Monday, June 02, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
A Tale of Four Kernels
My Google alert on FreeBSD yielded this comparison of four kernels from Linux, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris and Windows:
Enterprise Unix Roundup: Operating Systems on the Analyst's Couch
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Telebid Telegambling
I stumbled over Telebid last week.
From a technical point of view, it is a very dynamic web page. You see countdowns and other information flashing over the screen, which creates the tension and excitement of a computer game. A nice piece of Web 2.0 / AJAX technology.
From an economic point of view, all of this visual stress is created to lure you into bidding for a seemingly cheap product. I wanted to give you a calculation, but then a quick Google search gave me Oliver's article, who came to the same conclusions as I did and who wrote it up nicely with good model calculations.
It is indeed an AJAX game for money.
Update:
They changed their name to Swoopo.
From a technical point of view, it is a very dynamic web page. You see countdowns and other information flashing over the screen, which creates the tension and excitement of a computer game. A nice piece of Web 2.0 / AJAX technology.
From an economic point of view, all of this visual stress is created to lure you into bidding for a seemingly cheap product. I wanted to give you a calculation, but then a quick Google search gave me Oliver's article, who came to the same conclusions as I did and who wrote it up nicely with good model calculations.
It is indeed an AJAX game for money.
Update:
They changed their name to Swoopo.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Blogs of Your Bear
The following Google Docs presentation aims to explain the rationale behind my blogs.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Links: a functional language for web programming
If you ask about a programming language for web programming, you might probably come up with PHP.
Now there seems to be something coming from the functional world: Links
It is developed by Philip Wadler and his research team at Edinburgh. (Found via JJinuxLand)
Now there seems to be something coming from the functional world: Links
It is developed by Philip Wadler and his research team at Edinburgh. (Found via JJinuxLand)
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Erlang Blog Spotting
Blogs dedicated to Erlang show up like mushrooms after rainfall, so Your Bear decided to list them here:
Blog:
http://erlangblogspotting.blogspot.com
Sunday, February 24, 2008
XMPP Devcon
My main reason to visit Brussels was to meet the XMPP community.
The XMPP devcon was held at the Atlas hotel there.
They turned out to be nice folks and at noon we went to dinner.
The XMPP devcon was held at the Atlas hotel there.
They turned out to be nice folks and at noon we went to dinner.
At the FOSDEM 2008
The FOSDEM 2008 conference took place at the Solbosch campus of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
As I wanted to see a bit of the city, I took a cab to the campus. For some reason it took 11€ to get there and later 15€ to get back to the centrum. Maybe the second driver was more experienced ripping of tourists.
The flair inside the buildings was definitely university/grassroot not business.
The XMPP folks had a booth there. Here you see Pedro convincing the crowd.
At the Ubuntu desk I saw my first OLPC laptop. It looks cute, but I was told that even children complained about its slow processor, lack of Flash player etc.
I knew before that the BSD Certification Group would offer the BSDA certification at the conference, but I hesitated to sign up, because I had no time for preparation. The organizers turned out to be friendly people and I decided to join the exam
anyway. At worst this would have been a moderate donation for a good cause.
I expected the exam to take place in front of a computer, via some web application. To my surprise I was led to a plain old university lecture hall. It reminded me of my study times. However Belgish students seem to be thinner than the German ones (or were hundred years ago or however old this room was). So I was reminded twice that I am not 20 anymore: I did not fit in between seat and table (see photo above) and I had trouble reading the small printed numbers on the answer sheet. Boy, and I thought the BSD crowd was 10 years older than the Linux crowd in general.
Before the entrance of the lecture hall, what a funny coincidence, I met Wim from OpenBSD, the guy who sells their great T-shirts (I wore one at this occasion). He helped me settling the late registration.
I had to sign a NDA about the exam, but I think I can reveal that I think they did a good job.
Originally I wanted to listen to some talks at FOSDEM, but it in the end it turned out more interesting to meet and talk with folks face to face.
As I wanted to see a bit of the city, I took a cab to the campus. For some reason it took 11€ to get there and later 15€ to get back to the centrum. Maybe the second driver was more experienced ripping of tourists.
