Saturday, January 31, 2009

Pirates::RRRRRRR

SO. There are several words that, in the fight over DRM etc. have been obscured this is very important to read for anyone who wants a fair discussion on the topic. Be advised source is biased towards free source however all of the definitions and most of the acronyms are safe, the paper is self aware of its bias. Its a good counterbalance to the large volumes fed to the populace by large companies with a vested intrest in legal restrictions.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html


Excerpt:

“Piracy”

Publishers often refer to copying they don't approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.)

If you don't believe that copying not approved by the publisher is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy” to describe it. Neutral terms such as “unauthorized copying” (or “prohibited copying” for the situation where it is illegal) are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as “sharing information with your neighbor.”

Slide Shows... Obnoxious or Learning Tool

The following article/research study shows an uncorrelated relationship between showing slide shows in the memory (both short term and long term) but has evidence that suggests that slides advent the instructor's likability. Its long and all I read was the abstract, so I will not vouch for the experiment's accuracy ( it seems they only tested on a few teachers).

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5524/is_/ai_n21364066


My Opinion:

I find learning is not benefited at all by slide shows if your an effective presenter, if any thing I can see it distracting users by creating two competing focal points. I find it distracting, true oration is more compelling.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Andrew Bird Sayz:

Some things they say
are not for sale
but I would hold that we are all free agents
of some substance or scale

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Shameless google bombing by linking to xkcd

ps I Love U

http://xkcd.com/537/


Get DUCKLOOP'D !!!!!!!!!

Define: Software Industry

“Software Industry”

The term “software industry” encourages people to imagine that software is always developed by a sort of factory and then delivered to consumers. The free software community shows this is not the case. Software businesses exist, and various businesses develop free and/or non-free software, but those that develop free software are not like factories.

The term “industry” is being used as propaganda by advocates of software patents. They call software development “industry” and then try to argue that this means it should be subject to patent monopolies. The European Parliament, rejecting software patents in 2003, voted to define “industry” as “automated production of material goods”.





Source: "http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html"

Define: Piracy

“Piracy”

Publishers often refer to copying they don't approve of as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that it is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. Based on such propaganda, they have procured laws in most of the world to forbid copying in most (or sometimes all) circumstances. (They are still pressuring to make these prohibitions more complete.)

If you don't believe that copying not approved by the publisher is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy” to describe it. Neutral terms such as “unauthorized copying” (or “prohibited copying” for the situation where it is illegal) are available for use instead. Some of us might even prefer to use a positive term such as “sharing information with your neighbor.”


source: "http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html"

Piracy

A fantastic piracy article, a decent analysis of how the common artist should handle the treacherous present day distribution system.

http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Wisdom

There is a wise-man who lives in my head and he hums softly when he
wants to be heard.

Friday, January 16, 2009

The wise man, a work in progress, please comment

A wise man walks down from the mountains where he had been in meditation; living with close to kin. Upon his return he finds one of the councils where he learned, flourished and consorted to have fallen in ill favor toward him. So he begged an audience from them. He decided not to speak but to listen instead, he asked:


“why have I fallen out of favor?”


“It is the manner in which you act; we find your ways bizarre and different from our own”


“how so?”


“you speak your mind without filter, you are loud, voracious and pursue flesh that is not yours to own”


“i am but a man, may I not be forgiven? I cannot merely explain it as 'my ways', that is a weak argument; for it is not the man that makes the path; rather our choice of paths make ourselves” (said the wise man to his head)


“furthermore” continued another council member “you do not appear bound by our beliefs”


“I am not, it is true. And though I swore never to speak upon them unless spoken too I break my vow for you my friends. The truth we share will always be stronger than our discrepancies. I am not bound by your beliefs, it is true. I will speak more on this if you wish”


“No,” replied another councilor “your thoughtlessness will not cloud our pure waters”


“let him speak” said another


“I chose not to speak I chose to listen”


and so the council was won by many days of listening, emulation and meditation. The wise man did not change his beliefs, but rather allowed the others to change theres through observation of his passive nature.

I am what i am

And I am a leper to theses people
and so I sing,
I sing for the differences that put us together
and for the love I will never receive
from those who preach it.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Install skype on 64 bit Ubuntu

good stuff:

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2 libasound2-plugins; wget -N boundlesssupremacy.com/Cappy/getlibs/getlibs-all.deb; wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu-amd64; sudo dpkg -i skype-install.deb; sudo dpkg -i getlibs-all.deb; sudo getlibs -p libqtcore4 libqtgui4 bluez-alsa


see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=432295 for source.

Monday, January 5, 2009

Success with suspen resume on my T400

I have always been able to suspend, resume and hibernate on my Thinkpad T400 until recently when I ran into a problem with compiz. The problem was really easy to fix though:

sudo gedit /etc/acpi/suspend.d/06-compizfix.sh

and put the following in that file:

#!/bin/sh

killall compiz.real


then make the file executable with:

sudo chmod 755 /etc/acpi/suspend.d/06-compizfix.sh

THATS IT!

So if your having any problems with your Thinkpad T400's suspend resume or hibernate feel free to contact me for a fully operable configuration under Ubuntu 8.10