Archive for December, 2006

Amazing picture of Saturn and the Earth

Friday, December 29th, 2006

This is a stunning picture assembled from photographic data from the Cassini space mission to Saturn and Titan. What is truly remarkable is that the Earth is (barely) visible through the rings (a little Where's Waldo challenge for you) in this photo. This picture was voted the best astronomy picture of ...

Mathematical map of the internet

Friday, December 29th, 2006

Cool visualization of internet IP address allocation. The US department of defense has a pretty healthy chunk, as do a number of corporations.

We are the internet – so take back the internet!

Friday, December 22nd, 2006

Bob Frankston hits the "network neutrality" nail squarely on the head in his article "Our Internet!" We are the Internet...We don’t need be given “Internet” by a central authority because the defining principle is that we can and must connect from the edge rather than relying on carrier be it a ...

Domain Tasting: yummy web spam!

Wednesday, December 20th, 2006

I just read a very interesting historical account of the practice of domain tasting, whereby priveleged parties register huge number of expiring domain names and sample their traffic to determine their value, usually determined by monetizing the traffic using AdWords. Unsuspecting vistors find themselves at a destination designed to direct ...

There is hope for progressive Canadian governance, perhaps even the environment

Monday, December 4th, 2006

Stéphane Dion, former Canadian environment minister, was elected leader of the Liberal Party at a dramatic convention in Montreal. A darkhorse candidate, Mr. Dion does not come off as a typical politician rather he retains much of the style and demeanor of the university professor he once was. For a Liberal ...

Intelligence 2.0

Monday, December 4th, 2006

The NYTimes has an interesting article (login required) about efforts in the US intelligence community to harness the power of "web 2.0" blogs, wikis and social networking in the interest of more efficient collaboration: Something had gone horribly awry, Burton realized. Theoretically, the intelligence world ought to revolve around information sharing. ...