Where have all the spammers gone?

I'm going to jinx myself but, I've gotten no spam today, where I would "normally" get 20 to 40 pieces (most caught by my filters). Is this a national Span holiday? Is there a conference of spammers going on? Are they all talking to their lawyers about the lawsuits launch this week? Whats going on!

The Starup Insanity

Via A random blog: "The startup mentality. comes Why are there Serial Entrepreneurs?

'Being part of a start-up is about more than get-rich-quick dreams. It's an emotional commitment to a hurried, harried, adrenaline-driven way of working. For those who can cope, it seems oddly addictive.'

• Gambler’s Fallacy.


• I won’t work for big companies anymore.


• I can’t work for big companies anymore.


• It’s not the company, but the work.


• Big companies are no longer hiring.


• The valley is really one big company already


• Start-ups are addictive.

I would add: It's not the work it's the people. There are a bunch of people whom I would easly work with again. There arealso a few people with whom I would not work with again for any reason (or maybe only for cash up front). Okay maybe I need a 12 step program?

Looks like some other interesting reading under Product Bytes

Very Ultra DSL, really soon.

In the hope of having happier thoughts : the Globe and Mail, Globetechnology reports on "Broadband at warp speed"

Using 2 new upgraded technologies BCI (Bell Canada) hope to provide 16 megabits a second in early 2004, and 22 mbps as early as next year. Currently Sympatico's Ultra service does ~ 3 Mb down (and 600 Kbp up). The the local Cable company (Rogers) is also testing service at like speeds.

The How is two new technologies now ready for rollout. The first is OPI-DSLAM, which is a device that sits at the other end of the DSL system used by Bell through its Sympatico Internet service; it replaces the older DSLAM, which is limited to about six megabits a second. The second is the Nortel 6500, a technology that can deliver and manage fibre optic lines close enough to the home to realize superhigh speeds.

I found a older reference to the OPI DSLAM here:Reaching Farther With DSL dated from Oct 2002 and talks about proposed "fibre to the neighbourhood" (FTTN) initiatives and the related challenges. Here's more info on the Nortel Networks Optical Multiservice Edge 6500

I'm already 200 feet away from a central switch. If they ever run the fiber above ground, I suspect that I'd be out that night tapping it.

22 mpbs is very good. However, how many TV signals could I stream at a time over that? I wonder how much brandwidth a single channel needs? (leaving aside issues on the Server, Caching, etc.) Hopeful I'll get a change to use their Video on Demand soon.

Now they need to come up with a good marketing name, if they don't just keep "Ultra" as the high end.

On a related note: IP World show coming to Toronto in the fall

170 people Dead, and 600 wounded by bombing in Madrid

I heard this early this morning from the radio. More details onThe Globe and Mail.

Bloody hell. Made all the more awful by the fact that Elicia and I where at the Atocha train station station last November, arriving from Sevilla on one of those trains. The ETA Basque separatist group is suspected in this massacre, based on the type of materials used, and a van that was stopped at the end of February. The timing of the attack would appear to be related to the Spainish General Election this Sunday.

I remeber that when we boarded the (EVA) train (in Sevilla), we did go though a security check and pass thought what I thought was a metal detector.

This is the current exerpt from CNN :

A coordinated wave of bomb attacks on Madrid's commuter train system today killed at least 186 people and wounded over 1,000 at the height of the city's rush hour. There has been no claim of responsibility in the bombings, but Spanish officials are blaming terrorists from the Basque separatist group ETA..

Here is a pdf of the Madrid subway map planometro.pdf (~ 90 Kb) I got from here The Atocha train station (Atocha Renfe is the metro/subway station) is in the lower Right half part on the Blue No 1 line (Plaza de Castilla / Congosto). http://www.softdoc.es/madrid_guide/info/trains.html has more info on the station, including this : Atocha is the largest and most used train station.

Russell Beattie blogs about this. Russell has just returned to the US, with his (Spanish) wife and child, after living for several years in Madrid.
His wifes family is OK.
Boing Boing has an entry with links to Spainish Bloggers and this image is going around wrt the bombing :


Update > 5pm EST, Via the BBC : A statement attributed to al-Qaeda claims responsibility. Although "other indicators pointed to .. Eta". Perhaps they are working together? Current count of Sadness : at least 190 people.

Massive demonstrations are planned for tomorrow at 7PM in cities all over Spain. Expect live blog coverage.

