Code and Life

Just a short note on this Slashdot newsbit that almost got me falling off my chair: Nokia is acquiring Trolltech, the makers of QT graphics library behind the popular Linux window manager (/platform) KDE.

I mean, if I had been asked a month ago the top three companies making money with open source software, I would’ve replied RedHat, MySQL and Trolltech. And since MySQL has already been acquired, I really wonder what is next.

Also, it is interesting that Nokia decided to acquire Trolltech, even though their Maemo platform is based on GTK and Gnome, not QT and KDE. Well, let’s just hope they don’t stop providing a GPL version of QT in the future.

Anyone want to bet who is the next open source shop being acquired by some big players? My bet is RedHat being acquired by Google or Microsoft, because, well, that would just be surprising, wouldn’t it?

Just a short interesting headline that got my attention on Slashdot:

Nanotubes Form The Darkest Material Yet Created

Picture of this 99.9% light-absorbing monster material can be found from news.com.au coverage. Now as many slashdotters pointed out, this opens up obvious possibilities for solar panels, but once these really get cheap, I’d propose a couple of additional ones:

• Limiting the light scatter in open areas where adequate lightning (e.g. for safety) and darkness are simultaneously preferred. Theaters, nighttime transportation (ever tried to sleep in a well-lit train?) spring up to mind
• Ninja clothing. Of course the problem is, that once you actually become darker than the night, you may be more easily spotted.
• Striking interior decoration. Doors that look like black holes? Check. Really black borders for your home theater projector canvas? Check. Sofa that just doesn’t seem to be there? Check!

And of course there is my absolute favourite: MacBook Night Air, as shown below.

Like Nigel Tufnel says in the movie This Is Spinal Tap: It’s like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.

Financial Times seems is suggesting that the recent “HD-DVD only” agreement made by Paramount (for which they got paid a huge amount of cash) may containt a clause that allows Paramount to rethink in case Warner Bros switches to Blu-ray (which just recently happened). If Paramount actually follows Warner, it would likely mark the end of the high definition format war.

In other news, I won’t be switching yet, as stand-alone Blu-ray players cost about $900 (600€) here where I live. And while PC drives for my media PC in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray have decreased sharply and can be had for around $200, I think charging $100 for playback software (with forums full of compatibility and playback problems) is absolute robbery.

Having said that, expect to hear first-hand account on these issues the second I can have both the drive and software for less than $200. :)

Domain registered! I originally thought to go for “Coding, Scene, and Life”, but the decided codeandlife.com would just be less irritating to type. And speaking of domains, it seems I was lucky I wasn’t trying different domains using the whois tool on NetworkSolutions web page, as it seems they are “reserving” all searched domains with them (knowledge gained through the always-infallible Slashdot).

It seems official domain registrars can reserve a domain for free for five days, which can be released after that and the domain comes back available. NSI does just this for all .com domains searched through their website, effectively screwing you for five days if you decide to register the domain name somewhere else, after you find that it is available.

NSI of course tells (alleged response to it here) that this is done to “protect the customers”, but to actually protect them they should be honest about it, and ensure that the person registering the domain is the same who originally searched it. But this would of course hurt their business, as if the first person to search for a domain doesn’t buy it, they lose any other potential buyers stopping by within the next few days.

But NSI is right in a sense, as now the domain needs to be registered with them within the next five days, protecting their customer base, if not the individual customer. If you can get away with that, it is good for the business.