SCO, still
Slashdot has a link to an article about the SCO affair. IBM claim it is put up or shut up time. This effort by IBM is supposed to put the ball in SCO's court. I've heard it before. It looks like many of the other companies have basically told SCO that they are going to wait for SCO and IBM to settle their differences before they take SCO seriously. I don't know where any of this will lead, but I wish it would end. I've been a dreamer when it comes to open source. I want the open source movement to work. MS says it is un-American, or anti-capitalistic. It is not an American thing. It is a world community thing. It is quite capitalistic, because the people make money off the software. Open source may not be wonderful for big companies like MS, but it works out great for individuals and independent contractors.

More on the Middle East
I'm getting sick of the nations of the middle east griping about what's going on. Why are the Arabs not enraged about what their people are doing to the west? Remember 9/11!!!? Powell was pissed about the same thing a couple of days ago. I wonder if he caught shit for saying it on TV? (I can't find the frigging link). Israel is in trouble for firing on a crowd in the Gaza Strip. I heard in one of the articles that a tank fired on an abandon building to scare the crowd into dispersing. The trouble is, the shell went threw the building because it was a barrage of 4 armor piercing shells, and hit a bunch of people on the other side.
This brings back memories of Tiananmen Square. You remember. One lone guy standing up against a column of armor. The only reason that guy wasn't smooshed without a blink is because the guys in the tank were not threatened by him. Tanks may have thick armor, but they are not impenetrable. I'm sure it is possible for a person to open a hatch if they know what they are doing.
I remember one of those cop shows where some nut had stolen a tank and the cops chased him all over town as he reeked havoc running over cars and knocking down telephone poles. He got stuck straddling one of those freeway dividers. It turns out those things make decent tank traps. hmmmm. Anyway, a cop crawled up on the tank while it was rocking back and fourth and managed  to open a hatch. The guy inside would not stop and the cop had to shoot him. There was one kind of funny thing. The police had to write a ticket on the spot just to comply with some ordinance (paperwork).
Going back to Israel. I can only imagine how a tank commander feels when a thousand seriously pissed Palestinians surround your tank. Suddenly you don't feel very safe behind ten centimeters of steel, a couple of machine guns and a cannon. Remember, it has been proven that many Palestinians are willing to both kill and die for their cause.

Complaining
One of the guys I work with at my day job told me that people wonder what he does for the company. He says to me "I do this and that and know one seems to know."  "I keep logs and I know no one reads them." We are required to keep these log things called  highlights. I fill them out every month. I know no one reads them for me. I'm the low man on the totem pole. I let him in on my secret. Constantly complain about how busy you are to everyone. Make sure you walk by people's cubical and mutter to yourself "OK, what's next?" as you walk off quickly. I didn't come up with this, it was a Dilbert business tip.
I am actually very busy at my day job. There are 40,000 employees and yet, I have no support. What i do for the most part is called software packaging. That is not really the point. The company has a support structure for this very thing. The trouble is, each department has to pay for the support company to do the packaging. It goes on their budget. I don't work for support. I work for a specific department. I'm sure they save a fortune by doing this because our department has dozens of software packages to package. My department doesn't charge for the task. Thus, I get work from other departments and it just piles up. I suppose that is not a bad thing.

Useful Robot
Now, this is an awesome idea. This is a small robot that is tough enough to throw around a corner or off a moving vehicle. It is designed to look and listening around corners. Once it lands, it can drive around under it's own power. I'll bet you've seen the robots for bomb disposal. Now they are looking around corners. I bet it isn't that long before they are serving you in restaurants and even pumping your gas at full service stations. Remember full service stations?

My dad's advice
My dad gave me some advice many years ago about women. First of all, it has been scientifically proven that men are better at focusing on a single task. Women are better at multitasking. This article has a much better description of what happens. Men rap their head around things and disturbing them will throw them completely off. My father will routinely go to the garage and start taking something apart to fix some little problem, or building a piece of furniture. He says that without fail, my mom will come out to the garage just as he is getting his head into the task and want to talk to him about whatever. He said to me "Son, you have to stop. You have to make sure they know you love them and that you are willing to drop everything to hear their thoughts." That is a difficult task. Think about it women. Would you want to stop in the middle of your first viewing of Steel Magnolias to talk about monkey wrenches and reverse thread die sets? Remember, he is in the middle of an adventure. he is learning. He is becoming one with the wood, car, bicycle, clock, or whatever he has strewn all over the garage floor.
It is so difficult to get back into what your are doing. I just experienced this. While I was typing this entry out a minute ago, I accidentally blew it away. It took me ten minutes to get back to where I was. This is because I had to start the whole thought process over again. I just know it was better the first time. I am no expert on relationships. I should not hand out advice.

SWBell email
I just tried to mail out the article in the above paragraph. South Western Bell only lets you send to so  many people at a time. I think it is to discourage spammers. You don't get a warning. You just get a return error. That is a good article and I hope people read it. There are about thirty people I can think of who need to read it. Unfortunately I have lost the will to send it to them. Let them stumble across it like the rest of us. (no it doesn't have anything to do with the strike.)