Ballmer vs Stallman

I think this is going to go one of two ways:

1. Microsoft wins the patent argument and the lawsuits come down to companies, universities, government agencies, etc where it serves to motivate the government to reduce the power and scope of software patents. Which hurts Microsoft and opens them up to attack on the software front because of weak patents.

2. Microsoft loses because of IBM, etc -- and opens up it's own litigation nightmare. IBM probably owns more patents that Microsoft infringes than Microsoft owns patents.

there's a shadow hanging over Linux and other free software, and it's being cast by Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500). The Redmond behemoth asserts that one reason free software is of such high quality is that it violates more than 200 of Microsoft's patents. And as a mature company facing unfavorable market trends and fearsome competitors like Google (Charts, Fortune 500), Microsoft is pulling no punches: It wants royalties. If the company gets its way, free software won't be free anymore.

The conflict pits Microsoft and its dogged CEO, Steve Ballmer, against the "free world" - people who believe software is pure knowledge. The leader of that faction is Richard Matthew Stallman, a computer visionary with the look and the intransigence of an Old Testament prophet.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100033867/index.htm

Battlestar Galactica to Continue

 

 

 

Great news... 

Battlestar Galactica's search for Earth continues to be an open-ended adventure, executive producer David Eick said.

Contrary to comments by Edward James Olmos (Adm. Adama) at the Saturn Awards on May10, no end has been announced for the award-winning show. Battlestar Galactica is preparing to film its fourth season, one that will include 22 episodes, rather than the previously announced 13.

"For those of you who have been paying attention over the years, this is not the first time Eddie has made an announcement about the possibility of the show's end," chuckled Eick. "I promise you that when [executiuve producer] Ron [Moore] and I make a decision about Galactica's future, we'll let you know."

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=41457

Dark Matter Stars

 

 

...a team of researchers from the US think that dark matter wasn’t just interacting through its gravity, it was right there in the thick of things. Their research is published in the paper “Dark matter and the first stars: a new phase of stellar evolution“. Particles of dark matter compressed together began to annihilate, generating massive amounts of heat, and overwhelming this molecular hydrogen cooling mechanism. Hydrogen fusion was halted, and a new stellar phase - a “dark star” - began. Massive balls of hydrogen and helium powered by dark matter annihilation, instead of nuclear fusion.

If these dark stars are stable enough, it’s possible that they could still exist today. That would mean that an early population of stars never reached the Main Sequence stage, and still live in this aborted process, sustained by the annihilation of dark matter. As the dark matter is consumed in the reaction, additional dark matter from surrounding regions could flow in to keep the core heated, and hydrogen fusion might never get a chance to take over.

Dark stars might not be so long lasting, however. The fusion from regular matter might eventually overwhelm the dark matter annihilation reaction. Its evolution into a regular star wouldn’t be halted, only delayed.

 

http://www.universetoday.com/2007/05/08/how-dark-matter-might-have-snuffed-out-the-first-stars/

Computers Need To Learn To Forget

Interesting... I certainly have my machines deal with a glut of data.

The rise of fast processors and cheap storage means that remembering, once incredibly difficult for humans, has become simple. Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, a professor in Harvard's JFK School of Government, argues that this shift has been bad for society, and he calls instead for a new era of "forgetfulness."

Mayer-Schönberger lays out his idea in a faculty research working paper called "Useful Void: The Art of Forgetting in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing," where he describes his plan as reinstating "the default of forgetting our societies have experienced for millennia."

Why would we want our machines to "forget"? Mayer-Schönberger suggests that we are creating a Benthamist panopticon by archiving so many bits of knowledge for so long. The accumulated weight of stored Google searches, thousands of family photographs, millions of books, credit bureau information, air travel reservations, massive government databases, archived e-mail, etc., can actually be a detriment to speech and action, he argues.

"If whatever we do can be held against us years later, if all our impulsive comments are preserved, they can easily be combined into a composite picture of ourselves," he writes in the paper. "Afraid how our words and actions may be perceived years later and taken out of context, the lack of forgetting may prompt us to speak less freely and openly."

In other words, it threatens to make us all politicians.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070509-escaping-the-data-panopticon-teaching-computers-to-forget.html

Lynch's New Movie - "Inland Empire"

 

 

Lynch has a new movie out called "Inland Empire." Very dark, very twisted. I know I have to see it. Here's an excerpt from one review at the Guardian's blog film:

Is it a homage to Alice in Wonderland? Or a poisoned valentine to Hollywood? Any which way, even if you hate it, your subconscious will thank you for seeing this brilliant, bonkers film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460829/

MOD To Open UFO Files

 

Very cool... and just after France does the same thing. I think Canada did it a year or two ago. Are we finally about to have disclosure? I doubt it, but the truth is out there!

 

The Ministry of Defence plans to open its "X-Files" on UFO sightings to the public for the first time. Officials have not yet decided on a date for the release of the reports, which date back to 1967, but it is hoped to be within weeks.

The move follows the decision by the French national space agency to release its UFO files in March, the first official body in the world to do so.

UFO buffs will be keen to find out what officials knew about some of the UK's most famous sightings and whether any action was taken. One celebrated event - at Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, in 1980 - has been dubbed "Britain's Roswell" after the UFO incident in the US in 1947. At Rendlesham there were several witness reports of a UFO apparently landing. The released files should support or discount claims that radiation was detected at the site after the event.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2071275,00.html

Part of Rosslyn Chapel Decoded: It's Music!

 

 

 

Amazing... part of the intricate sculptures inside Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland include an encoding of music 600 years old.

The 15th Century Rosslyn Chapel, about seven miles south of the Scottish capital Edinburgh, featured in the last part of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" -- one of the most successful novels of all time which has been turned into a Hollywood film.

Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.

"They are of such exquisite detail and so beautiful that we thought there must be a message here," he told Reuters.

Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches.

The two men matched each of the patterns on the carved cubes to a Chladni pitch, and were able finally to unlock the melody.

The Mitchells have called the piece The Rosslyn Motet and added words from a contemporary hymn to complete it.

Update: Thomas J Mitchell's website is here -- you can find an .mp3 sample of the music there.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070501/ts_nm/britain_mystery_code_dc