JT Blog

We have a special "mission" for you, soldier...

One of the scariest articles I've read in some time. Now we're torturing our own soldiers too? How does informed consent work within a military chain-of-command?

Unlocked

People here are pretty happy about the recent ruling by the US Copyright Office that lets users unlock their mobile phones for use on other carriers. Gizmodo is currently polling to see how people fared in unlocking their phones with various carriers. Some of Moto's prettier unlocked phones are available on amazon, but check importers first for possibly better pricing.

Moto vend

We just announced new vending machines to be deployed throughout the US. This is a prototype we have here on campus (click for larger image). Sorry for the quality, I took it with my phone.

Not green in Schaumburg

Well, my new company was recently slammed by Greenpeace for, among other things, reneging on its promise (note the lovely skull graphic) to eliminate PVC and BFRs from its products, even though most of its competitors have or are working towards this goal. PVC releases dioxins when burned, and BFRs collect in living tissue and have been linked to disruption of endocrine functions. You can read the terse letter sent to Greenpeace and make what you will of it.

Of course, I'm not happy about this, so as an employee of this company, what is the recourse? I have a bit of trouble understanding it, because in this day of "An inconvenient truth", organic foods, and hybrid cars, it seems to be a terrible PR move. There is so much choice these days, and the replacement rate of mobile phones has increased so rapidly in recent months, that it's pretty easy to go in another direction the next time you buy a phone. One of the mottos that is posted all over campus is "earn our customers' business every day" - it seems like a dedicated cleanup effort is the way to do that, no?

I won't even get started on the conditions of the soil that the company is built on :-)

Disclaimer: these are of course my personal views, not those of Motorola.

Commodore lives...in name

Much like Infogrames did with Atari, a Dutch company has acquired the rights to the Commodore name for almost $33 million. Impressive that a company that filed for bankruptcy way back in 1994 can still garner that kind of cash for a brand name. That's really the only interesting part of the deal, as none of Commodore's past products are going to see any kind of revival.

Along those lines, I added a short page to my site that relates some tips on how to use modern web resources to keep gaming on the Commodore 64.

Google vs SGI

Intriguing article in FastCompany about the current Google mindset and why everyone seems to be heading there. Particularly interesting are the bits about compensation strategies and maintaining competititveness through a decidedly research-oriented culture.

Happy Hiroshima day

Great article at the LA Times about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. A few things stick out:
- there was no advance warning, as many claim.
- the Japanese were nearly defeated, with Truman observing that they seemed to be looking for peace.
- the number of lives "saved" by the bombing was a fabrication by McGeorge Bundy

And to boot, all of these facts were omitted from the Smithsonian's exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of the event.

Upcoming fun stuff in the ATL

Lots of cool stuff going down now and in the near future.

• To start, an exhibit on the golden age of comics is going on at the Breman Jewish Heritage Museum through August.
• Coming soon (March 16 to be exact) is Living Game Worlds, a symposium on the future of entertainment that will feature the likes of Sims creator Will Wright, game designer Chris Crawford, and EA CCO Bing Gordon.
• Lastly, on February 23rd, Christie's is auctioning a treasure trove of documents from the early days of computing, including first editions of Kapek's "Rossum's Universal Robots" (pictured), and Eckert & Mauchly's proposal for UNIVAC. Prices are a little inflated for some items, but others are one-of-a-kind.

New pad

Note that this blog has changed locations. Tired of deleting oodles of comment spam, I've switched over to TypePad. Less configurability, but overall it still does the job. 

DVDTalk's Love-sharing

I'm trying out DVDTalk's love-sharing site. It seems like a nice concept - it's basically a clearinghouse for Amazon's Share the Love" program. You can list items you want and hope that other users of the site will give you the 10% discount when they buy them. In return, you can add the email addresses of those who want stuff you're buying so they can get the discount. The catch? Critical mass, of course.