Designer Babies, Anyone?
Two days ago was the birthday of Louise Brown, the first 'test tube' baby. Since Brown, reproductive technologies have have changed, and it's interesting how public opinion changed as well. Here's an account of such opinion.

Cantenna
An Antenna made out of a tin can, this geeky stuff is practical to build. I'm constructing one, with the help of some info:

- orig diagram
- a good guide
- a "how to" guide

Porn Gore
Just when I thought I knew pornography, this Guardian reportage on the rough trade came. Pop Quiz: what's the diff between a feature and a gonzo? Read on...

Technological Gobbledygook
is a definite turn-off. Here's a BBC report on how new technology jargons have inhibited some people from reaping the benefits and wasted advertising money.

The Tragedy of the Anti-Common
The New Yorker writes about how America has "always had a vibrant patent system," and "managed to strike a balance between the need to encourage innovation and the need to foster competition." "In the past decade, the balance has been upset," says the writer James Surowiecki in an article. "The scope of patents has been expanded, copyrights have been extended, trademarks have been subjected to bizarre interpretations." Such is the tragedy of the anti-common.

Computing Power On Demand
I have yet to get my hands dirty on Beowulf. Notably, distibuted computing (Beowulf's an example) is the next wave of cheap supercomputing. Case in point: SETI@Home. It's the world's fastest distributed computing, and--best of all--it's freely provided for by millions of people with extra CPU power and time. "Put the computation near the data," thus urges this Microsoft research guy in his article on the economics of distributed computing.

[ more from IEEE Task Force on Cluster Computing ]

File Swapping Rules (or Not)!
Even threats of lawsuits couldn't stop filesharing. Stats shows that after RIAA announced its strategy to sue people sharing copyrighted music files, online file swappers increased in number. This is contradicted by a news article from CNN saying it actually decreased.

On its flip side, P2P is seen in the future as an instrument of freedom, passing news and information beyond the reach of censors.

Future of Open Source
Divining the future isn't exactly my cup of tea. But this interview Tim O'Reilly got me thinking about what I've been doing along IT lines. Tim predicts EBay will buy up Oracle, as Open Source lincenses don't work.

On the other hand, while OS licensing doesn't work, OS software development model just might. Linus compares it to biological diversity. Micro$oft is likened to a shark... or a turtle:

"You have the Linux approach that is fairly diverse and all over the map. Maybe it is not very efficient. But it works very well in the face of complexity and changing circumstances. Changing circumstances will really show that part of that diversity really works. Biology on the other extreme is a very mono culture, which works very well as long as the circumstances stay the same. To some degree they are seen as very efficient and they can live on for a long time. A perfect case in genetics is sharks. They are very stable but they also don't evolve anymore. That works, but if you want to go past a certain point, it's a problem."

Free Encyclopedias Galore
One readily stands out: Wikipedia.

Vitamins, Anyone?
There's little evidence to support the use of vitamin supplements (like the anti-oxidants A, C, & E) to prevent cancer or heart disease, says this report from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Rage Against Word Attachments
Some people might think attaching Word and Powerpoint files to emails is pretty cool. Well, NO! Avoid Word attachments like hell. Here's why.

Home Networking
This Guide details how to build network from scratch. Caveats: it's just a guide. Follow it closely only if you have money to burn. Some products mentioned are not locally available. But as far as guides go, this is a good one.