I want one!

A working implementation of a Turing Machine...

But I have a wish-list of improvements — mainly concerned with replacing the clunky, mechanical components (such as the physical tape, read/write head, etc.) with solid-state components similar to the digital processing modules that actually drive the above implementation.

There are also recent advances in human interface devices from which the basic design above might benefit.

I’ve made a mock-up of what I have in mind, pictured here...

I reckon it might catch on. Certainly, I believe there could be a market for at least five of these worldwide.

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Friends needed

The haemorrhaging of value from Facebook stock following last week’s IPO has been cause for much consternation in the business press.

“Where are Facebook’s friends?”

they ask in unison (for instance, here and here and here and so on).

As a concept Facebook is “really cool”, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is wont to say (endlessly).

It is by far the most innovative online social networking platform with incredible reach and penetration. Show me someone whose Mum isn’t on Facebook and I will show you a socially deprived individual.

But that cool concept must be monetised in order for it to be viable and sustainable. The health and vigour of an online community is reflected in its share price.

That’s where you, the Facebook user, come in. As a free-loader on the online corporate infrastructure provided by Facebook, it behoves you to do your part in generating the value that will sustain the concept.

In short, you need to get on that platform and interact. Use the silly applications. Play the mindless games. Engage in shameless self-promotion, or even a spot of cyber-bullying within acceptable limits. Generate your fair share of interstitial nodes of demographic data.

In shorter: Be Mark’s friend.

Consume and, ultimately, be consumed.

image source verydemotivational.com

FACEBOOK & YOU

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People and Code

While a war for civilisation rages virtually ignored exclusively by this blog, a far more defining struggle has been waged under the radar...

Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea.

This is the story of a wonderful idea. Something that had never been done before, a moment of change that shaped the Internet we know today. This is the story of Flickr. And how Yahoo bought it and murdered it and screwed itself out of relevance along the way.

Bloody good read: How Yahoo killed Flickr and lost the internet.

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Oh my god... it’s full of stars!

A free app for Android phones has the edge on anything Apple’s iPhone™ may have to offer.

This morning I see that the Sun rises accompanied by Mercury, Neptune and Uranus.

It must be so, because it’s on my phone!

I don’t even need to look out the window... in fact, what’s actually out there is irrelevant.

• Sky Map at Android Market Google Play
• Sky Map project page at Google+

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UPDATE

Sunset in Melbourne, 16 March 2012
(Screen capture by Jacob)

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emulate this

Pictured above is the Tandy TRS-80 Model I, unleashed on the world in 1977 as one of the first mass-produced desktop microcomputers available to consumers. Unusually for its time it sported a full QWERTY keyboard.

These devices were a lot of fun at the time, and with some work and some highly-priced peripherals it was even possible to get some genuinely useful functionality – yes, even something approaching the modern concept of productivity – out of them. Users could either program the machine themselves in its native floating point BASIC programming language, or shell out a bit more dough for commercially available software to run the thing.

Naturally these machines are no longer available on the market, unless you can find a working relic on eBay or somewhere. So, users of modern-day 21st Century machines are unlikely to ever experience the thrills-and-spills of operating what was a cutting-edge product of its day. (Of course, if it’s thrills-and-spills you want, then there’s still Microsoft Windows.)

And yet, there is a reasonably low-cost and convenient way to experience the awesome technology of yore. The answer is to run a TRS-80 emulator.

Yes, it may seem outrageously implausible that you could emulate a

• Zilog Z80-based, 8-bit, 1.77 Megahertz, 16 Kilobyte RAM, cassett-tape-storage  machine

on your

• Intel Quad Core, 64-bit, 3.2 Gigahertz, 8 Gigabyte RAM, multivarious storage, state-of-the-21st-Century PC

But through the magic of modern software technology anything is possible, requiring only the will to realise it.

If you have a hankering for the archaic and too much time on your hands, you might start here...

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No matter how you dress it up...

Windows Millenium Edition™ will always be a dog of a product!

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Scales fallen from eyes

At work this week an analyst came in to consult with users on our needs in relation to a super-duper new management information system.

At one point she remarked that the locus of system problems often occurs “between the chair and the keyboard.”

We errant users gnashed our teeth and were fairly blown away by this radical new conceptual framework in which to consider human interaction with computers: Don’t think of them as staff, think of them as CKIUs — Chair/Keyboard Interface Units.

Meanwhile, a pundit interviewed this week on Lateline helpfully illumined the present troubles in Afghanistan with a gynaecological analogy: “You can’t make a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”

Yep, it’s all clear to me now!

By the way, I believe that particular gyno-analogy was originally minted by Warren Buffet in relation to US President Obama’s economic stimulus initiatives. A very useful meme which undoubtedly will be deployed again and again to illuminate the ineffable.

Finally, I was dazzled by a tv program Thursday night on ABC1 called “Web Warriors.” The program reported earnestly on a computer worm virus that, although “undetectable”, was confidently asserted to have infected millions of PCs all around the world.

A stunning work of investigative journalism, to be sure!

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Troubleshooting MS Office Assistant

1. The Problem.

2. The Solution.

3. Application.

4. Continue working.

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Insights on world poverty

This is actually not so new — the video below is of a talk given by Dr Hans Rosling in March 2007. The blurb reads:

Researcher Hans Rosling uses his cool data tools to show how countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He demos Dollar Street, comparing households of varying income levels worldwide. Then he does something really amazing.

Indeed he does! And almost as amazing as Dr Rosling’s climactic stunt are those “cool data tools” — including Gapminder, an online software tool which allows users to view international longitudinal statistical data in very illuminating ways. (It’s easy to use, too!)

view video at ted.com

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Wednesday gratuitous Paris reference

“HP has launched the Paris Hilton of notebooks — it grinds for 24 hours without stopping.”

The first thousand buyers get a free “I spent all day and all night with Paris Hilton” tee-shirt.  ;-)

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desktops of my mind

click to enlarge

My desktop machine running virtualisations of Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux in VirtualBox virtual machines, and wireless virtual networking with pocket pc via MyMobiler.

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“Special Bag for Disc”

I was wondering what these things are called. Looked everywhere, but didn’t know what to ask for...

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Desktops of my mind

click to enlarge (250K+)

The desktop machine in my study simultaneously runs remote access via the wireless network to the notebook pc in the living room (top) and the pocket pc sitting on the table across the way (bottom right) — whilst watching Silverchair and Powderfinger on the tv monitor (bottom left)...

Just to be a smartarse... and plug some cool freeware...

PC remote access with t-VNC Server.

Pocket PC remote access with My Mobiler.

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