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it would be remiss of me not to talk about google and their new and shiny partnership with sun that everybody's been talking about for the last few days. it appears that google is really interested in one or more of {java, openoffice}. so here's what i think: in order to successfully market an OS, the first thing you need is apps. without usable applications, an OS is nothing. so that's what they're doing. they're starting to put together a suite of applications that are web-based, and therefore, easily separable into server-client pieces and can run on GoOSe.

i'm not sure exactly why they're supporting java, but it probably has to do with the fact if they support java, then they get for free all the applications that have been written for java (and there's a lot of them). plus, java's been around for a while, the API is standardized, and by supporting java, they allow developers to easily write new apps for the new platform.

ah, conspiracy theories are so much fun.. :)

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Estonia's Tiger Leap to Technology - now that's cool.

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watched serenity last night. awesome. it's great whether or not you've seen firefly, so watch it! that is all.

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assassin dolphins! is there nothing they won't use as weapons?

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so, following up with last week's post, i did do pretty well in the second ACM practice contest (held yesterday). so well, in fact, that i now have the option of joining the Waterloo Black team and going to the regional finals in November, and, if we do well enough, the ICPC finals next year.

the big question now is, can i squeeze another 15 hours out of my schedule? probably. taking two homework-less night classes and one course by DE does help with scheduling. on the other hand, taking OS and specs & reqs this term balances that out. databases shouldn't be too much of a problem. of course, this will leave me with just about zero free time until november.. but it's not like it'd be any different from previous terms. what do you think?

Should I join Waterloo Black?

Yes - 25% No - 0% Make up your own damn mind - 75% You do not have the permissions to vote in this poll.

(Really, I just wanted an excuse to put up another poll - i haven't used my poll functionality in a while :))

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looks like this article (and the book in question) both agree with my previous post on google. (except of course, the author of the book did more research and went into more detail than i did). but whatever.

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now you have no excuse not to use opera.

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so yesterday was the first of two acm-style contests held at waterloo this term. i did pretty well. i think the primary factor was that i was coding in the other lab this time.. the one with the non-messed-up keyboards.

next week should be even better, since the top 3 (and the 5th) are all theoretically going to be onsite at the GCJ.

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has anybody ordered a book online from barnes and noble before? i did for the first time yesterday, and today i got an email saying that the book was about to ship. the line that i found most interesting was:

To speed delivery, we may send your order from different warehouses, in which case more than one package will be shipped to you.

Does this mean i may end up getting multiple copies of the book?

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so, another school term kicks off to a start. it was good seeing everybody again. so far i've had lectures for OS (ECE 354), databases (CS 448), specifications (dubbed specs & reqs by jakooist) (SE 463), and microeconomics (ECON 101).

all of them seem pretty decent so far, although i have a hard time understanding the databases prof. must sit closer to the front from now on. larry smith for econ 101, so that should be a blast. i have yet to have my first lecture for "the physics of how stuff works" (SCI 206) - that's a night class on thursdays. and finally, i'm taking german 101 via distance ed... the online course thingamajig seems even more disorganized this term than in previous terms. oh well.

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