Ned Gulley’s Blog. Resident buzzwords: synthetic biology, ambient displays, swarm robotics, wise crowds.
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 27th, 2003
Last week a group of Segway engineers came to visit the company where I work. They brought along three scooters and were generous in giving the entire crowd a chance to try them out. Here’s a picture of me riding. I like this picture because all three demo scooters are in view, making it look [...]
Posted in Language on Apr 25th, 2003
Two friends sent me Wednesday’s word of the day from A.Word.A.Day. The word was, or rather the phrase was STAR CHAMBER, which is defined as “a court or group marked by arbitrary, oppressive, and secretive procedures.” It continues
After the Star Chamber in the Palace of Westminster in London. It was the site of a closed-door [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 23rd, 2003
I have a new niece named Hannah, born only this week, and in honor of her palindromic name I have written an entire palindromic story. Actually I wrote it some time ago, but this gives me a good opportunity to dust it off and toast the new addition to the family. Here’s a bonus Hannah-based [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 21st, 2003
Mad scientist Mike Onken is back online at his Industry! blog. When asked why he named his blog Industry, he replied that he would have taken Michigan’s state motto Si quaeris peninsulam amoenam, circumspice (”if you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around”), but he was afraid it was copyrighted, so he decided to go with [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 17th, 2003
The New York Times has a generous policy of letting you look at the entire paper online for free, assuming you’ve registered, of course. But after a certain amount of time (a week?) all the articles go into an archive mode, and you have to pay to read anything more than a quick summary. For [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 13th, 2003
I’m a sucker for the Hokey-Pokey, but I’m not sure why.
The Hokey-Pokey’s enduring influence on our culture is hard to explain. Why is it still around? I think its strange charm stems from its unabashed goofiness combined with its open-ended mystery. For instance: first you put your right foot in, then you take it out. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 8th, 2003
The seventh semi-annual MATLAB Programming Contest is in its final lap before finishing up tomorrow. This contest’s puzzle is based on the well-known traveling salesman problem. The contest has been running for a week and so far we’ve had more than 1400 entries. It’s hard to explain the visceral appeal of an online programming contest [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 6th, 2003
A few days ago I remarked that downtown Baghdad was probably going to look different soon. I didn’t suspect that DigitalGlobe would go on publishing free images of the changing face of Baghdad, but they have done just that with this Baghdad Region Image Gallery. It’s really pretty remarkable the kinds of things you can [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 2nd, 2003
Read what Peter Arnett has to say for himself in the Mirror: This War Is Not Working
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 1st, 2003
Charles Paul Freund writes about War Flutters on the Reason website. War flutters are the predictable anxieties that appear when a conflict becomes scary, real, and unpredicatably dangerous. Freund makes the point that scandalizing comments like those made by Peter Arnett are part of a larger process that serves us very well, whereas Al-Jazeera is [...]
