Operating Systems as Airlines

I found an article tonight that compares operating systems as if they were airlines. The article is a fun read and, when placed in a context such as this, makes one wonder about their operating system of choice. My favorite part(s):

Windows Air
The terminal is pretty and colorful, with friendly stewards, easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10 minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever.

Windows NT Air
Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes, and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it explodes.

[…]

Linux Airlines
Disgruntled employees of all the other OS airlines decide to start their own airline. They build the planes, ticket counters, and pave the runways themselves. They charge a small fee to cover the cost of printing the ticket, but you can also download and print the ticket yourself. When you board the plane, you are given a seat, four bolts, a wrench and a copy of the seat-HOWTO.html. Once settled, the fully adjustable seat is very comfortable, the plane leaves and arrives on time without a single problem, the in-flight meal is wonderful. You try to tell customers of the other airlines about the great trip, but all they can say is, “You had to do what with the seat?”

It’s funny because it’s true. 🙂

My Daughter is Born!

My daughter Kylie was born on June 20, 2005 at 9:32 am, weighing in at 8lbs 8oz and 21.5 inches long. She is home and everything is going well so far. She was a nice late Father’s Day gift. She now has her own category and I will attempt to remember to post updates as the days go on. This is sure to be one heck of an adventure!

Google to come to Ann Arbor?

Stellar Bay had an article up concerning Google searching for office space that has great potential for, well, me. Why potential for me you ask? Well i’ll tell you. It seems that Google has is working on a “technology based call center called “Googleplex”” that would require “200,000 square feet of offices” and “Ann Arbor seems to be the final candidate after a reported search of 50 other cities. “ Seeing as I am currently working in Ann Arbor and live a mere 7 miles (technically 2 miles from the outer limits) from the city, this is great. I think it would be cool to work for Google. Who knows, maybe if they do come out here I could get a job with them. Not that I don’t like my current job, but you always gotta keep my options open, right?

GMail Storage

With GMail well over the 2000 MB storage limit I found myself wondering what I would possibly need that much e-mail storage for. Admittedly I get a lot less (non-spam) e-mail then some people, but I am sure that I get more than others as well. But still, 2 Gig of email storage? I can not imagine myself having that much e-mail. So that brings me back to my original query, what can I do with all this [e-mail] space?

In a previous post I had mentioned using the account as a virtual drive and running Linux on it. I had thought about doing this myself, but considering I am already running Gentoo, I really have no need for another Linux box. However, I can always use more file storage space, especially one I can access anywhere.

With that in mind you can imagine how happy I was when I stumbled upon Gmail Hard Drive.com. This is a free site that allows you to log into your Gmail account and upload files to it and utilize the account as a 2+ Gig file storage. Though this is in not any where near as geek as running Linux, I think it is more practical.

Bill Gates’ House

Ever wonder what the richest man in the world’s house looks like? Well thanks to this article over at USNew you can “your own tour guide inside the Gates estate.”

Hard drive data recovery

Having lost data to a hard drive crash, and knowing people who have lost data to a hard drive crash, I have always wondered what went into recovering data. Tom’s Hardware Guide has a nice article on what goes into this process. They even provide information as provided to them from a data recovery company. The article gives a range of prices that this service can cost, and it is not cheap. However, if it is necessary to get your data back, it may be possible…for a price.

MIT Boredom

It is common knowledge that MIT turns out some of the best engineers around, but ever wonder what they do during there spare time while at scho0l? Well some of them managed to get the school to provide them with the blueprints to one of the dorm buildings and do some wiring for them. What this turned into was the bathroom monitor. Thats right, they set up a webserver to display what bathrooms were available or in use in their dorm building.