Josh Bancroft's Linkblog

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
I've been calling Twitter and the like "ambient intimacy" for a while now, though I like the awareness and ESP angles, too. Good article.

I'm reading and re-reading a NYT Magazine piece that explores ambient telepresence, as made mundane by Twitter, Facebook, AIM, and the like. The writer, Clive Thompson, really nailed a number of things I've been struggling to put into words for years. It's a terrific read.

This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like “a type of E.S.P.,” as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life.

“It’s like I can distantly read everyone’s mind,” Haley went on to say. “I love that. I feel like I’m getting to something raw about my friends. It’s like I’ve got this heads-up display for them.” It can also lead to more real-life contact, because when one member of Haley’s group decides to go out to a bar or see a band and Twitters about his plans, the others see it, and some decide to drop by — ad hoc, self-organizing socializing. And when they do socialize face to face, it feels oddly as if they’ve never actually been apart. They don’t need to ask, “So, what have you been up to?” because they already know. Instead, they’ll begin discussing something that one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy (NYT)

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Google has ITS OWN SATELLITE now? :-O

Google is REALLY watching now. John Battelle blogs:

Not content to lease data from others who have satellites, Google today launched its own satellite into space. (Via BeetTv, thanks Andy.) Talk about web meets world....this is yet another indicator of the integration of virtual and physical. And it brings Google one step closer to what I think could be the company's Waterloo - a viral meme that Google is sensing too much, knows too much, and is too powerful. It may not be rational, but no one ever accused humans of being entirely rational.

And via the linked AP article:

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the GeoEye-1 satellite lifted off at 11:50 a.m. Saturday. Video on the GeoEye Web site showed the satellite separating from the rocket moments later on its way to an eventual polar orbit. The satellite makers say GeoEye-1 has the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system. It can collect images from orbit with enough detail to show home plate on a baseball diamond.

And snip from a related article by Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides on Wired News:

In a speech last month to a security conference in the UK, Stoica explained that by using shadows you can read the length and rhythm of someone's gait and do an identification, even from above. He has written software that isolates the shadow from video, and adjusts for time of day and camera angle to deal with elongated and foreshortened shadows. Stoica shot video from the top of a six story building to test out his software and was able to get usable gait data on his subjects.

Now going from six stories to satellites in low Earth orbit is probably a stretch. The best commercial low Earth orbit satellite (GeoEye- launching this Sunday to power better Google Maps) will have 41 cm resolution. The best known military spy sat can see at least down to 10 cm (though who knows what classified hardware can do). GeoEye is also only taking stills as it flies over, not the kinds of video footage that Stoica was using. To do that, you might need to go up to geostationary orbit which is much farther out and according to one expert, just wouldn't have the resolution. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) flying overhead, on the other hand, might work just fine for this.

Either way, you may want to practice skipping from place to place when it is sunny out.

Spy Software Could ID You By Your Shadow (Wired Science)

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Not true. The Mini 9 has an open mini PCI slot, with antenna wires ready to connect, but no 3G card. Check the autopsy photos Dell posted today. I'm sure it will be a future option, though, but do you think Dell, master of razor thin margins, would include unnecessary hardware out of the goodness of their heart? ;-)

From PC Mag -

After announcing it back in May, Dell has finally launched the Inspiron Mini 9, a "companion device" for the "grab-and-go mobility person", designed to access the Web while on the road. It has the same physical dimensions as the Asus Eee PC 900.

The Inspiron Mini Windows XP Home will be priced at $399 while a Xubuntu based model will be available soon at $349.

Base features include 1.6 GHZ Atom N270, 512MB RAM (expandable to 1GB), 4GB SDD (upgradeable to 8/16GB), Intel 965 chipset, 802.11g, Bluetooth, 4-cell, 32W/hr battery, three USB ports, 4-in-1 card reader, lock 1024x600 8.9" LED. Webcam is optional. In addition, the Mini 9 comes with a hidden bonus - an integrated 3G card.

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Chortle :-)

POLITICS BUZZ – Nancy and Ann Wilson, John Cougar/Cougar-Mellencamp/Mellencamp, Van Halen and Jackson Brown ask McCain to stop using their music.Seems the Republicans can’t even steal their way out of their white stodginess. I say all for the better. If I see one more Democrat dancing to Fleetwood Mac I’m gonna slit my wrists with a cracked Rumors LP.

