rare bird

What must surely be the coolest gig in this summer’s Live Earth concerts takes place at the British Antarctic Survey’s (BAS) Rothera Research Station. On 7 July the science team’s indie-rock house band, Nunatak will debut in the global event that features over 100 of the world’s top musical acts. Concerts from all 7 continents will raise awareness of climate change world-wide.

I enjoy great music, but I don't enjoy being made to feel as though I'm inside a 19th-century ballroom. Jeremy Soule is a prime example of a contemporary composer who uses the instruments of an orchestra to great effect, while neither remaining tied to premodern forms, nor engaging in modern ism . He has provided the soundtracks for Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and from the look of his current projects, it appears his career has only grown since then.

Holy cow - GOOG is getting serious about competing against MSFT in the enterprise. My wife, who is a manager in a SMB, says she wouldn't want to leave the familiarity of Office, but apparently some Fortune corporations are willing to give Google Apps a shot. How about you?

As always, FRONTLINE is the premier current events program on television. It's amazing how you can live through these events and not understand what has happened until someone places it in context. And PBS is the only network objective enough to host a show like FRONTLINE. By contrast, CNN has been a dismal failure in covering the war. What amazed me as I watched was the consistent view among the military advisers in the show that this is still mainly our problem, and that if we leave and chaos and suffering ensues, it will be mainly our fault. We have such a sky-high-minded view of ourselves - we think the rest of the world will blame us if we leave. In reality, the rest of the world is criticizing us for staying - and the future is up to the Iraqis themselves. We cannot stop people who do not want peace from engaging in violence within their own country. We need to return to a more realist view of foreign policy, hyperpower or not. The standard for justifying foreign i...

Apple has jumped into the browser wars by offering Safari for Windows.  Download today.

Of course this is all a shameless plug on MSFT's part, but the ads are hilarious.

MPR: U of M to team with Google to put books online

This is a link to a review of Ubuntu by Brian Boyko, a self-described power user who tries to test systems using real-world hardware. He's done the same thing for WinVista and Mac OS X. He seems quite objective and even-handed. I'm trying out Ubuntu myself. I installed it with wubi , which I found to be painless and smooth. That's not what Brian did, though; he's got dedicated hardware. So far I've found it to be a much smoother OS than WinXP, more responsive even through it's running on a separate hard drive. I haven't done a lot with it so far but will let you know how it goes. http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI =

I read Guy Steele's paper called "Growing a Language" this weekend. It is probably the best written technical paper I've ever read. It doesn't matter what he is saying, just how he is saying it. Highly recommended reading.

Happy Star Wars Day! (I had no idea).

BBC NEWS | Technology | The power behind LucasFilm magic

This is cute, but I still think it's brilliant. Reminds us what it was like to get into computers in the first place.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | 'New' Tolkien novel goes on sale

When writing a test plan, start where you are. Focus on the things the developers are focused on and ride their wave. Regression testing should not be done from an abstract perspective, but from a concrete one where problems are already perceived to exist. It's always good to know what release you’re on. This might seem elementary, but it’s harder to keep up with than you might think. When developers and managers talk about “the next release,” be sure you know what they’re referring to, especially for so-called minor releases. Write test cases based on requirements. Even if they’re bad requirements. Don’t try to reverse-engineer requirements and create test cases off those, unless you really have no choice. If you have any kind of requirements at all, create test cases for them. Reverse-engineering requirements will result in thrashing and will make you feel as though nothing is being accomplished. Document all testing, including tests done on the fly. Not doing...

My twist on the BibleCentre definition: "And the Lord kept adding to the project the bugs who were being found."

By the time my daughter is as old as I am now, the polar ice cap will have completely melted, resulting in a sea-level rise of 20 feet.

(RED) manifesto

My wife’s water broke on a Wednesday afternoon, right as I was getting off work. Perfect timing , I thought. My wife’s due date was the next day. She even does labor in a scheduled way . I had heard that if the water breaks, the baby has 24 hours to be born, after which she starts to lose oxygen. I had the image and sound of a ticking digital clock in my head as I walked down the long outside stairway of my employer's building, to my car. The sun was setting – it was a perfect moment. My wife’s bag was packed – we were ready. She was driving home from the auto dealership where she works. I would meet her there and we would go to the hospital together. It went according to plan. We arrived, they put us in a room, and hooked my wife up to a fetal monitor. It had an amber display, like an old IBM PC. The only graphic was a pulsating heart – keeping track of the baby’s heart rhythm was the machine’s main purpose. The room was cool inside – why are all hospital rooms that way? It must...

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