Wikipedia has become the de facto encyclopedia on the Internet. A traditional encyclopedia spans many textbook volumes which would take any normal person ages to read. Few people would likely engage in such an endeavor. However, since Wikipedia is readily accessible: should you take up the challenge?

Wikipedia is continuously being changed and updated. Consequently, reading all of it would take an infinite amount of time, as when you would have finished reading, you would have to go back to re-read the changed articles. Hence, we need to change our initial question to: How long would it take to read a snapshot of today’s Wikipedia? But we aren’t there yet, there’s one more thing left to specify. Since Wikipedia is multi-lingual, we have to pick a language. While some articles are translated from English into various languages, there are quite a few that have no English counterpart and are language, culture or even region specific. Let’s focus only on the English portion of Wikipedia.

The English Wikipedia consists of about 4 million articles, counting only the content pages. That’s roughly an estimated 3000 volumes of Encyclopædia Brittanica. It’s heavily consulted as this collection of articles gets viewed almost 3000 times every second. However, let’s not get distracted: our goal is to find out how long it would take to read Wikipedia. For this we first have to find out how fast people read. Although this greatly varies from person to person, and some Wikipedia articles may be more difficult to read than others, we will have to pick a reasonable value. It turns out that the average American adult can read about 300 words per minute.

So, how many words does Wikipedia consist of? Although no recent exact numbers are available, a quick extrapolation reveals that all articles combined form about 2500 million words, that’s about 625 words per article on average. Each article would take a little over two minutes to read for an average adult. Reading all of Wikipedia would take about 140 000 hours, which is 5800 days, or almost sixteen years. That’s assuming that you’re reading 24 hours a day! Reading a standard eight-hour workday seems more reasonable. In that case it would take you thrice as long: 48 years, but you’d still have time to do other things, and most importantly: time to sleep.

Thus, right now it would (still) be possible to read Wikipedia in a lifetime: if you start reading when you turn 18, you would have reached about pension-age (66) when you would be finished. Nevertheless, Wikipedia continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate than it used to: the word count is increasing with about two percent per month. Hence, if you still want to actually do this: I suggest you start reading now. However, perhaps your time is better spent some other way

Source: Wikipedia Statistics

When you arrive in a new country one of the first things you are confronted with is the local eating habits. This affects the whole spectrum of places where food and drinks can be bought: from restaurants to grocery stores. Hence, it is time to take a brief look at the top characteristics of the American diet.

Portion Size
The size of a meal in the United States is on average two to three times larger compared to what you would get in Europe. Only high-end restaurants and some foreign restaurants are exceptions to this. I haven’t made any concrete calculations, but I am quite sure that the amount of calories in a single average dinner combined with a fountain drink approaches the recommended daily intake of calories. On top of that fountain drinks come with free refills: drinking over half a liter of a soft drink is bad enough by itself, let alone refilling that already oversized cup once or twice.

When I ordered a Cappuccino at Starbucks I was told that “Tall” (354ml) is the smallest option they have. The others are Grande (473ml) and Venti (591ml). Then there’s even the Tentra (916ml) option for some of their drinks, which is larger than the capacity of the human stomach. I am not sure about you, but I have more or less come to expect coffee to come in servings of 200-250ml. In a similar vein: I ordered a medium Cherry Coke at a movie theater, what did I get? Over a liter of cola!

The large portion sizes extend to grocery stores: I’ve seen potato chips in bags about the size of my own torso. By default most packaged drink sizes are larger than in Europe: cans are 355ml (12 fl oz) instead of 330ml, small bottles 590ml (20 fl oz) instead of 500ml, and large bottles are 1890ml (64 fl oz) instead of 1500ml (and sometimes even 2000ml). Notice that the proportional difference gets larger each step we go up: 1.07x for a can, 1.18x for a small bottle, and 1.26x for a large bottle.

