tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90832833574194551342024-03-05T00:17:47.948-08:00Off the Beaten Path in TechnologyOff the Beaten Path in Technology explores useful and interesting things in software, hardware, and the culture of technology.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-47199133038658499422011-03-04T19:00:00.000-08:002011-03-05T05:41:16.557-08:00PHP literate programming projectThis is going to be a somewhat terse post given the ambitiousness of the project I'm going to lay out. I'm just interested in getting it out there to get some useful feedback.<br />
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Last year I wrote a simple literate programming system in perl, which accepted files in an extended docbook format, and had tangle and weave utilities to create source code (tangle) and well formatted xhtml articles (weave). It was actually a pretty successful project, as it was target language agnostic. The system didn't care whether the language to tangle was c, lisp, forth, or haskell, as long as the programmer knew the order required by the language.<br />
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At about the same time I conducted <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj/2010/05/28/interview-with-donald-knuth-1">a podcast interview with Donald Knuth</a> which inspired me to take the project very seriously.<br />
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Since then I've done nothing with the perl version of the project, and have shifted my income generating attention to php.<br />
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So here's a gonzo version of an SRS for the PHP version of my utility.<br />
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The utility presents a web interface which accepts one or more files in an extended docbook format (with added tags appropriate to literate programming), either imported or entered via a web based docbook editor. The main interface gives three basic options, edit (create a source file in the extended docbook format), tangle (create a compilable or interpretable file of source code), or weave (create an awesome human readable article explaining how the code works, with the complete source code imbedded ... see any of Donald Knuth's writings on literate programming to see how this works).<br />
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What I need from you PHP geeks is advice about the most efficient way to build a really good online Docbook editor. I can probably figure out the backend tangle and weave routines quickly (it'll look a whole lot like the perl code I've already written.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-70691998704668495382011-02-27T04:28:00.000-08:002011-02-27T05:14:57.207-08:00Matcha and my own tea ritual<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PYhefrSL62mKANargpHlchP1_4W1SD-R-y6uBXnIxviyaYvscLXGqmgXkX0CeGlei7v4KEAM9ivUUQIj-zbML_5g_Rxl0YG54MCnQ-jsewwPZUkYX7x46Orp-6jhvyQl5g8FT0eLGPM/s1600/green-tea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0PYhefrSL62mKANargpHlchP1_4W1SD-R-y6uBXnIxviyaYvscLXGqmgXkX0CeGlei7v4KEAM9ivUUQIj-zbML_5g_Rxl0YG54MCnQ-jsewwPZUkYX7x46Orp-6jhvyQl5g8FT0eLGPM/s320/green-tea.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I've had a fascination with the components of various foods and beverages for years. While I've never been a food geek to the extent of Jeff Potter's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Geeks-Science-Great-Hacks/dp/0596805888?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0596805888" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> I like knowing what's in my food, and the potential benefits and risk of any given food choice. In addition to the heath ramifications of tracking and learning about one's dietary choices, grappling with the chemistry and biology of food is fun. At least it is for me.<br />
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I've never had a background in chemistry, so armed with a copy of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Concepts-Problems-Self-Teaching-Guides/dp/0471121207?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Chemistry: Concepts and Problems: A Self-Teaching Guide (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0471121207" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" /> and <a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, I began a process of trying to learn as much about food and nutrition as a layperson with limited time can digest.<br />
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As a consequence of this, I've developed by own little morning tea ritual, involving <a href="http://www.amazon.com/SerendipiTea-Matcha-Culinary-Organic-4-Ounce/dp/B00117GEGU?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">matcha</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B00117GEGU" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, the finely ground powdered green tea used in the Japanese tea ritual. <br />
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The potential health benefits of green tea are well known. It contains numerous phytochemicals, vitamins, and minerals, but of particular interest is a polyphenol known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigallocatechin_gallate">Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG)</a>. EGCG has received interest as a potential preventative for cancer and some autoimmune diseases.<br />
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But like any other chemical substance there are circumstances under which EGCG can be harmful. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigallocatechin_gallate">The wikipedia article on EGCG</a> mentions some of those circumstances. They include pregnancy (high intake of polyphenols during pregnancy can increase the risk of neonatal leukemia), and when using the anti-cancer drug Velcade (EGCG can reduce the bioavailability of the drug).<br />
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Since I'm neither pregnant, nor on anti-cancer medication, I've devised my own tea ritual in the morning, which diverges substantially from the Japanese method of preparing the tea, but which works for me.<br />
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I sift a teaspoon of matcha powder into a mug, then pour about 1/8 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice onto the powder, and rapidly stir it with a fork (since I've yet to acquire one of the little wooden wisks). This forms a rather thick sludge.<br />
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I pour a cup of hot (not boiling) water from a tea kettle into the mug. The resulting beverage is both sour and somewhat bitter, but I've grown to love the concoction. I often exacerbate the bitterness by eating a tablespoon of cocoa nibs along with the tea. I wouldn't advise adding the cocoa nibs unless your taste buds really thrive on bitterness, but it works for me. The Japanese ritual includes eating small sweets to mellow out the strong bite of the matcha.<br />
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Whether any of my dietary eccentricities will actually have an appreciable impact on my longevity is unknowable. But I have fun with it, learn a bit about a couple of branches of science, and on balance my diet is much better than the average diet in our American <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Food-Nation-Dark-All-American/dp/0060838582?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Fast Food Nation</a>.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-78934549126107206832011-02-07T13:22:00.000-08:002011-02-07T13:31:03.545-08:00Professor Irwin Corey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/RHlLmYVCzKY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><br />
OK, I realize that the modern definition of the word "technology" in the popular lexicon is narrowed to the point of only including digital technology which sprang from the recent resurgence of the Internet. <br />
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But I'm on a mission from God, in the Blues Brothers sense of the phrase. My mission is to get proper recognition for Professor Irwin Corey before that 96 year old gentleman dies.<br />
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To learn a bit about him go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irwin_Corey<br />
