WINDING DOWN
An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week's net and technology news
by Alan Lenton
This is the last issue of 2007. The next one will hit your mailbox with a dull thud on the 6th of January 2008. Since it's nearly Xmas, there was a predictable (in hindsight) lack of inspiring news this week, especially as I'd decided I only wanted nice things for this issue.
In the event I only found a few nice and non-tacky items. Most others were in serious competition with my Homer Simpson talking bottle opener for kitsch of the year award.
Over the years quite a few people have asked me for advice about programming, writing computer games, and, surprisingly enough, writing good prose. There is material about becoming a programmer on my web site. It's getting a bit long in the tooth - I need to update it, but it's still mostly valid. As far as prose writing goes, I realised that I only had material I had e-mailed to people. So, to end the year I've polished up my advice and included it as the final piece of the year. Hopefully, someone will find it useful :)
In the meantime, have a great time over the holidays and a prosperous new year - may the spam not be with you.
Shorts:
The Popular Science web site has an interesting article on how scramjets are moving out of the realms of research and into practical testing. Scramjets are similar in concept to ramjets, but can fly a lot faster - between mach 6 and mach 15 (that's 10,000 mph), as opposed to a 'mere' mach 5. Actually ramjets can go above mach 5, but they have an unfortunate tendency to melt if you try it!
Scramjet programs go back to 1986 when Ronald Regan announced the National Aerospace Plane (NASP). That was supposed to have a functioning NASP in service by the late 1990s, but the program was cancelled by President Clinton in 1994 after it had stalled with technical problems.
Now, however, solutions to the problems involved in designing working scramjets are starting to come together, and new materials are available which can handle the pressures and temperatures involved. We won't see commercial scramjet aircraft this decade, but when they do appear, you can look out for two hour flights from New York to Sydney.
Hot stuff, to say the least!
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationspace/
a3bfe2e6fb5c6110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
Good news on the MP3 music streaming front. The music based social networking site imeem (Pretty icky name, but what else do you expect from a social networking site!) has now signed deals with all the Big Four music labels.
This means that imeem has access to as many as 5 million tunes (as opposed to iTunes 6 million), and you can listen to them all for free via streaming - provided someone has uploaded them first. It's an interesting way of checking out material before you decide whether to buy, and the site provides links to iTunes and Amazon, in case you do so decide.
I don't particularly go for social networking sites, myself - the nearest I come to such a site is LinkedIn - but I think this sort of deal, which is becoming increasingly common, indicates that big media is finally starting to understanding that letting people listen to music for free results in increased sales.
Makes you wonder how much longer the big four will allow the RIAA to continue with their current crass campaign against college students!
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071210-imeem-now-offers-streaming-tracks-
from-all-big-four-labels.html
There's an interesting piece at desktoplinux.com about Linux taking over the low end PC market. Of course desktoplinux.com is biased (as am I), but this time I think they may have a point. The suggestion is that a number of things have come together to make Linux very attractive at the low end of the market. It's now possible to produce pretty nice low end PCs capable of running Linux for around US$400-500, and these machines are more than capable of running one of the desktop Linux's, like Ubuntu.
Unfortunately, or not, depending on your point of view, they either can't run Windows, or, if they can, the cost of providing the same facilities as the Linux machines far exceeds the cost of the machines, increasing the price by a factor of two or three.
Just how successful these machines are was brought home to me recently because I've been unable to buy an ASUS Eee PC for myself for Xmas. They're sold out and ASUS can't produce them fast enough. Significantly, at US$400 or less, I could take that sort of decision just because I wanted one - it's not so much that I have to justify the purchase, or figure out where the money is going to come from.
And what's the obvious thing when lots of people have these ultra cheap PCs running Linux? Linux will stop being something exotic because ordinary, non-geeky people will get used to using Linux. In addition, it will start to be natural for small business to use cheap Linux machines, and so on up the chain...
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS2414535067.html
Homework: 'Ow too rite reel stugh
I do quite a lot of reading and writing - both technical material at work, and for Winding down, of course. Strangely enough, and contrary to popular myth, the quality of your writing does make a difference to your ability to persuade people that you know what you are writing about.
There are a number of basic things that can help you to write good prose, regardless of the 'style' of your writing.
0. Understand your subject thoroughly. Making silk purses out of sows' ears is strictly for non-muggles, and very annoying for the sows.
1. Do the initial draft in an ordinary editor - I use my programmer's editor. That way you don't have to wrestle with the likes of Word doing things you don't want while you are getting stuff out of your brain and on to paper.
Nothing disrupts the flow of your thoughts like an animated paperclip giving you inane suggestions. Writing is hard work, and your brain will seize any opportunity to do something else.
2. The draft you just wrote is a brain dump. The biggest problem is that people don't realise that, and therefore don't take steps to make it understandable to other people.
3. Do a preliminary pass with a spell checker - don't under any circumstances use a grammar checker, unless you are entering a competition to see who can produce the most turgid prose!
4. Print it out. Take a ruler - preferably an opaque one - and use it to read each line, one line at a time. Doing this will make it possible to spot the jumps and holes where your brain thought faster than your fingers moved. Mark the text as you read through, and at the end transfer the corrections you marked back into the computer copy.
5. Print out another copy of the revised text. Take the copy and read it for clarity. The biggest single problem is usually overly long sentences, and paragraphs, together with missing punctuation.
Also are there any bits where you've gone into a digression from the main thrust of the argument? (I'm particularly prone to doing this.) If so, be ruthless and prune it.
Is it in a logical order? Would it be better if you swapped some of it around? The fact that you can do this is one of the most wonderful things about computerized editors!
6. OK, so you now have something that makes sense to you. Next get someone else to read it through to see if they understand it. A member of the intended audience would be best, but failing that, grab someone whose documents you find easy to understand. Take their comments on board, but don't let them impose their own style on you, and revise the document again.
If there isn't anyone else available, try reading it aloud. Nearly dying of asphyxiation through a lack of full-stops can seriously enhance your understanding of the use of punctuation...
7. Run it through the spelling checker again.
8. Read it again to make sure that the alterations you made didn't screw anything else up. (This is the writers' version of regression testing.)
9. Locate the office pedant and ask them to read it over for spelling, punctuation and bad grammar. You may need to buy them a pint, but it's well worth it - just make sure they don't have the drink till after they've read the document! (You can probably ignore any whingeing about split infinitives :)
10. OK, we now have the makings of a good document. The next step is to copy and paste the document into the appropriate template for your company's documents, or put it into the format in which it is going to be published. Make sure you keep the text copy in case Word screws things up the first time you try it!
Ta-Da! Your masterpiece (or mistresspiece) is ready for distribution...
Scanner: Other Stories
Judge: Man can't be forced to divulge encryption passphrase
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html
Reflecting on the 20th Anniversary of NSFnet
http://www.news.com/The-team-that-put-the-Net-in-orbit/
2100-1033_3-6222074.html?tag=nefd.top
Acknowledgements
Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material used in this issue. Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voratious Spamato spam filter...
Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
16 December 2007
Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist. His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.
Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html
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