Passions, geeks and beers will blend next week at Hopmonk Tavern, where O'Reilly Media is hosting the first-ever Ignite showcase in Sonoma County.

For those of you unfamiliar, Ignite is an event where people give a 5 minute presentation on basically whatever they're passionate about.

Presenters are required to use a power point presentation with 20 slides that automatically advance every 15 seconds (You get it: 15 seconds per slide X 20 slides = 5 minutes)

Two presenters have already been named: Bay Area musician Zoe Keating and O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly. No word yet on their presentation topics.

I plan to submit a presentation titled "How remote-controlled helicopters, etc. will save my job: An economic argument to rescue regional journalism."

Submit your proposal here. The deadline is Wednesday, June 3.

It all goes down Wednesday, June 10 at Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, with doors opening 6 p.m. (It's worth going just for the Dunkelweizen.)

Sara Wing, who is hosting the event and is VP of O'Reilly Radar, provides a bunch of good resources here, including how to give a good presentation.

Dale Dougherty is publisher of Make Magazine, a quarterly that is full of great do-it-yourself projects for geeks and non-geeks alike. He also produces the annual Maker Faire in San Mateo, which is a fantastic bizarre of homegrown projects, rides and inspiration. Dougherty is also co-founder of O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol.

Web site: www.makezine.com, www.craftzine.com and www.makerfaire.com
Blog: www.pillowroad.com
Twitter: @dalepd and @make

Questions and Answers:

DailyGeek: The 4th Annual Maker Faire Bay Area is back at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds on May 30 & 31. What is this year's theme and what can attendees expect?

Dougherty: In his recent address before the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama encouraged us to "think about new and creative ways to engage young people in science and engineering, like science festivals, robotics competitions, and fairs that encourage young people to create, build, and invent -- to be makers of things, not just consumers of things." America needs more makers, which is why making needs to be integrated more fully into education and celebrated in our culture. This is the mission of Maker Faire and we are having significant impact. Yet we're just getting started. There's so much more to do and we need more people getting involved.

DailyGeek: You recently wrote that this year's Maker Faire them, "ReMake America," is part of a giant, multi-generation project. How do you foresee that project coming together and playing out over time?

Dougherty: All of us need to be engaged in thinking about how to build a sustainable future and allow that thinking to shape our actions today as well as tomorrow. We have to start where we can make a difference, making changes in our personal lives that affect what we eat, what we buy, how we use energy to move from one place to another and what kind of work we value most.

The boldest actions we might take, however, have a scope that goes beyond our lives. We should be involved in great projects that we ourselves can't finish building in a generation. Many of the great cathedrals of Europe took 300 years to build, and they've endured for hundreds of years beyond the lives of their creators. What kind of world do we want build, even if we don't live in it? What are the projects that might take a span of a hundred years or more to complete? Are there projects we can start today that our kids will want to finish?

We also have to think about educating kids today for the future they will live in, not the past we grew up in.

DailyGeek: What are some innovations people can use to reduce their energy consumption?

Dougherty: The first thing is a change in mindset. What we call the DIY mindset is grounded in being resourceful. My grandparents who lived during the Depression were practical, resourceful people. They knew no other way. We have become used to thinking of resources as abundant; now, we're understanding that these resources are precious precisely because they are limited. Practically speaking, we need to make and buy products that last longer; we need to repair things instead of throwing them in a landfill.

In the current issue, we focused on home energy metering. We look at a number of different technologies to buy or build to measure the energy you use in the house. One is Tweet-a-watt, which connects a Kill-A-Watt meter to Twitter and tells you how much energy that an appliance is using. Having this information helps you realize how to adjust your own usage, which can save money, but also save on a precious resource. Indeed, some of the best innovations are things we've forgotten to use, like a clothesline to dry laundry in the sun.

DailyGeek: For parents wanting to inspire a young maker, what would you recommend?

