July 2010
13 posts
Food Consumption in America →
An average of 2700 calories per day and over 600 lbs. of dairy products per year (not counting cheese and dairy drinks). That’s not a healthy diet. Great info-graphic though.
I Tweet, Therefore I Am →
This is an insightful article (yes, it’s longer than 140 characters).
Remember, before there was LOLing, there was lolling.
Bisson's Fire on The Mountain →
Cory Doctorow gives a short review of a speculative/historical/science fiction novel that sounds enthralling. I can’t believe I somehow missed this. It’s now part of my Kindle collection. I only wish it had been available in the iBooks store.
“With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Apple's Magic Trackpad →
This is what the Magic Mouse should have been in the first place.
Twitter Testing Inline Media →
I really loved Pownce because it handled media so well. Now, Twitter is shoe-horning the features in, and it’s just plain sloppy. I would love it if Pownce were revived. It was the perfect place between Twitter and Facebook, and it only failed because it was available too early in the game.
Health Month →
Buster Benson’s 90-day challenge to himself and newest online, self-reflection tool.
Here’s how you play. It takes place every month. Before the month starts, you choose your own rules that you’d like to follow. These rules are flexible. You can decide to give up drinking altogether, or you can decide to limit yourself to only 30 drinks a week. Everybody’s different,...
Anticircumvention Rulemaking →
According to the U.S. Copyright Office, it looks like you may now circumvent DVD encryption/protection on legitimately owned media. This appears to also allow jail-breaking of mobile devices (iPhone would be the most notable here) and allow the removal of DRM from eBooks in order to have a PC read them to you.
Oh, and if you still have software that requires a dongle to run, and the dongle...
Ostrich - Twitter Client for Safari →
This is a beautiful browser plug-in if I ever saw one. I suppose it’s about time to start using Safari on Windows as well.
On The Fence
I’m still on the fence about switching to Tumblr. Although, with the lack of import tools, I could take the opportunity to only move the most quality posts I have from Wordpress. It should be a no-brained of a move, but really, I still dislike the permalinks that Tumblr create. Perhaps I need to check out possibilities for better permalinks before committing to the change. Time marches on…
To Tumblr Or Not To Tumblr
The difficulty with changing from one content management system to another is deciding what features are most important to you and how easily those features can be implemented if not already available by default. Then comes the decision on re-designing or attempting to port the existing site design. Finally, and most painfully, comes the code factor.
At least for me, the code output is...
John Gruber translates for Apple →
Hilarious, and most likely all true. Bravo, John.
Apple on the iPhone 4 Antenna Issue →
Apple has released a letter to the public today addressing the iPhone 4 antenna issue.
To start with, gripping almost any mobile phone in certain ways will reduce its reception by 1 or more bars. This is true of iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, as well as many Droid, Nokia and RIM phones. But some users have reported that iPhone 4 can drop 4 or 5 bars when tightly held in a way which covers the black...
November 2008
1 post
July 2008
1 post
Marginalia #5
The military has long adopted technology and pushed the limits of technology through research and development. The use of these technologies, whether newly developed or existing, is not always the intended use. From a cultural standpoint, it would be desirable to think that the military always uses technology in an ethical and good manner, but what is good for some is not for others, and what is...
June 2008
3 posts
Marginalia #3
It is astonishing to think that there are pharmaceuticals that can not only extend our lives, but that can eradicate diseases that were once plagues, and even still are in some areas of the world. The technology of drugs and medicine has reached a fever pitch, and with greater understanding of the human genome, we are developing cures by the dozen on a yearly basis, each one more effective than...
Marginalia #2
MediaDefender is a company that was hired by the RIAA and MPAA to perform DoS and DDoS attacks on BitTorrent tracker servers suspected of hosting illegal files. Over the Memorial Day weekend this year, they attacked Revision3 (Louderback, 2008), a Web2.0 and Internet media company that hosts multiple audio and video podcasts. Because they were being flooded with over 8,000 SYN requests per second,...
Marginalia #1
Technology differs greatly from the common American societal viewpoint. It is not simply about personal computers in the home of every person, or touch screen interfaces, or even cloth that will make the wearer nearly invisible. Rather, technology is that which can be put to practical use. Often the practicality is extended to suggest an ease of use or a simplification of the task that the...
October 2007
1 post
Application Framework Scalability
When designing web sites, creators must take several criteria into account: navigation, consistency, performance, appearance, quality, interactivity, security, and scalability. This is especially true for e-commerce sites. Customers and companies alike access e-commerce web sites to accomplish a number of differing tasks from account setup to repeat purchases to content management. Content...
May 2007
1 post
Security and Cyber-Crime
The hacking sub-culture draws a distinction between those who exploit and break into systems for personal gain and those who do so for knowledge. A person of malicious intent is often referred to as a “cracker”, but whether the intent is good or bad, the mere act of intrusion on an information system is of questionable ethics. In the United States, the law does not look at the...
April 2007
3 posts
Privacy and Information Systems
Information systems are developed to provide mechanisms for storing, accessing, sharing and manipulating data. The most important part of the information system is the data. Preserving the integrity of the data is essential in maintaining a trusted system that users will want to leverage for use in business. Confidentiality and security are also requirements of a well designed information system....
Fair Competition and Internet Access
Content availability is one of the major concerns of companies. Marketing a product or providing consumer resources requires a constant stream of information to be disseminated through every available media outlet. One of the fastest growing and most leveraged is the Internet. The benefit of the Internet is the tremendous global reach that it has in the world’s marketplace. The difficulty...
Liability, Reliability, and Safety
Modern information driven societies require constant access to their information. In the United States, the proliferation of devices that allow users to access content on the Internet, intranets and every network between has raised the bar for acceptable levels of performance from computing systems. Service level agreements have risen to a demand of over 99% uptime on critical systems and often...