I stumbled upon Edge magazine today, run by the Edge Foundation, who say their mandate is “to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society”. Specifically, their page entitled The Edge Annual Question — 2007, which is “What are you optimistic about? Why?”. This question was put to many interesting people and their answers are available to read, and read through some of them you should. I’d like to point out some of my favourites amongst the answers.

This article is disturbing. I suggest that anyone with a concern about technological privacy read it. Whilst I knew that the DRM features (or, perhaps, in a delicious reversal of the programming joke, these are really bugs) were going to be fairly strong and include nasty hardware-based measures — like ensuring your TV is kosher for watching a film on (hint: it probably isn’t), that is, you don’t have a line out to a recording device hooked up — I hadn’t realized quite the problems this will create for the hardware industry.

At this time of the year, with the (somewhat over-rated) New Year upon us, trying to find some value in life is at the forefront of minds, especially, I presume, if new year’s resolutions are being made. Here is a quote which I believe is generally applicable; it would also form a good starting point if you subscribe to making resolutions:

It is important for us to acknowledge that we’re prone to be conservative, and in turn surround ourselves with individuals who will help break down our conservatism.

I am starting to use Flickr a bit more, as evidenced by my Paris photos being up there. I’m playing around with adding some form of little Flickr toy to my site. Currently it’s at the top right (I’m sure you noticed it!) but it will probably move. Perhaps a small horizontal line next to the links or something would look better; maybe they will disappear if I cannot find somewhere good for them. So take the current ugly-ness as non-permanent unless it grows on me.

Remarkably cryptography geek stuff, but very funny is Bruce Schneier Facts. Includes such gems as Bruce Schneier’s private key is so strong that he doesn’t even hide it — if you saw it, you’d die before you could use it and P = NP in Bruce Schneier’s very presence. (Yeah, so I’m reposting: via Rob Love)