would a warning system have helped?

Since a tsunami has a large wave length, tsunamis act as a shallow-water wave even in deep oceanic water. Shallow-water waves move at a speed that is equal to the square root of the product of the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/s^2) and the water depth. For example, in the Pacific Ocean, where the typical water depth is about 4000 m, a tsunami travels at about 200 m/s (about 712 km/hr or 442 mi/hr) with little energy loss even for far distances, while at a water depth of 40 m, the speed is 20 m/s (about 71 km/hr or 44 mi/hr), much slower, but still very fast to run away from.

Interesting article at Wikipedia: I had learned prior to this that these waves traveled at 400 mph or so, but didn’t realize that they changed so dramatically as they reached shallow water. I have to wonder how useful a warning system would have been: I think we would have seen less loss of life in the tourist areas, but I suspect the native people would have borne the brunt of this.

It’s as bad as he says

I’m coming around to seeing Cory is right to be as indignant as he is.

Cory responds to Wired Editor on DRM:

I would be sure that every single review of a DRM device carried the following notice: WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

It’s clear that the media cartels are as bad as he claims — the whole idea of “giving away” PVRs that will erase programming you recorded, unbeknownst to you, is amazingly bold. I have been soft on Apple and iTMS for no better reason than that I like it and have been taking the admittedly wobbly middle ground that if Steve can snooker the RIAA into DRM that’s as weak as it is — ignoring the “updates” that remove features for a minute — I think it is a kind of progress.

My fear is that without the wobbly middle way, all we have is the cartels claiming “piracy” and a lot of energy being spent on lawsuits and incredibly lame DRM (shift key or magic marker, anyone?). I think stuff like iTMS has the potential of showing the cartels that there is some way to open up to digital distribution. I realize some smaller companies get it already: there are labels that refuse to even consider DRM and some bands who openly endorse P2P sharing.

I guess I’m just wobbly.

shared giving

Buy Generously:

So Belle and I are donating the humble proceeds from our Amazon Associates Account for the quarter. So far that comes to almost exactly $100. A nice round number to pony up for starters. Given that I have resolved to donate x, where x = my commisions, you might consider buying some Amazon products through my Associates account. Hint, hint.

Prof. Holbo’s idea is worth following: my associates account is empty (at least it was last I checked), but I can extend the same offer for the next quarter. Anything that gets credited to my associated account until March 31, 2005, will go to Southeast Asian tsunami relief (the Red Cross/Red Crescent). I just made the text red so you can see it better. And don’t feel compelled or even obligated to consider the displayed products: once you get to Amazon.com from here, everything Amazon shares with me goes to the relief effort.

Surely there’s something you didn’t get this holiday season that you want?

Tim Bray points out you can give directly through Amazon: do that if it moves you.

cherry picking

The New York Times > International > Americas > The Food Chain | Survival of the Biggest: Supermarket Giants Crush Central American Farmers:

Not the most accurate headline. The nut of the story is not that peasants are being crushed beneath the remorseless wheels of industry — that’s not news — but that some have found a way out through selling boutique quality vegetables and fruits into markets that insulate them from the supermarkets who drive prices down and, by their own admission, punish farmers who can’t always deliver. Somehow, I suspect farming in central America is less technologically advanced than here in el Norte. What’s also telling is that one successful co-op tried to clone itself, financing each effort, three times: each attempt failed.

too many books, not enough readers?

Let Them Eat Prose (Harpers.org):

Wanted, a reading public. This is what the publishers say is needed—that is, serious readers, those who care enough about books to buy them, own them, and really possess themselves of their contents. This is what the writers say is needed—the writers who are becoming almost more numerous than the readers. Nearly everybody writes for publication; it is impossible to provide vehicles enough for their contributions, and the reading public to sustain periodicals does not increase in proportion. Everybody agrees that this is the most intelligent, active-minded age that ever was, and in its way the most prolific and productive age. Is there a glut and overproduction in the literary world as well as in other departments? Isn’t it an odd outcome of diffused education and of cheap publications, the decline in the habit of continuous serious reading?

one piece at a time, continued

In my quest to build out the capacity to digitize a lot of old slides and negatives, I’m finding it to be a piecemeal affair.

A scanner I have, finally: I scored a Nikon Super Coolpix LS-2000, but at that price (US$89), it lacked cabling of any kind. So I am waiting for an UltraSCSI cable to show up before I even know if it works. I have a CD/DVD burner but the OS doesn’t believe in it: it’s so generic I have to use Toast (which freeware version shipped with the drive). But I have no DVD media so I can’t be sure how well it works (it will burn CDs and it was new, factory-sealed, so I’m optimistic).

I also got an 80Gb drive, since the old B&W this is all going into has a mere 12 Gb drive: too small to be really useful. And as luck would have it, it’s a Rev 1 Blue and White, so it can only take a single ATA drive: later releases — the Rev 2 models — could handle an additional drive.

As a result, I can either scrap the 12 Gb drive and replace it with the 80 or score an ATA card and add the 80 with room for more if I need it. A Mac-compatible one runs between US$40 and US$100. I’ll get one of those once I see some coin from my contract work (which won’t be til after the new year and school starts up). And there’s always that Google AdSense revenue rolling in . . . . (I don’t expect to see anything from there until June: if you’re familiar with AdSense’s pay schedule, you know why that is).

Judging by this, the additional controller card is the way to go: the data corruption risk and the fact that the on-board controller might not see anything with a DMA speed in excess of 33(!) don’t thrill me.
I really don’t want to sink a lot of cash into a machine this old (ca 1997) and I suppose this isn’t all that much. But let’s hope this is as bad as it gets.

A local hero is parting out some old Mac hardware (disks, RAM, etc.) and perhaps that will help stanch the flow.

Shiira: Safari killer?

Choice in browsers? What’s that about?

Safari still seems to be flaky, spinning and failing to let me read beyond what’s on the screen from time to time. FireFox has performance issues, and it’s lack of Services support is a nuisance. IE is a non-starter.

So I am taking another look at Shiira (the Dec 20, 2004 build). It’s nice and fast, looks a lot like Safari (as it should, being based on WebKit). The .dmg file was less than a Mb in size.

Some things don’t work as well as I would like (Services support is there but bookmarklets don’t). But all in all, it’s a nice app: browsers should be fast and accurate, first, featureful, second. So by that metric, Shiira measures up well.

<grumble> I wonder if Tiger’s Safari will be better or more bloated/less friendly to smaller machines like mine.

Now playing: Rouge by Miles Davis from the album “The Complete Birth Of The Cool” | Get it