Jason Hong's Confabulations

See where movie stars are in Manhattan in near-realtime based on reports by people. A weird (and somewhat scary) form of a smart mob. http://www.gawker.com/stalker/

I made this prognostication a few years ago, and it just keeps coming true. Now, you can run not just Doom, but Doom II and Halflife on a video ipod. YouTube Link Reminds me of Zawinski's law : "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can."

At the latest HotMobile: Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications , IBM researcher John Barton poses an interesting question: Why can we connect to Amazon so much faster than the computer across the room? Also reminds me of Bruce Sterling's question: why can I easily pull up pictures of the moon, but can't see what's inside my walls?

Wired Magazine's web site has an article about people using Craigslist to find things that they've lost. It would be really compelling if we could actually figure out the stats for how effective something like this is. In an increasingly cynical world, there are still places where people try to do the right thing. Everyday on Internet message boards, honest folks post notes about valuables they found: cash, bank cards, diamond bracelets, engagement rings, wedding bands, digital cameras, and even a cockatoo valued at $1,200. In turn, when there is no place left to look for something missing, the desperate sometimes take the longest of longshots and look online themselves. Occasionally, it works for both sides. People such as Silliman get back their iPod, still loaded with Radio Head and Broken Social Scene. Link