As GiT points out, blog aggregators are popping up everywhere. Dave (Hogg’s Blog) points out that ” The owner(s) will show him/herself soon enough I’m sure… but they are sure hip to the latest.” Ed Cone has also posted on it here. Created on December 10th, there’s are still some technical difficulties such as adding blogs automatically and the color scheme needs a bit of work. Definitely the thought patterns behind community blogging are becoming a reality.
The movie is the story of Nameless, a sword-wielding hero in the era of Chinese unification. The movie is structured around a conversation between Nameless and the King of Qin, the man who will unite the nation, become China’s first emperor, and build the Great Wall — Nameless has killed the three Zhao assassins who have hunted the King for the last three years. Before Nameless can receive the promised reward, the King requests that he recount the tale of how he bested the assassins.
While the Christmas season has passed, and the new year is just around the corner, I am feeling somewhat empty. I have everything I could ever want in my life: a beautiful loving woman that means the world to me as I do to her, a career, a place to sleep, and food on the table. My manager is kind, wonderful, understanding and my employer allows me to participate in community works at all times of the day as long as my work is done. I even get to purchase gadgets every once in a while and play those wonderful video games. But poor Yuki is going to another home.
The Seattle Times did an article on the father of optical-digital technology, who happens to hit close to home. Jim Russell, a retired Batelle’s PNNL (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) scientist engineered the technology behind what is known as the compact disc. While Sony and Phillips roll in billions of dollars from retail sales and lawsuit settlements, they licensed technology that was created from 1960s. The first patent was filed in 1966 and the first prototype for optical digital technology was built in 1973. Because Russell’s contract ended (from ORC) before settlement of patent infringement by Sony and Phillips, Russell never got a cent.
ComAir computers glitch during the Christmas Day, causing 1,100 flights to be grounded. While this is old news, probably should point out the stability of systems in question. Screaming for backup systems and other technologies to prevent groundings in the future is inevitable with Microsoft software. Perhaps it’s time to consider backing a new era of open-source? Unlikely, but one can always be hopeful.
Fair Warning: This has been on my mind for a long time, and it’s not meant to demean or offend anyone. If you easily take offense to this topic, don’t read my rant. Otherwise, continue on…
Personal rant:
Amusingly enough, I woke up this morning to read about how a nonprofit service provider added “national” dial-up services to their arsenal of product lines. As a technologist, I have to wonder where this is going.
Joichi Ito is heading off to Berlin for the 21st Chaos Communications Congress to speak about the State of Emergent Democracy.
Emergent democracy refers to the internet phenomenon of web-based communications platforms to change the geopolitical landscape to increasingly reflect more democratic principles. It is used in the context of defining a political rift in the current world order between the interests of corporate-run business and the public, and to describe the new abilities of the public to organize as (‘at long last’) realistically capable of trancending the preexisting and established order.
Fair Warning: This has been on my mind for a long time, and it’s not meant to demean or offend anyone. If you easily take offense to this topic, don’t read my rant. Otherwise, continue on…
Personal rant:
Engadget wrote about Christmas stupidity with cell phones. My question is, “Where is the common sense?!” The digest version: SFGate reported that the California Highway Patrol and 911 dispatchers are getting numerous phone calls from people who are getting cell phones as Christmas presents.
Slashdot writes:
“AOL plans to offer a free webmail service to compete directly with Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail. Does this mean AOL is trying to become something which it is not?”
The Mozilla Foundation is at it again. Code-named Lightning, it is to integrate current projects of Sunbird (calendaring) and Thunderbird (mail) to combat Outlook. Microsoft has already dismissed the project claiming that the Outlook/Exchange model is better and that the Mozilla project will probably “not be suitable for business use.” Slashdot covers it here.
