technology

Arthur C. Clarke was the author of such science fiction classics as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End, and was the first to proposed the idea of placing communications satellites in geosynchronous orbits (where they always appear in the same point in the sky). He passed away today at the age of 90. An amazing man, he will be missed.

In his honor I think I'm going to re-read my copy of The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night. (I like the original Against the Fall of Night a bit more than the expanded and revised The City and the Stars, but both are good. Beyond the Fall of Night, however, is a great disappointment, contradicting the original not just in theme but in plot, and Gregory Benford should be ashamed of the hack job he did on his half.)

An interesting story at ABCNews.com: "The Thai government said Tuesday it was investigating claims that supposedly celibate Buddhist monks have been using a U.S.-based social networking Web site to flirt with women."

However, the headline of the article is "Zen Flirting?" Which prompted me to send the following note:

While I'm sure the author of the "Zen Flirting?" headline (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4385254&page=1) meant no disrespect, the form of Buddhism practiced in Thailand is not Zen. Indeed, in some Zen schools it is not uncommon for monks to marry.

Mentioning Zen in a connection with the Theravada Buddhism found in Thailand would be rather like headlining a story about some scandal in the Catholic Church with a pun about Billy Graham.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this story of a remote-controlled robot armed with a water cannon that its creator, Rufus Terrill, claims has helped prevent break-ins and drug deals on his block and stopped vandals from trashing a local day care center. Others suggest he's a vigilante who's harassing the homeless.

Over at Edge, Kevin Kelly confronts the economics of the digital age:

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless. When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

...

From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free.

Rumors fly about the New Hampshire primary results, tabulated by Diebold machines from paper ballots. There are calls for a recount, but there are said to be issues with the ballot chain of custody which might make a recount worse than meaningless.

The results don't match the exit polls, which is a big problem. It was results not matching the exit polls that set of the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine. Of course, when that happened in Ohio, Bush apologists claimed that people just lied to exit pollers.

It's already been admitted that one town "mistakenly" reported zero votes for Ron Paul when the actual count was 31.

Spent most of today revamping the Maryland Seido Karate website, especially the Catonsville portion. Why not stop by and have a look?

Forbes notes the sixtieth birthday of the transistor, the technology that made electronics ubiquitous.

Wired reports on how "security flaws in the new RFID-powered [Nike+ iPod] from Nike and Apple make it easy for tech-savvy stalkers, thieves and corporations to track your movements."

While I'm not surprised that a product from a team-up of such notable corporate bastards has problems, the carelessness here - the system turns your running shoes into radios transmitting uncoded "here I am!" messages to range of about 60 feet - is notable.

Blogging from the new toy again, my Palm Centro. Kind of wild to be able to access the full internet on a pocketsize portable - Wikipedia and Google in my pocket. I can even ssh into work. (Not that I'd want to do a lot of work typing on this tiny keyboard, but for emergency access, rock on.)

Julie called this evening. the band and poets she had scheduled to play at Load of Fun had to cancel. So a couple of us Zeldaeans filled in with some poetry and music - Julie, Mike, Robin, and I had a nice little circle o' poetry.

I'm posting this from the tiny tiny keyboard of my new Palm Centro. Just got it today - so far, so good. I've installed an ssh client and am now seeing what I can do with the web browser.

If you're considering buying a Centro - or any Sprint service - you ought to Google for "Sprint SERO" to find out about a great deal.