via HtP - Intel, Sun sketch multiprocessor chip plans

"Intel Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are each laying plans to deliver multiprocessing computers on a chip. Both plan to put two to more processors on a die with simultaneous multithreading (SMT), a design approach that lets a processor handle two or more threads of an application simultaneously."

Lots of interesting stuff in a short article.

Eclipse Open Source Project

"Eclipse is a kind of universal tool platform - an open extensible IDE for anything but nothing in particular. The real value comes from tool plug-ins that "teach" eclipse how to work with things - java files, web content, graphics, video - almost anything you can imagine. Eclipse allows you to independently develop tools that integrate with other people's tools so seamlessly you won't know where one tool ends and another starts. The very notion of a tool as we know it... disappears completely... "

20 Year Archive now Available on Google Groups

"New! Google has fully integrated the past 20 years of Usenet archives into Google Groups, which now offers access to more than 700 million messages dating back to 1981. We believe this to be the most complete collection of Usenet articles ever assembled and a fascinating first-hand historical account.

We are compiling some especially memorable articles and threads in the timeline below. For example, read Tim Berners-Lee's announcement of what became the World Wide Web or Linus Torvalds' first post about his "pet project"."

Well, well, well! Lookee here at what Google Search: duncan smeed hit in the Usenet archives

"This usage is restricted to the Comp Sci department at Strathclyde. You'd better suggest to Duncan Smeed that he make it very clear in Lecture 1 that "CAD" in the sense of "computer architecture and design" is not a recognised term in the wider computing profession."

Even more fascinating is the fact that the original thread in comp.arch was spawned by one of my students looking for answers/advice to a homework assignment I set at the beginning of October. Guess which search term I'm going to use next? That's right! The name of that student ;-)

As the father of a seventeen year-old daughter I can empathise with W. Bruce Cameron - The 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenaged Daughter ;-)

"My daughter claims it embarrasses her to come downstairs and find me attempting to get her date to recite these eight simple rules from memory. I'd be embarrassed too - there are only eight of them, for crying out loud! And, for the record, I did NOT suggest to one of these cretins that I'd have these rules tattooed on his arm if he couldn't remember them. (I checked into it and the cost is prohibitive.) I merely told him that I thought writing the rules on his arm with a ball point might be inadequate - Ink washes off - and that my wood burning set was probably a better alternative."

Gullibles' Travails - The fact that people are treating the Adequacy.org || Is Your Son a Computer Hacker? spoof as a serious article is even funnier than the article itself ;-) Go read some of the things the gullibles are writing in response. It'll brighten up your day no end!!

Apple - Open Source - HeaderDoc

HeaderDoc is a tool for generating HTML reference documentation from comments in C, C++ and Objective-C header files. It is written in Perl for easy portability. Similar to JavaDoc, it allows developers to easily document their interfaces and export that information into HTML.

Hmm. Some insight into how CitDesk is architected - The CityDesk Forum - when Joel responds to a question about lock-in:

You can always write code (in just about any language) that manipulates the CityDesk database directly. It's just an Access database. Rename the .CTY file to .MDB and open it in Access to see what's going on.

But note Joel's disclaimer later on saying the FogCreek reserves the right to alter the databse schema in future versions.

I believe Alan may have a good chance of bagging the Turner prize next year with his ideas for Turner artwork ;-)

IBM WebSphere : Competitive Review

The purpose of this paper is to respond to Microsoft's misleading white paper about creating Web Services with .Net versus IBM WebSphere V4.0 ("WebSphere"). In this white paper, Microsoft claims Visual Studio.Net offers a significant advantage over WebSphere for creating Web Services. In their attempt to support this claim, Microsoft hired a supposedly independent consulting firm to develop a Web Service using both .Net, and in Microsoft's own words, the J2EE platform with the most advanced support for XML based Web Services, WebSphere. According to Microsoft, the results of this benchmarking exercise shows the .Net is a superior platform for the development of Web Services, however, this simply is NOT the case.

In this response, we will not only show that IBM offers the superior platform for creating Web Services, but will also point out how Microsoft has attempted to mislead customers. More specifically, we will show that when the benchmark is properly run, (i.e., not in a manner intended to produce a predetermined result), WebSphere created the sample Web Service faster, cheaper, using fewer steps, with less lines of code, and in a heterogeneous environment, not simply a Microsoft environment. In other words, there is no doubt that WebSphere is the superior platform for developing Web Services.

AnandTech - Hardware Behind the Consoles - Part II: Nintendo's GameCube

Today we bring you an in-depth look at the Nintendo GameCube; you'll learn about what makes it tick and more importantly, how it stacks up to the Sony Playstation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox. So without further ado, it's on to the Cube.

With just a couple of minutes to go before the end of voting, my prediction for the viewers' choice of BBC Sports Personality of the year is David Beckham.

Cool! The author himself brought the following to my attention - O'Reilly Network: Apache Web-Serving with Mac OS X: Part 1 [Dec. 07, 2001]

Apache is regarded as the most popular web server available today. With its incredible portability and support for anything you'd ever want to do, Apple wisely decided to ship Apache with its Unix-based operating system. With this web-serving powerhouse at your fingertips, I'll explain how you can impress your boss and solidify your love for Mac OS X, all at the same time.

Thanks Kevin! Nice article BTW.

There's going to be one hell of a row after Creed wins Turner prize:

Creed, 33, collected £20,000 for his controversial installation, which centres around an empty gallery with a pair of flashing lights.

In an interview on television Creed said something along the lines of "it's not my job to interpret this work for people. It's just lights being switched on and off." In fact he came across in the interview as a complete idiot.

Unbelievable.