while i was out last night, two friends IMd me with news of the CalCars plug-in hybrid initiative and the New York Times coverage.
some folks have hacked a prius by adding more batteries, pushing it well over 100 mpg. (Caveat: burning coal to generate electricity isn’t a net win, coseversation wise. Of course, if you get your power via windmills…)
and lastly, smart start outsmarted some dumb thieves.
The Economist examines what it means to prove something, and how formal logic and computers can be used to replace traditional mathemtical proofs.
Formal proof is a notion developed in the early part of the 20th century by logicians such as Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege, along with mathematicians such as David Hilbert (who can fairly be described as the father of modern mathematics) and Nicolas Bourbaki, the pseudonym of a group of French mathematicians who sought to place all of mathematics on a rigorous footing. This effort was subtle, but its upshot can be described simply. It is to replace, in proofs, standard mathematical reasoning which, in essence, relies on hand-waving arguments (it should be obvious to everyone that B follows from A) with formal logic.
camera owners of the bay area (COBA), DSLR user group.
Yesterday, TidBITS reported on an interesting development in Seattle:
Seattle’s City Council has passed an emergency measure to ban free Wi-Fi access within city limits, following testimony from experts and fire officials regarding their investigation of last week’s explosion at the popular “Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit” coffeehouse.
Icon magazine covers the 21 most influential designers: everyone from ikea to creative commons.
Design Observer catches a sign that shows great design makes words unnecessary:
Clay Shirky tries to convert his own DVD to AVI, and the software gives him a bullshit error message:
To comply with copyright laws, DVD device input is not allowed.
Slight problem here:
Except, of course, there are no copyright laws at issue here, since I’M THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER.
In a This Is Broken-style moment, david yee catches a UPS Store in a bad moment.
Inc. magazine has a piece on 26 most fascinating entrepreneurs. There’s Craig Newmark (for putting the free in free markets) and Mike Lazaridis, who really get it:
Mike Lazaridis, whose company launched the BlackBerry in 1998, developed his philosophy of innovation as an intern at Ontario’s Control Data in the early 1980s. He often saw the engineers butt heads with the marketing department.
…
“The kiss of death is when you allow marketing to dumb down innovations”
John McCallum told CBC radio he was launching a pilot project in Ottawa called “E-file or Else,” with long delays and even a 5 percent surcharge for paper filers.