From left to right: a tea cup (175ml), a measuring cup (250ml), the movie theater cherry coke (1100ml) and a `normal’ cherry coke bottle (2000ml)

Restaurants and Eating Out
In the Netherlands it is common to eat at a restaurant perhaps once a week. Of course there are exceptions, but most cooking is done at home. In the US it is very common to eat out at least four to five times a week. Service at most restaurants is usually quite quick, and Pittsburgh is filled with quality restaurants. So, the preference for eating out is not surprising. Furthermore, the restaurants are diverse and true to the taste of their home country and region: chefs do not go overboard to cater to the local taste here. That means that Chinese food is really Chinese food, not the watered-down variant we’ve become used to in the Netherlands. The diversity of restaurants is high, which supports the conclusion that the American diet consists of a broad selection of local tastes that originate elsewhere in the world.

Sugar
It has become clear to me: America is on a sugar high. Many foods are somehow sweetened. For example, the bread you can buy in the supermarket looks deceivingly like normal Dutch bread. However, once you actually taste it you will notice that it is really sweet: as if several bags of sugar have been added to the dough. The same goes for many other American foods, especially processed ones, in which sugar is commonly replaced with high-fructose corn syrup which is allegedly less healthy than normal sugar.

Soft drinks are also sugary of course, unless you go for the diet variants. I believe the maximum recommended intake of refined sugar is about 40 gram. In the United States the smallest can of coke you can buy is 355ml which contains 39 grams of sugar. Hence, it may not be surprising that the United States has the highest sugar consumption per capita in the world: about 70 grams per day. Which is nearly one-and-a-half times more than the average Dutch person consumes.

The love for sugar in the United States has historic roots. It is believed that Christopher Columbus brought sugar to the new world. There was a high demand for it, but: harvesting sugar was labour intensive. Since there were not enough European settlers to do all this work people were brought in from elsewhere: slaves.

Tea
Similar to many Dutch people, Americans prefer coffee over tea. Nevertheless, tea is easy to obtain in the US. Many herbal teas are inherently caffeinless, but black teas are usually not. However, in the United States it is very common to see bags with normal black tea alongside bags of `decaffeinated’ black tea. I’ve not seen this before, although it makes sense perhaps as decaffeinated coffee is a global phenomenon.

Fat
While both French and Dutch people may be accustomed to using cheese for its merit of having a strong taste, in the United States it appears to be viewed quite differently. Oddly enough, cheese appears to be a relatively tasteless slice, or sauce, of fat that you add to something to make it `fuller’. Comparable to adding whipped cream to chocolate milk to make it sweeter.

In many American fast food chains the food is literally drenched in fat, as if to mask the inferior taste of the low-quality ingredients. Sadly, America’s own food `trademark’ is taking something nice and then applying the fast food formula to it: burgers, pizza, chicken, you name it. If you want to eat out, the general advice is: skip the American restaurants. So, no McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. Instead go to one of the many excellent foreign restaurants, like: Japanese, Chinese, Indian or Thai.

Generally: Unhealthy is Cheap
Several days ago, as I walked down the aisle of the local super market, I heard someone complaining about the prices of the healthier foods that were available. A shop employee responded: “It’s simple, ma’am, if ya wanna eat healthier ya gotta pay more”. In regular grocery stores the vegetables are often of poor quality and the fruit is expensive. Better quality food can be bought in more expensive supermarkets^[1]. The fact thus remains: eating healthy is costly: a perverse incentive.

It is no wonder that America is getting ever more obese …

Apple and Microsoft are the two household operating system creators known by the majority of consumers. However, they are not the only ones. While Microsoft’s Windows and Apple’s Mac OS are commonly viewed as the two dominant desktop titans, there is a third often overlooked player: Linux.

Linux is not an operating system by itself though, it is only the kernel of an operating system. The kernel of all modern versions of Windows is “Windows NT”, while the one of Mac OS X is “XNU”. I won’t go into too much technical detail, but roughly the kernel is a middleman between the programs that run on your computer and the underlying physical hardware. So, if you open a text document residing on a disk, the text editor would ask the kernel to do this, and in turn the kernel would ask the disk. The details of accessing the disk are hidden from the text editor, which is nice since it doesn’t need to know the myriad of different media that your text document could be stored on: a harddrive, USB stick, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray Disc or network drive.

