The Oxford English Dictionary will be online-only

The OED (Oxford English Dictionary) has been THE standard for the English Language. The 3rd edition has been in progress for 21 years, and is almost ready to ship in its normal paper form. But its owner has now announced that this will be the last paper edition of the hallowed dictionary which from now on will be produced only in electronic formats.

He said: “Until six months ago I was clinging to the idea that printed books would likely last for ever. Since the arrival of the iPad I am now wholly convinced otherwise.
“The printed book is about to vanish at extraordinary speed. I have two complete OEDs, but never consult them – I use the online OED five or six times daily. The same with many of my reference books – and soon with most.
“Books are about to vanish; reading is about to expand as a pastime; these are inescapable realities.”

This perhaps the most stunning prediction made by someone who doesn't sell iPad, Kindles, Nooks, or other eReaders. What do Mod-Bloggers think? Will paper books always have a place, or are we on the verge of a time where they are regarded as antiques fit only for display?

Beware of Dog

Random find on the web, no way to track it back to the original. But it made me laugh after a long day.

Autumn Cometh

What if?

One of the differentiating marks of a Moderate over either a Liberal or a Conservative, these days, is the ability to see and the honesty to acknowledge the strengths of both sides. So in that vein, let me ask a question.

Barack Obama ran on a platform of "hope and change," where his core promise was to "change Washington". He noted that the political culture was broken, and pledged to fix it. The last year and a half seems like a bust on that score. Partisanship is worse than ever. Now that it looks like the Democrats may lose the House, Republicans are already talking about returning to the old practice of White House probes and hinting at special prosecutors. This is the new rhythm that has existed since Reagan, where the wrongs of the last majority are used to justify those same wrongs by the new majority over and over.

What if Barack Obama's real legacy of "change" is turning the other cheek? What if he manages to break the cycle by making such tit-for-tat politics unsavory, by letting his enemies destroy themselves as they overplay their hands? In theory, it could work and could lead to a new era free of the hardball politics that have characterized the USA since at least the Clinton era.

Honestly, I remain skeptical. The President has shown himself to be, if anything, an old-school Chicago politician. But if this were his only legacy, it might be one of great service to the American system.

The Future of Internet Video

If you're not a user of an iOS device - iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch - you may not be fully aware of the battle that is currently being waged over the future of Internet Video. A year ago, the "state of the art" was based on Adobe's Flash player. But with the rise of the iOS juggernaut and Steve Jobs's refusal to allow Flash on his mobile devices, HTML5 is on the rise. HTML5 includes a new "video" tag in the base specification, so Flash is no longer needed, but now the debate has shifted to which Codec (i.e. the way video is encoded into a file and transported across the internet) will be the future. The two top contenders for the moment are WebM/VP8 - a standard owned by Google and being pushed as royalty-free - and H.264 which is used today for YouTube, iTunes, and most hardware-based encoders.

Up until now, the primary argument against H.264 has been the number of patents involved, and the high licensing fees for people who want to include H.264 in their devices/software which would be prohibitive for Free Software/Open Source groups.

The newest move in this battle was an announcement yesterday from MPEGLA that H.264 would remain royalty-free "forever" for websites and customers to use. This was taken by some to cut the feet out from under WebM/VP8 proponents. But today, Mozilla reminded everyone that this does not mean it is free to software or hardware makers. And until it is, Free Software and Open Source browsers like Firefox may be unable to support it.

This is required reading for anyone interested in the future of TV and movies on the web.

Broken Window Theory

When Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York City, he enacted a number of major reforms based on "Broken Window Theory." An ultra-simplified version of the theory might be summarized as "Small crimes lead to big crimes." A broken window (vandalism) leads to the presence of junkies (since clearly no one is there to fix the window) leads to the presence of drug dealers and mobsters leads to violence on the streets as gangs clash, leads to murder.

Giuliani's work in NYC speaks for itself. After riots in the streets under his predecessor, New York reached historic lows for crime and especially violent crime. And his successor has kept crime low, despite the economic pressures of the Great Recession.

Unfortunately, many communities have apparently not learned the lessons of NYC. In order to meet the budget, they are now openly announcing that reports of "minor" crimes will be ignored, as the police force focuses on "major" or "violent" crimes. If "Broken Window Theory" is right, we know what to expect afterward. A marked increase in all kinds of crime, which the cash-strapped, under-manned police force will be even less able to handle.

Cutting waste is one thing. But in our quest for austerity, we must remember the essential services that a society exists to provide. Safety and security is at the top of that list.

Philip K Dick is rolling over in his grave

In 1956, Philip K. Dick wrote a story called Minority Report about a future society where criminals were apprehended before they committed a crime. It was later made into a movie by Steven Spielberg, starring Tom Cruise. The core of both pieces is the same - is it just to arrest and try people for a crime they have not yet committed? And how far will society go to protect itself? At the time, it was speculative fun or biting satire, depending on how you looked at it.

In 2010, it is quickly becoming reality. In PKD's world, precognitive superhumans were the means. Today, Google and other data warehouse companies look to mine data to predict future behavior.

“When a person goes on probation or parole they are supervised by an officer. The question that officer has to answer is ‘what level of supervision do you provide?’” Berk told ABC News, intimating that the program could have a bearing on the length of sentences and/or bail amounts.
...
“People assume that if someone murdered then they will murder in the future,” Berk also states, “But what really matters is what that person did as a young individual. If they committed armed robbery at age 14 that’s a good predictor. If they committed the same crime at age 30, that doesn’t predict very much.”

This is a kind of technology that needs to be closely watched and regulated. It is easy to say today that it will never be misused, but would the public have approved this technology on 9/12/2001 if it was revealed it could have predicted 9/11? We need to consider these questions now, because the hard choices are not far away.