In a world of technology openness is often treated as an imperative, something that has to be preserved or promoted as something inherently good. I’ve been a long time believer in this idea myself, but as I watch the evolution of technology I’m beginning to question its value and underpinnings. What exactly is it that makes openness worthy of a pedestal it’s often being put on? I see two main reasons commonly being put forth: 1. The moral argument assumes a moral imperative to openness, or more precisely to the Read More

Anyone who has ever looked for alternatives to Microsoft Office probably knows about OpenOffice.org, a full featured competitor that is completely free. It started out as a proprietary StarOffice suite developed by a German StarDivision company until it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2000 which opened up the code to community oriented development that resulted in many improvements and two new major releases (OpenOffice.org 2 and 3). Last year Sun Microsystems, and by that the OpenOffice.org project as well, was acquired by Oracle causing many to wonder what they Read More

In my previous article I pointed out how technology could take over all jobs which involve reproduction of what was already invented, all tasks that follow a particular predictable and programmable process, eventually leaving humans only job of discovering or creating new things to improve existing systems, invent new ones and conquer new challenges. This basically makes all manual labor obsolete. The process is indeed well under way, and pretty significant parts of human economy already depend entirely on machines and information technology (programs) that run them. The more this Read More

Cloud computing refers to a computing paradigm which involves a "thin client" and a "cloud" whereas a thin client acts merely as an access point to content and applications within the "cloud" representing numerous Internet servers. In a perfect cloud computing set up you have a laptop or a netbook with an operating system containing just the software needed to get you online and run applications and content from the web. We're rapidly approaching the point at which one could live his or her digital life completely online, having no Read More

Language is something we take for granted, but when I start thinking about it it's a challenge just getting to define it, not to mention the very definition of language depends on language and the intricate relationship it has with our thinking and perception of reality. Language is actually a very dangerous tool. It is literally the programming language of over 6.5 billion computers on Earth we call "Brain". There are people who think without language and people who think in language (in words) like me, but both of these Read More

OpenDNS, which says to be the largest global DNS service for consumers, schools and businesses, recently released a report on content filtering on the web including top ten blacklisted and top ten white listed web sites. The data they released can be all kinds of curious, so we’ve decided to create a simple infographic to help you visualize it. As can be seen the blacklist is dominated by popular social networking sites, advertising networks (mostly because of spyware cookie concerns), and porn sites. This comes as no big surprise since Read More