Some Android apps caught covertly sending GPS data to advertisers
Privacy, what a quaint idea.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Cosmic Log - Alien planet looks 'just right' for life
Cosmic Log - Alien planet looks 'just right' for life
This is neato news, but when you read with any sort of critical eye, you have to see what a dork this astrophysicist Vogt is. He starts by saying there is a 100% chance the planet has life. That's just ridiculous. The planet has extremely unique properties that we've never examined before and a claim like that is just irresponsible.
Next, Vogt claims this planet, which does not rotate, so it has one side facing it's small sun, and one side pointing away, is "not too hot and not to cold, but just right for water to exist somewhere in liquid form." I'm no rocket scientist, but I would like to point out that any water on the hot side will automatically evaporate, and then migrate in gaseous form over to the cold side of the planet, where it will freeze hard and never be seen in liquid form again. He might want to think about the old, dinky ice cubes in his fridge, which got that way via sublimation, and how even water trapped in surface ice is going to migrate farther away from the sun and pile up high on the cold side, just like those dinky ice cubes disappear and the water migrates to the cooling element in his fridge.
Perhaps he visualizes a planet teeming with life that can live in solid ice, without the benefit of sunlight. Perhaps he detected lots of thermal vents on the ice side, ha.
This is neato news, but when you read with any sort of critical eye, you have to see what a dork this astrophysicist Vogt is. He starts by saying there is a 100% chance the planet has life. That's just ridiculous. The planet has extremely unique properties that we've never examined before and a claim like that is just irresponsible.
Next, Vogt claims this planet, which does not rotate, so it has one side facing it's small sun, and one side pointing away, is "not too hot and not to cold, but just right for water to exist somewhere in liquid form." I'm no rocket scientist, but I would like to point out that any water on the hot side will automatically evaporate, and then migrate in gaseous form over to the cold side of the planet, where it will freeze hard and never be seen in liquid form again. He might want to think about the old, dinky ice cubes in his fridge, which got that way via sublimation, and how even water trapped in surface ice is going to migrate farther away from the sun and pile up high on the cold side, just like those dinky ice cubes disappear and the water migrates to the cooling element in his fridge.
Perhaps he visualizes a planet teeming with life that can live in solid ice, without the benefit of sunlight. Perhaps he detected lots of thermal vents on the ice side, ha.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Global CIO: Larry Ellison Swaps Cloud Rants For Cloud Love With Exalogic -- InformationWeek
Global CIO: Larry Ellison Swaps Cloud Rants For Cloud Love With Exalogic -- InformationWeek
I sympathize with Ellison. A web application is just not cloud computing. I think people get confused because the internet, in diagrams of yore, is depicted by a little picture of a cloud.
Cloud computing, in my mind, is building a computational task that can be distributed across multiple servers, with the precise number of servers changing in an elastic manner, as determined by the task load.
I sympathize with Ellison. A web application is just not cloud computing. I think people get confused because the internet, in diagrams of yore, is depicted by a little picture of a cloud.
Cloud computing, in my mind, is building a computational task that can be distributed across multiple servers, with the precise number of servers changing in an elastic manner, as determined by the task load.
Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says - latimes.com
Atheists, agnostics most knowledgeable about religion, survey says - latimes.com
Interesting stats on religious knowledge among various faiths.
Interesting stats on religious knowledge among various faiths.
Friday, September 17, 2010
How Haystack endangered the Iranian dissidents it was supposed to protect. - By Evgeny Morozov - Slate Magazine
How Haystack endangered the Iranian dissidents it was supposed to protect. - By Evgeny Morozov - Slate Magazine
People need to remember that lots of technology out there is simply vaporware. It pays to be skeptical.
People need to remember that lots of technology out there is simply vaporware. It pays to be skeptical.
Friday, September 10, 2010
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