Bare Metal Java

BEA has replaced the OS layer that lives with the VMware VM below it and BEA’s JRockit JVM above it by writing some 60K lines of code for an “OS shim” that responds to memory allocations, JVM thread requests and a few housekeeping chores.

This shim has an API layer (based on POSIX), so that it can be ported in the future to other platforms. (It does not support a filesystem, curiously. Files are expected to all be accessed remotely on networked storage. More on the internals of the shim can be found at developers.sun.com/learning/javaoneonline/2006/coolstuff/TS-3792.pdf, which makes for great reading.)

The combined VM/OS shim/JRockit JVM is being shipped as a single unit, or as BEA calls it, a software appliance—the BEA LiquidVM. When you add BEA’s application server, the bundle is called WebLogic Server, Virtual Edition (WLVE). The benefit of WLVE is that you can configure the app server for the Liquid VM software appliance and then move it around your infrastructure as you need it.

Portable Applications

In reaction to the fact that large applications, such as office suites, are tightly locked to the specific machine on which they are installed, groups have sprung up with the specific objective of creating portable applications.

As this frequently requires the modification of application code, this is most often done with open-source applications. A Web site particularly active in this is PortableApps.com, created by John T. Haller.

An overview is given in an article is the July 2007 issue of Scientific Computing magazine article.

Life is a Beach

UK science-fiction writer Charles Stross (Accelerando, Singularity Sky) posits a future in which all human experience is recorded on devices the size of a grain of sand ("To see a world in a grain of sand...") @ news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6287126.stm

Computer Crime/Espionage

Check this astonishing story @ IEEE Spectrum.

Personally, I see the finger of an intelligence service in this.

A case of Life imitating Art - no doubt!

Variation on a theme by Escher

http://www.moillusions.com/2007/04/halluciis-problem-illusion-video.html

Free Merge Utility

WinMerge is a free open source merge utility for Windows. Download is @ http://winmerge.org/

Processing

Processing is a free open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions.

Check it out!

Game of Life in APL

Conway's Game of Life in one line of APL




The code is explained @ http://catpad.net/michael/apl/

Virtual Tour of the Louvre Museum

Can a Machine Translate This?

Can a machine translation system translate this into another language, say German?

Only great minds can read this:

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt! if you can raed tihs forwrad it

Another Free Stick Figure Animation Tool

This Is Stick Figure Animation Theatre (TISFAT) is a free stick figure animation tool made in Delphi by 'NoshBar' (Dirk de la Hunt). Find it @ http://sektorz.com/TISFAT.htm

MBTI Test for Programmers

Alistair Doulin has constructed an MBTI test which is available @ http://www.doolwind.com/index.php?page=11

R & D Outsourcing

http://www.rdmag.com/pdf/RD0706_COS.pdf

Data Analysis Software for Excel

Crystal Ball v. 7.3 enables Monte Carlo simulation and analysis with MS Excel spreadsheets. It enables the creation of scatter plots, displays correlations, dependencies, and other relationships between pairs of forecasts and assumptions plotted against each other.

Find it @ http://www.decisioneering.com/.

Have you ever seen a growing panda?

These are cute pictures of a newly-born panda. Enjoy while you can since the Panda, as a species, seems to be on an evolutionary suicide path - refusing to subsit on anything except bamboo shoots, not much of a libido, etc.