Green: It’s the LAW!

Yes, it is now the law to go green in Hawaii. All new single family homes in Hawaii must include solar hot water heaters.

Though not without dissent.

But you can read about the law and the dissenters in this article.

But before you rush off, be sure to check out the comments. They include government plans for making your own hot water heater, and other interesting info.

GPS & Linux

OK, techies, what do GPS and Linux have in common?

….
…

(waiting…)

…

Give up?

How about Garmin’s source code for their GPS units?

Intrigued?

What if I told you that the source code is now available for all really techie geeks?

Check out this article!

Top Windows maintenance tools

Most of us use Windows, and, despite all the benefits it brings us, it also brings us grief. Which means that from time to time we need some help in making it work right.

Enter this article on the top 5 Windows maintenance tools.

Groups sue for tracking by cell phone

It seems that using cell phone data to track people raises legal concerns in a number of circles. Though this does not directly tie back to my blog of tracking population movement in traffic, going to parties, etc., which is concerned with aggregate data as opposed to tracking individual people, one has to wonder what similarities there may be between the two situations and whether others may seek legal recourse to being included in mapping of this type.

But, on to the story in the Washington Post for the specifics of the legal situation.

The next financial bubble?

The housing bubble bursting has caused an incredible amount of pain and anguish throughout the country. The setup was due, we are reading in the papers, to incredibly greedy mortgage people.

What’s next? What is the next bubble? Who is being incredibly greedy? Not - bankers?! What’s your credit card interest rate?

Check out this article in the Los Angeles CityBeat.

Secrets of the NSA

Not that it will get me in any trouble since this is public knowledge, having been published in Popular Mechanics, of all places. But it’s geeky stuff anyway, so we’ll give you a bit more, and then a link.

NSA has hackers. These hackers are what many aspire to: the best of the best of the best, SIR! (To shamelessly copy from MIB.) These guys are on Red Teams: the Seals of the internet; the Delta Force of cyberspace; the Fraternity of the ether. (Angelina Jolie played in Hackers, and again in Fraternity. Maybe she’s on a Red Team? Probably, and it was documented in Mr. and Mrs. Smith!) And they were recently offered up for interview when Popular Mechanics asked. Nicely, of course! And you can read about it here.

Population movements

I really don’t know how to classify this one, but here are several possibilities:

• Invasive
• Loss of personal privacy
• Big Brother comes to the party
• Big Brother tells everyone where the party is
• Avoiding the crush
• Avoiding traffic backups
• Finding the party

And the list goes on.

Basically what is happening is that signals from cell phones and GPSs are processed (a little magic there) and their locations mapped. Large concentrations of signals show where there is traffic congestion, a party, or some other event.

For a demo, visit CitySense, though you will need a Blackberry (or, soon, an iPhone) to actually be able to use the results.

For details, visit Columbia University’s news site.

Tips on sleeping

Not napping this time, but tips on getting a better night’s sleep.

Mac-arcania: Overclocking

I’m aware of overclocking PCs, but have not heard about overclocking Macs. I don’t know whether that’s because Mac users are not as techie, hands on, let me look under the hood types as much as PC users, or whether the installed base of PCs is so big that the “shade tree mechanic” population in the PC world is large enough for there to be a critical mass that we can all hear them, where the Mac mechanics are a small group of elite who are known only to themselves.

Maybe it’s because Macs don’t lend themselves to being played with, or maybe the perception is that Macs have everything you need, so why bother playing with it: If the Steves wanted you to have it they would have told you you needed it and have given it to you.

Maybe the Intel platform invites more playing, so now people are trying more with the Mac

Whatever the case may be, here is an article on overclocking your Mac.

Life changing books

A while back we wrote about the most influential books of all time. It is one of the most popular blogs we’ve done.

Today is a companion piece on readers nominations and votes on the books that have had the most impact on their lives - life changing books.

What do you think of the list? Are there any that should be on the list? Any that should be taken off? (Well, the answer to that is NO - it affected someone’s life so it stays!)