When the Linux kernel is combined with a set of applications it actually becomes possible to operate the machine it is installed on using those applications, hence it really becomes an operating system. In the Linux world such a combination of the kernel and applications is referred to as a distribution. A distribution commonly includes a set of core applications created by the GNU Project. There are many different distributions, some target a broad audience that want an easy-to-use desktop, like Fedora Core, Ubuntu and SuSE. These usually offer an intuitive graphical user interface like GNOME or KDE. Besides this there are distributions that are specialized to make it easy to, for example, run a media center or a web server.

If you’re still with me, you may be convinced you’ve never ever used Linux, and perhaps you’d even like to try it. However, if you have used an Android telephone or browsed the web than you have most definitely used Linux. Google’s Android actually uses the Linux kernel. That’s right: many smartphones, and tablets, are running Linux nowadays! Additionally, most of Google’s application actually run on Linux even if you access them via your browser. Besides this the majority of web sites use the Apache web server which is also often run on Linux systems.

Since Linux is prolific nowadays, you may wonder: is there some big company behind it? Windows has Microsoft, MacOS is backed by Apple. However, Linux is non-profit and open source. You can find out how that works and what it means here. The foundations of what we know as Linux today were created by Linus Torvalds twenty years ago. However, many people have contributed to it over the years, both volunteers and paid developers. Indeed, large companies, like Intel, IBM and even Microsoft, have contributed code to the Linux kernel. Besides this there are several companies that have become famous for their continuous involvement in Linux: Red Hat, Canonical and Novell. These make money primarily through support and services, targeted primarily at the enterprise.

Is Linux usable as a desktop operating system for your day-to-day activities? This was the big goal a decade ago: to get the Linux desktop, notably GNOME and KDE, to the same level as graphical user interfaces of other operating systems. Whether the developers have succeeded in this depends largely on how you use your desktop in your day-to-day life. The best way to find out is to actually try it. If you are a newcomer to Linux I usually recommend Ubuntu, which you can download here, as its one of the easiest user-friendly distributions around. However, feel free to take a look around to see if there is an other distribution that appeals to you.

People are often surprised that I do not own a single Apple branded product: how can someone that holds a degree in Human Media Interaction not have at least an iPod? Perhaps it is time for a brief explanation.

Did Apple invent the mouse? No, that would’ve been either Stanford, Xerox or Telefunken, depending on what you define as a mouse. But did Apple popularize the mouse? Yes, sir. And that is, and has remained, the strength of Apple throughout the years. Take something that is either obscure or that seems past its peak point and make it into something everyone wants to have. The grey laptop becomes the MacBook, the clunky walkman becomes the iPod, the drab PC becomes the iMac, the aging mobile phone becomes the iPhone, the failing tablet PC becomes the iPad: iWant!

Granted, Apple is good at making stuff that is easy and intuitive to use. They are willing to take risks with their designs which differentiates them from other major hardware manufacturers. They are also known for their decent hardware and software support. So far, so good, so what’s the catch?

An often cited reason for not buying Apple hardware is that it is overpriced. This is especially true for laptops. Go to any other manufacturer and you will get a machine with equivalent specifications for a third or half cheaper than Apple’s offerings. In this regard: I always find it puzzling that so many students buy Apple machines. To find the reason for this we have to dig a little deeper. Although the days that Apple was making products for the niche of graphic designers and artists are over, they continue to have this exclusive air and feel to them: buying an Apple is like joining a club or becoming part of a family. Apple is one of those companies that successfully sells not only a product, but primarily a feeling.

I have to admit that I too like nice looking things and prefer brand name products over nameless equivalents. Nevertheless, even though MacBooks look gorgeous: I don’t have one. I think that Apple’s reputation for developing new and innovative products is nowadays a large factor in propelling their newly launched products to the forefront more quickly than those of other companies. Let’s face it people: Apple doesn’t hold a patent on good design, intuitive interfaces, and solid hardware. There are other companies that put out good well-designed products too, but people are less willing to consider them, since it is `not Apple’.

Design and reputation apart, my real gripe with Apple is their highly proprietary nature. They control everything from the nitty gritty details of the hardware to the highest levels of software. The main advantage of this model is that they have complete control over the user experience, which allows them to create coherent well-integrated products. The downside is that this level of control makes their systems very inflexible and stifles innovation by others. My primary reason for not buying Apple products is that I do not want to end up trapped in their proprietary, closed, and highly controlled ecosystem. Perhaps it is time for Apple to open up. They’ve garnered a large enough following to be able to do this, and it would no doubt be appreciated by many users.

