Archive for December, 2009

NYT’s Year in Ideas

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Lots of fun (especially if "Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter" is your idea of fun).

Subtle Technologies Festival

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

13th Annual Subtle Technologies Festival Call for Submissions Deadline January 9, 2010 Festival Dates: June 3 --- 6, 2010 This year's Subtle Technologies Festival will explore sustainability through a critical multidisciplinary lens. We invite investigations of the role that decentralization, diversity and societal power dynamics play in our attempts at maintaining a sustainable future. We look forward to ...

Cross-Country Project Wrapup

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

45 students from 14 universities, 8 projects --- it's been quite a term for the cross-country capstone projects. There were some bumps in the road, but overall, we think it went well. If you'd like to see what the students accomplished, check out their screencasts; if you'd like to join ...

The Next Fifty Years in Politics

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

Compare this and this, then read this, this, and this. Later: In response to a couple of email messages: if you're a computer scientist, and want to do something to help, join the ACM or IEEE, run for office, and get them to start lobbying governments and companies for change.

Stymied

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

A few weeks ago, I asked for pointers to something that would translate 400-odd partial paper citations (usually just author names and paper titles) into full bibliography entries.  So far, none of the proposed solutions have worked out: Bibsonomy's search only found 2 of the 10 papers I tried it on ...

If You Look Closely, You’ll Find Them Everywhere

Sunday, December 13th, 2009



Peter Watts Needs Your Help

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Toronto-based science fiction writer Peter Watts was beaten and arrested by US border guards, and is now facing a long court fight.  Please help if you can.

Reflectus

Friday, December 11th, 2009

I'd like to start playing the sax again. I'd also like to get to the gym a couple of times a week, and write some more children's books, and tear up the paving stones in our front yard so that we can put in a garden, but you probably ...

Act Now – Change the Future

Friday, December 11th, 2009

(via Toronto's Mayor David Miller) Question: does it still count as science fiction if it's actually happening? We're engineering the planet, and we're doing it by accident---how Larry Niven is that?

Open the Hatch

Friday, December 11th, 2009

I posted a link to OpenHatch a few days ago; Asheesh Laroia has now put up a post of his own pointing out that over 100 open source projects now tag entry-level bugs to help students get involved. He'd like your help connecting to others so that OpenHatch can aggregate ...