Friday, July 25, 2003

 
What is the world coming to ?

I went to a "day out with Thomas". This is where you go to a local vintage railway site and find that a full size Thomas the Tank Engine is apparently towing a real train up and down. It's a great day out for people inflicted with Thomas-age kids.

But you need to buy tickets in advance.

And there were touts....

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

 
Say Cheese

Great article here about how cheap consumer digital cameras are enabling some fantastic astronomy pictures to happen.
The article leads with a link to a quite incredible pic of the Sun taken by a German IT consultant while breakfasting with his girlfriend.
Personally I think it's a picture of someone's egg being cooked, but then what do I know ?

Monday, July 21, 2003

 
Tag Team

Consumers are getting more powerful, it seems. Walmart have just shelved a big trial of RFID tags in a retail store, though they deny it was anything to do with the backlash from consumer groups that stopped Benetton earlier in the year. Privacy and security (concerns not allayed by a recent revelation that an Auto-ID consortium member had a website where entering the password "confidential" got you access to a load of customer info) were principle objections.
My "Big Brother" paranoia gland is obviously flagging today because I could not get myself that worked up about the idea of someone illicitly rescanning my new Benetton sweater out in the street and tracing it back to the warehouse. Why should I care (unless I nicked it, of course). And if the chip survives my washing machine then hats off to them, they're doing better than the people who make the $20 notes I keep washing.

Tuesday, July 15, 2003

 
Search and Rescue

If you go to Google.com, type in "weapons of mass descruction" and hit "I'm feeling lucky" then you might see this page. Then within a day some official site will push it off the top spot.
So are the US Government trying to influence Google Searches ??

Monday, July 14, 2003

 
Disposable culture

Here in US there is a service called NetFlix. For a monthly $20, you get to have 3 DVD's out at any one time, indefinitely. They come by post and you send them back by post afterwards.
And they have recently patented the entire business model, to prevent Blockbuster copying their operation.
Is this coming to the UK ? Well, check out DVD's on Tap.

The self destructing DVD is another interesting development. After 2 days its surface deteriorates and you throw it away.
So you don't have to return the rental, and you can hire movies from vending machines. Or buy someone a specific giftwrapped movie hire as a present. The logical progression is a vending machine that will burn you ANY movie on request. Then they'll never be out of stock of your favourites.
It's a great way to do software demos too - make it so that it MUST run off the original CD, make the CD expire. Or give out album tasters to promote your band.
Come to think of it, with some modern bands a 2 day shelf life would not represent a significant handicap...

Friday, July 11, 2003

 
Spam spam egg and spam

Lesser discussed issue about Spam...
All these Spam filtering tools are now giving people an excellent excuse. "I never got your email, maybe the spam filter ate it". Now, you could argue that a receipted email takes care of that, but that's not always true. The receipt system is implemented different ways in different places. Some companies issue a receipt when the email gets to their main server, some when it gets to the recipient's inbox. Some (hopefully) when it is actually read.
This means that it is possible for the company server to acknowledge receipt, but the individual's spam filter to bin it.
As one commentator said this week, this excuse joins the two time honoured classics "the cheque is in the post" and "the dog ate my homework".

They say 90% of all Spam is the result of just 40 individuals in the US.
Can't the industry just find them and offer to pay them more than they make now, to do something more useful ?

But we can ALL do something to stamp it out. Stop it being profitable for these idiots. Stop buying the penis enlargment pills and their business model will soon collapse. You know who you are - stop sending them money now.

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

 
No more wires

If you are interested in stuff like where wireless networking is going, click here for 1 man's rant. This guy is saying that a planned new standard of CDMA (the US equivalent of GSM) will allow you to get up to 400+ Kbaud internet connection through your mobile phone (and we have to assume that GSM might have similar future, surely). The writer is saying "so why bother with 802.11b type wireless ethernet 'public hotspots' at all, with their patchiness, costs, and security issues ?"
Wow. 400kbaud on the beach. When will they make a screen I can read outdoors ?
It could make conventional transistor radios almost obsolete if I could have a portable internet radio that gave perfect sound anywhere there was phone reception. Expect these to be built into all cars soon...

 
Risky Business

I don't know what to think about this. Complaining that your gambling addiction is not paying out as it should is like saying cigarrettes are "more dangerous than you had been led to believe". As if you'd actually taken a rational calculated gamble to expose yourself to that risk (rather than just being unable to help yourself) and then found the risk is higher.

Wednesday, July 02, 2003

 
In yer face

3d TV is back ! This lot say that 3d TV without special glasses is round the corner. Images will move between you and the screen. And knowing, as we do, what the biggest users of high speed internet and spam email are, can you guess who'll be the biggest users of 3d TV ?
Casualty departments will overflow with crosseyed men mumbling incoherently...

Random musings. No more.

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