Why is it that some of the essential tools that are used on a daily basis are missing from OS X?
Today I wanted to use wget and found that it was missing.
Fortunately, this is a very easy thing to fix. All you have to do is download the source code from the GNU page on the wget project, then follow the standard compile steps:
- unpack the source
- ./configure
- make
- sudo make install
Note: The compiled binary is placed in /usr/local/bin so you will need to add this to your path. This process varies depending on what shell you are using, but the default shell in 10.4.9 is bash.
Posted by: Andy Fore in Sayings
Every now and then I will utter a saying that I grew hearing or using that makes my assistants wonder.
Today I happened to use the saying If wishes were horses, beggars would ride in reference to one of my assistants wish that the timesheet process here was all done electronically instead of the paper system that we have.
She wondered where I get these things from. I thought it was a pretty common saying, but I had never actually investigated where it originated, so I went googling.
The first reference I found was from Bartleby.com which listed the meaning behind the saying according to the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy as:
If wishing could make things happen, then even the most destitute people would have everything they wanted.
While this was nice, I already knew what it meant, so I went googling some more for the origin of the phrase. It turns out that it is a line from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme, entitled If Wishes Were Horses:
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. If turnips were watches, I would wear one by my side. And if “ifs” and “ands” Were pots and pans,
There’d be no work for tinkers!
Ref: apples4theteacher.com
Posted by: Andy Fore in Environmental
So according to a study commissioned by Mayor Bloomberg, the greenhouse gas emissions of New York City in 2005 was on par with all of Ireland or Portugal.
You have to love it when a city produces as much environmentally destructive elements as an entire country.
The most interesting part was the fact that it’s mostly from the buildings and not the average citizen. The claim that the mass transit system is what make the citizens less polluting.
I wonder how much less the entire U.S. would produce if we took mass transit more seriously?
Ref: Greenhouse Gas Study: 1 Percent From NYC
Posted by: Andy Fore in Photography
A nice post on Amazing Filtered Things shows a whole bunch of photos of nuclear blasts.
My favorite is the one with the observers in the foreground.
Posted by: Andy Fore in Culture
Johnny Hart, the creator of the B.C. comic strip died at the age of 76 on Saturday, April 7, 2007.
This really sucks. B.C. was a really great comic strip.
For more check out the story on PressConnect.
Check out the B.C. strip on comics.com.
Posted by: Andy Fore in Gaming, Adobe Contribute
Recently I ran into a situation where I had to change the username and password that Contribute uses for the SFTP operations.
I don’t have my stuff setup to use individual SFTP logins, since I am doing away with direct shell access to the webroot and dislike manually updating permissions for people.
I found out that there is a hidden password policy in the Contribute Publishing System with regards to what it will pass as the SFTP password.
I tend to use mixed-case as well as punctuation and numbers in my passwords. When I put the new password in, the system seemed to take it. Unfortunately, this was only an appearance, since it borked when I closed Contribute and opened it back up.
Apparently it doesn’t like the use of an ampersand in the password. And since the password is stored in an unusual encryption scheme I was unable to recover from this without recreating my entire connection to the particular webserver I was managing.
Stay tuned for a post on the steps to recreate the connection without losing all you data, as well as a utility to help in case of problems.
Posted by: Andy Fore in Poetry
The Gypsy Violin
by Munda
The compelling violin lures With an irresistible yearn Dance, dance, please dance for me
I can no longer adjourn!
Ethereal notes float from its strings Caressing like a lover’s hand Sensual music, Angel’s touch
Leading the way to wonderland
Embracing with utter delight Craving, beckoning me Tempting my lonely heart
Dance, dance on my melody!
Faster, faster the music escapes Without compassion to body or soul Seducer of lonely hearts
Until dancing is my only goal
Faces gyrate while I dance on passion Flashes of fire in the corner of my eyes The violin plays like never before
Until I become one and loneliness dies
With a final cry and a final touch The violin stops, the music ends Leaving behind an emptiness
We’ll meet again, my violin friend
ref. url: The Gypsy Violin
Posted by: Andy Fore in Poetry
When You Are Old
by William Butler Yeats
When you are old and gray and full of sleep And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true; But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
ref. url: When You Are Old
Posted by: Andy Fore in Copyright
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:
- Exactly how are they going to achieve this, if the software is open-source?
- Which version of the GPL are they going to claim that permits this?
- 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.
Posted by: Andy Fore in Poetry
Who is She?
by Gabriel Rosenstock
Who is this goddess of yours? Who is she?
‘Pure fantasy, I wager.’
‘Is she not clear to you?’
‘No, she is not.’
‘Clearer than day is she
‘ clearer than night …’
‘Not clear to me …’
‘Day in night is she
‘ night in day …’
‘I see her not …’
‘Look inside yourself!’
‘Difficult …’
‘Then look at her frost
covering the grass.’
ref. url: Who is She? In English and Gaelic