Mandelbrot Maps --- an invitation

[An open request from three of my students. Please try it out! I'm impressed with what they have achieved.]

We'd like to invite you to take a look at Mandelbrot Maps - an interactive fractal explorer!

https://jmaio.github.io/mandelbrot-maps/

This has been my honours project for the past two years, and this year it's also been updated with contributions from Fraser Scott and Georgina Medd. (cheers!)

There's a [Help] menu with information about the various available options: hopefully you'll learn something new!

If you could take a few minutes to look around, we'd really appreciate it! 

Feel free to leave feedback either through the button on the website ([Settings] > [Info] > [Feedback]) or directly:
https://forms.office.com/r/uRQwkQvVpL

(This study was certified according to the Informatics Research Ethics Process, RT number 2019/22202)

Thank you!

Joao

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

Newsletters

 

Newsletters; or, an enormous rant about writing on the web that doesn’t really go anywhere and that’s okay with me, by Robin Rendle. Discovered via Robin Sloan. I've posted this essay because of its form as much as its content. Pairing each sentence with an illustration is startlingly effective.

The Tempest

In many ways, Covid 19 has expanded rather than contracted our cultural opportunities. Today, Wanda and I saw an interactive online live abridged production of The Tempest, from Creation Theatre. It was great! We were lucky to get one of the extra places they added due to demand. They are likely to put on additional shows, keep an eye out. Spotted via The Guardian.

Virtual Conferences: A Guide to Best Practices

A report from the ACM Presidential Task Force on on What Conferences Can Do to Replace Face-to-Face Meetings. Thank you to Crista Videira Lopes, Jeanna Matthews, Benjamin Pierce, and the other members of the task force.

“Our conference organizing committee just decided to switch our physical conference to online. But the conference is supposed to start in three weeks, and none of us have ever even been to a virtual conference, much less put one on! Where do we start??”

Try out the new Mandelbrot Maps, Part II

Another one of my honours project students, Freddie Bawden, has also done a great job with an update to Mandelbrot Maps. He's looking for feedback. Try it out!

For my final year project I’ve build an interactive fractal viewer using WebAssembly and Web Workers to create a multithreaded renderer. You can try it now mmaps.freddiejbawden.com! Feedback can be left at mmaps.freddiejbawden.com/feedback and is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Try out the new Mandelbrot Maps

One of my honours project students, Joao Maio, has done a great job with an update to Mandelbrot Maps. He's looking for feedback. Try it out!

I'm looking for feedback for an app that I've developed for my honours project - an interactive fractal explorer called Mandelbrot Maps! It is built with React and WebGL, and has a simple and intuitive user interface. 
Try it out at https://jmaio.github.io/mandelbrot-maps/ - please leave your feedback through the button on the website ([Settings] > [Info] > [Feedback]).

A new EU law could end the web as we know it (redux)

In June, the EU avoided voting for Articles 11 and 13, which have the potential to end the web as we know it. Now they're back; the vote is 12 September. Up to date info is at Creative Commons, links to help you write, call or tweet are at SaveYourInternet.eu. Below is what I wrote to my MEPs. If you are an EU citizen, you should write too; WriteToThem makes it easy.

Dear Nosheena Mobarik, Alyn Smith, Ian Hudghton, Catherine Stihler, David Martin, and David Coburn,

I write to you greatly disturbed by the new proposals for copyright. These would require any service provider to maintain large, expensive, and ineffective filters. While YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook will have no problems funding these, they will prevent the next innovative service from getting off the ground. Experience with such filters show that they ban all sort of material which should be in the public domain or which is fair use.

I am also concerned by the resurrection of the "link tax". Previous experience with adding a link tax in Germany and Spain showed that the newspapers that requested it soon stopped using it. It is particularly worrying that the legal formulation chosen will invalidate Creative Commons licenses. Many academic journals (including the one which I edit) depend crucially on Creative Commons, and passing a law that invalidates it is against the public interest.

