When Stroke Meets the Neuroanatomist

Original Link

Most interesting.

TEDTalks: Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope

Billing? It made Scoble cry.

It's not everyday Microsoft does something good. WorldWide Telescope is one of them.

here's the original link

Big Think: A YouTube for Ideas

YouTube is a great place for people to just post whatever content they have from the seemingly mindless, to the outrageously bizarre, to pure genius. YouTube is the new opiate of the masses but what happens when you mix YouTube-like user generated content with intellectuals from politics, to law to business, much like TED? What if you had a question like Are Leaders Born or Made? You get a YouTube for Ideas and the New York Times has a great article on how an Ex-Harvard President met a former student and when their intellectual sparks flew, out came this new site called, BigThink.  

Pangea Day: Seeing the World Through the Eyes of Each Other

I just received an email from the TED mailing list, with a message from TED Curator Chris Anderson. The gist of the message is that for the next 24 hours, YouTube's homepage will have a video announcing Pangea Day, 2006 TED prize winner, Jehane Noujaim's wish.

youtube link here.

What is Pangea Day? The email says:

On May 10, 2008 - Pangea Day - Jehane’s wish will come to fruition as sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films - supplemented by visionary speakers, and global musicians. The purpose: to use the power of film to promote better understanding of our common humanity. A global audience will watch through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

This is Jehane's TEDTalk on her wish for a global acceptance of diversity, mediated through the power of film:

original link here, downloadable video here.

The global search for films that are uniquely powerful, provoking, entertaining and inspiring made by the world, for the world has begun! Would you be a part of it? More details can be found at their site: Pandea Day.

Google Wants You on the Moon!

Google--- the boys and girls who are organizing all knowledge have put up US$30 Million for a contest, called "Google Lunar X Prize".

This Moon 2.0 initiative is open to any company, anywhere in the world and the goal is to land a robotic rover on the moon and send back, a gig abyte of images and video to folks here on Earth.

Google is partnered with the X Prize Foundation for landing a robot on the moon. Any takers?

saw this via digg and original link zips through to this York Dispatch post.


*image is from 1999, total solar eclipse in France. Borrowed from the Wikipedia page here.

NY Times Interviewed: Lee Kuan Yew

The New York Times has an interesting article today on Lee Kuan Yew.  You can find it here. 

When asked what is Singapore's secret, Mr. Lee replied: 

"Singapore is ideology free. It possesses an unsentimental pragmatism that infuses the workings of the country as if it were in itself an ideology.  When considering an approach to an issue, the question is, does it work? Let's try it, and if it does work, fine, let's continue it. If it doesn't work, toss it out, try another one." 

Interesting, don't you think? Is it worth copying? As Homer Simpson would say, "D'oh!"

Altruism Can Bring You In Front of the Line

So I was cleaning out my hard drive today. Lots of messy files littering around, a few cobwebs here and there and in a bid to free up more space, I ran across a few TED videos i haven't had time to see. Some I deleted, even a few old podcasts and vlogs i've seen. Quite a few, I quickly browsed through. Long story short, Allison Hunt's TEDTalk kinda intrigued me. 

"What the heck," I said to myself, it was only six minutes or so. 

Allison talked about how in Canada, they have free healthcare and how "free" is what you get. Her story is more than that and in a nutshell, she summed it up by saying: "even when a Canadian cheats the system, they do it in a way that benefits society."

Click the video about to play or download the video here.

Will Wright: The Need to Learn Long Term Planning

(note: safari (beta) users may not find the video... for some insane reason it disappeared. if you do encounter that error, may i recommend visiting Ted.com for the streaming video: here. For firefox/mozilla browser users you should be fine and you can view it from this page. Internet Explorer users, sorry, i haven't tested if the video works or not for your platform, but if it doesn't please follow this link, to view the video. thank you and sorry for the trouble.)

