Winter Reading List

One of the many nice things about my job is that at the end of the year I end up with a lot of vacation time in a "use it or loose it" situation. I usually end up taking 4-5 weeks off (starting around the week of Thanksgiving and returning after recovering from my New Years Eve hang-over). Since most of my friends have more forethought than I do and space out their vacation time throughout the year, after the first couple days of mindless slacking I end up needing a project to fill the time.
This year I will be working on getting through:


A New Kind of Science



Swarm Intelligence



Reasoning about Rational Agents

I’m planning to split my time between the PC and the Powerbook (using this as an oppertunity to become familiar with Mono on OSX). Should be good fun.

The Poor Man: New Bush Ad

The Capitol Steps Home Page



The Fourth Debate

Modern radiators



I have radiant heat in my house... why do i have ugly wall plates instead of attractive and multifunctional devices like these? And what does cost to correct this situation?

MacWireless 11g Antenna Booster



So when your AirPort don't treat you like it useta, this kicks in like a turbo boosta!

Respect.

It`s Good to Be in DC



All new Jib-Jab!

Bush administration cons cable networks into airing an hour long free campaign ad for George W. Bush

Yesterday, the White House announced that President Bush would be delivering a "major policy address" on terrorism today. The cable news networks broadcast it live and in full. Yet the "address" turned out to be a standard campaign stump speech before a Pennsylvania crowd that seemed pumped on peyote, cheering, screaming, or whooping at every sentence.


The president announced no new policy, uttered not one new word about terrorism, foreign policy, or anything else. He did all the things he wanted to do in last Thursday's debate—accuse his opponent of weakness, bad judgment, vacillation, and other forms of flip-floppery—though this time without a moderator to hush the audience, much less an opponent to bite back. And Bush loved it, smiling, smirking, raising his eyebrows, as if to say, "How 'bout that zinger?"

You have to admit it takes some serious gall to tell news stations that you're going to give a major policy address, and once they're all committed to a live feed, take that as a free hour to bash on your political opponent.

I guess the administration had to do something to fix their numbers. Splicer likened the Bush/Kerry debate to the Tyson/Lennox fight "a tall man beating the shit out of a dangerous retard" was, i believe, his exact quote.

Read the speach and see if you can honestly call this a "major policy address".

Sun & Kodak settle

Looks like Sun is gonna write a check after all.

Cray X1 Supercomputer



The prefered Supercomputer of the NSA.

Kodak wins patent lawsuit against Sun

Good luck trying to squeeze $1.06 BILLION out of Sun, they only have a $14.01 B market cap. Where are they gonna get that kind of cash?

The real question is what will Microsoft do when Kodak comes a callin' should Sun fail in their appeal? My guess is that MSFT wont be cutting a billion dollar check, but at the same time Microsoft is sick of being in the courts. I suspect the Microsoft patent lawyers have already taken a little look see through MSFT's patent position and have compiled a list of of MSFT patents that Kodak appears to be violating. These will be used to convince Kodak to sign the standard 10 year non-agression pact. At which point Microsoft doesn't have to sweat the Kodak patent portfolio, and Kodak gets Favored Techology Partner status in Longhorn + 1, so everybody wins... except Sun.

UPDATE 10/04/2004:

Splicer has another take on this. He points out that Microsoft licensed these patents from Wang back in 1992 for $90 million and Microsoft gave Sun over $1 billion dollars in cold hard cash not too long ago. He postulates that since Kodak is far more immune to a patent war with IBM than Sun or Microsoft that this could be a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" where Microsoft pays Sun to take a fall so Kodak can go put the hurt on IBM over Linux. Seems way too complicated (and for all i know illegal) to me so I suspect the truth is far more mundane, but still an interesting thought...

Zeppelin Nt



A few years ago i read that Airlifter Cargo was trying to develop a modern zeppelin cargo ship capable of trans-atlantic/trans-pacific travel, i've been thinking that my ultimate retirement would be to convert one of these huge cargo ships into an opulent flying condo in which i could tour the world in leisurely style.

Looks like Neiman Marcus is offering a smaller version for $10 mil. Sadly the NM model has a maximum range of 24 hours, which makes this more of an "air go-cart" than an "air ship"

Sony DSC-U40



The U40 is awesome. It's the perfect "carry with you all the time" camera. The thing i like best about this camera (besides the fact that it's so small), is that it turns on and is ready to shoot in under 1 second. Some people complain about a lack of zoom. These people are idiots. The whole point of this camera is to take quick and casual pictures.