Pixelated Dreams

Pixelated Dreams has moved!

2008-01-20T15:27:00.000+11:00

Just a short note for anyone wondering about the prolonged silence. I'm moving the best content from here over to my new tech home, TechWhimsy.

Please pop over and take a look and let me know what you think.

Thank you.

Google hearts Jaiku

2007-10-10T09:08:00.001+10:00

The Google acquisition train just keeps on rolling down the tracks.

I logged on to Jaiku this morning to be greeted with the information that it has become yet another member of the Googleplex. The acquisition seems to have created quite a stir across the tech news blogosphere (for example here, here and here). There seems to be two common themes:

Jaiku isn't nearly as good as Twitter, so why didn't Google buy that service instead? (rubbish by the way, I grew to hate Twitter very quickly as an unreliable, US-centric elitist self-congratulatory club, but that's just me)
It's all got something to do with the rumoured GPhone and competing with Facebook

My money is on the latter of the points, regardless of my own personal opinion of the Twitter service.

What I find most disappointing is that finally I was enjoying using a service that wasn't a Google owned one, which meant that at least some of my online presence wasn't being absorbed by the 'Plex at Mountain View. Every time I try and break away, they just suck me right back in *sigh*

On the other hand, I'm very happy for the Jaiku crew who have all acted like a bunch of upright gentleman (and one of the co-founders is a sociologist by training, which is even cooler - I love finding fellow sociologists!) so I feel this is a well deserved break for them.

Recycling information: the innovation behind the mashups

2007-10-03T15:25:00.001+10:00

Business Pundit is currently featuring an article that frustrates and annoys me yet leaves me in semi-agreement, which only serves to frustrate and annoy me all over again ("The dangers of re-use: how mashups can stifle innovation"). The premise of the item appears to be that unless you know a technology to its deepest level, you are doing little more than playing make-believe, pretending you are doing something new when instead you are drowning the world in your own mediocrity. The argument has a distinct Keensian elitist tone, inferring that unless you understand your tools you have no right to be using them.

I felt somewhat mislead about the article in general. It's not until the very end that I discovered (hence my annoyance) that the core assertion was not that mashups were mediocre and boring (they can be) but instead was that mashups need to be kept in perspective (which I agree with) and urges the reader not to confuse "imitation with innovation" (which I didn't think I was, but there you go).

Like the author, a lot of mashups leave me cold. After all, I don't really care if I can geo-tag a photo on Flickr and locate it in Google Earth so I can see exactly where on this planet an out-of-focus photo of a bee was taken. However, that is not the point. It is not the mashup that is the innovation, rather what makes the mashup possible. RSS feeds, open APIs, enabling services like Pipes - the ability to mine and manipulate vast quantities of previously unavailable data has enormous potential.

I see this as a classic forest/trees, baby/bath water confusion. Just because the results don't inspire you (and are used indiscriminately by the great unwashed) doesn't automatically diminish the value and importance and potential of the underlying framework.

Now if you will excuse me, I think I will go off and see if I can combine my low quality cameraphone photos of my son with Google Maps. Spite is such a wonderful motivational technique after all.

OOXML from the open source perspective

2007-10-02T14:51:00.001+10:00

So then Microsoft decided they were going to do an open standard too, and guess what: it is a .zip file and it's got XML streams inside it. But, having said that, it has been difficult in the past to do binary file format interoperability. You can make many good arguments that it is not a benefit to have one company totally dominating the market. You need some sort of file format interoperability.

and

Isn't one file format (such as ODF) better than two? Surely the weakness of having many is the confusion it creates?
Well, yes, and it should be ODF. In an ideal world... yes, a single file format that was a superset of features and so on would be ideal, but it is very difficult to even conceive of that happening. There is just such a lot of vested business interest in this sphere. It is just very difficult to do anything technical. I just can't see anything like that happening.

Michael Meeks (part of the OpenOffice.org team at Novell)

in conversation with ZDNet.co.uk

ODT and DOCX - are they human readable?

