Sybreon Ones Nought

I reported a while ago on the issue of Microsoft’s FAT patents in Linux. TomTom (the GPS maker) were sued by Microsoft for alleged patent infringements because they used code from Linux to access the FAT file system, which is covered by Microsoft’s patent. Ultimately, they settled out of court and the issue was not used as a test case. Most engineers would argue that the patents were probably invalid. The trouble is that as long as the issue is not cleared up, Microsoft can use the FAT patent to muddy the waters when it comes to the adoption of Linux for a number of things.

Seems like the Linux people have come up with a plausible solution though. Supposedly, the Microsoft patent covers the ability of generating a long filename and a 8.3 filename. Users of MS-DOS will remember that filenames were all limited to 8.3 characters in the past until Microsoft introduced the ability to have up to 255 characters in filenames. Every file on disk can be accessed with either a long filename or a 8.3 filename. In fact, every long filename is mapped to a unique 8.3 filename.

The technical work around is to generate either the long filename only or the short 8.3 filename only. That’s it. Let me say that again. Supposedly, the Microsoft patent covers the ability to generate a long filename and a short filename while the Linux work around generates either a long filename or a short filename only.

I am not a lawyer but if this works, it’s just brill.

According to the BBC, the world’s most notorious peer-to-peer file sharing website, The Pirate Bay, is going legit. In case you have not heard, TPB was sold off for about US$7.8million a couple of days ago. Everyone has been wondering what would happen to our last bastion of legal piracy in this world. It seems that our questions have been answered by the company who is taking over TPB. Their premise is quite interesting – that the only way to beat a “free” service is to pay users to share files.

The only difference would be the legality of the files being shared. At present, there is a lot of copyrighted content being freely shared on TPB. What the new parent company plans to do is to work out a mechanism for compensating the copyright holders and the file sharers financially. In theory, it is a sound proposition. From an abstract view, we can see the file-sharers as a massive content distribution network that works very well. The parent company plans to use this massive network to help content owners distribute their content more quickly and efficiently.

However there are a few questions that pop up.

It makes sense for content providers to pay money to use the distribution network to help them get their content out. The distribution network then becomes a service that is exploitable. However, in order for this network to be worth anything, it has to guarantee some sort of service level, which ultimately depends on the number of file sharers linked to the network. The file-sharers are encouraged to join the distribution network by receiving financial compensation for using their computers and bandwidth. However, all this hinges on the value attributed by the users to the network and the content. If the price is wrong, then the file-sharers will drop off the network faster than you can say bittorrent. I just don’t see them paying the users enough to gain a critical mass of file-sharers that is needed to become a formidable distribution network.

Let us start with the network. This business model introduces the problem of valuating bandwidth. ISPs sell bandwidth based on very fundamental costs that are translated from the physical infrastructure costs, maintenance and service costs. The new TPB can’t possibly pay more than the cost of bandwidth charged by the ISP. By paying less than the value charged by the ISP, they force the file-sharers to evaluate the value of 1kbps. However, the value of 1kbps is different for everyone. Someone who does not use their bandwidth much will value it less than someone who is consuming 90% of their bandwidth already with little to spare.

Another problem is that of content. The value of the Internet comes from the fact that it does not discriminate against content. However, file-sharers are highly discriminatory. Everyone cares about the kind of content that gets stored on their computers and gets shared to others. I can see the porn industry being interested in using this service to distribute their wares. If the network is content agnostic, it should not matter to anyone if they are distributing porn. However, it will definitely affect the file-sharers (either way) and it doesn’t just stop at porn. If the network is content dependent, then there will not be any sort of guaranteed service level for the content providers. This will ultimately reduce the value of the system.

Anyway, much of this is just conjecture. I don’t really know if they will succeed or not. I guess that even the new owners are not quite sure. They are quoted as saying: “this technology is new. For now, we’re outlining our intentions and asking users to have faith.”

This is a recurring idea that keeps cropping up and keeps getting silly press. Periodically, our government would suggest bringing in domestic workers from China to replace our dwindling supply of domestic workers from other countries. Every time, the MCA Women will say that it is a bad idea on simple marital grounds. They are fearful that these foreign maids, whom they have dubbed with a number of unkind labels, would steal their husbands away.

I just find these arguments rather trite.

