Darryl Mocek

Sony announced that it's Reader Daily Edition electronic book will be available in December of this year. Amongst the features of this book are wireless connectivity (ala the Kindle, to be able to download books wirelessly), a taller profile (so you can read it more like a newspaper or magazine), support for the ePub format (which lets you read many free books and purchasable books in this format), and the ability to borrow a book from the library.

Apparently, libraries will start purchasing electronic books to loan, much the same way they do with physical books today. The environmental benefit is that publishers won't be cutting down any trees to manufacture and ship the books (though electronic books do come at an environmental cost...the cost to store them on a machine somewhere and make them available (though this can be minimized), the cost to manufacture the electronic readers, and, more importantly, the cost to power the readers over time (though the eInk technology doesn't use much power and the wireless network in the reader is pretty efficient). Of course, the biggest benefit for the reader is convenience (though there is an additional environmental benefit of not having to travel to the library to pick up and return a physical book). Being able to browse the library and check-out a book through the reader will probably let me use the library much more then I do now.

What I find interesting is that, though a single electronic book can be easily loaned any number of times, there will be a limited number of electronic books available from the library, just like there's a limited number of physical books available. The libraries will have to purchase a number of electronic books to loan. The library can only electronically loan out the same number of electronic books as it has "purchased". Each book can be loaned out for a period of time and when the time expires, if the library needs the book "back", they will automatically remove it from your electronic reader so it can be loaned to someone else (I wonder what would happen if my electronic reader didn't have wireless access for longer then the loan period). This, of course, is to ensure the authors and publishers are compensated for their efforts. At first, I'm sure there will be a limited number of books available to borrow. However, I would think that number would go up relatively quickly.

I'm sure most, if not all books are created electronically these days. It's just a matter of getting it into the correct format. I find the prospect of being able to borrow a book without even having to go to the library enticing (see my earlier post on Your Public Library and Book Rentals).

Add the recently released Samsung Instinct HD (available exclusively on Sprint and available now at Best Buy) to the growing list of JavaME consumer devices. This device is pretty special though. Why? Because it's the first device to combine the two JavaME stacks (CDC and CLDC) and to include OSGi into the mix. This device has an OSGi implementation running on top of a CDC stack, and running MIDP on top of OSGi. The application model generally used on the device is MIDP, but at some point it could allow running other OSGi applications and CDC applications as well. There's a lot of capability built into this phone.

As the world moves ever towards everything online, one thing I'll miss in music are those obscure songs which make it onto an album, but which never make it to the airwaves. Some of my favorite songs from artists over the years have been these. The catalyst to me hearing these songs, of course, is the 'at least one hit' on the album which prompts me to purchase the album in the first place. Wanting to get my money's worth and hear more of what the artist has to offer, I listen to the entire album. And often, I hear a song which I like better then the song which prompted me to purchase the album in the first place. Sometimes it takes me several listens of a song to warm up to it.

In this day and age of MP3 players and being able to purchase single songs, it think it's going to be more and more likely that artists will shoot for creating that one hit song, rather then a compilation which will make an entire traditional album. There will be some, to be sure, which will compile entire albums, but then, will I want to purchase those non-hit songs? At least with an album you pay for the entire thing up front. You're stuck. You've made your investment, so you might as well listen to the whole album at least once. But with single-song purchases, will I want to buy 15 songs when I really only know I like one? Will a sampling of a non-hit song be enough for me to buy it or warm up to it? I fear not. Those obscure but favorite songs might go the way of the dinosaurs.

I recently watched 'Monster of the Milky Way' on PBS. I was surprised that astrophysicists were surprised to learn that there were monster black holes at the center of many galaxies. When I learned, years ago, that there was a monster black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, it occurred to me that galaxies were like giant solar systems. Solar systems form in large part because of a mass, like our Sun, with a great deal of gravity, attracting smaller bodies. Galaxies, I think, form the same way with black holes, or some other body with heavy gravitational attraction, attracting solar systems. Some galaxies, the ones without black holes at their center, must have some other mass at their centers which attract and keep solar systems and other matter in it's orbit.

An interesting thing I learned from the show is that black holes merge to form larger black holes and galaxies merge to form larger galaxies. Of course, since at the heart of many galaxies is a black hole, when the galaxies merge, the black holes at the center merge as well. And of course, when the black holes merge, they become larger and have a greater gravitational attraction. And, scientists calculate that our own Milky Way galaxy will merge with the Andromeda galaxy billions of years from now.

