LinuxFest is a scant month away

As I write this, LinuxFest will be here in a month and some change. See ohiolinux.org for more. The agenda has been set, the accommodations secured -- just need people to spread the word.

THE EVENT IS FREE!

How often can someone find something so cool, with no cost strings attached? This just doesn't happen. Sponsorship has been very good. Hopefully people will get out the word. See you in Columbus Oct 1st.

Sports and the supposed idea of role models...

Well, you can live in the real world, or you can live in a fantasy, called "SportsLand". In Sportsland, you can be rude and push people around under the guise that you more or less feel like it because you're not accountable for your actions -- you're an important member of an elite team of idiots who can do whatever you want to whomever you want, whenever you want. If young fans are watching, your behavior is not important. One time in the past, this was the opposite, but today, just check out the latest ruling here.

What makes Kenny Rodgers think he can just walk around pushing down camera men? Is it his special status in life as a baseball player? If he was at work at a job, he would likely have been fired for this behavior, but not in SportsLand, where your needed status as a baseball player for a money-making major-league team makes all of your rudeness and stupidity par for the course (should I say diamond here? Who cares, it's just more of the fantasy).

Sports, in America, is a distraction (for the audience), a business (for the owners) and a joke (for the moral, now). Steroid use, drugs, sex and the inevitable ego-trip of being an elite member of our society. One day baseball players may make the ranks that lawyers and politians have attained: That of morally-bankrupt upper-tier citizens who don't live by the same rules as everyone else. Wait, maybe they're already there. Good job Kenny, you helped push your kind up a notch, whilst making every kid in America know that when it comes to SportsLand, there are no rules -- if you're a valuable player for the "team".

And so here we are -- no one asking the really hard questions about sports. What is it, really? What makes baseball a noble endeavor, if not fairness? And I'm not talking about stealing bases here, I'm talking about the whole concept of honor? Why all the focus upon rules, if this is how they're held up in real life? Why indeed.

One of my favorite commentators is Frank DeFord (you can hear him Wednesdays on NPR). It will be interesting to hear what he has to say. I'll level with you, I honestly have hated most spectator sports all my life. I simply can't watch. I'm more into things I can participatein (no,I don't even "watch" TV, generally). Up until now, I was more or less neutral about it. I felt that the idea of a ton of more or less brainless spectators watching people play a game was offset by the fact that people could bond in large quantities. I love Frank, though -- he's more than entertaining and his viewpoint has shed a lot of light on what made sport more than a bonding exercise -- through his eyes I've come to appreciate it much more.

That was my stance; the world with or without sports was probably a wash. I've changed my mind -- if stuff like this continues, people are better off without it. As an exercise for big business and bankrupt morality, it takes from society all that it might have given back.

Deeper analysis, however, is in order. What makes sports such a draw for the male ego, anyway? I'm sure to offend here, so I'll continue ;) In a nutshell, here goes. Males are into the idea of "winners" and "losers". We like the idea of competition where crossing a particular line in the sand makes us "better" than the other guy. We love it, actually.

Unfortunately, there's a very real aspect of life and society in general that keeps nagging at the backs (and sometimes fronts) of our consciousness. That unfortunate fact is that most of life is not about winning and losing -- it's about compromise. You don't "win" your paycheck -- it's a draw, or a balance. Sometimes it's one way or the other, but in fact, it's mostly an agreement between you and your employer.

Your marriage to your wife is similar -- you both agree on some basic things and you both win -- or lose. Rarely do you see a husband "winning" the game of marriage. A trip to the bank stands up to similar analysis. In fact, short of lotto tickets and court cases (both more of the same contrived realities), there's very little about life and society that is not a compromise. Fist fights come to mind -- but again, they deal with illegal activity and stuff that's about the destruction, not construction, of society.

So we're back to the question: Why are sports, especially spectator sports, so popular among males. The obvious (to me) answer: here's something that re-enforces the crap-job society did raising us with the belief that life is all about "winners" and "losers". Here's a game we, with our forced (usually dumbed-down) intellects, can easily understand. One with simple rules that are easy to judge. Easier than real life, that is. Definitely easier than say, negotiating for the price on a car, or a raise.