Contribute: Add an image, link, video or comment »

The Best Links:

1. Heart’s Nancy Wilson Responds: “I Feel Completely F*cked Over.”
2. Heart’s Nancy and Ann Wilson Warn McCain Campaign to Stop Using Their Music
3. Jackson Browne Sues McCain For Using His Song
4. Mellencamp Asks McCain to Stop Using Tunes
5. Heart Did Not Give RNC Permission To Use “Barracuda”
6. Van Halen Mad At McCain Over Song Use

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Rachel would never go for it, but I SO want these rings! :-)

When my wife and I started to plan our wedding, we inevitably turned to the question of rings, and it was only a matter of time before we came to the idea of rings with little wheels on them that could be used as crypto devices, in the manner of super-duper Captain Midnight Decoder Badges.

So we asked Bruce Schneier for some advice and he suggested that if each ring had one static band and two rotating ones, each inscribed with the alphabet. The first wheel has dots on the letters, alternating above, none, below. The second wheel has the repeating sequence of above, above, none, none, below, below. The third wheel has the repeating sequence of above, above, above, none, none, none, below, below, below (it sounds confusing, but you can see a chart here).

The rings were made in white gold by Isabel Rucker (daughter of master cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker -- and a fantastic jeweler in her own right) and they turned out great.

Now it's time that we turn to the Internet with a challenge: given these two matching rings, what crypto applications can you come up with? Could you use them to scramble passwords (possibly hashed with a key)? How about encoding messages for secret transmission? What additional common apparatus (say, different-sized coins) could you use to generate initialization vectors and increase the system's security?

This is an open competition to be judged by Bruce "Applied Cryptography" Schneier and me -- the winner gets a copy of Little Brother signed by both of us. Post your submissions to the comments or send them to cryptocontest@craphound.com before Oct 1, 2008. Crytpo Wedding Ring

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Let's save it. I'm in. Want to help?

One of my primary inspirations for starting Silicon Florist was ORBlogs, a blog aggregator for Oregon-based blogs run by Paul Bausch.

It taught me that “thinking global and blogging local” could be a very viable way to communicate. And it taught me that—despite the ability to access information around the world—people are actually still quite interested in what their neighbors are doing in their own backyard. And saying. And writing.

And ORBlogs was the premiere source of that neighborly information. The stream of content that was “blogging in Oregon.”

But now that stream of information will be running dry. Sadly, it was revealed today that ORBlogs has decided to close its doors.

Paul writes:

I’m shutting ORblogs down now because the site continues to grow and the job of maintaining the site at the level I feel is necessary to keep it valuable has grown with it, putting it out of the bounds of a hobby. I wasn’t able to make ORblogs self-sustaining financially (let alone turn it into a job), and I can no longer devote the time to the site that it needs to grow. Blogging has changed significantly in five years, and blogging is no longer a hobby for many—it’s a job. Commercial blogging isn’t as interesting to me as the personal web and that factored into my decision as well.

After reading Paul’s news, I was kind of sitting dumbstruck. At a loss for words.

It really took the wind out of my sales. It was a complete punch in the stomach. For a number of us.

And no discredit to Paul. He bootstrapped this thing for 5 years. Five years! That’s like a millennium in internet time. I totally get it.

It’s sad news, to be sure.

Whoa, tiger. Who says ORBlogs has to close?

But then I quit moping.

Does it have to be? I mean, I was always taught the whole “if you love something, let it go” thing. But, quite frankly, I’m not willing to let this one go.

Paul built a resource that rallied—and completely codified—the Oregon blogging community. And that, my friends, is far too valuable to let slide by the wayside.

Because it’s actually bigger than Paul now. Too large for him to manage single handedly, for sure, but something that needs to continue. For the community. And for Oregon.

And if Jeff Martens, Aaron Hockley, Steve Woodward, Betsy Richter, Jack”Bojack” Bogdanski, Josh Bancroft, Doug Coleman, Gary Walter, Greg Hughes, Jim Mock, Curt Hopkins, and Lizzy Caston are any indication, I have the feeling I’m not alone in this opinion.

I’m not willing to let ORBlogs go softly into that good night. And I’m hoping you’ll join me and the folks above in finding a way to prevent that from happening.

Let’s save ORBlogs!

Are you in? Please comment below. And let’s make this happen.

We need to take the burden off of Paul, and manage to save this resource at the same time. I’m hoping you’ll join in the good fight and lend a hand.

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Cool! Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. :-)

I’m really excited.  I just found out that my TV show pilot, called History Hacker is going to air on the History Channel on Friday, September 26th at 9PM. This photograph, which is also the current header of my blog was shot during filming of the show. I’m on set in my infinity workshop and that’s a decent sized Tesla coil.

