Hacker News Up In Arms Over iPhone

I've been watching the gathering shitstorm on Hacker News with mild amusement.

The subject of this storm: Apple, and the new iPhone SDK license agreement. Specifically, Section 3.1.1:-

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

Adobe Flash. Nada. Adobe are screaming. Clojure - screwed. Scheme - dead. One article describes Steve Jobs as "mad."

But then, this is a time for madness. People are experimenting with firewalls, paywalls, all manner of bas laws - all to try and kill the upsurge in creativity and ingenuity that has sprung up, all over the world, since 1995.

People are scared that everybody around them is potentially a bigger genius than they are, and potentially could get richer than they are, and so to hold on to their power they set up these stupid rules.

And they expect people to play by those rules, instead of writing their way around them and leaving them sprawled in the dirt, obsolete.

The fight is on, people. May the best minds win. And right now, it's all to play for.

A bit of personal SF creativity ...

Two lines from an aria of a future opera, written in Brazilian Portuguese:-

"Você não pode me deixar agora! Você não me pagou ainda!"

"Você não me deram nada vale a pena pagar para ainda!"

Enjoy translating them.

A New LJ Community?

LJ keeps going on about ONTD - "Oh No They Didn't."

I feel sorely tempted to set up a comm titled "WCWTD" - "Who Cares What They Did?"

Periodic Table News - Element 117 Created

Most long time readers of my blog will know that I am a huge fan of the periodic table of the elements, and any news that has to do with the more exotic elements is always going to pique my interest.

Recently, for instance, I reported on the official IUPAC nomenclature for Element 112, "Copernicium." That's the highest element with an actual name, rather than a designation. The top of the list, the Transuranics higher than uranium, are:-

Z	Name	Symbol	Type
93	Neptunium	Np	Actinoid
94	Plutonium	Pu	Actinoid
95	Americium	Am	Actinoid
96	Curium	Cm	Actinoid
97	Berkelium	Bk	Actinoid
98	Californium	Cf	Actinoid
99	Einsteinium	Es	Actinoid
100	Fermium	Fm	Actinoid
101	Mendelevium	Md	Actinoid
102	Nobelium	No	Actinoid
103	Lawrencium	Lr	Actinoid
104	Rutherfordium	Rf	Transition metal
105	Dubnium	Db	Transition metal
106	Seaborgium	Sg	Transition metal
107	Bohrium	Bh	Transition metal
108	Hassium	Hs	Transition metal
109	Meitnerium	Mt	Transition metal
110	Darmstadtium	Ds	Transition metal
111	Roentgenium	Rg	Transition metal
112	Copernicium	Cn	Transition metal
113	Ununtrium	Uut	Poor metal
114	Ununquadium	Uuq	Poor metal
115	Ununpentium	Uup	Poor metal
116	Ununhexium	Uuh	Poor metal
117	Ununseptium	Uus	Halogen
118	Ununoctium	Uuo	Noble gas

I suddenly feel that old Tom Lehrer song coming along. "There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium / And nitrogen and oxygen and hydrogen and helium ..."

CSI:NY "Sanguine Love"

I'm just watching the CSI:NY vampire episode.

Oh, boy.

I have a question to my fellow Brits. What's up with the casting of Brits as the villains by Yanks?

I mean, I'm all up for it. I'd love the idea of walking up to some passing American tourists and going "Hi. I'm a Brit," and watch them all scatter to the four winds screaming and peeing themselves in raw, naked fear ... but then where'd be the fun in that?

Also, the vampire stuff is making me cringe just watching it. It's like watching Tom Hanks' Mazes & Monsters for the very first time. They even had the obligatory scene where two of the series stalwarts stand around looking confused. "What happened to playing stickball?" one of them goes.

Seriously."H'mm, what shall we do today. Play stickball, or exsanguinate some pretty blonde? Stickball ... exsanguination ... oh, decisions, decisions ... there's only one way to find out which is better ..."

Political Humour On livejournal_uk - Where Did It All Go?

Someone on livejournal_uk just now asked where all the political humour has gone (since, you know, it's only one week into the Elction '10 campaign and all).

The following is my reply:-

"But that was before the Digital Economy Bill came along and we all began to realise that all these talentless clowns were actively crapping all over this country and believing themselves beyond reproach.

"And now, they're all having to come to us, cap in hand, from all parties, begging for us to put them back in so they can shit on our heads for another five years.

"The clumsy but cute kitten ceases to be funny the moment it lashes out and draws your blood."

Merger

Yesterday I discovered that my local branch of PC World is moving into the premises occupied by Curry's, since both are in effect the same company.

So I thought about it, and I said to the PC World guy I was talking to:-

"So, then, maybe it won't be PC World any more, and it won't be Curry's.

"Maybe they'll rename it PC Wurrys."