Digital Apocrypha

From the “if only I had the time” dept: .NET Messenger APIs, the SDK for the gorgeous new SmartPhones, and the .NET Speech SDK. How does anyone keep up with the constant flow of new stuff?

A very impressive example of what you can do with JScript and DHTML and a lot of spare time. #

A worrying page about decaying CDs. #

Polyphonic C# is standard C# with “asynchronous concurrency abstractions”

David Kahn on “the death of cryptanalysis“.

David Kahn on “the death of cryptanalysis“.

Memo to self: must help world economy by buying bluetooth-enabled suitcase and talking dalek.

Looks like the softening-up has started here, and the carve-up too. Text of UN Resolution 1441.

Fresh-out-of-NDA, Breaking news on the next “Everett” version of Visual Studio. I suppose it’ll be nice to have a forms designer for managed C++, but is anyone doing new development in managed C++? There’s a longer-term roadmap for Visual Studio, including how it ties-in the forthcoming windows releases, here. I wonder why its call Everett.

On a related topic, Anders Hejlsberg’s OOPSLA presentation on C# has some hints on future language features, starting at slide 29. Predictably, we get generics (at last). Quite C++-like, but instantiated at run-time rather than compile-time. I’m not sure about that – managed code seems to take an age to start already. I like the ability to declare constraints on type arguments (slide 34), but I wonder how much code the new ‘where’ keyword will break. Partial types (slide 40) are a good idea – might be useful for hiding the implementation details of a class while maintaining the visibility of its public interface. gotdotnet has a FAQ with some explanations.

Sitting and thinking. About raindrop patterns on the window. Crenulated cloud edges, silver where they pass over the sun. Kinda reminded me of fractals, so I googled for “fractal viewer” or something, and downloaded the first one I saw – Fractal Explorer. Wow! Suddenly its 1985 again…

Somewhere, I’ve got a set of 5?” disks containing a lot of Mandelbrot set image files that I generated on one of my school’s  BBC Micros in about 1984-85. I remember staying late after school to write the viewer software in BBC Basic. Even at the low screen resolutions that we had back then, it took ages to run. If you made a mistake in entering the i/j coordinates incorrectly, you’d come back half an hour later to find a blank screen, or something uninteresting.So I hit on the idea of rendering the image using progressively higher levels of detail – calculating z for four evenly-spaced points and drawing four big squares with the appropriate colour, then repeatedly subdividing each square until I got down to pixel-resolution. This at least let you see what was happening, and cancel a bad run, but the program probably ran slower as a result.

I remember I really enjoyed doing that. It all felt fresh and new. Ah, those were the days…

I’m almost tempted to get hold of a 5?” drive, but its extremely unlikely that the disks are still readable after fifteen-plus years.

Its now five in the afternoon, and its been raining without a break all day. Stayed indoors and worked on a few things. Tidied up the C# code that runs the photo album pages, and added a few tweaks. Surfed a bit. Hate days like this. #

Too Much Screen Time Can Make Computer Users Sick (Reuters). “Mental symptoms such as lethargy, anxiety and “reluctance to go to work,” as well as sleep-related problems including insomnia and fatigue, were most common among workers who spent more than 5 hours a day glued to their computer screen.” Quite. #

FuckedWeblog.com: “If Web Logging (or “‘blogging”) is the New Journalism then scavenging must be the New Cuisine. This format for writing on the web, which some are calling the “Ground Zero of the personal Webcasting revolution”, is drowning in noise because the armchair reporters?for whom the blogging tools were invented?have no idea what to use their ‘blogs for or what direction they should be going in. A representative ‘blog is confused, disorganized and maddeningly tiring to read. Much like a personal web site from 1996…” #

This was slashdotted for a while, but its an interesting read: “When good interfaces go crufty”. Basically, a slow accretion of system limitations and bad design decisions; and UI technology that makes it harder than it should be to change the interface once its implemented. #

An apparent copy of the Public Interest Immunity Certificate presented by the government in the Shayler spy trial. Reading the foreign press over the net is easy, so just how they think they can prevent Shayler’s allegations (whether or not they’re true) from emerging is beyond me. Lost of juicy stuff here and here (and here too, if you believe that kind of thing). The grisly remains of Shayler’s web site are here. #

Memories of Jon Postel. I Remember IANA. #

Switch to the dark side.

Yesterday we had another one of the famous Manchester autumn rainstorms: three years-worth of normal rainfall crammed into three hours. You just don’t go outside. So we stayed in the flat and surfed and read.

In the evening, mainly as a reason to get out, we went to the bonfire night firework display at Platt Fields park. As usual, it was muddy and rainy, but we had a good time. Had a little cone of chips and a toffee apple, and Debra bought some candyfloss (ugh…). The fireworks looked nice against the dark sky (especially the fizzy ones that always make me imagine midges that have somehow been set alight and are frantically flying around trying to put the fire out), but the fire was disappointing – you couldn’t get nearer to it than about a hundred meters, and it was surrounded by two fences and lots of security guards. I like fires (indoors and outdoors), and I like to get up-close so I can feel my skin start to melt. So, while this was nice and safe, it was fairly unauthentic.

As a child, in my memory, bonfire night was a bit different. For a start, we (my sister, my parents, and myself) did it on the 5th – none of this nearest-Saturday-night nonsense. We’d go to my grandparents house with our fireworks, and my cousins would be there with theirs. We’d light them ourselves (always in my memory, though I’m sure our parents did it when we were too young) and we’d have a small bonfire and put our guys on it. Then we’d draw pictures in the air with sparklers, and watch the fireworks coming from other people’s gardens. There always seemed to be huge quantities of burgers and baked potatoes and toffee that my grandmother had made. I’m so glad I had parents and family that were prepared to make the effort to do these things.

I remember those nights as being colder and darker then, back when I was little, and without any rain.