2007-09-27T20:37:00.000+10:00

[Note: a revised version of this post can now be found on techwhimsy.com]

One of the supposed benefits of XML is that documents produced in this format are able to be opened as a text file and read by normal people, allowing the content to be recovered, even if the formatting was unavailable After discussing the various merits of the Open Document Format (ODF) and Office Open XML (OOXML) formats (click here to read the earlier post), I was left wondering just how human readable either format was.

I created a simple document in both Open Office as .odt (Open Document Text) and in MS Office 2007 as .docx that had a heading, some paragraphs, an unordered list and an ordered list. I used the Loren Ipsum generator that can be found at Lipsum.

(click on images for larger versions)

.odt is on the left and .docx on the right

To start off with, I opened both documents up in Wordpad to see what they looked like. Not at all human readable.

.odt on the left and .docx on the right

A quick trawl through a Google search revealed that .odt is a container format that compresses all the relevant file parts in to one file. I changed the file extension from .odt to .zip and opened it up to have a look.

What worked for one format might work for the other. I took a punt, changed the file extension from .docx to .zip, held my breath, crossed my fingers, closed my eyes and double-clicked...

...and discovered that in .docx, the goodies are there, albeit buried a little deeper.

Both .odt and .docx are human readable, after a fashion. If for some reason in the distant (or not-so-distant) future either format is unreadable in its container form, with some effort the data could be extracted. It may even be possible to extract large parts of the formatting, but that's beyond my ability to assess.

In my assessment, .odt comes out ahead slightly in the human readable stakes: it isn't buried quite so deep and comes with less additional XML-related formatting and overhead. As to which is the better format overall, I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader (although I wish I could create .odt inside of Office 2007 - I do love the new Office user interface).

Open Warfare: OOXML stumbles while ODF continues to rise

2007-09-25T14:38:00.000+10:00

Google Trends ODF vs OOXML for 2007

While Microsoft Office is the undisputed king of the office suite marketplace, the open source OpenOffice.org (OOo) has been worrying at its heels for some time. In recent months controversy has arisen over the accessibility of the XML-based file formats of the competing products - OOo's Open Document Format (ODF) and Microsofts Office Open XML (OOXML).

ODF was accepted as an international standard (click here for my earlier post on the issue) by ISO back in late 2006, giving it much needed credibity as a leading open format for documents. OOXML has also sought ISO approval but was unsuccessful in its attempt earlier this month, amidst suspicion of questionable activities of Microsoft representatives.

Why are open formats necessary?

Open formats perform an important function in the preservation of the information in documents, particularly for archival purposes. An archive is useless if it is stored in a file format that nothing read in 100 or 50 or even 20 years time. Readability is especially important for the storage of public records where there is a need for government activities to be publicly accessible in future years to future generations.

Although Microsoft's .doc Word format is nearly ubiquitous, it is far from a perfect solution. It is not uncommon for the format to become broken, unreadable and not backwards compatible between major releases of Office.

Is this the end for Office?

Defeating Microsoft should not be the main focus for OOo and the ODF, although clawing back some market share is an admirable goal and a worthy one to strive for. the user interface for Office is still a long way ahead of the its open source alternative, and in my opinion the gulf between the two has become wider with the revamped interface used in Office 2007. The differences between the two interfaces reflects the benefits that the support of a large corporation backed by massive reserves of cash and talent can bring.

ODF vs OOXML should not be an ideological battle between free and libre open source software and Microsoft. The best outcome for users is for ODF to be accepted by Microsoft as the international standard that it is and be introduced as a file export option within Office itself. Such an outcome would enable users to enjoy the best of both worlds - an excellent and time-tested user interface that also enables them to produce documents in an open and future-proof file format.

It would be a win-win situation for all consumers and ultimately, isn't that what this should be all about?

Emails a danger in the workplace. Apparently.

