11th Week: My degree is over

I made the mistake of downloading EVE Online on Tuesday. Why is this a mistake? Because it's a really rather good game...

You see, the danger of being in Oxford for so long and hence sitting on top of the rather fast JANET is the temptation to go online and do Stuff. In this instance, after several references in PC Plus (including a whole-page article on how good it is) I decided to see if they had a Linux client. My intentions here were, of course, purely academic.

As it happens, there is no Linux client (though there are whisperings) but there was some discussion about running the Windows one over Wine. Being a Computer Scientist, I could hardly resist the challenge... and as it happens, there was not much of it. Using Wine 0.9.33, it (mostly) Just Works. The sound is a little jittery (as with most DirectSound things under Wine) but the game is just as playable this way as through Windows. Plus, it means I don't affect my uptime by rebooting every time I want to play.

So, these last couple of days have been spent in and out of the Eve world, running a few missions, mining a few asteroids, and generally not doing anything relating to my degree... The possibly good news is that I have 12 days left of the free trial period, which perhaps not coincidentally also will mark the end of my stint in Oxford for the time being (I'm going home for a bit).

After that, who knows...

10th Week: Something for Nothing?

Or at least, for US$3?



I came across a site - www.freepgs.com - that offers advert-free PHP/MySQL hosting for a one-off payment from $3. So, what did I do? I PayPal'd my $3, got signed up, and uploaded the latest SVN of my content-management system (the one that drives the OICCU website). A quick E-mail to them as some of their defaults are a bit too restrictive - by the end of the day they've sorted it and all is working smoothly. Too good to be true? Not so far - I'll keep you posted.

10th Week: In the news today...

I'm ill, so to waste some time here's a few stories that caught my eye, and I'll try and put the world to rights.



Firstly, if anyone still thinks software patents are a good idea, then you will be pleased to know that the linked list has been patented by a Ming-Jen Wang. (For the non-CompSci reading this, know that the linked list is one of the most primitive data structures used in computer science and is used by just about everyone.) Surely it's only a matter of time before someone patents "Hello World"...



Keeping with the computing theme, if any of you still think that Windows Vista is a good idea, then you will be pleased to know that security company Kaspersky Labs have stated "There's a question mark if Vista security has improved, or has really dropped down." Brilliantly, in the same article a Microsoft spokeman is quoted as saying "...[Kaspersky] have one of the best insights into Microsoft security products".



My old Maths teacher once told me, "The best way to picture something in four dimensions? Don't!" Now mathematicians have detailed a 248-dimensional structure with... I don't know, presumably some purpose. The title of the lecture in which this is being presented? "The Character Table for E8, or How We Wrote Down a 453,060 x 453,060 Matrix and Found Happiness."



And finally, if there are any of you who still think DRM is a good idea, know that 75% of customer service problems at a major online music seller are caused by DRM. From the article:

According to Musicload, DRM "makes the use of music quite difficult and hinders the development of a mass-market for legal downloads." The lack of interoperability is unfair to customers and prevents true competition between music services, in other words.

The MS Approach to Security

Don't Let OneCare Eat Your Email - AppScout



"Oh, look, that file might have a virus... AAAGGHH! PANIC! DELETE EVERYTHING THERE! WIPE IT ALL OUT! ... oops, there goes the user's entire E-mail account. Oh well, who cares? Not me. They're paying for me, you know."

7th Week: Belated geekiness

A couple of weeks ago, Peter T and I took various tools to Martyn Layzell's Mac G3. The laptop was officially certified dead before Martyn could get anything from his hard drive, so it went to the resident St. Aldate's geeks to see what we could find.

When I got there (carrying essential caffeine supplies), the keyboard had already been taken out, and we started work on the outer bottom shell casing... Or, we tried to, but none of the allen keys in St. Aldate's were the right size. Peter had a flash of inspiration: maybe it was using American sizing? A dash to Robert Dyas, and the laying on of hands by our worship pastor (j/k), and a jolly good prising with a screwdriver and the casing came away at last.

