Month: February 2007

As Winds That Blow Against A Star
by Joyce Kilmer

Now by what whim of wanton chance Do radiant eyes know sombre days? And feet that shod in light should dance

Walk weary and laborious ways?

But rays from Heaven, white and whole, May penetrate the gloom of earth; And tears but nourish, in your soul,

The glory of celestial mirth.

The darts of toil and sorrow, sent Against your peaceful beauty, are As foolish and as impotent

As winds that blow against a star.

ref. url: Trees and Other Poems – As Winds That Blow Against A Star

Andy Fore – Thu, 2007 – 01 – 18 17:24

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.

The data would be stored in the database, if entered in quotes, yet the edit screen would not retrieve it.

The solution is to add the usage of PHP function htmlentities in the edit.php file of the video module of MythWeb.

The problem is in line 102 where the value attribute contains the following snippet of PHP code:

The corrected version would look like this:

This is built off the latest version of the stable MythWeb module. Download the corrected version.

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 01 – 15 16:53

So I ran across a story on Slashdot about how ABC/Disney had a blog shutdown over the posting of some audio clips from a radio-station affiliate in conjunction with the blogger’s letters to the radio station advertisers over their tacit support of the comments and views of the talk radio hosts on the station.

The Slashdot post linked to a blog posting on the Daily Kos: State of the Nation that had more details.

While I don’t exactly like the idea of corporate America picking on the little guy when their pocketbook is being affected, I wonder at the hoopla that gets kicked up in the liberal ‘Net community everytime something like this happens.

One of the comments on the Daily Kos post stated that this was

this is a really big First Amdendment and Blogger Rights issue

I think that the author of the comment would have had a good point if they had stopped after “First Amendment”.

What is it that makes speech in a blog any different than speech in any other medium? If there are legitimate freedom of speech issues in this particular case, beyond the often confusing interpretation of what constitutes fair use, then that is a valid point. However, just because the post was made on a blog shouldn’t impart any special protection beyond what has been granted in the caselaw surrounding the first amendment protections.

For years, people that have an issue with a particular view expressed through a commercial entity, be it radio, television, or print, have been writing letters to newspaper editors and advertisers. How is this any different now that we have another medium to voice our opinions? Just because the ease of getting the opinion across has been increased with the advent of Internet forums and blogs, does not mean that the same laws concerning freedom of speech or copyright are more or less applicable.

Do we really need a whole raft of new legislation when the medium is digital instead of analog?

Andy Fore – Mon, 2007 – 01 – 08 02:12

Rest
by Neal Carman

Sunset; the river calm. Afar, half-visible, the valley’s cleft containers. The whole, a scene of rest. Rest? A mill, a bridge, a railway, trees, a river ? What restful thing is there? The mill? A place of roaring waters, Of belts that flap and clatter round their pulleys, Of rollers crushing the germ of life That those who strain to move its mangled weight May strain the more. The bridge? A burden-bearer, that lately was Crushed rock, and sacked cement, and twisted rods of iron And lines upon a sheet of paper. The railway? Bald and stark manifestation Of motion, weight, and grimy toil, Where shovels, with ballast laden And rhythmic striking mauls Have served fire-gutted gods of steam and steel. The trees? Yes! fed on by insects, Beat by the winds, Robbed every year of light-transforming leaves, Strangling their weak and small, Strugglers — chained to their place till dead and rotted. The river? Bank-guawer, flood-begetter, Carrier of filth and cannibalic life, And mountains, Riding toward the all-receptive sea. A restful scene?

Yes, such throughout the world is peace and rest.

ref. url: Rest

Andy Fore – Sun, 2007 – 01 – 21 18:13

Dreams
by D.H. Lawrence

All people dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,

Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, For they dream their dreams with open eyes,

And make them come true.

Andy Fore – Sat, 2007 – 01 – 06 19:48

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