Bear in mind that I say this as a male who's rebelled (long ago) against the whole idea that I was going to be some kind of walking gorilla that shaves. Looking at sports through Martian glasses, I came to these conclusions long ago. I also thought long and hard and said "well, if this is the only way these apes can bond, it's not so bad". But I'm changing my mind. Now it's teaching our young males that morality in real life for these elite simpletons is a second thought.

And for that I urge you, the offended males in the audience, to think long and hard about the real lessons that your kids are learning from watching Kenny Rodgers play hard ball.
--FeriCyde

Ohio Linux Fest

Gaining Steam! Read about it on Lxer.com.

The Brits

It's common wisdom that the hardest of times bring out the best in people. You have to admire the British and even more so, their dealings in stark contrast to our "911". Rather than spout off all about war, the inequity of it all (terrorism was and is about as far from a Godly act as anything I can imagine) -- they are doing what we should have done.

Tony Blair is asking the hard questions. For the record: "Who's behind this?" -- easy, Islamic Terrorists. "Who do we bomb?" Still easy -- some country where things were staged, or, if you're creative, you might choose someone who seems related. The Brits are asking a far harder question: Why did these 4 young men blow themselves up? Even harder: "What can we do to stop this?".

You can try and fight a war against "Terrorism", but are you going to win a war against an idea? You fight bad ideas and programming with good ideas and better programming. You fight wars against organized evil -- we can fight a war against Saddam, or Osama, but we can't fight a war against "terrorism". The terrorists are obviously after the end of our civilization for reasons relating to something dear to them -- our nuclear weapons are somewhat at a disadvantage here. Most of our military infrastructure, for that matter, is pretty much useless.

But the Brits are doing what we should have done almost 4 years ago, and it makes me admire their government. Even the Mayor of London had the gall to speak about terrorism in a way that their government didn't agree with. And they didn't make him step down -- they said "well, we disagree with that, but it's an opinion and we respect it."

What a stark contrast to our government and the way they've set about brow-beating anyone who disagrees. Don't think that's the case? How many republicans do you know that run about with bumper stickers that equate being a Democrat with being a supporter of Terrorism. That's not democracy.

Bush should take a good close look at one of his staunchest allies on the planet (Blair). That's the way to do it, and we should help them, join them and ultimately, I'd hope, show the Brits that we too, can show compassion and kick ass at the same time.
--FeriCyde

Okay, so here's a thought about research...

Titled Research: Third of study results don't hold up, one has to wonder -- what about the accuracy of this study? What if it's off by a factor of 30% (or even total crap)? That would mean that up to .3 * .3 studies (or less than 10 percent) are wrong, um conservatively speaking. Or, we could take the positive approach, which would be that it's off in the other direction -- an additional 30 percent of the 30 percent that are wrong are wrong. That would be .30 + .70*.30, or a whopping 51% of all studies being crap.

Of course, this cheap shot analysis is wrong, as should be readily apparent -- it's probably off by more than .30, even. Wait, maybe it's off by 9% or 51%...

Crap!
--FeriCyde

Secure X window stuff...

I've put up a revised version of my own toolkit I've been using for a while to securely connect to boxes via X. It's called, appropriately, securex. Soon there might be a story or two about it (finally got the article done and the documentation to install secureX is being finalized). It's not too shabby for a small shell hack. You can download it from the BatchLogin sourceforge repository.

Oh happy day...

Sammy is now up to 48 lbs! He's completed two sets of training classes (oh, I guess we were being trained too). He's capable of breaking the sound barrier -- our eardrums, I guess they're called -- when someone comes home (me or Lisa). Samoyeds are very emotional dogs, which is why, I suppose, I really feel tied to him. Like me, it seems it's hard for him to conceal how he's feeling.

Lisa finally got her garden in, and I note that the rabbits are already taking out plants. *sigh*

I've been enjoying the rides to and from work, because the sun is out and those rare Ohio summer days are finally here.

In short, times aren't all that bad.
--FeriCyde

Consuming mass quantities of ...

