O’ReillyNet has an article on customizing your shell prompt. There’s just no excuse for using the default.

A reader sent along a link to a very interesting piece about the roots of the whole Wen Ho Lee debacle. As it turns out, the nuclear secrets in question in the trial were stolen during the Reagan and Bush administrations, and China’s involvement in our efforts to prop up the Contras in Nicaragua may have something to do with the loss of those secrets. It’s amazing that the “liberal media” has been spun to such an extent that these problems are actually blamed on the Clinton administration.

Sun is shelling out $2 billion for Cobalt, makers of the Qube server appliance. That’s a lot of money for a Linux company.

Salon has a great interview with Gore Vidal today, in which he discusses corporate control of the American political system. It includes this great quote on the likelihood of Congress passing reforms that eliminate the corruption inherent in allowing corporations and fat cats to finance political campaigns: “Will it happen? No burglar who ever reached the second floor ever kicked the ladder away. “

Outrageous! Amazon’s 1-click ordering patent was insulting enough, but Apple’s decision to license the patent is just incredible. As the author of the article points out, the terms of the deal are unknown, so it seems likely that this was some kind of behind the scenes crap that allowed both companies to create value where none existed through the clever use of smoke and mirrors.

How long will it be before the full contents of the Jihad Encyclopedia are published openly on the Internet? Why didn’t Osama bin Laden just publish it on the Internet in the first place? How hysterical will people become when it does appear on the Internet? These are the questions that came to mind when I read the stories about the CIA’s capture of the famed terror manual.

The real story of PING, by the author of the utility, Mike Muuss. (BSD bigots will not fail to note the platform on which PING was developed.)

Salon has a lenghty article today about the environmental hazards associated with throwing PCs and other computer equipment into landfills. My three word synopsis: don’t do it. There are all sorts of nasty compounds used to make computer equipment, and burying them where they can leach into the soil and contaminate the groundwater is a really bad idea. Perhaps instead of buying a new PC next year, I’ll just upgrade my existing PC …

Oh, one more bad thing I forgot about the Olympics: the television coverage always sucks. I wish I could get the CBC, they do a much better job than the crap produced by NBC. Even the production team from Big Brother would do a better job than NBC Sports.

According to Timothy Noah at Slate, the New York Times shares a big part of the blame for the Wen Ho Lee debacle. The Times certainly didn’t mention that in their news story yesterday that piled on the other responsible parties.