This had taken so long that I had to leave for a class at this point (Programming Languages), but I left Peter and Martyn with my camera to photograph the end result...

A ridiculous number of fixings...

And lo, a MacBook with hard drive removed!

6th Week: Blair really knows what he's talking about!!!!!1111one

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Right Honourable Anthony Blair MP, has responded to an online petition to ban the use of digital restrictions management (DRM) for digital content (read it here).



In a complete and total misunderstanding of what DRM is, what it does, and why it is used, the response reads:

"...However, DRM does not only act as a policeman through technical protection measures, it also enables content companies to offer the consumer unprecedented choice in terms of how they consume content, and the corresponding price they wish to pay."

Um... no.

4th Week: StarWarsGame extends Game...

This is actually genuinely part of my OOP practical. (Note: contains spoilers for the game!)

          / __   __| / _ \ |  _ \
    ______> \ | |   |  _  ||    /_____________________________
   / _______/ |_|   |_| |_||_|\______________________________ \
  / /                                                        \ \
 | |          Episode OOPII: A New GoldenGlobe Game           | |
  \ \____________________________    _   ___   ____   _______/ /
   \___________________________  |  | | / _ \ |  _ \ / _______/
                               | |/\| ||  _  ||    / > \
                                \_/\_/ |_| |_||_|\_\|__/

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
You are on the bridge of the Imperator-II class Star Destroyer Chimaera. Through the transparisteel windows you see a vast starfield.
There is a turbolift at the rear of the bridge

What now? go turbolift
You are in the turbolift
The turbolift doors open out onto the bridge. TIE Fighters patrol outside
There is the turbolift controls here.

What now? use controls
The turbolift doors hiss shut, and a few moments later you feel a slight motion as the lift descends. The doors open when you reach your destination.
You are in the turbolift
The turbolift doors open out onto a corridor
There is the turbolift controls here.

What now? go corridor
You are in a harshly-lit corridor near the belly of the Star Destroyer
A blastdoor leads out into the main hangar
Close to you, a door leads to another room
At the end of the corridor is a turbolift

What now? go blastdoor
You are in the main hangar of the starship. Beyond the magcon field lies the coldness of space
The blastdoor leads back into the corridor
An Imperial Shuttle is landed in the hangar

What now? go shuttle
There's no way to lower the ramp without the keycard.

... and that's all you're getting! I should point out that I haven't just played the game for the practical - but actually written it. (My first ideas, to extend the template we were given to read in XML-described levels, was discarded as being too advanced for the course.) There's an unexpected plot twist (well, such that there is any plot) later on in the game - I'll probably make the Java bytecode available somewhere at some point (but obviously not the source code, since some of that isn't mine and I don't want people to copy it before it's marked!)

3rd Week: Beyond Vista (or, how to cream your customers for every cent they own)

More than six months ago, I mentioned the possibility of Microsoft moving to a modular, and pay-per-module, basis for operating systems after Vista. The idea was met with a general feeling of doubt that such a thing would happen, from all on #CompSci (including my aforementioned technically-adept contemporary MSHV).

Now, a short time after withdrawing a patent application for an idea they copied from BlueJ, Microsoft have filed for a new software patent. What could the subject of this patent possibly be? Why, it's entitled "System and method for delivery of a modular operating system". From the abstract:

An operating system and method for use include a core function module, or basic kernel, providing fundamental operating system support and one or more add-on modules that allow customization of the operating system as desired. Add-on modules may provide support or extended capability to the computer including hardware, applications, peripherals, and support. ... By withholding certification, a service provider may manage illegal or undesired modifications to a provided computer. Digital rights management may be used to enforce terms of use of the add-on module in keeping with licensing arrangements.

I'm not an expert on patent law, and especially not US patent law. Lucky for me, someone at Groklaw is. Their analysis?

