Joseph R. Jones

Your Tech Skills Have a Two Year Half-Life - Slashdot
Interesting-- I haven't heard it expressed this way before, but half-life is a tidy way to describe the declining value of out-dated tech skills and knowledge.

itwbennett writes "Eric Bloom, an IT leadership coach and former CIO, has answered that eternal question 'does working on old software hurt your professional marketability' with a somewhat surprising 'no.' But, Bloom adds, 'a techie's skill set from a … More...

IRIS 9000 voice control module for iPhone & Siri
Want. Need. Must have.

Simply place your iPhone into the Iris 9000 cradle and use the included micro remote to trigger Siri up to 50 feet away. Just tap the Iris 9000 remote button once, listen for the Siri chime, and speak your command.

About Tesla | Tesla Motors
My plans for tonight: going to a private party at the Tesla Motors factory, which will include driving some very fast cars on a test track. My plans for today: continue to try to focus on work instead of focusing on being excited about my plans for …  More...

TESLA MOTORS was founded in 2003 by a group of intrepid Silicon Valley engineers who set out to prove that electric vehicles could be awesome.

Microsoft Earnings Meet Forecasts; Revenue Beats
Fascinating that this would be the "bright spot" in Microsoft's earnings report: "The [online services] unit lost $494 million in the quarter, the lowest loss in the last seven quarters, slowing the flood of red ink that has cost Microsoft more than …  More...

Microsoft's earnings hit Wall Street's target and revenue beat, helped by strong sales of its Office applications package. Still, shares skidded.

DeLorean Goes Electric
Tempting. I bet Dan Rosenstein is seriously considering one.

"Back to the Future," the movie to most prominently feature John DeLorean’s gull-winged icon of 1980s cool, ends with the future version of the DeLorean time machine running on household garbage. Well, folks, the future is now, and the new DeLorean … More...

Really tired, caffeine having no effect... Need a nap.

Scientists Trace Heat Wave To Massive Star At Center Of Solar System
That's just crazy talk.

PASADENA, CA—Groundbreaking new findings announced Monday suggest the record-setting heat wave plaguing much of the United States may be due to radiation emitted from an enormous star located in the center of the solar system.

John Nack on Adobe : Adobe demos amazing deblurring tech (new video)
Once again, my employer must be engaged in the use of some sort of black magic. Incredible technology. j.mp/mOL6uV (via @jnack)

Now, here’s the thing: This is just a technology demo, not a pre-announced feature. It’s very exciting, but much hard work remains to be done. Check out details right from the researchers via the Photsohop.com team blog.

JRJs blogging postulate number 34: 30% of all blog posts are apologies for not having posted recently.

Not cool... just found out one of my systems was infected with a virus. What's even worse is that it was not detected by Microsoft's Security Essentials-- there was odd behavior on our network that I traced to a specific machine, and when Security Essentials didn't find anything I ran a Sophos A/V scan on it, and it found and quarantined the virus. Scary stuff... that machine has been disconnected from the network and shut down, and will be restored from an earlier backup and then scanned using Sophos before being re-connected. Paul Thurrott - Do I need to consider a new A/V solution?

While driving yesterday, Rachel Jones told me to turn left on Wright. This is why speech recognition technology will never be 100%.

Link via Guy Kawasaki
It's always amazed me that more companies don't follow Apple's path of eschewing market research-- the recognition that customers don't actually know what they want something revolutionary until you show it to them was one of …  More...

(Sat01) What I Learned From Steve Jobs Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. But few, if any, of these people have been inside the tent and experienced first hand what it was like to work with him. I don't want any … More...

I did wind up pre-ordering a new iPhone 4GS... if my current phones camera werent scratched up beyond usefulness I wouldnt have. On a positive note, it gave me an opportunity to switch to Verizon.

Was talking to a friend about startups… he wants to sell his idea to an entrepreneur or investor. I was trying to make clear to him that in startups, ideas are a dime a dozen, it's execution that matters. It seems to be difficult for people to grasp-- your business idea is worthless unless you have the wherewithall to make it happen in the real world.

xkcd: Eternal Flame
Nice, understated, and genuine.

