Apologies to those who wern't able to figure out the last entry. In retrospect, maybe I should've provided what it'll look like when parsed by the next version of POUND, but I suspect that readers of my BLOG have more imagination than most, and perhaps more than a few of you are actually using a Wiki somewhere.
There's talk of a new version of the GPL, to deal with patent issues, compatibility with other similar licenses, and a few other things. It's a tricky ground, dealing with the patent issues -- Stallman may decide that all rights to use any GPLed software end if people use any patent suit against free software. This would be quite nice -- it would be an effective attack against the intent of patent law. I'm not sure how well it would go over with business types who use Linux though, and it is useful to have their assent to opensource. Perhaps there will be more than one version of the next GPL, similar to how we already have LGPL.
This looks handy.
Things might be calming down in Israel/Palestine. This brings to mind a few things I've still been chewing on with regards to that conflict. One of the things that was discussed when the local Hillel came to speak to us (PUSH) was corruption in the Palestinian government. Given multiple sources, including many from the middle east, I've come to the conclusion that there was indeed a lot of corruption in Arafat's government, with Arafat himself having spent enormous amounts of govt money on his personal interests rather than the people he represented. This is not unlike several governments in Africa that presently are dominated by groups of wealthy thugs. And.. perhaps not *so* much unlike the way things are run in the United States. Corruption/"Business Interests" is a problem everywhere, and doesn't always look alike. I am hopeful that the next Palestinian government will be less corrupt and more inclined towards peace. Sharon is forming a new government to deal with his presently weak mandate. Interestingly, Likud and Labour are both likely to be in it. Unfortunately, it looks like Shinui is out and UTJ is in. Gah. See here for an interesting, humourous caricature of a few party leaders involved.
This is a neat site for information on MRI, which is what I work with at work.
HP is bailing out from IA64. It looks more and more likely that AMD has won the CPU war on the x86 front.
One of the things that strikes me as interesting is an impression I've recently gotten from dealing with a few groups of people who have definite issues with authority. It's important to note that I'm not talking about people who are prone to question it, and ignore it when I disagree, like I do, but instead the people who are so much against it that they rule out all systems where someone has authority, not even trying to pass judgement on whether it's necessary or useful, or if they've used it well. I am curious exactly what kind of things create that in a person. Perhaps some features of childhood. Note that this isn't meant to be diminutive -- I am aware that all sorts of things that make up a person tend to have some rooting in childhood, whether we consider them good or bad. One example is this site, hack-a-bike. Except, when I really think about it, maybe their posting of details on hacking bikes really isn't anything more than a disagreement on principles -- I ignore Intellectual Property law because I disagree with the principles on which it is built -- perhaps they disagree with commercialism and monopolising resources or something. I get the impression that they disagree with authority just to disagree with it, but it's possible it's based on deeper things. Of course, there are some other groups who are more clearly just being childish when dealing with authority-related issues, people with strange psychological needs for attention. It is amusing how the internet leads people who really need therapy to instead gather together with similar folk and form a gang.. but I guess given the existence of RL inner-city gangs, with a reversion to tribal mentality, the internet isn't needed for that. It's in our blood. Lucky us.
Here's something someone recently told me over IM.. L6: no no i had no water pressure L6: it was like i was being peed on by my house everytime i showered How special.
Lawrince Lessig has had a number of interesting guest bloggers on his blog recently. Here are a few particularly interesting posts.
If you want to get a bit more into the head of Michael Powell, director of the FCC, here is your chance. Outside from it being rather disturbing how many children of people in power in our government have been put in power recently *cough* *cough*, Powell has an interesting perspective. I'd love to ask him a few rather pointed questions though.
If you're up to seeing some interesting photographs, check out this guy. Also, my friend Dmitriy recently set up his site too.
My "State of Myself" for this year will be written later. Maybe today, maybe not until new years. *shrug*