I wonder...the universe is expanding. If galaxies continue to merge, there will, of course, be fewer galaxies in the universe. But also, their black holes will become much more massive and have much more gravitational attraction. If the galaxies continue to merge, there will be fewer and fewer galaxies in the universe. But more importantly, their center black holes will be larger and have much more gravitational pull. If enough of the galaxies in the universe merge, and the black holes at their centers merge, could enough gravity build to start a collapsing of the universe? Possibly so much gravitational pull that all mass, no matter how far away, will eventually be pulled back in, resulting in another big bang (or maybe some mass escapes and subsequent big bangs are smaller until there isn't enough mass left to create a big bang any longer). I think this possibility might be calculable if we can determine the mass of all matter in the universe. We might find that the universe is in a never-ending, continual expanding/contracting cosmic dance.

If you missed JavaOne this year, possibly due to the economic downturn and the ever tightening of corporate belts, do not despair. The technical presentations presented at JavaOne are now available to Sun Developer Network members (this membership is free) here: 2009 JavaOne Technical Sessions. If you missed the keynotes, you can view replays of those here: 2009 JavaOne Conference. Granted, you don't get to mingle with other Java developers, but there's lots of good information in the presentations and contact information if you want to get more information on a particular presentation. It's the next best thing to being there.

Anyone watching the move by Ben Spies from AMA Pro Racing to World Superbike racing has noticed how serious he is about getting to MotoGP. There were rumors of him going to MotoGP last year, and he even rode the Rizla Suzuki GSV-R at the 2008 Laguna Seca round. However, he ended up in World Superbike...probably so he could prove himself on the world stage before going to the premiere class of motorcycle racing. What's been so impressive is that he's come out of the shoot with the Superpole (fastest lap times which means a start at the front) for two of two rounds so far, on a new bike (he's sporting a Yamaha R1 this year where he's been a part of the Suzuki team over the past several years in AMA) and at tracks which he's had no previous experience! Impressive. It is nice to see an American racer at the front of the pack again. Out of the four World Superbike races (two per round), he's won three of them. I believe the only reason he didn't win the first round was because he was pushed off track by Max Biaggi at the beginning of the race.

I believe if Spies does win the World Superbike title this year, especially if he continues to win every Superpole and every race (not likely), he's a shoe-in for MotoGP next year. I'm not sure if he'd end up in a factory team or satellite team, but at least he'd be there.

I just found a really nice utility named Launchy. Launchy is a utility which is always in the background. You bring it up by hitting a key combination (Alt-Space is the default). It displays a simple box into which you can type commands to launch applications (e.g. firefox). Launchy indexes your hard drive and creates a catalog of the files on your system. When you start typing, Launchy suggests an application in which you might be interested. When it finds an application, it displays the applications icon and the name of the application. If it found the correct application, you can just hit the Enter key and it will launch the application. If it didn't find the correct one, you can hit the down arrow to see a list of all applications which match.

On Windows, Launchy indexes what is in your Start menu by default. You can modify this list. You can also change the default key combination to bring up Launchy. You can also enter file names into Launchy and it will launch that file using the default application for that file. For those of us who don't like reaching for the mouse, Launchy is a really useful utility.

Does anyone remember Borland's Sidekick?

Yesterday I received my new phone in the mail. It's a Palm Centro. This wasn't my first choice since I believe Palm to be a dead platform (it was great for a while, but it has not evolved), however, my service provider wants to require me to pay for a data plan for every other smartphone in which I'm interested (but not the Centro)...and a data plan is something I'm not interested in...at least not yet. So the Centro it is. I actually wanted the RIM Blackberry Curve 8330 as the Blackberry platform has good market share and is growing. I require a decent platform mainly so I can get applications for it. I want to do more with my phone then just make phone calls.

I've had Palm devices for a while now, so I'm already familiar with the platform. The Centro is smaller then the Treo 700p it replaced, which I don't like as I have big hands and fingers. My service provider does offer some of the larger Palm phones, but they run Windows, and I'm not going there. Other then that...it's just like my old phone.

The biggest surprise for me, was just how much I missed having a more capable phone. I was using a really old Audiovox flip phone, with just the basic features and no QWERTY keyboard (which mean texting was a *real* pain) because I didn't want to fork out full price to replace my broken phone and I wasn't due for a phone upgrade from my provider for several months. The basic phone had no real scheduler with alarms, no memos, no ability to run decent apps, little memory (I had to delete SMS messages constantly to keep under the 99 message limitation for inbox and outbox), a crappy UI, poor battery life, and many other issues. Man, am I happy to have a smartphone again.

