Random Flux

There has been quite a lot of discussion lately about whether we might be living in a computer simulation. The current discussion is being fueled by a serious paper by Nick Bostrom and it is also being discussed in many blogs.

In terms of quantum mechanics the question as to whether our reality is a simulation or not is actually quite moot. To begin with, it is now as certain as science can be that matter as we subjectively perceive it does not exist — the huge majority of what we experience as matter is actually empty space and the rest is tiny areas of energy events popping in and out of “existence” (at least from our point of view) like whack-a-rats jumping in and out of their holes. Most people still miss this because physicists continue to use the comforting and misleading word “particles” for something that is actually about as particulate as an advertising popup on a website.

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It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict how new or updated programs will run on users’ computers. Third-party software, particularly security software, is making profound changes to the operating system, creating a constantly-changing digital environment. As a result, manufacturer accountability and due diligence are much less meaningful concepts than they used to be.

Releasing new software updates is a scary process nowadays. Even if you’ve tested everything on all the hardware, operating system and software configurations you can think of, you just know what’s going to happen: Within an hour of the release, six users on hotmail and gmail accounts with names like kilroywzhr779 are going to write you urgent and angry messages saying that your program, Windows or both are doing something radically weird. File output is taking two hours, bizarre error messages are jumping off the screen like popcorn, the program and/or Windows are crashing, and so on.

Looking at the messages, your initial response is always to think you’re in the wrong movie. You tested it, just know that there’s no way your program could be doing this…
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Paul Potts is a Welsh cellphone salesman who has always dreamed of being an opera singer. Apart from a few private lessons and amateur appearances he had never performed publicly before appearing on a TV talent show in England. Judge for yourself — this man is a living miracle. I’ve not heard anything like this since Callas…

Clip no. 1

Clip no. 2

The iPhone’s version of Safari will probably not support Flash. Pundits trying to explain this are coming up with many complex conspiracy theories, but the real reason is probably much simpler: Battery Life. Flash is a processor-intensive technology (just watch the processor load on your computer jump when you open a Flash site!) and supporting Flash could significantly cut battery life if users spend a lot of time viewing Flash sites and Flash videos. After all their travails with iPod batteries, reports about short battery life on the iPhone are definitely not something Apple wants in the first months after the launch.

There’s a lot of speculation going on regarding why Apple has introduced Safari for Windows — for example to get more Google ad revenue, as a platform for Windows developers who want to build iPhone apps and so on. One interesting point is that WinSafari doesn’t appear to be using normal Windows technology; in many ways it looks, feels and behaves like an OS X program, much more so than iTunes for Windows. If it’s built with a new class library created by Apple specifically to emulate the Apple look and feel on Windows this could have some interesting ramifications.

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Think Apple is innovative? Think the iPhone is the most revolutionary personal digital device on the planet, and it comes from Microsoft! Have a look at the first promotional video from Microsoft, just released. (Apparently Microsoft made this terrific spoof themselves. If that’s true then more power to them!)

Just like all the Linux machines I’ve seen, the user interface of Apple OS X on the Mac Pro feels subjectively sluggish and unresponsive compared to just about any Windows machine I have access to, even my old Athlon XP 2800+ — despite the fact that I have 3GB of memory and 2 Xeon processors with 4 cores running at 2.6GHz. Now, I’m no expert in this sphere but my suspicion is that this may be an inherent problem in the connection between the kernel and the graphical windowing system on all *nix systems. Could it be that the Windows Registry is actually a better solution?

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A judge in England has just awarded £350,000 in damages for the loss of a work of art that was mistaken for garbage and disposed of. Sounds to me like another example of a court missing a great opportunity to set a precedent. Things like this have happened before and my take on it is that the cleaning staff and building workers responsible for the “mistakes” were simply looking at the artists’ “work” with eyes unclouded by pseudo-intellectual hogwash.

If the judge had any sense he would rule that if art can be mistaken for rubbish then it probably is. The fact that the piece was disposed of as a matter of course with all the rest of the day’s detritus should be taken as proof that it was neither art nor valuable.

It turns out that the slowness problem on my Mac Pro was caused by following Apple’s automatic instructions and using the Migration Assistant program to transfer my data to the Mac Pro from my old Power PC G4 Power Mac.

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