This past weekend was the first of 4 race weekends this season at NJMP. I hope it was the the worst weather we will see all year at the races. Friday practice was great but a bit on the cool side. I got in 3 practice runs on Friday. Saturday started out great and I got in one practice run and around lunch time the skies opened up so I sat out the 2 races I had booked. I was not in the mood to race in the rain. I did not have rain tires but that was second to my lack of confidence due to the fact that I’m on a different bike this season that just the previous weekend I went down on (see previous post). I spent the last week putting it back together and was not looking forward to doing that again this week. Saturday was pretty much a bust. Overnight Saturday we slept through a pretty severe thunder storm and woke up to a soaked track, rain, fog and humidity. It was a furious day for many racers putting on rains and taking off rains as the track conditions changed almost every race along with the weather. I was eventually able to get in 2 of the 3 races I had booked for Sunday. Both were on dry track so I was able to ride hard and push a little. I took 3rd place in the Lightweight GP late in the afternoon. I didn’t take as many pictures either since I spent much of the weekend seeking shelter under the canopy. Next races in July.

P.S. There were some sidecar races this weekend too. What a blast to see those on track.

My buddy Theo who took second in the LWF40 race. Great job buddy.
Wet conditions.
Sidecar action.
I and the poor weather leave the track together.

Distributed computing is very much just what it soulds like. There are a number of reasons to utilize such strategies but the most popular is to achieve a greater amount of data processing in a given amount of time. Back in December of 2008 I wrote about how I had participated in the SETI@home project and then subsequently switched to the Folding@home project. Both of the projects are excellent examples of distributed computing. What I find most interesting about these projects is that they are using the power of distributed computing to analyze data that has already been obtained, rather than producing new data. In the case of SETI, they are able to use various radio telescopes the gather data from distant space in huge quantities. That data is then divided into very small pieces for each distributed client to analyze. Similarly, Folding@home uses the power of distribution to run protein folding simulations for far longer that was previously practical. The Folding@home Wikipedia page has some facts about the amazing amount of processing power of the Folding volunteer network. It runs in the multiples faster than the most powerful single computer in the world.

Below is a video of a protein folding simulation.

This precisely the type of work that your computer can contribute to the Folding project if you download and run the client. Many of us have computers that sit powered on all day and most of that time they are idle or using only a fraction of their processing power. Why not put that power to good use for a good cause?

Have you ever read the EULA that you are presented with when you buy a new computer or piece of software and you are prompted with that “I Agree” checkbox? I’m guessing no. I never have either. You would likely be surprised if you did read it. Here I’m doing a basic compare and contrast between the Windows 7 Ultimate EULA that comes on a new PC and the GPL (Gnu General Public License).

MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE N

2. INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.
a. One Copy per Computer. The software license is permanently assigned to the computer with
which the software is distributed. That computer is the “licensed computer.”
b. Licensed Computer. You may use the software on up to two processors on the licensed
computer at one time. Unless otherwise provided in these license terms, you may not use the
software on any other computer.
c. Number of Users. Unless otherwise provided in these license terms, only one user may use the
software at a time on the licensed computer.

8. SCOPE OF LICENSE.

The software is licensed, not sold. This agreement only gives you some rights
to use the features included in the software edition you licensed. The manufacturer or installer and
Microsoft reserve all other rights. Unless applicable law gives you more rights despite this limitation,
you may use the software only as expressly permitted in this agreement. In doing so, you must
comply with any technical limitations in the software that only allow you to use it in certain ways. You
may not
· work around any technical limitations in the software;
· reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, except and only to the extent that
applicable law expressly permits, despite this limitation;
· use components of the software to run applications not running on the software;
· make more copies of the software than specified in this agreement or allowed by applicable law,
despite this limitation;
· publish the software for others to copy;
· rent, lease or lend the software; or
· use the software for commercial software hosting services.

26. LIMITATION ON AND EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES.

Except for any refund the manufacturer or installer may provide, you cannot recover any other damages, including consequential, lost profits, special, indirect or incidental damages. This limitation applies to
· anything related to the software, services, content (including code) on third party Internet sites, or third party programs; and
· claims for breach of contract, breach of warranty, guarantee or condition, strict liability, negligence, or other tort to the extent permitted by applicable law. It also applies even if
· repair, replacement or a refund for the software does not fully compensate you for any losses; or
· Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

Taken from: http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/UseTerms/Default.aspx

The Free Software Foundation & The Gnu General Public License

The Foundations of the GPL
Nobody should be restricted by the software they use. There are four freedoms that every user should have:
the freedom to use the software for any purpose,
the freedom to change the software to suit your needs,
the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and
the freedom to share the changes you make.

