Misc.page

academia

- assistant professor: 5-6 years, then tenure/promote to associate
- associate professor
- (full) professor

numbers 2/10/10

- US economy 2010
  - nat'l debt $12.557T with ~4.5% long-term securities interest
    - owe china $894.8B
  - FY2010 total estimated expenditures $3.552T, total estimated revenues $2.381T
  - health industry profits: $12.2B in 2009
- social web
  - 100M+ fb mobile users
  - 1B tweets/mo; 50M tweets/day
  - fb $700M in 09 $1.1B in 10
  - twitter api rate limit: 150 req/hr
- products
  - 3M kindles sold as of 1/29/10 (techcrunch)
  - amazon sales at $9.5B as of 1/28/10
- US movies 2009 <http://www.slashfilm.com/2010/03/05/infographic-film-industry-by-the-numbers/>
  - box office revenue: $10.6B ($9.6B eu, $6.4B asia, $2.6 other)
  - 518 movies, $7.50 avg price, 1474M moviegoers
- mobile market shares
  - 10/09-1/10: <http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/comScore_Reports_January_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share>
  - Q1 2010: android passes iphone to #2 in smartphone OSes
    - 36% RIM, 28% Android, 21% Apple
    - Droid, Droid Eris, Blackberry Curve kept Verizon's smartphone sales on par w ATT
    - 32% ATT, 30% Verizon, 17% TMob, 15% Sprint
    - avg smartphone $151 (v $83 for all mobile phones)
    - <http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100510.html>
- cloud
  - 2010-05-08: 8M users on google apps for education (v 16M students total in US)
  - aws revenue estimates for 2010: $500-$700M
- enterprise mail
  - 75% of company's IP is in email---symantec, 2007 <http://eval.veritas.com/downloads/news/ESG_Email-Management.pdf>
- marketing
  - ad spending for tech companies in 2009 <http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-ad-spending-for-tech-companies-2010-5>
- video online
  - youtube mobile up 160% in 2009, 100M+ plays/day
  - 24h uploaded to youtube/60s, up 17% in 10 months
  - record views in 5/2010 w 14.6B views (144.1M users; >100vids/user)
  - hulu 2nd w 1.2B vids (3.5% of all online vid); 183M US users (84.8% pop'n)
  - hulu served 566M+ vid ads in june to 7.6% of us pop
  - <http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1154>

standard bodies

- ecma: they submit things to iso
- iso/iec: big kahuna; international
- ietf: internet standards, rfcs; works with w3c, iso
- w3c: web standards; works with iso
- whatwg: w3c too slow; made html5; w3c agreed to adopt
- iana: IP addrs, AS numbers, media types, IP protos/ports/etc; runs dns root
  and some TLDs; op'd by icann
- icann: iana stuff, TLDs, root servers
- ansi: american; official US representative to ISO/IEC, via USNC
- itu-t: the standards-making body of the itu

- theory folks seem to use single-column articles, probably because math
  lines grow long (as I encountered in my machine learning report) and
  because their articles tend to be much shorter (and thus probably require
  fewer compacting/space-saving measures)

Charles Babbage: first programmer

Ada Lovelace: publisher of first program (Babbage's)

game programming

- heavy emphasis on performance all the way through
  - unlike web app dev, where you just need to make things scalable
  - still use asm, esp. for graphics operations

demoscene

- ultra-compact interactive graphical programs, usu. in asm

MusicBrainz

- used to use a patented technology called TMR but that didn't turn out to be
  scalable (lots of collisions among dissimilar tracks)
- switched to MusicIP analysis technology, also closed-source
- Picard tagger has much lighter-weight "fingerprinting" technology
- ref: <http://nikolasco.livejournal.com/336720.html>

audio

- AAC: designed to succeed MP3, generally better quality at same bitrates

fonts

- Helvetica: widely used, pretty standard; nice in larger sizes on Ubuntu
- Arial: similar to Helvetica but "cheaper"
  <http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/>
- Calibri: replaced Arial as default font in Windows
- Open Sans: this one looks really nice, at least on Ubuntu

games
=====

- engines
  - cube
    - games: assaultcube
  - cube 2/sauerbraten: in-game level editing
    - games: blood frontier (last release 2/2009)
  - id tech 1: 1993; opened 1997, GPL'd 1999
    - games: doom, doom 2, hexen, heretic
    - BSP
  - quake engine: 1996; GPL'd xmas 1999; maps GPL'd 2006 (but not other
    content, eg textures)
    - games: quake, quakeworld
    - BSP
    - gouraud shading for moving objs
    - lightmap for static objs
    - quakec scripting lang; future id engines used c then c++
  - id tech 2: 1997; GPL'd xmas 2001
    - games: quake 2
    - BSP
    - opengl
    - MD2 model fmt: 10 keyframes/s
    - lightmap levels using radiosity
    - used DLLs to switch btwn opengl/SW, to release certain srcs to allow
      modding, and to replace the dynamic lang quakec
  - id tech 3: 1999; GPL'd 2005
    - games: q3a, urban terror (proprietary)
    - BSP
    - levels can use either lightmaps or gouraud shading; engine could apply
      lightgrid lights to models
    - MD3 model fmt: use vertex movements (vs skeletal anim); variable
      keyframes/s; separate head/torso/leg parts for indep animations
    - blob shadows and accurate polygonal shadow
    - HLSL
    - volumetric fog
  - ioquake3: cleaned-up id tech 3
    - games: openarena, tremulous
  - darkplaces (heavily modified quake 1 engine); best gfx
    - games: nexuiz
  - id tech 4: 200
    - games: doom 3, quake 4, ET:QW
    - C++
    - entirely dynamic per-pixel lighting, vs. lightmaps and gourard shading
      - dynamic effects previously available only changed polygon vertex
        brightness and interpolated pixel colors
    - bump mapping, normal mapping, specular highlighting
    - more features added in successive games
    - later feature _megatexture_ (for ET:QW) enabled outdoor scenes; 32768^2
      pixels
  - id tech 5: 2010
    - games: rage, doom 4
    - emphasis on making engine easier to use for devs and others
    - id studio: content-creation tools; no more need for external/cmdline tools
    - virtual texturing: 128000^2 pixels; stream on demand
    - dynamically changeable worlds
    - penumbra (soft edges) in shadows using shadow maps (vs sharply defined
      shadows)
    - HDR, depth of field, motion blur, multi-threaded processing
    - opengl, DX9, not DX10
- games
  - quakeworld: quake with networking redone for much better internet play
    (orig for LAN); GPL'd maps
- tools
  - netradiant: q3 map editor; heritage in gtkradiant, q3radiant, QE4 (q2)
- misc
  - rcon: remote console; various protocols include valve's, quakeworld's, etc
  - quakenet: orig for quakeworld players; now general IRC net
  - binary space partitioning (BSP): TODO
    - recursively subdivide space into convex sets by hyperplanes, yielding BSP
      trees
    - used for levels; render quickly while minimizing polygon count per refresh
    - large open areas don't work well

