Curse of the cookie

Jeff (Coding Horror) Atwood falls prey to an XSS cookie exploit.

His writeup is relatively readable. I think it's worth a look, to understand how frail our net security is.

We can only hope Chrome will move things forward a bit.

Singularity alert: Picasa web album face tagging

Gack!

Picasa Web Albums Adds People Tagging

... CNet reports that Picasa Web Albums will add some interesting features today. After implementing face detection in the image search engine, Google adds face recognition in Picasa Web Albums to facilitate photo tagging...

Yeah, we all knew it was coming, but it's creepy-cool anyway. Not quite goose bumps, but a grade 2 singularity event. (Grade 7 is when the Great God Google refers you to your soylent green processing station, Grade 1 is personalized search.)

So will Google link the faces to the appropriate Google Profile? You just know they've got that one on their social networking strategy. (So how do kids get their profiles? Is it like Confirmation?)

I love it. Now if there were only some way to sync the tags back to iPhoto ...

I'll report on my tech blog after I try it. I'm sure the servers will be smoking tonight, so it'll take a few days. (Update: yeah, it's pegged. Stuck at 44% of faces.)

McCain on science: you knew it would be bad

A self-styled "independent" (ahh, to be young) has reviewed the Obama and McCain positions on science.

Needless to say, Obama does pretty well. True, he's no more of a scientist than Bill Clinton was, but they both hang out with real scientists.

Obviously, McCain/Palin are a disaster.

Cocktail Party Physics: physics politico

... Even more damning points against McCain: he notoriously flip-flopped on the abortion issue, and now is opposed to stem cell research. Obama supports stem cell research. Plus, McCain's shiny new VP pick, Sarah Palin, is a far-right social conservative, global warming denialist, anti-abortion advocate, is anti-stem cell research, plus she supports teaching creationism in public schools (via the "teach the controversy" strategy).

... With Palin at his side, and a party platform filled with ideological rhetoric so stale it's developing icky green moldy bits around the edges, he's offering a change, all right -- all the way back to the late 1980s. (Cue chorus: "And that's not change we can believe in!")

Honestly? Regardless of how McCain answers (if he answers) the questions from Science Debate 2008, his selection of Palin pretty much makes it impossible for anyone who values the science and technology enterprise to vote for him...

Alas, I know this knowledge won't make any difference to faux-rationalist Republicans. Denial is strong.

Incidentally, I'd like to join a "Democrats for Palin" group. We'd all right glowing letters defending her to media outlets, join up with supportive demonstrations, etc. Of course we'd need to be incognito ...

Sad news for us Dems

Yes, there's sad news for we Obama/Biden supporters.

It now looks like Palin will break the 18 day Eagleton record.

We were really hoping she'd last at least a month.

So did McCain do it because he was really, really, mad at the religious right?

Even the anarcho-republicans rioting in St. Paul can't kill the Palin buzz, but all good things must end.

Google mocks the idiotic security question

Even as some Google engineers succumb to security question idiocy, others openly mock the madness.

At least, that what I assume is going on. My (113) Google Profile now asks me many of typical security questions (nickname, etc) -- so my answers can be indexed and added to Google's public knowledge base.

This is either crude commercialism (set up the victims, then sell the lockpicks) or cruel mockery.

I'm betting on the latter. Google shares are a bit down, but Chrome will boost them. Google's not that desperate for revenue. The Profile engineers are making fun of their colleagues.

(via Google Operating System)

Why Google Chrome?

Google has lots of good reasons to build Chrome. Certainly embedding Gears in the browser is a good reason, that ought to also make former Netscape Constellation engineers smile. Dissing Flash is a always a good reason.

But what's the best reason?

Well, Google is still primarily a search and discovery company. So maybe the best reason to build Chrome is to deeply embed Google search throughout the browser.

I'm 70% through the Chrome comic, and I'm excited. This is a big event, and it's a big event that will benefit the entire user community.

All open source, and they mean open. Any competitor can take anything, thank you not required.

Thanks Google!

PS. See Andy, Google's not done yet ...

Update 9/5/08: Nice story on how Chrome was created.

JavaScript slide show app from 1997 still works

Today I ran across a noteworthy example of technological continuity. I was surprised!

