Actually it's prey will simply evolve tiny little towels to wrap around their heads.

G.

I note that the little digital clock on my desk does not need a 1TB disk drive full of software in order to operate either.

Constructing a large mammalian brain complete with things like "instincts" might well make use of non-protein-coding information of some sort.

One thing about biology and the functioning of cells that you learn pretty quick is that "if it can happen then it probably does", and this is a very strong argument against writing off anything that appears to be conserved as "useless".

Simply finding an organism that itself has no need of other information simply says that it's not a universal requirement, and doesn't really tell you anything about whether other organisms might have found a use for it.

G.

The very-long-term future of mobile human/computer interaction is ultimately some kind of implant that can feed your visual system directly, since people want more and more information but a 30" screen won't fit into a phone.

But along the road to that science-fiction future we're going to go through a lot of external projection devices like Google Glass, since they can give you (eventually) that big display without the big form-factor.

The problem with Glass is that it comes from Google who are pushing its social and camera/augmented reality features, and nobody likes the idea of dorky-looking people wearing dorky glasses pushing a camera in their face all the time, and so there is a good chance that this will stigmatize all similar devices for years to come, at least until a device can be made unobtrusive (and probably without a camera, or at least with a big red "recording" light to make people comfortable).

Or I guess we may somehow become comfortable with the idea that cameras are just everywhere and you always have to assume you're being recorded from multiple angles at all times.

Glass will be similar to the Segway which never really caught on partly because it's too dorky and draws too much attention to the user to the point that they feel too self-conscious to leave the house with it.

G.

While walking through the Old Orchard Apple Store recently I was interested to see the variety of non-Apple products on display, which included things like Philips remote-controlled LED mood lighting systems, and the Nike Fuel Bands.

Because of the presence of the Fuel products, as well as Apple's previous integration of Nike stuff in their iPods, I am slightly more inclined to believe in the idea of an Apple "wrist" device than most of the Apple rumors that I hear.

G.

So I haven't RTFA but the "best programmer in the building" thing, and the fact that it's Verizon, a telecommunications company who would be a prime target for foreign intelligence, makes me think that maybe we're giving the employee too much credit for being a genius here.

Which is more likely, that he sought out and found a good, cheap, reliable programmer, and then went on to expand his scheme into multiple companies, or instead perhaps that someone sought him out, and suggested the scheme to him, and maybe later said "Hey, I have more free time and some friends here, so maybe if you applied for jobs at some other companies that your resume matches we could make you even more money!". But I'm sure he would have been made to feel like it was all his idea as much as possible.

G.

...why high speed trading is a good idea for anyone? It seems like the equivalent of slash-and-burn agriculture where you're destroying a resource (in this case basically sanity) in exchange for a one-time benefit of briefly being faster than your competitors.

So can someone explain how the world is a better place than if, say, you could only issue one trade per second?

G.

The linked SecurityWeek articles includes the quote:

“We were able to immediately fix the hole and upgraded our hashing mechanisms from sha-256 with random salts to bcrypt to fortify security."

Which suggests that they were indeed salting the passwords. Assuming this was actually done, and done in a reasonable manner, then in theory there should actually be little or no risk from this breach I would think. But then I don't know why they would feel the need to immediately replace their hashing mechanism...

G.

Unfortunately, playing GW1 will tell you almost nothing about GW2.

GW1 was a very unique game, designed before WoW basically defined what the standard MMOG interface was going to look like, and it works very differently compared to most other games, and especially when compared to GW2 which is much closer to WoW (in good ways rather than just copying stuff as most other games have done in the last ten years).

GW1 was an annoying, frustrating game for many people who tried it over the years, so I would NOT recommend it for someone who now is thinking they might be interested in GW2, because GW2 is almost totally different in every way.

Not even just for picking up the lore.

G.

Most inspiring course that I've seen:

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-012-introduction-to-biology-fall-2004/

Biology turns out to be way cooler than all this computer stuff. The cells in your body are actually stochastic digital computers which were not designed by a human intelligence, and so we're basically hacking alien computers to figure out how life works, and these computers are WAY more complicated and powerful than anything you've ever experienced.

If you're a young tech geek, then this might just inspire a career-path change.

The MIT OCW course linked here has both audio and video lectures (I first listened to the audio version and was able to get most of it without needing the video content). Don't get too bogged down in the chemistry at the beginning. And know that what we know has increased dramatically from the time of this 2004 snapshot.

It's getting a bit long in the tooth now (there's an updated 701SC in their simplistic "Scholar" series, but I find it just too light and fluffy without most of the really inspiring stuff). Hopefully they will release the full 7.012 from fall 2011 at some point.

G.

But at the moment we have cable data only ($53/month or some-such) and upgrading to cable with HBO would be the better part of another $100 per month.

I seriously look forward to a time when the last-mile people can GTFO and allow me to pay for the specific content that I want to buy.

G.

I mean, isn't it going to be both a bit creepy and scary?

You've got the memories of all the people who died next door, and if there's one thing that would get a terrorist excited it would be the idea of knocking down the tower *again* after we went to the trouble to rebuild the thing.

You're going to need one heck of an immunity to superstition and a lot of faith to not at least consider these things.

I'm really curious to know how much occupancy they have lined up and whether the rates reflect any of this.

G.

Actually we are landing on Mars during the London Olympics!

The nuclear-powered Mars rover Curiosity should arrive there around August 6th, smack in the middle of the Olympics.

And I expect the coverage of that event to be WAAAAY more exciting than any of the Olympic events.

G.

P.S. Unless the new Rover ends up following the Simplified Planetary Landing Approach Trajectory that was so popular with some other Mars missions in the past.

I would put all the money into some sort of foundation / trust which would exist to pay for all my expenses in life, as well as make worthwhile charitable donations to worthy causes.

The foundation rules would be set up so that anyone soliciting for a donation/contribution/charity would be forever banned from receiving anything.

Problems solved.

G.

Assuming that it's not going to be powered by a Cell processor, then it would probably be impractical to emulate the Cell's exotic architecture on anything else. Assuming Sony do not want to keep paying to produce Cell chips just to include one in every next-gen console for backwards compatibility (which probably would not be cheap to do) then it makes perfect sense that the new generation console would not be able to play PS3 games.

Ironically it may well be able to play PS1 and PS2 titles which can be emulated on pretty much anything faster than a toaster these days.

This is a big risk of going with any exotic processor architecture, that not only do you have to migrate TO it at the beginning, but that at some point if you abandon it for something diffferent, you may be forced to introduce a compatibility discontinuity at that point too.

Maybe the PS 5 will be fast enough in ten years to emulate a PS 3.

This may be a huge advantage for Microsoft who stuck with a traditional architecture for the 360 and will likely be able to provide full forward compatibility if the choose to do so.

G.