I was browsing some material on the American Revolution this past weekend and came across a map (Fig. A) attached to an article concerning revolutionary military history on Wikipedia.  I couldn't really relate anything I saw in the map to modern-day landmarks (not that I know Boston's geography all that well, never having actually been there), so I decided to pull up some satellite images of the area on the Internet.   Climate change might not be responsible.  But I quickly realized the configuration of Boston has changed very dramatically since the days of the American Revolution.  That in and of itself isn't a surprise, perhaps.  But if you take a look at one map drafted by a British military cartographer working for General Gage, you quickly realize that the city doesn't look anything at all like that today.

The initial explanation one might well reach is that the abilities and technology available to cartographers of the period contrast sharply with today's satellites and GPS systems.  Perhaps the inaccuracies the legend of the map (Fig. A) itself describes are a result of this.  But even in 1775 when the map was created, there couldn't have been such extensive errors made capturing the likeness of the terrain.  As its function was military, it would hardly have served, for example, to depict only one obvious land route into Boston from the south as a small isthmus referred to at the time as "the neck" obviously refers to there being an abundance of water on both sides of the land formation (just west of grid marker H4 in Fig. C).  But if we refer to the satellite image, it's clear there's a lot more land in the vicinity and to the south of old Boston now.  "The neck" and the road depicted running along it on the old map may well be what is now called Hudson or possibly Lincoln Street.  It seems safe to suggest that most of the area directly west of the Boston Common today, was either swamp or completely under water when the English found themselves besieged in the city, back in April 1775.

Note also that the configuration of the harbor itself has changed very dramatically over the last three centuries.  If one visits the Windows Live Maps site and pulls up old Boston, the islands that used to exist in and about the harbor are mostly gone.  (It's also readily obvious that Boston's Logan International Airport is completely man-made terrain; literally landscaped right out of the harbor!)  Referring back to the annotated map (Fig. C, left), we can see no island whatsoever at grid reference points I5 and just southwest of J6, also formerly known as Noddles and Hogg Island, respectively.  Each appears to have been annexed into greater Chelsea and been colonized by those fleeing the urban congestion of neighboring Charlestown.

Okay, this might not be cause for too much excitement, but I do find it fascinating that in a little over 250 years, the city that was once surrounded almost entirely by water has seen its landscape change so dramatically.  Most of the work to turn harbor into land that could be occupied and built upon took place long before the dawn of the 20th century too.  Which means a lot of hard work went into claiming space from the sea.  And it also explains why maps of the revolutionary period might not look anything like Boston today - so much so that at first glance you'd otherwise not know it was actually a likeness of Boston at all.

Admittedly, it's happening more frequently these days it seems.  I'm almost getting used to it, in fact.  But, sadly, another great .torrent file site has disappeared.  And with it, we're all a little less free.  Again.

This isn't just vitriolic hyperbole from an embittered geek who's overly-worried about yet another arcane legal issue that affects 0.1% of the total population.  This really is about the future and, mark my words, there will be fallout from the continuing saga of .torrent sites - which are really only brokering indexes of files from other people's computers, in the end - being shut down because of the secondary use of that technology: pirating copyrighted material.  But the functionality of a .torrent file is pretty innocuous and if they can ban .torrent files, or the sites that distribute them, believe me when I say to you other types of content are really not that far off.

Sadly, here we are in the year 2008 and the producers of entertainment and video content are still dragging their heels, laboriously along at a snail's pace; complaining about how much money they're losing.  And all because they alone refuse to adapt, to use the technology that has changed their world.  I've written all about this extensively before, but for some reason I can't seem to stop writing about it in the vain hope that somehow my saying it again and again will cause the truth to finally sink in.

But it won't.  And so, another site goes down - but how long will it be before another adventurous group replaces it?  It's the Internet after all, so someone out there's bound to try.  And if those bozos from isoHunt.com can pull it off, God knows anyone can.

