An inflatable booth for you to work in [rolls eyeballs]

XPAND your mind for a moment and imagine working everywhere. Imagine being able to grab your office (probably computer) everywhere you go.

If the thought seems pleasant, look no further. I have just come across what I can only describe as an inflatable igloo. Frankly, I doubt it will ever become a success. People go outdoors in order to escape, rather than pursue work in a disconnected, mobile environment.

Also see: Server in a Bubble

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

have just returned from a very nice evening/night out with the European Free Software Foundation. It was a very intersting experience, which I would have happily become a part of had it occurred more frequently.

This weekend was their annual General Assembly, so we went out for drink and dinner. I appeared to have been the only person among the group (except for perhaps one other person) who was not in the foundation or the comity. Despite this, I believe we hit it off. All in all, we got along very well as everyone was open and friendly. I managed to meet the people who coordinate participantion and contributions in different countries across Europe. I might get involved or join them in the future. We shall soon find out. The goals seem more political than technical.

The first mode of variation in a
poor appearance model of the brain

OME “dreadful deadline”, which I mentioned in my previous post, is thankfully behind us, after a short extension. To make matters much better, I have just received a notification of acceptance for another conference, which saturates my once-modest publications list. Tomorrow I may find out that another paper was accepted (of which I am not the first author though).

All in all, such decent progress will make it easier for me to complete the Ph.D. fairly early. I will be presenting my work in July and fingers remain crossed for TMI. When one gets showered by many achievements at once, it is hard not to make a vanity blog post. I hope others feel happy for me as I have already informed my entire family.

E are currently working on a paper which we believe can be included in the high-status journal. That journal is widely known as IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging. This will, as a matter of fact, be a revised submission and it will hopefully make it into this publication with an impact factor of 4 (very high). This paper submission was mentioned several times before and, quite frankly, there is very little information to add.

So what is so dreadful about this particular submission deadline? Well, for a start, I have stayed awake for 24 hours straight yesterday. Then, I slept for just 4 hours and I expect the rest of the today to be rather similar to yesterday. I rarely let pressure and nervousness get to me, yet sometimes it inevitably happens, especially when peers are involved.

OME time ago I linked to a screenshot showcasting Boot Camp. This involved Mac OS X, Ubuntu Linux, and Windows running simultaneously. There now exists a public video, which illustrates this rather exciting experience. Well, it is exciting to folks like me…

[Video omitted one week later]

This shows nothing unprecedented or novel, but it can be pleasant to watch if you fancy operating systems.

The last time I embedded an off-site video, this led to trouble and invalidated the markup. Let us hope for better luck this time around.

Web services and Open Source force a plunge (click for full-sized image)

HE Picture above speaks for itself. Microsoft’s stock (MSFT) continues to lose its value even after that 11% one-day drop. There are plenty of factors going against it at the moment. Word on the street it: George Soros is dropping that stock progressively.

Analysts will one day return to looking at the day when this prominent downward movement began — notably the end of the first quarter of 2006 when Office, Windows Server, and Windows Vista failed to be released on time, let alone offer what was initially planned. It is a sad story, but I cry not.

Who still wants to work at Microsoft? See: Microsoft Job Offer Refusal, My Sister and Microsoft

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

ROOVEY! Another two submissions of mine have just reached the front page of Digg. At the time of writing, both the first and second positions are occupied by Linux advocacy articles which I submitted.

I am now hoping to get a higher proportion of submissions accepted. I must admit that I am slowly becoming addicted to that whole Digg phenomenon.