Over the course of the show I learn about the inventors and inventions of the past and then hack the inventions together out of stuff in my closet.

The first pilot episode is all about Nikola Tesla who is an amazing character. He’s the man responsible for the current that comes out of your wall sockets. He battled Thomas Edison in the war of currents and won.  He had over 300 patents and besides figuring out AC power, he came up with radio control and mucked about with electricity more than anybody.

In the show, I blow a glass tube from molten silica with Kevin at Scanlan Glass and then fill it neon gas with Dave of Tecnolux. I made an AC generator with my pal Raphael of NYCResistor. It got enough pedal power going to power a neon tube!

I visited a space lab at MIT to check out what they are doing with some of Tesla’s principles and inventions.

Besides being a lot of fun to make the show, i’m really satisfied with the look of the show.  The director J.P. Balas and director of photography Scott Carrithers basically took my jumpcut style of making videos and pushed it forward into territory that traditional tv shows have never seen before.  The look of the show is freaking awesome and the design principles that went into it make for a really fresh look. When folks are couch surfing, I predict they’ll have to stop and watch this show because it just looks that different.

I’m really excited that my show will be airing, but I’m a bit nervous because the show basically will live or die based on Nielsen ratings. Nielsen is a company that tries to figure out how many people are watching a show and if they like it. They do this by compiling numbers from Tivo, installing Nielsen “go-boxes” in some family homes which document viewing habits, and choosing some households to document their tv views in a little journal. If Nielsen gives a good report, it’s more likely that the show will go to season and I’ll get to make more.

So here’s where you come in. Please watch it! If you don’t watch it, it may be the only one in the series. Have friends watch it too, especially if they have a Tivo! Watching it and getting other folks to watch it will really help this fun, educational, and wonderful show get off the ground!

Here’s what to put on your calendar or program into your Tivo.

History Hacker
Friday, September 26, 2008
9PM
The History Channel

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Awesome! I LOVE Timbuk2 bags. They're the best built bags I've ever used (possible tie with Crumpler).

I just got a Metro (a very small messenger bag) for netbook + Kindle duty, and I love it. I don't see sales from them very often, so don't miss this if you're in the market for a Timbuk2 bag.

We love Timbuk2's bags—they're smartly designed to hold a ton of gear and tough enough to handle the serious, just-plain-wrong abuse we subject them to—but the price can definitely be off-putting. Luckily, they've got a huge sale going on through Sept. 22, slashing 35-65 percent off a buncha bags. A couple of picks: The Blogger bag is a sweet score for $52, several classic messengers for about $50, and some of the pricier ones are a good $40 cheaper. [Timbuk2]

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
An awesome Legion of Tech event coming up (disclosure: I'm on the board). Check it out if you're in Portland!

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Into the iPhone and mobile device scene? This conference is going to ROCK. Don't miss it.

This is a re-post of a blog entry I published on O’Reilly Radar announcing the new event.

I am pleased to announce the launch of a new O’Reilly Media conference focused on the emerging iPhone ecosystem - iPhoneLive. Apple’s iPhone is having a profound impact on the mobile telephony and computing industries, reshaping how we think about mobility and defining an entirely new class of devices. Whether you’re already building apps for the iPhone or are a developer who wants to make a move to the iPhone platform; if you’re an entrepreneur or simply an enthusiast of the iPhone, this is the event for you. I am the conference co-chair, along with Bill Dudney, an iPhone developer and author.

This one-day event scheduled for November 18, 2008, in San Jose, California, will explore the business and development issues surrounding the iPhone platform. There are two main iPhone themes at this year’s event - Build (core iPhone development) and Launch (launch readiness and business issues).

iPhoneLive will also feature Launch Pad, a showcase for the coolest, not-yet-public apps and startups. The iPhoneLive Launch Pad presents an opportunity for iPhone developers and entrepreneurs to unveil new applications and startups at a major event. There are a limited number of slots available for iPhoneLive Launch Pad, and there is no cost to participate. The deadline for submitting a proposal to participate is September 30th.

With only eleven weeks remaining before the event, we won’t be doing a call for papers this year, but there is still time for community input into the conference program. We’re finalizing our speakers and panelists now. We’d love to hear from you. Do you have any recommendations for speakers and panelists? What would make this conference a must-attend event for you? Please send an email to iphone-idea@oreilly.com with your ideas for iPhoneLive.

