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Donating medical records to science?
Here's a thought I had the other day. People can choose to donate their organs to medical science upon death. Why not allow the donation of your medical record too? Surely, once you're dead, there are fewer privacy concerns with your personal medical history. Over time, the information from these medical records can be invaluable. I wonder if ( Read more... ) -
Rant on widescreen laptops
octanez 's recent appeal for opinions on monitors has inspired me to rant on the current monitor situation.
Back in the good ol' days, monitors were "fullscreen" and came in 4:3 aspect ratios. Now, thanks to HDTV and Apple (who, I believe were the first to offer widescreen displays to the masses), all you can find are closer to 16:10 (and almost all ( Read more... ) -
(Airport) security checkpoints of the future
From Slashdot:
New security check points in 2020 will look just like something out of the futuristic movie, The Minority Report. The idea of the new checkpoints will allow high traffic to pass through just as you were walking at a normal pace. No more waving a wand to get through checkpoints - the new checkpoint can detect if you have plans to set ( Read more... ) -
Using software to detect political spin
David Skillicorn at Queen's University in Kingston, ON has created an algorithm that analyses diction in a speech to detect spin (or, as Stephen Colbert might put it, truthiness). He's used his technique to analyse speeches from the current election race and found Obama to be more truthy than McCain.
Branka Zei Pollermann, founder of the Vox ( Read more... ) -
Widespread covert location-tracking by government?
Slashdot recently linked to a CNET article suggesting that the U.S. government, right now, has legal means to track your location in real-time through your cell phone without your knowledge. The technical ability certainly exists: there is tracking software out there that can track a person's location even if the person swaps SIM cards and ( Read more... ) -
Facebook apps are evil
Proof positive that Facebook apps are evil: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9977762-7.htmlRead more... ) -
Retro tech is fun
A floppy drive doing undoubtedly horrible things to a floppy disk for our amusement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4SCSGRVAQE
An IBM XT...or is it?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s1vTw8zfcY -
Tagged...
I got a new credit card in the mail today to replace one that's about to expire. Except I got more than just a credit card. Embedded within is one of those nasty little RFID tags. Yep. I'm now officially tagged.
While the convenience of not having to swipe my card at the grocery store is nice, it's probably not worth the security concerns that ( Read more... ) -
no-tech hacking
A talk from last year's Defcon by Johnny Long on low-tech hacking (vehicle surveillance, shoulder surfing, dumpster diving). Amusing and informative.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2160824376898701015 -
To blahg or not to blahg
So, it's been a while since I've blahgged. I'm tempted to post the occasional blahg entry, given that this is apparently how a bunch of my friends keep in touch with each other. And I hope to be less emo and more friend-locked (hah, how punny) this time around.
What do people think? Does anyone actually read this stuff?