...more recent posts
Probably, like everyone else, I've linked to this before. But here it is again. Neil Stephenson's (short for a book, long for the web) In the Beginning was the Command Line. It takes some time to get through, but Stephenson (Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, etc...) is a great writer, and really knows a lot about computers. This might well be the first text on the syllabus for some future college class on the Early History of Computing. So, in case you want to get a jump on the other kids, dig in now. I'll be over here on this $!@#%&' Linux box trying to get that %^&*!!@ wu-ftp to work by typing cryptic strings of characters into the command line. There's a lot to learn when you start from the beginning.
Probably, like everyone else, I've linked to this before. But here it is again. Neil Stephenson's (short for a book, long for the web) In the Beginning was the Command Line. It takes some time to get through, but Stephenson (Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon, etc...) is a great writer, and really knows a lot about computers. This might well be the first text on the syllabus for some future college class on the Early History of Computing. So, in case you want to get a jump on the other kids, dig in now. I'll be over here on this $!@#%&' Linux box trying to get that %^&*!!@ wu-ftp to work by typing cryptic strings of characters into the command line. There's a lot to learn when you start from the beginning.
"Claude Elwood Shannon, the mathematician who laid the foundation of modern information theory while working at Bell Labs in the 1940s, died on Saturday. He was 84."I don't think you could name anyone who would be clearly more important in the formation of our global techno culture. You can read more about information theory here. "Information Theory regards information as only those symbols that are uncertain to the receiver." Yes, you read that right. "Information" is what is uncertain. A completely random process (if such a thing exists) emits maximum information. The incomprehensible ravings of a madman contain far more information than your nightly news report. As often happens with science, the more you learn about a particular topic, the more you see how scientific knowledge is greatly at odds with the "common everyday understanding" of many things. I thought about this Shannon stuff for a long time and it really turned my whole cognitive landscape inside out. Here's more from that lucent page: "The amount of information, or uncertainty, output by an information source is a measure of its entropy. In turn, a source's entropy determines the amount of bits per symbol required to encode the source's information." Shannon worked out in detail the mathematics dictating the maximum amount of information one can transmit over a given communication channel. This work formed the basis of all our computer network engineering, from the early voice (telephone) networks, to this internet thing we're talking on now. But his work also had more abstract influences. As we formalize the mathematics that seem to work in building machines (computers) that mimic human abilities (like communication,) we profoundly effect our understanding of how we, as humans, are able to accomplish those operations in the first place. I think Shannon's work on information was a prime motivator in the explosion of theory of language and theory of consciousness type philosophizing that took place in the 50's and 60's (and continues to this day.) His basic idea might seem simple today, but it was not in the 40's, and I bet that if you really think about the consequences of information being uncertainty, you'll start to be a little confused too. And confusion (is that uncertainty?) is the first step toward thinking something really informative. The world has lost a great mind.
Sure MP3s are cool, but now that Napster is trying to go legit and all the huge consumer electronics manufacturers are supporting the format, what does a young trend bucking anti-corporate music swapper have to do to stay ahead of the curve? Download the latest (beta4) preview of Ogg Vorbis, of course. It's the really free really good digital music CODEC. Or if you're like me, and you still find yourself using cassette tapes, but want to sound like you're on the cutting edge, you can just read this interesting interview with the guys behind Ogg. Burn baby burn.
Baaaa. I made zero progress yesterday, but I may have screwed some stuff up, so at least I wasn't completely ineffective. It's remarkably hard to work for eight hours on something you are not accomplishing (but I guess that's where the screwing stuff up part came in.) Must get out of the house today. Perhaps it will put itself in order while I'm gone. Seems about as likely as me being able to do it.
Spent yesterday in linux land. I think the new box is going to be called tulip, although I still have to consult my tree specialist about that. Anyway, I'm now able to telnet into tulip from the iMac, as well as browse html pages on tulip from Netscape on the iMac. But I couldn't get FTP to connect (or, it seems to connect, but then it just hangs while getting directory information.) This is a problem, because I need FTP working to upload the latest PHP and MySQL. But after I get that done, I'll really be getting somewhere. Hopefully today will see some good progress.
