Over the last few weeks I have written a small proof of concept application to test an idea I had around how to break up files in such a way that the resulting "shards" are meaningless, while combined they can be reconstructed into the original. Furthermore, the shard generated from one file can be used as part of another. The end result is a set of shard files each of which contributes to several end user files. Potentially this approach might be used to hide files in order to get them out of repressive regimes.

Sam Harris tries to make a case for objective morals in his book "The Moral Landscape". He tries to establish that morality is not subjective, and that it is possible to know with scientific certainty what is moral and what isn't. How does he achieve this? The entire book rests on a assertion about the underpinnings of morality. He states that the well being of sentient beings is the primary value. From this simple axiom he can deduce whether specific actions are either good or bad for sentient beings like ourselves, and thus what is moral.

Twelve year ago I featured in ComputerWorld describing a project I had started to bring invoices and other business documents to the Internet. Since then UBL2 has been developed by OASIS to provide standard XML business document schemas. However, if you ask who is using these schemas you will hear nothing but crickets. What went wrong?