Taken from: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html

In the GPL v3 any language devoted to what you may not do with the software is for the purpose of ensuring that the freedoms granted by the license are not infringed. For example, you may not modify it and then license it in a different way.

There is one way in which the GPL and the Microsoft EULA are quite similar. They both provide no real warranty. The GPL is even more absent of warranty as it provides none at all. The MSFT EULA does provide a 90 day warranty for defects.

I have on numerous occasions heard the argument that proprietary software is better if only for the fact that, if it performs poorly or causes damage then there is some recourse against the manufacturer. As paragraph 26 in the MSFT EULA above states, you can see that is not the case.

I suspect that people not familiar with “free as in speech” software have the notion that if it doesn’t cost money then it can’t be good. Those that are familiar understand that is not the case. If you have not had the pleasure to experience free software then you owe it to yourself to give it a try. You can get started with something like The Open Disc .

Be aware that terms are often used that misrepresent the true nature of software licenses. You will hear the term “open source” applied to many software product that may not necessarily be “free as in speech” free. Free software is however inherently open source and this can cause confuision. This is a topic for another discussion but it is good to be aware of it.

Back in the late 90’s when the WWW and the “Information Superhighway” were all over the news and everyone was getting an email address (remember Compuserve and Earthlink and AOL), Linux was also gaining traction because it provided so much of the back-end to the internet. A small group of engineers put their heads together and started the Cobalt company. Their history is available here. Their first product called the Qube 2700 shipped in March of 1998. It was soon upgraded to the Qube 2 and then later the the Cache Qube and Qube 3. There were also a few other products developed for the datacenter/ISP industry, those were the CacheRaq the NasRaq and a series of other Raq* devices. These were all 1U form factor, low power, low cost, rack ready appliances that allowed fast deployment of ISP type services to customers.

I can’t find the original order so I don’t know the exact date but I think it was around late 1999 that I ordered the Qube2. I have always enjoyed tech-gadgets and computers and I just loved these things from the moment I saw one. I set it up at the office in Hackensack where it was connected to our wicked-fast 768Kbps DSL line (now we have 25/25Mbps Fiber). It really had to be the coolest computer you could buy at the time, with its deep cobalt blue case and green Cylon style LED on the front and its diminutive footprint. And best of all it ran Linux. And second best of all it had an unusual 64bit 250Mhz MIPSel processor inside. It really was unique and so much fun to look at and use. I have a soft spot for that one too because it ran our hx4.com site for years.

I still have that Qube2 and two others that I have since obtained through eBay over the last 10 years. The most recent of which was practically a steal (for a fanboy). I was fortunate to happen upon an auction for a NIB Qube2 model in its original packaging, unopened plastic seal on the Qube2 and all the accessories and the original product sticker still intact on the box, all for $33.00. I’m still stoked about it.

Unfortunately these are obsolete and not good for much other that to serve as neat looking bookends and as conversation pieces. They indeed do still run and there is a community of enthusiasts as you can see from the links above. I have installed NetBSD 5.1 on two of them and that at least makes them current as far as the operating system goes but they are doggedly slow by todays standards and it can get tiresome trying to do anything productive on them. At this point I couldn’t see one serving much purpose other than perhaps for running a persistent instance of IRSSI under Gnu/screen or something similar. One of these days I think I will attempt to gut one of them and stuff a Nano/ITX system inside that will have all the comforts of modern hardware. They still look amazingly current.

I know it’s not as exciting as current events but like I mentioned previously, it is therapeutic for me to reminisce on these trips during the cold and icy winter months.

This one was from back in May of 2005. We began in Las Vegas again and headed to the Grand Canyon, we then went through Bryce Canyon and Arches NP. We spent a good deal of time on Southern Utah. Utah is spectacular. There were times we went from high elevation covered in snow caps to lush green valleys and farmland to such striking desert landscapes that made me feel like we were on the moon. One evening we had a great dinner at Rays Tavern in Green River and decided to press on to Moab to stay the night there. Then once we got to Moab we had a miserable time trying to get a place to stay for the night because the entire town was booked with a 4×4 rally. We finally found a room at the Red Cliffs Lodge about 20mi north of town well after 1:00am. The drive up to the lodge was daunting, in the pitch dark on a twisty valley road, it was cool and there was a sense that the river was at our side the entire time but we couldn’t see it. It would have been a nice place to spend some time. We woke up to a fantastic view of the red cliffs on one side and the Colorado River in full spring swell outside our back door. I remember having a great breakfast in the old town jailhouse (Jailhouse Cafe) in Moab then heading to Arches NP. This trip will always stick in my mind out for the surprising beauty and landscape variety that Utah offered and the fact that we had perfect weather the whole time.

2005 TRIP SLIDESHOW