Ned Gulley’s Blog. Resident buzzwords: synthetic biology, ambient displays, swarm robotics, wise crowds.
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 30th, 2002
I read an intriguing article in the Boston Globe (unavailable online to deadbeat surfers like you and me) about big pumpkins, the really gigantic pumpkins, 1000 pounds and more, that loll on groaning platforms as they compete for blue ribbons at the county fair. Late August is the peak growth time, and some of these [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 23rd, 2002
A few months ago (June 16th, to be exact) I was observing that the Bose Acoustic Wave radio/CD player has a volume control that goes up to 100 in steps of two instead of going up to 50 by ones. You can’t dial in an odd number for the volume. Why?
Since then, the Rambles weblog [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 23rd, 2002
From a highly-placed source (and good friend) deep inside EDS comes this cheerful reminder of Standard Business English in 2002.
EDS is going through a long term initiative called “Global Competitive Resourcing” which is corporate-speak for “If you are a staff-level software engineer, your job is going to India.”
I understand that in India they’re terrified that [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 22nd, 2002
More about Levy’s Newsweek piece on blogs… In addition to the essay itself, Levy began his own blog (A Blog About Writing About Blogs) in order to illustrate his point. It looks like a toy that he won’t develop, but it links to two sites (codestore and Escribitionist) where people were blogging about being interviewed [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 20th, 2002
I was interviewed by someone at Newsweek magazine for an article about blogs. Naturally, I pictured myself with a big splashy cover story, torrents of traffic headed my way, a quick round on the talk shows to promote my new book, and a second home in Tuscany (something quite modest, really, in a Tuscan sort [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 19th, 2002
I was touring around Wordsworth Books in Cambridge yesterday afternoon when I stumbled across
Linked: The New Science of Networks
by Albert-László Barabási. I don’t know about you, but I keep running across network theory everywhere I look, from biotech applications, to Internet protocols, to six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon style pop sociology. Networks are hot. Now is the time to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 19th, 2002
A first! A noble, generous, and tasteful reader of the Rambles Weblog sent me a book from my Amazon wish list out of the clear blue sky. Now I can no longer complain that this site has never done anything to pay for itself.
And what was the book that arrived magically at my doorstep? [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 16th, 2002
Here’s an article at Salon talking about the perennial problem of how a common resource, in this case the music downloading network Gnutella, can be ruined by the greedy. Gnutella bandwidth bandits “This incredibly selfish behavior causes a flood of query traffic. Although it maximizes results for the local user, it impacts the network greatly. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 13th, 2002
Has anyone ever told you to give them a call at 212-479-7990? That’s the number of the New York Rejection Line, a blow-off service provided free-of-charge to the New York community (or anyone untroubled by the 212 area code). Check out the tag line for RejectionLine.com: “Someone won’t leave you alone?
Give them ‘your’ number: 212-479-7990.” [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 13th, 2002
I used to use SpyOnIt.com as my favorite notification mechanism. But no more. SpyOnIt looks very ill, ill unto death, sad to say. It was a good service, but then again, I never was clear on where their money came from. Now I’m using NotifyList.com — sign up in the box at the bottom of [...]
