Unfortunately, as PleaseRobMe points out, updating Foursquare on where you are implicitly updates Foursquare on where you're not -- at home.
On the other hand, with so many people doing this kind of thing, you have what amounts to an information flood. If you're already at risk (being stalked, for instance), I can see the immediate danger. Otherwise? It's never been that hard to figure out that a house is empty.
Citing data from Devil Mountain Software's community-based Exo.performance.network (XPnet), Craig Barth, the company's chief technology officer, said that new metrics reveal an unsettling trend. On average, 86% of Windows 7 machines in the XPnet pool are regularly consuming 90%-95% of their available RAM, resulting in slow-downs as the systems were forced to increasingly turn to disk-based virtual memory to handle tasks.
A slightly different way to view it is this: Microsoft has seen the future, and it has 64 bits, not 32. Do we "need" 64 bits? Well heck, you could have asked "do we need 32 bits?" a decade or so ago, too. Microsoft would like to have Windows 7 push new hardware sales, and I think they'd be even happier if those sales were at least 64 bit ready, if not actively running 64 bit.
I'll be speaking to the NYC Smalltalkers tonight, about the interfaces I've built to various social media systems (and a few related topics, like building to a network API). Should be fun - it all starts at 6:30 PM here.
I'll be doing demos and talking about the code - see you there!
2K Games announced today that they will be releasing Civilization V in the fall. For the first time in the series, the square tiles will be changed to hexes, which 2K Games says provides 'deeper strategy' and 'more realistic gameplay.' Civilization V will also include a new graphics engine, new combat system including ranged bombardment, multiplayer and good support for the modding community. 'Each new version of Civilization presents exciting challenges for our team. Thankfully, ideas on how to bring new and fun experiences to Civ players never seem to stop flowing. From fully animated leaders and realistic landscapes, new combat tactics, expanded diplomacy and shared mods, we're excited for players to see the new vision our team at Firaxis has brought to the series,' Sid Meier said. In addition to Civilization V, the Facebook-based Civilization Network will also be released during 2010.
Well, I never really mastered Civ IV, so what the heck - I can get another game to act as a countervailing time sink to "Dragon Age Origins" (and the expansion they are putting out soon). I wonder when I'll find time to come up for air :)
I'm happy to announce that I have accepted a full-time position with Cincom in the UK. As a result, I will be laying down my consulting hat for a while, and heading to London at the end of the month. I'll be doing Pre-Sales Consulting (or Sales Engineering, as some call it) for their Smalltalk products in Europe
I look forward to working with Julian - he's seemed like a great guy every time I've met hm!
The war against common sense ownership rights continues:
Echoing the controversial measures announced by Ubisoft last month, Sony has revealed that users of SOCOM: US Navy SEALs Fireteam Bravo 3 will need to register their game online before they are able to access the multiplayer component of the title.
It gets worse:
Furthermore, in a nod to recent plans implemented by EA, anyone buying a pre-owned copy of the game will be forced to cough up $20 to obtain a code to play online.
I brought up books in the title because e-books could run into the same kind of "no sharing" buzzsaw - which would be very different from the centuries long practice of passing books around we have now (Jasper Fforde touched on this in "The Well of Lost Plots", actually - you have to read it to see how, because explaining it would give away too much of the story).
Anyway, on games - we trade games back and forth with friends (once a game is done, it's usually done). The industry apparently wants that practice to stop. Like book sharing, I don't think it's costing anyone real money, but, like DRM for music, it's a bad idea that lots of industry types have gone "all in" on. Great.
It illegalises the purchase of any game not carrying a PEGI age rating and requires stricter rules on the requirements of ID, although both of these measures had previously been voluntarily introduced by retailers late last year. However, more worrying is a second resolution that was passed — albeit with a split vote of nine-to-three — that could lead to an outright ban of violent and adult titles in the country.
No more "Modern Warfare" or "Dragon Age" for you, I guess. While they're at it, will they also ban mature books and movies?
Live by the meme, die by the meme: As a commenter points out, this is a two year old story that I posted on without noticing that rather salient fact. Well, that's what corrections are for - nothing to see here, move along :)
We're hearing this from multiple sources: After nearly two years of high profile scaling problems, Twitter is planning to abandon Ruby on Rails as their web framework and start from scratch with PHP or Java (another solution is to stick with the Ruby language and move away from the Rails framework).
