The Android OS, despite being less than a year and a half old, has fragmented to an appalling degree. Different manufacturers include varied screen sizes, sensors and actuators. So, application developers cannot predict what hardware is available. And consumers cannot easily predict if an application they download will function correctly.

The operating system itself has even become fragmented. There are five different versions of Android available across different hardware. Developers now have to consider these different versions, not unlike working with different browsers. Developing for the latest version (as Google does), effectively tells anyone with an older version (79.6% of the Android market at the moment) that they’re out of luck.

I will note that the speaker suggested using version 1.5 or 1.6 rather than 2.1 in developing. On the one hand, that does solve a short term problem of diverse systems. On the other, it makes an unsafe assumption of developers: that we’d want to use an older specification. For most programming languages, it is better practice and makes a person more employable to use the latest standard whenever possible.

And, there are some genuine reasons for this fragmentation. With more varied hardware, it becomes increasingly difficult to include the appropriate drivers (needing to write one for every new feature for every individual piece of hardware). Some devices do not contain the memory or processing to be upgraded, which effectively keeps them trapped with their original version.

It’s this fragmentation that will eventually lead to different flavors of the Android OS, more or less defeating the purpose of a unified operating system. Manufacturers may want to consider having an easy Lego-like means of upgrading hardware, but that still does not account for building the drivers (and assumes that manufacturers would even want open hardware).

Ah well. It was a nice idea.

I spent Monday sick and grading. (I did not receive the assignments to grade until after the department grade-by due date and had to rush.)

Grading is a very disheartening. The purpose of the assignment was to demonstrate using a queue. Prof said they could use more advanced data structures. The students did not comprehend they were to still follow the queue requirements (enqueue, dequeue, limited access, etc.).

Out of 70 students only 1 included a queue, reused from recitation. About 20 had included Java’s queue (many of which preceded to use a secondary data structure to do the actual work). The rest used another data structure altogether to reach the same effect: ArrayLists to LinkedLists to HashMaps to trees.

For people that are not familiar with a queue, this is among one of the simplest data structures to implement. It implements a First In, First Out (FIFO) means of accessing data. One can only access the first (or “top”) Object in the queue; all other contents are inaccessible.

… I don’t understand the drive of these students to use more complex data structures (and code design) than is necessary. A queue uses notably less memory and has a faster access time these other data structures.

I read comments that a hash table is more efficient than a queue. Queues have constant time adds (enqueues) and removals (dequeues). A hash table has O(1 + k/n), where k is the number of keys and n is the number of elements; this is between linear and logarithmic time scales (meaning the amount of time to perform an add or removal will increase with an increase in the size of data structure).

This scares me. There will be (if there aren’t already) computer scientists and programmers making inefficient code because they genuinely believe their way is better.

… I talked to the prof in charge (who has been out of town this week) about my issues. My actual boss, the Director of Mentoring and Retention, had spoken to him previously about this. (I was actually third to complain about it to her.) And she was not getting through to him; she was even considering going to the department chair.

After I told the prof what had transpired, the light bulb finally went on for him. Students will not prove they understand concepts unless they are forced to. Getting the right answer is more important than learning, I guess.

As a journalism major, it became quickly obvious that journalism (at least in the United States) has fallen quite far on the integrity scale. Today, it has gotten even worse. While The Daily Show, a comedy program, employs a full time fact checker, news organizations will employ one perhaps part time. Most mass media is owned by one of five megacorporations. Megacorporations that have other assets to promote and a profit-oriented view.

So, I decided if I were to be evil, I just as well be honest about it. So, I switched to advertising. I really enjoyed the topic, particularly the discussions of intersections and media interactions. I love being creative and creating stories, which is the foundation of the creative area of advertising (as opposed to branding). My profs were great.

But, my peers were a different story. I really did not have any thing in common with them. Even with advertising, I don’t want to just watch the ads. Advertising needs to earn my attention. And most did not seem to look past the surface while creating; to sell something you need to get in the mindset of the market.

At this point, I stepped back and considered what I wanted and what had drawn me to advertising. It was telling stories. It was swapping my viewpoint with that of someone completely different; learning about socio-economic and cultural aspects of others. And there is something appealing about convincing someone that you have something that will genuinely make their life better.

I decided I wanted to make the things that would be worthwhile. These things that advertising could be honest. And technology is where the world is innovating. So, engineering or computer science? Computer science just felt more right to me.

The world is becoming ambient advertising. Even journalism, traditionally viewed as objective, has an angle; what new pandemic, book, sports team am I being sold now? Buses, sidewalks, television, movies, textbooks… all are subtly trying to sell me something.

Let’s say it’s a free, open source tool. Alternative tools (which may have equal features) won’t be mentioned. And rarely, they’ll give me a reason why I need X feature. No one is even being paid in these cases.

