Across the Spectrum
Gates fires up "mystery company" - reports
5/11/2008
THE well-oiled and extensive grapevine in US tech circles is alive with talk about Bill Gates post-Microsoft venture: bgC3.
Depending on which blog you read, bgC3 is either a 'think tank' project, or a legal contruct that lets Gates pay the maid's wages.
Right now bcG3.com is a graphic. And apparently Gates has no immediate intention of outlining what the new company is up to.
But the blogging community - born to speculate as it is - has done some research.
According to ther Seattle-based techFlash blog, the legal entity bgC3 LLC is described in publicly available documents as a Think Tank, with its legal address at the Kirkland office address where Gates established himself after resigning his day-to-day management role at Microsoft.
Kirkland is a Seattle suburb not far from Gates' home on lake Washington.
And a US Federal trademark filing for the graphic also describes bgC3 as a think tank, with its filing with in a generic trademark classification used to describe broadly areas including "scientific and technological services," "industrial analysis and research," and "design and development of computer hardware and software."
No-one expected Gates to slide out of sight from the tech industry. And now the first clues are emerging.
Seattle is on permanent 'GatesWatch' anyway. The bgC3 venture just has it watching more closely than usual.
NBN blow: AAPT withdraws
21/10/2008
TERRIA, the consortium of telecommunications interests bidding for the massive National Broadband Network project has suffered a blow with New Zealand Telecom's Australian unit AAPT withdrawing from the project.
AAPT said in a statement that it had always been clear "about its intention not to support any network build."
AAPT chief executive Paul Broad said the company was less interested in the ownership structure of the NBN project, and more focused on ensuring the regulatory settings ensured competition and a good outcome for Australian consumers.
The withdrawal has been taken by some analysts as signalling a lack of confidence in Terria's ability to win the bid.
Terria was forced today to publicly recommit to the project, releasing a statement confirming it would still bid for the project.
Terria chairman Michael Egan said he regretted that AAPT would no longer be a participant in the project, adding that AAPT continued to support the TERRiA principles.
"AAPT's owner, Telecom NZ, is undertaking major capital investment in New Zealand and I can understand it wanting to focus on its home turf," Mr Egan said.
"However, its decision will not affect TERRiA's bid."
"We have an excellent business case and are more than confident of our ability to fund the new network."
It is understood Terria has also been forced to rethink its funding plans as a result of tight credit markets created by the global financial crisis.
Standards
11/8/2008
Does the statement "We've always done it that way" ring any bells? The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8½ inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the road? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8½ inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way, and wonder what horse's arse came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Standards
Does the statement "We've always done it that way" ring any bells? The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8½ inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.
Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long-distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important!
And you thought
being a horse's arse
wasn't important! So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the road? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The US standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8½ inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. And bureaucracies live forever.
So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way, and wonder what horse's arse came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.
Now the twist to the story ... when you see a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major space shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's butt. And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important!
Now the twist to the story ... when you see a space shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major space shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's butt. And you thought being a horse's arse wasn't important!
And people worry about the use of instructions sets from the old 8086's
