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Tuesday, May 07, 2002 |
Geodesic’s desktop website. Radio UserLand is perhaps the best well-known of desktop website apps—but it’s not the only such app. The other day I checked out Geodesic’s Great Circle.
Though like Radio it’s a desktop website app, the similarity ends there. Great Circle is a developer’s tool for finding memory leaks and over-writes in their code.
You can get a good feel for the product, which runs on Linux, Windows, and various other Unices (but not OS X), by checking out the online demo. [inessential.com]
6:35:53 PM 
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Quote of the day...
Boot This: And now a word from our ... zzzt!. How many of you hit the mute button when a commercial pops up on TV? How many of you use the time otherwise spent watching ads to use the bathroom, make a snack, or flip over to another station or simply turn the TV off? Quite a few, I'd imagine. [Technology]
Here's Jamie Kellner, the chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting System (an AOL Time Warner unit), quoted last week in Cable World magazine, on the subject of ad-skipping technology: "It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots.'' I've never heard anything so ridiculous. Contract with the network? Huh? If that's true, then I guess you'll also have to outlaw the buttons that allow me to change channels and turn the TV off, and you'll have to get rid of the fast-forward and rewind controls on my VCR, too. Are these people for real? Just how much greed on their part do they think consumers will put up with? They'd actually like to monitor us and charge us extra if we go to the bathroom instead of watching a commercial -- really!
The nameless federal judge in Los Angeles who "ordered SonicBlue to turn over data on its customers' viewing habits to entertainment companies" should be ordered to watch 72 continuous hours of crappy sitcom reruns to adjust his or her attitude - the judge must be on the take.
Though I can understand the concern over users distributing copies of a show without commercials, the rest of it is just too bizarre to be believable...
Related:
CEA Blasts SonicBlue Decision [internetnews.com: Top News] [jenett.radio]
7:21:12 AM
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Jadine Ying: "Many people see weblogs as a supplement, chipping in what old media lack in irreverence, personality and interactive flow."  [Scripting News]
7:19:30 AM
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Negotiating a Slave Contract.
Posted by The Happy Tutor
Top 10 New Copyright Crimes: Jamie Kellner, chairman and CEO of Turner Broadcasting (an AOL Time Warner company), was recently interviewed by [INSIDE] on the future of television (Content's King). In the interview, Mr. Kellner said some very interesting things, including characterizing those who skip television commercials as thieves:
[Ad skips are] theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming.
Negotiating A Slave Contract
Rule #1: Put it in writing.
Rule # 2: Make it unilateral.
Rule # 3: Keep its provisions Secret until violated.
Rule #4: Include a clause allowing you to sell the Slave to another Dom, such as Advertisers.
Rule #5: Do not allow the Sub to take a potty break without your express prior permission.
Rule #6: Get the slave hooked on pleasure and pain. Withhold TV until he signs.
Rule #7: Work with your Pain Sluts in Congress to forge the manacles of law.
Rule #8: Hang rebellious slaves upside down on a St. Andrews Cross as an example to the others.
Rule #9: Show respect for your slave by allowing him to act as a human toilet for your programming.
Rule #10: Move your personal fortune offshore, as a prudent precaution. [Wealth Bondage]
7:03:17 AM
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Insect Swarming Inspires Jazz Software.
"Jazz musicians who enjoy freeform improvisation may soon be using computer software to accompany themselves. A team at University College London has written a program that mimics insect swarming to 'fly around' the sequence of notes the musician is playing and improvise a related tune of its own.
The Swarm Music program is the creation of computer scientists Tim Blackwell and Peter Bentley, who study how natural processes can be modelled in software. The pair believe that improvised music is self-organising in the way swarms of insects and flocks of birds are.
Their software works by treating music as a type of 3D space, in which the dimensions are pitch, loudness and note duration. As the musician plays, a swarm of digital 'particles' immediately starts to buzz around the notes being played in this space - in the same way that bees behave when they are seeking out pollen.
Periodically, the position of each particle is translated into musical notes or chords which are played back to the musician a beat or so later. Just by following a few very basic insect-like rules, such as 'move towards the centre of the swarm" and "do not bump into any other members of the swarm,' the software plays music that the inventors say 'is hard to believe is not of human origin.' " [New Scientist]
For Bruce, my Dad, and Ernie! [The Shifted Librarian]
6:59:57 AM
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Bruce Eckel and Larry O' Brian are porting Thinking in Java to .NET - their initial efforts on Thinking in C# are available here. I haven't read TiC# yet, but I liked Bruce Eckel's previous books. It'll be interesting to see if what (if anything) is lost in the port, and if the differences come through. It would be soooo boring to read yet another "here's how to write 'Hello World' in C# book". [Peter Drayton's Radio Weblog]
6:49:15 AM
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Whither Software?.
Whither Software?
Richard P. Gabriel, founder of the Feyerabend project writes about significant changes on the way:
"Programming today is the intellectual equivalent of picking cotton..." and
"Computing practice and theory is based on the very hidden and hard-to-reveal assumption that engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists are the only ones who will write a program or contribute software to a system." [Patrick Logan's Radio Weblog]
6:46:48 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Mark Oeltjenbruns.
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