Author: doubtr

Words Missing from English

On By doubtrIn Fun, WMFELeave a comment

I am often hit with a what feels to me to be concepts that should have a word but do not. I am also not good at coming up with new words, so I’m going to see if the LazyWeb can help. This will (hopefully) be a series where we come up with words that are apparently missing from the english language, because lord knows we need more words. We shall start with a silly one:

The temporary momements of nasal clarity when one is congested.

Here is two attempts to start us off:

  • AirFlowBreak – attempt to riff off of sunbreak
  • AirShowers

Do you have any ideas?

Vista FUD

On By doubtrIn Microsoft, Software - Religious, Tech, VistaLeave a comment

It’s easier then ever to get a continuous stream of Windows Vista FUD. In the past you had slashdot, but had to ignore the pesky rated 5 comments which often would point out the obvious stuff. Now however we have the BadVista blog, which is FSF new foray into the world of pure unadulterated BS. Some of which the press runs away with because there aren’t enough people actually using the software to call BS loud enough. Let’s look at some of today’s news stream:

  1. Microsoft Vista is not an option
    This link is about the “Licensing and Activation” hurt hobbiests meme. We have a writer who switches out the hardware inside his case once a week and is using XP. To my spider senses, Something doesn’t add up here. XP already has activation. Even If they tightened up the requirements (which in practice remains to be seem) he should already be tripping over activation left and right. In some ways activation has gotten less onerous, especially in cases where you buy a computer from a OEM like Dell or HP. Personally, I have built all the machines in my house, and swap around components regularly (although I guess I’m too busy and poor to swap things weekly on a single machine). I’ve been bit by re-activation and had to call the activation help for my home machines twice since 2001. I told them that I was moving around components and things worked within 5 minutes both times, this is hardly social engineering. I don’t expect Vista to be any different, and I’ve already moved some hardware around. If the author hasn’t been through this already with XP, the the worst I would expect is that he will make the 5 minute phone call once a couple years. If the fear of that potential phone call and not even a real experience is bad enough to make him switch to another OS, then I not sure Vista is the real issue.
  2. DRM behind lack of Windows Vista drivers.. and fear new content protection.
    This is based on the Gutmann FUD, which spells out a worse case scenario for the implementation DRM in Vista based on random bits of documentation and conjecture. The basic problem here is that the worst case scenario he envisions isn’t  how anything was implemented and causal checks confirm it. There are still class drivers for video. Non-protected content (which is most of what I have) plays unmolested, even while I play DRM’d music and video.  There is an example in the paper of expensive optical system computer in a hospital going fuzzy because the user is playing music. The first question a reader should ask is, even if the hospital bought into that sort of DRM and the system was designed that way (which from casual observation it isn’t) why would the hospital not buy a computer system to view the imagery that supported a DRM path in the hardware. It’s like buying a CAT scan system and not buying a compatible display to see the results.
    In reality there is more drivers and compatibility for Vista pre launch then there was for XP (probably because of continuation of the move to class drivers and early frequent public releases). Inherent to the whole arguement is a bet that you will have pervasive protected content you want. This is the same bet that iTunes Music Store makes. If you want to watch such content, then you won’t want to run an OS where you can’t watch such content, and only systems with these protections will be allowed to decrypt it. Back in the early days of DVD’s, Linux had zero players until the protection scheme for DVD’s was broken. These days the new formats won’t be cracked that easily as they have learned a couple lessons since then. (They can remove support from all future media for a player’s decryption key once it’s known to be cracked and the general purpose cracking is probably much harder)
    There are some real stuff to the story, supporting DRM through hardware is not free, and if you want that feature you will pay for it (similar to how we all pay for DVD support), but none of this is Vista specific. The main thing with Vista that you might complain about is that it supports it at all, or that Microsoft hasn’t done enough to fight DRM. Of course if you buy PowerDVD for BlueRay or HD-DVD you are getting pretty much the same thing from a different vendor. This type of stuff really annoys open source purists because licensing and securing implementation runs counter to the basic philosophy, but it’s not a showstopper as companies that actually build commercial products using pieces of open source don’t have such issues.
    I’ll also note that I’m not in love with DRM, but that’s a topic I’ll save for a different post.
  3. Vista: Why Bother?
    This starts with the insufficient hardware meme. If you asked me right after beta 2 shipped, I would be wholeheartedly agreeing. What I have discovered is that a) they fixed much of that between beta and release and b) more RAM fixes the rest . Ironically the RAM part was exactly what I was sitting around realizing when XP shipped. The end rule is if you bought it in the last two years new, get it up to say 1 Gb RAM, it’ll be fine.
    The actual piece plays a bunch of games with the facts. First it talks about video editing, which is demanding in general and nothing specific to Vista. Even looking at the Mac’s that advertise high end video editing you are looking at some seriously powerful machines. Processor, RAM speed and file system speed are the things I’ve noticed are the big deal, not OS. Next there is the 94% figure, which pulls a double whammy, first it is a survey of corporate machines, which since they tend to do simpler less CPU/ram intensive things compared to consumer PCs. The more realistic numbers are the CPU replacement numbers (replacing the CPU, especially in older machines usually means a new PC), here we see 84% of corporate PCs will be ready from a CPU standpoint (I suspect many of the 84% will need more RAM, but the numbers aren’t in the article). The other little trick done with that number is using the premium level of readiness instead of the minimum. For corporate PCs, the difference between the premium and the Min are features that won’t be missed doing day to day work, like the flashier GUI.
    Next in the piece is software compatibility. This is a harder area, although three of his examples are now bogus. The Zune software for Vista is already released on zune.org, I’m running the Vista Powershell (it comes as an OS update, so it’s mostly an issue of packaging, not compatibility as people running the old msi versions of Powershell can attest). The new Virtual PC has hit RC status. OpenGL is supported in the major graphic vendors drivers. I’ve found that most of the real issues with compatibility are from deeply integrated software using unpublished interfaces who aren’t in a rush to put the vista versions out and UAC related issues. For many of these companies the clock didn’t start until we RTM’d Vista. The latter is a price we will pay for the security it brings, but will be lessened as compatibility updates come out. On the anacdotal side, I’m mainly feel pain with x64 versus x86 rather then Vista versus XP.
    Also in the piece Start Menu issue. My start menu has two options for “shutdown” and a somewhat hidden advanced menu. The two options on my box are: low power mode and lock session. Ironically, I don’t even use either of them on my home machine. I just push the power button on my case to go to low power mode. At work I only use the Lock one (assuming I don’t just press Windows-L). So it appears they choose the right two.
    For bonus points the author then compares upgrading a point release of openSUSE to upgrading Vista from XP. A fair comparison would be to a service pack update, although I would guess that even that would be more then the dot release.
    Which finally concludes in the classic, why update? If you need a single compelling reason to go to vista, it would be security and maybe the flashier GUI, after that it just feels better, the sum of a thousand little things. This is not great for marketing, but pure addicting goodness as a user and home admin. This should become quite apparent after the OS is actually out there, but you can see it in people like the TWIT crowd who has talked about their experiences since they first installed it and now really like it (oh and they are heavy Mac users). My suggestion is to find someway to use it for a week or two and decide for yourself.