Documentation on Sourceforge.net. Okay, I think I get it. It's not all that bad, just , given the amount of "spare" time I've had lately, a bit much. But it's out there:

BatchLogin

Read the documentation on the site for more, but basically, it's not for GUI-clicking-lamers. Put your mouse aside if you're into any kind of shell-based heavy lifting, because BatchLogin will help a great deal when you're dealing with large-scale environments. I will be writing more now that I'm over this hump (I hope I hope I hope). Talk soon!
--FeriCyde

What lurks in the head of FeriCyde

Is about to be unleashed upon the Free Software community. Yes, I am about to release my first large, functional open source project. Stay tuned, shell programmers, and hold onto your hats. It's GPL, shell-focused and a power-saw in the hands of people that seriously understand the meaning of "Shell Prompt".

More as time permits, but at the moment, I am furiously setting up the infrastructure to support this.
--FeriCyde

Doc Searls does it again for me

I don't know how somebody can consistently churn out something so mind-bendingly cool, but Doc Searls writing is that and more. You're doing yourself a dis-service if you don't read what this guy has to say. In the past, he's talked a lot about markets and gotten me to see, in just a few words, just how much of a misconception the world (and I had, before reading his thoughts) have about them.

That wasn't enough. Begin here, and read This and This. If your brain hasn't been warped enough, go back to square one and contribute to the fray. He's right as rain -- your gut will tell you so.

Thanks again Doc, for making me think. I sent him this email message:

---

for making me think. Your series on flattening -- awesome.

On a related note, the TV has been off in the Ferris household for over a decade -- and that included some rather intense debates on the subject with a young boy who is now a 21 year old. The stuff about school -- I'm going to force him at gunpoint to read. It will make his day.

He had a rough time with school. I finally ended the experiment (right around the time I ended my relationship with Internet.com, come to think of it). I pulled him out and we home-schooled/correspondence schooled him to the end of his high school education.

He's got some work to do, still, but overall I think he's a good guy, which is all that matters to me.

Back to the school thing -- most parents balked at what I was doing. I am, by the way, a parent who very much believes in "tough love". My son did not drive till he was 18 -- only then because he exhibited enough responsibility (barely, but it was a start) and he's always had to pay his own insurance and upkeep. That doesn't mean I was totally successful at keeping the peace, but you can only try.

I had had enough of the way the school was "educating" him -- and they did try to fight back but regrettably for them, they were against me at the time. We ended up in court a week after his 18th birthday opposite a school administrator that was trying to accuse us and him of truancy. Of course, we got an apology at the time from a red-faced official. It didn't make up for all the other crap but it was, among other battles, enough of a moment that I hope it helps my son remembers who's in charge of his destiny (it was never me, or the school, obviously).

He loves cable television -- but he had to move out to get it. From listening to him talk, he's already getting sick of it :-)

I have a lot of thinking to do about what you have to say regarding the whole educational process. I suspect that our attempts at turning off the tube actually accelerated his alienation from the rest of his class and his teachers too, of course.

It seemed like the thing to do at the time -- I have a view that becoming a full-time consumer of "content" lessens ones' ability to actually create. Whether it be wood carvings or open source software, creation and the ability to be creative in general is removed when all of your time is spent having things dumped into your heads.

By the way, when I mention this theory to people that spend a lot of time watching cable, I always get a speech on how great the discovery channel is. File it away -- it's *always* the discovery channel. I've seen it a couple of times -- it bores me somewhat (all of cable does mostly, but that's probably because I'm warped).

Way back when we turned off the tube, one of my horrified co-workers presented me with the following: "How's your son going to learn about reality if you turn off the TV?".

"By experiencing it." Was my simple reply.

The web can be (as you once pointed out to me) a glorified television set -- or an interactive haven for people that want to create communities, software or general mayhem (I'll take that last one, it's fun at times). The former is a spectator sport, and one that big business would enjoy the most -- after all, the non-interactive marketplace needs hoards of minions that will simply enjoy the brand of the day. The latter is something that cannot be boxed, shipped or controlled -- and it scares the living daylights out people wanting a society of drones for the latest shrink-wrapped marketing craze.

I have some thinking to do. And my son and I have some more talking to do. This will be good for both.

Once again, I am in your debt.

GodSpeed.
--FeriCyde

---

Pamela Wins

Maureen O'Gara loses.

Congratulations go to PJ, and her awesome site, Groklaw. For those of you living under a rock, GrokLaw is all about helping geeks understand the law, and they've more or less taken the morons at SCO to task for all of their shameless legal battles.