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To see him in action in his prime just watch this videoLarry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-1798550019755496132011-01-15T05:20:00.000-08:002011-01-15T05:23:05.225-08:00Trend Micro CEO advocates "security through obscurity"Here's <a href="http://digitizor.com/2011/01/14/trend-micro-open-source/">a link to some commentary by Ricky</a> at <a href="http://digitizor.com/">Digitizor</a> regarding Steve Chang's statement that closed source software is inherently more secure than free or open source software. FUD just never seems to die, but I'd hope that Mr. Chang, the CEO of a security firm, would think this sort of issue through a bit more thoroughly.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-6520298944491322462010-09-20T10:49:00.000-07:002010-09-20T10:49:37.046-07:00Isambard Kingdom Brunel<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-vPJIvtQp8vCqkkdvldIL8zsD-w7Z7pbX5ZyoWyVviWptw1-GOFFnMc0eUsR0s3FbkT7wx9md2xfPLr46UVTjdMvsb2_iege2YcayyMOi4_ghOdfg_RuLfTxRkgjVnyV6LmbRa7PlmM/s1600/IKBrunelChains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-vPJIvtQp8vCqkkdvldIL8zsD-w7Z7pbX5ZyoWyVviWptw1-GOFFnMc0eUsR0s3FbkT7wx9md2xfPLr46UVTjdMvsb2_iege2YcayyMOi4_ghOdfg_RuLfTxRkgjVnyV6LmbRa7PlmM/s320/IKBrunelChains.jpg" /></a>Unless you're a student of the history of technology and engineering, you probably haven't heard of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel">Isambard Kingdom Brunel</a>. Brunel is well known in the rapidly diminishing engineering circles in the UK. He also has contemporary following among fans of the science fiction genre known as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk">steampunk</a>", because of the cutting edge nature of his activities within his century.<br />
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Brunel was perhaps the greatest civil engineer of the 19th century. He planned many bridges and dockyards which are still in use, supervised the building of the first major British railway, and most importantly in my opinion, designed the first propeller driven ship.<br />
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Since Brunel's time the UK reputation for engineering has been degraded to the point of <a href="http://www.mez.co.uk/lucas.html">Lucas jokes</a>, and the United States has become the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States">world's capital of consuming everything</a>, producing <a href="http://midwest.chicagofedblogs.org/archives/2010/08/bill_strauss_mf.html">a great deal less</a>. <br />
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isambard_Kingdom_Brunel">Here's the link to the wikipedia article on Brunel</a>. As the UK attempts to redesign itself as the place where physical things are designed and built, and the United States seeks to establish itself as a place built on something besides financial vaporware, it might be good to reflect on Brunel's accomplishments.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-65976719167615943502010-08-19T11:24:00.000-07:002010-08-19T11:38:01.926-07:00A cultural interlude -- Lydia the tattooed LadyI'm taking a break from writing about <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/08/oracle-v-google-getting-started.html">Oracle America v Google</a>, or <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/07/minix-3-and-bochs-or-virtual-machines.html">Minix 3</a> today, and doing something a bit more whimsical. I've always lived my life surrounded by music, and have written here about the <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/05/free-podsafe-and-copylefted-music-on.html">Free Music movement</a>.<br />
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In addition to enabling free music the internet has made available an amazing array of resources for those of us who love music and film in all its forms. When I was a teen if I wanted to see, say, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx_Brothers">Marx Brothers</a>s film my one option was waiting for it to come on television. A decade later (in the 1970s) a few small "art" theaters had opened, which might occasionally show a Marx Brothers movie. A decade after that (in the 1980s) videotape had entered the mass market, and if I wanted to buy a Marx Brothers film I could do so.<br />
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Now that the web is ubiquitous and nearly every artist committed to record, tape, or film has at least some presence on the web if I want to see one particular notable Marx Brothers clip I can probably find it.<br />
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So on that happy note I present one of the best musical numbers ever to come out of an otherwise terrible movie (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Circus">At the Circus</a>). The lyrics to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydia_the_Tattooed_Lady">Lydia the Tatooed Lady</a> were penned by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yip_Harburg">Yip Harburg</a>, one of the great songwriters of the 20th Century (who also wrote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother,_Can_You_Spare_a_Dime%3F">Brother Can You Spare a Dime</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Only_a_Paper_Moon_%28song%29">Paper Moon</a>, and all the songs in the movie the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29">Wizard of Oz.</a><br />
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After a string of wonderful but chaotic movies at Paramount, and the two wonderful <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Thalberg">Irving Thalberg</a> Marx Brothers movies at MGM, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Night_at_the_Opera_%28film%29">A Night at the Opera</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Day_at_the_Races_%28film%29">A Day at the Races</a>, their movies went into sharp decline in quality. This clip is a gem in an otherwise awful movie.<br />
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<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n4zRe_wvJw8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n4zRe_wvJw8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-15613039599892285522010-08-17T13:32:00.000-07:002010-08-18T05:02:45.669-07:00Understanding Oracle America v Google: The patents at issue<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmGvE3O-jAS-kSoifDMa-HMSKegzD_ASALU7yFXknSfoY_W2o-XvhhUb-cBOcarnsNbkWcuJwk3hj9ZTxrPm13b7NifyOCud_Z_660znZhV2my7JAhXEvd1AAhsqBnowM9hAIiR-ChFI/s1600/gear-tmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBmGvE3O-jAS-kSoifDMa-HMSKegzD_ASALU7yFXknSfoY_W2o-XvhhUb-cBOcarnsNbkWcuJwk3hj9ZTxrPm13b7NifyOCud_Z_660znZhV2my7JAhXEvd1AAhsqBnowM9hAIiR-ChFI/s320/gear-tmb.png" /></a></div>I want to credit <a href="http://www.groklaw.com/">Groklaw</a> with pointing out <a href="http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?p=478">this useful post</a> by <a href="http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/">Carlo Daffara</a> which has links to the specific patents under which Oracle America has filed their lawsuit. The article itself is an interesting read beyond just the usefulness of the links. One byproduct of my research on this issue has been familiarizing myself with Carlo Daffara's work. He's a major player in the support of free software in the EU, and does work on open source business models. <a href="http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/?page_id=2">Here's a link to info on Mr. Daffara</a>.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-26335746168930944002010-08-17T13:14:00.000-07:002010-08-17T13:17:00.638-07:00Minix 3 and bochs configuration progress report<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjGfhSdM5_vHVKzdNiPdqz6pgsJ9hQSk2Ooaavw7rVh6f_t487wgRKr6veHD5ynhje16zZ9OVOKuhOPXtbgVOXYlVZ9YsCSF3Q5OELZ-M2qSv2rs72ATuEoTm-28VBvCri9eXq52uBO_8/s1600/minix3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjGfhSdM5_vHVKzdNiPdqz6pgsJ9hQSk2Ooaavw7rVh6f_t487wgRKr6veHD5ynhje16zZ9OVOKuhOPXtbgVOXYlVZ9YsCSF3Q5OELZ-M2qSv2rs72ATuEoTm-28VBvCri9eXq52uBO_8/s320/minix3.gif" /></a></div>I just wanted those of you who are following my Minix 3 articles to know that I'm still working on getting Minix 3 running under bochs. Some household duties have made the project slow going, but I expect to have some time freed up by next week. The snag is still the same. Minix runs in text based terminal mode, but X windows silently dies on me. After I've made a good faith effort to figure the problem out myself I intend to post notes on the bochs and X forums to see if I'm dealing with a known problem. So if you've been reading the Minix 3 articles don't give up. They will resume soon.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-64207636364016845132010-08-17T05:39:00.000-07:002010-08-17T05:39:38.562-07:00Understanding Oracle America v Google: The Oracle Corporation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1R24NydthNHubMh4hHS83gHhQuykjQpGlJ2gvjA2gB5NDopUs7z1JXm8BRbl9W4JcnJYWbcyjpHCj2sIqasEpr5gIDYvjC5-95Qp8_4XGwxJpbcZ2lS29ALF0MDLPJ4whsRrmyaW5g4/s1600/gear-tmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ1R24NydthNHubMh4hHS83gHhQuykjQpGlJ2gvjA2gB5NDopUs7z1JXm8BRbl9W4JcnJYWbcyjpHCj2sIqasEpr5gIDYvjC5-95Qp8_4XGwxJpbcZ2lS29ALF0MDLPJ4whsRrmyaW5g4/s320/gear-tmb.png" /></a></div><a href="http://www.oracle.com/index.html">The Oracle Corporation</a> is best known in the Information Technology world for the Oracle relational database management system, but is probably known most in the business world for its high profile CEO <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison">Larry Ellison</a>.<br />
