Domain problems

Back in 2005 I lost my domain. I've only just picked it up again, 4 years later: www.prlsoftware.com

So, what happened? A planned relocation from one host to another was hijacked. I planned top end my registration at one host by allowing the domain name to expire, then register that domain at the new host. In the mean time someone purchased the domain from under me. This is known as "Domain Drop Catching" or "Domain Sniping". It only took them moments to do from the point it was fully unregistered.

Was it illegal? No - not technically, but what happened next was either illegal or at least unethical. The new owner of the domain created a site to LOOK like it was mine, listing my company name and products. These links only lead to advertising, where they got paid per click. Meanwhile they obfuscated their contact details so that no who-is search would provide any accurate contact details.

The practice of taking up a domain name without any intention to use it for any products or services is known as Domain Parking, and is STRONGLY frowned upon. The terms for taking a domain for this purpose is variously known as Domaining, Cybersquatting, and Domaineering. There are web sites set up to name and same these domains, and until recently this domain was on those lists. Check out here and here for more details on the practice.

Actions taken to contact or dispute the domain name purchase where to no avail. I would have needed a large international legal team to wade through the paper work.

In the end they must have decided that it was no longer worth their while and they failed to renew. I was waiting for this for the past 4 years. So this time I did the quick snatch and retrieved my domain! If you get into a similar situation, keep in mind that may others also want your domain, so you may need to follow some of the tactics that Drop Catchers use themselves. More information about Drop Catching can be found here. Also - there are several web pages that list out recently dropped domains - they are worth checking out if you don't want to pay a premium to get your domain back.

It's a shame that someone sought to profit by advertising on my domain, but in a way it's lucky because they no longer needed the domain once they stopped getting revenue.

Is Advertising Killing Blogging?

I have followed a few blogs but I’m finding that they contain less and less information and are more and more controversial. Why? Because it’s pure commercialism. Getting people to your blog and getting them to interact by posting comments increases the number of people visiting your blog and that directly impacts advertising revenue.

Since people love taking a side, the more controversial the topic the more revenue will be created.

But it seems to be getting beyond a joke at the moment. Posts seem only to be made to start people arguing. Is that helpful? To anyone?

What’s more, the blog authors aren’t reading the comments of blogs. That’s just arrogant. Bloggers need to be more concerned about the audience of their blogs than the advertising revenue.

Boy Girl Paradox

I have always found it interesting how a badly worded question can lead many highly educated people to vastly different answers. A recent posting on Coding Horror by its author Jeff Atwood has gained more comment posts than any other article: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001204.html

The question was:"Let's say, hypothetically speaking, you met someone who told you they had two children, and one of them is a girl. What are the odds that person has a boy and a girl?"

So - what's the Answer?

Simple answer is that the question is too ambiguous to be definative.

He is intending to say “What is likelihood of a parent with two children having mixed sex siblings, where the children aren’t two boys?”

Answer: 2/3

My interpretation of his current question is: “What is the likelihood of a parent with two children, one or more of which is a girl has the other child as a boy?”

Answer 1/2

That is – in the first one we are focused on the probabilities of parents that don’t have all boy siblings while in the second one we are focused on the probability that a girl has a brother (parent focus versus child focus).

What’s the difference? In the first case, 50% of all parents with 2 children have mixed sex siblings, while 50% have either all boys or all girls. Remove parents with all boys and you are left with 66.67% of parents have mixed sex siblings and 33.33% have all girls. In the second case, 50% of all girls have a brother and 50% have a sister.

The question has been roundly condemned as being ambiguous at best and seriously erroneous at worst. In fact, many people have provided links dating back well before this post with very similar questions and deconstruct why they are misleading and wrong, and how important the correct language is.For example, some have argued that saying “and ONE of them is a girl” means that the other MUST be a boy. Nowhere does it say “one or more”, and if you were to take the logic that “one” actually does mean “one or more” then you would similarly have to assume that saying they had “two children” must also mean they had “two or more children”.The debate went on and on, backwards and forwards. Eventually most people realised that the debate was almost entirely over interpretations.

Never have I seen an example that so clearly demonstrated how important clear language is. But it isn't all Jeff's fault - he tends to be somewhat of a plagiariser and word has it that the question is straight out of the book he was reading. A plagiarised question doesn't make it correct - so the blame must bubble up back to the authors of the book. However - shouldn't Jeff also be held to account for the plagiarism (let alone copyright violations of using whatever images take his fancy). Whatever the case - that's another topic all together.

