Darwin dinner at Christ’s College

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News just in for Darwin lovers..

The Development Office is delighted to announce that on 12th February 2009 Christ’s will host a unique fundraising gala dinner to mark not only Charles Darwin’s birthday, but also the birth of College’s exciting collaboration with the Galapagos Conservation Trust. This event will undoubtedly be the highlight of the Bicentenary celebrations for both organisations.

There will be a full programme of activities throughout the afternoon and evening, including a discussion led by Sir David Attenborough and Andrew Marr, tours of the refurbishment of Darwin’s student set in College and a lavish black tie dinner in Hall.

Places are strictly limited. We are hoping to raise around £500,000 to establish a Charles Darwin and Galapagos Islands Trust to promote scholarship linked to present-day aspects of the work originally undertaken by Charles Darwin (Christ’s 1827-31, 1836-37).
 
Further information is available from Alex Cullen: ac597@cam.ac.uk

For and against the cloud

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For: Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer: “We’ll need a new operating system. Just as we have an operating system for the PC, for the phone and for the server, we need a new operating system that runs in the internet. I bet we’ll call it Windows something. We’re going to announce it in four weeks. We might even have a trademark by then. So, for today I’ll call it Windows Cloud. And Windows Cloud will be a place where you can run arbitrary applications up in the internet that runs .Net.”

Against: Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, has warned that cloud computing is mainly “hype” and companies risk losing control of their data if they buy into such systems. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program. Do your own computing on your own computer with your copy of a freedom-respecting program. If you use a proprietary program, or somebody else’s web server, you’re defenceless.”

+ IBM: a series of cloud initiatives, including Bluehouse.