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Tuesday, May 14, 2002 |
"Some images on the back jacket of Stephen Wolfram's 1,197-page tome, 'A New Kind of Science,' are familiar: a splash of liquid, jets of gas, sea anemone, ancient mosaics and mollusk shells. But others become understandable only after working through ideas in this much-awaited book: spindly sketches of leaves and snowflakes, a baroque lacework of light, schematic diagrams that waver under the gaze....
Now Mr. Wolfram is finally publishing his work, and his claims surpass the most extravagant speculation. He has, he argues, discovered underlying principles that affect the development of everything from the human brain to the workings of the universe, requiring a revolutionary rethinking of physics, mathematics, biology and other sciences. He believes he has shown how the most complex processes in nature can arise out of elemental rules, how a wealth of diverse phenomena — the infinite variety of snowflakes and the patterns on sea shells — are generated from seemingly trivial origins.
Conducting experiments on a computer, where he says he has logged 100 million keystrokes in the last 10 years, Mr. Wolfram wrote simple programs that generated odd and intricate patterns to test his ideas about complexity. He then tried to imitate designs found in nature. He argues that natural phenomena can be explored as if they were, in fact, computer programs, their evolution and behavior the products of intricate calculations....
But because Mr. Wolfram has been so secretive, he has shown his work only to a small circle of selected colleagues. Gregory J. Chaitin, a mathematician at IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., for example, who has read the book, said in an interview that he was convinced of its importance but anticipated controversy: 'Stephen has gone out on a limb. He is proposing a paradigm shift. A new twist on everything.' It will take months, even years, before all the thorough, independent professional assessments are in, which should not be surprising given Mr. Wolfram's undertaking.
He really is proposing, as the book's title puts it, a 'new kind of science.' He wants to displace the projects and theories and priorities that now characterize academic science. And he refuses to be limited by disciplinary boundaries or by the assertions of experts in other fields. 'No doubt,' he writes, 'this book will draw the ire' of some of them. 'I think I was a somewhat brash teenage scientist,' Mr. Wolfram said, adding that he still seems to affect people the same way....
Mr. Wolfram spins out elaborate speculations based on these ideas — suggestions about free will, the structure of space, the nature of mathematics. 'There is so much in the book,' Mr. Sejnowski said, 'that it will be years, literally years, before people assimilate it.' Meanwhile, reactions to Mr. Wolfram, he believes, will be 'all over the map.' " [NY Times, via my Dad]
This book sounds really interesting. If my Dad reads it (which I think he will), maybe he'll give us a review (hint, hint).
11:53:20 PM Permanent link here
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"As those who noticed the little XML icon below may have figured out, we have RSS generation working in Blogger Pro now. It took a while to get it in there, but I like how it works. It gives a fair amount of control, so your feed is something you won't mind people synidicating—without having to change drastically how you write your blog. (It's in beta. If you're a Pro user, check the mailing list for an explanation.) I wanted to get this done before I went down to eTech and had to face all those geeks." [EVHEAD]
Whoo-hoo and yee-haw! That means that the three most popular blogging tools (according to my own subjective assessment) - Radio, Movable Type, and Blogger Pro - all provide automatic syndication now. Combine that with Voidstar's RSSify and Aaron Swartz's Syndicate Your Page for free Blogger sites, and you've got some serious aggregation potential. Join me in doing the happy dance!
Addendum: Glenn Fleishman points out that http://www.noahgrey.com/greysoft/ can do RSS, too, although it is not automatic. To learn more about this, check out John Rhodes write up of Greymatter, RSS, and Syndication.
10:12:28 PM Permanent link here
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I forgot my Archos Jukebox at work today, so while running errands tonight, I was listening to the radio. Sometimes I think fate points me in a specific direction, and this was one of those times. Why? Because I heard Papa Don't Preach by Kelly Osbourne (a duet with Incubus, no less). It's available on Kazaa as a recording from a KROQ radio session.
Remaking an old Madonna song with an ironic title aimed at your ex-drug addict rock star Dad after the finale of your family's reality show on MTV: priceless.
10:03:02 PM Permanent link here
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Screen Language': The New Currency for Learning
"John Seely Brown has had an epiphany.
