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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Caveat Elector

Just to make things a bit more interesting, the candidates in the California Governor election are listed in random order [via Boing Boing - link is to a large-ish JPEG] - and in a different random order in every voting district. While in most elections this would increase the fairness, with 7 pages of candidates it just increases the surreal absurdity and ensures voters will have the maximum difficulty.

posted at 12:58 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

In other news...

... open source community to develop own viruses

The Justice Department has started investigations into the virus monopoly by Microsoft.

... with thousands of others, I received an e-mail telling me that Blogger Pro is to be discontinued & rolled into Blogger ... Oracle's conference in San Francisco disrupted by bomb threat (I also heard this from a delegate via IM) - but why didn't they evacuate instantly?

posted at 7:50 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Not only infamous

My birthday, in case you don't know, is on a day that lives etched into the memories of older Europeans - D-Day, June 6th, date of the Normandy Landings that turned the tide in WWII. As I have grown older this fact has gradually become less significant to people. So it's with a certain empathy that I'd like to wish my friend Sabrina a very happy (landmark) birthday.

She's got no choice of changing to a different day and it will take many years for the associated sadness in people's minds to pass. So I'm extending warmth to her because no date is only bad (or good) and some of us are pleased to think of this as the day she was born rather than in the other, currently more visible connection.

posted at 6:47 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Retraced steps

I remember September 11, 2001. I was returning from a conference in Germany and I remember standing helplessly at the airport in Germany watching the unthinkable unfurling in front of my eyes on CNN on the TVs there - all the flights were grounded to allow transatlantic flights space to return to their departure points. I spent the evening frantically calling friends in the US to check they were all OK (thankfully they were, although some by the slimmest margins).

So today has been a replay, with redemption. I returned by air from Germany today, but this time there was no atrocity to imagine, no fear for friends, no anxiety that my flight was part of a global series of attacks. Apart from unusually scrupulous screening, it was all uneventful and grey. A small, annual step in the gradual healing of the memory and the redemption of the date.

posted at 6:44 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Sun public policy

Interesting what one finds out about one's own employer. I discovered today that Sun has a web site for public policy issues (www.sun.com/policy) and in particular has position papers on key issues.

posted at 1:01 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' is finally out on DVD (seems to have taken an age) - I just ordered my copy (Amazon: UK | US | CA).

posted at 10:23 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

RIAA Amnesty

Illiad has, I think, understood the RIAA's 'amnesty' "offer" pretty well. Presumably SCO are working on creating a similar form. Are all these people reading the same book or something (maybe this one)? Can I get a copy?

posted at 10:14 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |