Month: May 2007

This weblog post has a really fun table contrasting current cyberattack techniques to those in classic cyberpunk stories, particularly Gibson’s stories. [via Boing Boing] The comments are also worth reading – it’s interesting to think about whether the difference indicate that we haven’t come as far as Gibson predicted, or whether they reflect dated presumptions about how technology of the future would work on Gibson’s part. The observations about the types of systems being attacked (focusing on the recent denial-of-service attack against Estonia) are particularly interesting, I think: Cyberpunk stories: Cyber-attack targets were fancy-pants specialized computer installations accessible to few, … Continue reading Fantasy, not Sci-Fi

I’d love to see additional details on how schools collected their data to conclude that giving students their own laptop does not improve learning. [via Arts & Letters Daily] There are many examples cited of the laptops being a distraction or being used for frivolous or illicit purposes. This isn’t at all shocking, and if laptops were otherwise improving learning this could likely be addressed through technological and disciplinary means. I’ve talked to someone at a small school that gives every student a laptop, and there are routine checks into the content on the laptop (no games or IM clients … Continue reading Tech for tech’s sake