Rumor: Apple to Buy Palm?

[I love and still use my newtons and emates. ]

Rumors are running rampant lately and today we hear that Apple may be evaluating a Palm purchase. This rumor comes about after two of Palms biggest investors are calling for the company to be sold.

There are a few connections that link Palm and Apple—some more concrete than others. They are located close to each other, some of the early Palm employees are previous Apple employees and Jobs has already taken a stab at buying the company back in the 90s. Treo Newton 800p nanoite? Let's hope it would be better than Motorola and Apple's phone offspring.

HOWTO write characters of different races, sexes, ages, etc

Cory Doctorow:
A book for writers tackles the tricky issue of writing characters of other racial backgrounds, sex, or sexual orientation.

Last month, I blogged about Pam Noles's wonderful essay about the difficulty of being a black sf writer in a largely white field, and about white writers' reluctance to attempt to portray people of color.

Tamu Townsend sends in information about this small-press book from two talented writers who tackle the subject head on with practical advice for writers who want to write "the other" and get it right.

Writing the Other: A Practical Approach by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward is now available from Aqueduct Press for $9 a copy. Based on the acclaimed "Writing the Other" workshop, this book includes essays and exercises that help authors create believable characters with diverse backgrounds. Race, religion, and age are among the differences covered in the book's hands-on approach.

Nationally, the workshop has drawn praise from established professional writers such as Suzy McKee Charnas and Mary Freeman Rosenblum, as well as talented beginners such as David D. Levine. To read their comments, please visit the workshop's website.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/07/howto_write_characte.html

Difference Engine mechanical computer made from legos

From the insane wow department

Cory Doctorow:



An enterprising hacker has created a working "difference engine" -- a mechanical calculator first attempted in 19th Century by Charles Babbage -- out of legos. The difference engine was immortalized in the William Gibson/Bruce Sterling collaboration of the same name, and it's a perpetual source of hacker fascination (Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter, financed the project and invented the idea of software for it because she was interested in handicapping horse races). Though Babbage was never able to get his design working, London's science museum did build a Babbage Engine that worked, thanks to the greater precision of twentieth-century machining techniques.

Andy Carol is a Lego builder who created a working Difference Engine in legos, though his machine "only" solves second- and third-order polynomials to three or four digits. The site contains fascinating detail about the workings of Difference Engines and Carol's implementation thereof.

Link

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/07/difference_engine_me.html