Hiatus

Where is Jack? While reading my backlog of emails, I've realized that a large number of people have emailed me regarding my whereabouts over the past few months. This is aside from the large number of people who have phoned me.

Well all I have to answer all you people is that most of the time life is good; Unfortunately, recently, life sucks. Therefore, I've been on kind of a computer break. I'm trying to tie up a few loose ends, catch up with some long overdue work and think about some new directions.

Hopefully, the picture will be clearer after Thanksgiving Day, that's the plan at least, and I will be able to return to some type of normalcy. I am hoping to be back up to speed, caught up with everything by 20 December.

See you then.

Is It Wrong to Hate Stupid People?

In response to this story http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php? option=content&task=view&id=1645, and its author, this idiot, varun@cooltechzone.com, I would just like to say the following:

This is a prime example of how any turd that can open its mouth can now become a "journalist" in our day in age. This guy is the most clueless motherfucker on the face of the earth. He is clearly severely undereducated, due to his clear lack of understanding, based on some of his comments, such as:

"...I hate Linux. I think it’s the most over rated piece of software ever built and survives simply out of spite and not because it is terribly good at doing something because it is not!"

"In Linux, you have to recompile a kernel if you want to so much as change your modem!"

and the ever conclusive:

"as most of the people developing Linux probably sit at night writing up malicious code for windows!"

Varun, you could clearly benefit from some form of instruction, both in the English language, with regards to grammar and punctuation, as well a course in how to be a real journalist and actually do some factual
research to base your article on.

It is clear and obvious to anyone with even the smallest of brains that you probably have never tried Linux in your life, if you think that it is not good at anything and that you need to recompile the kernel to get a modem working. I doubt you even know what a kernel is.

I really don't even care that you are talking shit about Linux. You just need to realize that if you are going to write articles and expect people to read them that you can't just go running off your mouth. There is something called journalistic integrity and factual basis.

But dude, by all means, If you really want to give Bill Gates a blowjob, just ask him directly and do yourself and the world a favor and spare us from having to waste our time reading your crap. Instead of an "article" just write him a love sonnet next time.

Fedora Bug Day Event - Pick Your Poison - Friday 2005-07-29

Saddle up the horsies and git yer shotguns kids, its time for a Bug Day!

Who:
The Fedora BugZappers Triage Team, men, women and children alike. More information is available at
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

When:
Friday 29 July 2005 - Starting at 9AM in your timezone!

What:
The theme for our first bug day will be "Pick Your Poison." Anything in bugzilla is fair game! The goal will be to try and triage as many bugs as possible, close out duplicates as well as linking to upstream bug
trackers. Additionally, we have the special honor of trying to file and close out as many Documentation Bugs as possible.

Where:
Join us on #fedora-bugs on irc.freenode.net and on fedora-triage-list@redhat.com . Bugzilla is at
https://bugzilla.redhat.com .

How:
The following steps are necessary for those interested in participating:

1. Go to http://bugzilla.redhat.com and sign up for an account.

2. Sign up for a Fedora Account using the same Bugzilla name at https://admin.fedora.redhat.com/accounts/ . When setting up your account, click the box to be added to the 'fedorabugs' group. An administrator will then approve your membership.

3. Sign up for membership to the fedora-triage-list at https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-triage-list .

Once you are done and signed up, please send an email to the list with a subject line of "Triage Participant: 2005-07-29" so that we know you plan on participating. This also ensures that you will be entered into the
activity tracker for the day so you can earn a reward. More on that later.

4. Hop on #fedora-bugs on irc.freenode.net on Friday morning and bring lots of ammo!

Why:

To help the project, to help the developers and to earn rewards. Yes you heard right, rewards. There will be awards given out to certain participants at the conclusion of Bug Days. Awards for things such as
most active, most reported, most closed, most marked upstream an so on will be announced within a week and all rewards sent out. Also, sometimes we will have special rewards that we give out just for fun, at
random, because well, we're nice guys and gals.

What are these rewards you ask? Joining us is the only way to find out what's in the treasure chest.

See you on Friday.

Official Launch of the Fedora BugZappers Triage Team

Want to help out with the Fedora Project, but can't code a lick? Well fear not my dear friends. There are many ways you can help the cause and today I am pleased to announce a brand new way you can help contribute. Join the Fedora BugZappers!

