Howells accuses Williams. Culture minister Kim Howells attacks singer Robbie Williams over music piracy comments. [Guardian Unlimited]
7:57:23 PM  #   your two cents []

Slashdot: "Kevin Mitnick is getting back online and can start taking email tomorrow, January 21." [Scripting News]
7:56:15 PM  #   your two cents []

This week, I promise a more complete picture on the Xwebs browser  (see update today, Friday, 24/1/03 here, and a long feature interview with Adnan, Tuesday 28/1/03 here , with screen shots of the browser here) and the student who wrote it, 16 year old Adnan Osmani. I'll be talking to Adnan, and I have been talking to some of the judges and other people who saw the browser.

The browser was judged by a mix of academics and computing professionals from some very well-known technology companies. While the student noted its speed when interviewed in the very few *actual* interviews with him, this remains *an unknown quantity* as it could not be benchmarked in the course of the judging process. NB: I and my Irish Times colleague had stated that the browser had been tested on a university's computer system but today I was told that it was not formally tested in this way; a misunderstanding between the original journalist and the judges -- and of course was unintentional. The browser was put through its paces by the judges and by the additional tech researchers brought in to view it and talk to the student, but was only run on available computers at the competition.

What the people involved in the judging process are saying is this: as has been noted several times, the browser is a *student project* that shows talented and original programming capability deserving of formal recognition, hence Adnan's receipt of the overall Young Scientist of the Year award. It may or may not have commercial potential, but this is NOT the point of this national competition. It is also not a formal research environment nor is it a showcase for potential commercial products or a venue in which students try to seek funding or commercial recognition. It is a national schools science competition. A large number of people seem to ignore this and expect a boy to be approaching his schools project as if it were a professional submission to the W3C or as a commercial challenger to Internet Explorer. Please.

On the other hand, for those who doubt the ability of the student, one key judge told me that the judging panel asked that the browser be judged as if it were a university-level project -- and the computer science people said if it had been submitted by an undergraduate as a final year project it would be deserving of very high, and probably the highest, marks. This perhaps gives a better context in which to consider Adnan's achievement. The judges said this *setting aside totally* the speed claims for the browser, which they could not assess properly. So, the browser itself was judged without consideration of the possible speed gain elements and still was seen as clearly displaying extraordinary programming ability and very original work for a university-level student, much less for a 16 year old.

The student has utilised some existing code (as would anyone -- why would you write a browser entirely from scratch?!). Indeed it is his use of some Microsoft libraries and of Borland C++ that has generated the high number of lines of code in the program, according to one university researcher who acted as a judge.

The press release that came out to announce Adnan's award *did not mention the speed gain as a reason for the award*. Much has been made of the speed aspect,  but the hype has come from the wider web world and interpretations made of what initial stories noted about the browser. No one will be able to judge the speed elements until they can be properly benchmarked and that will take some time. An MIT researcher who talked to Adnan, though, and whom I spoke to, said he thought it was potentially a workable idea.

Perhaps this will encourage people to see the project in context, while stopping some of the frenzied speculation (and wild hype and criticism) that has spun around the web in the past two weeks. More to come.

7:18:46 PM  #   your two cents []

"This innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon." [Scripting News]
3:40:17 PM  #   your two cents []

Poll shows business turning on euro. The likelihood of a euro referendum this year receded today, with a shock poll of business leaders showing a majority against British entry. [Guardian Unlimited]
3:11:02 PM  #   your two cents []

MIT's Technology Review lists the 10 emerging technologies it thinks will change the future...
3:08:29 PM  #   your two cents []

Stones Self-Organize into Circles "It sounds like the stuff of science fiction: stones arranging themselves into perfect circles or elaborate labyrinths. But the forces behind these mysterious patterns, which are commonly found in many polar and high alpine environments, are much more pedestrian--simple cyclic freezing and thawing of the surrounding ground." [Scientific American]
11:50:55 AM  #   your two cents []

Scientists Giddy About the Grid. For years, connecting university and research-center supercomputers so they could share resources simply wasn't feasible. New standards are changing that and opening the door to new research possibilities.  [Wired News]
11:46:38 AM  #   your two cents []

