0369. Foo Fighters – [In Your Honor #01] In Your Honor [3:50]

Okay, so the two men at the top of NZ’s weather services, the Metservice and NIWA, are at loggerheads over climate change.

Yes, I understand the need for scientists to base things around facts, but at the same time I ask – when thinking about the bigger picture, is the naysaying useful?

To scientists hell-bent on factual accuracy – yes. To the wider population, which is waking up to its ways and starting to take baby steps to be better residents of this planet – probably not. It may turn out that we humans are flattering ourselves when we say that we’re responsible for climate change, and it still won’t matter. As the global population increases, it’s vital that we live smarter and cleaner, if not for the sake of the planet, then for the sake of each other.

Naysaying for the sake of scientifical pedanticity is putting the brakes on positive societal progress. In my opinion, of course.

Oliver Herold, a highly valued and very active member of the DBSD community has posted that he is leaving the DBSD community. It is his opinion that DBSD is a dead project. He also has this to say

No it’s maybe somewhat different, I’m actually not leaving FreeBSD or BSD, we do have a Jabber server with Debian and some game/fileserver for FreeBSD. But I’m evaluating it at desktop for some people, mainly beginners.
So actually I’m leaving this forum, because I don’t see anything useful in DesktopBSD anymore. Of course it’s a nice work, but I don’t see any future for it.

-there is no Flash
-there are no multimedia frameworks
-Voip with video is almost impossible
-Wine is crap in FreeBSD
-there is no virtualization
-there are no drivers for digital tv

and so on.

These things I hear again and again (I’m not using Flash or watch TV). People do know open-source lacks a lot of nice things from Windows world, but it’s even worse in FreeBSD.

So what should I tell them? Go away, you have to live like an ascetic to understand open-source or FreeBSD? Some of them are eager to learn, some of them are even found of using the console – but sacrificing almost anything multimedia for example is a dead end for them. I cannot yield any magic, so it’s impossible for me to help them – in the end I tell them of Linux.

Second problem the so-called FreeBSD-community, most of them are heavily afraid of these desktop BSDs. They don’t want them and they don’t support these systems at their forums at all. Of course you will see this crappy behavior in Linux too, but then again it’s only a small fraction of the whole huge community. FreeBSD isn’t able to live such a snobbish behavior. It’s very important to have a healthy community in *BSD, from the desktop, the enthusiast, up to the server admin. Maybe the desktop user of today is some commiter/maintainer tomorrow.

So these are some of my thoughts, I’m really found of this operating system, but I sick of these so-called professionals torpedoing any attempt to broaden the user base of FreeBSD.

» Quote:
What should the BSDs do? As I’ve said several times in the last five years, that depends on what the projects want. But if we want to be seen as a viable alternative for use by non-developers, my big issue is that we need to understand the end user perspective. We can’t just say of any feature â??If there’s nobody there to support it, axe it.â? As long as there are people who want that feature, we need to support it. If we don’t, BSD is gradually going to be usable only by software developers.

Greg Lehey, 2004

And some hype from FreeBSD development,

» Quote:
FreeBSD developer Scott Long told ZDNet UK on Thursday that the operating system, descended from the Unix derivative BSD, is “quickly approaching” feature parity with Linux.

“Lots of work is going on to make FreeBSD more friendly on the desktop,” Long said. “Within the year, we expect to have, or be near, parity with Linux.”

cnet-news

Makes me really laugh, May 12, 2006 and let me see … oh we are now in 2007, almost May
So hurry up FreeBSD development, 3-4 weeks only and then it’s a year … *almost* parity with Linux.

Maybe this sounds a bit polemically but there isn’t anything to hype, apart for nerds like myself or some server admins.

Cheers,

Oliver

And he does have a few good points. However, they’re not without rebuttals

-there is no Flash
-there are no multimedia frameworks

There is indeed Flash, however because Adobe chose to stick with ALSA for the audio subsystem in Flash-9, users of BSD are relegated to using the old Flash-7 branch. This is because BSD does not use ALSA, instead it uses OSS for its audio. It might be possible to get Flash-9 working using something like SALSA, but that’s work for somebody else as it’s beyond me. Alternatively, Adobe could have done as asked multiple times and used GStreamer, a multimedia framework available for both Linux and BSD.

