My Thoughts Exactly:
An obstacle to human progress

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So I decided to ego surf the google usenet archives the other day and was kind of taken aback to see that the first entry for “John Sundman” was this little nugget from comp.ai.philosophy:

John Sundman

People like “John Sundman” are obstacles to the progress of human knowledge and

deserve to be put out of their misery

It was a comment I hadn’t seen before in response to this story I wrote for Salon about artifical intelligence, or more precisely, about how certain AI types could stand to, y’know, lighten up a little! (Why, the nerve of me!). God, seeing that comment cracked me up, I must thay.

I was tempted to try to make some kind of extrapolation from that comment to Godwin’s Law, but I’m somehow not really all that motivated. So in closing I guess it’s only fair that I should remind you that you’ve just wasted half a minute of your life with an obstacle to human progress. Now, I want you to go off and think about that before you make any more foolish mistakes today.

Neutrino:
Home made high-altitude UAV

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One of the neat things about the ever-dropping price of technology is how people end up using off-the-shelf parts to create things that just a short time ago were the domain of government-funded organizations or large corporations.

Last year, one such project prompted governments into action as a man in New Zealand started to document his homemade cruise missle project.

A bit more on the benign side of things is this high-altitude unmanned glider project. Capable of being released from the edge of the atmosphere, such a glider could be used for all sorts of research, including a very cheap way of performing aerial surveys of remote areas.

Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tales of the Sausage Factory: “Return of the Telco Legislation” Now Playing in Indiana

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Hardly has the new year begun when new legislation has been introduced to squash local municipal systems. This time in Indiana. Like any good nemesis, the incumbent telcos and cable cos have learned from the Pennsylvania fight and have “improved” this bill to include more noxious features and to try to hide them better. But fear not, gentle reader, all such machinations shall be revealed below.

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Inventing the Future:
Inventing the Future: Jasmine release

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Croquet is still being designed. Personally, I’d like to see something useable this summer, but that remains to be seen.

There is a “developer’s version” available now, called Jasmine, but there’s some confusion as to what Jasmine is in relation to the real thing. I’m going to try to straighten that out here.

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Tales of the Sausage Factory:
Tales of the Sausage Factory: Open Spectrum Doubters

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A mailing list I’m on pointed to this rant by Chris Davies against open spectrum, and asked for a response after it was cited approvingly (if confusingly) by Corante. While I am tempted to respond simply by reference to the filksong by Brenda Sutton, I will attempt a more substantive answer below (although everyone really should buy Rite the First Time to hear that song and others).

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Confessions of a Reluctant Unitarian

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I’m a member of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard. We have part-time minister and members of the society are regually recruited to fill in & give talks on Sundays. I was shanghai’d a while ago and finally gave my talk last Sunday.

The minister had originally suggested that I talk about “creativity” and “being a writer” or similar. Which is precisely the kind of crap I hate about Unitarianism: navel-gazing passed off as meaningful spiritual activity. So instead I delivered a rant about everything I don’t like about my own so-called religion.

Text below the fold. A few notes follow.

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My Thoughts Exactly:
Benevolent Older Sibling helps us remember who we are

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Here’s a story about government efforts already underway to develop national ID cards (that contain biometric info, natch).

Somehow this tidbit got past Winston Smith at Minitrue, in case yzall are innarested:

On Jan. 19, the agency will hold a public meeting at the Potomac Center Plaza in downtown Washington to discuss policy, privacy and security concerns associated with the development of the new ID card standard. Anyone who wants to attend must preregister by Jan. 11 by e-mailing Sara Caswell, a NIST official, at sara@nist.gov, according to a notice in yesterday’s Federal Register. Questions regarding registration can be directed to Caswell at (301) 975-4634.

Inventing the Future:
consumers union telecom lobbying website

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‘Consumers Union launched a web site (www.hearusnow.org [love the title! -H]) that is

designed to provide consumers with information on telecom and media

industry developments, help them shop for products and services, and

make it easier to lobby lawmakers and policy-makers on issues. “This

web site addresses the explosion of activist groups and energized

consumers who are frustrated by the government’s hands-off approach

when it comes to dealing with their concerns over higher bills, poorer

service, and the fact a handful of companies control their

communications,” said Gene Kimmelman, senior director-public policy

for Consumers Union.’

SOURCE: TR Daily, AUTHOR: Paul Kirby pkirby@tr.com