Christmas List (Rev. 002)

From the wonderfully twisted mind of Platicus at Sandwich Flats...

The "Fatal Attraction" Kitchen Set

I wan' it, I wan' it, I wan' it... NOW!

Christmas List (Rev. 001)

Here is something fun to say...

...a silicon photonic wave guide...

I want one...or a few... hundred.

Open & Closed

Joi Ito received this when attempting to access Twitter...


While the United Arab Emirates are well within their rights to block objectionable content it is imperative that we see first hand the result of their actions.

Open the door

Thanks Frank (RIP)

Open Pains of Glass

When I posted "Open little "w" windows - MinWin" I tried to put the best possible spin on a commodity that I grudgingly endorse, Microsoft Windows. As an IT professional I have to embrace Windows even if I find them contemptible. When I learned about MinWin I thought there might be some redeeming value... until I heard this

Monday, December 3

Maximum Wait for MinWin, Windows 7.0

By The VAR Guy

...

Yes, Microsoft needs to address its bloatware problems. It’s time to put Windows on a diet. But MinWin and its desktop operating system personality — Windows 7 — won’t arrive till 2010. Yet CRN is predicting that MinWin could “Soothe Vista Headaches.” Wow. That’s quite a leap of faith.

TWO THOUSAND AND TEN ?!?!?
You have got to be kidding me. Listen to this...

Microsoft Partners: Use Of Downgrade Rights Is Surging

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
4:49 PM EST Mon. Dec. 03, 2007

Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) claims that adoption of Windows Vista and Office 2007 is chugging along nicely, with more than 88 million Vista licenses and 71 million Office licenses sold in the past year.

But these numbers belie the fact that some organizations just don't see the value in upgrading to Vista and Office 2007, and are perfectly content with XP and Office 2003. Many solution providers are seeing surging interest in downgrade rights, which Microsoft offers to business users of both Vista and Office, and which allow companies to use previous versions of Microsoft software.

Emphasis mine! This is the final tolling of the Microsoft death knell. "Surging interest" in downgrading from Vista to XP means that Microsoft's income stream will shortly dry up to a trickle. Couple that with a 'wait until 2010' forecast for the future and I can only ask if Microsoft can survive its own desolation?

It used to be that Linux was a fringe alternative. Now it is looking like the mainstream choice.

Open Blogging

Amid the raging controversy of whether blogging is dead comes a not so quiet report from Rebecca McKinnon ...

Is Web2.0 a wash for free speech in China?

This is a picture of Zhai Minglei's computer after his hard drive was removed and confiscated on Thursday.

Blogger and publisher of the recently-shut-down grassroots newspaper "Minjian," Zhai posted the photo on Friday along with an account of the questioning he had undergone that afternoon. See John Kennedy's translation of Zhai's Thursday blog post describing how his home was raided. Friday's post is a long account, which hopefully somebody will translate in full. His hard drive was returned to him, with "Minjian"-related material removed.

After reading Rebecca's excellent reporting along with associated articles I am ashamed that I even dabble in the "is blogging dead" spit-fest. How easily I (we) are distracted (again) by bright baubles and glittering trinkets. How quickly we rise to the self importance of who is Scoble-izing whom and what does Calacanis have to say about that...

China: NGO blogger’s house raided, hard drive confiscated

Published by John Kennedy November 29th, 2007
...

In an urgent post [zh] on 1bao this morning, Zhai writes:

At just after 10 this morning, on November 29, 2007, five people from the Shanghai Municipality Cultural Market Administrative Enforcement Squad (three men, two women) suddenly showed up at my home. Three of them produced identification, two did not, and they proceeded to search through every room and every corner of my house. Even the paper in my printer was confiscated, along with my last remaining copies of the forty-one issues of Minjian. At the same time, they demanded to search my home computer. They searched through files on the computer, and even removed the hard drive which they took with them. The reason they gave was my involvement in work on the illegal publication Minjian.

I told them:
1. Minjian is internal material pertaining to the Civil Society Center at Sun Yat-sen University, and not something I have published privately.
2. Minjian is non-profit.
3. Minjian contains nothing pornographic reactionary or related to religious minorities.

I respectfully asked them to work appropriately and in good faith as they carry out their work.
As they left, they told me that on the afternoon of the 30th, tomorrow, I am scheduled to undergo an investigation.

