| News for Mon Jun 13 19:30:58 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|07:30 pm] |
- Fab
Cory R writes "Neil Gershenfeld is an MIT professor and the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms where he teaches a course called "How to Make (almost) Anything." In his book FAB: The Coming Revolution on Your Desktop--From Personal Computers to Personal Fabrication, Gershenfeld describes the current state of personal fabrication tools and the surprising impact that these tools have when made available to everybody from MIT students to villagers in India in the form of Fab Labs. Lots of fabrication techniques and some technologies are discussed including those that are still only in development today. The pace of development seems to be accelerating and as the capabilities of the tools advance, Gershenfeld predicts one day he will be able to drop the word "almost" from the title of his course." Read on for the rest of Cory R's review.
- Today's "Note", in Brief
Kick it: "On Sunday, the Washington Post's Tom Edsall reported that the SEIU authorized its union leaders to quit the AFL-CIO, taking the first step to breaking up the labor federation, and said that the Teamsters, Unite Here, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and the Laborers could follow, taking with them 5 million of the group's 13 million members... On Saturday, the Washington Post's Michael Shear had the details of the new federal PAC that Virginia Gov. Mark Warner is forming for a possible 2008 presidential bid, and has hired Monica Dixon, former deputy chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore. Shear also looked at Warner's recent travels and fundraising ability, and threw in an extremely strong quote from Jim Jordan about Warner's viability as an alternative to Hillary Clinton.... Newsweek's Howard Fineman and Tamara Lipper take a closer look at the firebrand Dean, the way he's approached the travel and grassroots appeals to party members and activists, and his assets in terms of fundraising."
- Downing Street Directive
In the wake of newly uncovered British documents showing there was no postwar plan for Iraq, critics are launching a renewed offensive against the Bush administration and its justification for war.
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| News for Mon Jun 13 18:31:09 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|06:31 pm] |
- Books in Beta Form
congaflum writes "The Pragmatic Bookshelf recently released the second beta of their upcoming book Agile Web Development with Rails. By releasing the book to the public in beta form, the authors are able to gather feedback about the books content from a larger audience that would normally be the case. Readers get to influence the direction on the books content by posting feedback to the publisher's website. And of course there's the benefit of simply getting to read the book early. Could beta-version books be a sign of future changes in the commercial publishing industry? And with the availability of things like print on demand these days, how about books that are much more frequently revised (why buy a year-old Edition 1 of something, if you can have Edition 1.1.18?)" - Protecting Your Personal Info While Traveling?
AdEbh asks: "I was just listening an interesting article on a local radio station regarding computer security. In it a member from the AFP cybercrime unit mentioned that they are starting to see keylogger software installed on public access terminals, such as internet cafes. With friends & family overseas at the moment or soon to be what advise should I give them? Is this a real concern?"
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| News for Mon Jun 13 17:31:00 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|05:31 pm] |
- Digital TV Transmitter Using a VGA card
An anonymous reader writes "Yet Another Project from Fabrice Bellard : with any PC and a standard VGA card, you can build a real Analog or DVB-T Digital TV transmitter by directly generating the VHF signal. The provided example shows a Lena picture transmitted as a real Digital TV channel."
- Zimbabwe's violent clean-up
A recent NYTarticle notes, "The government abruptly began demolishing shanties and roadside markets here three weeks ago, evicting thousands of people and bulldozing homes or burning them to the ground, in what officials call a cleanup of illegal slums and black-market vendors. But as the campaign, directed at as many as 1.5 million members of Zimbabwe's vast underclass, spreads beyond Harare, it is quickly evolving into a sweeping recasting of society, a forced uprooting of the very poorest city dwellers, who have become President Robert G. Mugabe's most hardened opponents."Betsycompares Mugabe to Stalin, and figures it's worth it to take a shot at Amnesty International while she's got your attention (it's no matter to her that this development came after the infamous "gulag" report).
- Rights and Liberties: After Guantanamo
The chorus is right; Guantanamo should be closed. But closing ithe base is just the first step in getting the U.S. to practice what it preaches about human rights.