The flair inside the buildings was definitely university/grassroot not business.
The XMPP folks had a booth there. Here you see Pedro convincing the crowd.
At the Ubuntu desk I saw my first OLPC laptop. It looks cute, but I was told that even children complained about its slow processor, lack of Flash player etc.
I knew before that the BSD Certification Group would offer the BSDA certification at the conference, but I hesitated to sign up, because I had no time for preparation. The organizers turned out to be friendly people and I decided to join the exam
anyway. At worst this would have been a moderate donation for a good cause.
I expected the exam to take place in front of a computer, via some web application. To my surprise I was led to a plain old university lecture hall. It reminded me of my study times. However Belgish students seem to be thinner than the German ones (or were hundred years ago or however old this room was). So I was reminded twice that I am not 20 anymore: I did not fit in between seat and table (see photo above) and I had trouble reading the small printed numbers on the answer sheet. Boy, and I thought the BSD crowd was 10 years older than the Linux crowd in general.
Before the entrance of the lecture hall, what a funny coincidence, I met Wim from OpenBSD, the guy who sells their great T-shirts (I wore one at this occasion). He helped me settling the late registration.
I had to sign a NDA about the exam, but I think I can reveal that I think they did a good job.
Originally I wanted to listen to some talks at FOSDEM, but it in the end it turned out more interesting to meet and talk with folks face to face.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Best of Erlang
I read through various Erlang resources on the net and usually just bookmark the better ones. Now I thought it would be a good idea to try out the blog format for this. Adding comments is nicer, my reading history is preserved and the indexing should be better as well. This blog is Best of Erlang.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Erlang User Conference 2007
Here are images from the 13th International Erlang/OTP User Conference (EUC 2007) at the Ericsson conference center in Älvsjö, Stockholm, Sweden.
Panorama of the conference room, Fredrik Thulin (Stockolm University) is talking about the YXA SIP server.
Richard Carlsson (IAR Systems) demonstrates Erlang R12's new non-destructive arrays.
Per Gustafsson (Uppsalla University, to the left) on R12B's new bit strings, introduced by Claes Wikström (Tail-f).
Lennart Öhman (Sjöland & Thyselius Telecom) announcing the ErlLounge after the conference. Thanks for your help!
Obfuscated Erlang Competition judge Jan Henry Nyström (Erlang Training & Consulting) announcing this year's winner.
John Hughes' ProTest initiative.
John Hughes (QuviQ) is demonstrating the amazing Euro banknotes to the audience (remember Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain are members of the EU, but still keep their old money for some reason which probably has to do with money).
John Hughes is happy.
Kenneth Lundin (Ericsson) announces lots of goodies for the next Erlang release R12.
Alexey Shchepin (Process-one, on the left) is getting congratulations as Erlang User of the Year 2006 from Bjarne Däcker. Alexey is the original author of the ejabberd instant messaging server and was not present at EUC 2006, so Bjarne pulled him on stage this year. Bjarne is the former manager of the Computer Science Laboratory at Ericsson and Chairman of the EUC.
The illustrious group of former Erlang User of the Year recipients, prior to announcing the User of the Year 2007.
The people are from the left Sean Hinde (Synapse, User of the Year 2001), Alexey Shchepin, Mickaël Rémond (Process-one, User of the Year 2004), Ulf Wiger (Ericsson, User of the Year 1997), Bjarne Däcker, Daniel Luna (Kreditor, former HiPE team), Erik Stenman (Kreditor, former HiPE team), Tobias Lindahl (HiPE team), Per Gustafsson (HiPE team) and Richard Carlsson (IAR Systems AB, former HiPE team). The HiPE team members (Uppsala University) were Users of the Year in 2005.
John Hughes is Erlang User of the Year 2007! The package contains the award. John is one of the authors of the QuickCheck testing tool.
The masses go hunting for food. There were 150 participants. Many more wanted to come but alas the conference was limited to 150 guests.
Gordon Guthrie (right), Dale Harvey and Hasan Veldstra all from Hypernumbers.com.
