2003 News

Tue 30 Dec 2003

Added a new section on ambient computing.

Having read another article about what's wrong with the open source development process, I've gathered my thoughts on how to win the masses over to Linux.

Tue 2 Dec 2003

Moved the Smiley Toolkit here.

Mon 1 Dec 2003

Added a review of Extreme Programming.

Sun 30 Nov 2003

Added an article on Toronto's overheated real-estate market, and another on women's footwear. It's not that I'm an expert in these areas, although I have keen amateur interests.

Mon 17 Nov 2003

An article linked to by a Slashdot story says that the Brazillian goverment is starting to favour open source solutions over more costly Microsoft alternatives. This is encouraging, as open source (that is to say, UNIX-like) software is a lot more fun to work with than this year's dismal MS alternative. Right now, MS is encountering the stiffest resistance in markets that don't have a huge amount of disposable cash. They do have lots of minds, however, and minds can make contributions to open source projects after a few years of exposure to Linux and the software that comes with it. Anyway, my feeling is that within say, three years, a Windows-only approach is going to be career-limiting for a programmer.

Late Nov 2003

Having read another article about what's wrong with the open source development process, I've gathered my thoughts on how to win the masses over to Linux.

Sun 30 Nov 2003

Added an article on Toronto's overheated real-estate market, and another on women's footwear. It's not that I'm an expert in these areas, although I have keen amateur interests.

Mon 17 Nov 2003

An article linked to by a Slashdot story says that the Brazillian goverment is starting to favour open source solutions over more costly Microsoft alternatives. This is encouraging, as open source (that is to say, UNIX-like) software is a lot more fun to work with than this year's dismal MS alternative. Right now, MS is encountering the stiffest resistance in markets that don't have a huge amount of disposable cash. They do have lots of minds, however, and minds can make contributions to open source projects after a few years of exposure to Linux and the software that comes with it. Anyway, my feeling is that within say, three years, a Windows-only approach is going to be career-limiting for a programmer.

Fri 14 Nov 2003

Rummaging around on one of Joey DeVilla's links pages I came across this exposition of the zen-like essence of UNIX. It strikes me that Computational Semiotics is opposed to the nature of UNIX. Instead of presenting the user with a kit of orthogonal tools that can easily be combined to form any desired solution, the computational semiotician presents the user with a particular solution that can easily be adjusted using an orthogonal set of controls.

Must CS solutions be productions of time, liable to be swept away? Although any CS solution will have to be re-implemented occasionally as underlying technologies come and go, I would hope that insofar as it flows from an understanding of human nature, its essence will be durable.

Began thinking about reorganizing the Computational Semiotics section in a book-like format.

Wed 12 Nov 2003

Gave the cartoon animation section its own page, as a result of discussion with a reader who dropped in to see the smiley toolkit.

Mon 10 Nov 2003

Hamish (my brother) suggested I add a counter, at the lower left. He also forwarded a link to the smiley editor to boingboing.net which might generate traffic for the counter to count. It's strange to imagine that the site might actually get visitors!

Fri 7 Nov 2003

Work on the typeface proceeds. Real antialiasing would be expensive, so I just draw each character at 100 by 100 or so, then blit it down to the desired size using a pixel-averaging image scaling algorithm. It's not as good as doing a gaussian blur, but this is a proof-of-concept sort of prototyping exercise. I'm also working on a serif-drawing algorithm. The point is to get something working fast so as to go on to the more interesting part: seeing how dynamically perturbing the typeface influences the mood of the reader.

Thu 6 Nov 2003

Updated my "Geek Seeks Work" poster to reflect the new URL, and improved the design. Postering efforts near the climbing gym were more effective now that I've practiced a bit. Brought a staple gun for the wood poles.

Added a review of contemporary geek culture.

Tue 4 Nov 2003

This week I've been putting up "Geek Seeks Work" signs in likely parts of town, such as King & Dufferin, King and John, and King and Parliament. Now that the investment climate is improving, perhaps the tech companies that survived the depression are looking for workers?

I've also started work on a typeface for a demonstration of some of the ideas on my typesetting page.

Hallowe'en 2003

Added a demonstration smiley editor in the programming section. An automatic version should also appear in the upper left corner of this window.

Mon 27 Oct 2003

We got a bread maker among the wedding gifts, and I've resolved never to buy bread again. :| Flour is so cheap! 10 kg for $4.50 over at Joe's No Frills. Today's experiment was focaccio, which you make by letting the bread maker blend and knead the dough for you, then you flatten it, add olive oil, sea salt and rosemary, and finish by baking in the oven.

Sun 26 Oct 2003

Chatting with Jason Bellenger over dim sum I was reflecting on the insufficiency of spoken language alone. Hamish and little nephew Ethan were there with Ethan's aunt Cheryl, and Jason was reflecting on the processes by which kids soak up language quickly in their early years. My contention was that kids are also learning about the gestures and other components of language that actually get the message across.

New lie detector research indicates that by closely observing a person's face it's possible to tell if they're lying pretty accurately. It's to a tribe's advantage to tell if its members are telling the truth, thus these back channels have doubtless evolved.

Sat 25 Oct 2003

This term Kristin is taking a course on computer organization, which includes a hardware lab where she gets to play with AND and OR gates, and build simple circuits like half-adders and garage door openers. Seeing as we live near an electronic parts supply store, I suggested she could practice putting things together at home, so off we went and got a bunch of lights, IC's, wires and other components. This has renewed my interest in building a Universal Mood Enhancer, so I also picked up O'Reilly's Designing Embedded Hardware, which looks promising.

Another reason for my interest in embedded hardware is the large number of real-world applications now becoming possible by creating a relationship between objects in the physical world and databases accessed over the internet. Although much of this potential usefulness can be accessed through a smart 'phone, more things become possible if you can add sensors or controls to a basic communicator.

Fri 24 Oct 2003

Last night I was reading an article by Robert Cringely about Taguchi Methods, "a technique for designing experiments that converge on an ideal product solution". It strikes me that formalizing experiment design is necessary to develop artificial intelligence. A real AI would be given basic desires and then set free to achieve those desires within an environment. On identifying a goal or subgoal, the AI would have to learn how to achieve it through research and experimentation. The ability to design an effective series of experiments is key to learning. Of course, you also need a general-purpose format for encoding knowledge, but that's a separate problem.

Thu 23 Oct 2003

The Economist claims we're in the middle of another tech bubble. Although much of the money being invested will doubtless turn out to have been thrown away, technology is still advancing at a great rate, and every day new problems become soluble.

I've often remarked that an order-of-magnitude increase in processor speed makes computers able to do something qualitatively new. Perhaps you can shrink a device into a place it couldn't go before, or solve a problem on your desktop that used to require a supercomputer.

One especially interesting branch of new technology is smart 'phones.

Wed 22 Oct 2003

Began 'phoning electors in Tiny Township as part of the shoreline associations' attempt to elect a competent and sympathetic council. My mother is the president of the federation of shoreline associations, so I figure I got off lightly with only fifty people to 'phone.

Added reviews of Underworld and Firewalls and Internet Security and updated the links page.

Mon 20 Oct 2003

On Saturday I went to the Autumnal Cabinet of Wonders put on by the Royal Sarcophagus Society which includes Tanya Schreck, an old friend who used to be a member of Plastic Witches.

Added reviews of Lord of the Rings and Florence, Italy