Link: Important: Microsoft Vancouver

[Missed this last week in Europe] Microsoft is opening an R&D
shop here in Vancouver, and they’re doing it specifically because of immigration issues. News Flash: Most of the really smart people in the world aren’t Americans and don’t live in the U.S. But if you want to gather a bunch of them together to take on hard problems, you probably can’t do it in America because of US immigration law. Canada looks like a good alternative: if you’ve got an established business willing you to hire you for a technology job at a decent salary, you can get a temporary-worker visa here pretty well right away. (Furthermore, if you like it and don’t commit any major crimes, you can then arrange to stay and become a citizen.)

Link: Researcher: Optimal copyright term is 14 years

A Cambridge researcher says that, according to economic calculations, the ideal length of time for copyright protection is a mere 14 years.

Read More…

Link: Florida adopts California-style emissions rules

As usual, the commenters seem to have not read the article. It’s not just emissions for cars, but also trucks — and power plants. Also, the executive order requires that the state use more fuel-efficient vehicles and ethanol and biodiesel where they are locally available. That’s all pretty damned interesting, and makes a lot of sense.

So, how soon will Colorado, which pretends to be environmentally conscious to pacify the Boulderites, follow suit? Time to write a letter or three, I think.

Link: Colin Devroe: Syncing bliss with the iPhone

He’s using Spanning Sync, and is claiming bliss. Must look into this app. At $25/year or $65/lifetime, it’s a pretty good deal if it indeed functions as advertised…and if Google doesn’t make the same functionality available for free the Tuesday after you buy it, like they usually do. :)

Link: Intel Core 2 considered evil by Theo

Various developers are busy implementing workarounds for serious bugs in Intel’s Core 2 cpu.

These processors are buggy as hell, and some of these bugs don’t just cause development/debugging problems, but will *ASSUREDLY* be exploitable from userland code.

As is typical, BIOS vendors will be very late providing workarounds / fixes for these processors’ bugs. Some bugs are unfixable and cannot be worked around. Intel only provides detailed fixes to BIOS vendors and large operating system groups. Open Source operating systems are largely left in the cold.

Link: FBI Seeks To Restrict University Student Freedoms

“Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators.” — oh, and also several of those would seem to be indicators of your average student…

Link: AMA rethinks classifying video game addiction as mental disorder

The “issue needs more study” — gee, ya think?

Link: The Mechanized Future

Michael J. Ross and Dan Sisson write “In our increasingly mechanized world, we repeatedly hear promises that every new digital product, computerized service, or other form of technology, will make our lives easier — bestowing greater leisure, health, and happiness. Yet are any of those promises being fulfilled? Are we not instead becoming slaves to the very “conveniences” that we struggle to master? These weighty questions are addressed by Steve Talbott in his book Devices of the Soul: Battling for Our Selves in an Age of Machines.” Read below for the rest of Michael and Dan’s review.

Link: Anyway Tech Women

Goes with the recent DevChix article (which is linked in sentence #1 for easy reference)

Link: The LisaBar - or - Why Apple got it right. « Federkiel

I’m generally interested in UI issues. This one one seems pretty interesting, so I might even read it.