Would I ever buy an iPod, iPad, MacBook, or other Apple product? I am not very brand loyal when it comes to computer stuff. Whenever I make a buying decision I evaluate competing products in a particular category based on their merits. If an Intel processor offers more bang per buck than one from AMD, I’d buy the Intel one and vice verso. In Apple’s defense: if I would have to buy a tablet now then it would certainly be an iPad. However, this is not because it is Apple, but because it is presently the best and most feature complete product in that particular category. I think that is a legitimate reason to buy a piece of hardware.

My advice: dare to honestly compare products, don’t get trapped in fanboyism: don’t buy Apple because it’s Apple, don’t become like this:

Video hosted by YouTube. Copyright © The Onion.

What do I think of the future of Apple now that Steve Jobs resigned as CEO? I think they will continue to do just fine. They have good bunch of professional people there, and there are and will continue to be, plenty of folks looking out specifically for their products. However, as in any industry, the niche of producing highly desired consumer products will undoubtedly be populated in the future by companies that we do not yet even know: the Oranges.

Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, caused a big stir when he remarked: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”. Connected to this: a friend recently asked me the question: If we would place camera’s everywhere that would track your every move continuously, as in George Orwell’s 1984, why would that be a problem, other than it making you feel uncomfortable? What are the rational arguments against constant nation-wide surveillance?

It might seem as if twenty-four hour surveillance everywhere is a good idea. Admittedly, security camera’s are often initially installed for good reasons: safety and security. The recordings can be used to prosecute criminals and perhaps even to detect situations about to spin out of control: a hot topic. Schmidt’s argument is really a variation on the old adagium: “if you are doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear”, right?

Wrong, apart from the technical issue of generating too much data to sort through, the more important ethical problems are the topic of George Orwell’s 1984: it’s all about who controls the information that is collected and the potential for misuse. For those not familiar with the book, the origin of the term Big Brother: it is about a dystopian society of which all members are under constant surveillance, even in their own homes. The government controls, and heavily censors, the flow of information to all citizens even rewriting history, and also dictates not only what constitutes acceptable behaviour, but goes as far as punishing people for what they think: thoughtcrimes. Some parallels with this are also in Philip K. Dick’s short story Minority Report, which has a well known film adaptation. Science fiction apart: history is full of people with good intentions that become corrupted, so it would be rather naive to believe such scenarios will not unfold in reality.

Some years ago I was taught that data by itself has no meaning, it only acquires meaning when you interpret it which turns it into information. The collection of bytes that make up the Internet page you are looking at right now has no meaning without this particular part being interpreted by your browser as text and other parts as images, links, etcetera. This brings me to my main argument: recorded data with an innocent interpretation today, may not be be viewed as such tomorrow. There is ongoing debate as for how long data should be retained, and the benefits of doing so. Keep it longer and you may catch more criminals, but you also open up the potential for unethical or even criminal use of that same recorded data. Misuse need not even be perpetrated by a totalitarian regime as in 1984: data can be stolen or leaked.

A former colleague has written his thesis about the topic of data retention and degradation in light of privacy. The simple fact remains: if something is not recorded anywhere, it can not be used and thus also not be misused. Security expert Bruce Schneier’s stance is that privacy is a basic human need stating that the debate is really about liberty versus control: “Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we’re doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.”

Some rightly point out that security camera’s can provide a false sense of security. It can’t be denied that they discourage unlawful behaviour. However, they are a stopgap solution that does not solve the underlying problem of criminal behaviour, nor did the some 8000 surveillance cameras in London prevent riots. All the money spent on those eyes in the sky had perhaps better been invested in crime prevention and on real cops. While I applaud using modern technology for solving crimes, technology is not, and should never be, an end itself.

I have to say that it surprises me that people are happy nowadays to voluntarily transmit their exact physical coordinates in real-time to all kinds of services: apparantly cameras are evil, but no one appears to see a problem if something is packaged as a cute ‘helpful’ app. Obviously, the concern extends far beyond surveillance cameras alone. We can learn a valuable lesson from an old soul: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both” – Benjamin Franklin.