But that’s really neither here nor there, the important part is this:

Second problem the so-called FreeBSD-community, most of them are heavily afraid of these desktop BSDs. They don’t want them and they don’t support these systems at their forums at all. Of course you will see this crappy behavior in Linux too, but then again it’s only a small fraction of the whole huge community. FreeBSD isn’t able to live such a snobbish behavior. It’s very important to have a healthy community in *BSD, from the desktop, the enthusiast, up to the server admin. Maybe the desktop user of today is some commiter/maintainer tomorrow.

And you know what? He’s right.

But at the end of the day, does it really matter? Looking long term, there’ll be a time where the underlying operating system won’t matter. You’ll be able to access your profile, documents, settings, everything from anywhere. Just you watch, client/server application delivery is coming back in a harder, better, faster form called Software as a Service (SaaS). You’ll be able to carry your profile with you on a usb stick, plug it in to virtually any internet enabled computer and immediately be able to work on your documents with any application you’re subscribed to.

What was once known as Application Service Providing has been given a web 2.0 workover, and while I think it will flop, it will pave the way. In ten years you wont even need to carry your profile with you. Merely sit at a computer and voila, some combination of an RFID descendant coupled with biometrics authenticates you, and you simply access your desktop across the internet. We can do that even now, but with our current network links it’d be painful to do with any scale.

So in that sense, perhaps the desktop BSD’s are ultimately an evolutionary dead end; headed the way of BeOS. Maybe they aren’t. I’d personally hate to see them go, as I strongly believe in the BSD code quality before bleeding edge mentality – with a bit of effort from the right people, DesktopBSD and PC-BSD could overcome their shortcomings and actually achieve Linux parity.

0645. Nirvana – [Bleach #10] Mr Moustache [3:23]

Our records indicate that you will be leaving the company on 18.05.2007.

This email is to confirm that HR Client Services have received your resignation notice and have advised payroll accordingly.

Can I last the next three weeks? I’m not sure I can, especially considering that a colleague had a nervo yesterday. Bring on the big fat payout at the end though. Finally my savings account will get the attention it’s been craving for so long

I was curious about how welcoming Turkey is towards Australia and New Zealand on ANZAC Day. Even though we lost, we did inflict some terrible casualties on them, and so they share the day with us.

Source: wikipedia
The Turks launched a major assault at Anzac on 19 May â?? 42,000 Turks attacked 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders â?? but the attack tragically miscarried. Lacking sufficient artillery and ammunition, the Turks relied on surprise and weight of numbers for success but their preparations were detected and the defenders were ready. When it was over the Turks had suffered about 10,000 casualties. In comparison, the Australian casualties were a mere 160 killed and 468 wounded. The Turkish losses were so severe that a truce was organized for 24 May in order to bury the large numbers of dead lying in no man’s land.

It was also a precedent set by their first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who was an Ottoman commander during Gallipoli.

For those of you in IE who think this is too small – that’s because you use a browser that refuses to behave with compliant CSS, so you get a 450px width restriction. Install another browser and see the difference!

The instructional video just speaks for itself. Great results

Muse – Supermassive Black Hole

Damnation. It’s a shame that I’m starting a new job and cutting back on my alcohol intake, otherwise I would be putting my hand up for this trip.

A pub on the back of a freakin boat going all the way to London – it’s genius! I could reneg on yesterdays resignation and re-resign using the pirate resignation letter.

Now, to be fair – I am part LV and part North Shore, so my first beer ever was a Lion Red (ugh) in Birkenhead, but now my northern uncles are sensible and drinking the likes of Heineken and Becks. Back in the LV, though, I became a devout Tui boy. That was, of course, until they moved the brewing and bottling of their cans and stubbies to Auckland and Timaru. After that, Tui became just too irregular, and for a while I had to drink Export Gold to get the consistency I desired in a brew. The only respite from this tale of woe is that crates and kegs are still done in Mangatainoka.

But I digress. I moved south to Wellington via Otaki Forks and Raumati South and I switched to harder liquor. Nights in Brooklyn doing a bottle of vodka like it was nothing became the norm. Then I moved to Upper Hutt for two weeks. Then I moved to Petone to continue being an impoverished student – RTD’s purchased by flatmates became the order of the day. Then I met my current group of friends, who initially mocked my displeasure at having to drink Speights, but over time nurtured my appreciation (*cough* tolerance *cough*) for the beer that they were buying with their money and gifting to my liver.