The patent relates to a method of delivery of an operating system where you start off with a very basic operating system, a kind of crippled starter edition, and then you pick and choose (and purchase) additional functionality, with DRM used to make sure you don't self-help. It's like modular copyleft, turning the advantages of GNU/Linux -- modularity there increases what you can do and what you can add and how well everything works -- and instead turns the concept on its head by using modularity plus DRM to restrict and contain and enforce.

The article is quite a lengthy exposition of the patent application, and I won't try and further summarise it here - go, read for yourself. Most interesting, though, is the fact that some of these "add-on modules" are there to provide functionality that you would expect - nay, should demand - from the most basic installation of the OS. Plugging in all your peripherals, for example. Or having a network connection at the speed your hardware allows. Or having as many different programs open as you want, and that your computer can cope with. All of these things are flagged in the application as things available in addition to the basic kernel (eg with the possibility you have to pay for them).

As for the DRM... I believe I have my views already well-recorded on that shocking scheme for consumer manipulation and exploitation.

It's worth pointing out, of course, that "Microsoft doesn't need a patent to use this business model, nor does a patent application prove it will use the model." But who can argue that they're not headed that way?


Technorati Tags: microsoft, vista, patent, drm

3rd Week: OK, brace yourselves...

The BBC News website reports on the story that's going to be everywhere in the world tomorrow: Windoze Vista's launch. Luckily for my sanity, they've avoided (so far) the Redmond whitewash by inviting proponents of the other two members of the Big Three OSs to give their pitch alongside two pro-Microsoft folk.



We can all but discard the first pro-Windows comment, obviously from someone who's never seen anything but Windows first-hand and focuses almost entirely on eyecandy (nothing wrong with an OS having eyecandy - but when you're paying £170 minimum (or £80 for an upgrade), it can't be the only thing going for it).



The second pro-Windows comment is more substantial, so I'll grab a few quotes and deal with them in turn, occasionally sarcastically.

A huge amount of research has been put into this new version which is evident in everything from the user interface right through to the new security model.

This would be the 20+ people it took to design the shoddy "shut down" options menu? And the new security model based on the philosophy of "annoy the hell out of everyone so they turn it off" (as instantiated by my technically-adept contemporary MSHV). You can't really defend against users with the mindset of "click OK just to get rid of the damn things", mind (hence why not everyone is cut out to be a superuser - don't take the name of root in vain).

This latest update provides many new components but the one which will provide the greatest change for windows users is the Windows Presentation Foundation - a set of components which allow graphics designers to produce visually stunning user interfaces.

I have to say, I wasn't blown away when I first saw Aero (I know - "Linux fanboy!!!!111") but I can't deny that it looks... nice. It's certainly a big improvement over XP's default Fisher Price settings. And I suppose the big difference here between Windows (and Mac for that matter) and Linux systems is choice, or lack thereof. A Windows developer making a GUI application is almost certainly using Visual Studio, and (for Vista) will be using WPF to make their app look and feel like every other Windows app - like it's part of the system.



Linux is different. Not only are there two competing desktop environments in KDE and Gnome (yes, there are more than this, but these are the big two) but the way they draw elements like buttons, scrollbars etc is different from the ground up. KDE uses the Qt toolkit, while Gnome uses the GTK one. Somehow, I get the feeling whenever I use an app designed for GTK, that it's not quite looking how it should - and while integration with KDE themes is there, it's not watertight. It doesn't (usually) affect the functionality of the app, just the look and feel. Oh, dear, we're talking eyecandy again...

I also like the way that all my existing hardware just works (although I am aware many other people have had problems).