Who is Will Wright? Have you ever played a game of Sim City, a city simulator, where you are the mayor and you build your little town? Maybe you've played a game of the Sims that simulate real life from being born to raising a family, to finding a job or starting a business, even taking care of your real life pet? Will Wright is a game designer. Sim City and Sims family of games are his creations. He is the game designer. But what has it got to do with the need for humans to gain long term planning?

The thing about his games is that they are addicting, engaging and you can literally spend countless hours immersed in that world. The vision for his next game is the most ambitious of his creations. Spore is for a lack of a better way to describe it: Maya for kids plus the Sims plus Civilization. What Will Wright hopes (well one of many, I suppose) is for Kids to learn the value of Long Term Planning.

In Spore, his next game, the player starts out building a character from a single celled organism. It is the player who takes that organism and turns it into a sentient being. He guides it through the process of civilization--- even to the point of being able to fashion an entire planet in the process and push that civilization to the stars. The simulator is sophisticated that you can for example manipulate the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere--- raise or lower planetary temperature and watch your creations deal with the consequences of doing that.

It is a subtle way of teaching long term planning and consequences of our actions, which quite frankly, I must agree with Will Wright, is one of our biggest fundamental flaws as a species.

BumpTop: Desktop in a New Way

Ran across this today via TED. BumpTop mimics real world physics and lets you organize your computer desktop much like you would your own real world one.

Here is a YouTube presentation via bumptop.com:

Here is Anand Agarawala's Ted Presentation:

BumpTop is interesting, especially when you think of multi-touch displays as the interacting device instead of a stylus or mouse and Bumptop as the GUI. interesting isn't it?

iTunesU: Broadening Horizons

(Updated) Reader Gregory (if you've missed it) posted a comment yesterday on "Real World: I'm a PC, I'm a Mac". He pointed to this: Bill Gates' Harvard (Class of 2007) commencement speech (requires registration) and he quoted these inspirational lines:

For a few hours every week, you can use the growing power of the Internet to get informed, find others with the same interests, see the barriers, and find ways to cut through them. Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

I hope you will judge yourselves not on your professional accomplishments alone, but also on how well you have addressed the world's deepest inequities … on how well you treated people a world away who have nothing in common with you but their humanity.

Interesting isn't it?

updated: eweek has an article on Gates Champions Creative Capitalism to End Inequity.

Speaking of breaking down barriers, is the iTunes Music Store just a one stop shop for music and video? Education is a powder-keg topic and many talk about education as way to break down barriers, so whoever came up with iTunesU should be commended.

Some of the world's leading universities have posted content content online--- which you can download via iTunesU, for example. Topics range from "Modern Theoretical Physics" to "Geography of World Cultures" to "What is Existentialism?" just to name a few of the hottest downloads (as i write this).

here's (above) a screenshot from my mac of the current content of iTunesU

It's a bigger, broader world out there. Initiatives like iTunesU can broaden horizons in an engaging and meaningful way.

One Person Can Really Change the World

Is the future written in stone? Can a person really change the world?

We start off with several interesting things that came out of reading feeds, which builds up to our theme for this post.

First off, this sparked some discussion over at the Philippine Linux User's Group mailing list. Fortune's Microsoft Takes on the Free World is the news of the week:

"Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe. Fortune's Roger Parloff reports."

So is it saber rattling? Linux watch asks, "Microsoft v. Linux: FUD or not?" Here's a snippet from the article:

At least one attorney, Tom Carey, a partner at Boston law firm Bromberg & Sunstein and chairman of its business department, said he thinks this IP threat to Linux and open source might have some teeth to it. "While we all got a lot of amusement out of SCO's bumbling around in the dark on a botched breach of contract/copyright infringement action, the prospect of Microsoft suing for patent infringement is another matter altogether," Carey said. "Patent protection is often much stronger than copyright, and the complexity of sorting through all these patent claims will end up consuming many person-years."

Saber-rattling? maybe. maybe not. Still it would be a great time for our legislature to consider the pros and cons of Software Patents and for standardizing on open standards, whenever possible.