So while Speights isnt my first choice of beer (right now it’s Monteith’s Golden), put me in a pub on a boat destined for the summer filled northern hemisphere, and I’ll drink whatever beer you give me. They want it documented too, I have a blog – I’m a proven documentarian

Faith No More – RV

Spam
Akismet has protected your site from 2,408 spam comments.

I currently maintain three wordpress sites, this one included, and it’s been a bit of a battle to find the right balance of solutions to deal with comment spam. Nobody wants their comments packed full of incest links (half a meg) and useless nonsense like “great site design! vist my sites! lol ^_^” And I’ve found that despite popular opinion, you can indeed have public commenting and not have to put up with spam, and here’s how I do it.

1. Enable Akismet. It comes with WordPress, it does a damn fine job. Just do it. You’ll need to sign up at wordpress.com and get an API key. A few minutes and an account you might never use and you’ll have a very powerful solution that gets results.

2. Install the Comment Timeout plugin. Most comment spam is targetted at your older posts, the idea being that they’ll slip in under your radar. With this plugin installed, comments are automatically disabled on posts older than a period that you have defined (for me it’s three months – quite generous).

That’s it. With the Comment Timeout plugin acting as your first line of defence, most comment spam doesnt even reach Akismet. And if it reaches Akismet – it’s dealt with quickly.

What other plugins do I use across the blogs I manage?
Ajax Comments
Snap Preview
WP-Cache2
WP-Shortstat
Lightbox 2
Lazy K Gallery

A picture says a thousand words. There I am at the Petone Rugby Football Clubrooms with three and a bit jugs of beer (at $7 each!), Tana was there and I totally talked to him. A few of the lads there tried recruiting me, and I’m seriously considering it – a bit of fitness and something to do while the dim months reduce the amount of cycling I can do. Plus it’ll help for the next touch season…

So anyway, it seems that reducing the amount of alcohol I’ve been drinking has had a pleasant side effect: I can’t handle liquor like I used to. This has the advantage of it now costing less for me to get drunk. There appears to be a downside though: without the usual levels of alcohol running rampant through my body, my immune system has been working overtime. I’m currently fighting off a viral infection, and it hasnt been pleasant.

William Shatner – Common People (feat. Joe Jackson)

See Part I here

Thanks to Dwainehead of the DBSD forums, there is a potential resolve for this, here we go:

1. Preferably on a fresh install, update portsnap. If you’re on DBSD, fire up the package manager for the first time. This is some 47 megs of downloading

2. Update the kernel source. At the cli, su to root and enter
cp /usr/share/examples/cvsup/standard-supfile /etc/source-supfile
then
ee /etc/source-supfile
then change
*default host=CHANGE_THIS.FreeBSD.org
to
*default host=cvsup2.at.FreeBSD.org

3. Run a cvsup on the supfile
cvsup -g /etc/source-supfile

Note: If you do not have cvsup, you’ll need to portinstall cvsup or cd /usr/ports/net/cvsup/ && make install clean
Note 2: This will take AGES depending on your hardware and your internet connection. Overnight plus a few hours.

4. cd /usr/src/sys/i386/conf
cp GENERIC CUSTOM
ee CUSTOM

Change
cpu I486_CPU
cpu I586_CPU

to
#cpu I486_CPU
#cpu I586_CPU

You might like to consider adjusting these two settings while you’re at it:
options SMP
options PREEMPTION

5. cd /usr/src
make buildkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOM
make installkernel KERNCONF=CUSTOM
reboot

6. Your system has now compiled and installed your custom kernel, and all going well has rebooted using your new kernel. You’ll probably be looking at a gui login screen, CTRL + ALT + F2 to drop back to CLI and login as root

7. cd /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-driver-9631/ && make install clean
cd /usr/ports/x11/nvidia-xconfig/ && make install clean
cd /etc/X11
nvidia-xconfig
reboot

And that should be it! Crikey I hope they figure out a streamlined workaround… It worked fine for me, 1920 * 1200 of 24″ widescreen goodness is mine once more

1516. Concord Dawn – [Chaos By Design #06] Aces High (Featuring State of Mind) [5:37] (cranked especially hard)

This is my workstation at work. That is a box on the right hand side that I started filling with my stuff earlier this morning, as if I had a premonition.

I got the job.

Oh, on the left is a $1200 Cisco 7940. Fun trick with these if you have a vodafone mobile – send a text and aim it at the phone, it’ll spaz out as 900MHz of fury bombards it and it’ll reboot. The more you know