It’s official!  I am on my way to Harvard University to take up a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Autumn after I finish my thesis.  Read all about it in my Journal entry.

Many years ago, Dad and I trekked into the Emigrant Wilderness in just north of Yosemite National Park.

It was a. . . memorable journey.

This year, for Dad’s birthday, I have decided it only appropriate to chronicle this journey for future generations, and have done so in my Journal. Read, enjoy, and may the powerbar be with you.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

In my quick breakfast browse of the news this morning, I came across an article on the BBC about Spotify, a service that is trying to change the way we interact with music.

Instead of paying for and downloading music, you can listen to any track/album/genre you want (that is on their system) for free. The catch is that you have to hear an ad every 20 minutes. That is something I can definitely deal with to be able to hear the music I want.

Spotify is an experiment. Instead of asking “who owns the music?” they completely circumvent the issue by putting it in the public domain, much like a radio station. But the idea is that, in order to hear the music, you have to listen to it through spotify, and therefore will hear the ads.*

I see this as a very democratic technology development, and plan on supporting it as much as I can (read: not subscribing, but listening!). They seem to have a growing classical collection too, though I haven’t wandered around it too much yet (this is just my morning breakfast break after all).

I should note that I am still a big fan of Pandora, even though it’s difficult to get here in the UK. Pandora is a very different idea than Spotify, though, and I believe both can live well together. Pandora focuses on introducing people to new music like the music they already know, which I find an invaluable service, and one of the most useful sites on the internet. But when I want to listen a particular song or artist, I’ll be checking Spotify first from now on.

In the quest to continually reduce my expenses so that I can, well, feed myself, Spotify looks like it will my tummy full and my ears happy. Yum yum.

* There is the option to pay a daily/monthly subscription of £0.99/£9.99 (in the UK) for ad-free content

[techie note: Spotify appears to run a version of Wordpress, the same free software that powers this site. I approve.]

[UPDATE: looks like the free version is only available in some European countries at the moment. People in the US will either need to pay or wait.  Ah well, you still have Pandora to keep you happy.]

I’m not sure if I believe in fate, higher powers, and the like, but occasionally, it seems very obvious that something is trying to help me out.

Such is the case at the moment with gmail. Apparently it has been down for a little bit, and after trying myriad ways to pull it back up, I must finally accept that this is, for all intents and purposes, an omen that my thesis is where my focus needs to be.

Of course, the more astute of you will wonder why I’m taking the time to post this. It’s called meta-procrastination.

Ok, back to writing. . .

I know the blog has been quiet for a while. Mainly, this is because I have been pressing on with the thesis (though I did have a trip to see my family and spent some time with Naomi too).

Eventually my head may appear above my desk again, but it may not be for a few months.

Well, Thanksgiving has come to this humble abode. This year, I am celebrating it a week early. The webcam is now up, and I encourage all to view it and comment on the the mania as it ensues! We will be online on Friday (today) from now for a few hours, and then tomorrow all day (British time).

This is amazing. Life magazine and Google are collaborating to put the magazine’s photo archive online.

Looking back at some of the pictures, especially the ones of Hawai’i in WWII (look at Diamond Head!), I am startled by their clarity, and by seeing them in an album like I would see pictures of my friends taken just days ago. It really brings history much closer for me.

This will most definitely be my final Michaelmas Term as a student at Oxford. I have once again let the Autumn go, but not without at least a few (albeit poor-quality) photos of the scenic vistas of this wonderful city.

Enjoy. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for the Thanksgiving webcam on the 22nd (next Saturday)! That’s right, we’re having Thanksgiving the weekend before the official day this year.

[Warning: possible funniness-elimination text below]

One of the case studies I am doing for my thesis is on the encryption debate at the Wassenaar Arrangement during the late 1990s, over the topic that is discussed in this comic. Basically, strong encryption of electronic communication was rapidly becoming widespread throughout the world, and there was a significant effort by several governments to keep the encryption under export controls. If they had been successful, a person would have had to apply for a license to send or use the software outside of the country the software came from, this included famously the restriction on the export of a version of Netscape Communicator, which was eventually relaxed.

The poignant thing I find in this comic is the point that, were this level of encryption still covered as a munitions item (for US export controls), its use by individual citizens would have very likely become a hot topic for the “right to bear arms” lobby. Was that a factor in deciding to decontrol it? This question points to larger issues, one of which is that it is not at all clear where the line is (or even should be) drawn between what is a military technology and what is not. Have you ever bought something online? Then you have likely used encryption that was heavily controlled only ten years ago. Do you feel safer for having that encryption? You can see that there is a trade-off here; citizens’ safety (and their privacy) is arguable increased while state security is (or could be) diminished. Which side of the political fence would you like to be on?

It’s my nephew’s 2nd birthday today, so I thought I would make him a little movie.

Happy Birthday, Will!

[Let me know if you have trouble viewing it. It’s an .mp4 file]