April 30, 2008
Last post of the month - I have not been an active blogger this month and not for lack of things to talk about.
Imagine - I'd just got through telling the missus that I was feeling a bit fluish and then the News came on. But do we got any acual useful details? Not a sausage!
This swine flu seems to be killing people - or is it secandary infections? Masks stop you catching it? Or just slows the spread if you already have it? People are quarantined, but they leave their windows open to get lots of fresh air ... so it's not airborn then? Wash your hands a lot - suggests you have to eat it. But a whole plane-load got infected ... suggests it's airborn doesn't it? And how are those home quarantines enforced: I bet the parents of those kids still went to work.
Considering the media lack of substance, I had a look at the blogosphere which turns out to be an nonplussed as I am. Maybe I should bother my more medical rellies for an insider view?
So I move on.
The installfest is now confirmed for the Orewa public library, starting 10am, on May 16. I'll be getting flyers and stuff out in the next few weeks.
I have downloaded and installed Ubuntu 9.04 to my machines. I'm tired of saying how great each release is. It is now so trouble-free it's boring to install. The main issues remain - fancy new audio-videa cards, and motherboard fake-RAID. I'm running down bug-reports as prep for the installfest.
My Neolite project is finally out of beta.
End of month stats:
This month had just under 800 visitors generating around 1200 hits ... definately a drop, but nothing major. Another slow month will be a bit much for readers to take though.
Fortunately, there is a swag of updates coming through today and tomarrow - especially with the Acer-Ubuntu page, which has always been popular. The 804 page tops the charts this month dispite the 810 page being out for a while now. I must have a rogue link someplace. But the neolite OXP tops the download stats.
While Windows still gets half the hits, IE manages only 26%. A quarter of you are still on IE - please tell me it's from workplace! Still - the message seems to be getting through. I don't see so many IE-only web pages these days either.
This afternoon I've been baking. I balked at the cost of biscuits and decided to make my own - there are now thirty fluffy chocolate-chip shortbready type things (I dropped the baking soda) which cost less than a packet from the supermarket. This is great. Bread next.
April 24, 2008
Ubuntu 9.04 was released
yesterday. You can get it from
Canonical ... which I will be doing tonight. Meantime, I am updating all my web pages - goo look.
Boing-boing coverage of Big Media manipulations includes this reference to NZs efforts against S92A. The author calls the NZ hackers, and the protest effort, "brilliant" and relates it to similar fights elsewhere.
He gets the law wrong but who cares - it's great coverage. Shows how a little campaign can have a large influence. Interesting point about how these laws may be complex and hard to explain but the methods used to get them passed really tell you all you need to know.
BTW: we are still waiting a draft for the revised S92.
April 23, 2008
This is terrible - I just have not been writing blog entries. It's not as if there has been nothing to write about. What gives?
The fact is that I've been totally procrastinating by finishing off the Oolite project - the neolite shipset. That project is very near completion - with the final beta release currently on the board.
The final project features some 40-odd spacecraft, and supporting models, with full textures (glowing lights, specular, and normalmapping). Some wags have described it as being to oolite what playboy is to men. I'll redo the download page to include a slideshow from my Photobucket page.
I've not been totally lazy though. I did get on to the (Orewa Public) library about possibly holding an installfest there. This event is pencilled in for the 16th of May - possibly taking over the teen books section by the door. There are logistic and safety concerns which need to be looked at - and I need to talk to the library IT person. Stay tuned.
My feeling is to stick with the date, and hold the installfest at my place if the library gig falls through. It's a good date since we'll be installing Ubuntu, and this will give enough time for the install problems to materialize and be resolved before it gets to us.
The Open Source Solutions course is on track for next semester. Winter was slow last year but I'll promote it properly this time. The dates are in the booklet (need to update the page) which you can get at the library.
I've been online a lot. Some noteable pages:
Tweenbots is awesome - it's an art experiment. The idea is to put a simple robot in a public park. It's just a motor - no steering, no nothing. It has a sign on it asking for help to find the opposite corner of the park ... the idea is that passers by turn it to point in the right direction. The artist surruptitiously films the results. Go look.
Jeremy Allison talks to a free software crowd about working with Microsoft. This guy works at Google, but is also a SAMBA (free software windows network) developer. He's been in it from the beginning when MS thought we were cute, and IBM was the big evil corporation. The talk is called "The Elephant in the Room" - which is Microsoft and how to deal with it. Short version: don't use Windows.
The BBC have always been an odd media company. Their job is to provide TV programs to the British public ... while all other TV companies are in the business of selling advertising to other businesses. This makes them a bit more willing to experiment.
In this case with creative commons licensing for a program, with promises of more to come. In particular they are downloading the tools needed to remix the show, which is a techie magazine series.
Counterpunch's Joe Goekler talks about the top ten people to be scared of in terms of the degree to which they threaten your life. Technically this is groups of people - motorists are at number four for example. The short version is that we tend te emphasize the uncommon threats (terrorists - who kill so few people that they don't rate a place on the list) when we have other things to worry about.
Obama gives the Queen (of England) an iPod loaded with music - sparking some observations on copyright law. Mostly humorous but you have to be concerned about contracts which force these situations.
I've said before that the licenses are not used like that - the idea is that if you do something the rights-holder does not like, it's illegal. Traditional copyright gets this broken because copying has become trivial.
April 10, 2008
Slow start to the month this time. This is the month of my Birthday. Next month is Cathy's birthday ... and Corwin's. So April marked a time of celebration and anticipation in this family - Corwin was convinced that all the cakes were for him - He'd be announcing his new age, singing Happy Birthday then requesting "cayk". So I've been a bit depressed.
Had a quiet celebration at home - blobbing with junk food and DVDs. The weather went stormy, then icey. Gur-rayt.
The Movies were:
Mirrors: where does Keifer Sutherland find time to do a movie?! Still - he plays an ex-detective who tends to be a bit obsessive, so that wouldn't have been much of a change from usual. This one has some creepy stuff associated with mirrors ... some reminiscent of the first "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
The "Underworld" trilogy - took Cathy to see the latest (Rise of the Lycans) at the local Berkely. This one is the best of the set. Cathy loved it so I rented the other two. The original is still a good movie. The sequal is just another sequal - starts out by systematically removing everything that was good about the first one, then devolving into this cheap action flick. Finally dissolved into sillyness and died messily. If you want to see stylish gothic thrillers with an action/adventure tang, do yourself a favour and forget the middle movie even exists.
Easter - which is the Autumn festival in NZ (so: not-Easter) - will be more indoors and DVDs or a trip to Uretiti beach, depending on the weather (forgast: sunny ... we'll see). Meantime we have a big evil-dark chocolate egg to share and the Jamesons wifey got me for my birthday (replaces the xmas one). Not a momont too soon - I am typing this in our second freeze.
My car is back from the shop - turned out that a replacement part was also faulty, so it had to be re-replaced. This has me hunting through old paperwork looking for the receipt ... it may be under warrenty.
The pool is mothballed for another winter. The final dip was so cold I was numb after one (8m) length.
I have not yet picked music for this month. Coming soon - someone want to nominate an album (from magnatune)? Get in quick.
And April also sees in the next release for Ubuntu - Jaunty Jackalope becomes 9.04. Each release so far has been head-and-sholders ahead of the previous one ... so I am agog!
Watch this space.