A recent transition in hosting and registrar services caused me to review ancient web pages largely created in the mid to late 90s -- during the heyday of the personal web site. Among the dusty collection were a set of Internet Tutorials for my fellow family physicians.

The tutorials used a home grown JavaScript slide show applet that let me draw ordered sets from a collection of (spartan) "slides" -- a feature that was killed off by PowerPoint's dull dominance. I wanted to have a dynamic cross-platform (IE 2/3 and Netscape 3) resource.

Today I tried the applet. I had to enable pop-ups but, incredibly, it still works in Firefox 3 (I didn't try Safari or IE 7, no need to push my luck).

There's more continuity on the net than we typically assume.

iPhone push pulled: was it the revenue hit?

Apple pulled a highly desirable feature from the September 2.1 iPhone update:

Apple Seeds 4th Beta of iPhone firmware 2.1; Pulls Out Push Notification Service - iPhone Hacks

Apple has seeded developers of its iPhone Developer program with the fourth beta version of iPhone firmware 2.1. The latest update again consists of more bug fixes.

However, Apple has strangely pulled out the Push Notification Service APIs in this release for "further development".

The Push Notification APIs is Apple's solution for one of the features that we have been asking for, ability for native iPhone apps to run in the background especially for applications like Instant Messenger, Facebook etc...

The most likely explanation is that there are a lot of major bug fixes being packed into 2.1, and it's entirely reasonable to push features out to 2.2.

On the other hand, Push Notification will also kill a lot of 40 cent SMS transactions. I've used Google Talk on my iPhone, and if were able to use push notification I'd use it all the time.

Those SMS transactions are a significant piece of AT&T and Apple's iPhone revenue. A $30/month tethering solution would make up for some of the loss, but not all.

So if I were Apple, all things being equal, I'd pull the Push and push the Tether.

Happy day: Palin

It could have been our Governor Pawlenty -- a smarter, smoother version of George Bush with an evil gift of copiously and covertly rewarding his base.

Instead McCain picks someone with a built-in scandal:

Talking Points Memo | Palin's the One

... So now we've learned that Sarah Palin is McCain's choice for vice presidential nominee. I have to say, it's a daring pick but I think a very weak one. I'm perfectly happy with it. Palin is in the midst of a reasonably serious scandal in her home state. Her brother-in-law is a state trooper who is in the midst of an ugly custody battle with her sister. And she's accused of getting the state police to fire him. Recently she was forced to admit that one of her aides had done this, though she insists she didn't know...

Maybe McCain decided Pawlenty couldn't deliver Minnesota? Was Alaska ever in play?

Standards for chargers: Thank you China

An innocent question about organizing chargers produces and surprisingly good Slashdot discussion of power adapter standards.

Did you know China mandated USB only charging for cell phones (so is that why iPhone 2.0 dumped firewire)? Did you know there are people representing the charger industry who actively campaign against an EU standard? (Ok, so that was predictable.)

The ecology and economics of physical connector standards are fascinating; the irresistible force of consumer desire meets the immovable object of proprietary advantage and lock-in (the physical analogue of data lock). Consider the interesting examples of HP's printer cartridges, Apple's iPod connector, and the "authenticated" NEC battery.

Even though I wish the USB connector supported 12V instead of 5V, I am very grateful for its emergence as the de facto universal charger interface. I make USB charging support a very high priority -- which is why the RAZR's quasi-USB support drove me bats (yay BlackBerry, half-yay iPhone/Palm).

All very well, but what about China? This USB standardization is the kind of thing Singapore would do (smart, tyrannical), but when China does it they do it for the world -- much as California's emission standards become the North American rule.

Those anti-standard lobbyists will need bigger offices in Beijing.

Thanks China.

Leahy on McCain's dementia

I've always admired Senator Patrick Leahy.

Today he clearly states something that the GOP prefers to forget -- Reagan was severely cognitively impaired during his second term. During that term Baker governed the US; fortunately for us that was an improvement.

Leahy also draws a rather obvious comparison ...

Talking Points Memo | Leahy Goes There

...Leahy told Vogel yesterday the media has given McCain a free pass on flubs including mixing up Middle East geography, Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and referring to Russia's relationship Czechoslovakia -- a country that hasn't existed for 15 years.