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The beginnings of the Oracle Corporation were in 1977 when Larry Ellison, Ed Oates, and Bob Miner formed the consulting group Software Development Laboratories. Oates had shown Ellison a 1970 paper in which IBM's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_F._Codd">Ted Codd</a> had proposed the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_database">relational database</a> model for data. IBM was very slow on the drawn in implementing the work of their own researcher, so SDL jumped in to fill the void.<br />
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By 1979 the company was successfully marketing their product, and in 1979 changed their name to Oracle Corporation after their flagship product.<br />
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By successful marketing and by acquisition of other companies Oracle grew to be the corporation that has the third largest revenue from software, behind only Microsoft and IBM.<br />
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Oracle's most significant acquisition in terms of their recent trajectory was in January of this year, when they completed their acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Sun was well known as a producer of enterprise servers and storage devices. They were also a powerhouse in Research and Development, had a great deal of trouble monetizing their research, and had been on an acquisition spree of their own before being acquired by Oracle. I'll write more on Sun and the properties Oracle got with the acquisition when I cover Oracle America, the name Oracle has given to the subsidiary comprising the former Sun.<br />
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Oracle is in some ways an old fashioned software company. While Oracle has dabbled in open source software and software which is free in the sense of "free beer", it's exhibited little understanding of the culture of the free software movement. The first evidence of this is the awkward and heavy handed manner in which it handled relations with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSolaris">Open Solaris</a> community (I've written brief posts on that relationship <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/02/end-of-opensolaris.html">here</a> and <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/03/more-on-opensolaris.html">here</a>).<br />
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<h3>Why is Oracle suing Google? </h3>There isn't really an easy answer at the moment as to the motivation and timing of this lawsuit. It has the obvious effect of disrupting, and potentially damaging, future adoption of Java. So it's likely Oracle has some specific goal in mind beyond a one time settlement. I can't imagine Oracle deciding to compete with patent trolling firms like <a href="http://acaciatechnologies.com/">Acacia</a>. In fact in 1994 Oracle <a href="http://www.bustpatents.com/articles/oracle.htm">went on record opposing software patents</a> in principle (in agreement with a substantial portion of the IT world). <br />
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This early in the game my best candidate for a quick guess is that Oracle is interested in getting a strong foothold in the mobile industry, either by forcing a licensing agreement with Google, or blowing Android out of the water and introducing a competing device. Oracle did something similar to the latter when they tried to compete with Red Hat Linux a few years back. That attempt was a complete and utter failure.<br />
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As the suit unfolds Oracle's specific strategy will probably become obvious. But I doubt that it's moral indignation over violation of their IP. After all, Oracle got its start implementing research that was carried out on IBM's dime.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-86501616691924164342010-08-16T07:14:00.000-07:002010-08-17T16:52:35.479-07:00An outline of Oracle America v Google<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGpgwf8Rqy2nMAskSeXG1J3-snAgXIiN09sK3NiACw-hxXZa8jiO7Skbm2VM9YMCaE1PGncqW83MptG7Zb80fG-AeI2Yva2okgQp-JGpzDDhEywz9xqvZHGwDOCK9iTwY-TC3R0c_bF_k/s1600/gear-tmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGpgwf8Rqy2nMAskSeXG1J3-snAgXIiN09sK3NiACw-hxXZa8jiO7Skbm2VM9YMCaE1PGncqW83MptG7Zb80fG-AeI2Yva2okgQp-JGpzDDhEywz9xqvZHGwDOCK9iTwY-TC3R0c_bF_k/s320/gear-tmb.png" /></a></div>I'm approaching this article (which is really a series of articles) differently from my typical linear set of postings. This outline article will undergo edits as the entire series develops. <br />
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Since my goal is mostly to present the information necessary to follow this important lawsuit, I've written an outline of my future posts, which I present here. As I get each article finished and published I'll turn each article into a link to the published article. So if you find these article useful you might want to go back and bookmark this outline.<br />
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I won't necessarily finish the articles in the order in which they appear in the outline. The inflow of information will dictate the order. <br />
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Here are the things I view as important to understanding the lawsuit.<br />
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<ol><li>The Players </li>
<ul><li><a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/08/understanding-oracle-america-v-google.html">Oracle Corporation</a></li>
<li>Oracle America</li>
<li>Google</li>
<li>The lawyers</li>
<li>The Free Software community</li>
</ul>
<li>The Technology</li>
<ul><li>Android</li>
<li>Java</li>
<li>Dalvik</li>
</ul>
<li>The details of the filing</li>
<li>The Law</li>
<ul><li>Patent Law</li>
<li>How patent lawsuits are handled</li>
<li>Copyright law</li>
</ul>
<li>The Ethics</li>
<li>Possible impacts</li>
<li><a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/08/understanding-oracle-america-v-google_17.html">The patents at issue</a> </li>
</ol><br />
If you think I'm missing some component to understanding this case post a comment here. If you think I'm in error in a particular article post a comment to that article.<br />
<ol></ol>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-48986887809781034842010-08-15T05:17:00.000-07:002010-08-15T05:31:45.218-07:00Oracle v Google -- getting started<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCItOslXW9tPXpMngBvORannmoVt-pF0m01fkdeT3j7P3fAq2OAznzYEFdk6bhY4uTXm3QfcakKJPOn-2U1dKWzDGXac_F5pMuvKSw4ONuYJt5ma0n1_UjfBMRq5Mh2pMvaOeoUutnmnI/s1600/gear-tmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCItOslXW9tPXpMngBvORannmoVt-pF0m01fkdeT3j7P3fAq2OAznzYEFdk6bhY4uTXm3QfcakKJPOn-2U1dKWzDGXac_F5pMuvKSw4ONuYJt5ma0n1_UjfBMRq5Mh2pMvaOeoUutnmnI/s320/gear-tmb.png" /></a></div>Before I begin to summarize what might actually be going on in the Oracle v Google lawsuit, it might be a good idea to aggregate some of the information already on the web to give readers a chance to draw their own preliminary conclusions. The links I'm posting are the sources of information I've found so far, and I've tried to edit them down to reduce the redundancy and provide a good starting point for really figuring out what's going on.<br />
<br />
The most important document for understanding the case (although if you're not a lawyer it may not be the first thing you'll want to read) is <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/35810897/Oracle-Google-Complaint">the complaint itself</a>, which was filed in the <a href="http://www.cand.uscourts.gov/">United States District Court -- Northern District of California</a>.<br />
<br />
The law firms representing Oracle in the case are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrison_%26_Foerster">Morrison and Foerster</a> LLP, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boies,_Schiller_%26_Flexner">Boies, Schiller & Flexner</a> LLP<br />
<br />
Here is a link to <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Oracle-Files-Complaint-Against-Google-for-Patent-and-Copyright-Infringement-NASDAQ-ORCL-1304265.htm">Oracle's press release on the suit</a>.<br />
<br />
... and a link to a TechCrunch article quoting <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/13/android-oracle-java-lawsuit/">a response Google sent via email</a>. <br />
<br />
For basic info the the following articles are representative of what the press is carrying at the moment:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/13/technology/oracle_android/index.htm">Epic smackdown looms in Google vs Oracle</a> from CNNMoney.com<br />
<br />
<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/internet/Lawsuit-may-signal-era-of-Oracle-Google-tensions/articleshow/6315161.cms">Lawsuit may signal era of Oracle, Google tensions</a> from the Economic Times (India) <br />
<br />
<a href="http://mashable.com/2010/08/12/oracle-google-android-lawsuit/">Oracle sues Google over Android</a> from Mashable<br />
