thoughts and ramblings

It turns out that no one can imagine what’s really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can’t expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won’t. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That’s neither bad nor good, but it is real.

I think and hope that’s what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible—so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.

One of the reasons Microsoft seemed so ill-informed about open source was that its lawyers had forbidden its engineers from working with it. The license that Linux and similar open source software uses, known as the GPL (general public license), requires that every “derivative work” of open source software also be open source. The lawyers decided that this made it a virus: Any Microsoft programmer who touched it might be at risk of infecting anything else he or she worked on, with a possibility that one mistake could even accidentally open-source Windows. So when Hilf wanted to build an open source lab at Microsoft, it was treated like a biohazard facility. The buildings department punched a hole in a former storeroom and let him thread network cables through. But after that he was on his own, without a budget.

People choose who they follow on Twitter based on their own unique set of interests, and with News.me you can see what their curated view of the world looks like.