These women are arguing for legal protection of their marital bliss. I just find that rather sad that a woman needs to rely on the government in order to maintain her marriage. Obviously, something is very wrong with the stereotypical Malaysian Chinese woman today, which makes them worry that these imported women would steal all their husbands away.

A woman should be confident in her own self. I thought that was what we have been working towards over many decades. She should not have to rely on “protectionism” in order to safeguard her own marriage. However, I have had conversations with some girls and found that in most cases, our local girls have a downright skewed view of marriage and what it means (and I lay the blame squarely on too much TVB dramas). The trouble is that most of these girls end up focusing too much on the wedding, and not the decades that come after. Not planning properly for that, is just dumb.

Personally, I think that a little extra competition would be good for everyone involved.

I can understand if someone feels that these Chinese domestic workers would have trouble adapting, or would not be able to do a good job. Unfortunately, all the arguments seem to point in the opposite direction – that these women would adapt a little too comfortably to the local environment, and would be able to take care of the household better than the locals. So, I don’t see why we should turn towards hiring sub-par help from some other random third world country instead.

All for the fear of these women stealing their husbands. Sheesh.

As they always say, third time’s the charm. I had tried on two other occasions to watch the film at the cinema only to find out that there were no more good seats left. In fact, I was shown the same thing when I went to the box office today. The difference was that there were 30 uncollected reserved tickets. So, I joined the queue twice in order to get these tickets when they were released. As a result, I got a wonderful seat in the cinema and got to watch the film from the best seats in the house.

Regardless of what everyone else thinks, I felt that this film lived up to all my expectations of it. I had a thoroughly enjoyable experience. There were several hot ladies, plenty of cheesy jokes, several emotional scenes and lots and lots of action. Anyone who goes into Transformers expecting anything else is an idiot. We got introduced to many new transformers, mainly on the Autobots side but also some from the Decepticons. Unfortunately, there was not enough story time to properly build up some of these characters.

I would have loved to see the detail on some of these new characters – such as Arcee, but they only appeared on-screen during major battles where there was too much happening around them for me to get a good glimpse of these beautiful machines. In fact, most of the new transformers only had about one line to say in the entire film except for the two slapstick comedians – the twins – who were modeled as stereotypes of African Americans. They were still funny nonetheless.

Instead, Bumblebee got massive screen time this time around. I guess that he has got a massive fan following, particularly among the kids (you’ve got to feed the merchandise mania). His solo fight scene reminded me of an amalgamation of fight scenes from The Matrix and the Yoda fight scene from Star Wars. You would never have thought that cute Bumblebee had those kind of kick ass moves and attitude.

I think that the one robot that I did not like that much was Devastator. It didn’t occur to me that they were going to showcase a combination robot until I saw it happen on screen. I should have realised that it was happening when they had so many construction machines in the film. One of my favourites in the old cartoon were the Constructicons (along with the Aerobots). But the new gorilla like Devastator doesn’t quite appeal to me though.

Of course, we must never forget that Transformers also serves as a showcase for some really nice cars that some manufacturers would like to market. That is why it is over-run with GM cars. The sports cars were really sweet. Obviously, the German Audi R8 had to get killed just 10 minutes into the show after only about 2 minutes of screen time – by an American Chevrolet at that.

Anyway, like I said. The film was thoroughly enjoyable, as long as you know what you’re going to get. It is in the same vein as the first film and is a deserving sequel. If you didn’t like the lame jokes in the first one, you’re not going to like the crass ones in the sequel. As for me, I’m looking forward to the third instalment in the series (more so than the next Harry Potter).

PS: I hope that Megan Fox gets to be more involved with the transformers in the next film, and not just as an on-screen ornament. Since she likes to work on bikes, let her ride Arcee and get them to kick some ass too.

I have been thinking about teaching some beginner programming to some high-school age kids, for a while now. My main objective is to inculcate some interest in the subject in these kids, and also to hopefully teach them how computers actually work. I am interested to do this as a social contribution (i.e. gratis) and was thinking of starting a class at my temple. However, the obvious problem is that they do not have computers there.

I know that Computer Science can always be taught without computers. In fact, that is the method that I would prescribe for most CS university courses. Teaching CS without using computers will ensure that the students actually learn CS and not how to become computer programmers. However, going down the theoretical CS path would be very boring to a bunch of high-school/pre-teen kids.

