[via vowe & Mini-Microsoft]
Oups.
As for Mr. Ozzie: where I was sitting, the murmuring of people having low-level conversations grew louder and louder as he talked and people stopped paying attention. He wasn’t engaging the folks around me with whatever he was strutting around about (“De cloud! De cloud!”). Sorry, Ray, you need to earn our respect with results right now. Lotus Notes and the saved-from-the-brink of bankruptcy Groove isn’t endowing you with much currency.
[click]
[click]
[click]
[click]
[click]
Lionel Charlet, a Swiss-French filmmaker, released last year a documentary called “Vols Blancs” (White Fligts) on the Mirage III and F/A-18 Hornet, both combat jets used in Switzerland. This film is *amazing*, incredible! The Swiss pilots are just crazy, some scenes are unbelievable, specially the ones in the valleys of the Alps. Very very low altitude… Have a look at what Lionel says:
The men who are lucky enough to fly carry a serious responsibility – confronted as they are every day to maximum risk and spectacular sceneries – alone in their cockpits they stay focussed on their mission.
There is seriousness in this beauty… if only because war exists. But also because the beauty and transcendence of nature that pilots discover marks them deeply. They don’t indulge in experimentation with “Fun” flying, where one seeks, above all, intense sensations.
The beauty of the three dimensional universe reveals the beauty of the earth and the landscapes, an immense glacier just below the jet, flying head down, perspective is carried away.
Thanks to the Swiss Air Force, I’ve had the occasion to log many hours in FA/18, F-5, Hawk and Mirage, long hard hours gathering the best pictures possible. Each flight is a new challenge, with its struggles and victories.
[via Marc Goldberg]
Marc is pointing to an interesting presentation of Tim O’Reilly (PDF) at the last Eclipse conference. It is about Product Design and innovation in the web2.0 world.
An open source operating system consists of “small pieces loosely joined.”
Discussion: Linux, Apache, Perl and CPAN
Therefore: Architect your software in such a
way that it can be used easily as a component of a larger system. Use a license that does not hinder such a combination. Keep your software modular, and make certain that you document all of the interfaces.
The benefits of open source come from sharing your development efforts and processes with your users
Therefore: Release early and release often. Set up mechanisms for users to submit bugs and patches. Promote your most active
users into roles of greater responsibility.
When useful components are abundant and free, adding proprietary features will only slow you down.
Therefore: Focus your development efforts on speed of testing, assembly, and integration so that your users can always have the best components that the marketplace has to offer.
Users want choice, but not too much of it.
Therefore: Offer your products in a number of proven, industry-standard configurations, and let your users choose between them. As new application domains emerge, develop configurations to support them.
When devices and programs are connected to the internet, applications are no longer software artifacts, they are ongoing services.
Therefore: Do not package up new features into monolithic releases, but instead add them on a regular basis as part of the
normal user experience. Engage your users as real-time testers, and instrument the
service so that you know how people use the new features.
Scale matters. A successful internet service may need to scale up rapidly, at low cost.
Therefore: Use Linux, Apache, and other open source components running on commodity PC hardware as the basis for any internet service. Arrange these components in fault-tolerant arrays, with management tools that minimize the number of required sysadmins.
The key to competitive advantage in internet applications is the extent to which users add their own data to that which you provide.
Therefore: Don’t restrict your “architecture of participation” to software development. Involve your users both implicitly and
explicitly in adding value to your application.
Only a small percentage of users will go to the trouble of adding value to your application.
Therefore: Set inclusive defaults for aggregating user data as a side-effect of their use of the application.
Many limiting factors from the physical world are absent from the internet.
Therefore: Use the power of the computer to monetize niches that formerly were too small to be commercial.
Services need to be robust, but because they are typically data-driven, they also need to be updated constantly.
Therefore: Build your core services infrastructure with traditional software components written in languages like Java,
C, and C++, but build your interfaces with templating systems and with dynamic
languages like Perl, Python, and PHP. Think of your programmers, designers, and
admins as part of the application.
The PC is no longer the only access device for internet applications, and applications that are limited to a single device are less valuable than those that are connected.
Therefore: Design your application from the get-go to integrate services across handheld devices, PCs, and internet servers.
Third party developers are an essential part of the success of new platforms.
Therefore: Reduce complexity for developers by building tools that specifically support new classes of application, and use those
tools to simplify access to underlying components and services.
Inside every open system there are proprietary, single-source components. The open PC architecture has Intel Inside; the open internet has Cisco Inside.
Therefore: Look for opportunities to be the single source for an essential subsystem of an open system.
The GPL allows special rights to the creator of the software to distribute the software under other terms.
Therefore: Make sure to obtain copyright assignment for all contributed code.
Applications are increasingly data-driven.
Therefore: Owning a unique, hard-to-recreate source of data may lead to an Intel-style single-source competitive advantage.
Some data is a commodity and impossible for any one party to own, but access to the data can be controlled through legal means.
Therefore: If you can’t own the data, use legal means to own the namespace or
registry for the data.
Do you know this new skyscraper?
Taipei 101 (臺北 101) is a 101-floor skyscraper in Xinyi District, Taipei, Taiwan. Its original name was Taipei Financial Center, based on its official Chinese name: the Taipei International Financial Building (臺北國際金融大樓). It is the tallest building in the world by three of the four standards designated by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.
[…] Taipei 101 has 101 stories above ground (hence the name) and five under ground.
The building holds the records for:
- Ground to structural top: 508 m (1667 ft), a record formerly held by the Petronas Twin Towers at 452 m (1483ft).
- Ground to roof: 448 m (1470 ft). Formerly held by the Sears Tower (442 m = 1454ft)
- Ground to highest occupied floor: 438 m (1437 ft). Formerly held by the Sears Tower.