Rather, PJ, mostly, did.

It cost her a bit here and there but recently she won something more important -- community support and the removal of the moronic Maureen. Sorry Maureen -- you played with fire and it cost you. Maybe you can write about golf or something non-tech related -- because anybody who understands true technology and the way it works (and is respected) is right now sitting on the opposite side of the fence from you, wondering just what drove you to do the stuff you did.

Read more here.
Again, congrats PJ!
--FeriCyde

And maybe I was wrong...

Revisiting one of my favorite subjects: desktop Linux. It seems a company out West (RedSeven) is doing Linux (mostly) desktops to a premium market. If you must, you get a dual boot system -- for those people that just can't rid themselves of that last infect-o-matic application. Read more on LXer.com (of course! Where you gonna get the latest in Linux news ;)
--FeriCyde

Lawn-Mowers and Free Software

I used to own my own business as a kid, from age 13 or so to 19, I had the cemetery market cornered in my home town of Jamestown Missouri. I needed lawn mowers that could stand up to 8 to 10 hours in the Missouri heat, and in fairly short order, found that the typical off-the-shelf hardware of the day simply couldn't cut it (couldn't resist the pun, sorry). Lawn-boy had the best lawn mowers by far for what I was doing. They were little two-cycle jobbers that after RTFMing, I could take apart (down to the needle bearings, if I had to) and put back together. One thing for sure -- I couldn't wear them out.

And they stood up to the heat and the abuse of my someday computer-science-loving brother Dan. The latter was the main problem in the equation. Dan was kind of rough on the little buggers. It was mainly the lightweight magnesium decks and handles I needed, and lawn-boys of the day were kind of expensive. As a Kid, I didn't have the cash to keep buying new decks all the time. So I did what any decent self-respecting businessman would do: I went to garage sales. After a couple of sub-50 dollar purchases of Lawn-boys, I learned a valuable fact: I could have a couple of year-old used Lawn-boy on the cheap anytime I wanted practically. Why? Because most people that had them didn't read the manual.

They hated mixing the 2-cycle gas too, but that's a side issue. Mainly, they never spent the cash to tune them up. "This thing is warn out, you can have it for nothing." was a typical phrase. I ended the business with a garage full of parts, and I gave away spare lawnmowers to my dad and grandfather. I had processed quite a few of them -- more than I can count, most of them in good working order, for parts such as handles and decks. The main component, the engine, was typically next to new in condition, unless it had been run without oil (surprisingly few were).

The point was this: on almost every occasion, I brought the newly found Lawn-Boy home, changed the plug, points and condenser (this was the 70's, OK!?) and pulled the easy-to-pull (with two fingers, no less) starter rope. Rarely did any find not start on that pull, and run like a champ.

People were simply not tuning them up. They were so easy to pull-start (it was a feature), that people assumed after 50-100 pulls of the string with a bad set of points/plug/condenser that it was never going to start. Maybe yesterday it had started on say, the 49th pull. Today, it was "worn out". They inevitably bought a cheap lawn mower, pushed the "old" Lawn-Boy into the garage, and it became my next years garage sale find.

The cheap common variety lawn mowers came with hard to pull (two arms required) ropes. If after 4 or 5 pulls and a hernia operation, the thing wouldn't start, it was time for a tune-up.

So how in the heck does this relate to open source software? It's very similar, I believe, to the issues around why people have Windows PCs that they won't replace, even though they go through enormous pain on a daily basis attempting to get them to work. They don't believe there is something more elegant that might do the trick. They know this devil, and are more likely to scrap it regularly and purchase a similar model.

I know it sounds like a stretch, but I couldn't resist comparing the two -- the dynamics are far too similar to ignore.
--FeriCyde

Cat Check!

It's 3:00 AM in the morning -- do you know where all of your Cats are?

...

I wake up worried. Taking Sammy out last night for his usual pre-bedtime business, I can't remember hearing the kitchen screen door latch behind me (it's like that, I've caught Lenny out the door when we came back one time). Did it do the same thing last night, or not? Maybe (I think), Lenny has gotten out along with one of the other cats for some kind of midnight skulking run. Maybe not. Maybe he's out stealing a car or something.

