Listening to: Afloat - Evermore

Sticking with this evenings theme (”frameworks of the thought”) William Gibson posts an interesting description of how the current war is a bloody example of a clash of paradigms as per Kuhn’s The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions:

The bad news is that the policy-makers of the United States and Israel apparently (still) don’t get the new paradigm, and the bad news is that Hezbollah (et al, and by their very nature) do. Though that’s only bad (or double-plus-ungood) if you accept, as I do, that the new paradigm allows for a more effective understanding of reality. So if you still like to pause to appreciate the action of phlogiston when you strike a match, you may well be okay with current events. So many, God help us, evidently are.

Listening to: Unbreakable - Evermore

When I was seventeen my Religious Education teacher turned to the class and told us all that we lived in a ghetto. I found this to be an odd thing to say to a bunch of middle class, Catholic (the relevant bit) New Zealanders. The reason I found it odd was, I’m ashamed to say, because I was just plain ignorant - for me ghettos were a defining feature of Inner City USA… not Palmerston North. My teacher explained himself and pointed out that most of the people we knew were Catholic and most of the things we did were Catholic. That intellectual homogeneity shaped the way we looked at the world. This was important for us to know because the next year we were going to leave school and our ghetto and we were going to have to deal with the wider world. He made it his job to prepare us.

Being told that I lived in a bubble was the most profound educational experience I’ve ever had. This insight it left a permanent mark on how I monitor the way I think about things and, importantly, how I cross check the way I think about things. I have ghetto detector and every now and again it goes off.

A few years ago I was really concerned that I was stuck in an intellectual rut. It was comfortable and at the time it wasn’t causing too many problems - but it worried me, the way I saw the world felt static. Given that I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the world through a computer it seemed logical that I could gain a different view by using a different lens. So even though I was a Microsoft developer I invested in a Mac - not because I wanted to develop Mac software but because I wanted to look at the world in different way. It turns out that it worked. I look at software in a different way. I have new expectations about products. Most importantly I look at problems in a slightly different manner - and when your life is solving problems that helps.

This morning I was having a conversation with some friends, all of whom are big Windows fans, and I was taken aback. One of them had recently purchased a new Apple machine and wasn’t enjoying the move across to the new platform. This lead, inevitably, to a free for all about XP vs Mac OSX. The the content of the commentary really struck me, and after an hour of yoga it set off my ghetto alarm (not too sharp this morning). The balkanization that is a characteristic of the software industry traps people (very, very smart people) in these little intellectual ghettos. It amuses me, perversely, that this is contrary to the image of technology - that some how it is a space in which people are continuously looking to explore new frontiers. It seems that it’s not.

For the record - Windows on the Left, Mac OSX on the Right:

Yes, I am aware that is a picture of my very own PC ghetto.

Listening to: Notice - Gomez

I am a huge fan of simplicity in software design (to the point of having stand up arguments with people about it), but I have always had problems finding relevant real world examples of why it is so important (a very useful thing to have at hand when coaching grad developers). While not focused on software I found Garr Reynold’s recent article on simplicity a great source of inspiration. I think that one is a keeper.

Listening to: So Hard - Dixie Chicks

Salon has a great article by Anthony Bourdain (who I enjoy more as a writer vs a TV presenter) about his time in Beirut as the war began…. he captures the sadness and frustration very well.

Then, in the blink of an eye, everything went sideways: Relaxed smiles froze and disappeared. Suddenly, there was the sound of automatic weapons firing randomly in the air from a nearby neighborhood. And fireworks. Then cars — a few of them — teenage kids, women and adults, some leaning out the windows and waving Hezbollah flags and flashing the “V” for victory sign, celebrating what we were told, after a few quick cellphone calls, was the grabbing of two Israeli soldiers. Our fixer, a Sunni; Ali, a Shiite; and “Marwan,” a Christian, who’d just minutes ago been pointing proudly at the mural — all three looked down in embarrassment, a look of sorrow, shame and then resignation on their faces. Someone muttered “assholes” bitterly. They knew — right away — what was going to happen next.

Listening to: Maneater - Nelly Furtado

I went to see Superman a few weeks ago… I never really engaged with the movie (which was actually quite good). The first reason is that I like my super heros flawed - Supes is too perfect for my taste. The second reason is that I saw very strong parallels between this incarnation of Superman and Jesus. I found the allusions distracting, not in a good way or a bad way, but in the same way you find movement in your peripheral vision distracting. BBC World has a good article discussing the issue.

Listening to: Make You Feel Better - Red Hot Chili Peppers

From the trippy, mind-bending science files. German scientists are going to run a “dark matter creation” experiment:

In the DESY experiment, the laser beam would be sent through a vacuum in the presence of a magnetic field and then into a wall. The idea is that a fraction of the laser photons will transform into the new particles, which then pass through the wall because they interact so weakly with other matter. Another magnetic field located on the other side of the wall will then transform some of these new particles back into photons – apparently regenerating photons out of nothing (arXiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0606058).

src: digg

Listening to: Banquet - Junior Sanchez Mix - Bloc Party

From Reuters:

The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all “secret detention” facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.

In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.’s main political rights’ convention, the committee said it had “credible and uncontested” information that the United States had detained people “secretly and in secret places for months and years.”

Listening to: Promiscuous (The Josh Desi Remix) - Nelly Furtado featuring Timbaland

From a speech by Senator Chuck Hagel to the Brookings Institute:

America’s approach to the Middle East must be consistent and sustained, and must understand the history, interests and perspectives of our regional friends and allies.

The United States will remain committed to defending Israel. Our relationship with Israel is a special and historic one. But, it need not and cannot be at the expense of our Arab and Muslim relationships. That is an irresponsible and dangerous false choice. Achieving a lasting resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is as much in Israel’s interest as any other country in the world.

Unending war will continually drain Israel of its human capital, resources, and energy as it fights for its survival. The United States and Israel must understand that it is not in their long-term interests to allow themselves to become isolated in the Middle East and the world. Neither can allow themselves to drift into an “us against the world” global optic or zero-sum game. That would marginalize America’s global leadership, trust and influence, further isolate Israel, and prove to be disastrous for both countries as well as the region.

It is in Israel’s interest, as much as ours, that the United States be seen by all states in the Middle East as fair. This is the currency of trust.

Listening to: Miracle Sun - Don McGlashan

IronPython has reached RC1 and is available for download.

src: OSNews

Listening to: Sheila (Radio Edit) - Jamie T

Gizmodo has a story about the a solar powered light source from Sharp, the Lumiwall. I don’t think it’s super new - though I can’t seem to find too much info over at the Sharp site. Still! An interesting and exciting application of a bunch of tech. During the day it collect energy as a solar cell and at night it provides light via an array of LEDs.