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Some news flashes before I settle down to serious rewriting.
"Sun Abandons Bid for International Acceptance for Java"
Sun yesterday announced that it is revoking its application to European
standards group ECMA to have Java accepted as an international standard.
(...) Java might be barred from certain market segments such as European
government contracts without [ECMA/ISO] official
approval.
Sun earlier this year abandoned an attempt to have ISO ratify Java. Related
to this seems Tuesday's press-release by Sun that it would offer Java™
2 Platform, Standard Edition (J2SE), for free. Sun also announced its plans
to ship a Linux version of J2SE (via Inprise). Sometimes the best standardization
ploy is to ship it for free to all and sundry -- Anyway, Sun has really nothing
to lose by doing this, whatever the formal standardization status.
In other biz news...
Microsoft and Sweden's Ericsson on Wednesday joined forces to offer
Web browsers and e-mail over mobile phones, in a deal promising to free the
Internet from wires and put it in your pocket.
Hmm, I really don't know that I would care to boot into Windows
Wireless 2001½ Professional each time I want to make a cellphone
call, and find that I have to reboot my phone because call-waiting brought
down the numbers manager... No matter, Nokia is the market leader
these days, and I'm sure they'll do it their way.
When major clients publicly state that the contractor "consistently and
systematically had been unable to deliver what we required", and multimillion
dollar contracts get cancelled, then you can bet the board is having emergency
meetings. This is the case with Cap Gemini.
Intel announces the availability of prototype computers based on its
64-bit Itanium chips.
And on the perenniel issue of security, or lack thereof (as reported by the
New York Times):
A group of auditors recently broke into the computer system of the
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the
[US] federal agency that guarantees pensions.
The auditors said that they had the ability to create a fictitious person
to whom pension benefits could be sent, and that they had infiltrated the
sight [sic!] for three months and had never been
found out. (...)
The auditors say that they broke into the system by using dial-up modems
and using hacker software to discover passwords that gave them access. The
auditors also pretended to be agency employees who needed new passwords or
help logging on to the system.
Somehow I got sidetracked into shopping for and making supper this evening.
That ended up somewhere between Piffle to Bother on the
Syroid
Scale of
Intrusiveness . Not because I don't enjoy cooking from time to time.
Not because the family doesn't enjoy my cooking -- even I enjoy my cooking...
But simply because wordsmithing and rewriting under pressure does not coexist
well with any other activity known to man.
Any way, it was a casserole based on something the shop had packaged as
"carré ribs" at about 60% off the usual price. I carved half of this
pack up into bits (ignoring the ribs), fried and simmered these in the pot,
along with onion, swede, parsnip, carrots. Potatoes on the side, mild seasoning.
Turned out pretty good. The meat was a good sight better than the average
cut at the normal price. Makes you wonder.
There's been a fair bit of discussion about "security" lately, even among
some of the daynoters. Brian of
Orb
Designs
states the case well, that what it's really all about is drawing the line
somewhere so that the compromises and consequences are not too unpleasant.
After all, just getting born severely compromised your soul's security --
there are all kinds of ways nasties can hack into your body, not to mention
the many well-publicised hacks into the thus proxyized soul. (Read your bible,
for starters...)
Speaking of reading, I got my "Christmas package" of ORA titles today that
I had been looking at for a while. The new 3rd edition of Running
Linux for example, plus Learning Debian. Although not all that
popular in the broad flocks of penguintes and admittedly rather
"conservative" in terms of kernel level, I have a soft spot for the
Debian
distribution. In part this stems from the fact that Debian exists
in both Intel and Motorola distributions, and more specifically because one
of the Motorola versions is intended for Atari machines (e.g. my Falcons).
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Hi,
welcome to this week's journal. The update-link
(above) points to where I last added some text, which should simplify your
keeping up to speed. Of course, this assumes I remember to move it, and you
may still have to scroll back a bit and see if I've updated more than once
since you last visited, but that is easily done.
.
Open yours now!