Some of the confirmed speakers include:

• Tim O’Reilly and his thoughts on the iPhone
• Steve Demeter, the creator of Trism, “Building an iPhone App in Your Spare Time”
• Ben Lorica and Roger Magoulas, O’Reilly Media, “App Store Trends and Patterns”
• Ryan Sarver, Skyhook Wireless, “Why Consumer-ready Location Matters”
• Neil Young, ng:moco:), “iPhone is greater than…”
• Di-Ann Eisnor, Platial, “From Web to Mobile: Placing Your Online Company into Your Users’ Hands”
• Shane Vitara, the creator of Drum Kit, “Building Great Apps with Core Audio”

You can stay informed of the progress of iPhoneLive through the conference website, by joining our Facebook group, following user iphonelive on Twitter, and reading blog entries posted by Bill and me on our blogs - dudney.net and raven.me.

We hope to see you there!

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
A milestone day. I can't believe my oldest has started school! She's been so excited! :-)

My baby girl started kindergarten today. Sniff sniff yee haw! Emma is so excited about school. She’s been asking me how many more days and nights til kindergarten for about a week now. She has a few preschool and church friends in her class and it was nice to see them this morning. Now if our family could just get used to getting up at the crack of dawn.

Perhaps we have a winner in the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 after all. Crave's got the first hands-on, and they seem to think it's a winner... especially in the battery life category.

In anecdotal testing, we found the Mini 9 to be highly usable for Web surfing, e-mailing, and even playing music files (its speakers were surprisingly loud, if predictably thin-sounding). The combo of Intel's Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and Windows XP found in almost every current Netbook works well for basic tasks, as long as you keep expectations modest and don't mind occasional slowdown if you try and open too many browser windows at once.

Other initial thoughts: The four-cell battery was impressive. We haven't done our formal battery drain testing yet, but we're anecdotally looking at between three and four hours. The system fully boots from a cold start in about 45 seconds.

This is on the XP variety, so that boot-up time (and, la-dee-da-ing here, I'd guess on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix edition, battery-life as well) should be at least meagerly improved. They also didn't find the keyboard any better or worse than competing netbooks, although phrases like "tab key reduced to a sliver" always send a chill down my spine.

Hands-on with the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 [Crave]

We got to give it to Dell for this great idea to promote their new netbook, the Inspiron Mini 9. Knowing that their netbook has nothing much to offer in terms of features and functionality which would give them the edge among other netbooks, Dell has decided to offer their netbook at such a dirt cheap price. But of course, promotional gimmicks such as this doesn’t come without a catch. 

So, here’s the catch, according to Dell’s official blog:

If you can wait until 6 a.m. Central tomorrow, Sept. 5, you’ll be able to get a Mini for only $99 with the purchase of a Studio 15, XPS M1530 or XPS M1330 laptop through 6 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 9 (U.S. only).

Sounds like a pretty good deal right? Hopefully Dell would offer the same promo to other countries as well. For sure I will be the first customer to get this offer. 

Via [Crave]

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Get the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Netbook for $99

Dell's catalogue flyer for the Inspiron Mini 9 has been leaked and it basically confirms this week's binary disgorgements of the blogosphere scuttlebutt: Dell's new netbook will be available for order tomorrow. It also finally confirms price and configurations.

The prices — ranging from $349 to $449 — are not as impressive as the sub-$300 rumor that Xanadunian techno-idealists have been insanely flinging around our comments for months now. Dell was never going to come in below the $300 mark.

But gee, now that I'm confronted with the Inspiron Mini's price sheet, I'm not sure I'm googly-eyed for her anymore. The Acer Aspire One looks to outspec the Inspiron Mini on the budget side in everything that matters for far less, and its 6-cell doupleplus megaluxe configuration is still cheaper than the Inspiron after Dell's managed in another stick of RAM, another 4GB of SSD, Windows XP and a 1.3 MP cam. That, and they even managed to retain function keys.

There's still a lot of burbling question marks, of course. What's battery life like? Will Dell offer a six-cell battery as an option, or only the 4 cell? Is a conventional hard drive not even an option? And, of course, Dell still has the advantage of customer service: their service line, though perhaps routed directly to the back of a nan bakery in Bombay, is still definitely more convenient to get ahold of than most other netbook manufacturers.

So I just don't know anymore. All I can say for certain is, hey Dell, what's with this "Either Black or White" crap? What happened to the whore red Inspiron Mini you showed in all of the earliest publicity shots? Don't you know we're all black with the lights out... or white, I guess, in the middle of a sun?

Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Flyer [UMPC Portal]

Update: BBG readerJGrassick points out you can already buy it on the Dell UK site. You can put it in the basket for £299 with fifteen day delivery... but with up to 16GB of SSD. The French Dell site says €369 for 16GB, which is a great deal.

