Web Log - News

Good News

By Andrew Price, 2008-06-20 19:13:54 in News. Leave a comment (Permalink)

It seems to be a time of good/interesting news in the technology world:

"I think the BBC can, and should, do more to support the Free and Open Source community" -- Ashley Highfield, Director, BBC Future Media & Technology
"ODF has clearly won" -- Stuart McKee, Microsoft
"The latest OpenJDK binary [...] passes the rigorous Java Test Compatibility Kit (TCK)" -- Rich Sharples, Director of Product Management for the JBoss EAP, Red Hat
"MySQL code has been migrated from BitKeeper to Bazaar" -- Kaj Arnö, MySQL VP of Community Relations
"One tonne 'Baby' marks its birth" -- Jonathan Fildes, Science and technology reporter, BBC News
"BSc Computer Science with Lower Second Class Honours [...] subject to ratification by the University of Wales" -- The degree result letter I was given earlier by the Computer Science department.

I am a happy chap.

Free Software Paying My Bills

By Andrew Price, 2007-01-11 12:50:50 in News. Leave a comment (Permalink)

I guess it's about time I blogged about this. The UK Free Software Network has started a new "Profits" programme where they're awarding students money for contributing to free software in the form of minimum wage employment. They're kicking off the programme with one student this year and raising the number gradually over the next few years. I'm pleased to report that I've been chosen to be the first student on the programme.

It's a great opportunity for me to spend my spare time working on pyBackPack, contributing back to Ubuntu and I have one or two new projects in mind too. Anyway, I won't ramble on, I have exam revision to do. The story has been covered by Ping Wales.

PBF Gossip

By Andrew Price, 2006-03-27 20:10:00 in News. Leave a comment (Permalink)

I recently sent an email to Nicholas Gurewitch, creator of the PBF comic, asking him about a couple of the strips that disappeared from the PBF archive (temporarily breaking my RSS feed in the process). He kindly replied explaining that there is going to be a PBF book compiled and that the strips were removed in order to make some strips exclusive to the book. He also added that when the second PBF site is launched it will have its own RSS feed. Excellent news. Can't wait to see the new site.

Swansea University Moving To Llanelli?

By Andrew Price, 2005-11-12 17:29:56 in News. Leave a comment (Permalink)

I was at Spar doing some emergency shopping for bread, milk, eggs and the like, when I passed the newspaper stand. The headline of one of the South Wales newspapers said something like "Shock University Move To Llanelli". On closer inspection, it was none other than our own Swansea University.

When I got back I mentioned it in milliways and Dom found this news story about the (considered) move on the web. Shocker!

I hope they manage to keep the university in its current location. The beach front will truly be missed and there will most likely be a lot of disruption for SUCS - would we have to turn into LUCS? The impact on Swansea as a whole would be pretty terrible.

Worrying news.

Christopher Walken For President

By Andrew Price, 2005-08-14 16:46:57 in News. Leave a comment (Permalink)

Either Christopher Walken is running for US president in 2008 or someone is a bit too obsessed with the man.

If I was American (and this wasn't a joke), Christopher Walken would probably get my vote. He seems like a good bloke and can't be any worse than the current president.

Apparently the campaign is keeping a low profile until Walken finishes his next bunch of films and it will kick off properly in 2007. Sounds fishy to me, I don't think anyone running for president would leave it that late to start a campaign.

Although the campaign website has been up since Wednesday, only one news website seems to have cottoned on to/fallen for it.

I doubt it's true but it would be cool if it was, wouldn't it?