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Yes, the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has been leaked onto the Internet. No, they aren't fakes.

I personally have completely rejected the temptation of reading the book early (I will be purchasing my copy at 12:01 am tonight), but I couldn't help but notice The Pirate Bay's logo on their homepage today:

Of course, in the spirit of the Google Doodles, which are linked to relevant searches regarding the subject of the drawing, TPB's logo is linked to a torrent of the book.

From today's Tribune (Tempo section): a small sidebar on 7 questions they hope Deathly Hallows will answer

Allow me to dissect and answer a few of them (and no, I haven't read the book yet).

5. What private contact did Petunia Dursley have with Dumbledore? ("Remember my last, Petunia.")

Dumbledore explained this himself at the end of Order of the Phoenix: "I thought she [Petunia] might need reminding of the pact she had sealed by taking you." (p. 836) Dumbledore wished Harry to live with the Dursleys because his Aunt Petunia had his mother's blood, which protected him from Voldemort while living there.

6. Who else was at Godric's Hollow when the Potters were killed?

Was there ever even a hint at this? "Why did Dumbledore have James Potter's cloak?" is a better question to ask along this line.

7. Why was there a gleam of triumph in Dumbledore's eyes when he learned Voldemort had resurrected himself with some of Harry's blood?

I'm fairly certain this has also been answered before. It has to do with the magical connection Harry gained when Voldemort tried to kill him. As far as I can remember, the significance of Harry's blood being used to resurrect Voldemort was that it strengthened the bond between them, or something like that.

UPDATE: (July 21, 2007 @ 12:43 pm) Wow, don't I feel stupid about that last one (after reading the book, that is). I never expected the blood connection to be so important. Oops.

Sorry Chicago Tribune, but that was some pretty lame speculation. A much better resource: MuggleNet's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7

As I've stated, Barack Obama's presidential campaign is one I'm following closely. I've been reluctant to actually declare my complete support for him, because we do disagree on certain social issues. However, one of my main reasons for admiring him is his fight for open and honest government, where corporate lobbyists don't control the county.

The Obama campaign set up a fundraiser in which any donation of $5 or more (solicited via the Internet) entered the donor into a drawing to have dinner with Barack Obama himself. The idea was to get a group of "Average Joes" to sit down with Obama and discuss what's important to them. I thought this was really cool and unique, since it's normally the Washington lobbyists who have dinner with politicians to promote a specific agenda.

Here's a video from that dinner, which took place on July 10th.
Continue reading ‘Dinner with Barack Obama’ »

"Humanity is a parade of fools, and I am at the front of it, twirling a baton." - Brother Odd (page 73)

Another good article in today's Wall Street Journal.

The same Silicon Valley that outsourced thousands of IT jobs to India is bringing them back. Increasing salaries of skilled computer programmers are negating the value of keeping the jobs in India. An example from the article states salaries in India started at a mere quarter of what American programmers with similar experience would be paid, but the salaries demanded by skilled workers in India have now increased to 75% of a comparable American salary. This increase, combined with the time difference drawback, has caused companies to stop saving money by outsourcing high-level computer jobs.

The CEO of Intel was quoted as saying the wage inflation rate for engineers in India is four times that of America, and other estimates put it as much as 50%. America, by comparison, runs about a 3% wage inflation rate for the software industry.

This shift puts a new twist on the globalization debate. A 2005 study estimated that only 25% of India's computer engineers had the "language proficiency, cultural fit, and practical skills" to work for U.S. employers. Therefore, the highly skilled workers, supplemented by the half-million engineering graduates from India annually, have to keep up with the influx of U.S. software companies looking for their services. At the levels U.S. companies have been turning to outsourcing, answering this high level of demand was just improbable.

I'm a staunch libertarian at heart, but a (future) IT professional above all else, so I deviate slightly from the pro-outsourcing view of my political party. I'd like to think that a certain level of job security exists for those in my profession, so news like this gives me hope for the future (when I actually enter the job market).

Article: Tam, Pu-Wing, and Jackie Range. "Some in Silicon Valley Begin to Sour on India." Wall Street Journal 03 July 2007: A1, A15.

An article in the Wall Street Journal today discussed the increasing prevalence of "widgets" in marketing. More and more mainstream companies are turning to the small, embeddable, interactive tools as advertising media for their products. The article mentioned the web site for the upcoming film The Golden Compass, which allows users to create their own "daemon" (an animal spirit from the film/book) and post it on their blog or social networking profile.

As with all advertising, it isn't a sure thing. The film Hoot apparently had a downloadable owl that would float around a user's desktop (sounds pretty annoying to me), but the film was a box office failure.

Social networking sites that run traditional banner ads on users' profiles are understandably concerned with the onset of widgets, because they are out of the advertising loop. Traditional banner ads pay to the web site, but the advertisers behind widgets pay to the widget's designer. (The designer, therefore, must make the widget creative enough to appeal to users and make them want to put it on their profile.) From MySpace's ToS:

MySpace.com reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject, refuse to post or remove any posting... [such as] commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com

In layman's terms, MySpace can remove widgets from your profile on their site.

The idea behind widgets, while not necessarily new (affiliate codes and embeddable HTML have been around as long as the web itself), associates with the much-hated buzzword "Web 2.0". The social aspect often allows for personalization, and end-users must choose to place the widget along with the assumedly related content on their profile. These end-users dislike banner ads for the same reason: they can't choose the content of such forced ads.

A couple friends of mine are involved in a "top-secret" venture at the moment, making widgets for use on social networking sites such as MySpace. They're working with an industry veteran, who has started successful online businesses in the past, selling them for millions. His former ventures were in the online auction industry, but he's a businessman and long-time Internet user above all else. They're in the process of securing VC funding, and are programming using ActionScript and Flash for their widget designs. It's still in the early stages of development, so I can't give a link or name.

I myself designed a set of widgets (again, still "beta") for counting down various school-related events. There's no ad revenue involved, just a link back to the homepage. This particular one counts the days until I return to school:

Article: Steel, Emily. "Young Surfers Spurn Banner Ads, Embrace 'Widgets'." Wall Street Journal 02 July 2007: B3. (sorry, no URL-- the Journal's web site is a paid subscription service)