(added) Linux.com has an interview on the whole thing from The Benevolent Dictator himself, Linus Torvalds:

Can you get a list of which ones? Before that, it's just FUD, and there's not a whole lot I can say or do. Is there prior art? Are they trivial and obvious to one skilled in the art? Would we need to work around them? We don't know, because all I've heard so far is just FUD.

If MS actually _wanted_ us to not infringe their patents, they'd tell us. Since they don't, that must mean that they actually prefer the FUD.

Heroes fans, do not worry! Comic Book Resources has this interesting tidbit: we'll still have our weekly dose with the new Heroes: Origins spin off which begins after the series goes on haitus for summer.

The-Future-is-not-written-in-stone Heroes Revealed has a video teaser for next monday (this is the one that NBC played after last Monday's ep and they also one that came from Canada).

video is from user infelt and you can find his youtube post: here

Philippine Commentary is all about Senator Trillanes, Sir! When all the ballots are counted and he goes to the Senate, let's see how much change he can do and i do hope he doesn't waste his time going after impeaching pGMA.

See, we've got bigger things to do.

Moving on, Placeholder has a quote From the Black and White Movement asking if Cayatano was a victim of sinister cheating or incompetence. This is my hypothesis: his rise and possible fall could be tied to his war with the First Family. While I did vote for the guy--- largely due to the fact that he is young. And my other reason was (same as my reason for voting for Trillanes), as someone always raising a ruckus, let's give him an opportunity to prove his worth.

However, given the trend being showed to us by exit polls and by what looks like defeat for Pacman, and other Administration candidates on the local level and given that the Senators are mixed of the old and the new--- could it really be a sign that our people are voting not because you are for whom but because they really want results? It's a working hypothesis.

Until more data come in, my guess is as good as yours.

Yesterday, Gregory posted a comment and pointed me to Jim Paredes' blog: Writing On Air. I have to agree with what Jim Paredes wrote:

Writers have described life in the Philippines as ‘magic realism’, the same way Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ sees life in Latin America. The child in us lives in a mythic, magical world where we expect a handsome prince to save us at the last minute, or that things will get better with the wave of a magic wand, without any need for us to change.

I have news for us: Things will not change, not until the party wears out and a more responsible archetype takes over who will want to clean up the mess we’ve made.

I think we already know it that things will not change without cleaning up our own act... as a people, we just haven't accepted it. We've spent countless days analyzing, figure things out since way before EDSA and beyond. And we've spent endless moments critiquing and blaming others for our lot. The answer really is in our own hands. People need to and are starting to leverage their own success. We just have to get out and work.

Where all roads lead is 2010--- that's a lot of time to do a lot of work in nation building or fail once more.

Speaking of changing the world, I hope Filipinos do get this one. David Pogue wrote in his blog entitled "Discovering Modern Marvels":

"What struck me most was how many of these inventions came from small-time individuals who don’t even work in the fields you’d expect — medical breakthroughs by parents of patients, for example. It was truly inspiring. It was readily apparent that these poor souls had spent a crazy amount of dollars and years trying to bring their ideas to light, but you can’t change the lesson of the day: that one person really can change the world".

Indeed: "one person can really change the world". To borrow Angela Petrelli's words (see whoever said TV would rot your brain?), "Can you be the one we need?"

A New Hegemony?

Is it genius or really stupid? David Pogue wrote about an email From Apple, A Welcome Reminder--- that he hasn't cashed in a gift certificate on the iTunes store.

interesting indeed: genius marketing strategy?

moving on: excellent, it is official! Wikipedia on Ratholes, wrote Merlin Mann of 43Folders. (who hasn't heard of those guys?) Indeed, rathole moments are the best part of every MacBreak Weekly!

Finally got around to finish rereading Louis V. Gerstner's book where he asked: "who says elephants can't dance?" and i've been mulling on these words of his:

make connections to the past without going backward; continue to drive change while building on the best and only the best [p.282]

While he used those words to describe the job "for Chief Executive Officer, International Business Machines Corporation," I think it remains true for just about any leadership position or entrepreneurial path.

