Vote Against Microsoft’s Office OpenXML becoming ISO standard.
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Monthly Archives: October 2007
Whowas?
According to the New York Times BITS section, whois may become whowas due to it’s incredible abuse by spammers. If you’re not familiar, WHOIS is a large database similar to a phone book for websites. You can look up who owns a particular website and what their contact information is. In order to protect your information, most domain registrars offer private registration (like an unlisted phone number) to owners in order to prevent them from receiving spam. The growing necessity for nearly everyone to have private registration has forced ICANN to question whether the database(s) should just be scrapped.
Quantum Suicide?
I was checking my Google Homepage a few weeks ago and I noticed an article under How Stuff Works entitled “How Quantum Suicide Works.” The concepts in the article were a little complicated at times (well the background physics might be considered complicated), but overall I thought it was a pretty interesting and worthwhile read. It provides a couple of different perspectives to our universe that I hadn’t considered.
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Here’s my turn to be Sadie for a minute. I finally finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Overall, it was pretty good. I liked John Berendt‘s writing style and the laid back atmosphere of Savannah was relaxing to read about. It wasn’t the most intense or exciting book I’ve ever read, but the characters were quirky and the story rounded out nicely in the end. I think I might have liked it more had I not dragged out reading it over the course of 2 month due to school. Overall 3.5/5
Amazon mp3s
I now buy music from Amazon.com’s mp3 site. It serves up a ton of singles and albums. The BEST part is that all downloads are in mp3 format (not AAC or drm) and are DRM-free. I’ve been waiting for this type of service for a LONG time. My first album? Gotta love Van the Man.
More From Debian
From a related page:
Most software costs over 100 US dollars. How can you give it away?
A better question is how do software companies get away with charging so much? Software is not like making a car. Once you’ve made one copy of your software, the production costs to make a million more are tiny (there’s a good reason Microsoft has so many billions in the bank).
Debian — About Debian
Inspiring Words from Debian
I found myself on Debian‘s website today for the first time ever, I think. This is weird considering I’m a big supporter of their philosophy. Nonetheless, they had some inspiring words on free software. The quote below is an example, but the whole page deserves a read to be honest.
Software that is free only in the sense that you don’t need to pay to use it is hardly free at all. You may be forbidden to pass it on, and you are almost certainly prevented from improving it. Software licensed at no cost is usually a weapon in a marketing campaign to promote a related product or to drive a smaller competitor out of business. There is no guarantee that it will stay free.
Debian — What Does Free Mean?
I’ve been slacking
So I realize I’ve been slacking with this website. Turns out med school was a lot more work that I imagined, and a lot of my free time has been spent working on the RMstudents website. Fortunately today we completed our move to ANhosting and there should be more time for development. Anyways, here’s my vow to do better on this website. Plus I’ve added Asides (short “side notes” that aren’t really full-fledged posts), which should be fully functional once I get the customized theme up. More to come in the next week I think…