From the Oscar-winning movie “The Social Network” to the recent introduction of Google Plus, no-one can deny it: on-line social networking services are here to stay. But, where did they come from and what does it mean for you and me?

This is the second part of a two-part article, click here to read the first part.

Usage
Now that you’re up to date on the history of social networking services, you must be wondering: should I use these services? And, if so: to what extent? First of all let me tell you that, contrary to what some people believe, I am admittedly sceptical and slow to adopt new technologies. However, I am not someone who throws out the baby with the bathwater either.

My first important advice? Determine which social network is best for you and your content, or use multiple ones for different purposes. For example use Twitter to post your public real-time content, Facebook for your personal stuff, LinkedIn for professional things and perhaps Google Plus for all of these using circles. Once you have made a choice, try not to fall for the trap of using everything the service has to offer, but rather: make the service work for you. Don’t want to post any pictures or be tagged? Disable the functionality. Don’t want people to post stuff on your wall? Disable the wall.

Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that many people scorn social networking services nowadays for the wrong reasons. I can see how a corny tag line like “this services helps you connect and share with the people in your life” can raise some red flags. However, it is important to realise that a social network is no different from a service like e-mail or telephony: they are primarily a means of keeping in touch with the people you know. These services are not intended to replace direct social contact, but rather: to augment it. My general observation is that people that are active on social networking services are also socially active outside of them. Nevertheless, I do agree that because these technologies enable people to become more globally connected, they open up the choice to become more locally disconnected. However, this is everyone’s personal decision, and not inherent to the technology.

Social networking services can certainly add value beyond conveniently interacting with your best friends and family. They make it possible to keep in touch with people you’d normally lose track of. Apparently seeing an aggregated news feed of what your friends are doing works better for this then sending private e-mails back and forth. Although, I rarely add people on any social service unless I’ve actually met and talked with them, these networks open up the possibility of meeting someone new. This can be via people you are already connected to: the digital equivalent on running into new people at a friend’s party. However, some people also regularly meet complete strangers via Facebook or Twitter. The latter being more naturally geared towards finding unfamiliar people with similar interests, because of it’s public-by-default nature. Realise that meeting a new person via Internet is really as old an application as the Internet itself. I remember meeting many interesting people in my early Internet days via the means that were available back then, some of whom are still friends to this day.

The biggest drawback of modern social networking services is not in their usage patterns, but rather the default lack of privacy and security. Many of these networks are extremely permissive “out-of-the-box”. This brings me to my second important advice: depending on your own needs I suggest you change your settings to be as restrictive as possible. Keep tight control over who can see what, unless you really want something to be public. Also consider what you want to post: what exactly is the news value of your breakfast? Keep it short, keep it relevant, maintain a high signal to noise ratio. Failing to do so will result in people ruthlessly clicking away your content. Also consider carefully whether you should really post something, especially if it is public. For example: I still think that posting location information, geotags and check-ins, in real-time is not a wise idea.

Finally, it’s unfortunate that some social networking services make it difficult to get your own data out of their systems again: making a local private copy of the content you created is often cumbersome. Google Plus is certainly a step in the right direction with respect to both privacy controls and data liberation. However, it can’t be denied: all of these services are making money primarily by targeting advertisements based on the content you share and create. Hence, their incentive to keep your data inside. Although the bills have to be paid somehow, not all people are at ease with this. I have to be honest and say that an open social network devoid of advertisements and tracking would be more then welcome. Diaspora is the only large-scale effort in this direction, and even though it has been criticised for being difficult to set-up and insecure, there are also positive reactions.

Conclusion
Social networking services are just one part of on-line social media. There’s more including, but not limited to: blogs, wiki’s, content sharing and collaboration tools. While fifteen years ago people were concerned about the digital divide: an increasing distance between the group of people that were capable of using computers and those who were not, perhaps nowadays we should be concerned about the social media divide: between those who use social media as legitimate enrichment and those who shy away from them.

From the Oscar-winning movie “The Social Network” to the recent introduction of Google Plus, no-one can deny it: on-line social networking services are here to stay. But, where did they come from and what does it mean for you and me?

