I’ve always found Jade to be an interesting beast- though admittedly only ever from afar. Object databases always showed some promise yet never really went uber-mainstream- whether that was a result of any inherent weakness, lack of appropriate developer skills or bully boy behaviour by big RDBMS players who knows. Jade would certainly be one one the the bigger players in the space though and as a Kiwi tech guy it’s always nice to see local firms doing well. I’ve certainly come up against Jade systems in previous bids and I know a number of our customers have Jade applications running in-house.

The announcement (for all it's technical brevity) looks to indicate that it’s going to be a bunch easier for those of us in the .NET world to wire up our applications into a Jade system. I’m picking in the past we probably had to thunk through something nasty like either an unmanaged API or an ODBC layer which, given the idea of an OODBMS doesn’t really deliver the ideal experience.

It’s certainly something that’s going to be interesting to discuss with some of our existing customers. Being able to wire up Jade based back end (I hesitate to call them ‘legacy’ even though I want to) systems to next gen front end apps written in WPF and.or Silverlight could make for some exciting projects.

Pity that their developer license doesn’t really let it compete with SQL Express in the ‘no-cost’ end of the market. The license does not allow any commercial use.

So it’s election time in India and just check out the BJP election add that popped up when I browsed Kiwiblog today

He’s like some 80 year old decisive determined Ninja!

Hope this place isn’t like Thailand.

So Angus the dodgy Aussie blogs about his “techniques for ensuring the guy in the seat in front can’t stop you from using your laptop”

I found that the ‘tap the touch screen entertainment system really hard’ approach worked wonders on my AC flight YC-YVR on Friday night.

Aussie ingenuity indeed. Of course, kiwi ingenuity would require we used No8. Fencing Wire… and I just can’t image that would be at all pleasant.

Oh so good!

Wikiquote has a page dedicated to the Castle! The best damn stick it to the man film EVER!

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Castle

That link is going straight to the Pool Room

Spend the holiday season embroiled in familial conflict?

Take a look at this interesting article over on EconLog about the economics (in the pure sense of the word) of family relationships and conflict.

“…What difference does it make?  Either way, Crazy Uncle Gerald is making you miserable, right?  Well, not quite.  As I've argued before, conflicts that arise from mismatched expectations are easier to bear and easier to resolve than conflicts that arise from willful wrong-doing.  It feels a lot better to say, "He's an OK person, but we 't have little in common," than to say, "He's a bastard."  And it's a lot easier to negotiate with an OK-but-little-in-common person than a bastard….”

Who Are These People?, by Bryan Caplan

So got an email from Brett Roberts @ Microsoft this evening saying he wanted to stick an op-ed piece he did for Computerworld up on the web but he didn't have anywhere to put it. Now usuall I'd be a snarky little bastard and remind Brett that his company has a blogging platform (Live Spaces) which they must have invested oodles into and maybe he should start blogging..... but instead I volunteered to post his piece up here. So herewith the piece that Brett did for Computerworld alongside Don Christie from the NZOSS. The opinions below are not mine (except where I am quoted) but I do share some similar sentiments and I was on the 'Yes please' side of the ledger in the whole OOXML process.

Computerworld Q&A

1.       Why should we care about global standards, or in this case the debate around Open XML?

The Office Open XML format is gaining momentum. There are literally thousands of developers already building applications which utilise or interoperate with the current Ecma 376 standard across a variety of platforms including Linux, Windows, Mac OS and Palm OS. These span the industry from big players like Apple, IBM and Novell to innovative companies in New Zealand like Intergen.

In the past, document formats have been closed and this has caused problems for developers but it’s also been an issue for companies and government organisations who need to retain long-term access to information stored in those documents. Opening up the document formats via a published and freely-available specification is a great step forward. Placing that specification under the stewardship of the International Organisation for Standardization - ISO – is even more significant for the broad IT community because it means the standard is permanently in the public domain and subject to the strict controls and processes of the independent International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

2.       What are the benefits or otherwise of Open XML to New Zealand businesses and the New Zealand public?

The Open XML specification empowers developers to create a host of new innovations for customers.  Chris Auld, Intergen’s Director of Strategy and Innovation says, “having an internationally documented standard such as Office Open XML allows innovative New Zealand companies such as Intergen to reach a global audience.

Demonstrating this, Intergen has announced it groundbreaking new software product TextGlow. A world-first, TextGlow allows users to view Office Open XML Word documents without having to download them, irrespective of whether or not they have Microsoft Word or any other Microsoft Office application installed.

“TextGlow is a unique product combining Office Open XML and Silverlight for the first time,” says Auld. “Microsoft Office documents have traditionally required software to be installed on the local machine. The new XML- based file format, coupled with Silverlight, has allowed us to make documents viewable directly through users’ web browsers. We are already cross platform on Windows and Macintosh and hope to be supporting Linux in the next couple of months.” 

With many organisations storing documents in web based document management systems such as SharePoint products and technologies, a quick preview of documents within the browser will boost productivity significantly.

In addition, a recent blog by Jan van den Beld, former Secretary General of Ecma International in Geneva, http://janvandenbeld.blogspot.com/2008/02/six-benefits-you-can-get-from-isoiec.html  highlights six  key benefits to Open XML. In brief:

1. Transfer of control

2. Transfer stewardship

3. Chance for industry and implementers:

4. Evolution of the standard

5. Interoperability

6. Conformance and interoperability testing

3.       Why is a standard for legacy documents required in light of the fact that Microsoft has just published the specs for those documents?

The rigorous technical review associated with the standards process is making it possible for Open XML to support an ever broadening set of requirements.

OpenXML is built around a small number of really important design goals. Top of the list is the goal of being able to represent existing binary documents in an XML based mark-up. To achieve this you have to have a document standard that fully represents all of the elements that are in those existing binary documents. OpenXML is the only document standard capable of doing this. Other document standards would have to be extended beyond their design goals to provide this capability.

The publishing of the binary file formats is an additional piece of the jigsaw puzzle that ensures the availability of all Microsoft Office documents for generations to come. Providing the capability for developers today to fully understand the Microsoft Office binary files will encourage both a rich array of tools to convert files to the new OpenXML format, and create additional opportunities for a limited subset of customers to just archive existing documents in their current format. This is especially  important to some customer groups, the legal community for example.

To ensure that documents are protected for generations to come organisations like the British Library and the US National Library of Congress have stepped up to act as digital archivists of the binary file format specifications. Sitting side by side with OpenXML as an ISO standard we now have an environment where documents are truly open and access to them can be guaranteed in perpetuity.

4.       If Open XML is rejected as a global standard, what will it mean for businesses and the public?

I don’t think we’ll know initially but over time strong opponents of Office Open XML will lobby governments in particular, to adopt technology procurement preferences which favour ODF-based solutions.

