Dangerous Things
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I'm constantly amazed by the power a good idea has over people, the inspiration it creates, and the satisfaction of seeing it come to life... as difficult and rare as that might be.


The best bathroom fan switch cover I’ve seen

November 21st, 2009

Mind Camp this year is being held at Synapse in downtown Seattle. The men’s bathroom has one of the best switch covers for the fan I’ve ever seen.

Stoked to be going to Seattle Mind Camp v6.0!

November 20th, 2009

A few years ago I attended the second ever Seattle Mind Camp v2.0, and I have to say I was pretty happy to be in the presence of a lot of interesting, intelligent, local people. There was a lot going on; I gave an impromptu talk on RFID implants, attended several unconference meetings, and even […]

I'll have to wait till 2020 to get my brain implant?!

I’ll have to wait till 2020 to get my brain implant?!

November 19th, 2009

Researchers at Intel are confident we will be using brain implants to surf the web using only our thoughts. The first goal is to decode common human brain signals. Back in the 50s and 60s, both the US and the Russians were doing some pretty bizarre brain experiments… some of which were of the “open […]

When a DNA testing lab folds, what happens to your data?

November 18th, 2009

Wired had an excellent article on deCODE Genetics, which has filed for bankruptcy and will likely be bought up by another company. The concern is that the purchasing company, driven not by passion for the industry but by profits alone, will opt to sell customer data. It reminded me of the old biometric iris scanner […]

I Mad Men'd myself

I Mad Men’d myself

November 17th, 2009

I don’t really watch Mad Men, but I do tend to passively absorb the show when Jenny has it on and I’m in the room checking email on my laptop. I had not idea that through those very few obtuse viewing sessions, the culture of the show has rubbed off on me a bit. When […]

A rainy weekend spent aligning radio dishes

A rainy weekend spent aligning radio dishes

November 16th, 2009

I spent this last weekend on top of a 30′ high building in the wind and rain aligning radio dishes. It’s not that fun, but the radios are pretty sweet. They are 60GHz P2P links that can push a full gigabit (1000Mb) across the link. I have yet to find another solution that can sustain […]

It’s confirmed, there’s water on the moon

November 13th, 2009

NASA confirmed today that the LCROSS mission was able to confirm the existence of water on the moon. “We are ecstatic,” said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and […]

Confusing software version reporting

Confusing software version reporting

November 12th, 2009

Updating a server’s RAID controller firmware the other day, I got an odd dialog window. The dialog window said that the installed version was “2.8.0.64” and the update being installed was “2.24.0.64”, which looks like a downgrade. However, after checking the management console it became clear that the installed version was actually “2.08.0.64”… so my […]

Shysters delight; 2012 - A new disaster to fear

Shysters delight; 2012 – A new disaster to fear

November 12th, 2009

The guys over at BoingBoing are pointing out Mark Dery’s article on H+ magazine which talks about how full of bunk all the 2012 doomsday people are. I used to get riled up about this kind of thing too, about how stupid people are and how easy it is to get crazed, unthinking followers to […]

Why Y2K was far from an embarrassment

November 12th, 2009

Farhad over at slate is doing a two-part piece on Y2K – ten years later, and I can’t help but comment. On January 2nd, 2000, while everyone was coming out of their bomb shelters giving a collective “Pffft”, I always thought the fact that nothing happened was a grand testament to how well the problem […]

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