Yesterday I decided to stop by Screwattack.com to see if they ever fixed their online players so I can actually watch their content using Firefox under Linux. Well to my surprise I was rewarded at being able to watch the latest Hard News. But Alas, what is this after the show? An Internet Explorer 8 commercial . Before reading on watch that commercial.

Ok, is it just me or is Microsoft thumbing their nose at their entire customer base? “Hey, don’t you just LOOOVE getting those crappy emails with cutesy pictures, political agendas and pass me on chains clogging up your inbox? Want more angels and lolcats and sweet puppy videos to accompany your spam? How about last months internet fad, which has finally made it’s way to your out of touch relatives? Well, look no further, IE 8 is gonna bring it to you.”

So basically what Microsoft is saying is: “Hey, don’t you just hate getting those emails from that interweb surfing lame-o you try your best to avoid? Yeah, well guess what, we are going to make it easier for him to fill up your inbox.” Gee thanks Microsoft. Some how you have perfected the art in giving the world exactly what it doesn’t need: Malware; viruses; crappy, un-inspired software; and now an even easier way for the newbs to brighten our day with useless crap.

I guess what this means is that if you are at all intelligent you should not use Microsoft products. If you are at all technically savy, or even an accomplished computer user by any means, you’re better off with anything but Microsoft products. But don’t worry, no matter how far you run they will always be there, providing the technology to the brainless to ruin your day.

Art was not in the room when we woke up. Chad was anxious to get home and Will was not riding with us, he was going back up North with Klaatu, Beth, and Nick. I snagged some grub at breakfast and had the opportunity to say goodbye to Nick, Klaatu and Allan Hicks. Art could not get into the room with his key so he crashed in the lobby. We loaded up the car, I drove around the parking lot a few times to yell at Klaatu and we finally departed. Linc and Allan were too busy getting their old man rest on and their cellphones were not picking up, so we did not get a proper send off.

Art crashed most of the way back while Chad and I discussed a lot of non-Linux topics. He’s a great guy, that Chad is. We hit a few gas stations on the way back and grabbed some lunch at Taco Bell. Chad had a thing for the volcano tacos. It was a Taco Bell / KFC so I got a twiter wrap. The place was hopping with post-church crowds and it was a KFC buffet to boot. We grabbed grub to go.

After I dropped Chad off Art and I made some decent time getting back to my place. I got busted in one of the speed traps outside of Exmore. That whole area is known as speedtrap alley and I should have paid better attention. Art had some really cool stories to tell, he’s also a great guy. I am a bit bummed that we will probably never drive like that again as his location is not conducive to him coming all the way down to my place for a drive. He’ll probably go with Murph next year.

We made it back to my place around 3:30 or so I think. He used my bathroom and destroyed it. Hats off to you big guy.

SELF was awesome, I look forward to next year. Happy day! Next up – OLF.

There has been a lot of pro-Mono and anti-Mono arguments assaulting the community of late. The debate is not new but both sides have taken up arms since some distrobutions have decided to either remove Mono or include Mono by default. On one side, Ubuntu has proclaimed that Banshee will replace Rhythm box as the default audio player in Ubuntu. Opponents see that as yet another forced requirement to adopt Mono, regardless the fact that F-spot and Gnome-Do are included by default requiring Mono. Fedora has taken steps to remove Mono completely from their repositories for the next release. Opponents decry that Fedora is taking away their choices and spreading FUD.

Now I have made no bones in the past that I am wary of Mono; that is true, but I am coming around to thinking that Mono is extremely important to FOSS, I’ll get to that in a minute.

Opponents of Mono believe that it is a Trojan horse riddled with intellectual property bombs and patent infringements. Their side is bolstered by the comments of Steve Ballmar threatening suite against Linux for violating Microsoft’s IP, including .net technologies. Proponents of Mono point out that c#, cli and other Mono technologies are all published, open standards and that Mono itself is released under OpenSource licenses including the GNU approved LGLP. Furthermore, Mono does not make use proprietary technology and if it was proven to, said technology could easily be stripped out and recoded. Mono proponents proclaim that Mono is no more a risk than using C or Python. Which side is correct? Who knows, push the arguments to the side.

