Welcome to Brightcove Nothing I hadn't already thought of of course!

google_recruiting.mpg (video/mpeg Object) Funny, I've watched a few videos from Microsoft lately and what impresses me most about them is how unimpressive they are. Kids, mostly, fairly bright kids I suppose, but they don't seem sure of themselves even with lofty titles such as product manager or "lead" something. They look driven alright. Driven to the point of nervousness and exhaustion. Will they do anything to offend Bill in this interview today? Thats what seems to be going through their minds. One guy has three monitors on his desk, but complains that he has been requesting LCDs for months and still has these old (looking) and rather small screened CRTs. The offices look well worn as does the furniture. Everything about these presentations (from Microsoft) looks too forced. No different really that the starched-shirt-stiff productions of IBM in the 60s and 70s, when that company was first trying to introduce itself to the rest of the world, but without the neat clothes. Contrast Microsoft's efforts to be just "regular guys" with this production from Google. Yes, it is a production, planned, and probably done with a few takes. But it looks a lot more relaxed, and the people in it really DO look like normal people, and they do this while coming off looking a lot smarter than the Geeks at MS. Makes me wonder if Bill Gates character flaws don't really infect the whole company.

Yahoo! chief! scientist! joins! Microsoft! | The Register Are we still watching the also-rans bicker among themselves?

Volvo to buy IBM supercomputer using Opterons Linux based. No Windows. What a darned shame.

Overlawyered Old lost link.

Novell updates embeddable POS Linux distribution

My Way News: "On March 26, National Microbial Laboratory Canada detected the 1957 pandemic strain in a sample not connected with the test kit. After informing WHO and the CDC of the strange finding, the lab investigated. It informed the U.N. health agency on Friday that it had traced the virus to the test kit." DUH.

bNitro.com - Web-based CRM, eLearning, and Project Management See below.

Open Source Business Software One of Best Kept Secrets On the Web

Home | rml Robert Loves Weblog

Greg K-H's Linux Stuff Greg Kroah-Harmans Weblog

De... arata Spent some time today figuring out what I can do online as a holder of a local county library card. Turns out more than I thought, including photocopies of old records back to the Revolution. Along the way I ran into a piece on the poem "Desiderata" which was apparently written in Baltimore, or something. I'm not sure I had ever read this original version: http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm But it makes me appreciate all the more the spoof I HAD read, called "Deteriarata": http://www.communart.karoo.net/deteriarata.htm

Yahoo! News - New on the Wire: AP to Offer Two Leads for Some Stories: "The new initiative is in response to requests from many editors who want to be able to offer readers 'something fresh so they will want to pick up the newspaper and read a story, even though the facts have been splashed all over the Web and widely broadcast.'"

Windows Supercomputer Release Slips to 2006 Windows Supercomputer? Isn't that an oxymoron? I forget who we are dealing with here. Nevermind that oxy part. hehe

Brazil: The Next Windows vs. Linux Battleground?: "XP Starter Edition releases are custom-developed versions of Windows XP that strip out some of Windows XP's features and functionality. Features cut from the various Starter Editions have included support for multiple user accounts; networked printers; the ability to personalize desktops with multiple looks and feels for different users; and support for screen resolutions above 800 X 600 DPI (dots per inch). Starter Edition also prevents users from launching more than three applications simultaneously." Lets see...how can we sell more of this pile of sh*t? Lets make it even sh*tier!! Now THATS inovation!

Speaking of Faith | Quarks and Creation

Storage Technology Cute ad for new storage tech.

You Have B.O. Another long overdue service brought to you by the Internet.

TSA Slated for Dismantling (washingtonpost.com): "'Republicans didn't want to create this [bureaucracy] in the first place. Democrats see security as an easy target. So you don't have anyone to defend it,' said C. Stewart Verdery, Jr., former assistant secretary for policy and planning at Homeland Security's Border and Transportation Security directorate, which includes TSA. " Sort of like when a store marks prices up so that it can subsequently put them "on sale". Watch as we "scale back big government".

Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth's Crust, Breakthrough to Mantle Looms Alt Headline: Geo-Scientists Drill Hole to Hell.

Al Gore and Joel Hyatt Unveil Current ... Oh my. I think I'm going to trade my "current" bullshitometer in on one of those new digital models. I'm tired of having he needle replaced on this one.

US Passport RFID consultation closes today With all the Terri Schiavo "news", I must have missed this. I wonder what else I missed?