President Obama on the Passing of Steve Jobs: "He changed the way each of us sees the world."
"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." --- Barak Obama

President Obama remembers one of "the greatest American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it."

Steve Jobs' death is a huge loss the entire industry-- his vision and even the reality distortion field will be missed. Now I'm off to go figure out how we can use this to blame Obama for losing even more Jobs. (Bad joke... too soon?)

Apple - Apple Events - Apple Special Event October 2011
Watching the video of this morning's announcements by apple. (I had a more important keynote to watch this morning at 10am.) :) The Siri stuff is looking pretty sweet-- I've played with the previous version, but having it integrated at the OS level …  More...

Watch the streaming video from today's special event.

Cloud-Powered Facial Recognition Is Terrifying
Carnegie Mellon's new mobile app demonstrates that matching a casual snapshot with a person's online identity can be accomplished in less than a minute. "researchers at Carnegie Mellon were able to not only match unidentified profile photos from a …  More...

By harnessing the vast wealth of publicly available cloud-based data, researchers are taking facial recognition technology to unprecedented levels

I decided to order a Kindle Touch-- since I already have multiple tablets, I figure the touch is a better fit for my needs. Can't wait for it to arrive!

Trying to decide what Kindle to buy. Touch or Fire? I'm leaning towards Touch since I want to be able to read in the hammock in the back yard or on the beach.

Can you watch this without flinching? - BBC Top Gear
Don't blink-- it happens so fast.

John Nack on Adobe : Tom Selleck’s moustache makes every movie better
Do not. Deny the power of the 'stache.

Feds: Full Tilt Poker a Giant 'Ponzi Scheme'
Sad.

Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that a popular online poker site already accused of money laundering and bank fraud operated essentially as a giant Ponzi scheme.

Link via Randall Munroe
Difficult to believe, but true. Time is weird.

Its been pointed out on various interesting-fact lists that Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landings than to the construction of the pyramids. Reading todays news, it occurred to me that 9/11 happened closer to the fall of the Soviet Union … More...

The movie "Contagion" was boring, and even the score was distracting. However, there was one pretty good line: "Blogging isnt journalism, its graffiti with punctuation."

Redesigned the front page of my site ( www.jrj.org ) to better emphasize various social networks, since I dont really post to the blog much anymore. Couple fun features: if youre using a modern browser (IE9, Chrome, Firefox 4, Safari 5, etc.) then the … More...

Sometimes, website defacements and hacker pranks are mildly amusing. This is not one of those times. Boo, hiss... very poor taste. Fortunately, Twitter acted quickly and suspended NBC News account for the time being, as well as the account of the … More...

Yeah, great... so NASA can use Photoshop to cover up the obvious hoax of the various moon landings. KIDDING! These are awesome-- by far the best photos weve seen to date. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/apollo-sites.html More...

If you show up 15 minutes late to a 30 minute job interview you should have a good excuse... otherwise, I have to assume your excuse is "I dont want this job."

Officially on vacation... heading to Vegas in the morning to celebrate my nieces 21st birthday, and to play a little poker and enjoy some Mr. Fancypants food.

The watershed milestone products in the computer industry are few. You may argue with this list, but I think it's pretty reasonable.* 1975 - MITS Altair “ the first ‘personal computer’ 1977 - Apple II “ the first modern personal … More...

Heres wishing Apples new CEO good luck-- those are some huge shoes to fill.

The new iOS release of @Evernote is a huge update to an already excellent tool. What a great tool.

Awesome time in San Francisco with Paul and his family-- did a boat tour around Alcatraz, Ghirardelli Square, 6 pounds of Dungeness Crab, and a few other sights. Exhausted and letgs and feet hurt, but worth it. The weather even cooperated!

I have no words to describe this. (OK, maybe http://paulthurrott.isdestroyingamerica.com )

Let me see if I have this straight: Al Gores old campaign manager is the front-runner for the Republican nomination? We live in Bizarro-world.

Was finally able to set up a G+ account-- had to associate it with my work email, since my personal account uses Google Apps. Looking forward to playing in this particular sandbox, as it is a much better fit to the way I want to use a social network … More...