This blog post is around seven or eight years overdue. Anyway, I had been musing about energy grids at the time and thinking about things like long-distance alternating current (AC) power transmission, the rise of solar panels, and electronics. I figured in 15-20 years (so about 7-12 years from now), we’d start seeing direct current (DC) power being more available from the wall. Before that can happen, people need a supply of DC power and devices that use DC power.
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part V (Legal)
This is the fifth post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part V (Legal)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 2)
This is the fourth post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 2)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 1)
This is the third post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part III (Ethics 1)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part II (Comparisons to Tom Sawyer)
This is the second post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part II (Comparisons to Tom Sawyer)”
Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part I (Abstract and Introduction)
This is the first post in a series of blog posts of excerpts of my paper Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA to be presented at PST 2012. The paper’s primary purpose is to provoke thought and discussion. I’ve signed a document prohibiting me from publishing the final copy of the paper, but I am allowed to post the paper as originally submitted for consideration, so here it is… Continue reading “Ethical and Legal Considerations of reCAPTCHA: Part I (Abstract and Introduction)”
Putting a price on friending
When Giovanna was offered a job at Facebook several months ago, we attempted to figure out what her compensation looked like relative to her other job offerings, just out of curiosity. Since unvested stocks were in the offering, I started looking at Facebook’s proposed IPO pricing. I discovered they had pegged the offering at an estimated market capitalization of around $80B (I avoid to use the word “value” here as I do the word “friends” in reference to said company) and was surprised that a company could reach that kind of valuation so quickly. This meant number crunching time.
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An almost-blog post
A few months ago, Steve suggested I write a paper for a particular conference. He even gave me a topic. Brat that I am, I thought about for a few minutes and then flat out said no to that topic but thought of another one suitable for the conference. I decided to write on the ethics and legality of reCAPTCHA. While outside the scope of my academic oeuvre, I figured that even if my paper got rejected, it would still make for an interesting “Random musings” blog post. But it hasn’t come to that. Instead, you can look for it at PST 2012 in a couple of months. At seven pages (and possibly eight after further additions), this is longer than my typical blog post. You might want to get your favourite hot beverage ready before diving in.
Ultrabook fad (follow up)
A few months ago, I disagreed with comments made by Acer’s founder, Stan Shih. I suggested that netbooks and ultra books would merge (or face extinction). It looks like at least some people at Acer now share the same view publicly. Their estimate is for 18-24 months from now; my original prediction would have been for about 30 months from now, but considering their new aggressive pricing strategy for ultrabooks, the disappearance of netbooks will likely sooner rather than later.
Cache-as-cache-can
Thailand was tragically flooded last year. The number of surprise alligators in the region also likely increased. As home to much of the world’s production capacity for hard drives, the shutdown of facilities caused the cost per gigabyte stored on magnetic hard drives to balloon to prices not seen since the middle of the last decade. Demand dropped for hard drives. Value-driven consumers may have opted for alternatives such as more expensive solid state drives (SSDs) or removable media like DVDs. Other purchases may have been deferred, playing catch-as-catch-can with hard drives already owned until prices begin to have some semblance of normalcy. The obvious. But none of this would have merited such a… cache-y blog post title.
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