As a taxpayer, I’m not convinced that removing choice will increase innovation, increase competition and therefore lower costs. I suspect the opposite will happen. More concerning is the fact that there are tens of thousands of highly-skilled programmers in New Zealand who build innovative technology solutions and are quickly becoming known in the global marketplace. We should be offering them more opportunities to win export dollars– not less.

5.       Why not just one standard for all?

There are many reasons. Firstly, Office Open XML and ODF were built with very different design goals in mind. The argument that we only need one ISO standard document format makes as much sense as saying we only need one ISO standard programming language.

The “one standard for all” concept makes the assumption that the first standard “out of the starting blocks” will encompass current and future needs. It’s a tenuous argument.

And a report published by the Burton Group in January of this year agrees, stating that ODF is insufficient for complex real-world enterprise requirements...and...libraries and large businesses, faced with storing and using years of Microsoft Office legacy documents, will prefer OOXML, as OOXML can more faithfully recreate the look and metadata (such as spreadsheet formulas) stored in Microsoft’s binary file formats.

6.       Why does open XML not include macros, scripting, OLE serialisation, and leave so much to be "application-defined"?

Competition between Office Automation suites has always been an important factor in driving much of the innovation that we enjoy in the industry and as users today. The process to standardise OpenXML is a process to standardise the data format, not an application. Standardising the full application would remove the ability for different office applications to compete with each other and slow that pace of innovation.

Macros are a great example of this point. They’re an application behaviour that is unique to Microsoft Office. Macros provide the user with a way of telling the Office Suite what to do with information once it is loaded into memory. Standardising the macro language from Microsoft Office as part of the OpenXML process would force any future applications that implemented the data format to also implement the same macro language. In reality other applications may choose to implement a wide array of other macro or development languages that are more relevant to their own target users. 

7.       Should governments adopt OOXML as a document standard?

 Absolutely. Government use the older binary formats today along with Office Open XML, PDF, HTML, RTF and TXT files. Government, like all customers, choose the best tool for the job and Office Open XML offers them another option. Government is also dealing on a daily basis with Office Open XML documents being sent to them by individuals and businesses and it seems to me that adopting it as a standard makes sense from a purely pragmatic perspective.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4513142a10.html

Or just too hot for the frumpy feminist unionist faculty?

"Miss Universe New Zealand contestant Rhonda Grant, who is a Massey science graduate, said yesterday she still finds it hard to believe a picture of her at the beach in a white bikini caused such an uproar."

...

"When it was pulled from the website late last week after Associate Professor Maureen Montgomery complained the picture was inappropriate, Miss Grant found herself in the middle of a media frenzy."

Amazon have added a really cool new service that is paid for Video Downloads.... They have a really broad range of studios supporting this.

It's been a long time coming... but a group of major mobile maufacturers has settled on Mini-USB as the jack of choice on mobile phones. Details here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4217093a28.html

"An industry group containing the five dominant manufacturers - Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson - has committed to using a micro-USB plug in all future models. "

Speaking with some of the NZOSS over the lunch break and I referenced a tinyurl and one of the gjys pointed me at a New Zealand site www.urltea.com.

So my good friends Simon 'Skip' Gardiner and Sam Hazledine and I have been working on a new venture called MedRecruit.

We went live with our new look site yesterday.

http://www.medrecruit.com

It's a Medical recruiting company... so if you have any doctor friends then tell them to give use a yell.

Check out this Silverlight Site that shows off some short and sharp how toos for Silverlight and Blend\

http://www.nibblestutorials.net/

It took less than a day for someone to hack Safari.... ouch!

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/06/11/Safari-for-Windows-released-and-hacked-in-a-day_1.html

A couple of goodies from both camps

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov

and

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2006031,00.html

“I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults; computers for scaredy cats too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui.”

There is a nasty bot doing the rounds at the moment....

Our mailserver is being hammered by huge volumes of spam (much more than usual) and we're guessing it's this bot in action.

http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/security_response/weblog/2007/01/trojanpeacomm_building_a_peert.html

So I was tagged by Tim Haines a few days ago and wrote a post and then IE lost it... and now Adam has tagged me.

So here goes again

1. I received a New Zealand Music Award back in 2003.... as a no nuts choir boy singing Handels Messiah.... despite now being a card carrying atheist... I still don't mind belting out a bit of 'Zadok the Priest......'
2. I can shear (not share Adam! I'm not sharing with you!) a sheep
3. I was a really bad boy at highschool... I had more punishments in my 7th form (last) year at school than all my p[revious years added up. Most were for 'martyring' myself to the uniform rules..... My brother and sister both went on to be head boy and head girl respectivly of the same school... I was merely head pain in the ass....
4. I have 8 bicycles and about the same number of whitewater or polo kayaks at my house.
5. I was 1st in my 3rd form class for religious studies..... Of curse by 7th form I was asked not to come to religious studies class any more....

I'm tagging..

Casey Chesnut

Bill Ryan

Rowan Simpson

Ivan Towlson

Alex James

Tim has a post up titled 'Trademe Invest in Ruby on Rails'.... which is a bit misleading really.

It's more like 'Trademe invest in Zoomin, who happen to use Ruby on Rails'.

Good on Zoomin for gettig their claws ito Trademe on this one. I thik it's fantastic... but it's pushig it a bit far to note that 'Trade me have 'lauched their first Rails page'. If it were written in PHP they would have launched 'thier first PHP Page' and the same for JSP. Don't think it's too likely that Trademe will be making the move off ASP.NET anytime soon.

When you buy someone elses technology you generally get it as is where is

A funny little example I saw this morning was Sysinternals Process Explorer. Microsoft now own this but there's still a right click menu option to 'Google' a process name.

Will be interesting to see how easy it is for them to Mashup the Zoomin stuff into Trademe though... in particular whether most of the 'mashing' occurs on the Ruby side or the ASP.NET side.

Was grabbing some Sysinternals tools today and they have posted about the fact that they have been acquired by MSFT. Well done guys!

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2006/07/on-my-way-to-microsoft.html

NicW has just blogged about Te Ara, The Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand.

I personally think the $12 million would have been better spent encouraging/hiring content authors to work on the NZ entries in Wikipedia.

I'm not normally an Open Source kinda guy... but this is an obvious example of where aligning some national $$$ with an *open sourcish* kinda project would have been a good idea.

Stuff has details on the refloating of the fishing vessel Kotuku.

Looking at the photo you can see what looks to be a Liferaft still strapped to the roof. Most vessels have the straps setup with hydrostatic releases so the lifeboat is released automatically if the boat sinkz. I wonder why this one did not.

In a former life (when I actually had a life) I used to pay quite a bit of dance music off records such that the tracks blended togther really nicely*. I played at a few big outh Island parties including Main Stage on NYE @ Alpine Unity...