2007-09-11T12:43:00.000+10:00

A senior representative of leading IT consultancy BearingPoint, Robert Hilliard, has declared that email is a "terrible way to do the majority of business". BearingPoint recommend businesses adopt "collaboration technologies". The core of the argument appears to be that person-to-person communication does not have enough visibility, while a collaborative process is more open and transparent.

I'm not convinced.

The issue of visibility and transparency appears to be driven by legal coverage issues and not underlying issues with the technology itself. Collaboration shifts the focus on to "group communication", maximising the number of people who can see the information development process and spreading the points of blame in turn reducing individual levels of risk. It's not improving communication, it's improving arse coverage.

Mr Hilliard does have a good point when he says:

A person-to-person piece of communication is not visible to anybody else. It is a legal document. You would never consider writing a letter between two organisations without having an appropriately authorised person reviewing it but you don't hesitate to have two junior members of two companies write an informal email to each other that would expose both organisations.

The problem is not one of the tools but of the processes of the operating environment. The solution isn't "collaboration tools" (which he doesn't define but I'm assuming it's things like MediaWiki, Google Docs and Basecamp as examples) which add extra layers of complexity to what should be a simple process of communication. The solution is greater education and simple, clearly defined guidelines on appropriate levels of interaction at an officer-to-officer level.

After all, it's not as if BearingPoint would have a vested interest in promoting introducing collaborative models in favour of existing email infrastructure, now is it?

Just another IT consultancy selflessly promoting more technology as the answer.

envelope originally uploaded to Flickr by timothymorgan. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution 2.0 licence.

Legislation chipping away at RFID

2007-09-06T21:48:00.000+10:00

According to this LA Times article - Senate blocks mandatory ID implants in employees - the Senate of the state of California has passed legislation to prevent employers mandating that employees must have an RFID chip implanted in their bodies. The legislation was prompted by at least one company beginning to market human-ready RFID devices. I am not surprised that later in the article mention is made of at least one company requiring all employees working in a high security area to be implanted in much the same way that dogs and cats are currently chipped for ID purposes.

I find it refreshing that governments around the world are starting to recognise that indiscriminate chipping is a problem yet at the same time I find it disturbing that there needs to be legislation around this at all. This is not a privacy issue for me. Framing it as a privacy issue implies that in some way the concerns could be addressed and corporations could return to punching chips in everyone sufficiently distracted to not see the big needle coming. Instead, I see this issue as one of personal liberty.

RFID is largely used for tracking inventory and livestock with delusions of freedom (as an aside, why don't more cows escape from the paddock? I have yet to see a cattle fence that could sustain a concentrated freedom-inspired stampede. Sure, there might be casualties in the first wave, but think of the common good for all cow-kind? On the other hand, if I was put out to stud where all I had to do was eat and chase the ladies around the farm, I probably wouldn't be too keen on motivating everyone for mass break-out either). As noted in this Slashdot comment, tagging people with RFID marks them as live inventory, which returns me to cattle corralled in the paddock.

I'm sure some companies feel they have a very good reason for wanting to insert foreign bodies under the skin of their workers but my concern is: where do you draw the line? Today, it's for "security purposes" at a job that you may or may not choose to keep. Then more employers require a chip, then most employers require one. How much further does it spread? Ex-prisoners? Welfare recipients? Long stay foreign workers and international students? People who listen to ABBA? The list goes on and on.

Feature creep and requirements bloat are bad enough when it comes to software and project management. I don't see the need to expose personal liberty to the same slippery slope.

Via Slashdot

Inject your RFID tags now! originally uploaded to Flickr by Nadya Peek. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution 2.0 license.

Russia says "I want a base on the moon, too!"

2007-09-02T13:35:00.001+10:00

With Russia's announcement that it has plans to build its own lunar base by 2027, let me be the first to say will the last one off the planet please turn off the lights? Perhaps the more important question is (avoiding the obvious "In Soviet Russia, Moon builds base on YOU!") where are we going to put everyone?

At last count, now including Russia, there are plans for at least six lunar bases:

The European Space Agency wants a small inhabitable base by 2020

China has plans for manned missions with rumours of a 2020 Chinese lunar base (all the better to ~~exploit your natural resources~~ study you with...)