Disclosure: I am a Microsoft Employee who works on Windows, but these views are my personal ones and are not my employers.

Addicting song of the day

On By doubtrIn BabyLeave a comment

In attempting to get Simeon to let us do some end of the year filling, Pam and I got hit with this friendly fire:

I especially like the part where Bert is trying to figure out what’s going on in the bathroom.

How to Mingle (and Exit a conversation)

On By doubtrIn Baby, Journal, NoteToSelfLeave a comment

I just listened to a NPR piece on party conversation based on Raymond’s Recommendation and found myself yelling in concert with the host “Stop the Party!”. This advice would have been helpful at last weekend’s playgroup meeting (Simeon is the one with the drool soaked shirt) where I knew none of the dads and didn’t really remember real well the moms (although I did attend the post birthing classes that formed the group). This party was also my first real experience with more then two babies in a room, and it defiantly was a different experience then anything I’ve seen before. Babies heading in every different direction getting into whatever they could find. I really liked the way they had set up toy containers (back right of this photo) and books and will have to set something like that up. I’m currently using a toy chest from ikea (MINNEN treasure Chest), that is not bad for storage but not so great for quick access.

Getting back into Cardio

On By doubtrIn JournalLeave a comment

So I was back at the gym this morning, did 45 minutes of cardio and got a nice headache as a result. This happend the last time I tried to restart cardio. I’m going to have to keep at it until I can get over this hump. I’ve also started diet tracking again. I think I’m going to have to focus on this for the rest of my life.

How will history remember Bush?

