move A system that allows zoo visitors to see unusual images and sounds of zoo animals by scanning a code with their cell phones is being introduced at a municipal zoo here. The system, in which users of camera-equipped cell phones scan a digital code to view Internet images of the animals on their phones, will be introduced at Chiba Zoological Park on Saturday. It is reportedly the first system of its kind to be introduced at a zoo. In the past, visitors to the zoo had often complained because animals often spent the day sleeping, and officials had been considering ways to improve the situation. Under the system, codes for cell phones are set up outside animals' cages. When users scan the codes with NTT DoCoMo phones capable of reading QR codes, they can connect to the Internet and receive images and sounds of the animals. Source: Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, October 8, 2004 See you next week... [Smart Mobs] Reminds me of ''Leveling The Playing Field: Mass Communication Versus Mass Media'' RealAudio recording from CFP96, moderated by John Seigenthaler, with panelists Mike Godwin, Donna Hoffman, Bill Kovach, John Schwartz, and Sander Vanocur, in which Sander Vanocur came off as a crotchety old man, who either didn't get all this Net stuff and didn't care, or got just enough of it to be very, very scared. His big line was something about how he could "hear America kvetching" on the Net. All of which helped provoke a question from the audience about being too tied to the colonic practices of the French Court back in the days of Louis XIV. Definitely a classic "blood-on-the-carpet" CFP session (as another Bruce likes to put it). 5:43:04 PM    comment []

Leonard Bernstein: An American Life. Narrated by Susan Sarandon, this 11-part documentary illuminates the life and work of musical genius Leonard Bernstein. [WNYC New York Public Radio] 5:36:28 PM    comment []

Causation and Viruses. I was thinking a little about causation today, and several times I thought I had an idea for a blog post only to see it collapse when I tried to think through things more clearly. So instead I have a broad question. Imagine the following relatively plausible example. (Only relatively plausible because the computers at Cornell are kept pretty clean.) There’s a virus going around Cornell, call it YourDoom. Both Tamar’s computer and Delia’s computer are infected with it. Both of them send the virus to my computer during the morning which in turn becomes infected. What infected computers do is shout TROGDOR at midday. Question: What factors should determine whether Tamar’s computer or Delia’s computer or both caused my computer to shout TROGDOR at midday? Here are some sample issues to consider: Which of them sent it first Whether the second virus overwrites the first virus on the hard drive, or does nothing to the hard drive if there is a virus there, or writes a second copy of the virus down How the virus gets from hard drive to memory And I imagine there are others. If you think of this case at a fairly abstract level it looks like a case of trumping preemption, but I’m not sure it still looks that way when you get to the details. [Thoughts Arguments and Rants] 5:30:18 PM    comment []

The Faith-Based Missile Shield. The Bush administration's exorbitantly wasteful missile defense system is about to be formally activated - just in time for Election Day. Despite widespread technological doubts, President Bush promised in 2000 to have a missile shield in place this November. So, even though the $130 billion spent so far has yet to produce anything like a battle-ready system, the Pentagon plans to pronounce it active this month at a half dozen new missile silos on the West Coast. This wisp of the old Star Wars fever dream is bedeviled by missing components and unproven premises. The Pentagon has suspended normal accountability standards in favor of what military proponents euphemistically term "evolutionary acquisition." This means spend and build now, and attempt credible tests when and if all the parts finally arrive. Even a Pentagon analysis called it a "case study" against rushing forward on faith. [The New York Times > Opinion] Also, from two and three years ago, in my own blogging: The Washington Times is reporting Bush approves missile defense -- to begin deployment in 2004. (Story by Bill Gertz.) Some new info in the story. I told why pursuing a strategic defense, missile shield, Star Wars thingamabob is a bad idea over at X-Ray Net last year. ("That's why pursuing a strategic defense, missile shield, Star Wars thingamabob is a Bad Idea. "From the blog, Anonymity, strategic defense, May 3, 2001. ") 9:04:15 AM    comment []

Microsoft and Immigration. This is very weird. I was filling in the details on my latest DS-156 form, a form the State Department quite helpfully makes available electronically. When I went to fill in question 35, “Has Your U.S. Visa Ever Been Cancelled or Revoked?” on my defeault Firefox browser, it automatically marked “Yes” whatever I clicked. Needless to say, this is not the answer I wanted to communicate to the State Department. So I tried opening up the form in IE, and the problem goes away, i.e. it is possible to mark “No”. Nothing in the source code for the page suggests why there should be a problem here, at least to my untrained eyes. It’s just odd. [Thoughts Arguments and Rants] 9:02:46 AM    comment []

BTD SUNDAY COMICS. Webcomics come and webcomics go, but sometimes it's up to us to do our part to make sure we don't lose the best ones for good. Over at Dave Johnson's Dog Complex, visitors are being greeted by this message: For... [Begging To Differ] 9:02:39 AM    comment []

Eat Chocolate, Live Longer?. The scientific (and profit-seeking) quest at the Mars candy company to make cocoa a healthful, "functional" food. By By JON GERTNER. [The New York Times > Dining and Wine] 8:52:48 AM    comment []

mobile googling. Google has a new test service that allows people to use mobile phones or handheld devices to tap Google's Web search via text messages,or short message service Reuters reports."Google SMS currently works with the top six U.S. wireless providers including Cingular Wireless, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.The service does not work outside of the United States as Google as yet to expand its local search services overseas.Text messaging,which works on most mobile phones now on the market,is still growing in popularity in the United States but has been widely used in Europe for years. While analysts were not blown away by the widely available technology,they said the move would probably be good for Google."It gives people that are heavily reliant on Google's services the ability to extend the use beyond their PC to their phone," said Yankee Group senior analyst Linda Barrabee." Text your Google search [Smart Mobs] 8:52:14 AM    comment []

Zen and the art of creating iTunes playlists. Please excuse this frivolous post and the slightly misleading title. I have found that it is very easy to get into a rut with what I'm listening to on iTunes. When it is so easy to play only my most... [explodedlibrary.info] Other things I do to keep my iTunes listening fresh: major use of random and the new "party shuffle" feature smart playlists with arbitrary terms as filters, such as 25 songs, not played in the last month, containing "t" in the performer's name all songs with "sweet" in the title songs played once or twice only, longer than 3:30 keeping "work in progress" playlists, and when a nice series of songs flips through party shuffle grabbing them and dumping them into one, eventually building a reasonably long playlist (about three CDs worth) of things that came to my attention through a random process but caught my ear. 8:49:39 AM    comment []