Rambles at starchamber.com

On the Rands In Repose site I found this short interview with Joshua Schachter, the clever fellow behind the del.icio.us juggernaut. It’s a brief picture of someone who comes across as a laid-back slacker dude made good. He’s not looking for money. He has a day job (Late-breaking NEWSFLASH: not anymore). He made del.icio.us [...]

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I’m trying out some new anti-spam software called MT-Keystrokes. It’s got some JavaScript magic to determine whether or not you’re a bot when you create your feedback. Dealing with comment spam has gotten to be a real chore lately. It’s truly amazing how much of it there is. It all gets moderated automatically by MT-Blacklist, [...]

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I continue to be impressed with the community energy going on over at Flickr. I was struck by this lovely set assembled by Kokogiak (Alan Taylor) of pictures from the Cassini space probe at Saturn. What’s especially interesting here is that all the pictures come from NASA’s official Cassini site. Anybody could make a set [...]

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Over at ITConversations I listened to an entertaining talk by Andy Hertzfeld, one of the first people on the Macintosh development team. I haven’t listened to it, but there’s also an interview with him on the site. Hertzfeld has been busy telling the world about his new book, Revolution in the Valley. Ancient Mac history [...]

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Could you beat the EAP? At the recent artificial arm-wrestling contest, you almost certainly would have. EAP stands for electroactive polymer, also known as artificial muscle, and earlier this month, the best
artificial arms wrestled with a human opponent and lost decisively. (Note: the human opponent was a girl!)

We always hear about artificial intelligence, but never [...]

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Over at MIT, Thomas Knight, Drew Endy, et al. continue to draw glowing press on the subject of synthetic biology. Here’s the Guardian talking about MIT’s new undergraduate synth bio curriculum.

The synthetic biology story has been a matter of breathless anticipation for the science journalists out there, and the anti-genetic modification zealots and religious conservatives [...]

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I’m spending time these days “nesting” on my new computer: installing programs, getting the files I need, setting up preferences, logging into websites. The process is more pleasant this time around than the last time I bought a computer four years ago. Why? Because now I make more extensive use of net-based applications and resources. [...]

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Crikey! Has anyone else noticed the rise of the Britishisms “amongst” and “whilst” among American bloggers? I can’t decide if people are being pretentious or simply being pulled along in the verbal tide, but I attribute it to the fact that there are so many clever and influential Brits brightening the blogosphere. The Guardian has [...]

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Ta-Da List is a nifty free micro-web-app that helps you keep lists. That’s all it does. Brought to you by the same folks who make the online project management software Basecamp, Ta-Da List lets you set up shareable public lists (with RSS feeds, no less!) quickly and easily. I thought I had finally found what [...]

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I bought a new computer. It is shiny. It is fast. It is attached to my little home network. But my little home network does not work. My two XP machines have no love for one another. No, indeed they do not. I have been trying to make them speak to each other for two [...]

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