Day: February 7, 2007

Tranquility
by Ian McAtee

Cars rushing past, all speeding and fighting to be first off the lights, they’re all hitting their horns, I assume they have somewhere to go although where it is I don’t want to know! A bus pulls up, so many people fight to get on they’ve all got to get somewhere so they stand in the stench, in a closed compartment and breath in everyone else’s sweat. A tram goes by ringing its bell, even more people pour in, their numbers swell. There are also the cyclists that rule the road, they must be tired of living, as they asssume right of way, Don’t they realise, everyone else is bigger than them? Everyone seems to have somewhere to go as they all rush noisily past my window.

Oh, where did peace and tranquility go?

Andy Fore – Sun, 2007 – 01 – 14 01:03

The Mind and The Heart
by Sri Chinmoy

The mind creates division And division is another name For devastating pain, The heart creates oneness, And oneness is another name

For spontaneous joy.

Andy Fore – Wed, 2007 – 01 – 10 01:54

Smudged Glass
by Michael Schroll

Almost thought I saw unreal, A moon so bright and clear. Was in the East and hung so low,

It seemed so very near.

I think on back long years ago, When you and I were new. Lookin’ through a nose smudged glass,

A moon just seen by two.

That night was calm as I recal, Was tender and so slow. The candles burned and music flowed,

Our love we came to know.

I miss the look, deep in your eyes, That smile you always had. Not much in this old cowboys life,

Has turned so very bad.

It’s missin’ now, that naked truth, We had it once upon. The moon we saw and wondered at,

Has darkened, and it’s gone.

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 01 – 15 16:34

So, according to a story on Reuters, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is evaluating whether or not to ban Novell from didtributing future versions of their Linux OS.

“The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft,” Eben Moglen, the Foundation’s general counsel, said on Friday.

Apparently they might use their lock on the intellectual property rights to key pieces of the opern-source OS to achieve this.

My questions:

1. Exactly how are they going to achieve this, if the software is open-source?
2. Which version of the GPL are they going to claim that permits this?
3. How does this action promote the goals of the FSF which according to their About Us page include: “our worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users.”?

Has Richard Stallman lost his ever-loving mind? He wants people to use Linux. And not just as the OS they run on their servers, but as an everyday OS. He wants people to stop using DRM on their electronically available downloads, as evidenced by the campaign to stomp out DRM.

If Novell wants to enter into a business agreement that results in commercial support and interoperability with the non-free software juggernaut Microsoft, then how is this bad for Linux?

Just because RS doesn’t like Billy Gates and his commercial giant, doesn’t mean that he needs to start by using the same tactics he stands against when someone gets in bed with MS and Linux at the same time.

Shame on you RS, put your money where you values are. If you want people to use open-source then don’t use bullying tactics to keep it from happening.

UPDATE: according to a story at Linux-Watch, the Reuters story is misleading. Apparently the patent agreement is completely legal under GPL v2, but they are working on a language for the next GPL v3 draft that will make it a violation of the license. I say again: why is this MS/Novell deal bad for Linux? And as the Linux-Watch story points out, the current Linux kernel developers don’t like GPL v3 and apparently have no plans to move from GPL v2.

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 02 – 05 01:32

Check out the Bizarre Boiling story on the Science@NASA site on how water boils in zero gravity. There is a really nifty QuickTime movie that shows a comparison of water boiling under 1 gravity versus micro-gravity.

Pretty cool on how the “bubble” is almost completely aggregated in micro-gravity.

Andy Fore – Wed, 2007 – 01 – 03 17:59

Chemistry – NASA – Physics – Space

At my local Linux users group meeting, someone brought up the Nerdcore HipHop music.

So if you are a nerd or a geek, then check out this Hip-Hop rhyme, called Kill Dash Nine.

I like the chorus:

KILL DASH NINE, No more CPU time. I run KILL DASH NINE, And your process is mine. I run KILL DASH NINE, ‘Cause it’s MY time to shine So don’t step outta line or else it’s

KILL DASH NINE!

Who says geek can’t be hip?

Andy Fore – Sat, 2007 – 01 – 06 20:01

At my local Linux users group meeting, someone brought up the Nerdcore HipHop music.

So if you are a nerd or a geek, then check out this Hip-Hop rhyme, called Kill Dash Nine.

I like the chorus:

KILL DASH NINE, No more CPU time. I run KILL DASH NINE, And your process is mine. I run KILL DASH NINE, ‘Cause it’s MY time to shine So don’t step outta line or else it’s

KILL DASH NINE!

Who says geek can’t be hip?

Andy Fore – Sat, 2007 – 01 – 06 20:01

Check out the Bizarre Boiling story on the Science@NASA site on how water boils in zero gravity. There is a really nifty QuickTime movie that shows a comparison of water boiling under 1 gravity versus micro-gravity.

Pretty cool on how the “bubble” is almost completely aggregated in micro-gravity.

Andy Fore – Wed, 2007 – 01 – 03 17:59

Chemistry – NASA – Physics – Space

Today is the birthday of Lord Byron, an English poet born in 1788 in Scotland. He was born George Gordon Noel.

His first success was the poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage written in 1812, which is based around his journeys from England to the eastern Mediterranean.

Check out today’s daily poem for another of his more recognizable poems, She Walks in Beauty.

This particular poem is one of my favorites, and it was featured in the television series Beauty and the Beast that ran on the CBS network in the US from 1987 until 1990.

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 01 – 22 13:40

After recently upgrading my MythTV system, I set to editing the metadata for my video collection.

Everything worked fine when editing through the regular interface, but when attempting to edit the data through the MythWeb interface, I noticed that entries where the title started with double-quotes, the field in the edit screen was empty.

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 01 – 15 16:53