Rambles at starchamber.com

Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate

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Go here. Do this. I don’t even know who to give credit to, but it’s damn good stuff. They appear to be things called “Presents” written by Ellen Pronk. Clever animation, beautiful concepts. Severe time-burner.

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Spintronics, taking advantage of electron spin in addition to its charge, is in the news again. Here’s a good article written from a physicist perspective, and here’s the New York Times dressing it up so it’s fit to print.

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Soon you will be watched not only by Big Brother, but by ten thousand nosy computers as well. Alarming, but true: connect all those surveillance cameras to some face recognition software and the authorities can know who’s where all the time. Read this article in the Washington Post for more: Matching Faces With Mug.

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Article about SF author Vernor Vinge in the New York Times. He was doing cyberspace before cyberspace was cool (i.e. before William Gibson had given it a name). Plus he’s a physicist, for whatever that’s worth.

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I really like the Jim Leftwich’s blog JIMWICh. Take a look at the Frida Kahlo postage stamp he was nice enough to make for the US Postal service: Frida Kahlo American-Style!

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Now this is real progress. Computer-generated maps like real people really draw: Rendering Effective Route Maps: Improving Usability Through Generalization. And it’s already in use at MapBlast. Now all we need is anti-aliased maps (why hasn’t anyone done that yet?) and we’ll really be getting somewhere. [spotted on peterme.com]

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What a shame… the “cool new stuff” weblog Rapidly Changing Face of Computing has gone away. It appears to have been a surprise to author Jeffrey Harrow, based on the publication schedule that he was publishing only a few weeks ago. Compaq must be tightening the old corporate belt. Too bad. We’ll miss you, Jeffrey. [...]

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I like the idea of magazine called Small Times. They must save a bundle on postage. Small Times: News about MEMS, Nanotechnology and Microsystems

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Now a computer can sound just like you: see Software Called Capable of Copying Any Human Voice in the NY Times. I predict one byproduct of all this soul-stealing will be an increased appreciation of intimacy. Or not.

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