Well, at this point I could give the usual "if-more-people-used-Linux-more-hardware-people-would-release-drivers-for-it" spiel but I won't. Fact is, I think of the Big Three, Linux has the absolute widest hardware support of the lot. Vista only seems available on x86 and x86_64 processors... no SPARC, no PPC... Ever tried to find drivers for an old printer on XP? Chances are it'll be already waiting for you in Linux. Reading through the list of drivers in the Linux kernel sources is a mammoth task - but, of course, we can't compare it since OS X and Vista are closed-source. Apple OSs, it's worth pointing out, only ever come with Apple-built hardware and are only designed for Apple machines, so Apple loses the hardware compatibility race from the off.



So we get to the Linux-user's comments (interesting that the Beeb would put Linux above Apple in the article). And going through this closely... I can't really fault it. It makes all the right points (though it does only dedicate two lines to eyecandy... shock horror). It doesn't make a big song and dance about being completely free; it doesn't deny the weak points (as the other three comments do - any OS will have weak points!); and it does briefly discuss the fact that the whole ethos behind Linux as an open-source project is a different one to that behind Windows and OS X:

What really sets Linux apart is its social significance provided by the free software license. It encourages users to share the software they love with their friends, rather than making the act of sharing illegal and branding it piracy.



Also it encourages programmers to be better people, working in the open and allowing other programmers from across the world to help improve their software, rather than locking up their work with restrictive licences which prevent programmers from working together.

So to the Mac-user... and I have to admit, I have too little experience of Mac OS to be able to raise many comments. Most of the points he raises - security, maintenance, productivity and interoperability with Windows users - could equally be applied to Linux too.

I now feel like I am in charge of my computer rather than it being in charge of me.

And yet you can still only do things that Apple let you do, Mr. Tilney. You only own a license to the OS, not the software itself... and still, you're tied to the Apple hardware+software+soul combination.



My bottom line? I think it's been well-stated elsewhere that I'm a Linux user through choice, and see no reason to go back to Windows. Sure, I keep it around for the odd spot of gaming (or playing Lucy at MSN Games into the early hours) but would I ever use it as my primary OS again? Not through choice. And, let's not forget, that both Apple's OS and Vista are defective by design, and include software "features" to limit your freedoms with digital media. But when the Penguin sets you free, you will be truly free... ;-)





Technorati Tags: vista, windows, linux

1st Week: Hooray for Kingsway

Kingsway are offering individual song downloads for 99p each - and, more importantly, the downloads are MP3s and without any Digital Restrictions Management. I've just bought a copy of Matt Redman's "Never Let Go" - we sang this at St. Aldate's last night and right now it's just so spot-on for describing my life.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

(Psalm 23: 4)

1st Week: A Copied Quiz Thing - Soundtrack To My Life

I never ever do these things, but I'm doing this one because a) I haven't posted on this blog for nearly two months, b) it's quite a good one as it gives you an insight into a person's music collection, c) I'm bored, and d) it's one more thing to distract myself from everything that's happened in said last two months, if only temporarily...

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool..


Opening Credits:
Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond

Waking Up:
Mr. Mister - Welcome To The Real World

First Day At School:
Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?

Falling In Love:
Delirious? - Message Of The Cross

Breaking Up:
Star Wars VI soundtrack - Ew*k Celebration and Finale (now there's irony)

Prom:
A few bars of the BBC News theme... don't ask why

Life's Ok:
Delirious? - Solid Rock

Mental Breakdown:
Fight, Win, Prevail (from the soundtrack to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn)

Driving:
Delirious? - Now Is The Time

Flashback:
Phatfish - There Is A Day

Getting Back Together:
(Мне все еще жаль, что это не может случиться, with apologies for the translation)
Matt Redman - King Of This Heart

Birth of Child:
Delirious? - I Was Blind

Wedding Scene:
The Itchy and Scratchy theme from The Simpsons (again, don't ask why)

Final Battle:
Tim Hughes - Jesus You Alone

Death Scene:
Sean Callery - LA At 9:00AM (from the 24 soundtrack)

Funeral Song:
Spring Harvest - How Great Is Our God (ironically enough, I hope this will genuinely be at my funeral...)

