I ran across, today, some recent interviews with Trent Reznor and Saul Williams, concerning the distribution of Saul's 'The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust' album, produced by Trent. Saul sounds pretty jovial about it all and optimistic about the future of this album. Trent, on the other hand, is a bit more disappointed. I guess he'd hoped, reasonably so, that more than 1 in 5 people would pay for the album.
I've been a Nine Inch Nails fan for quite a while now. So when I read the news about the work with Saul Williams on Niggy Tardust, I decided to give the album a try. I assumed it would be fairly different from what I generally listen to, but that's ok. And hopefully my participation would help the next NiN album come out in a similar manner? So I did the free download (that's what it's for, right? trying things out?), and have listened to the album many times since. I'd been planning on going back and buying the $5 version online, and these recent interviews were the push I apparently needed. I would have happily paid more. Perhaps, in the future, let the user specify how much to pay? Maybe set a minimum if you want, that's fine. I know I could go and order it again, and just not download it, but I don't really have any motivation to.
So, if you are looking for something new to listen to, I do encourage you to check out the album. Though it is no longer free, $5 is still a great price for a whole new cd worth of music. It sounded, from the interviews, like a cd is forthcoming, as well as a larger marketing campaign.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Busy OLPC Week
No, sadly, not busy in the sense of me playing with my XO. I'm still waiting. But I know I'm not alone, so its ok.
There were three big news items recently:
There were three big news items recently:
- Mary Lou Jepsen has left to branch out into her own for-profit company, Pixel Qi. From what I've ready, she was the main figure in many of the awesome technical features of the XO.
- The split with Intel, after only a few short months together.
- Microsoft working on getting XP to work on the XO.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Travel Mugs
I'm discontent with all of the travel mugs I've run across. The problem of a good travel mug design has been somewhere in the back of my mind for a while, so I've been looking at mugs (their lids, specifically) when I find them. And they all annoy me.
My ideal travel mug is simple (most of them basically have this) but moreover simple to really clean. Ideally this means my hand fits in it comfortably (since I mostly end up doing my dishes by hand), though this sacrifices the ability to fit in car cup holders. More importantly, 'cleanable' means, for starters, no screw on lid - I never feel like the threading gets really clean. In fact, no interior corners at all - mugs (dishes in general) should be smooth. The worst part about all travel mugs I've seen is the lid though. They all involve some sort of moving bit with an inside (or underneath or between) that liquids can get to, but you can't (short of disassembly). That's terrible.
So, what does my lid look like then? How does it work? Well, I'm honestly not sure how to create my ideal lid, reasonably, but I'm sure it is possible. Here's what I'm envisioning: near the top of the (circular) mug, there will be an interior rim (remembering no corners) on which a circular lid will sit. I've kinda got a man-hole cover in mind here. The lid should be a solid disk. What makes the lid useful is a single button (maybe two? or one of them is a slider?) on the top. After setting the lid down on the rim of the mug, you can press the button and the diameter of the lid increases (this is the part I'm not sure how to engineer - see below). Now the lid fits tightly against the mug (in an ideal setup, this forms a perfect container, you could turn the mug upside down and not have any issues). So how do you drink out of it? Well, press the other button on top, and some part of the disk shrinks back, making a place for liquid to come out (looking at the lid from the top, it'd look like a circle except for a point on the edge where somebody pushed in with their finger, I recon). Of course, travel mugs have that extra little hole opposite the bit you drink from, so that air can get into the mug and you don't have to worry about vacuums. No problem. Just, when you press that second button, have a little indentation show up opposite the drinking indentation (all one mechanism, doing the same functionality on both sides, just much smaller on one side).
I have some vague thoughts on how to implement such a lid. Part of me wonders about having the interior of the lid have an air bladder. Then pushing on the button on top forces the disk to increase diameter. I'm not sure how you then have a separate button to open/close the drinking hole - perhaps the interior has two air bladders, or the lid is made out of two materials or so? I also worry about the air bladder popping, or leaking, so it's not my first choice. Another idea that comes to mind is along the lines of the steamer tray I have. Its a little tray that you stick in whatever pot you are using, and its got a bunch of metal wedges that fit together, and can lie flat to fit in larger pots, or stand up straighter for smaller pots. Now, for my lid, flip that tray over, and wrap it in some sort of rubber. Pushing down expands the diameter. Using a spring mechanism like in clicky pens, pushing down again unclicks it and decreases the diameter. I figure this has potential, because you could pick one of the wedges and (somehow) make it so that you could decrease just the size of that wedge, without affecting anybody else. That gives you your hole to drink from.