Lastly, here is Charles Leadbeater in his TEDTalk about innovation and who he calls the Professional Amateurs. One the interesting things he brought up was this idea that going towards the future, we will find this mixing of the old ideas--- closed systems and the open source movement and this mash up will create exciting new paradigms and models.

download here in zip/mp4 format

Will a mash-up of the cathedral and the bazaar create a new hegemony and spur greater innovation?

The Elephant in the Room

(updated, update-2: resized images and fixed their layout) - Who says Elephants Can't Dance? That title lay splashed across Lou Gerstner Jr.'s book about the history turnaround of IBM in the 1990s. Chronicled in the book was IBM's transformation from lumbering and dying dinosaur to be industry juggernaut that it is today. All this push for middleware? Gerster saw it then and today, years after he has left IBM, Middleware was where the battles were going to be fought on in corporate space.

I don't know what made me think of re-reading that book after I saw the (added this feed:) feed about the One Laptop per Child. Apparently OLPC wouldn't be costing US$100, it would cost in the region of US$175. Across cyberspace, Microsoft was going to sell Windows at US$3 in China and it came to my attention that Intel had thrown their hat into this child pc space. Why was this space suddenly, so seemingly out of the blue, ablaze?

To be honest, I've been a skeptic of this whole OLPC bit. A hundred dollars to deliver a laptop to every kid in the world, most in the wild where they've hardly got food, electricity, running water and shelter. OLPC comes also with its own crank-powered charge.

It was a few days ago that I absentmindedly downloaded Nicholas Negroponte's Vision for the One Laptop per Child project over at Ted. iTunes had saved it and being a skeptic proved to be a hindrance to watching it. I had already closed my mind at the thought that this thing would succeed:

Nicholas Negroponte's Vision for the One Laptop per Child

Apparently, I shouldn't have.

Why shouldn't I give this thing a go? a quick google located the link for me: Sugar SDK was ready for download and it took two hours off my slow dsl connection to fetch the iso image. My Mac was already configured to test drive this operating system. Creating the Virtual Machine via Parallels--- and off the OLPC Operating System booted (see image to you left).


I was a skeptic no longer. Here was a decent user interface. It had a program for painting, it had a tetris like game, it had a word processor, a browser, news reader, picture slideshow viewer and a thing for what i think is used to making music called "Tamtam". It was a kid's computer.

I ask your indulgence, i couldn't get the thing to run full screen so my screen captures are all in windowed form.

Some of the initial issues i've encountered: i couldn't get it to browse the internet. Though i noticed the network went up during the boot-phase. Maybe because it was looking for a wifi one--- the vm it was running on has only an ethernet running. anyway--- it wasn't important to test drive that but the OLPC has that capability.

It has a pie-menu thingy, full technical details: here.

SugarOS is a simple, neat user interface. I had thought they wouldn't have any applications on it--- but they do. It ran very well on 128MB ram that I allocated to it. (I at first set aside 256MB, it ran pretty fast on that but it ran above decent on 128MB). OLPC will be running on an AMD Geode LX-700, here's the full spec from their wiki.

One of the insights one can draw from this device is that it is now possible that future school children should start learning on computers. we're going to be making text books obsolete. Homework, exams, lectures will now exist only on portable devices that kids carry to school. What devices like the OLPC will do, is what the iPod and the mobile phone has done to our lives. these will completely transform how children are taught. It can help revolutionize instruction, transfer knowledge quicker, introduce a lot of the have-nots and half that digital divide.

Why Microsoft is scrambling to get windows integrated into devices like the OLPC? Why Intel is building their own? It would be about brand recognition, it would be about being comfortable with technology and if the OLPC uses open source and uses the competition's technology, history has taught us that's what they're going to be buying when they've got the opportunity to do so.

The One Laptop per Child project is the one laptop to rule them all, but it is not a Laptop Project nor is it a Linux or Open Source Project. It is an Education project.