An excellent one-page summary of the issues, with further links, can be found here:

https://boingboing.net/2018/04/11/evidence-free-zone.html

The web has been a huge boon to innovation, creativity, cooperation, and scientific progress. Please don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Yours sincerely,



Philip Wadler
Professor of Theoretical Computer Science
University of Edinburgh

Today's the day: Fight for Net Neutrality

Today is an internet-wide day of action to support Net Neutrality.

Net Neutrality is under severe attack by the FCC and the Trump Administration. Only sustained action will save it. And if it falls in the US, will it be long before the rest of the world follows?

Net Neutrality is already being eroded. Virgin proudly tells me that I'm not charged mobile bandwidth when I use Twitter; other providers offer similar services for Facebook or Netflix. Seemingly a bonus, these offers are really a minus: they lock in the present winners, and make it difficult for the next generation of innovations to emerge.

Unless we act now, people will look back on our days as 'The Golden Age of the Internet'.

Do something now! It takes less than ten minutes. Details here.

Help ORG restart the debate about internet filters

The Open Rights Group is starting a campaign opposed to the default filtering now imposed by all providers in the UK---de facto censorship. You can fund it via IndieGogo.

Will Snowden be Glasgow University's next Rector?

From the Glasgow Herald. Spotted by Mitch Wand.

Chris Cassells, a member of the "Elect Snowden as Rector" campaign at Glasgow University, said a Snowden victory would be a gesture against surveillance culture
"Having Edward Snowden as rector would give us a megaphone with which we can project our views to a global audience particularly on the issue of state surveillance and the very valid and welcome role of whistleblowers in a democracy," explained the PhD student, 27.
"I think he has done a great service to citizens across the world in exposing the corrupt and immoral practises of the NSA and our very own GCHQ.
"Studying at the university is dependent on the free exchange of information and freedom of speech, and I think Snowden's revelations hit to the heart of that."

Can you be arrested for sharing a link?

Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Glen Greenwald, David Miranda: now the powers that be are going after another whistleblower/journalist, Barrett Brown. Digital Trends writes:

In 2010, Brown launched Project PM, a group effort billed as a crowdsourced investigation into the “surveillance state.” When Lulz Sec hackers stole some 70,000 emails from security firm HB Gary Federal and posted them online in February 2011, Brown and fellow Project PM members went to work, uncovering a coordinated campaign to discredit Wikileaks and journalist Glenn Greenwald, among other serious revelations. Later, in December of that year, Anonymous posted more than 5 million emails swiped from intelligence contractor Stratfor Global Intelligence, which were read and mined for information by Brown’s Project PM. Those emails contained a slew of revelations, including talk among Stratfor employees of renditions and assassinations.

During the Stratfor investigation, Brown shared a link to the stolen company emails in an IRC chat with other Project PM members. The documents contained some 5,000 credit card numbers and other personal information of a slew of individuals.
...
Two months later, prosecutors charged Brown with 17 crimes, 12 of which are related the identity theft – all because of that link he shared.
...
Brown did not hack any computers. He did not steal any information. And none of the charges he faces allege that he did. Brown simply shared a link that contained stolen data – something journalists, and many other people, do online every day. He faces up to 105 years in prison.

Digital Trends: Can you be arrested for sharing a link? Maybe.
Rolling Stone: Introducing America's least likely political prisoner.
Demand Progress: Tell the Justice Department: Stop the war on journalists, free Barrett Brown.

From Session Types to Data Types: RA posts and PhD studentships

I've posted this elsewhere, but neglected to blog before now. 

We are recruiting for research associate positions in design and implementation of programming languages, and also may have PhD studentships available this year and next. The posts are on the project "From Data Types to Session Types: A Basis for Concurrency and Distribution" which is a programme grant funded by EPSRC for five years from 20 May 2013, joint with Simon Gay at the University of Glasgow and Nobuko Yoshida at Imperial College London.

