Hawk's Nest

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Real unveils Rhapsody To Go, more (via Gizmodo)

Crank it up a notch! Digital music plans are finally getting where they need to be. Real Rhapsody is a great service which I've used in the past. Now they've made it even more compelling. Check it out!

Monday, April 25, 2005

Redfaced professor made up scary story

We wanted to know the rest of the story after a stolen Berkeley prof's laptop was allegedly more "valuable" than the thief realized. Well, here it is. It was all an act.

NY Times: At Microsoft, a Smart Guy Has His Hands Full With the Smart Phone Business

Meet the mind behind the upcoming changes to Microsoft's mobile device strategy. Will this kill the Blackberry? Maybe not today or tomorrow but with Microsoft's continued retooling to garner its share of the market, Blackberry has everything to lose.

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Spyware Confidential: Ask Jeeves for adware

Ask Jeeves is a popular search engine with children. And it may be why systems are getting infected with spyware. I highly recommend avoiding the "butler" site if at all possible. Even though it might not infect your PC, it's "properties" bring the potential for bad apps aplenty, particularly the MySearch group.

Dvorak: The Dumbing Down of America

John Dvorak's columns are always unpredictable. He picks on most everyone so his friends list must be short. But this time he's right on the money. Have you ever been asked something which seems so easy to answer you could do it in a minute if you just sat down at a PC with a connection to the Internet? Here's Dvorak's experience...

It's actually kind of weird. These and hundreds of other questions can be easily answered by running Google, or any other search engine for that matter. Apparently, a large part of population simply does not understand this. What's weirder is when you tell them to simply use Google to find out for themselves, you discover that they know all about Google but say, "Oh! I never thought of that!"


I felt a bit of deja vu' as I read this since this happens to me all the time. People don't think and just want to be entertained. They want the answer given to them without any work. Reading just ain't their shtick.

Well, in our day, there is no excuse for ignorance. Welcome to the World Wide Web.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

Berkeley Laptop Thief via BoingBoing

--(Forward in this file to 48:30 to watch)
The laptop thief really isn't very smart here. I wonder about the Microsoft comment. That's sounds like a ploy. But the rest means the thief is dead meat. And in a big way. I want to know the rest of the story!

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Family Storytime

Their eyes are as big as saucers, their world consumed by another in their head. Grandfather Frog, "Chug-a-rum", has just imparted the story of how Striped Chipmunk's Pockets. All the Merry Little Breezes are dancing about in glee at the tale...And my little ones are spellbound as much as those inhabitants of the Green Meadow.

Every day, we read stories at my house. In the morning after breakfast, we sit at the table and have a Bible story and a reading from the New Testament (NLT). During the day, any one of our hundreds of books or library checkouts is fair game. At night after supper, we read a story or something from a book as a family.

Recently, we started a book with multiple animal stories written by one Thornton Burgess. Mr. Burgess was unknown to us but now I wished I'd known about him sooner. He was an American conservationist and the author of over 15,000 bedtime stories collected in 172 books with great animal characters and good morals. He wrote a daily story column uninterrupted from 1912-1960! That's 45 years of reading at suppertime!

As you can see from the initial opening of this post, it's been quite a hit. For me as the reader, it's pure joy. His animal characters lend themselves to improvised voices and actions which makes the experience thoroughly entertaining. So if you haven't checked out his stuff, download some e-books and give them a whirl. You may find you too have a lot of reading to catch up on at dinnertime.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

The official Narnia site is up for the movie. Make plans for your yearly December fantasy excursion to the movies!

Sunday, April 17, 2005

Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world

Amazing news! As a person interested in the classics, this is incredible.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Lost In Thought

I've reported my fascination with Lost, the ABC TV show, over two months ago. If you aren't up to speed on it, you might want to avoid this post and any spoilers. Half the fun is figuring out what's going on and anticipating the unexpected. Once you've invested the time to digest the show, you'll find yourself thinking about the plot, the circumstances and trying to approach a plausible explanation. I don't think I'm there yet but I want to build on a theory my friends and I've played with for some time. So here come the spoilers...fair warning!
**SPOILERS BELOW**







The theory most intriguing to me has been the intersection of the show with Kabbalah, the mystical Jewish spirituality. There have been hints all along but with the episode, Numbers, we entered a whole new realm. One of my friends posted his thoughts of our resulting discussion on a forum which now resides at a domain name derived from the numbers 4 8 15 16 23 42. You need to read this to understand the starting point of how these numbers could implicate Kabbalah. Now I'd like to go further with that thought as some our discussions have brought up another compelling intersection.


