Rui CarmoSpent the past few hours with my nose in a book (If you must know, it's Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space, which for some reason caught my eye when I was trying to manage the chaos in my library). Which is not surprising, since I've been less and less inclined to sit at (or with) a computer as the weather improves - or, rather, starts leaning towards the tropical.
Stuff I noticed in the meantime:
- Now this is the way to sell phones. Amazing Flash animation.
- The general tone of technical news these past few months shows that hypocrisy is rampant regarding obvious ideas - if Linux does something it's good, if Apple does it it's übercool, but if Microsoft catches on then they're evil - plus, of course, some obscure idiot tries to patent it and sue everybody.
- Here's a good example of that: lots of news and noise about Microsoft supporting RSS. I find the issue (or the stated goals) to be underwhelming, and the recent rants about this being another "Embrace and Extend" thing to border on the hysterical. Shut up already and let them add RSS and Atom, it's the best thing that could happen to either.
- Nothing, however, prepared me for this speculative piece of junk regarding AltiVec and Intel - the more I read about possible outcomes from the Apple-Intel deal, the more I think technical news is becoming the most fertile pundit breeding ground ever. MMX a reply to AltiVec? Hah.
- Sun tries to make Java naming less chaotic - what, no "Java XP"?
- New gadgets making a splash: the Tungsten XX and the Samsung i730. Both crammed with features, none of any actual practical use in this day and age when compared to smaller, cheaper and simpler to use devices. Fortunately, natural selection also works for gadgets.