2008 May 05 - Mon
Reducing Traffic on High Cost Inter-ISP Links
AquaLab has released an open source plugin for BitTorrent clients, specifically Azureus.
AquaLab's Ono Plugin's "main goal of this plugin is simple -- to improve download speeds
for your BitTorrent client. "
Here is a press release summary I came across from ACM TechNews:
Northwestern University researchers have developed Ono, software that eases
the strain that peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services place on Internet service providers
(ISPs). Ono allows users to efficiently identify nearby P2P users and requires no
cooperation or trust between ISPs and P2P users. Ono, the Hawaiian word for delicious, is
open source and does not require the deployment of additional infrastructure. When ISPs
configure their networks correctly, Ono can improve transfer speeds by as much as 207
percent on average, the researchers say. Ph.D. student David Choffnes, who developed Ono
with professor Fabian E. Bustamante, says Ono relies on a clever trick based on observations
of Internet companies to find nearby computers. Content-distribution networks (CDN), which
offload data traffic from Web sites onto their proprietary networks, power some of the most
popular Web sites in the world, enabling higher performance for Web clients by sending them
to a server close to them. Using the key assumption that the two computers sent to the same
CDN server are near to each other, Ono can identify P2P users close to each other.
This aids two types of communities:
- Users: who can get faster downloads because P2P peers are closer and are therefore
prone to fewer errors and dropouts.
- Service Providers: traffic can be kept off high cost inter-ISP links. With traffic
kept internal, cost savings on carrier links could be realized.
On the negative side though, last mile links get more saturation with higher traffic
densities. If one is on a shared cable modem or a shared wireless access point,
ironically this isn't the best thing that could happen.
2008 May 03 - Sat
Multi Touch Screens
In a recent issue of
Technology Review, there is an
article regarding
Open Source Multi Touch Displays.
The technology is based upon taking an acrylic sheet, and projecting video onto
the back surface. Around the edges are some infrared light
emitting diodes focussed to emit the light into the sheet. The light bounces around on the
inside from suface to surface.
When someone touches the panel, the light path is interrupted. An infrared sensitive
camera on the back side can then be used to distinguish the touch locations. Simple and
effective touch technology.
If someone could marry Lightfactory's new virtual layout generator on a multitouch board,
suddenly lighting design and control would take on a whole new dimension.
Perhaps even using the the multitouch capability on the dance floor would introduce a
whole new level of dance lighting interaction.
2008 Apr 25 - Fri
Latent Brain Power
In an article or two ago, I made a brief mention of
MapServer in relation to
throwing together a mixture of data types regarding Bermudian Visual Features.
I was thinking a little later on that this exercise becomes one of building a
spatial/temporal complex of meanings. I then got to thinking about this visually. What if
one could take a slider or a bounding box and zoom in on a part of the island, and then zoom
around in time space. It would be interesting to see what the hot spots were, and what they
were about. It would become what could be described as a space/time based Wikipedia for
Bermuda, or any location for that matter. Information is one thing, but navigating it and
relating it is another matter entirely.
Something like this would only be possible through the
Collective Intelligence of users.
The article mentions that many many people have contributed many many hours to making
wikipedia the huge compendieum that it is.
But the article goes on to say that there are still many many people out there who have
more time on their hands than they know what to do with. Lots of people have hobbies, do
public service, take care of families, etc. But how many more vegetate on the
couch in front of the 'one eyed monster' known as the TV?
This reminds me of the fact that there must be millions of computers out there sitting
idle, wasting energy, waiting for something to do. Instead of illigimately using these free
cycles to spew forth harmful spam, what if we could harness them into catalogueing, or
storage, or analysis, or ...
Seagate just sold its billionth hard drive. If we take a billion drives times a billion
bytes each (probably a woefully inadequate estimate), that is a lot of data, and probably
underutilized at that.
It is also said that we, as humans, utilize less than ten percent of our brain capacity.
And if less than ten percent of the population is mentally active (doing something other
than passively watching preprogrammed images pass through their retinas into the blackhole
of vicarious experience), that represents lots of wasted capability for enhancing humanity.
Robert Heinlein, in one of his science fiction stories, suggested that if we took the top
one percent of mankind and moved them off world to start new digs, what remained would be
unable to take care of themselves in any organized fashion. Not that we are very good at it
as it is.