What OLPC can do for education, the iPod and mobile phones have done for our daily lives. Pretty soon, teachers will be giving and checking assignments via devices like the olpc. textbooks will go the way of the dinosaurs and learning and innovation will revolve around computers like OLPC. Someday soon, it'll be at the heart of education, touching lives.

The elephant in the room is education. Like religion, it is a minefield of a topic. What the OLPC and its ilk can bring is the kind of innovative technologies that educators ought to be looking at and integrating into a vision for what education should be going forward and not loose themselves in ancient ideas that will not prepare the next generation for that unknowable future. it is a space where software is few and needs to be captured. It may not be grand and sexy an idea, but if you are looking for innovative solutions for education: olpc is the space where you should be and just maybe, this elephant can surprise us and dance.

If you were the Internet?

What would you do, if you were in charge of the Internet?

This is Rives' four minute-fast-warm poem on just that:

Are you Incapacitated?

Why do we form communities? In the last 20 years, we've seen our world transformed. Not just in technology, in the arts, in culture, in the way we live, and communicate with one another. The profound impact of the Internet is staggering, unheralded, and what we witness, right here, right now: this sprawling of myriad change affecting every facet of human endeavor on the planet is just the beginning. The Internet has taken a life of its own, and its hidden gifts, hidden secret is that we don't know what to expect from it next.

Beyond the technology--- the Internet is a philosophy of community. We can all agree that one of the gifts of the Internet is the ability of ordinary people of the same goals, and ideas to band together, form communities and focus to solve or answer a particular need.

The best example is one you've heard of the most: a community of hackers led by benevolent dictator Linus Torvalds started out in corridors of the Internet, but towards the end of the 1990s their Linux Kernel revolution had rapidly grown to challenge and surpass even the wealthiest of corporations. They've garnered support from individuals, from other organizations, from companies such as Intel and IBM. They've created a multi-billion dollar industry out of freely shared, open ideas, challenged the status quo and through their philosophy--- has changed the way software is being developed today.

Beyond software development, the methodology of the open source way is being embraced by other industries like Architecture and they've focused this on humanitarian issues. The Open Architecture Network's goal is to improve the living standards of five billion people with a hundred million solutions provided for through open standards, open communication, through an open source model.

The Open Architecture Network is the brain child of Cameron Sinclair. This is his TEDTalk presentation:

It is old news that people are fed up with how slow governments act. They're fed up with how "the system works". Take for example a simple tent technology that was developed by the United Nations, which according to Mr. Sinclair took 12 years to be finalized as opposed to the development cycle that took two years for people like him to deploy.

In Philippine society, MLQ3 wrote in his column about how the political party can be made obsolete. he asks: "how do you channel the desire of people - many people - to enter public life, with the goal of helping others, but without using it as a means of helping themselves to the detriment of others?" The answer he said: "One way might be to encourage the political involvement of NGOs, and the eventual extinction of political parties. Put another way, the political party, with its obsession with 'jobs for the boys,' the farming-out of contracts and dispensing the pork barrel; and with its penchant for ultimately gauging success or failure only by the number of officials it gets elected in each election, has to give way to something else."

IF NGOs become political, how then are they different from political parties?

There is a saying that all politics is local. Isn't it also true that everything is political?

The founder of Sustainable South Bronx is Macarthur-winning African-American named Majora Carter. Ms. Carter organized a community dedicated to a holistic community development. They sponsor job creating projects that protect the environment. They endeavor to create beautiful green spaces in the inner city of South Bronx. Their mission is very political, very emotional, and is very much into the community in which they live.

Majora Carter's very passionate TEDTalk presentation: Greening the Ghetto.

Bill Clinton in his TEDTalk acceptance speech articulated it properly: "people like us, who are not in public office have more power to do good than in anytime in history. because more than half of the world's people live under governments they vote in and can vote out, and even non-democratic governments are more sensitive to public opinion. because, primarily of the power of the Internet, people of modest means can band together, amass vast sums of money that can change the world for some public good, if they all agree."

