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March 31, 2002
March 29, 2002
Offline
I might be offline for the next couple of days.
Age and Software
Monday is the fifth anniversary of Scripting News, and the fourteenth of Frontier. It wouldn't surprise me if there are some Radio users who were born after the the code that's running their blog, not that that actually means anything.
A surprisingly large amount of software that I use was born after I was, with one of the notable exceptions being Unix and IP. Linux, HTML, HTTP, DNS, IMAP and GIF are all younger than me.
March 28, 2002
HPaq Lawsuit!
Salon.com Technology | Hewlett attacks HP's merger tactics in suit
Hewlett-Packard's management improperly enticed a large institutional investor to switch sides and support HP's hotly contested $19 billion merger with Compaq Computer Corp., a lawsuit filed Thursday claims.
A Beautiful Mind
Wednesday night I saw A Beautiful Mind by Ron Howard, starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. It is a splendid film about John Nash, who received the 1994 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on non-cooperative games.
Warning: Plot and ending are discussed.
The Nash equilibrium and the theory surrounding non-cooperative games, one of the pillars of modern microeconomic theory, was defined by Nash while he was at Princeton. He also managed to prove the Riemannian manifold embedding theorem and other proofs in geometry, feats that would in themselves be worthy of a Nobel Prize were one given in mathematics.
The movie is not entirely true to the real story of Nash, leaving out a lot of material that was in the book, but the story is nonetheless a compelling rendition of Nash's life. The film itself renders Nash's paranoid schizophrenia in the form of William Parcher (Ed Harris), a Pentagon operative whom Nash believes is running a mission that requires his assistance. But in fact Parcher, as well as his grad school friend Charles, are not real. As the psychiatrist says, "the nightmare of schizophrenia is not knowing what is true and what isn't." Imagine finding out one day that your friends and your memories, not disappeared or died, but never existed.
The daemons haunted his life, but in the end he learned to live with them and ignore them. The film paints a beatiful picture of his recovery and of his wife, Alicia, who stood by him to the end, even at the risk of her own life. In the final scene of the film, as he leaves the Nobel Prize ceremony, he sees his three "friends" standing there to congratulate him.
The Arab Peace Initiative
Full Text.
The Council of the League of Arab States at the Summit Level, at its 14th Ordinary Session,
· Reaffirms the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo extraordinary Arab summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government.
· Having listened to the statement made by his royal highness Prince Abdullah Bin Abdullaziz, the crown prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in which his highness presented his initiative, calling for full Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories occupied since June 1967, in implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, reaffirmed by the Madrid Conference of 1991 and the land for peace principle, and Israel's acceptance of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in return for the establishment of normal relations in the context of a comprehensive peace with Israel.
· Emanating from the conviction of the Arab countries that a military solution to the conflict will not achieve peace or provide security for the parties, the council:
1. Requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well.
2. Further calls upon Israel to affirm:
a. Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights to the lines of June 4, 1967 as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.
b. Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.
c. The acceptance of the establishment of a Sovereign Independent Palestinian State on the Palestinian territories occupied since the 4th of June 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza strip, with east Jerusalem as its capital.
3. Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:
a. Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.
b. Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.
4. Assures the rejection of all forms of Palestinian patriation which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries.
5. Calls upon the government of Israel and all Israelis to accept this initiative in order to safeguard the prospects for peace and stop the further shedding of blood, enabling the Arab Countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighborliness and provide future generations with security, stability, and prosperity.
6. Invites the international community and all countries and organizations to support this initiative.
7. Requests the chairman of the summit to form a special committee composed of some of its concerned member states and the secretary general of the League of Arab States to pursue the necessary contacts to gain support for this initiative at all levels, particularly from the United Nations, the security council, the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Muslim States and the European Union.
Radio Community Server cloning
Charles Miller is talking about doing a clone of Radio Community Server in Java.
Why is there so much hoopla about cloning the RCS? It's simply the fairly digestible xmlStorageSystem protocol, plus the updates page, a referer tracker and the comments feature.
RSSify your weblog
Google does it again
Search and browse the latest headlines.
Arab League endorses Saudi peace plan
Reuters (NY Times)
Guardian writeup
An Arab summit in Beirut unanimously endorsed a Saudi-inspired plan for Middle East peace on Thursday, offering Israel normal ties and full peace in exchange for complete withdrawal from occupied Arab land.
