Kiwi Science Blog

Monday 05 October 2009 at 6:40 pm A friend of mine finally got his blog-on -

Shauns writes about the recent 2Degrees mobile ad campaign which posits the theory that Kiwis have two degrees of separation. The ads got Rhys Darby in it so take a look.

Looks like 4.5 degrees-of-separation is still pretty good.

Now to add Sciblogs NZ to the sidebar and subscribe the the rss feed . . .

25 Years of Elite + More

Sunday 20 September 2009 at 7:37 pm Celebrate the 25th anniversary of one of the classic games of all time - Elite.

On a tenuously related note (its a game you play on a computer) try out one of the very first networked shooters - Bolo. Many an hour spent at university on a ropey old AppleTalk network playing this game.

Interesting experiment - The Secrets of Self Control. Fascinating insight into the subjects future too.

A look at a design classic - the Joy Division Unknown Pleasures album cover. Peter Saville definitely had a great eye and aesthetic.

One of my favourite modern sci-fi authors is also a Psion fan - Charles Stross laments the state of the current portable market.

This is an interesting technology tidbit - Apple may have dictated high-speed bus spec to Intel. In the same way the iMac kick-started USB adoption it may be another data-transfer standard will be more directly influenced by Apple.

One again the Long Now foundation look at long term data preservation - Team Digital Preservation keep your files current. I like the 'movage' nomenclature too. Neat word.

Snow Leopard + More

Monday 31 August 2009 at 6:48 pm Fifteen plus pages of deep-dive ArsTechnica OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard Review. Some of the under-hood plumbing changes bode well for the future. I'm dying to get it installed knowing full well I'll barely scratch the surface of its functionality.

Cloud-computing is all the rage - now you can tap into it securely - Introducing Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

Create custom internet savvy boot images - Netbootme.

Fantastic tree sculptures - Gilroy Gardens.

The answer is yes - Should You Worry About Data Rot?

SlowIT + More

Saturday 25 July 2009 at 4:15 pm Tongue-in-cheek with a dose of reality - SlowIT. 'Do less with less' is going to be my new mantra.

Handy - Alternative uses for everyday items.

Wellington could use some of these in a compact, noise-less form for normal households - 10 Wind Turbines That Push the Limits of Design.

True - Why Word is becoming irrelevant. Unfortunately the Office Suite is a juggernaut - convincing people they can get by with an older version (Office XP does what I need it to do), something free (OpenOffice) or web-based (probably a hard-sell for the less technology savvy).

A fascinating story from a guy who ranks amongst the modern software elite - Why writing a Windows compatible file server is (still) hard. I've heard a rumour that even Microsoft doesn't understand SMB/CIFS the way that the SAMBA creator does.

NetFlix have shared their Internal Values and Culture via slideshow. Impressive stuff. I liked the bit where they tackle innovation and complexity by just employing brilliant people - instead of being risk averse and process/procedure-heavy they find it easier to move ahead and fix things as they go.

Anti Database Movement + More

Monday 06 July 2009 at 5:48 pm Interesting - No to SQL? Anti-database movement gains steam. Flat files rule

Handy reference - Unix Xargs Piping Toolkit Utility.

Handy - 20 Linux System Monitoring Tools Every SysAdmin Should Know.

Useful for troubleshooting - First few seconds of an https sessions.

This sort of thing cuts both ways - How to communicate securely under a repressive regime.

This looks useful Lamson. Easy email integration framework for applications.

Trying to remember the right word ? Try Tip of my tongue.

Email Patterns Predict Doom + More

Saturday 27 June 2009 at 09:59 am Studies of email use patterns can indicate signs of a failing organisation - email patterns can predict impending doom.

Take a look inside the worlds greatest keyboard. They should have used the M to crush the modern keyboard.

If you want to send a YouTube link but want to strip out all the attendant rubbish try QuieTube.

I came across this free Java based Active Directory web-admin tool while looking for a Sun Access Manager replacement - Corendal Directory. Looks handy.

Fantastic foresight - Opium Magazine layers ink which will expose different text over a loooong period of time. I wonder how they make sure this happens evenly ?

Another comparative infographic - bailout costs vs big historical events. Pretty amazing.

Long overdue - Microsoft trailing free antivirus application. If its anything like Forefront they'll be onto a winner. I wonder how Symantec, McAfee et al will be able to compete ?

