News from the Net

I know some of you (ahem Will) are disappointed that I have not done a News from the Net in awhile... so without further ado....

A study comes out showing (as all the anti-authoritarian members of my generation would already assume) that DRM encourages copyright violations.

It appears that Oracle has already started screwing over the Java platform. Where it had been completely free before -- they are now installing features that you can't use without paying for them. Of course, the biweekly OpenSolaris updates have ceased since the acquisition as well....

The infamous L0phtCrack is one again being revived by the original developers...

They are now using software to recreate musical instruments that no one has ever seen.

The team that made Google Maps is coming out with a new product, Google Wave. The basic idea behind it is a p2p collaborative environment. The platform itself also has a very interesting license. Although currently of no use to me, I also ran across Google Radio Automation. Google Docs now supports .xslx and .docx. Now something that does have some potential uses for me -- Google Scripts -- supporting server side scripting! There was also Google Site Search, but as Google is hosting all my stuff, I don't think I really need it.

M$ is taking a stab at fixing the Wii Couch Bowlers with a controller-less sensor bar.

For those of you that haven't seen Alice yet [not the game], you should watch the video on the bottom. Definitely better than the LOGO they taught us in elementary school.

How about a clean 1959 Lincoln Continental?

On the Java front, JDK7 has added a new NIO-based File I/O library and a SDP library (Sockets Direct Protocol).

Some cool new memory techniques would allow storing 1TB per square inch (nanoparticles in a nanotube)...

Wolfram Alpha vs Google search result comparison. More Alpha tests. Or try it yourself.

As expected, the US Military is preparing for the next fake attack.

The courts have decided that looking at something inappropriate counts as a crime... so if your boss decided checking your email from work was against company policy, expect to be imprisoned for hacking.

Some updates to the invisibility cloak. Now instead of not being there, you can be someone else ;)

Bloomsbury plans to start providing science books for free.

We all know the concept of 'if anything happens to me, this will be released to the media'... Well, someone did it - with a video posted to youtube upon his death.

Perhaps you'd like some additional senses? Like orientation-awareness? Kinda makes me wonder if that could be used for giving us elf-like abilities so we can build a DreamPark.

A gift for the real geek... how about installing anti-virus software with the interface all in Klingon? Or set them up with some face recognition software that works on videos... Or anything from the recent DARPA project list. Of course, the Espresso Book Machine was finally released - so if you are getting something for me, you can get me that.

How about Project Kenai? Per their page:

Sun Microsystem's onramp for the developer cloud experience of tomorrow, where you can host your open source projects and code, as well as find and collaborate with developers of like mind.

One of the projects on Kenai is how to do ZFS snapshots to the Amazon S3 cloud. Too bad Amazon charges more than Rumpelstiltskin.

In case you missed the terrible news last month, Wardenclyffe is being sold as well :(

MindMappers

As many of you know, I have a tendency to have way too many projects. I decided I needed to do something about that.  I remember using the old java-based mind mappers to solve this problem in the past, so I thought I would try one of those out.  I have also had multiple machines die on me and loose my data recently, so I decided I wanted a hosted one.  Cheap is good, free is better -- but... it has to be able to work for me.

So I started looking around.

I found a high level overview of options here

This place had a detailed list of options here


And now some really quick (and most likely unfair reviews):

http://wisemapping.com
looks really good. very easy to use.
unfortunately doesn't have 1 feature I require -- crosslinking

http://mind42.com
all the reviews said it was unreliable and they lost data, so no go

http://mindmaps.kayuda.com/
dead

http://www.glinkr.net/map/sandbox/
didn't work

http://bubbl.us
looked nice but was kinda annoying
took 4 tries to get it to let me edit the text in a box
linked 1 node to 2 cousin nodes and the arrows disappeared behind them

http://webofweb.net
the "try it live" had editing disabled so couldn't test it

http://touchgraph.com
have to register to try it, so didn't do either

http://mindomo.com
pretty.  nice connecting links.
kinda annoying.  try to move a couple nodes closer to each other and they
kept jumping off the page. seems impossible to move an element further away --
ie: using their demo, I dragged a new link to the other side of that huge
section on the left and there was no way to place it without it disconnecting
from the center and reconnecting over there.
best ui so far - but also most buggy

http://www.mindmeister.com/
the demo on the front page didn't have the same ui problem... but functionality
was fairly limited in it so I was unable to attempt cross-linking

http://www.mywebspiration.com/
I was going to skip this one by since I'd have to sign up to test it... but since
they are just down the street from me, might as well try it...
Overall pretty simple to use. I've submitted a few suggestions already. Overall,
I'd say doable.  So I am trying this one.

Fraudulent Company: American General Finance

Last year, I bought some furniture from America: The Beautiful Dreamer. I signed up for the payment plan through American General Finance. I told them to send all my bills to my billing address, and scheduled weekly payments until it was paid off. They never did send any bills to my billing address.

Feb 6th, the billpay service sent the last payment as it was paid in full.

April 2nd, I got a bill stating that I still owed $95. That didn't seem correct, since I doubt Intuit is incapable of calculating when the bill was paid off, but didn't want to deal with it so I sent it. They received it on April 3rd.

Mid May, their telemarketing department contacted me, told me I was such a great customer and that they wanted my business back. They offered me a $10k loan. I turned it down.

I had been getting a lot of calls from 812-475-4018 that kept hanging up as I answered. On May 22nd, I finally got tired of it and tried calling the number back. I got ahold of American General Finance's collections department who told me I owed another $106 because I had not paid the loan in full by mid March. I argued quite awhile with the rep, then asked to speak to a manager.

