The first word of "don't be evil" actually matters!

Google started its journey towards the dark side back when they bought DoubleClick. Now the have announced a giant step in that direction. I've switched search engines and am retiring my Google+ account, and will try to live without Google Maps. I never did trust gmail...

Chuck Thacker honored by ACM with the A.M. Turing Award

The A.M Turing Award is the closest thing computer science and information technology have to a Nobel Prize. To my great pleasure, this year the award is going to Chuck Thacker, who designed or strongly influenced many of the machines I used during a very productive part of my career (Maxc, Alto, Dolphin, Dorado, Firefly).

Although Chuck has called himself "a humble purveyor of cycles," the machines and software he designed have made substantial differences in how we compute today.

Bravo!

Added March 10, 2010: There's a very informative review of Chuck's career and impact on the Microsoft site.

The Top 8 Reasons Not to Talk to Cops

I found this video to be most fascinating. James Duane, a professor at Regent Law School and a former defense attorney, tells his class why no one should ever agree to be interviewed by the police without their lawyer present. This segment is primarily relevant to those who are innocent and have nothing to hide.

A second video gives equal time to a police detective. He basically agrees that everyone should stand by their Fifth Amendment rights and never waive the protections mentioned in the "Miranda warning." It is primarily relevant to those who are not entirely innocent or do have something to hide.

Each video is half an hour. Prof. Duane comes across as a fast-talking smoothy who could prosper selling vegetable slicers on late night television, but his argument seems comprehensive and well-founded.

I found these via a blog post by Pascal Meunier, which is also well worth a read.