Proving the Obviously Untrue

I hold Richard Feynman in huge regard. He was a fascinating human being, a Nobel laureate physicist, his research in physics was second to none. But he was also a legendary lecturer, in both the fields of physics, and perhaps surprisingly computer science. And even more, he was an exceptionally well rounded person, a gifted artist, an amateur safe cracker and more besides. I own a copy of his lectures on Physics, bought for me by my Mum who felt (probably correctly) that no-one else would buy an item that sounded so boring, though it was on my Amazon wish list. (Incidentally, I think some pages touch on issues like the paradox I presented on crashing cars, I haven't had the leisure to study this more closely).

Recently it was announced (and one of my students kindly wrote to tell me) that Bill Gates had bought up the rights to his lecturers and was making them available. I do praise Bill Gates for his philanthropy, and would have praised him for this, but regrettably, the lectures are only available with Silverlight, and so it's another of a long line of Trojan horses to ensure we buy into a new proprietary standard from Microsoft. A huge shame.

In my last, marathon article, I talked a little about models of reality. A point I didn't make is that we have trouble accepting that; no matter how much we dislike aspects of reality, they remain the same despite that. Feynman encapsulated this beautifully in this YouTube snippet of his QED lectures (which I had showed to my final year students). I have attempted a limited transcript below, but you should hear it in Feynman's excellent good humoured Brooklyn accent for full effect.

And then there's the ... kind of thing which you don't understand. Meaning "I don't believe it, it's crazy, it's the kind of thing I won't accept."

Eh. The other part well... this kind, I hope you'll come along with me and you'll have to accept it because it's the way nature works. If you want to know the way nature works, we looked at it, carefully, [...unsure of this bit...] that's the way it works.

You don't like it..., go somewhere else!

To another universe! Where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I can't help it! OK! If I'm going to tell you honestly what the world looks like to the... human beings who have struggled as hard as they can to understand it, I can only tell you what it looks like.

And I cannot make it any simpler, I'm not going to do this, I'm not going to simplify it, and I'm not going to fake it. I'm not going to tell you it's something like a ball bearing inside a spring, it isn't.

So I'm going to tell you what it really is like, and if you don't like it, that's too bad.

If you'd like to hear more from this fascinating man, can I suggest more YouTube videos showing an old BBC interview with him:

1. Part One
2. Part Two
3. Part Three
4. Part Four
5. Part Five
6. Part Six

Posted by Colin Turner

I read from Slashdot that Microsoft is taking legal action against TomTom over a number of alleged patent violations. Three of these are apparently targeted at the Linux kernel in use by TomTom.

Much of the focus of the discussion revolves around the use of FAT and FAT32 storage systems on media cards, and I have to confess this is an issue I hadn't previously considered very deeply. Microsoft has patents on these filing systems, and in fact it is important to note that Windows does not currently support any filing system that isn't one of Microsoft's own, patent entangled file systems.

There are very important, highly anti-competitive consequences to this.

• In order for media cards to work with Windows - still a practical monopoly offering in the operating system market - these cards have to support a MS entangled filing system.
• This likely means Microsoft is obtaining a revenue stream for all the licensing on many of these cards and their associated readers.
• Other operating systems, if they wish to be equally convenient to those using media cards, cameras, media players have no choice but to try and include support for these filing systems, even if they are not technically superior.

I would tend to agree with the observations of many that litigation here seems to be all that remains in a sad absence of innovation, but I would hope that if various legislatures have seen the browser issues as anti-competitive that they will consider issues like these too, especially if Microsoft starts throwing its weight around. It's not in any consumer interest for a single company to enjoy such dominance on such a wide range of products.

Update

Bruce Perens has written a good insightful analysis of this issue that also neatly encapsulates his well thought out view points on software patents in general.

Posted by Colin Turner