the corner office

Looks like Oracle want to buy Sun, after the IBM-Sun talks fell apart.

I think that Java would do better not being entirely subsumed by IBM, who would, let's be honest, totally cock it up. Having said that, I'm not sure that Oracle and Sun cultures would mesh and I don't understand what on-going business value Oracle would get from Sun. Hardware? Not going to sell more just because there's a new logo on the front. No new ways to make money out of the JVM or Java technologies (and Oracle have been Java-centric for ages, anyway), ditto for Solaris and any creamy proprietary uber-Unix goodness. I'm sure Oracle will be glad to get their paws on MySQL, but that's about it.

The easiest way to make sense of it, is to see it as a way for Larry Ellison to pick up a few baubles and piss off IBM and Microsoft.

Speaking of holidays being over, I've started studying again. This week also saw UNISA finally approve and process my registration for a BCom Honours in Financial Modelling. Phew.

When I finished my BSc Honours last year, I decided to take a break from studying and said 'maybe next year'. After some thinking and digging around, and having formulated a vague plan of where I'd like to be in a few years' time careerwise, I decided that studying financial modelling would press a few more buttons than a vanilla computer science Masters would.

Anyhow... UNISA took over a month to sort out my registration, so I'm now a few weeks away from the first assignment dates, and I'm just getting the textbooks and starting up. Combine that with my rusty maths and statistics and I am, to use a colloquialism, nipping myself. It's going to be a heavy year.

Ronwen and Leo got back from South Africa yesterday. I wasn't sure how Leo would react after not seeing me for a month, but the grin and giggle when he saw me was quite special. Having some time off was as good as a holiday for me, but a month was a little too long. I'm glad they're back!

I know there's a recession going on, but you wouldn't have thought so if you were trying to find parking at our local B&Q this morning.

I have no doubt that there are some interesting architectural and technical things going on, but for the most part, people waffling on about cloud computing are just indulging in base bullshittery.

As Oracle's Larry Ellison put it:

The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do. I can't think of anything that isn't cloud computing with all of these announcements. The computer industry is the only industry that is more fashion-driven than women's fashion. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I have no idea what anyone is talking about. What is it? It's complete gibberish. It's insane. When is this idiocy going to stop?

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As April Fools go, this has to be one of the best. The price list is hilarious.

(via)

Freedom:

Freedom is an application that disables networking on an Apple computer for up to eight hours at a time. Freedom will free you from the distractions of the internet, allowing you time to code, write, or create. At the end of your selected offline period, Freedom re-enables your network, restoring everything as normal.

If there was a Linux equivalent of this (and maybe there is?), I would be a lot more productive.

It's always obvious with hindsight:

Police in Germany hunted a sinister phantom killer for two years after finding the same DNA at 39 different crime scenes - only to discover that the source was a woman who made the cotton buds used to collect the sample.

(BILD, via)

I took a day's leave on Friday and went into the SA consulate to apply for a new passport. Wasn't looking forward to it, the consulate have a pretty bad reputation for being as dreadful, unfriendly and unpleasant as visiting Home Affairs back in SA. In the end it went rather smoothly, I'd made triple-sure all my paperwork was sorted, and the people who helped me were quite friendly, so I can't complain.

On top of that, I bumped into an old friend whom I haven't seen in about 7 years, standing in the queue. And since the forms and fingerprinting rigmarole was over sooner than I expected, I was able to do some walking and window shopping in London, and get home in time to try out a pub up the road from us, and discovered they have Brakspear on tap. So all told, Friday was a pretty good day.

Speaking of software behemoths, Google released Street View for a number of UK cities today. I know it's been around in other countries for a while, but I've never looked at it before. Crikey.

It goes without saying the privacy issues are pretty significant. I checked out a friend's house, and there their car was, in the driveway. Now what would he - or his wife - or their friends - think, if another car was parked in that driveway? Do you like the idea of people who see your home address, being able to virtually see where you live and draw various conclusions about you from it?

On the one hand I can understand an argument that security through obscurity is no security at all, that there's nothing stopping someone who knows your address from driving past your home anyway. On the other hand, I can fully understand that our current expectations of privacy are based on the presumption of certain physical constraints, which no longer exist. As with many other things, I'm not sure that we have the legal and cultural equipment to deal with some of the realities that technology is now offering us.

I presume Google has an army of lawyers who don't think it's a problem - or who think it's worth taking a chance, at least.

That aside, it feels like Sci Fi. Plain Google Maps was somewhat revelatory, but this is something else. There I was, my boss showing me his house and the street he lives on. Imagine you're planning to move, and being able to check out the street (and neighbour's houses), without leaving your home. Imagine being able to confirm directions, or reconnoitre a street before arriving for an appointment. The implications and possibilities are mind-boggling.

(I'm also thinking about how much data Google has amassed for this. That's mind-boggling - and a little frightening, too).