/dev/oei

"People commonly use the word “procrastination” to describe what they do on the Internet...."

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:00:46 +0100

“People commonly use the word “procrastination” to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what’s happening as merely not-doing-work. We don’t call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working.”

- Paul Graham: The Acceleration of Addictiveness

"For my own library that I’ve spent the last 12 years building. I have to look up the syntax to..."

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:59:42 +0100

“For my own library that I’ve spent the last 12 years building. I have to look up the syntax to declare a callback.”

- apenwarr: You can’t make C++ not ugly, but you can’t not try

Dilbert on computer troubleshooting

Sun, 27 Jun 2010 14:35:59 +0100

I always try to resist pushing jokes into this feed, because the funny stuff tends to take over over time, but this is really not a joke. Quoted for truth!

Go forth and... diversify

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 19:42:18 +0100

The Economist on the human-genome project:

[It may someday turn out] that some differences both between and within groups are quite marked. If those differences are in sensitive traits like personality or intelligence, real trouble could ensue.

People must be prepared for this possibility, and ready to resist the excesses of racialism, nationalism and eugenics that some are bound to propose in response. That will not be easy. The liberal answer is to respect people as individuals, regardless of the genetic hand that they have been dealt. Genetic knowledge, however awkward, does not change that.

These kind of arguments have bothered me for a long time now. Really, is this “liberal” answer the best we have? Is all we can say to proponents of eugenics and the like, that it is uncivil to think what they think? That’s hardly a convincing counter-argument. Let’s keep moral judgement out of the discussion for a moment.

Here’s one deeper problem I see with racial intolerance and eugenicist strategies: they tend to reduce genetic diversity.

Why is that bad? Well, I’m not an evolutionary biologist or anything close to that, but the one take-home message I got from the whole “survival of the fittest” tale is that genetic diversity saves species. One day you’re the cripple bacterium¹ that wastes his energy producing beta-lactamases because, well, you can’t help it. You’re a freak of nature. Everybody else spends that energy reproducing, making you look seriously pitiful. But the next day some guy called Fleming shows up, and changes the rules. “Who’s the fittest now?!! …” So there, evolutionary fitness strongly depends on external circumstances, and diversity just saved your species.

Who will be the fittest of men when an industrial disaster eats the ozone layer, when we finally run out of fossil fuels, when the next ice-age begins, when the big bad asteroid arrives, when the next revision of the flu turns out really effective? Might there be circumstances in which the overdeveloped cerebrum, so highly desired in our information age, would turn out to be an energy-hog and too-vulnerable a liability?

I have had supremacist thoughts sometimes, and I won’t apologise for that, because I know we all do². The thing is, feeling ashamed because it is improper to think what you think doesn’t help to develop or invalidate those thoughts. Instead, whenever you think that you see weakness, you can try to change perspective. Maybe you’re really looking at diversity, at a secure future for humanity. Most of the time, that’s a sunnier perspective³.

For an example hitting closer to home, look up the relation between sickle-cell disease and malaria. ↩
What, you never do? Haven’t you ever looked down on a supremacist for their (supposed) lack of intelligence? Oh, the irony… :) ↩
That guy who still likes BASIC better than Python? He’s not a useless freak stuck in the past. He’ll be the one to go to when you are stuck and need to decipher some arcane script ;) ↩

Diary Of An x264 Developer: The first in-depth technical analysis of VP8

Thu, 20 May 2010 16:12:03 +0100

Diary Of An x264 Developer: The first in-depth technical analysis of VP8:

With regard to patents, VP8 copies way too much from H.264 for anyone sane to be comfortable with it, no matter whose word is behind the claim of being patent-free.

I guess the thing is, H.264 never was the problem. The problem is simply that the Americans entertain such a thing as software patents at all.

Australia getting goverment-run fiber

Sat, 08 May 2010 17:07:18 +0100

This is quite interesting. I bet all the free-market zealots will have clicked away after reading about one-and-a-half paragraph, so let me quote this bit from somewhat further down in the article:

The obvious downside of this approach is that no other wireline competitors will likely emerge to challenge the government-controlled fiber network. On the other hand, there’s not that much competition right now; only 20 percent of Australian homes can get cable service, and most others are left with lines from Telstra (which does resell to numerous ISPs, but it retains control of the access network).

I guess it’s not quite as bad on our end of the world, where there’s usually a choice of at least two wireline networks, but that still isn’t any real competition. A public, open-access (open to any service-provider, that is) network doesn’t seem such a bad idea at all!

European court to rule on data storage law

Thu, 06 May 2010 16:04:53 +0100

I’m weeks behind on all the news feeds (no withdrawal symptoms, strangely), but was glad to catch this bit of news today (via).

I suppose I’m now expected to append some personal opinions on the subject, but, as with code, reusing the work of others should generally lead to higher quality. Therefore, let me just link to one of Bruce Schneier’s better essays on the topic: there.

Stop ACTA!

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 09:58:03 +0100

Stop ACTA!:

Important call from my buddy wzzrd (click through for English, too):

wzzrd:

Als je nog nooit van ACTA gehoord hebt, wordt het tijd dat je er iets over leest. Echt. Zoveel tijd is er niet meer. ACTA kan in potentie een groot deel van de verworvenheden van de laatste 50 jaar…

HOWTO: Read more books

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 13:55:00 +0100

HOWTO: Read more books:

Funny and weird and entertaining and interesting. And it sounds like it would actually work.