I know cats don't easily steal cars, but Lenny has been capable of some surprising feats of ingenuity. I clear my head. Now I know I'm losing it. Lenny really isn't capable of such things, he's pretty dumb, even for a cat. Still, maybe he's out under the wheels of a car in the street.

Now there's what I'm worried about. It's time for a 3:00 AM cat-spot-check. Hopefully I can count on my brain being able to count in a groggy fog.

First stop, the kitchen. There's Mister -- stray, God-knows how old. Tenacious. A fighter in a gentleman's smoking jacket. Orange. Tabby. He wouldn't mind if I fed him right now, he let's me know. There are some cans of food on the table there. How he does this without talking escapes me. I skip the urge to feed him -- not just because I'm worried about the other cats. I skip the urge mainly because canned food makes me want to barf. Besides, Mister is in the kitchen, which means he's not out hot-wiring the neighbors Malibu or worse, checking the tread under the right front tire...

One down, 4 more to go. I turn on the kitchen light.

I missed it stepping into the Kitchen -- I walked right over Jet. Jet -- black. Male. Spayed, yet somehow always attempting to hump things like blankets and other male cats in the household. Wild-eyed rat (another description of Jet, although I wouldn't rule rats out of the picture, if they emerge anywhere in this house, they're toast). Jet was sleeping on the step into the kitchen, and I walked right over him.

Two down, 3 more to go. I go back into the dining room. Lenny emerges, groggy, from under one of our covered chairs.

Lenny. Obese. Friendly. Afraid of his own shadow. This is the main reason I worry about him out on midnight car-stealing-or-tire-tread-checking runs. He's one of the few cats in the house with any kind of actual offensive gear. Lenny doesn't tend to claw things, so we left him with the front gear in-tact. He's not likely to claw much given the fact that when the decision if fight or flight, the former is always dropped for the latter.

For a fat guy, he's surprisingly quick -- and always the first one to blow outta the room at the slightest cause or hint of impending catastrophe. You know?, things like loud noises. Unexpected glass breakage. The dog breaking wind -- anything that might signal the end of the world, life as we know it, or impending cat-hair mussing. They all seem to have the same weight in his mind and the same effect on him. "Hey, it's worked so far"!, he seems to say. I suppress the urge to cough. If I cough now, Lenny might shoot out of the room and that would disturb the dogs' sleep.

Three down, 2 to go.

I go upstairs. Maybe one of the cats is in lurk-mode in Tim's old room. I find Squeak sitting in an easy chair.

Squeak. Version 1.0 naming had Squeak pegged for a "Lilly". Since holding her is akin to holding a ball of barbed wire that makes strange little high-pitched grunting noises, the name was dropped in favor of version 2.0 conventions. Squeak was the only thing that fit.

That's 4 out of 5. I go back downstairs when I'm sure Pretty-boy is not up there.

Pretty-boy is sitting groggy in the middle of the Living room floor looking disgusted. What am I doing up at 3 AM? Why must I disturb his sleep like this? Can I give him a back rub, at least? No? What kind of person am I?

Pretty-boy. Gray. Fluffy. The only cat that doesn't eat canned food in the house. Long-haired ... something. Pretty-boy (version 1.0 naming -- Starlight) gets the name from the fact that constant grooming and some kind of attention to detail project the persona of a guy that cannot have his fur mussed. Ever. Pretty-boy comes to me the most for attention in the house. I'm not sure why, but it makes me nervous. He's in the living room, which means he's not outside, which means that they're all present, and accounted for, which means I can get some sleep, finally. I go back to bed.

I dream of the police fishing my neighbors cat-wired Chevy out of a ditch somewhere. Lenny taking mug-shots at the local police station. Paw-prints in ink. The "you're allowed one phone call, pal" quote. The phone rings. It's the heat. My cat is in the slammer.

Okay, I did make that last part up. But the rest of it's true :) I swear.
--FeriCyde.

Translation

You gotta love Microsoft and their stupid funded studies. I find that some experience in journalism paints a completely different picture of what is being said:

I couldn't help but translate a bit. Here's an exerp from LXer.com:
"We believe there to be inaccuracies," Mark Cox, the leader of Red Hat's security response team.