Swoon worthy - Olympus E-P1. Un-boxing pics over here.

An in-depth look at the Conflicker Worm.

Always on the lookout for good mono-spaced fonts to use in Notepad or TextEdit - Anonymous Pro and Typografi.

The Yes Men Fix The World + More

Friday 29 May 2009 at 7:37 pm I enjoyed their first movie, this looks like more of the same but potentially better - The Yes Men Fix The World. Be sure to watch the trailer.

Every home should have one of these - Espress Book Machine. Books on demand!

I don't think its ever going to compete against Google but the Wolfram Alpha search engine looks like a fantastic research and discovery tool for students.

Another nifty Long Now post - 13500 Pages Etched Into Nickel. Its a shame they didn't zoom in 500x to see the content.

It looks like some companies are showing some foresight when it comes to Solar Power. Its a nice cost-model - I wonder when someone will bring it to NZ ?

One of the few games that plays well on my old MacBook, Half Life 2, has a mod that looks intriguing - Dear Esther. A nice review - Touched by the hand of mod Dear Esther.

Lest people forget the pioneering days of chip design take a look at this impressive effort Homebrew CPU is a Beautiful Mess of Wires. Amazing.

Like Stack Overflow did for Programmers, ServerFault aims to provide free assistance to System and Network Admins.

Build a Datacentre in 26 Weeks + More

Monday 13 April 2009 at 9:09 pm Pretty amazing stuff - Build a Data Center in 26 Weeks. On a related note check out this video inside a Swedish Datacentre that has 'James Bonds Villain Lair' written all over it - its probably the coolest DC I've seen!

Another datacentre related post - Why do we chill datacentres ?

Genius - Telegram Stop. Send a real live telegram anywhere in the world via your browser for a nominal fee (<$5USD).

See how much water you consume - Daily Water Consumption. Its a fair amount of H20!

Looking forward to this film - Objectified. By the same guys that did Helvetica.

Interesting bit of art and technology - Tweenbots. How willing will people be to help a little robot get from one place to another ? Its a shame they didn't build some smarts or a web cam into the 'bot itself so it didn't have to rely completely on people for direction.

More good advice from Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of the excellent 'Black Swan') - Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world.

Stock up on these t-shirts in case you're thrown back in time or you have to rebuild civilisation - close up of the information here.

Google Server Design + More

Sunday 29 March 2009 at 10:46 am An insight into Google Server Design. Cool - a 12v battery built in!

I'm doing less and less unix so I'm starting to loose my touch (however lightweight that may have been) - its still good to come across online resources that provide handy tips and shortcuts like Commandline Fu.

MIT are offering students their own VM's - XVM. Pretty funky!

See the Long Now Foundations Rosette Project in all its zoomable glory.

Interesting stuff - How Google Routes around Outages. Still seems refreshingly chaotic.

The Internet Archive are moving from a Petabox setup to the Sun Datacenter Container.



My kind of CIO - Jeff Bezos spends a week working in an Amazon distribution centre.

Brilliant - Collected infographics of the current financial crisis.

Another one of those handy unix skills (esp with the upswing in Ubuntu) - Becoming an apt-guru.

If you 'cd' around a lot then try J for 'jump'. Looks handy.

Siftables + More

Tuesday 03 March 2009 at 6:58 pm These look totally amazing - Siftables at TED and also covered Siftables at ArsTechnica. Toy blocks will never quite be the same. Imagine the same technologies built into mobile phones, or business cards (click them together to exchange details) . . .

Another in a long line of handy Drive Dock gadgets. Things have certainly come a long way since the clunky drive bays of the late 90's.

Always interesting to read of new tips - Managers as Servants. Must remember to send this to the boss.

For all your difficult math queries - ask Doctor Math.

Some brilliant tips - The Tao of War Photography.

Build it yourself for Linux or the Mac Homeworld - Opensource. I'll need to track down my Windows files so I can try the Mac port.

The dire state of the financial market has turned everyones gaze upon the dark and mysterious world of the Quants - check out these fascinating articles Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street and also They Tried to Outsmart Wall Street.

Last but not least PivotX is at Release Candidate status - if you're after a nice blog-engine that doesn't need a database give it a whirl. I'll be upgrading soon . . .