brainwagon

It is with a sense of deep sadness that I heard of the passing of Ray Harryhausen this morning. If I were to pick two things which influenced me as a kid growing up in the 1960s, it would have been the Apollo Space Program and the films of Ray Harryhausen, although at no time […]

If you or your loved ones are in the areas affected by Sandy, you may not be able to read this, but my thoughts are with you all. If you aren’t in the affected areas, considering helping out in the relief efforts by donating either money or blood to the Red Cross. You can donate […]

After 12 hours of rockiness, I believe that I have brainwagon moved to new hosting. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble, but if you do, you might want to clear your cache/cookies and try reloading again. If you spot anything broken, feel free to drop me an email with the problem. Previously this blog […]

It’s about time I did some long overdue maintenance on my website, including some name service changes, which may bring brainwagon off the net for (hopefully short) periods over the next week. Please bear with me, and all will soon be sorted out.

About 5:30AM, I woke to find my bed slightly shaking, and maybe a hint of some noise. Just as I was about to drift off, a fairly violent jolt hit the house. Some various items were knocked off shelves, a fairly scary way to wake up. Carmen and I bolted for the door and waited […]

San Jose Mercury News – Google unveils mobile-phone software strategy the big news is that Google has gone generic, offering free software to anyone who wants it under the relaxed terms of an open-source license, which will allow developers to view the source code for that software. This also means there will not be a […]

Phil Plait’s blog is the first mention I’ve read that actor Darren McGavin had passed away. Phil and I must have been watching the same TV shows as kids, because I loved Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and have recently found through the miracle of TIVO that the episodes still hold up fairly well, which can […]

I usually don’t post links to Boing Boing stuff, since everybody in the known universe already reads Boing Boing, but I thought this logo design for Google by the Students for a Free Tibet warranted a bit wider distribution. Sorry Google, but if your motto is to “don’t be evil”, you are seriously off course. […]

In another one of those “close, but no cigar” moments, Bill Joy remarks about the recent switch of Apple to Intel processors: “We got very close to having Apple use Sparc. That almost happened,” Joy said at a panel discussion featuring reminiscences by Sun’s four cofounders at the Computer History Museum here. I’ll hazard a […]

To all the readers of my little experiment in self-therapy, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

Dan Kaminsky has been trying to figure out how many sites have been infected by the Sony DRM rootkit. He found that over half a million DNS servers have received queries for the “phone home” address that the Sony code uses to squeal on users. It’s a cool research project, and spells troubling times for […]

Panda’s Thumb reports on the ties between Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers and creationism. The Valley View Christian Church that she attends apparently has a webpage which links to The Creation Evidence Museum, run by Carl Baugh, a creationist so absurd that even Answers In Genesis can’t accept his conclusions. Apparently it’s not just Roe […]

Get two industry giants to call a huge press conference to announce something which can only be classified as “beyond trivial.” Way to go Google! Keepin’ it real…

Nola.com: NewsFlash – Poor New Orleans neighborhood floods again As many as 500,000 people in southwestern Louisiana, many of them already displaced by Hurricane Katrina, were told to evacuate. And for those who refused to leave, Gov. Kathleen Blanco advised: “Perhaps they should write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink.” That’s […]

This news item caught my eye: Intel claims ultra low power breakthrough Mmmm. Moore’s law continues it’s march to the future.