Now things get interesting. If I understand correctly, this peace proposal promises full withdrawal for full security, meaning that the Israeli forces should return to the pre-1967 borders. It also includes normalisation of relations between Israel and all the Arab League countries.
Israel will never withdraw to the pre-1967 borders. Too many settlements have been built and too many promises have been made that these settlements would be annexed as part of any peace proposal. What will be interesting is whether the Palestinians and the Arab League will accept land in Israel proper in exchange for the annexation of some of the settlements. It hasn't been possible before, but normalisation of relations with the Arab world has never been on the table before.
Because we can
Boxes and Arrows: About Boxes and Arrows
Boxes and Arrows is the definitive source for the complex task of bringing architecture and design to the digital landscape.
Very interesting zine on user experience (and powered by MT).
Billpoint hit by wrath of regulators
eBay's Billpoint draws states' attention - Tech News - CNET.com
First PayPal was investigated for suspected illegal banking, and now Billpoint, eBay's official auction payment service, is asked in 4 states to register as a "money transmitter". Although all of this regulation business may make both services more expensive to consumers, I think it is only fair that PayPal customers get the same protection that regular depositors get, because they are operating a de facto bank.
9 Innovations in Search of Inventors
David Pogue (of Missing Manual fame) is looking for automatic microwaves, alarm clocks with keypads and an MP3-playing toothbrush.
"Fear of International Trying"
Uncommon Knowledge is a TV show produced by the Hoover Institution. This episode, which can be viewed online, is a roundtable with Diane Marie Amann, a professor of international law from UC Davis, and Abe Sofaer, a research follow at Hoover. The topic is the International Criminal Court. Amann presents the rational multilateralist law professor view, while Sofaer is the archetype of the American isolationist. Some of the remarks that he marks are downright shocking.
March 27, 2002
Guardian weblog on Israel and the Middle East
Foreign Affairs on America's Allies
In many respects, the attacks of September 11 seem to have opened a new chapter in the history of U.S. foreign policy. ... Yet six months into this new era, governments from western Europe to the Middle East to East Asia are wondering how much has really changed. ... In fact, the war on terrorism is reviving and crystallizing deep-seated cultural and ideological differences between the United States and its allies.
Excellent backgrounder on the reservations that many US allies continue to have about American power and how it is exercised.
Sir Scott fighting for our common future
Scott McNealy was a worried man yesterday. Not over Sun Microsystems Inc's financial performance. Instead, Sun's chairman and chief executive is postponing retirement to battle Microsoft Corp and protect his children's future.
It's nice to know that our future is in good hands.
Corporate anthems galore
Slashdot | Corporate Anthems Go Corporate
Corporate Anthems are once again online at ZDNet UK. Last year, the Corporate Anthems page exposed a big bunch of amusing songs composed for corporate promotion. However, the music files had to go offline due to bandwidth limits. Now, ZDnet UK has stepped in, to host the anthems in all their glory.
March 26, 2002
ICC countdown: 4 ratifications left
Yahoo! News - Only 4 Votes Needed for New UN Court
Panama has become the 56th nation to ratify a treaty creating an International Criminal Court, meaning only four more nations need to ratify the pact before it takes effect over U.S. objections.
Fear and 802.11b in Central Copenhagen
I am blogging this through the wireless network of Transearch, whose offices are conveniently located in downtown Copenhagen, while sipping a glass of Coke in a nice cozy café.
Linax?
Asked whether Red Hat had developed Linux from scratch, he apparently answers no, " that was Lina Torbaugh."
What is international relations theory?
International Relations theory entails the development of conceptual frameworks and theories to facilitate the understanding and explanation of events and phenomena in world politics, as well as the analysis and informing of associated policies and practices.
International Relations is the study of an international system composed of territorial states which acknowledge no superior authority over matters which they consider of vital interest. It deals with the nature of the system - the forces, factors and interests, customs, rules and institutions which affect the behaviour of the states and the relations between them - and with the origins and development of the system.
Guan's graphical skills praised
But, Guan, I like your new redesign. Very nice, sleek, and still stylish. Nice work. :)
Actually, it's the default template in Movable Type, just like my old design was the software's standard templates. Not that I am against good design, but I would never dream of doing it myself. 
PHP sucks and then you die
A Random List of Annoying Stuff I Ran Into While Working On Phlux.net
P2P 802.11b at PwC
80211Planet - Insights: Global Accounting for Wi-Fi Technology
The typical Wi-Fi WLAN is just a LAN without wires - a replacement for or extension of a conventional Ethernet LAN. And it's typically used to do the same old things: share files and printers and carry e-mail. Yawn.
