Ever think of yourself as a walking server farm??

Now that’s the question I asked myself after reading this fascinating article about DNA as a programing language and the cells as the computers. 

[The Source code] Is here. This not a joke. We can wonder about the license though. Maybe we should ask the walking product of this source: Craig Venter. The source can be viewed via a wonderful set of perl scripts called ‘Ensembl‘. The human genome is about 3 gigabases long, which boils down to 750 megabytes. Depressingly enough, this is only 2.8 Mozilla browsers.

DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called ‘the nucleus’. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation - what you see is all you get.

And people wonder about the value of reading huge numbers of feeds….

Via Scott Rosenburg (Of Dreaming in Code fame).

Quote of the Day

I’m still here and posting will resume soon. In the mean while:

Amazingly, Adobe seems to have entirely missed the fact that the reason that the Flash video format has taken off is that it’s so fluid, versatile and remixable — not because they sucked up to some Hollysaurs and crippled their technology. - Cory Doctorow

Via Doc Searls

On Robotic Fish

I was reading this weeks New Scientist ( the print edition, mind you) and this story  about what the US Navy’s Office of Naval Research is doing caught my eye:

AGILE robotic fish that look like the real thing are being developed to act as government spies.

The article goes onto say that the fish will have cameras and communicate with each other using sonar.

To anyone that has read Michael Crichton’s Prey, this sounds suspiciously like a multi-agent system, albeit one that uses physical agents rather than computer simulated ones.

Wikipeedia has this to say:

The exact nature of the agents is a matter of some controversy. They are sometimes claimed to be autonomous. For example a household floor cleaning robot can be autonomous in that it is dependent on a human operator only to start it up. On the other hand, in practice, all agents are under active human supervision. Furthermore, the more important the activities of the agent are to humans, the more supervision that they receive. In fact, autonomy is seldom desired. Instead interdependent systems are needed.

[...]

MAS systems are also referred to as “self-organized systems” as they tend to find the best solution for their problems “without intervention”.

[...]

The main feature which is achieved when developing MAS systems, if they work, is flexibility, since a MAS system can be added to, modified and reconstructed, without the need for detailed rewriting of the application. These systems also tend to be rapidly self-recovering and failure proof, usually due to the heavy redundancy of components and the self managed features, referred to, above.

Although we’re not likely to see these become evolving, man-eating piranhas, it is something to keep an eye on (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know where I’m coming from).

And it demonstrates a physical application of  this technology that, while the agents are not strictly independent, they are not exactly predictable either.

At least, that is the way I understand it.

Its Been a While - WHS Add in

I’ve been off ill. Pretty badly in fact, which is why  haven’t posted. or done much programming.

I’m adding the finishing touches to the service - mainly making sure it won’t crash itself or the Server and that it actually does what I intend it to do.

So I’m gradually turning my attention to the scheduled task that will upload files. This is a nightmare mainly because of the large number of possible scenarios. These mainly have to do with updated files. It depends what has changed - the image itself (i.e. after a trip through Photoshop or Elements) or the metadata (keywords, tags, etc).

I’m also getting to grips with the settings and console tabs in terms of what will go where. I tend to try to nail down the user interface first in my software projects so that I know what user interface logic needs to be implemented. No use writing lines of code that, although doing something quite logical and correct, turn out not to be needed.

I’ve yet to forget about this little project- just wish Omar Shashine would release his code for his Send to Smugmug App. Don’t forget to check his site for the latest version.

Microsoft-Yahoo

I was thinking about the merger this morning and it struck me that the model tech merger is… Adobe’s buyout of Macromedia for $ 3.4 billion.

Now it is nowhere near the size or complexity of the Microsoft merger offer. But the point is that both companies brought their software together to create the Creative Suite series.

I mean think of it, different software, different programming, different programming culture, ethics and architecture.

Now I currently have CS3 installed. Its quite amazing how Macromedia’s software ( Flash, Freehand - now Illustrator) works quite well with the rest of the suite.  My point is that it works, not that its amazing ( which it is).

In similar vein, Yahoo and Microsoft are totally different companies. 

The problem isn’t the technology. The different technology might be good, it’ll force Microsoft to take another look at Linux. The problem is the people, the culture. No matter how good your team may be, they’ll never turn out anything is they can’t work together.

Getting the two cultures to play nice is simple: phone up Adobe and ask who their  consultancy company was in 2005 for the merger, and hire them . Or hire, Jim Rohn, Antony Robins, and Tim Berners Lee. As teams are integrated, send them off on a team building course or something.

Now, is $44 Billion too little for Yahoo! ? The board seems to think so. Forget the “only logical option” argument for a second here and think it though. As Kara Swisher said it:

Indeed, some think that if the company was managed more aggressively–and that has been a big if at Yahoo for far too long now–Yahoo shares could be trading closer to $30 a share.

And that makes $31 kind of a bargain.

It’s not such a leap of faith, in fact.

Many mid-level and senior Yahoo execs have told me that CEO Jerry Yang’s too-cautious approach has been the problem and that there was pressure building for a change

In fact, the more you think about it, the more it sounds as if Microsoft have jumped the gun looking (hoping?) for a quick deal.

Now for the de rigueur Scoble quote:

“Are they crazy?”

I said “probably, and arrogant too.” Then she wondered why they would do such a thing. I told her that I agreed with Philip Greenspun, who says that to reject this deal is lunacy. Since I know Yahoo’s board members aren’t lunatics, I figure there must be some other answer. I told Maryam “they are probably trying to see if the offer will go up.”

Yahoo! are playing a high stakes poker game. the winners get bask in all their glory for the next few decades and losers look for new jobs.

If you are going to pay money for something - make sure that you get your moneys worth. If Microsoft think that they are going to get Yahoo on the cheap ( relatively speaking, that is), they need to rethink their attitude. Yahoo is worth shelling out for, but is above being treated like a second class citizen.

And If Microsoft have such an attitude with Yahoo!, any merging will be a disaster. Yahoo’s minds (linux or not) will leave and the empire will suffer ( sounds like Star Wars). Microsoft will be left with a rotting hulk that will drain money and resources for no observable gain. It’ll be like Alice in Wonderland where she has to run faster  and faster to stay where she is (the translation being that Yahoo will require more and more to stay  the same).

So although this sounds like a 7 Habits lecture, Microsoft’s attitude will determine how this ends up.

In the words of the immortal Spiderman:

With great power comes great responsibility

Quote of the Day

In mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.
  - Johann von Neumann