The "Monster" May Be A Golem

In Kabbalah, there is a legend concerning the golem. What is a golem? Here is a salient quote from a section of the Practical Kabbalah
A golem, perhaps the best known of the Jewish legends, is an automaton, typically humanoid and typically male, created as the result of an intense, systematic, mystical meditation. The word golem means (or implies) something unformed and imperfect, or a body without a soul.
The golem could be made of clay or something else and animated in some way...mechanically or via the legend of placing the names of God on a paper and placing it in it's mouth. There are qualities of a golem which are very similar to what little we know of the "monster" including its size (golem continue to grow) and its being mute (the monster's never yelled or spoke, even when looking at Locke).


The Numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) May Animate The Golem By Referencing The Names Of God


4 - the TETRAGRAMMATON...name of God

8 - less "famous" name of God with 8 letters

15, 16 - Psalm 139:15,16 is the only passage where golem is used in the Bible

23 - number of times abbreviated TETRAGRAMMATON appears in the Bible

42 - another important name for God with 42 letters


There Is A Series Of Comics Concerning The Golem

This is a truly fascinating angle. Marvel Comics, maker of the comic book Walt was reading, did a comic book on The Golem. Read this and draw your own conclusions but is this Golem made of "black rock"??



Footnotes
Of note,
X-files explored a golem on the episode "Kaddish"


Also, I'm not fully convinced there's a one-to-one correlation with all these elements. Some have explored a connection between golems and artifical lifeforms, especially robots. The article entitled "The Modern Golem" and this book called God In The Machine (note the episode Deus Ex Machina) make me wonder whether the writers of the series are taking a modern take on this ancient golem idea.

So, the jury's out but come season's end, we may know the answer.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Tablet PC: The Next Generation?

I'm looking forward to this device. I think we might be getting closer to the sweet spot for form factor, especially when pushing ebooks. Star Trek's vision of the PADD may be what is inspiring this mid-level size.

Car Hacks: Modify your car to drive on vegetable oil

I'm not a car nut, but I'm for live demo's and this one got my attention.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Image America

Ken Leebow looks for great blogs. This is no exception.

What kind of pictures can you take with a 1.3 megapixel camera phone?

I always say it's the photographer, not the camera. This site is proof.

Monday, April 11, 2005

The Next Nike Commercial??

You can move quickly to create your own commercial when something amazing happens. Tiger's shot at the Masters is incredible. And I don't even like golf.

Schneier on Security: ID Theft is Inescapable

Schneier's (computer security guru) points it out and I've been saying it too...don't blame online databases for our identity theft problems. The issue has been around a lot longer and stolen databases are too simplistic an answer to the cause.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Woolly Mammoth Resurrection, "Jurassic Park" Planned

Life imitates art imitates life??!!

AllJoneses.com - *18 Things That Never Happened On Star Trek*
Maybe a post that only Trekkers can love but I couldn't resist...

1. The Enterprise runs into a mysterious energy field of a type it has encountered several times before.
2. The Enterprise goes to visit a remote outpost of scientists, who are all perfectly all right.
3. Some of the crew visit the holodeck, and it works properly.
4. The crew of the Enterprise discover a totally new lifeform, which later turns out to be a rather well-known old life form wearing a funny hat.
5. The crew of the Enterprise are struck by a mysterious plague, for which the only cure can be found in the well-stocked Enterprise sick-bay."

more...

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Google Sightseeing

Take Google maps with satellite enhancements to the next level. (Thanks Ken Leebow)

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Google Integrates Satellite Maps

This is a great new feature of Google maps. Now you can check out a visual of where you're headed before you get there. Definite thumbs up on this one.

Impressive Monitor Architecture : Gizmodo

What to do with your left over monitors...

Monday, April 04, 2005

TheCarolinaChannel.com - Money - Big Bird, Barney Say 'Show Me The Money!'

As a father of avvid Mr. Rogers watchers, I was distraught to learn this. All I have to say is thank God for my ReplayTV!

washingtonpost.com: Amazon.com Acquires Book Printing Service

This is an interesting acquisition. Many out-of-print books could be saved and in people's hands with this offering.

Micro Persuasion: Blog Puts the NY Times Under the Microscope

Steve Rubel is always highlighting great stuff on his blog. Today is no exception. He shares a site which really begins to take news articles to the next level. Since the online NY Times doesn't have forums with their articles, there is no effective way to critique, supplement or clarify their content. Now a site is putting all of this together by focusing on blogs which use the NY Times articles in their posts. I think it's a great way to extend the conversation which a premiere content provide like the Times may start.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time

Today was a day of hoaxes and jokes. Here's a place to review some of the best.