Summary of this week:

My 27th wedding anniversary this week. Marrying Karen was the smartest thing I ever did.
The Farnborough is in progress
Defcon and Black Hat in Las Vegas this week

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday July 26, 2010

Where are browsers going. I mean, all they do is display web content and let us type. For those who like to have a hundred or more tabs open at once, Firefox has TabCandy.

I've never wanted a lime green computer, but for those of us who do...

We now have a standard for wireless cell phone charging. Seriously, I think this is a good thing.

I don't know if this is practical, but I love the way it looks. The wooden computer case looks like an old loudspeaker case.

This all sounds a bit goofy, but we are moving towards invisibility cloaks. The concept is that each year someone develops a cloak for a particular wavelength. Each year we move closer towards the wavelengths of visible light. One day...

How to build a Linux-based computer for $200.

Mount the iPad on the wall and you have a TV.

It is now illegal in New York to let someone stay in your home for a night and accept a little money from them. That is a short-term rental and that is against state law. Sigh. Government solving our non-existent problems.

Wikileaks releases 75,000 documents from the war in Afghanistan. I trust they are being responsible in this endeavor.

The Farnborough air show is in progress this week. Great photos of aircraft.

Very slow motion video of lightning.

The Mac Pro (Apple's under-the-table computer) is missing from the Apple Store online. Hence, an update seems imminent.

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Tuesday July 27, 2010

The Apple store is down at this time. This usually means products are being updated today. The rumors have the iMacs and the Power Macs - the home computers - being updated.

Now it appears that the government will pull promised funding from commercial space transport. There is no such thing as a firm decision in government.

A new theory eliminates the big bang from the history of the universe. Firm decisions in science?

Google now has Google Apps for Government. Simple concept, guarantee that the servers are in the United States and the employees are U.S. citizens and your cloud applications are far more attractive to government organizations at all levels - especially for counties and small towns. Now if they would just encrypt everything so that it is available for classified work.

I don't like this, at all. The state of Maryland is prosecuting people who video tape police officers in public. Public employees in public doing public service. I don't like this, at all.

At Defcon next week, there will be a live demo of eavesdropping on GSM cell phone conversations. Yes, it is possible. No, it isn't difficult. Maybe some people will understand all the fuss about not letting the President have a Blackberry.

The Livingston, Louisiana school district is considering teaching intelligent design in science classes. Two things: (1) I have been to Livingston, Louisiana. It is a small town, a town that I really liked. (2) There is much confusion and misinformation about all the facets of intelligent design.

I like this analog clock design. The bent hand shows time in all time zones. Take a look.

I love this workspace. One, it is beautiful. Two, the author is using LaTex. Three, it is all you need and nothing more. I once wrote and typeset a book using LaTex. Nothing else matches the output of a Tex system.

Continuing a trend among high-tech companies, ARM had a great financial quarter. Bad economy? Once again, the companies that the government stays away from are doing well.

The flying car comes closer to reality.

The Black Hat and Defcon conferences are this week in Las Vegas. I wish I were there.

I will have to try this one tonight - Discover by Cooliris. It presents Wikipedia on the iPad in a completely new format.

I love these - "3D" art on the street. I forget the technical term for this art form that is centuries old. Oh yes, it is anamorphic.

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Wednesday July 28, 2010

An unusual work schedule - no viewing today.

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Thursday July 29, 2010

The work schedule continues - no viewing today. Maybe one day soon I can catch up.

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Friday July 30, 2010

Today is my 27th wedding anniversary. Marrying Karen was the smartest thing I ever did.
Given a celebration and an unusual work schedule - no Internet viewing today.

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Saturday July 31, 2010

After a few days off the Internet viewing, let's try to catch up a bit.

Much is being made of Apple's Magic Trackpad for the desktop. I am sure it is nice, especially if you are accustomed to the trackpad on the Apple portable computers, but really folks, this is nothing new.

I like this one. It is a complete desktop computer the size of a paperback novel. I can see many applications for people who travel a lot and don't want to use the computer in the motel business room. This is a bit expensive, starts at $1,000.

A Sony contest allows high school students to build rockets and launch a Vaio to the stratosphere. That sounds like great fun. Something may become of those students.

New Polaroid film finally coming to stores in August.

Interesting how the DNS is protected with scattered backups and seven people with smartcards and such.

Those guys at Defcon and their friendly little competitions. The FBI and others hold their breath until the conference finally ends. There is no end to what some people consider "fun."

Ah, this is a great title, "What's Wrong with the American University System?" Someone could write a book, oops someone has written a book. Let the hand wringing begin.

Testing the next Mars Rover. It looks far too complex to operate in a hostile environment, but I guess they know what they are doing. Why are they in a clean room?

Here comes the digital wallet.

Where the money is - mining the Internet to understand consumers. If the government tried any of this it would be illegal, but it is okay for businesses worldwide to do it. Also, if the government tried to do this, they would spend billions of taxpayers' dollars and fail. Businesses are succeeding with tiny budgets.

The opposite of most companies, Research in Motion announces that it will market an iPad competitor in November.

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Sunday August 1, 2010

The world is warming. Duh. This fails to address the real questions, but it gets lots of headlines.

As time goes on we learn, the triceratops was not a species of dinosaur. It was a young torosaurus, not fully mature. Maybe one day we will learn something about climate change.

Intel may buy a company that has chips inside the iPhone and iPad. So, Intel inside?

I like these mouse pads. For the young, way back in history televisions stations did not broadcast shows 24 hours a day. Yes, there was nothing to watch on TV at 2AM but test patterns as shown on these mouse pads.

Samsung should have a tablet computer out in August. It seems that several companies have reversed the trend of "we built a tablet, but won't release it" and are actually releasing the tablets they have built.

Write what you know? That makes sense, but several things go against it.
Jerry Weinberg advocates writing about what excites you. If something excites me, I will
learn about it while writing about it. This blog post makes the simple point that
writing only what you knew prevents all fiction writing.

On how to remove TV from your life. Nothing astounding here, but some good advice nonetheless.

Don't have an MFA (I think that means Masters of Fine Arts), don't worry. Just write. There are plenty of books that teach grammar. Just write. Read lots of good writing. Just write.

Notes from a University of Iowa workshop on short story writing.

Some qualities that magazine editors see as good in freelance writers. Hard working or something like hard working appears several times. Unless independently wealthy, it seems that you have to work hard.

This is an excellent site on data visualization and information-providing graphics.

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