Listening to: Best of You - Foo Fighters

Seattle, I think you might have a bit of problem.

Found this on
Om Malik:

Scoble’s
boss Lenn Pryor, the Channel 9 founder, is leaving Microsoft and joining
Skype. Google, Yahoo and Technorati have become homes for former Microserfs. Given
the recent exodus of officials and senior executives from Microsoft, you know Bill
has a serious problem at hand.

Maliks comments are interesting, as are Pryor’s.

Listening to: Tenth Avenue Freeze Out - Bruce Springsteen

EA have released the second
screen shot:

Listening to: Warm Tape - The Red Hot Chili Peppers

A quick taste of
how search is being used in Longhorn:

The Windows Explorer folder approach remains in place, but the folders are now
run vertically and appear to be open like a book with its pages partially exposed.
Inside, instead of seeing generic icons for files such as a Word document, Longhorn
presents snapshots of the first page in each document. Double-click on the folder
and you can see thumbnails for each file that can be magnified by enlarging the window.
Using this method, users can navigate to documents based on what they look like.

Users can also create their own virtual folders with a point-and-click interface.
In Windows XP, the “My Documents” folder includes only the files physically located
in that folder but in Longhorn “My Documents” can collect all documents on the computer
into a single virtual folder view, regardless of location.

Microsoft has also added a concept it calls “stacking”, which presents documents
grouped by keyword. Instead of folders, documents appear in a stack that can be opened
and navigated by double clicking on it. The List Pane feature allows a user to assemble
groups of files by dragging them into the list. Lists can be saved and viewed along
with other documents.

UPDATE: news.com with
Allchin on MS and Apple search.

Listening to: Wait and See (Live) - Shihad

Wired has got a review of
Lego Star Wars. I have to say… it looks kinda cool.

The best screen shot ever:

Listening to: Sweet Thing - David Bowie

eWeek gives a interesting
taste of the key aspects of Whidbey/Yukon integraton.

“Being able to take the CLR and wire it into SQL Server gives the benefits of
the modern programming world to the database developers,” said Somasegar. “They’re
no longer constrained by just one language, be it T-SQL or whatever. You can have
developers program to the data tier based on the language that they are most familiar
with.”

While I have seen the power of this… I also have experienced the pain that this
sort of approach unleashes in the hands of incompetent programmers (I am hoping that
most of that pain was derived from people trying to do this sort of thing
in an environment that wasn’t designed to handle it). I am looking forward to
being able to access the CLR from the database… but it will be something that will
take a lot of dicipline on the behalf of developers.

Listening to: The End of the World - The Cure

An essay by Robert Zubrin on
redirecting space exploration has been published in The New Atlantis. Makes for an
interesting read.

It is not enough that NASA’s human exploration efforts “have a goal.”
The goal selected needs to be the right goal, chosen not because various people are
comfortable with it, but because there is a real reason to do it. We don’t need
a nebulous, futuristic “vision” that can be used to justify random expenditures
on various fascinating technologies that might plausibly prove of interest at some
time in the future when NASA actually has a plan. Nor do we need strategic plans that
are generated for the purpose of making use of such constituency-based technology
programs. Rather, the program needs to be organized so that it is the goal that actually
drives the efforts of the space agency. In such a destination-driven operation, NASA
is forced to develop the most practical plan to reach the objective, and on that basis,
select for development those technologies required to implement the plan. Reason chooses
the goal. The goal compels the plan. The plan selects the technologies.

So what should the goal of human exploration be? In my view, the answer is straightforward:
Humans to Mars within a decade. Why Mars? Because of all the planetary destinations
currently within reach, Mars offers the most—scientifically, socially, and in
terms of what it portends for the human future. 

I can imagine that Zubrin really gets up peoples noses… He strikes me as being pretty
abrasive.

Listening to:  Trapped Under Ice Floes - +/-

There are a couple of new Economists’ Voice articles
online:

• Michael J. Boskin, (April 15, 2005) Straight
  Talk on Social Security Reform
• Alicia Munnell, (April 15, 2005) Test
  Drive Suggests Bush’s “Ownership Society” May Be a Lemon
• Barbara R. Bergmann, (April 15, 2005) Could
  Social Security Go Broke?
• Janet Currie, (February 10, 2005) Cutting
  the Safety Net, One Strand at a Time

Listening to: The sound of my jaw hitting the desk

Apparently this is a live rendering generated by the Xbox 360:

See EA for more details.

Src: Gizmodo.

Listening to: The tippity tappity of keyboards

That would be me! Got this email from Flickr:

You may have heard on the grapevine that we planned to reward our dear Flickr
members who bought a Pro Account in the early days. Well, it’s true! And since you’re
one of those lovely people, here’s a little something to say YOU ROCK!

1. Double what you paid for!

Your original 1 year pro account has been doubled to 2 years, and your new expiry
date is Feb 2, 2007.

2. More capacity!
Now you can upload 2 GB per month.

3. 2 free Pro Accounts to give away to your friends!
This won’t be activated for a day or two, but when it is, you’ll see a note on your
home page telling you what to do.

Thank you so much for putting your money where your mouth is and supporting us,
even while we’re in beta. Your generosity and cold, hard cash helped us get where
we are today.

Suhweet!

Listening to: Immortality - Pearl Jam

I was sifting ’round the Scaled Composites website this
morning. It turns out that they have a very,
very large CNC Machine:

as in: 50 ft. (X) / 20 ft. (Y) / 8 ft. (Z) with some amazing levels
of accuracy (relatively).