Source: e! Science News.

Posted by email from Alex Kaminski’s posterous

Unfortunately, this is an undocumented feature (and as far as I know a "private" one). That means that Apple gave preferential treatment to Google and gave them access to a private method that is not available to other iPhone developers. Giving special treatment to big companies is not the way to treat its developers. After all, the iPhone is such a success in no small part to the App Store and all the hard work of the iPhone developers.

Posted by email from Alex Kaminski’s posterous

He once stated that Israel could defend itself without the Golan Heights, which outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has proposed giving to Syria. Ya'alon told Yaron Dekel, host of the It's All Talk Show on Voice of Israel government radio, "I was a believer in land for peace, but I have learned the past 15 years… it deteriorates our security."

Ya'alon was Chief of Staff during the government of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who made the unprecedented move of not extending his term of office because of Ya'alon's doubts about the plan to destroy all Jewish presence in the Gaza region and withdraw all IDF troops.

He said that the expulsion and the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, now Defense Minister, left Israel with Kassam and Grad attacks on the south and the Second Lebanon War in the north.

Ya'alon, who lives on a Kibbutz, explained that the values he grew up with no longer are represented in political parties he once identified with.

Referring to Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion, Ya'alon said that if he were alive today, he "would not choose Labor, Meretz or Kadima."

The new Likud member admitted that the decision to move into politics was not easy. "My heart said 'no' and my head said 'yes", he told reporters Tuesday. "The head won."

He explained Wednesday morning that he and his family will pay a heavy price for his entering politics, a path that is strewn with booby traps for the values he holds. "We need leadership in the face of the security, education and economic crises," he explained.

Asked if he wants to be Prime Minister, Ya'alon replied, "It is not an obsession. I did not even want to be an Army officer. I know people who wanted to be Prime Minister from the day they were born, but I am not one of them."

Source Haaretz.

Posted by email from Alex Kaminski’s posterous

I wonder if this breaks any of Apple's terms of service. I can't imagine they would permit this type of app once they were aware of it. Does anyone have any experince with it?

Posted by email from Alex Kaminski’s posterous

Andy calculates that a developer who wants to make a living off an
iPhone app (at $40k/year) must sell 196 apps per day to do that. He
also calculates that at $9.99 per app, you'd need to sell 16 apps per
day to do that.

Now instead of analyzing how much money we (app developers) can make off these apps. Let's just go ahead and make some great apps and focus on the money later.

Posted by email from Alex Kaminski’s posterous

The Founders of Singularity University (Source)

Science and technology has advanced tremendously in the last 30 years. But, is humanity ready for these new advances? Is our technology developing faster than our society? How is this going to affect us? Are we making the right choices?

On September 20, 2008 a group of the world’s smartest individuals in both science and technology met together in a conference room at NASA’s Ames Research Center. This was the first meeting of the Singularity University, whose missions is to: “to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies (bio, nano, info, etc); and to apply, focus and guide these to the best benefit of humanity and its environment.”

Dr. Dharmendra S. Modha of IBM’s Cognitive Computing Group made a post about this meeting, but it was shortly taken down (per a request by the Singularity University). A copy of that post is reprinted below:

Founding Meeting for Singularity University
via Dharmendra S Modha’s Cognitive Computing Blog von dsmodha am 21.09.08

On September 20, 2008, I was invited by Ray Kurzweil (Co-founder, Kurzweil Technologies),
Peter Diamandis (Chairman/CEO X PRIZE Foundation), and Dr. Pete Worden (Director, NASA
Ames Research Center) to attend a discussion on possible creation of Singularity University
at NASA Ames.

The meeting was beautifully organized and run. Ray Kurzweil made an amazing presentation.
I also made a presentation on Cognitive Computing. Larry Page said that he evaluates projects
on a simple binary metric: “whether, if successful, it can change the world?” Bob Richards
said that in any educational endeavor “peole are the product”.

I had a chance to meet and discuss with Larry Page (Founder, Google), Nobelist George Smoot
(Lawrence Berkeley National Lab), Larry Smarr (Founding Director of the California Institute
for Telecommunications and Information Technology at UCSD), Tim Draper (VC, Draper Fisher
Jurvetson), Stephanie Langhoff (Chief Scientist, NASA Ames), Ralph Merkle (Institute for
Molecular Manufacturing), Michael Simpson (President, International Space University), Bob
Richards (Founder & CEO, Odyssey Moon), Moses Znaimer (ideaCity), Ramez Naam (Microsoft),
and many other distinguished people in different spheres of science, technology, business,
art, and media.

All in all, a weekend day well spent in company of brilliant and sincere people trying to
make a positive impact on the world! As an added bonus, I ran into an old high school friend,
Deep Nishar (Director of Wireless Products at Google).

It will be interesting to see what effect (if any) this institution has. But, the fact that we are at a point where the smartest individuals in science and technology feel we need this type of organization says something.

First reported by Nick Carr.

1. But then the Reverend Wright scandal happened. I almost fully lost faith in him. It’s hard to fathom someone being an active part of a church where the reverend utters such hate (even if it’s once every few years). The point was that Reverend Wright has a specific mindset (regardless of how often his actual sermons were anti-America) and Obama made the choice to associate himself and be friends with this individual for 20 years.

2. Israel is our greatest Ally in the world. Period. I believe that Americans hold more values (freedom, fairness, peace) in common with Israelis than any other nationality. I think we have the obligation and the privilege of supporting Israel fully in any regard. Obama claims to support Israel, but every time he is asked if he would provide military support he gives a general (although very eloquent) answer. Whereas it is clear that McCain would support Israel (his voting history shows it).

