Last week saw some stimulating debate on Slashdot, especially concerning Microsoft. Inspiration strikes me to jot some random analysis apropos to Microsoft, open source, Linux, security, et al.

1. Microsoft and Sun

Genes produce proteins that construct the body.

It's a simple statement, yet incredibly deep. We know that it's true because we can observe the process, yet we have almost no understanding of how the process actually works.

I propose to try to build a machine that will give us this understanding.

My little daughter is growing up and doing wonderfully, seven months now. Words fail me, she's so cute. Here, let me show you a picture. I have one in my wallet. OK, it's a little out of date: taken when she was two months old.

What I need is a digital photo that fits into my wallet. Just a handful of these, credit-card sized, and I can keep my friends and colleagues rightly bored with baby stories.

So here comes more damn prior art number 8.

People, it seems, spend an extraordinary amount of effort and energy in conflict. Now, in evolutionary terms, a certain amount of conflict is inevitable and desirable, but the wholescale violent conflict between groups that dominates the news is clearly wasteful.

Everyone shares the common human spirit, but some more than others.

-- HeironymousCoward

What's the opposite of a euphemism? A way of saying something so crudely, with so much emphasis and descriptive innuendo that its impact is felt overpoweringly. Where a euphemism is a gentle caress, the anti-euphimism is a kick in the groin. "Did you feel that?"

Apparently I'm not the only one to see the hand of the Mad Colonel behind the wars in West Africa.

The BBC is reporting on accusations made against Libya by the chief prosecutor of the Sierra Leone war crimes court.

I'll leave you to ruminate on the morality of someone who invests in war in order to create client states.

Past wars were fought by kings and emperors against each other in order to aquire power and wealth. Today's wars are fought by the rich against the poor in order to maintain the status quo.

(c)2004 HeironymousCoward

"Long sleeve, short sleeve?" was the question they asked you in Sierra Leone. One answer meant they cut your hands off above the wrist. The other meant above the elbows.

The use of terror against civilians as a weapon of political control seems to be the core of modern African wars. In some cases it's the government, in other cases some obscure rebel group. In almost all cases the world looks, sighs, and turns away.

After much consideration (see BTFTD 1), I have decided that the entire modern debate about genes vs. nurture can be brought down to a single, simple, brutal point.

I've decided that about 80% of Slashdot articles can be answered with just a few standard comments and although trying to get a perfect 24/24* is fun, it's not going to get me any more money, sex, or vacation.

Therefore in the interests of saving time and effort that can better be spent on discovering new ways of flossing the cat, I present the first International Slashdot FAArt.

Today, the thing that needs a name is what happens when two women (or men that think like women, let's get the PC crap over with immediately) get together to exchange data.

A naive observer might imagine that women simply like talking. This is confusing the means with the goals.

Consider this: antibiotics reduce your resistance to alcohol.

Somewhere in your gut there are bacteria that help you digest booze. These bacteria are probably part of your genetic heritage, passed from mother to child like most of our symbiotic bugs, over... thousands of generations. These bugs aren't just having a great time by drinking your booze. They are actively protecting you by digesting the alcohol before it can damage your body too much.

WTF? This is bizarre.

"All reality is based on a solid kernel of fiction."

- HeironymousCoward, 2004

Or, what they got right.

I'll make it brief - it's 6.45 here in Brussels and I really want to go into town to get an Orval at the Metekko.

First, Xandros installs sweetly. Rapid, efficient, etc. When I first tried Lindows I was impressed that it could format and install the hard disk in under 7 minutes. Xandros does this trick too.