Anyway... time dictates I'm not doing as much of this any more. As a result I have kinda lost touch with the deep dark vibe that used to drive me. Fear not though as I have discovered www.mixdepot.net which is basically a site for aspiring DJs. It seems to be frequented by a large number of fantastic Progressive House DJs (among other genres) and a lot of them are Ableton Live types which means the mixing is utterly flawles and the mastering is tight as... well, let's just say it's TIGHT!

So I've downloaded a few of the mixes from here already and they are REALLY rather good.

Currently listening to: V - Train / M357 and I highly recommend the download. A number of the trackas are available as Bit Torrents so if any of you Citylinkers are keen for a 100 megabit torrent-a-thon let me know.

*Yes... I know this is called 'DJing' but it's just so cliche to say 'I was a DJ'...

 If You're A Gamer You Need To Watch- especially if you have a wife....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1329362959167995041

Very cool. No more paging... just one long scrollbar....

I love the new image search too.

I'm just about to become a permanent switcher!

http://www.live.com

Gets really cool around 10min mark

A great wee video- if Microsoft boxed the iPod

Phil will enjoy this!

A few days ago I blogged about Zen Presentation skills.

Here is a GREAT example of it in action. About 15 mins long. I really encourage you all to watch it. Good content too

I've just listened to Adam Cogan on Dot Net Rocks.

Adam talks about his cool rule enforcement applications for VS.Net and SQL.

You also get to find out that he takes his whole team (30 odd people) to a beach house once a year and they all get up and go for runs @ 6:30am..... Now there is an idea! It's a great DNR episode and it gives some great insight into why Adam is able to run such a tight development ship.

Listening on some new headphones that I just got. I find my Sennheiser HD25 muffs a bit uncomfortable for use at the office so I got some cheapish ($120 vs $600 for HD25) Sennheiser phones- HD465. They are open ear designs- i.e. they just sit as flat pads on your ears so REALLY comfortable.

A blog tyhat I had not come across before floated through my inbox this morning. A good post comparing the Zen style of Apple with the somewhat noisy style of MSFT. It's a good post- design and hipness has never been a strong point for MS.

http://presentationzen.blogs.com/presentationzen/2005/11/the_zen_estheti.html

Anyway. A good blog if you are a regular presenter (or are trending toward becoming one...)

The past few months have seen a number of GREAT changes to Nat radio.

Gone, for the most part, are the stuffy old fogies 'music' shows on weekday afternoons. Far more great documentary content.

Was listening today and, AT LAST, they have launched a new website with live streaming and archives of all their shows for at least 7 days.

And they have RSS feeds that you can podcast off

Maaaarvelous!

In case you didn't know I'm originally from New Plymouth and root for my home side.

http://www.tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/611894

Hooters is coming to New Zealand.....

I look forward to it being added to his wings tour next time around.

Seems that at east some people read my blog.... I was in the top 10 referrers to DPFs blog this month.

Not sure about others but it's where I go for my NZ news while traveling... Missed the whole PM on the Plane thing last week as I was coming back from BNE at the time.

Does everyone remember Global Plus? BNZs airpoints earning credit card?

Well they've changed their tag line from 'the fastest way to earn airpoints' to 'the fast way to earn airpoints'.... Guess they're not so fast after all

Been watching CNN this morning at my Hotel (hotel review to follow) and it looks like New Orleans is going to get a serious pasting. Details at www.cnn.com

My lovely office admin is blogging.....

She's a BA grad from Otago, wife to one of my tech guys and a generally all around smart cookie- I hired based on her Rubiks Cube ability!

Anyway check it out... they lost 13-0 in social soccer the other night.....

“Today I had a rather bold customer, I don’t know if he does it in other shops or not. He asked about a TV and I said I would go and get him one. Instead he came into the stock room, clearly marked “Staff only” and had a look at it there. Then, later today he came back and said he would like one of the TVs. He then walked into the stock room picked one up and walked out. What the?! Does he go to the supermarket and say, “I’d like some gravy mix, oh none on the shelf? I’ll just pop into the store room and grab a packet.”? Weirdo”

My lovely interior designer cousin cousin, Anna Cuthbert (daughter of the other interior designing Cuthbert ), has just launched a business sourcing top grade fabrics and wallpapers for retail customers.

Anyway- if you want something a bit different or a bit classy Take a look.

Clemens has a GREAT piece on software patents.

I agree with him entirely- there are some strange/insnane patents being awarded. But, we do not need to throw the baby out with the bath water.....

In the final judgements of the current judicial term the Supreme Court (USA) have released a Castle like judgement allowing city authorities to kick people out of their properties to allow commercial development.

[UPDATE]

Jogle provides some good feedback

http://www.freenation.tv/hotellostliberty2.html

Ever developed in Cold Fusion.......????

Check this from the Daily WTF

<a class="user">Logged in as:a> #session.fullname# 
<cfif session.isAdmin EQ "yes">
  (Site Administrator)
<cfelseif session.isAdmin EQ "maybe">
  (Group Administrator)
<cfelse>
  (Member)
cfif>

http://xtramsn.co.nz/entertainment/0,,12253-4449335,00.html

“Welsh singer Charlotte Church has slammed American President George W. Bush as a "proper weirdo" after he mistook Wales for a town. “

”

There’s a lot of “dialogue” between Anakin and Padme that goes like this:

Anakin: I think you’re so beautiful.

Padme: No – you are.

Anakin: No, seriously, baby. You’re hot.

Padme: Oh, Annie.

Anakin: I love you.

Padme: No, I love you.

Anakin: For reals, though, I think you’re so awesome.

Padme: You’re so nice.

Anakin: Obi-Wan is a dickhead.

Padme: Really?

Anakin: Totally.

Padme: No way!

Anakin: Way.

Padme: Wow. I love you.

Anakin: I totally love you more.

[lather, rinse, repeat]”

See more here...

OK. So I'm getting set for a decent chunk of overseas travel over the next month (DUD-CHC-AKL-HKG-PDY-HGH-PDY-HKG-AKL-SIN-AKL-CHC-DUD-AKL-PER-AKL-DUD)... and I ask around the office if anyone has anyting on their list of 'never forget stuff'... and Nick comes back with a link to The Universal Packing List. VERY VERY cool- you just punch in where/when you are going and what you are doing and it builds an instruction list for ya.

Tucking this away in my blog for future reference

http://btefnet.net/

Jeremy Mazner has a post on how they are dealing with WiFi @ PDC this year.

Hopefully I'll be able to get there to try it out....

Hopefully we'll also get decent WiFi @ Sky City this year.... IMHO it's pretty important for a tech conference.

This is how I will announce it.