Well it looks like isoHunt is down again.  I don't check this site often since the colony of pompous brats that run the file-sharing service decided to ban me from it because I asked a question of a site admin in an IRC channel knowing neither that he was some "31337" admin or that such an act could result in a diatribe of insults, harassment and a very abrupt ban from the site forums.  But my reaction to said adolescence at the time included a prediction that the site wouldn't last with such attitudes driving its management and, at least for the moment, that appears to have come to pass: isoHunt displays some lame message about being down because too many people are hitting their refresh buttons on their browsers at the same time.  God only knows how long that message has been there, but I'll bet it's been more than a day or two.

LOL!  Losers!  Did you ever hear of "scalability"?  Well, guess that's what you get for having a bunch of 14-year-olds running the bloody thing.  And if that doesn't finish 'em off, then the eventual lawsuits probably will.  Although in principle such lawsuits are a travesty of justice, it will be more than amusing than unfortunate if it's technical incompetence that stops the lawsuits from moving ahead.  After all, why sue a bunch of kids that can't even keep their web server alive?  CIRA won't feel very threatened by that!

In other news, Demonoid is back up and available to Canadians again!  The site had been down thanks to the shenanigans of RIAA in the U.S.  It was hosted in Canada for a while, but CIRA got on their case so they shut their doors to Canadian IPs.  That being not quite good enough for CIRA who pressed ahead with legal action anyway (on what grounds we can only speculate) they bailed on Canada and moved somewhere else just before New Year's.  Here's hoping the next ISP is more accommodating.

For the moment, file sharing is alive and well!  May long this gravy train last.

So say we all!

Microsoft  has come under fire for a lot of things its done with Vista and Windows more generally since Windows XP was released.  But perhaps only the "Genuine Windows" program has engendered more consternation and malice than a new feature introduced with Windows Vista called "User Account Control" (UAC).  Vista ships with the feature activated, and unless applications are written specifically to be UAC-aware, it causes issues with everything from preventing programs from running to forcing irritating prompts to appear over and over again.

• Slashdot | Microsoft Designed UAC to Annoy Users

Bizarre as this is, perhaps even more shocking is that the company apparently put the feature there "to annoy users", according to a source at Microsoft.  Of course, it remains another source of legend and mystery as to why anyone would willfully address security issues by targeting users and making the experience of using Windows more difficult.

I urge everyone to take a moment to read the Slashdot coverage linked above to learn more about this puzzling move.

I've been silent on this issue for far, far too long.  But after hearing yet another diatribe from a local Ottawa-based broadcaster, Lowell Green (CFRA radio), I've decided to respond.

First off, a word about Mr. Green.  Although his politics and mine differ greatly, he has demonstrated a compassion (albeit subtle) for those in his community who are afflicted with illness and others who are less fortunate.  His are the views of the oppressed Conservative; views that have their Genesis in the traditionally liberal Canadian political climate and say in a loud voice that Conservatives have and deserve a place of prominence.  Many find his views, and if not his views - certainly those of many of the callers to his radio show "cooky" and often dismissive, pea-brained, racist and even hateful. But there is no denying a good portion of the population sympathizes with Lowell.  And not just on the inflated municipal tax rates or frustration at the frequent gaffes of the distant provincial political establishment in King's Park that overlooks Ontario's second-largest city, and Canada's capital.  There may even be a majority that buys into his views concerning the City of Ottawa's efforts to deal with a drug addiction epidemic that many feel is more caused by rather than cause of the city to distribute clean needles to addicts.  Green's view is that it doesn't work, that such programs actually generate higher rates of drug addiction and related infections of disease - and he cites studies that show he's right to prove it.