Bill Clinton's speech is re-embedded here for your convenience

Now we get to my point, several in fact.

In Philippine society, I think two glorious truths that stand out is espoused by all people from every walk of life. To do anything of significance you need 1) the support of government, and/or 2) the support of the clergy (Catholic or otherwise).

Columnist MLQ3 argued and concluded in his column that as Non-Governmental Organizations succeed to gain access to those in power, they eventually fail.

This is why: a misguided Conservatism is prevalent across every facet of Philippine Society and it has become a Cancer. If there was a thing called bad charity or bad socialism or bad welfare, then it is best symbolized in the Philippines by the system and culture of hand-me-downs and favors the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office has created.

The poor in their plight would walk up to a politician for favors of all sorts: from health care to a coffin to bury their four year old child. Often, someone may approach someone they know, seeking for some sort of assistance. This person then looks at who he knows, whose influence is most likely needed to get the job than. Nothing wrong really, it is just how things go. What's wrong is that everyone who has got influence, whether in power, in connection, or wealth is what a titled earl or duke or count would be in the Middle Ages. The people, rich or underprivileged would always have someone higher than they, to kiss the ring of just as you would to The Godfather.

I started this post, writing about communities and how the power of the Internet has made communities even more significant than ever and this is why it started out as such: it is a big deal that communities have shared goals. Such goal is needed for whatever their advocacy, or enterprise to succeed. Communities create a sense of belonging. They are also ostracized for being different.

A lot of people believe Comic Books and Cartoons are for kids. Novelist Brad Meltzer, who penned Justice League of America Number 7 wrote: "The League (meaning the Justice League of America) isn't an idea--- it's an ideal".

Communities, Cults and Religions are very big on Symbols like as Black Lighting in Justice League of America Number 7 remarked to Superman when they talked about the League being an ideal, he said: "like wearing a blue costume and a blazing red cape". Now, if you prefer the democratic opposite, it can also be like wearing a frighteningly-stuff-of-nightmares-bat-suit.

When Communities, Cults, Religions, any organization: corporate, non-government or political parties distance themselves from their ideology, when they have defaced their Symbols, or loose such Symbols, when followers have no way to rally to them, or have lost their belief in them: they die.

But you know what's the very best part of what Meltzer wrote was? That's correlated in what affects Philippine society and that Filipinos everywhere don't get? For Cults, Communities, Religions, Organizations, non-government or political or whatnut that links this whole idea v. ideal thing? Meltzer let my favorite character Batman say it:

"What's the best part of the league? The very best part? The best part is--- it's bigger than us. And we should never let it be anything but that."

The biggest hurdle that Philippine society faces today is this. I want to put it in a simple manner, so it's clear. So let me borrow the words of Bill Clinton when he said: "incapacity is a far bigger problem in poor countries and it feeds corruption."

It all goes back to the Filipino mantra that you can't do anything without Government. It's all government this, government that. That politicians and government by extension is to be blamed for every problem. Blame doesn't really help except to incapacitate. People used to say the world was flat. It turned out, it wasn't. For example, if political triage is the right way to go and everyone seem to agree to know it to be the right road to follow, then we should: no matter how hard, or difficult it is.

It is a brave new world out there where we have at our fingertips the brain trust, the full resources of the world, if only we'd use it. We're at the Dawn of the Age of the Everyman, when ordinary people have the greatest capacity to do the most good. Anyone in the world has that capacity.

This Age of the Everyman, is the silent revolution that is shaping our world and the proof that such an idea works is all around us: from the technological marvels driven by Internet technologies to Organizations like The Open Architecture Network, spawns of this amazing age, to examples of the human capacity to do good from events like the Tsunami that hit South Asia. Organizations and people who are absolutely serious and sincere in the work they're doing, leverage the power this brave new world has to offer. So If you feel passionate about something that needs doing (in your neighborhood), and one person can't do it alone, do it yourself and form your community: it's time to save the world. Are you still incapacitated?