The problem is this: swicthing languages/frameworks is a very "enterprisey manager" type decision. Down in the development trenches, it means multiple man years of the following:
Standing still while the new system is built from the ground up.
Faults in the existing codebase will go largely unaddressed, as all the effort will be focused elsewhere
Competitors will have a lot more room to steal users, as it'll be obvious that Twitter is standing still
This isn't a solution; it's a way to circle the drain while others feed off their carcass The worst part is, the management team that made this call (if it has been made - it's rumor now) will walk away clean, blaming "developers" for the failure...
Eastman Kodak claims that Apple Computers and Research in Motion are guilty of infringement of patents. Kodak has taken the step to request the U.S. International Trade Commission prevent both companies from importing their smart phones into the United States. Nokia filed a similar complaint in December 2009.
What patents, and why?
Kodak's complaint says the iPhone and BlackBerry infringe on the patent approved in 2001 regarding the ability to preview images. Kodak made more than $622 million on intellectual property last year and expects to receive more than $450 million in royalty this year from Samsung. It is seeking a similar agreement with Apple and Research in Motion.
How hard would it be to change the system by just this tiny amount: in order to bring a patent infringement suit, you would have to actually be providing a competing product in the space that you are complaining about - thus showing that there's actual harm? I know, it's just crazy talk. How would that keep legions of lawyers employed?
Ideas are worthless without execution, and as it is, the practice of patent trolling completely subverts the intended economic incentive behind patents. I’m amazed that corporate America hasn’t thrown their collective weight at Congress and forced reform. I suspect that the attitude is an intellectual property Cold War the large patent-holders are building a system of mutually assured destruction and regard the patent terrorists as a manageable cost of doing business.
Read the rest of his post - he makes some great points.
As listeners to the podcast know, there's been a project underway to create a new streams framework - Xtreams. It would be nice to see this catch on across Smalltalk using the same codebase - allowing modifications and improvements to come from anywhere. So:
So....
That's right - the project is under the MIT license. That means that you can take it to any Smalltalk (or even non-Smalltalk) implementation free from worry. If this code has value, let's see it spread. To get started, try the Google Code project page.
I've run into the iPhone download limit myself - Civ Revolution for the iPhone is just over 10 MB, for instance. So it's welcome news that they are upping the (3G based) cap to 20 MB - but that's not going to help much with full shows. An hour long TV show, at compression rates that give you a decent viewing experience, is still in the hundreds of megabyte range. And that's stadard def - HD is a whole other kettle of fish.
This whole capped bandwidth model is going to have to change if mobile devices are going to be used to consume streaming video, or even just "not on wifi" video...
There's been a new post to the Google "Gears Blog", explaining why they haven't said much about Gears of late. The main reason? HTML5 seems to be on track to provide the same features natively:
If you've wondered why there haven't been many Gears releases or posts on the Gears blog lately, it's because we've shifted our effort towards bringing all of the Gears capabilities into web standards like HTML5. We're not there yet, but we are getting closer.
It would be pretty nice to get rid of the hacks that exist for video, if nothing else.
I just finished reading Freedom - the second (and final, I think) part of the story Daniel Suarez started with Daemon. I spent most of the first book debating which "side" to root for; by the end of the second book, it became apparent that the answer to that was not terribly simple.
Suarez did set the libertarian-ish techno-elite up as the sympathetic side, but with plentiful "be careful what you wish for" warnings. It was a very fast moving pair of books; I consumed the two stories in days (it would have been less time were I not still obsessed with Dragon Age: Origins :)
The main complaint I have with the story is the prominent place that Suarez assigns mainstream (especially cable tv) news sources. There's the "Darknet" set up by the deceased protagonist, and then there's the media - it's as if the entire internet that we know now doesn't exist. That's a pretty big hole to ignore, but the story is entertaining if you can get beyond that. I'd love to see the autheor asked about that in an interview though :)
I was a little worried that the earlier snow storms might have delayed passport processing (I need mine in a week) - but lo and behold, the new passport arrived sometime this week by mail (I've been a bit lax in checking the mailbox). Crisis averted; I'll see you in London and Paris early next month!