Update Deuce: According to Dell's blog, buy a selected Dell system, get an Inspiron Mini 9 for $99. Not bad!

Update Trois: And now you can configure your own. I was able to max out the options for $494, except for keeping Ubuntu and the black default color (whore red was not available, only white). 16GB SSD is available, but only a 4-cell battery was offered. Shipping date is listed at September 16th.

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
Whoa! Neal Stephenson's coming to Portland! At the venerable Bagdad, no less! Don't miss this, you'll kick yourself if you do...

For those of you who like your novels witty, visionary and geekoriffic, you might want to know that cyperpunk maestro Neal Stephenson will be at the Bagdad Theater on Sept. 16. The author of the seminal and comic sui generis Snow Crash and the Baroque Cycle series will be talking about (and signing copies of) his new novel, Anathem.

From Powell’s synopsis of Anathem:

Since childhood, nineteen-year old Raz has lived behind the walls of a 3,400 year old monastery — a sanctuary for scientists, philosophers, and mathematicians; for those who live (and thrive, living) the life of the mind. Within their sanctuary he and his cohorts are safely sealed off from the world outside: an illiterate, irrational, unpredictable world; an endless landscape of casinos and megastores, plagued by recurring booms and busts, dark ages and reawakenings, wars between individuals and among nations.

Advance tickets are $5 plus fiscal rape charge if you buy them online.

More info on McMenamin’s site

Who’s with me? I personally celebrate the man’s entire catalog.

Related Posts

• June 26, 2008 — PORN (7)
• July 30, 2008 — Friends of Library needs Space for Fall Book Sale (1)
• June 20, 2008 — Time Travel in Pulp Form (1)

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
What a cool idea! I bet there is a ton to be learned here.

This month, the editors at Wired are trying something new with their ordinarily super-confidential production process—they're letting it all hang out. Senior editor Jason Tanz sez:

We at Wired are engaged in what we think is a pretty cool experiment. We’ve just started a blog called Storyboard, and on it we’re documenting, in near-real-time, the process of conceiving, writing, editing, and designing a feature for our November issue. We’re posting pretty much everything—internal emails, rough drafts, edit memos, PDFs of layouts, marked-up page proofs, etc.

The other cool thing? The story in question is a profile of Charlie Kaufman, the brilliant screenwriter behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich. He’s got his directorial debut coming out in October, and gave us unprecedented access. So anyone who’s interested in his work may enjoy seeing how this piece comes together.

It starts with an idea, of course—a bunch of dudes gathered around a table talking—and then comes the pitch, and in a few days time, you should see the rough draft.

If you ever wondered how a magazine article is made, or if you're a fan of Wired, this is a great opportunity to see some of the most brilliant minds in tech journalism working with award-winning magazine designers to make it all come together. (Check out The Process, creative director Scott Dadich's blog, for updates on the design front.)

Storyboard (Wired)

( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)

Ben Rosenbaum sez, "The marvelous Small Beer Press has put the entirety of my new short-story collection The Ant King and Other Stories under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license and made it downloadable in a number of formats. To celebrate I am having a little contest for the best derivative works!"

Ben is a superb writer, and his title sotry here, "The Ant King," is one of the strongest sf stories I've read in the past decade, and a modern classic of geek fiction. Go, download. You'll thank me later.

Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. This was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a long time, fought for her heart, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to kiss for the first time and then this: yellow gumballs.

Stan went to a group to try to accept that Sheila was gone. It was a group for people whose unrequited love had ended in some kind of surrealist moment. There is a group for everything in California.

After several months of hard work on himself with the group, Stan was ready to open a shop and sell the thousands of yellow gumballs. He did this because he believed in capitalism, he loved capitalism. He loved the dynamic surge and crash of Amazon’s stock price, he loved the great concrete malls spreading across America like blood staining through a handkerchief, he loved how everything could be tracked and mirrored in numbers. When he closed the store each night he would count the gumballs sold, and he would determine his gross revenue, his operating expenses, his operating margin; he would adjust his balance sheet and learn his debt-to-equity ratio; and after this exercise each night, Stan felt he understood himself and was at peace, and he could go home to his apartment and drink tea and sleep, without shooting himself or thinking about Sheila.

The Ant King, Up From the Depths with a Giant Cockroach Loaded Down With Riches (Links, Free Downloads, and a Contest), Buy The Ant King (Thanks, Ben!)

Empfohlen von Josh Bancroft
This one makes me cry, instead of laugh...