CodeCon is the premier showcase of cutting edge software development. It is an excellent opportunity for programmers to demonstrate their work and keep abreast of what's going on in their community.

The 2006 conference will be held at StudioZ in San Francisco. The call for papers period is now closed, but early registration is now open until February 1st.

CodeCon 2006

This company won a bunch of end-of-year awards. Presumably they are doing something right, and this exposure is the result of more than just a well-connected executive team.

InnoCentive is an exciting web-based community matching top scientists to relevant R&D challenges facing leading companies from around the globe. We provide a powerful online forum enabling major companies to reward scientific innovation through financial incentives.

(I noticed only after posting this that it was already cited here more than three and a half years ago.)

InnoCentive

Today's Wall Street Journal has a feature article about emerging plans by BellSouth, AT&T, and Verizon to start charging fees to major content providers in order to guarantee "fast" access to/for their customers. There are no exclusives in this particular article, but the mainstream attention is itself noteworthy.

Given the paradox of the best network, I guess this is how Capitalism designs Quality of Service, but it sounds more like extortion to me.

In the article, a BellSouth spokesman whines about the fact that Google didn't ante up for the restoration of DSL service in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. Give me a break.

Did Wal-Mart and Target pay fees to have debris cleared from the local roads leading to their storefronts? Perhaps; I don't know.

But if there is a silver lining in these pricy network clouds, it may be that the telcos' egos end up energizing the movement toward asset-based telecom.

Real's Rhapsody music service is now available as a web service. So those of you who have been avoiding it no longer have an excuse!

Rhapsody now available on Mac and Linux computers

How do you find your way in an age of information overload? How can you filter streams of complex information to pull out only what you want? Why does it matter how information is structured when Google seems to magically bring up the right answer to your questions? What does it mean to be "findable" in this day and age? This eye-opening new book examines the convergence of information and connectivity. Written by Peter Morville, author of the groundbreaking Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, the book defines our current age as a state of unlimited findability.

ambient findability

The crew of a luxury cruise ship used a sonic weapon that blasts earsplitting noise in a directed beam while being attacked by a gang of pirates off Africa last weekend.

The Seabourn Spirit had a Long Range Acoustic Device, or LRAD, installed as a part of its defense systems. Earsplitting "bangs" were directed by trained security personnel toward the pirates. The military version is a 45-pound, dish-shaped device that can direct a high-pitched, piercing tone with a tight beam. Its shrill tone is compared to that of smoke detectors, only much louder. It can be as loud as about 150 decibels, while smoke alarms are about 80 to 90 decibels.

Cruise ship attacked by pirates used sonic weapon

This might be of interest to our resident energy experts.

Hydrogen as an energy carrier has generated much attention due to its potential large-scale use in producing electrical energy through fuel-cell technologies and in replacing gasoline for use in transportation. On December 9, 2004, the RAND Corporation hosted a forum that drew 40 experts in various fields to discuss what needs to be done to better inform decisionmakers in the public and private sectors of the benefits and risks of various hydrogen-related programs and policies. The document summarizes the proceedings of that forum.

Forum participants identified the following potential benefits of hydrogen, which warrant further examination and assessment:
• Introducing hydrogen as an alternative energy source could add diversity to the supply of transportation fuels, thereby making the United States less dependent on petroleum and making fuel costs more stable and predictable.
• If hydrogen-based fuel cells were put to use generating electricity on a small scale close to areas where electricity is needed, the burden on the current electric grid—the system that generates and distributes electricity—could be eased.
• If renewable energy is used to make hydrogen, fuel cells could provide a means of storing renewable electricity—something that cannot be done today.
• If communities and companies had the ability to generate their own electricity via small fuel cells using renewable energy to make hydrogen, they could fulfill their energy needs locally and would not have to depend as much on imported energy.
• Private companies that develop innovative technologies for using hydrogen as an alternative energy source have the potential to become highly profitable, world-class technology leaders.
• Developing nations that put hydrogen to work right away could leapfrog over the environmentally
destructive practices that have occurred in other countries.
• Reducing the use of petroleum could also reduce the environmental impacts of exploring for, producing, transporting, and refining petroleum, including the potential contamination of groundwater and surface water.

RAND Forum on Hydrogen Technology and Policy

Tom Friedman wants Old Auto to Fail Fast. (Reread the manifesto from Isenberg and Weinberger. The parallels are striking.)

We don't need to reinvent the wheel or wait for sci-fi hydrogen fuel cells. The technologies we need for a stronger, more energy independent America are already here. The only thing we have a shortage of now are leaders with the imagination and will to move the country onto a geo-green path.

Where have we heard this before? How much time do we have left? Read the report:

As late as September 4, 2001, Richard Clarke asserted that the government had not yet made up its mind how to answer the question: "Is al Qaeda a big deal?"

A week later came the answer.

According to James Fallows, eventually we'll get the leaders we need. But what's along the path between now and then?

The story we will tell Americans begins in 2001, and it has three chapters. For public use we'll refer to them by the names of the respective administrations. But for our own purposes it will be clearer to think of the chapter titles as "Cocking the Gun," "Pulling the Trigger," and "Bleeding."

...

The two-party system had been in trouble for decades. It was rigid, polarizing, and unrepresentative. Eight years of failure from two administrations have finally blown apart the tired duopoly. The hopes of our nation are bleeding away along with our few remaining economic resources.

As Toyota Goes ...

There are over 8 billion web pages. Most of them suck.

Outfoxed uses your network of trusted friends and experts to help you find the good stuff and avoid the bad. (And a lot more, too.) For a quick overview, read Outfoxed in a nutshell.

* Become a beta-tester.
* What are people saying about Outfoxed?
* Compare with existing systems.
* The documentation section is growing fast.
* Outfoxed tastes del.icio.us

Outfoxed is open-source, open-standard, de-centralized, and free of charge.

Outfoxed | Personalize your internet.

Should MemeStreams be using this?

Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It's a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages.

With Google Sitemaps you get:

* Better crawl coverage to help people find more of your web pages
* Fresher search results
* A smarter crawl because you can provide specific information about all your web pages, such as when a page was last modified or how frequently a page changes

Google Sitemaps