Short Fuse

Phone envy

I'm one of the 9 million people who are waiting for November 24 and phone number portability, according to this article. (Via Gizmodo.) I want to switch because I need a video-capturing phone for research, and my current provider, Verizon, doesn't offer a good video-ready phone. My next phone will be either a Nokia 3660 or a Sony Ericsson P900.

The article describes how Verizon is taking a positive stance on number portability. I'm actually happy with Verizon's coverage and service, and I would stay with it if only the company offered a better selection of phones. I've even thought about keeping my LG VX4400 and just getting another phone for video. But I'd feel pretty silly carrying around two phones. Alternately I could get a non-phone portable device that would similarly let me shoot and email video, but the options are likely to be pricier and bulkier than a phone.

First love

Atari 800, my first computer. So many memories.

From Computissimo via Muxway.

Note to Qazi, wherever you are today: it's still better than your Commodore 64. So there.

ACG in time

ACG retrospective (QuickTime)

Justin has edited a nice retrospective video of numerous works by ACG. Have patience - it's big.

HyperCard memories

Wired reports that I'm not alone in missing HyperCard, that classic Apple tool which made it so easy to create interface prototypes and applications. I started using it in college, after seeing the stacks written by diehard fans like David "I can do that in HyperCard" Kung. My so-called career in Silicon Valley began with work on a "HyperCard on steroids" called Oracle Media Objects (RIP).

It's too bad Apple is no longer devoting resources to HyperCard. Around '96 or '97, I attended a developer workshop at Apple's Cupertino campus, where they presented the idea of programmable QuickTime. You would be able to use languages like HyperTalk or even possibly Java to program behavior for QuickTime objects such as buttons and bitmaps. HyperCard was going to be Apple's authoring tool for such reactive QuickTime movies. You would write and compile HyperCard stacks into QuickTime movies, and QuickTime would serve as a virtual machine for HyperCard applications, on the desktop or the web. While nothing so grand came to life, it's interesting to think HyperCard + QuickTime could have been in contention with Director + Shockwave or Java in the space of online applets.

Proce55ing alpha

Proce55ing has gone alpha, courtesy of Ben and Casey.

Proce55ing is an environment for creating interactive media. It is a sketchbook for developing ideas and a context for learning fundamentals of computer programming within the context of the electronic arts.

The strength of Proce55ing as a tool for learning and sketching lies in its simplicity, generality, and extensibility. Its simplicity makes it easy to use -- making it possible to create basic interaction within a short time period. Its generality makes it an ideal tool for conveying many concepts: vector and raster drawing, procedural and object oriented programming, image processing, parameterized form, interaction with standard input devices and custom hardware devices, 2D and 3D graphics. It is extensible in the sense that it may be used at multiple levels of difficulty and the basic software library may be expanded in time as people develop and share their programs.

The site provides showcase software - versions of Ben's Valence and Casey's Tissue - plus a set of minimalist examples.

I used Proce55ing last year for a class in computational media design, and found it simple and powerful. I'm thinking of using it instead of Java for making design sketches from now on.

iDJ

DJing with iPods. Reported in Wired earlier, it's been picked up by CNN. More people are taking up the more democratic notion of a DJ, defined as anyone who wants to share a good music collection in a public setting. He or she doesn't have to know how to mix properly, but simply selects and sequences a set of songs in a creative and entertaining way.

In the mid-'90s, James Lavelle of Mo'Wax was half-mocked / half-lauded in the British music press for being just this type of DJ. He couldn't mix to save his life, but he had a record bag crammed with obscure killer tunes. MP3 players and file sharing makes it possible to reach that level more easily.

China OS

China is planning to build its own Microsoft-compatible OS. It'll be based on Linux but will run Windows apps.

On one hand, reverse-engineering an entire operating system is not easy. Emulation can get you only so far if you don't have access to the underlying code. Also, as the article points out, Microsoft's legal department and the US government will have a field day with an unauthorized clone of Windows.

On the other hand, China would make for a formidable foe against Microsoft. There seems to be a tremendous amount of ambition among many mainlanders I've met about the future dominance of their country in the international arena. What if the Chinese government were to get behind this project, flouting international law in an effort to produce an OS they can claim as the best in the world? If they were smart, they would allow the OS to be freely pirated, spreading from the Asian market and outwards. A nation with a history of human-rights issues would become a vanguard in open-source computing, albeit with ulterior motives of global domination.

Fat chance, I know.