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Norah Jones album coming

I note from CD-Wow that there's a new Norah Jones studio album due in February. For those who need a fix now, there's a great track she recorded with the group Wax Poetic before she hit the big time - you can get a free download of it from their web site (look in the right-hand margin). I like the original very much - the remix is less my taste.

posted at 4:25 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Wednesday, November 26

... I did not speak out

As the American holiday of Thanksgiving breaks to the west, I am profoundly moved by this article in the Jewish magazine Tikken:
There is no more powerful expression of the universal character of liberty than the haunting words of Martin Niemoller.
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
His message is unmistakable: If we grant to the State the power to deny liberty to unpopular minorities (now Muslims), we forfeit our own claim to liberty as well.
to which I was pointed by randomWalks along with a pointer to a Washington Post article about an American Muslim man being detained in Saudia Arabia apparently because the questioning the FBI want to do would be illegal in his home country. How can we, Americans (especially at Thanksgiving), British or whatever, stand by and watch so many of these things done in the name of liberty? I commend the Tikkun article to you, whatever faith you have (or reject).

posted at 11:57 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Tuesday, November 25

More monoculture

Seems the Monoculture meme is still alive and well - according to Robert Lemos, the National Science Foundation says it will pay $750,000 to two universities for studying how diversifying information systems and software could help fend off future cyberattacks.

posted at 10:37 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Drifting sands

A Sarah McLachlan oldie, "Song for a Winter's Night", just showed up on ITMS. I had this track once as a free download from Nettwerk's site but it's not there (though another track from the same album is there). One of things I wonder is, when the RIAA's thugs come calling, how will I justify having that track, once offered free but no longer so? I tend to store the download date & location in the 'Comments' area of the file, but what does that prove? Maybe this is one area where I actually need a DRM envelope to prove I have a legal right to use the contents?

posted at 8:07 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Languages for the Java Platform

Seems I missed a bar debate last week in Las Vegas. Sean agrees with James Strachan that "Sun should loosen up on the 'one language' thing and embrace other languages". But I think this is just a shot at an easy target and misses the real mystery - Sean and James are getting sucked in by Microsoft's smoke-screen.

While I certainly endorse the view that there should be multiple languages seen as targetting the JVM, I feel the opprobrium needs to be spread around a bit. The free advice is certainly welcome and Sun certainly has a track record for only doing the Java language on the Java platform, but what about all the other people in the Java community? Why not criticise them too?

Just as any one of IBM, Oracle, BEA, Borland and more could, if they chose to, create an open source JVM but don't, any of them could also get serious about other languages to target the JVM. The Java platform is certainly open enough for them all to do these things. So why, if the multi-languages angle is correct, do they not do so? IBM has one (NetREXX), BEA has flirted with the idea, Borland still does Pascal - why does no-one promote language alternatives? Surely this is a bigger deal than just the usual "we hate Sun" stuff?

posted at 3:10 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

.Net Blogger

A quick pointer to a new web-log by Brian Noyes who I met on the .Net Geek Cruise. Brian is quietly spoken, seems technically to be extremely competent and is very broad-minded (even likes Java!) - a very warm welcome to the genre, Brian, and keep up the heresy!

posted at 12:43 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Monday, November 24

Home at last

Finally I'm home for a while - hopefully not leaving Europe again until mid-January. Assuming the sense of exhaustion (depression?) doesn't pervade I'll be writing here more frequently.

posted at 11:39 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |