Day: July 8, 2008

Lively Launches

Posted on by Nimgimli

For quite some time we’ve heard rumors that Google was working on some kind of virtual world project.

Today, they launched Lively (I’m still trying to figure out if there’s any relation between this project and Sun’s Lively Kernel project, but I think not), a web-based virtual world product that, frankly, I’m still trying to figure out.

Of course they didn’t stop me from creating a Room. It’s quite fancy, don’t you think? /sarcasm

[EDIT: Well it seems like you can’t create new content at this point, just drag and drop stuff others have made. Which makes the whole exercise a lot less interesting to me at this point.]

Presumably, you’ll need to install Lively before you can see anything.

Reiser leads police to body

Posted on by Nimgimli

The strange and fascinating case of Hans Reiser continues, though it seems things are drawing to a close. He’d been convicted of murdering his estranged wife, Nina, but maintained that he was innocent and had nothing to do with her appearance. Then, two days before sentencing, he led authorities to a body (not yet confirmed to be her) buried in a shallow grave a mile from where Nina was last seen. Details: Convicted husband leads authorities to body

I’m not sure why this case has grabbed my attention. It’s a sad fact that people are murdered all the time. I guess it’s because Reiser is such a geek. I have this weird mental image of us geeks as basically good and non-violent people for some reason. Totally naive of me, of course.

Anyway if you haven’t heard about the case, Wired has a lengthy and pretty interesting story on it from a while back. It was written before the trial and, as I remember it, paints Reiser in a somewhat sympathetic light while still remaining objective. I’ll admit its been a while since I read it though.

Hans Reiser: Once a Linux Visionary, Now Accused of Murder