<br />
<a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/taylorbuley/2010/08/13/android-lawsuit-is-really-just-oracle-flirting-with-google/">Here's an interesting blog from Taylor Buley at Forbes</a>, which raises a question I had pondered. Why didn't Oracle file the suit in the <a href="http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/">Eastern District of Texas</a>, which is a patent troll's paradise? I'll have to mull over Buley's reasoning, but the reasons behind the chosen venue is a good point to ponder. <br />
<br />
Groklaw, which has long been the best (though most partisan) site for following the various SCO lawsuits <a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100813112425821">will be following Oracle v Google in depth</a>.<br />
<br />
Finally, here is Richard Stallman's call to arms <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html">Fighting Software Patents</a>. It doesn't have any direct bearing on Oracle's chances of success, but it's a nice little manifesto to review when an important software patent case arises.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-7677449906827712842010-08-14T05:50:00.000-07:002010-08-14T06:57:29.501-07:00Oracle versus Google -- Farewell to Sun's legacy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQ0NAQIogWDJc4KFTQWeDsbTzYdBOmKXBg7AuFC7RkBRsqzOXYaue2ZsZ_Fia7194YjGAMy2qOawcUGd9Fv3oRDf69UjDllvR2U3GEX3PqJf322Mb50vvfvlvhZusqTUKiJ1WuhirNpY/s1600/gear-tmb.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgQ0NAQIogWDJc4KFTQWeDsbTzYdBOmKXBg7AuFC7RkBRsqzOXYaue2ZsZ_Fia7194YjGAMy2qOawcUGd9Fv3oRDf69UjDllvR2U3GEX3PqJf322Mb50vvfvlvhZusqTUKiJ1WuhirNpY/s320/gear-tmb.png" /></a></div>Under most circumstances I avoid writing on topics which saturate the news media. After all, the title of this blog is "Off the Beaten Path in Technology". But the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Corporation">Oracle</a> v <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google">Google</a> lawsuit has so many ramifications for the future of technological innovation that I intend to cover it regularly and in depth.<br />
<br />
I'll be writing a tutorial series on the lawsuit after the dust settles a bit and after I've had time to research the issue properly, but I do want to make a somewhat personal statement about this case.<br />
<br />
I worked as a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28operating_system%29">solaris</a> sysadmin for quite a few years. As annoying as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems">Sun Microsystems</a> could be to deal with, I came to respect them as a font of innovation. I'm not going to attempt to list all the contributions of Sun Microsystems to the computer science and technology world, but a few notable recent ones are <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_%28programming_language%29">Java</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS">zfs</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTrace">dtrace</a>, and <a href="http://openoffice.org/">the Open Office suite</a>.<br />
<br />
When Oracle acquired Sun my first reaction was alarm, and nothing that has transpired since the takeover has softened my reaction. With Oracle in charge the likelihood of any remnant of Sun's culture surviving is miniscule.<br />
<br />
Although I'm going to cover the lawsuit in as accurate and balanced a manner as I can under the circumstances, Oracle has unleashed the potential for significant damage to the innovative impulse in the computer technology world. Software patents are a bad idea, and provide fertile ground for those law firms best described as patent trolls. No matter what the outcome of the suit it's likely to damage Java as both a language and a platform.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-82259831899899961632010-07-03T06:42:00.000-07:002010-07-03T06:48:46.131-07:00Minix 3 and bochs (or Virtual Machines Make My Head Hurt) -- Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfJ5XkHBh1dvHaHWzqavuwG6wah145sgNSJ2n7D-coWNiUU_0mrFJjf1og2Fqkbivw8qem8hyNiwVQDG6404DLnomRnl10mmprl52SkXWpjP4FBItL-LQss59dOTFa9DsGcvAFIFRRVU/s1600/smban.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWfJ5XkHBh1dvHaHWzqavuwG6wah145sgNSJ2n7D-coWNiUU_0mrFJjf1og2Fqkbivw8qem8hyNiwVQDG6404DLnomRnl10mmprl52SkXWpjP4FBItL-LQss59dOTFa9DsGcvAFIFRRVU/s320/smban.gif" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Q9NbOfqS1VssD0FMANp-yasd0bS5n9W84mBJWe0jGjkmjGBLd_7lSxEjCCNEUknMAK1wkoxBPpB2_LOx57xPOQRB0VMrZntDciyb4215jm29t_ZmCK4OKs91W0Pe68I9fAlT3WcHGM0/s1600/minix3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Q9NbOfqS1VssD0FMANp-yasd0bS5n9W84mBJWe0jGjkmjGBLd_7lSxEjCCNEUknMAK1wkoxBPpB2_LOx57xPOQRB0VMrZntDciyb4215jm29t_ZmCK4OKs91W0Pe68I9fAlT3WcHGM0/s320/minix3.png" /></a><br />
The subtitle Virtual Machines Make My Head Hurt is a reference to the difficulty I have in determining which layer is doing what at any given time when I'm operating in a virtual machine environment. If there is a failure somewhere I have to ask myself the questions: is the failure on the guest operating system? The host operating system? Some incomplete interoperability between the two? The hardware? The application I'm running? <br />
<br />
Well, failure isn't really the theme of this post, since I'm at the beginning of this particular phase of my Minix 3 installation, although thinking through how the different layers in virtual environments are working together still makes my head hurt. So I'll slowly explain what I'm trying to do, and why. Then I'll followup at the end of this post with exactly where I am and what I intend to do to move this aspect of the project along.<br />
<br />
As I stated <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/06/my-minix-3-diary-introduction-and.html">in an earlier post</a> my long term goal is to get Minix 3 working on my Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop in every reasonable respect (including the network, the wireless, and the USB ports). This is both a narrow and broad project. Narrow in the sense that I'm focused on one particular system. Broad in the sense that in order to do this I may have to learn about writing drivers for everything on the system.<br />
<br />
How does this relate to virtual machinery? After a couple of weeks of burning anything I needed from the outside world to a CD on my <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu Linux</a> system and moving it to the laptop, I discovered that it might be nice to ftp things I need onto a networked Minix 3 work area, evaluate and configure it in that environment, then when I deem it ready make a CD and move it onto the laptop.<br />
<br />
This is where bochs comes in. bochs is a free and open source x86 emulator. With it I should be able to run Minix 3 in a virtual environment, including access to the network of the host environment, do any configuration or development needed on the virtual Minix 3, then move it to my Dell laptop for further testing. If I'm reading the bochs documentation correctly I should also be able to do some of the necessary reverse engineering I'll need to do for my device drivers with the debug mode in bochs.<br />
<br />
So a couple of days ago I installed bochs onto my Ubuntu Linux workstation, and attempted to use the document <a href="http://wiki.minix3.org/en/UsersGuide/RunningMinixOnBochs">Running Minix 3 on Bochs</a> from the <a href="http://www.minix3.org/">Minix 3 website</a> to configure and run Minix 3 on bochs. I followed the instructions, and the attempt to run my Minix 3 boot image failed on the following error:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">==============================</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">==============================</span>============<br />
<div class="ii gt" id=":169"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Bochs x86 Emulator 2.4.2<br />
Build from CVS snapshot on November 12, 2009<br />
==============================</span><wbr></wbr><span style="font-size: x-small;">==============================</span><wbr></wbr><span style="font-size: x-small;">============<br />
00000000000i[ ] LTDL_LIBRARY_PATH not set. using compile time default '/usr/lib/bochs/plugins'<br />
00000000000i[ ] BXSHARE not set. using compile time default '/usr/share/bochs'<br />
00000000000i[ ] reading configuration from bochsrc.txt<br />
00000000000p[ ] >>PANIC<< bochsrc.txt:9: directive 'ips' not understood<br />
00000000000e[CTRL ] notify called, but no bxevent_callback function is registered<br />