PwC auditors working at client locations exploit the ability of 802.11b to create ad hoc peer-to-peer networks without access ports or base stations. Using Colligo software they communicate securely with each other while working on audit tasks.
AOL TW books $54bn charge
The Guardian | AOL pays price of boom years with $54bn write-off
AOL Time Warner will take a $54bn (£38bn) charge, the largest on record, to reflect the crumbling values of media companies since the group was formed through a blockbusting merger little more than a year ago.
March 25, 2002
Great Internet 196 Search
The server that powers this weblog has been working on the 196 problem for a while now, since the beginning of February. I am at pass 16,069,991, which contains 6,651,918 digits.
Heather finally finishes fan fic
Two hundred and eight pages. That's how long my fan fic is. Two hundred and eight pages. That's just nuts. No wonder it's taken me two years to write the ruddy thing. :)
I am beginning to feel like jipe (warning Danish). I would never dream of writing fan fic myself, just like I am an atheist, but l think it is beautiful that at least some people find meaning in something.
Introduction to Karl Popper
A Brief Biography of Sir Karl Popper
Popper challenged some of the ruling orthodoxies of philosophy: logical positivism, Marxism, determinism and linguistic philosophy. He argued that there are no subject matters but only problems and our desire to solve them. He said that scientific theories cannot be verified but only tentatively refuted, and that the best philosophy is about profound problems, not word meanings. Isaiah Berlin rightly said that Popper produced one of the most devastating refutations of Marxism. Through his ideas Popper promoted a critical ethos, a world in which the give and take of debate is highly esteemed in the precept that we are all infinitely ignorant, that we differ only in the little bits of knowledge that we do have, and that with some co-operative effort we may get nearer to the truth.
Wireless ISP in a box
The Doc Searls Weblog : Monday, March 25, 2002
In the next 5 years most public spaces will be wifi enabled. Joltage: the only way to develp a meaningful footprint by encouraging and rewarding the creation of tens of thousands of micro-ISPs with carrier-class service. Download what you need to make a wireless ISP. WISP in a box. Everything you need.
A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices
A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices
This book contains definitions and examples of more than sixty traditional rhetorical devices, all of which can still be useful today to improve the effectiveness, clarity, and enjoyment of your writing.
From jipe.
Mozilla 0.9.9 released
Redefining "balanced budget"
Spinsanity - Countering rhetoric with reason
As part of the public relations campaign for their budget plan, some House Republicans are launching an attempt to redefine the meaning of the phrase "balanced budget".
This is a lot like the pro forma profits that US companies seem to like so much. Basically, they take operating profit, then add all special charges that are good, and leave out all the bad charges. What they end up with is some random figure that is announced as the pro forma profit. Unaudited of course.
Global Crossing better connected than Enron
Business 2.0 - Web Article - How Global Crossing Spun Political Gold
Think Enron was politically wired? Gary Winnick's soft-money machine was bigger, better, and bipartisan -- which is why you won't hear much about it.
Human rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 22. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.
Socialism is about the belief that the State can and should play an active role in peoples' lives to secure the Article 22 rights.
Poll: David Beckham has most stressful job
UK children think David Beckham has the world's most stressful job
Children think David Beckham's job is the most stressful in the world, according to a new poll. One in four youngsters believe England's captain has more to worry about than George Bush.
Well, he certainly earns more than George Bush.
Centralised admissions at Oxbridge
Oxford MP calls on Oxbridge to centralise admissions
Oxford and Cambridge universities should take student admissions out of the hands of their colleges in the wake of the bribery scandal at Pembroke college, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said today. ... Two fellows at Pembroke who agreed to create an additional place in return for a £300,000 donation from a newspaper reporter posing as a banker have resigned.
I thought that admissions were already pretty centralised at Cambridge. For those who don't know, Oxford and Cambridge admissions are run in a track separate from UCAS; there is a separate admissions form, a deadline that is 3 months earlier than the general UCAS one, and a round of interviews in December. And you cannot apply for both universities in the same year.
Interestingly, one of my friend's entire family studied at Pembroke College, Oxford.
News.Com coverage of JavaOne
Sun's Java jigsaw - Tech News - CNET.com
As Sun enters its 20th year, it faces a crucial dilemma: how to finally profit from Java's popularity with rivals.
I would also be frustrated if I had invested millions of dollars in something that benefits competitors more.
