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August 31, 2005
Don't Touch That!
Whatever you do, do not play High Wheels.
Keelhauling is not responsible for your total lack of productivity, the cramp in your clicking finger, or the fact that you missed dinner. You were warned.
Posted by John at 07:06 PM | Comments (0)
August 30, 2005
Middle Eatern Accomplishments
Christopher Hitchins' piece on "A War To Be Proud Of" is a well-written and well-reasoned plea for rationality in evaluating our strategy and tactics in the middle east. The strangest part, and Hitchins make a good case for it, is that one of the heroes of the story turns out to be Tony Blair. Not that I don't like Tony, it's just...
Posted by John at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
Cringely on Google, again.
This time, he asks "Has Google Peaked?" Fun speculation piece, good reading.
Posted by John at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
August 29, 2005
The Perils of Prefetch
I've been using various "prefetching" technology since the days I was on a 19.2 Kbps modem, software that lurks behind the browser and preloads pages to speed your browsing experience. In its simplest form, it loads all the pages that have links to them on the page you have up on your browser. That way, whichever one you click on, it loads in a snap, and the prefetch program starts up again, working in the background to load all the pages that have links from the new page while you're looking at it.
Google launched a new prefetching service called WebAccelerator, which is more sophisticated. It uses Google's search algorithms and results weightings to make intelligent guesses as to which page you're most likely to go to next, and load that page first. Sweet.
However, never underestimate the power of the dark side. Imagine that you're sitting at your desk at work, cranking through a Word document or a spreadsheet or sitting on a conference call, when along comes the company's security director with an HR person in tow. "Clean out your desk", you're told. In a "routine security scan" of users' hard drives, which are typically backed up to a networked server, they've uncovered pR0nography, lurking in subdirectories on your hard drive with names like C:\WINDOWS\Temp\{DABD554A-7DA6-4763-BF17-D3CAFB55E5A6}. But, you say, you never went to that site? Ah... but your computer did.
To add extra spice to this risky business of prefetching web pages, the Firefox browser which has enjoyed such a surge of popularity primarily due to security flaws in Internet Explorer currently has the default settings allowing prefetch to occur. That means you don't even need to "turn it on"; you could be caching pages by the hundreds and note even know it.
Right now, you actually have to actively download a prefetch program and run an install routine, but I figure it is inevitable that one of two things will happen:
(1) Hackers will turn prefetch into a virus, bypassing the install screens and with a bias toward sites that feature pR0n, gambling, pharmaceuticals, mortgage refinancing or some other unsavory activity.
(2) Google will bundle up a bunch of these programs and *finally* offer a competitive product to Microsoft's Office suite, and prefetch ("WebAccelerator") will be among them so you'll click the button for "Full Install" and be prefetching without knowing it.
Google Help explains how to disable this feature in Firefox:
Type "about:config" the address bar.
Scroll down to the setting "network.prefetch-next" and set the value to "False".
This is clearly a Mozilla Firefox problem, not a Google problem, but the default should be off, not on. Reading the FAQs on Firefox, it seems even more dangerous:
A web page provides a set of prefetching hints to the browser, and after the browser is finished loading the page, it begins silently prefetching specified documents and stores them in its cache... Will Mozilla prefetch documents from a different host? Yes. There is no same-origin restriction for link prefetching. Limiting prefetching to only URLs from the the same server would not offer any increased browser security.Be careful out there, friends.
Posted by John at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)
It's not the heat, it's the humidity
Checked in with Mom down in Cantonment, Florida, site of the gigantic super-secret hurricane magnet that the government has been developing the last two years, and it appears Katrina spared the Florida panhandle from the worst of the damage. The Mississippi and Alabama coastal cities were not so lucky, with 10 feet of water in the streets of Gulfport. Boing boing has a good list of live news and video feeds. Wikipedia has another (bottom of page).
Now 1,500,000 homes are without power, and the weather forecast for the next two weeks is for temperatures in the 90s. No air conditioning, and all that water evaporating. Yikes.
Flikr currently has over 1600 photos tagged with "Katrina".
Posted by John at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
August 28, 2005
This page of scientist trading cards makes a nice desktop wallpaper. From alltooflat.com, along with some nifty merchandise.
The image also makes a pretty nice coffee cup, I think.
{Note: If you're wondering where the name alltooflat came from, check the site's home page - there's even an MP3 clip!]