00000000000i[CTRL ] quit_sim called with exit code 1</span></div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">I re-read the installation instructions, then went to the <a href="http://bochs.sourceforge.net/">bochs home website on sourceforge</a> and browsed the documentation there. As far as I could tell at that time 'ips' was a legitimate directive in bochs, so I posted descriptions of the problem to both the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/minix3">Minix 3 google group</a>, and to the <a href="http://bochs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/topper.pl?name=Bochs+Discussion+Boards&url=http://sourceforge.net/forum/qmrkgroup_ideq12580">bochs help forum</a>.</span></span></div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"></div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Stanislav Shwartsman, one of the bochs developers, answered on the bochs help forum that the 'ips' directive was deprecated and could no longer be used, and suggested that I use the sample </span></span>bochsrc configuration file which comes with bochs as a basis to configure bochs for Minix 3 and that I then get the documentation updated.</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><br />
</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">So at this point my plan for the week is:</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><br />
</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">1) finish reading the bochs documentation so that I can devise an appropriate bochsrc file.</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">2) get Minix running on bochs</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">3) Make the configuration steps available so that the Minix 3 documentation can be updated (or just doing it myself if I have wiki editing privileges on the document). </div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">4) If I've understood the bochs documentation correctly I can <a href="http://bochs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/topper.pl?name=New+Bochs+Documentation&url=http://bochs.sourceforge.net/doc/docbook/user/index.html">create a Minix 3 bochs image</a> and make it available to other people via the bochs website. I'd like to do that if possible.</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169"><br />
</div><div class="ii gt" id=":169">I'll write a followup post to describe how the plan went.</div>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-23512881411519361772010-06-30T03:18:00.000-07:002010-06-30T03:18:51.785-07:00Minix 3 Installation Diary -- Part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbzvGCukiJYTIjp3S_GpZkts7kF9gqZTSRgEoVSKHLDddJlQliNJXJsogeTuQ_JYZinFprVIqNtfNu7Bf_OyWpIVMVZESJekwBAAfyFENfkkKXnVXCiNyrS3vizYpr5_EWzkkfVhFPEP4/s1600/minix3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbzvGCukiJYTIjp3S_GpZkts7kF9gqZTSRgEoVSKHLDddJlQliNJXJsogeTuQ_JYZinFprVIqNtfNu7Bf_OyWpIVMVZESJekwBAAfyFENfkkKXnVXCiNyrS3vizYpr5_EWzkkfVhFPEP4/s320/minix3.gif" /></a></div>As I stated in <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/06/minix-3-installation-diary-part-2.html">the previous article in this diary</a>, I had a strange problem occur on my attempts to reboot after initially installing Minix 3 to my hard drive. The problem was that the system would always reboot into a <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/">grub (Grand Unified Boot Loader)</a> prompt, and I couldn't continue beyond that prompt. Now this seemed to me at the time to be a strange problem indeed. I had accepted all the setup defaults and done a full install, dedicating the entire disk to Minix 3. I couldn't really find anything in the documentation about this problem, so I went to the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/minix3">minix3 google group</a> to post a description of the problem. The minix3 group is a good second line resource for troubleshooting if one can't find a solution to a problem in the documentation on the <a href="http://www.minix3.org/">Minix 3 web site.</a> The best way to use this resource is to first attempt to figure out the problem by reading <a href="http://www.minix3.org/doc/">the online documentation</a>, then to search <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/minix3/topics">the minix3 archive</a>, and then, if the problem still isn't solved, posting an enquiry on the group mailing list.<br />
<br />
I couldn't find anything, so I posted a description of the problem. Initially it was mysterious to the respondents, but it soon dawned on both me and a couple of the regulars on the list that grub was already installed in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record">Master Boot Record (MBR</a>) from the previous host on that particular laptop, which happened to be Fedora Linux.<br />
<br />
A member of the list suggested that I use <a href="http://www.minix3.org/manpages/man8/installboot.8.html">installboot</a> to overwrite the grub entry in the MBR. It took me a few tries, but the command<br />
<br />
<i>installboot -m /dev/c0d4 /usr/mdec/masterboot</i> did the trick.<br />
<br />
I rebooted, and this time came back up to the Minix 3 login prompt.<br />
<br />
For more information on the Minix 3 boot process the article from the Minix 3 Wiki <a href="http://wiki.minix3.org/en/DevelopersGuide/FromPowerOnToLoginPrompt"><i>From power-on the the login promp</i>t</a> is very useful.<br />
<br />
The manual page for <a href="http://www.minix3.org/manpages/man8/installboot.8.html">installboot</a> is also helpful.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-76370563096258859422010-06-29T11:06:00.000-07:002010-06-30T02:29:29.495-07:00Minix 3 Installation Diary -- Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2orylj3aXQ-vODSmYPaJYWhB5mzR145oHYbfa0uPiIlHFJJnvjEMpwQcmbnnmVdILzxDaWVDWEvwVcBfEPNWpp2b47BEMeDKNjQUU2c4AS4-LqBzyznpomsuzXxFPrSZ0YkxeNe-Ato0/s1600/minix3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2orylj3aXQ-vODSmYPaJYWhB5mzR145oHYbfa0uPiIlHFJJnvjEMpwQcmbnnmVdILzxDaWVDWEvwVcBfEPNWpp2b47BEMeDKNjQUU2c4AS4-LqBzyznpomsuzXxFPrSZ0YkxeNe-Ato0/s320/minix3.gif" /></a></div>To begin the installation process I downloaded the iso image for the latest stable version, which is 3.1.7, <a href="http://www.minix3.org/download/">from the minix 3 download page</a>.<br />
After burning it to a CD (from my ubuntu Linux workstation) I inserted the CD in the laptop and rebooted. I had <a href="http://wiki.minix3.org/en/UsersGuide/DoingInstallation">one of the installation docs</a> open in front of me, along with tabs for any other pages on <a href="http://www.minix3.org/">the minix site</a> which seemed relevant to troubleshooting.<br />
<br />
I powered on ... and nothing useful happened. Luckily this one was easy enough to figure out with a quick browse through the docs. The error message (which I failed to write down) indicated that the CD was not found. Under my BIOS system configuration I needed to change a parameter from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface">AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface</a> -- Intel's API for addressing <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA">Serial ATA</a>) which isn't yet supported by Minix, to ATA (the Minix doc called it "legacy", but it was easy enough to tell what was going on).<br />
<br />
So now I had a bootable live CD. I booted up, ran the setup command, and began working through the steps. I'd already saved everything I needed off the Fedora Linux installation which was the previous host on the laptop, so I chose to delete the existing partitions and make the whole disk Minix 3. I accepted the default filesystem sizes (/, /home, and /usr had separate slices).<br />
<br />
When the copying of files finished, I was instructed to shutdown and reboot. Then I was prompted to run packman, which is Minix's package manager system, in order to get X windows and a number of other programs, libraries, and utilities.<br />
<br />
Using the command <i>xdm</i> I was treated to a window manager which resembled almost exactly the first X windows interface I was ever exposed to 16 years ago on a Sun workstation. As it happens, twm ("Tom's Window Manager") is the window manager ported to Minix. It's one of the original window managers, and is very minimalistic. I have to say that I don't object to that. Graphical eye candy can be soothing, mostly because I'm accustomed to it, but most of the time I'm working with text in terminal windows, which twm handles well.<br />
<br />
I then attempted a reboot, and Oooops!!! I was faced with a very strange problem which I'll describe in a separate blog posting (so that this article doesn't run on forever).<br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=offtheb-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0131429388&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-76561354618440378002010-06-28T11:04:00.000-07:002010-06-28T11:04:58.551-07:00My Minix 3 diary -- Introduction and initial installation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3B8sOfTAVp14l8d9jH66adY9TKkfI_ZjJ7VTajhKG_VuVmBw3IefG0LglWCJbucMEF79kHOSm-e-5wpuda4Dae__MvLGBqywu-YHeFDEb5nzVf-Cah4s4hPDjlRMUOXHNylKYCHWwsQg/s1600/minix3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3B8sOfTAVp14l8d9jH66adY9TKkfI_ZjJ7VTajhKG_VuVmBw3IefG0LglWCJbucMEF79kHOSm-e-5wpuda4Dae__MvLGBqywu-YHeFDEb5nzVf-Cah4s4hPDjlRMUOXHNylKYCHWwsQg/s200/minix3.gif" width="200" /></a></div>In 1995 I downloaded fifty 3.5 inch diskettes of the Slackware distribution of Linux, installed it on my home computer, and after several hundred hours of configuration got it more or less working for the state-of-the art in Linux at that time. A friend at work used my diskettes to install on his computer, and both of us have been avid Linux users since.<br />
