Doc Searls has been writing about markets being a conversation for quite a while now. Despite reading a lot of his stuff, (minus the Cluetrain Manifesto which I have been meaning to buy) I never really understood what he was talking about until I read TV News in a Postmodern World which Doc recently linked to.
The Wikipedia Foundation is having trouble meeting its fundraising goals.
Do you use Wikipedia? Then why not give them a little bit of money. It’s easy.
Today, I stumbled onto the following nasty bit of shell code in SECURITY Limit User Processes over on the Gentoo Wiki. No, I haven’t switched to Gentoo.
:(){ :|:& };:
Warning, this will cause your shell to create processes as fast as it can; most likely grinding your computer to a halt if you don’t have the appropriate limits set.
After spending some time trying to figure out what this command was doing assuming the colon was functioning as a no-op, I did a quick Google search and found this nice explanation of what it actually does. So, today I learned that Bash allows functions to be defined which override built-in commands.
Searching for stuff on Technorati is quite interesting.
I discovered an article in the Globe and Mail written by a London doctor. He discusses how hospitals are funded in Ontario. The post that led me to the article is called More on a rational view for healthcare and wait times.
A Flash of the Gatekeeper’s Sword provides another comment on Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes which I also discussed a few weeks ago.
The Perils of JavaSchools, read it.
Like a lot of Canadians, I would like to believe that somehow our elected officials are immune to being overly influenced by special interest groups.
Unfortunately, I now know of one example where this is not the case. I find it incredibly hard to believe that Ms. Bulte thinks this is acceptable behavior.
In a post called Don’t Become Moore Confused, Greg Matter (a Sun employee) offers some insights into Moore’s law and system design. Very interesting ideas.
From The nose cells that may help the paralysed walk again found via Slashdot.
This is not the most popular way of attempting to heal spinal injuries. That would be to produce patented chemicals, which drug companies can make and sell. What we’re proposing could be carried out by any very modestly equipped hospital with neurosurgery. There are no patents. It makes it a very unpopular form of research.
We’re producing a procedure where the patient is their own cure. You can’t patent a patient’s own cells, thank God.
— Prof Geoffrey Raisman