David's Mumblings

The Stupidity of (some) Software Patents

category: Opinions
According to this Slashdot article, a big provider of pay-as-you-go cell phone services (BCGI - Boston Comm. Group, Inc.) has been shut down because it infringes on Freedom Wireless's patent. BCGI powers Cingular's Go-Phone and Sprint-Nextel's Boost, two of the biggest pay-as-you-go programs in the country. BCGI owes $128 million, and must shut down services within 90 days. In the meantime, they must pay royalties of 2.5 cents per minute of customer calls to Freedom Wireless. Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 10/18/05 at 23:32:18 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Why Linux Didn't Work

category: Computers and Tech
[Ante scriptum: if you read the FSM post by email and only saw "[image]" as the content, please view it online at this link.]

Before school started, I tried to install Linux on my machine, dual-booting with WinXP. The experience was, overall, disastrous. After fighting with it for about four days, I gave up and reformatted the computer and left it with Windows XP. All this happened late September, about three weeks ago. Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 10/15/05 at 00:40:39 by dchaley (David Haley)
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The Flying Spaghetti Monster

category: Humor
I want to believe

In addition to enlightening revelations on the origins of the world, Pastafarianism (or, the worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) teaches the solution to global warming.

I also rather like the 'Kansas Museum of History' series of clothes/coffee cups/etc.

An amusing satire; at least, in my opinion... ^ TOP

Posted on 10/13/05 at 22:26:39 by dchaley (David Haley)
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Classes this Quarter

category: School
As I finished up my four-year plan, I realized that I have a little problem with classes. While I'll have enough units to graduate, I won't have fulfilled all the right class requirements. This is mainly due to having "lost" a year at AUP - although I got all the units (surprisingly enough) nearly none of the classes transferred. So, I basically started as a freshman all over again. It would have been mostly manageable, except for my brilliant idea of having two majors (CS and Philosophy). Now, I'm stuck with having to do a quarter or two more, if I want to get everything done. I'm unsure whether or not to change the Phil major into a minor. Anyhow, here are the classes I'm taking this quarter...
Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 10/01/05 at 13:15:17 by dchaley (David Haley)
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HPAC Training & New Student Orientation

category: School
HPAC training started two weeks ago and lasted a week. Then came the real fun: new student orientation (NSO). HPAC is my official title: head peer academic coordinator. I think the quickest way to summarize it is that my job is to "know stuff". That is, if students have questions I'm supposed to either know the answer or direct them to somebody who does. The other thing HPACs do is to provide mentoring, which is helping the student figure out what classes to take, when to take them, what major to pursue, etc.
Read More → ^ TOP

Posted on 10/01/05 at 13:14:25 by dchaley (David Haley)
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News

category: General
I've been meaning to post some news for quite a while now, and am only just slowly getting around to it. I'm going to break it into pieces for organization's sake; the parts will be:

  • HPAC training and my peer mentoring

  • the classes I'm taking & what I'll be up to this quarter

  • trying to dual-boot Windows and Linux on my laptop

^ TOP

Posted on 10/01/05 at 13:13:47 by dchaley (David Haley)
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