Blog – A Vue From Here

How Microsoft did not negotiate the contract of the century

Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1970 sitting in front of a Teletype Model 33 ASR terminal at Lakeside School. — Paul Allen and Bill Gates in 1970 at Lakeside School – public domain photo by Bruce Burgess *via* Wikimedia Commons.

MO5.com association, of which I am a member, aims at preserving information technologies heritage. As part of this activity, we also document the history of information technologies. Concerning this history, one can regularly hear that Microsoft negotiated a contract with IBM in the very early 1980s, which allowed Microsoft to become the giant it is today, at the expense of its former partner.

Therefore, explaining how Bill Gates, a good poker player and fine negotiator, managed to negotiate the contract of the century, the one that led Microsoft to become the leader in the world of personal computers to the detriment of IBM. It is all part of Bill Gates’ legend, which does not seem to bother him.

However, looking at the documents from the time, the evidence tells a different story. These documents paint a picture of a combination of circumstances rather than a skilful negotiation by the young head of a struggling start-up … Let me tell you how Microsoft did not negotiate what would become the contract of the century.

Macaron Cassis Violette – End credits song

Macaron Cassis Violette – End credit song

End credits song for the project Macaron Cassis Violette, which you can find on this website if you understand some French.

Music: Yoann Le Bars

Puppets and scenery: Chloé Debauges

Artistic direction: Chloé Debauges and Yoann Le Bars

Comme un écho lointain

On December 18th, 2020, Abigail Delpech played one of my compositions:

Comme un écho lointain

This is a pedagogic piece for piano. I have composed it just for Abigail. While talking with her, it turned out she likes complex harmonies, just like I do. Therefore, I decided to go for a slightly complicated harmonic progression. Then, it turned out I needed more than ten fingers to let come out the harmonies. This completely changed my plans: I realized I had to let myself be guided by the harmonic progression. As a consequence, I have been quite surprised by the resulting composition, but I am quite satisfied of it!

Many thanks to Abigail, which made some very good work on it, and gave a rather good rendition. I hope you enjoy it!

Variations électroniques sur le concerto pour violon de Beethoven—working version

William Grynszpan played my piece “Variations électroniques sur le concerto pour violon de Beethoven” on Monday 16th November 2020 on the occasion of Bernard Cavanna’s master class at Conservatoire de Cergy-Pontoise. I have been able to capture it, and I share it here. It is a working version, but the result is already valid. Simply, please forgive me for my error of handling at the beginning. Also, please excuse that the focus is not on William.

This piece is to be performed in a show about Ludwig van Beethoven, which rendition will be done as soon as the sanitary conditions in France will allow gathering an audience. It is a bit out of context here, but it gives a first idea.

The electronic treatment is based on Maximos Kaliakatsos-Papakostas’ Grainman-master and I have been helped by Pure Data users community.

Chloroquine and ethics

Image au microscope électronique du SARS-CoV-2 — Electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19 disease—image made by the NIAID under licence Creative Common Attribution 2.0 Generic via Wikimedia Commons.

The following article complements my previous one concerning the COVID-19 pandemic and chloroquine. I suggest you read it first, as it will give you an idea of what the scientific literature says about the action of chloroquine on COVID-19 as of April 7^th, 2020. However, this article did neither address the question of ethics, nor fully address whether the situation could justify not to follow the usual methodology.

Indeed, this objection is regularly raised: “even though it has not been established that hydroxychloroquine can actually be used as a treatment for COVID-19, ultimately the dosage is well known and there is probably not a great risk in administering it to patients.” Moreover, there is a view which seems to have some popularity, stating that, considering the circumstances, clinicians should not take too much care to comply with methodology, as the emergency dictates to be less rigorous with procedures. These two issues are related. To address them, one must both look at the collective experience and assess what is not known.

A PDF version of this article is available. An audio version (with quite a robotic voice) is also available.

A worrying suspicion

On March 25^th, 2020, a study presenting the case of 416 patients with COVID-19 was published¹Shaobo Shi, Mu Qin, Bo Shen, Yuli Cain, Tao Liu, Fan Yang, Wei Gong, Xu Liu, Jinjun Liang, Qinyan Zhao, He Huang, Bo Yang, and Congxin Huang, 2020. ‘Association of cardiac injury with mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China’, JAMA Cardiology. Doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2020.0950. Among these patients, 19.7 % had cardiac problems. It is not surprising that patients in respiratory distress, one of the complications of COVID-19, have heart problems. However, the study reports a suspicion that these cardiac problems are not a consequence of this respiratory distress, but directly due to the action of the virus. Another compilation of COVID-19 case analysis also supports this suspicion²Elissa Driggin, Mahesh V. Madhavan, Behnood Bikdeli, Taylor Chuich, Justin Laracy, Giuseppe Bondi-Zoccai, Tyler S. Brown, Caroline Der Nigoghossian, David A. Zidar, Jennifer Haythe, Daniel Brodie, Joshua A. Beckman, Ajay J. Kirtane, Gregg W. Stone, Harlan M. Krumholz and Sahil A. Parikh, 2020. ‘Cardiovascular considerations for patients, health care workers, and health systems during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic’, Journal of th American College of Cardiology. Doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.03.031.

