Sunday, August 31, 2008
Top Underrated SciFi Movies
There's a thread on the topic over at Marginal Revolution.
My contributions:
Cube. Very 50's B-movie sort of feel (that's a plus in my book).
Chronicles of Riddick - A lot of fun, plus it's effectively the same story as most successful sci-fi franchises (e.g., Star Wars, Dune) - minor outworlder discovered as secret/reluctant savior who overthrows oppressive galatic empire, but with better action sequences.
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My contributions:
Cube. Very 50's B-movie sort of feel (that's a plus in my book).
Chronicles of Riddick - A lot of fun, plus it's effectively the same story as most successful sci-fi franchises (e.g., Star Wars, Dune) - minor outworlder discovered as secret/reluctant savior who overthrows oppressive galatic empire, but with better action sequences.
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Saturday, August 30, 2008
2 Palin Questions
Question 1: With Palin on the ticket, should the FEC consider 30-Rock an in-kind contribution from NBC?
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Question 2: I got that Fey picture from this article: The 100 Hottest Women ... as voted by lesbians. (Fey was #7) Given the obvious visual similarities, will Palin open up the unexpected lesbian demographic for McCain?
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Monday, August 18, 2008
Bad Barr
Freedom of association is a libertarian principle. (Context)
If the Saddleback debate had been a government sanctioned / funded debate (and as neither McCain nor Obama are yet the official nominees for their repsective parties, I don't see how it could be), that would be somewhat understandable for Barr to sue for inclusion. But my understanding of the Saddleback debate was it was put on by the church, which makes it a whole 'nother ball of wax. And in fact attempting if Barr had been successful, it would've violated the First Amendment (no law respecting an establishment of religion).
I fear he's veering into Badnarik "Constitutional is whatever I think is good" land.
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If the Saddleback debate had been a government sanctioned / funded debate (and as neither McCain nor Obama are yet the official nominees for their repsective parties, I don't see how it could be), that would be somewhat understandable for Barr to sue for inclusion. But my understanding of the Saddleback debate was it was put on by the church, which makes it a whole 'nother ball of wax. And in fact attempting if Barr had been successful, it would've violated the First Amendment (no law respecting an establishment of religion).
I fear he's veering into Badnarik "Constitutional is whatever I think is good" land.
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
CRT is #1! (or from a different perspective, I'm a small small man)
I find this cool and have no one in the office to tell about it, so I thought I would share here.
My little start up is now on the first page of Google search results for "cognitive radio". (both with and without the quotes, though oddly higher without). This was a specific goal for this year, and we satisfied it with 3.5 months to go. (FYI: we also had the goals of a) 6 patents applications - we're on pace with 4, b) winning the SBIR on cognitive radio - done, and c) lining up a 6 figure contract so I could hire some help - not done, but could happen)
To give you a feel for the magnitude of that result - cognitive radio is the dominant area of research in wireless communications; every wireless communications company and their brother are doing something with it - even non-comm companies like google and microsoft are interested.
There's some 446,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (without the quotes) and 139,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (with the quotes). And we're on the first page and are the first company listed (next is microsoft on the second page).
No search engine optimization. No tricks. Just a lot of content which a lot people read (like a really good blog just on cognitive and copies of all my public tutorials and papers) . It has been a lot of work, and it was apparently successful, so I'm quite pleased with myself.
And just in case we drop off the front page as suddenly as we rose up (CRT had been on page 2 of the results for about 4 months), here's a screen capture.
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My little start up is now on the first page of Google search results for "cognitive radio". (both with and without the quotes, though oddly higher without). This was a specific goal for this year, and we satisfied it with 3.5 months to go. (FYI: we also had the goals of a) 6 patents applications - we're on pace with 4, b) winning the SBIR on cognitive radio - done, and c) lining up a 6 figure contract so I could hire some help - not done, but could happen)
To give you a feel for the magnitude of that result - cognitive radio is the dominant area of research in wireless communications; every wireless communications company and their brother are doing something with it - even non-comm companies like google and microsoft are interested.
There's some 446,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (without the quotes) and 139,000 hits for "cognitive radio" (with the quotes). And we're on the first page and are the first company listed (next is microsoft on the second page).
No search engine optimization. No tricks. Just a lot of content which a lot people read (like a really good blog just on cognitive and copies of all my public tutorials and papers) . It has been a lot of work, and it was apparently successful, so I'm quite pleased with myself.
And just in case we drop off the front page as suddenly as we rose up (CRT had been on page 2 of the results for about 4 months), here's a screen capture.
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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
College Bowl Cool
Via a sequence of links starting with the puppy blender comes this Dowd sentence:
Who knew? There's cool College Bowl types. Why then weren't we getting more action?
I think VTACO needs to start an exploratory committee to rectify this shortcoming. (It's too late for me, but think of the children! And the children these children are not having!)
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For McCain, being cool meant being a rogue, not a policy wonk; but Obama manages
to be a cool College Bowl type, which must irk McCain, who liked to play up his
bad-boy cool. [emphasis mine]
Who knew? There's cool College Bowl types. Why then weren't we getting more action?
I think VTACO needs to start an exploratory committee to rectify this shortcoming. (It's too late for me, but think of the children! And the children these children are not having!)
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