Anyway, on a positive note, the article seems to think that things might be improving by
saying:
Just as people "woke up" during the Industrial Revolution, society is now beginning to
emerge from its sitcom-induced stupor to see its cognitive surplus as an asset rather than a
crisis. As a result, people are turning to Web 2.0 technologies as an outlet for that
brain-power surplus.
With appropriately designed interaction tools, we have a
reasonable hope for carving out enough of ... the collective goodwill of the citizens to
create a resource you couldn't have imagined existing five years ago. This isn't the sort of
thing that society grows out of. It is something that society grows into."
I'm liking what I am hearing.
2008 Mar 25 - Tue
How Not To Form a Standard
Rob Weir has a blog called An Antic Disposition where he discusses
The Disharmony of OOXML.
The eloquent center piece of his article is a table representing how various applications represent a smiple
text string with one word in red, represented here verbatim:
| Format | Text Color | Text Alignment |
|---|
| OOXML Text | <w:color
w:val="FF0000"/> | <w:jc w:val="right"/> | | OOXML Sheet | <color
rgb="FFFF0000"/> | <alignment horizontal="right"/> | | OOXML Presentation | <a:srgbClr
val="FF0000"/> | <a:pPr algn="r"/> | | ODF Text | <style:text-properties
fo:color="#FF0000"/> | <style:paragraph-properties fo:text-align="end" /> | | ODF
Sheet | <style:text-properties fo:color="#FF0000"/> | <style:paragraph-properties
fo:text-align="end"/> | | ODF Presentation | <style:text-properties
fo:color="#FF0000"/> | <style:paragraph-properties fo:text-align="end"/> |
Some wag once mentioned that a standard is nice, you have so many from which to choose. The standards
writers for OOXML must have had this in mind when they allowed the diversity of Text Coloration and Alignment into
the standard. Oh, wait. The applications were written first, then some general bucket was designed to hold
the output these applications produced.
As the writer says, it would have been nice to create a 'single standard' and then retrofit the application's output
to conform to the file format. If an application needs to store it differently internally, so be it, but conform
to some level of operability in the file format. Hmmm, can each application read each other's handiwork? If not, what
good is a standard?
The article indicates that once ODF was established, Open Office changed to match the standard. And from the table
above, we can see all the tools within Open Office conform, with the result of twin goals of true universality of information interchange
and simplicity of software design have been reached.
That would be a high standard for OOXML to achieve.
2008 Mar 21 - Fri
The ODF - OOXML Three Ring Circus
I've been following along with the standards-wannabe known as OOXML. Microsoft's want
this proprietary standard so much, you can feel the flames of hell leaping higher. Ok, so
my visual metaphors are getting out of hand. I recently did lighting for a sketch for
BMDS's production of GUMS, which in itself is
a series of comedic sketches. Anyway, the sketch of which I'm speaking is where the Devil,
played by Steve Watts, delivers a monologue about recent arrivals in Hell. For example, the
atheists are called a bunch of nitwits, the Christians are scoffed at due to the Jews being
right. Very few groups were left out. And I must say, my 'fires of hell' lighting worked
out quite well.
In reading various blogs and articles regarding Microsoft's process of stacking the
National Standards Bodies with Microsoft's influence peddlers and lackeys brings forth
strongly the image of "selling one's soul for something one believes in". But corporate
greed and monopolostic habits die hard. Even bending to the level of
personal slurs, with this not being the first documented one.
The Standards Blog sprouts forth a bright flower from the sewage of vitriol
currently being spouted regarding incomplete standards, lockins, patent protection, and
selfishness. He has exerpted comments from South African Minister of Public Service and
Administration Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi. I'll reprint them here as representing a voice
calling out from the desert:
...This past year has been marked by a raising in the tension between the traditional
incumbent monopoly software players and the rising champions of the Free Software movement
in Africa. The flashpoints of conflict have been particularly marked around the development
and adoption of open standards and growing concerns about software patents..
It is unfortunate that the leading vendor of office software, which enjoys considerable
dominance in the market, chose not to participate and support ODF in its products, but
rather to develop its own competing document standard which is now also awaiting judgement
in the ISO process. If it is successful, it is difficult to see how consumers will benefit
from these two overlapping ISO standards. I would like to appeal to vendors to listen to the
demands of consumers as well as Free Software developers. Please work together to produce
interoperable document standards. The proliferation of multiple standards in this space is
confusing and costly..
