Just finished a science fiction classic, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon The Deep. I read it years ago, and had forgotten what a great story it is. With things like The Straumli Perversion, The Powers, The Slow Zone, and the whole notion of variable physical laws based on matter density - it's a big story with big ideas. And Vinge, in spite of being a real "hard SF writer", writes wonderful characters. Recommended.
In the midst of all the misery, inconvenience and pain of business travel, there is one outstanding benefit - room service. Thank God for room service.
Delta gets it. About six months ago, the passenger to my right informs me, Delta Airlines installed the new information system that I just experienced for the first time at La Guardia airport this morning. It's one of the most effective uses of information technology I have ever seen. Even if you don't usually fly Delta (as I don't), you might want to wander by one of their gates next time you're in an airport and check it out. Air travel still sucks, of course, but Delta earns my eternal gratitude for a brilliant application that makes it suck less. ... [Jon's Radio]
Jon Udell likes Delta. Me too. And unlike Jon, they're my go-to airline.
Just took a walk around the HP campus here in Boise. It's really nice. It brings back memories of when I started my career, and companies had parks, golf courses, lakes, etc., all for the employees and their family. Some people would call it paternalistic; I call it humanistic. People need more than PCs and coffee machines.
The campus here houses ~3500 people. Just outside the door, I walked into a 20 acre park with a lake, softball field, a parcourse, horseshoe pits, mature trees and flocks of geese. It's great to be able to take a break in a semi-natural environment after having my head glued to a PC screen all day.
This is one thing I *do* miss as a solo consultant - the few family/lifestyle perks offered by big companies.
Greeting card virus licensed to spread. If a computer user carelessly clicks an "I agree" button and downloads an infectious program, is that program a virus? That's the question raised by a sneaky new e-mail. [CNET News.com]
This is what got me last week. I saw it as it was happening, but too late. This kind of attack is only going to get better, so we need a "trusted space" for opening email - a walled garden. Otherwise, we'll never know if an email is really from a friend or if it's a similar worm.
Greetings from Boise. Working at a client site here, so very little time or energy to write. First impressions of Boise - flat. Very flat. The terrain looks more interesting in three directions, but Boise sits in a gigantic valley between two mountain ranges.