Some opponents of Mono feel it is bloated, has performance issues, and is a poor technological choice. Proponents counter claiming this is not so and in many cases Mono out performs Python or Java. But these arguments are no better than vi vs emacs or kde vs gnome. Push them to the side, they are nice for irc debates or BOFS at festivals.

Mono makes use of technologies developed by Microsoft. Opponents point out Microsoft’s extremely pernicious history, the company’s anti-competitiveness, and the woes that have befallen any company or group that enters into deals with them. Proponents are quick to point out that there are elements in Microsoft that are changing, they are becoming cooperative with FOSS and that we should embrace the good side as the bad side fades into the past. Regardless, again, Mono is based on OpenStandards and is not a complete endorsement of Microsoft technologies. Just because the company that founded the technology, released the standard, and promotes their own version – .net; is a convicted monopolist does not mean we should toss aside this wonderful tool – throw the baby out with the bath water as the saying goes. Is Microsoft evil? Is the use of Mono promoting Microsoft? Possibly, or maybe not. Push that to the side.

We can go through all the arguments and compare them side by said but what is the point. Push them to the side and what is left? Mono is a tool, a tool that is desired by many developers and has produced applications that users love. Furthermore, it has done so while maintaining the philosophy of FOSS. Mono promotes the hacker ethic to build, take apart and explore. In that sense Mono is great and should be welcomed.

But taken in context of the arguments above, Mono can serve an even more important purpose. Let’s say the fears of the opponents were to come true. Let’s say Microsoft did decide to come after a company for using Mono. That my friends would be the greatest thing that could happen. Because that would be the final spark we need to challenge this whole ordeal of patents and intellectual property in software that has caused the whole Mono debate, amongst many other debates.

So if you feel software patents, or patents in general, need reform. If you feel that intellectual property claims are getting out of hand then let’s stop bickering about whether or not we should fear technologies such as Mono and set to attacking the core problem. Until someone fires the first shot and one company takes another to court over these issues, all we are doing is wasting our time on debates as to whether Mono is safe to use or a trojan horse primed to bring GNU/Linux to its knees. The debate is not whether Mono should or should not be included in distrobutions; whether it should be banned. The debate should be what application represents the best of breed and should be included by default. Be it Banshee, Rhythmbox or Amarok as the default Ubuntu media player; the choice should not be based solely on the language it was written in if all three languages promote the ideals behind GNU/Linux, but which one rises to the top functionally.

If you don’t like the choice, then install something else, that is what is great about Linux and FOSS. You have so many choices, but let’s not limit those choices. Let us not bicker amongst ourselves over these trivial, outlying issues, but attack the problem at the heart. Who knows, Mono could be the spark the lights the fuse to bring down this albatross that has been hanging over the FOSS community for so long.

Saturday, the official day of the South East Linux Fest, was a rough start for me. I had not drank like that since OLF so I was a bit under the weather. Couple that with the antics involving pockets of meat and Klaatu the night before and I had felt better mornings. After getting to Clemson I took a bit of time to recuperate, thanks to Allan and Linc.

Back on my feet I did the usual hanging out at the table meeting new people and catching up with old friends. I managed to sit in on two presentations – The Networking Stack by Allan Hicks, and Chad Wollenberg on FOSS in Education. Both did a fantastic job and when they videos are released in the near future I recommend these be at the top of your list.

I hob-nobbed with the Fedora guys and touched base with the Ubuntu LoCo members running the booth there. Int Eighty was at the Dual Core table, he’s a great guy and very talented. We got to meet the stars of the Ubuntu Pod/Video cast, they are really cool guys. I wish we could get together with them more often.

The raffle at the end of the show was huge, compared to other shows. SELF merged their swag with ours and we went over by about 20 minutes announcing tickets, making a few souls really happy, and a lot a bit disappointed. The closing keynote over we headed back to the hotel and then to Rockhoppers for the post party.