USNews.com: John Leo: End of the Schiavo affair (4/11/05) "The behavior of conservatives: Uneven and sometimes awful,"... "The behavior of liberals: Mystifying." "The behavior of the news media: Terrible." Amen

iPodder.org :Podcasting directory

Podcasting News

Yahoo! News - Berger to Plead Guilty So, how is it that someone who commits an act, that under slightly different circumstances could carry as much as the death penalty for espionage, get off so easily, and have the article reporting it devote half of the word to criticizing the Bush administration? Oh, wait, its and AP story. Never-mind.

Wired News: RFID Cards Get Spin Treatment Things that make you go hmmmm.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft plans 'safer ID' system "Up to 200 million Passport accounts were left vulnerable to online theft and malicious hackers after a flaw in the system was exploited in 2003. Online auction site, eBay, stopped supporting it in January 2005." What idiots!

Microsoft's Grand Plan To Go Vertical: "IBM realigned its sales and software strategy vertically, starting in late 2003. Now it's Microsoft's turn to try to do the same." ... "Microsoft isn't building any vertical apps, McCollum emphasized. But he did acknowledge that Microsoft's new vertical focus will have an impact over time on how Microsoft designs and develops its products. McCollum didn't specify exactly how this change will occur or what form it will take." Uh. I wonder why that might be? Finding an e-Week article dated 01/05 is not the same as figuring out when IBM went vertical. I'd peg it in the 80's somewhere, but considering the company made clocks, card sorters, typewriters and a lot of other things not strictly associated with mainframe data processing you could say they have ALWAYS been a vertical company. They've had consulting services as long as I can remember and within that had specific industry focus. IBM has thus had breadth and depth unlike almost any other company in history. At the other end of the spectrum... Of course, anyone who stares at Microsoft too long will become blinded to the fact that their focus has been so incredibly narrow with respect to almost any other company of their size and wealth. This move *is* their only way out, but having painted themselves into a situation with only one exit strategy possible is hardly something over which they should be complimented. I noticed that one industry pundit has taken to referring to HP as the "Ink Maker", and maybe its time to come up with a cute name to remind people that Microsoft's only claim to fame is a poorly designed and aging operating system with some end-user "productivity" tools to go along with it. I guess we might have trouble coming up with anything better than "micro-soft" though. It's hard to find companies who have survived from one generation to the next, and those who have have generally don't so by wildly diversifying themselves. Microsoft has shown little inclination to do this, and where there has been inclination, talent is lacking. What Microsoft watchers might want to start doing is making book on what their chances of success are. I'd rate them at less than half.

New York Daily News - Business - Post delivers circ mess

Forbes.com: Teen Builds Linux Workaround For iTunes

Joel on Software - Monday, March 14, 2005: "If you spend the money to upgrade to VB.NET, well, you just spent a lot of money to stand still. And companies don't like to spend a lot of money to stand still, so while you're spending the money, it probably makes sense to consider the alternatives that you can port to that won't put you at the mercy of a single vendor and won't be as likely to change arbitrarily in the future. So as soon as people with large code bases start hearing that they're going to have to work to port their apps from VB to VB.NET with WinForms, and then they start hearing that WinForms isn't really the future, the future is really this Avalon thing nobody has yet, they start wondering whether it isn't time to find another development platform." I think it has been time since the 60's. It just takes some people longer to figure it out.

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > 'Break, Blow, Burn': Well Versed: "In her exemplary analysis of Shelley's ''Ozymandias,'' for example, she could easily have referred to the last scene of ''Planet of the Apes,'' when Charlton Heston looks up at the Statue of Liberty's head just as Shelley's ''traveler from an antique land'' looked up at the truncated legs of stone. I was rather expecting her to. Perhaps she has realized, however, that the pace of forgetfulness is always accelerating, and that we have moved from an era of people who have never heard of Shelley to an era of people who have never heard of Charlton Heston."

Yahoo! News - Scientists Find Soft Tissue in T-Rex Bone "The finding certainly shows fossilization does not proceed as science had assumed, Schweitzer said. Since the discovery, she has found similar samples of soft tissue in two other Tyrannosaur fossils and a hadrosaur." WOW Two strikes in a row this week for "generally accepted" DNA science. The other one being: Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene

Seth Nickell - Design Fu

The Unofficial Apple Weblog - apple.weblogsinc.com

Virtual-Addiction

Color Fields Colr Pickr Neat Flickr API application.

TCS: Tech Central Station - iPod Therefore iAm

TCS: Tech Central Station - Where Free Markets Meet Technology

The New Yorker: "Most national-security Democrats believe that the Party?s problems on the issue go deeper than marketing. They agree that the Party should be more open to the idea of military action, and even preëmption; and although they did not agree about the timing of the Iraq war and the manner in which Bush launched it, they believe that the stated rationale?Saddam?s brutality and his flouting of United Nations resolutions?was ideologically and morally sound. They say that the absence of weapons of mass destruction was more a failure of intelligence than a matter of outright deception by the Administration; and although they do not share the neoconservatives? enthusiastic belief in the transformative power of military force, they accept the possibility that the invasion of Iraq might lead to the establishment of democratic institutions there." Interesting article pointing out the deep division in the Democrat party on defense issues.