All modern social networking services have the same basic structure: you create a profile with some information about yourself, add your friends as connections, and start sharing self-created content: short messages, photos, videos, websites, etcetera. It’s like having a broadcast channel with a guaranteed audience: the people you know. Why is this basic model so successful? My guess: it caters to the human desire to share.

History
The social potential of the Internet was obvious even back in 1995 when I first got Internet access. Back then there was a community in the Netherlands called “De Digitale Stad” (The Digital City). This is where I also hosted my first homepage, and yes: it did have tacky animated GIFs. Although, the digital city was not exactly comparable to the services available today, it did have the same community feel to it: publishing your own things on-line, and finding other as well as interacting with them.

While Sixdegrees.com pioneered some of what we view as a social networking service today, it were probably Friendster, MySpace and LinkedIn that gained widespread global popularity initially. In the Netherlands most people’s first experience was probably Hyves. The layout of Hyves was often criticised for allowing too much freedom leading to unreadable pages with `happy’ color schemes. However, Hyves offered what many people wanted: a quick way to create a homepage, and is still popular to this day. On the other side of the ocean it was Facebook that quietly took the lead from MySpace in 2008. While MySpace was launched before Facebook, and was for some time very popular among artists for showcasing music, it lost the lead firstly because its creators failed to rapidly innovate, and secondly because it was slower: Facebook invested a lot in making their service load and respond quickly which is a key factor in getting users and keeping them. StudiVZ successfully copycat Facebook and gained widespread popularity in Germany. Finally, there’s of course Twitter founded in 2006 which differentiated by heavily focusing on short real-time public messages.

Search-giant Google has had some trouble coming up with its own answer to the social networking explosion. Initially they launched Orkut around the same time as Facebook. Even though Orkut was successful in India and Brazil, it never caught on globally. They tried to take on Twitter with Buzz, and Google Wave was intended to be a completely new collaboration experience, but was discontinued. Recently the company launched Google Plus which is receiving mixed to positive reactions. However, given its rapid adoption my guess is that it will be successful and provide some serious competition for Facebook: the current global market leader. Nevertheless, it’s probably obvious to you by now: these services tend to come and go. We don’t know what will be the Facebook or Twitter of tomorrow, and it may very well be a service that no one has heard of yet.

Curious on how you can leverage social networking services? Read the second part of this article.

There are many people that are unaware of what free software is and what open source software is, and why it matters. In this post I’ll try to shed some light on this.

When people hear `free software’ they usually think of software that does not cost anything in terms of money, which is not the right definition. The word `free’ in free software is free as in speech, not free as in beer. So, what does this actually mean in terms of computer software? To understand this we first need a basic understanding of what a computer program actually is. A computer processor can be operated via an instruction set which allows performing many low-level operations such as adding two numbers together. These instructions are numeric codes, which are very hard to understand for a human: imagine that you would have to type a text and instead of using a – z you had to use the numbers 1 – 26 for each letter. That would be terribly difficult to read and write! So, most computer programs are written in readable text which contains statements such as “x = 3 + 5″ instead of something like “1001 1100 1010″. This written text is called the source code, which is like a blueprint of the program, and can not be interpreted by a machine directly. Source code first has to be translated into a binary machine representation: the numeric codes I spoke of before. This translation process is called either compiling or interpreting^[1]. After this step we can actually run the program and interact with it. So, we have a distinction between the source code and the binary.

Many companies that make computer software only distribute the binary to their customers and keep the source code locked away. These companies see the source code as their intellectual property which they must protect. Let’s go back to free software again and consider what makes a particular piece of software free as in speech: four main points. Firstly, the freedom to run the software for any purpose. This means that, for example, you can not distribute a video editor with the restriction that you can not use it to produce a commercial. Secondly, the freedom to study how the program works and to change it to suit your own needs. For this having the source code is a necessity. Thirdly, the freedom to distribute copies of the original program so you can share it with your friends. And finally: the freedom to distribute the modifications you make to the program to others. So, now you understand that besides the binary you also need the source code in order for something to be free software.