Who are the BugZappers?

The BugZappers, (http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers) are the official triage team of the Fedora Project. The main goal of the team is to triage, or do a first pass, of bugs in Bugzilla and ensure that a number of parameters are satisfactorily met. Basically what that means is that the BugZappers will go through bugs as they come in and try and make sure the bugs are valid (i.e. not a duplicate), sane and contain enough information to be escalated to developers. If you have ever reported a bug and wondered why it took so long to get fixed, well then BugZappers is the right project to join.

Tell Me More!

The BugZappers aim to be the primary line of defense for Fedora Quality Assurance (QA). The BugZappers will begin running Bug Day events, every alternating week, usually on Wednesdays. Bug Day events are when the team gets together to concentrate our focus on certain subsections of the project which need work. Triage should continue on though, and remember kids, "Every day should be a Bug Day!"

So, if you are tired of hearing complaints about things not working, pieces being broken or just plain want to help Fedora be the best dang Fedora it can be, then join the BugZappers team and help the developers make the most of their coding time. It's fun, it's easy, you don't need much experience to start and we are willing to show you the path of the righteous, should you choose to accept this mission.

What's in it for me?

Glad you asked. First of all there is candy. OK, so there is no candy, but there is free stuff. The team is working on some giveaways and run contests during Bug Day events. You also get to work on triaging things that annoy you first, so your problems get fixed sooner; kernel problems anyone? Also, a wise man once said, much fame and fortune come to he who close many bugs. OK, it really wasn't a wise man buy you get the point.

How Do I Join?

Step 1: Sign up for the mailing list at:

http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-triage-list

Step 2: Join us on IRC

We live in #fedora-bugs on Freenode

Step 3: Read/Modify/Enhance the wiki

Our wiki is located at http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers

Additionally, we have more information available on the wiki at:

http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugsReports and http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs.

More content will be added as we get the project off the ground and moving.

Also, be sure to look for our announcement of the first Bug Day event coming soon to an Inbox near you!

Songs for Polar Bears

Ok so in response to Thomas' last post about needing more music, here is a list of new-ish bands that you might find some interest in. But before I get to them, I would like to first say that I've been thinking for a long time about starting some kind of band of the week thing, where I would talk about or introduce a new band every week, so I might actually get around to doing it now. Lastly, I would like thank Sirius Satellite Radio for not playing shitty music and introducing myself to some of these new and awesome bands. I'm just going to rattle off a list, if anyone wants me to include links, let me know and I will edit accordingly.

1. Snow Patrol - Although they aren't as unknown as some of the other bands to follow, I really dig their sound. Sort of laid back-ish and maybe a little, kind of emo. The lyrics are golden though. They are what's currently in my cd player at the moment.

2. Head Automatica - The lead vocalist is from Staten Island, NY not too far away from me and someone I know grew up down the block from him. He used to be in a band called Glassjaw which was almost like thrash metal, but now he hooked up with this DJ, Dan the Automator and their sound is really unique. Take two parts rock, one part disco add a dash of hipster-ism, and you have Head Automatica. If you pick up their disc, Decadence, I really like the tracks Beating Heart Baby, The Razor and Solid Gold Telephone.

3. Alkaline Trio - Just good plain ole' rock. Their new disc, Crimson, really kicks ass with some great tracks. It starts off really powerfully with the track, Time to Waste, and continues to be a great ride all the way through. I don't think any true rock fan can say anything bad about this disc, its just that good.

4. The Bravery - One of the better UK bands that are up and coming, their self-titled debut disc is pretty good, I like them.

5. Thornley - OK, so some people already know of them, and they've been out for quite a while now. I forgot how I found out about them, but I listened to their debut disc, Come Again, for about 5 months before I moved on, it just rocked so much. Last week I picked up a new copy, since my original one was lost, and rediscovered them again. I really, really like them and as ender can attest, they are excellent live.

That's about it for now. I can't give them all up on the first go round.

Like Eating Glass

Well, in a follow up to my previous post, I guess if I am going to admonish the bad, I must praise the good as well. So, fortunately, this story posted on news.com is a decent description of the situation and not some sensational scare peace. Joris Evers, should be commended for writing up such a concise and non-FUD spreading piece. Kudos!