“Holy smokes, SOMEBODY out there is bad at keeping secrets!!  Yes! We can finally confirm that Yahoo has made a definitive agreement to acquire Flickr and us, Ludicorp. Smack the tattlers and pop the champagne corks! “

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pajamahadeen

 Pajamahadeen is a word play on Mujahideen. It was coined during the Killian documents controversy during the U.S. presidential election campaign of 2004, in which webloggers were derided by Jonathan Klein, a former CBS News executive vice-president for vigorously challenging the accuracy of a 60 Minutes story by CBS anchor Dan Rather. Klein is reported as saying, "You couldn't have a starker contrast between the multiple layers of check and balances (at CBS), and a guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas writing." Webloggers who were pursuing the story such as Little Green Footballs [1] (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526)[2] (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12615), Power Line (blog) [3] (http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2004_09.php#007770), and Jim Geraghty at National Review Online [4] (http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200409221122.asp)[5] (http://www.nationalreview.com/tks/052840.html) took this insult and turned it into a variety of humorous self-deprecating descriptions of their form of online activism. As Andrew Sullivan noted in response to Klein's remarks: "Actually, I'm in sweatpants and a tanktop. But of course, it doesn't matter a jot what a fact-checker is wearing as long as his facts are correct. CBS's apparently aren't." [6]

Hat Tip to Gavin

One of my friends from China, Eddie Liu (MVP Lead for China), MSN'd me a good little itinerary for Shanghai in one day.

Thought I'd post it here so I can find it easily later on.

Guncontrol.org.nz has a good takedown of a recent NZPA guncontrol article.

J Fo' notes that WinFS is now also on the list of Longhorn tech that will be back ported to XP. ne has to wonder just what is going to be left.

I'd hate to be Michael Sievert... looks like he'll be marketing little more than a point release....

Roll on the PDC I guess.... maybe they'll open the kimono a little more and show us what's been going on in the collective brain over the past two years.

In a wee coup... it looks like the Australian Linux Conference is coming to Dunedin.

Given my previous experience with Linux guys my hope is that Rexona for Men do the right thing and sponsor the event....

In fact... if there might be women too.... maybe Heiniger will sponsor that section?

Tim Haines has a great link to a radio station proank... VERY much worth a listen.

Paul Andrew, MS's Wellington based Dev Evangelist is moving on to Redmond. We'll be sad to see you go mate.... been great working with you. Next time I'm in Redmond we're sure hjas hell gonna get a group of the Kiwi expats together and go to Wades Gunshop for a blast up.

Just stumbled across the coolest article ever on MS.com....

How to speak l33t.....

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/kidtalk.mspx

“While it's important to respect your children's privacy, understanding what your teenager's online slang means and how to decipher it is important as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short. Leet (a vernacular form of "elite") is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically—creating the digital equivalent of pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.”

Is this designed to help protect kids from the evils of the internet or what? It is quite a bizarre article really.

Are here...

Kiwi Expat Ben 'Firefox' Goodger has move to Google.

Jeff Barr has a post about a recent talk by Don Box on web services....

Good ol' New Zealand even gets a mention....

The original title of the was WS-Islands. Hes going to walk through the various standards in the talk, and attempt to explain and justify each one.

...

ws-NewZealand, a lovely place to visit exactly once per lifetime. Here are specs lke that. ws-eventing, strictly speaking it is not needed. But theres a desire to do pub-sub. Microsoft ships a simple version, IBM ships WS-RF, a three volume spec. ws-atomictx, good for the three people building transaction managers. ws-enumeration.

Someone asked about contracting in the UK on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to- a mate in Auckland who has been there done that posted a fantastic reply. Reproduced here for your information and pleasure.

Disclaimers:

• Pledge-fulfilling sex must be consensual, legal, and generous. And safe. And hot.
• Acceptable sexual positions include, but are not limited to: missionary, doggy-style, cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, leapfrog, butterfly, humpback whale, cling wrap, squashing of the deck chair, accordion, reverse piggy-back, advanced ("twin") leapfrog. Male-male, female-female, group, and oral variations of these positions can also be used to satisfy the pledge.
• Taking the pledge indicates a good-faith effort to abide by its provisions. Pledge-takers who have violated withholding provisions become effective non-voters, and are barred from sex with fellow pledge-takers.
• Pledge-takers who fail to vote are forbidden from masturbating. (Exemption: pledge-takers who are not eligible to vote are encouraged to masturbate frequently.)
• "Cybersex" does not satisfy the pledge, dorkwad.
• Non-voters may render themselves eligible for sex with American Heroes by voting at least twice in local, primary, and/or 2006 congressional races. Those voting in only one such race qualify to perform, but not receive, oral sex on American Heroes.
• Achievement of a Votergasm during election-night sex is probable, but not guaranteed. Those encountering difficulty reaching Votergasm are encouraged to slow things down, talk about it, and reduce the pressure. Other techniques include the use of massage oils, toys, "dirty talk," "ballot stuffing," and "exit polls."
• Per the U.S. Constitution, children conceived on election night are eligible for gigantic interest-free loans from the U.S. government, and special t-shirts.

From the ever onto it DPF

The BBC reports on an excellent initiative in the US to get more people voting. Sex!

People can pledge at Votergasm to either:

* withhold sex from non-voters for a week after election night

* have sex with another voter on election night as well as withholding sex from non-voters for a week

* commit themselves to having sex with another 2004 voter as well as turning down all non-voters until the 2008 vote.

OK... so the neglect stems from working my ass off at the moment... so here a a few quick link reposts from others

Bill has some good religion mockery...

NEWNAN, Ga. (AP) - Across the Bible Belt this Halloween, some little ghosts and goblins might get shooed away by the neighbors - and some youngsters will not be allowed to go trick-or-treating at all - because the holiday falls on a Sunday this year.

Rory reviews Team America..... in true Rory style....

I wear a purse (well, it's a camera bag, but it functions as a purse), I like gay people just as much as I like everybody else, and I think it's OK to swear in churches (I don't actually do this, as I don't go to churches, but the concept doesn't offend me).

However, I am not PC...

I'm buying that man a beer- I too used to wear a lovely man bag...... but have since dumped my bulky Pocket PC for a Smartphone....... so don't need it any more...

DPF has some good bullet points on the John Tamihere 'thing'....

Today on TV One and Three we found out about the free Land Cruiser worth $40,000 which had Waipareria pay lease payments on, right up until four months ago

and... he also links to ... McCully and the Sex Industry - A Guide to Occupational Health and Safety in the New Zealand.

The UPS guy delivered my Sinulator the morning of the day I was giving a party. I signed, sent him on his way and returned to my preparations. It wasn't until hours later, draped around the room with about 20 friends, that I remembered my new toy.

The Sinulator is a device that lets you connect a sex toy to your computer so that other people can control it for you over the internet. After announcing to the room that I had one of these, I really had no choice but to open the box and pass the thing around.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65064,00.html

http://www.techpaq.co.nz/techbyte/2004_September/TP_IngramMicro_Acquisition.pdf

We are pleased to announce that Ingram Micro Inc. (NYSE: IM), the worlds largest technology distributor, has entered into an agreement to acquire Tech Pacific and combine our companies to better serve you and the Asia Pacific region.

Remember the Trance Vibrator?

