Ted Kennedy has malignant brain tumor,

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From MiamiHerald.com

BOSTON — (AP) — Doctors for the Massachusetts Democrat say tests conducted after Sen. Edward Kennedy suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe. His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

The 76-year-old senator has been hospitalized in Boston since Saturday, when he was airlifted from Cape Cod after a seizure at his home.

His wife and children have been with him each day but have made no public statements.

His doctors said in a statement released to The Associated Press that he has had no further seizures, is in good spirits and is resting comfortably.

Entropy reduction and its consequences

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From Technology Review…

In technical terms, a programming error reduced the amount of entropy used to create the cryptographic keys in a piece of code called the OpenSSL library, which is used by programs like the Apache Web server, the SSH remote access program, the IPsec Virtual Private Network (VPN), secure e-mail programs, some software used for anonymously accessing the Internet, and so on.

In plainer language: after a week of analysis, we now know that two changed lines of code have created profound security vulnerabilities in at least four different open-source operating systems, 25 different application programs, and millions of individual computer systems on the Internet. And even though the vulnerability was discovered on May 13 and a patch has been distributed, installing the patch doesn’t repair the damage to the compromised systems. What’s even more alarming is that some computers may be compromised even though they aren’t running the suspect code….

On this day…

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… in 1961, a white mob attacked a busload of “Freedom Riders” in Montgomery, Alalabama, prompting the federal government to send in United States marshals to restore order.

Strange to think, then, that Obama won the Alabama Primary.

May 22nd

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Something overheard and uncorroborated. At a London dinner party last Saturday evening a prediction was made that if Labour loses the Crewe and Nantwich by-election on Thursday, Gordon Brown will resign. Seems unlikely, you say — and so did I. But then I am told that the party allegedly included two very senior Labour ministers.

As I say, I have no way of confirming this. Still…

OLPC mission control

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Ivan Krstić was one of the key people on the OLPC project. He recently resigned. Here’s part of his explanation.

Not long ago, OLPC undertook a drastic internal restructuring coupled with what, despite official claims to the contrary, is a radical change in its goals and vision from those that were shared with me when I was invited to join the project. Adding insult to injury, I was asked to stop working with Walter Bender, without a doubt one of the most stunningly thoughtful and competent people I’ve ever worked with. Following Walter’s demotion from OLPC presidency, I was to report instead to a manager with no technical or engineering background who was put in charge of all OLPC technology…

What made Ivan despondent is his perception that Nicholas Negroponte sees the project as a vehicle for producing a lot of cheap laptops rather than as a primarily educational mission. According to The Register, he believes that

“Nicholas’ new OLPC is dropping those pesky education goals from the mission and turning itself into a 50-person nonprofit laptop manufacturer, competing with Lenovo, Dell, Apple, Asus, HP and Intel on their home turf, and by using the one strategy we know doesn’t work.”

Later: Actually, it’s more complicated that that quote implies. Just found a terrific, thoughtful essay by Ivan on the whole OLPC project. Lots of comments too.

Why Microsoft wanted Yahoo

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From the New York Times…

It’s no secret that Microsoft’s online businesses have failed to gain leading market positions. But what is not widely appreciated, perhaps, is that the company’s online initiatives have lately been doing worse than ever.

The last year when Microsoft made a profit in its online services business was the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2005. Its MSN unit used to do a nicely profitable business providing dial-up Internet access to subscribers. When its users began to switch to broadband services provided by others, however, the earnings disappeared. Microsoft’s Web sites brought in a trickle of advertising revenue, which did not grow fast enough to offset the disappearance of the narrowband access business. AOL suffered in similar fashion.

In the 2006 fiscal year, Microsoft’s online services produced a $74 million loss after the previous year’s profit of $402 million. Since then, the numbers have become uglier, as Microsoft’s online segment has added employees and absorbed growing sales and marketing expenses. In the 2007 fiscal year, the online businesses lost $732 million. In the next nine months, through March 31 this year, they recorded a loss of $745 million, almost double the amount in the period a year earlier. With $2.39 billion in revenue for the nine months, the online segment represents only 5 percent of the company’s total revenue…

The Crewe cut

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Next Thursday sees the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, which just might turn out to be one of those pivotal by-elections. Andrew Rawnsley has some sharp comments about the nature and tone of the Labour campaign up there.

What was once regarded as the cleverest electioneering operation in the democratic world has descended into a crude parody of the silliest and nastiest aspects of political campaigning. Labour activists dressed in toppers and tails stalk the Tory candidate to attack him as a ‘toff’ because his family built up a successful chain of shoe repairers. It’s not Edward Timpson who is made to look like the nob by these puerile games.

When not playing the class card in a juvenile way, Labour has been playing the race card in a poisonous way. The BNP is not standing in the seat, but you could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at their stuff when you read some of Labour’s campaign material. One Labour leaflet invites a vote against the Tories on the grounds that they ‘oppose making foreign nationals carry an ID card’. The Tories actually oppose making anyone carry an ID card. Labour should be ashamed of stooping to xenophobia to try to cling on to the seat. They are getting this down and dirty because so much is at stake here, especially for the Prime Minister…

XO+XP=POXX?

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This morning’s Observer column…

Much heat and little light were generated last week by the announcement, made jointly by Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, that Windows XP is to be made available on the project’s ‘XO’ laptop, the little green machine aimed at the world’s poorest children. Next month, trials of Windows on the XO will begin in what Microsoft – in a telling phrase – describes as ‘key emerging markets’.

The news has been hailed as welcome pragmatism on the part of Nicholas Negroponte, the project’s director. But among some of his colleagues and in the wider Open Source community, it has also been excoriated as a betrayal. Which view is correct? Both…