The RA post at Edinburgh for an initial period of 24 months, with possibility of extension, and is on the UE07 scale (£30,424 - £36,298). Deadline for applications for the RA post is Monday 20 May 2013, anyone interested in a PhD studentship should apply as soon as possible.  Glasgow and Imperial are also recruiting.

Please contact me if you are interested in either the RA post or a PhD studentship.  Further description of the Edinburgh RA post is below.

Project Description

Just as data types describe the structure of data, session types describe the structure of communication between concurrent and distributed processes. Our project has particular emphasis on putting theory into practice, by embedding session types in a range of programming languages and applying them to realistic case studies. The research programme is joint between the University of Edinburgh, University of Glasgow, and Imperial College London, and includes collaboration with Amazon, Cognizant, Red Hat, VMware, and the Ocean Observatories Initiative.

Principal Duties

The successful candidate will join a team responsible for extending the functional web programming language Links with session types to support concurrency and distribution. We will test our techniques by providing a library to access Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing infrastructure, and perform empirical experiments to assess how our language design impacts the performance of programmers.

You should possess a PhD in a relevant area, or be nearing completion of same, or have comparable experience. You should have a track-record of publication, or other evidence of ability to undertake research and communicate well. You should have a strong background in programming languages, including type systems, and strong programming and software engineering skills.

It is desirable for candidates to also have one or more of the following: a combination of theoretical and practical skills; experience of web programming or cloud programming; knowledge of the theory or practice of concurrent and distributed systems; knowledge of linear logic; or training in empirical measurement of programming tasks.

We seek applicants at an international level of excellence. The Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science is internationally renowned, the School of Informatics at Edinburgh is among the strongest in the world, and Edinburgh is known as a cultural centre providing a high quality of life.

Further details of the RA post, including how to apply, are here.  

Snoopers' Charter - Tell the Home Office to drop it from the Queen's Speech

The Open Rights Group writes:

Nick Clegg and David Cameron are deciding this week whether to keep the Snoopers' Charter in May 8th's Queen's Speech. The Home Office are trying to force their revised internet and email monitoring plans into the speech without asking what anyone thinks about them first.

In December, a Joint Committee of MPs and peers set up to scrutinise the Bill told the Home Office that they had been wrong to publish draft legislation without first consulting the public. Now it seems like the Home Office are doing their best to make the same mistake again.

Please write to the Home Office now to ask them to drop their surveillance plans. It'll just take a couple of minutes.

More information on the Snooper's Charter is available from the Open Rights Group and Liberty.

Leveson and Blogs: Act now!

Anyone living in the UK will be aware of the active debate over Leveson and freedom of the press, but few will be aware of the alarming way in which this applies to blogs and web publishing.  The Open Rights Group is on the case:

Lord Leveson’s regulations are being applied to UK websites – in ways that could catch more or less anyone who publishes a blog. Ordinary bloggers could be threatened with exemplary damages and costs. If this happens, small website publishers will face terrible risks, or burdensome regulation – and many may simply stop publishing.
We have until Monday to stop this happening.Lord Leveson said he wanted to regulate print media. He proposed that judges  be allowed to award exemplary damages and full costs against unregulated publishers. These are stringent and controversial measures, but he only envisaged them applying to large and powerful publishers. Not websites, unless they belonged to print publishers.
Last weekend, the proposals were agreed in a rush, without public consultation, and with no attention to the detail.
Outrageously, they have given the Lords until Monday to fix their mistakes.The result is that they apply to any size of web publisher – if there’s more than one author, the content is edited and there’s a business involved, then you must join a self regulator.
Most blogs like this aren’t powerful publishing houses. Even ORGZine would need to be regulated, or face punitive measures if it ended up in court.
The threat of websites being regulated like this was never the purpose of Lord Leveson’s recommendations. Websites weren’t involved in phone hacking. There is no evidence that they need to be forced into self-regulation like this.
We need you to email Nick Clegg, Harriet Harman, and David Cameron to ask them to back off and leave the Internet out of Leveson.

Open Rights Group has a web page that will let you express your opinion to the relevant parties in less than a minute it.  Do it now!