Catching up on Interesting News
September 14th, 2004 | by ian |Technology Advances Sports Coverage
Some of you may have noticed the innovative technology provided by the US Open coverage. Watching a few matches I was impressed by the computerized slow motion rendering of close calls that redrew the ball and the lines and eliminated everything else. Apparently they also had a flash application that would display the match in progress indicating the location of the ball and the results of each shot (alas, no longer available). Article here: U.S. Open Puts Serve in Server
The Future According to Sci Fi Writers
A fascinating read about where society might be headed from the people who make a living conjecturing about the future. Touches on politics, the environment, war, intellectual property, and then some. Thanks again to the ever watchful Pacanukeha.
Spamming the Blogosphere
As predicted in Blogdex: a modern oracle or the new Pagerank?, spamming blogs has become a serious enough problem for bloggers to turn off comments, or restrict them in various methods. See article here, that includes these proposed solutions:
1. Turn all comments — or at least old comments — off.
2. Don’t allow links in comments.
3. Try a blacklisting service.
4. Redirect all links from your blog comments.
5. Include registration steps or a comment preview page.
I am still unsure whether setting up bogus blogs with the purpose of promoting spam links is an issue yet or not. UPDATE: I have learned from the ever useful wikipedia that this class of spam is called Spamdexing.
Human Trials for Treatment of Macular Degeneration
Amazing attempt to prevent macular degeneration using RNA interference techniques. Basically antisense RNA is produced which binds like velcro to the target RNA rendering it ineffective. This target RNA is responsible for creating the protein involved in degeneration of the retina that leads to blindness. The downside? Direct injection into the whites of the eyes…
Bush Forms (Joke) Civil Liberties Board
and stacks it in his favour. Check out the details here. Choice excerpt:
“This is not what a civil liberties board should look like if it is intended to be robust, effective and independent, It is made up of people who need civil liberties oversight.”
Finally a Cure for Styrene
Thanks (again) to my buddy pacanukeha for pointing this one out. Bacteria that eat styrenes are neat. Leave it to microbes to clean up the planet!
Useful Gmail and Flash tools
For those who are still with me, some rewards:
Rob’s Gmail tool list
Useful Flash tools