Open desktop mechaniccat /dev/random | strings | grep "For being ignorant to whom it goes I writ at random, very doubtfully"Obama steps into the open file format debate- November 27, 2007 During a talk at Google, Barack Obama mentioned that he would like to promote "universally accessible formats" for government information. News analysts are wondering why Obama would want to enter this debate. Government de facto support for proprietary standards owned by Microsoft impacts nearly everyone by forcing us to buy Microsoft's products. But this is understood only by a small technical minority and so normally wouldn't get any play in an electoral culture centered around "sound...http://blogs.sun.com/bnitz/entry/obama_steps_into_the_open Comet 17PHolmes with Pentax IST-DL digital SLR normal lens- November 16, 2007 As an amateur astronomer with a limited budget, I normally wouldn't pay much attention to a 17th magnitude periodic comet. There are thousands of comets, asteroids and other bits of space dirt out there. Most are dimmer than the 16th magnitude which puts them far beyond the reach of my F5.6 Celestron 500mm Maksutov here on the outskirts of a light polluted city. But when on the night of October 23rd, one of those spaceballs named 17P Holmes conveniently brightened a million times to...http://blogs.sun.com/bnitz/entry/comet_17pholmes_with_pentax_ist Six-sigma Identity- November 5, 2007 After all of the trouble we went to thinking of a name for our new baby, we ended up picking a name that didn't make the top 1000 in the U.S. but is common enough in certain parts of the world. I'll have to admit I was disappointed today when the health service sent an immunization reminder regarding our son, Nina! who had a completely different name and birthday than the one my wife and I remember.http://blogs.sun.com/bnitz/entry/six_sigma_identity_misuse_of Wrong Keyboard US UK Solaris install- November 1, 2007 I appreciate the new look and improved common sense defaults behind the new installer that appeared in Solaris Nevada build 70. But it isn't yet foolproof. Because I often switch between a laptop with a U.K. keyboard, a Sun Ray with a U.S. keyboard and my home P.C. with a U.K. keyboard, I often go too fast through the "Default layout" choice in the installer and choose U.K. when I should choose U.S. or vice versa. I'm left with a system which almost works perfectly except that the " and ...http://blogs.sun.com/bnitz/entry/wrong_keyboard_us_uk_solaris |