Ms Behaviour, one of the Twisted Minxets, has a post on a USB powered gadget.

http://msbehaviour.blogspot.com/2004/09/geek-girls-guide-to-getting-off-do-you.html

Scoble has the details here....

Dunno why the hell they changed it in the first place....

I don't think I'm right-wing - I just think my life is mine to live pretty much as I please (provided it doesn't intrude on you) and I'd like you to extend the same courtesy to me, thanks very much.

Amen To That!

The M82 is a beast of a gun.  It fires the same rounds as the .50 cal machine guns that we use.  It's heavy and extremely loud.  You'll see what I mean in the movie below - it literally causes a shockwave that shakes the ground enough to raise a big cloud of dust for like a 4 or 5 foot radius around the gun.  I've used the rifle a lot in computer games like Ghost Recon, so I was eager to see how it handled in real life.  It's got quite a bit of kick, and of course the games don't do the noise or shock of firing it any justice whatsoever.  I'm sure firing it from anything but prone and braced position would knock me on my butt.

Army Steve gets to play with some cool war toys.

http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/archive/2004/08/12/213778.aspx

Eric: Well, the news is that Ive decided to leave the C# team to join the Windows Movie Maker team as a developer.

Imagine you work for a New Zealand company with an entrenched monopoly. You think your website is pretty good, and you do a lot of business that way. But maybe you want to know what people really think. Perhaps you worry that your customers don't like you as much as they should.

...

So you take action. You decide to post a comment defending your company, but pretending to be from one of your happy customers. No-one will ever know, and it will help even up the balance a bit. Perhaps you even feign illiteracy in your "happy customer". You think your customers are a herd of illiterate sheep after all.

But you forget two important things.

1. You are not completely anonymous when you surf from work.
   
2. You are a complete idiot.

The whole 9 yards here and here.

Hard News has good post on Maxim today.

Including Maxim being caught telling porkies... which is WELL WORTH READING

...and more good stuff from the Rationalists and Humanists on the Maxim Spambomber

Now you all know that I'm by no means a religious nutcase. But this is really funny...

Our Father, who 0wnz h34V3n, j00 r0ck!
May all 0ur base someday be belong to you!
May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn h34V3n.
Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.
And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz
when they act lame on us.
Please don't give us root access on some poor d00d'z box when we're too
pissed off to think about what's right and wrong, and if you could keep the
fbi off our backs, we'd appreciate it.
For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0x3s 4ever and ever.

4m3n

I'm having an aggregatorial day today... some interesting stuff in the ether though.....

From Dare

A friend of mine, Justin, had an interesting idea at dinner yesterday. What if Google ends up building the network computer? They can give users the storage space and reliability to run place all their data online. They can mimic the major desktop applications users interact with daily by using Web technologies. This sounds far fetched but then again, I'd have never imagined I'd see a free email service that gave 1GB of free email.

Seems everyone is taking the Red Pill.....

http://neopoleon.com/blog/posts/7285.aspx

http://weblogs.asp.net/gad

maybe the lawyers forgot to talk t the webmaster....

http://linspire.com/lindows_products_license.php

When pretty much everything sounds fantastic... Trance sounds the most fantastic...

We drew the curtains and darkened the room. Justin played for hours. Dreamily I would once in a while say things like, "Could you do the 2nd Area again? That's my favorite."

After many of my langorous gasps and moans, we stopped playing, and tried to analyze the gameplay experience. "I don't know exactly what the game designers intended with that trance vibrator thing - but it had to be this, right?"

http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html

A very cool 'Your Potential Our Passion' Flash app from MS.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/innovation/yourpotential/main.html

I have mixed feelings about the 'Your Potential Our Passion' thing.... I really love it as a feel good marketing series and cncept but it's been overused in silly places here in NZ... Like playing the advert at a rugby match...... what a waste. But this flash app is VERY cool..... love to know who did it and what they spent on it? No hints in the code unfortunatly.... :-(
It even has subtitles for disability accesibility!

Check out this piccie of a fully frozen PC still running Windows!.... I used to do a lot of work with these industrial style PCs... VERY cool shot.
http://blogs.msdn.com/mcreasy/archive/2004/07/13/181857.aspx

No time to rip all your CD's? LoadPod will do it for you!  (Assuming you have an iPod and at least 50 CDs and are willing to pay $1.50 a CD and live in an area they service - which now includes Seattle).
http://blogs.msdn.com/mcreasy/archive/2004/07/13/181868.aspx
Now what I want to know is will they rip Vinyl!... that's what I want done!.... Thinking about hiring a student to do it!

That is all... back to work for me!

Julia Lerman has a pic of a cool T over @ her site- really need to be into the apprentice to get it properly....

I want one of these shirts.

LMAO.... check out this stunt pulled by Beureaucrash over the weekend... press release here... video here...

For our first act, the Bureaucrash Players infiltrated the Green's convention, renting tabling space under the name, "The Progressives Against Progress."

...

Our mission for the day was to out progressive the progressives, with outrageous proposals for regulation & redistribution, based firmly in their own socialist philosophy. We would judge our success by seeing how many of the convention attendees we could get to sign our petitions for such measures, even as we explained them into absurdity.

...

The Progressives...s proposals didnt receive the first hint of disagreement until we decided to step it up a notch, and start distributing our Nominate Castro for President flyers to the crowds of delegates, preparing to cast the first ballot for the partys nomination.

...

One gentleman, upon seeing the Castro flyers on our table, said that he didnt think nominating him was realistic, but rejoiced in the idea of recognizing his accomplishments. He explained, something truly wonderful is happening here, after which he started doing this little dance thing, and singing Guantanamera.

Lukas notes the Len Lye movie being shown in Auckland at the moment... if you really want to see some cool Len Lye stuff the New Plymouth Govett Brewster Art Gallery is the place. They have some truely phenomenal kinetic sculptures from the man who must surely be the grand master of that art. A photo simply does not do Trilogy (below) justice...

[UPDATE] In case you haven't seen it the above sculpture is about 10 meters high and hangs from the ceiling of the art gallery.... when running the sound alone is truely awe inspiring... and quite frightening!

Ok so Army Steve (Smith) is now in Kuwait. If you have been following his blog it looks as though he has jumped through most of the usual military hoops to get there....

I received a very thoughtful piece through the email this morning... it filtered through our New Zealand Territorial Force (Reservist) command and through my dad to me... it makes quite touching reading. Google tells me it's been sydicated widely.. but it is well worth reading if you have not already.

http://www.military.com/NewContent/0,13190,Galloway_062304,00.html

WASHINGTON - The Internet, which fills our inboxes with spam and scams every day and keeps our delete keys shiny, occasionally delivers a real keeper, such as the words below, which were written by a graduate of West Point, Class of 2003, who's now at war in Iraq.

We tracked down the author, who gave us permission to quote from his letter so long as we didn't reveal his name.