'It was the same way with Ronald Reagan in the last few years he was president,' Leahy said, referring to the belief that Reagan experienced early signs of Alzheimer's disease late in his presidency....

McCain used to be cognitively stronger.

An artificial cat-level brain within 10 years?

I’ve long said that they day we create an artificial mind comparable to a hamster’s we’re toast. I have hoped this thesis wouldn’t be tested in my life-span …

It’s plenty devious, but we still can’t get it to follow orders worth a damn | Good Morning Silicon Valley

DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, is quietly creeping toward its goal of creating an artificial brain … HRL Laboratories, a joint venture of Boeing and General Motors … will spearhead the effort to build a chip with the “function, size, and power consumption” of a cat’s cortex within the next 10 years ..

… According to the news release, spotted by Wired’s Noah Shachtman before it was pulled, the goal is to build a chip with “neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities — perception, planning, decision making, and motor control.” “The first nine-month phase of the program will focus on designing, fabricating, and characterizing synaptic and neural elements and combining them into a high-density, interconnecting microelectronic ‘fabric,’ which will be incorporated into a more complex system-level fabric design,” according to the release. “In the following 15-month phase, HRL will combine the synaptic and neural elements to fabricate and demonstrate ‘cortical microcircuits’ that can model various lower-level brain functions and actually ‘learn’ by interacting with the environment…

Thank Google the partners are GM and Boeing. If they were, say, Google and Intel I’d be more concerned.

There’s a less than 1% chance they’ll succeed at this.

Still.

My first Wikipedia page: Data Lock

I've edited several pages, but this is the first I've created ...

Data lock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

... Data lock is the planned or accidental strategy of retaining customers by holding data captive.

Data lock is a common outcome of proprietary file formats. It is a particularly common occurrence in cloud computing, but it is also commonplace in personal information managers and in commercial IT systems in every industry.

Customers rarely make data mobility a priority, so it can be difficult even for well intended developers to invest in data freedom. Google has shown recent moves away from data lock through the creation of APIs and new public export formats for blogs...

Update 8/27/08: Well, that was a short lived article! Wikipedia removed it, apparently because it was too much of a definition, and not enough of an encyclopedia article.

Cosmology and Complexity - almost understandable

This Aaronson lecture is surprisingly readable. Thank you scribe!

PHYS771 Lecture 20: Cosmology and Complexity

...But that's only one thing that's wrong with the simple "spherical/flat/hyperbolic" trichotomy. Another thing wrong with it is that the geometry of the universe and its topology are two separate questions. Just assuming the universe is flat doesn't imply that it's infinite. If the universe had a constant positive curvature, that would imply it was finite. Picture the Earth; on learning that it has a constant positive curvature, you would conclude it's round. I mean, yes, it could curve off to infinity where you can't see it, but assuming it's homogenous in curvature, mathematically it has to curve around in either a sphere or some other more complicated finite shape. If space is flat, however, that doesn't tell you whether it's is finite or infinite. It could be like one of the video games where when you go off one end of the screen, you reappear on the other end. That's perfectly compatible with geometric flatness, but would correspond to a closed topology. The answer, then, to whether the universe is finite or infinite, is unfortunately that we don't know....

Very fun topic. I finally have a personal story for the limits of information -- when bits become a black hole.

Curious relationship between computation and the cosmological constant.

Microsoft’s love for Firefox is limited – the Windows Live Writer plug-in example

I was surprised that Microsoft management let the superb Windows Live Writer team create a plug-in that supported Firefox.

WLW is unequalled as a blogging tool. Why not use it to drive geeks towards IE?

Well, reality has set in.

The WLW plug-in has never been updated for FF 3.

There’s a way to make it work: Make Firefox 3 beta accept the Windows Live Writer Blog This extension, but FF users expected an update in June.

Microsoft’s FF love has its limits. It’s reassuring to see economics still works!

Update 9/15/08: News comes via comments that an update is in the works - from one of my favorite Microsoft development teams. See the comment from Joe C. I understand corporate bureaucracy all too well. I suspect Microsoft customers would be happier today if Bush hand lost and the DOJ had split the company into more agile components.