Dougherty: Doing projects yourself is a great way to influence your kids. When I ask makers how they got started, many of them talk about an influential parent or neighbor who introduced them to a hobby or craft. If you develop your own interests, your own passion and enthusiasm will rub off on your kids. Even if your kids don't seem interested, they will take notice, and it matters. With young kids, you can do projects together with them and their friends. I'd include arts and crafts projects just as much as those based in science and technology. Do something that you remember was fun for you as a kid. Chances are it's still fun for you, too.

Making is a set of practices for achieving one's own creative goals. I like to think of becoming a maker in terms similar to learning music, although I've never really succeeded in learning to play music myself. You need to have those goals and you need to practice - to acquire skills and knowledge over time and integrate them into what you want to do. Ultimately, you want to play your own music - you want to make things yourself, and discover your own talent for coming up with ideas and making them real. You might want to make things do professionally one day, but many enjoy making things as a hobby, as amateurs who share what they make with family and friends. Similarly, there are relatively few professional musicians but there are many who play for their own enjoyment and share with others what they know.

DailyGeek: What are some good resources for people wanting to dive into the maker movement?

Dougherty: Apart from makezine.com, you can check out Instructables.com. Even Wikipedia has lots of good information on electronics, woodworking, and other topics. However, the wealth of the Internet is widely distributed, not limited to one place. Depending on your interests, you can find individuals or small groups of likeminded people that are willing to share ideas and projects. This must be one of the reasons we're seeing a resurgence of interest in DIY today. The Internet makes it much easier to find people, even those who live nearby. I see lots of ad hoc groups getting together in person to share their interests.

Also, the community college system in California is a great resource for hobbyists and enthusiasts.

DailyGeek: Now to the standard questions, what are some of your favorite Web sites (and what is your homepage)?

Dougherty: One site I've been following recently is iFixit.com, which shows how to repair any Apple equipment. iFixit also sells the parts and tools you need to do the repair yourself. It was started by two students at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.

I have a custom Google homepage with a Japanese "Tea House" theme.

DailyGeek: What type of phone do you use?

Dougherty: I have an iPhone, first generation.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite cellphone application?

Dougherty: I like the Major League Baseball application. It turns my iPhone into the modern equivalent of a transistor radio, like the one I used as a kid to listen to Vin Scully. It has about the same audio quality and Vin Scully is still calling Dodger games, although now I follow the A's.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite productivity tech tool?

Dougherty: My garden. Getting away from technology is useful, too. I enjoy being disconnected, spending some time in the garden to see how my plants are growing and gathering up fresh vegetables for dinner. I still get excited seeing strawberries or snow peas ready to pick. I also enjoy cooking, baking bread and making cheese.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite piece of technology that is not mainstream?

Dougherty: I just got a kitchen gadget for making my own sparkling water so I don't have to buy expensive bottles of French or Italian fizzy water. It's The Penguin from http://sodaclub.com/drinksmakers

DailyGeek: What is your favorite Open Source software program?

Dougherty: Mozilla.

DailyGeek: What question should have I asked?

Dougherty: What were you doing in Madrid, Spain besides visiting great art museums?

Dougherty to Dougherty: I was there in April at the WWW2009 conference, on a panel celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Web with Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, and Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the Internet. I met Tim Berners-Lee in 1991 and immediately I shared his enthusiasm for the Web. I began working with the Web in 1992, producing what became known as GNN, which we launched at O'Reilly in 1993 as the first commercial website. In its earliest days, most people in technology and business didn't understand the Web or believe it was important. On the panel, I asked the question: could anyone have imagined twenty years ago putting together a team of the best and brightest and asking them to create a system to put all the world's information online and then to do so in 10 to 20 years? Hardly anyone would have thought it was possible, let alone feasible. If the design had depended on control from a central group, such as a government or large corporation, the goals would never have been accomplished. We can learn from the way the Web was built as an open system to frame other great challenges that we face: how can many self-organizing individuals and small groups collaborate and contribute? The Web is really one of the Wonders of the World.

Ever wanted to design your own application for the iPhone?

O'Reilly Media in Sebastopol is offering a two-day workshop to show people who have some rudimentary programming skills how to write an iPhone application.

The workshop is in San Francisco on May 16 and May 17, which is a Saturday and Sunday. It costs $1,200 ($999 if you register by Monday, May 4). The company is offering a 20 percent discount code for registration on its Facebook page.

