But the rock doesn’t have an Apple logo…

A quite amusing take on the recently announced Apple iPad (via Techcrunch).

It’s been a bit of a typical response to a new Apple product announcement: the geeks are moaning that it doesn’t have feature X, Y, or Z, while the fanboys are frothing at the mouth to get their hands on one (though I’d have liked to have seen a USB port and it running a trimmed-down version of OS X – multi-tasking, anyone?).

Nonetheless, I think it’ll be a great product for checking my email and facebook from the comfort of my lounge-room, and therefore I think I’ll be purchasing one as soon as they’re released.

AusPDC 2010 Presentation

I presented today at AusPDC 2010. It seemed to be received well, despite me trying to cram far too much into the nominal 20 minute talk slot (plus question time), and having to gloss over quite a bit.

Should you be so inclined, you can download my slides for an overview of my paper.

Perspective

We’ve actually got it pretty good, eh?

Should programming supercomputers be hard?

Good article explaining why one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to concurrent programming tools.

Should programming supercomputers be hard?

Many in the supercomputing community want programming to be made easier, but the fundamental issue is far more complex than that, says Andrew Jones.

[Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04] Removing the Adobe Reader Firefox plugin

Yesterday I was forced to install Adobe’s Acrobat Reader (acroread) onto my Ubuntu laptop as I needed to read a PDF which included some features not supported by Document Viewer.

Unfortunately it goes ahead and installs its browser plugin as well, which is annoying if you’re anything like me and don’t like PDFs being opened inside your browser window. Unfortunately again, removing the damned thing is easier said than done, as it seems to copy its plugin file (nppdf.so) into several different locations, and it seems you have to remove every one of them to actually disable the plugin.

So to cut a long story short, copy & paste the following into your terminal and you should be rid of it:

sudo rm /usr/lib/firefox/plugins/nppdf.so \
/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/plugins/nppdf.so \
/usr/lib/firefox-3.*/plugins/nppdf.so \
/usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/nppdf.so \
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/nppdf.so

 

Note that this worked for Ubuntu Jaunty. YMMV.

AusPDC2010 paper accepted

I’m pleased to say I’ll be attending AusPDC2010 (and by extension ACSW2010) in January in Brisbane.

I’ll be presenting a paper from my thesis titled “A Dynamic, Decentralised Search Algorithm for Efficient Data Retrieval in a Distributed Tuple Space”, which I’ll make available as a pre-print shortly.

Looking forward to being exposed to some current research, meeting others working in similar areas, and basically taking in ACSW, as I haven’t attended before. And of course visiting Brisbane is an added perk…

Pidgin Facebook plugin (pidgin-facebookchat)

I’ve just discovered the Pidgin plugin that allows you to chat with friends on Facebook without needing to be signed in to the site (and means you don’t have to use their little chat windows in your browser).

On Ubuntu it’s a matter of apt-get install pidgin-facebookchat. Other platforms available from the project site.

So far it seems to work pretty well, albeit with some disconnection problems when you’re using the plugin and signed into the Facebook site simultaneously. Still, it’s a nifty little tool.

Update 29/11: In the last couple of weeks I’ve found the plugin has stopped working, for me at least. Facebook shenanigans? Anyway, your mileage may vary.

Just what was in those brownies?

A video apparently uncovered from an old VHS tape of a Windows 3.1 release party:

Looks pretty staged to me, but still, I hope some of the dorks holding Windows 7 release parties see this and take a good hard look at themselves. I mean, it’s an updated version of an OS. It happens every six months with Ubuntu, and I don’t hold a party when I apt-get dist-upgrade, now do I?

Anyway, the more things change, and all that.

And I hope they got their pizza within the 45 minutes :-)

Why desktop multiprocessing has speed limits

A very good article on the challenges involved in getting software to fully utilise multicore platforms:

Why desktop multiprocessing has speed limits

Until recently, you could reasonably expect this year’s software to run faster on next year’s machines, but that won’t necessarily be true going forward. For the foreseeable future, significant performance improvements are likely to be achieved only through arduous reprogramming.

Elizabeth Blackburn, Nobel laureate

Someone from my home state of Tasmania winning a Nobel prize.

Who would’ve thunk it?

What’s a nice girl like you doing with a Nobel prize?

EARLY in her tertiary education Elizabeth Blackburn was asked by a family friend: ”What’s a nice girl like you doing studying science?”

Last night, the now Dr Blackburn had the last laugh when she became the first Australian woman to win a Nobel prize.