End Credits:
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

So what have we learned? Well, that my collection contains a lot of weird clips of television themes; that Ew*ks and the Rebellion are ultimately responsible for the events of the last two months; that a recurring theme of my life has been, and will be, Jesus; and that right now, I may not be comfortable, but I've certainly been feeling numb.

7th Week: on the Facebook Development Platform

There seems to have been a lot of controversy of late surrounding the mysterious and seemingly-misunderstood Facebook Development Platform. Is this a secret plan to sell your personal data to the highest bidder? Is it some way for people to view and steal your profile information? (For those who don't know, Facebook is one of these social networking sites - you know, the "I've got 17 more friends than you" type places. It's a complete waste of time, but (or possibly therefore) is brilliant.)

Let's look at what the FDP actually is. Above all things, it is for developers - computer geeks like me who like to write programs, and would like to integrate them with Facebook.

Here's a note that I found someone had posted:

Hey Kids, So apparently Facebook has started SELLING user information (surprise, surprise!) to third parties. They call it the "Facebook Development Platform." To restrict use of your information, do the following...

The same note goes on to make up "quotes" from the Facebook Terms of Service and Privacy Policy (Really! Go and look yourself, if you've seen the original note!). Facebook's own FAQ deals with this issue directly:

Facebook respects your privacy. We don't distribute your user information to marketers or spammers. We also do not allow crawlers from search engines on our site.

In fact, far from selling information, the FDP is free to make use of - anyone on Facebook can sign up and make use of the API in their own applications. The important point to make about this is that, in order to use applications that use the Facebook API and access any information, the user needs to log in to Facebook. At no point do they gain access to information they couldn't have gathered from the Facebook site.

The issue was raised again about an hour ago, when a friend of mine invited me to join the group "People Radar is an abuse of information on Facebook". People Radar, recently renamed from FaceRadar (because Facebook apparently own the copyright to the word "face"), is one of the myriad applications that make use of the Development Platform and its API. The basic premise of the site is: you go through and rate members of your preferred sex on how "hot" they are. You can also check your own rating (for some reason, mine seems to be 1. Maybe an overflow error?).

While I in no way think that this is a particularly brilliant idea (far from it), I disagree with the group's statement that it is an "abuse of information". Facebook is a site designed for sharing information. Any information you put up, you expect to be shared - and FB duly gives you control over how this information is shared.

The group also suggests changing your privacy settings to prevent your data being used for the FDP. This, though, is rather like using a nuclear warhead to kill an ant (Note to any American President reading: this is a Bad Idea). PeopleRadar itself has an opt-out, and I would recommend that instead of the kill-all approach. If everyone took this route, then some genuinely interesting, some intriguing, and maybe even some genuinely useful ideas would be rendered useless. (An extensive list is available.)

As a developer, I say that would be a shame.

4th Week: The Legendary St. John's Fireworks

...were slightly disappointing this year.

Maybe it was the hype I was desperately trying to inject into the evening; recounting countless tales of previous SJC fireworks displays, from when they set fire to one of the trees encircling the Great Lawn, to last year's near-horizontal firework launch towards the crowd. Perhaps it was the fact that (mostly to prevent a re-occurrence of the aforementioned) a professional was called in. I mean, who wears a helmet when putting on a fireworks display? Perhaps it was the final two fireworks: Wheeeeeeeeee.... put. put.

Or maybe it's the fact I got to bed at about 3.15am last night...

4th Week: About Time

BBC News has early coverage of a report, due out later today, with the Institute of Public Policy Research's report into a review of copyright laws. Read it at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6095612.stm.

From the article:

Copyright laws are "out of date" and must be updated so MP3 player users can make copies of CDs without breaking the law, according to a think tank.

Yes! That's exactly right! And, my favourite quote of them all:

It is not the music industry's job to decide what rights consumers have. That is the job of government.

3rd Week: Good news from the world of broadcasting

At long last, BBC Parliament will be available in full screen format on Freeview from November 13, reports Digital Spy. (See the official BBC press release here.)