Posted by John at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
SOW: Week of 8/25/05
Song: Brightest Flames
Artist: Zachary Ross & Desolation Angels
Album: For the Love I'm Forgetting
You will like this if you like: Motown, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Caldwell, Norah Jones, Marvin Gaye, Spinners, Al Green
"Like the warm, soulful sound of Sunday morning AM radio in 1965" is how SFartists registry entry describes Zachary Ross & Desolation Angels. Born and raised in Kansas City, Zachary's musical roots were planted deep in the live stage performaces of the seedier bars around town where he often sat in. He blends deep old school soul, funk and R&B with lyrics that'll make you cry and lift you up and a voice to put them out there delicately and with passionate grace. Zachary cites influences from the Impressions, Motown, Ray Charles, and Donny Hathaway.
The result is a blend of modern-vintage soul with tinges of everything from Norah Jones to Jeff Buckley. With a big 9-piece, horn-powered R&B orchestra backing to his music, he plays a guitar rocking neo-zing that somehow stays connected with his R&B past.
His debut album, For The Love I'm Forgetting, is a 2004 issue that is just getting traction on the airwaves. (Note: Check the website under the "Music" link for three additional tunes from the album: No Worries, Sway and Meet'cha There.) CD Baby has streams of all songs.
Best of all - 9:30pm show this Friday at the Elbo Room (647 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 552-7788).
Posted by John at 07:35 PM | Comments (0)
New Music Channel
Most of my music notes I post over to JustGoodMusic, a site I run along with a few friends. But the New Music Channel is worth mentioning both places.
I wrote a few days ago about the changing face of radio, and the opportunity for today's stations to embrace these changes and create a new future for themselves. I highlighted the role of radio as a filter for new music, a role that is sadly filled only sporadically and without much focus or intent. Then I found NMC. It is only an Internet radio station at the moment, but if it ever gets on the air, it will become button number one on my radio.
Posted by John at 04:25 PM | Comments (0)
August 23, 2005
Science quiz
So Mom's gone out to dinner with a few of her friends, and it's just me and Colin and Matt. The questions I got over dinner included:
- What percentage of the human body is water?
- Magnesium fuses that burn underwater, where do they get the oxygen?
- Does magnesium ignite if exposed to the air?
- How does refrigeration work?
- How many degrees Celcius is zero Kelvin?
- Can all elements be turned into gas if they get hot enough?
- How does water put out a fire?
- Why does the body need proteins?
Posted by John at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2005
Granddaddy of all map sites
I'm a big fan of maps - maps from space, old maps, "here there by tygers" maps, illuminated maps, political maps, Google Maps! Now, what promises to be a veritable treasure trove of maps - The Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division - is coming online with some of their 4.5 million maps.
Trivia note: The notion that ancient maps had the boundaries of unknown territories or waters marked with the notation "Here There Be Tygers" (or Monsters, or Dragons), is a myth. The Lenox Globe (ca. 1503-7) bears the Latin phrase "hic sunt dracones" ("here are dragons") on the eastern coast of Asia, and as far as map references, that's it. Another myth busted. Maphist has a nice writeup if you're interested in learning more.
Posted by John at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
August 17, 2005
Sonos Sound
Sonos has been advertising pretty heavily these past few months. They are a relatively new company that makes stereo systems with one critical difference - they have integrated wireless. That means you can play your digital music collection anywhere in the house without wires, and with the Sonos control system, you can even set up "zones" to play in different areas, or even the whole house (party time!). Great idea, basically taking what a lot of people have managed to kludge together with existing technology, and packing it in a plug-and-play solution.
But they missed the boat in a couple of places.
The design is cool, vaguely suggestive of Apple's iPod with lots of clean white surfaces. This not only ensures that the system will work in whatever room design you drop it into, it also presumably helps justify their premium prices.
The only mistake I think they have made is not offering a wireless controller-only version that could work with your own pre-amp, amp and speakers. The Sonos "Zoneplayer" has a built in 50-watt amp. It matches nicely with the speakers they sell, but not with all speakers.
The rule of thumb used to be to spend your money on an audio system in two places - where the sound goes in and where the sound comes out. In the days of LPs, that meant buying a turntable with a good suspension, heavy platter, damped cueing, and very expensive phono cartridge for the inbound side. In the early days of CD, it meant buying a player with a high quality D/A converter - or even a separate outboard converter. These days digital-to-analog processing has gotten so good that the sound card in your PC probably has more capability than the $5,000 converter from 10 years ago, maybe even 5 years ago. So that leaves one place where it important to spend money to get good sound - the speaker system.
I say "speaker system" instead of simply "speakers" because it is critically important that the impedance of the speakers be matched with the proper level of amplification. And this is where Sonos falls down. The range of power sensitivities in great speakers is enormous. Some are appropriate for running with tube amps like Carys, some with outputs as low as 1W per channel. When selecting a speaker for this system, high sensitivity (preferably >90dB/W/m) is a necessary condition. Other speakers have much lower sensitivities and might mate up nicely with a pair of Mark Levinson monoblocks putting out 500W or more per channel.
