Archive for July, 2007

Pre-Register for FREE and win a Dell laptop… Easy!!!

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007

Starting August 15th (Month one), Next2Friends will give away a new Dell Laptop each month. (Next drawing is on September 15th, and every month thereafter. Winner will be notified by email).

There are many other rewards for becoming a founding member:

  • you are eligible to receive substantially increased cash and rewards
  • you will be the first to experience our innovative technology.
  • you get first dibs on great account names.


And much much more…

Next2Friends

How do objects in 4 dimensions look like?

Wednesday, July 25th, 2007

This article gives a very cool introductions to rendering objects of higher dimensions.
Full python 4d renderer source code included!

Our goal in this post will be to render an object residing in a coordinate system of arbitrary dimensions on a 2D computer screen. We will try to do this in such a way as to lose as little information as possible on the structure of the object, while maintaining its 2D description as simple as possible (so that indeed, we will get some form of intuition on the shape of the object).

Great post!!!

read more | digg story

One step closer for Google to know everything about you

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

Recently I was fortunate enough to talk to a bright young up and coming web programmer /developer star. I asked him what he thought was the main development happening in the internet sphere and his reply was OpenID.

Google maintains that the more they know about the web user, the better they are able to provide customised and accurate search results to individuals. Google wants to be able to customize the users’ search results according to habits, opinions, interests and previous searches etc. Lets add to that, who and how they phoned people, which starts taking the search beyond the web. Brrr, Intrusive. Hello Big Brother.

Real innovation, if they had it, would allow them to anticipate behaviors without actually modeling your own.

read more | digg story

Is Google Good For Us?

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

One single company, through technology and a voracious appetite for acquisitions controls over a quarter of the most popular sites on the Internet. Is this a good thing?

The choice now is not “The Google way or the (information super) highway”. The choice is simply this: “The Google way or nothingness.” Which wold you pick: Google technologies, or stagnation? After all, Google is the only major innovator. And if anyone else innovates, Google will just buy them. Google can make you an offer you can’t refuse.

Acquisition is not innovation… Frankly, for a company that is as “academically elite”, and who makes 99% of their income from internet ads, I have yet to see real innovation.

read more | digg story

If Trust Is Lost, Google Will Crumble - Forbes.com

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007

With almost no barriers to desertion, the search giant’s reputation is the only thing holding it up.

Google your new political power broker… That kinda bothers me!

Success on Google’s scale in a field as sensitive as personal data has an impact on public life and brings with it calls for closer scrutiny and perhaps political regulation.

In a preemptive move, Google in 2005 opened an office in Washington, and in March 2006, it hired lobbying firms. It recently also has recruited lobbyists in at least 10 European capitals. A company blog recently was launched devoted exclusively to public policy issues.

read more | digg story

A Transfinite Landscape

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

An interesting look at the infinite, transfinite numbers, the continuum hypothesis, and the slippery nature of “truth” in mathematics.

Problems that involve infinity have a tendency to read a little like Zen koans. Take, for example, this problem: Suppose we have three bins (labelled “bin A”, “bin B” and “bin C”) and an infinite number of tennis balls. We start by numbering the tennis balls 1,2,3,… and so on, and put them all in bin C. Then we take the two lowest numbered balls in bin C (that’s ball 1, and ball 2 to start) and put them in bin A, and then move the lowest numbered ball in bin A from bin A to bin B (that would be ball 1 in the first round). We repeat this process, moving two balls from bin C to bin A, and one ball from bin A to bin B, an infinite number of times. The question is, how many balls are in bin A and how many balls are in bin B when we’re done? Think carefully!

Read more, click below.

read more | digg story

NCSA: A look inside what supercomputing does for our future

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

This a great article in which the author describes his trip to the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). This author does a GREAT job of comparing the technological marvels of the Supercomputers to common item’s, giving a full perspective of the impact the NCSA has on our every day lives.

read more | digg story

Windows Forms for Silverlight (and Flash)

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

Recently I stumbled across some information that I found staggering. A company has actually created a full-fledged Windows Forms environment for Silverlight.

I have tried it, both the flash and Silverlight versions…. Flash is faster, but Silverlight will soon catch up. Awesome.

read more | digg story

Are We Living In a Computer Simulation?

Monday, July 2nd, 2007

On this website you can peruse the debate that followed the paper presenting the Simulation argument. The original paper is here, as are popular synopses, scholarly papers commenting on the first paper, and a reply to these comments. The Simulation argument has attracted a great deal of attention.

Anthony says: “Only on my bad days”

read more | digg story

Second Life BOMBSHELL: makers admit users don’t really own virtual property

Sunday, July 1st, 2007

Following a recent court ruling that their ToS is a contract of adhesion, Second Life’s creator Linden Lab has now been forced to publicly admit that, despite website and public relations claims over the years clearly stating otherwise, users don’t really own the virtual property they acquire within Second Life. Now says ownership merely “metaphor”.

Anthony Nystrom says:

Ah hello… You can’t own something that doesn’t exist! Virtual is just that virtual. Until we actually live our lives (the real ones) in the virtual world via physiological conduits will anything virtual be tangible. This should come as no surprise to anyone with half a brain. And the Second life issue refers to property or that of virtual land property. Not property like copyright. The site, second life is virtual; copyright, trademark, patent, and intellectual property isn’t virtual it has application in our tangible, physical world. Second life has no application here other than for entertainment.

read more | digg story