So, I thought that I would ask some experts on ideas on how to proceed in teaching programming, without any computers.

I got many replies and some of them have proven to be very interesting. Most would rely on group activities and paper/pen approaches. This should have occurred to me ages ago. Turing could prescribe a working computer by using nothing but a paper/pen. Some of these ideas took that a step further and actually suggested I take a Knuth approach and design my own simple computer and programming language.

I think that is probably a good way to start.

I will design a very basic theoretical computer – with about 8 instructions – and teach the kids the basics of programming by performing small group activities on it. As a start, I will teach them to count in binary and explain the basic workings of a computer – memory, processor, input/output. For simple activities, I may get them to write simple programmes for this basic computer.

Then the group activities may involve programming their friends to perform tasks, have mock battles, or even play a simple game like checkers. I may have to adapt this depending on the age group of the kids.

Sweet!

PS: Another useful site that some suggested was Computer Science Unplugged, which has a bunch of work sheet activities that can be completed by kids. This may be useful for me to adapt into my teaching material.

Our government has announced that from 2010, a new scholarship category will be created – one that is entirely based on merit only. While some people may hail this as a solution to our annual public scholarship problems, I feel that this is just a stop-gap solution. I have been really fond of using this phrase recently: “this does not solve the problem but merely postpones the inevitable”.

I would like to categorically state that this measure does not solve the ‘lack of transparency’ problem with scholarship allocations at all. All it will do, is further complicate the problem. The problem that people had with the present system was the lack of transparency. As a result, the people only saw what they chose to see. The solution should have been to adopt more transparency. However, the government’s proposed solution does not address the problem at all.

As a temporary measure, it may placate the public for a while. Unless the greater issue of transparency is addressed, you will still hear grouses from the ground that the scholarship selection process is unfair. Let me work through a simple example.

By definition, let us say that the top 1% of our students are considered the crem de la crem of the batch. This number would easily come up to several thousand students each year, much more than there are scholarships available. And by limiting the exams to only 10 subjects only, looking at recent numbers, you can be quite sure that each and every one of these students will have A1s in all these 10 subjects.

Hence, the situation becomes a subjective one, once again. In a subjective situation, some students who were left behind, will obviously bitch and cry about the whole situation. In fact, the students will probably cry about the situation regardless, as long as they view that they have been treated unfairly. And as long as there is a screen (even a semi-opaque one) between the students and the selection process, someone will feel that they have been mis-treated.

What I don’t get is why the scholarship process has to be so opaque. Every Malaysian understands that the government needs to act within the bounds of our Constitution (Article 153 in particular). Some transparency would go a long way into buying a lot of good will. In the larger scheme of things, maybe our new PM is thinking of calling for a new mandate some time in 2010 and this is going to factor into it.

PS: I still like my web 2.0 idea of solving the problem – Why not let the kids decide among themselves, who deserves the scholarships? Set up a website where the kids can all make their scholarship applications. Then, list out some basic features, such as their results, activities and what nots. Nothing that can be made to identify an individual directly. Then, let the kids and other Malaysians vote on whom they think deserve a scholarship. The top 1000 or something, gets offered a scholarship.

I wanted to try out some groupware servers recently. Although these systems are designed for use in an organisational environment, there are advantages in using a groupware system at home. In my particular case, it saves me the trouble of backing up important personal data such as calendar, tasks, notes, contacts etc. I would be able to store and access it in a single convenient and central location. Thanks to the powers of virtualisation, I was able to easily play with a number of popular open source solutions to see which one was easiest to use.

I created a number of new virtual servers and installed three popular open source groupware solutions – citadel, egroupware and kolab – one in each. They are all easy enough to integrate with Kontact, my personal information management software of choice. Of the three, the easiest to install, setup and use was Citadel. Citadel is an all-in-one groupware and email solution. It is entirely integrated. Therefore, I did not have to set up a database, imap, pop3, smtp and web servers separately. Another advantage of using Citadel is that it can be accessed in a number of different ways – through a web browser, a telnet terminal and also through email (imap).

With a groupware server, my email, calendar, tasks and contacts are now all stored on the server. This can now be accessed anywhere in the world. I can access them at home on my laptop computer and also access it through a text/web interface through the Internet. In fact, Citadel can be used to retrieve RSS feeds and also email from other servers. I am sure that there are other features that I have yet to discover about it.