Another rant mode ...

My latest rant is on Sony's DRM "root-kit". Basically, there's a CD out there that when you jam it into your Windows PC CD-ROM, it installs a nifty little piece of software that among other things, hides itself so you can't easily remove it. This is exactly the kind of crap that Windows allows (and shouldn't).

Question: Does Linux do this?
Answer: "Hell no."

Time to write your representatives. This crap should be illegal, but it ain't so right now. Let's make it so.
--FeriCyde

November is here, finally.

So begins my wifes' favorite month of the year. Some people celebrate their birthday one day a year -- My wife prefers the whole month.

To each his own. I guess it's better than dreading your birthday ;) I know I count every day behind me as a plus -- I've found that nothing beats experience.

On the other side of that, though, is the fact that some of my experiences have beaten me ... *sigh* ... Could be that I'm writing this while I'm tired. One of my least favorite experiences involved having to say some things that were not popular, but were unfortunately true. Not saying them would have allowed for some serious long-term damage, and it hurt me at the time. I lost something dear that I loved, and waved goodbye, thinking it would never be back.

But it's back. I can feel it coming back again. Like a rolling thunder, chasing the wind... okay, I'll bust out of the song lyric mode. Those of you looking for a true Linux community news site, click the LXer.com link to the left. Yes, this is related to the conversation ;-)

In some regards, LXer.com is more than I could hope for. A great feeling. I'm grateful to everyone who has made it a reality (especially Dave Whitinger -- you rock my world). It's been about a year since I started posting to LXer, and it's beginning to be something very different. Words cannot describe it. You have to, like the matrix, experience it. Log on -- make an account for yourself. Look around. Feel the community. It's there.
--FeriCyde

Spam on my blog...

Looks like a few more spam messages, and I'll simply remove the ability for commenting on my blog :(

Some idiot bot has been hitting my lawmmowers and free software page with the most annoying blog spam. I don't know what key words on there (besides the obvious) rank it high enough on google, but there it is. Sad that freedom is so often abused to do stupid things...

Microsoft takes aim at it's own Navel again!

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4382112.stm . But I gotta question -- just how many times does some dopey member of the press have to parrot an executive's navel gazing? Don't even bother reading the article, Microsoft doesn't have a chance of unseating Google. They regularly report that they're going to do this, and regularly reality comes back and bites them in the kajones -- Microsoft may as well announce that they're going to get the sun to set in the East.

What about the supposedly objective, unbiased press in this context?

And this is the BBC. Give me a frickin' break. This is a thinly veiled press release, and shouldn't be posted as news anywhere. At best, it should be referenced in the "smoke" section on Microsoft's own web site, then at least we'd be able to categorize it for what it is.

Not that I'm opinionated on the subject, or anything ;)
--FeriCyde

Dilbert newsletter is in

If you don't get this, you're missing out. My favorite part this time was the section on Scott Adams having a blog:

The blogger's philosophy goes something like this:
Everything that I think about is more 
fascinating than the crap in your head. 

Get the newsletter here.

Microsoft Media Bias...

I've decided to speak to John Dvoraks concerns about supposed anti-Microsoft media bias. This should be interesting. I'll post the link here. Here's a snippet from what's coming:

• The difference is that mine is overt, like a lot of bloggers, I honestly think that putting on some kind of journalistic priestly garb of pretend "non-bias" is a sham and I won't be a part of it. The alternative is to drink the Kool-Aid and believe that the media is somehow going to police itself and truly report the facts in all cases, not being persuaded to run marketing material as content, stories for hire and the rest of the crap that we all know by now is going on here and there to support huge corporate interests.

--FeriCyde

Dvorak strikes again with his usual ...

Wishwashyness.

Not even going to provide the link. One day he's pointing out the conflict of interest that Microsoft's new anti-virus software is providing -- next day he's claiming that there's a pro-Apple media bias since most media people supposedly use Macs.

What bullcrap. The media, if it's pro-anything, is pro-dollars. That means that it hasn't now and anytime in the foreseeable future, ever going to get the Microsoft story straight. The story that's not being told? That Microsoft's software, at one of our most precariously balanced times in history, has left Millions of American households in the most insecure states imaginable.

That PCs have become insecurable -- even by tech experts like Dvorak (he readily admits getting viruses in the first example that I'm not linking to), there's an untold story.

If they were doing their jobs, and not so afraid of losing Microsoft advertising dollars (They being editors, ad sales staff and the people controlling the company purse strings at the top) -- they might allow the truth to be broadcast.

And the truth is that Microsoft's products are woefully inadequate from a security perspective for your average user today. That story should be broadcast over and over until we see a digitally diverse landscape (Imagine something like 30% Apple, 20% Linux, 40% Microsoft and the remainder something new -- hard to imagine, isn't it). Until then, we're screwed.

So much for media balance. As for it being pro-Apple, Dvorak, please share those mushrooms next time.
--FeriCyde

It's been 6 years plus...

But the war is still on:

see The War(II), my latest rewrite of an article I posted to LinuxToday.com in July of 1999. I didn't realize then what a special place LinuxToday had become in my life. Today, LinuxToday is more of a corporate focused news site, while LXer.com has become the community replacement for that original site. I urge you to check both sources daily if you're interested in finding out what's going on.

The Post Linux-Fest blues...

Oh man, was Ohio Linux Fest a blast (see http://ohiolinux.org for more). I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people, geeked out to the max with my buddies -- it doesn't get much better than that. Thanks have to go to Chris Schwark for putting me up for the night.

Life is crazy. DinoTrac and I are at it again on LXer.com, with our Penguin/Counter/Penguin forum. This one is about multiple distributions and the fact that every so often, the trade press treats our open operating system society as some kind of disease out of control -- rather than what it truly is: a free market of ideas. Something that the technical world has never seen at this scale.

Look forward to more LXer.com stuff from me -- it's become more than a news site to me.

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