Programming's two cultures
Joel Spolsky is one of the great writers on programming today, and his essay on the differences between Unix programming culture and Windows programming culture — built around a review of Eric Raymond's new book, “The Art of Unix Programming — offers a slew of useful insights. (You don't need to be a programmer to get a lot out of this piece.)

The key idea here: “Unix culture values code which is useful to other programmers, while Windows culture values code which is useful to non-programmers.” [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

Buck 65. A couple of months ago, I got a plain brown envelope at the office. It contained CD by something called Buck 65 along with a poorly-photocopied promo blurb from Warner Brothers. It got lost in the papers in a corner of the desk but just fell out so I stuck it in the Mac. Herewith a shameless attempt to become part of the music marketing food-chain, and the stuff isn‰¥út bad either… [ongoing]

On Bulleted Lists and Evil. The recent polemic against PowerPoint by Edward Tufte (there‰¥ús a nice prÌ©cis over at Wired) has been echoing around the ideasphere, with coverage in the Times and in many blogs and mailing lists. I‰¥úm a frequent public speaker and care a lot about this; herewith some thoughts and advice, along with a bit of routine Microsoft-bashing… [ongoing]

Copyright Doesn't Cover This Site. As debate over the legality of online file trading rages on, a University of Maine department takes a contrarian approach to copyright protection, creating a network where content is open to all. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

Globulos!. Globulos! [SWF] Welcome to the world of highly addictive, simple time wasting! [MetaFilter]

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it is fun.

Are RFID Tags A Privacy Threat We Should be Concerned About?. As some of you may have been able to read from the news of the last few days officials participating at the World Information Society Forum in Geneva were provided with RFID badges (radio-frequency identification chips) having the ability to monitor the wondering and detailed position of each participant within the convention center. While most participants didn't even pay attention to this detail, a few of them were there to actually uncover detailed information about this illegal practice which has been banned through several international laws and treaties. The badges were handed out to more than 50 prime ministers, presidents… [Robin Good' Sharewood Tidings]

In defense of proprietary software..

Having followed the debates at last week's World Summit on the Information Society, John Carroll has written an editorial special for ZDNET entitled In defense of proprietary software.

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit Newslog]

Half the Things That Worry Me Most About WSIS Summarized in Two Paragraphs. Belarus KGB chief: Internet should be brought under control (10/12/2003): KGB should exert control over Internet, because international terrorism and organized crime more and more often use WWW. “We are trying to provide all the possibilities, and legal – fist of all, in order to be able to control Internet, “- said Mr. Leonid Erin, chief of Belarusian KGB.Mr. Erin emphasizes that he understands criticism of this position, especially in connection with human rights violation. But he insists that prior to that are state interests and secret services activities. Note that although the underlying motives may differ substantially, one hopes, the official position as to what should happen is not that different from that of many governments, including several democracies…. [Discourse.net]