An Amiga Kills A Troll

This Groklaw story of how a demonstration of an Amiga helped to win a patent infringement suit against Redhat, will warm the hearts of all Amiga enthusiasts everywhere. The Amiga wasn't the only prior art in this case, but I wonder how many other software patents the Amiga might invalidate. This also serves a reminder of how flawed the concept of a software patent is. Any company that depends on them to protect it's core business, is taking a huge risk. Of course, the loser in this suit was just a patent troll, so nothing of value was lost.

How To Shoot Your Foot

Politicians shoot themselves in the proverbial foot so easily that it must be natural skill. The Auditor General wants to audit the spending of the MPs and they say no. Wow! If there's a better way to make themselves look worse in the eyes of the public, I can't think of one. It gets even better. The MPs unanimously said no to the audit. Double wow! Imagine what could be accomplished if they could agree on really important matters, not just hiding their expenses.

WRC 2010 New Zealand

This was one hell of a rally! The action starts on day one when Loeb makes one of his rare mistakes on SS4. The backend got away from him a right hand corner and he slid sideways into the the end of a bridge barrier, which destroyed the driver side door. When Loebs gets it wrong, it goes wrong in a big way! He managed to limp back to service but lost well over a minute, trying to close "the shit door" as he put it. Loeb jokingly added that it was all a tactic for better road position on day two.

Those words were not so funny on day two. Loeb delivered a master class in rally driving as he used his road position to claw back almost all the lost time. He finished day two in second only 5 seconds behind Ogier. It was a spectacular drive with perfect road position for day three. Loeb looked set to take the win again.

Oh, but day three was to be a very different day. First Ogier spun and handed the lead to Loeb. Then Loeb uncharacteristically made a second error for the rally! A Loeb victory looked unlikely as Ogier was once again in the lead. Then Ogier made yet another error, and suddenly a Loeb win was once again a possibility. Then, almost unbelievably, Loeb made a third mistake and crashed! For Loeb to make three mistakes in a rally is so inconceivable, that I almost fell out of my chair because I was laughing so hard! Mark this rally in the history books folks.

Loeb got going again after the crash and was handed third by Petter Solberg. He had the scent of a win in the air and went all out on day three, only to crash out in spectacular fashion on the final stage. Sadly, Petter Solberg's bad luck continues but he was really trying hard for that win.

So, after all that action on day three, the winner is the one driver who had a completely unremarkable rally: Latvala. He had not a single incident, not even a stage win, throughout the entire rally. That's quite an achievement and shows how much Latvala has improved. And considering Ogier's performance, it's clear we are going to see a lot more of the younger drivers this season.

Clustering

At this month's GTALUG meeting, Madison Kelly gave a talk on clustering. This topic is very broad so she immediately narrowed it down to high availability clustering. Madison learned clustering from the school of hard knocks as the saying goes, which made the talk much more interesting as she shared her experiences.

While I'm not deeply interested in the subject, I enjoyed the talk. However, Madison had way too much material for a two hour presentation. As a result we missed seeing a demonstration of a cluster in action, which was disappointing. Hopefully, we'll have her back sometime for for a show and tell.

F1 Spain 2010

Redbull completely dominated both in qualifying and in the race. Webber edged Vettel for the poll. Webber critically stayed in front of Vettel through the first corner and avoided the same situation from Malaysia. After that, Webber cruised to his first win of the season. The Redbull remains fragile with Vettel having a brake problem which prevented a one-two finish, but he still managed to nurse the car to the finish for a well deserved third.

Even though there were a few fights for position all through the field, overall the race was quite boring. I was hoping the fight between Button and Schumacher would be epic, but Button gave Schumacher way too much respect. Button had the faster car but Schumacher's experience made up the difference easily. And of course, passing is the number one problem in F1, which didn't help Button's efforts.

The teams brought a lot of upgrades as expected for the first race back in Europe, but not all of it worked. Unfortunately, Redbull's improvements did work, which made them look even stronger. Not being allowed to test anything except on race weekend is going to play a role this season as there still four contenders vying for the constructors' title.

Ferrari had their own version of the F-duct. It gives a massive 9 km/h advantage in straight line speed over the Redbull, so there's no doubt that the F-duct is effective. However, watching Alonso drive with one hand while activating the system was a little worrying. Alonso is more than capable of handling it of course, but it just increases the chance of a mistake. There's talk of banning F-ducts next year.

The best moment in the whole race was Alonso being told on the radio that Schumacher was holding up the field. Now there's something you don't hear everyday! Surprisingly, Schumacher was quicker than Rosberg which led to speculation that he is being sidelined at Mercedes in favour of Schumacher. I hope that is not the case, as it is a waste of a talented young driver, which would be a real shame.

Long Memories

Since 1985 the Dutch have held a parade for the Canadian veterans who helped liberate the Netherlands 65 years ago. Unfortunately, this year's parade will be the last, as many of the veterans are no longer able to make the trip. But it does seems that the Dutch have long memories. More importantly, they are making sure the next generation understands what happened so long ago. I wonder why there are not similar efforts here in Canada?

VE-Day

May 8 is VE-Day and marks the end of the Second World War in Europe. The CBC reported on the remembrance ceremonies in Ottawa. The BBC also had good coverage of ceremonies in the UK, and reported that UK and other Western European soldiers, were joining the march in Red Square for the first time. The timed they are a-changing indeed! I'm glad to see this coverage, but of all the mainstream media that I follow, the CBC and BBC were the only ones to even mention VE-Day at all. How quickly we forget.