Tuesday, April 29, 2003

 
Hearts and minds

You may have already heard about this, but if not, check it out.
The story concerns a group of enthusiasts who are trying to connect five villages in Laos to a town by wireless internet with a difference. Each village will have a rugged, bicycle powered Linux computer capable of wirelessly linking to the next village, and this way they will string together a whole network all the way to the town (without adding any cables or power infrastructure) for voice and data transmission.
The project is called the Remote Village IT project and is being undertaken by the Jhai Foundation. Jhai is Laotian for "Hearts and minds working together". Well worth a read.

Sunday, April 27, 2003

 
Is it just me..

Or could this only happen in America ? Two Southwest Airlines pilots were fired for flying a plane while naked.
"According to the FAA, there are no rules against flying naked, although pilots do have to be dressed for all contingencies and emergencies when flying below 10,000 feet".
This was pretty much at the same time they announced that US pilots are about to start carrying guns. Which makes you think...

Monday, April 21, 2003

 
Evil technology

I do hate the way the press treats technology. If you find a bomb recipe on the net, the whole net is evil, but if it's in a local library, we just take the book off the shelf. And if Al Qaeda use email to communicate then that justifies monitoring every email in the world, whereas phone users have rights. Now we see a terrible fuss because 1/3 of schoolkids have received insults by SMS on their phones. Oh please. What's the proportion who've been insulted verbally ? Did we expect kids to somehow treat the SMS medium (which lets face it, they pretty much own) as some hallowed place where normal rules don't apply ? Far more worrying is the rise in extortion by SMS in Scotland. But how threatened can you feel by a villain who cannot even be bothered to speak to you ?

Sunday, April 20, 2003

 
Too French

There are numerous stories of the "wrong" technology winning. Many say that Betamax is technically better than VHS, and the Mac was always the better platform. But these usually come down to marketing. The one that is amusing me is the ongoing dispute over mobile phone networks in Iraq. In keeping with most of the region (and the world) some say the rebuilt country should have GSM. But "Group Speciale Mobile" is Too French for a California politician whose constituency includes Qualcomm, who own the alternative CDMA standard. Lets just hope the customer service they get is better than in the US...

Friday, April 18, 2003

 
Reality check

It's different in America. Sometimes there's no other way to put it. Tonight's TV news on a Sunday at 10pm leads with the story of a local man who came out to find a stolen Ford Explorer (large 4x4) had crashed into his hot tub.

Wednesday, April 16, 2003

 
Is that a 200MB attachment or are you just pleased to see me ?

It's frustrating when you have a 30GB hard disk, a > 1 GHz processor, and a 1.8Mbit net connection, and yet the very fabric of email seems to warp when someone tries to send you a 20MB email. Clearly we need better ways to send big files. I have many times created temporary web pages to make large file available to people but there has to be an easier route. Fortunately now there is. I have experimented recently with 2 ways to do it, both with pay as you go file transfer services. The most common technology seems to work by me uploading a file to somewhere then emailing you a link so you can download it. Downsides of this include the security aspect of my file being stored on some stranger's server, and also the fact that said stranger needs a huge shedload of online storage to run this business successfully. In fact the service I used (which worked fine) went bankrupt. But recently I have started using a different syle of service. With FileCourier I send you a link but the file remains on my PC. Then when you download it you are downloading from a server, and the server is simultaneously downloading the file from me, via some background process running on my PC. The file never resides whole on the server, and all communciations are completely encrypted. Noone can "hack into"my computer. I can even make the link I send you password protected, so it cannot fall into the wrong hands. And I get to see when you are downloading it and when you succeed. Depending on the quality of your broadband, you can ship a whole CD from A to B in a few hours, at a cost that compares favourably with Fedexing it (certainly if it's transatlantic). And it is more secure than unencrypted email. The only real downside is that I have to be online when you try to download it. But true broadband is always on, right ? Mine certainly is. FileCourier has a per MB sent cost structure with no fixed costs, so it is very good value for occasional use. Tell your friends !

 
Many hands make light work

There's just been a huge world meeting of Seti@home users. These are the folk whose screensavers are searching for aliens by rooting through all the telescope data. It's a fantastic idea, mass networked CPU power, but are we making the most of it ? Couldn't they be searching for Enrons by looking through financial data ? Or tracking Saddam by looking at Paris ring road security camera pictures. Or voice analysing telemarketers voice patterns to spot the ones with > 10% reptile DNA ?
Instead half the world's computers are being used to animate some stupid Windows XP puppy.

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

 
Anti Virus Programs

According to this article in Frontline Newswire the SARS virus could disrupt the whole electronics industry. It certainly seems that to catch something like SARS in time, the "Coalition of those willing" to share medical data in a timely fashion has to include China. Are the biggest global threats these days actually from terrorists ?

Monday, April 07, 2003

 
Placebo

They say that the "close doors" button in a lift is not actually connected to anything.
I wonder where all the "error reports" that Windows XP generates when my programs crash actually go ?

 
Network Traffic

The latest in car MP3 players feature a huge hard disk plus a wireless ethernet feature for loading music directly from the PC in the house. So soon we'll be able to strike up a peer to peer wireless network with nearby cars while driving. Will this mean we starting having RoadRage-over-IP ? Will a truly open standard for a "Short Insult Packet" emerge ? Or will the technology wait 5 years to reach critical mass until finally schoolkids start using it under their desks.

 
Recount

The miracle of Broadband internet enabled me to watch my home side lose the Boat Race on Sunday by a foot. Or at least that's what the still pics in the papers will all show. One commentator said that they hadn't been that close since some time last century when it they were about 6 feet apart and it was called a dead heat. It must have been great in those pre digital days to just call things a draw if they were "fairly close" - imagine if we still did that. Denmark having the Euro but keeping their own currency too, seven 100m runners jostling for a foothold on the Gold medal rostrum in every Olympics, and Gore and Bush in a coalition. Hmm.

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

 
Wankel

This years award for the best animated illustration on a web page has to go to this site for its compound steam rotary engine diagram. It's the kind of thing students stare at when they've eaten unusual brownies. Engineering students, that is...

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

 
I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want

I don't want a cellphone that can take pictures. Those idiots. I want one that helps me do normal stuff. Like look up a number while I'm on the phone then let me press a button to read it to the person on the other end. And when I am listening to something important, I want to press a button and have it record 10 seconds or so for later playback (just like a dictaphone). Is that so much to ask ?

 
NQIT (Not Quite in Time)

Apparently JIT is becoming unfeasible for Detroit based automakers because the increased security at the Canadian border is making the duration of the trip from the Canadian parts supplier so unpredictable, the supply lines are not to be trusted with low stock levels. Is this going to stop automakers having a global supplier policy ? Maybe Ford will simply buy a border crossing ? Or they'll buy Canada.

Random musings. No more.

March 2003 ♥ April 2003 ♥ May 2003 ♥ June 2003 ♥ July 2003 ♥ August 2003 ♥ September 2003 ♥ October 2003 ♥ December 2003 ♥ January 2004 ♥