Bio: Jason Davies is vice president of sales and marketing at Petaluma-based Berkeley Integrated Audio Software, known as BIAS. The company develops audio editing software for Macs, and has a top application for the iPhone. The program, called iProRecorder, sells for $2.99. The success of the iProRecorder has BIAS wondering just how deep into the mobile application market they should get, as mentioned in my story here.

Web site: www.bias-inc.com

Questions and Answers

DailyGeek: What are your thoughts on the announced upgrades to the iPhone's operating system and the opportunities for developing new programs?

Davies: The version 3.0 upgrade should offer significant advantages for both developers and users. There are several features of particular interest for us as a developer of a popular recording application - iProRecorder - for the iPhone and iPod touch (2nd Generation).

1. In App Purchase: This will allow us to offer extended features to customers using our application directly, without every having to leave our app. Should we decide to offer an extended feature set at an additional price, we can scale the features accordingly and enable customers to add more options after initially acquiring our application. Instead of having to purchase an additional app, the customer could essential upgrade features as needed without buying the complete product again with an extended feature set.

2. Apple Push Notification service: This will allow us to reach our customers directly when important information is available, for example, alerting the customer of additional features beyond the included documentation, detailed information regarding updates, and more. Essentially, it allows greater direct communication with our customers.

3. Accessories: This will allow more hardware companies to develop audio input products, for example, to allow customers greater flexibility in terms of input quality, input level control, and other options.

4. Maps: iProRecorder already offers location stamping - which provides the city and zip code where a recording was made. With maps, we can potentially offer customers greater detail with respect to the precise location a recording was made - great for more easily identifying a location when referencing field recordings.

5. Embedded emailing: iProRecorder already allows recordings to be emailed, but this will improve when we can embed email services in our app directly. Currently, we upload recordings to our server and then relay an email containing a URL to download the recording. While this is actually a great feature and avoids having to send a large attachment directly, for smaller files, it will be a convenient option to send the recording directly. It will also allow users to contact us via email easier to request support or features.

DailyGeek: What type of phone do you use?

Davies: iPhone 3G

DailyGeek: What is your favorite cellphone application?

Davies: It's hard to have a single favorite app on the iPhone - there are just so many that I enjoy. From Apple, there is Safari - which is a great web browser and is integrated into the iPhone. Google Maps is also very handy - especially with the integrated GPS. There are a few great games my kids play, but my favorite third-party application is iProRecorder (DailyGeek: it's made by his company BIAS). It allows me to easily record audio in the field and then send recordings via WiFi into Peak, my favorite audio editor (DailyGeek: Also made by BIAS. He gave me a copy to review, which I plan to do at the DailyGeek blog).

I forgot to mention two other interesting iPhone apps - Shazam and midomi. Shazam identifies music - you simply allow the application to "listen" to a song, and moments later, it identifies it with amazing accuracy. midomi also identifies music, but by singing a melody. So, if you have a melody in your head, you can sing it into the application and it does a pretty good job of identifying it.

DailyGeek: What search engine do you use?

Davies: Google - I honestly haven't tried other search engines since first using Google and the fact that it's integrated into my favorite browser makes it hard to consider using another.

DailyGeek: Your preferred Internet browser?

Davies: Safari, though occasionally I do use FireFox for the few sites I go to that don't seem to be compatible with Safari - for example, the web site for Paychex - the company we use to manage our 401Ks.

DailyGeek: What program do you prefer using for Twitter?

Davies: I have to admit that I'm not yet using Twitter - though I've recently received an invitation and will probably check it out soon enough.

DailyGeek: What other social network applications do you use?

Davies: Facebook, but honestly, I don't have a ton of time to really use it much these days between work, family, and the business emails I need to respond to.

DailyGeek: Favorite Web sites?

Davies: Some of my favorite sites are these:
http://www.appleinsider.com
http://www.google.com
http://www.youtube.com

DailyGeek: Favorite way to get news?

Davies:
http://www.pressdemocrat.com
http://www.petaluma360.com
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.cnn.com

DailyGeek: Favorite productivity tech tool?

