Boing Boing: Moon landing scrolling panorama

Boing Boing: Moon landing scrolling panorama: "Saturday, February 12, 2005

Moon landing scrolling panorama

A reader writes, 'This web site has pictures from the Apollo moon landings and stitched them together to create panoramic views. Use your mouse to navigate. Also, use the pull down menu to see panoramic views of scenes from around the world. You can scroll right and left, and sometimes up and down.'

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:40:05 AM

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This is a pretty intesting site. I think you would like it Sean. Just get your Quicktime warmed up because these Panoramas can only be viewed using it.

http://www.panoramas.dk/fullscreen3/f29.html

Boing Boing: Turing machine built from model railroad

Boing Boing: Turing machine built from model railroad: "Saturday, February 12, 2005

Turing machine built from model railroad

The first computer hackers started out as railway hackers, members of the MIT 'Tech Model Railway Club,' monkeying around with model trains and the gates that controlled them (this is wonderfully documented in Steven Levy's classic Hackers: Heros fo the Computer Revolution, in passages like this: 'The other faction centered on the Signals and Power Subcommittee of the club, and it cared far more about what went on under the layout. This was The System, which worked something like a collaboration between Rube Goldberg and Wemher von Braun, and it was constantly being improved, revamped, perfected, and sometimes 'gronked' in club jargon, screwed up. S&P people were obsessed with the way The System worked, its increasing complexities, how any change you made would affect other parts, and how you could put those relationships between the parts to optimal use.').

So it is only fitting that a group of art-hackers in Vienna's Museumsquartier should build a functional Turing machine out of model railway tracks -- a calculating engine whose motive force is a scaled-down locomotive.

Scale trains have existed for almost as long as their archetypes, which were developed for the purposes of traffic, transportation and trade. Economy and commerce have also been the underlying motivations for the invention of computers, calculators and artificial brains.

Allowing ourselves to fleetingly believe in an earlier historical miscalculation that '... Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons.' (Popular Mechanics, March 1949), we decided to put some hundred tons of scaled steel together in order to build these calculating protozoa. The operating system of this reckoning worm is the ultimate universal calculator, the Turingmachine, and is able to calculate whatever is capable of being calculated. One just would have to continue building to see where this may lead...

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:57:45 AM

BetaNews | Yahoo Builds Toolbar for Firefox

BetaNews | Yahoo Builds Toolbar for Firefox: "Yahoo Builds Toolbar for Firefox
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
February 10, 2005, 12:46 PM

In yet another sign of the growing support behind Mozilla's Firefox, Yahoo has released a beta version of its toolbar for the open source Web browser. Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox closely mirrors its companion for Internet Explorer, only lacking the company's Anti-Spy feature and support for International Yahoo IDs.

Although Firefox runs on Mac OS X and Linux as well, Yahoo says the toolbar has only been cleared to work on Windows. 'We are working on fixing known problems, so please check toolbar.yahoo.com again in the future for Mac and Linux support,' the company says.

Additionally, Yahoo hinted that it may also support Mozilla and Netscape browsers in the near future.

Yahoo is the first major search engine to support Firefox with its toolbar; MSN and Ask Jeeves only work with IE. Despite serving as the default Web site for Firefox, Google has yet to release its toolbar for the up-and-coming Web browser. Google has, however, begun showing support for Firefox.

In January, Google hired two Mozilla developers, including Firefox lead engineer Ben Goodger, to join its ranks. But Google has allowed both new employees to donate half their time to work on Firefox, indicating the search giant has future plans for the Mozilla platform."

Google + Wikipedia.. Love Connection?

Google Offers to Host Wikipedia

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

February 11, 2005, 12:56 PM

From Internet domains to Web browsers, Google seems to have its hands all over the Web these days. But the search giant shows no signs of slowing its reach, and has offered to host the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. Wiki Media Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, says Google has volunteered to supply servers and bandwidth to the project.

Wikipedia is an open online encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone who volunteers. The project has become immensely popular on the Web, and is having problems sustaining its growth.

Although exact terms of Google's offer have not be publicly disclosed, Wiki Media's board of directors is considering a deal and plans to meet with Google in March. The foundation did say that Google will not insert its text based advertising on Wikipedia.

"Google has at least tentatively agreed to give us access to a certain number of dual Xeon servers at one or more of their data centers and with unlimited bandwidth," a Wikipedia administrator said.

"I've been told that there are no strings attached, meaning they don't expect us to do anything for then, such as having Google Ads. In short, this is wonderful news."