Anyway, if anybody ever reads this and knows how to make this dream a reality (or knows that somebody else already has, and can point me in the right direction), I'd be delighted to hear about it. I'm also happy to try to clarify any of my descriptions above. Maybe I'll get truly ambitious and post some picture(s) here. If this thing doesn't already exist, I want somebody to use some sort of open source manufacturing or whatever to get it in production. That is, the design and plans are online, and people can view them to make their own or change the design to make improvements and fit their needs. If it doesn't exist, and this is my idea, I'm allowed to ask for such a thing (the open manufacturing bit), right?
My ideal travel mug is simple (most of them basically have this) but moreover simple to really clean. Ideally this means my hand fits in it comfortably (since I mostly end up doing my dishes by hand), though this sacrifices the ability to fit in car cup holders. More importantly, 'cleanable' means, for starters, no screw on lid - I never feel like the threading gets really clean. In fact, no interior corners at all - mugs (dishes in general) should be smooth. The worst part about all travel mugs I've seen is the lid though. They all involve some sort of moving bit with an inside (or underneath or between) that liquids can get to, but you can't (short of disassembly). That's terrible.
So, what does my lid look like then? How does it work? Well, I'm honestly not sure how to create my ideal lid, reasonably, but I'm sure it is possible. Here's what I'm envisioning: near the top of the (circular) mug, there will be an interior rim (remembering no corners) on which a circular lid will sit. I've kinda got a man-hole cover in mind here. The lid should be a solid disk. What makes the lid useful is a single button (maybe two? or one of them is a slider?) on the top. After setting the lid down on the rim of the mug, you can press the button and the diameter of the lid increases (this is the part I'm not sure how to engineer - see below). Now the lid fits tightly against the mug (in an ideal setup, this forms a perfect container, you could turn the mug upside down and not have any issues). So how do you drink out of it? Well, press the other button on top, and some part of the disk shrinks back, making a place for liquid to come out (looking at the lid from the top, it'd look like a circle except for a point on the edge where somebody pushed in with their finger, I recon). Of course, travel mugs have that extra little hole opposite the bit you drink from, so that air can get into the mug and you don't have to worry about vacuums. No problem. Just, when you press that second button, have a little indentation show up opposite the drinking indentation (all one mechanism, doing the same functionality on both sides, just much smaller on one side).
I have some vague thoughts on how to implement such a lid. Part of me wonders about having the interior of the lid have an air bladder. Then pushing on the button on top forces the disk to increase diameter. I'm not sure how you then have a separate button to open/close the drinking hole - perhaps the interior has two air bladders, or the lid is made out of two materials or so? I also worry about the air bladder popping, or leaking, so it's not my first choice. Another idea that comes to mind is along the lines of the steamer tray I have. Its a little tray that you stick in whatever pot you are using, and its got a bunch of metal wedges that fit together, and can lie flat to fit in larger pots, or stand up straighter for smaller pots. Now, for my lid, flip that tray over, and wrap it in some sort of rubber. Pushing down expands the diameter. Using a spring mechanism like in clicky pens, pushing down again unclicks it and decreases the diameter. I figure this has potential, because you could pick one of the wedges and (somehow) make it so that you could decrease just the size of that wedge, without affecting anybody else. That gives you your hole to drink from.
Anyway, if anybody ever reads this and knows how to make this dream a reality (or knows that somebody else already has, and can point me in the right direction), I'd be delighted to hear about it. I'm also happy to try to clarify any of my descriptions above. Maybe I'll get truly ambitious and post some picture(s) here. If this thing doesn't already exist, I want somebody to use some sort of open source manufacturing or whatever to get it in production. That is, the design and plans are online, and people can view them to make their own or change the design to make improvements and fit their needs. If it doesn't exist, and this is my idea, I'm allowed to ask for such a thing (the open manufacturing bit), right?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Wikia Search
So I guess in the last few days wikia has opened up an alpha version of their search page. I've been a wikipedia fan (both as a place to find information, and more philosophically), so I've been waiting to see what this (hyped) search would deliver. Reactions were mixed, from 'complete letdown' to 'more intrigued'. And, reading this article, I feel like I agree with the spirit of the wikia project, its openness and transparency (on a side note I tried to spread the good word on open source today. I was teaching LaTeX, and said that something being open source was like having the .tex file, instead of just the .pdf. Hopefully that helped).
