Tuesday, 10 October 2006

Second Life has bigger GDP than 13 countries!

So, Second Life apparently has an estimated GDP of $150M. Some digging in the CIA World Factobook shows that there are 13 countries or areas with a smaller GDP...

To be really honest, for a population of 800,000, that comes out at about $187 per capita. On the other hand, if you consider that the estimated number of persons working 'full-time' within Second life is about a hundred...

@ Tuesday, 10 October 2006, 14:46 in (Soapbox) - 2 comments

Tuesday, 25 July 2006

One Laptop Per Child

Infoworld reports that the Nigerian government will buy one million OLPC machines. Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to mind is the proliferation of 419 scams that will flood the internet in 2-3 years...

On another note, it seems that there is also some traction in Greece for the OLPC concept, as seen in this call for participation.

@ Tuesday, 25 July 2006, 15:39 in (Self, Soapbox) - 3 comments

Thursday, 30 March 2006

Spot The Reference

I've hit upon the following gem while doing something completely unrelated, and just have to mention it here too. I'm sure you've heard arguments against blogs that fit the essence of this quote:

The multitude of ●●●● is a great evil. There is no limit to this fever for writing; every one must be an author; some out of vanity, to acquire celebrity and raise up a name, others for the sake of mere gain.

Well, think again - the quote originated in the middle ages (1503 is the best date I got) by Marting Luther, and it targeted books, not blogs. The parallels are interesting, and sure make one think...

@ Thursday, 30 March 2006, 11:39 in (Self, Soapbox) - 1 comments

Saturday, 20 August 2005

Worst time to reinstall

My laptop uses Ubuntu for the last six months; it's been keeping track of Breezy Badger, the currently unstable branch, for the last 3 months or so and it usually works great. Having some spare time this weekend and with the breezy branch looking seemingly without problems, I've decided to reinstall my desktop computer with ubuntu, as the original installation (originally Debian Woody, then Sarge, then Sid, made 18 months ago) had accumulated too much cruft, mostly due to my tinkering.

So I've downloaded yesterdays archive, I've formatted the disks, installed Hoary Hedgehog and upgraded it to the latest and greated Breezy...

Only to find out that Breezy has been in turmoil for the last 24 hours due to fact that libcairo is getting upgraded to the last version, but several high-profile applications (Firefox!) and components (gnome-panel!) still depend on the old version, which is no longer available via the update system...

Luckily I found an apropriate version after some searching on the web.

@ Saturday, 20 August 2005, 14:23 in (Soapbox) - comment ?

Monday, 13 June 2005

Best Quote Ever

Via Technology Review: What did a member of the Brazilian government say as a comment on the issue of proprietary software?

"We're against software piracy. We believe Microsoft's rights should be respected. And the simplest way to respect their rights is for Brazilians everywhere to switch to free software."

(source)

@ Monday, 13 June 2005, 14:50 in (Soapbox) - comment ?

Wednesday, 17 November 2004

Thank you Poland!

From FFII, it seems that we escaped (for now) the bane of the software patents, as Poland has effectively vetoed the EU software patents directive.

I'll leave further analysis to the usual suspects, but I'm certainly hoping that this is a sign of change...

@ Wednesday, 17 November 2004, 18:32 in (Soapbox) - comment ?

Older Posts >>