I don't care who owns my bases. Bring on the backlash.
Here's a nice explanation of "web bugs" which are the limited case where cookies can be a security problem. The maddening thing, as he points out, is that it is not a problem with cookies, per se, but with the lame way they are implemented in Netscape and IE. Cookies are your friend. Your browser is probably not.
Ev (nice new design) has apparently done some research about click through rates for blog banner ads at weblogs.com. Seems that the average click through rate is around 0.6%. But check out the top 6 banners, which all get over 2% of the people who see them to click. Hmmmmm.
802.11b is a standard for wireless ethernet connections. Lucent calls it wavelan (although, did they just change the name?) and Apple calls it airport. Whatever the name, 802.11b allows you to set up short range wireless local area networks (LANs.) You plug one part (the base station) into your phone line (or DSL, or cable modem line) and the other part into your (portable) computer. Now you can move around your house, or out into the yard, and your computer will stay connected to the web by wirelessly talking with the base station. Cool. But even cooler is that you can set up multiple base stations, and if you have everything positioned correctly, your roaming portable computer will sense the different base stations as they come into range and automatically switch off (like cell phones - especially PCS phones - do when you are moving around.) So the question, then, is wouldn't it be cool if people (especially those living in densely populated urban areas) started blanketing certain regions with publically accessible 802.11b base stations. A free wireless internet could be built in the traditional decentralized grass roots way. Oh wait, people are already doing this.
Macworld Tokyo was yesterday (well, last night Eastern US time.) Pretty much as expected, but there are always a few surprises. New speed bumped and CD/RW sporting imacs (G3s at 400/500/600 mhz.) Apple missed the ball on CD/RW (they were pushing DVD/RAM for the last 2 years) but now that they have changed course they have easily made up for lost time. Big Cube price drops, with the entry level 450 G4 now dropped to $1250. And a huge price drop for the all singing all dancing Mac 22 inch Cinema Display. Now only ("only!") $2999 (from $3999.) This is actually pretty good, seeing as others have 18 inch flat panels (sgi) for $3200+. These prices should continue to drop fast as flat panel technology is rapidly improving. Maybe $1999 by Christmas?
And for gamers, and other tech spec freaks, the big, almost totally unexpected news, is that the new NVIDIA GeForce3 (previously known as the NV20) is going to be available for the Mac. This is huge news for Apple, as WinTel has always had a lead in the gaming market. But the GeForce3 is not only coming to the Mac, it's coming to the Mac before WinTel. Amazing. I wonder how Jobs cut that deal. Must be pretty hard to convince a manufacturer to support your platform when you have < 5% of the market. Anyway, this is going to take gaming to the next level. (Yes, I know that is meaningless hype-speak, but this will be the most advanced graphics card.) They had John Carmack on stage (master mind behind Quake, and all around programmer hero) and he was demoing a preview of the Doom3 engine running on MacOSX. He says that full cinematic 3d quality is now possible. All the 3d characters are rendered in Maya (!) which was also demonstrated running on OSX. I've never been into these games, but I am certainly interested in the state of the art, and I keep wondering when we're going to get to these 3d virtual worlds I started reading about in '89. We're still a way off, but clearly making progress. And the GeForce3 will at least give the battered Apple some bragging rights.
I mentioned ZZZ online before, but I think it's worth repeating. I've really been enjoying it. The guy who writes it is a total nut. Sort of a Popular Science on the web, except much better.
From slashdot: Microsoft has clarified their man Jim Allchin's rather insane comments that open source software threatens the "American way". They didn't mean that. They meant the Gnu Public License (GPL) threatens the American way. Maybe they are finally understanding. I can't wait to read Richard Stallmans comments.
This is doubly funny, becasue even on Slashdot (in the comments at least) Stallman is regularly attacked in just this way. "He's a communist!" "He wants to share everything!" "Did we mention he's a communist!" I just always thought these were little republican 13 year olds.