Yahoo! News - Professor Charged With Faking Grant Info Too bad this wasn't an environmental scientist. But then their subject matter is very hard to verify.

BBC NEWS | Technology | If you agree, click here...: "The terms and conditions accompanying software go by the formidable name of the End User Licence Agreement or Eula (pronounced to rhyme with fool-ya)"

discoverthenetwork.org Hehe, handy reference on the left.

Blackberry includes Yahoo! instant message - (United Press International) From the been-there-done-that department. Yahoo and RIM: Please go directly to F-ing HELL. Do not pass GO. I signed up for something like this a couple years ago. Got a slight price reduction on the cost of the hardware (still overpriced IMHO) and paid something a month that resembled the cost of a cell phone (but you could only do text messaging). The service sucked. About one in ten messages got through, the rest timed out. Even when the little antenna indicator was good, which often involved crossing the street, getting out of your car, etc, the message would time out. It was really useless for business, and marginal for "hi how ya doing" sort of messaging. After a year they announce discontinuance of the service and only offered a new contract directly through RIM at about triple the monthly cost. I said no-thank you and threw the boat anchor hardware away. No new business with either company for me. Thank you very-bait-and-switch-much.

My Way News: "Looking at public perceptions of the media, the report showed that more people thought the media was unfair to both Kerry and Bush than to the candidates four years earlier, but fewer people thought news organizations had too much influence on the outcome of the election. 'It may be that the expectations of the press have sunk enough that they will not sink much further. People are not dismayed by disappointments in the press. They expect them,' the authors of the report said."

AOL's Terms of Service Update for AIM Raises Eyebrows Hmmmmm.

Global Warming Bombshell Not that new, but interesting.

Joe Jackson - Videos This was actually pretty good. Even though William Shatner was involved.

OpinionJournal - Peggy Noonan - The Blogs Must Be Crazy - Or maybe the MSM is just suffering from freedom envy. Her most chilling prediction: "Finally, someday in America the next big bad thing is going to happen, and lines are going to go down, and darkness is going to descend, and the instant communication we now enjoy is going to be compromised. People in one part of the country are going to wonder how people in another part are doing. Little by little lines are going to come up, and people are going to log on, and they're going to get the best, most comprehensive, and ultimately, just because it's there, most heartening information from . . . some lone blogger out there. And then another. They're going to do some big work down the road." Will the infrastructure of the Internet be all that easy to rebuild from scratch? Or will we be talking in Morse code for a while? I wonder if "DotDashBlog.com" is taken?

Microsoft updates IM, Web conferencing products | Tech News on ZDNet: "Finally, Microsoft unveiled a new version of its Web conferencing program and service, called Office Live Meeting. That program is based on software Microsoft acquired along with PlaceWare in 2003. 'When we did the PlaceWare acquisition, our bet was that this was going to be a huge area,' Raikes said. Companies are turning to Web conferencing to save on costs, Raikes said, adding that Microsoft saved more than $40 million on business-travel-related costs by using Live Meeting internally." How many times have we heard this? I'm not holding my breath for the time when those who can justify it to get free travel away from their jobs, wives, and other unpleasentries, AND get all those frequent flyer miles to boot. Online conferencing will take off right after ZD and others close down their print operations in favor of Internet-only distribution, that is, when the cows come home (on Neptune!)

Ohio law would require auction license for eBay sellers - Mar. 7, 2005: "Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days."

My Way News: "Cronkite called Schieffer 'one of the great television journalists of our time.' 'Although Dan did a fine job, I would have liked to have seen (Schieffer) there a long time ago,' Cronkite said during an interview on CNN. 'He would have given the others a real run for their money.'"

TechWeb | News | New IM Worms Hit MSN Messenger: "But another reason -- one less well-known, said Sakoda -- is that Microsoft's IM clients, and its network, can be accessed through APIs. 'They're embedded in the operating system, and allow experienced hackers a way to take over the MSN client.' The experience hackers have in breaking down Windows also helps explain the high number of IM worms that exploit Microsoft's clients and network."