That being said, I gave wikia a try. Now, I don't personally care about the social network aspect of it. And apparently to view the profiles that pop up when you do a search you are supposed to be registered, so whatever (maybe I'll hide that div with Ad-Block Plus). They do have a pretty decent interface, and I kinda like the dynamic fetching of the 'next 10 results' sort of thing. What I'm most excited about by this project is the idea of star rating search results (also a nicety of the interface for this feature), and having those ratings affect future results.
Now I clearly don't know much about all the bits currently relate, or how they will relate in the future. But I think it would be cool to see this star system used powerfully to determine customized search results. If it remembers my star ratings (after I register) for search terms, and compares that with other people's stars for the same(/similar) searches, then it can pair them up to help pick nice choices for later searches. That is, I search for A, and wikia notices that among other people who have searched for A I agree with person P on lots of other searches (not A). Then wikia looks at P's stars for the search on A, and boosts those results in my search.
Anyway, that all sounds complicated to set up, so maybe I'll let other people worry about it.
I suppose, since it is a search engine, I should talk about its current results for example searches. My initial (few searches) reaction is that these results are noticeably different (somehow) from the ones I might expect from google. But I think that's a good thing. Getting more, varied, results is a positive. My initial searches were math things, since that's what I generally search for anyway ('category theory').
Finally, I do wonder about 'gaming' the system. Apparently, Jimmy Wales thinks it won't be a problem. But with the indexing algorithm out in the open, it seems like people would be able to figure out ways, and do so more easily than in hidden systems (google's algorithm). Then again, this sounds vaguely along the lines of 'security through obscurity', which I don't buy in general.
Whatever, I'm happy to wait and see how it all plays out.
That being said, I gave wikia a try. Now, I don't personally care about the social network aspect of it. And apparently to view the profiles that pop up when you do a search you are supposed to be registered, so whatever (maybe I'll hide that div with Ad-Block Plus). They do have a pretty decent interface, and I kinda like the dynamic fetching of the 'next 10 results' sort of thing. What I'm most excited about by this project is the idea of star rating search results (also a nicety of the interface for this feature), and having those ratings affect future results.
Now I clearly don't know much about all the bits currently relate, or how they will relate in the future. But I think it would be cool to see this star system used powerfully to determine customized search results. If it remembers my star ratings (after I register) for search terms, and compares that with other people's stars for the same(/similar) searches, then it can pair them up to help pick nice choices for later searches. That is, I search for A, and wikia notices that among other people who have searched for A I agree with person P on lots of other searches (not A). Then wikia looks at P's stars for the search on A, and boosts those results in my search.
Anyway, that all sounds complicated to set up, so maybe I'll let other people worry about it.
I suppose, since it is a search engine, I should talk about its current results for example searches. My initial (few searches) reaction is that these results are noticeably different (somehow) from the ones I might expect from google. But I think that's a good thing. Getting more, varied, results is a positive. My initial searches were math things, since that's what I generally search for anyway ('category theory').
Finally, I do wonder about 'gaming' the system. Apparently, Jimmy Wales thinks it won't be a problem. But with the indexing algorithm out in the open, it seems like people would be able to figure out ways, and do so more easily than in hidden systems (google's algorithm). Then again, this sounds vaguely along the lines of 'security through obscurity', which I don't buy in general.
Whatever, I'm happy to wait and see how it all plays out.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Pointlessness
So over the break, at our big family get-together, relatives asked me what I did, and also my sister. "I teach calculus, and am supposed to be doing research" - that's me. "I'm working on things associated with progeria" - that's her (of course, in her conversation she didn't link to wikipedia). All paraphrased, clearly.
I just found it amusing that my sister was doing things that will have an actual, significant, impact on other people's lives. She could, for all I know, be saving lives. Me? I'm making students miserable talking to them about things they don't mostly care about, and then grading them on it. And my research? Like lots of mathematics, the things I'm looking at are completely non-applicable to the real world.