Apache 1.3.24 Released
Slashdot | Apache 1.3.24 released
Apache 1.3.24 was released with the usual new security fixes, bug fixes, and features. Here's the announcement."
I haven't updated Apache for several releases because of some weird problem with the PHP module. (Or maybe the .so files just aren't binary compatible?)
Cubans banned from buying computers
The Cuban government has quietly banned the sale of computers and computer accessories to the public.
Hmm...
Joel debunks personality cult
Joel on Software. I know that this can't be true. Of course we should trust Joel blindly.
It's true. I get email from people on development teams who appear to be in some kind of big fight over something, and they are hitting each other over the head with various quotes from me, instead of thinking for themselves, and now they want me to adjudicate, as if I know the first thing about their problems or their world. I haven't yet written the article that says that if you can't think for yourself, no amount of "methodology" is going to save you.
Movable Type Works
I've now moved my entire blog over to Movable Type, and it works great. There is still a lot of non-weblog content in Vanilla.
March 24, 2002
2002-03-25
This week I'll probably move to Movable Type for this weblog. I just need to write some scripts that convert Vanilla's * links to something useful.
March 23, 2002
2002-03-24
The new Rome meets the new barbarians (subscription required)
Joseph Nye, the dean of the JFK School at Harvard, discusses how America could exercise its considerable power more wisely to avoid falling into the traps that would make it less powerful in the future.
Rome succumbed not to the rise of a new empire, but to internal decay and a death of a thousand cuts from various barbarian groups. ... The dramatically decreased cost of communication, the rise of transnational domains (including the Internet) that cut acros borders, and the "democratisation" of technology that puts massive destructive power into the hands of groups and individuals, all suggest dimensions that are historically new. In the last century, Hitler, Stalin and Mao needed the power of the state to wreak great evil. ... the threshold for small groups or even individuals to inflict massive damage on those they take to be their enemies is falling dramatically.
"The future is not to be forecast, but created." âArthur C. Clarke
Pre-packaged privacy. Cringely notes that when you clear your cache and cookies, it's obvious that you have done so, so your boss will think that you have something to hide. Why not sell packages containing cookies, history and cache for different profiles of people, like kids, programmers or CEOs, that you can install so that your boss will think you visit useful sites?
I need to get some sleep now so I'll be fresh for the Oscars at 02:30 local time.
13-year old downloads pictures of $100 bill on the Internet and prints counterfeit money
Unbreakable Oracle is laughed out of the room
Economist recap of HPaq
This one carries a photo of Carly Fiorina that I've never seen before. Has anyone but me noticed how almost every HP article uses the same photo of Fiorina?
March 22, 2002
2002-03-23
The "Big Five" accounting firms were once the Big Eight: Arthur Andersen, Arthur Young, Coopers & Lybrand, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, Ernst & Whinney, KPMG, Price Waterhouse and Touche Ross. They are now known as the Final Four.
I got the film I shot in Florence back today (scanning by CeWe Color). The pictures are mostly a fiasco. I forgot to bracket exposures, I forgot to overexpose color negative film by a half-stop, I trusted the F80's spot metering too blindly.
The photos look a lot better on screen than they do on photographic paper.
Kodak T400CN is a beautiful black and white film, rated at ISO 400, but with grain closer to ISO 200 (or even 100 T-Max) films. It can be a bit tricky to shoot sometimes, but the results are pretty good.
March 19, 2002
2002-03-20
Gressroots Leadership: U.S. Military Academy. "The first lesson I learned as a plebe came from an upperclassman yelling in my face. He told me that there were four acceptable answers: 'Yes, sir'; 'No, sir'; 'No excuse, sir'; and 'Sir, I do not understand.' He'd ask, 'Why aren't your shoes shined?' and I'd say, 'Well, it was muddy, and I didn't have time.' He'd be all over me. He was trying to teach me something: If you have to take men up a hill and write letters to their moms that night, there's literally no excuse. If you have to lay off thousands of people from your company, there's no excuse. You should have seen it coming and done something about it."
--James Kimsey, '62, founding CEO, America Online
Dave announces New York Times headlines in Radio 8. Why is this so new? News Is Free already has NYT.
In my physics class we have a girl who does not "get" graphs. She simply cannot interpret a graph, no matter how simple. (Tufte would have a heart attack if he spent 5 minutes with her.) We tried to work with her, to show some things about functions, variables, integrals and derivatives, but nothing went through the skull.