India doesn't want to get left behind and is also shooting "me too" style for an India lunar base by 2020

NASA has its own plans for a US lunar base by 2024

Japan will be fighting with Russia for the last scraps of real estate as it hopes to set up its Japanese lunar base sometime in 2025.

It leaves me wondering just how much lunar-base friendly real estate is available up there, and will the wars of the middle of this century be not only about fresh water and trade barriers but also about non-terrestrial real estate?

I guess it must be a good time to be an aeronautical engineer though.

Moonbase Monorail originally uploaded to Flickr by william.ward. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution Sharealike 2.0 licence.

Facebook etiquette: Finally!

2007-08-27T14:09:00.000+10:00

Note: An updated and revised version of this post can now be found at techwhimsy.com.

I am happy to concede that I was slow to jump on the Facebook bandwagon. After all, there is only so much adopting that one can do in a fast paced, 2.0 "must be the first, oh please, I just have to be the first" fashion and Facebook was over that threshold. However, once I signed up, I found myself bewildered as I had no context for the rules of engagement. I needed an etiquette guide and I maintain that social networks like Facebook are failing their new users when they don't at least point to a user-generated guide.

Enter Wired's new How To Wiki. I am relieved that the community has filled the gaping void and provided meaning to the bewildering array of behaviours I have witnessed in my short time on the 'book. I present to you Save Face on Facebook.

The list seems like common sense to me. All except the one about not writing on your own wall, that is. Why is that? The whole Wall-to-Wall thing seems counter-intuitive to me and I think that's one for the Facebook usability gurus to work on. Apart from that one lapse, I'm happily powering my laptop with my own sense of inflated self-satisfaction.

There should be more etiquette guides to social networks. I hope that this is just the start of something bigger for the social network movement.

Cosmopolitan's New Etiquette Guide originally uploaded to Flickr by numberstumper and edited by me. Used under a Creative Commons By Attribution - Sharealike 2.0 licence.

Governments behave questionably on Wikipedia. Media pretends to be shocked.

2007-08-24T13:56:00.000+10:00

Wikiscanner has been fun, hasn't it? For those who have come in late, Wikiscanner traces the IP addresses of edits to Wikipedia back to home organisations. It's a simple idea really, and it has been marvelous in its execution. All manner of dodgy edits from corporations have floated to the surface (see this collection from Wired for a start) and perhaps least surprisingly, governments have been in the thick of making changes, too.

Australia isn't coming out of this cleanly with the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Defence copping some unwanted attention due to the editing activities of its staff. While the SMH article does indicate that most edits were legitimate ones, that still means that some weren't including (according to this Techcrunch article) some hot political issues locally like the Children Overboard affair and mandatory detention.

The biggest surprise about this story? That anyone is surprised at all. Governments do some apparently shifty things some times. More often, individuals with a particular issue to grind will do even shiftier things. Individuals work in Government departments that may or may not do shifty things. Is this news? Yes. Is this a scandal? Not really. Anyone using Wikipedia as a definitive resource will get what's coming to them anyway.

Move along people, there's very little to see here. Some people got caught out while other legitimate Wikipedia users will suffer as access to the resource is restricted. I think the big lesson out of all of this is that anonymity online is something of a myth unless you go to great efforts that are probably disproportionate to what you are trying to achieve anyway.

I think there's something in that for all of us.

Holographic storage moves ahead, backing up just got even harder

2007-08-22T17:37:00.000+10:00

The latest Technology Review reports that a new technique has made rewritable holographic memory one step closer to reality. Holographic memory has just started moving in to the marketplace but at this stage it only uses write once memory.

This new technique involves "reengineered versions of proteins produced by bacteria-like organisms (I'm not sure what it means but it sure sounds cool), increases data retrieval speeds and improves data density to about 500 Gigabytes per square inch. Once again, I have no idea how that would translate to the consumer market, but considering that multi-platter magnetic disk drives are only just reaching the terabyte stage, I'm going to assuming that it will be a whopping great big amount.

