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Ayah Bdeir: Building blocks that blink, beep and teach
Imagine a set of electronics as easy to play with as Legos. TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir introduces littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable blocks that make programming as simple and important a part of creativity as snapping blocks together.
Ayah Bdeir is an engineer and artist, and is the founder of littleBits and karaj, an experimental art, architecture and technology lab in Beirut. Full bio »
HP recently told The INQUIRER that it will commit to Linux in the mission critical market, however it said its HP-UX Unix implementation will be the proving ground for features that the firm will push in Linux and Windows. According to Kate O’Neill, product marketing manager for HP’s Business Critical Systems unit, the firm wants to bring a “UNIX-like experience to Linux and Windows”.
Talking with The INQUIRER about the mission critical aspect of HP-UX, O’Neill said, “If you think about where Windows and Linux is at today, in terms of delivering the full mission critical experience it’s not where HP-UX is at, at this moment in time.” But it seems HP will use HP-UX as the operating system for mission critical technologies that it will eventually try to commit to the Linux kernel.
“We continue to drive and innovate in HP-UX because it is what we consider to be the design centre for mission critical, we have to stay at the bleeding edge of mission critical so we can cascade those technologies into [the] Windows and Linux environments,” said O’Neill. “It will drive us to be better, not just in that environment itself, but in this emerging mission critical Windows and Linux also.”
Given that HP has invested decades and millions into HP-UX, it might be something of a surprise to hear the firm say that its mission critical customers know that one day they will move off proprietary UNIX and onto Linux or Windows.
O’Neill said, “Customers are hesitant to make the transition to Windows and Linux when uptime and planned and unplanned downtime is critical to them, but they do recognise in the future that could be a possibility, so they want to make sure there are options to them as they look down the road.”
Although O’Neill’s comment about Windows not being mission critical will to many seem like stating the bleeding obvious, there are still questions over whether Linux can be considered in the same breath as HP’s HP-UX, IBM’s AIX or Oracle’s Solaris. Perhaps Linux’s biggest hurdle is not its technology but the conservative nature of mission-critical computing, with managers opting for big brands such as IBM and HP in order to safeguard their jobs.
HP’s decision to use HP-UX as a proving ground for mission critical features that it will eventually push into Linux serves three purposes. HP’s operating system stays ahead of Linux, while the Linux community gets to see whether new features of HP-UX are worth incorporating and potentially the ability to convince the conservative suits that Linux has resilient, high availability features similar to those found in expensive, proprietary operating systems. µ
Source: The Inquirer (http://s.tt/1a4D8)
Never have sex with a stranger unless you are stranger than them.
Abstain from wine, women, and song; mostly song.
Never argue with a women when she’s tired — or rested.
A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn’t.
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
Don’t say no, say maybe, say any old thing, say come back in the spring - but don’t say no.
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he doesn’t love her.
Beauty is skin deep; ugly goes right to the bone.
Illustrator Chris Bishop drew up this set of adorably creepy Game of Thrones Valentine’s Day cards.
A while ago a new supermarket opened near where I live. It has an automatic water mister to keep the produce fresh. Just before it goes on, you hear the sound of distant thunder and the smell of fresh rain.
When you pass the milk cases, you hear cows mooing and there is the scent of freshly mowed hay.
In the meat department there is the aroma of charcoal grilled steaks with onions.
When you approach the egg case, you hear hens clucking and cackling, and the air is filled with the pleasing aroma of bacon and eggs frying.
The bread department features the tantalizing smell of fresh baked bread and cookies.
I don’t buy toilet paper there anymore.
Up and down Detroit’s streets, buildings stand abandoned and in ruin. French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre set out to document the decline of an American city. Their book “The Ruins of Detroit“, a document of decaying buildings frozen in time, was published in December 2010.
From the photographers’ website:
Ruins are the visible symbols and landmarks of our societies and their changes, small pieces of history in suspension.
The state of ruin is essentially a temporary situation that happens at some point, the volatile result of change of era and the fall of empires. This fragility, the time elapsed but even so running fast, lead us to watch them one very last time : being dismayed, or admire, making us wondering about the permanence of things.
Photography appeared to us as a modest way to keep a little bit of this ephemeral state.
It might look like something from an imaginary steampunk past, but designers at Philips think this could be the low-impact home of the future.
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