Non Forbes

More on finding the lost

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2006-12-21 13:59

Last week, I wrote about new ideas for finding the lost. One I've done some follow-up on is the cell phone approach. While it's not hard to design a good emergency rescue radio if you are going to explicitly carry a rescue device when you get lost, the key to cell phones is that people are already carrying them without thinking about it -- even when going places with no cell reception since they want the phone with them when they return to reception.

Topic: 
Random Ideas

A real life Newcomb's Paraodox

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2006-12-19 19:49

This week I participated in this thread on Newcomb's Paraodox which was noted on BoingBoing.

The paradox:

A highly superior being from another part of the galaxy presents you with two boxes, one open and one closed. In the open box there is a thousand-dollar bill. In the closed box there is either one million dollars or there is nothing. You are to choose between taking both boxes or taking the closed box only. But there's a catch.

Topic: 
Futurism
Tags: 
memory

Towards a Zero User Interface backup system

Submitted by brad on Sat, 2006-12-16 03:15

I've spoken before about ZUI (Zero User Interface) and how often it's the right interface.

One important system that often has too complex a UI is backup. Because of that, backups often don't get done. In particular offsite backups, which are the only way to deal with fire and similar catastrophe.

Here's a rough design for a ZUI offsite backup. The only UI at a basic level is just installing and enabling it -- and choosing a good password (that's not quite zero UI but it's pretty limited.)

Topic: 
Technology
Internet

Something isn't CLEAR about airport line-jumping program

Submitted by brad on Wed, 2006-12-13 23:17

A new program has appeared at San Jose Airport, and a few other airports like Orlando. It's called "Clear" and is largely the product of the private company Clear at flyclear.com. But something smells very wrong.

To get the Clear card, you hand over $99/year. The private company keeps 90% and the TSA gets the small remainder. You then have to provide a fingerprint, an iris scan and your SSN, among other things.

Topic: 
Privacy

Generic internet appliances

Submitted by brad on Wed, 2006-12-13 00:54

Normally I'm a general-purpose computing guy. I like that the computer that runs my TV with MythTV is a general purpose computer that does far more than a Tivo ever would. My main computer is normally on and ready for me to do a thousand things.

But there is value in specialty internet appliances, especially ones that can be very low power and small. But it doesn't make sense to have a ton of those either.

Topic: 
Internet

A first solution to linux dependencies part 2 -- yes, service packs

Submitted by brad on Fri, 2006-12-08 23:34

Last week I wrote about linux's problems with dependencies and upgrades and promised some suggestions this week.

There are a couple of ideas here to be stolen from (sacrilige) windows which could be a start here, though they aren't my long term solution.

Microsoft takes a different approach to updates, which consists of little patches and big service packs. The service packs integrate a lot of changes, including major changes, into one upgrade. They are not very frequent, and in some ways akin to the major distribution releases of systems like Ubuntu (but not its parent Debian ), Fedora Core and SuSE.

Installing a service pack is certainly not without risks, but the very particular combination of new libraries and changed apps in a service pack is extensively tested together, as is also the case for a major revision of a linux distribution. Generally installing one of these packs has been a safe procedure. Most windows programs also do not use hand-edited configuration files for local changes, and so don't suffer from the upgrade problems associated with this particular technique nearly as much.

Topic: 
Sysadmin
Tags: 
upgrading

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