Author: andy

I found this rather good introductory-level article on quantum computing in Scientific American. I last mentioned QC a few weeks ago. #

Scary spy-on-your-customers database software from Sybase. Surely you remember Sybase? They used to be big, once.

A couple of articles, here and here, on the impending deregulation of radio in the UK, and its impending take-over by Clear Channel. Basically, listeners get an even narrower range or even more pre-digested, zoo-format pap than they do now. As someone who doesn’t listen to anything except Radio Four, I don’t expect this to affect me, but its depressing anyway. Radio can be such a great medium, but its dying of blandness. #

If you need real random numbers then surf over to the neat-o HotBits site. Some smart guy has wired a net-connected PC to a radioactive decay detector, and is serving-up batches of random numbers to anyone who wants them. This is really nice, at least until CPUs start to ship with random-number generators built-in, but what the site really needs is to be web-service enabled. #

In an ingenious effort to wring more juice out of the “blog thing”, invisiblog.com is offering anonymous weblog publishing. Not much content yet, just a lot of test posts and some stuff in German, but I think the idea has a basic flaw. People read blogs because they feel some connection (trust, emotional, intellectual, whatever) with the blog’s author. You get to know them. If the author is anonymous, the experience lacks the very ingredient that makes blogging interesting. Still, a nice try.

Cool Astronomy Picture of the Day from a couple of weeks ago: London at night, as seen from the International Space Station.

Damn fractals – they always look like something else! In this case, for me, its either what you get when you hit impact-resistant glass with a hammer; or a car headlight seen through a rain-splattered car windscreen.

At last, a company called Scaled Composites appears to be having a serious try at non-government-funded space flight. According to BBC news:

“The event is not about dreams, predictions or mock-ups. We will show actual flight hardware: an aircraft for high-altitude airborne launch, a flight-ready manned spaceship, a new, ground-tested rocket propulsion system and much more.”

Lots of info and photos here. The Proteus launch aircraft looks realy cool.

No more “War: Day xxx” article titles. Its finished, now.

I wonder what historians of the future will make of the last three weeks? I wish I knew, but I hope for one thing: that there will be a time, however far in the future, when the truth is known. When the archives of the governments and the corporations are opened-up, and all the people responsible for the killing can be judged for what they said and what they did.  I hope for a saner time than I now find myself in.

Sweet Memories Die.

No more “War: Day xxx” article titles. Its finished, now.

I wonder what historians of the future will make of the last three weeks? I wish I knew, but I hope for one thing: that there will be a time, however far in the future, when the truth is known. When the archives of the governments and the corporations are opened-up, and all the people responsible for the killing can be judged for what they said and what they did.  I hope for a saner time than I now find myself in.

Sweet Memories Die.

Spooky. I just re-read my ramblings on programming languages. Then decided to check out slashdot to see what was new. Right at the top of the page was a pointer to an essay by Paul Graham on future programming languages. Its well-worth a read. I particularly like (and agree with) his observation that languages such as COBOL, lacking descendant languages, will probably die-out in the long-term.

I do disagree with some of the things he says, though. I’m not at all confident making hundred-year predictions, but I think that over the next two or three decades, virtualised execution environments will be prevalent. I also disagree with some of his comments on object-orientation:

Object-oriented programming offers a sustainable way to write spaghetti code. It lets you accrete programs as a series of patches. Large organizations always tend to develop software this way, and I expect this to be as true in a hundred years as it is today.

Re-use is also going to be increasingly important, as we accumulate more and more software, and become dependant on it. Data becomes increasingly valuable, and so the software to process it will have to live longer and longer: As someone who, fifteen years ago, fell for the whole “object-oriented = reusable” thing, I do agree with Paul that reuse won’t come from object-orientation:

Somehow the idea of reusability got attached to object-oriented programming in the 1980’s, and no amount of evidence to the contrary seems to be able to shake it free. But although some object-oriented software is reusable, what makes it reusable is its bottom-upness, not its object-orientedness.

By 2103, I don’t think that many people will actually program computers as we currently understand the term. The size and complexity of the systems that will be needed by societies in that time will take the task out of our reach. Instead, I think that AIs will create the software we’ll need. I just hope that ask us what we want.

I’ve just discovered Tim Bray’s rather excellent blog. Lots of rich, well-writen content in there. #

…contrasting rather startkly with yours truly’s blog, which has yet again reverted to the usual rant+links formula. Note to self: must try harder (again). #

I did a bit of C# coding today, after what seems like ages, and yet again found myself irritated by the way the new keyword is overloaded for two totally different purposes: instantiation and inherited method hiding. C’mon guys… what were you thinking?

Anyway, how do you quantify the neatness/economy/neatness of a programming language? I come from a C/C++ background, and those languages, to me, exemplify good language design (well, okay, maybe not virtual inheritance…). To some VB or COBOL programmer, though, a chunk of C code might be only a little better than something written in  whitespace (see yesterday) or brainfuck. Every language I’ve ever programmed in has been C-descended, stripped-down, economical. Even C# is quite sparse, and I wonder what its like to program in a relatively rich language like Perl or Ada or Eifell (stay with me here). After twelve years, I think in C++. How does a Perl programmer think? What am I missing? Questions questions. #

Do most people blog late at night? If so, what is the cumulative effect of that on the content of the blogosphere?

Quote of the day: “Apart from wealth, people are moved by the wish for freedom — which today means American freedom.” Yes, you read that right. American freedom: accept no other. The entire piece is here.

Quote of the day: “Apart from wealth, people are moved by the wish for freedom — which today means American freedom.” Yes, you read that right. American freedom: accept no other. The entire piece is here.

I’m still glued to the horrible, sickening war, but I just find myself unable to say anything more about it. Just too big and too mad for me to parse. Stop now, please. Okay? #

Saddam Hussain has a blog! No RSS feed, though. That’s just not good enough, Saddam. #

Quote of the day: “Apart from wealth, people are moved by the wish for freedom — which today means American freedom.” Yes, you read that right. American freedom: accept no other. The entire piece is here. #

The UN Environment Programme has a good site with information on the environment and bio-diversity of Iraq, and the effects of the war – including some very cool zoomable maps. #