<br />
But part of me has missed the early days of broken and missing pieces, where I had to do detective work to get my setup behaving correctly.<br />
<br />
More seriously, although I love Linux, I've always recognized that it is not the be-all and end-all of operating system technology. It's good, it's free (both in the "free beer" and "free as in freedom" sense, and the support community is wonderful.<br />
<br />
But there are a number of other OSes out there, and one which in particular has beckoned me is Minix 3. <br />
<br />
Those of you who know the history of Linux might remember that Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, was originally working in the first version of Minix when he began coding Linux. At that time Minix was an educational tool targeted at the 8088/8086 processors, and as such could not support modern production use (multiprogramming was not possible).<br />
<br />
You may also remember the <a href="http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/appa.html">debates between Linus Torvalds and Andrew Tanenbaum regarding the merits of monolithic kernels versus microkernel architecture </a> (I'm not going to bother to go into that now. Follow the preceding link if you are interested in exploring it).<br />
<br />
Fast forwarding to the present, Minix has come a very long way. Minix 3 has been released, and an active community is working on transforming it into a serious production system.<br />
<br />
The goals of Minix 3 are summarized as follows on the <a href="http://www.minix3.org/">official Minix web page</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><div class="extra">MINIX 3 is initially targeted at the following areas: </div><ul class="tight"><li>Applications where very high reliability is required</li>
<li>Single-chip, small-RAM, low-power, <a href="http://laptop.media.mit.edu/" target="_blank">$100 laptops</a> for Third-World children</li>
<li>Embedded systems (e.g., cameras, DVD recorders, cell phones)</li>
<li>Applications where the GPL is too restrictive (MINIX 3 uses a BSD-type <a href="http://www.minix3.org/license.html">license</a>)</li>
<li>Education (e.g., operating systems courses at universities)</li>
</ul></blockquote><br />
I've been looking for a fun, interesting, and challenging project to keep myself young at heart in the UNIX/POSIX world. So I've taken a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop and installed Minix 3.1.7 on it. My intent is to get every reasonable function of this laptop working with Minix in the modern sense of the word. Where possible I'll build on other people's work (and hope upon hope that someone writes a driver for the NIC before I'm forced to do it myself). But if no one else is working on a particular project relevant to my laptop list, I'll hunker down and do it myself. I have no time line, since this is a labor of love.<br />
<br />
The top priority missing component as far as I'm concerned is a driver for the NIC. The ethernet card on this laptop is probably a Marvell 88E80XX 10/100 Ethernet Controller (based on looking over Dell's spec sheets).<br />
<br />
But before I tackle device drivers I have to get the standalone Minix running and configured to my satisfaction first. My next post is going to be a description of the specific problems I ran into on the installation, and how I dealt with them.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-79363509119301879802010-06-01T06:13:00.000-07:002010-06-01T06:13:57.286-07:0087 year old former oil man explains the BP oil catastrophe in detailThis is one of the better attempts to explain the BP Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe I've seen. It is an interview with Peter Davidson, 87 years old and "a veteran of many oil fields" explaining the drilling operation and leak to his daughter, who prompts him to keep it to a basic level that an interested layperson can understand.<br />
<br />
<br />
<object width="400" height="300"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11977842&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=11977842&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/11977842">Gulf Oil Spill: what happened?</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user253321">Mary Mele</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-56068058795802153422010-05-31T06:19:00.000-07:002010-05-31T06:30:59.353-07:00Google sued over pedestrian accident<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/utah-highway-260.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/utah-highway-260.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>It isn't often that I have a hard time coming up with a headline for a blog post, but <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/05/30/google-maps-lawsuit/">this particular news story </a>which I read via <a href="http://mashable.com/">mashable.com</a> is a bit too easy to meet with a knee-jerk attitude.<br />
<br />
First, I support the right of individuals to sue corporations (or individuals) for irresponsible activity which leads to injury. This is where I diverge from much of the pop culture/AM Radio shock jock ridicule of lawsuits directed at corporations. There are times when a company releases dangerous goods which should have been tested better or publishes instructions which don't adequately disclose the risks of a product.<br />
<br />
So the question is whether posting pedestian directions which include the stretch pictured the image above was irresponsible on Google's part.<br />
<br />
My own opinion is that Google should win this lawsuit, and that if the woman who brought the suit wanted to really target those responsible she should really sue whatever governmental body is responsible for this roadway.<br />
<br />
IANAL (I am not a lawyer) so I can't comment on an informed manner about the <i>legal</i> responsibility beyond stating that Google includes a disclaimer on their pedestrian routes<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/google-walking-640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="53" src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/google-walking-640.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
But my fear is that lawsuits like this help unleash the attitude that we as a people shouldn't walk anywhere, shouldn't encourage others to walk anywhere, and that our state and local governments shouldn't be held responsible for the lack of safe pedestrian accomodation on roadways.<br />
<br />
The problem here isn't that Google provided the woman with a route from point A to point B. The problem is that those responsible for designing the highway didn't take into account the fact that walking is a reasonable use of a route funded, designed, and maintained by the government.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-50766885824433213192010-05-28T11:48:00.000-07:002010-05-28T11:48:24.534-07:00podcast interview with Donald Knuth<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="105" id="123894" name="123894" width="210"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Flarryfeltonj%2Fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2flarryfeltonj%2fplay_list.xml&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=105&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="105" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" name="123894" id="123894" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed></object><br />
<div style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center; width: 220px;">Listen to <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/">internet radio</a> with <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj">larryfeltonj</a> on Blog Talk Radio</div><br />
On Wednesday I recorded a podcast interview with <a href="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Euno/">Dr. Donald Knuth</a>, a major figure in the history of computer science. He's the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming-Volumes-Boxed/dp/0201485419?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">The Art of Computer Science</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0201485419" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, developer of the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Beginners-Book-TEX-ebook/dp/B000QCQWYA?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">TeX typesetting language</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=B000QCQWYA" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, and the creator of the system known as <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Literate-Programming-Center-Language-Information/dp/0937073806?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Literate Programming</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0937073806" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />.<br />