In the past year and a half, the knowledge expert and chief scientist of Xerox Corporation said he's gained a new respect—indeed an awe—for screen language. And what is screen language? It's simply the vernacular of digital culture, the way technology is increasingly put in the service of human imagination in sophisticated ways. For the shorthand version, just think of any teenager's natural affinity for instant messaging, video games, movies, open source, and eBay.
How can that affinity be tapped and how can those abilities be understood and applied to lifelong learning?
As Seely Brown told a group of about twenty educators who attended his talk at Harvard Business School on April 29, 'If you can't deal with screen language, you are not literate!...'
According to Seely Brown, there is a new kind of digital divide now and it is the divide between faculty and students. Faculty, stuck in yesterday's analog world, are confronted with students who arrive nicely fluent in digital technology and the virtues of hyperspeed. Students already have a handle on how to convey their emotional states electronically. It's up to adults to learn that vernacular, he said. Educators who create programs for adult learning and distance learning need to apply the vernacular and deepen and strengthen these new means of communication....
Several methods Seely Brown has witnessed in the past year have greatly impressed him, although he admitted it was a hard sell for a long time. 'I must have been a dinosaur. I thought hypertext was a joke. I hated video games; I thought they were a complete waste of time....'
'I spent my life reading corporate memos that were written so they couldn't be misread. And I'll tell you, every department reads them differently,' Seely Brown said. Image texts and music texts are similarly open to interpretation, he allowed. 'The real catch for me is not that this is an end in itself. I'm not arguing that we should never have text qua print text. I'm suggesting that this may be a powerful way in for kids in terms of appreciating more their vernacular, in order then to be able to open up experiences, get a more expressive medium…and then build on that.' Cultivating a sense for different vernaculars and how we use them is something we don't think much about, he added." [HBS Working Knowledge, via Tomalak's Realm]
I would argue that librarians should pay more attention to screen language, too. Our jargon is so dead-weight and non-intuitive. We've done a better job of shifting to use more mainstream vernacular, but very few of us express digital vernacular, especially on our web sites. I mean really - do you think Oprah's Book Club would have been as popular if it had been called "Oprah's Book Discussion Group." And that's just one small example. Putting the term "technical services" anywhere on your web site? Put out your hand.
9:47:42 PM Permanent link here
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"Thomas Friedman writing in the NY Times complains that the third world believes everything they read on the Internet. Now with all due respect, they shouldn't believe everything they read in the NY Times either. And Ed Cone reports that the US is still part of the third world. He lives in one of the Carolinas, where they're debating evolution, on the Internet, of course, where most of this day's discourse takes place. The solution is lower the barriers to participation, so more lies can spread faster, and develop in our species the introspection and skepticism it needs to survive the challenges ahead." [Scripting News]
Dave and Ed are right about this - just ask any teacher or librarian. Forget the spread of ideas like evolution. Just look at Mankato, Minnesota or California's Velcro Crop Under Challenges. (No, they're not real.) I mean, there's a reason behind the size and popularity of the The AFU & Urban Legends Archive and Urban Legends Reference Pages. It's also nothing new. The U.S. doesn't have any moral high ground here - it's human nature. Almost anyone can publish a print book or zine these days, and the same problems apply.
Lowering the barrier to participation isn't inherently good or bad since it just means more propaganda from both sides. Isn't that what a lot of the big debate about blogging centers around right now? Right versus left bloggers?
The key, as with anything, is to teach ourselves (and our kids) tools for Separating the Wheat from the Chaff. Luckily, a lot of people understand this:
"She squarely faced the problem of child predators, and quoted Judith Krug of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom: children 'need to be taught the skills to cope in the virtual world just as they are taught skills to cope in the physical world.'