Unlike satellite and cable TV, Freeview has only a limited bandwidth available; there's a limit to the number of channels that can be broadcast. Until now, BBC Parliament has been broadcast quarter-screen, in the same video stream as the two News Multiscreen video loops; on both, MHEG text screens cover the other side of the screen.

With Parliament now in full-screen, this either means the end of News Multiscreen on Freeview, or else enough room for a few more screens. Or perhaps they've managed to squeeze out an extra channel's bandwidth by reducing the quality of the others (BBC Four/CBeebies, 301/302) But which is it to be?

The discussion of this has spread to eight pages on the DS forums...

3rd Week: Happy Release Day

You really have to wonder what was going through their minds, though...

http://blog.pcplus.co.uk/page/pcplus?entry=ms_to_firefox_team_congratulations

3rd Week: Food for thought for Linux geeks

This was written in July, but I've only just found it. Written by A Y Siu (a name I recognise from the Kubuntu forums, as it happens), it debunks the myth of "the year of the Linux desktop", while simultaneously destroying the myth that "Linux is not ready for the desktop". An interesting read...

http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktopmyth

Essential reading for anyone waiting for Linux to break through into the mainstream; and for anyone who's heard of Linux, has maybe been told that it's better than Windows (by some Linux geek like me).

2nd Week: Latest Pictures - Anti-Lab Protest

These were the best shots I could get of the anti-lab brigade (it's no longer sufficient to call them "protesters" thanks to Pro-Test, which causes confusion) - I really didn't want to hang out of my (ground floor) window as the protesters marched past, waving a camera, in case one of the ALF decided to make good their arson threat. Anyway, here are the photos.

The banner reads "FREE SPEECH" and has a website address. I'm not going to link to it. :-P

There were quite a few of them - they took a full four minutes to pass by outside.

And finally they depart... many of them seem to be holding banners saying "REMEMBER GEORGE". Unfortunately, I don't, though apparently he's a miserable-looking chimp. (Because there are so many chimps being experimented on in the new lab.) Also, some people were carrying banners saying "SUPPORT SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH - STOP VIVISECTION" or something similar. These people are, presumably, either confused or misled. I'm a Computer Scientist. The argument that "computers can do simulations so we don't need real animals" doesn't wash with me.

2nd Week: OCaml

How to make the ML programming language, for beginners.

1. Take all the worst parts of Haskell.
2. Make all those Haskell error messages even more obscure.
3. Add in the noisiness of Oberon.
4. Provide contradictory documentation.

I have no idea what I wrote but, after 90 minutes of fiddling around with punctuation marks, the practical works.

2nd Week: MythTV Database Issues

OK, for the second time in my life I had to scour the internet for the solution to a problem with a new installation of MythTV (from CVS). I'm putting this here so I can find it again in future!

If you try and run mythfrontend or mythtv-setup and get errors such as the following:

QSqlDatabase: QMYSQL3 driver not loaded
QSqlDatabase: available drivers:
2006-10-20 11:14:52.435 New DB connection, total: 1
2006-10-20 11:14:52.436 Unable to connect to database!
2006-10-20 11:14:52.437 No error type from QSqlError? Strange...
QSqlQuery::exec: database not open
QSqlQuery::exec: database not open
2006-10-20 11:14:52.496 DB Error (KickDatabase):
Query was:
SELECT NULL;
No error type from QSqlError? Strange...
2006-10-20 11:14:52.572 Unable to connect to database!
2006-10-20 11:14:52.573 No error type from QSqlError? Strange...

... then the solution is twofold. Firstly make sure you have the Qt MySQL drivers installed (Ubuntu people: that's libqt3-mt-mysql). Secondly - and this is the bit that always takes ages to find... You need an /etc/ld/so.conf file that contains the path to the said driver. Ubuntu people: /usr/local/lib.

That's it. That's what takes hours to solve. Not any more.