Author: andy

Much to my surprise, Its a month since I last posted anything to this blog. Blame moving house and all the associated life-trauma. Anyway, normal service has now been resumed. #

I’m currently having another try at using a news aggregator. This time its NewsGator, which runs as an add-in to Outlook. So far I really like it. Even better, its only $29! #

Don Box on XML, late night phone calls, and sleep. This is cool – like an extract from Microserfs. I haven’t done an all-night coding session for about ten years, and I think my eyeballs would probably drop out of my skull if I tried it now. Don, you’re my hero. #

Paul Thurrott has a fascinating series of articles on the development of Windows from NT 3.51 to Windows Server 2003. Well worth a read. #

Wired News has an article about a guy who claims to have developed software that can visually digitize a vinyl record. You scan the record using a flatbed scanner, and the program reconstructs the music from patterns of light and dark in the image. I’m skeptical about this: even if the record is clean and the scan resolution is good enough, I just can’t believe that the music quality is going to be any good. Since I don’t have a scanner or any records, my opinion is unlikely to change. Nice idea though. #

Look. The reason I haven’t installed Three Degrees is because I haven’t got Windows XP. Okay.  Its not because I’m too old to understand it, and its definitely not because my attention span isn’t short enough. Got that? Anyway, review here continues here. Check here for how this abomination came into existence. #

Interesting paper (PDF) from AT&T Research on counting hosts behind a NAT box. #

And this one was probably on slashdot too: Millennium Prize problems in mathematics.

NASA TV is webcasting briefings at 1630 GMT from NASA HQ and  2130 GTM today from the Johnson space centre. My experience of the last couple of days is that their streaming video servers is give up when heavily loaded. Broadcast.com/Yahoo has alternative feeds, and they support Windows Media Player. #

A good example of a blog covering the Columbia disaster. CNN’s timeline. #

NASA has a couple of mailing lists that I’ve found useful. For press releases, email majordomo@lists.hq.nasa.gov with “subscribe press-release” in the message body. For human spaceflight news, email majordomo@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov with “subscribe hsfnews” in the message body.

We’re moving house on Friday. Gotta start packing today.

We were out shopping for vegetables when the space shuttle broke up over Texas. I was buying onions and spinach, and they were dropping down from orbit at Mach 18 in their big white spacecraft, watching the wings glow red and the sky grow lighter. A normal Saturday afternoon for me, until the TV coverage kicks in and, just like the Challenger in ’86, we watch contrails in the sky over and over and over…

A lot has been written about what happened yesterday. As usual, many people are questioning the need for manned space flight – on the ground of cost, safety, and scientific effectiveness. Some are saying that know is the time to ground the shuttles and mothball the space station. I think that they miss the point. Human exploration of space is important for the scientific knowledge it brings now, for the economic benefits it may soon begin to produce, and for our long-term destiny as a species. But it’s also important for us, now.

As a child, I had a telescope and like many, I dreamed of space flight. Then I grew-up and, of course, filled my life with the things that adults do: like going to work and reading newspapers and shopping for veg on a Saturday afternoon. I’ll never see a sunrise from orbit, or watch the sea and land turn beneath me. Somewhere deep inside me, the child that I was feels sadness at that; at never going up there. As an adult, though, I’m happy enough that someone is doing it. As long as I know that some part of the human species is out there, doing the job on all our behalves, I don’t mind taking care of the little things.

The exploration of space is trancendant, powerful, heroic, mythic. It’s not just about a few individuals: its characteristic of us all as humans. They do it for us. For you and me.

And thats why we have to carry on doing this. And not ever stop.

