Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Apple G5 supercluster appears twice on the top-500 supercomputer listing -- Comment()
The Apple G5 dual supercluster appears on pages 53 and 55 of the report on top-500 supercomputers (dated November 2nd). The whole system is listed on page 53, and a subsystem of 256 processors is listed on page 55. Or perhaps this is another G5 supercluster?

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GNU-Darwin: Three Years of Free Software Activism: "The GNU-Darwin Distribution is a free BSD operating system and a popular source of free software for Mac OS X and Darwin-x86 users, but it is also a platform for digital activism. Founder Michael L. Love wrote an editorial speaking about the roots, goals, problems and just about everything about GNU-Darwin. Free Software is at the core of GNU-Darwin and also anything political that has an impact on digital and even rights. Is this the first truly politically oriented BSD OS?" [Slashdot]

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Computerworld writes about the Apple G5 dual supercluster. This is a good story, although some details are not quite right. But see for yourself: Virginia Tech talks up the G5: "Link 1,100 Power Mac G5s together to create the third most powerful academic computing facility in the world, and it will make headlines worldwide and earn project director Dr. Srindhi Varadarajan adulation from Macintosh enthusiasts."

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Mac OS X Innovators Contest: "Congratulations to the winners of the third round of the OS X Innovators contest! Winners are OmniOutliner, iBlog, iStopMotion, ACSLogo, and F-Script." [ranchero.com]

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Easy Mac OS X programming with F-Script: "F-Script is a lightweight object-oriented scripting layer specifically designed for Mac OS X object system (i.e. Cocoa). F-Script provides scripting and interactive access to Cocoa frameworks and custom Objective-C objects. It aims to be a useful and fun tool for both beginners and experts, allowing to interactively explore, test and use Cocoa-based objects and frameworks."

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New issue of Open Access Now: "This issue contains an editorial on the PLoS Biology launch, an interview with Martin Richardson on the Oxford University Press experiment with open access, a news story on the Wellcome Trust commitment to open access, an interview with Michael Costigan of Harvard Medical School on why he publishes in OA journals (and BMC journals in particular), and a profile of the SHERPA project." [Open Access News]

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Email style: "[I created] what you could call an update to an old article I've held in much respect, Email Typography by Sean Cavanaugh. This is not a rigid set of rules that have to be obeyed by every living being on the planet. It's a set of guidelines I've found useful when I send (and receive) email." [visakopu.net]

Writing a Christmas tale (in Finnish) -- Comment()
Now that Christmas is getting closer, it is time to start writing about Christmas. Last year I wrote a short text about how to write a Christmas tale (in Finnish, Miten kirjoitan joulupakinan (lyhyt oppimäärä)). Perhaps I should take my own advice.