On By doubtrIn PoliticalLeave a comment

The Washington Post has a series about how Bush will be remembered:

  • He’s The Worst Ever 
    …somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history.
  • Move Over, Hoover
    Bush has two more years to leave his mark, he argued. What if there is a news flash that U.S. Special Forces have killed Osama bin Laden or that North Korea has renounced its nuclear program? What if a decade from now Iraq is a democracy and a statue of Bush is erected on Firdaus Square where that famously toppled one of Saddam Hussein once stood?
    …truth is, after six years in power and barring a couple of miracles, it’s safe to bet that Bush will be forever handcuffed to the bottom rungs of the presidential ladder. The reason: Iraq.
    …
    His presidential library will someday be built around two accomplishments: that after 9/11, the U.S. homeland wasn’t again attacked by terrorists (knock on wood) and that he won two presidential elections, allowing him to appoint conservatives to key judicial posts. I also believe that he is an honest man and that his administration has been largely void of widespread corruption. This will help him from being portrayed as a true villain.
  • Time’s on His Side
    … Perhaps Bush can take solace in the case of Harry S. Truman, who was reviled at the end of his presidency, with approval numbers hovering around 30 percent. Too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals, Truman was saddled with an unpopular stalemate in the Korean War and accusations of corruption at home. Many saw him as a belligerent rube, too unsophisticated for the White House.

    Today, however, many historians have revised their estimate of his presidency upward. There certainly are echoes of Truman in the current carping about Bush.
    …
    No one expects historians to be perfectly objective. But history should at least teach us humility. Time will cool today’s political passions. As years pass, more documents will be released, more insights gleaned and the broader picture of this era will be painted. Only then will we begin to see how George W. Bush fares in the pantheon of U.S. presidents.

  • At Least he’s not Nixon
    Bush has two years left in his presidency and we don’t know what they’ll hold. They may be as dismal as the first six. Future investigations may bear out many people’s worst fears about this administration’s violations of civil liberties. And it’s conceivable that the consequences of the invasion of Iraq may prove more destructive than those of Nixon’s stubborn continuation of the Vietnam War. Should those things happen, Bush will be able to lay a claim to the mantle of U.S. history’s worst president. For now, though, I’m sticking with Dick.

“credibility” = “investment in reputation as an idiot” meme

On By doubtrIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Crooked Timber explains why acting like a bitter dead-enders is not a worthwhile policy for democracies.

The point here is that it’s one of the more important things in game theory that a signal has to be a costly signal to be credible; like membership of the Modern Languages Association, a reputation in deterrence theory is something that is worth having, but not worth getting. People who use the word “signal” in this context (usually on the basis of a poorly understood or second-hand reading of Schelling) don’t always seem to realise that they are explicitly admitting that the costs of being in Iraq are greater than the benefits.

Because of this, in my opinion it is very difficult for a democracy to establish this kind of credibility. The reason is that although leaders are often idiots, democratic polities rarely are. It is very hard for a democratically elected leader to credibly commit to a policy of stupidity, because everyone else knows that it is highly likely that the electorate will not support it. I hasten to add that to take this obvious fact and turn it into a Dolchstosslegende, or to bemoan the lack of national vigour in the manner of Victor Davis Hanson is to get the analysis back to front. It is a good thing about democracies that they don’t in general do stupid things, and the fact that an argument from “credibility” and “deterrence” can be constructed to make the case that it is a weakness (even “a fatal weakness”) of democracies that they are insufficiently inclined to pointless military dead-endism is just another example of the Davies-Folk Theorem.

NIST on Electronic Voting

On By doubtrIn Current Events, PoliticalLeave a comment

The NIST has released a draft white paper on electronic voting machines. Washington Post summarizes:

Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country “cannot be made secure,” according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

…

NIST says in its report that the lack of a paper trail for each vote “is one of the main reasons behind continued questions about voting system security and diminished public confidence in elections.” The report repeats the contention of the computer security community that “a single programmer could ‘rig’ a major election.”

Fears about rigging have animated critics for years, but there has been no conclusive evidence that such fraud has occurred. Electronic voting systems have had technical problems — including unpredictable screen freezes — leaving voters wondering whether their ballots were properly recorded.

Computer scientists and others have said that the security of electronic voting systems cannot be guaranteed and that election officials should adopt systems that produce a paper record of each vote in case of a recount. The NIST report embraces that critique, introducing the concept of “software independence” in voting systems.

NIST says that voting systems should not rely on a machine’s software to provide a record of the votes cast. Some electronic voting system manufacturers have introduced models that include printers to produce a separate record of each vote — and that can be verified by a voter before leaving the machine — but such paper trails have had their own problems.

Compass in your nose?

On By doubtrIn IntrestingLeave a comment

  Anthropology.net via JWZ:

Stephen Juan, an anthropologist from the University of Sydney answers Lee Staniforth of Manchester, UK question, “Do humans have a compass in their nose?” He writes about some scientists at California Institute of Technology discovered that humans possess a tiny, shiny crystal of magnetite in the ethmoid bone (pink bone to the image on your right), located between your eyes, just behind the nose… but doesn’t give us any clue as to where the research was published.

Go get the new Live Mobile Search Beta

On By doubtrIn Intresting, MicrosoftLeave a comment

Check out this windows mobile or java client for looking at maps, traffic, driving directions and local search.