3. Obama is the perfect politician. He out-maneuvers Karl Rove and career politicians. He is smarted, more educated, and more ambitious than most of his colleagues in the Congress. This is a powerful combination and something I want in a President. However, I had the fear that he is too perfect, that he plays the game too well. The fear here is that he would be able to accomplish anything he wanted once he got into office. And because of his short career, it was not clear exactly what he would want to accomplish (I’m looking at his actions and not speeches).

For these three reasons, I was unsure who I would vote for. But then McCain choose Palin as his VP-pick. This showed an unprecedented lack of judgment and made me rethink my view of McCain.

1. McCain is old. There is no question about it, and this is a very important issue. This is a critical time in our nation: We are fighting two wars while losing political capital and allies around the world. Our economy is starting to fail. Our kids education in science and engineering is far behind other countries. And countries such as India and China are even catching up with us in space exploration. A president needs two terms to fully accomplish his or her objectives and create global stability, especially in the current state.

2. McCain is the past. We are in the 21st century. The internet and computers have revolutionized the way we live and learn. A DNS attack on our military’s network can be just as successful as a nuclear strike on every underground military command post. McCain does know how to use a computer, nor do I think he fully understands the impact technology has.

3. God forbid Palin becomes president. Her views on evolution and intelligent design scare me. Compared to other nations we are already behind in science, we don’t need to get behind further by teaching creationism. We need our kids to learn science first and religion second. If most countries dislike Americans, what will happened when (with McCain’s age it’s not an if, but a when) she is president? How will they react to her folksy demeanor? (besides for Pakistan, of course)

We need a president that will lead us in the 21st century. We need to regain our global standing and respect in the world. We need to stop focusing on social issues such as gay rights and healthcare and focus on education and science. The future is not in gay marriage (which I support) and intelligent design but in stem cell research and space exploration.

We live in the greatest nation in the world. We have more resources than most nations. Most of our companies’ revenues are greater than the GDP of other countries. We need to look at the future and leap ahead. The rest of the world can catch up at their pace, we don’t need to wait for them. We need to invest heavily in science, technology, medicine, and space exploration while focusing on our economy. As a country we need to stop wasting time deciding what social issues are more important and focus on advancing the human race. If we can’t (or won’t) do it, nobody can (or will).

Based on these points, I believe that Obama is the right choice for the next president of the United States. I truly hope he wins and that it will be a game-changer, just as he claims.

Below is a list of web apps that were developed during this weekend. Take a look, some of them are quite interesting.

http://rio.r08.railsrumble.com
http://myideadrawer.r08.railsrumble.com
http://gtd.r08.railsrumble.com
http://www.playubetcha.com
http://sellyourattention.r08.railsrumble.com
http://storyseed.r08.railsrumble.com
http://justafinlist.r08.railsrumble.com/
http://osc.r08.railsrumble.com
http://citenow.r08.railsrumble.com
http://app.r08.railsrumble.com
http://run1mile.com
http://storyseed.r08.railsrumble.com
http://gitnation.r08.railsrumble.com
http://goodbad.me
http://inspiresme.r08.railsrumble.com
http://intridea.r08.railsrumble.com
http://meetinbetween.us
http://ff.r08.railsrumble.com
http://railsrumble.twippet.com
http://stickyboard.r08.railsrumble.com
http://flockup.com
http://quickbeam.r08.railsrumble.com
http://iheartgames.r08.railsrumble.com
http://couldya.r08.railsrumble.com
http://redminutes.com
http://www.loveloathe.com
http://moodbird.r08.railsrumble.com
http://pug.r08.railsrumble.com
http://qflip.r08.railsrumble.com
http://chkitoot.r08.railsrumble.com
http://beercamp.r08.railsrumble.com
http://mixtapeattack.r08.railsrumble.com
http://pricepounce.r08.railsrumble.com
http://revealthebias.r08.railsrumble.com
http://foreverhome.r08.railsrumble.com
http://agiletasks.r08.railsrumble.com
http://sheepfit.r08.railsrumble.com
http://liveresto.r08.railsrumble.com
http://foodistic.com
http://likis.r08.railsrumble.com
http://pranziamo.r08.railsrumble.com
http://wurbe.r08.railsrumble.com
http://lyricistapp.com
http://chores.r08.railsrumble.com
http://notiflyapp.com
http://nuttyswede.r08.railsrumble.com
http://wantnom.com
http://ursafetynet.r08.railsrumble.com
http://maestro.r08.railsrumble.com
http://giwiki.r08.railsrumble.com
http://wheresthemilkat.r08.railsrumble.com
http://www.tunemuncher.com
http://ostraka.r08.railsrumble.com
http://mix4vids.r08.railsrumble.com
http://quotagious.r08.railsrumble.com
http://www.utopianistic.com
http://run.r08.railsrumble.com
http://rails66.r08.railsrumble.com

Source

What is interesting is that this presentation was made in 2006 before the whole Wall Street Crash and the huge government bailout package. It seems like at least one person saw it coming:

The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. As you can probably surmise, I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet.

And this next one certainly has me intrigued. From what I’ve seen and read, it seems that there is a fair chance that the U.S. economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future. It also would seem that we won’t be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the U.S. economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use. Reference

One of the main flaws in this comparison is Dmitry’s dismissal (or lack or recognition) of the will and motivation of Americans to succeed versus people from the Soviet Union. When people all earn the same amount of money and things such as transportation and housing are essentially free, they have no motivation to overcome an economic depression. Whereas Americans are highly motivated and most of the great advances/technology have come from necessity.

Here is the presentation: