Telephono

I was returning home yesterday and after passing the mailbox I looked down and saw a stack of brand new telephone books, unopened, still wrapped in their heavy plastic coating. Those books had been there for the better part of two months, gathering dust and detritus including several leaves, and additional phone books. Not only had nobody picked up a book, but the pile had actually GROWN, That was when it stuck me.

Telephone books are obsolete

When I moved to Virginia I had brought phone books from New York, Books that I never opened. Two pound tomes roughly the size of a really detailed graphic novel. (as there really weren't that many people in Upstate New York). I was confronted with the size of the metro area I was moving into in a very tangible way when i was presented the Virgina Phone book, initially it appeared as though everyone in the state was listed, but no, only those who I could encounter should I desire to in the expanse of a day.

I never Used that book either.

Google killed the phone book. locale-based searches via Google maps have made the answer for "where's the nearest pizza place" ridiculously easy to find. further meditations upon this as we approach the 3G horizon (assuming the telephone companies don't screw that up as well) yield all kinds of interesting notions. My children will likely never understand the reference to yellow book. Alphabetization, a task that I learned as it was necessary to try and find information in an encyclopedia, a phone book, or even a dictionary... has become something that we teach children for no apparent reason, an arbitrary hierarchical data structure that has become obsolete.

Community

it's interesting... DCist (at least this morning) seems to be fostering (in me) a feeling of community, perhaps it's just the annual "back to school" migration. A sort of two month long congestion period where we all learn to drive in traffic again (saw 3 accidents on the road in this morning), or if it's something else, but I can understand why folks would endeavour to live in the district.

Not that I'd ever count myself one of them.

linux forensic

saved until slashdot gives up

new helmetcam pete fagerlin... eat your heart out

Trying to grasp the truly weird

More links in my quest to understand this "quantum mechanics" thing.

Measurement Problem

evidently you can interpret it too

2 things:

crazy Russian 3d Printer... you can make at home
(uses plastic, not sugar)
Harvesting thermal differences to create electrical power net: 200 mW

interesting : learning motion from known properties
amusing : keepon Dancing robot takes over hearts, world next.

but, Time travel a possibility (according to Germans)

To Read List

Cellphone Carrier comp.
Beautiful monocycle
MAKE open sourced Hardware
Glucose montioring
and... anti drink spikes

Cringely

I,Cringely Has a (typically) insightful piece into the history of the US TELCO's attempts to increase bandwidth availability to consumers.

It's interesting that he phrases it as a net loss. I wonder if he's looking at Cable as well? or is his contention that we've lost 45 M bps bi-di forever. (Not that I think cable can get us there (ever)) but I'm not convinced that upstream bandwidth EVER needs to equal downstream (to the home).

to look for comparison: Fios and Cable Bandwidth.

On Competition

why we compete - washington post

"Nonzero sum, mutually beneficial relationships (cooperation) affect evolution, just like the zero sum (competition) ones." - slashdot poster on Competition V Cooperation in Darwinian evolution

Paul Greengrass - NEVER go see another movie from this director.

which is a shame, because Bourne Ultimatum is a fun movie, great pacing, decent job distinguishing sets, nice post production job.

from the Giz

DARPA toys
Boats And a guy who jumps out of airplanes with a rocket strapped to his back.

Manhattan or Bust!

Some folks are still trying to escape from brooklyn.

Physics today

Manitoba university physicist John Page along with CSM professor Roel Sneider (Center for Wave Phenomena (@CSM)) have some interesting work on the physics of beer bubbles

Fake Steve Jobs

groklaw: evidently PJ has a history with Daniel Lyons of Forbes. the Unmasking