Hawk's Nest

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Top 50 Science Fiction Television Shows of All Time - Boston.com

As it should be, Star Trek is Number One. However, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine didn't make the cut. That's pretty amazing given all they were able to do with that series. It would certainly make my top 10.

Forced Marsh - New York Times

Let's not rush in to attempt the impossible. This sobering opinion piece should make us all think twice about the use of our money in Louisiana. Let's check our arrogance at the door and realize when the investment isn't worth the risk.

Dvorak: The Hard Drive and Human Behavior

Do larger hard drives breed laziness? That's the contention of Dvorak. I understand where he's coming from. With more storage, I've become more laid back at keeping data pared down. You never know when you might need it.

One additional observation about the matter is the effect of desktop search. Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo are making it easier to find stuff in our personal repository of data. Personally, I've stopped organizing my e-mail since it is so easy to search and find past correspondences. Can desktop search be another enabler of laziness or could it actually be justifying our retention of all this information?

Monday, September 26, 2005

A TV Channel Takes Aim at Toddlers - New York Times

My favorite line in this article is "Nielsen figures show that the children watched an average of 3 hours and 40 minutes of television a day during the 2004-5 TV season - 13 minutes more than the 2000-1 season." Unbelievable! This means most children see more TV in a day than my kids see on a 3 day weekend. And those kids see commercials (due to technology, commercials are skipped)! What is this doing to these children's minds??!! I guarantee it isn't making them smarter. It's instead creating a certain way for these little ones to think and stealing their imagination by an oversaturation of visual images.

Managing Google's Idea Factory

Marissa Mayer's role at Google is worthy of this read. I love the one day a week to work on your own pet project and the ideas mailing list. Innovative approaches as well as the leadership of someone like Marissa are what is making Google a leader in the industry. I truly can't wait to see what they come up with next.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

NPR : Translating Education into Earnings

When you listen to this, you'll hear why it's important to get your high school diploma and even go on to college...on average, that is.

The Observer| Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina

What happens if you mix Alias with Flipper? You get this...

Friday, September 23, 2005

From Google to Noodles: A Chef Strikes Out on His Own - New York Times

More good things come from Google. Sounds like it will a great place to eat!

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Who needs Windows?

This story got my attention because I still have a Commodore 64. But I don't use and I've moved on. It seems most people arrive at a place where something in their lives is "good enough" for what they do but it often for reasons other than the primary function of the object. It may be nostalgia, cost or values which bring about a "good enough" response. And that's fine...for what it is. But let's admit that invention and technology have brought us faster, easier and more efficient ways to do tasks and weigh those changes accordingly against competing values we may choose to place higher on the scale.

Writers Sue Google, Accusing It of Copyright Violation - New York Times

After yesterday's announcement, there has been a lot of buzz about what Google is doing with books. Listen to this NPR story or read Lawrence Lessig's blog post about this topic to get an accurate view of the real issues. I support his views wholeheartedly and fear the day that copyright owners bring a halt to our access to knowledge.

Special: Lifehacker's guide to weblog comments - Lifehacker

I don't get many comments to my blog but if you do comment, here is great guide to doing it right.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Steven Berlin Johnson: Finding Lost

The author of Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter has some explanation as to the intrigue Lost brings to our collective conscience.

Laptop Stolen From U.C. Berkeley Recovered

Here is the rest of the story from a post 5 months ago...remember, the professor tried to scare students into confessing.

WFTV.com - Jeep, Doing 80MPH, Drives Under Plane To Fix Landing Gear

Nice video showing the inspection.

NPR : 'Lost' Returns With New Twists

Lost returns Wednesday night. As David Bianculli points out in this story, fans of this show are born from the DVD generation, differing from the TV and VCR generation.

Monday, September 19, 2005

Google Secure Access Installer

Not much reporting on this going on but Google's WiFi plans are slowly being made known. Today a client shows up (thanks to Make|Blog for the tip). The FAQ's indicate that the client creates a secure VPN tunnel back to Google so your network traffic on their public WiFi network is encrypted. This means no one can see your data when connecting on their network (once it leaves their network, it's fair game; also, they can see all your data). A novel approach to creating a secure public wireless network.

It must mean they have VPN concentrators standing by to handle the load. They also probably only accept traffic from their WiFi Access Points because I've tried to connect with the client but can't.

Sunday, September 18, 2005

National Geographic Magazine - WildCam AFRICA

Visit the Wildcam periodically and catch a live view of "Pete's Pond" in Botswana. There's even a blog.

For Gateway, a road to nowhere? | CNET News.com

If you read this, you will think there is hope for Gateway. I guess getting bought is hope enough. That's what I think will happen. It's hard to believe they still keep securing big contracts (New York and California??) but I have to believe these are born out of frustration with another vendor and price, not because of technical superiority. My Gateway experiences are very gloomy. I don't have anything positive to say except I know good people who work there.

Is the Firefox honeymoon over? | George Ou | ZDNet.com

If you've read the Hawk's Nest in the past, you know I use Firefox as my main browser and have advocated for it's use. Now reality is setting in as more of us use it and George's post demonstrates that the use of Firefox isn't necessarily a safer path.

I still use Firefox because I can't the features I want in Internet Explorer but I'm all the more wary of exploits wanting to compromise my system through this browser.

Technology Mars Start Of School Year in D.C.

This was picked up a week or so ago and somehow I missed it. I love to here about technology projects blowing up. It seems like some people in the leadership of this one just don't know what is going on. They definitely don't understand the technology...in this case, it seems, there is a legacy network involved as well. No one took leadership here to look at the project overall...like how much bandwidth would be used, the necessity of upgraded infrastructure, not contracting a project that doesn't use homogeneous technologies. I've had my fill of Oracle databases and I'll never recommend a project use one again.

NPR : Study: Eating Cheese Can Alter Your Dreams

Now this story is a hoot. Especially if you are a Wallace & Gromit fan (by the way, their new movie will be here on October 7th so if you're not busy, go see it...this review got me excited!) It's like an interview with Wallace! So what cheese will I eat tonight??!!

Thursday, September 15, 2005

I Know Him...

Learned yesterday that my Microsoft rep, Don Lionetti, became a poster boy for Windows Vista when they changed the name from Longhorn to Vista. He happened to be in the right place at the right time, according to Don. Two interesting places it's turned up...

A B&W version at the Iran Daily. Do they need Windows???

A "blue screen" version in Germany. Come on guys, why not a red screen?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

CNN.com - A book that googles Google - Sep 12, 2005

The potential of Google is unparalleled. It hasn't been around that long...just an idea in 1998. Now nearly one-half the people using the Internet can't find the information they're looking for without it. This new book explores where Google has come from and where its going, as well as search in general. I haven't read the book but it sounds fascinating. It may be a little obsessed with business models but otherwise should provide an intriguing visit to our past and future through the eyes of Internet search.

Friday, September 09, 2005

LIBERTAS : Cinemocracy Hosts Classic War Documentaries

Now this is just plain cool. Filmmakers contributions during WWII included creating documentaries of the war. This included the likes of Frank Capra and John Ford. Now they're free for download. Very useful for teaching your kids.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

Gone With The Water

Amazingly, this article appeared in October 2004 in National Geographic magazine. Almost one year later, the first few paragraphs are chilling.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Blog Updates from WWLTV in New Orleans

New Orleans Fire Department Scanner audio