Acer Aspire One + Ubuntu Netbook Remix = WIN!

The folks at Apple claim that they don't know how to build a netbook that doesn't look and feel "junky"...

Oh, y'all are *so* full of shit.

I spent less than $300 and I've got an ultralight, portable computer that is fun to use - and it worked with every peripheral I own, out of the box (including a 3G USB cell modem.)

Here's how to go ultralight and mobile in style, on the cheap:

Buy an Acer Aspire One (Dual-core Atom CPU @ 1.6Ghz, 8GB solid-state drive, plus SD card slot for another 8GB and USB ports for whatever you want to attach, street price about $275.)

Download and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix (you'll need a 1GB jump drive to do this most easily...)

This look like junk to you?



OK, go do this with OS X please.

Java is pretty important

Tarus points us to a couple of good posts on Oracle's purchase of Sun Microsystems:

While I thought Sun paid too much for MySQL, I think Oracle got this one right. The best analysis I’ve seen so far is from Larry Augustin, so if you’re interested in such things be sure to check it out.

UPDATE: Monty weighs in.

Adventures in Open Source: Oracle Buys Sun (20 Apr 2009)

Can we build a world with open source?

Victor Keegan, writing in The Guardian (UK):

Vinay Gupta is a Scottish-Indian engineer who designs low-cost homes for poor parts of the world or disaster zones, and then makes them freely available on the internet so others can do the building. His flagship is the Hexayurt shelter system, which costs around $200 (£142). It uses common building materials, including insulation boards - which, he claims, are a third of the cost of a tent. The business plan is to cut the price of essential goods and services to the point where the poor can afford them. Gupta is just one example of a global movement that offers an alternative to the scandalous tales of banking avarice that have saturated the world's media.

We are often told that the best things in life are free, but few have ever tried to build it into a business model. Yet it is curious that while financial capitalism is in global meltdown, a completely different kind of entrepreneurial activity - call it commune-ism - is rising, from an admittedly low base. This is the act of doing things for the common good, for nothing - either from altruistic motives or because you expect to get compensated by using the product of someone else's free endeavours. Until recently, this kind of activity - known generically as "open source" - has been confined to software through such brilliant communal projects as Wikipedia, the Firefox browser (which now has 21.5% of the global market) or the Linux operating system. Interestingly, such products don't appear in the figures for gross domestic product (GDP) - at least, not until they are used in something that can be bought, such as a low-cost Linux computer. It is unrecorded wealth and if the movement grows we will have to look afresh at how we measure the wealth of nations.

Can we build a world with open source? (Victor Keegan, The Guardian)

Related:

• The Hexayurt Project
• The Bucky-Gandhi Design Institution blog

Federal court upholds Creative Commons-style licenses

So for non-lawgeeks, this won't seem important. But trust me, this is huge.

[...]

In non-technical terms, the Court [of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which has jurisdiction over intellectual property law issues - bc] has held that free licenses such as the [Creative Commons] licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you're simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license.

Lawrence Lessig - lessig blog - huge and important news

The comments are absolutely worth reading, by the way, or were as of the writing of this post, anyway.  Mr. Lessig has some very smart and interesting readers.

Motion Mountain

How do objects and images move? How can animals move? What is motion?

How does a rainbow form?
Is levitation possible?
Do time machines exist?
What does 'quantum' mean?
What is the maximum force value found in nature?
Is 'empty space' really empty?
Is the universe a set?
Which problems in physics are still unsolved?

This site provides a free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions. The book is written for the curious: it is entertaining, surprising and challenging on every page.

With little mathematics, starting from observations of everyday life, the text explores the most fascinating parts of mechanics, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, electrodynamics, quantum theory and modern attempts at unification. The essence of these fields is summarized in the most simple terms. For example, the text presents modern physics as consequence of the notions of minimum entropy, maximum speed, maximum force, minimum change of charge and minimum action.

Download the text (21st edition, December 2007).

MotionMountain.net

(via Cool Tools)

Portable Apps Suite

Take your entire (Windows) computing environment with you on a USB key with the Portable Apps Suite.

Suddenly, any computer that has a USB port becomes *your* computer--with your browser bookmarks, your e-mail, your IM settings, and so on.

Applications in the Portable Apps Suite (which takes about 260MB of room unpacked and runs fine on a 512MB drive) include:

PortableApps Suite (Standard Edition): ClamWin Portable (antivirus), Firefox Portable (web browser), Gaim Portable (instant messaging), OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite), Sudoku Portable (puzzle game), Sunbird Portable (calendar/task manager) and Thunderbird Portable (email client) and runs comfortably from a 512MB drive.

A "lite" version that requires about 100MB of space and runs comfortably on a 256MB drive is also available... but considering that 1GB USB keys are now selling for under $20 (as of this writing, Fry's is selling a Memorex USB flash drive for $18, no rebate required), and that the applications are completely free (being open-source freeware), this is one of the best deals of all time for anyone who travels and would rather stick a USB drive on their keychain than lug a laptop around.