Of Penguins & Coffee

Remember that little economic apocalypse that happened a few years ago? You may remember it as the day your 401(k) dropped a digit or 3; those short sighted (w/b)ankers and middle management that essentially collectively said “You want some money? Sure, go ahead!” to the entire world and didn’t think about where it was coming from, while getting paid sums of money that would make Scrouge McDuck blush. Well, turns out they have been too greedy at home (no suprise).

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Contrary to popular belief, the concept of a ‘hacker‘ (or at least self described ones) has very little to do with coding and networking wizards pounding through systems and stealing valuable information or just destroying everything they touch. In fact, Google (and Princeton University’s) first definition of the word has more to do with Golf than security (try it by googling “define:hacker”).

The so called ‘hacker subculture’ is usually taken as a group of not necessarily like minded, but creative individuals with or without technical or theoretical skill, including artists, musicians, carpenters, machinists, or extreme knitters, and can generally be shortened down to ‘tinker-ers’ or ‘messers’. (more…)

TheNextHope

This is it; my first convention! Yes folks, I’m going to be attending (and volunteering) at TheNextHOPE (@thenexthope), 16-18 July.

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If anyone has any interest in CUDA, or GPU/Parallel programming in general, David B. Kirk and Wen-mei Hwu‘s groundbreaking “Programming Massively Parallel Processors” is a must. (more…)

Ok, its been a busy few weeks, and I’ve let the blog slip again, but coming up:

• Implementing Google Webfonts
• Ubuntu Dot-File Dropbox Synchronisation
• Drupal 6 Installation of Ubuntu 10.04
• My Revision Scheduling/Tracking System
• Summer Plans including VPN work for Dr David Laverty and CUDA research with Alastair Mckinley and Dr Alan Marshall

I had a bit of a surprise logging into my weekly stats-fest that is my Google Analytics account; 300% rise in Search Based traffic. My daily traffic is meagre to say the least but still, to see such a jump on the week-on-week numbers is always a good thing.

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I cant for the life of me remember who it was who pointed this out on Twitter, either @cimota or @stuartgibson.

Jesse Schell , Author, Educator, Game Developer, Ex-imagineer, Futurist, spendshalf of this video deliberating over the unexpected rise and rise of facebook.

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I am sick and tired of seeing ‘so and so joined SOMETHING COOL EVERYONE SHOULD SEE‘ only to check out the group and see its behind a join-wall. so I’m starting my own library of pointless Facebook  joinwall groups along with alternate source material and a brief of what is behind the joinwall. Affectionately known as FGL. Check it out and let me know what groups you want exposed.

“In this upcoming round of ACTA negotiations, the U.S. delegation will be working with other delegations to resolve some fundamental issues, such as the scope of the intellectual property rights that are the focus of this agreement.  Progress is necessary so that we can prepare to release a text that will provide meaningful information to the public and be a basis for productive dialogue.  We hope that enough progress is made in New Zealand in clearing brackets from the text so that participants can be in a position to reach a consensus on sharing a meaningful text with the public.”

Source:US Trade Representative Website

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Show your opposition to IP Dominion…

Folks, we’re basically screwed; The Digital Economy Bill recieved Royal Accent on April 9th and is officially now Law.

So after barely three days of parliamentary ‘debate’ where only 20-ish MP’s actually spoke on the subject (but somehow 189 MP’s decided it was a good idea anyway), our civil rights have been sacrificed infront of the alter of copyright.

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