This is most likely connected to the notice I posted online informing readers of Minjian’s closure [zh], and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.

Fortunately, I was able to express myself fully in [zh] the online notice, and it is also my formal statement in this matter: the shutting down of Minjian was illegal, a violation of academic freedom, of freedom of the press, and of media freedom in general.

Zhai signs off in a solemn, but carefully-worded tone; Minjian translates to ‘the civil,’ or ‘that among the people’:

Pass this news on to as many readers as possible, tell them to take proper care of Minjian, to appeal on behalf of Minjian.
[…]
Yours,

Zhai Minglei
November 29, 2007

...and I am prepared for the worst. This is the price to be paid in struggling for freedom of speech and media freedom.
Can we even comprehend "for the "worst"? Incarceration? Being held incommunicado? Imprisoned for the expression of beliefs of freedom?

Oh yeah, blogging sure is dead.

Open little "w" windows - MinWin

Microsoft has driven the last nail in Vista's coffin if the reports about MinWin are true.

Microsoft Partners: MinWin Could Soothe Vista Headaches

By Kevin McLaughlin, CMP Channel
7:19 PM EST Fri. Nov. 30, 2007

In the year that has passed since Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) released Windows Vista to business users, the operating system has gained a reputation in the channel as a bloated memory hog that many companies are avoiding like a trip to the dentist.

But Microsoft partners have a more positive opinion of Windows 7, the next generation of Windows that Microsoft expects to ship in the 2010 timeframe. That's because Windows 7 will be based on MinWin, a scaled down version of the Windows core that will also serve as the framework for Windows Server and Windows Media Center.

MinWin's source code base takes up about 25 megabytes on disk, compared to about 4 gigabytes for Vista. Solution providers see this as a sign that Microsoft has learned its lesson from trying to cram too much into the Windows OS, and some feel that Windows 7 will be a roaring success in the market.

From an end-user and "integrator" perspective this means never having to say I am Vista. It also means another 12-18 month delay before I make another significant Microsoft investment.

The silver lining that I can hope for is that with a 25MB foot print Microsoft can create a unified cross platform environment. I can see where PCs and Phones and PDAs all running the same OS could be a great boon to connectivity.

All that said I believe in my heart of hearts that Microsoft is again dabbling in the fine art of vapor-ware. Promising 25MBs while rolling out a 1-2GB package.

Open Journalism

At the recommendation of the august Blogist and Philosopher Frank Paynter I clicked on a link that took me to the writings of Ben Paynter. Most specifically the article in The Pitch - Don't Look Down.

Ben, you've done it again!

Open Forests

Who plants trees although he knows he'll never sit in their shadows has at least begun to recognize the sense of life. - Anonymous

Fore score and 7

Our forefathers should be forewarned
about the potential abuse of forearms...

Thanks to The Way I Think for the pic

Open Face

As I have posted earlier I have no love for FaceBook. So it is sort of antithetical that I offer the solution to FB's privacy issues.

According to the WSJ's informal survey some 60+% of FB users would not like their friends to automatically be notified if they bought Prada or tickets to see Lion King. Ok, the answer is simple.

FB users should be notified that X number of their friends have bought the latest Stephen King thriller. Then privacy is maintained. No specific user is named. But the endorsement is implicit. AND the unknown aspect of X will only server to create a greater conversation (reads more FB traffic = more FB revenue.)

Somebody over at FB owes me a nice fat check!

Open Freedom?

We have allowed lawyers to define 'freedom' and as such we have lost it.

Open Privacy

In a recent segment broadcast on NPR about Privacy I heard (paraphrasing)

'A potential employer might discover something about me that I hadn't intended them to find.'

The segment was concerning the publishing of personal information on sites like Facebook or MySpace and that employers were 'researching' prospective employees as a part of the vetting process.

I so much so wish that the speaker had not used the word "intended" when expressing his/her concern about privacy. For me their entire arguement implodes when there is a suggestion that sensitive material was shared in a public forum BUT it is "intended" only for certain parties. Or conversely, that there might have been an intention to hide or deny particular personal information from a prospective employer. That is just this side of deception, a personal characteristic that I would question if I were vetting an individual for any kind of sensitive work.

Open Ramblin'

Chris Sanders, who claims to be full of I.T., said he was thankful for growing up here-abouts...in Kentucky...just a bit west of here...