The HTML5 web is going to be great

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:42:36 +0100

Some good news, via wzzrd: Google Puts Weight Behind Theora on Mobile.

Between Apple’s crusade against Flash, or Android, or their own app-developers, and Google’s sponsorship of a patent-free codec, I see a bright future for HTML5-apps. Frankly, I don’t care what noble and/or misguided motives these companies may have; I’m looking forward to frustration-free web browsing, and rich-media websites that actually work for me for a change.

Kicking the habit

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 08:01:42 +0100

I just bought Beverley Craven’s new album (well, it was released last year, but I’m slow to pick up on such things, so it’s still new to me) from Amazon’s MP3 store (no, that’s not an affiliate link). I almost ordered the disc, being a recovering obsessive-compulsive donottrustanyripbutyourown lossless-audio nut, but in the end I really must start to accept that that is a waste of time and resources¹. I have to keep telling myself this.

(“Listen man, it would be wasteful. Seriously. … Hey, stop entering your shipping address!”)

Relapse

It’s been a while since I bought MP3s from Amazon. I got a few albums from them when they first opened the MP3 store in the UK, but then I had a relapse into buying CDs and ripping them myself². Anyway, according to encspot³ Amazon still use Lame 3.97 like before, with a “vbr-old” pre-set, so they’re a little bit behind on the state-of-the-art, but it’s certainly not bad.

(“I know, I know. If you had a lossless backup you could re-encode with new super-duper settings. Yes, that would also future-proof things for when you’re finally getting that digital parametric equalizer. But really, aren’t you simply enjoying the music right now? You are. So? IT’S NOT BAD.”)

Software habit < hardware habit

One minor downside to downloading the album is of course that now you can’t slip in a nifty new Firewire audio-interface with your shipping order.

(“Dude!! Does your laptop-output sound distorted? No. Does it drive your headphones well? Yes. How much are you saving by not getting that thing? Twenty, thirty albums-worth? Right. Also, it would just end up as e-waste. Now STOP entering your shipping address.”)

Day one

That’s right, today was a little triumph.

Oh, and Beverley Craven sounds wonderful, as on her earlier albums⁴.

I was going to insert a link to The Story Of Stuff here (uh, so now I did anyway), which I stumbled across the other day. It’s a very nicely produced presentation, compelling us to be less wasteful and to seek sustainability, but as so many of these stories, it’s laced with the typical “big, bad government serves big, bad corporations” rhetoric that only muddles the real message - hence my hesitation. ↩
It’s not helping that most CDs are about the same price as the download would be, and are offered with free shipping. (“Dude, listen. The disc just takes up shelf space. Extra value, maybe, an extra burden, definitely. You’ll get lots of packaging material, and a stack of flyers advertising rubbish, and it’s just a waste. AND you get to obsess over the rip being faulty.” Help!!!) ↩
I hadn’t used this in a while, and it took a moment to find a build for Ubuntu 9.10 - in the end I found it at getdeb.net. ↩
(“I’m proud of you. You didn’t even start about how the other albums are FLAC files with embedded cue-sheets, and how these MP3s mess up the ORDER OF THINGS. I’m so proud of you.”) ↩

"It’s amazing, isn’t it? Turns out that what most people want is photos, music and the web, and..."

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:25:53 +0100

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? Turns out that what most people want is photos, music and the web, and they’re happy to trade in the freedom to write their own BIOS to get it.”

- Paul Waite in comments at Simon Willison’s blog

Indeed, people are weird :)

Logarithmic calendar view

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:08:56 +0100

Logarithmic calendar view:

Marco Arment knows good UI-design.

"There are people who cheat on their spouse but not at cards, and vice versa, and both and neither...."

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:00:51 +0100

“There are people who cheat on their spouse but not at cards, and vice versa, and both and neither. Reputation is not necessarily portable from one situation to another, and it’s not easily expressed.”

- Clay Shirky

(The essay isn’t actually about this, but it’s a nicely condensed insight).

Law Enforcement Appliance Subverts SSL

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:27:47 +0000

Law Enforcement Appliance Subverts SSL:

I guess this just highlights that, by principle, SSL is especially vulnerable to attacks by people in power. Very useful link found in the HN discussion: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~perspectives/firefox.html

The Institute of Physics manifesto for the UK General Election of 2010

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:21:45 +0000

The Institute of Physics manifesto for the UK General Election of 2010:

There, I’ve practised my share of politics for this year :)

"Often, privacy isn’t about hiding; it’s about creating space to open up."

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:59:54 +0000

“Often, privacy isn’t about hiding; it’s about creating space to open up.”

- Danah Boyd: Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity

I’d want to cut ten more quotes from that keynote. Do read it.

"Amazon’s revisionist “bookpad” vs. Apple’s recombinant “mediapad.” Rear-view mirror into a lethargic..."

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:16:49 +0000

“Amazon’s revisionist “bookpad” vs. Apple’s recombinant “mediapad.” Rear-view mirror into a lethargic industry vs. windshield towards a non-print centric future.”

- Kontra

… I’m adding a new feed to my reader. Thanks to Marco.

"From Nexus One to Latitude to Talk, Google is in danger of being relegated to servicing geeks."

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 07:00:50 +0000

“From Nexus One to Latitude to Talk, Google is in danger of being relegated to servicing geeks.”

- Kontra

If you’re up for it, the man actually has a lot more to say about GOOG.