Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

ET me make a seemingly spurious statement: Capitalism is about rival vendors competing with one another for the betterment of society (e.g. advancement in science and technology). It is not about monopolies that eliminate any attempt to compete, or simply absorb every threat to hinder advancement. Which leads me to discussing Windows Vista and monoculture…

There’s a certain arrogance in Vista. Yes, there’s a certain vain statement therein: what we implement will become the rule, or the ‘standard’ (de facto or otherwise). If case you have not heard, Hollywood and Microsoft have decided the control the users. This endangers our most basic rights. Never mind the backlash that conflicts with the “if you build it, they will come” field of dreams, which relies on a monopoly.

This whole scenario making of the rules reminds me of people who say “PowerPoint presentation” instead of “presentation” and limit format choice in conferences to just one proprietary (could be patented also) format that’s pricey to use, prone to breakage, insecure, etc. That gives me a compelling-enough reason to never say “use Google” but to suggest “Web search engines” instead. By limiting our choices at will we restrict improvement and punish ourselves in the long term. We naively hand over power to monopolies. And all evil empires begin small and rely on innocence and undeserved trust.

N this age when convenience is perpetually sought, will mankind care about other living species? Are they a priority? Are petty acts which demonstrate care, such as Dell’s latest initiative to plant a tree for every computer sold and encourage/assist disposal, truly helpful? And can this change the big picture? To me, it seems highly doubtful.

People seek the friendly mugs when the limelight turns to them. It’s about perception of those who surround us. Little gestures and niceties do not reverse something that progresses at a much larger scale. Meanwhile, our planet is being destroyed and lives are claimed in the process. Sometimes, this life which required hundreds of thousands years of evolution is never to be restored. It is sad really. Below is a short snippet from the article which stirred and led to this unannounced rant.

Experts estimate there are 15,589 species threatened with extinction. But a species is only accepted to have become extinct if exhaustive surveys in its known habitat range have failed to find any record of the individual.

My two stories at the very top of Digg.com (click for full-sized image)

IGG has possibly made a mistake by opening its doors to a wider crowd by augmenting its sections and encouraging short and lame postings. I was at times modded down because my comments were “too long”.

A friend of mine tends to agree that Digg was much better over a year ago. Even Slashdot is orders of magnitude more mature than Digg nowadays. Slashdot’s trolls have moved elsewhere and someone must ‘absorb’ them. Also, Digg is increasingly becoming people’s blog aggregator (just seen someone submitting 10 links to his blog in one day). This lowers the overall quality and raises ‘noise’ level. Maybe Digg is a victim of its own traffic-generating reputation, as well as ‘democratic’ nature (making it possible for inaccurate news to hit key pages).

My machine at an older office. It
ran Ubuntu Linux (see daily photolog)

OME would argue that the ‘market share’ of Linux has long ago exceeded 4%. Installed based, as opposed to market share, is difficult to gauge. People install Linux as they download or pass CD’s around. They do not buy Linux because Microsoft has a chokehold on OEM’s (AKA ‘Windows tax’, c/f 1, 2, 3). It’s a strategic, anti-competitive tactic.

Web statistics studies are still biased because they usually exclude Linux sites, they throw away “unknown” (often Linux with diverse http-header footprint/string), they ignore Squid, they don’t account for agent forgers (not just for MISE-only sites), and they neglect to account all the traffic that comes from Windows zombies (Windows/IE). In short, they cannot be relied on.

What is the true ‘market share’ of Linux then? There is no way of knowing. Software that is passed from hand tom hand or gets downloaded remains quiet and obscure. But the truth is out there. One just needs to sweep away disinformation which is enforced by companies that have plenty in stake. One of my Web sites, which boasts over 1,000 visits a day, indicates that Linux has a market share of over 40%. It’s not a typical and mainstream site. But will Web survey ever wish to include such a site in a survey? Who will ‘sponsor’ Freedom and encourage outing of the truth? Studies are typically backed and funded by commercial bodies which select their desired hypothesis and fit the conclusions to it, by carefully choosing the methods and data.

Take everything with a large barrel of salt. Just some thoughts to ponder…

AY Ozzie has just revealed one of Microsoft’s fruits from its deal with Novell. The authenticity, however, is yet subjected to doubt. On the face of it, Novell is set to acquire XenSoruce. From the ongoing discussions: ‘They (Novell) will release a new ZENworks Q1 for application virtualization on Windows and Suse. Novell also has the only reliable Identity Management, and Directory that scales the Enterprise… Also consider that if Microsoft purchased XenSource directly then VMWare and the other virtualization vendors would rightly scream “Antitrust”‘.

I tried to submit this gossip/scoop to Slashdot and I await the response. Indeed, as I would not deny, this is one of the reused Slashdot submission-type blog items. I use my personal blog as a ‘safety net’, so to speak. I also had to resubmit this because I can’t see the previous submission in the Slashdot dashboard, which is odd. There seem to be some changes going on in the site. Regardless, keep an eye on the news.

Photo captured in July 2005

month ago I mentioned the fitness competition which took place right here in Manchester. I may have neglected to properly acknowledge and give attribution to the winner, Mike Coogan. He beat me by 20 points (a small gap) and snatched the Mr. Fitness title for 2006. For what it’s worth, here is a detailed list outlining of the different stages of the competition, which spanned a period of approximately 5 months.

1. Rowing 3000 meters, ‘Concept’ ergo level 10 (slow equipment)
2. Bench press (Scott machine), 1 repetition maximum
3. 800 meters on treadmill, 10 degrees horizontal incline
4. Shoulder press (Scott machine), 1 repetition maximum
5. Crosstrainer 3,000 strides at level 5, no grip on bars
6. Maximum pushups (120-second limit)
7. Step-ups 200 repetitions (with two 6 KG dumbbells)
8. Squats on Smith machine, 1 repetition maximum
9. 10.15 KM run (treadmill)
10. Mini-triathlon (3-mile run, 1,000 strides (level 5) on crosstrainer, 1-mile row on ergo (level 5))

With the exception of certain processes in chemistry and maybe even medicine, all so called ‘intellectual property” should ultimately become void. Even in medicine there’s an in-between because people are dying due to patents that lead to heavy levy.

Intellectual property — no such thing. There is property. There is intellect. What society/industry calls “intellectual property” is neither an intellectual thing to do, nor can it be owned.

Intellectual property — no such thing. It’s a man-made concept intended to gain personal advantage at the expense of communal/mutual benefit.

(shown on the left is John Von Neumann — a man of science, not a man of money-making)