Undoubtedly these definitions will give you a lot to think about. Most people assume that you can not make money when you make free software. However, this is untrue as there are many successful companies out there that create and share free software. These companies realise that the real value of computer software is not in the source code, but in the people with the expertise about how the software works. Just like it takes time and practice for a musician to learn to play a musical instrument, it also takes time for a programmer to familiarise himself with a piece of software. Contrary to popular belief making computer programs is primarily a creative endeavour with a significant social component as well. Everyone who has ever written a report or paper knows the value of other people reviewing your work. The same is true for computer software: if more people read it, give feedback and fix errors, the quality of the software improves. And when the source code is available: it is much easier for people to participate in this process.

Now, this still leaves us with the question: what is open source? Is it exactly the same? Well, most open source software is also free software, which may be somewhat confusing. The main difference between the two is philosophical. The free software movement considers non-free software to be undesirable, and is social in nature: its emphasis is on changing people’s behaviour so that they create, use and share free software instead of alternatives. In contrast, the open source movement originated in the nineties as a pragmatic, liberal view on free software. Therefore it is slightly more permissive: some things that are not free software are open source. The difference is also emphasised in the concepts themselves: free software with “free as in speech” as the main issue, and open source software with an emphasis on the pragmatic advantages of having the source code openly available. Since there is a relatively large overlap between the programs these two concepts cover, people commonly use the term Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to refer to both.

So, have you used free and open source software? It is quite likely that you have! Are you running Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome as your Internet browser? Both are free software. Many websites you visits are powered by the Apache web server, which is open source. Are you perhaps using an Android telephone? The operating system kernel these phones use is Linux, which is free software. You are probably using many more pieces of free and open source software than you realise. Notice that many of these software products have been created by successful companies and not by individuals programming in their basements^[2]. Here is a 2008 video with Stephen Fry giving a quick explanation and his view on free software:

Whether or not free and open source software matters to you personally is entirely up to you. But at least the next time anyone asks you what free or open source software is: now you know the answer.

Find out more:

• Free Software Foundation
• Open Source Initiative

It’s weekend, so time for something light. I came across a cool form of expression known as kinetic typography. This is often used in commercials. The concept is to animate text in sync with music, dialogue, or an idea being presented. Here’s a relatively subtle example, that also mixes other animation techniques, by Patrick Clair from Vimeo:

Of course, this is not limited to commercials. Movie enthusiast have used this technique as well to depict some scenes from their favourite movies. A few examples that distinguish themselves by properly capturing the atmosphere of the scene they portray:

From Pulp Fiction (1994)
Warning: this contains language which may be considered offensive by some. Watch at your own discretion.

The contrast between the characters is very well expressed here by the font used. The framing and timing of the animation also leaves no doubt about who’s the most dominant in the scene. Of course: this example is helped a lot by excellent acting in the source material from Samuel L. Jackson.

From Requiem for a Dream (2000)

This is an intensely laden dialogue which is emphasised by the rapid somewhat jittery motions of the text. What sets this apart is the appropriately chosen animation style for letting words appear and disappear, for example: when the female character says “poof”.

And of course, sports events are a good target too. Even though, I don’t speak Spanish, I certainly can understand what’s going on here:

Kinetic typography is relatively easy to do compared with, say 3D animation or live action filming. This relatively low barrier to entry also, admittedly, leads to a lot of poor quality stuff. Thus, it’s quite interesting to see what sets apart the better ones, as in the examples above, from the rest. As with anything it is largely a matter of having a good sense for what is being expressed in the source material, artistic skills, and a big dose of creativity.

More examples at Typegoodness

Internet memes are `cultural’ phenomena which quickly gain popularity and, as a result, rapidly spread across the Web. These usually take the form of images or videos. Although not the first, the earliest one I can remember is “All your base are belong to us”, based on a mistranslated Japanese video game. It became popular to put this phrase in all kinds of photos. An other particularly prolific meme is the so-called Rickroll: hidden behind a possibly interesting link is the video of Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. There is even an 8-bit and an Obama version.

Although I can give many more examples, a friend pointed me to the so-called Nyan Cat, which has recently become a very popular meme. It consists of an animation of a flying cat with a Pop Tart as body. This showed up on YouTube which even changed their video slider to mimic the shape of the cat and the rainbow trail! :

There is also a browser based version that keeps track of how long you have been listening.

The looped tune in particular, of Japanese origin, is an addictive ear pleaser, but one is left to wonder: why?