Rough Drafts

Stopped by the Maker Faire yesterday at the San Mateo Fairgrounds–right in our neighborhood–and checked out some of the amazing contraptions and creations hacked together by amateur inventors, tinkerers, and madmen. Highlights included two huge jets of flame that shot 20′ or so into the air, courtes

Fon founder Martin Varsavsky wants to create a Wi-Fi network with a million hotspots. (By contrast, iPass–currently the largest network–has about 43,500.) He’s got his work cut out for him. Read more in my article for Technology Review, appearing today on the TR home page. Fon Hopes its Hotspots Wil

The daily haiku journal I publish, tinywords — which I like to refer to as “the world’s tiniest magazine” — has resumed publication. I’m working on some enhancements to the site which I hope to be able to announce in the next couple of weeks. I’ve ended a short, ill-conceived flirtation with WordPre

Much as I lean to the left, I have to admit that lefties often make really stupid choices when choosing how to stage their protests. Too often these protests happen out of some vague sense of anger and outrage, with very little attention to the message they’re conveying. ie: Bad branding. Case in po

Xeni has her spiky platinum hair. Cory has his chunky black glasses. Malcolm has his, um, hair. Seth has his ears. I feel like I’m missing a branding opportunity here. What to do: Shave my head? Bleach my hair and spike it up like I did in the 90s? Wear a huge bone through my […]

I’m an “Advocating Leader” according to the website PersonalDNA. This multicolored square represents the different elements of my personality–mouse over the colors to see what each one means. Thank god I’m only very slightly totalitarian. Take your own test here (it takes about 15 minutes and you ge

Putting a waterproof camera in a bathtub and then taking self-portraits with the camera submerged is a great way to make yourself look really FREAKY.

My feature story for PC World‘s May issue is online, and it’s a doozy. This story has capsule reviews of 101 completely free programs and web-based services. I worked my tail off to write this story, and I’m proud of the result: There’s a lot of great stuff in there. Many props to my editors […]

Andrew Orlowski dishes more dirt on the Nature comparison of Wikipedia vs. Britannica: Nature mag cooked Wikipedia study | The Register “Nature sent only misleading fragments of some Britannica articles to the reviewers, sent extracts of the children’s version and Britannica’s “book of the year” to

This morning, the WSJ ran a story on the Encyclopedia Britannica’s efforts to defend itself against assertions that it’s no more accurate than Wikipedia: WSJ.com – In a War of Words, Famed Encyclopedia Defends Its Turf Here’s the Nature study on Wikipedia vs Encyclopedia Britannica that kicked the w

Ten years ago I wrapped up my studies for an MA in religious studies, and walked out of the academic world. I had spent the previous two years of graduate study (plus much of my undergraduate career) trying to make sense of what people believe, how they organize the world around themselves, and how

Is your first thought when you see this picture, “someone better take those precious replica lightsabers out of the hands of those reckless juveniles”? If your email address starts with “starwarsaddictors” it is.