Yes, that's right Napster offered the music industry one billion dollars to allow their members unlimited swapping of works for five years. Slashdot. Cnet. FoxNews. I can't imagine they'll except that offer. Or any offer really.
Here's an unusually good space shuttle picture from this most recent launch.
New issue of Cryptogram. Good stuff on proposed hard-drive-embedded copy protection plans, a semantic attack by URL that I would probably have fallen for, and another good explanation on why he thinks electronic voting is a really bad idea.
Much better. I bought the O'Reilly Horse book ("Running Linux") yesterday, and that was just what I needed. I learned more about unix in one day of reading and poking around the command line than in my almost 2 years of just using a unix system (I mean remotely using somebody else's unix system.) Maybe it's not so hard.
I'm not getting much traction on the server project. Since I really know almost nothing, its hard to pick an approach route. I guess the point is that it doesn't really matter, just jump in, and eventually you'll figure out what the best way would have been to approach the problem. Or another way of saying this is: just pick one small thing and start there, then move on to another small thing, and eventually a bigger picture will emerge. I guess there has to be some wasted motion when you are trying to blindly find your way. But if that's the case, are those motions still wasted?
Actually this sort of thinking is the real problem. Stop writing and fire that beast up.
Those "Real Good Plumbers" have managed to break the heating system. The last 24+ hours have been cold. Like I need an excuse to stay in bed.
Alpine is a file-sharing network getting a lot of mentions.
Here's an interview with Wilfredo Sanchez, an interesting programmer who was, until last week, the lead open source developer on Apple's Darwin project, and who is now the "open source program manager" at knownow (a just out of stealth mode p2p/2-way-web sort of thingie.) Basically the interview is talking about open source development in general. W.S. has a nice middle of the road (to me) attitude that seems very reasonable (unlike some voices in the open source world.) It's not about the license, or the code per se, it's about the community of people that can form around such projects.
"The way I think about it, a community is a group of people with some interest in a given problem space and a vision for how to tackle it and what to do with the result. They tend to rally around some code, because code sets some nice boundaries for the scope of that problem space, but the code might be tossed out and re-written or otherwise modified and extended to reflect the vision of the group, which evolves the members discover new ideas, or the membership changes. The successful communities I know about have some common characteristics: They tend to have a core group of some manageable size, which is generally comprised of the most active developers, but also of other people who are known to understand the problem space well. The core group and the code are what provide continuity and direction, and they roughly represent the vision of the whole group."
The good folks at Microsoft are really saving us time. "With their high quality, efficiency enhancing software?" you ask. No. They're saving us time by calling their new Secure Audio Path technology (read: music copy protection scheme) "SAP". Now we only have to use one word for the idea as well as for anyone who would agree to use such a thing. Genius.
Evidently, this is the big Zeldman news. The WaSP (Web Standards Project) Browser Upgrade Campaign. Pardon my disappointment, but is that really the announcement he had me waiting for? BFD. I mean I support his campaign (I say from Navigator 4.7) but what about all those hints at something revolutionary? The WaSP is going from bugging software companies to make more standard compliant browsers to bugging the public to upgrade to the new still not totally compliant browsers. Huh? Sure, everybody should upgrade. Right on. But maybe Zeldman should cut the dose on his hype medicine. I was actually thinking he had some sort of middleware universal bad html translator module that was going to make all our cross platform problems vanish.
The new basement office construction had stalled for so long I completely forgot about it. But after MB and H fired the plumber and the electrician things are really starting to move. The new plumber (actually a whole team) is a company called "A Real Good Plumber" which sounds stupid unless you've just had a very bad time with a very bad plumber. In that case A Real Good Plumber sounds like exactly what you want. And they are good. But the electricians are really kicking some butt. They'll be done next week and then I guess the sheet rocking can begin. Then it will feel close.
I think we might be sprouting a few more branches.
I have no time for this, and even if I did I probably don't have the necessary math skills to really understand it, but here's the paper explaining why Gnutella will NOT scale.
