Computers & Technology: June 2004 Archives

Apparently the Justice Department is protecting its data with a special, advanced form of protection. We've all heard of self-destructing messages, thanks to spy movies and novels. I read a while back about email technology which could do much the same thing. But until now, I was unaware that it was possible to safeguard large quantities of information in a database the same way. Apparently, if anyone attempts to download or copy the data contained therein, it will spectacularly destroy itself. It can even detect what kind of data query it should self-destruct in response to — the meltdown sequence is initiated by a Freedom of Information Act request.

McIntyre explained in a May 24 letter that the computer system - operated in the counterespionage section of the Justice Department's criminal division - "was not designed for mass export of all stored images" and said the system experiences "substantial problems."

"It sounds like incredible negligence for an agency that is keeping public records to keep them in such a precarious condition," said Stephen Doig, interim director at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. "I've never heard the excuse that making the equivalent of a backup copy would somehow cause steam to rise out of the computer."

Honestly. Fire them all? Get them a technology grant?

More here

It was an impulse buy, though not without some premeditation...

After work on Friday, I walked into the Discovery Channel shop near my work, and I bought a Zvue video player. I'd seen articles about this nifty-sounding gadget for months, starting with a mention on Slashdot. At that time, it only worked with proprietary cards and content, which hardly seemed worth it. Now, though, they've added DIVX support (and bumped up the price), and I could no longer resist. Plus, we're going on vacation soon, I rationalized, and could use some method of bringing music and movies along.

I've now been using it for a couple of days, and so far, mostly so good (apart from accidentally hosing my desktop Mac when I tried installing a video encoder — oops). The sound quality is good, the picture quality is surprisingly good, and it definitely has personality (there's a scrolling credits list you can get to from the main menu, and after a long list of names with witty titles, there's a long break, and then up scrolls the line, "OK folks, the show's over!")

It's far from perfect, of course, which I expected at that price and from what I'd read about it. The protective screen that partially blocks your movie view with its embossed logo, the rewind button that unexpectedly jumps all the way back to the beginning of your movie (come on guys, can't you fix it already?), the lack of any way to bookmark your place, absence of playlist management, etc.

But on the other hand? We're talking Sex and the City in the palm of your hand. Pretty darn cool.

The Zvue is in danger, though, along with the iPod and a score of other innovations. The INDUCE act would criminalize manufacturers of technologies which "induce" users to break copyrights. You can read more about it here and here. Infuriating... after all, since the introduction of EMusic and the Itunes Music store, I've probably spent more on music than ever before. It should be easy to buy content, and it shouldn't be illegal to take stuff off a DVD I own and transfer it to a cute little blue player I can bring on vacation.

Edited to add: If you want to learn more, or you already have one and are trying to figure it out, check out this discussion board.

Back when I was at UC Santa Cruz, I spent a summer there trying to finish up my coursework so that I could graduate by the end of 1991 (a semester late). One of the requirements which I had previously eluded was for math and science. However, an interesting-sounding course, something like "Introduction to Computer Math", caught my eye, and I signed up.

I was doomed to failure, however. The teacher was brilliant, but he kept saying things like "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it's all just common sense, really." At least, that's what it sounded like to me.

I finally decided that I didn't have any common sense, and I dropped the course, replacing it with "The Psychology of Human Sexuality," which was taught by a repulsive hairy little man who wore loud Hawaiian shirts and compared male circumcision at birth to the genital mutilation of adult women in Africa. (That class was an easy pass, at least. But I digress)

Anyway, the teacher of the computer math course was none other than David Huffman, inventor of the Huffman Code, a fact which he proudly mentioned. It meant nothing to me at the time, of course, but it means a great deal to me now, because it's one of the bases for mp3 compression. And I listen to a lot of mp3s.

From Slashdot's comments today:

David Huffman is also the inventor of Huffman coding used in MP3s...

"Let's sue HIM too!!!" -RIAA