<br />
I interviewed him by phone. We focused on Literate Programming, but he also touched on TeX, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Computers-Typesetting-Metafont-Book/dp/0201134454?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Metafont</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0201134454" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Linux-Nutshell-Ellen-Siever/dp/0596154488?ie=UTF8&tag=offtheb-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Linux</a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=offtheb-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0596154488" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; padding: 0px ! important;" width="1" />, and the upcoming fourth volume of the Art of Computer Programming.<br />
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You can listen by using the control above, or <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj">visit my show page at BlogtalkRadio</a>.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-28365797140786389872010-05-28T07:43:00.000-07:002010-05-28T07:43:00.306-07:00Missed deadline (but for an exciting reason)Today was the day I intended to post the first results of <a href="http://otbeatenpath.blogspot.com/2010/05/project-with-programming-exercises-for.html">my multi-language programming exercise</a>. Instead events led me to work on my podcasts, including the interview with Donald Knuth which I'll post and announce in a short while. I'm resetting the clock, and my first results (written in PHP) will be posted two Fridays from now.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-39617432979462835692010-05-24T12:48:00.000-07:002010-05-24T13:09:27.906-07:00My BlogTalkRadio show for this week: Interview with Barbara Joye<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.adobe.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" height="270" id="M123894" name="M123894" width="210"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/btrplayer.swf?file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2Flarryfeltonj%2Fplay_list.xml%3Fitemcount%3D5&autostart=false&bufferlength=5&volume=80&corner=rounded&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashplayercallback.aspx" /><param name="quality" value="high" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="menu" value="false" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/BTRPlayer.swf" flashvars="file=http://www.blogtalkradio.com%2flarryfeltonj%2fplay_list.xml%3Fitemcount%3D5&autostart=false&shuffle=false&callback=http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FlashPlayerCallback.aspx&width=210&height=270&volume=80&corner=rounded" width="210" height="270" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" quality="high" wmode="transparent" menu="false" allowScriptAccess="always" name="M123894" id="M123894"></embed></object>My podcast of <a href="http://blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj">Off the Beaten Path in Technology (follow this link to my show page)</a> on BlogTalkRadio this week will feature an interview with Barbara Joye who was a co-founder of WRFG community radio here in Atlanta. The show airs at 6:30 PM EDT this evening May 24th, 2010. If you can't listen live you can play it on demand later. The controller posted on this article makes all the shows available, with the most recently archived show on the top.<br />
<br />
I always post the links I mention on the show to the article here. Here are the resources and sites mentioned on the show:<br />
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<a href="http://wrfg.org/">WRFG -- Radio Free Georgia</a><br />
<a href="http://wrfg.org/schedule.asp">WRFG's program schedule</a><br />
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I always play music from the Free Music Archives and other repositories of music distributed under licenses which allow for podsafe distribution.<br />
<br />
The primary site I use is:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/">The Free Music Archive</a><br />
<br />
Here are links to the artists pages of music I've put together for the evening's show. Depending on how much time I have I may or may not get to every musical number I've chosen, but you should check out these musicians anyhow.<br />
The links are arranged in pairs, with the first link being the artists page, the second the page for the specific number (which includes a play button). <br />
<br />
<a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Cooper-Moore/">Cooper-Moore</a> -- Jazz (although the number by Cooper-Moore I've chosen for this evening is a really unique blues number).<br />
<a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Cooper-Moore/A_Retrospective_1990-2010/h_Banjo_Arba_Minch_Garden">Banjo Arba Minch Garden</a> -- A really unusual blues piece for fretless banjo.<br />
<br />
John H. Glover-Kind -- This is a selection entitled <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/John_H_Glover-Kind/Frog_Legs_Ragtime_Era_Favorites/10_-_john_h_glover-kind_-_i_do_like_to_be_beside_the_seaside">I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside</a> from a 1907 piano roll (player piano).<br />
<br />
<a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Moore_and_Gardner/">Moore and Gardner's Chinese Blues</a> is another old piano roll song.<br />
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I always seem to play <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Roger_McGuinn/Folk_Den_Project/20090517161058571">Follow the Drinking Gourd</a> by Roger McGuinn.<br />
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I hope you'll listen to the show.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-14062175294839662562010-05-22T07:57:00.000-07:002010-05-22T07:57:07.191-07:00Podcasts, WRFG, Donald Knuth, etc<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaJ9-dulaCc_ma0JF7Pl5ipbfPO8lSrvKBTnNS8Mn3mSlu33RpIMclDD7D6JxTgaEFpFOoNAt-kMuelnPXP941vK1WAW-sEV_iDBum6xggpuS__EMPHmVM3RfnJRfy6YzRGRIvhhuvDo/s1600/microphone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaJ9-dulaCc_ma0JF7Pl5ipbfPO8lSrvKBTnNS8Mn3mSlu33RpIMclDD7D6JxTgaEFpFOoNAt-kMuelnPXP941vK1WAW-sEV_iDBum6xggpuS__EMPHmVM3RfnJRfy6YzRGRIvhhuvDo/s320/microphone.jpg" /></a></div>I haven't posted in a couple of days, because my time has been hammered as I prepare for a number of deadlines.<br />
<br />
First, I'm trying to get a better technical setup for doing my <a href="http://blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj">BlogTalkRadio</a> podcasts. This includes both the general sound quality of my own delivery (I sound a bit like Gomer Pyle talking into a garbage can) and my ability to record interviews.<br />
<br />
Secondly, I'll be doing my first interviews this week. I'll be doing a live interview with Barbara Joye, co-founder of WRFG Radio here in Atlanta, and a recorded interview with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth">Donald Knuth</a>, who is one of the great computer scientists (and artists) of the past half decade.<br />
<br />
My first stab at improving my setup for the broadcasts is to configure <a href="https://www.ekiga.net/">Ekiga</a> so that I can use my computer directly rather than a phone to conduct the show. I'll post updates on my attempts to get good at podcasting as my saga continues.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-20965271122803046472010-05-15T03:10:00.000-07:002010-05-15T03:10:51.430-07:00Diaspora: Developing an alternative to Facebook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQz6Ekxg0-CkQv6rGhpbE_oS0D4EjU2IF-zKg1ES6oFV1iWWZNfCmGftpoMjroM9jSzKPx5iSXPsXob9XzIYeObM8DrkHCoWIwgg3wK9nn7o-ae__fUS6n403IQ_nvBME0mNPIzaM1Dg/s1600/diaspora_dandy_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtQz6Ekxg0-CkQv6rGhpbE_oS0D4EjU2IF-zKg1ES6oFV1iWWZNfCmGftpoMjroM9jSzKPx5iSXPsXob9XzIYeObM8DrkHCoWIwgg3wK9nn7o-ae__fUS6n403IQ_nvBME0mNPIzaM1Dg/s200/diaspora_dandy_logo.png" width="200" /></a></div>I'm still using Facebook, but I'm at the point where I evaluate my account from week to week. I have no doubt that given the backlash Facebook will modify this latest intrusion into the privacy of its users, but I also have no doubt they will regroup and try another run at its user base within a few months. They can't help it. It's built into their corporate character, and is an integral part of their business model.<br />
<br />
The thing Facebook has going for it at the moment is the momentum of its success in attracting an amazing number of users. Friends and relatives of mine who had been barely using computers are now addicted to Facebook. I can keep up with High School classmates from the 1960s, people who share my various interests (both career and hobby related), relatives I haven't seen in years, and neighbors of mine, many of whom I interact with much more often on Facebook than I do in the neighborhood itself.<br />
<br />
