Author: billthomuk

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Landing on Mars

Phoenix Lander

From NASA:

NASA’s Mars Phoenix Lander can be seen parachuting down to Mars, in this image captured by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is the first time that a spacecraft has imaged the final descent of another spacecraft onto a planetary body.

One of the most beautiful, compelling and hopeful images I have ever seen – up there with the Apollo earthrise photographs. We can do this, we can send a robot millions of miles and then take a picture of it using another robot we sent a while back.

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Are we all law-breakers?

[As ever, you can read this on the BBC News website]

It has always been difficult to stay completely on the right side of the law, however law-abiding one tries to be.

I try to check the copyright status of every picture I use in my presentations, but may sometimes slip up.  Copying CDs I own to my iPod may – or may not be – illegal, and copying DVDs I own certainly is.  And like all drivers I sometimes see the speedometer creep up above the speed limit when I’m not paying attention to it on a quiet motorway.

But now it seems I could face prosecution for the wide range of user accounts I’ve created on MySpace, Facebook, Googlemail, Flickr and Bebo to support the various projects I’m involved with. The ‘Norfolk and Norwich Festival’, ‘Tyneside 100’ and ‘Wysing Arts Centre’ identities I have lovingly crafted may well fall foul of a US decision that breaking the terms and conditions of a social network site can count as unauthorised access, turning what would seem to be at most a civil offence into a criminal act under computer misuse laws.

Continue reading “Are we all law-breakers?”

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I saw this…

Here’s what I’ve tagged on del.icio.us on %date%:

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My del.icio.us bookmarks for May 19th through May 20th

Here’s what I tagged on del.icio.us between May 19th and May 20th:

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Steven Spielberg interviewed on Seesmic


Steven Spielberg interviewed on Seesmic

Originally uploaded by BillT.

Gia and Sizemore are in Cannes interviewing cast and crew of Indiana Jones on Seesmic and posting to the timeline as live as they can – George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett and the man. It’s a fascinating experiment in community interaction, with a lot of Twitter action supporting the Seesmic stuff… and it feels real.

http://seesmic.com/harrison

http://seesmic.com/steven

http://seesmic.com/shia

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Do we need two Internets?

[As ever, this is also on the BBC News website]

Jonathan Zittrain’s recent book, The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It, has spurred a lot of discussion both online and offline, with blog posts lauding his insights or criticising his over-apocalyptic imagination.

The book itself makes fascinating reading for those who have watched the network grow from its roots in the research community into today’s global channel for communications, commerce and cultural expression.

And the distinction that Zittrain makes between computers and devices that are open for hacking, exploration and creative use and those which are locked down and limited is one that we can clearly see.

An iPhone and an Asus Eee PC are very different objects, and I can’t imagine anyone scrawling ‘this machine kills fascists’ on their iPhone in homage to Woody Guthrie, while my son has just done this to his Asus.

Continue reading “Do we need two Internets?”