Martin Logan (Orbitz) talks about the Faxien distribution system.
Erik Stenman (yellow tie) talks about quality cruising and was introduced by Francesco Cesarini (Erlang Training & Consulting).
Tamás Nagy (Eötvös Loránd University) explains his ParsErl parser.
Vincenzo Nicosia (Erlang Training & Consulting) talks about how to move Erlang towards being a real time system.
Again Fredrik Thulin on the YXA project.
Samuel Rivas (LambdaStream) talks about an Erlang controled interactive TV streaming system.
In between the sessions the crowd gathered for coffee and sandwiches.
This statue at the backside of the famous Ericsson clock house looks old at frist, but modern on the second look.
Eric Merritt talks about the Sinan build tool.
And wow, R12B is announced for December 5th.
Many thanks to the organizers at Ericsson and the sponsors for this very nice conference and ErlLounge!
Panorama of the conference room, Fredrik Thulin (Stockolm University) is talking about the YXA SIP server.
Richard Carlsson (IAR Systems) demonstrates Erlang R12's new non-destructive arrays.
Per Gustafsson (Uppsalla University, to the left) on R12B's new bit strings, introduced by Claes Wikström (Tail-f).
Lennart Öhman (Sjöland & Thyselius Telecom) announcing the ErlLounge after the conference. Thanks for your help!
Obfuscated Erlang Competition judge Jan Henry Nyström (Erlang Training & Consulting) announcing this year's winner.
John Hughes' ProTest initiative.
John Hughes (QuviQ) is demonstrating the amazing Euro banknotes to the audience (remember Sweden, Denmark, Great Britain are members of the EU, but still keep their old money for some reason which probably has to do with money).
John Hughes is happy.
Kenneth Lundin (Ericsson) announces lots of goodies for the next Erlang release R12.
Alexey Shchepin (Process-one, on the left) is getting congratulations as Erlang User of the Year 2006 from Bjarne Däcker. Alexey is the original author of the ejabberd instant messaging server and was not present at EUC 2006, so Bjarne pulled him on stage this year. Bjarne is the former manager of the Computer Science Laboratory at Ericsson and Chairman of the EUC.
The illustrious group of former Erlang User of the Year recipients, prior to announcing the User of the Year 2007.
The people are from the left Sean Hinde (Synapse, User of the Year 2001), Alexey Shchepin, Mickaël Rémond (Process-one, User of the Year 2004), Ulf Wiger (Ericsson, User of the Year 1997), Bjarne Däcker, Daniel Luna (Kreditor, former HiPE team), Erik Stenman (Kreditor, former HiPE team), Tobias Lindahl (HiPE team), Per Gustafsson (HiPE team) and Richard Carlsson (IAR Systems AB, former HiPE team). The HiPE team members (Uppsala University) were Users of the Year in 2005.
John Hughes is Erlang User of the Year 2007! The package contains the award. John is one of the authors of the QuickCheck testing tool.
The masses go hunting for food. There were 150 participants. Many more wanted to come but alas the conference was limited to 150 guests.
Gordon Guthrie (right), Dale Harvey and Hasan Veldstra all from Hypernumbers.com.
Martin Logan (Orbitz) talks about the Faxien distribution system.
Erik Stenman (yellow tie) talks about quality cruising and was introduced by Francesco Cesarini (Erlang Training & Consulting).
Tamás Nagy (Eötvös Loránd University) explains his ParsErl parser.
Vincenzo Nicosia (Erlang Training & Consulting) talks about how to move Erlang towards being a real time system.
Again Fredrik Thulin on the YXA project.
Samuel Rivas (LambdaStream) talks about an Erlang controled interactive TV streaming system.
In between the sessions the crowd gathered for coffee and sandwiches.
This statue at the backside of the famous Ericsson clock house looks old at frist, but modern on the second look.
Eric Merritt talks about the Sinan build tool.
And wow, R12B is announced for December 5th.
Many thanks to the organizers at Ericsson and the sponsors for this very nice conference and ErlLounge!
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