Andy Rubin Interview

Here's a ZDnet interview with Andy Rubin. The answers tend to be short and press-release-like, but it does cover much of the Android announcement at that level.

More Android!

As promised, the Android SDK has been announced. Check out the site and watch the videos there.

Now you can write the next, great app for our phones!

Three Basses! (School Days)

Wow! Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten.

UNIX Dictionary

Alas, /usr/dict/words is no longer generally available on UNIX (or at least Linux) systems! However, I found this copy on-line FWIW.

/usr/dict/words

Electric Arc Videos

Here are some cool electric arc videos. The second in this first series is one of my favorites. When an actual arc forms, it's a column of plasma. Since plasma is (very) hot gas it generally rises which eventually breaks the column, i.e., the arc.

Arc Videos

This is what started me on the path of arc videos. Someone sent a video of these tesla coils playing the Super Mario theme music. This isn't the one I saw but these are the same coils, I think.

Super Mario Tesla Coils

I Saw Comet 17P/Holmes!

So tonight I got out of the car and was looking at the stars. It was pretty clear. As I was gazing at Perseus I remembered that the comet, 17P/Holmes, which has recently become significantly bright, was maybe in that area.

There it was!

I went inside and got the 7x50 binoculars which still conveniently had their tripod mount, so I grabbed the camera tripod, too.

The comet is quite bright and quite round. It's the nicest comet I've seen in quite a while! Go out and take a look if you haven't seen it.

(Surprise! Wikipedia has the best coverage of the comet that I've found so far. They have exceeded Sky and Telescope. I don't know why S&T doesn't have their traditional finder chart and published ephemerides. Ah well. S&T does have an interactive sky chart but now you haves to register to use it.)

Wikipedia
Spaceweather (Amazing!) also this main page.
Ephemeris from Harvard CFA
A Blog

Denver

Android: The Phone

TA DA!

These sources are pretty much reliable.

• Open Handset Alliance
• Google Blog

Here are interesting reporting and various opionions. They may or may not be on target.

• New York Times
• Slashdot
• PC World

Massive Pile Up on CA Highway

There was a massive accident pile-up on a California Highway reported via AP and Breitbart…

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) - More than 100 cars and trucks crashed on a fog-shrouded freeway Saturday, killing at least two people and injuring dozens more, the California Highway Patrol said.

Also, witnesses said…

“There was probably 2-foot visibility in the fog when I got here. It was really bad,” said Mike Bowman, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “It looked like chaos. Cars were backed up on top of each other.”

Okay, here's the punchline near the end of the story. Ready?

The freeway's northbound lanes were shut down indefinitely as investigators worked to determine the cause of the crash. Traffic backed up for miles south of the wreckage.

HD Parm Command

Someone at work forwarded this useful hdparm command.

hdparm -aAcCgiIMmn 

Python: Copy a Tuple to a List

Okay, here's how to copy a tuple to a a list, i.e., to an array.

>>> [x, y, z] = t
>>> a = []
>>> a[:] = t
>>> a
[1, 2, 3]

ONLamp.com -- An Introduction to Erlang

One of my colleagues at work did a tech talk on Erlang recently which is an interesting language. Here's a nice introduction at On Lamp.

ONLamp.com -- An Introduction to Erlang

Extreme Programming (XP) Wiki

There is a nice set of wiki pages on Extreme Programming at the original Ward Cunningham Wiki at c2.com.

The normal, extremely well done!, Extreme Programming home is here.

Cool Pumpkin Carvings

Here's a site with some very cool pumpkin carvings!

Happy Halloween!

Field Trip to WAGA

Also here's a cool set of pictures from a field trip to WAGA Channel 5.

Bank America Tower in Atlanta

Here's a page with nice pictures of and from the top of the Bank America tower! Apparently the Atlanta Radio Club has some equipment up there.

Object Relational Mapping, NeXT and Apple

This article in Wikipedia, Object-relational mapping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, makes interesting references to the history of NeXT objectoriented programming, Web Objects, and Apple.

It says NeXT's Enterprise Objects Framework “provides the technology behind the company's e-commerce Web site, the .Mac services and the iTunes Music Store. Apple provides EOF in two implementations: the Objective-C implementation that comes with the Apple Developers Tools and the Pure Java implementation that comes in WebObjects 5.2. Inspired by EOF is the open source Apache Cayenne. Cayenne has similar goals to EOF and aims to meet the JPA standard.”

Python Properties

Okay, Python does provide a mechanism for get- and set- methods for an instance variable: The property() function. You can find it documented in the Library Reference. Granted, I haven't really used this yet, but it exists.

There are two approaches. These examples are copied directly from the above Library Reference by Guido van Rossum, edited by Fred L. Drake, Jr.

class C(object):
  def __init__(self): self.__x = None
  def getx(self): return self._x
  def setx(self, value): self._x = value
  def delx(self): del self._x
  x = property(getx, setx, delx, "I'm the 'x' property.")

Then, there is the so-called decorator, which is quite convenient.

class Parrot(object):
  def __init__(self):
      self._voltage = 100000

  @property
  def voltage(self):
      """Get the current voltage."""
      return self._voltage

I believe that this functionality doesn't work for “classic” classes. That means you have to declare your class as a subclass of object, as shown above.

There's also a mechanism for creating a property class for implementing get and set methods for a variable, but I'll have to go back and look it up.

Part of the problem is that the property() function is buried in the Reference Library but isn't part of the Tutorial under the object discussion.

Okay, there's a pretty decent discussion in the Release Notes for Python 2.2.3. It even covers the subclassing of property to make the get and set functionality work for class attributes.

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon is released today.

Here are some links.

• Linux Journal - James Gray's blog
• Pictures at CNet

Here's a list of some of the features for Ubuntu Server.

• More Ubuntu focus on the server platform
• AppArmor
• Tickless idle mode
• Easier mass deployment
• Landscape system management

For the desktop:

• Better printer support
• Streamlined integration of Firefox extensions
• Compiz 3-D included!
• Write to NTFS!

The image is from Cnet news.com.

Refracting Light the Wrong Way

Wow! Layered material that refracts light the wrong way is featured in this National Science Foundation press release.

Selectricity Voting

Selectricity is an interesting voting site that lets you set up elections and allow voting via email, cell phone, etc.