People are Stupid, Yet Again

People, especially so called "journalist" need to learn to calm the fuck down. Earlier today Mauricio points out to me this story about Jon Johansen "hacking" Google Video. For God's sakes, all he did was remove 5 lines of code, which might I add, are freely available , as in open source, on google's code site. To add insult to injury, the google video player is nothing but a bunch of patches to VLC, which Jon works on already anyway. Oooh, an open source hacker modifying his own code! Quick someone call the US Department of Justice and Interpol. This is horse shit.

Ryan Naraine, you my man are truly an idiot and worthy of the title "Connecticut People." This article is nothing less than sensational journalism which should be retracted immediately. People should not be allowed to write misleading stories like this.

Providence and Anti-Providence

So last week Joe basically all but dragged me to the state of Rhode Island to go this "awesome" mall in Providence. Well let me just say that my list of states that suck has just grown by one. I decided to go because I needed a large picture frame to house my digital picture frame project and I figured an "awesome" mall would most likely have at least one place to buy a picture frame. Boy, was I wrong. The mall sucked so badly. It was really big with lots of room, but no good stores whatsoever. It also took a century to walk from one side of the mall to the other, which was exacerbated by the fact that you need to pass 5 Abercrombie and Fitch stores and listen to the blazing really really bad music. Not to mention that they had elevators that only go up one floor, when there are like 4 in the mall. Smart, real smart.

Also, Connecticut, you are not alone. People in Rhode Island seem to not know how to drive either, as Melissa can attest to. This has led me to the conclusion that pretty much ever state in New England has inept drivers. They insist on driving at 45mph in the left lane, not yielding, and subsequently screaming, honking, and yelling at you when you cut them off. Connecticut is by far the worst offender and I have therefore coined the term, "Connecticut People," henceforth to refer to people who are bungling, clumsy and incompetent.

Lastly, I must say that I am extremely sad today. Maybe more on that to follow, Maybe not.

FUDConIII Call for Locations

We are currently researching the possibility of having a third FUDCon take place around the time of LinuxWorld San Fran, Aug 8-11. Therefore, we are looking for institutions in the area, and there are many, who would be interested in possibly hosting us. The only main prerequisites are as follows:

1. We prefer it to be an academic institution if at all possible.
2. That it be reasonably close to San Francisco proper, although exceptions might be made if there are sufficient transportation options.
3. The institution and/or it's constituents are involved in some way, shape, or form with Linux, Open Source and obviously, preferably Fedora.

If you think your place fits the above criteria and would be willing to host a FUDCon please click here to send email to both myself and fedora-marketing-list and let us know.

The Endian of an Era

So obviously there is much controversy all over the computing world about Apple's announcement, as well there should be. It seems as though Apple has finally decided it should be targeting mass markets, too, since Jobs said they plan on having more offerings like the Mac Mini. Personally, I think Apple did the right thing. Hopefully the PPC architecture will still live on somewhere other than XBOX 360 and handhelds.

Also, John C. Dvorak, here, made it a point to mention that he now thinks Linux will be hit significantly harder than any other operating systems due to Apple's shift. He predicts that many developers will forgo writing and distributing open source software for Linux since they can now do it for Mac and they have better user interfaces and more intuitive design. He also says that some never really cared much for open source and now can develop for OS X and sell their code for profit. Well, I disagree completely. People who write open source software do so for many more reasons other than eye candy, ideology or profit. I'm not going to get into it but great organizations doing great things, similar to Summer of Code, will ensure that there is a healthy stream of high quality FOSS developers for years to come.

Dvorak's final comment was that he sees this as a major threat to Red Hat and it's business. Now, I've been a Dvorak fan for quite some time, but I must say, this is pure crack. Anyone who knows anything about Red Hat's business model would surely know that the markets for RHEL and OS X are so completely different, they shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence. What Dvorak fails to see is that many more people are replacing UNIX with Linux and not Windows with Linux. So barring Apple allowing installation of their server offering on stock hardware, I really don't see why Red Hat or any other Linux centric product distributor should be worried. Apple is still way to closed minded to begin thinking about expanding to the mainstream server or embedded markets.

