technology

To indulge

It’s black, phalic and sits nicely in my hand. It evokes feelings of joy and guilt at the same time. In what must be seen as a moment of total indulgence I bought a new lens for my camera. Yes I succumbed to the temptation I have carried with me for the past months and bought the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5,6 IS USM. And the best thing is that it’s great! I just love it.

The magnification is a huge improvement and it has a really fast internal motor. It has also got me rearing to go out and take lots of photo’s this summer.

Posted on by mklang

PhD Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like.

I chose to upload my PhD thesis 🙂
click here for larger version

Posted on by mklang

Mobile Phone Popcorn

Following the recent YouTube films showing popcorn being popped by mobile phones a discussion arose as to whether this was possible. Some argued that they had been able to replicate the films while others cried hoax! Thankfully the Guardian Online conducted the following experiment:

In search of the truth we gathered all the phones in the G2 office, placed some freshly purchased uncooked popcorn in the centre of them and simultaneously dialled them all. The result?

Absolutely nothing.

Which is probably not surprising as the popcorn kernels has to be heated to over 230 centigrade before it pops…

Posted on by mklang

Computer intelligence

This week’s tech podcast from the Guardian contains some really good stuff. Igor Aleksandr and Ray Tallis discuss whether computers can be intelligent as humans?

The funny part with computer intelligence is that teaching computers really difficult stuff (for example advanced chess) is relatively easy. Trying to teach computers the stuff we take for granted as infants is really difficult. The variations (cultural, local, temporal) in making and eating breakfast (even defining breakfast is a complex affair) are infinite compared to chess

Listen, or try one the podcast feed URL.

Posted on by mklang

The Machine That Changed the World

Computer documentaries are usually overrated events with lots of graphical representations, big men in floral shirts and evil hackers sitting in dark basements. Thankfully not all are like this. Waxy has found a classic computer documentary. It was produced pre-web and has been difficult to find – until now:

The Machine That Changed the World is the longest, most comprehensive documentary about the history of computing ever produced, but since its release in 1992, it’s become virtually extinct. Out of print and never released online, the only remaining copies are VHS tapes floating around school libraries or in the homes of fans who dubbed the original shows when they aired.

An interesting copyright note is found at the bottom of the page:

Note: Like all the other materials I post here, these videos are completely out-of-print and unavailable commercially, digitized from old VHS recordings. If they ever come back into print, or the copyright holders contact me, I’ll take them down immediately.

While this is not in line with copyright law I salute both the sentiment and the action. What a great documentary – thanks Waxy.

Posted on by mklang

Data retention is pointless violation

Not only is data retention a potential violation of civil liberties but it now may turn out to be pointless according to the Max-Planck-Institute for Criminal Law. (via Gisle Hannemyr)

A report (PDF) from Max-Planck-Instituts für Strafrecht about data rentention was recently featured in Heise.de and the online edition of Der Spiegel. Below is a summary in English.

According to the study, the logging and retention of certain telecomminications traffic data for six months that was made compulsory in Germany in January 2008 will only have mariginal effect and traffic data will be of use in as little as 0.002 % of the total number of criminal cases. This is within the marigin of statistical error and the annual variation in criminal cases solved is one hundered times greater.

This finding corresponds to estimates from Bundeskriminalamts, who in a separate study from the summer of 2007 says that data retention will incease the percentage of solved crimes “from 55 percent today to, at most, 55.006 percent.”

The Max-Planck study also shows an exponential increase in use of traffic data by law enforcement, from 5000 queries in year 2000 to about 41000 in the year 2005 (see summary and figures on pages 77, 90, and 402 in the report). In Bayern traffic data queries increased by 60 percent from 2006 to 2007 according to this report.

With respect to types of crime, 50 percent of IP-address queries concerns fraud and 25 percent concerns copyright violations. The argument that traffic data are needed to prevent terrorism is not supported by the statistics.

The study also warns about dangers from abuse due to unauthorized access to the stored data by inside or outside agents at well as the potential to use such data for “strategic surveillance” of large segments of the population.

Posted on by mklang

Vulnerability

It was bound to happen sooner or later but this realization does not make the fact easier that I am traveling away from the power cable to my laptop. After so many trips where I have always been so careful to remember to pack it, I really feel stupid having forgotten it. Very, very annoying!

Posted on by mklang

Many Chinese approve of censorship

There is a general assumption that people subjected to censorship are unhappy. A Pew Internet survey finds that most Chinese approve of internet regulation especially by the government (via Slashdot). The report can be downloaded here. This raises an interesting question: is censorship bad even if those who are affected by it approve of it?

Most people who argue for individual freedom would argue that it does not matter that those effected by a loss of liberty are OK with it – the very fact that individuals have lost their liberty is enough of basis to claim that censorship is bad. On the other hand such a claim would invalidate the opinions and ideas of the group who agree to being censored.

This is a tough call. Personally I do think that censorship is bad but it this is from my point of view and I am not being subjected to it.  Certain acts are unconditionally bad no matter what certain groups may believe (for example female circumcision or child pornography) but lesser wrongs are more difficult to judge.

 

Posted on by mklang

Books not dead – bookshops are dying

For a long time there have been claims that the book is dead or at least terminally ill. The most recent revival of these claims was with the launch of the kindle ebook reader.

In the 1979 book The Micro Millennium, Christopher Evans forecasted that due to electronic media, “…the 1980s will see the book as we know it, and as our ancestors created and cherished it, begin a slow but steady slide into oblivion. . . . there are a number of reasons this is imminent.” Naturally Evans was wrong.

Again when the Internet became commonplace the book was given another obituary and again, judging from book sales, it was another premature prediction.

The thing is that technology will not kill the book. Technology has the ability to organize, reorganize information. It facilitates storage and searching but it will not kill the traditional book form. The book has other values that will not be easily replaced by technology. Steven Poole has written a great post on this.

Old Spines
Creative Commons License photo: Old Spines by brighterorange

So the book is not dying but the bookshop is! So this was nothing new but it was driven home to me in force when I happened to walk past one of my favorite small bookstores, it was having a moving sale (not a closing down sale).

News of a book sale usually makes me happy, but after browsing the generous 30-50% sale offers I realized that even with the discount the books were cheaper to buy new ones online. So this is not something new but I thought that a discount this large would even things out – but it didn’t.

Posted on by mklang