From the article: "Astronomers have captured images of a powerful collision of galaxy clusters and say it may shed light on the behavior of dark matter."

I think I finally "get" Web 2.0.

It occurred to me when I started talking about The Cloud -- both loving the idea, and hating myself for using such an obvious buzzword. But I think I get it now.

It's about language.

Read 1984. And read about the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis. Maybe you'll see it, too -- our use of language has a profound impact on how we see the world.

There was a great story about how, when Europeans first came to America, some of the natives actually couldn't see the ships, because it was like nothing they'd ever seen before. They didn't have a word, or a frame of reference, for the huge cloud-like things they saw on the horizon -- so they just didn't see them.

I kind of doubt that story is true, but I do think it applies. How long did dynamic websites exist, with the ability for users to alter content, and no one "got it", until we started calling it "Web 2.0"? How long did virtualization exist -- how long did CPU-power-on-demand services exist -- and, while there was some buzz about virtualization, no one really got it until we started calling it The Cloud.

This isn't new -- it's existed, really, as long as abstract concepts have existed, because language is the medium through which we understand and communicate abstract concepts. For an obvious-example, take "Pro-Choice" vs "Abortionist" (or "Baby-Killer!"), and "Pro-Life" vs "Anti-Abortionist" (or "Woman-Hater!"). Quite often, people make the mistake of using the opposition's language in their argument, trying to show its flaws, but really, that only strengthens their argument. Who really wants to argue against choice, or life?

It's not always a good thing, and we should not always embrace new language. But neither should we be so quick to dismiss it as a "buzzword" -- after all, the Internet itself is perhaps the godfather of the modern buzzword. What we're really talking about is just another network -- which is really just a bunch of computers with wires running between them -- but now that we know it's something called "The Internet", our view changes, and it really becomes a world-changing phenomenon.

Understand: Not just appears to be, or appears to become. A random network of computers cannot change the world. The Internet can and has.

I now understand why RMS and friends insist on calling it "GNU/Linux", though I still don't agree with it. But you see... RMS understands the power of language.

(Edit: This could probably be applied to Memetic Engineering, if we ever implement that concept. The Anti-Meme would have to be very clearly defined in language for it to work.)

Two hundred and sixty seven tapes of previously unheard electronic music by Delia Derbyshire have been found and are being cataloged.

For those unfamiliar with Delia Derbyshire, she was one of the top pioneers of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s. One of her best-known pieces was the original theme tune to Doctor Who. According to Wikipedia, "much of the Doctor Who theme was constructed by recording the individual notes from electronic sources one by one onto magnetic tape, cutting the tape with a razor blade to get individual notes on little pieces of tape a few centimetres long and sticking all the pieces of tape back together one by one to make up the tune".

Included in the finds was a piece of dance music recorded in the mid 60s, examined by contemporary artists, revealed that it would be considered better-quality mainstream today. Another piece was incidental music for a production of Hamlet.

The majority of her music mixed wholly electronic sounds, from a sophisticated set of tone generators and modulators, and electronically-altered natural sounds, such as could be made from gourds, lampshades and voices.

Don Reisinger opines on his cnet blog that Google should consider killing youtube.. Why? They overpaid, it costs a lot to run, produces virtually no revenue, attracts lawsuits, and the eyeballs/content can't be converted to cash. Google hasn't put a whole lot of effort to improving youtube, either.

Wired is reporting that Linux programmer/convicted murderer Hans Reiser may now admit to murdering (and revealing her location) his wife in exchange for a second degree murder charge, which would make him eligible for parole in 2023 or so. I wonder if they'd overlook his perjury.

Someone has trawled through YouTube and flagged not only the episodes of The Tripods, but also all fan productions, fan cine footage and fan photography of the series. How so, can't you buy it on DVD? Only the first season, the second exists only in pirated form at scifi conventions, and of course the fan material doesn't exist elsewhere at all. The third season, of course, was never made, as the BBC had a frothing xenophobic hatred of science fiction at the time. (So why they made a dalek their general director at about that time, I will never know...)

