Truth, Justice, and the American Way

Check out Kevin Kelly’s article at Wired about the historical context of the web. He makes some interesting points about the influence of commercialization of the web, the shift in how content is created, and the way it functions as an extension of the human mind.

Have you been following the space news?

While the shuttle awaits its long-delayed launch, Congress has approved a $36 billion NASA budget for the next two years. The bulk of NASA’s budget is devoted to Pres. Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration” a plan to establish bases on the Moon and Mars and [...]

Since this blog is used primarily for musings of philosophical and political matters, I have started a new blog for technical topics in particular, .Net web development. My first post is up, so if youre into that sort of stuff, check out Smart Design

After four years of using Windows XP, I decided to try something new. I had been getting by with Windows ever since I got a Windows 95 PC in high school, but I was getting bored with the same old look.

The Requirements

I had a number of strict requirements for any potential replacement [...]

I often recommend free software to companies I work with, so I’ve decided to collect my recommendations in one place from now on: The Essential Free Windows Software List.

The following comes from a post on ObjectivismOnline. For more, see the original thread.

The protection of intellectual property requires the ability to create and apply an objective standard. Attempting to enforce intellectual property rights without the existence of an objective criteria or the ability to apply it violates real property rights, regardless of the [...]

Steve Fossett is starting a bid for the first round the world solo flight. Bon voyage!

I have a new entry to add to my list of essential software: Googles Picasa2, an image management tool for all your digital photos. Googles innovations in online services and software have always impressed me in the past, and their latest release is no exception.

Picasa doesnt introduce any revolutionary new features, but [...]

Brilliant idea: Make LOVE not SPAM.
This is a screensaver that will download a few MB from spammer’s sites each day, and thus make spamming a less profitable proposition.

Two cool new tools from Google: a desktop Gmail notifier and Google Desktop, a free search solution for Windows. Wow, the wonders never cease.

Interesting: Scientists gingerly tap into brain’s power.

SpaceShipOne wins the X-Prize! Virgin Galactic, here I come! (Photos)

While surfing the HowStuffWorks website, I discovered that my wireless router, the Linksys WRT54G runs Linux, and is therefore very hackable. I proceeded to find a firmware update that gave me shell access and installed a bunch of tweaks – such as the ability to boost the signal 900%, function as a range [...]

The following is a trick to prevent spamming by bots in Movable Type 2.x. While this blog doesnt run MT, several other blogs I manage still do, and I have found this to be a surprisingly effective method to disable automated spam bots.
Rename the post field in your MT templates from post to something [...]

Apparently, leftist professors are getting so desperate to find evidence of racism to justify their employment that they are creating their own. And it worked almost.
A college professor convicted of staging a hate crime by spray-painting her own car with racist slurs was ordered to undergo 90 days of psychological testing at a [...]

It is interesting to consider how the music I listen to gets to my ears:

It starts on a computer several thousand miles away, where CDs are compressed into MP3 files, which are then encoded for streaming and sent over the Internet. The stream passes through about 18 different routing points, as it is sent [...]

I recently had occasion to configure my first Windows 2003 server, so I decided to write down some guidelines to aid the configuration and keep it secure. Before long, I had a lengthy list of boring rules, so I decided to make a list of commandments for managing web servers. Here is the [...]

Two cool tricks: put your Firefox install on a flash drive, and get a notification agent for Gmail.

If you are a TAMU student, I highly recommend participating in the economics experiments this summer and fall. Two years ago, I made boatloads of money ($50-$100/session) in the experiments with a bit of game theory [...]

The worlds first private manned space flight is scheduled to start tomorrow, at 6:30 AM P.D.T. I dont know about you, but I plan to watch it live on MSNBC.

Do you remember the NASA scramjet test a few months ago? That was model rocketry compared to this. This is history [...]

I recently updated to FireFox .9, the latest and greatest web browser from Mozilla.org

I then installed Bookmarks Synchronizer, a Firefox extension that allows me to synchronize my bookmarks by uploading an XML file to my website every time they are updated.

I wanted to provide a nicely formatted page on my websites, so I found an [...]