Google Maps captures me capturing it

Who’s that weirdo in the bushes with the camera?


I saw the Google Maps car parked outside the Crabtree Blvd. Bank of America last week. It reminded me to check to see if Google Maps has been updated from the last trip the camera-equipped car drove through.

Remember last year when I spotted the Google Maps car as it drove through the neighborhood and I couldn’t wait to see the bald guy with the camera standing in the driveway? Well, here he is!

Light-Bot: A fun way to learn programming

Now that their school is out for the summer, I was looking for a simple yet fun way for the kids to learn programming. There are plenty of programming languages I could start them on but that seemed like it might seem like too much work.

Thanks to a blog post from Marshall Brain, though, I found this Adobe Flash game called Light-Bot. Players devise a series of commands to move Light-Bot across a grid and light up all the blue tiles on the grid. The number of commands the player can use is limited and there are two functions that the player can use to automate repetitive tasks. Using these tools, the player can have fun playing while at the same time learn a little about logic and programming.
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Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday

Looks like malware has been found to change a computer’s DNS settings. This could pose a problem for thousands of computer users when the FBI shuts down their “safety net” systems on Monday morning.

Folks in the US can go to this site to check whether their computer is infected or not. It takes just a seconds to test your PC. More info below from the AP.

WASHINGTON — The warnings about the Internet problem have been splashed across Facebook and Google. Internet service providers have sent notices, and the FBI set up a special website.

But tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service Monday unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago.

Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States.

Users whose computers are still infected Monday will lose their ability to go online, and they will have to call their service providers for help deleting the malware and reconnecting to the Internet.

via Malware may knock thousands off Internet on Monday :: WRAL.com.

The Downside of Liberty

Interesting.

THIS spring I was on a panel at the Woodstock Writers Festival. An audience member asked a question: Why had the revolution dreamed up in the late 1960s mostly been won on the social and cultural fronts — women’s rights, gay rights, black president, ecology, sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll — but lost in the economic realm, with old-school free-market ideas gaining traction all the time? What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late ’60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It’s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won.

via The Downside of Liberty – NYTimes.com.