Old soldiers in the Civil War coined a phrase for green troops who survived their first taste of battle: "He has seen the elephant." This Army lieutenant sums up the combat experience better than many a grizzled veteran:....

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevenpr/archive/2004/06/30/170289.aspx

Hi everyone My name is Steven Pratschner.  Im the Program Manager for the CLR that ships as part of the .Net Compact Framework.  I intend to use this blog to post information on various topics related to the Compact Framework, including versioning, interop, diagnostics, performance and so on.  In many cases Ill cover topics that either havent been covered by the formal product documentation yet or are new in the publicly available pre-releases of Whidbey.  Ill also look at features that behave slightly differently in the Compact Framework than they do on the full .Net Framework

I'd be keen on a bit of insight into how the Garbage Collecter differs from the desktop...

I find that every time I dive into doing something with Regular Expressions I look for a tool to help me test them... and every time I spend a good wee while looking for a good tool.

So here is a good tool- http://royo.is-a-geek.com/iserializable/regulator/ - selfishly posted here so that I can easily find it next time I'm dealing with RegEx stuff...

Air New Zealand has just announced that they will be implementing a Super Economy class on their 747 fleet and the new 777 ERs and one assumes the 7E7s when they arrive. Details here.

The most significant thing is that there will be in seat power and an extra 5-6 inches of leg room. I'm sold already!

I just hope that 'Premium Service' doesn't mean that I'll have to pay for expensive NZ wines and fancy food.... Give me airline stodge and a can of coke any day as long as I can have a power socket for my PC!

Now if they would just install Boeing Connexion it'll be just about perfect.
http://www.connexionbyboeing.com/

http://www.hohto.to/forums/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=17720

[At Isengard]
Gandalf: "sup dawg, i r g4nd4lf da gr3y!"
Saruman: "Foo! U R teh noob!"
Gandalf: "***?!"
Saruman: "Sauron pwns joo!"
Gandalf: "Sif, I R leet"
**Sarumon beats the **** out of Gandalf
Saruman: "Pwned!"

But, really, in the end, not seeing "F9/11" would be like allowing your First Amendment rights to be abrogated, no matter whether you're a Republican or a Democrat.

Yes, Fox News!

via NZ Pundit

Federated Farmers has launched a campaign to highlight the fact that farmers are being screwed by local govt. rates.

Federation members wanting to join the 10K Rates Club will have an opportunity at Mystery Creek Field Days on June 16-19. Members who bring to the Federation's stand a copy of their general rates demand which shows rates in excess of $10,000 a year will be given the official club mug, which is emblazoned with the club motto "I'm A Rates Mug". The Federation's site is in the main pavilion at PB71 and 72.

Whats more we are now in a situation in this country whereby, in may cases, absentee landowners are denied a vote in local body elections.... It's been a while since I've been to the fielddays... but they are great fun.... well worth a visit if you are in the North Island.

From Hard News.... for those unfamiliar the Maxim Institute is a loony tune bigoted, 'family' centric, bible thumping, conservative right wing think tank outfit....

Tim Michie pointed that the Maxim Institute is running a tertiary student essay competition - six lucky winners will get to work for Maxim in the holidays. Six? These people have money. The suggested text for the essay topic is C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, one of the sacred tomes of the whole hell-in-a-handbasket movement. (You can crib and buy an essay on that.) It's fairly obvious that an essay which does not accord with the Maxim worldview will not be a winning one, but if anyone wants to enter such an essay I'll be happy to consider it for publication here after the contest has closed. We might even be able to manage a prize of our own

I've got $50 towards a competitive prize and challenge all of those liberal (in the classical sense of the word) readers among my throng to do the same.

Pledges in the coments please.

This looks pretty cool....

Weedshare is a file sharing system with a paid component that benefits both artists and the people who shared the file.... and REAL money too. 50% for the artists and also money for the sharers up three levels.

Looks VERY cool...uses windows media for the DRM.

I'm gonna start by taking a look at this guy....
http://www.weedtunes.com/index.php/a/av/artist/59

Now this is a cool idea.

Using RSS to dish up Hansard (the official Parliamentary proceedings for you non Westminsterites).

You can subscribe to specific MPs and see what they've been saying in the house.

From Gizmodo

And Gizmodo also has other droolworth stuff...... I might look for one of these in Singapore later in the month.

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/philips-key019-shipping-with-016-inch-lcd-015686.php

Here

Bill is a Christian so he has some interesting things to say on the banter that we've been kicking around....

He wades in on the 'whole Gay thing' with some good argument, does Porn, mentions the Darwinian fish....

These Bible beaters are making Christianity a laughingstock and doing more to destroy it than all the strip clubs, bars, and gay people combined.  Their obsession with trashing people different from them is sickening.  And do you really think they don't take money from Adulterers?  Or Drunks?  Or just about any other politically correct sinner category.  There's wayyyy too much house cleaning needing done to be pointing fingers about trivial nonsense like this.  No one is sin free, the bible says so.  So why focus on other's sins instead of your own?  That's why I can laugh at all the mockery, b/c I agree with it.  It's not mocking Jesus, it's mocking the clowns that have coopted Christianity, and THEY DESERVE TO BE MOCKED!   They're the blasphemers.

All good.

[UPDATE] Casey has these on his car...

Casey points to some cool bumper sticker type things... I reckon they would look great on my gas guzzling Subaru......

Any other kiwis want some? We can split shipping.... post in the comments....

P.S. TS in 'What Would Jesus Do Thong' shots please....

Somehow I found myself reading Julia Lermans Blog (subscribed! as Scoble would say) and she had linked to Steve Smith of ASP Alliance fame with his new Army blog... seems he's off to Iraq called up from the Army reserves. Makes for interesting reading.

Steve is talking asbout taking his Laptop away... He needs a Toughbook Tablet PC! http://www.toughbook.com!

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0405/04051802olympusferrari.asp

“Hamburg, 18 May 2004 – Last year, Olympus celebrated its official sponsorship of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula One racing team with the introduction of the first digital camera in the world officially sanctioned by Ferrari S.p.A. The incredible worldwide demand for the Ferrari DIGITAL MODEL 2003 has now led to the development of a next generation model, which again reflects the successful and fitting partnership between Olympus and Ferrari. Like its predecessor, the Ferrari DIGITAL MODEL 2004 is the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between Olympus and Ferrari designers, embodying superior design, quality and durability. Fully conforming to Ferrari specifications, the colour of the aluminium body accurately reproduces the ‘Ferrari red’ which is the hallmark of Ferrari race cars. Its slim body exudes the aura of beauty, quality and advanced technology of the Ferrari racing machines. This model is an entirely new type of camera. Beyond its 3.2 million pixels and 3x optical zoom, it features a newly-developed, large LCD monitor that delivers high contrast and a wide viewing angle. In addition, new slideshow and album functions have been integrated, turning the camera into a portable photo album. The Ferrari DIGITAL MODEL 2004 will be a limited edition, with only 10,000 units being offered worldwide, half of these have been allotted for Europe.”