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| News for Mon Jun 13 16:30:46 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|04:30 pm] |
- ACLU to Challenge Utah Porn-Blocking Law
delirium of disorder writes "Opponents of a Utah law that requires Internet service providers to offer to block Web sites deemed pornographic filed a lawsuit last Thursday to overturn the measure. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah is seeking an injunction in federal court in Salt Lake City as part of its lawsuit claiming that the Utah law violates state residents' rights to free expression and unlawfully interferes with interstate commerce. The legislation requires the attorney general to create an official list of Web sites with material that is deemed harmful to minors. Under the law, Internet providers in Utah must provide their customers with a way to disable access to sites on the list or face felony charges."
- Republicans Trying to Ban Municipal Broadband
Metafilter picks up a storyoff dKos: " Republican Congressman Pete Sessions from Texas introduceda bill that would make all free, public, municipal WiFi illegal. Sessions, as it turns out, is a big fat recipientof SBC funds. Why stop there? Should we privatize highways as well? How about subways? Glad the liberal media is all over this one. Here are a couple of links: Original post on DailyKos, An informative editorialfrom the Fort Wayne paper."
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| News for Mon Jun 13 15:31:00 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|03:31 pm] |
- Comparing Linux and BSD, Diplomatically
Joe Barr writes "Talk about a red-button issue. How do you compare Linux and the BSDs and keep the debate from turning into a friendly-fire flame-fest nightmare between bigots on both sides of the line? Linus Torvalds once handled a similar situation by wearing a BSD beanie at USENIX while delivering a Linux talk. Now he tries it again in this interview on NewsForge ." - Online Takeout Delivery is Back
prostoalex writes "It's like watching e-Dreams and re-living the Kozmo.com experience, only this time it's for real, the New York Times says. SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food. All is done via their Web site so no need to look for that takeout menu: "SeamlessWeb charges restaurants a commission of 5 percent to 15 percent, while the business pays a 2.5 percent fee for each transaction. The process for consumers will work much the same, except they will be charged no service fee.""
- 59% of Americans Say "Exit Iraq Now"
First Readahoy, ahoy: "USA Todayreports on a new Gallup poll showing that nearly six in 10 Americans believe that the US should withdraw some or all of its soldiers from Iraq -- “the most downbeat view of the war since it began in 2003.” Moreover, for the first time, a majority would be ‘upset’ if President Bush sent more troops… [And] 56% say the Iraq war wasn't ‘worth it,’ essentially matching the high-water mark of 57% a month ago.” More commentary at Memeorandumand HuffPost.
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| News for Mon Jun 13 13:30:53 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|01:30 pm] |
- Fedora Core 4 Available
Limburgher writes "As of a few minutes ago, the torrents listed at duke went live. Nothing on the main site yet, however. The more people get on the torrents, the faster they will be. You all know the drill." - Nokia Develops a New Browser on Apple WebKit
Althazzar writes "Nokia has built a new browser for their Symbian system based on the WebKit open source project from Apple, released last week. "Apple is pleased to assist Nokia in creating their new Series 60 browser based on the same KHTML open source technology that powers Apple's Safari"."
- The Java open source debate
The recent announcement from Apache regarding their plans to embark on their own J2SE implementation called Harmony has re-ignited the long-running Java/OSS debate. James "Father of Java" Gosling reacted in an unexpected way by giving a misleading view of what open source is really all about. - Nokia Develops a New Browser for Series 60 by Using Open Source Software
Nokia announced today that it is using best-of-breed open source software as the basis of a new mobile browser for its world leading smartphone software, the Series 60 Platform. The new browser aims at an unparalleled user experience when browsing full Web pages on a smartphone screen - over wireless connections with the top performance in the mobile industry.
- More British Papers Damn Bush's Iraq War Push
This weekend, the Washington Postbroke the relative silence in the mainstream media on the damning British Briefing Papers. The not-as-infamous-as-it-should-be Downing Street Memo suggested Bush "fixed" the intelligence to support his bid for war, and now more leaked memos support many of the claims Iraq war detracters have been making for years. ThinkProgress summarizes them here. And the always-insightful Juan Coleposts on the most recent bombshell in this developing story- a new memo that "warns the British cabinet in essence that they are facing jail time because Blair promised Bush at Crawford in April, 2002, that he would go to war against Iraq with the Americans."
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| News for Mon Jun 13 12:30:54 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|12:30 pm] |
- Jeff Bezos's Space Company Reveals Some Secrets
An anonymous reader writes "Jeff Bezos's commercial spaceflight company, Blue Origin, has kept its plans secret to better compete with rivals such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. But in order to build its launch facility in West Texas, it has revealed some details of its future operations: Blue Origin's Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) will carry three or more passengers on suborbital, ballistic trajectories to altitudes in excess of 325,000 feet above sea level. It will launch vertically and land vertically, and will use hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellants. It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control. Blue Origin plans a maximum rate of 52 launches per year."