Notes[+]

Notes
↑1	Shaobo Shi, Mu Qin, Bo Shen, Yuli Cain, Tao Liu, Fan Yang, Wei Gong, Xu Liu, Jinjun Liang, Qinyan Zhao, He Huang, Bo Yang, and Congxin Huang, 2020. ‘Association of cardiac injury with mortality in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China’, JAMA Cardiology. Doi: 10.1001/jamacardio.2020.0950
↑2	Elissa Driggin, Mahesh V. Madhavan, Behnood Bikdeli, Taylor Chuich, Justin Laracy, Giuseppe Bondi-Zoccai, Tyler S. Brown, Caroline Der Nigoghossian, David A. Zidar, Jennifer Haythe, Daniel Brodie, Joshua A. Beckman, Ajay J. Kirtane, Gregg W. Stone, Harlan M. Krumholz and Sahil A. Parikh, 2020. ‘Cardiovascular considerations for patients, health care workers, and health systems during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic’, Journal of th American College of Cardiology. Doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2020.03.031

On Chloroquine

This article is written under rather peculiar circumstances, in fact quite dramatic ones to say the least: after a first case declared on November 17^th, 2019¹Josephine Ma, March 13^th, 2020. ‘Coronavirus: China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17’, South China Morning Post. Available on-line., a COVID-19 pandemic²World Health Organization (WHO), March 11^th, 2020. WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, WHO. Available on-line. has spread throughout the world. Among several consequences, this pandemic caused the confinement of the French population from March 17^th, 2020 at noon. I wrote the following article in France during this confinement. Actually, the seriousness of the pandemic led a group of scientific mediators do launch a coordinate prevention message on March 14^th, 2020 at 6 p.m. I associated myself to this message.

Prior to confinement, on February 25^th, 2020, the IHU Méditerranée-infection released a video stating that a molecule derived from quinine, being chloroquine, is an effective treatment against COVID-19:

Didier Raoult, 2020. ‘Coronavirus : vers une sortie de crise ?’, IHU Méditerranée-infection.

This was the starting point for a major media coverage of chloroquine and another derivative from quinine, being hydroxychloroquine. Since this media coverage is extremely problematic, I would like to try to give you some clearer insights. The first goal of this article will be to give you some reliable sources, as quite a lot of uninteresting opinions were given, and too few facts. Yet the facts are there. This article will therefore not contain any opinion.

Notes[+]

Notes
↑1	Josephine Ma, March 13^th, 2020. ‘Coronavirus: China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17’, South China Morning Post. Available on-line.
↑2	World Health Organization (WHO), March 11^th, 2020. WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, WHO. Available on-line.

Did Copernicus really made the (scientific) revolution?

Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, exhibited at the Toruń Museum–public domain image, via Wikimedia Commons.

In this blog and elsewhere, you have probably already seen the expression “Copernican revolution”. This expression highlights the fact that Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543) provoked a major change in perspectives by showing that it is more relevant to consider this is the Earth that is rotating around the Sun rather than the opposite. To this first upheaval echoes Galileo Galilei’s (1564 – 1642) works. The latter, on the basis of Copernicus’ work, among others, has definitively shown that Claudius Ptolemy’s (around 90 AD – about 168) system, published in the Almagest¹Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, around 150 AD. Μαθηματική σύνταξις. An English translation: Gerald J. Toomer, 1998. Ptolemy’s Almagest, second edition, Princeton University Press, New York, United States of America. Available on-line. and according to which, in agreement with Aristotelian physics, the Earth was motionless in the centre of the World, was wrong.

I have already presented this, with a view from here. As I have indicated before, they were both preceded by Nicole Oresme’s (about 1320 or 1322 – 1382) work. Galileo also used Johannes Kepler’s (1571 – 1630) work, among others. Therefore, I have intentionally used the expression “Copernican revolution,” as well as “epistemic revolution.” But still remains the question I would like to tackle in this article: though this expression is commonly used, is it really relevant to talk about revolution? My purpose is also to lead you, my dear reader, to make some critical analysis of what I am publishing here.

Continue reading Did Copernicus really made the (scientific) revolution?

Notes[+]

Notes
↑1	Κλαύδιος Πτολεμαῖος, around 150 AD. Μαθηματική σύνταξις. An English translation: Gerald J. Toomer, 1998. Ptolemy’s Almagest, second edition, Princeton University Press, New York, United States of America. Available on-line.

Falling bodies: Galileo sets up Aristotle to the fall

Galileo GALILEI — Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Giusto Sustermans in 1636 – image from public domain via Wikimedia Common.

As seen twice with a view from here, works from Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 – 1543), Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600), Johannes Kepler (1571 – 1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642), which have been preceded by those of Nicole Oresme (circa 1320-1322 – 1382), completely challenged the Aristotelian model. In this questioning, Galileo did not settle with astronomy. He also tackled several other fundamental subjects, one of which has a great influence on my areas of research: the fall of bodies.

Continue reading Falling bodies: Galileo sets up Aristotle to the fall

Scilabus: Viviane Lalande’s blog

Scilabus is a French-speaking science popularisation website that combines texts and videos. This website has been initiated and is run by Viviane Lalande, who gets help from her sister Marianne Lalande and Renaud Manuguerra. Its editorial line is to take everyday life situations – for example, is it better to walk or to run in the rain, what is the best way to share space in a microwave oven? – and explore them scientifically. This leads to popularize experimental approaches and it is done in a very educational way.

Continue reading Scilabus: Viviane Lalande’s blog

Privacy: an anomaly soon to be corrected

Vinton Cerf had an essential role in modern communications systems: he is one of the inventors of the TCP/IP protocol, which is the basis of the Internet. He is now a Google member, which recently became Alphabet. On November 20th, 2013, he stated that ‘privacy could be an anomaly.’ Rest assured, this anomaly is about to be corrected …

Continue reading Privacy: an anomaly soon to be corrected