My Dentist Appointment..

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Well I went to the first of my three Dentist appointments today. It all went good actually. If you know anything about teeth they worked on my number 18, 19, and 20 molars. There wasn't much pain involved because of the new "Wand" thing they use now. The numbness is starting wear off fast as I'm typing this so I'll know how the rest of my night will go after that.

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Before the dentist started doing anything I sent Joey a text message. After the appointment was over I went ahead and gave him a call. Now it looks like I'll be going over to his house tonight. Unless my jaw hurts too bad. He rented Mercenaries for his Playstation.. I'll see how the loading times compare to the Xbox version I guess. I know it'll look the same since Lucasarts kept the texture resolution low.

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The CousServer will be online even if I'm not. Right now the IP is the same as it was a couple of days ago, but after I finish typing this I'll have to reboot. Those updates require me to and Windows keeps bugging me about it every two minutes or so. If DAL starts acting all crazy like it apparently has been today (From my log I've been Disconnected/Reconnected at least 5 times) then jump over to my server. That's what it's there for.

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My next two Dentist appointments are in March so I don't have to think about it for a while. Unless my "Bite" is wrong. Then I'll call to complain and they'll have me in there to fix that. Enough Dentist crap for a while..

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I'll talk to you all tomorrow night if I can and possibly even later tonight. It all depends on my teeth and Joey. Everyone have fun. I just blitzed the blog. Three posts in a row! Talk to you all later.

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Sorry about the "." after every paragraph. I'm writing this in IE because Firefox isn't rendering the editbox properly. For some reason IE keeps deleting my empty spaces.. Don't worry. I'll fix it when I have more time.

Microsoft "Patch Tuesday"..

From PCWorld.com:

Microsoft Plans Major Patch Day on February 8

Biggest Patch Tuesday in months will include fixes for Windows, Windows Media Player, and Office, among others.

Stacy Cowley, IDG News Service

Friday, February 04, 2005

Microsoft is expected to release 13 new security patches on Tuesday, February 8, including several "critical" updates.

The release, part of Microsoft's regularly scheduled monthly security update, is the company's biggest patch roundup in months. Included will be nine Windows updates, with at least one rated "critical." Also in the update bundle will be a "moderate-risk" update for Microsoft's SharePoint Services and Office; a .Net framework update rated "important"; a "critical" update affecting Office and Visual Studio; and a "critical" update affecting Windows, Windows Media Player, and MSN Messenger.

Microsoft announced the number of planned patches in a security bulletin advance-notification message posted to its TechNet Web site. The company has adopted a schedule of releasing security patches in batches on the second Tuesday of each month.

Details of this month's patches will be available when they are released on Tuesday. Microsoft will host a Webcast at 11 a.m. Pacific Time Wednesday to outline technical details of the updates, followed by a question-and-answer session. This month's Webcast has been extended by an hour to allow extra question-and-answer time.

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You should all run Windows Update at the first chance you get tonight. I just did and there were 9 Security Updates waiting for me. Some of these issues affect Windows ME users too so.. That means you Becky!

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

Sorry for the really crappy picture up there. I was in a hurry. I'll try not to let it happen again, but it will.

Google Maps..

From BetaNews.com:

Following the launch of its local search, which provides address information for nearby businesses, Google has gone one step further: telling you how to get there. Google Maps was quietly unveiled in beta form today, further building up the company's ecosystem of search related utilities.

Even in beta, Google Maps offers a few advantages over competitors. Maps can be dragged to view adjacent areas, which means users do not have click and wait for graphics to reload. Zooming is also instantaneous with the help of a slider placed atop the map.
"It's like having a huge map you can scroll around in," Google says.

Google Maps is also closely tied with the company's local search. Instead of entering a specific address, users can simply search for a term such a "sushi," which would then show all nearby sushi restaurants directly on the map.

Like current map providers, Google offers step-by-step directions for traveling between two points. Clicking on one of the steps pops up a floating bubble containing a magnified view of the area. For the time being, however, Google Maps is limited to the United States and Canada.

"Google is focused on organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful, and this experiment is another step forward in helping users find the local information they need," the company said in a statement.

Although no official announcement has been made, Google has apparently partnered with TeleAtlas to power its map service.

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I gave this thing a try and it really does work well. You know me. Now I have another reason to Google more often. Pretty soon there won't be any time left to chat with everyone!

http://maps.google.com