Insect Brutality?

You would think that the age of discrimination was at an end. Unfortunately, this video obviously proves that wrong. This video is disgusting, vile, and offensive to insect lovers everywhere.

Just kidding. Actually the video below is of a mosquito getting show down by the laser. Yes, a frickin' laser. Apparently one of the devices shown off at the 2010 TED Conference where awesome TED Talks happen is a laser that can track and shoot down mosquitos with the hopes of keeping mosquito populations under control to reduce the number of deaths due to malaria. That's awesome. But really, if this was a video of a cute little dog getting shot down by a laser everyone would be freaking out. Just putting that out there.



Via Gizmodo

EDIT: Some more on the mosquito hunting laser

P.S. Also, since Malcolm Gladwell's TED Talk (linked above) is just so cool, I'm just gonna embed it down here too for your viewing pleasure.

Uh-oh, Big Doo-Doo

So Google paid Twitter for the ability to search through tweets. In return Microsoft paid Twitter and Facebook for access to search through their content. Why's this post entitled uh-oh, big doo-doo? Because, if you follow the logic of this post from Gizmodo, if Facebook and Twitter are asking for money to search their content, why shouldn't everyone else? This would include newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post, and I'm sure others as well in the future.

Are we going to have to search with ten different engines depending on what we're looking for in the future? Who knows.

Loved this Article

http://gizmodo.com/5403322/racing-on-carbon-fiber-legs-how-abled-should-we-be

It's part of a series Gizmodo ran called "This Cyborg Life," a series which explored enhancements to the human body. The author, Aimee Mullins, was amputated below the knee before she was a year old. Despite a doctor saying she'd never walk, at the age of 19 she set world records in the 100-meter dash and long jump.

I loved her commentary on being "disabled" and how people view athletes who have undergone various "enhancements," and what actually is an "enhancement."

Hopefully you'll enjoy her essay as much as I did. The Aimee wrote two other articles for the series, which I enjoyed as well, that can be found here:

http://gizmodo.com/5404227/normal-was-never-cool-inception-of-perception

http://gizmodo.com/5401408/is-choosing-a-prosthesis-so-different-than-picking-a-pair-of-glasses

The Broadband Gap between us and other countries

These posts have been sitting in my inbox for a while and I've been planning to summary what the four of them say, but it's been a while since I've read them and now I've just gotten lazy so I'll just post them up. If you're interested in the internet and the speeds your ISPs offer the articles might be worth taking a look. The two that I enjoyed the most were about the difference in cost between US broadband and other develop nations', which are the first two links.

World's Fastest Broadband at $20 per Home

The Broadband Gap: Why is Theirs Cheaper?

The Broadband Gap: Why is Theirs Faster?

The Broadband Gap: Why do They have more Fiber?

Man, it's a jungle out there

You know, I knew tech companies competed heavily for market share, but I guess I never thought that their moves were so strategic as shown by these two articles. I wonder, if Google is facing such heavy bombardment from Microsoft and Google, how can afford to keep their motto "Don't Be Evil"? Will they break down and start business practices that internet users may disapprove of heavily? I guess they might've already started that with their behavioral targeting campaign (Wired article).

Oh, by the way, I didn't realize Zuckerberg was such a douche (Wired article again).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/opinion/13cringely.html

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-07/ff_facebookwall?currentPage=all

Firefox, I just dumped your ass

You were too slow, and took forever to start up. Safari's so much quicker. May your later revisions be faster.