Word of mouth is the most effective and cheapest advertising medium available. It’s people that like your product or service to talk about it to others that trust this person’s judgement.

People even advertise themselves: public versus private personas. And there may be more than one. What language do you use with children? Coworkers? Friends? Family? Doubt it’s the same across all of them. (I’d certainly get in trouble if my thoughts always got to my mouth.)

Then, there’s the question of labels that are used. Despite building little embedded and alternative interface systems, I’m not about to call myself a “maker,” “hobbyist,” or “engineer.” These terms conjure images that I do not associate with even if they could be correct.

… So, if the whole world is one big advertisement, how do you brand a person. First, we need to consider what branding is. No, not the kind involving a hot iron. Branding is an idea that is painted onto a commodity. Owning a Mac does not make a person creative. A sports car does not guarantee a fast (possibly reckless) driver. Having lung cancer doesn’t mean the person is a smoker and deserved it. All computers, cars, and cancers are more or less the same. Yet, we associate these things with social messages.

So how do people brand? Well, I’ve been building the brand that is Alison since I came into existence. It’s not that I am creating one from scratch: I am just continuing my branding. (Think of Disney. When was that not about family entertainment?)

While it is possible to rebrand a person, that’s increasingly difficult. A doctor isn’t going to become a shoe salesman easily. So, think on what you have and how to sell that. Let’s try dissecting me:

• Person (I prefer human-first labeling)
  • Humor: Dry, sarcastic, and dark with occasional bad puns
  • Morals: Emphasizes integrity and being honest with oneself about immoral behavior
  • Animal lover: has pets and buys humane animal products
  • Creative: paints, writes, and creates projects
• Computer scientist
  • Mixed advanced courses: diverse CS interests
  • Diversity work: wants equal opportunities for everyone
  • Tutor: knows material to be able to teach

That’s a very basic one. I could go into being female, a person with a disability (with its subgroups), middle class, European-American, older child, being raised in diverse locations, enjoying Asian foods, being dairy-free etc. What of me is worth selling? Well, as with selling anything, it depends on who I’m selling to.

What if a new insurance will not cover my preventative medications? Do I pay out of pocket or do I succumb to constant pain? What if I develop a new condition? Does that count as “preexisting” and not covered?

Last election, it seemed that the US had voted for health care reform. But then the cries of “it’s socialism” came.

This entire situation pisses me off. There are so many things wrong with it.

First off, medical coverage in this country is classist. Not everyone can afford adequate health care. And with classism, comes our dear friends racism, sexism, and ableism; certain people are more likely to be poor.

Second, the Congress people that vote against coverage get top-notch taxpayer provided health care. I don’t know why no one seems to think this is relevant. The people that make the decisions for everyone else already have single-payer health care. Can this be revoked? People voting it down and proclaiming its evil must not want it for themselves. Right? Right?

I need a third party to be viable. Mostly because the Democrats do not fight for their convictions (or at least the ones they claimed to have). Alternatively, I could try running for a government position rather than lying down and accepting this bullshit.

Third, why does everyone pick on socialism? It’s socialist to have:

• Public access and maintenance of roads.
• A postal service.
• Public education.
• Consumer protection regulations on food, medications, etc.

I’m personally a fan of all of these services and more. (Who wants rat burgers?) Socialism accepts that people do not start at equal starting points, but works to allow equal opportunities for everyone.

For my software engineering course, I am creating a very simple Roman to Arabic numeral converter. (If anyone knows what the unicode character for Roman numeral 5000, a V with a line over it, I would appreciate it for accuracy.) It isn’t the converter program that is important. The purpose is to demonstrate black box testing methodologies: testing without knowledge of the internals of a program.

I developed a test plan and wrote the test cases in JUnit, as instructed, before proceeding on to writing the actual converter. I then ran my tests. A couple failed and a hand full had an error. I rewrote the code; the class is small enough to justify it, rather than worry about where my sometimes failing  bug was.

Yet, I still had the same problems. So, I copied the short bits of code into a main() function to use the debugger. The debugger revealed no faults: my system produced the correct output. JUnit had produced a false negative. I didn’t know it could even do that. It did not occur across similar tests with identical assert statements, so I’m not sure what it could be.

What do Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 14″ (also known as the “Moonlight Sonata”), Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope have in common? In case the title wasn’t a giant clue, these are all works in the public domain.

Property in the public domain belong to, well, the public. Anyone can use content in the public domain and could create new protected materials from them. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks, once the protection ends, enter the public domain. In addition, works by the United States government (and several other governments) automatically enter the public domain.

Works created based on public domain content can have their own shiny new intellectual property protections (same as if the work were made from scratch). For example, modern productions of Hamlet are protected under copyright laws despite the play being in the public domain.

And, seeing as the protections are already covered, here’s a list of places to get public domain content:

• LibriVox for audio recordings of books.
• Open Clip Art for clipart.
• Project Gutenberg for text of books.

