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November 12 2008
Larry Lessig was busy last week: he was in New Zealand for the LIANZA (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aoteatora) conference, flew back to California to man the phone banks for the Presidential election, and then spoke at Web 2.0 Summit. Fortunately, several of his talks were recorded.… read more3D Printers Now As Cheap as Laser Printers Were In 1985
October 30 2008
Check out this perception altering post on the Ponoko blog. It really puts the current state of 3D printers in context: they're now cheaper than laser printers were in 1985. It almost dares you to think of when you first saw a laser printer, and when your company first got… read moreOctober 16 2008
November 7th is World Plone Day, when the Plone community will run outreach events around the world to "promote and educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using Plone in education, government, ngos, and in business". Look for your local community in their list of planned events. I… read moreOctober 13 2008
Here are two presentations that I've found particularly instructive in the market meltdown: Making Sense of the Mortgage Meltdown: many numbers, tables, and charts to help you see the full number of sigmas the last few years represent. Sequoia Capital on Startups and the Economic Downturn: this is a presentation… read moreOctober 08 2008
As the financial markets battle the fallout of years of poorly regulated unwise greed, the language of analysis is revealing. Commentators talk of "contagion spreading", financial "gears jammed", and "turbulent" markets. This is the language of non-obvious connection, where it's theoretically possible but impossible in practice to predict the future… read moreMobile Advertising: You're Doing It Wrong
October 07 2008
Don't miss this great post by Chris Heathcote deconstructing Google's first steps into map advertising on the web and mobile map apps. There's still some usability and use-case work to be done, but it's interesting to see their initial take. As many people have predicted, text ads are difficult to… read moreEffect of the Depression on Technology
October 07 2008
Here's the state of play as I see it: it is expensive and difficult to borrow and this shows no sign of change; the US debt is rising instead of falling, propelled by the Iraq War and the reliance on China for material goods unreciprocated by a reliance from China… read moreOctober 06 2008
I talk a lot to people who don't quite understand the scale of the media shift from bits to atoms, so I always have my eyes open for numbers and anecdotes that illustrate the point. The latest I found are from an article on Apple's threat to shut the iTunes… read more2008 New Zealand Open Source Awards
September 27 2008
Wednesday night in Wellington is a lot more exciting when the New Zealand Open Source Award ceremony is on! The Minister for Communications and Information Technology, David Cunliffe, made a brief speech lauding open source and was around to hand awards to the winners. We gave out prizes for best… read moreTwo Great Education Talks at Ignite Philly II
September 27 2008
In case you missed them in Jim's post on Ignite Philly II, there are two great 5m talks on education online that you should really check out. Mark Yim: Engineering Education and the GRASP Lab is really cool. Dropping students into a problem with no lessons, no readings, etc. reminds… read moreWingman: In-Browser Validation
September 18 2008
Rowan Simpson and Koz have released Wingman, a Firefox plug-in that automatically sends the pages you visit to an HTML validation server. This lets you validate dynamically-generated pages locked away behind complex logins. You can tell it ignore certain types of errors, and the website aggregates information about what types… read moreSeptember 14 2008
Software Freedom Day is free and open source's open day, a chance for the general public who might have been curious about open source to come along and learn more. I'll be in Wellington on Saturday, September 20th, for Wellington's event. There'll be: copies of Linux given out and a… read moreDaniel Suarez: Bot-Mediated Realities
September 13 2008
I enjoy exposure to new world views, the feeling of one's brain being stretched to fit a new frame. For that reason, I enjoyed Daniel Suarez's talk to the Long Now Foundation, entitled "Daemon: Bot-Mediated Realities". You can listen to the talk as I did, or read Paul Saffo's summary.… read moreSeptember 12 2008
This year has seen a glut of books on topics in that strange area occupied awkwardly by behavioural economics, cognitive psychology, and experimental philosophy. Some fail to distinguish themselves, merely rehashing the many ways in which we aren't perfectly rational creatures. Others, however, find an original angle to tack the… read moreAuckland University Bioengineering Institute
September 11 2008
I am an industry advisor to the Auckland University Bioengineering Institute and got a tour on Tuesday. It was inspirational! They sprawl over several floors of a tall concrete building in Auckland, expanding from their cramped one-floor presence. Everywhere you look there are people with soldering irons, laptops, and batteries… read more