With hard drive space climbing all the time and the tantalising possibility of holographic memory exploding the size of consumer storage, the question must be asked:

If we have these massive amounts of storage space at our fingertips, why do most backup solutions still suck?

Massive amounts of storage space encourages laziness in users. When you rarely hit a wall when it comes to disk space, you are less inclined to take a critical look at the data you do have. It doesn't help that every backup solution I have ever tried was painful, convoluted and inflexible. I have an awkward and unproductive time trying to back hundreds of megs at a time. I have no idea how painful backing up 500GB per square inch would be, but I fail to see how it could be a good experience.

Until backup solutions become more user friendly, holographic memory is only going to make things harder for the average user to keep their information safe.

Image courtesy of the Technology Review. Photo credit: Amitabh Avasthi

All up in your Facebook, Australian style. Is it all just a waste of time?

2007-08-20T13:54:00.000+10:00

Facebook has been dragging its feet in the Australian social market since it was opened up to all-comers nearly a year ago. While it's adoption rate in major markets like the US and UK has been pretty impressive, take up hasn't been quite so good here in Australia as I mentioned in this recent post. However, you know something has moved from bleeding edge to man-in-the-street when it gets slammed in the local press as a "$5 billion waste of time".

The press feeding frenzy seems to be based on a press release by web filtering company Surfcontrol and the figure would appear to based on an estimate that 800,000 employees spending one hour per day on Facebook while on company time. I say "seems" and "appears" because I can't find any mention of these details on the Surfcontrol site at all. In fact, if you do find it, let me know as I'm dying to see where these magical figures have come from.

I'll set aside the dream-like quality of the $5 billion (and indeed the "hour per day" and "800,000" as well - perhaps they can all duck out for a quick drink while they wait) as unverifiable and until proven, a bit giggle-worthy. What interests me is the knee-jerk corporate reaction that anyone not spending every spare minute of their day cranking out the company widget is "wasting time".

Ross Dawson on the Trends in Living Networks blog writes:

Of course, this is not to say that there aren’t plenty of company employees working on improving their social lives while they draw a salary.

However, the more important side of the story is that in a knowledge-based economy such as Australia, effective networking is absolutely essential to corporate productivity.

And he's absolutely right.

I am not yet convinced of the usefulness of Facebook in a business setting. This may be because I work in a public administration environment where Facebook-style networking is useful. I would also argue that there is no need for Facebook to waste time here when there are just as many committees, high level working groups and "cross silo information facilitation" sessions that achieve this goal much more successfully than Facebook ever could. It is only a matter time, however, before the right type of social network bursts on to the scene.

Companies that assume that any activity that isn't directed towards achieving the company business plan or (cringe) mission statement is leaving itself open to the risk of falling behind when the wave does hit. Ross also makes an excellent point when he writes:

... in May, usage of Facebook in Australia was around one quarter of that in the US and UK. Australia needs to catch up in its networking, NOT stop in its tracks.

Australia seems woefully under connected in global networks. As national borders become increasingly relegated to antiquated political constructs, ephemeral social networks are going to become more important and an ever growing source of information and even employment. Case in point here is the Finnish social network Jaiku whose system administrator is firmly and happily implanted in New Zealand, half a world and many a timezone away.

Employers need to stop looking at how to prevent their staff from networking on company time and need to start looking at how they can use this energy and activity to their benefit. Do this, or risk being left behind.

Has iTunes gone senile?

2007-08-19T13:57:00.000+10:00

Warning! Mega-rant in progress.

Normally I'm an early adopter, much to my chagrin. It's a semi-regular occurrence that I'm refreshing, updating, restoring or replacing something because I jumped on a bandwagon that was still missing a wheel, had no seats and the draught horses turned out to be cardboard cut-outs. That's cool. I can accept that when you flirt with the cutting edge, you're going to get blood on yourself every now and then.

iTunes 7 was a bit different. At the time of its release, I still wasn't sure what I was going to do with my small amount of iTunes purchases. I was dimly aware that there were some Python scripts floating around that were able to strip the DRM off your iTunes Store purchases, providing some peace of mind when backing them up. I was also dimly aware that these scripts tended to break every time Apple released a new update to iTunes. I sat happily on 6.4 for a while and waited.