Otherwise, haven't been up to much lately. Working on getting some python/xmlrpclib foo to work with some graphing foo to make some pretty pictures of things. Also, spent a fair bit of time trying to troubleshoot broken hardware today. As Warren mentioned in a post a few days ago, broken hardware sucks, it took forever trying millions of combinations of hardware to finally figure out what was wrong. What's even worse than broken hardware is when manufacturers decide to change specs mid production without changing revisions. This makes problems significantly harder than they need to be.

Oh well, fun fun fun.

A Hunting We Will Go

Okay. So this past week saw me going down to Raleigh and then back to New York, up to Westford and then back to New York Again. The funny part is, I had always imagined myself disliking the South, you know based on that whole Union vs. Confederacy thing. So I was shocked when I left and I found myself saying that the South is actually pretty nice. Lots of green. I don't get very much of that anywhere else. While I was down there I got a chance to go out with Greg, Seth and Elliot and we discussed some things. It was nice to see everyone again.

Anyway, so at some point on Wednesday I got settled and started focusing on accomplishing something, to gather some hard data on the overall Fedora bug situation. Mainly I wanted to get a breakdown of certain metrics, bugs by component over each release, % bugs reported by community members vs. Red Hat employees, % bugs that are really bugs vs. feature requests, % bugs that are being reported which should be upstream etc etc. I think it's really important to gather the data before we start conjuring up documentation and creating triage processes. Hopefully, in a week or so we should have a really clear and extremely detailed overview of what is going on, where it is going on, and by whom. At that point it will be a lot easier to do a handful of things.

Other than that, I just went through BZ and tried and close anything which was fixed upstream already, and just wasn't noted as such in RH BZ. Also filed a few bugs upstream and linked them into RH BZ. So at least things are moving along nicely and bigger things are starting to take form.

**Special mention of the week: The jukebox in that place in Harvard square, was it Charlie's? Man that thing kicked ass.

The Greatest Thing Affected

Sleep on it.

Correction

I'm afraid I must apologize about comments made in a previous posting about KROCK 92.3FM Radio in NYC. My previous post was made based on what someone had told me and only this past weekend did I realize that he was talking about a different station KROQ somewhere in Iowa. I actually got a chance to listen to the new KROCK in New York and it sounds pretty nice. Basically, not really a format change at all, just playing more rock overall, whether it be alternative, classic or whatever. It actually sounds neat. Nothing else to report for now. Emancipation is just around the corner though. Ah, dreams...

Satellite, In My... Ears?

Well it's official. Reports are coming in to me that my favorite radio station 92.3 FM KROCK in New York City is officially dead. Not Exactly. The truth is that they have decided to change formats to some weird ass mix of 70's, 80's and 90's rock. So far everyone is saying that it is terrible and that although they are playing more Classic Rock, there is already another Classic Rock station in NYC, 104.3 that is much better. I have also heard that they fired all the on air DJs and have bought into something called JACK-FM. This is somewhat like an IPod on shuffle with a commercial every once in a while, usually mocking Sirius. After speaking to some people online, I have realize that this JACK-FM crap is invading radio stations across the country. Some people are even saying that this is Infinity Broadcasting's way of getting back at Howard Stern, and that XM is funding this JACK-FM nonsense. One thing they did that is good however, is create Krock2, which is the streaming version of the station that plays only modern alternative rock.

Whatever happens though, its official, New York has lost its only Modern Alt Rock station. This couldn't have happened at a more opportune time, now that I have Sirius. I was wondering what was up with a bunch of the Krock DJs being on Sirius. I figured some took a second job with Sirius, since it was in Manhattan anyway. Well, looks like I found my answer. Regardless, Sirius kicks ass! Aside from it being completely commercial free, almost all the former Krock DJs are on it, and I'm happy about that. This includes Demos, who I used to call into late at night, when he did the overnight weekend shifts at Krock, Matt Pinfield who has an awesome show, and they even got Will Pendarvis, who used to be on Krock and moved to LA. It's awesome. The only downside is that XM has baseball, which is XM's one saving grace. I got around that though by getting an mlb.tv password. Viva Sirius!

Welcome to the Jungle

Well, all the IPv6 stuff is now in place. I managed to get everything up and running last week and tied all the pieces of the puzzle together. I think with a little more tweaking on the FreeBSD machine we should be able to allow others to set up tunnels for themselves. Need to work on a script for that. I won't have much time to play with anything until Thursday night, so it will have to wait till then.

