Time Magazine honor realized…
December 29, 2006
This will only work for Macs with an iSight. Link--->
The Year of Computing (more) Dangerously
December 28, 2006
Washington Post has a good article about computer security trends for 2006. I'm not going to link to the Washington Post though. I want you to read the version with the Bruce Sterling commentary.... The result is that even if law enforcement or security experts manage to take down the infected PC responsible for relaying traffic to one of the scam sites, the effect of that takedown is only temporary, as the attackers can simply substitute another computer they have gained control over. Such scams make it far more difficult for security experts to find the true location of phishing servers. (((I was actually sitting in an audience when Donn Parker predicted that things like this would be possible someday. I was so impressed that I put it…
Highly recommended read
December 27, 2006
I am not one to post book reviews on my blog, but given how much I enjoyed this book and seeing how the author self-published it, I am going to make an exception. G33k Mafia is an incredibly fun high-tech caper novel set in present time on the West coast. It tracks the adventures of a group of high tech criminals that survive off the grid (fake identities, no taxes, etc.) and use modern technology and ingenuity to plot small, but profitable capers. A recently fired game developer is sucked into their world and falls in love with the de-facto leader and the lifestyle. I think Dakan nails the off-the-grid subculture and certainly captures the excitement and anticipation of the groups exploits. I'm recommending it to all my techie…
Warren Ellis to write on SL for Newsweek…
December 22, 2006
“Second Life is not only the biggest digital art installation in the world, but potentially the most radical shift yet in the way communities are formed online, and possibly also the germ of the next great operating system,” Ellis said. “It’s not only a place where people get as strange as they can, but an incubator for the future.” Link ---->
They don’t have bodies, but they do leave footprints…
December 21, 2006
I am not sure the math isn't a little flawed, but an interesting, if not brilliant analysis: If there are on average between 10,000 and 15,000 avatars "living" in Second Life at any point, that means the world has a population of about 12,500. Supporting those 12,500 avatars requires 4,000 servers as well as the 12,500 PCs the avatars' physical alter egos are using. Conservatively, a PC consumes 120 watts and a server consumes 200 watts. Throw in another 50 watts per server for data-center air conditioning. So, on a daily basis, overall Second Life power consumption equals... 60,000 kilowatt-hours.... Which, annualized, gives us [an average avatar consumption of] 1,752 kWh. So an avatar consumes 1,752 kWh per year..... [T]he average…
Second Life news
December 13, 2006
IBM to give birth to 'Second Life' business group First Second Life millionaire branded....
End of an Era
December 13, 2006
I've been reading Bruce Sterling in Wired magazine since their first issue. Over a few beers in the early 90's he pushed my analytical focus in a few very cool directions, for which I have always been grateful. I'll miss reading his articles in Wired, but his blog is still on my daily RSS sync. One upshot is that futurism itself has no future. Once confined to an elite group, the tools and techniques of prognostication are all widely available. As for pundits: The world used to be full of workaday journalists, with just a thin sprinkling of opinion mongers. Now a TypePad account is a license to deliver nose-to-the-pavement perspective with an attitude. The very word futurism is old-fashioned, way too 1960s. Today's Internet-savvy…
Second Life featured in the Economist
October 3, 2006
Including a rather interesting quote from Mitch Kapor: It promises to be “disruptive”, says Mitch Kapor, the inventor of the Lotus spreadsheet that played a big role in the personal-computer revolution of the 1980s and 1990s. He is now chairman of Linden Lab. To him, Second Life is comparable to both the PC and the internet itself, which started as something “quirky” for geeks, and then entered and transformed mainstream society. “Spending part of your day in a virtual world will become commonplace” and “profoundly normal,” says Mr Kapor. Ultimately, he thinks, Second Life will “displace both desktop computing” and other two-dimensional “user interfaces”. As “a hothouse of innovation and experiment,” he says, Second Life may even…
Targeted malicious code from devest@terrorism.com!
October 2, 2006
I am not sure whether to be worried or flattered, but it appears that someone is going through the trouble of creating targeted malicious code attacks by spoofing an email from me. They've even gone so far as to use the correct signature, return phone numbers, and to pick a topic that i am likely to actually send an email on. The only issue is that they've spelled my name wrong...probably to prevent any bounces from coming to me and alterting me. The message looks like this: From: Matt Devest Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2006 09:05:27 -0600 To: < ****@terrorism.com> Subject: How China Steals US Military Secrets ! Dear, FYI- http://www.usa.tmsasia.com/collections/prc/How_China_Steals_US_Military_Secr ets.html Matt Devest CEO Terrorism Research…
More school shootings to come….
October 2, 2006
As a parent, I take increasing interest in the analysis of experts like this. Therefore, I want to share what I am seeing, what I project as forthcoming in the next month, October 2006. I've been saying most of this on radio interviews and in suicide trainings for weeks. No one seems to be listening, especially in the US media. Nevertheless, readers may wish to know about the patterns that are so obviously developing. Full Story
Nokia’s N95 is the phone to beat
September 27, 2006
Barring a iPhone, this is the phone to beat in 2006.
Warren Ellis plays Second Life
September 15, 2006
Great entry on Warren Ellis's blog. I've often thought of PKD playing SL as well.