What makes this exceptionally annoying is that the vast bulk of British scifi has been destroyed by the companies that produced it, the vast bulk of the remainder has never seen the light of day since broadcast, and the vast bulk of what has been released has been either tampered with or damaged in some other way, often (it turns out later) very deliberately, sometimes (again it turns out later) for the purpose of distressing the potential audience.

I've nothing against companies enforcing their rights, but when those companies are acting in a cruel and vindictive fashion towards the audience (such as John Nathan Turner's FUD of audiences being too stupid to know what they like, or too braindead to remember what they have liked), and the audiences vote with their feet, on what possible grounds can it be considered justified for those companies to (a) chain the audience to the ground, and (b) then use the immobility of the audience to rationalize and excuse the abuse by claiming the audience isn't going anywhere?

I put it to the Slashdot Court of Human/Cyborg Rights that scifi fans are entitled to a better, saner, civilized explanation, and that whilst two wrongs can never make a right, one wrong is never better.

I occasionally read the Bible. Never all at once, just interesting pieces with which to frighten door-to-door evangelists. I love finding little pieces with which to end a conversation, and put the believer completely on the defensive -- "Seriously, you believe in stoning rape victims? For being raped? Jesus says you have to..."

I've got a brand new one, though, to end conversations about the importance of religion, or the definition of religion. I'm talking, of course, about Scientology.

Well, that or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Invisible Pink Unicorn, but reductio ad absurdum works so much better when you can actually point to said absurdity in the real world. There is actually a large and vocal group out there which believes an evil emperor named Xenu sent aliens called Thetans to earth on DC-8s (which fly through space), and then nuked them in volcanoes.

Note to religious people: Yes, I do think it's stupid of you to believe in religion. Understand two things:

First, it doesn't mean I think you're stupid. Smart people do stupid things.

Second, I won't attack you for it. I'm a bit trigger-happy with my atheism, but still, if you don't bring it up, I won't. It's a bit like homosexuality -- I really don't care what you do in bed (or elsewhere), or who you do it with. It only becomes a problem if you start hitting on me -- or evangelizing to me.

From the article: "In the first analysis of proteins extracted from dinosaur bones, scientists say they have established more firmly than ever that the closest living relatives of the mighty predator Tyrannosaurus rex are modern birds." This was discovered by testing the soft tissue recently found in fossils.

Well, it now appears the University of Manchester in England has built 1nm transistors on graphene. The article is short on details, but it appears to be a ring of carbon atoms surrounding a quantum dot, where the quantum dot is not used for quantum computing or quantum states but rather for regulating the electrical properties. This is still a long way from building a practical IC using graphene. It is, however, a critical step forward. The article mentions other bizare behaviours of graphene but does not go into much detail. This is the smallest transistor produced to date.

This has been the dullest April 1st Slashdot has ever had. Has its funny bone been surgically removed? For those who miss the days of OMG!!! PONIES!!!, I think I've found the only site that comes close in being very very strange.....

Reading the recent piece by Alex St. John about PC gaming vs. consoles I just had way more to say than I could fit in replies to the subject so I blogged about it instead.

Yeah, I understand some people like gaming with headphones, a mouse and keyboard in their basement, but I prefer the couch, a big set of home theatre speakers, a wide screen HD TV and a controller in my hand with a headset on and a bluetooth keyboard next to me when necessary. I've been building PCs since I was 15 and I wouldn't have imagined it then, but console gaming is now at the point where its really not worth the bother to me to constantly keep up with my PCs capacity to play the newest titles.

Anyway, read more about my thoughts on my blog entry if you like.

One of the most fascinating things I've observed in searching for Open Source projects available for whatver I'm doing at the time is the huge disparity of what is available, how it is used and who is interested.

An obvious place to start is in the field of electronics. Computer-based tools are already used to build such stuff, so it's a natural replacement, right? Well, almost. There are tools for handling VHDL, Verilog and SystemC. There are frameworks for simulating both clock-based and asychronous circuits. You can do SPICE simulations, draw circuit diagrams, download existing circuits as starting points or places of inspiration, simulate waveforms, determine coverage and design PCBs. OpenCores provides a lot of fascinating already-generated systems, SUN provides the staggering T1 and T2 UltraSPARC cores, and the Sirocco 64-bit SPARC. This field has probably not got anywhere near what it needs, but it has a lot.