Anyone who has seen me tikki touring around the world with my Tablet PC in tow will know that I'm a HUG fan of Outlook Web Access... outside of the firewall here @ Kognition it's all I use (save for my Smartphone checking mail during the day).

The Exchange team @ MS are offering a free trial of OWA here... it lasts for 30 days which should give you a good idea of what it is like.

http://msmvps.com/williamryan/posts/6569.aspx

“It all reminds me of the Port O Potties at my first Lallapalooza concert.  If you could have sold $20.00 tickets to a clean restroom you'd be rich.  And if there were only $20.00 restrooms available, there still wouldn't be too many takers on the Free Port O Potties.  I think the analogy holds here as well.”

Could you buy a 2400psi gasoline powered water blaster (pressure cleaner)... like Don Box.

His Media Center PC looks nice though!

Xbox 2 News
If you're interested in reading about the latest gossip on Xbox 2, then you'll want to visit xbreporter.com. One of the latest rumors on xbreporter discusses support for the .NET Framework:

• MSIL all the way
  The CPU for the Xbox 2 is rumoured to be designed to be a processor that can decode and execute instructions in Microsoft Intermediate Language (MSIL) while at the same time being able to run x86 code, to remain compatible with Xbox  

from [http://blogs.msdn.com/danielfe/archive/2004/04/29/123041.aspx]

Lenn runs the evangelicals in the longhorn group (I think)....

As some one who is pretty evangelical day to day.... and who would love to make it a profession some day... this makes interesting reading.

http://www.glitteringgenerality.com/default.aspx?date=2004-04-21

”Being recognized has never been easier for VIP patrons of the Baja Beach Club in Barcelona, Spain.

Like a scene out of a science-fiction movie, all it takes is a syringe-injected microchip implant for the beautiful men and women of the nightclub scene to breeze past a "reader" that recognizes their identity, credit balance and even automatically opens doors to exclusive areas of the club for them. “

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38038

.... Well $50 ain't big... but still.....

NZPundit is running competition bsed around taking the piss out of Russell Brown

What a great idea.... keep an eye out for my entry.

Casey has been spending some time playing with neural nets and asks

“i am beating myself up for not learning quickly enough today. does this exist in the neural network world? a machine knowing that its training is going badly and that it needs to train differently?”

No comments on his blog means I'll add my 2c worth here.

The way I see it there are two possible approaches (in mainstream NN theory) that address the rate of training issue.

1. Inertia
While not really providing for the concept of a global track on learning rate, the use of an inertia value provides a useful mechanism for controlling learning rate in a localised fashion. Basically it aims to prevent local minima/maxima solutions from being found.

2. Evolving Neural Networks
This probably provides better for the idea that Casey is looking at. Evolving neural nets change their architecture- usually by adding nodes but sometime also layers- on the basis of the perceived ability to fit the problem. This fit-ability is in turn often determined by the rate at which the potential solution is being approached in training.

Anyway.... those are my thoughts...

Been a busy couple of days for me... was in Auckland yesterday doing some architecture consulting with a client and then another crazy day today making sure my team have enough to keep them out of mischief while I sun myself in Hawaii and Redmond (OK, maybe only Hawaii).

But here is some linkorama to keep the wolf from the door.

Service Oriented Architecture Design Tools in Whidbey

Russell Brown and Nic Wise on the moves to shedule BZP.

Brighthand has all the new mobile 'toys' coming along....

Blog meets Bit Torrent

Finally..... WTF is up with Passport at the moment....

In yet another case of 'oh dear I forgot that word stamps every revision', the California AG has been publishing letters passed across the desk of the MPAA.

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001775.shtml

In yet another case of 'oh dear I forgot that word stamps every revision', the California AG has been publishing letters passed across the desk of the MPAA.

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001775.shtml

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/hall.html

“Check this shit out (Fig. 1). That's bonafide, 100%-real data, my friends. I took it myself over the course of two weeks. And this was not a leisurely two weeks, either; I busted my ass day and night in order to provide you with nothing but the best data possible. Now, let's look a bit more closely at this data, remembering that it is absolutely first-rate. Do you see the exponential dependence? I sure don't. I see a bunch of crap.
      Christ, this was such a waste of my time.
      Banking on my hopes that whoever grades this will just look at the pictures, I drew an exponential through my noise. I believe the apparent legitimacy is enhanced by the fact that I used a complicated computer program to make the fit. I understand this is the same process by which the top quark was discovered.”

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/03/14.html#a7010

”The way to fight hate speech is by pointing it out. This is a marketplace of ideas. Sometimes the ideas are rotten. That's what a lot of countries, and people don't get. The way to get rid of bad ideas is to point them out. Not ban them.”

'nuff said!

A consortium of communications companies including Nokia, Vodafone, Microsoft and Orange, are asking that ICANN approve its application for a mobile-phone oriented top level domain.

News report here.  Slashdot rumination here.

Calder.mobile from the Guggenheim depicted above.

[via TrademarkBlog]

Make Services Idempotent
http://weblogs.asp.net/ramkoth/archive/2004/03/12/88423.aspx

Legacy Applications
http://weblogs.asp.net/ramkoth/articles/88778.aspx

Hans kicks off into the web logging world with a detailed post on the schedule slippage of Whidbey and Yukon.

The product name for SQL Server codename ‘Yukon’ is Microsoft SQL Server 2005

• The SQL Server team is working hard to release Beta 2 in the coming months
• There will be a Beta 3 release in the second half of 2004. Some early adopter customers will go live on this beta and will provide us with additional feedback before the product is shipped.
• SQL Server 2005 is planned for release during the first half of 2005
• The official product name for Visual Studio codename ‘Whidbey’ is Microsoft Visual Studio 2005. It is also planned for release in the first half of 2005.

http://blogs.msdn.com/CSharpFAQ/archive/2004/03/11/87816.aspx

They've got internet @ Sydney Airport.....

But the bloody thing is censored according to David Farrar.... now that would really piss me off.

Some great stuff on specs @ MS

Scottie, spec me up!

When specs go bad

When you don't have a spec, everything is a bug

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3322891

Not all scroll mice mind you... just dual directional scroll mice- i.e. the tilt wheel ones.

MSN has a sandbox site where you get to play with all their new toys...

like Newsbot

“MSN Newsbot (beta) is an experimental, automated news service. We gather news from over 4,000 sources on the internet and speed your discovery of news stories on the internet. News headlines are clustered together to allow you to compare coverage from multiple sources and each story links to the publisher's site where you can read the full article. “

their search toolbar (I don't think I'll ever shift away from Google as I value searching groups too much.

their social network application

...and a whole schwag of others.

