A brilliant developer,

from the province I live in, has developed a sub-one hundred dollar 3D printer...

Peachy Printer

If it does indeed turn out to be a viable alternative to the usual forms of 3D printing you can expect some major company to snap it up to control it somehow. He tries to explain his ideas on his 'Ethics' page, but we all know that big business has no ethics of the normal sort. Their only ethic is 'how do we make more money for ourselves?'.

I love the idea, but I'm a wee bit cynical...

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Another Apple product

Well, another Apple product has entered the house.

An Apple TV has joined the household list of technology in anticipation of a new Netflix account. We don't have a full HD television yet (just 780p), but we will when the basement is finished. For now, this will do just fine, even if I have to buy a gigabit desktop switch to app ports to my router, an HDMI expander to add another port onto my TV and a 35-40 foot ethernet cable, in order to get it to work.

I haven't seen one of these since they first came out. They have gotten so small! It won't take up any room at all!

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Oh, yes...

...something else was pointed out to me. My friend Glen, who I sent an email wishing him the best on his birthday today, also reminded me that it is

Geek Pride Day

Of course it is. What better day to celebrate Geek Pride than on Towel Day?

Wikipedia describes it as "A non-denominational holiday to be celebrated by nerds and geeks who do not feel ashamed of showing their unconventional interests in public."

We wear our pocket protectors with pride!

Happy Geek Pride Day everyone!

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I don't know about you

but somehow I just hope this can be traced back to the source...

Cyber attack on NDP leadership vote involved more than 10,000 computers

...and I hope the source has connections to the Conservatives. Certain elements of their supporters seem to have been playing pretty loose with the law lately. It's always possible...

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I don't doubt that they don't know how

How teens are killing the phone call: By the numbers

It's at the point now where some teens don't know what a CD us, apparently, so not know how to make a voice telephone call doesn't seem that far a stretch...

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Photographs of lonely people

CNN hosts a photo essay on how we communicate more with devices than eachother.

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This is very interesting...

The Raspberry Pi computer goes on general sale

Used monitors, keyboards and mouses can be picked up for nothing from recyclers and landfills. The only thing people will complain about is memory, I suspect...

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More of the same...

...the enshrining of everything as a religion to supposedly protect it from the government and the law.

Sweden recognises new file-sharing religion Kopimism


(The cartoon is a little dated, but it's by the great comic book artist Will Eisner, and it fits perfectly despite its age...)

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Advancing technology

claims another victim.

Eastman Kodak Files for Bankruptcy

And, as usual, the ones that may be the hardest hit are the ones who devoted their working lives to the company:

Kodak Bankruptcy to Hit Health Benefits, Pensions

But I would guess that the top executives won't be hurting too much. They may, in fact, get their bonuses as usual. Or extra bonuses, for work above and beyond the call of duty, just like the Wall Street executives got for ruining the economy...

Who knows?

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There's only one odd thing

about this blog post about food...

20 Surprising Artificially Colored Foods

...and that is that the author thinks it is surprising that all those things are artificially coloured. Looking at the list I would be surprised if any of them weren't artificially coloured, and I would include a lot more foods in the list as well...

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An interesting note

On this date in 1863 the

London Underground

opened for business. 1863! The industrial age continued for a long time in England...

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Something

to really be aware of.

.Books That Are Never Done Being Written

"Digital text is ushering in an era of perpetual revision and updating, for better and for worse."

People who would normally not publish until their work was really complete may be encouraged to publish earlier and correct or revise later, leading to some not too tiny problems...

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So very true...

Who, reading this out there, hasn't seen someone texting or doing something emailish walk straight into a parking meter or light pole? Eventually it will weed them all out, we just have to be patient.

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A big day

in Internet history.

On this date in 1969 the first

Arpanet

network was begun.

You might not consider this a big deal, but it really was. I was on the early ARPANET/MilNet network for a few years before the actual Internet came into being and the only alternative was BBS systems. Though still connected through a telephone gateway it was the first real bi-directional communication over computers, at least in my experience...

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It didn't simulate the stress

of being millions of miles from home, but it would still be an overwhelming experience to do for so long!

Simulated Mars mission 'lands' back on Earth

"Six men locked away in steel tubes for a year-and-a-half to simulate a mission to Mars have emerged from isolation."

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This is interesting

US, Swedish researchers crack 250-year-old cipher

If this could be used on some of the other 'undecipherable' codes like the Voynich Manuscript it would be wonderful to finally be able to read them in plain text...

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So,

are the reindeer going to have problems running into the exhaust chimneys?

Facebook sets up data centre in Lapland, Sweden

"Facebook is heading to Lapland, lured not by the possibility of seeing Father Christmas but because of the climate."

I wonder, if other companies follow their lead, what will happen to the climate there? Ultimately it must have some effect on it...

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Goodbye, Steve

 There's nothing else to say. That's it. 
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs dies at 56 

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It won't end

For Hackers, the Next Lock to Pick

It's not about the skill to do it, or about the belief that information should be free. What it's all about now is money and nothing but that. The risk is there, and it's not going away...

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Well, I didn't think so

Amazon's Fire no iPad killer, experts say: 'No reason for Apple to worry' about $199 tablet

Apple's products are directed to a certain market and Amazon's to another, I think. The other Android hardware may have more of a concern, but not Apple. Price can be a big thing, and Amazon certainly did things right with their Kindle, so a good number of people may well be attracted to this, and if I didn't already have an iPad I may well have considered it. Between my Kindle (which I still use regularly) and my iPad, though, I have more than enough tablet-y type technology...

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