Boy was I glad I waited. I read reports of wide scale library deletions, multiple system crashes, system slow downs and I'm sure I even saw mention that the Four Riders had come again (but that may have just been blogosphere hyperbole). I sat smugly in my chair, quietly congratulating myself on my forethought and overall intelligence. If I had a white cat, she would have sat purring on my armrest as I gently stroked her, chuckling "Fools!" every few minutes.

When I bought my laptop preinstalled with Vista I accepted the inevitable. I still had 6.4 on my desktop if need be, but I didn't want to sully my shiny new man toy with old technology (shudder). iTunes 7 flashed forth on my monitor in a cloud of shininess, and all was well. It was so, well, pretty.

Little things began to creep in. It would load up as a black screen with menus. It would run really slowly. New and popular albums wouldn't have cover art. I could live with this. I'm not actually a big digital music user (a combination of finances and circumstance means that I more often than by CDs instead) so I didn't need all the features of iTunes 7. But the worst was to come...

iTunes is constantly losing my downloads. One minute they are there, podcasts and iTunes Store purchases standing side by side, proud of their digitality. A program restart later and while their shadow remains, their substance is lost to all eternity. For approximately 6 months I have to double check that each and every download has gone in to a real folder and not a temporary folder that is flushed every time the program starts up. I almost lost an entire Massive Attack EP this way. Podcasts are one thing (it's annoying and painful, but free), but if I have to pay for something, I expect it still be there next time I open it up.

Why, Apple? Why? This has been reported time and time again all over the internet, and still your software updates do not fix the problem. I know I'm just howling into the gale here but I feel compelled to add one more voice to the growing multitudes who feel that perhaps Apple is getting just a little too comfortable in their position at the top of the tree.

Journeys in XML

2007-08-15T13:39:00.000+10:00

My Wife: [looks over my shoulder at the laptop screen]
What's XHTML? I know HTML but I haven't heard of this one.

Me: Well, it's sort of designed to be a replacement for HTML. It's a bit tidier and stuff like that.

MW: What does the 'X' stand for?

Me: Oh, that stands for XML - Extensible Markup Language. It's a form of HTML that complies with XML standards.

MW: Oh, okay. [pause] Umm, doesn't 'Extensible' start with an 'E'?

Me: Yep.

MW: So where does the 'X' come from?

Me: It comes from XML - Extensible Markup Language.

MW: You said that. But why is there an 'X' if 'Extensible' starts with an 'E'?

Me: [long pause] You see, the 'X', right, it stands for 'Extensible'.

MW: But, but, Extensible starts with an 'E'!

Me: Yes.

MW: [frustrated pause]

Me: Ooh, and see this knob? It goes all the way up to 11!

2007-08-09T13:41:00.000+10:00

Want!

My wife doesn't understand how I can think a pile of electronics is sexy. I'm afraid she never will.

Storage robot? Want!

2007-08-06T22:28:00.000+10:00

I first saw a video of Drobo in action a couple of months ago. The Ars Technica review of Drobo just confirms for me that I really, really, really wish that I had the spare cash to throw at this little bad ~~boy~~ robot.

Go convergence!

2007-08-01T18:51:00.000+10:00

I am currently sitting on the bus in a 4 seat arrangement - two seats facing each other. At various times, at least one of the four people is tapping away at their mobile phone. At one stage, all four of us were. A quick look around the bus showed this was far from unusual. I am amazed at how ubiquitous there things have become.

I bet I am the only one moblogging though.

So. I'm on Facebook. Now what?

2007-07-30T13:41:00.000+10:00

The tide became irresistible. I caved in and signed up to the Facebook thing that all the kids are talking about (at least now my wife will stop nagging me to join). If you have been wondering where I have been for the last week or so, now you know.

