Facebook teeb õnnetuks

Eks see ole midagi, mida me kõik kusagil kuklasagaras salaja juba natuke aega teame. Nüüd siis ka ametliku teadustulemusena: kasu, mida Facebookis sidemete ülalhoidmisega saavutada võib, jääb palju väiksemaks kahjust, mida pidev vajadus Facebooki lahti klõpisda meie närvisüsteemile põhjustab.

Milline on kiiruskaamerate efekt?

Alates 2010. aasta maikuust on Tallinn-Tartu maanteel käigus kiiruskaamerad, mille eesmärk on kihutajate ohjeldamine. Ühe hiljutise projekti käigus avanes mul võimalus küsida endalt, millist efekti kiiruskaamerad annavad. Sellele küsimusele vastamiseks võtsin ette järgmised sammud:

1. Tõmbasin Ametlike Teadaannete portaalist alla kõik sinna üles pandud kiirustrahvide teatised ajavahemikul 10.05.2010 (st päevast, mil kaamerad tööle rakendati) kuni 28.09.2010 (sest teatiste jõudmine Ametlike Teadaannete portaali võtab umbes kuu).
2. Sorteerisin välja unikaalsed kirjed (sest sageli saab üks inimene trahvi mitme kaamera all järjest).
3. Joonistasin kumulatiivse diagrammi, kust on näha, palju teatisi antud päevaks üles riputatud oli.

Tulemus tuli niisugune, nagu näha juuresoleval pildil.

Enne selle graafiku oma silmaga nägemist ootasin, et ta peaks ajapikku allapoole kaarduma, aga tema ei teinud seda mitte. (Statistikahuvilistele: lineaarfunktsiooniga lähendamisel arvutatud korrelatsioonikordaja ruut on peaaegu 1, mis tähendab, et sõltuvuse lineaarsus on praktiliselt perfektne.)

Sellele lineaarsusele on mitu võimalikku seletust.

1. Mingil põhjusel jõuab Ametlikesse Teadaannetesse enamvähem konstantne arv teatisi (kuigi kaine mõistuse järgi peaks neid sinna jõudma proportsionaalne osa).
2. Kogu kiiruskaamerate efekt saabus nende paigaldamise hetkel ja need, kes kihutasid maikuus, jäävadki seda tegema ning kiiruskaameratest pole kasu liikulskultuuri edasisel parandamisel.

Ootame-vaatame, kui Maanteeamet järgmise satsi kaameraid üles saab, ja analüüsime siis uuesti.

Kas inimene peab ise oma turvalisuse eest seisma?

Füüsilises maailmas on ise enda turvalisuse eest seismine norm, mida meile juba koolis selgeks tehakse. "Ära hulgu öösiti kahtlastel tänavatel. Vaata sõiduteed ületades paremale ja vasakule. Kasuta kondoomi."

Digiruumi sukeldudes aga ei peaks Andmekaitse inspektsiooni peadirektori hinnangul inimene ise oma turvalisusest enam ei ööd ega mütsi jagama: "Andmekaitse inspektsiooni ... peadirektori Viljar Peebu sõnul ei tohi E-tervise Sihtasutus kohustada inimest ise enda jaoks turvameetmeid looma."

Link Eesti Päevalehe artiklile: E-tervise portaalis on turvaauk.

Niisiis tuleb jälle kord tõdeda, et e-lahenduste areng on inimevolutsiooni jaoks natuke liiga kiiresti käinud. Kas me tõesti ootame nii kaua, kuni evolutsioonilised mehhanismid läbi loodusliku valiku ja nõrgemate hukkumise meid digieluks paremini vormivad, või kasutame ikkagi juba enne oma aju?

Kas arvuti on olemuslikult kuri?

Ei. Arvuti on ainult hunnik traati ja plastikut.

Ka inimene on ainult paar ämbritäit biokeemiat ega ole olemuslikult kuri. Aga kui ta metsa viia ja tema arengut mitte kuidagi juhtida, läheb inimene kurjaks.

Mulle tundub järjest rohkem, et me oleme maganud maha selle hetke, kui hunnikust traadist ja plastikust on saanud midagi rohkemat, mille arengut oleks tulnud väga varases staadiumis hoopis teistmoodi juhtima hakata, muidu muutub ta olemuslikult kurjaks ning hakkab inimesi väga halvasti mõjutama.

Arvutisõltlastest noored langevad kergesti masendusse.

MacOSX - yet another average Linux distribution

Already for some time I have known that I am physically incompatible with Microsoft's products, including Windows operating system. For years I blamed Microsoft for it, but it was only a while ago when I started to realize that there must be something wrong with me. After all, there are many people who use Microsoft's software day by day and are happy with it, it's just me who is able to crash vanilla WinXP in 5 minutes after the first boot.

One way or another, I can't use Windows. I have been a devoted Linux user for 10 years, but this only means I know it's shortcomings all too well. I can say I've had enough of it for a while, especially after the last upgrade, when my fonts started to disappear pixel by pixel.