The new server is up (in the lab; not online.) It booted right into Red Hat Linux 6.2. It is extrodinarilly loud. (WHAT?) It came loaded with Gnome (graphic interface) which looks much better than I expected. Just doing some poking around while I decide on a course of action. I think I might want to stay running 6.2, although the CD's I have are for 7.0, so if I want to do a reinstall (which I do) I'd have to either get 6.2 or go to 7.0. Not sure what to do, so I'll try to find some discussion of whether 7.0 is really ready for non-experimental use. I know there were initially some problems with the version of GCC they shipped with 7.0, but I don't know if this has been resolved, or whether it ever really was a problem.
No doubt many more thrilling updates like this one to come.
Dan Gilmore has the first brief explanation of what knownow.com is doing (they've been in super stealth mode until yesterday.)
"I didn't know this before today, but it turns out that a Web browser can hold open the connection to the server. Normally, a browser sends a request for information, which is delivered by the server. The connection ends.I don't know. This sounds sort of like just refreshing the page ever second. Must be more than that. Still, this is the sort of thing I am looking for. We need some kind of server (not just browser) on the desktop. For this site it would mean that instead of users (re)loading the main page to see what new messages have been posted since their last visit, those notices would just show up on everyone's desktop every time something new was posted (assuming you had the site open on your desktop.) Like a cross between the web and instant messaging. For those who remember the old days (a few years ago,) this is basically "push" technology revisited. Push was a huge dud, but now the market is ready I think. Just don't call it push.
KnowNow holds the connection open. Then it adds some JavaScript and, voila, you have a mini-server inside the browser. You're not necessarily using lots of bandwidth, but you are pretending, in effect, that you're downloading a very, very long document while the browser keeps communicating with the server."
The new server has arrived It is totally freakin' cool. Too bad I'm going to be in the kitchen for the rest of the day getting ready for tonight. Tomorrow I am going to buy a keyboard first thing in the morning and then dig in. Pictures to follow.
From genehack.org:
"As you go through your day today, stop occasionally, and remember that you're a member of a species that took a hunk of metal and plastic and heaved it up into the dark night, just so we could get a better look at a pebble that spins around our home. Realize that once we had our look, once we'd gotten what we came for, our monkey curiosity still wasn't satisfied, and so we banged our hunk of metal and plastic onto the pebble, just on the off chance that we'd get another glance or two.And as if that wasn't enough, now they are going to attempt to fire the thrusters again and lift off (today at 2:00 pm EST.) Good luck. Here's a nice diagram of the hunk of metal and plastic in question.
And it worked."
Just another quick reminder: your email client should not process or create or have any sort of truck with HTML. Clear? The idea that a program might go beyond this, and also process javascript and VBscript is either negligent or criminally insane. As for people who use such products, well, I'll just go with them being "uneducated". Now the question is, do you want to broadcast your uneducated-ness every time you send an email? No you don't. Use plaintext. Now go back to your business, forget I or anyone else ever said these things, and... hey! check out all these pictures of Anna Kournikova....
Here's some detailed explanations of Google's new usenet archives. You absolutely must read this page and familiarize yourself with the new system. This is perhaps the single most important resource on the web. There will be a test on Monday. (If you're wondering what the heck usenet is then you might want to take a look at this page first.)
Andrew Odlyzko: Papers on Electronic Publishing and Electronic Commerce. Good stuff. And lots of it. The link is from a very complete rant called "what's wrong with content protection" by John Gilmore. [update: Here's a more permanent link to the Gilmore paper. Worth a read.]
Salon picks the 10 most paranoid books of all time. What? No Illuminatus? This must be some sort of plot...
The largest natural crystals on earth.
O.K., how come I didn't know about this? Google bought Deja? Now you can search .5 terrabytes of usenet postings (back to 1995) and see them all right off the (fast) google servers. Between this, and google.com/linux I think even I will be able to (con)figure the new server. (Did you know there is a google.com/mac and a google.com/unclesam too? Pretty useful.)
[update: Oh, O.K., I didn't know because it was just announced.]
