Fun

Bulgarian network

Last weekend I have been to Sofia in Bulgaria.
I had a strange experience at the Serbia-Bulgaria border crossing.
1. Just after crossing the Serbian border I reached a booth where I was asked for the car's documents. They were checked and I have received them back together with an usb stick.
2. At the passport control I was asked again for all the papers (passport and car papers) and "chip" - the usb stick I've received on the first booth
3. Customs asked me again for the "chip".
4. Road tax office - I was asked for the chip and car documents.
5. Another road tax office - I have ben asked for chip and then I have received the vignette and I have paid 6 EUR (with an invoice) - although at the previous booth it was marked 5 EUR, for a 7 days vignette.
6. Last road tax booth - I have given back the usb stick.

I do not understand. Is this some kind of a token based network? Do they achieve higher bitrate this way?
Strange system...

Simple way to solve differential equations

I have tried Wolfram Alpha today. I was pleased by the result. It would have been interesting to have something similar in my high school years.

Hex dump

Geek's jar labels

IPTV

I have prove about four years ago that a free IPTV solution can be accomplished with free components as Darwin Streaming Server, VLC, MPEG4IP.
What I was missing in that time was a source for MPEG streaming data.
The commercial alternatives as envivio are friging expensive.
I have managed today to stream with my DreamBox to a VLC Linux client (it was just a mouse click really). I can now use VLC to pump data into Darwin from this very nice and cheap device.
It isnot exactly pvServer or envivio, but it works :) for free.

Oracle + Sun = Love?

I do not know. On the software side I have found some areas where they already compete:

Operating systems:    Linux      vs. Solaris
Virtualization:       OracleVM   vs. Sun xVM
File systems:         BTRFS      vs. ZFS
Virtual Machines:     JRockit    vs. Sun JVM
Databases:            OracleXE   vs  MySQL
Application Servers:  Weblogic   vs. GlassFish

Which one will survive? There is no way imho that a company as Oracle to keep two different product lines. Personally I am on Sun's side.
The biggest win for Oracle is "He who controls the Java middleware controls the enterprise market". And Oracle did it. I do not know what to say about the othe major player on this market, IBM. They have WebSphere + DB2 + Linux/AIX + iSeries/pSeries engaged in a fight with WebLOgic/Glassfish + Solaris/Linux + Sun Enterprise.

Probably the biggest losers in this merger are Dell and HP because they stay present only with hardware. Redhat/JBoss will have a hard time. Microsoft... hmmm... hard to say but I think that they missed a good opportunity here and they will start shrinking in to their core business Desktop/Office.

speedtest

Authors@Google

The concise dictionary of sins

Apostasy - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/apostasy
Simony - http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/simony

Which one is the next in the line?
For those who are curious of what I am thinking - the names are IPS Nicolare and IPS Teodosie.