- Robert Kennedy Jr.: Endless Negligence of Press' Top Threat to Democracy
Light up the Darknesslinks an interview with Robert Kennedy Jr.at SierraSummit2005. Consider me a fan. Kennedy says, "I give over 100 speeches a year, more than 40 of them in the red states, and on the issue of corporate accountability, I get the same response as I do from blue-state residents, except for this: red-state voters are always asking, “How come I haven’t heard this before?” The reason is that they’re getting their news from Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and the Sinclair network, which are not telling them the truth. So they have all kinds of misconceptions about environmentalists, about environmental laws, about the war in Iraq, etc."
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| News for Mon Jun 13 11:30:46 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|11:30 am] |
- Creative Commons & Webcomics
xerexes writes "This week Comixpedia is publishing an article written by T Campbell called "Creative Commons and Webcomics" which features a roundtable discussion with comments from Lawrence Lessig, Neeru Paharia, Mia Garlick, JD Frazer and Cory Doctorow. Traditional copyright faces webcomics with an uncomfortable choice. Its restrictions, properly enforced, would mean a virtual end to crossovers and homages, fan art, fan fiction, and many other staples that make the webcomic a more entertaining creation and foster artistic growth. A total lack of copyright, however, leaves unscrupulous readers free to "bootleg" subscription sites, program tools to deprive comics of advertising revenue, and even profit from others' labor without permission. The Creative Commons license presents a possible solution. It lets copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others, through a variety of licensing and contract schemes, which may include dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. "
- Linus compares Linux and BSDs
I recently asked Linus Torvalds for his thoughts on the relative strengths and weaknesses of Linux and BSD, and about how much synergy there might be between the Linux kernel and the BSDs. - WinServer Vs. Linux Study Generates Fire
Microsoft says it was only trying to do a service, but Linux backers scorn comparison with Windows
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| News for Mon Jun 13 10:30:42 2005 |
[Jun. 13th, 2005|10:30 am] |
- SW Weenies: Ready for CMT?
tbray writes "The hardware guys are getting ready to toss this big hairy package over the wall: CMT (Chip Multi Threading) and TLP (Thread Level Parallelism). Think about a chip that isn't that fast but runs 32 threads in hardware. This year, more threads next year. How do you make your code run fast? Anyhow, I was just at a high-level Sun meeting about this stuff, and we don't know the answers, but I pulled together some of the questions." - PC Prices Reach $300 Milestone
Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Prices for fully loaded, name-brand PCs have slipped below $300 in the last few weeks, a major milestone. 'Ten or so years ago, when PCs cost five or even 10 times what they do now, it was common for analysts to say that they would never become a staple in homes until they were priced the way consumer electronics were, usually defined as costing less than $300,' Lee Gomes writes in the Wall Street Journal. 'In the days when PCs were $2,000 and even more, that target seemed to be something of a fantasy. Now, PCs cost less than some telephones--and less than a lot of TV sets--and can be found in roughly three-quarters of U.S. homes. But while they are priced like consumer electronics, the machines still aren't even remotely as easy to use, and the trend lines there aren't particularly encouraging.'"
- Teaching Parrot to Say "PHP"
Several months ago, I held a conversation with a fellow programmer about the relevance and performance of PHP-GTK. The fear, said he, is that PHP-GTK is too slow to run robust desktop applications. Yet, how can this fear be plausible when so many already use PHP for robust Web-based applications? I retorted in my infinite wisdom. - Performance analysis on Linux
Performance analysis and bottleneck determination in Linux is not rocket science. It requires some basic knowledge of the hardware and kernel architecture and the use of some standard tools. Using a hands-on approach we’ll walk readers through the different subsystems and the key indicators, to understand which component constitutes the current bottleneck of a system. - Review: Debian 3.1
As the first Debian release to use the new installer, version 3.1, a.k.a. Sarge, goes a long way to detonating the myth that Debian is hard to install. Moreover, because it includes -- for the most part -- up-to-the-moment software while conforming to strict free software guidelines and offering better than average security, 3.1 is easily the most accessible version of Debian ever released.
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