This week Michael and I spoke to Brian Rice about Slate - a language inspired by Smalltalk, Self, and other dynamic languages. To quote from the Slate website:
Slate is a prototype-based object-oriented programming language based on Self, CLOS, and Smalltalk-80. Slate syntax is intended to be as familiar as possible to a Smalltalker, for the clarity of messages as phrases. Unlike the Smalltalk family, methods within Slate can be assigned to a signature of objects, instead of being installed on one favored receiver.
To listen now, you can either download the mp3 edition, or the AAC edition. The AAC edition comes with chapter markers. You can subscribe to either edition of the podcast directly in iTunes; just search for Smalltalk and look in the Podcast results. You can subscribe to the mp3 edition directly using this feed, or the AAC edition using this feed using any podcatching software.
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Professors will be able to reorganize or delete chapters; upload course syllabuses, notes, videos, pictures and graphs; and perhaps most notably, rewrite or delete individual paragraphs, equations or illustrations.
However, that's not really the reason this idea is being pushed:
The modifiable e-book editions will be much cheaper than traditional print textbooks. "Psychology," for example, which has a list price of $134.29 (available on Barnes & Noble's Web site for $122.73), will sell for $48.76 in the DynamicBooks version.
That price cut is intended to gut the market for used textbooks (just like game publishers would like to gut that trade in their space). At least for textbooks, it's driving prices down.
When I first saw the slashdot posting, I expected to find some ill informed political argument about Linux - but no, it's actually a botnet plague using Chuck Norris' name. Just when I think computer security stories can't get stranger...
My wife's Macbook (now fairly old, I guess) seems to be having a problem - while the battery has power (there's a button you can press to check on the white macbooks), the machine isn't actually getting any. So it's off to the Apple store for an appointment today - it should still be under AppleCare, so at least it won't cost me an arm and a leg...
When asked about the Sports Illustrated app, Mr. Schiller said Apple took the source and intent of an app into consideration. "The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format," he said.
Umm, right. It's enough to make your head spin. It took four days to come up with that?
If you see something like what's below, and you're sure that it's the fault of Cincom code instead of yours, what do you do? See my post over on my Cincom blog.
Before I read the book Daemon, I really didn't think about my phone and privacy all that much:
At any given moment, it - and therefore your carrier - knows within a few feet exactly where you're standing. It knows when you're stationary or walking - and the direction you're heading. It knows who you stood next to on the transit bus, that you walked through Washington Square today when a political rally took place.
Mind you, Daemon is fiction - but many things could be done with the reams of location/activity data the typical smartphone has access to, and not all of them are good...
Now that Microsoft's browser selection story story is all but settled, it looks like the European Union is gearing up for a new antitrust probe, with its crosshairs aimed generally in Google's direction.
Much time and money will be spent on this, and absolutely nothing useful will come of it. Kind of like what happened with Microsoft, actually....
A Milan court has convicted three Google Inc executives for the 2006 transmission of a video showing the bullying of a youth with Down's syndrome, the judge in the case told Reuters on Wednesday.
As is their policy, Google removed the video once they were notified of the issue. That wasn't good enough for the geniuses prosecuting the case:
It said that, as hosting platforms that do not create their own content, Google Video, YouTube and Facebook cannot be held responsible for content that others upload, comparing the case to prosecuting the postal system for hate letters sent by mail. But the prosecutors accused Google of negligence arguing the video remained online for two months even though some web users had already posted comments asking for it to be taken down.
I wonder whether they pondered what that means. Pick a video that gets a decent number of views, and you'll find a few comments as to why it should go - there's always someone who objects. There's simply no way for any company to pro-actively do what these people seems to want, unless they are willing to put up with huge posting delays (manual review of all upoads), or a ton of false positives (as software excludes based on some kind of heuristic).
Do we really want video auto-pulled based on comments anyway? Consider how that would play out.
Oh, one last ill effect of this: the three Google executives in question now can't travel freely, even though they had nothing to do with this. I'm not sure we want a world where that sort of outcome is common, either.