Forbes.com: Bumbling Bully: "After two years, SCO still hasn't provided any evidence to back up its claim against IBM, something a judge recently chided it for. Now we find out it can't even handle basic accounting. "

Yahoo! News - Saddam's son Uday was poised to topple dad : controversial US journalist: "In that interview just days before Baghdad fell, he said the US war plan was failing. 'Clearly, the American war planners misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces,' he said." Yep. He was full of shit then, and he is full of it still.

Microsoft shuts down net activations: "Microsoft said that resellers, like Dell and HP, would always sell boxes on which the Windows operating system had already been activated. However customers who wanted to reactivate their machines after a reinstall would have to call customer service to get a key." I have a way they can end piracy of Windows altogether! And no, I don't mean give it away, because people would then still continue to clog the Information Superhighway with their tricycles.

‘World is not ready’ for a flu pandemic Will be the title of today's lecture in the Tautology 101 Workshop. Please arrive at class ready to make an appearance.

The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: Mideast Climate Change Subhead: Entire New York Times suffers stroke.

?Honey pot? experiment shows unprotected Windows SP 1 at risk

FrontPage magazine.com :: New Website by FrontPage Magazine

USNews.com: Eat more, weigh less: The answer may lie in the new science of "Volumetrics" (3/7/05)

Bush in Germany: Could George W. Bush Be Right? - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE: "It was difficult not to cringe during Reagan's speech in 1987. He didn't leave a single Berlin clich? out of his script. At the end of it, most experts agreed that his demand for the removal of the Wall was inopportune, utopian and crazy. Yet three years later, East Germany had disappeared from the map. Gorbachev had a lot to do with it, but it was the East Germans who played the larger role. When analysts are confronted by real people, amazing things can happen. And maybe history can repeat itself. Maybe the people of Syria, Iran or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did."

Astronomers spot first ever dark galaxy | The Register

Army loses in games war

Worldandnation: Did the Army get out-gamed?: "'The Army got an incredible deal,' said Josh Resnick, president of Pandemic. 'This kind of product had never been done before.' But the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense says the game was 'full-spectrum welfare' for the companies - and a lousy deal for taxpayers. Keith Ashdown, the group's vice president for policy, said the game was 'a feeble attempt at training our troops in urban combat. But it became a cash cow for Pandemic and Sony.'"

Predictions Database: "Prediction on politics By 2014, most people will use the internet in a way that filters out information that challenges their viewpoints on political and social issues. This will further polarize political discourse and make it difficult or impossible to develop meaningful consensus on public problems."

The Observer | UK News | Why chattering classes have nothing to say

Joel on Software - Thursday, February 17, 2005: "So far, it looks like this is a nifty program, and consumers should be happy that Microsoft has announced it will be free, but it really, really would have been nice for us here in the software industry if Microsoft had set a price on this thing just to provide some air cover for the other companies working on spyware removal. This is not a software category where a monopoly monoculture will be a good thing." Ah, but this is the beauty of the thing. The same company that flooded the world with this poorly designed bloated bag-o-crap needs to hit another home run, and it's the bottom of the ninth and all their best hitters have struck out as mighty Bill wheezes up to the plate... "HEY... let's tie another wagon to the cash cow!" And as what's left of Norton and Macaffee hurl themselves from the burning superstructure we watch it sink into the tar pit as MS corporate management are hanged by their private parts from the mizen mast. err, or something. Anyway, this whole notion that Microsoft must fix the bad design of Windows by adding more software, free or otherwise, on top of it is a major admission of failure, one of several, inability to support multiple hardware architectures quickly being the other one that comes to mind. Like the mangled mass of metaphors in this post, Windows can't be fixed, and the egos at Microsoft won't let it be re-written. Apple use will continue to grow, as will Linux, and there will be a continuing trend back to server-centric computing that will make the outcome of the OS wars less interesting anyway. Can Microsoft succeed in a competition for on-line storage and services? Do they have the courage to buck Intel and start coding for radically new processors? Can you spell "Razor thin profit margins"? Well, of COURSE you can NOW. Anyway, this is all fun to watch from the vantage point of never having to boot Windows again. The longer the agony lasts the better. I don't think I should add future posts right after watching epic movies such as Return of the King.

Bill Gates: Microsoft created PC industry I wonder if he actually believes this?

Fed chief sees home price bubble - The Washington Times: Business - February 18, 2005

JunkScience.com Nice to find so much de-bunking in one place.

