Dropsafe

So [del.icio.us] leads me to [answers.google.com] … Question: Is Google HQ on fire right now? My wife drove your campus and saw smoke. Are you guys okay? I can probably get a ladder if you need it. Answer: There is no answer at this time. Then I mess around with the GoogleAnswers URL a bit;…

Yes, Simon, but isn’t it all getting a little bit too much I’m Spartacus!, No, I’m Spartacus!, No, I’m Spartacus!, … ? /me hides in a corner and waits for the voice of the one and only true, amateur, free-software, non-commercial, non-32bit-colour-icon-fuzzy-mascot-we-have-a-righteous-.org-domain open-source advocate to arise, and wonders: who will speak for them?

Via [www.livejournal.com] I found [www.guardian.co.uk] WASHINGTON (AP) – Here’s a head-turner for a security-nervous city: A large white object was spotted in the skies above the nation’s capital in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday. Pentagon police said the Defense Department is testing a security blimp – fully equipped with surveillance cameras. The white blimp was spotted…

cool! [www.cs.technion.ac.il]

There must surely be a point where coincidence meets fate; I woke this morning at 0615h, went for my morning bike-ride, came back and sat down with the intent to skim e-mail before hitting the shower. I was pounced-upon virtually (iChat/AIM) by a Swiss colleague (“GG”) who’d apparently read my mind about an work-related issue…

There are three pubs in my village, and I occasion (rather than frequent) two of them; the third is a place I have visited perhaps five times in five years, and I have never found any reason to linger. The second overlooks the cricket green. During summer days you can buy a pint, walk over…

Well everyone’s got an opinion, and so have I, and to save everyone, someone, no-one, anyone asking, I’ll share it here… I’ve only heard the first episode so far – I could have heard the second tonight, but life gets in the way – and I like it; I am not adoring, but it shows…

If they/similar ever become home-burnable, which I would expect quite soon after manufacture, what would you use to back one of these up? [news.bbc.co.uk] Future DVDs could hold 100 times more information than current discs. Imperial College London researchers in the UK are developing a new way of storing data that could lead to discs…

Through the generosity of a Swedish colleague – Thanks Peter! – I now have several months’ supply of one of the mist horrible, disgusting-tasting but thoroughtly moreish candies on the planet: Läkerol Salmiak. I first encountered the Scandic obsession with Ammonia flavouring from a Danish hacker/friend back in the mid-80s, who with great relish would…

Well, like I said, last Wed/Thu/Fri were spent with me, PJ and RCC in Scotland, quite literally up to our arms in grids; I spent most of the time buried in a C compiler (which made for a pleasant change from the past few years’ worth of project management and security architecture) – and there…

The news this morning in the UK was abuzz with stories of police action related to people trying to buy red mercury for a terrorist weapon; this rang no bells with me, so I did a bit of Googling: [chemistry.about.com] The science newsgroups have been a-buzz with tales of a 2-kiloton yield Russian red mercury…

…from three days in Scotland at the factory, playing with new toys. Infiniband makes for a fun network fabric – it’s amusing to see ping roundtrips in the single-digit microsecond range… more later.