Parents aren't there to watch over kids every minute. Just as they learn to cross the street without holding an adult's hand, so they need to learn how to wander the internet safely. 'The value of empowering our children, through education,' she concluded, 'with the knowledge and critical-thinking skills that they need to be able to independently assess the every-day situations they will encounter while online cannot be overstressed... Education and empowerment are key.' "
That quote is from a Slashdot post that summarizes a meeting that asked How Dangerous is Online Chat for Kids? It's nice to see cooler heads and common sense prevailing for a change. Well, except for the legislators, of course:
"The testimony and discussion was so removed from proposing new legislation, in fact, that Rep. Bass seemed a little bored and annoyed. He had to remind everyone twice that he and his colleague were lawmakers: 'As a member of Congress, I would like to hear what recommendations you have for what we might do -- I haven't heard anything about that so far. ... If I could reiterate: we make policy. This is a very interesting problem, but precisely what suggestions would you have for us as policymakers? If you could draft the bill, what would it say?' "
Thank you for your generous offer, Rep. Bass, but no legislation is necessary. You can't legislate away our natural gullibility. Or can you?
5:39:10 PM Permanent link here
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I can't remember if I've ever posted this here before, but in case you haven't seen it, The Wheels on the Bus by Mad Donna is pretty funny. I dare you to try and get the song out of your head today. (Requires Flash.)
I should also mention that there are lots of great songs on the Mother Goose Rocks CDs, and that you'll be the life of any party to which you bring them. They're also great for remixes for friends (that's still legal, right?).
You'll thank me later.
2:29:56 PM Permanent link here
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"Music disc copyright protection schemes such a Cactus Data Shield 100/200 and KeyAudio can be circumvented using tools as basic as marker pens and electrical tape, crackers have discovered.
The Blue Peter-style hack, which was first unearthed by a reader of chip.de works by covering up the outer ring of a copyright protected audio disc.
On copy protected discs this outer track is corrupted, which prevents copying, or even playback, by PCs but is ignored (at least in theory) by regular CD players.
Simply covering up the outer track disables the protection, allowing a disc to be played as normal in a PC or Mac.
The cracking technique seems crude, but Reg reader insomnia skunk tells us he was able to use it to defeat the copyright protection on Natalie Imbruglia's 'White Lilies Island' CD, early version of which used Cactus Data Shield 200 anti-rip technology.
He writes: 'The process is pretty easy: I took a bit of electrical tape and applied it to the edge of the CD, the 'shiny side', - just a half inch of the stuff - and aligned it with the very edge 'data track session ring' visible on these copy protected CDs. Took the tape out to the outside of the CD and put it in my CD Rom.'
'And guess what - it played, and ripped, with no problems at all,' he adds." [The Register]
So will the CBDTPA now outlaw electrical tape since it can be used for violating copyright? This just goes to show the folly of relying on Congress to legislate technology that will prevent digital copying. "insomnia skunk" is all set to IM those files now....
9:08:49 AM Permanent link here
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Kazaa, Verizon Propose to Pay Artists Directly
"An unlikely alliance of swap-service Kazaa and telephone and Internet giant Verizon is floating a proposal to break the logjam of lawsuits: Computer manufacturers, blank CD makers, ISPs and software firms such as Kazaa will pool funds and pay artists directly.
'Historically, there's been a clash between the content community and new technology, back to the player piano,' says Verizon vice president Sarah Deutsch. 'We're proposing the idea of a copyright compulsory license for the Internet, so peer-to-peer distribution would be legitimate and the copyright community would get compensation. It's hard to get the genie back in the bottle.'
Kazaa lobbyist Phil Corwin says a $1-a-month fee per user on Internet providers alone (it's unclear whether costs would be passed along to subscribers) would generate $2 billion yearly: "We're talking about a modest fee on all the parties who benefit from the availability of this content."
Recording Industry Association of America president Hilary Rosen calls the proposal 'the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous.' " [USA Today]
Rosen only thinks it's ridiculous because it bites into the status quo money machine of the companies she represents. I guess the labels aren't as concerned about artists getting paid as they told the judge they are.
"[Jim] Guerinot is upset that the labels have tried to combat technology with alternatives that have been widely rejected by the public. MusicNet and Pressplay offer limited downloads, but not in the preferred MP3 format, and they usually can't be transferred to portables or burned to CDs.
