Science Addiction

The best radio show on traditional radio and the internet is going on a hiatus for the summer following a series of setbacks involving loss of many of the pillars that formed its financial support- UMass Lowell, WGBH and unnamed others. A last ditch fundraising effort kept them afloat for the last few weeks, but the Christopher Lydon and Radio Open Source are off the radio for now.

How ironic that this happened the day after Internet radio’s day of silence.

A brilliant comic from xkcd for a Friday morning:

Geek activism has not taken off yet, but it should. With the gamers recognizing the need for a louder voice, EFF gaining momentum and Linux taking on the mainstream on the one hand and recent severe losses in privacy, freedom of speech and intellectual property rights on the other, now seems to be the best time to rally around the cause.

Geeks are not known to be political or highly vocal (outside of our own circles)- this must change if we want things to improve. So here is my list of things people of all shapes, sizes and sides of the debate need to know. Some of these are obvious, others may not be meant for you. But hopefully, some of these will inspire you to do the right thing and others will help you frame the next discussion, debate or argument you have on these topics. Read the rest of this entry »

In my Bookmarks toolbar in Firefox I have a folder called ‘Daily’. Every morning when I start my computer, I open my browser, right-click on this folder and click ‘Open in Tabs’. This automatically opens the following in individual tabs:

• My Wikipedia Watchlist
• My Wikimedia Commons Watchlist
• My Bloglines page
• My Flickr page
• My Yahoo! Finance portfolio page
• Two web email accounts (with much effort cut down from a previous high of 5)
• and finally… Woot!

Or should I say W00t? In either case, this is hands down the most addictive web site in the history of our consumer culture. If you find yourself inexplicably drawn to gadgets, deals on gadgets, the local electronics/gadget store and that new cool device that everyone will have in 6 months but you need now, the Woot is for you. Also, at about 12:03AM Central Time on an idle Tuesday you will also find yourself descending into a profound depression as you see the “Sold Out!” sign on Woot.com for that days wooot and find that you are not alone. Not by a long shot. In fact, there were thousands of others who fell upon Woot.com up to 3 minutes earlier than you did and snapped up that snazzy talking, wi-fi enabled coffee maker or trendy toaster. This is what Douglas Adams would have called as having descended into the long, dark tea-time of the soul. Read the rest of this entry »