I had an interesting idea for a personal security/cryptography product (and a corresponding market niche) recently, so I’ve been doing some reading about the CLR’s crypto classes. VisualStudio Magazine has some decent articles here and here and here. Food for thought… #

Wired has a good piece about the RIAA‘s attempts to shut down Kazaa, and Kazaa’s attempts to resist. This is deeply cool: networks of off-shore front companies, crypto, edgy software, decentralised networks, worryingly foreign-sounding names. Think data havens. Think Cryptonomicon. Bruce Sterling. Neuromancer. Entire business models liquefying into obsolescence like melting ice. Starving record-company execs begging on the streets for the price of a can of Special Brew… #

Anyway *cough* where was I? Ah yes, crypto. Adi Shamir, who muddied the waters a few years ago with Twinkle, is now describing an faster, hardware-based implementation of the Number Field Sieve factoring algorithm. He claims that his new device, called Twirl, should be able to factor 1024-bit RSA keys in under a year with a $10M cost. Frankly, I don’t have the maths to even begin to understand his paper or whether it might scale-up to, say, military-strength 2048 bit keys; but if it does then its goodbye banking system. I’m waiting for Bruce Schneier to tell me what to think about this one.

Good article on mobile blogging in Business 2.0. Apparently we’re supposed to call them “moblogs”. I mentioned this subject a couple of weeks ago. #

Classic science paper of the day: As We May Think by Vannevar Bush. Written in 1945, this is the original paper on hypertext, human-computer interaction, and many other fields. It also influenced amazing people like Ted Nelson, Alan Kay, and Douglas Engelbart. I first read this paper as a graduate student over ten years ago and it was such a pleasure to find it again. Another classic tomorrow. #

(I promised myself I’d keep the War/Bush stuff to a minimum today, but this one from toostupidtobepresident.com is just too good!)

Can’t wait for Gulf War II? Then play the game. Great stuff. #

Oh wait, the real thing might already of started. Plenty of happenings “with possible British involvement” being reported here. #

The Herald Tribune has a thoughtful article on the coming war by William Pfaff:

“The difference between European and American views is more sensibly explained in terms of an irresponsible and ideology-fed enthusiasm of Bush administration advisers and leaders for global adventure and power, fostered by people with virtually no experience, and little seeming imaginative grasp, of what war means for its victims.”  Europe and America: Some know more about war #

Finally, here’s your very own cut-out-and-keep list of handy links for when you see that suspicious-looking crop-duster circling the city centre:

Patterns of Global Terrorism, brought to you by the US Dept of State Counterterrorism Office.

Center for the Study of Bioterrorism and Emerging Infections at St. Louis University.

TOXNET: Materials on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, and related areas from the US National Institutes of Health.

State of Michigan Biodefense Resource Centre.

Can Terrorists Build Nuclear Weapons? From the Nuclear Control Institute. They also have the entertaining Nuclear Terrorism – How To Prevent It.

UK Resilience, from our own dear government.

I’ve just added a new set of photos taken back in 1987, when I walked the Coast to Coast path. There’s a couple of me looking very young. Ahh, those really were the days…

Is Everett Worth the Switch? Not to me it isn’t, especially as it seems that most of the good bits will be available as separate free downloads anyway – you just don’t get the IDE integration. I’ll definitely upgrade when Yukon is released. I mentioned Everett last November. #

Become a wireless ISP: for ?300. I really, really like this technology. #

The tool of the day is Reggie. A better regsvr32. #

The United States Army is branching out into online video gaming (yes, really). Getting decent reviews. If I were living in the middle-east right now I’d find this pretty bloody insensitive. God bless America. #

And finally, from the stale links department:

Good stuff: The Guardian Century news archive (1899-1999). Beautiful landscape photographs by Charlie Waite.

Silly stuff: Gallery of classic British TV test-cards. Dictionary of Australian slang – bonzer! A lipsum generator.

Downright strange: Database of payphone numbers. Happy Tree Friends (warning: cartoon violence/gore).

Hard disks getting smaller: This week its 5GB in a credit-card-size form-factor, which is smaller than last week. #

Meanwhile, Cambridge University re-invents the X Terminal. Actually, the statelessness idea is quite neat. #

There is no escape: 3Mbps broadband becoming available on aircraft. You have to use an airline-supplied laptop, though. #

Latvia hosts phone throwing championship. This actually seems to be genuine.