Monthly Archives: November 2006

Happy belated birthday WWW!

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The Web is 16

I was reminded this morning that what has been my bread and butter for the last 12 years turned 16 yesterday.

Initial WorldWideWeb program development continues on the NeXT (TBL) . This was a “what you see is what you get” (wysiwyg) browser/editor with direct inline creation of links. The first web server was nxoc01.cern.ch, later called info.cern.ch, and the first web page http://nxoc01.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html Unfortunately CERN no longer supports the historical site. Note from this era too, the least recently modified web page we know of, last changed Tue, 13 Nov 1990 15:17:00 GMT (though the URI changed.)

A dot on the historical timeline, the Web has to be right up there among the quickest and most influential revolutions the World has so far witnessed.

And what a feisty teenager it can be… Here’s to another 16 years! :)

Until we meet again, Justice

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I spent the last month stressing out about having been summoned for jury duty in a criminal case, here in Montreal. I was truly torn between wanting to do my duty as a proud citizen of a country lucky to have such institutions, and what it could translate into for my family, employer and self over what can be a draining experience, lasting months to complete in some cases…

So I went this morning, going from shuffling ideas in the back of my mind on how I could get out of it, to almost be excited to be a part of an experience that might not present itself again in my lifetime.

After being briefed on the details of the case, which I cannot elaborate on for legal and decency reasons, we were offered the opportunity to ask the judge for an exemption. I would say almost half the room (we were about 100) rushed to do so, only for the large majority to be told they were not entitled to one. I decided not to ask for one myself, concluding that the least I could do was to let the process take its course, and leave it to the court to decide if this was meant to be.

Sure enough, I was drawn to be in the first twenty people to be evaluated by the prosecution and defense. Both parties are allowed to refuse up to twenty jurors without any further explanation. They can refuse more if needed, but past 20, they have to start justifying their decisions.

I was eighteenth in the first batch of twenty. When it came time for me to pass in front of the judge, prosecution and defense, only 4 jurors had been retained.

I was asked to state my name and occupation. The prosecution accepted me right away, but after a few seconds of what looked like intense deliberation, the two defense lawyers deemed that I did not fit their criteria for this case.

I have to say that I was relieved the decision had been made for me. This is because the next step was to swear under oath that, among other things, I would only make a decision based on the proofs presented to us during the case, and on the proofs only. I do not think I could have sincerely sworn to this, because I don’t believe that a legally untrained person could swear to leave their personal beliefs and judgments behind to act as some kind of legal robot, particularly in a murder case. I am not arguing against the system, but I could not pretend to be prone to this kind of detachment myself. And if I wasn’t going to lie to weasel myself out of the responsibility, like so many others tried to do, I certainly was not ready to do so to falsely get into it either, regardless of what the consequences might be.

So if I understood properly, it now means I cannot be called for jury duty for another five years. I’m almost curious to see if and how life might change my opinion with a few more years under my belt, should I be randomly drawn from the electors list again.

Sony Barking Up the Right Tree for their PS3 Linux

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Yellow Dog Linux for Playstation 3, featuring E17

Linux on the Playstation 3 (PS3) has been covered before, but the inside story is that Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) has entered in an agreement with Terra Soft Solutions (TSS) to bring Yellow Dog Linux 5 (YDL) to their next generation console, which was actually released today in Japan.

Under basic agreement with SCEI, Terra Soft was granted a unique opportunity to develop and bring to market a complete Linux OS for PLAYSTATION 3. In the development of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0, Terra Soft integrated and enhanced code from Barcelona Supercomputing Center, SCEI , and Fedora in order to offer the following: kernel 2.6.16, gcc 4.1.1 and glibc 2.4, Cell SDK 1.1, OpenOffice.org 2.0.2, FireFox 1.5.0 and Thunderbird 1.5.0, Nautilus 2.14 … and a suite of Personal Accessories, Development Tools; Sound & Video, Internet, and Networking applications.

This is indeed a fantastic opportunity for the dynamic team behind YDL, especially now that Apple has completed its transition to the Intel platform, leaving behind the Power architecture. But what could have spelled the company’s dismay is now instead referred to by Kai Staats, CEO of Terra Soft, as a potential blessing in disguise, thanks to the exciting Cell architecture.

In fact, YDL 5 will initially be released for the PS3 on its North American launch date of November 17th, with Apple and other PowerPC based systems supported later in the year. The product will be available to the YDL.net Enhanced members first (Nov.27), later on DVD (Dec. 11), and for download as a holiday treat (Dec. 25).

As a long time YDL user both at work and at home, I am ecstatic to know that TSS has found an exciting new revenue model for their solid offering, with a potentially quite large user base if the PS3 proves to be a success, despite heavy competition from the Wii and Xbox.

PS3/YDL/E17

Another big winner in this deal is the Enlightenment Project, since their E17 (DR17) desktop manager has been chosen to bring what promises to be a beautiful GUI to the YDL/PS3 combination.

When it came out in 1997, Enlightenment blew a strong blow to many other desktop environments, UNIX based and beyond, effectively delivering features such as window transparency to even modest hardware.

Having unfortunately suffered from project management issues in the past, Enlightenment lost tremendous ground to GNOME and KDE over the years, and I am glad to see the new development team benefiting from this project.

From game console to supercomputer

Provided the Power architecture’s performance in number crunching intensive applications such as modeling and rendering, Terra Soft is also a very strong contender in the scientific and supercomputing markets, thanks to their Y-Bio and Y-HPC products.

Y-Bio is Terra Soft’s solution for the growing life sciences market. Built upon the RPM Linux standard for package management, Y-Bio offers gene sequence analysis applications –tools which help bioinformatics researchers conduct their work with greater efficiency.

Y-HPC is Terra Soft’s cluster construction-management suite for Apple G5 (IBM 970) Xserves. Built upon 64-bit Yellow Dog Linux, Y-HPC offers 64-bit enhancements for code development. In use by the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and University labs nation-wide, Yellow Dog Linux and Y-HPC are a preferred Linux platform for the Power architecture.

TSS is currently contracted by Sony to build of the world’s first Cell-based supercomputing cluster in their Loveland, Colorado headquarters.

So, thanks for complicating my life…

Okay, now that I had narrowed my choices down to either a Mac Mini or Apple’s upcoming iTV for our family room, you’re telling me I have to start over again?

Between the games, the Blu-ray/DVD/CD, flash memory and hard drive, the USB2 ports and now a powerful desktop OS making it a full fledged workstation, I might actually get a PS3 for my home office.

Sorry kids, that’s daddy’s toy! ;)