Translation: These people are smoking crack. Tell them to back away from the pipe for a bit and let the smoke clear.
--FeriCyde

Tires on the Internet

Okay, you can order a ton of things off the web -- I usually buy electronic items via the Internet -- the selection is high, the ability to learn about the products fits the medium. For an experiment to contrast the power of the web over say, Circuit City help personnel, memorize some basic facts about an electronic device you are very familiar with -- then try and buy that exact same device, asking for help from local store staff. Depending upon the item, the results can be hilarious. Most tech sales people's advice is dwarfed by a good google search when it comes to learning about the future usability of an electronic device.

So I was blown away when I saw something just about as good for tires. Before I post that forum name, I'd like to use the service and see how it turns out, but from what I see, tires are another item kind of like electronics. Expensive, extremely technical -- and when you go to local help you come up with the human equivalent to /dev/null.

Some background: The tires on my late model Mustang GT -- stock OEM tires -- are over 150 bucks a piece, and most people are lucky to get 20k out of a set. The latest set would have netted me 60k, had the fine folks that maintain Ohio roadways simply done their job -- one bent rim, $400 bucks worth of tires, about a year ago, cost me dearly. One pair of the tires survived though, and that's the record -- something like 65 k on a pair of GoodYear Eagle GT ZR rated, 17" tires.

I never thought I'd see the day :)

I'll be back here after buying my first set of on-line tires only (Okay, I bought a set of take-off wheels and tire in 2002 for the beast, right off the web, but that's another story...
--FeriCyde

Oh the horror of added capability

Reading this horror story about adware (a type of virus that installs onto Windows PC -- is there anything else?) I couldn't help but wonder what a boatload of exploits we're going to see going forward. The problem with Windows is the enormous complexity -- there are likely billions of combinations of harmless protocols that can be exploited to do God knows what on a PC. Mere mortals aren't going to be able to know, that's for sure.

They had their chance to listen a decade ago when people warned and warned. Now we're in the thick of it. I doubt very much Microsoft is going to get the world switched off of XP overnight.

But I've been wrong before. I guess time will tell *sigh*
--FeriCyde

Free and Broadcasting in Las Vegas

Second times a charm -- just was on the PC Chat Show (The Linux Zone) for the second time. It's real radio, in Phoenix, no less. I find that one of the problems being induced by licensing, the bleed-over of free software onto proprietary systems and so on -- it's hard to talk about Linux and Free Software without mentioning that it does wonders for proprietary systems.

There's probably an article in there somewhere.

Regardless, I did a stint of internet radio broadcasting for internet.com (now Jupiter Media) in 1999. Ziff Davis gave us a really nice square of floor space and we setup our booth and computers. It was strictly to market LinuxToday and the channels sites. It was co-branded for ZD and we had a blast. Dwight Johnson coordinated a bunch of interviews, I ran the technical side of things (no small matter -- shoutcast was a rather testy thing in those days) and Emmett (the) Plant did the DJ/Announcer/Interviewer gig.

And we lost a bundle. Yeah, excess bandwidth charges and all, it was a dismal failure -- even though we'd been given the floor space. But man was it a ton of fun.

The PC Chat Zone is a traditional radio show and I'm still getting my bearings on what to say -- it took me a bit to decide how internet commentary was done so I'm sure I can wrestle something interesting here too. We'll see. This show was about FireFox (thumbnail sketch) and what a great piece of code it's turned into.
--FeriCyde

Keep on talking...

And today's article, worked up this weekend, polished at 4:00 am this morning and finally posted to LXer.com sometime around 10:50 AM EST ... Is about what some community members thought about a Microsoft employee showing up at a Linux user group. You can read the article here. As usual, I had the typical problems keeping a straight face while writing it, so I put together another article that covers what not to say ;) when they show up.

Enjoy!
--FeriCyde

Sammy the Snake

Well, playing tug of war with your dog can be more enlightening than you would think.

Sammy and I were tugging away and I found that he would (on carpet no less), drop down low to the ground, and rather than dig in, he'd hang on for dear life, continue growling and tuck his front legs behind him like a high-diver going for maximum aerodynamics.

Here's some video footage of him doing this in the kitchen. Enjoy!
--FeriCyde