AI Class

Woot! ;)  After so many years out of college, it was weird to do homework and midterms and finals again =)

Sometimes, Kickstarter Projects Don’t Make It

In general, no one likes to fail or even hear about failures.  I found this story, though about failure, to be quite encouraging.  They were trying to raise $20k, but only got $3k worth of pledges; thus the failure.  Someone who had seen them on the site invested $200k; and thus the encouragement.  I guess it's a sign that even failures can be a good thing -- in their case giving them a 10-fold increase in desired investment.

Patented Gestures

Ok, it's bad enough that Apple has a patent on "slide to unlock"... I am actually offended that Lucent filed a patent in 1998 (awarded in 2001) for VR-based interface.  VPL Research had already built goggle/glove systems 13 years before Lucent filed that patent.  Hell, I had already played Dactyl Nightmare (image right) before that patent was filed.  In fact, take a look here and see what prior art you find.

Slashdot: National Academies Release Over 4,000 Free Science Books

I'm always a big fan of huge tomes of learning being released to the public. Similar to the MIT OpenCourseware, the National Academies have released lots of PDF books to the public for free.  For example, maybe you'd like a free copy of "The Rise of Games and High Performance Computing for Modeling and Simulation"?

Pentagon Says Cyberattacks Can Count As Act of War

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! It seems that, perhaps in response to my previous post (lol) the USA has decided that China is attempting to cyberattack them and we need a war to deal with it.

Just as a side note... if cyberattacks are an act of war,  why are we not declaring war on the MPAA?  Oh, that's right... because (in conjunction with the RIAA) they ARE the law. Stupid me.

First commercial quantum computer system

Ok, I know you have all been dying to come up with some idea of what to buy me for my birthday or christmas... I have decided to simplify that decision for you.  The Tesla Roadster can wait until next year.  This year, I want the D-Wave One.

GPL?

Most of the people who read my blogs are probably aware that I am a bit anti-GPL, preferring MIT, BSD or Apache license (even for my own code).  At every company I work with (except Intel who flat out told us to not even read webpages about GPL code) we argue about what it takes to make a derivative work.  Does this count? Does that count?  It's no wonder, since two of the biggest GPL advocates don't even agree.

Streaming content law

It should come as no surprise that after Obama has hired the RIAA to run the Justice dept, they want to put a new law in place ensuring that streaming copyrighted material is a felony.  So to clarify, if you make a video commentary and then put it on YouTube, members of the Justice department (wearing their corporate profit hats) can then claim that you are streaming illegal media, issue a takedown notice which will be honored without question, and then throw you in prison.  Who knows, maybe I'll go to prison for even suggesting this might happen.

Rock Paper Scissors anyone?

Where to get broadband?

Recently I moved and had to figure out who to get broadband from.  I had previously had SDSL with Speakeasy, but they did not have a good option speed-wise at the new location.   FIOS was previously available, but not at the new house.  In the end, with much hesitation, I went with Comcast.

If only I had known about this site then, I might have been able to find a better option.

So, if you are debating which carrier to use, take a look at http://www.broadbandmap.gov/ and see what's available.

Zeitgeist pt 3

I watched the 3rd video and I have to unfortunately say that I am disappointed. For the most part, it felt like a rehashing of what was already said.  Sure, they talked about things like childhood development; but that was more of a PSA than a call to action.  And when you are telling people the time is now and to get to it; it doesn't really help to tell them step 1 is to catalog all of earth's resources.  That's almost like saying "every individual can help - first, fly to Mars, then...."  If you want people to stand up and start working towards the goal, you have to give them something they believe they personally can do to make a difference.  I don't know about you, but I don't think I personally have the resources or knowledge to catalog all of earths natural resources quicker than they change.  And one last pet peeve before I embed the video for you... Mainframe in the center of the city?  Really?  That is an extremely outdated idea that will also give the city a single point of failure and a single point of attack for the status quo.  Instead of a giant central mainframe, why not let the entire system form a p2p mesh so there is no single point of failure?

Anyways, the video...

Are there anymore RIAA lackeys to hire?

Continuing on my previous rants about Obama being on the take and being a lackey of the RIAA, he puts yet another RIAA jockey into power.  Why don't they just drop the façade and start calling it Obama's United States of RIAA?

Companies asking to be Boycotted

The sad thing is that I used to work for one of these companies...  oh well - if you want censorship, you should be the first volunteer.

• Nike - Beaverton, OR
• Achushnet - Fairhaven, MA
• Curb Music Publishing - Nashville, TN
• NBC Universal - New York, NY
• Viacom - New York, NY
• Callaway - Carlsbad, CA
• Cleveland Golf - Huntington Beach, CA
• Rosetta Stone - Arlington, VA
• Activision - Santa Monica, CA
• Adidas Group - Portland, OR
• Xerox - Norwalk, CT
• Hastings Entertainment, Inc. - Amarillo, TX
• Fortune Brands - Deerfield, IL
• Coty Inc. - New York, NY
• EDGE Entertainment Distribution - Streetsboro, OH
• Oakley, Inc. - Foothill Ranch, CA
• PING - Phoenix, AZ
• Louis Vuitton - New York, NY
• D'Addario and Company - Farmingdale, NY
• Monster Cable Products, Inc. - Brisbane, CA
• Tiffany and Co. - New York, NY
• Farouk Systems, Inc. - Houston, TX
• Beam Global - Deerfield, IL
• Chanel USA - New York, NY
• True Religion Apparel, Inc. - Vernon, CA
• Concord Music Group - Beverly Hills, CA
• Village Roadshow Pictures - Beverly Hills, CA
• National Basketball Association - New York, NY
• National Football League - New York, NY
• The Collegiate Licensing Company/IMG College - Atlanta, GA
• Anderson Merchandisers - Amarillo, TX
• Trans World Entertainment Corporation - Albany, NY
• Timberland - Stratham, NH
• Major League Baseball - New York, NY
• Lightening Entertainment/Mainline Releasing - Santa Monica, CA
• Sierra Pictures - Beverly Hills, CA
• Voltage Pictures LLC - Los Angeles, CA
• Worldwide Film Entertainment LLC - Westchester, CA
• Nu Image, Inc. - Los Angeles, CA
• Burberry Limited - New York, NY
• Big Machine Records - Nashville, TN
• The Little Film Company - Studio City, CA
• Columbia Sportswear Company - Portland, OR

RIAA busted?

It appears that some of the big name members of the RIAA were busted for illegally copying music.  Gee, what a shock.  But really, shouldn't the fact that they knew they were doing it completely invalidate the RIAA's attempts to bust other people for doing it?