Jason's Blog

Tuesday, July 3, 2001

Hilarious Tori Amos Album

Looks like Toris covering a bunch of eclectic bands, to say the least. From Slayer to the Beatles and Depeche mode. Hmm.
http://www.crowdsurfer.com/index.php3?id=20010704135723

"Ghost In The Machine" Day (GIMday) is the day in the Luddite Calendar that celebrates the potential for error that is innate in every machine, personified by Etaoin Shrdlu. He is the mistake with a name, the eponym of the mistake in the machine.
http://ludditereader.com/ghost/gimday.htm

Kiss of the Dragon

Jet Li talks about his new flick.
http://www.dtheatre.com/read.php?sid=1449

Monday, July 2, 2001

Money Chip

Hitachi has developed a chip that could be woven into paper money to help identify counterfeits and could also have wide ramifications for identification and surveillance technologies. The chip, called Mew, measures just 0.4mm on a side and stores information such as identification and security codes. Most identity chips are currently several millimeters on a side. Mew includes 128 bits of read-only memory (ROM) and RF wireless circuitry that allows it to transmit over a distance of about 12 inches. If the chip were inserted in money, a reader unit would be able to instantly detect authentic bills.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cn/20010703/tc/hitachi_in_the_money_with_tiny_chip__1.html

Machine-driven Image Analogies

We present a new framework for processing images by example, called "image analogies." Rather than attempting to program individual filters by hand, we attempt to automatically learn filters from training data.
http://mrl.nyu.edu/projects/image-analogies/

AI Review

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) 2nd Jul 2001 Directed by Steven Spielberg. Story by Ian Watson, based on the short story Supertoys Last All Sumer Long by Brian Aldiss. Screenplay by Steven Spielberg. Starring Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances OConnor, Sam Robards, William Hurt. Music by John Williams. Running time: 145 minutes.RATING: 8/10 for the first 110 minutes. 3/10 for the last 35. VERDICT: An excellent film, with touches of the old Spielberg brilliance. But what was the man thinking with the last half hour?
http://www.crowdsurfer.com/index.php3?id=20010702123008

Quantum dots to barcode DNA

A system for bar-coding DNA using brilliant crystals called quantum dots could revolutionise our ability to identify genes in the human genome. But some say the best uses of these crystals are yet to come.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999953