Sunday, October 16, 2005

A Former Police Chief Calls for Drug Sanity. Norm Stamper (former chief of Seattle PD): Let those dopers be. Yes, I was a cop for 34 years, the last six of which I spent as chief of Seattle's police department. But no, I don't favor decriminalization. I favor legalization, and not just of pot but of all drugs, including heroin, cocaine, meth, psychotropics, mushrooms and LSD. [Dan Gillmor's blog] 10:15:32 PM    comment []

Meet the Life Hackers. Can anyone find a way to make your constantly beeping and dinging computer leave you alone and let you work? Inside the nascent field of interruption science. By CLIVE THOMPSON. [NYT > Technology] 10:15:15 PM    comment []

Machines Behave Like DNA. On Discovery Channel Daily News [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 4:29:27 PM    comment []

Bombs Kill Four in Southern Iran. On New York Times: International News [NewsIsFree: Popular Items] 4:25:21 PM    comment []

Roland's Sunday Smart Trends #80. Here is my weekly selection of articles that were not mentioned here -- except if I missed them. Generating Hope Inventor Dean Kamen's energy-efficient electrical generator and water purifier could put power in the hands of rural villagers in poor countries. Source: Kevin Bullis, Technology Review, October 5, 2005 Social Networks and Social Networking [Note: this is a must-read article if you're interested in social networks. It provides an historical and scientific background, and includes tons of links and resources, such as three more articles in this IEEE computing issue.] This issue's theme includes three articles on research activities that have drawn on ideas from social networking to drive innovative designs. The focus stays close to our own intellectual home -- the design, development, and study of social technologies at the level of individuals, groups, and organizations -- although we refer to the broader issue of business, community, and societal impact in this short introduction. Source: Elizabeth F. Churchill (Palo Alto Research Center) and Christine A. Halverson (IBM), for IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 9, no. 5, 2005, pp. 14-19, Sept./Oct. 2005 issue Genetic testing: IBM says No Big Blue is the first major corporation to rule out DNA scans for employees. More than an ethical issue, the decision is also good business. Source: Amy Barrett, BusinessWeek, October 11, 2005 On the road to networked vehicles Traditional issues such as reliability and architectural complexity took a back seat at this year's Congress on Electronic Systems for Vehicles here as developers instead focused on innovation in areas like electronic braking and steering systems and emerging hybrid drives. Source: Christoph Hammerschmidt, EETimes.com, October 10, 2005 Chip on Your Shoulder Radio frequency technology offers government some breakthrough possibilities. It also scares people. For all the privacy concerns, RFID is poised to become a major public issue in the years ahead. It simply solves too many problems for governments to ignore its potential. On the other hand, it raises a host of difficult questions that go beyond the monitoring of schoolchildren. Should law enforcement agencies be using the technology to track the whereabouts of motorists? What about the books that people take out of the public library? Are these uses of RFID inherently intrusive and objectionable, or are there ways to minimize the concern? Source: Ellen Perlman, Governing.com, September 2005 How computer maps will help the poor By using high-tech tools, San Jose residents hope to gain a stronger voice in planning decisions. [And here is a quick note from ACM TechNews: "Residents of poor neighborhoods in San Jose, Calif., are taking over for San Jose State University computer and engineering students in mapping their communities using GPS receivers, digital cameras, tablet PCs, and pocket PCs.."] Source: Thomas Ulrich, for the Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 2005 See you next week... [Smart Mobs] 7:37:56 AM    comment []

A program that learns from itself. Two professors of the University of Texas at Arlington have developed a computer program that can find patterns in data represented as graphs. But what's more important is that this program can learn from its own discoveries. The first potential application is about counter-terrorism. Links: short version, long version [Smart Mobs] 7:37:33 AM    comment []

Flame/Plame/Blame The NYT's Judy Miller explanation is finally up...and leaves oh so much more to be explained. Miller's own version of events is there too. This part by Miller will kill you: On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled. I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him. Read Daily Kos' Hunter for a good, close text analysis. [Girl in the Locker Room!] 7:37:24 AM    comment []

At Public Universities, Warnings of Privatization. Money for public universities has plunged more precipitously since 2001 than at any time in two decades. By SAM DILLON. [NYT > Education] 7:34:27 AM    comment []