Further details of the "Boy Girl Paradox"can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_or_Girl

What is random?

Randomness is very rarely (if ever) actually found. This was one of the most perplexing parts of statistics for me – that almost nothing is random. Randomness is normally defined as each item in a random set has no relation, either correlation or formulaic, with any other value generated.

Almost all statistical tests that require randomness get buy with pseudo-random number generators, like Mathcad.

Pseudo-random because a computer can't guess/invent anything. It has to measure things. So normally it measures the time and/or time since CPU was turned on and applies some type of hashing algorithm. Therefore - not actually random. I like this quote:

“Computers are typically very bad at being random because they are designed to be able to reliably calculate the same answer, if given the same data to work with. When computers don't behave this way they are considered broken and in need of repair or replacement. Keys generated by a pure software process on your typically predictable computer will always, at some level, be predictable.”

But sometimes (rarely) you need more randomness. Cryptography is where I came across this. True randomness only occurs at the sub-atomic level. Luckily we don't need to measure that low because sub-atomic randomness "bubbles up" to affect molecules and their interactions (butterfly effect). We call anything governed by randomness “chaotic”. There aren’t too many things that are truly chaotic.

What I mean is: when one atom bounces off another the bounce angle is not directly proportional to the mass of both objects and their collision angle. That is – they are not rubber balls that follow a known path and will bounce off each other in a predictable manner. Instead the configuration, location, shape and speed of electrons and other sub-atomic particles add a degree of "unknown" - true randomness. In fact, if you measured these location, shape (orbital shape), and speed of all sub-atomic particles, you would actually change them. Therefore, you can never predict their activity because that requires measuremnt which affects the object making the prediction invalid.

The “butterfly effect” of atom collisions leading to randomness is easily seen with Lava lamps. The patterns they form are not unique, but the size, speed, direction and even the point at which wax globules join are all random.

A lava lamp is not only easy to look at, it’s also easy to monitor and use the image to generate random numbers.

This site has all the details:

http://www.lavarnd.org/faq/true_random_src.html

It has facilities for you to generate numbers. I've used this site/method again and again...

But things are a changing! Recently I found out that Intel has implemented a hardware random number generator in some of its chipsets. IIRC - it is based on measuring thermal noise.

Ha - that's fantastic. Everything old is new again. The Commodore 64 had a sound chip that provided the same feature - it could measure white-noise (thermal or audio noise are both the result of atom movement). Some in the crypto world actually networked to a Comadore 64 as a true random number generator source.

Sorry if this post was a bit random...

For whom the bell tolls

This is going to be a fairly morbid post.

What happens in cyberspace when we people die?

From the moment I first set up my hotmail account (circa 1994-5) I wondered what would happen if something happened to me. How long would the hotmail account keep receiving emails if I never logged in to read them?

How long is our data held on to?

Let me explain with an example:
Also about 9-10 years ago I made an Amazon purchase. I went back again recently and it still knew me… it new what books I had purchased, and it gave me recommendations based on what I had purchased.

“in the wild” is a term used for viruses, to indicate that they are out there and probably never going to be completely eradicated – at least not for many decades. That’s how I feel about my information.

But what happens when someone dies?

There’s nobody to update their Facebook page. There’s nobody to add details to the My Space. But do the pages go down? Do they get deleted after a period of inactivity?

How many pages have you put your details down on? The list is almost as long as the number of web sites you visit. Everything from little Wikipedea entries, blogs,

How long do you think they hold on to it? I have a feeling that many sites keep your information indefinitely, with no specific plans to delete. Even “pages” that go down due to inactivity are probably stored somewhere.

I wonder how many blogs that just stop, how many Facebook pages that go without being updated, how many customers who haven’t returned in a while never will.

What would we do about that? We could try to put in some type of “deceased” state, that was propagated/shared between sites. But that would be open to error and abuse (apparently it is hard enough to convince banks you aren’t dead when they make a mistake). Inactivity wouldn’t work either – what’s stopping someone just not making a purchase/update in 20 years and then coming back. Wouldn’t we want to market to that customer as effectively as we possibly could?

