Mahound’s Weblog

Slashdot reports this rather ironic incident, which is now evolving into a legal battle. It is perfectly clear that Microsoft doesn’t want the users of VS.net Express Edition to be able to use this particular add-on developed by Cansdale (no news, just monopolist marketing). The funny part is that this Weber guy, in spite of being a developer, does not know how to explain what part of this software is illegal:

“Sorry that I can’t be more specific, but I’m just a developer ;-)”

What do you mean? Developers should know more than lawyers on software architecture… well, at least decent developers.
And then we get to ridiculous things like this:

My recommendation would be
something like this…

“After speaking with Jason Weber from Microsoft I realized that by
adding features to Visual Studio Express I was in breach of the Visual
Studio license agreements and copyrights. I have therefore decided to
remove support for the Visual Studio Express SKU’s from TestDriven.Net.
Jason was very supportive of TestDriven.Net’s integration into the other
Visual Studio 2005 products and I was invited to join the VSIP program.
This would allow me to fly to Redmond each quarter and work closely with
the Visual Studio development team on deeper integration.”

Beautiful, no?

Assh*les…

• This

Quoting wikinews, my comments are written inside square brackets []:

Pope Benedict XVI criticises Prophet Muhammad’s teachings [wow…]

September 13, 2006

During a theological lecture at the University of Regensburg, in Bavaria, Pope Benedict XVI criticized the idea of jihad. He opined that the mujahideen idea of jihad “went against the nature of God”. The Pope said “Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul”.

[Yeah, he’s right… there’s been a long time since the Crusades… killing people for God is no longer OK!]

He quoted, without agreeing or disagreeing, Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, who, on the “issue of jihad, holy war”, said,

[Manuel was the Byzantine Emperor from 1391 to 1425, he was in fact the last byzantine emperor. Why? Well, because the 4th crusade messed up the whole empire… and then they got conquered by the ottoman turks.]

“Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”.

[Wow… this citation was, no doubt, carefully picked. It’s so descriptive of the Muslim faith (in the opinion of Benedict, at least)…]

The Pope also criticized the Western world for alienating other cultures and “excluding God”.

[”Alienating other cultures”? But did not the guy just say that islam is all about murdering other people (sic)? And now he’s criticizing the western world for alienating such a religion?]

[end of citation]

Well, Benedict is obviously learning the art of gaffe.

“Imagine an alien force, vastly more powerful than us landing on Earth and demanding the value of R(5, 5) or they will destroy our planet. In that case, we should marshal all our computers and all our mathematicians and attempt to find the value. But suppose, instead, that they asked for R(6, 6), we should attempt to destroy the aliens”. - Paul Erdős

Paul Erdős was one of the most idiosyncratic scientists of all time. He is known for the great amount of published material, only losing, in amount of lines, to Leonard Euler. Known as “The Man who Loved Only Numbers”, since Paul Hoffman’s successful book, Erdős was, no doubt, one of the modern geniuses of mathematics.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s

Here’s a pearl, found at google video. It’s a revisit of some of the scenes of “Monty Python and The Holy Grail”, done in a 3D-rendered VR world, by four students from CMU. There’s some additional humour, too :).

• http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9162345352882715622

Now that the World Cup is at its end, it’s time for FIFA to think about new challenges.

• Monty Python’s Philosophy Football Match - Part 1
• Monty Python’s Philosophy Football Match - Part 2

Just priceless…

P.S.: It would be even harder for Portugal to win the cup…

Well, I was never very fond of the english media, but they surprise me day after day. A friend of mine called my attention to the article about the game on the BBC website. Well… if you read the article, you’ll end up believing that England controlled the whole game, Rooney is a peaceful guy, C. Ronaldo is evil, and Portugal has an awful playing style. Then, the message board is the apocalypse. Our english folks are known worldwide for being a bit… (how can i say?) “fanatic” about football, but i never thought that there were so many orcs among them. Some people just can’t lose in a peaceful way…

Thanks God they’ve won the war…

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4991618.stm

Oh… and by the way…

(want a beef?)

NOTE: Portuguese private joke…

OK, Merche is currently present in the most pervert dreams of portuguese immigrants worldwide. This weblog is the living proof of the previous statement:

Well… as you can see, this humble weblog has been visited from locations where strong communities of portuguese immigrants exist (OK, except China…). Well… I think I’ve been exploring the wrong subject. Who believes I should turn this weblog into a “Everybody Loves Merche Romero” site? Opinions please…

• Everybody Loves Eric Raymond

Well, according to Google Analytics, i started receiving new visits from google searches like “merche+romero” and (shock!) “merche+romero+hate+sites”, and even “anti+merche+romero”. Well… who would want to hate Merche Romero? The answer is: a housewives-only terrorist organization. Yes, indeed… well, I can’t imagine why would a man desire that to Merche. But a housewife… “Take this, b*tch! My husband will spend the whole afternoon staring at cheap folk artists, just because of you!”
Well… a Merche Romero hate site will definitely be a good business idea :).

P.S.: Merche Romero is a famous portuguese tv show presenter… as it seems, she’s engaged with the Man. Utd. player Cristiano Ronaldo (yeah, the one that’s 52% like me…).

• http://po-ru.com/diary/ruby-propaganda/