World: r3wp

NYTimes: I.B.M. Reportedly Will Buy Rival Sun for $7 Billion (or 
9.50 a share)


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/technology/business-computing/03blue.html?_r=1&ref=technology&pagewanted=print

Still not final announcement yet.

in 20 years from now, we will be hearing a merger from software incorporated 
and hardware incorporated.  so there will only be one company with 
all patents for anyting related to digital processing.


and they'll say that its not an antitrust issue, cause there is another 
company called objects incorporated which rivals it.


these mega mergers are portents that the end of capitalism is looming. 
just like when rome had nothing new to conquer and that made their 
system obsolete.  capitalism NEEDs real competition.  not a two way 
brawl of giants for which the only real hope is annexation or swatting. 
 every merger of any company, means a lot of jobs get lost by way 
of cutting redundant services.   one walmart might employ 200 minimum 
wage people, but they destroy at least as many administration and 
middle paying jobs.


what can all the clients of sun and IBM gain from this? only the 
loss of a viable option to leverage in dealing lower costs for their 
machines, forcing IBM and sun to stay competitive.  Yess... you'll 
say there is still other companies... but the list is growing pretty 
short.  the industry "leaders" is starting to be more of a gang than 
a group.  :-(

A while ago I posted about a2i2, they are doing adaptive A.I.  I 
got to visit them today.

They are doing some fun stuff.  One of my friends is now on their 
team.


Looks like they are just a few months away from something we can 
"talk to" :)

...and, you never know, we might might find a way to allow Qtask 
to interact with it.

I can even "talk to" stone, if I don't mind it will not reply :-) 
So actually - does their thing reply? :-)

Very well, and is even polite when you don't know what you are saying 
:)

are they going to connect that to wolfram alpha? ;)

now imagine you make a phone call, and this "something you can talk 
to" responds, and has access to google, wolfram alpha... and qtask.

Wow, maybe the combination of these two technologies can find a way 
out of the mess the financial system is in - like, "Hang the bastards 
that caused it!"

Very fun little movie made to show how magnetic waves might "look" 
(and sound).


http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/root/Magnetic_Movie/Magnetic.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyBiECoS3Q


Cool insect bot. One can think about why it's so much easier to build 
insect robots than humanoid/biped robots.

Well said.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyBiECoS3Q

Some good news ... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090414084627.htm

That is good news.

Recently I've been speculating a lot, if it's a good idea, that humans 
save animals. Initially it seems like a very good idea. But fact 
is, that more than 90% of all species at any time have become extinct 
at a later time. Every time a species become extinct, it makes room 
for other species. Now if us people start to save species, that would 
else become extinct, what effect will this have over a longer time-scale?

Does it matter?  Isn't the universe becoming more organized?  So 
during this evolution we should expect more organization so what 
harm can be done if we are apart of it.

John, I hear there was a meeting among the animals, all I can say 
is, there was a vote, and "we" better make plans for another planet.

Yeah, let's take to the skies! :-)

We are adapted to a certain (now existent ?) environment. If it changes 
maybe we will change or get extincted too.

Reichart, that is very funny.

Future now?
One step closer to Minority Report.
http://www.snotr.com/video/2549

Looks like the spammers have found a way to get thru gmail's filters 
... finding a lot more spam now in the last few days in my inbox.

Most of my spam comes from Germany or Italy on Gmail...

No Russian ladies any more?

I get it mostly from mail.ru and gmail

spam or bots ?

I don't know how to tell the difference.  They simply like ot register 
on my sites and then leave a website link in their profile.  Seems 
they are just looking for backlinks.

bots

Just write your forms using JS or at least don't use common login 
field names like USER and PASSWORD

but if you don't hide the submit button, they will try to insert 
the links into any text field.

I thought of a great idea to stop forum spammers and probably others. 
 I don't know how it can be thwarted.

I wouldn't know how to code it but it would probably require Javascript 
which I don't know.

But that might not be a good idea.  Need something almost other than 
javascript.

The idea is to use Drag and Drop.

The drag and drop areas always change.

So its random generated.

3D hit testing is another upcoming captcha method

How does that work? I hear that cpatcha is being beaten by OCR methods.

there are various implementations from thread-the-needle / drag-and-drop 
/ to overlay matching and rotation

My idea involves having the backend generate a random code that gets 
presented as a draggable item in a javascript driven page.  The user 
must drag the code to a randoming placed box.  The code i s also 
randoming placed.  The script will generate a value based on the 
direction and length of the drag.  This gets compared on the server 
end along with the code.

cant the spammer then just read the code to get the positions?

Yeah, which is why I don't think you can do it in javascript.  I'm 
using that as an example to get an idea for the concept.

automating mouse movement and clicks from then on is relatively trivial

Yeah might not work via that route.

the trick is to possibly send location on drop - then verify serverside

Yeah - that should do it!

Dunno, you still have to show the locations on the client end so 
they know where to drag.

send an image

eg: drag the object onto the purple rabbit - have an image with 20 
or so differentr rabbits

Possible.