Davies: iPhone 3G

DailyGeek: Favorite piece of technology that is not mainstream?

Davies: I'll list a few - all relating to music production: M-Audio Project Mix I/O - digital audio workstation controller. Gissentar from Godin (a semi-acoustic/electric 11 string fretless guitar influenced by the Oud).

DailyGeek: What is your favorite Open Source software program?

Davies: Honestly, I'm not currently using Open Source software directly, though some of our servers at our office use Linux. As for Open Source apps, I generally use commercial solutions simply because of the additional features and support.

DailyGeek: What question should have I asked?

Davies: Do you envision mobile devices such as the iPhone ultimately replacing laptops?

Davies to Davies: For some yes, but I think a slightly larger tablet is going to be what it takes more me to abandon my MacBook Pro - we'll see what Apple unleashes next- : )

Bonus question from last week's participant Jeffrey Aguilera, who founded a company devoted to fighting email spam:

Aguilera: I have seen mythical accounts that Mac users are more than twice as likely to purchase software than Windows users. As a software publisher with both Mac and Windows titles, do you see similar patterns with your products? Apple and Microsoft have spent millions to establish stereotypes of each other's users. How would you characterize the difference between the Mac and PC users of your products?

Davies: Interesting question, but I think I need a bit more clarification. For example, is the account based on relative software sales totals between Mac and Windows users, or software unit volume? In other words, if Mac users spent more than Windows users on software, was that because they purchased more titles, or because the titles they purchased were priced higher?It would be easy of course to draw a conclusion - based on dollars spent on software between Mac and Windows users - that Mac users are more likely to buy software, but if the figuresdon't take into account title volumes, it would be more correct to say Mac users spend more on software, rather than presuming they are more likely to buy software. They may be more likely to spend more on software generally.

On that note, I think historically this may be true simply because:1. Macs were more expensive than Windows based PCs. Perhaps those buying Macswere able to spend more on software. Those using Macs may have tended to be professionals in media content creation fields - wherehigher priced software titles were a requirement for their work.2. There were fewer titles available for the Mac, fewer Mac users, and lower volume sales - all which would lead to higher prices from Mac software developers simply because they would be selling lower volumes.3. More software titles and a larger user base - both of which are the case on Windows - means also more software piracy. It is far more common for Windows software to be pirated which means fewer software purchases generally. There also may be many Windows developers offering free software solutions.

To some extent, things have changed a bit. Mac users are still buying more of our retail software titles, and professionals still make up a large percentage of the customer base.

However, with the popularity and lower pricing of the Mac, more customers are drawn to lower priced titles and in many cases, are buying fewer titles simply because the Mac includes so much software by default. A Windows user may initially pay a bit less for a computer, but then has to purchase more software than a Mac user might initially. In our business, the majority of our revenue comes from our Mac software sales mainly because we started as a Mac only company, and have yet to offer an audio editor for Windows, and for our space (music and audio), there still tends to be a high concentration of Mac users.

However, all of our software plug-ins such as SoundSoap (our easy audio cleaning solution) are cross-platform and some of our largest OEM bundles have been with Windows based products, particularly in the video space. From my experience, there seem to be more Windows users buying consumer-level video editing software than Mac users for example. iMovie comes with the Mac so I would imagine fewer Mac users would buy consumer-level video editing software initially. Another interesting development of course is that Mac users can now choose between Windows and Mac titles since Windows can also be installed. To some extent, some Mac users are now buying titles that are only available on Windows, while some Windows users are now buying Mac titles as they initially buy Macs with the idea of running Windows, but decide to use the Mac OS as well - which is of course making platform sales tracking more complex.

In comparing Mac and Windows users of our products, and other products in our space, I don't think the stereotypes really hold these days - especially with more and more users buying Macs and running both operating systems. At the end of the day, our customers are buying our solutions and it's less about the operating system and more about how we can help them to achieve their creative and professional goals.

Jeffrey Aguilera is the James Bond of the digital world. He has a license to kill, well, spam.

