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Why History Needs Software Piracy

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Cory Doctorow has a good introduction to a very good article that describes the importance of software piracy for data preservation purposes.

A PC World editorial by Benj Edwards recounts the history of “copy protection*” for software, and discusses how the cracks-scene, which busted open these software locks, is the only reason the legacy of old software is available today. There’s a trite story about the persistence of paper and the ephemerality of bits, which goes something like this: “We can still read ancient manuscripts, but we can’t read Letraset Ready, Set, Go! files from the 1980s.”

Software piracy is vital to preservation – Boing Boing.

Software pirates promote data survival through ubiquity and media independence. Like an ant that works as part of a larger system it doesn’t understand, the selfish action of each digital pirate, when taken in aggregate, has created a vast web of redundant data that ensures many digital works will live on.

Or skip to the article directly PCWorld – Why History Needs Software Piracy

Group of 147 tight-knit companies controls 40% of the world’s total wealth

links, this can't end well

This is somewhat scary.

The work, to be published in PloS One, revealed a core of 1318 companies with interlocking ownerships (see image). Each of the 1318 had ties to two or more other companies, and on average they were connected to 20. What’s more, although they represented 20 per cent of global operating revenues, the 1318 appeared to collectively own through their shares the majority of the world’s large blue chip and manufacturing firms – the “real” economy – representing a further 60 per cent of global revenues.

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions. The top 20 included Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co, and The Goldman Sachs Group.

Read the whole story on: the capitalist network that runs the world –  New Scientist.

Lytro Launches its Amazing Focus-Free Camera for $399

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Lytro camera

I can’t wait to put my hands on one of these, despite the limitations, this is quite a revolution in the world of photography! I wonder what Nikon, Canon, etc. are thinking, while Lytro’s investors are probably wetting themselves at the mere thought of all the licensing opportunities ahead of them.

I’d love to see Lytro’s technology applied to some SLR with a choice of lenses, which would be devoid of focusing elements. This could lead to seriously awesome lenses, a lot smaller in size and much better optical quality and wider apertures. The possibilities are endless.

Remember Lytro, the camera that could care less about focus? The one that captures all the information in its light field, so you can play with the focus after the fact?

Well, it’s no longer just a nice idea. Lytro (the company) just started taking pre-orders for Lytro (the camera) on its website. You won’t be able to get one until early 2012, but you can order one now for $399 (and $499 for a more advanced version).

via Mashable: Lytro Launches: Amazing Focus-Free Camera Will Cost $399.

Lytro’s site

Billion Tonne Comet May Have Missed Earth By A Few Hundred Kilometres in 1883 [updated]

links, science, this can't end well

If the data is correct, we got very, very close (between 600 and 8000km) to a mass extinction event just over a hundred years ago.

On 12th and 13th August 1883, an astronomer at a small observatory in Zacatecas in Mexico made an extraordinary observation. José Bonilla counted some 450 objects, each surrounded by a kind of mist, passing across the face of the Sun.

…

Each fragment was at least as big as the one thought to have hit Tunguska. Manterola and co end with this: “So if they had collided with Earth we would have had 3275 Tunguska events in two days, probably an extinction event.”

A sobering thought

via Billion Tonne Comet May Have Missed Earth By A Few Hundred Kilometres in 1883  – Technology Review.

[UPDATE]

Phil Plait, the badass astronomer behind the awesome Bad Astronomy blog has an insightful analysis here: Did a fragmenting comet nearly hit the Earth in 1883? Color me very skeptical

Mind you, Bonilla claimed to have seen these objects over the course of two days. That means they would’ve been stretched out along a path that was a million km long at least, yet so narrow that only one observatory on Earth saw them transit the Sun. That is highly unlikely.

Definitely worth reading and Phil Plait is doing a fantastic job to express something as complex as astronomy and physics in terms a math dropout like me can understand.

How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus

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Finally a clean solution (read: no browser extension) to easily share RSS stories from Google Reader to Google+.

In short, create a custom link in Reader’s preferences with the following parameters:

Name: Google+
URL: https://plusone.google.com/_/+1/confirm?hl=en&url=${url}
Icon URL: https://ssl.gstatic.com/s2/oz/images/favicon.ico

ReadWriteWeb’s article has a nice howto with all the screenshot you need: How To Share Google Reader Stories to Google Plus.

Link: How the iPhone changed my photography

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Article: How the iPhone changed my photography: Digital Photography Review.

Dpreview’s Barnaby Britton takes look back at how the iPhone has transformed his photography. And, with the iPhone now the most popular camera on photo-sharing site Flickr, and a multitude of photography apps available, how the device has transformed cellphone photography as a whole.

Interesting read, especially since I find myself shooting mostly with my iPhone and processing on the fly for immediate publishing online. You can’t beat the convenience of having your camera with you at all times.

I mostly use Camera+ and Fotoforge2 as my processing apps on my trusty old iPhone 3GS. I wish it had a better camera (à la iPhone 4/4S) but it’s still pretty decent despite its limitations.