Archive for the ‘ Technology ’ Category
Last night I accidentally caught Digital Nation on PBS’s Frontline. David Rushkoff hosted and presumably wrote the piece. An unapologetic advocate of the digital internet age for twenty years now, he expresses his first quiver of uncertainty, wondering if we’re becoming too distracted. The internets had been building up the program, so I watched. It was [ READ MORE ]
Douglas Rushkoff recently presented a fifteen minute talk entitled Radical Abundance. The basic premise is intriguing. The introduction of government monopolized currency in the Middle Ages was a technique for keeping power in the hands of the aristocracy, since it gave them control over the relative scarcity of currency and thus the ability to extract [ READ MORE ]
Aramis comes even closer. EU Researchers think they will soon be able to link cars into platoons on the highway. [ READ MORE ]
The more time passes and the more experience I gain, the more I love vim. I’ve just added buffers and recalling buffers (through viminfo) to my repetoire. So much power. And you all know how much I love power. [ READ MORE ]
[Straight from Slashdot] “Solar Roadways, a project to replace over 25,000 square miles of road in the US with solar panels you can drive on, just received $100,000 in funding from the Department of Transportation for the first 12ft-by-12ft prototype panel. Each panel consists of three layers: a base layer with data and power cables [ READ MORE ]
My advisor and I have been talking here and there about getting netbooks and the netbook he got (Samsung, I think, because it had a full-size keyboard). As a consequence of his purchase, I have just come into ownership of a Thinkpad X40, which weighs in at 3lbs 14oz with the plug. This is a [ READ MORE ]
The weekend was spent cleaning and home improving for Sienna. But it didn’t happen before I’d communicated with one of the main pgfSweave developers and realized that the real goal is to avoid repeating R code in the woven document. That is, all R code should be written only once. This is a more reliable [ READ MORE ]
I just realized that the file below probably constitutes my first contribution to open source software, even if my contributions are really the minor ones. In order to elegantly present my dissertation, I’ve been avoiding writing it in favor of getting pgfSweave to work with my project. (See next post.) A good chunk of the [ READ MORE ]
I spent the weekend at the Left Forum. It was my first time, and it turned out to be a most curious developmental experience. After an exhausting Saturday, I felt lost and out of place. I’d been to panels on dialectical thinking (with Bertell Ollman, who was delightful), prison reform (with Robert Hillary King, one [ READ MORE ]
I may be high on lack of sleep and caffiene. And that may be a good thing. I finally finished Thomas Hughes groundbreaking but slightly tedious Networks of Power yesterday. The two page epilogue and an article by Bernward Joerges have set me on fire. It’s not the writing so much as the realization that [ READ MORE ]
Scientists at Aberystwyth University in the UK report that a robot scientist they designed has successfully formulated its own hypothesis (about gene function) and tested it. This is very exciting news. We are now automating science. Truly incredible. And it should free up people to either consider applications of knowledge, the ethics of social organization, [ READ MORE ]
This is an exceptionally interesting tool for internet reading. When visiting a page you’d like to read without the clutter, just click on the Readability bookmark. And when you want to return to the busy original, just click reload. [ READ MORE ]
I just came across this Open Textbook site on Slashdot. This is clearly a direction I will have to consider given my political views on open source (fledgling as they are). It also suggests the possibility of truly open source textbooks. I suppose this could be done via a wiki with chapter headings on the [ READ MORE ]
[Geek moment. Tune out now.] I’m pleased to report that I believe I’ve finally succeeded in setting my computer up for open source GIS and more (fingers still crossed though!). For my ACSP presentation, I need to generate some maps illustrating the shifting location of employment in the US over the last fifty years. And [ READ MORE ]
The NYTimes reports that hopes for municipal wireless service are waning. Apparently the rising cost of installing and operating routers and the passing of Earthlink’s municipal wireless enthusiast CEO have led Earthlink to abruptly begin withdrawing from its municipal contracts. Gavin Newsome, mayor of SF, suggests that the move is being made in bad faith. [ READ MORE ]