Ever since he founded Red Condor in Rohnert Park in 2002, he has been defending businesses from mastermind spammers. He infiltrates criminal minds and works to undermine their nefarious plans to clog the Internet with scams and viruses that double as emails.

Aguilera knows the Internet isn't a safe place (he told the Press Democrat as much.) But he's willing to fight the good fight, and help clean up your inbox.

Web site: www.redcondor.com

Questions and Answers:

DailyGeek: Why did you start an anti-spam company?
Aguilera: In 2002, my partners and I were looking for our next opportunity in the investment software field. During our research, my spam problem continued to worsen, to the point that I asked our mail administrator to activate the anti-spam features on our mail server. The next day, after not receiving any spam, I sent a congratulatory message to our mail admin for solving this nuisance...but he never got that message: It, too, was blocked as spam.

We tried tuning the filters, but to no avail. Either lots of spam got through, or lots of legitimate mail was lost. Red Condor was born from this dilemma with a simple vision, to block spam, and nothing but, without any user intervention.

DailyGeek: How much do you hate spammers, and how are you going to destroy them (because even if you don't hate them, most of us do)?
Aguilera: My goal is to out-smart spammers, since their destruction is fanciful thinking. Like pick-pockets and petty thugs, spammers will never disappear. They prey on an endless supply of trusting people that do not fully grasp what is at stake.

So I try to engage spammers on my terms rather than theirs. Early on, I would investigate each spam that got into my mailbox, dissecting the headers to locate those individuals responsible for sending me garbage. But this is just a pointless exercise. Spammers are masterful at covering their tracks; or implicating others; or hiding a world-away behind a chain of proxies. Instead, I look for their mistakes, their tells. I send them misleading information to see if they bite. I try to use their own greed against them.

DailyGeek: What has been the impact of Web 2.0 on Internet security?
Aguilera: Web 2.0 is all about pushing the desktop experience to the web-using Security 1.0 idioms. With greater reliance on client-side code, Web 2.0 applications are easier to reverse-engineer and easier to inject cross-site scripting hacks. As long as security is an afterthought, scammers will find exploits and Web 2.0 just increases the number of possibilities.

DailyGeek: Considering you spend a huge chunk of your day trying to protect people from organized criminals, how has it changed your outlook on the Internet and on life in general?
Aguilera: On the one hand, I find that fighting spam is a very rewarding career, because I protect millions of users from billions of spam, phish, virus, and other garbage. However, the personal cost is constant exposure to the worst of human nature. The scammers are everywhere. They will do anything to make money. This constant backdrop of criminality is very disillusioning.

DailyGeek: Now to the standard geeky questions: what OS do you primarily use?
Aguilera: Mac OS X. I abandoned Windows just over two years ago, and haven't looked back since. To be fair, everything I develop is ultimately deployed on Linux servers.

DailyGeek: Your preferred Internet browser?
Aguilera: Safari for everyday use; FireFox for development.

DailyGeek: What social network applications do you use?
Aguilera: LinkedIn, and to a lesser extent, Plaxo.

DailyGeek: Favorite Web sites?
Aguilera: Google has been my home page ever since they were in beta. My favorite site is Eric Weisstein's MathWorld.com, because I learn something new every time I visit.

DailyGeek: Favorite way to get news?
Aguilera: I subscribe to various RSS feeds, including CNET News, Engadget, Gizmodo, and Google News.

DailyGeek: What type of phone do you use?
Aguilera: iPhone, since Friday, June 29, 2007 at 7:10pm.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite cellphone application?
Aguilera: Starmap Pro.

DailyGeek: Favorite productivity tech tool?
Aguilera: IntelliJ IDEA. I cannot imagine development in Java without this IDE.

DailyGeek: Favorite piece of technology that is not mainstream?
Aguilera: The Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium...and the Nespresso Essenza Automatic coffee maker.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite Open Source software program?
Aguilera: OpenOffice.

