Cheerful Curmudgeon

A complete lack of ideas and the power to express them.

Why I Don’t Worry About Instant Messaging

I don’t worry about kids these days becoming so involved with social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc.) and instant messaging (AIM, text messages, etc.) that they become isolated from real human contact. Why not? XKCD says it perfectly: Long distance relationships are hard. IM can turn a friend down the street into a long distance relationship. […]

“Having Sex…” on Thanksgiving

That title got your attention, didn’t it? It got mine, too. Jump back to Thanksgiving morning in the Zemon living room. I am quietly sitting in my easy chair, sipping coffee and enjoying the peace of the day before we rush into the hustle bustle of hosting the annual turkey day feast. All is right […]

New Home Theater Projector

Woo hoo! Just six years after Candy and I upgraded our stereo system to a 5.1 home theater system, we replaced the 27″ television with an Optoma HD72 projector. The picture we now see has diagonal measure of approximately 90″. The improvement is so dramatic that I could easily become a couch potato. Everything seems […]

Software Release Guide

This is not funny. Not one bit! 😉 Once you start playing with software you quickly become aware that each software package has a revision code attached to it. It is obvious that this revision code gives the sequence of changes to the product, but in reality there’s substantially more information available through the rev-code […]

The Matrix Goggles

English Russia brings us The Matrix Goggles (follow the link so you can watch the video). Russian artists from Moscow presented in London the totally useless but somehow cool device – goggles that you can put on and feel yourself like a robot from a Terminator movie or like somebody else from “the cyberspace”. Better […]

Don’t Trust Technology!

Oh my God! You can’t trust technology, at least not in St. Hilary in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales. According to Reuters: LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s first official road signs to warn drivers about the dangers of trusting their satellite navigation devices (satnavs) were introduced on Tuesday in a Welsh village. For more chuckles, […]

A Penny Per Email

Spam disgusts me. It has rendered free email, one of the most heartfelt examples of human cooperation, completely untenable. I have been relying on email, for business and personal connections, since I worked at TRW in 1980. I used to run a medium-sized UUCP hub at FileNet in Orange County, CA on a VAX 750 […]

Internet Omnivore

I seem to be an internet omnivore, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project Omnivores make up 8% of the American public. Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged […]

What a Job!

You’ve got to see this to believe it. And even then, you might not believe it. glumbert.com – High Power Job I was dubious until another member of a forum where this video appeared wrote, My neighbor works for Santee Electric in the transmission line area and he does this. He is 60 year old […]

The Value of Documentation on Quick Decisions

When I say, “Documentation,” how do you react? Probably with one of these: Bleh. A drag. Who reads it? The code is self documenting. Or my favorite: It’s intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. This morning, I ran across Slashdot’s article, Five AJAX Frameworks Reviewed Dr. Dobb’s Journal reviews 5 AJAX frameworks:… [the] reviewers… […]

Building Machines Which Learn Like A Human

Ever since I was an undergrad at the University of Michigan in the late 1970s, I have wondered how we think. Modern digital computers are marvelous machines but they don’t hold a candle to what a very young child can do. For instance, it is absolutely trivial for you to recognize a bicycle when you […]

Single Sign On – Finally

Don MacAskill over at SmugMug (my favorite photo sharing site) brought my attention to OpenID, a budding solution to an old computer problem: If you use a computer, you have way too many passwords to conveniently remember. You might use one or two passwords, perhaps a simple one for web sites that you do not […]

Missing My Hi-Fi Music

Thanks to FunkeyMonk at Slashdot, I am now conscious of a trend in which I have been unwittingly participating. I have spent quite a bit of time building a library of music that I like and quite a bit of money building a “hi-fi” to play the music, yet most of the time, I listen […]

Machine Gun Sentry Robot

NewLaunches.com brings news that Samsung develops machine gun sentry robot. Samsung has partnered with Korea university and developed the machine-gun equipped robotic sentry. Do you remember the scientists who worked on the atomic bombs and later regreted their decisions to do so? I am afraid that we are about to see history repeat itself. One […]

Hack the Vote: Steal the Election

It’s almost Halloween (and election day) so it’s time for scary stories. I firmly believe that the scariest stories are the ones that also happen to be true. Being the nasty guy that I am, I bring you a tale which should terrify you to your democracy loving core: Ars Technica’s How to steal an […]

Tech Tidbits : Technology and the jury

My wife recently served on a jury for a federal criminal case and has some interesting observations. Rather than try to summarize it, I will simply refer you to her posting, Technology and the jury. Fascinating stuff!

Ms. Dewey Search Engine

Ms. Dewey is simply too funny. Crank up your speakers and prepare for a hillarious Flash event. I don’t think that she will replace Google but then again… you never know….

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