Which reminds me - why do I get paid again? I don't remember the last math paper I read, for my own work, with real-world applications. How many mathematicians removed am I from the real world? How many theorems away - that is, what is the theorem 'nearest' the things I am looking at that is still applicable to some real-world setting? Even just the nearest general theory? I guess knot theory is the closest, though I've heard rumors that category theory has computer science applications. I've not seen anything serious, but I can't say I've spent a whole lot of time looking. But anyway, I don't anticipate any of my work to be close to any of this, and I don't expect any of the ideas to trickle down somewhere useful, even for decades upon decades (and with the coming singularity, or weather issues, how many decades do we have left?). Oh, so I guess I must get paid for teaching (and the research somehow makes me a better teacher?). But these kids are bright enough, they could be reading it from the book. Even if they don't think they could. And anyway, I'll be quite suprised if more than 1 or 2 use anything I teach outside of other classes.
Anyway, off to bed. Gotta get up and teach in the morning :)
I just found it amusing that my sister was doing things that will have an actual, significant, impact on other people's lives. She could, for all I know, be saving lives. Me? I'm making students miserable talking to them about things they don't mostly care about, and then grading them on it. And my research? Like lots of mathematics, the things I'm looking at are completely non-applicable to the real world.
Which reminds me - why do I get paid again? I don't remember the last math paper I read, for my own work, with real-world applications. How many mathematicians removed am I from the real world? How many theorems away - that is, what is the theorem 'nearest' the things I am looking at that is still applicable to some real-world setting? Even just the nearest general theory? I guess knot theory is the closest, though I've heard rumors that category theory has computer science applications. I've not seen anything serious, but I can't say I've spent a whole lot of time looking. But anyway, I don't anticipate any of my work to be close to any of this, and I don't expect any of the ideas to trickle down somewhere useful, even for decades upon decades (and with the coming singularity, or weather issues, how many decades do we have left?). Oh, so I guess I must get paid for teaching (and the research somehow makes me a better teacher?). But these kids are bright enough, they could be reading it from the book. Even if they don't think they could. And anyway, I'll be quite suprised if more than 1 or 2 use anything I teach outside of other classes.
Anyway, off to bed. Gotta get up and teach in the morning :)
Thursday, January 3, 2008
Netflix News!
Big news today about Netflix teaming up with LG to make a set-top box that will play their 'Watch Now' library. Nobody has a whole lot of information on this for now, but have some links: [1], [2], [3].
I've been a Netflix fan for about 3.5 years now (my grad school career, as it were, including a pointless year of about 370 movies (not all from Netflix)) and recommend it to any friends or family that talk about movies. I have at times been up to the 5-at-a-time option, but have since slacked off a bit, down to 1-at-a-time. I still aim to watch and return movies the day I get them. When they started their 'Watch Now' thing I was optimistic, but this was quickly shot down when I realized it only worked under Windows. As a Linux-only user (at home), I was disappointed, but not particularly suprised.
This optimism is cautiously renewed with this news for their set-top box(es). As usual, January will be a fun month for tech people, with the CES and Macworld shows (and I feel like I'm forgetting at least one more). I guess LG is expected to do something about this box at CES. But we can't forget Apple TV (actually, given how many people I know that have ever talked about it = 0, maybe we can), which may also get new news soon. [Competely off topic, but Google also apparently has 2 booth at CES. Go Android!]
Now, as a fan and movie watcher, I can actually give my own opinions related to this news. I'm glad to see it happen, and I hope it is a success (in some sense, see final paragraph). It sounds like this LG box is the first of hopefully several different hardware options, so I expect at some point one might come along that fits me. Now if LG decides to include this Netflix thing in their $800 box (as mentioned at engadget), count me out. I've already got a dvd player, and am avoiding the HD/Blu-Ray argument - hoping for the next format to come along quickly (I seem to recall reading an article along the lines of this being the last hardware format war, but haven't yet found a link). So all I'm looking for in a Netflix box would be something that'll hook up easily to both my tv and router, and will play the 'Watch Now' titles. The above articles mention that the movies you want to watch will have to be selected from a computer. I'm not entirely sure what that setup entails, but I wonder why its necessary - why the box can't handle that itself.
