It looks so cute!

from Wikipedia

Lift-off for military spaceplane
[Via BBC News | Science/Nature]

The X-37B, which has been likened to a scaled-down space shuttle, blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 0052 BST (1952 EDT).

The military vehicle is unpiloted and will carry out the first autonomous re-entry and landing in the history of the US space programme.

The spacecraft can return experiments to Earth for inspection and analysis

[More]

It looks like some smaller cousin of the shuttle. While no one really is talking about what it can do, the idea that it essentially can become a maneuverable satellite, moving to higher r lower orbit as needed and perhaps returning when it needs new equipment, is a fascinating idea.

It will be interesting to see what this unmanned ship is capable of.

Centenarian with an iPad

99 year old lady uses an iPad, calls it “addicting” [Video]
[Via Edible Apple]

When you get to be the ripe old age of 99, are you a woman, or a lady? Hmmm, we’ll go with lady. Regardless, this video of 99 year old Virginia Campbell using her first computer, an iPad no less, is pretty neat. She’s reportedly read 2 books on the device thus far while writing 12 limericks as well.

But what makes the story so compelling is that Virginia is battling glaucoma, a condition which has hampered her ability to read and write, two of her favorite pastimes.

That said, one of Virginia’s limericks was a tribute to the iPad, the “addicting” device that has helped her get back to doing some of the things she loves.

To this technical-ninny it’s clear
In my compromised 100th year,
That to read and to write
Are again within sight
Of this Apple iPad pioneer

Pretty incredible, and if it brings a smile to your face, just imagine how what the folks who worked on the device over at Apple must be feeling when they see something like this.

Fox12 Oregon picked up the story as well. Check out the clip below.

via iPad watcher

[More]

Pretty amazing to think what this woman has seen in her life. This, however, was pretty neat.

She first was hovered over by the other ladies who were all trying to show her how to use it. But what was just amazing to watch was what she did with it when people left her alone. She asked questions that she answered herself. etc.

We had a earlier video about a young child getting the idea of the iPad. Here we have someone at the opposite end of her life, getting to work with her first computer, and taking to it right away. “Now I can read again.”

This is how revolutions are started.

Recreating music of the 70s, with the proper computer generated sound

Pink Floyd as chiptunes
[Via Boing Boing]

“Have you ever wondered what Dark Side of the Moon would sound like if Pink Floyd had written it for NES, instead of for a rock band?” Vidgame programmer and musician Brad Smith did, so he created a chiptune version of the entire album. MOON8

[More]

For those of us who remember the early 70s and who played 8-bit games, this is amazing. I’m not sure how long these may stay up, what with all the copyright takedowns recently, but is genius to recreate Pink Floyd in this way.

I wonder what other 70s progressive tunes would be amenable – Yes – South Side of the Sky, Siberian Khatru, or Perpetual Change; Jethro Tull – Thick As A Brick, Cross-eyed Mary; ELP – Karn Evil 9; Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, The Return of the Giant Hogweed; The Moody Blues – Tuesday Afternoon, The Story in Your Eyes; Procul Haram – Whiter Shade of Pale; Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen; Rush – Working Man; Supertramp – Dreamer; Uriah Heep – Easy Livin’

Big day for Apple

Apple’s $242 billion market cap surpasses Microsoft
[Via AppleInsider]

Apple’s market cap hit $242 billion Thursday, making it the second-largest company on the S&P 500 and pushing it ahead of Microsoft, which finished the day with a $239 billion market cap.

[More]

Who would have predicted this 10 years ago? Certainly not MS. About 10 years ago, Bill Gates said that Jobs could not win.

Yet the market place made the final decision and, at least for now, Apple has won. Let’s look at the stock prices since 1998.

A little hard to see but the blue line is Apple and the red is Microsoft. Here is a zoom of the right side of the graph:

Now, MS looks really bad compared to Apple but it doubled in price in 12 years, giving it an annualized return of about 6% (using the rule of 72). Not bad through the worst economy in a generation.

Apple, on the other hand, went up almost 8000% or 80-fold. This represents 6.32 doublings (okay, I used my Mac calculator. Sue me). So 6.32 doublings in 12 years is 0.52 doublings a year or 1.9 years per doubling. The rule of 72 would give us an annual percentage return of about 38%!!

This fits with the rates shown in the table at Wikipedia. However, the table also shows that the rule of 72 overestimates the actual interest rate when doublings are low and becomes more inaccurate as doubling times become more rapid. The table actual suggests that the rule of 69.3 is a better estimate.