Some Text Messages Just Disappear, a Study Finds. A study found that 7.5 percent of the text messages sent from cellphones were not received within 120 seconds and that 5 percent were never received at all. [New York Times: Technology] ...Hey, I can sure verify this, and I'd guess it's at least 7.5 per cent in Ireland. I HATE it when people rely on a text message to tell you something important or something with a crucial time element; SMS is just way too unreliable.
9:40:51 AM  #   your two cents []

2 Books on Hewlett-Packard Chief. Carleton S. Fiorina, the head of Hewlett-Packard, is the subject of two books that chronicle her role in the proxy fight for Compaq Computer. [New York Times: Technology]
9:37:50 AM  #   your two cents []

Vince Lombardi. "If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" [Quotes of the Day]
9:36:23 AM  #   your two cents []

Researchers Translate DNA Code as Music

"Imagine the human genome as music....  Spanish scientists did that just for fun and recorded what they call an audio version of the blueprint for life....

The end product is "Genoma Music," a 10-tune CD due out in February. "It's a way to bring science and music closer together," said Dr. Aurora Sanchez Sousa, a piano-playing microbiologist who specializes in fungi....

[The Shifted Librarian via SiliconValley.com, via Adam Curry's Weblog]

9:36:01 AM  #   your two cents []

Music industry launches campaign to abolish VAT on CDs. Beleaguered industry argues for removal of VAT as Robbie Williams calls music piracy "great". [Guardian Unlimited] ...I'm sorry, but the music industry really needs to find a reasonable price for its releases before they will ever, ever lure back one-time big music buyers, like me. CDs are just too damn expensive for me to bother paying for something I'm not sure I want -- which I know is to the detriment of many artists'pockets as well as to my own musical pleasure in as-yet undiscovered (to me) acts. The $10/euro10 price point is where the psychological barrier lies for me, and I suspect many others as well. When sales are at this level I always stock up on some new or long-wanted CDs.
9:34:13 AM  #   your two cents []

Chris Devers wrote a report on the Spam Conference. [Hack the Planet]
9:28:03 AM  #   your two cents []

As Linux Nips at Microsoft, Its Advocates Talk Numbers. The evidence is now overwhelming that Linux, once a symbol of software's counterculture, has become a mainstream technology. [New York Times: Technology]
9:27:19 AM  #   your two cents []

Samuel Johnson. "Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult." [Quotes of the Day]
9:26:56 AM  #   your two cents []

Judge to Hear Air ID Challenge. A federal court agrees to decide a case that could determine whether airline passengers should be forced to show an ID before boarding a flight. [Wired News]
9:26:32 AM  #   your two cents []

Stehpinkler: my favourite of all the German words I encountered over the weekend. German, despite its somewhat stiff and formal sound and appearance, is actually the most wonderfully flexible and inventive of languages. Any concept, any object, any action can be immediately reflected in a freshly-minted word. Like Lego, you just fit some language pieces together to make something new and extremely precise. Thus German has linguistic gems such as schadenfreude, literally, 'trouble joy', or the particular pleasure one feels when regarding others' troubles and problems (it's tiptoed into English, as it's so darn handy! And it's practically a religion in Ireland...). As for stehpinkler, it is the wonderfully onomatopoeic word for a man who pees standing up.
9:24:59 AM  #   your two cents []

Trinity College beats UCD's Smurfit School of Business in the Financial Times' rankings, according to today's Irish Times story by Emmet Oliver. I find business schools somewhat laughable -- as one extensive study last year noted, they are more like alcohol-sodden finishing schools where you primarily build up your contact network (so why not acknowledge this, charge a fraction of the cost in fees, and just send all the eager future middle managers off to the pub instead? And maybe throw in golf lessons):

Trinity College has managed to finish higher than its long time rival, UCD, in the latest rankings for international business schools carried out by the Financial Times.

UCD's Smurfit Business School has traditionally performed better in international surveys than Trinity, but this year the pattern has been reversed, albeit by a tiny margin. Trinity's MBA programme was ranked 21st in Europe, while UCD finished in 22nd position in Europe. The survey is studied widely and is regarded as highly influential.

Trinity and UCD were both ranked in the top 100 for the world, but no other Irish institution featured... Based on the population size of the Republic, the performance of both was impressive, according to the survey.

9:16:18 AM  #   your two cents []