The manager kept saying things like "We won't work with 3rd party billpay services" and "Well, of course we will cash their checks". She said it was my fault I didn't get and open every bill from them, even though they refused to send them to the billing address.

In the end I told them I would send them their money and if anyone from their company ever contacted me again, I would file a complaint with the FBI and sue them for fraud and harassment. She tried to tell me that their telemarketing department might still call me and try to sell me service, and I repeated that if *anyone* from their company contacted me again.

NEVER trust this company because of their unethical business practices, spamming and scam-like behaviors:

American General Finance
Payment Processing Center P.O. Box 54770 Los Angeles , CA 900540770
Phone number:	1-800-453-2017

http://www.agfinance.com/

Wired: What's Inside WD-40? Superlube's Secret Sauce

Check the link for the full article.... This sentence is the most revealing:

Seriously. WD-40 is mostly a mix of baby oil, Vaseline, and the goop inside homemade lava lamps.

Omni Dual Saw

I was flipping through channels tonight and saw something called Pitchmen. This fireman had designed a circular saw that had two counter-rotating blades. Conceptually, I was like "yeah, that's kinda kewl... I like counter-rotation"... then I saw him cut a non-boiled egg without any kickback. Ok, that's pretty friggin kewl. Maybe I should get one for my home repair bag... $220 though?

Damn smoking laws

Industry gets hosed

Well, it appears that bloatware Oracle has decided to purchase Sun. Not sure what that is going to mean for Java or OpenSolaris, but it probably doesn't bode well for DarkStar considering Oracle's statement:

"Phillips described Sun's software revenue streams as 'mice nuts,' quote unquote, compared to the rest of the Oracle product line," Rymer said. "Not interesting, not interesting at all."

Phillips was referencing Sun open-source software projects such as MySQL (database), GlassFish (Java application server), the Java identity authentication software franchise, the NetBeans software tools, and several others.

"Oracle, however, might decide to keep the identity software -- that's really good," Rymer said. "What'll happen is that these projects will revert back into the open-source world, they'll live or die there, and we'll see how good this stuff really is."

Obama doesn't even try to hide it anymore

As should have probably been obvious before, Obama is not even trying to hide the fact that he is on the take. From Slashdot:

"Looks like Obama did what many organizations have asked him not to do. In a disappointing move, he has tapped a fifth RIAA lawyer to a top spot in the Justice Department."

Maven Tech Talk [Presentation]

At work, I am supposed to be giving a Maven tech talk to a team that is used to using Ant. I went ahead and created the presentation (see link above or embedded below). Most of the material is gleaned from Maven's site and just organized a bit differently. There's no voiceover or anything, it's just a slide-show... but it's there if anyone would like to use it.

None of that 'Sis'-sy Stuff

Sarah sent this to me... Thought I'd share...


Are you tired of those sissy 'friendship' poems that always sound good, but never actually come close to reality?

Well, here is a series of promises that actually speak of True Friendship.

You WON'T see  cutesy little smiley faces on this card - Just the stone cold truth of our great friendship.

1. When you are sad, I will jump on the person who made you sad like a spider monkey jacked up on Mountain Dew!!!
2. When you are blue, I will try to dislodge whatever is choking you.
3. When you smile, I will know you are plotting something that I must be involved in.
4. When you're scared, we will high tail it out of here..
5. When you are worried, I will tell you horrible stories about how much w orse  it could be until you  quit whining, ya big baby!!!!
6. When you are confused, I will use little words.
7. When you are sick, Stay away from me until you are well again. I don't want whatever you have.
8. When you fall, I'll pick you up and dust you off -- After I laugh my rear off!!
9. This is my oath.... I pledge it to the end.

'Why?' you may ask  -- because you are my FRIEND!

***********************
Friendship is like peeing your pants, everyone can see it, but only YOU can feel the true warmth.

**********************

Try sending this to 10 of your closest friends, including the person who sent this to you ...

Then, get depressed 'cause you can only think of 4!

What to do in Portland

For those of you wondering what to do in Portland... I am reposting this from FetLife.



I am a huge analytics slut but for some odd reason I have not looked at our distribution of traffic by geographic region for a while now so I was surprised by some of the results and decided to share them with you.
Based on the number of visits in the last 30 days. The following is the list of the top 25 cities FetLife is the most popular in:

1. New York
2. Seattle
3. Los Angeles
4. London
5. Melbourne
6. Portland
7. San Francisco
8. Don Mills
9. Sydney
10. Chicago
11. Vancouver
12. Atlanta
13. Denver
14. Edmonton
15. Calgary
16. Brisbane
17. Austin
18. Perth
19. Halifax
20. Washington
21. Weston
22. Cambridge
23. Houston
24. Minneapolis
25. Philadelphia

My own city is not even in the top 25... argh... and last time I looked Halifax was in the top 3 and now is in the 19th spot and LA and San Fran was not even in the top 10 if I remember correctly. How things change.

Obama proves he is still on the take

As I complained about in January, and predicted in June 2007, Obama has once again proven that he is in the pocket of the RIAA.

[Video] Siftables, the toy blocks that think

Perhaps one of the coolest toys I have seen in quite awhile:

MIT grad student David Merrill demos Siftables -- cookie-sized, computerized tiles you can stack and shuffle in your hands. These future-toys can do math, play music, and talk to their friends, too. Is this the next thing in hands-on learning?