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features of BMW 5 and 7 series

I was reading the brochure about the BMW 530i Touring (which seems to be the BMW name for what is known as a “Station Wagon” in Australia or an “Estate” in Europe). I looked at the brochure on the “Touring” because I am interested in a Station-Wagon – the Sedan version of the 5 series […]

presentations and background color

In response to my last post about using laptops for presentations it has been suggested to me that using white (or a very bright color) as the background color can help some displays synchronise with the signal. I haven’t had an opportunity to test this but it seems likely that as most computers are configured […]

meeting people at Linux conferences

One thing that has always surprised me is how few people talk to speakers after they have finished their lecture. A lecture might have many questions and the questions may be cut off, but when the speaker leaves the room they will usually do so alone.

When I give lectures at conferences I’m always happy […]

spare tires

The following letter was published in the RACV Magazine. The Royal Automobile Club of Victoria is a driver advocacy organization that provides roadside assistance and insurance. The fact that they published my letter means that the idea can’t be totally wacky so I’ll blog it. ;)

There have been many mentions recently in RoyalAuto about […]

Mercedes S class and car safety

The S Class Mercedes has some really interesting safety features, see this 6.8M PDF file for details. If you are interested in technology then you want to read it just to learn about all the cool features – it’s got more technology than a Prius!

The S class includes the following features to protect the […]

a good dog for uplifting

The Norwegian Puffin Dog has six toes that are all fully formed. This has to be a good start for the uplift process.

The requirements for uplift are intelligence, speech, and the ability to use tools (dexterity in fingers). It seems that the Puffin Dog has a finger advantage over other breeds. Also the Lundehund […]

execmod

Ulrich Drepper has written a good web page about text relocation which is most often noticed as execmod failures reported when running SE Linux. When an AVC message reports a failure of execmod against a shared object it means that the object has text relocations (the shared object code writes to code that it executes […]

xen and yoyo

One of the benefits of Xen is that it allows a machine to be easily rebooted. Remote console and remote power management technologies are either expensive or implemented on the motherboards of expensive machines. With Xen the virtual machines can be managed without such expense and also with less effort.

This raises immediate possibilities for […]

presentation laptops

I suggested in a previous blog entry that conferences should provide computers that speakers can use for their presentations. The reason for this is that getting one computer working with the beamer in each room is an easy task, while getting the laptop of every speaker to work is much more difficult.

It seems that […]

university degrees

Recently someone asked me for advice on what they can do to improve their career without getting a degree.

I have performed a quick poll of some people I know and found that for experienced people there seems to be little need for a degree. People who have extensive experience but no degree report no […]