typography

- ligatures: prepared combinations of adjacent chars (eg Th that overlap)
- techniques
  - expanded caps
  - condensed caps

font formats

- truetype: scalable
- opentype: truetype + greater extension of basic char set, including small
  caps, old-style numerals, more detailed shapes like glyphs and ligatures
- postscript type 1: smooth, detailed, high-qual; for pro-quality printing
- <http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Whats-the-difference-between-TrueType-PostScript-and-OpenType-fonts>
- <http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/TT%20PS%20OpenType.pdf>

favorite fonts

- computer modern <http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/fonts/cm/ps-type1/bakoma/>
- monospace
  - bitstream vera sans mono
  - consolas
- humanist
  - calibri
  - gill sans
  - lucida grande/lucida sans unicode
  - trebuchet
- serif
  - bitstream charter

Startups
========

<http://blog.marcua.net/post/211390022/startup-bootcamp-at-mit>

Software
========

- microsoft expression: suite for designing/building web/Windows apps
  - expression web: like dreamweaver
  - expression blend: design silverlight/wpf apps; like flash professional
  - expression design: graphics editor
  - expression encoder

Games
=====

Jesse Schell: future of games from DICE 2010

- facebook is strange
- lead generation can bring in more revenue than direct payment
  - lead generation: "sign up for credit card in return for farm cash"
  - direct payment: also strange bc of microtransactions
- club penguin: bought by disney; used 'psychological trick'
  - kid plays games, gets virtual $, but can't spend at store bc need to be a paying subscriber to spend
  - mom refuses to pay $6
  - 6 weeks later, kid asks again, "look at all my virtual $"
  - mom thinks "wow still at it, oh well only $6"
  - of course it's a recurring $6 for $72/yr
- webkinz: imaginary character to each stuffed animal; put on screen in MMO
  - On Webkinz World, the Secret Code allows the user to own a virtual version
    of the pet for online play for a limited time. To maintain long-term access
    to an account, the user must continue to purchase additional stuffed
    toys.[1]
  - to parents, $12 = $20; ~same
- mafia wars: text based mafia game competing with your friends
  - spend time or $20 to get ahead
- these all have psychological games
- but main common theme: busting through to reality
  - eg: reality tv, organic groceries, mcdonald's angus ('real' burger)
  - ppl once wanted to escape; now want to hang on to reality
- technology may fix this through convergence (facebook on xbox, set-top boxes
  to consoles)
  - but tech actually diverges (except for iphone -- that's the pocket rule
    exception)
- examples of crossing to reality
  - fantasy football: everyone plays it
  - geocaching: fun to walk in woods if there's treasure
  - simpson's: scavenger hunt; watch all shows, find ref, get prize
  - darpa network challenge
  - weight watchers: points system
  - ford hybrid: the more saved gas, the more a virtual plant grows; it's a
    "pet"
- not designed by skilled game designers; imagine if they got their hands on
  this
- future: everything monitors us everywhere, giving us points
  - if we design right, can motivate us to become better ppl
- <http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/02/jesse-schell-future-of-games-from-dice-2010/>

Misc
====

IP law

- issues
  - licenses (eg GPL) are interpreted differently worldwide
    - eg can BSD be added to GPL without explicit sublicensing clause?
    - big players need to document explicitly
  - outbound licensing: eg GPL + non-GPL in project
  - inbound licensing: eg accepting contribs wo copyrights/licenses
- GPL enforcement
  - software freedom law center (SFLC): nonprofit that helps enforcement
  - entities have options:
    - include src w bin: simplest; immediately ends obligation
    - offer to send src on request: common; companies bet on this
    - release via P2P system
  - often settle; violator pays legal fees too
- trademarks
  - earned/strengthened by usage; no reg needed; no expiration (into public
    domain) while in use
    - should do TM search first, but no willful infringement
    - if reg, then reg as group, not individual
  - nominative use: protects factual references
  - vs copyright: granted on create; has fair use doctrines
  - limited by political geography
- <http://lwn.net/Articles/375071/>

totally misc
============

- goodhart's law: setting social/economic targets loses the original intent bc
  people will try to game/solely meet the target; eg, soviet factories that
  needed to meet nail quotas producing useless nails