Informatique

...franchement ?

Le gestion des textes législatifs est un véritable casse-tête. Qui a changé quoi, comment gère-t-on les addendum, de quand date telle modification, comment trouver tel élément de loi, etc...

Le législateur est confronté à une quantité massive de texte, manipulé et modifié par une multitude d'acteurs, et qui doit être rendu public de la manière la plus transparente possible.

Cela fait un certain temps que j'y pense : les textes de lois et les problèmes qu'ils entrainent ressemblent très fort à ce qui se pose pour les développeurs informatiques dans la gestion du code source. En imaginant que l'on applique les même principes informatiques aux textes de lois on pourrait sans doute faciliter le travail de tout le monde, et rendre le processus un peu plus transparent au passage.

On pourrait par exemple gérer les textes dans un système de gestion de version (type CVS ou SVN). Cela permettrait de savoir qui a changé quoi, à quel moment, et de toujours pouvoir consulter les textes dans une version précédente.

Appliquer les principes du développement open source à la gestion des textes législatifs serait un grand pas pour la démocratie.

J'ai découvert aujourd'hui quelqu'un qui pense la même chose. A lire ici : http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com/2010/06/kliss-law-as-source-code.html

Something to follow closely, Editshare's lightworks becomes open source ! Lightworks looks like a very advanced video editing software. With support for DPX, red, quicktime and all others video formats. I'm eager to test it.

See http://www.editshare.com

Dans le cadre du podcast hightech (www.lepodcasthightech.com), j'ai été interviewé pour expliquer mon travail à la cellule yapaka (www.yapaka.be) de la Communauté française. Essentiellement autour des options techniques pour nos publications web.

Vous pouvez l'écouter ici : http://www.lepodcasthightech.com/v2/e-business/drupal-belgique/549-yapak...

C'est relativement technique...

I'm curently looking for the best option in video recording, both to have an idea of what to buy at work as video camera, and for the apertus project (more infos here :cinema.elphel.com).

Here is my summary :

- Film image size is usually 2k
- Storage increase very quickly
- It has always been hard to edit intraframe compressed video

We arrive at a point where consumer grade camera can store video in motion jepg or similar codec at full HD (which is near 2K).

Th eonly advantage of ahchd, mpeg2, and similar codecs is the amount of storage needed for them. As storage is quickly becoming irrelevant, and as we don't need more than 2k in most cases, I declare that codec that compress group of frames together are dead for production use.

By production, I mean the day to day use of camera, editing, color correction, etc.

Of course intraframe codecs will still be usefull, but only for distribution of the final production on lower end channels like internet.

Looking at all the avchd, H264 and all bullshit, I had to say it.

A new DSLR from pentax has been anounced.

Indie movie makers, rejoice !

This one has 720P motion jpeg recording, an aps-C sensor size, audio input. All settings can be locked prior to recording.

It only lacks 24P and headphone or audio level meters to be perfect, at least for me.

More infos : http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/K7/K7A.HTM

This is great news, it's a very strong contentder for 5dmark II, the GH1 and even more for the D90 and the new rebel.

For this price point, if video footage confirms my analysis, it's the best option curently.

UPDATE : I received a K-7 by Pentax France for testing. You can read my analysis here
http://www.123piano.com/test-de-la-fonction-video-du-pentax-k-7 (in french, but there are also videos to watch :-)

Yesterday, Gmail had a quite big outage. Approximatively 14% of their users have experienced slow or inexistent mail access.

This makes a poster on slashdot nervous : http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/14/1822200

" [...] This is exactly what makes me nervous about cloud computing and data storage. It's bad enough when I screw up a config and it takes down my mail, but what about when it happens to the entire globe at once?"

This makes me nervous as well. But I think there will soon be a solution to this. Why are we using gmail? Because it is available from everywhere, easy to use and provide ample storage.

All this is done using the cloud computing metaphore. I think it is possible for a company to provide the same service without cloud computing.

Available from everywhere : have a cached copy of the UI and date stored on every computer the user has (peer to peer system, where a peer is some computer owned by the same user, not a random guy you cannot trust). Only if the user is on a new computer AND the service is down at the same time will bring any trouble

Easy to use : keep your user interface secrets by compiling it someway and distribute the copy using a browser based system. Like the offline system provided already for data, only it would be extended to software as well. Keep working on this global user interface from the feedback of a world of users.

Ample storage : use local storage and only use central servers for backup and data sync. Use peer to peer system to sync data.

Yes it's a lot of work, and it will require a lot of change in the existing browser infrastructure.

A lot of work, but it's the price to pay for efficency, high availability, environement friendlyness, and most importantly freedom of the data owners.

Expect to see this in the next few years. Expect the cloud computing metaphore to change a bit, and surround more the user than the entire world. A cloud as we see it today won't make any sense. The cloud will be made by the user devices, not a large hangar somewhere in the world.

Time to introduce you the Elphel project.Elphel is an open hardware camera. It seems all the design and software is open source.

Curently, the camera provides :

- 5 mpixel sensor
- full hd recording at 0-30 fps
- mjpeg encoding to .mov files
- sound input usuig linux compatible usb audio adapter (phantom powered XLR inputs may work)
- full manual control
- 5 watts power consumption
- very small size
- built in linux with php api and socket based api

We are working on doing a real digital cinema camera based on this. The current work can be seen on http://cinema.elphel.com

I'm working on the website, doing some tests with the camera (I got one lended for some undefind time), if possible work on the user interface, provide some hardware tests (like lenses and audio)

A very cool project that may lead to unexpected results :-)

If you want to see the camera, feel free to contact me. I'm located in Brussels (Belgium)

I'm curently reviewing available "prosummer" camcorders. On the lower end side, there is always a problem in the area of manual controls and audio support.

The latest panasonic model provide a multiusage lens ring. Some provide a knob that can be used for one manual feature at a time (sony). Some only provide a touche screen or confusing menus. That's not how it works in either a pro or amateur scenario. The controls are either there and accessible or they are not used or usable in a live situation.

However, there is a simple solution to that problem, and I suspect manufacturer are not doing this because they know their lower end products are "good enough" for some pro usage image quality wise.

Here is my take on this problem. Engineers, please listen.

- always provide a lens ring for the critical manual focus (especialy in HD)
- provide three knobs on the camcorder, and allow users to define what they are used for in the menus. Some will use knob 1 for apperture, knob 2 for gain, knob 3 for zoom speed, wathever. Some other will use knob 1 for left audio channel, knob 2 for right, etc...
- Provide sane default for those knobs : aperture, audio level (both channels at the same time), shutter speed (this is only an example)
- provide audio LINE input if you only provide a jack input. Allow the user to choose in the menu either mic in with AGC and line input without AGC. This way users will be able to use an xlr apapter for professional audio and won't have problem of AGC or mic level input ruining the connection. There is also lot less interferences using line level signals.

The latest panasonic camcorders (those with lens ring) with those additional knobs, line audio input and a beachtek or juicedlink xlr adaptor would be a killer combination for prossumer use, at a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

We can always dream, isn't it ?

Où partent nos déchets électroniques?

En Chine et dans les pays en voie de développement. Ca on le sait déjà.

Quelques photos qui nous parlent de Guiyu, en Chine, un endroit qui est lentement en train de s'empoisonner avec nos e-crasses :

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1870162,00.html