According to an interview with poet Michael Longley, “writing poetry gives him a better buzz than sex or booze”:
If you have nothing to say don’t force it. The trouble is, you do acquire a lot of skills over the years. It is possible without knowing it to produce forgeries. It is important not to do that. It is better to remain silent rather than fool yourself and others for a while by producing forgeries.
One of the problems is repeating yourself. That doesn’t necessarily mean with regards to subject matter. It is more doing the same trick, as it were, producing the same performance.
Is he talking about poetry or sex? Can’t tell. It seems he prefers the cerebral rush to the carnal, although he does admit to finding shortcuts, thanks to technology that allows him to repeat someone else’s performance:
I get as much pleasure out of music as poetry but I can’t do anything musical except put in the CD!
Microsoft announced late Thursday that it’s partnering with Novell Inc., its longtime rival in the market for computer operating system software, to support Novell’s version of Linux.
The two agreed to develop technology for computer systems that use both Linux and Microsoft’s Windows. Microsoft and Novell also agreed not to sue any customer who uses both operating systems, removing the legal uncertainty over mixing Linux and Windows.
“These are a set of agreements that will really help bridge the divide between open source and proprietary source software, and that will greatly enhance interoperability between Linux and Windows,” Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said during a press conference in San Francisco Thursday. “We see huge potential upside in these markets.”
Wow. Agreed not to sue any customer who uses both operating systems…? That sounds like Linux is a get out of jail free card for Windows users, or perhaps some kind of innoculation from Microsoft. Will this put Vista’s security into further doubt?
EDITED TO ADD (22 Dec 2006): Samba’s main man, Jeremy Allison, appears to be hopping mad over the deal and reportedly has resigned from Novell in protest.
While Internet companies elsewhere are desparate to market themselves well enough to drive traffic to their site, the Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corporation of Perrysburg, Ohio might be experiencing a case of tunnel-vision (pun intended). They do not want YouTube users accidentally coming to their site, apparently because it is too much for their hosting provider to handle.
They complained a few weeks back that the site was being downed by heavy traffic as users looking for YouTube landed on their site instead, presumably by typing the wrong domain name. This downtime cost them a great deal of money in lost customers, they said. How big was the traffic spike? They claim unique visitors went from 1,500 to over 2 million per month. UTube has been forced to move hosts 5 times to cope with the traffic, with bandwidth bills increasing by a factor of 100, they claim. They registered the domain way back in 1996, so they have every claim to it – what’s more, they also argue that the UTube name is strongly tied to their identity.
I understand their concern about the site being down, but is that really the problem? What would the increase in sales/conversion be if the site were able to stay up? It just makes me wonder if they realize that they are being seen by a much larger potential customer base now? In fact, I was just looking for a tube to buy the other day…
The IHT has a rather gruesome report on how some soldiers were prepared for managing risks in Iraq:
At one military course, an advanced trauma treatment program he had taken before deploying, he said the instructors gave each corpsman a live pig.
“The idea is to work with live tissue,” he said. “You get a pig and you keep it alive. And every time I did something to help him, they would wound him again. So you see what shock does, and what happens when more wounds are received by a wounded creature.”
“My pig?” he said. “They shot him twice in the face with a 9 millimeter pistol, and then six times with an AK-47 and then twice with a 12-gauge shotgun. And then he was set on fire.”
“I kept him alive for 15 hours,” Kirby said. “That was my pig.”
“That was my pig,” he said.
Over the years, people in information security have always debated whether it is better to hire someone who has cracked systems or someone who could, but never would. Some say it is the same as deciding whether to hire policemen who have prior criminal records, or hiring surgeons who have intentionally harmed their patients. This story, by way of harsh example, certainly touches a nerve in that debate.