But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them -- every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video -- then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.
We'll be live tomorrow at 4pm EST with Dale Henrichs of Gemstone - talking about MetaCello, a pacakge management system for Monticello. To listen live, head to our justin.tv site at 4 PM.
I've seen a few questions pop up on getting started with the Facebook interface I wrote, so I thought I'd post a basic "getting started" tutorial. First off, you need to go to the Facebook website (developer pages) and create an application definition - you'll get your application keys (you'll need those to make any Facebook API callls).
Once you've done that, you need to execute the following code (use a workspace for now) with your application credentials:
"login"
holder := FacebookSecretHolder new
apiKey: apiKey;
secretKey: secret;
applicationId: appId.
"now get the connection (will spawn a web browser"
connection := Connection withSecretHolder: holder.
connection login.
At the end of that, your default browser should pop up - it may show you what's below, or it may prompt you to login:
Once you've logged in, execute the following code to start a session:
"get auth token"
connection authGetSession.
At this point, you can start using the API - but you may notice that some calls don't work as you expect. For instance, #getStream will only return your news updates, and trying to publish to the news stream (#streamPublish:) will fail. Why? Well, your application needs to have permissions granted. Execute the following code, which will spin your browser back up, prompting you to authorize the relevant permissions:
"only need to ask for these authorizations once - grants permission to read news feed
and to write to the news feed"
connection grantExtendedPermissionFor: 'read_stream'.
connection grantExtendedPermissionFor: 'publish_stream'.
As the comment notes, you only need to do that once. Not once per session, once, period - unless Facebook changes something, or you use the APIs (or website) to revoke the granted rights. Now, use this to read the stream (inspect the results), and then publish an update:
"now read the news feed"
connection streamGet.
"update status in stream"
connection streamPublish: 'Writing to my Facebook news stream from Smalltalk!'.
Use the browser to verify that it all worked. That's pretty much it - to disconnect your session, use the code below:
"logout"
connection clearSession
You should be good to go. If anything seems wrong, just let me know
Randal Schwartz reports progress on the Squeak licensing front:
Well, after an immense amount of collective work with important legal and social restrictions and ramifications, I'm happy to see that we are in the home stretch!
The SFC asserted that we needed one final "call to all interested parties", and that has begun. Once that's complete (hopefully without a hitch), the current 3.10.2 release will be relabeled as Squeak 4.0, and made available under a combination of the Apache and MIT licenses.
I guess you should stay tuned to Randal's blog for updates :)
Twitter seems to be moving to Cassandra - a NoSQL database that was largely developed by Facebook. So says Ryan King, a developer at Twitter:
Ryan King, an engineer at Twitter, today told the blog MyNoSQL that the social networking company plans to move from MySQL to the Cassandra database for what he called its resilience, scalability and large community of open-source developers.
This puts the big three social media sites - Facebook, Twitter, and Digg - on Cassandra (or in the process of moving to it). Is this the start of a sea change in data storage, akin to the move from hierarchical to SQL a generation ago?
Today's screencast walks through exporting code out of VisualWorks or ObjectStudio in a format that will be compatible with various other Smalltalk dialects.
You can download the video directly here. If you like this kind of video, why not subscribe to "Smalltalk Daily"?
Last night I got through the final battle in "Dragon Age: Origins" - it wasn't really that hard, it just required a lot of patience. It was my second run at the game - my first run through stalled at the end, partly because I didn't pay enough attention to the NPC characters during the game itself.
In DragonAge, you really need to pay attention to that stuff. Depending on how you interact with the people who join your little quest team, they'll either help a little or a lot; it impacts the plot going forward. It was enough fun that Intend to take another run at the game with a different origin story - there 6 possible openings to the game, all slightly different.
This is the way games are heading, and I like it :)
This Sunday we'll be releasing the talk we had with Tudor Girba about Glamour, and a week from Sunday, we'll be releasing the talk we just wrapped up with Dale Henrichs about Metacello. Good stuff!
", actually - you have to read it to see how, because explaining it would give away too much of the story).
. I spent most of the first book debating which "side" to root for; by the end of the second book, it became apparent that the answer to that was not terribly simple.
:)