An issue which poses a significant threat to the growth of an African software
development
sector (both Free Software and proprietary) is the recent pressure by certain multinational
companies to file software patents in our national and regional patent offices. Whereas open
standards and Free Software are intended to be inclusive and encourage fair competition,
patents are exclusive and anti-competitive in their nature. Whereas there are some
industries in which the temporary monopoly granted by a patent may be justified on the
grounds of encouraging innovation, there is no reason to believe that society benefits from
such monopolies being granted for computer program .inventions.. The continued growth in the
quantity and quality of Free Software illustrates that such protection is not required to
drive innovation in software. Indeed all of the current so-called developed countries built
up their considerable software industries in the absence of patent protection for software.
For those same countries to insist on patent protection for software now is simply to place
protectionist barriers in front of new comers. As the economist, Ha-Joon Chang, observed:
having reached the top of the pile themselves they now wish to kick away the ladder.
African software developers have enough barriers to entry as it is, without the introduction
of artificial restrictions on what programs they are and aren.t allowed to write. When
Steven Biko wrote .I write what I like. he was not referring to computer programs but it
would certainly be an apt motto for today.s generation of African Free Software developers.
It will become increasingly important for FOSSFA to continue to lobby and mobilize to keep
this intellectual space open.
One cannot be in Dakar without being painfully aware of the tragic history of the slave
trade. For three hundred years, the Maison des Esclaves (Slave House) on Gorée Island, was a
hub in the system of forceful transportation of Africans as slaves to the plantations of the
West Indies and the southern states of America. Over the same period people were being
brought as slaves from the Malay Archipelago and elsewhere to South Africa. The institution
of slavery played such a fundamental role in the early development of our current global
economy, that by the end of the 18th century, the slave trade was a dominant factor in the
globalised system of trade of the day.
As we find ourselves today in this new era of the globalised Knowledge Economy there are
lessons we can and must draw from that earlier era. That a crime against humanity of such
monstrous proportions was justified by the need to uphold the property rights of slave
owners and traders should certainly make us more than a little cautious about what should
and should not be considered suitable for protection as property..
Her comments are far ranging, but for me being a software developer, being sued for
creating a smiley face that has already been patented is not my idea of a good time... as an
example.
We do
need a reality check regarding patents on software. We do have good corporate citizens like
IBM who build real products, and obtain real patents, and make real money. Yes, I know
there is dirt under the carpet over there, but still, with over 100,000 employees, they must
be doing something correct.
Here's hoping that Microsoft will somehow get its comeupance regarding bullying a
6000 page incomplete document through what was, at one point in time, a relatively
decent standards process.
2007 Oct 03 - Wed
Free Tools: CD ISO Create and Burning, Notepad++
CDBurnerXP is a great tool for
assembling ISO's and burning them to CD. It isn't bloated like other pay-for stuff out
there. This is a good, streamlined, free tool to ... burn CDs and DVDs.
Notepad++ is
a is a free source code editor (and Notepad replacement), which supports several programming
languages, running under the MS Windows environment. It has a very large feature set, with
some being cold-folding, syntax highlighting, and macro-recording. It is a
valuable Windows Notepad replacement, and is as fast or faster, and absolutely better.
2007 Sep 23 - Sun
phoneAlarm for the PocketPC, and GPS Also
I believe the HTC Kaiser is now out and availble. It is getting good reviews as a good
device that does have everything, including the kitchen sink. The only think I havn't heard
yet is whether or not it has good battery life (for a device with more memory and more
functionality, does it come with a power price?).
A reviewer at Pocket PC Thoughts mentioned a piece of software the may prove useful with
the device, at least it did for him... something called
PhoneAlarm by
pocketMAx.
On the GPS side of things, the reviewer mentioned GPS products called Pharos Ostia and
Delorme. These are add-on packages. The HTC does come bundled with TOm Tom Navigator, but
maps are extra cost, which may be true with the other two mentioned items.
2007 Sep 17 - Mon
DirectSound Error 88780078
Sometime towards the end of July, I installed Windows XP latest sound stuff (Windows
Media, DirectSound, etc), version 10 I
think. I had been putting it off for a while. I had heard about licensing issues, codec
problems, and such. In a moment of weakness, I clicked the Windows Update button and
installed it. What a pain.