So 69.3 divided by 12 yields a rate of about 5.8%. Still not too bad. And Apple’s becomes almost 37%. Annually. Wow.

Apple’s price surely can not keep on this trend. To double again by 2012? Reach over $500? Well, I might not bet against that, as long as Steve continues be a winner.

The amazingness of the world today

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

In 1860, Abraham Lincoln, in the heat of a Presidential campaign, before he was even a nominee for his party, spoke at Cooper Union, producing one of the greatest speeches in American History. It perhaps sealed him as the Presidential candidate. It dealt with the question of slavery.

But he gave it in front of a room of fellow partisans, of Young Republicans who were aching for a fight. And he gave them one. However, only those who could fit in the room actually heard him talk.

Today, President Obama returned to Cooper Union to give a speech that will likely not be seen as one of the greatest in history. Financial reform does not have the historical cachet as slavery. But he was also not in front of a ‘friendly crowd’.

The really big difference, the one that demonstrates how amazing our Age is, does not strictly arise from the President’s words. It comes from the way they are delivered to those interested in watching – through the Internet.

There were a ton of live feeds of the speech. C-Span, USAToday, almost every cable news program, and many others.

Even 10 years ago, you might only have been able to see the speech live if you were sitting in front of a TV and the channel made a decision to show it. If not, you were screwed.

Today, you can sit anywhere with a computer and actively seek those places that have a live feed. I found USAToday. You can carry on realtime conversations with your friends who are all watching the same thing.

Tomorrow it could be at the beach with an iPad or similar.

For me, the truly fun part and something few of us would have been able to do even 5 years ago, was to simultaneously follow what was written beforehand and what he actually chose to say. This is because the Internet also provided the speech as prepared for delivery.

It is very interesting to follow what the teleprompter is most likely displaying and what someone chooses to actually say. When you do so with President Obama, you find that the prepared speech is often more a set of guidelines than a rote presentation.

He changes words, he modifies sentences, sometimes he actually talks himself into a semantic corner, only to escape with a novel turn of phrase.

As an example, he replaced balance with kilter in this sentence:

There has always been a tension between the desire to allow markets to function without interference – and the absolute necessity of rules to prevent markets from falling out of balance.

Kilter evokes a much different sense than balance. One that I happen to like. But one he certainly seemed to add on the fly, as he did with so many of his changes.

Anyway, being able to watch the speech from the comfort of my work computer, where I can listen and do other things, or follow along when he gets to an interesting part, is truly an amazement of our times. Directly hearing someone’s words rather than having to f hear them filtered through someone else is incredible.

[Updated] My favorite new conspiracy theory starring Verizon, Microsoft and McAfee

by State Records NSW

The Microsoft Tax: McAfee correctly identifies Windows as malware; Macintosh unaffected
[Via MacDailyNews]

Computers in companies, hospitals and schools around the world got stuck repeatedly rebooting themselves Wednesday after [a McAfee] antivirus program identified a normal Windows file as a virus,” Peter Svensson reports for The Associated Press.

“About a third of the hospitals in Rhode Island were forced to stop treating patients without traumas in emergency rooms,” Svensson reports.

[More]

I wonder if this had anything to do with Verizon’s email servers being down nationwide yesterday. A third of the Windows computers at the University of Michigan’s medical school were down. Same with hospitals in Rhode Island. Police computers were off line.

All because the anti-virus software saw parts of Windows as malware. So it bricked the computer. Or at least that is what some people are saying.

And the fix is something that really only a tech-savvy person could easily do.

Wouldn’t it be awe-inspiring if Verizon has some Windows machines sitting in mission critical locations in the email server network. The McAfee software identifies Windows as malware and reboots. Thus starting a chain reaction as the Windows machines continually reboot, resulting in the servers themselves going down.

Not only could it take some time to identify the problem but also a lot of time applying the fix. Thus why it took 4-5 hours to resolve the problems.

I know this is unlikely.

But then I read that Intel was hit also and I started to wonder if my improbable might be possible. It would certainly explain why the Verizon email network seems to keep having such problems with outages. The ultimate irony would be that our Internet could possibly be brought down not through cyber terrorism but a stupid software glitch.

I can think “If only they had Macs.”

[UPDATE] Someone pointed out that Verizon has a deal with Mcafee to provide virus security for its users. So there actually is a connection there. And this Engadget article indicates that McAfee put the boner update on their commercial servers at 6 am PST. My last email before the outage was at 7:13 am PST. Coincidence?

The great thing about good conspiracy theories is that even random things can be made to sound ominous. I wonder if ATT uses Mcafee and Windows?