I've joined, I've built a profile, I've played with some apps and I've even got a (very small) handful of friends. However, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. Everyone is talking about Facebook but it still seems to be passing me by. Maybe I don't get it. Maybe I'm subconsciously non-committal about investing time in yet another social network. Maybe I'm going to be hampered by my decision to only be friends with people I interact with on a personal level.

Maybe I just need more friends.

If you're reading this and you know me in some way and you're on Facebook, tell me what I'm missing. I really want to know.

At least I feel good about totally skipping the whole Myspace thing.

International Space Station interactive reference guide

2007-07-20T14:14:00.000+10:00

A bit of light Friday afternoon fun.

The International Space Station interactive reference guide from NASA(requires Flash).

It's lots of fun actually, except for the annoying fact that you can't skip through the talking head some of the time.

Via the International Space Station home page.

One big happy family

2007-07-17T16:07:00.000+10:00

I love the fact that the same company that owns MySpace will now own the Wall Street Journal, too. What a small world this is becoming.

Techcrunch, on the news that News Corp has reached a tentative agreement to buy Dow Jones & Co.

Vista works just fine. Quit whinging.

2007-07-15T20:27:00.000+10:00

Unlike what appears to be, well, everyone else, I am having very few problems with Windows Vista. I did have a problem with my Dell, Vista and hibernation, but I fixed that with a simple update of the video drivers. Anyway, that's hardly a showstopper of a problem.

AP seems to have finally picked up on the fact that some people still don't like Vista all that much. I'm really tired of the few vocal "A List" bloggers and web celebrities who continue to get media traction with their anti-Vista problems, declaring that it's just no good and people shouldn't use it.

Personally, I have had Vista work with fewer issues than I ever had with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I will admit that I'm hardly bleeding edge, I don't have a lot of old, mission critical peripherals and I don't push my system to the extreme. On the other hand, I'm not a typical user either. My Vista works just fine, thank you.

I have no problems in recommending that people use Vista, especially if they are buying a new computer and can't decide whether to get one with XP or Vista. You may not want to upgrade your current XP system, but that's more a general caution on my part. There are no killer apps for Vista just yet, but give it time. When that happens, jump on board.

Researcher: Optimal copyright term is 14 years

2007-07-13T15:08:00.000+10:00

To my knowledge, copyright is currently for the life of the creator plus 70 years (it used to be 50 years here in Australia until we signed the (un)Free Trade Agreement with the US who proceeded to export their copyright laws as well as DMCA equivalents to us post haste). Originally, copyright was designed to be for only a limited time, just long enough for the creator to realise some financial benefit before the work returned to the public.

Once corporations got their hands on, and in the ears of, lawmakers, this basic copyright protection has been extended and extended to where it has reached a point of ludicrousness. What possible good does it do to a society to have creative works locked away from other creative people for so long?

But I'm rambling. Lawrence Lessig is much better at explaining copyright issues than I could ever hope to do so, so venture here for a better idea of what I'm babbling on about.

I saw on Ars Technica today that an economist has determined that the optimal copyright term is 14 years. The fact that it roughly matches the originally intention of copyright law makes me a little suspicious that it has been the result of backwards reasoning - come to a conclusion and then work out the reasoning later. However, I find it difficult to fault the arguments he makes (those parts I understand at least).

Rather than have me butcher it, I encourage you to read it for yourself [PDF] and draw your own conclusions.

I've never been so proud...

2007-07-09T10:18:00.000+10:00

That's my boy. I'll make a geek of him yet.

The Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network

2007-07-06T13:38:00.000+10:00

CKAN is the place to search for open knowledge resources as well as register your own – be that a set of Shakespeare's works, a global population density database, the voting records of MPs, or 30 years of US patents.

- Comprehensive Knowledge Archive Network

The latest project of the Open Knowledge Foundation. There isn't a lot there at the moment but I can see this growing in importance over the coming months and years.

Found via Boing Boing [permalink]