Month: <span>August 2001</span>

Scripting News: Two views of the scripting world of 2005. “In one view, we’re all inside Microsoft’s box… In the other view,… our communities stay independent.”
10:34:40 PM  

Paul Larson on The Motley Fool: Four Hurdles for Microsoft:

1. The European Union is borrowing a page from the Justice Department’s book and taking a tough look at the company’s competitive practices.
2. The fact that Microsoft was deemed a monopoly and violated the Sherman Antitrust Act has not changed, and there is still an open-ended legal question concerning what exactly will happen to Microsoft.
3. The economy has made computer users much more resistant to software “churn,” and it remains to be seen if Windows XP is enough of a step forward to get people to open their wallets.
4. How can you watch Ballmer on stage and not want to short the stock?

10:32:24 PM  

CNET: Marimba wins software technology patent. “The patent, titled ‘System and Method for the Distribution of Code and Data,’ relates in part to the automatic distribution and updating of software applications and data over a network”
10:26:37 PM  

CNET: Apple cuts sales jobs.
10:22:28 PM  

Salon: The failure of zero tolerance. “How did we get to the point where such innocent mistakes and minor misdeeds have become grounds for expelling and arresting students? Where did the infiltration of a criminal justice mentality in schools become so blatant as to subject students to “three strikes” laws? And why do these practices continue to be justified in the name of fairness and school safety?”
10:21:58 PM  

CNET: Web banks come up short on privacy. CDT Associate Director Ari Schwartz: “Some banks are leading the field in offering customers the choice they are demanding regarding privacy. Others are making it difficult for customers to opt for privacy, while many are taking coverage under exceptions in the law that allow them to share customer data without offering any opt out.”
10:18:46 PM  

Netizen News: Mexican immigrant returns $203,000 lost by armored truck
10:17:58 PM  

Russian indicted in copyright case. “U.S. officials indicted a Russian software programmer and his Moscow-based employer on Tuesday on charges of violating a controversial new U.S. copyright law, signaling the collapse of plea-bargain talks in a case that has sparked international protests.”
11:30:32 PM  

Salon: Stuffing MTV’s ballot box. It’s unrefreshingly reassuring to see that the Music Industry seems to stoop as low as the American political intustry.
11:28:48 PM  

Paul Boutin is Burning the Juice at Burning Man. Apparently he’s having no trouble with his 802.11b connection to center camp. Cool!

Reading between the lines in his comments on friday though, he seems to be under the misconception that you have to be a hippie to go to Burning Man.

I’ve been twice, both times with a group of geeky-type folks, which included a rocket-scientest from the JPL, who is most definitely not a hippie. As for myself, if you count someone with long hair, liberal politics, and a moderate socialist bent a hippie, then I guess I qualify, though I think the term geek (or even -gasp- nerd) seems to me to be a more appropriate label.

BTW, I don’t smoke pot, don’t really like the Grateful Dead, have mixed feelings about public nudity, and never owned a Volks Wagen. :-p

OTOH, I think polyamory is OK as long as those involved all agree, I believe in the power of love in all forms, and I marched on Washington during the Vietnam war (on my mom’s shoulders as a babe)…. Oh, and I’m a Reedie. 😉

Label me if you must.
11:13:53 PM  

Dictionary.com Word of the Day: profuse.
2:58:29 AM  

CNN (AP): Astrology school in Arizona gets accredited. Whatever.
5:29:11 PM  

Wired: The Over-Testing of America?. “‘They want to go back to the good old days when I despised school and hated my teacher,” Stager said. “Kids were quiet; you filled them with stuff and they regurgitated it on tests. Education was something done to you.'” (Stager is an adjunct professor of education at Pepperdine University.)
1:56:28 PM  

BBC: Happy birthday Linux.
1:50:09 PM  

Joshua Allen: “Few people outside [Microsoft] realize how much key software is written (and tested) by interns. The interns often are given projects that are more ‘experimental’, and while these carry lower risk of putting Microsoft out of business, they often turn into some of the cooler features that get shipped.”
1:48:07 PM  

spacetoday.net: Deep Space 1 recovers from attitude control problem.
1:45:30 PM  

Cruel Site of the Day: Putting the X in Text.
1:44:30 PM  

trained monkey “i’ll admit to have a soft-spot for any language that allows question-marks in identifiers.”
1:37:05 PM  

Dictionary.com Word of the Day: bacchanalia.
1:33:35 PM