The trouble is, he's either not sincere in his convictions on this subject or he's simply deaf to the overwhelming evidence that contradicts his position.  I won't go so far as to say it's sloppy journalism, because he might also have seen these same studies, but contests their validity on some as yet unspoken premise or on something he calls "the harm reduction industry".  Still, anyone who does a Google search on "needle exchange harm reduction success" will get literally thousands of hits, the vast majority of which are links to methodologically-sound medical studies on needle exchange programs which show conclusively that such programs more often than not reduce infection rates for both HIV and Hepatitis-C.  And I myself have even taken him up on an open invitation to forward him studies of this sort which demonstrate, rather conclusively I would think, that his position is, in fact, wrong.  Yet he continues to broadcast his view, and give over a large microphone to those who share his view or some variant thereof; frequently tainted with either some kind of religious zeal or otherwise grotesquely oversimplified view of what is both a serious, and actually complex issue.

Ironically (and perhaps hypocritically), Green also likes to pick on scientist and activist David Suzuki for his views on the environment.  Among Green's favourite critiques of Suzuki is that he was basically "crazy" for recently advocating the detention of anyone who suggested that the Greenhouse Effect remains a scientifically unproven phenomenon.  And yet there we were on today's program where Greene himself seemed to be advocating that very same fate for drug addicts; arguing it was a simple matter of offering a detained addict a choice to accept mandatory treatment for their addiction or be sent to jail where "they wouldn't be getting any more drugs".  Of course, the trouble with that view is that it's been tried - and obviously not resulted in an acceptable rate of success, at the very least.  In fact, I can state from my own experiences and those I know as drug addicts that there's absolutely no way you're ever going to mandate treatment.  Others who are as learned on the subject tend to share this view.  And the nature of drugs and being addicted actually makes it harder for an individual to stop, or people would just do so - surely this is a product of common sense.  And you don't need to be a drug addict yourself to get this concept: everyone knows quitting smoking is hard and that many try and fail several times before succeeding.  Why should quitting heroin be any easier?  So why is Green lecturing Suzuki for wanting to toss people in jail for disagreeing with his views, when he's essentially doing exactly the same thing?

Sadly, I don't think Green is aware of this. He contends - ever blind to the realities that confront drug addicts, clearly making little or no attempt to really understand - that he's right with is one or two studies, but the rest of the scientific community is just out-to-lunch.  Even more frustrating is watching the turmoil that continues in the lives of those I know who suffer from addiction (it really would take too long to go into here) while this view - this lie that is effectively political views as medicine driving the agenda and perhaps compromising the treatment of thousands of people.  Green and his microphone have stirred up the population, feeling righteously over-taxed and under-served, with the idea that a bunch of quacks at city hall are running social experiments on their dime.

Yet not knowing the harm that will inevitably come from ending the harm reduction approach could cost us all a great deal more both in terms of costs to the health care system treating infected addicts and that unquantifiable human cost.  All I can hope, for the sake of those I know and love, is that eyes are opened despite Green and his politics.  But regardless, it's a shame that someone like Green, with such a obviously humanitarian soul, can himself be doing his community and perhaps even himself such a disservice with his outspokenness on this issue.  If only his eyes would open too.

Back in 2005, I wrote a blog article about the then proposed retirement of Visual Basic 6.0; a successful but COM-based programming language that would later evolve into Visual Basic .NET.  In a way, VB was my first programming language because, while I did know Java, I didn't do a lot of work with Java until after I'd already started developing small web applications using a new, little-known technology called Active Server Pages for a small start-up ISP in my home city of Winnipeg, Manitoba.  While VB gave me my first kick at the can with programming professionally, I can't really say I've missed it much.  After all, the whole point of technology evolving is to get better (although some might cite Vista as an example to the contrary).  It's been something like 6 years since I last did any real work with COM or VB and it's far from "cutting-edge".  Of course, it's day was really gone with the introduction of .NET.

Despite those advances offered by .NET version, there were a lot of applications written in VB and there was reluctance to go back a convert all that code to .NET.  But even back in 2005 I couldn't really understand the stubborn tone of some on the Internet: .NET had already been out for 3 years and the discussion was about ending support only after another 3.  Incredibly, there was actually a movement afoot to try to persuade Microsoft to keep supporting Visual Basic 6.0 even longer - far beyond its usual support cycle.  But the day has finally arrived with the announcement by Microsoft last week that VB has reached the end of its support cycle and Redmond would be retiring all support for the technology effective April 8th (this past Tuesday).