Robot builder could 'print' houses

Via New Scientist: "Robot builder could 'print' houses"

A robot for "printing" houses is to be trialled by the construction industry. It takes instructions directly from an architect's computerised drawings and then squirts successive layers of concrete on top of one other to build up vertical walls and domed roofs.
...
Engineer Behrokh Khoshnevis, at the University of Southern California, has been perfecting his "contour crafter" for more than a year. "The goal is to be able to completely construct a one-story, 2000-square foot home on site, in one day and without using human hands," he says.
....
The first house will be built in 2005. If the technology is successful the robot could enable new designs that cannot be built using conventional methods, for example involving complex curving walls.

If this works out the applications could range from low cost housing in the both the First to Third worlds ("Press 'A' for instant Afgah village"), to custom built high end houses.

Local content on the map

Yahoo puts local content on the map

This only works for US address so here's an example for people playing along at home : 235 2nd St San Francisco, CA 94105-3124. Kind of Cool! and if you select an restaurants "point" you can get further information.

Wonder how long before I can do this on a GPS enabled Hand held device?

Russell Beattie : Map Results to your Mobile picks up on the same story from a different starting point and a different slant..

This is pretty great. Now if Yahoo was smart (and I'm *not* trying to give it ideas since their online solution is similar to what our WaveSpotter J2ME client does on the mobile side) they would hook up their new Yahoo Maps with the new Point of Interest locations (POIs) to their mobile services section. They already have everything in place to enable this instantly - they know my user name, and that's associated with my Yahoo Mobile profile with my phone's number and capabilities. I should be able to look up a map on Yahoo, and if I'm logged in, click on a button that says "send to my mobile" and off it goes - a WAP Push message with the map at the top and the POIs listed at the bottom.

Of course Yahoo - like most American portals - probably doesn't take mobile phones seriously yet so this won't happen for at least 9 months to a year if ever, so that's nice to know. It's amazing it took them this long to add POI data to their maps.

Tomorrow After the Day

OJR article: Award-Winning Science Fiction Writer Looks at the Future of News: "David Brin envisions a future in which the world is plastered with e-info -- virtual Post-It notes, e-advertisements and other data -- that we can access via glasses, earbuds and other technologies that link wirelessly to databases and instantly deliver information to us."


S-trolling...refugee tongues -- Russian, Finnish, Polish....specs tuned to omit adverts...a penny cam somebody had stuck on a lamppost...With enough savvy eyes at work, consensus-reality must come closer to reality itself....member of a liaison-club...beckoning from the Lindbergh-Rutan Skydock...


via datacloud

Here Kitty....

from Obsidian Wings

"Animal behaviorists have documented that cats left alone too much in small urban apartments can sometimes develop bad habits, such as clawing furniture, overeating, and assassination."

basements do the same to me .........I just don't get the advantages of the high "Bell Tower" vantage point.

iPod media reader offloads digital camera memory into your MP3 player

Via Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things:

Belkin has shipped a six-in-one media reader that plugs into your iPod -- plug the reader into your iPod, stick the Compact Flash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick or whatnot from your camera into the reader, and your photos are offloaded onto the iPod's hard-drive, freeing you up to take new shots. When you get home, plug your iPod into your computer and offload your archived photos. Smart, smart, smart. Link

I was speculating last fall when some sort of Digital Camera to micro HD would happen. I see 2 big advantages to this : Freeing up the smaller memory card to the bigger / cheaper HD is one (saving me from having multiple cards at minimum). Backing up the data is another (for longer trips, as insurance against losing the card or camera, or card failure. i.e. peace of mind). Now what I really what is to be able to back up the data from my Handy Computing / Communicator / Media device into a cyberspace CVS repository and do so transparently, incremental, and wirelessly. But that's for next year......

Coffee is 'health drink'

Coffee is 'health drink'.

Well that's one thing I've been doing right over the years. Exactly one thing.

I just got noticed by Chad Dickerson (InfoWorld)

Chad Dickerson: March 02, 2004 Archives: Lotus Notes and RSS

Anyone who knows me or reads my columns regularly know how I feel about Lotus Notes. Those feelings aside, I did just come across a Notes-based RSS aggregator via Lockergnome's RSS Resource. The instructions for the R5 release are available, as well as instructions on how to get it working in R6.

The simplicity of RSS triumphs in yet another environment.

This is one of those good news, bad news things : I just got noticed. Isn't this wonderful....Oh c**p everyone is looking at me, is my fly up or down....I expect a flood of hits over the next while added to the steady stream of people looking for R5 RSS Lotus notes solutions.

To those people : I hope you find the solution useful out of the box. If not tell me what you like what you don't, how you would like to / hope to use it. I've already had some wonderful feedback and suggestions. Thank you. And thanks for the Link Love Chad.