The 9th Circuit court handed down its opinion today on the RIAA vs. Napster case. Sounds like a loss for Napster, although they get to keep operating for the time being. Probably it's hard to say how this will actually play out. The court said that the previous ruling (which would have just shut Napster down completely,) was "overbroad", but they also said that Napster "knowingly encourages and assists its users to infringe the record companies' copyrights." (Ouch.) And that some sort of modified (not just outright shutdown?) injunction is "not only warranted but required." I think we might be back to square one where this ruling will create a new injunction that basically allows Napster to keep running as long as they don't allow any copyrighted material that they are aware of to be traded. The problem, again, is that there is no way for Napster (presently configured) to be aware of all the material flowing through the system. In any case, they're not shutting down today, and the RIAA can claim a theoretical victory. A little something for everyone.
Disgruntled physics student lab report: Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass. (via robotwisdom)
Here's a screen shot of Apple's new DVD studio pro. You can get a pretty good sense of the program from it, actually. Or maybe that's just because I'm familiar with Final Cut.
"How exactly are chips produced on those giant cookie sheets anyway?" This is a don't miss for the hopelessly geeky.
Forget that vaporware Ginger thing, you can buy wheelman today. (via /.)
PVV (Pasta, Veggies, Vino) tonight 8:00 pm (post Genesis P.) Let me know.
Glad she's on my side.
Ran out last night just before midnight to pick up a set of cards that MB was having printed for a project she's working on. The printer was in an old building in the 20's between 5th and 6th. Lots of people standing in line for clubs on that block, mixed in with lots of people still working really hard jobs. The printers were on the 6th floor, and as soon as the elevator doors opened I was knocked back by the smell. Toxic. I would have left immediately, but no one else seemed to notice, and since I was accompanying my girlfriend (ha!) I figured I probably shouldn't turn tail quite so fast. But seriously, the smell of ink was way past the danger level. Like somebody had shoved one of those old fat markers they don't even sell any more right up your nose. No escape. I could feel the brain cells popping with each breath.
Anyway, MB is standing at the window talking to some 16 year old latino girl who is in no hurry to do anything. I'm pacing back and forth trying to find a spot in the room where maybe the smell is not so strong. Perhaps the air currents had conspired to make a little pocket of freshness somewhere. Except there wasn't any air moving of course, and the toxic cloud just hung there, thick, over all of us.
So eventually the girl gets it sorted out and we are directed down the hall and into the actual printing room. All latino workers, big loud presses, cutters, scraps of paper all over the floor, pallettes of flyers blocking all the walkways. Guys are standing over these huge pools of ink, just inhaling the stuff. Seems like you would be dead within a few years. If you could last that long. Anyway, it's so loud that it's hard to communicate with anyone, but eventually MB gets the message through and is handed a big block of cards neatly wrapped in brown paper.
"This is wrong" she says immediately to the guy. He's like "what are you talking about?" but in that way where you know he doesn't actually know anything about the job or the way it was supposed to be, he just wants you to take your stuff and get out of there because, you know, they've got a lot of printing to do, and it's loud and frantic, and probably they're way behind schedule, and this tall pretty (very white) blonde girl in a furry jacket that Elton John would be proud to wear is telling him that the job is wrong. But before he can say anything else MB cuts him off and starts spouting a run on sentence of jargon that would make any computer geek blush. I can't remember what she said, but I saw his body posture change in the space of 10 seconds from "look lady [or worse] take your shit and don't give me any trouble" to "Oh my god let me get someone who knows what they're doing to talk to this woman and hope I get to keep my job." And then things started to get good. Somebody in charge comes over, and I can see MB really knows how to deal with this stuff. He's a tough guy (everybody in the room except for me is a tough guy,) but he can't really assume that role with her. She doesn't wait for him to assess the situation, or offer any thoughts, she just informs him that the job is wrong (again with some long sentence of which I catch only the small connector words: "the...it is...if...so...and...and...and this...",) and then doesn't ask, but just tells him what they have to do. "You give me 200 cards now to get me through the weekend, and then I'll come back on Monday and pick up the correct run." The guy just nods his head. There's nothing he can say. She's obviously right. Not because of her argument (or maybe, but I couldn't understand it) but just because there is obviously no doubt in her mind, or voice, or posture, that she is right. And standing in this toxic, testosterone laden environment, wearing her pajamas underneath that crazy jacket somehow adds to her credibility. He cracks open the package of incorrect cards, hands her a big stack (more than she asked for I think,) and nods his head gravely, like "Yeah, somebody fucked up, come back on Monday and I'll have it done right." I guess that's how you do stuff in New York. I think I'll see if she'll go pick up my monitor for me.