The reaction?  Well - muted so far; I had to dig up mention of this event on eWeek (which seems to have overtaken CNet's News.com as the leading MS-basher on the Internet) and InfoWorld which quoted a surviving VB6 developer involved with the 2005 petition conceding his need for support would be unlikely.  The petition in question is still online, incidentally - having collected nearly 13,500 signature as of this week.

And what about businesses - are they still actually using VB6?  Are there still new VB6 development projects being posted to contracting and tech job boards?  You bet!  A search of recruitment sites Workopolis.com and Monster.ca using the keywords "Visual Basic 6.0" still pulls up a lot of jobs - both requiring VB6 experience and a few cases where it's the core technology involved in the assignment!  Of course - that's here in Ottawa, ON (where I live), the capital city of Canada.  And there are plenty technophobes the ranks of the government's bureaucracy,  God knows.

Support for VB6 is still available from a lingering community in any event and Microsoft itself maintains an archive or articles on its MSDN and TechNet technology support websites.  Not to mention there are lots and lots of old books out there on VB6 - I have a number on COM and VB collecting dust on my bookshelf.  So if you're in the market to get that next great VB6 killer app written, get in touch with me and I'll hook you up with some great literature to help fill the void left by Microsoft. ;)

A response to a DevSource blog article by Jeff Cogswell concerning the supposed decline of Microsoft Windows Vista:

I don't rightly think anyone who knows how to make money in technology is seriously suggesting making software Vista-only is the way to go right now.  I do work for Microsoft myself and can state with some confidence that they aren't expecting everyone to suddenly develop Vista-only applications.  The work I'm doing for them now certainly has earlier platforms in mind; as do many other projects currently in-progress.

Microsoft has a support cycle wherein it continues to offer support for its applications and development of brand new applications takes this into account.  Those support mechanisms are frequently extended and, taking just one product as an example - Commerce Server 2002 - security patches and updates will be offered until 2013!  (The support for the Vista track will likely be very similar, meaning supports will continue well into the next decade.) So I don't really understand in what context Microsoft has "given up" on Vista, except that it <i>is</i> planning another OS release very soon which will add new features and functionality to a platform that is growing and will continue to.

Having said all this - there is certainly evidence to suggest that not everyone was happy with Vista's production.  But to say that it's compromised Windows' future on the desktop is nothing more than rampant hyperbole at this point, in my opinion.  During the Vista debate, I recall there being questions about whether it was necessary to release another version of Windows on the heels of Windows XP (a very successful OS, by all accounts - and this writer should note Vista's release so soon afterward was not an indication to the contrary).  At the very least if Vista was so terrible, then the fact that nobody wanted a new OS anyway would mitigate the loss of market share considerably.

Cogswell asked if developers were supporting Vista only, and the answer should and will be a resounding 'no'.  However, adding supports for Vista is a really good idea for several reasons - not the least of which is that if Windows 7 is released soon, you can bet that the features in Vista will persist into the next iteration of Windows.  Supporting those features now only adds longevity to your app, and I'd expect the feedback we see here to reflect this.

After doing some shopping downtown early this afternoon, I noticed police lines surrounding a parking lot adjacent to a building I passed en route back home - less than a block away from where I live.  The two officers remaining at the scene weren't exactly eager to answer questions from a passer-by like myself.  But they did state the incident was basically front-page news in today's paper.

ottawasun.com - Ottawa and Region - Manslaughter charge in connection with Nelson St. body

Thinking at first that they were a little suspicious of me, I wondered why they immediately asked why I was curious and where I was from.  But as the Sun article states, they seem to have gathered up all the residents of the building in question for questioning.  Fortunately, I was not a resident.

Ottawa's downtown can have trouble, but nothing like this has ever happened in my neighborhood before.  Will likely be keeping an eye out for developments on this story...