(Also see Wikipedia’s list of public domain resources

And now to part 3. This is much shorter because I really don’t care much for patent laws.

Patents are mostly to protect inventions. Patented inventions are protected against other people from making, using, or selling them. Utility patents extend about 20 years, while design patents only last 14 years. Utility patents also require maintenance fees for the 3½, 7½ and 11½ years into the granted period; the patent can be removed then. Patents can be extended, but this is much fuzzier than trademarks: the U.S. patent office chooses if and for how long the extension should be for. Like trademarks, patents must be filed for each country.

Patents have much more criticism than copyrights and trademarks. These include:

1. Prevention of new inventions: Pharmaceutical companies notoriously patent chemicals and do no further research with them; this prevents the chemicals to be used for other’s research. (See “Patent trolling“)
2. Complaints against simultaneous inventions: It’s perfectly possible for two people, with no connections, to invent the same thing. That does not matter for patent law; whoever filed first (rather than finished inventing first) keeps the patent.

Some interesting aspects of patents, is that they can cover things not covered by copyright, like fashion designs and recipes. It’s still under debate whether software should be patented in addition to copyrighted.

Next up, something I got way to familiar with as an ad major: trademarks.

Trademarks are the little things that discern one service or product from another, like logos or slogans. (Branding is built around these things. But, that’s a topic for another time.)

In the U. S., trademarks must be used in commerce before they can be filed. That said sticking a small “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) next to or on a trademark can be used until it’s registered. Once registered, the trademark will be active for 10 years and can be renewed for 10 years (and then renewed again). Unlike copyright laws, there are not international trademark protections; a trademark will need to be registered for every country it will be in effect for.

When it’s being registered, a trademark can either be granted to a person or a business/organization. In most cases, it’s wiser to keep it with the person and just license it for a set period. It makes sure that if the company is taken over, closes, etc. that the creator actually gets to keep their creations.

So, what’s so great about them? Sounds like copyrights would be better. First, many trademarks can’t be copyrighted. Words, phrases, and colors cannot be copyrighted. What’s special about “Puma” or “Good to the Last Drop” or the pink color used for Owens Corning’s fiberglass insulation?

Even better, knockoffs are also prevented. While there are a variety of mice in overalls, Disney will get involved if there’s something akin to Mickey Mouse, particularly in animation.

Alright, I’m a little pissy about intellectual property. Digital content is ridiculously easy to share. For people growing up with digital content, there’s lots of temptation to use readily available materials to be creative (animated music videos come to mind). Uh, yeah. That’s illegal.

So, I’m going to do a nice series on the topic. I expect something in the format of:

1. Copyright: protections for creative endeavors.
2. Trademarks: protecting identifiers (slogans, logos, and colors).
3. Patents: protects inventions and discoveries.
4. Fair use: staying out of trouble
5. Alternatives: public domain and creative commons.

Copyright protects artistic work including literary, dramatic/choreographed, musical, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, film/audiovisual, sound recordings, and architectural. It should be stated that copyright does not protect ideas, slogans, non-tangible works (like not recording a dance routine), and works that solely use public content (units of measurement, for example).

In the U.S., copyright is granted to every applicable thing created, but the copyright will need to be registered for legal considerations. Copyright extends 90 years from creation or 120 years from publication (whichever’s shorter). In terms of the owner of the copyright, that’s usually the creator(s). If you were to buy a painting, the artist probably did not also sell the copyrights to it.

So, what does a copyright protect? These are the exclusive rights that are granted to the copyright holder:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
• To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
• To publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
• To publicly display the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.

Yep. You cannot legally copy and distribute works (no P2P downloads), create works based on a work (like, oh, fanfiction), or have it readily available to the public (damn, no projecting WALL•E onto buildings). These exclusive rights are not dependent on who makes money, so that “no money = okay” excuse can get someone into trouble.

Alright then, how can there be so much blatant use of copyrighted materials? One option is that someone wrote the copyright holder and was granted permission (more effective for a lone musician than RCA).

But, in addition to the rights there’s also a list of limitations in copyright. These include: fair use, reproduction by archives and libraries, and creation of an accessible copy for a person with a disability that would not be able to access the material.

In addition, I will be grading the first programming course, tutoring a foreign visually impaired student, and doing side research for the Director of Mentoring & Retention. I’m not even sure my workstudy is for this semester, but I’m guessing the Director wants to spend every dime (thereby making sure I get the full employment pay).

In most semesters, I have done side projects which dabble into my interest. Yet, I’m not sure I will have the time this time. So, I have decided that I will continue watching how this semester goes and then decide whether I have the time.

If it does work out, I think I would like to do some cell phone programming (probably Android, but maybe the iPhone’s Objective C). I don’t know what I would want to program though. I would like to involve hardware, like the GPS or accelerometer. I think the best tools are tangible or ubiquitous.