Many of you will already have seen the news that Jo Barbera has died. What’s odd for me is that as a confirmed Tex Avery fan, and as someone who never really had a passion for the Hanna-Barbera cartoons in general, I find myself more moved than I’d have expected by his passing.
Black armband time
December 19th, 2006Why trust M$?
December 12th, 2006There’s much discussion about whether the Novell-Microsoft deal is a good thing or a bad thing, and besides the obvious leverage it gives Monkeyboy Ballmer to spout FUD about patents in Linux, there are other aspects to the deal too. One of these is the interoperability agreement whereby Novell will help to put converters for Microsoft’s OpenXML format into the SUSe Linux versions of OpenOffice. On the face of it this is both fair and useful. After all, it’s desirable to be able to read Word2007 documents in OpenOffice. Isn’t it?
A few data usage links today
December 8th, 2006The US Government is planning on keeping airline passenger data for up to 40 years and mining it for various kinds of undefined assessments over that time. Given that the UK hands over 34 data items on you when you fly to the States, do you still want to go shopping at Macey’s for Christmas?
On a lighter note: the Gower Report to the Treasury on “intellectual property” recommends that we get a proper ‘fair use’ policy in this country (meaning that it’ll no longer be technically illegal to rip copies of your own CDs for example). Furthermore, the report found that there was no need to alter the current UK stance on software patents (i.e., that there aren’t any), despite (or perhaps because of) the situation in America.
Look back in time
December 8th, 2006Stunning (if not very detailed) pictures of the NASA Viking Mars probes (launched 1976/1977) taken from orbit by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are now available. The Beeb has a brief description too.
For people as old as me who remember the Viking landings and good ol’ Carl Sagan waxing lyrical about it, seeing those probes pop up in the news again, revisited by another generation of technology, brings a nostalgic glow to my breast.
Mind you, they’re probably up on bricks by now, their parts on the Martian equivalent of eBay.
8% really don’t want a National ID Register
December 6th, 2006A Telegraph survey has found that 8% of nearly 2000 people interviewed would rather pay a fine than have their data added to the National Identity Register. Count me in! I genuinely don’t believe that a) the database would be properly secure, and b) that the Government wouldn’t try to ‘add value’ by selling it off.
Frankly, I’m not interested. Not one bit. So fine me and the other 4.8 million people who aren’t interested. I dare you.
Proper job
December 6th, 2006Now that’s a proper survey. Auntie Beeb is reporting a Danish study of 420,000 mobile ‘phone users going back to 1982 that finds no sign of an increased tumour risk in the brain, eyes, or salivary glands, or of developing leukaemia. No more of this “we asked 7 people if they thought they felt warm” stuff; the sheer numbers involved make these results about as concrete as a medical study can get.
So you can all carry on using your mobiles safe in the knowledge that you’re not cooking your heads. I guess I’ll get around to buying one sometime, but still not until I actually find I have a need for it.
Back for the future
December 5th, 2006As someone who tries (and fails) to minimize my back strain whilst earning my daily wage at a desk and PC all day, I keep a wary eye out for information about posture, screen height, and so on. Now we all know that we should be sitting upright when typing, yes? Well, there’s some new evidence to suggest that it’s not the best position. The research suggests that lying back (halfway between prone and upright) is better than upright or slouching forwards.
Windows Refund Day
November 24th, 2006It turns out that as a die-hard Linux user, there’s little more irritating than having to buy a new PC and a pre-installed Windows operating system when all you want is the computer to install Linux on. Why should one pay for a Microsoft operating system when you’re not going to use it?
It turns out that there is a clause in the Windows license [sic] that allows you to claim a refund on a pre-install provided that you can prove that you have wiped it from your sustem and that you return the install disks unused. That was quite hard to do, but nevertheless, some enterprising folk set up Windows Refund Day to encourage this to be done.
Modus operandi III
November 21st, 2006In rather short shrift, we can now plainly see the trap laid for Novell to walk into. In response to Balmer’s statement that Linux is contaminated with M$ patents, Novell’s CEO has replied that that was not what the agreement was about. Oh yes it was, Mr. Hovsepian. Oh yes it was. And M$ have replied saying that they “respectfully take a different view” to Novell on the matter. No shit, Sherlock.
After all, what moron would agree to putting a patent agreement in place if it knew that there were no patents to sue over? Novell say that on top of the interoperability agreement, M$ specifically asked for a patent agreement. If Novell knew or believed that there was nothing that infringed, didn’t they even stop to wonder why M$ might want such an agreement? Why, to sully by implication, of course; and Novell took the bait. Assholes.
Modus operandi II
November 17th, 2006In a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a transcript of an interview with Steve “Monkey Boy” Balmer (CEO of M$) where he makes an oblique reference thus: “that product [Linux] uses our patented intellectual property”. Really? It does? If M$ could sue any distributer of Linux for patent violations, don’t you think they would have by now? After all, Linux is a cancer according to him. No, there are three reasons why M$ keeps spouting this rubbish: firstly, merely implying it keeps people uncertain and nervous, and stops them examining the reality of the situation; secondly, it provides deniability, being so vague; and thirdly, even if there were violations, as soon as M$ declared them, the Linux community would remove them – that’s the beauty of Open Source s/w, you can get at the code. I can’t decide whether to feel sorry for M$ as their strategy is so unfair, or angry for their repeated attempts to discredit others.