Monday, August 27, 2007
Witnesses in Army trial killed in crash
Link to article at United Press International
- Frank
Several U.S. Army soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week were to be witnesses in the homicide trial of their former superior.Wouldn't it be nice to NOT find this suspicious?
- Frank
Labels: Political
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Cheney in 1994 on Iraq - "would create a quagmire"
Friday, August 03, 2007
Up the road to ARC
Court Ruling Supports Claims That Microsoft's First OS Was Stolen
Link to article at InformationWeek
Back in the 1980's many of us assumed that Gary Kildall and others would use legal procedures to save the world from Gates and company. Gary's untimely and suspicious death put a crimp in that hope. Might be good to reopen investigations and determine the details of that death. I've always had a personal opinion and it would be nice to see some facts.
- Frank
Dismissing a defamation suit brought by the inventor of DOS against a British writer, a judge has left unchallenged computer industry lore that holds the operating system Microsoft licensed to IBM in the 1980s -- thereby launching Bill Gates' multibillion dollar software empire -- was a knock off. In a book on American innovation, author Sir Harold Evans wrote that DOS inventor Tim Paterson relied heavily on an existing OS called CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) created by a programmer who has since died. Microsoft in 1980 struck a licensing deal with Paterson's company -- Seattle Computer Products -- to obtain access to DOS and resell it to IBM.WONDERFUL! I still remember being appalled at the poorly copied versions of CP/M that were dumped on the market as DOS. My opinion at the time was that the only difference between the two OS's was the switch from slash (/) to backslash (\) in path names. Years later I realized just how poorly copied DOS was and even today cringe when using most Microsoft products.
Back in the 1980's many of us assumed that Gary Kildall and others would use legal procedures to save the world from Gates and company. Gary's untimely and suspicious death put a crimp in that hope. Might be good to reopen investigations and determine the details of that death. I've always had a personal opinion and it would be nice to see some facts.
- Frank
Labels: Geek_stuff, General
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Scientology may be a bizarre faith invented by a sci-fi hack. But it's not a cult.
Link to article at Slate Magazine
- Frank
Some Americans may consider Scientology perhaps a cult, maybe a violent sect, and certainly very weird. And, like many, I find the Church of Scientology odd, to say the least. But Scientology is no more bizarre than other religions. And it's the similarities between Scientology and, say, Christianity and Judaism that make us so uncomfortable. We need to hate Scientology, lest we hate ourselves.Nicely points out how anything different from our own beliefs can seem quite strange.
- Frank