CBS News | States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile | February 15, 2005?10:30:02

CBS News | States Mull Taxing Drivers By Mile | February 15, 2005?10:30:02: "Seeing tax dollars dwindling, neighboring Oregon has already started road testing the idea. 'Drivers will get charged for how many miles they use the roads, and it's as simple as that,' says engineer David Kim. Kim and his team at Oregon State University equipped a test car with a global positioning device to keep track of its mileage. Eventually, every car would need one. "

Yahoo! News - 'Trustworthy' Computing Now Gates' Focus: "He will speak to an estimated 11,000 security experts gathered for the weeklong RSA Conference, sponsored by RSA Security Inc., based in Bedford, Mass." Oh yes. RSA, that would be the company that puts out many of the Windows security alerts I get in my inbox (I try to stay informed even though I don't actually use Windows). They also offer training and certification (apparently at least 11,000 times so far) to become a "security expert". I'm sure Mr. Gates, the creator after all of many of their jobs, was well received.

Just Letters Cute

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column: "Carly looked like she could walk on water because Lucent Technologies had been filled with helium." Funny quote of the week.

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Scientists urge calm over fears of new HIV strain: "HIV and Aids scientists and advisers on both sides of the Atlantic urged caution yesterday over suggestions that a new fast-acting strain of the HIV virus resistant to most anti-retroviral drugs had emerged in New York." I'm just curious. Has there ever been an instance where scientists urged panic?

ABC News: Silicon Insider: R.I.P. Microsoft? "The health of established firms, especially great ones, is more difficult to diagnose. The balance sheet can give some clues, but, because it captures the recent past rather than the near future, it can fool you. Most veteran reporters look at more subtle clues, like the comings and goings of key employees, slippage in the release dates of new products (or missing features), and subtle shifts in the tone of company news releases, advertisements and executive speeches. But most of all, at least for me, there is the smell test: the faintest whiff of decay that comes from dying companies. "

Microsoft reels in another big one | News.blog | CNET News.com: "Microsoft landed another big fish today when Verizon Communications agreed to use its Internet-based TV software." I'm ahead of them on this one: I already don't watch TV.

Google Maps - ocean city, maryland At last a map large enough for me to read without a magnifying glass.

Google MapsYEAH!

WSJ.com - Carly Fiorina Forced Out As H-P CEO, Chairman(subscription) It's about time that Carly, and HP gave up their positions as poster children for Women in the boardroom. Did we all grow tired of seeing profiles of her career, open bickering between her and the old guard, video specials of her holding forth on such weighty topics as, uh, marketing strategies? HP was, and can probably never be again a pure technology company. Now they look more like "Dell lite". Maybe this was inevitable, Carly or no Carly. But she BRAGGED about it, and the company has yet to show th advantages of the merger with Compaq other than dubious numbers on a spreadsheet. I'd look for movement on IBM stock in the next few months as HP realizes there is no going back.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC

BBC NEWS | Technology | Digital guru floats sub-$100 PC

Yahoo! News - New 'Supercomputer on a Chip' Makes DebutThis may be a complete dupe. Exciting news though.

NAM - U.S. Senators up for Re-Election in 2006 Democrats... helping to move YOUR job to China since, oh, 1960 or so.

IBM, Sony, Toshiba to reveal "superbrain chip" You know what I really like about this? Linux will be running on it within a month of it's release (my speculation) and it will take Microsoft 6000 years to port Windows to it. There is gnashing of teeth in Redmond, and more FUD than ever regarding the evils of open source.

iPodder.org : History I wonder if this works with the $99 model I just got?

Yahoo! News - Cheney Won't Run for President, Not Even if Begged Too bad we don't have more polititicians like this.

The Angry Economist : perfect-markets.html: "If you talk to people who are opposed to solving problems via the market, some of them will bring up an odd objection. They'll say that you only get optimum resource allocation in a completely free market, with so many buyers and sellers that no one could influence the market, and with 'perfect information'. Two examples: David C. Korten, and John E. Ikerd. If those conditions do not exist -- if there is not perfect competition -- then these people think the case for government intervention is proven. This is foolish. When choosing between two possibilities, you do not compare one against perfection and if it's found lacking, choose the other. You compare the two choices against each other. Many people think that government control of monopolies eliminates the problem of monopolies. This is foolish. They compare how monopolies would behave without government control against how monopolies would behave when controlled perfectly by government. They're making a very simple logical error. Government is itself a monopoly! All that they're doing is substituting the need to control multiple monopolies with the need to control one monopoly." OK, so I quoted the whole damned thing!

Silent Lucidity :: Resources Handy Resources from Aine!

The Angry Economist

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Russ Nelson's Home Page New head of OSI

Northern New York Historical Newspapers by Northern New York Library Network (NNYLN) WOW....wish there were more of these. Maybe there will be soon. Google?

FrontPage magazine.com :: The Fraud "From Flint" by Lowell Ponte

FOXNews.com - Business - Activists Urge Free Open Source Software

Red Hat pushes for Linux in federal market