'It would be like me opening a video store, charging 10 times what others were charging and only offering videos in the Beta format,' Guerinot says. 'In any business, when you have billions of downloads occurring, you don't say we're going to ignore that market and try to create something else. You serve your customers.' "
Unless you're the music industry, as evidenced by the following:
File Sharing is a Hit, Despite Legal Setbacks
"The numbers are staggering. From January to March of this year, the most popular file-sharing programs, which include Kazaa and Morpheus, were downloaded 79 million times. During the same period in 2001, a similar group of programs including Napster were downloaded just 8.2 million times.
Morpheus has 90 million registered users; Kazaa, 75 million....
Meanwhile, what's a poor musician to do? The digital musical revolution grows and grows, and the only ones getting rich appear to be pop-up advertisers and lawyers. 'Same thing they always did — go out and tour,' says Gonzalez. 'Peer to peer is a great way for them to get their music out there, develop a following and attract more fans to the venue. Artists have been poor since music began; this isn't changing anything, just revolutionizing how the music is being distributed.'
The next wave is file-swapping via instant messages, says Gonzalez: 'I see file sharing and instant messaging turning into one.'
The latest versions of MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger all have buttons to press to chat or send files, a process which is much faster than with such programs as Kazaa and Morpheus.
'I don't think you'll find anyone outlawing instant messaging,' says Raymond James analyst Phil Leigh. 'Even if AOL was to say they wouldn't permit file sharing, then they would lose the battle to Yahoo and Microsoft, and that would never happen.'
'The essence of the Internet is file-sharing,' says Phil Corwin, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist for Kazaa. 'I do it every day with clients. I attach files to e-mail. Unless you're going to shut down the Internet or cripple computers and require them to examine each and every file, there's no way people are going to step backwards.' " [USA Today]
Of course, this is exactly what Fritz Hollings and his sponsors in the entertainment industry want to do, but even if we went back to the way things were ten years ago, I'd still be making music tapes for my friends, videotaping TV shows for my family, and borrowing books from the public library.
The proof is out there. Give folks what they want at a reasonable price and you'll break the bank with profits. Just ask Spider-Man.
8:57:15 AM Permanent link here
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"Star Wars and other larger-than-life movies have given Hollywood the ultimate weapon against digital piracy: They make people want to go to the movie theater.
The music industry continues its mighty struggle against online file-sharing networks, but the movie industry has seemingly overcome that battle.
Ticket sales are at an all-time high. Spider-Man took in more money in its opening weekend than any film in history. Advance ticket sales for Star Wars have caused traffic to online ticket sellers to jump 150 percent.
It's a movie bonanza, offering positive lessons to the entertainment industry. Hollywood's recent success comes because movies with special effects, surround sound and epic storytelling just don't translate as well onto the television and computer screens as they do to the big screen.
'The visual experience is totally different in your home or on a computer than it is at a theater because the screen at your home doesn't dominate you,' said Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Pictures. 'The movie theater has 54-foot screen with surround sound. People expect a larger-than-life experience....'
While file trading has thrived, so too has Hollywood. Studios grossed $8.4 billion last year, an increase of almost 10 percent over 2000....
Half of the top 100 grossing films of all time have been released since 1996 -- about the same time frame as when people began discovering the Web. Even as file-sharing reached its highest point between 1999 and 2002, 33 films cracked the list.
No other three-year period comes close to topping that number. Twenty-two films cracked the list in the early nineties, while the entire 1980s had only 21 films make the list." [Wired News]
The same is true for music and television, too. As long as you're producing something good that appeals to people, they'll pay money for it. This also proves that they'll pay money for a quality, original version, as noted by Lawmeme. Spider-Man will be all over the internet later this year, but I'll bet the DVD still breaks records and outsells all others to become number on when it's released.
It's only when you create a void that consumers will attempt to fill it themselves.
7:16:45 AM Permanent link here
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"Tomorrow night, in New York, a real live social network experiment. After a discussion led by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, the real action: a cocktail party at which guests wear wireless badges called meme tags that track and analyze social interaction in real time. I'm guessing that, at the end, there's a map showing who talked to whom, and some kind of prize for the most connected individual. Malcolm Gladwell should be disqualified considering the number of starstruck webloggers who'll head up to shake the great man's hand. Social Network Soiree" [nickdenton.org]
12:10:07 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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