How you know you've won 0
When you're on the receiving end of a headline like this (page B1 of today's Wall Street Journal):
Big Record Labels, MySpace Challenge Apple iTunes Store
Could anyone have predicted such decimation of the music market by Apple, even just a few years ago?
Time Capsule and Noise 2
I bought a 1 terrabyte Time Capsule last night- with over 14,000 digital photos, it's nice to know that the pictorial history of my kids' childhoods (so far) is safer than it used to be.
Before I bought it, I googled far and wide to find some comment about how loud Time Capsule was. That's especially important to me since, first, I have an amazing (and amazingly infuriating) ability to pick out white noise from appliances in otherwise silent situations, and, second, the Time Capsule was to be located just a few feet from my bed. Despite my attempts, I wasn't able to locate anything except anecdotal reports like "it's very silent", or "I can barely hear it"- I wasn't able to find an opinion from anyone who said they were as sensitive to that type of white noise as I am.
I decided to take a chance and bought it anyway, thinking I could relocate it (or return it) if the noise proved to be a problem. When I got it home and powered it up, disappointment hit almost immediately because I could clearly make out the noise from the Time Capsule, even when my G5 was powered up right next to it. When I put the G5 to sleep, it sounded like a model plane was idling in my bedroom.
Oh well, I thought, I'll let the first backup run overnight (I'll get to sleep somehow, I thought), then I'd think about where I could relocate the Time Capsule.
This morning, when I awoke, I immediately noticed that there was no white noise. Apparently, the Time Capsule engineers had the good sense to spin down the hard drive after some period of inactivity. So I don't think the noise will be a problem for my sleeping, because all the Time Capsule client machines will be sleeping at night too, so the Time Capsule should be silent.
Just thought I'd write about it here in case there are other noise freaks like me thinking of buying a Time Capsule. :-)
Real time 0
Heard on NPR this morning-
"Scientists have developed a new atomic clock which is accurate to within one second every 200 million years. This is in contrast to the current official atomic clock which is only accurate to within one second every 80 million years."
Those people need to get real.
The Sun/MySQL Debacle 3
Got news this morning that Sun is acquring MySQL AB- what an unsettling way to start the day.
To me, this move by Sun signals their total desperation. Their hardware business has been decimated by the commoditization of high-performance computing, as well as by virtualization technology. Their software business has been decimated by their own mismanagement of some real innovations, as well as the rise by Linux to almost complete domination of the non-Fortune 500 datacenter market (that is, while Fortune 500 companies might buy Sun's overpriced machines, the Fortune Other 50000 use mostly commodity servers running Linux). So now, Sun is desperate for some traction into those other 50000 companies.
Given Sun's history of how they manage products, leaving innovation to wither and die while they chase the million-dollar service contracts at the Fortune 50, I'd say things may not bode well for MySQL.