Don't Cry For Me Cupertino

What if, for the next version of your Software, you put in no new features? What!?! You might call me crazy! Why would people buy to upgrade? How are we going to sell software, if we don't put in new features?

Software technology has reached a point where we complain about bugs and bloat. We pack in SO many features that quite frankly, no one uses or few people do. Just look at Microsoft Word. How many of you use anything beyond Spell Check, Grammar and Thesaurus? Or the occasional bullet points. My point exactly.

The truth is, our world is filled with mediocre software design. I made this case in my post: "Will you Enlist", that Windows makes everyone an idiot for not trusting enough to let Users know what their IP address is as opposed to the open and frankness of Mac OSX. By-the-way, Linux's Gnome and KDE makes the same mistake. David Pogue in his TEDTalk makes a better case when he asked: "Why do you shut down a Windows PC, by clicking on 'Start'?"

A few months back, the Linux kernel boys and girls had this idea: one release to clean up all the mess in the Linux kernel. That was a bright idea: cut the fat.

Sadly, for Windows, everyone agrees that cutting the fat out is a good thing, but can't because you have this huge ecosystem that exist around it.

Simplicity sells and software designers shouldn't make users stupid. If any task takes too many clicks of the mouse, then it is too complicated and must be redesigned.

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue had this story: A woman called Apple to complain that her mouse was making a squeaking noise. And the technician on the other end asked: what do you mean, ma'am, that your mouse is squeaking? The Woman replied: "well, all i can tell you is that it squeaks louder the faster i move it across the screen." Shocked, the technician exclaimed, "Ma'am you've got the mouse on the screen?!" She replied: "Well the message said: Click here to continue".

The truth of the matter is that, we should make current software better by not adding in new features but making sure the software we have right now works the way they should. David Pogue's Simplicity Sells TEDTalk is hilarious, and filled with myriad insights in the State of Software. Hearing Pogue's spoofs: "The Sound of Silence", "The Bill Gates Song" and "Don't Cry for Me Cupertino"--- simply well worth the price of admission, so go ahead and play it and enjoy.

Jeff Han, one of the pioneers of Multi-Touch who was one of those guys we blogged when we "Search(ed) for the Holy Grail" for his TEDTalk, unveiled "the genius of multi-touch interface design". This new way of interacting with our computer will help revolutionize the way we interface with the multitude of data that is bombarding us daily.

Over at the invisiblethings blog, understanding stealth malware is up, so if you've ever wondered if Blue Pill was a stunt or not and/or if you wanna know more about how to be good hackers, go over there and read security researcher joanna's entry.

Speaking of hacks, lock-down your systems boys and girls, our shields are down! "The Mac has been hacked!" (locking down is kinda over the top, don't you think?) US$10,000 and a Macbook was all it took for a Safari-Client side hack to work:

You were wondering if your MacBook was vulnerable even after you applied that last batch of Apple patches? Sean Comeau confirms, “Currently, every copy of OS X out there now is vulnerable to this”. You are. So, uh, switch to Firefox until the patch comes out? Or live dangerously like me.

I've decided to live dangerously then they updated saying:

The vulnerability affects Firefox as well as Safari. More details, momentarily

Oh, NO! I'm on Camino! (probably, shouldn't have said that out loud, the guy in the white shirt out back didn't quite hear me).

Anyway, go over their blog where they have some suggestions on staying safe while the boys and girls over at Cupertino mull things over. So "Don't Cry for us Cupertino!" (that song just won't go away) just go to work and make all Macs safe!

At the end of the day, Technology should work for us and not the other way around. It should be simple, it should be intelligent and designers should make interfaces that do not make us idiotic or think of us as one (And i'm looking you straight in the eye, Microsoft, Friendster, Nokia and Yahoo on that last one. Your interfaces are such royal pain to use). It's time to join the cult of doing things right and make that the default setting.