PROGRAMMING : HUMOR

Here is one of the best bits of nerd?programming humnor yet - star wars done in unix speak!!!

PROGRAMMING : Sun complains about Java

Here is an internal memo in which somw guys from the application devision at Sun complain about Java and why they canät use it - even if they wanted too...

programming : some links

Gosling on windowing systems and a report on IT myths

programming : some links

Gosling on windowing systems and a report on IT myths

programming : some links

Gosling on windowing systems and a report on IT myths

COMPUTERS : Hip new computer for teenagers

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=277114
Sounds daggy, yes? The only thing that caught my eye was
'has a "hangout tuner," an on-screen dial that lets users jump to categories of desktop applications: music, movies, games, photos, news, communications, shopping and homework.
Savage said teenagers generally don't like performing separate searches for various programs, so "it made sense to organize it for them and serve it up to them."'
Well I think the useability people would agree with that...

MOVIES : on the plane

Forgot to do this - saw 'hellboy', 'punisher', 'ladykillers' on the plane. All pretty ordinary except ladykillers which I really enjoyed.

COMPUTERS : New Economies "Emerge"

An interesting interview http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5671750/ with the author of http://www.smartmobs.com/index.html all about how emergent information systems are starting to introduce a new commerce. Information rich versus poor and that sort of thing. Might get that book :-)

PROGRAMMING : a little low level but still cool

So I want to write a VM based OS. I can't deny it. Some guys in europe are doing it, and now there's an excellent Low Level Virtual Machine made by some guys in the states.
It is a little low level - there are pointers and for me the point (!) of VMs is that you can do away with them...
lots of OSs here

PROGRAMMING : Do robots have to be concious?

I just started reading another article which talks about robots taking over the world, and one of it's concerns is that robots are a long way from being concious - a requirement that the author thinks is necesarry for them to take over.
Let me say this once, and loud
Robots don't need to be concious to dominate the world. A virus isn't even as sophisticated as a cell, yet it can kill you. Insects represent the second(?) largest biomass on the planet, yet their brains are tiny - certainly not concious.
Robots don't need to be concious to dominate the world. To dominate all they need to do is 'discover' a way to reproduce that requires no human intervention, and then do precisely that. If we notice in time that this is happening we might try to stop it, but the robots will probably be able to adapt to this a lot quicker than us.
So don't worry too much, either it will happen or it won't, there's not a lot we can do :)

MUSIC : Cheese Metal

Have to admit I am a big fan of cheese metal; Man o War, Hammerfall, Mercyful Fate, BOC, Diamond Head and so on. A guy has made himself a cheese guitar which looks awesome.
Thanks for the link Ash!!

PROGRAMMING : how much to UI's suck?

Lots.

And that's not just my opinion - checkout Allan Cooper and Jef Raskin's books which I have just finished reading. Having been a mac user I have always felt that there must be a better way. I just want to work, I don't want to frig around with all this other crap.

These books have been inspiring enough for me that I am, once I've finished holidays, going to start working in this field. May have to do some training first, or maybe do a master/PHd in the subject, but that's the area I'm interested in, so that's the area I'm going to work in.

MOVIES : Chronicles of Riddick

This was a pretty average action film. A bit laboured, a bit of 'bridge building' but overall acceptable.
The main thing that occured to me (apart from the woeful Macbeth like antics of 2 of the characters) was inspired by watching the preview of the Bourne Supremecy. Mr Bourne, a trained CIA dude, is supposed to be some amazing killing machine. One man army. They show lots of scenes of him beating the crap out of people and blowing things up, and the last scene is of him calling someone on their mobile and letting them know that he's got a sniper rifle trained on them. This inspires a lot of terror in the recipient of the phone call.
In fact you might say that Mr Bourne was a terrorist.
I then watched C of R. This starts with the planet Helios (sun) Prime being attacked. The main city of Helios that we see is a mediterranian feeling city with mud brick 2-3 floor buildings and lots of geometric shape art. The invading army sends down devastating bombardments and then an overwheelming and technologically superior force to assimilate or destroy the populace.
Sound familiar? And I'm not talking about the 'Borg.
It struck me as very like the US invasion of Iraq. Did they do it on purpose? I doubt it.
What other information can we gleen from this observation? Apparently it is ok to resist the invasion. And once you have lost it is dishonourable to simply bow to the victors - you must continue the fight or die. If you can, try to assasinate the man in charge, the president if you will.
And ultimately - might is right.