DailyGeek: What question should have I asked?
Aguilera: Do you have any tips for improving online security?
Aguilera to Aguilera:To start, everyone should peruse the Cyber Security Tips at the Department of Homeland Security. This site covers everything from choosing and protecting passwords to staying safe on social networking sites. But do not assume that caution and diligence alone will keep you safe. You should also take steps to limit your exposure if the preventive measures fail:

Use a different password on every site that you visit. Better yet, use a tool that generates these password for you, such as 1Password, PasswordMaker, SuperPwdHash, etc. The best password management tools use one-way hashing and implement precautions to protect against keyloggers.

If you use PayPal, or a similar online payment service, do not tie it to your main bank account or credit card. Instead, tie it to an account created specifically for PayPal and fund that account as needed.

Use "throw-away credit card numbers" when buying goods online rather than using real account numbers. Citibank calls this service "Virtual Account Numbers"; Discover calls it "Secure Online Account Numbers"; and Bank of America calls it "ShopSafe Numbers."

Do not use debit cards online. Credit cards have better fraud protection and are easier to dispute.

Sullins: It is exciting that you are fighting the good fight against spam and malware but the delivery method for spam and malware seems to evolve with every new countermeasure devised to block it. Do you see this as a perpetual arms race? If it is, the user has to suffer the abuses of spam and malware and/or pay for increasingly complex filtering and security technology, which is a lose-lose proposition for the user, perhaps you see some other solution we can look forward to?

Aguilera: Unfortunately, I do not see an end to this arms race in the near future. I place the blame on both sides: Technology consumers refuse to embrace authenticating technologies and refuse to change their interaction model; and technology producers do not mandate best security practices, but rather, bolt on byzantine security options to protocols and applications that can otherwise be used without any security. For example, DNS was developed around 1987 (RFC 1034), but security extensions were not added until 1999 (RFC 2535). A decade later, DNSSEC is still not widely in use. Some estimates place penetration at 0.0015% (15 domains per million). So last summer, DNS, the core directory service of the Internet, was subject to a cache poisoning exploit that affected nearly all DNS servers.

How do we break this cycle? Consumers need to adopt digital certificates and use public key infrastructure (PKI) to identify themselves when interacting with secure services. Financial institutions need to insist that their users have valid digital certificates, rather than presenting easily hijacked usernames and passwords. Identities need to be stored on encrypted media, such as TPM or secure flash storage. And security needs to be a prime design goal, not an afterthought. Once PKI is widely deployed for high-value services, it can be hijacked to secure just about everything else.

Bio: John Sullins is an assistant professor at Sonoma State University who specializes in roboethics - both the ethical quandaries facing robotic engineers and the moral dilemmas that robots will face as they become increasingly complex.

Web site: http://sonoma.academia.edu/JohnSullins
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JPSullins

Questions and Answers:

DailyGeek: As a roboethicist, what did you think of the re-made TV show Battlestar Galactica where robots turned against their human creators?
Sullins: I saw it a little differently than most people I am sure. As a roboethicist I thought it was a fantastic series with a great number of episodes that really dealt with the tough issues confronting the emerging field of roboethics. Roboethics is the study of how to program machines in such a way that they are capable of making ethical decisions that fit with human moral reasoning. As machines enter our lives and simultaneously become more autonomous, they will have to make decisions that have moral impact.
Battlestar Galactica gives us a good example of how disastrous it could be if we do not succeed in developing a functional roboethics. Other science fiction books and shows have entertained this question before but BSG looked closely, and unflinchingly, at how ethics and morality is a reciprocal relationship of rights and responsibilities and that artificial moral agents will not only have responsibilities towards us but will also need to be granted certain rights.
We have a long history of occasionally refusing to grant rights to other humans so I think the machines are not going to have a very easy time of it either. The great science fiction writer Philip K. Dick said that the job of science fiction was to imagine dystopian futures so we do not actually have to live them. I am certain we will do better in the real world than they did on New Caprica.

DailyGeek: How integrated do you think robots will be in our lives by the year 2030, and how much of a threat will they pose?
Sullins: By 2030, baring some global economic or climatic disaster, household robots are likely to be as ubiquitous as personal computers were by the 1990's. The mechanical engineering is already in place for humanoid and other biologically inspired machines and by then computing power will make something roughly equivalent of the power of a human brain cost well under a few thousand dollars.
What may still be lacking, however, is software. We are still somewhat in the dark when it comes to fully understanding how our own minds work, much less being up to the task of designing robust artificial ones. But there is a lot of money being directed towards military robotics. The Internet came out of military research in the last century and it is likely that current military spending will spin off world-changing robotics technology by mid century.