WinAmp plays fine most of the time. At some point in time, when it isnt' playing, and I
'do something', I have no idea yet, and when I go back to playing WinAmp, I'll get a message
like:
Bad DirectSound Driver. Please install proper drivers or select another device in
configuration.
Error code: 88780078
Most of the time, I reboot my computer, and things magically fix themselves.
Upon further searching for solutions, someone pointed out a possible simple fix for my
problmem of the DirectSound 88780078 problem:
- Right click on My Computer
- Manage
- Device Manager
- go down to where the exclamation point is
- Right click to Disable, then Enable it.
In this case, it solved my problem. Now I'd like to know how it breaks randomly in the
first place. Some have said it has to do with VMWare. I do have VMWare workstation
installed, but hasn't been running for a while.
Any suggestions?
I did come across
Microsoft Knowledge Base article 29030. You can run a Windows Installer
Cleanup Utility. It's first screen shows, ironically, "Welcome to the Windows Installer
Clean Up Installation Wizard". When running the application after the installation, I don't
see anything having to do with sound, so just cancelled out.
There are more interesting solutions at
TechSpot.
2007 Sep 15 - Sat
Burning Water aka Breaking Water Into Hydrogen/Oxygen aka Electrolysis
A few days ago, there was a much talked about article regarding
Radio Frequencies Help Burn Salt Water. Even
John Mauldin referenced it.
Many people have gone off the deep end thinking that this is the next best thing to water running
up hill. By looking a carefully at the video and reading the article, and doing a little research, one
can understand what is going on. First a little background:
I'd say the radio frequency energy acts in a
way similar to feeding electrical current directly through the salt solution (radio frequencies are the
byproducts of an oscillating electrical current). The video showed us 'something' using between 200 and
400 Watts, about the equivalent of four standard 100W light bulbs. They were careful to not show us the
frequencies used though.
Thinking more about how
the hydrogen is produced and recombined, I seem to recall article and/or video from many moons ago
about once you got
this burning reaction going, you could keep the mix running by continually adding water. (No this is not
perpetual motion because you are still supplying a source of energy--the water). Anyone remember
research on this type of thing? In some blogs, there were comments suggesting that even though
this a a decent
reaction, but because it was not self-perpetuating, it isn't good. I beg to differ. Just think about
oil for a moment.
Untold amounts of energy is spent in finding it, drilling it, pumping it, refining it, and
delivering it. Yet there is enough energy left over to fuel our cars and planes. Could it not be said
that even though we lose energy in breaking the bonds to produce hydrogen, that there may be more
energy left
over to do other stuff? Looking at it another way, electrical energy is used to break the bond, and we
get heat energy (although inefficient to use) when the bond is recombined.
I did find a reference to a
Water Engine, but
it wasn't quite what I was after. Besides, I think the scientist in that post misses the point.
Yes, you can't
use the same amount of water and expect to keep re-using it. But if you keep adding water into the
system, you keep refueling the system, just like putting more gas into your auto fuel tank. An in most
places, water is quite abundant. Burning water may be more or less as energy efficient as burning oil,
but if I recall correctly (!), there is more water than oil.
If someone could point me to a reference where some one demonstrates a 'burning water' engine--an
engine where you prime it with hydrogen, feed it water, and keep it burning--I'd be
most appreciative.
But all this is water under the bridge, in comparison to what the video was really showing. It shows
that if you can deliver the special particles to the site of a cancerous growth, and use radio waves to
activate the particles, you can kill the cancer cells and leave everything else intact. Now that is
what one would call 'precision bombing'.
Update: Through a Google link that passed through my site, I came across Stan Meyer and a Water Fuel Cell. If you
look those up, you'll see all sorts of stories, conspiracies, and strange information floating around. Who/What can you
beleive.
For other alternate energy systems, PESWiki looks interesting.
2007 Sep 12 - Wed
Computers Are Infallible -- NOT
A recent article at Kernel Trap entitled
Data Errors During Drive Communication indicates that
"An ongoing study on datasets of several Petabytes have shown that there can be 'silent data
corruption' at rates much larger than one might naively expect from the expected error rates
in RAID arrays and the expected probability of single bit uncorrected errors in hard disks".
This is an interesting read. I used to blame my ocmputer problems on
Random Alpha
Particles. I guess I can now expand my horizons.
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