I just installed OpenSolaris 2008.11 on Sun's Virtual Box v2.0.6. I think this has been the easiest OS install I've done so far. First, the Live CD launches and runs the OS. From there, you can click on the 'Install OpenSolaris' icon to install OpenSolaris. It installs complete with a ZFS filesystem as the default. Very cool.

I read in the New York Times this morning about the allegations regarding Governor Blagojevich's selling of the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama. As the saying goes, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm not sure why the Illinois Senate seats are appointed by the Governor and not elected by the people. Hopefully the laws in Illinois will change to appoint the Senate seats by election. Checks and balances are a good thing in politics.

First of all, I'm happy to see democracy is alive and well in the U.S.. It's great to see the election turnout we had this year...over 60%. Wow.

Second, I think we need a new party here in America. I like the idea of a small government and individual rights (ala Republicans), but I also like the liberal rights (isn't that part of the Republican's individual rights?) and help for those who *really* need it afforded by the Democrats, plus some, but not *too* much, security for the masses (in between the Democrats and Republicans). Until we have such a party and it gains traction, we need to balance what the Republicans and Democrats do in office by switching the elected official of each party, like the swinging of a pendulum...going one way for a while, then swinging back the other way. Currently, the pendulum has swung way too much to the right...it needs to come back a ways.

Third, I'm sad to see that Prop 8, here in California, passed. Discrimination in any form is wrong. I hope this goes to the state Supreme Court and is ruled unconstitutional. I find it ironic that we can pass such a discriminatory proposition in the shadow of such as historic presidential election.

We had an event today at Sun's Santa Clara Campus. Zuum Craft came by with a couple of Zuumer's so we could give them a try. What is a Zuumer? It's a three-wheeled (one in front, two in back) electric scooter. You ride it just like you'd ride a two-wheeled scooter except that it's much more stable from the two wheels in back, instead of two. Learning to ride the Zuumer is almost natural as it mimics the movement of other activities, like riding a skateboard or scooter, surfing, skiing, and snowboarding. The Zuumer stands by itself when not ridden.

One of the more interesting things about the Zuumer is how the rear wheels work. They're mounted on a two-part pivot system where one of the pivots pivots the wheels horizontally and the other pivot pivots the wheels vertically. No matter how far I leaned the Zuumer, the rear wheels never came off the ground. This gave the Zuumer a very planted feel and in fact, you could turn the Zuumer extremely fast as long as you were willing to lean far enough over (which the Zuumer CEO demonstrated). When you apply the brakes, the throttle is cut off, so panic stops should be no problem.

The Zuumer houses two batteries in the platform which slide in and out of place on a guide mounted to the top of the platform. The batteries can be locked for security.

The Zuumer will do about 15 MPH and it's range runs about 20 miles. You can recharge the batteries to 85% capacity in about 2 hours, a full change takes about 4 hours.

I really enjoyed riding the Zuumer. It didn't feel like it was a vehicle I'd ride only to be green, but I'd ride just for fun. I could see using it as a commute vehicle as my commute is only about 16 miles each way and I have the option of several street routes.

They're supposed to be available pretty soon, possibly by the beginning of the year. I'll let you know if I pick one up.

I just read this article on Speed TV's website about MotoGP rider John Hopkins getting upset with Kawasaki because they haven't made enough progress with their engine development to make the bike competitive in MotoGP. I applaud him for this. Clearly Hopkins wants to win races. At a minimum, he wants to be battling for the front. I have no doubt that Kawasaki would also like to see their bike on the podium. I only hope this really gives Kawasaki a kick in the pants to really up their game. As a Kawasaki owner, I'd like to see them to better.

I found this website which displays a graph of gas prices over the past six years (http://www.sanjosegasprices.com/retail_price_chart.aspx). You can select from specific areas, or the U.S. average. Guess what the price of gas was six years ago? The U.S. average was $1.31. The U.S. average is now $3.94. Something is clearly wrong here.

Well, it looks like now I'm forced to try my local library, at least in the short-term. Somehow, I'm still not quite sure exactly how, I broke my Sony eReader. I had been using it the day before it broke. The next day I turned it on and was greeted with a white screen with grey streaks running through it. Damn. The screen itself isn't broken, but I believe the eInk layer just beneath it is. I took the eReader out of the holder to find a rather large dent in the back. Something must have hit it with a fair amount of force as the entire Sony was slightly bent at the point of impact. The good news is that Sony provides a warranty on the device to help me get a replacement, which has been ordered and is in route. Thank you Sony. In the mean time, I guess I'll resort to checking out my local library for some old-fashioned paper-based information.