DailyGeek: What do you think is the most impressive use of a robot today?
Sullins: I am very interested in the work of the Personal Robotics Group in the MIT Media Lab. They are working on making robots that are not only useful but also social, meaning that they learn how to interact with you instead of you having to learn how to interact with them. Robot projects like the small humanoid MDS is testing how to make robots that can fit into a work or family social structure. If successful, this will be a real change in the design of technology since our technology will then begin to bend itself to our needs rather than the way it is now where each new technology forces us to radically alter our way of life.

DailyGeek: Are people currently using robots in a way that concern you?
Sullins: My biggest concern has to be the great leap we have made in military robotics. In just a decade or so here in the US we have gone from having no military robots to having many thousands in the field today. There are a staggering number of designs being proposed for the Future Combat Systems program, everything form small insect sized robots to semi autonomous fighting vehicles. Warfare is already a troubling ethical situation and placing new technology in service before we fully understand what effects it will have greatly compounds the problem. Automating the hard moral decisions found in combat may cause us to stop facing them ourselves.

DailyGeek: As for today's technology, what OS do you primarily use?
Sullins: I have been fully assimilated by Microsoft for some time now. But I felt badly about it so I am experimenting with Linux. As someone that teaches computer ethics, I am torn between the very strong arguments in favor of open source software and Jaron Lanier's counter argument that open source is incapable of creating innovative products.

DailyGeek: Do you have a preferred Internet browser, and additionally, do you have any favorite plugins for your browser?
Sullins: I like Firefox right now but I am keeping an eye on Chrome. I tend to not trust plugins so I do not use any.

DailyGeek: What other social network applications do you use?
Sullins: Facebook too keep up with my students, Plaxo and LinkedIn for business, and Academia.edu (http://sonoma.academia.edu/JohnSullins ) for connecting with fellow researchers. Twitter "I am not sure why but there must be something I can do with it.

DailyGeek: What are your favorite Web sites?
Sullins: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Futurist and Transhuman Guru Raymond Kurzweil has a fabulous site.

DailyGeek: Favorite way to get news?
Sullins: PressDemocrat.com of course, as well as Singularity Hub , to follow the transmigration of humanity into the machine, and Inside Higher Ed , to follow the death of the American higher education system.

DailyGeek: What type of phone do you use?
Sullins: A Blackberry Pearl, a smart phone on a professor's budget.

DailyGeek: What is your favorite cellphone application?
Sullins: I try to stay off my mobile phone but when I succumb I use the maps and browser applications the most.

DailyGeek: Favorite productivity tech tool?
Sullins: I can only be productive when I turn it all off except for a word processor for writing and the web for research. When working with others, PBwiki is very handy.

DailyGeek: Favorite piece of technology that is not mainstream?
Sullins: Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics kit. This is a fantastic way to get into amateur robotics. The kit is brilliantly designed and has to be one of the best educational toys ever created.

What is your favorite Open Source software program?
Sullins: Bricx Command Center 3.3 and Not eXactly C, they are open source programming environments for the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics kits.

DailyGeek: What question should have I asked?
Sullins: What is the appropriate role for technology in our lives?
Sullins to Sullins:The unexamined technology is not worth building. During my short time at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 90's working around people like John Seeley Brown, the late Mark Wieser, my mentor Noam Cook, and the thousands of other brilliant minds contained in that building I learned that technology that is built not only with good engineering and sound marketing but also with social and philosophical values worked in consciously into the design is what results in the best possible technology, technology that can help makes us better as human beings.

Bonus question from the last Q&A participant Roy Tennant, a digital librarian:

Tennant: Do you think that one day software robots will roam the Internet to gather information, analyze what is found and present us with findings, and if so, do you forsee any ethical implications?

