Milk’s Site

FYI, one can now find a daily digest of my del.icio.us entries on . Much easier on the friends page than the one-post-per-entry-ness of .

“For weeks, I kept it in the envelope in which it was sent. Only occasionally did I take it out to look at it or show to a visiting friend when conversation slowed. I thought it was an interesting oddity and nothing more. But I was wrong about the empty page. Or I was wrong about myself.” link

“Bacterial Orchestra is a self-organizing evolutionary musical organism. It consists of several audio cells. Every cell listens to its surroundings and picks up sounds trying to play them back in sync with what it hears. It can be the background noise, people talking or sound played by other cells.” link

“Microsoft’s Windows team made the bold decision to rewrite the Vista audio stack from the ground up, and in doing so they removed hardware acceleration for DirectSound. That’s right. They took hardware support away from the most ubiquitous sound API implemented in games over the past several years. As a result, in many of today’s games, all those feature-laden sound cards, with their multiple channels, audio extensions and hardware accelerated processors, become little better than common garden variety on-board sound running in software mode. Naturally, Creative Labs (amongst others) is pissed. ” link

“The shadow of one of the high unmanned aerostats that maintained the ubik passed over me, the same moment I used that medium to call up IDs on the fleet. In my vision, translucent tags overlaid each ship, labeling their owners, crew and contents. I was able to call up real-time magnified images of the ships as well, shot from the aerostats and tiny random entomopter cams. I saw every kind of vessel imaginable: sleek catamarans, old lobster boats, inflatables, decommissioned Coast Guard cutters. . . And all of them carrying my friends – some of whom I had met face-to-face, some of whom I hadn’t – coming to help build my house.” link

“By that time, of course, the machine had been reverse engineered and duplicated, its internal workings being rather simple to construct, given our example. And yes, we found out that its predictions weren’t as straightforward as they seemed upon initial discovery at about the same time as everyone else did. We tested it before announcing it to the world, but testing took time — too much, since we had to wait for people to die. After four years had gone by and three people died as the machine predicted, we shipped it out the door. There were now machines in every doctor’s office and in booths at the mall. You could pay someone or you could probably get it done for free, but the result was the same no matter what machine you went to. They were, at least, consistent.” link

“‘Are you my friend? Yes or no?’ This question, while fundamentally odd, is a key component of social network sites. Participants must select who on the system they deem to be ‘Friends.’ Their choice is publicly displayed for all to see and becomes the backbone for networked participation. By examining what different participants groups do on social network sites, this paper investigates what Friendship means and how Friendship affects the culture of the sites.” link

“However, there are still in-person interruptions that can occur since your presence cannot be seen as people walk up to your desk. We recognized this problem internally and have added USB LED signal lights to some workstations (the lights are expensive). A Sparkplug then changes the color of the light based on the user’s presence.” link

“It turns out that the sensors and lights are just the beginning of a system that is designed to direct drivers to available parking slots efficiently without the need to drive up and down aisles looking for that elusive open spot.” link

“This site is a collection of stories regarding Honeybees and beekeeping. In each one I present a bee’s eye view of major events in the life of colony of honeybees. Life is one set of trials after another and honeybees are not exempt. Here you will find one man’s view of his bees, one man’s interpretations of the events that a colony goes through. I hope to convey a sense of what it feels like to work the bees, how it feels to watch their struggles, triumphs and defeats.” link

“Stalking around the party without her referencing link flashing names and stats at her felt a little like being drunk. It was Cass’s way of making an adventure for herself. Off-balance, senses muffled, she indulged in self-induced paranoia. Smiling faces, links hooked to their ears, nodded in greeting as she passed. They all knew who she was, thanks to their links, and she hadn’t a damn clue about two-thirds of the people here. She was working blind and stupid, and it made her giddy, along with the glass of wine she’d had.” link

“Why are all those websites floating around me?” “All the websites that you see in the map are other sites that Me.dium is recommending for you based on what you are currently doing. Me.dium bases those recommendations on how your activity relates to the activity of other people using Me.dium.” link

Pics fae Whitby; some names missing, can anyone help?

Whitby Nov 2006

Also, work let me borrow a Canon 300D DLSR for “staff development” (well, it’s true) in December. I prefer the newer 400D (my big purchase of 2007? after PC upgrades though, natch) although I’ve not had the change to take home yet, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. The first gallery is a few test shots from around work (apart from the first which is my living room wall). The second is pics from my time in Edinburgh last week featuring an inordinate amount of cats. Enjoy.

Testing 1 2 3

Cats & Things