And since my good old IBM T42 needed a replacement anyway, I decided to by a MacBook Pro. I have numerous colleagues who have switched to Mac more or less recently, and all of them share a common characteristic -- they are all happy about their computer. So I thought I might get happy as well.

I was wrong.

Of course I had done my homework. I knew that some older versions of MacOSX shipped with a non-standard Estonian keymap, e.g missing the circumflex symbol (^) badly needed for TeX typesetting. I had some hope that this would have been fixed in Snow Leopard, but I was of course too optimistic. Luckily, I have a good friend and colleague, a long time Mac-happee Sven Laur, who pointed me towards a keymap modification tool called Ukelele. That did the trick. So far so good.

Another peculiarity of MacOSX I was somewhat prepared for was the absence of a decent package management system. Of course, it is very convenient to install programs by just dragging them to the Applications directory, and later uninstall by dragging them onto the trash bin. But what happens if the package does not really contain an executable program?

For example, when looking for a solution for my above-mentioned problem, I found an Estonian keymap prepackaged for MacOSX on the Estonian Mac user forum. After downloading and installing, it of course turned out that it was packaged for some older version of the OS and that the old keymaps do not work any more. Oh well, let's try something else and uninstall this one first ... but uninstalling something that was not dragged onto the Applications directory turned out to be impossible! I asked for help from our local Mac store and the canonical way of resolving this issue was just deleting one file from the file system. But what happens if there are more files spread around everywhere, configuration files, dependencies ..? Steve only knows.

Then all of a sudden, the lot-advertised 3- and 4-finger trackpad gestures stopped working. I did some forum digging and it turned out that this was a known bug that can be resolved by logging out and back in again. Indeed it was. Is this the standard way of work of an operating system that is born ready? I don't know. You tell me.

But my latest-and-the-worst experience on MacOSX is connected to the fonts. I knew that it was very hard to change the fonts that Mac designers have chosen for you. I asked about this issue from our local Mac store before buying my laptop. The guy behind the desk did some googling (!) and calmed me down saying that there exists something called TinkerTool, a program that reveals some hidden configuration options, including font configuration.

Since my eyes get tired quite fast when I need to read small fonts, I downloaded the tool and tried turning every single font listed there to 14pt. The only visible difference was increase in the window title text, everything else remained the same!

Yes, some applications allow increasing some fonts independently of the system settings. So I was able to play with the display font of Safari and text output field of Skype, but not with the Safari UI font nor Skype's text input field! The worst of all is Thunderbird with the UI font so ridiculously small that it hurts. Browsing the forums reminded me of the good old times under Linux some 5 years ago, when one manually had to change the contents of userChrome.css file. I searched for it -- no such file exists in Thunderbird distribution for MacOSX as of the end of 2009. I created it in the correct directory, but it did not have any effect. And by the way -- I did not buy a Mac to start fiddling with the configuration files by hand!

Oh well. There are many other things to tell about (how Cyberduck FTP client hanged so badly that it even blocked shutdown, or how you have to go through 32 (thirty-two) easy steps in order to get MSN working under iChat), but I guess it is a good time to end this post here. What can I say in conclusion? MacOSX really does not work out-of-the-box, and as such, it is as good as your average Linux distribution.

It's only that exactly half of the Linux distributions are above the average.

Sülearvutid ja hinded

Mul on hea meel tõdeda, et nähtus, mis mulle juba üsna tükk aega ilmne on tundunud, aga millest Eestis eriti popp rääkida ei ole, on lõpuks ometi ametliku uuringu läbi konnitust leidnud: (süle)arvutite kasutamine ei paranda õpilaste hindeid. Seejuures langevad õppetulemised kõige enam just võõrkeelte osas.

http://pluss.postimees.ee/?id=186942

Ei, ma ei arva, et arvuti kui selline põhimõtteliselt paha oleks, meie haridussüsteemis usutakse lihtsalt tema automaagilisse imetegemisvõimesse -- anname läpaka lapsele kätte ning siis ei peagi rohkem midagi tegema.

Peab ikka küll.

Loeme tähelepanelikult, mida ütles Eesti Vabariigi president Toomas-Hendrik Ilves "Tagasi kooli" päeva raames tundi pidades:

Tänu sellele, et meil oli õpetaja, kes nii noorelt õpetas meile programmeerimist, hakkasin ma 1993. või 1994. aastal mõtlema, et kui meie saime nii noorelt programmeerimisega hakkama, siis miks ei võiks me Eesti lastele arvutit õpetada ja nii tekkis Tiigrihüppe seeme.

PROGRAMMEERIMIST. Mitte rate'i. Mitte youtube'i. Mitte kontoripakette. Programmeerimist. 9. klassis. Targad onud ja tädid õppekavade arendajad, mõelge selelle!

How to make money

Getting rich in three easy steps:

1. Become Google
2. Start selling text ad space
3. Sell the space to anyone who pays

What if you sell ad space to parties with conflicting interests? It's not really a problem as long as they pay :)

(For the people who do not understand Russian -- the lower ad advertises an anti-spam product.)