To me FOSS as Richard Stallman has set in motion with the GNU GPL is about the greater good of humanity as opposed to the selfish greed of a few people. The GPL has insured the freedom of users while showing that the closed development model has real flaws. Let's not lose site of what's important. Our community provides the moral center at probably the most pivitol point in history. 500 years ago the printing press ended the dark ages with an unprecedented sharing of ideas. The internet offers dramatically more potential. Thankfully Microsoft was late to the party and FOSS was there to prevent them getting dominant control of the new international currency, information access. The battle for the freedom of access for us and our children is not over. We need to cooperate to insure the enemies of freedom don't overcome us, not attack those who should be our allies. Wars have been lost over just such foolishness.

Linked from Groklaw.

Qt, the GPL, Business and Freedom

James Doohan, who faked a Scottish burr to create one of television's most endearing characters, Chief Engineer Montgomery (Scotty) Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise, died at the age of 85.

This happened July 20th, apparently. His ashes are going to be shot into space by Space Services Inc which provided that same service
for Gene Roddenberry and Timothy Leary awhile back.

James Doohan, Scotty on 'Star Trek,' Dies at 85

In a recent paper [1] and letter [2], Rusty Schweickart made some recommendations on dealing with the threat of a possible impact in 2036, and he called on further analysis to be done. This is my input to that analysis. Comments are welcome.

The most important thing that I propose is that deflection by the impact of a spacecraft is practical in this case. Such a mission could be done fairly quickly at a reasonable cost.

The asteroid under discussion, with the provisional designation 2004 MN4, has now been assigned the number 99942 and the name Apophis. (Apophis was the Greek name of the Egyptian god Apep, "the destroyer.") Therefore, I use this name below.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT ASTEROID APOPHIS (2004 MN4)?

APPLE HAS worked out a way to prevent their customers downloading the company’s new Intel-based operating system into cheaper and uglier PCs.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work this way round; I can patch my x86 media to bypass this check. Apple is silly.

Apple sneaks in security chip

MSH, or Microsoft Command Shell, is a command line interface and scripting language being developed by Microsoft. It is similar in usage to the Unix shells, but is based on object-oriented programming and the .NET framework.

For basically 20 years, bash has been the state of the art in
deployed interactive text-based user interfaces. That's pathetic. Its been taken as an article of faith that such things are inherantly difficult to use, have a steep learning curve, etc, and that GUIs are preferable. I have long wondered where we could go from the UNIX shell if someone devoted real resources to developing something. This is one possible answer.

Windows Monad Shell (msh)

American troops wounded in Iraq and brought back to military hospitals in the United States have unexpectedly high rates of infection with a drug-resistant type of bacteria, doctors are finding.

Troops in Iraq Bring Resistant Bacteria Home

Steven Robinson, the astronaut who will attempt to pluck two thin pieces of dangling cloth from the underside of the shuttle Discovery Wednesday morning, said today that the risks of the operation are manageable and the tools are well understood.

There was a great quote in one of the Times articles the other day: "there's nothing about that system that you can't make worse by trying."

Astronauts Cautious and Confident About Shuttle Repair Plan

For its next generation of space vehicles, NASA has decided to abandon the design principles that went into the aging space shuttle, agency officials and private experts say.

It looks like the memo spaceref got ahold of a few weeks ago was right. This will be hopefully be way better.

Redesign Is Seen for Next Craft, NASA Aides Say

Free software, despite the price, can be confusing and costly for corporations to use. A few freely distributed programs, like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server, have become well known, but most are still unproved.

To address the problem, Carnegie Mellon University, Intel and SpikeSource, a company that supports and tests corporate open-source projects, have devised a rating system intended to reduce confusion and guesswork in evaluating such software. The initiative, Business Readiness Ratings, is to be announced today at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention in Portland, Ore.

Huh ... this is the first I've heard of this.

Rating System Will Evaluate Free Software

A new kind of machine for decoding DNA may help bring costs so low that it would be feasible to decode an individual's DNA for medical reasons. The machine, developed by 454 Life Sciences of Branford, Conn., was used to resequence the genome of a small bacterium in four hours, its scientists report in an article published online today by the journal Nature.

DNA Machine May Advance Genetic Sequencing for Patients