Andersen & KPMG attempt a deal. Less than a year ago Androids, as Andersen insiders were unkindly called by outsiders, used to look down on their Big Five rivals. Andersen tended to recruit the cleverest people, pay them slightly more and work them a lot harder. And it had a very close-knit corporate culture.
March 18, 2002
2002-03-19
From an extremely unfortunate incident with a clueless friend and an MSN Messenger contact list today, Husager and I derived these important principles of life: Never trust anyone. Be cynical. Expect the worst from people.
Speednames goes cheap and sells $15 domains. For $15 per year (of course, you have to sign up for 10 years at a cost of $149), you get a domain name, free subdomains, free email aliases, web forwarding and DNS control [sic].
I currently have 3 liters of intoxicating liquors in my closet, containing 180 ml of alcohol.
Sites that are hosted at Unicast.
Mygdal: Gundgaard disses the bullshit buzzword economy. Had the same reaction when i read the articles he talks about. Amazing that the journalists still in year 2002 buy's in to the buzzword economy.
BC is going to marry an American chick for the green card.
Radio Community Server 1.0 Released.
Culture plans for the easter vacation: When We Dead Awaken by Henrik Ibsen, at Betty Nansen Teatret.
March 17, 2002
2002-03-18
florence 2002
It's not Travels with Samantha, but it's free.
If anyone I know has access to a film scanner, please drop me a note.
March 16, 2002
2002-03-17
don giovanni
Pictures from Florence. These are the ones taken with the Sony Cyber-shot that I borrowed from Gundgaard. Coming up later are the ones taken with another digital cameras, and all the pictures that I took on film.
Back from Florence! Only 546 unread items in inbox...
March 08, 2002
2002-03-09
Leaving for Florence tomorrow. Bringing ThinkPad, Gundgaard's Sony digital camera, and Nikon F80 with 50/1.4 and 24/2.8. I'll probably be offline in this period, but I will write deep and reflective diaries, as well as a travelogue, all of which will be published here with pictures.
March 07, 2002
2002-03-08
March 06, 2002
2002-03-07
A quick glance at MSN Messenger and a quick round of phone calls confirms that almost my entire class is working on WL1. WL1 is the World Literature Assignment 1 component of the IB Language A1 syllabus. For standard level students it counts for 20% of the final grade. It is a comparative essay that uses at least 2 of the Group 1 (World Literature) books; I have chosen Ibsen's A Doll's House and Euripides' Medea.
Java 1.4 implements mmap and non-blocking I/O. Without resorting to JNI hacks. Cool!
March 05, 2002
2002-03-06
Graph Theory Tutorial
Mygdal points to Nyholm pointing to What is Game Theory? Coincidentally, I am submitting my Forskerspirer [da] application, proposing to work with game theory and applied microeconomics, tomorrow.
March 04, 2002
2002-03-05
Take a peek at this page from danmark.dk, the Danish public sector portal. The headline means "From cradle to grave", and the labels in the diagram say (clockwise) Having a baby, In kindergarden, School, Education, Moving away from home, Work, Relationship, The Elderly, Death.
I've been following the discussion on the Danish anti-ATTAC list. Not very interesting.
OSI does interesting things.
If I die today, each of my children get 600 kr, and my spouse gets 200 kr, from the Danish labor market pension.
The good news is that an Ultrabay 2000 battery will be arriving any day now, so I will have a total of 8 hours of battery time.
I was very surprised to learn last week that I am going to Florence next week, with the school on a study trip. I had always thought it to be way off in the future. This is not good. I will probably be offline.
March 03, 2002
2002-03-04
Report card today. Same as last time (37 points in the 6 subjects.)
March 02, 2002
2002-03-03
I have no regrets.
Radio is great for reading weblogs and news, but when it comes to blogging, I'm putting off adoption because it would tie me to my computer.
Love is transient, but money and power never stale.
March 01, 2002
2002-03-02
__Digital Rights?__
I'm a member of the Danish civil rights organization Digital Rights. Right now they're campaigning against the new anti-terrorism legislation that is being rubber-stamped through the Danish parliament. When this happens, service providers will be required to keep records of users' traffic for one year. According to the government this includes headers of all emails sent by users; the government believes that it is fair to ask the ISPs to keep these records, because phone companies keep records of phone calls so that phone bill disputes can be handled later (sic).
This is the most far-ranging data retention legislation that I've seen yet, a lot stricter than what is being introduced in the United States and within the Council of Europe.
Pind: Denmark should adopt English, acknowledge mediocrity
Has anyone tried to develop serious applications using Torque?