NoMoreMalletrivia(II)

The wandering blog

Sun, 26 Nov 2006 15:20:04 GMT

... has moved once again, to http://mallet.typepad.com/malletrivia. Please treat this bit of news with the seriousness and attention it deserves ;-)

Certified organic humans, never caged

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 20:03:06 GMT

From the New Scientist series in which "Brilliant minds forecast the next 50 years", Fred Gage says:

"Within 50 years, neuroscientists (with help from other disciplines) will have developed a non-invasive device that measures brain activity in real time, in free-living humans, over long distances for indefinite periods."

"Free-living humans ?" As opposed to strapped-down humans with electrodes implanted in their brains ? Or "free-living" in the same sense as free-range livestock ? Maybe he figures that, by 2056, Skynet [or The Matrix, if you prefer Keanu to Ah-nuld] will have become real, and the rag-tag resistance will be the last set of non-captive humans ...

I bow to the public's will

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 01:36:54 GMT

... since they have spoken loudly and clearly: 10 out of 10 ~~dentists~~ readers prefer Blogspot to Live Spaces. However, since I really can't justify using a Google product anymore when I have a credible alternative, I'm going to split the difference between using MS and Google and move to a [neutral ?] third party: WordPress or Typepad. Stay tuned, and thanks for taking the trouble to actually vote :-)

Unfortunate restrictions

Mon, 13 Nov 2006 23:03:16 GMT

Apparently Live Spaces only allows blog comments from people with a Windows Live ID ie no anonymous commenters. That's a big bowl of wrong, covered with a liberal squirt of weak sauce, in my opinion. I'm somewhat ambivalent about my blog move anyway, so if you have a strong opinion about the location of my blog, feel free to say so on my old site.

First impressions

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:22:15 GMT

... after being back at MS for a week:

The Windows Vista and Office 2007 UIs are pretty slick.
I'm not really much of a hardware geek, but even I can appreciate the hardware I've got: a dual-proc, dual-core [effectively, 4 CPU] PC with 3.8GHz CPUs, 4 GB of RAM, and a 24'' monitor. Since all I've done so far is read a lot of stuff, I suspect my computer may be feeling a bit like Marvin the Paranoid Android ["... brain the size of a planet ..."]. Maybe I should write a little program that has 3 threads spinning in an infinite loop, to give the other 3 CPUs something to do while the 4th one strains under the load of reading a Word document.
It's nice to feel like I know what I'm doing again, after a couple of years of flailing around.
It's also nice to once again be working with people on a shared project. I didn't realize how much I'd missed having spirited discussions with other people all aiming for the same goal as part of my everyday work, instead of such discussions only occurring occasionally.
The endless supply of free Mountain Dew is convenient, but coupled with little or no walking [a downside of having a car], could easily lead to me packing on a few pounds and losing the slim, boyish figure I acquired in Boston.

Overall, I have yet to notice any substantial changes from 2 years ago [I don't know whether that's good or bad :-)]. Pretty much all my information is still in the various MS-internal systems, so I had to do very little to get everything set up again. Coupled with the fact that we're moving right back into our old house, it's almost like we never left.

A new beginning. Sort of.

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 22:52:45 GMT

Just a dummy entry to anchor my move from Blogger.

Blog list: Blog list

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 22:50:08 GMT