As more people get “on the net”, and as more people age and die “on the net”, I can see this issue growing more and more – but I’ve never heard anyone discuss it.

Close shave

A good friend is shaving his head to raise money for leukaemia research:

Leukaemia Foundation World's Greatest Shave

http://my.imisfriendraising.com.au/personalPage.aspx?SID=53892

If you see the link in time, a small donation would be great. If you don't - then consider signing up next year.

Cheers,
Philip

Great Products and ideas

There are some things that as soon as you see them you think "wow - that's a great idea".

Google Earth was a big one. Others come along and try to do the same thing, but somehow miss the mark. Virtual Earth (or whatever the name of the competitor is) doesn’t have the same “pizzazz”.

I’ll start listing some as I think of them that I think are particularly good examples.

Site: oDesk
http://www.odesk.com/

What is it?
This is a web site that joins IT and Administration staff with employers. It is a little like EBay, where people post jobs and other people bid to do those jobs. That’s where the similarity to EBay ends. Unlike EBay, the lowest bidder doesn’t necessarily get the job. Also unlike EBay, you can limit who sees your job (i.e. only offer it to people you select). So… this site is somewhat like a freelance locator page, while also allowing the workers (providers) to form longer-term, more meaningful working relationship with the “employers”. It also allows people to form teams, and therefore facilitates virtual organisations.

Why is this so good?
For the employer:

• jobs done for true “market” rates.
• “per hour” employees can be monitored for activity – or just to see how they have do what they do (learning).
• provides the option to outsource locally or globally, depending on the ideology of employer, work type offered and cost.
• the skills of the employee are quantifiable (tested) before hiring.Feedback is always clear.

For the provider (worker):

• Their payment is guaranteed. If they do the work, they will be paid.
• Their market for employment is expanded globally.
• The quality of their work is reflected in feedback.

Why is it so good:
It is brilliant! I believe this is the future of most software development, administration and office work. Why? Because it allows people to work from anywhere and companies can quickly expand IT/Administration and shrink as required. I’ve seen other freelance sites but they don’t have the ease and power of this site. It has more tools and yet is easier to use. Just a well put together site that “just works”.

I have used it a number of times from things as diverse as conversion of PDFs into Excel documents, web research and small development tasks. Every time I have been very happy with the outcome.


Site: CodeProject
http://www.codeproject.com/

Put simply, this is a collaboration site where articles and code examples are provided as a communal developers resource.

Why is it so good?
There are lots of them, right? Expert exchange and even “StackOverflow” – so what makes this one different? The quality of the articles. Maybe it is the communal nature of the site, and maybe it is the monthly quality prises offered for the best articles. Whatever the case, this is the site you go to when you need to know how to do something BEFORE going to help, Google or a text book.

For example, I found MS standard progress bar was “ordinary” and wasn’t very striking – a quick search turned up this gem:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/progress/ProgressODoom.aspx



Site: EndNote
http://www.endnote.com/

What is it?
End note is an add-in to MS Word. It makes Uni assignments and research much easier. You enter in the details of a reference, then you simply press the “insert” reference button to reference your text. You locate the reference you entered and EndNote takes care of the rest. It takes care of:

• Reference list at the end
• Formatting of citation and reference
• Figure and table lists
  

Okay… that’s a little savings… but so what… right?

Well, it also has the ability to hold a copy to the file (pdf or whatever) so you can locate and read the material again. It holds onto a copy of the URL where you located it. But most of the on-line journals allow you to download the EndNote reference (so you don’t even have to enter it yourself).

That’s fantastic for a researcher who wants to double check their references, or look up sources. For a uni student it means they can have several repositories of research that they can draw on at any time, making uni life much easier.

Site: Mathcad
http://www.ptc.com/

What is it?
A computer version of a maths exercise book. It is a little like a spreadsheet in that you normally use it for maths, and you can plot information in a graph. But unlike a spreadsheet it isn’t so much about “storing, sorting and displaying” data, it is more about processing it. At the most simple level, you can put an equation in, press = and get an answer. 5*2= 10.

But you can also do this f(x):= 5*x
And then do this f(2)= and it will give you 10.
f(5) = and it will give you 25.

So you can literally define equations. I use this for business (finance, accounting, and economics), statistics and research. The applications are almost endless and there are forums with people able to help on almost any issue: http://collab.mathsoft.com/~Mathcad2000/login