From Gizmodo

'Toothing is a form of anonymous sex with strangers - usually on some form of transport or enclosed area such as a conference or training seminar. 'Toothers meet by first connecting suitable equipment - such as a modern phone or palmtop computer. Users 'discover' other computers or phones in the vicinity and then send a speculative message. The usual greeting is: 'Toothing?'.

If the other party is interested, messages are exchanged until a suitable location is agreed - usually a public toilet, although there are tales of more adventurous spots such as deserted carriages or staff areas. What happens next is up to you!'

...or just virtualize one on my Pocket PC

http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/virtual_ipod_the_ppod.php

I'm a bit cynical when it comes to describing the US as the 'Land of the Free'- it is the home of the war on drugs isn't it?

But, my haope is slowly being restored... for example, Harvard University now has a porn mag...

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357342

Eric Gunnerson has an article up on MSDN that runs through the various mechanisms for invoking code on the .NET platform. If it's one this that managed environments are pretty good at it's resolving, loading and executing code on the fly. Eric runs through the performance os standard invocation mechanisms as wll as the more exotic/dynamic approaches.

Take a look.

Russel Brown has a good piece on the ruckus between parliamentary Woodworker Gerry B and the the religious leaders yesterday on the wireless.

It also includes some good discussion on Ngai Tahu and their nature as a property rights oriented tribe. Some good commentary all up and well worth a read.

Lukas has posted an entry on his mate getting ripped off at a car park.
The use of extortionate towing fees and 'kickbacks' to the parking companies is rife in this country.

My suggestion to Lukas is have his mate take them to the Small Claims Court for a little Small Claims Sport.....

[via Scoble]

Joel Pobar has a post on the workings of the Rotor garbage collector.
It's quite different to the CLR GC but makes interesting reading.

http://weblogs.asp.net/joelpob/archive/2004/02/26/80776.aspx

http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2004/02/28.html#a6696

“So, who wants to be Scobleized by the "LinkToWhore?”

I'm a big fan of caching in ASP.NET
When you look at all of the .NET vs Java benchmarks it's usually the easy caching support that has given .NET the edge.

Andrew G Duthie has an article up on MSDN about the new caching stuff in Whidbey.

Specific goodies include:

• A non sealed CacheDependancy class. i.e. you can inherit and create your own dependency expiration rules.
• SQL invalidation. Obviously drawing from the above, there is now a bundled SqlCacheDependancy class. It looks like it is done via a polling mechanism rather than a trigger executed extended stored proc as used by Rob Howard in his example for use under 1.1 and 1.0
• Substitution capability for chaning content after retrieval from the cache.

http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=51908783-d75d-4924-ac37-c19f25dbac44

In the next version of the .NET Framework we are moving away from the XmlTextReader and XmlValidating reader. Instead we will emphasize programming directly to the XmlReader and will provide an implementation of the factory design patterns which returns different XmlReader instances based on which features the user is interested.

I'm so gonna have to buy this guy a beer when I'm in Seattle in April!

Same Sex Marriage
http://www.mperfect.net/blog/browse.aspx?bid=632134766100468750

Including such fantastic lines as

dykes should be allowed to get married, lesbians should not. that would hopefully leave more lesbians in non monogamous relationships, and give me more chances for MFF threesomes.

The Passion of Christ
http://www.mperfect.net/blog/browse.aspx?bid=632134782903750000

I posted a couple of days ago on some stuff to do with scheduling in SQL Server.

MSDN has just published a good article on the internals of the User Mode Scheduler inside SQl Server.

Something funny over at LitleGreenFootballs.

Some Palestinian students learning english.... visit the site to see what is on the blackboard.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=9924_Crude_Propaganda_on_Both_Sides_of_the_Lens

It's usually pretty easy to pick a PayPal spoof that's trying to nick ya money, right?

Not anymore..... take a look at this example of Visual Spoofing

via [Chris Tacke]

Robert Levy has posted some comments on the rise of theSpoke.net and the fall of GotDotNet.com/student.

http://robertlevy.net/archive/2004/02/22/152.aspx

Beverage Daily is reporting on a portable spectroscope for use in detecting counterfeit Whisky.... now that would have ben great in my student days!

Via [The Trademark Blog]

Tablet MVP Casey Chesnut has a run down of the Dallas MVP summit. We antipdeans were invited to attend via Live Meeting but I don't think many/any of us managed to get up that early in the morning.

http://www.mperfect.net/blog/browse.aspx?bid=632130464595625000

When you were a kid did you need to know how things worked? Like taking things apart? Interested in the guts of the .NET framework? Good.

Your first point of call should probably be Don Box and Chris Sells' great book $a(ISBN 0201734117,books). It's a great read, especially for those coming from other managed environments (Java especially) as it allows you to get your head into exactly what .NET is without having to wade through 'how to program in an OO environment' 101. It's the sort of book that any .NET programmer worth their salt should 'cover to cover' at least once in their career. Then you can slot it back on the shelf for ready reference in answering those particularly gnarly newsgroup questions.

But, I digress. The second place to head is the weblog of Chris Brumme, one of the architects on the CLR team. This blog has an extremely high signal to noise ratio with the posts usually stretching into  several pages of extremely detailed information on a given aspect of the CLR and/or Framework. His recent post on hosting covers allot of ground with the real value, I think, being that it gives some insight into the considerations involved in producing highly performant server software - viz SQL Server.

Chris describes in some detail:

• How CLR threading interacts with the underlying host.
• How SQL server manages multi-threading in a slightly surprising fashion
• Hooks that are being introduced in the Whidbey timescale to allow the CLR to better cooperate with 'extreme' hosts such as SQL Server.
• Schemes for managing memory and threads in post physical and virtual (hyperthreading) MP environments.

http://blogs.msdn.com/cbrumme/archive/2004/02/21/77595.aspx

NZPundit is reporting the chaos that has bestruck one of the most 'creative' areas of Wellington.

http://www.nzpundit.com/archives/005481.html

http://users.senet.com.au/~colton/Interesting_Stories.html

Take one Piper Saratoga, one Australian and a half dozen other aircraft....mix...

DP Review is posting details on the new all manual Panasonic DMC-LC1. It looks like a very sexy bit of kit!

• Fairly fast Leica lens
• Manual Zoom, Manual Focus, Manual Aperture, Manual Shutter speed.
• Auto bracketing

Looks like a great camera for hands on photographers....It even looks retro.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/Feb04/02-12windowssource.asp

Wasn't MS's Fault
Wasn't Shared Source's Fault
Not the Govt Security Program.....

So why not tell us who it was!

Also...

Kuro5hin has a guided tour of some of the comments... makes funny reading.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795

Larry Lessig- the creative commons guy and Stanford Law Professor on the implications of the Aussie free trade deal on copyright law.

http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001733.shtml

Mary Jo Foley on the windows source code leak.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,4248,1527761,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

I swore I wouldn't be a human aggregator... but... just one quick post.

Nokia Buy Symbian!

The Trademark Blog on a great Janet Jackson Parody.