Sullins: Absolutely, these artificial agents would be much more intelligent versions of the bots that search engines like Google already use. There will be a number of important ethical issues regarding this type of artificial agent. Privacy issues would be the most important, these agents would have to be programed to respect the rights of human users and even other artificial agents. In addition to this trust will also be a big issue, how will you be able to trust the information these agents dig up for you? With increased intelligence will come more complicated motives in these agents. Perhaps they have some other agenda or interests separate from your own and may spin the information they deliver to try to influence your beliefs or actions. It will be important that they adhere to similar ethical codes that human librarians and researchers do today.

The "What Physicists Do" series at SSU is nearing its end. But not to fret, there are still a few left.

Tonight at 4 p.m., Stanford physicist Jodi Cooley discusses the darker side of the universe: Dark Matter.

North American scientists have been working to detect dark matter, which is thought to be the largest source of mass in the Universe. They conduct their heady experiments in a science dungeon buried nearly one-half a mile under the Minnesota top soil -- known as the Soudan Underground Laboratory.

Cooley discuses their efforts and what they hope to discover while listening for faint whispers from our theoretical universe.

April 1, 2009 -- The online war between Apple and PC fanboys took an unexpected turn Tuesday.
The young woman featured in a Microsoft Windows commercial snubbing Apple Macbooks for being too expensive announced Tuesday she had contracted the Conficker worm on her new PC.
The Los Angeles-based actress, "Lauren," stirred up a lot of online angst between Apple and PC fans when she starred in the Microsoft commercial deriding Apple Macs as being too expensive.
In the commercial, the 20-something Lauren is given $1,000 to buy any 17" laptop she wants.
At one point, she walks out of the Apple Store and says she can't afford a Mac.
"I would have to double my budget, which isn't feasible," Lauren says, driving away from an Apple Store, where 17-inch notebooks start at $2,799. Then she sighs and launches the ad's main assault: "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person."
On Tuesday, it appeared she was lamenting her decision.
"My computer was compromised," she said at a press conference. "Who knows what information they stole."
When asked by a reporter if she now wishes she'd purchased an Apple, because its OS X operating system was not vulnerable to the Conficker worm, the actress seemed taken aback.
"Really, the virus doesn't affect Macs?," she asked incredulously.
She then begin calculating how much she gets paid an hour as an actress, versus the amount of time she will spend wiping her hard drive, reinstalling windows and all her other programs, and now having to monitor her credit history daily because of the threat of ID theft.
"Oh my god, I'm going to lose money on this deal. I'm going to lose money on a free computer," she said. "I should have got a Mac."
The actress recalled for reporters how the HP laptop she purchased with Microsoft money came installed with Windows Vista, but upon the urging of a "Geeky friend" she had removed it and instead gone with Windows XP.
"The whole computer just ran so slow," she said. "My friend said it would be a lot faster with the other Windows."
Microsoft issued an official comment on its Web site stating that if she installed the security patch issued in October for XP, she would not have been infected. But the actress got a copy of XP from her friend, meaning it was likely a pirated copy.
Apple declined to comment for this fake April Fool's Day story. A Linux spokesman tried to comment, but as a member of the MSM I ignored her.




<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 - Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

Security experts discovered an easy way to detect and remove the Conficker worm Monday. Click here to download a Trend Micro program that will remove it for free.
More info on the Conficker worm is available in this Q&A I did with SSU Professor George Ledin, who teaches a virus writing course to students. Also there is this Q&A written by an anti-malware firm, and this great timeline of the worm by Byron Acohido, a USA Today tech reporter.
Scammers have tricked Google into ranking scam removal products or downright viruses high in the results for searches like "Remove Conficker," according to this blog post by anti-malware developer Trend Micro.
Again, Trend Micro offers this free, effective program for removing Conficker on its Web site here.
The Web site www.F-secure.com identified several scam products for sale that do nothing buy take your money. Its post is here.
One product, called MalwareRemoval Bot, asks for $39.95 to remove the worm, but doesn't do it, according to F-Secure.com.
"It's fake," said Patrik Runald, on the F-secure blog. "It does not remove Conficker.C. We tried it and it didn't do a thing to remove it."