I can’t say that I will stay in Graves County for the rest of my life, as we all know how twists and turns can throw things off course. I will however, guarantee that no matter where I go and what I accomplish, I will always be Chris Sanders from Mayfield, KY. That would be about 30 miles southwest of Possum Trot, 40 miles southeast of Monkey’s Eyebrow, and about 10 miles north of the state line….just in case you were wondering….

Way to go Chris... now they will never leave you alone. Prolly be two or three more people a week be round to look you up. :)

Open Excess

J. C. Penney is opening at 04:00 (AM for those not on a 24 hour clock) ...

Need I say more?

Open Justice...

...or the best justice that money can buy?.

This is just plain wrong!

Posted at LinuxWatch

Nov. 20, 2007

York Capital Management's proposed Asset Purchase Agreement and its associated credit agreement for SCO make it clear that if the bankruptcy court lets York buy SCO, that York will be bankrolling SCO's continued lawsuits against Novell, IBM and other Linux-using companies.

Groklaw published the APA and its associated credit agreement during the last few days. The most interesting aspects of the proposed deal are in the credit agreement.

York, a private equity firm, is offering a complex purchase agreement for SCO. While the total amount of the deal comes to $36 million, a close look reveals SCO would get $10 million in cash and what amounts to a $10 million line of credit to use to continue its legal fights with Novell and IBM.
...

While you would be hard pressed to find anyone who believes SCO's claims that Unix code is hidden within Linux after almost five years of lawsuits without any real evidence, York, if it can get the bankruptcy court to approve its bid for SCO, is willing to take a small bet that somehow profits may yet be reaped from SCO's lawsuits.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware will hold a hearing on the proposed sale on Dec. 5.

Please, let common sense prevail - Wagering on the outcome of litigation should have no place in our business society.

Open Advertising (???)

Quick! Tell me about two commercials you saw during the last Super Bowl.

Funny, neither can I. Ok, tell me the company or product offered in the banner ad in the last page you went to.

Funny, neither can I. You can only imagine how it must sound to the Marketing Survey caller when I honestly say that I cannot remember any of the advertisements in such-n-such magazine. Even though I had skimmed it only two days ago.

This awareness brings me to one of two possible conclusions. Either advertising works...on a subliminal level. Or, advertising is grossly over priced for the effect it has on the viewer.

I wonder if Advertising folks would be willing to fess up to either position? It would probably involve Lawyers speaking for the interests of the industry.

Hmmmm...

Hmmm, iffen you quote enough smart people...

Guess these folks didn't watch the Kermit the Frog video... Same as it ever was!

Open Responsibility

Microsoft's Bill Hilf Reveals Its Open Source Strategy

The man in charge of Microsoft's strategy for living in harmony with Linux lays out the company's opportunities with open source and the open source business model.

By J. Nicholas Hoover
InformationWeek
November 16, 2007 06:01 AM

...

InformationWeek: Are there any specific areas where you would see Microsoft placing things in an open source development environment as a way to further its own products or to better interoperate with things?

Hilf: When people buy commercial software, really what they're buying is a guarantee. You're buying a guarantee that what you have will perform, and has been tested and there's someone you can call up, and if things go really bad someone's liable if something doesn't work. You're buying this ecosystem of accountability. One of the challenges of open source and really the challenge with the open source business model is: it's hard to replicate that ecosystem of accountability and that guarantee.

Emphasis mine.

In adopting a "Blamers" mentality we have succeeded locking ourselves into our own prison. Instead of looking for a solution to a given problem we have taken up the practice of finding someone else to blame, someone on whom we can place the responsibility.

Open Source is the antithesis of "Blamers". Open Source people, as individuals or groups, who have accepted the full and nontransferable responsibility for their work. By accepting the tenets of Open Source these people are willing to place their work under the scrutiny of the most discriminating critics. In return their work is vetted and documented to a degree that insures the very highest quality.

When we as consumers use Open Source software we are accepting that same level of responsibility. This does not mean that I, as a consumer, am "out in the cold" should I experience any difficulty with an Open Source project. To the contrary, it is the community of developers _and_ critics that rise to my assistance when I have questions or issues. They do so willingly, on their own time, and most often at their own expense.

We need to move away from "Blamers" and the blame game mentality.

Same as it ever was... Ha ha ha

Thanks Jeremy