Of course this has to be weighed against the fact that Facebook is a relentless spam machine, is flaky and unstable, has deliberately awful documentation of features (particularly regarding their privacy settings) and seems to be run by people who would love to plant a tracking chip in its entire user base.<br />
<br />
<h3>Enter Diaspora</h3><br />
After hearing a presentation by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen">Eben Moglen</a> on the extent to which large social software networks have been eroding net privacy, four New York University students decided to develop software for an open social networking site which is privacy aware. They named this system <a href="http://www.joindiaspora.com/blog.html">Diaspora</a>. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12about.html">This New York Times article</a> provides a decent summary.<br />
<br />
They decided that if they could raise $10,000 in donations by June 1st they'd spend the summer developing the system. They met this goal two weeks after they set up their <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/196017994/diaspora-the-personally-controlled-do-it-all-distr">kickstarter donation site</a> and when I went to make a donation this morning they'd already raised over $149,000. This demonstrates the extent to which people are becoming fed up with Facebook. I'd encourage you to follow Diaspora, and if you support the concept donate some money to the effort.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-44512652508437373022010-05-14T03:11:00.000-07:002010-05-14T03:13:16.503-07:00A project with programming exercises for learning a new language<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXM1_VdXjyCG4dUKgQe638DXn9X8tcv1TmfdE-NYkERCVtT6dwtilV-g_FbWIlw4hdbrXbeFsJ0lNZXUCJdQGhS3HKspWCKzE83474J5o5u61G_Qi32zZvXDv0idQvyhsWbD0I6YUWjTo/s1600/network-server.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXM1_VdXjyCG4dUKgQe638DXn9X8tcv1TmfdE-NYkERCVtT6dwtilV-g_FbWIlw4hdbrXbeFsJ0lNZXUCJdQGhS3HKspWCKzE83474J5o5u61G_Qi32zZvXDv0idQvyhsWbD0I6YUWjTo/s320/network-server.png" width="320" /></a></div>My version of twiddling my thumbs or biting my nails is repeatedly clicking on the <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/">Stumble!</a> button and giving websites a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down".<br />
<br />
While I was doing that I stumbled upon this article called<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small;"> <a href="http://www.freelancingjob.com/articles/article_description.php?art_id=96">15 Exercises for Learning a new Programming Language</a></span> by <span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Prashant N Mhatre.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've </span>been interested in comparative programming languages for quite some time, and this list of exercises seems to cover the basic practical features of a language (text manipulation, date and time functions, file handling, math, assignment, sorting, conditionals and loops, etc).</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Consequently I've decided to use the list to do a series of exercises. I'm going to do the exercises at two week intervals using the following languages, one language per fortnight, and post the results (or a link to the results) here.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The languages are php, java, common lisp, forth, haskell, ruby, c++, perl, some sort of assembly code (probably x86), python, and ksh or bash. This list is arbitrary, and if the exercise continues to be fun I'll add more when I've finished this list. Some of the languages I've worked with a good bit (particularly perl and ksh), some I've done moderately heavy work with in the past, but not recently (php, assembly code), some I've dabbled in (forth, common lisp, ruby). I've had nearly no hands on experience with java, c++, python, and haskell.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I intend to do the exercises in the most idiomatic form of the language which I can absorb in over a two week period (in other words I'll try to write lisp as a lisp programmer would).</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I invite reader input, suggestions, criticisms, even ridicule if you'd like (as long as you tell me why my code is ridiculous). I'll post my results on alternate Fridays starting on May 28th, 2010.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: black; font-size: small;"><span class="bodytext"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">I'll include a description of what implementation of the language I used, and my impressions of the language and its idioms.</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span></span>Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9083283357419455134.post-12425456503986601322010-05-12T17:10:00.000-07:002010-05-12T18:19:05.119-07:00Rethinking Facebook<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9WPJRZaOaUJnXEn_kEMflM6sXlvfkuedPX_rxnBmKHcJzI9YJCO9yCB1K2b__A0vDqLCFishpQBmUmtQTcRqz1gOGL6qRJYakvue8Cpb2Il-eUXJkWJtLAYbdDdz9EKAuKJPBRiOTHak/s1600/gold_letter_F.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9WPJRZaOaUJnXEn_kEMflM6sXlvfkuedPX_rxnBmKHcJzI9YJCO9yCB1K2b__A0vDqLCFishpQBmUmtQTcRqz1gOGL6qRJYakvue8Cpb2Il-eUXJkWJtLAYbdDdz9EKAuKJPBRiOTHak/s200/gold_letter_F.png" width="125" /></a></div>I've had a love/hate relationship with facebook from the word go.<br />
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I'm obviously not a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite">Luddite</a>. I depend on technology for my livelihood, and I have a deep love for programming and an intense interest in a number of esoteric topics in computer science. But I'm not an early adopter either. One of the funniest bad predictions I've ever made involved the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web">World Wide Web</a>. A co-worker approached me in the early nineties, shortly after <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29">Mosaic</a>, the first widely available web browser became available and said "Larry, you've got to see this, it's got graphics, links, sophisticated layout capabilities ...". I had been using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_%28protocol%29">gopher system</a>, along with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_search_engine">archie</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronica_%28computer%29">veronica</a> to retrieve documents off the internet. I took one look at Mosaic, and said something to the effect of "This World Wide Web thing is never going to take off. It loads too slowly".<br />
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But I warmed up to the Web, and in a narrower sense, I've been warming up to Facebook. At first it seemed like a weird, unstable, and clunky web interface to me. But the fact that I could keep up with family members and people from my distant past on Facebook over-ruled my scepticism about the security and safety of the platform. <br />
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Then I embarked on a rocky and sometimes wacky relationship with Facebook. I tried online gaming, which resulted in me inadvertently "application spamming" my friends. No matter how I tried to filter and make the gaming messages invisible to my non-gaming friends I'd discover that they were getting at least some of the noise from the games (games produced by Zynga were the big offender). So I pulled back from gaming.<br />
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More serious though, is the steady erosion of privacy on Facebook. I'm a very outgoing and public person (and not easily embarrassed by my own absurdity -- if you don't believe that just listen to the evolution of <a href="http://www.blogtalkradio.com/larryfeltonj">my blogtalk radio show</a>). I usually leave my profile wide open (which has only resulted in two episodes of stalking ... amazing when you consider that I've been on the internet since 1991).<br />
But I like to think that social sites are leaving me in control of the extent to which I want my information distributed to the world at large (or to third party commercial concerns).<br />
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Facebook has been steadily crossing the line in that respect. <a href="http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebook-timeline/">This article from the Electronic Freedom Foundation puts it in in stark perspective.</a> At this point I'm trying to figure out whether to stay and determine ways to effectively express my alarm at Facebook's privacy policies, or whether to find some alternative social medium. <br />
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It's gotten to the point where I use my identity on either Facebook or Google to access dozens of other related sites. I still have a somewhat high level of confidence that Google isn't going to abuse that trust. With Facebook I'm not so sure anymore.Larry Felton Johnsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15982220841758718924noreply@blogger.com0