The food was great, the company was even better, and I only sucked down one beer. Dual Core put on a fantastic set and I spent the rest of the night outside with Klaatu, ThreeThirty, Pegwole, Murph and others. I finally got to met Hethenex, he is a great guy.

The bonus of the night was that we got an early listen to three songs off the next Dual Core album to be released at Defcon. Great stuff.

We ended the night with a quick run to Taco Bell. The town closes up pretty early there as blue laws still in effect requires bars to stop serving at midnight. That really bummed Chad out who wanted to go back to the place we were the night before.

We all crashed about 2:30, except for Art, who was still outside Rockhoppers hanging with some geeks. He never made it back to the room as his key would not let him in. Instead of waking us, he decided to crash out in the lobby. What a nice guy.

Next time, the wrap up and drive home.

Today the kids left for camp grandma, my sister-in-law was kind enough to come pick them up. Whoohooo! I kissed them goodbye and left for work. All day I was getting psyched to come home. The wife had school and possum had plans to start running again at Sandy Bottom Park. I could not wait. Even though the weather was threatening, it looked like it was going to hold out.

I came home and putzed around a bit more than I would have liked. I had to find my arm case which was buried under a stack of boxes. I decided to throw some more podcasts on there and be off. Out the door I went and starting down the street I realized I forgot my headphones. I turned around, passed the neighbors partying out front and back into the house to grab them. Off once again I flipped on the Insignia and it blew up reading the files. It just sat there looking at me with a twisted up face, some static-y graphic, dead. A hard reset would not recover it. I drove back home past the neighbors and hooked it up to my box. Nothing, I could not even mount it. I was bummed.

A quick search on Google indicated other people having this problem and most advocating it was now bricked. But one guy, after having dug through some ancient burial site in Korea found out how to wipe the flash card. Just hold the menu button in while powering it on and it will ask if you would like to format the nand. As I looked at the broken English I had no other choice. Everything went, but the Insignia was alive again. I threw some of the podcasts on there and the Andrew WK Japanese covers album and tested to see whether all was right with the world. Luckily it was. Out again I ran, driving past the neighbors still partying and to the park. I did 2.5 miles my first night out. I will start increasing that as the weeks go on. I suspect back to 4.5 – 5 miles by next weeks end.

I wonder what show blew it up. I should probably test that out and skewer the culprit.

‘Nuff said

Well before I continue on with my feelings on SELF 2009 I figured it would be nice to post a link to the pictures I took. Using digikam created a simple html album using the Matrix theme which you can see on my here or on my facebook account. Yeah, Digikam allows you to export to facebook amongst other things.

I left for the South East Linux Fest around 5:00 a.m. Friday morning. Artv61 had driven down from Northern Jersey and was parked outside when I awoke. What a nice guy Artv61 is and incredibly enthusiastic. We drove out to South Hill to pick up Chad and Will (snkmchb). Along the way I got to know Artv61 a bit better and boy did he tell some interesting stories. Great stuff.

Chad and Will were ready to go the minute we got there. After saying good bye to the dog we set off for Clemson S. Carolina. The five hour trip was filled with some great FOSS and technology talk, none of which we recorded. Suffice to say we learned that Art does not want choice and he doesn’t want to be told what to do. He wants nothing until he knows what he wants and then he wants choice. That took about three hours and the rest of the show to fully grasp.

We met up with Dave Yates and the rest of the SELF crew preparing for the show. Our room was not ready so we bid a fond adieu and trotted off to Rock Hoppers for some lunch. Now I was told there were penguins at this place and I was bummed to find out that there were not real penguins hobbling around, but stuffed penguins and what not adorning the walls and such. Oh well, the food was good.

After lunch we returned to the hotel to help out with some of the remaining work for SELF. Our room was still not ready so we went back to Rock Hoppers for some drinks, until our room was ready. We did not get much time to settle in before we were back over at Rock Hoppers for the pre-show party. I think we spent more time there than the festival or our room.

