Links for 09 June 2009

A list of links that I came across over the past few weeks.

Business

Target: Intel, and Competition, The Wall Street Journal, May 15^th 2009: An interesting view on the recent findings by the European Commission of anti-competitive behaviour by Intel.

The Encyclopedia of Modern Music (The Times): Includes an extensive list of music genres.

The Measurement Problem in Physics, episode of In Our Time, March 5^th 2009, BBC Radio 4: This was a very interesting discussion on Quantum Physics and the difficulties posed by the apparent randomness that creeps into our measurements of very small things. A deep knowledge of Quantum Theory is not required to enjoy it.; Also see this explanation of Schrödinger's Cat from the Deptartment of Physics at the University of Toronto.

A Review of the Palm Pre (CNetTV.com): The Palm Pre smartphone was released in the U.S. last week. This video gives a good overview. The interface looks good and will no doubt be improved with updates. The main problem seems to be the size of the keyboard and the battery life.
PAL Basics, Motion Pictures Editors Guild Magazine, March-April 2002: I was watching The Sum of All Fears on television recently and noticed that the music in the opening sequence was faster and of a higher pitch than I was used to hearing on the soundtrack CD. This article outlines the conversion process which results in a 4% increase in the speed of the film when it is converted to the PAL video system. This increase can cause the pitch to be raised by as much as a semi-tone if pitch-correction is not applied. I have often noticed this problem so it leaves me wondering if pitch correction is all that common.