Maths is another obvious area. Plenty of Open Source tools for graphing, higher order logic, theorum provers, linear algebra, eigenvalues, eigenvectors, signal processing, multiple-precision, numerical methods, solvers for all kinds of other specific problem types, etc.

What about astronomy? That requires massive table data crunching, correlation of variations, moving telescopes around with absolute precision - things computers tend to be very good at. There are a few. Programs for capturing images are probably the most common, although some telescopes provide software for controlling telescopes, obtaining data and performing basic operations. Mind you, how much more than this does one need in software? Some things are better done in hardware (for now, at least) because the software hasn't the speed. Yes, the control software seems a little specialized, but it'd be hard to make something like that general-purpose.

Chemistry. Hmmm. Lots of trivial stuff, more educational than valuable - periodic tables, 3D models of molecules, LaTeX formatting aids. There's a fair amount on the study of crystals and crystallography, which is as much chemistry as it is physics, but there's not a lot else. Chemistry involves a lot of tables (which would be ideal for a standardized database), a lot of mathematical equations, formulae, graphing, measuring and correlating all sorts of data, the consequences of different filtering and separation techniques, the wavelength and intensity of energies, analysis of the results of atomic mass spectrometry or other noisy data, etc. I see the underlying tools for doing some (but not all) of these things, but I don't see the heavy lifting.

Archaeology has very few non-trivial tools. Some signal processing for ground-penetrating RADAR, but there are virtually no tools out there that could be useful for helping with interpretation. In fact, most RADAR programs don't interpret either but display the result on a small LCD screen. Nor do any tools exist for correlating interpretations (other than manually via an extremely naive - for this purpose - GIS database). There's a few scraps here and there, but signal analysis and GIS seem to be about it, and those were mostly developed for mining companies and tend to show it.

Biology has plenty of DNA sequencing code. By now, Slashdotter should be able so sequence eith own DNA, not pay someone a thousand to do it. You mean, those aren't enough, that you need more hardware? And a lot more software? It's an important step, but it's not unique.

Mechanical Engineering. I haven't seen anything of any significance.

Geology. Not really, beyond the same software for Archaeology, but using it for find seams in rock.

Psychology: Nada.

Psychiatry: None.

Sports: Lots of software getting used, but little of it is open source.

Result - those who gain with the least to lose and the most to win make the change. Those who feel like there's no benefit from changing what they're doing will continue doing what they're doing. My suggestion? There are gaping holes in Open Source. Fill them in.

This is an interesting (to me) piece of work that I've been asked to do. Using open-source software to analyze data from both ground-penetrating radar and magnetometers, open-source GIS software for tracking archaeological finds, open-source modeling software to produce archaeologically and technically sound reconstructions, and then use a mix of open-source virtual reality software and open-source web technology to provide both the raw and the visually interpreted data in a form that is of practical use to experts and non-experts alike.

If that sounds like a complex task, it is. The site is extremely convoluted, there is a wealth of data that is currently in a highly unusable form, and what is meaningful to an expert is not necessarily the least bit useful or usable to a non-expert (and vice versa). Currently, there is a lot of skepticism by The Powers That Be that such a project would even be possible. My first task, then, is to produce an example. My impossible mission is to convert the few scraps of information published on medieval aisled halls, along with the very limited archaeological finds from the site in question, into the dual format of raw information and virtual reality.

On the one hand, the limited information means that the first part is relatively easy. An online archaeological GIS-enabled database may not be trivial, but all the software needed can - at least - be found on Freshmeat and the amount of data entry is relatively small. The second part is tougher. Again, open-source VR software does exist, but it is one thing to enter known values that can be verified into a database, it is entirely another to derive values that are implied and logically required but for which there is no direct evidence at all.

