Month: September 2002

fear as a business strategy

Balancing Linux and Microsoft

After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft. A rising threat to Microsoft is GNU Linux, an operating system distributed free and developed using the open-source model in which communities of programmers donate their labor to debug, modify and otherwise improve the code.

After the merger with Compaq, Hewlett also became the largest vendor of Linux-based server computers, ahead of Dell Computer and I.B.M. Yet Hewlett’s bet on Linux still pales compared with its reliance on Microsoft. And after the merger, it was mainly former Compaq executives who took senior positions overseeing the Linux business.

According to the blurb at the Times, this article is supposed to be about how companies can balance their use of Microsoft and open source tools. The reality of the story is that even an organization as large as the merged HP/Compaq is unwilling to risk antagonising Microsoft.

cookbooks as an object of lust

The Seattle Times: Pacific Northwest Magazine

But the great books are about more than mere recipes. Just as a great pop song forces you to get up and dance or play air guitar, a great cookbook is one that forces you into the kitchen.

That or a craving for something, whether or not you’ve made it lately or ever.

I share the author’s love of cooking, food, and the tools that enable them, though I’m well shy of 200 cookbooks.

I use the Joy of Cooking as a reference book, more than a recipe guide, just as I use every recipe as an outline, rather than the rigid series of steps some would decree. Trouble is, it like so many encyclopedic resources, has a lot of pages on meat which as a vegetarian is just so much baggage. I cooked meat for years, liked cooking and eating it, then stopped, and don’t miss it. (I realized most of what I ate it for was the spices it came with: barbecue, sausages, chilis, etc.)

I dip into others as well — the Moosewood books, all vegetarian, are quite good — but sometimes the mainstream references are essential. I have come to regard meatless cooking as I do filmmaking during the reign of the Hays Office’s Production Code of 1930: you can make your statement, but it might take some imagination, and there are many films of that period that defined the art for many years. Just as the filmmakers of the 30s were unable to show full-frontal nudity, I’m unlikely to dish up a rare filet mignon, but my chilis, tacos, and pasties pass muster just fine.

Another thing I share with the author is a love of Asian and Italian foods,for the practical reason they are often or can be made meatless, and as a matter of taste. And that is actually where I see a big hole in my collection, so perhaps I’ll hit the Friends of Library sale myself.

imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Yahoo! News – Is Gateway’s Profile 4 a ‘Smarter’ Buy than Apple’s iMac?

In the more playful of the two ads, dubbed “New iMac Dance,” the iMac’s igloo-shaped base bobs and weaves while the screen tilts and pans. The effect is cartoonish, but even the most extreme positions could be duplicated with a real-life iMac.

Compare that to the less flexible Profile with a screen that only tilts upward or downward — no height or side-to-side adjustments are possible. The animated Profile on TV looks much more agile, but Gateway must run a disclaimer that says, “base and monitor movements are simulated.”

Coupled with quotes like “Apple has sold the iMac purely on the basis of its design” and you have to wonder how it that so few people understand design as more than just surface appearance.

Is it any surprise that Apple can show you the iMac from all sides while Gateway insists on a single product shot?

The Profile is just a repackaged collection of the same old annoyances and shortcuts. Old wine in a newer bottle.

a blast from the past

Cruise Ship Profiles Cruise Lines – Orient Lines – Marco Polo

Adapted from the first to earn hard currency, the ALEXANDR PUSHKIN was employed in the service of the Baltic State Steamship Company to run between Leningrad and Montreal via ports in Western Europe and Britain.

This is the ship on which I crossed the North Atlantic in 1966, not long after she entered service.

It looks like quite a big ship, but even by the standards of the 1960s, she’s quite small. The QE II, buiit in 1969, is 70,000 tons to the Pushkin/Polo’s 19,000. The Queen Mary II, slated to enter service in 2003, will be 150,000 tons.
Continue reading “a blast from the past”

words to live by

In my son’s new school, I saw a poster/sign in a classroom, obviously made by one of the staff, and I thought it could be a pretty complete philosophy for life:


  • Have you been kind today?
  • Are you making good choices?
  • Are you doing your very best work?

Ilike that these are questions, rather than imperatives: there’s the opportunity for reflection, rather than just another message being dinned into your head.

I especially like the second question. The extension of that is, what are you doing right now and is what you should be doing?

Some may find this simplistic or childish, but think of all the events in the news or your daily life where a little self-examination might have made all the difference.

The Wizard of Pink/The Dark Side of the Rainbow

Google Search: “dark side of the moon” “wizard of oz”

Almost all the song transitions match up with scene transitions, and most of the lyrics of Dark Side of the Moon can be seen to resonate with simultaneous things happening in The Wizard of Oz movie as well in one way or another. Although you have similar bursts of synchronistic energy in other synchs, none appear nearly this sustained or consistent; “Dark Side of the Rainbow” seems unique in this way.

from http://users.boone.net/brittanma/darksideoftherainbow.html

I had heard of this rumor a few weeks ago for the first time, and am amazed to see how much there is to it.

Follow a few links yourself, and see what it’s about. If you try it yourself, let me know.

blogchalking

I followed a link on John’s site and lookedinto the blogchalking stuff, deciding to add the tags to my pages and see what the results might be.

The first thing I learned was the value of linking movabletype templates to real files you can edit with a real editor. Simply copying and pasting turned all the quotes to entity refs, and editing them in MT’s template display window was going to be unwieldy at best.

Watch this space for the future of information retrieval

Nav4 Search Engine Patch Kit – Think Tank 23 Context Navigation Solutions

Give your search engine some words, and you’ll get back some documents that match one or more of those words. Give Nav4 a document, and you’ll get back the documents that match one or more of that document’s concepts. Is this search result close? Let Nav4 find others like it; let Nav4 get you closer.

Nav4 SEPK picks up where your search engine leaves off. Like what you’re reading? Want to know more? Nav4 gives you related documents, in context. You’re one click away from a Nav4 results page the additional documents you need. Or, why click? Embed Nav4 related documents right in your Web pages, with Nav4 Web services available in HTML and XML formats.

Look for this service to be impletmented here on this weblog soon: with each article you read, you’ll see links to other articles, here and on other weblogs, that are thematically similar. This is beyond the capabilities of keyword search, since it works like your mind does: it knows what a document is about, not how many times a given word appears.

I’m excited about it: this is the way information retrieval, aka search, should have always worked.