Avie Tevanian, the man who has led Apple Computer's software development efforts for nearly a decade, is leaving the company.

He was one of the principals on Mach at CMU back in the 1980s.

Tevanian to leave Apple

Squeezebox is a study in downtempo, modern design appropriate for any setting. It is a joy for the eyes as well as the ears.

The contrast of highly polished material against a crisp brushed metal fascia is a fitting reflection of the sophisticated technology within.

This looks like a really sweet device. It even supports ogg and flac and doesn't need some godawful Windows software to make it work.

System requirements:
...
* Linux/BSD/Solaris/Other: Perl 5.8.3 or later

!!

Slim Devices : Squeezebox : Free your music!

As a result, each new version of Windows carries the baggage of its past. As Windows has grown, the technical challenge has become increasingly daunting. Several thousand engineers have labored to build and test Windows Vista, a sprawling, complex software construction project with 50 million lines of code, or more than 40 percent larger than Windows XP.

Backward compatibility is the albatross that is strangling Windows.

Windows Is So Slow, but Why? - New York Times

However, at T 25s, a fuel leak of currently unknown origin caused a fire around the top of the main engine that cut into the first stage helium pneumatic system. On high resolution imagery, the fire is clearly visible within seconds after liftoff. Once the pneumatic pressure decayed below a critical value, the spring return safety function of the pre-valves forced them closed, shutting down the main engine at T 29s.

Preliminary SpaceX Internal Analysis: Falcon I Flight

International Standard ISO 8601 specifies numeric representations of date and time. This standard notation helps to avoid confusion in international communication caused by the many different national notations and increases the portability of computer user interfaces. In addition, these formats have several important advantages for computer usage compared to other traditional date and time notations. The time notation described here is already the de-facto standard in almost all countries and the date notation is becoming increasingly popular.

Summary of ISO 8601

After years of development and no less than three scrubbed attempts, a solitary rocket Falcon 1 rocket roared toward space Friday only to be lost just after liftoff, its builders said.

SpaceX's Inaugural Falcon 1 Rocket Lost Just After Launch

Goals of the OpenSPARC Initiative

* To significantly increase participation in processor architecture development and application design by making cutting-edge hardware intellectual property freely available.
* To eliminate barriers to the next big build-out of the Internet.
* To improve collaboration and cooperation among hardware designers.
* To enable community members to build on proven technology at a markedly lower cost.
* To encourage innovation.
* To foster bringing bold new products to market.

Apparently, you can download Verilog of Niagra under GPLv2, now. This is an interesting move but I can't imagine it will make SPARC any more relevant.

OpenSPARC: Sun's initiative to create a community and participation in processor architecturedevelopment and application design by making cutting-edge hardware IP freely available

Intellectual Property Run Amok

News: The Comedy of IP Overkill

Linked from Lessig's blog.

Intellectual Property Run Amok

Death was what the Atlantic wall and Siegfried line were all about. Whenever I came across these grim fortifications along France's Channel coast and German border, I realised I was exploring a set of concrete tombs whose dark ghosts haunted the brutalist architecture so popular in Britain in the 1950s. Out of favour now, modernism survives in every high-rise sink estate of the time, in the Barbican development and the Hayward Gallery in London, in new towns such as Cumbernauld and the ziggurat residential blocks at the University of East Anglia.

OMG... cf. Life against Death (Norman O. Brown), Gravity's Rainbow (Pynchon),

A vicious NYT op-ed right after the redesign of the "Freedom Tower" was unveiled a few months back compared the new design to Albert Speer.

JG Ballard on modernists and death

For the first time in a quarter-century, the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday a case involving the basic question of what type of discoveries and inventions can be patented.

Justices Reach Out to Consider Patent Case