It was great meeting up with all the good friends on IRC – Pegwole (who looks about 13), Threethirty, Threethirty’s brother (who is like the anti-threethirty), Verbal, Mrs. Verbal, BethLynn (olf fame), Jeremy (distrosource), the two guys from the ubuntu podcast, Nick, Klaatu, Murph (he showed up from Northern Jersey too, sweetness) and of course Linc and Allan! It was really great to hook up with the other tllts guys, too bad Pat could not make it (nor Chess). We had a great time. I drank too much and ended up at some college bar downtown. Dave drove us there in my car so we had to take a taxi back to the hotel. I was beat and inebriated.

I did make it to the show early the next morning, but I was in such bad shape and something I ate did not sit well with me. I do recall at one point the night before snickering as I wrapped up two hunks of fat from my juicy, rare Prime rib. Why did I do this? Well I wanted to relish the yumminess in Klaatus face. Not the best idea I ever had and I recall actually doing it. I am sorry Klaatu, but revenge was to be had. I crashed on a comfortable chair for about an hour after which I felt so much better.

Next up, I will talk about the show.

I run slackware-current on my main workstation and I should keep up to date more often than I do. Anyway, on May 8th Patrick switched over to the new compression format of xz, based on an LZMA compression algorithm. This significantly reduces the size of compressed packages. Great stuff. Anyway, I noticed this because when I ran slackpkg upgrade-all it continuously failed. I was a bit perplexed but it’s an easy fix if you are a bit late.

Grab the newest pkgtools, tar, and xz packages. They are still in tgz format. You will need these installed before you can use the xz packages. If you cannot use slackpkg to install them grab them from any slackware-current mirror. Just search for the only remaining .tgz packages in the slackware/a directory. Once those are installed, the rest of the .txz packages will upgrade just fine.

I’m currently reading Stephen Levy’s Hacker’s: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Wow! This is a fantastic book. Not only is it informative, but man is it infectious. The book tickles that fancy I have to dig into programming and electronics and just do stuff for the sake of doing. To get back to the old ways of playing instead of just going about day-to-day work.

The book also recalled to mind the first hacker I ever met. Of course, at the time, I never considered him a hacker, but my Uncle Tom Geller, or Tinker as we called, really fit the bill. He was one of the most fascinating people I ever met. Born in the late 1950’s he came to age in the 1960’s and was every bit the hippy. He had a fascination with guns, electronics and the military which was a bit odd I think. Religion and philosophy caught his fancy and rubbed off on me. He turned me on to some Buddhist literature and Perennial Philosophy when he gave me the book Remember, Be Here Now by Ram Das. I read this book for hours.

Tinker introduced me to my first computer when he brought over his Atari 800 (I believe, that is what he had at the time). He introduced me to Infocom games, and we played Zork I that one night he babysat us. I was captivated to the screen. This was a really cool machine, but I was more infatuated with the games. He talked about his work with the local user groups and the programming stuff he was doing, but I was still more interested in the games. To him, the sky was the limit with a computer.

Tinker worked for the local cable company and was good for a hookup. Which made my parents happy, and we got free HBO and PRISM. Yeah, Easter PA was Service Electric territory.

I wish I could have spent a lot more time with my Uncle growing up. But that’s how things went with my family. We saw the relatives maybe once or twice a year, but those visits with Uncle TInker were amazing. He was always into the coolest, geekiest things. Taking stuff apart, learning how things work, and willing to share.

Unfortunately, Uncle Tinker had MS, a horribly debilitating disease. As the years went on MS took its toll not only on his health, but his family life and hobbies. He could not longer work and worst of all, his mobility was suffering. I remember the last time I saw him, I was at the movies with my mother, he and his wife were coming out of the film we were going to see. I forget what the movie was but I remember he liked it. He was walking with a cane that day and we spoke about getting together sometime soon. That was the fall.

On Christmas Day of that year, Uncle Tinker took his own life down by the Lehigh River in Tamaqua. Family problems and his health compelled him to put a bullet in his head thus ending the life of the first hacker I ever knew; and my chance to really appreciate that until now.