BookMooch is a good idea -- give a book, get a point, get a book, take a point -- but the logistics proved too off-putting for me. Not that they were egregious, but given my life, the last thing I need is another errand on my "to do" list.

Sony's written a Folding\@Home client for the PS3 and is getting excellent PR for the power of the Cell processor in the PS3. The various "\@home" distributed computing projects struck me as a good example of the type of coding that was more likely to be possible on the …

Wow, what a great day: First, IronPython 1.0 is released and now comes word that Turbo Delphi, C#, and C++ are free for download.

Alright! Jim Hugunin et al. have shipped IronPython 1.0. You can get it at CodePlex.

Apparently, there's a "known problem" with Vista installing into VMWare Workstation. Kind of reminds me of the days when DOS didn't ship 'til 1-2-3 broke. Grrr....

Apparently you can use VMWare Server to instal Vista and then move the VM to Workstation.

The new version of Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools is winging its way toward me, along with Test Drive Unlimited, a racing game set on the island of Oahu. I wonder which one will have a worse effect on me.

Perhaps you've noticed the "Universal Service Fee" on your telephone bill. This is a government-mandated subsidy to support phone access in rural areas. Fair enough, perhaps. Here in Hawaii, SandwichIsles Communications Company receives more than \\(16M dollar per year to service... are you ready? ... 1,238 customers. That's \\)13,345 …

In a forthcoming column in SD Times, I predicted that one of the first things written using XNA GSE would be a Bittorrent client for the XBox360. Wrong. The current version of XNA does not allow network access.

Hmm...

Holy smoke, the new version was supposed to have hit the storeshelves 2 days ago. Man, I bet they regret not having had the opportunity to put "the lowest-swinging signifier of programming studliness" on the cover.

Joel Spolsky, one of the ablest commentors on the industry, recently made the mistake of combining advice and self-promotion without realizing that what he was writing combined "do what I say, not what I do," with a flame-baiting slap at non-mainstream languages. He's been hammered in the blogosphere, but the …