Dave Winer is trying to get in touch with Screaming Media. Hmmm. Now that's a nice fit. I hope somebody over there answers the phone when he calls.
Zdnet is saying that Metricom, makers of the super cool Richocet wireless modem, is having some serious financial problems. Bummer.
Slashdot had this link to a hacked kit that will let you record HDTV off an RCA DTC100 to any firewire (ieee1394) device. This is something "they" don't want you to be able to do (even though time shifting broadcast programming has a precedent of being totally legal in the U.S.) I've got no plans to buy into the HDTV thing (until they come down to under $300,) but just in case I win one or something, I definitely want this link.
What is Zeldman hinting at? (Feb. 8th and 6th entries.) It must have to do with browsers and standards. We could use a big surprise in this area.
If you were going to be transported back in time to the distant past, what is the one modern item you would elect to take with you (excluding the time machine itself.) Or, in other words, what's the most important modern item for survival in a world otherwise devoid of modern conveniences? Bic lighter?
Not my usual fare, but I've been listening to this Blue Note album by a band named St. Germain (album is called Tourist.) I don't think Ken Burns quite got to them. Great stuff. Sizzling. I guess it would be called acid jazz, but do people still use that phrase?
email is back and firing on all accounts. I'm sure the spammers will be very pleased.
Probably one more day until I have all my email back on line. Sorry if I owe anyone replies. Most likely I haven't even seen the original yet. The inch account is already back, so use that one if you need to get me today.
I'm not making this up. From the zend.com website: "This gives the added benefit of improved code obfuscation."
Oh yeah, Apple sent me the $30 rebate coupon for OSX (since I bought the public beta for $30.) Clearly this was the right thing for Apple to do, but they don't always do the right thing so it was nice to see the email in my in box.
The Apple (Pioneer) "Superdrive" DVD-R/CD-R/RW is now available in an external firewire case from all4dvd.com. $990.
O.K., I'm back. Thanks to the Wheel's new viao I am the proud new user of a graphite iMac. Nice little machine so far. Not quite the dual 500/radeon G4 I had been using, but that is really MB's machine and I guess the time has come for her to start using it. And frankly, for surfing the web and writing PHP scripts in BBEdit I'm not sure I need all that power.
While from the outside it may look like I have taken a little break from the computer world, I can assure you that this was not the case. While I wasn't actually using a computer for a few weeks, I was very busy thinking about them. And about this site. All previous plans at a system wide rewrite have been suspended, and a brand new plan has been put into place. It is all layed out in the most abstracted way (pen and paper flow chart type stuff,) and only awaits the new server to begin the birthing process. I think I'm on to something this time. Details to follow.
I've been pretty out of the loop for the last few weeks (web-wise that is.) I see that blogger is having some serious problems. Too bad. I hope Ev keeps the servers running. Losing all those blogs would be a huge blow to the web world I know. Hopefully all the people who got started with the supremely easy to use Blogger will stick with it even if the service does eventually fold. I hope it works out, but if not, they still did a great thing.
Took my monitor into the shop this morning. Should know by midweek what the deal is. Trying to convince my friend (who has a monitor but no computer) to lend me hers for the week. Meanwhile I'm stealing a few moments on the spare machine in the office.
Sad news. Tarzan (the bird) passed away yesterday. Unlike Angel, his partner who died many months ago without warning, we noticed something was wrong with Tarzan yesterday morning. As the day progressed it became clear that it was pretty serious. MB and I took turns holding him all day, but around 6:00 pm he died in MB's arms. Services to be held today. The building is going to be a much more quiet place. For all the complaining I did about his early morning squawking, I loved him a lot. Bye bye birdie.