A friend I were just wondering about this the other day in response to Water crisis looms as Himalayan glaciers melt. Is there anything we can do to stop global warming? Probably not according to a recent study of Arctic ice melting discussed in Global warming 'past the point of no return'. It looks like it's time to start developing technologies to assist in coping with the drastic climatic changes we will see over the next 50 to 100 years.

When I read The Soapbox Papers about what it means to recognize and raise a techie, I fear/love that my 5 year-old son is already fitting the profile that he inherited from his Dad. Legos, puzzles, computers, and magnets are already his favorites, and I don't know how many times I've heard that frustrated "I'm bored!" Already, his biggest problems with school seem to revolve around needing to be challenged. I managed to entertain myself during school so that I did not get into trouble. Hope I can teach him the same thing.

Meanwhile, Taran, I'll look forward to hearing whatever else your mother has to say about you next. Maybe she'll be nice and stay away from the really embarrassing stuff. Better you than me. LOL

Ars Technica has a piece on Intel's new wireless standard and current problems with freeing up the spectrum for its use.

But of more interest to me are the "proposed specs" for the standard:

. . . speeds of up to 70Mbps over a range of up to 30 miles. With that kind of performance, it could be a serious alternative to Fiber-To-The-Premises, not to mention current technologies such as DSL and cable. Its promise is strong not only in rural areas currently out of broadband's reach, but also in urban areas where aging infrastructure has made reliable broadband service problematic. Intel plans to begin equipping laptops with 802.16e chips in 2006 and providing chips for handsets in 2007, and other companies such as Fujitsu are also planning WiMAX-enabled chips and products.

Cable compaines and DSL providers must be sulking about this; if cell phone companies are smart, they'll be sticking a broadcaster on every one of their towers and selling ISP service--VoIP cell phones ;)

Looks like 3M has answered my request in this previous post ;)

According to PhysicsWeb, 3M researchers have produced an alumina based glass that is transparent and has the strength of aluminum.

I just saw one of these at BestBuy and immediately thought birthday present for Ian, my 4 1/2 year old (okay, so maybe it's for me, too :).

Over a foot tall, totally programmable, 67 pre-programmed functions, and a remote control, looks like the kind of robot most boys, and some adults, would love to have. Street Tech led me to a detailed review that includes hacks, pictures, a forum, and links to resources. According to the review, Robosapien can walk and pick up objects easily, but also performs a "roar, wolf whistle, the karate swings and chops and of course the dancing demo, where he will start playing a tune and dance around the place happy as Larry."

Thanks to Mathemagenic for leading me to this page at CommunityWiki which points out how communities are often defined/tied to one technology and why. This is something I had kind of been thinking of all along, but the text spurred me to do something I've been meaning to all along: remove the story and forum modules from Kairosnews. All of the posts via stories and forums have now been converted to blogs. Communities, I think, don't do as well--unless they are significantly large and/or active (thinking of the open source exception mentioned in the text)--when the discourse is distributed across too many different communication technologies. Or perhaps its too many different virtual places?