There is a catch. Virtual reality is great for producing models you can walk through, but it's generally pretty lousy at telling you if said model violates the laws of physics. Given that I can hardly build my own medieval aisled hall, I know of no other method besides hand-cranking through the numbers for validating the predicted structure. Suggestions would be extremely welcome, as would any idea on how I could either use the open-source approach for the hall design, or how I could use something like BOINC to automate the validation of a virtual landscape.

Technically, this is fun - I'm getting to do some reasonably original work - but original work is necessarily far more demanding in terms of research and application than run-of-the-mill work. Mind you, I only have myself to blame - the archaeologists have been satisfied so far with producing a web-based diary of major finds, plus entering the data on a completely unusable regional database. Such are the hazards of pointing out that you can do better! :)

For awhile, I've had this signature:

DRM? Trusted Computing? Fine, but not with my code.

I do start to feel like a hypocrite looking at that. After all, I'm now working as an HD-DVD developer, making quite a bit of money, enjoying what I do, and not at all close to wanting to quit in outrage about the DRM.

But while I don't have to deal with DRM every day, I do have to deal with it often enough. While I have not personally written any code that does DRM, all my code will eventually be DRM'd on-disc, and one of my co-workers has, in fact, written some utilities to manage AACS stuff.

And, in general, I still feel that DRM is useless and should not be done, but I also have seen it done in ways that aren't really that bad, and even seen some things which benefit the consumer. Steam, for example, allows me to download the same game (unless it's Bioshock) anywhere I want to, anytime, so long as I remember my password and only log in at one place at a time. (So that's one download and/or game being played at a time.)

Steam is actually an example of "not that bad", as everything they do which benefits the consumer, they could've done without DRM. No, an example of something which benefits the consumer are the "music rental" services. After you get to a certain amount of music, it just makes more sense, financially, to simply rent your music rather than buy it. If the service goes away, and the DRM isn't cracked, then yes, you lose a bunch of music -- so you join another service and download the same music again.

I prefer to own my music, but I'm a bit of a fanatic.

So, while most days I'd rather see DRM go away forever, this signature is starting to be a bit hypocritical. After all, DRM is being done with my code, and most of what I write is not GPL'd.

So why do I have it?

Simple: Since I started using this signature, I've seen almost none of the retarded arguments against GPLv3 -- the arguments which talk about the GPL being used to attack DRM, that it's overstepping its bounds as a software license and attacking hardware... Whatever.

Because this statement makes all of those arguments go away. Licensing software under the GPLv3 is not directly attacking DRM, it's not even saying that you hate DRM and want to abolish it. It's simply saying that you may not use it with this code.

People point to the TiVo as an example -- shouldn't I want to license my software such that people can make cool stuff like the TiVo? Well, why should I, unless I'm getting a cut? It's simple: TiVo can either have my code for free, on my terms, or they can go somewhere else. There's plenty of GPLv2 or even BSD-licensed stuff they could have for free, or they could buy some commercial software -- maybe even from me.

I don't see that as inconsistent with what I do for a living, but this whole essay doesn't exactly fit in a signature. So I am posting a consistent position here:

I don't like DRM, and I don't like closed software that I don't have access to. Therefore, software which I release for free will have no part in this. If you're willing to pay me a living wage to develop software, I will develop pretty much whatever you want, so long as it's not wholly unethical (I won't write Lotus Notes for your Killbot). But if I release something as free and open, it's probably because I intend for it to stay that way.

So, if you have a problem with me using the GPLv3, either hire me or use somebody else's code.

Keyboards seem to be the sort of thing many slashdotters are over emotional about (and why not? You do spend a significant amount of time using one). I'm in the market for a new keyboard (for a Mac, but I can scrape off the window key). On the mac side, the best keyboard seems to be either a Apple Extended Keyboard (or II) plus an ADB/USB adapter or a Matias tactile pro.

On the other side, Unicomp makes buckling spring (IBM Model M) USB keyboards, and Das Keyboard is supposed to be fairly high quality (I like markings for rarely used keys, however). There seem to be a lot of people still using old IBM Model Ms with a PS/2-USB adapter.

Are there any other keyboards that aren't lowest common denominator material?