By Eric Pettifor Way back in February of 2007, I wrote of an announcement by General Electric that they were developing an energy efficient incandescent light bulb. I speculated that they were motivated by a proposed California law to outlaw the incandescent. Later on, in March, I noted that it wasn’t just California, but that […]
2009: Linux on netbooks, Nokia on Apple’s tail
I’m looking back at last year’s end-of-year tech columns and feeling totally bummed out. We still don’t have globallink communicators with roll up screens a la “Earth: Final Conflict.” It remains something for the lab, like this prototype. Still no sexbots. Perhaps they’ll be one of those techs like videophones — featured in scifi, but, […]
In pursuit of Xcellence
The Ansari X Prize for the first reusable private space craft capable of doing two missions in two weeks got a lot of media coverage, and was successfully won, back in 2004. But did you know that there are other X Prizes still on offer? For example, if you can sequence 100 genomes in 10 […]
A Bridge Too Charged
[Our scene is set some decades in the future.] GRANDPATurn out those lights, Billy, you’re wasting electricity! BILLYSo? Electricity is free and green. GRANDPAAre you on drugs, Billy? DAD Silly Grandpa, seems we have this conversation every day. GRANDPAWho are you? Didn’t I used to date your mother? DAD Billy is right, Grandpa, electricity is […]
Daylight waste of time
I wish governments didn’t have the audacity to mess with time itself. Just finished doing timezone file updates for a number of older Linux-style servers to get them to work with the new daylight savings time. Here’s a helpful page of instructions for anyone looking to update an old OS in this family. Newer ones […]
Of lights and lasers
Now that I’ve just about completely replaced all incandescent lights in my apartment with compact fluorescents (CFL), GE has announced a new, improved, more energy efficient incandescent. Eventually, they say, it’ll be better than CFL. What’s up with that, and why didn’t they do it sooner? The press release doesn’t say, and I won’t speculate […]
Naked Geeks
Who are the 12 greatest computer geeks of all time? Can you put names to the following 12 clues? There will be an answer key at the end of this blog entry. Difference engine. AI test and work on defeating Nazi enigma encryption during WWII. In 1983, geeks 3 and 4 below received an award […]