In brief, here's what I'd be after in a Netflix set-top box:
I've been a Netflix fan for about 3.5 years now (my grad school career, as it were, including a pointless year of about 370 movies (not all from Netflix)) and recommend it to any friends or family that talk about movies. I have at times been up to the 5-at-a-time option, but have since slacked off a bit, down to 1-at-a-time. I still aim to watch and return movies the day I get them. When they started their 'Watch Now' thing I was optimistic, but this was quickly shot down when I realized it only worked under Windows. As a Linux-only user (at home), I was disappointed, but not particularly suprised.
This optimism is cautiously renewed with this news for their set-top box(es). As usual, January will be a fun month for tech people, with the CES and Macworld shows (and I feel like I'm forgetting at least one more). I guess LG is expected to do something about this box at CES. But we can't forget Apple TV (actually, given how many people I know that have ever talked about it = 0, maybe we can), which may also get new news soon. [Competely off topic, but Google also apparently has 2 booth at CES. Go Android!]
Now, as a fan and movie watcher, I can actually give my own opinions related to this news. I'm glad to see it happen, and I hope it is a success (in some sense, see final paragraph). It sounds like this LG box is the first of hopefully several different hardware options, so I expect at some point one might come along that fits me. Now if LG decides to include this Netflix thing in their $800 box (as mentioned at engadget), count me out. I've already got a dvd player, and am avoiding the HD/Blu-Ray argument - hoping for the next format to come along quickly (I seem to recall reading an article along the lines of this being the last hardware format war, but haven't yet found a link). So all I'm looking for in a Netflix box would be something that'll hook up easily to both my tv and router, and will play the 'Watch Now' titles. The above articles mention that the movies you want to watch will have to be selected from a computer. I'm not entirely sure what that setup entails, but I wonder why its necessary - why the box can't handle that itself.
In brief, here's what I'd be after in a Netflix set-top box:
- Easy to install. Plug in the wires, set up accounts, and go. It should, probably, permit multiple accounts, like if roommates have seperate netflix plans, but I don't see this as a big issue. If it does have multiple accounts, they should clearly be password protected, and whenever you pick a movie (or maybe whenever you turn the thing on?) you are presented with an easy way to choose which account to use.
- Cheap. I don't care if the box doesn't have any optical drive (leaving one out and getting a nice, smaller, form-factor is appealing. I'm thinking cable-modem size/shape). I don't care if it only has enough internal storage to do whatever buffering it needs. Simple means cheap, and simple fits my bill.
- Linux based. This is the big one for me, and the one I worry about. The form factor doesn't matter too much, and I expect little trouble making the box easy to use (everything is these days). But if the box is some Windows-based box, I'm out, no question. I'd rather wait, and just do mail rentals. Even if I could do unlimited watch nows without changing my monthly plan (I mean, I should be doing work anyway).
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
PSTricks
I got "The Latex Graphics Companion" from the library the other day. While I don't generally use much in the way of graphics (besides xymatrix for commutative diagrams), I thought it'd be fun to look through. I'm sure its full of thousands of gems, but the one I want to keep a record of is text following a curve. This is from page 109:
\usepackage{pstcol,pst-text}
\begin{pspicture}(-4,-3.2)(3,0.2)
\psset{linecolor=lightgray}
\pstextpath
{\pscurve(-4,-2)(-2,0)(0,-3)(2,-1)(3,-2)}
{\color{blue}
If you want to type
$3 \int^x_y = \sum^{n=1}_{33}$
and let it follow along a
curving line \ldots}
\end{pspicture}
Someday I'll sit down and get more awesomeness out of the book. But for now, I should return it and let somebody else enjoy it.
\usepackage{pstcol,pst-text}
\begin{pspicture}(-4,-3.2)(3,0.2)
\psset{linecolor=lightgray}
\pstextpath
{\pscurve(-4,-2)(-2,0)(0,-3)(2,-1)(3,-2)}
{\color{blue}
If you want to type
$3 \int^x_y = \sum^{n=1}_{33}$
and let it follow along a
curving line \ldots}
\end{pspicture}
Someday I'll sit down and get more awesomeness out of the book. But for now, I should return it and let somebody else enjoy it.
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