General
When 1000 MB is more than 1 GB
The way that humans perceive numbers can sometimes have illogical twists. For example, Science News reports:
We all know that $1 is equal to 100 cents. But a new study suggests that, in some situations, people may behave as if 100 cents actually has more value.
That’s because people may pay more attention to the [...]
Possible hope on the patent front
I’ve often railed about the absurd patents being approved by the US Patent Office and the many lawsuits by patent trolls. Now, some semblance of sanity seems possible. Ars Technica reports:
With the USPTO and courts cracking down on software patents, Ars looks closely at the Supreme Court’s software patent decisions. Yes, the Supremes really did [...]
Memristor- A new component for electrical circuits
Electrical circuits have three major components– resistors, capacitors, and inductors. A fourth possibility has been known to exist in theory since it was proposed in 1971 by UC Berkeley electrical engineering professor Leon Chua. The fourth possible component is a type of variable resistor that Chua dubbed the “memristor”. The concept languished as a theoretical [...]
Cellular computer within living cells
Here’s a different type of computer. Caltech scientists have created a kind of computer that exists within living cells. It can be called a “computer” because it can perform some simple logical operations involving certain specific molecules. The equivalents of AND, OR, NOR, NAND gates use snippets of engineered RNA assembled inside a yeast cell. [...]
Patent follies
The parade of bad patents and patent law suits goes on. Here’s some of the latest nonsense:
Microsoft, Apple, Google sued over icon software patent
Oprah and her book club latest target of patent trolls
36 companies named in parental control infringement lawsuit
We May Need a New Name For Netbooks
How software models doomed the markets
In a previous post, I noted how the misuse of computer models by Wall Street helped get us in the current financial mess. Scientific American has an article, After the Crash: How Software Models Doomed the Markets, which says:
The software models in question estimate the level of financial risk of a portfolio for a [...]
Risk management
From Dilbert.
Newspapers and the impact of the Internet
The Internet is a huge influence in today’s society with many effects on old institutions and industries. Among the companies that have been hit hard are the publishers of the printed media that depend on advertising. The Internet has been siphoning off a growing chunk of the advertising income from newspapers and magazines and the [...]
An assortment of news
There just isn’t time to comment on everything interesting that I come across but here is an assortment of links to some of the posts and articles that I think would be worth looking at:
You’re Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?John Markoff writes in the New York Times about information gathering on the Internet.
[...]
Avoiding tech jargon
In his New York Times blog David Pogue writes about Tech Terms to Avoid:
Why tech writers use so much jargon, I don’t know. Maybe it’s self-aggrandizement; they want to lord their knowledge over everybody else. Maybe it’s laziness; they can’t be bothered to fish for a plain-English word. Maybe it’s just habit; they spend all [...]
Too many betas
Everything seems to be sold these days before it’s really finished. Too much is in perpetual beta. Over at Gizmodo, Jesus Diaz laments:
I’m tired of this. This sense of permanent discomfort with the technology around me. The bugs. The compromises. The firmware upgrades. The “This will work in the next version.” The “It’s in our [...]