I know this sounds finicky, but a lot of people have invested serious money in their stereo systems, and aren't going to mothball them just to have wireless digital music. Particularly when the technology to tie those systems into (standard Ethernet or wireless) networks already exists, just not in such an out-of-the-box solution. Sonos appears to have overlooked that in their system design, but it's easily remedied. All they need to do is provide the controller without the amp.
There is also one opportunity I think they missed. If Sonos had been really on the ball, they would have made their control program suitable for more generalized use, and would have made it available for free. The existing software that is out in the market for controlling your home music environment is pretty weak, and Sonos has a nice UI. They could have owned that market, a natural lead-in to sales of their wireless music system.
If they start offering their music control software for free, I'll use it. If they start offering the controller with wireless interface only, or even with pre-amp only, I might even buy it.
Posted by John at 11:35 PM | Comments (2)
August 16, 2005
Vacationing in Greece - pictures
Pictures of our vacation in Greece are finally posted. There are some fantastic photos of Paros and Santorini in there, and as pretty as they are they simply don't do it justice.
Posted by John at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
August 15, 2005
Quick soccer game video
This one from Japan. Every kid has played for a soccer team called the "Tornados", right??
Posted by John at 11:41 PM | Comments (0)
Bookmark: abbreviations
Stands4.com- every abbreviation and acronym you can think of.
Posted by John at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
August 13, 2005
Weird photo day
The world's ugliest dog, and a praying mantis eating a hummingbird. Oh, and a goliath bird-eating spider, while we're at it. OK, now I'm weirded out.
Posted by John at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
CDI Station launch
Apologies for the lack of entries here the past few days.
I've been putting together a business blog, focused on issues in the field of customer data integration (CDI). My hope is to get some good discussion going, and in time bring on one or more of the leading industry practitioners as co-moderators for the site. So help me out, drop by and leave a comment or two!
CDI Station. A customer data integration information portal and discussion forum.
Posted by John at 05:28 PM | Comments (0)
August 09, 2005
Favicon, ahoy!
I was reading a bit on atom vs. RSS 1.0 and 2.0, and in my web searching I stumbled across "FavIcon from Pics", a nifty little tool that will generate the *.ico file necessary for a specialized icon in the browser, directly from pictures on your PC. I uploaded a JPG, downloaded the resulting .zip file containing the .ico file, and in less than 5 minutes, had this:
To see it in Internet Explorer, bookmark this web page and reopen it. In Netscape 6+ or other Mozilla 1+ based browser, it should already be there in your address bar or the page tab.
Without a doubt, the best part of online publishing is on-the-fly redesign. (It is also, unfortunately, the worst part.)
Posted by John at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)
August 08, 2005
Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation
This sounds like the premise for a bad science fiction novel. Evil scientist starts video game company touting ability to make players "feel the game" with a headset designed to deliver mild electrical current to your brain's balance system. Rollercoasters, race cars, flight simulators - all intensely realistic. Meanwhile, a small subroutine is delivering programming instructions...
I don't think I'll be giving anybody a controller to drive me around.
Posted by John at 03:24 AM | Comments (0)
For the seniors
With one son entering his senior year in college and another selecting colleges as he enters his senior year in high school, I was pleased to read that according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, college graduates are being hired at a faster rate and for more money than in recent years. The average starting salary of a graduate with a business degree is more than $40,000 today. A computer science graduate is making about $50,000.
Companies expect to hire 13% more graduates than last year and 85% of employers expect to pay more for them. "There's a level of competition we haven't seen in four years," John According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, college graduates are being hired at a faster rate and for more money than in recent years. The average starting salary of a graduate with a business degree is more than $40,000 today. A computer science graduate is making about $50,000. That's a lot of money for someone who is fresh out of college.
Companies expect to hire 13% more graduates than last year and 85% of employers expect to pay more for them. "There's a level of competition we haven't seen in four years," John Campagnino, head of Accenture.
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Meawhile, in the spirit of passing along good, constructive, dadly advice, here's a article from Philip Agre of UCLA on How To Be A Leader In Your Field that contains a some good thoughts. This article doesn't contain anything new or revolutionary in terms of leadership, but it does highlight a specific perspective about leadership that is increasingly evident in modern society and business. A good read.
Posted by John at 02:51 AM | Comments (0)
August 04, 2005
Back from Greece
Almost three weeks without a post! But we're back from our vacation in Greece, of which I will post more info as I get the photos and notes organized.
Meanwhile, it's back to work for yours truly, trying to get caught up after two and half weeks away. Work is important, I keep telling myself, because we need more. We always need more.
Posted by John at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)
