Today Doc posts about retiring an old “1980-vintage Panafax PX-100 fax machine”.

However, I have a bigger request. When will we rid the planet of fax machines entirely? I mean, technically do they really have a purpose these days?

It seems that the workflow for faxing is ridiculously wasteful for most fax transmissions.

Basically, I print something just so I can fax it. Why waste the paper? When all I really need to do is email or “remote print” the document.

Quote pulled from a Slashdot thread about Engineering
Careers Short-Circuiting:”The computer pond is shrinking, but
that’s because it’s been overstocked for quite a while. The talented,
smart, crafty, dedicated fish will always be in demand, the ones who are
simply looking for a paycheck will be walking an unemployment line.”

I’m not sure if this MPEG Movie is a real XBox commercial, but either way it’s just plain bizarre.

UPDATE: Well, I guess this is old news, because the commerical was banned in the UK back in June.

Oh man! It would be such a coup to route all my telemarketing calls through MIT’s new AgoraPhone

Sigh … Thanks to R-Studio, I was able to recover a corrupted disk partition on my laptop. It didn’t hurt that I had a recent back up too.

From CNET: “Information technology professionals, once rewarded with fat salaries and enticing stock options, are having a tough time finding work, and a new study shows little relief ahead.”

Seems to conflict with this keynote speech at Comdex last week … sigh …

From CNET: “Using complex mathematical models, neural networks, historical patterns and an eye toward current events, Halla–with a dose of Vegas showmanship–predicted in a keynote speech at Comdex Fall 2002 on Tuesday that the tech industry will be at the apex of a wild growth swing on June 21, 2003, primarily driven by embedding radio and semiconductors into a wide variety of items.” … I’ll believe it when we’re there.

Interesting Slashdot thread about downloading the human mind … I can never remember my dreams, and I’ve always wanted to be able to download them so I can review them later — kind of like a Tivo for the mind!

Looks like Mitch Kapor is up to something again: “The software is being designed to securely handle personal e-mail, calendars, contacts and other such data in new ways, and to make it simple to collaborate and share information with others without having to run powerful, expensive server computers.” [more here]

Wow … IBM’s ‘Millipede’ Project: “Store the equivalent of 25 DVDs on a surface the size of a postage stamp”