the reality tunnel

my response to the Microsoft vs. DOJ RFC Below is the comment that I submitted in response to the call for comments by Consumers for Computing Choice. Most Internet historians would agree that the reason for the proliferation of the Personal Computer, the Internet, and indeed, Microsoft’s ability to be hugely successful and experience enormous [...]

firbush weekend part 4 The third day at Firbush was as fun as the previous. It started out with kayaking in the morning, which left my arms pretty shot. Still, the scenery on the loch was great, and I never pass up a chance to kayak. In the afternoon, I went mountain biking. It started [...]

firbush weekend part 3 Before dinner, we were all sitting in the common room, when a couple of guys announced that all the men ought to follow him upstairs. What kind of ridiculous macho bullshit is this, I thought, but I soon found out it was part of the traditional “toast to the lasses”, and [...]

firbush weekend part 2 The second day at Firbush started early – 8:30 which is earlier than I usually get up for classes. The University of Edinburgh, thankfully, has no concept of lectures at 7:30. We ate breakfast, another meager meal on account of my dietary restrictions, but I wasn’t complaining. We then had a [...]

firbush weekend part 1 When I walked to class Friday morning, it was cold, but the inches of snow that covered the ground as I rushed to the bus were nonexistent. The snow began to melt as the rain began, but this only created a thick layer of slush on the sidewalk which made my [...]

code as art I wrote this in response to the following question on the opensource mailing list: Just want some opinions on a couple questions.  Sincel iterature and other forms of writing are copyrighteds hould code be?  To take it further forms of writing can be though of as art, does or can computer code [...]

webcam I don’t have internet access at my flat, so my real-time webcam isn’t running. However, I wrote a perl script to upload archived webcam images to the web server so one can see snapshots of me from the last 24 hours. Check it out here.

city run Originally written on 20.01.2002. I went for a run this morning, the first time since I’ve been in Scotland. It was a pretty nice day when I walked out the door, it wasn’t too cold, and the sun was *gasp* shining. However, by the time I hit Dalkeith road, the wind was picking [...]

boys of the lough Originally written on 20.01.2002. First an art gallery. Then a concert of Celtic traditional music. How much culture can a kid take. Last night, I went to a concert by the band Boys of the Lough. As I mentioned before, they play a selection of Scottish and Irish traditional music. Sort [...]

van meene This was originally written Saturday, 19.01.2002 Ok, go dig out your copy of Weezer’s Pinkerton. That’s right, you, cool guy. I know you’ve got one. Now put on “Across the Sea” (which consequently is the best damn Weezer song ever) and set your CD player to repeat. That song will be the soundtrack [...]