Non Forbes

Being the greatest athlete ever

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2008-08-18 22:22

NBC has had just a touch of coverage of Michael Phelps and his 8 gold medals, which in breaking Mark Spitz's 7 from 1972 has him declared the greatest Olympic athlete, or even athlete of all time. And there's no doubt he's one of the greatest swimmers of all time and this is an incredible accomplishment. Couch potato that I am, I can hardly criticise him.

Topic: 
Media
Tags: 
olympics

Want a lossless jpeg editor

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2008-08-18 16:26

Photographers constantly debate about jpeg. Should they shoot in RAW or JPEG, for example. RAW preserves everything, but is much harder and bulkier to work with, so you will see serious pro photographers, who you think would always vote for the "never throw away" logic of RAW, tell you they work mostly in JPEG. I'm one of them. I use raw only for shots with high dynamic range, like night photography, and often shoot RAW+JPEG to work with the JPEGs and pull the RAWs if you need it.

Topic: 
Photography

Extensible sockets for wrench set

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2008-08-15 20:09

Ok, this is something I have to believe somebody else has thought of, but I haven't seen it, so I thought I would ask readers if they have, and if not, to put it forward.

Everybody has a socket wrench set. The wrench heads tend to come with a square hole in the top, typically 1/2" or 3/8" square, into which the square drive from the ratchet inserts. There are sometimes spring-locks to keep it in place.

Topic: 
Inventions

What is hard science fiction?

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2008-08-12 17:27

I've just returned from Denver and the World Science Fiction Convention (worldcon) where I spoke on issues such as privacy, DRM and creating new intelligent beings. However, I also attended a session on "hard" science fiction, and have some thoughts to relate from it.

Defining the sub-genres of SF, or any form of literature, is a constant topic for debate. No matter where you draw the lines, authors will work to bend them as well. Many people just give up and say "Science Fiction is what I point at when I say Science Fiction."

Topic: 
Futurism
Tags: 
science fiction

Should we let people safely talk to the police?

Submitted by brad on Sat, 2008-08-02 15:35

There's a bit of an internet buzz this week around a video of a law lecture on why you should never, ever, ever, ever talk to the police. The video begins with the law professor and criminal defense attorney, who is a good speaker, making that case, and then a police detective, interesting but not quite as eloquent, agreeing with him and describing the various tricks the police use every day with people stupid enough to talk to them.

Topic: 
New Democracy
Privacy

What's your travel power supply record?

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2008-07-31 19:26

I often rant here about the need for better universal power supply technology. And there is some progress. On a recent trip to Europe, I was astounded how much we took in the way of power supply gear. I am curious at what the record is for readers here. I suggested we have a contest at a recent gathering. I had six supplies, and did not win.

Here's what the two of us had on the German trip in terms of devices. There were slightly fewer supplies, due to the fact several devices charged from USB, which could be generated by laptops or dedicated wall-warts.

  • My laptop, with power supply. (Universal, able to run from plane, car or any voltage)
  • Her laptop, with power supply.
  • My unlocked GSM phone, which though mini-USB needs its dedicated charger, so that was brought
  • My CDMA phone, functioning has a PDA, charges from mini-USB
  • Her unlocked GSM phone, plus motorola charger
  • Her CDMA Treo, as a PDA, with dedicated charger
  • My Logger GPS, charges from mini-USB
  • My old bluetooth GPS, because I had just bought the logger, charges from mini-USB
  • My Canon EOS 40D, with plug in battery charger. 4 batteries.
  • Her Canon mini camera, with different plug in battery charger. 2 batteries.
  • Canon flash units, with NiMH AA batteries, with charger and power supply for charger.
  • Special device, with 12v power supply.
  • MP3 player and charger
  • Bluetooth headset, charges from same Motorola charger. Today we would have two!
  • External laptop battery for 12 hour flight, charges from laptop charger
  • Electric shaver -- did not bring charger as battery will last trip.
  • 4 adapters for Euro plugs, and one 3-way extension cord. One adapter has USB power out!
  • An additional USB wall-wart, for a total of 3 USB wall-warts, plus the computers.
  • Cigarette lighter to USB adapter to power devices in car.

That's the gear that will plug into a wall. There was more electronic gear, including USB memory sticks, flash cards, external wi-fi antennal, headsets and I've probably forgotten a few things.

Tags: 
power

A privacy enabled phone-home for laptops

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2008-07-29 20:08

There are a variety of tools out there to help recover stolen technological devices. They make the devices "phone home" to the security company, and if stolen, this can be used to find the laptop (based on IP traceroutes etc.) and get it back. Some of these tools work hard to hide on the machine, even claiming they will survive low level disk formats. Some reportedly get installed into the BIOS to survive a disk swap.

Topic: 
Privacy

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