It does not hold the record for
- Ground to pinnacle, which is held by the Sears Tower 529 m (1703ft).
[…] The entire tower was opened on December 31, 2004, amidst an extravagant New Year’s celebration, complete with live performances and fireworks. President Chen Shui-bian, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng cut the ribbon. Several floors are already in retail and office use.
Total buildable area will be 450,000 m² with:
- 214,000 m² of office space
- 77,500 m² of retail space
- 73,000 m² of parking space
The tower includes a six-floor retail mall with shops, restaurants, and other attractions. The architecture of the retail mall includes both retro gothic-style pinnacles and modern industrial structures.
[source: Wikipedia]
A tuned mass damper is a device mounted in structures to prevent discomfort, damage or outright structural failure by vibration. Typically, the dampers are huge concrete blocks mounted in skyscrapers or other structures, and moved in opposition to the resonant frequency of the structure by means of springs, fluid or pendulums.
[…] Tuned mass dampers stabilize against violent motion caused by harmonic vibration. The presence of a tuned damper forces a comparatively lightweight structure to overcome the inertia of a great mass, such as a giant concrete block, placed in such a way that the mass only begins to move in one direction just as the structure begins to move in the other, thus damping the structure’s oscillation. The counterweight may be mounted using massive spring coils and hydraulic dampers, and if the axis of the vibration is fundamentally horizontal or torsional, leaf springs and pendulum-mounted weights are employed. Tuned mass dampers are engineered, or “tuned” to specifically counter harmful frequencies of oscillation or vibration.
[…] A 660-ton tuned mass damper is held at the 88th floor, stabilizing the tower against earthquakes, typhoons, and wind. The damper can reduce up to 40% of the tower’s movements.
[source: Wikipedia]
[via BusinessWeek]
Wow, great move Switzerland! That’s cool :-)
Switzerland took a step closer to the rest of the continent Sunday when a majority of voters approved a government-sponsored initiative to allow citizens of 10 new European Union member states to work here.
About 56 percent of voters supported the government-sponsored proposal in a referendum, extending cooperation between this traditionally neutral country and the European Union, according to final results.
Allowing citizens of eight Eastern European countries and two Mediterranean island countries — Cyprus and Malta — to travel and work freely in Switzerland has proved to be a touchy issue. But the result is a second boost within four months for advocates of closer relations with the EU, after Swiss voters approved joining the bloc’s “Schengen” passport-free area in June.
[via Russell]
Russell explains why he doesn’t want to stay on Mac after 7 months. Interesting. He is illustrating his thoughts with 33 (!) arguments.
Now that I’ve been using Macs for a while, I’m wondering if they’re all that special. The hardware is nice, but OS X can be as slow, buggy, non-standard, frustrating and annoying as any other operating system. Also, I don’t really use most of the included apps, so most of what makes OSX so special doesn’t really apply to me.
I don’t think I would give a Mac to my Mom and expect any magic, for example. I think Apple has sacrificed their vaunted simplicity, usability and consistency in the face of sloppy Windows competition. They’ve settled for “good enough” I think, and if that’s the case, then I might as well stick with the more popular OS, which ends up being the easier OS to deal with becuase of its popularity. Much of the ability to even function at a basic level is by the Grace of Microsoft for supporting the Mac with Office and Windows Media, otherwise I’d be blind to tons of online media and and all of the enterprise.
His first arguments are quite….embarrassing for the MAC:
- Anyone who says that Macs are more stable than Windows are smoking dope. I have two brand new Macs and they regularly go wacky and need reboots.
- My mini and PowerBook are 1.42Ghz and 1.5Ghz, with 1GB and 512MB respectively. They are both sloooooow. Though the PowerBook is a bit better, neither is as snappy as my two year old Celeron, and not anywhere near the cutting edge x86 laptops.
- Also, the graphics power suck. ATI Radeon 9200 is anemic in 2005. Playing Halo on either computer is a drastically reduced experience than on my Celeron 2Ghz Toshiba.
Hey you, bloody spammers!
You *cannot* post your fuckin’ damned stupid pseudo comments with your ri-di-cu-lous ads. No chance to benefit from my little Google Juice.
All the comments are *moderated*, ok? Soooo, just go away, you are just losing time and….wasting my own time.
Pfffuuuu…….
I recently bought a new digital camera, to be able to complete the usage of my great SLR digicam – the Canon EOS 20D. In some case, I do not want to transport the “whole stuff” and I would like to have a very small camera to put in my pockets. After some searches and readings, I decided to stay by Canon and to buy a Canon IXUS 700, also called PowerShot SD500 in the US (what a mess to use different names worldwide…).
I haven’t known this new standard on WinXP – StillImage. Interesting. Have a look at the Windows XP Resource Kit.
Windows XP Professional supports still-image devices through Windows Image Acquisition (WIA), which uses the WDM architecture. WIA provides robust communication between applications and image-capture devices, allowing you to capture images efficiently and transfer them to your computer for editing and use.
WIA supports SCSI, IEEE 1394, USB, and serial digital still image devices. Support for infrared, parallel, and serial still image devices, which are connected to standard COM ports, is provided by standard infrared, parallel, and serial interfaces. Image scanners and digital cameras are examples of WIA devices. WIA also supports Microsoft DirectShow®-based webcams and digital video (DV) camcorders to capture frames from video.
After about 2 months of usage, I can recommend this camera. Really great, right size, fast, possibility to catch movies, amazing results :-)
Three limitations:
Done! I am now registered to the coming two-days conference in Paris on December 5 and 6, 2005. Have a look at the confirmed speakers (wow :-)
I have seen that Rodrigo, Marc and Jeff will join (among others).
If you are also attending this event and want to get together (hey, that could be great!), feel free to send me an email at:
didier [dot] beck [at] gmail [dot] com