In Honor of the Holiday Season
Posted on 2006-12-20 at 08:14
I present a history of the religions of the world in 90 seconds. Enjoy.
A Cure for Diabetes? Sweet!
Posted on 2006-12-16 at 21:24
Exerted from an article on a breakthrough discovery about diabetes:
Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.
Seriously, you guys thought I was kidding about living forever but every day brings me one discovery closer to my goal. No, I don't have diabetes, but every medical issue cured/resolved is one less to worry about in my future. On my eleventy-first birthday, I'll have a special surprise for you all.
Phear Mah Toad
Posted on 2006-12-15 at 07:40
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
Your will is but his plaything. Submit or croak.
Tom, when is the future?
Posted on 2006-12-14 at 07:57
The Future? Why that would be now, my fine reader.
waiting for you to read the linked article....
For those too lazy to click the link, I'll offer some juicy snippets:
"It was the world's first purely electronic communication from brain to brain, and therefore the basis for thought communication."
"At the moment there is an implant that can be pushed right into the middle of the brain - in the subthalamic nucleus is one potential area - and it provides a stimulation that counteracts the tremor effects of Parkinson's Disease to the extent that many patients can lead a normal life, and so they leave the implant switched on all the time."
"One of them that is now ongoing is culturing neural networks - that is actually growing artificial brains from biological tissue - and we're working on that to control a little robot. So rather than have a robot controlled by a computer brain, the robot will be controlled by a biological brain."
So, the natural follow up question is can you define "Human"? How might your definition be altered or attacked in a future where the biological, the mechanical, and the electrical mashup into an indistinct glob? How much of the brain can be replaced before you will consider the person affected non-human? Does your definition of "Human" distinguish humanity in that way? If a being encapsulates a human brain and organs, but was built from the ground up mechanistically rather than organically is that being a human, a robot, or neither?
A formal complaint has been lodged
Posted on 2006-12-14 at 07:51
I, of course, forgot to mention that it was Submarine Dave who first brought to my attention the matter of the midgets. Upon finding this fine corner of the web, he knew I must be informed. He did his duty.
Dave, attribution is now complete and you may expect royalty checks to begin pouring by COB.
Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton
Posted on 2006-12-09 at 10:29
Listen to Code Monkey by Jonathan Coulton.
The song is released under a Creative Commons license which allows for redistribution with very few conditions. If you like the song and want to support artists that use such liberal license terms (my posting it here in full is legal and encouraged!) you should consider putting your money where your mouth is and shoving $1 or so to the artist. Your eternal soul will thank you. :)
Anthropographics
Posted on 2006-12-08 at 08:13
Personalization. Individuation. Micromarkets.
The world is moving from a mass market, appeal to the crowd, nab the largest group economic model to one that seeks ever-smaller groupings. No longer is it a Good Thing to keep up with the Joneses. Now the modern consumer wants to differentiate themselves from the Joneses. Having a menu of generic product choices worked in the industrialized 20th century, but as we march further into a new economy we seek hyper-specialized products. It's not enough to buy the same album as the guy next to me. I must buy just the songs I want. Moreover, it's not enough to buy them in the same format as everyone else, I want choice. You may like your songs in AAC format (Apples lossy iTunes format) but I prefer mine in Flac (lossless encoding). The next guy might want his in simple MP3 format (a ubiquitous lossy encoding standard). It's not enough to buy a pair of Nikes. Now I can get a pair from their web site with customized colors and even words on the side! This is a radical shift in thinking and in markets. But what does it mean?
It means demographics---the study of delineations of groups of people into their respective subsets---becomes less useful to the marketer, who seeks something delineated at the individual level, something I'm gonna call anthropographics---the study of delineations of individual persons.
I have more to say about this. I'll be adding that to a later entry. I'm interested in feedback. What you you think about this "demassification" of commercial interests? What sorts of profound changes do you expect from it? Do you welcome it?
More to come....
Hire a Midget
Posted on 2006-12-08 at 08:09
This site speaks for itself, so I present, without additional comment Hire a Midget and it's sister site Rent a Midget. No, seriously.
42Notes.com
Posted on 2006-12-04 at 20:59
I just registered a new domain: 42Notes.com. You are---I'm sure---intensely curious about why I'd register a new domain, and in particular why it would be something called "42Notes.com". Allow me to satisfy your curiosity.
Some people like spam. I'm not one of them. Sadly, the more I give out my email address to businesses and on the Internet in general, the more spam that email address receives. What is a guy to do? Enter Google Domain Mail Hosting.
Google Domain Mail Hosting lets me run all my email for a given domain through their email server. They handle everything. It's quite easy. It also allows me to specify one email address as the "valid" one and then have any mail sent to a non-existent email address to that one valid address.
So here's what I do. I set up a new domain---42Notes.com---then I set up one valid address on that domain, like admin or me or punchmonkey. Anyway, I tell Google to forward all email that doesn't go to a specific account to forward to that addess. Then, when amazon asks for an address I give them Amazon at that domain as an answer. If Norfolk Florist asks for an address, I give them norfolkflorist at that domain. Next I sit back and watch the mail roll in. Those that play nice with the given address will be evident. I'll get email to [their site name]@ mydomain.com and it'll be relevant and so on. But for those that sell my address to spammers, I'll know right away. If I get mail from [your site name]@mydomain.com and it's trying to sell my viagra or penny stocks, then I know you've sold my address to spammers. This means that A) I won't do business with you any more, B) I'll publicize that you sell email addresses to spammers for all to see and learn, and C) I'll create an email rule that shunts all email to that corrupted address to the trashcan. Problem solved.
So, you are still asking, why the name "42Notes.com"? The answer is simple. It's easy to remember, short, and means nothing. Those were my criteria for choosing a domain name. I wanted something that was easy to type fast (short!), that I could say and people would remember without needed spelling or other clarification, and that means nothing so that it can mean whatever I want in a given context. 42Notes could be referring to music, class, post-it, or love notes. As for the number 42. Well, if you don't know why I chose that number, then you just aren't a geek (corollary: if you do know why, then you probably are a geek). :)