1. Go to http://mappoint.msn.com/DirectionsFind.aspx
2. For “Start” select “Address in: Norway”, “City: haugesund”
3. For “End” select “Address in: Norway”, “City: Trondheim”
4. Click “Get directions” and smile

The MySQL Users Conference 2005 registrations are now open,
We (that is, the program committee) have made decisions on the base program selection, so when you look at the site now you’ll be able to get an idea about some of the people and talks that will be at the conference.

I see there’s a nice earlybird discount, with freebie books and other stuff:
http://www.mysqluc.com/pub/w/35/register.html

Of course I hope to see everybody there!

Ahh, just returned from a little holiday in the Whitsunday Islands (tropical North Queensland) – very relaxing!
No computer, no phone… (be honest now, when did YOU last try that?) just hangin’ out on and around an island with nice weather and swimming pools.

Steve Bourne (yes, of Bourne Shell fame) interviewed Bruce Lindsay:
http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=233

Particularly love the bit on “Heisenbugs”:

Heisenbug as originally defined—and I was there when it happened—are bugs in which clearly the behavior of the system is incorrect, and when you try to look to see why it’s incorrect, the problem goes away. Typically, when you are trying to see what’s incorrect, you turn on tracing or you add some more parameters or you change something. And the change causes the problem to go away. Quite often these problems occur because of concurrent executions. Or they occur because of the way the memory happened to get laid out in a particular case.

So the real definition of a Heisenbug is when you look, it goes away—in deference to Dr. [Werner] Heisenberg, who said, “The more closely you look at one thing, the less closely can you see something else.”

Ok so this is not about MySQL… but as many MySQL people are from one country but living in another, there’s a common theme with certain experiences having to do with this “displacement”… in case you didn’t know, I am from The Netherlands, but live in Queensland, Australia.

In my family we have always been quite adament about getting a real Christmas tree – as in a live one. We even had real candles, but that’s another story (never had a fire though).

Anyway, Australia does have various pine varieties, but they look quite different from the Nordic varieties and in terms of shape they aren’t particularly suited to being an ornamental Christmas tree. There is also the issue of it being mid-summer in December, and this part of Australia is the sub-tropics. You get the picture, it would be fairly difficult to keep a live tree happy anyway. So most people here have a “fake” tree (gasp!), made of metal and fire-retardant plastic.

Harmony and I have actually found one that is pretty low on the cringe-scale. It looks like a real tree, without weird colours, built-in ornaments or whatever. And the bit that does the trick for me is that it is of the type “Odense”. Odense is a place in Denmark, which makes it of the exact shape I’m used to – Dutch trees mostly originate from Sweden and Denmark, either imported or locally grown from that same type.

Here:

Request for Discussion – unmoderated group comp.databases.mysql

Do add your thoughts on this… I know that it hasn’t been pursued in the past because of the MySQL mailing list and the many other resources. But yet, if there’s a demand and some people prefer a news group to a list or forum, why not?

I believe the next step after discussion is a vote on whether to establish the group. That should be in a couple of weeks.

The L, M and P of LAMP have jointly spoken: Linus Torvalds (Linux), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP), Monty Widenius (MySQL). This is about software patents, and that they are a really bad idea.
Their statement can be found at http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/app0411.html
(the No Software Patents web site contains lots of excellent info)

I personally feel very strongly about this issue as my background is in software development.
So why are software patents a bad idea?
For starters, they are unnecessary. When you write something, you have copyright on it.

A key problem may be that software, to most people, is like magic. I think that Arthur C. Clarke stated this very well in one of his three laws:

    “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

One the best analogies for software that I have heard is architecture.
For those who have never built a house, it’s a mystery how a house is built. But anybody who knows anything about building a house will use the same concepts that everybody else does… floor joists, trusses, stud walls, wallboards, siding, bricks and mortar, etc.

And really, most of what computer programs do is about “bricks” and “boards” being combined in various standard ways. These things are so well known that nobody dares claim a patent on it!
People in the industry of course see how their colleagues do things, and perhaps build on that for their next project. The openness helps everybody: it encourages innovation and helps advance the state of the art. Sounds good to me.

Many patents relating to software actually refer to business processes, which are even more dangerous. Selling something online using a credit card, stuff like that. It’s ridiculous!
Realistically, there’s no way you can build even a simple web site without tripping over some patents. I suppose that’s why companies now sprout up offering insurance against this – but to me, that just highlights the fundamental problem.

Be gone, software patents!

Nearly 60 people…AFAIK that’s the biggest ever turnout for a first meeting (do let me know if you know otherwise!)
Well, Georg Richter organised it, he generally gets things going really well 😉
I took some pics.

Well, ComCon is finished. Judging from feedback and comments heard, it went great.
Congrats to Frank Stepan and S&S Verlag for putting it all together, and Georg and Zak for great organisational efforts!
I already posted some pics earlier, but here is the complete bunch, organised and with captions.

http://www.bitbike.com/users/ahlentz/gallery/album28