In other news, I have spoken to two groups who plan on putting on Linux and in general, free software demos for a number of local schools and businesses in the Central New York area. One group is throwing a showcase together at the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce fair thing that is being held at the convention center in two weeks. A number of companies who already use or have successfully switched over to Linux are running the thing. The great thing about it is that all of them use either Fedora or Red Hat based distros. I suggested that I could perhaps play some sort of role and use this as a marketing event and they were delighted to hear that. There is one ISP that uses Debian though, and the guys there were pretty cool and wanted to help as well. They still think RPM is evil though.

The school group thing is pretty cool as well. They have already set up K12 LTSP at some schools in Albany and have gotten a flood of requests ever since to do the same at other schools, even as far away as Philadelphia. They already use Fedora as well and were also happy to here that I wanted to join their efforts. Another artists collaborative thing also uses Linux and wanted to put on something to show artists in the area the benefits of using FOSS. Definitely some good marketing opportunities.

I also need to figure out what, if any, sessions will be done at LinuxWorld in SF. The call for papers is already out and I think it would be a really good idea if we gave a session again. The last one was a spectacular success which drew the largest crowd out of any of the sessions given. If anyone wants to team up or has any ideas, please let me know as soon as possible. We have so many possibilities to talk about that we should at least start considering some as potential candidates versus other. Also thinking about another FUDCon in SF, maybe at Google HQ?

"Sick and Pissed Off" or "The Case Against Cable"

Well, I'm nearing the tail end of whatever it is I have. I need to go see the doctor again, but I felt better today after a weekend of medicating and headaches. Anyway, I am fed up with the fact that companies are fighting and hurting customers, and the government doesn't seem to care. Therefore, this letter has found its way to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's inbox.

Dear Attorney General Spitzer,

I am writing to you with regard to a topic that has surfaced numerous times, and has once before been successfully quelled by your intervention. More specifically, this is about the business practices of Cablevision and their reluctance to cooperate with other entities in providing broadcast rights to selected programming. By now I am sure you are quite aware of the situation with Cablevision and Time Warner that has left millions of New Yorkers without coverage of the Mets and Knicks.

I would like to say that this is completely unacceptable. Both of these "hog fat" companies have lost sight of their customers' interests and this seems to be a dangerous and ever rising trend. I know that you have successfully dealt with this issue before and was hoping that you would be swayed to take some action on behalf of millions of New Yorkers. Frankly, all these exclusivity and broadcast right shenanigans have come to head. If no agreement can be reached by Cablevision and Time Warner, then at least for the time being, programming should be available a la carte, for those willing to pay. This, however, should be a temporary measure since setting a precedent for a la carte program pricing would allow cable companies to raise rates even higher in the future.

Furthermore, it seems rather foolish and somewhat insulting that the FCC which takes in millions of hard earned tax dollars to regulate free air spectrum cannot prevent these types of exclusivity agreements from being established. Any programming, especially those of local sports teams and other local interest, which is at any point broadcast over the air, should be available to all persons regardless of what service provider they choose. Anything less, is unappreciated, unacceptable and should be viewed as predatory and anti-competitive.

Finally, I would like to add that specifically over the previous decade, the United States Congress and in fact, almost all areas of the government have either turned a blind eye to or have willingly indulged in jurisprudence that is detrimental to technology and its development in the United States today. Regardless of what scope of technology, the citizens of this country are being robbed, day in and day out, of progress that could prove to be crucial and even necessary in future years to come. As a defender of the people and the public interest, and as a person of prestige, ultimately seeking higher office, I hope that you can help undo a century of the crippling of technology in America, primarily due to a lack of understanding it. I look forward to your potential candidacy as Governor or Senator of our great state. Progress begins with the most elementary of steps, and as your record shows, you have been a pioneering champion of the people. Best wishes in your continuation to do so.

Being in NY, I can watch the Cubs, Tigers, Royals, Indians, Brewers, Pirates, Phillies, Marlins, Diamondbacks, Nationals and even the Giants--just not the Mets. Even if you have the stupid MLB Extra Innings package, even the MLB's own MLB.TV service blacks out local teams. This is service? This is fuckin stupid. I just want my fucking baseball.

Get Down With The Sickness

Something is amiss... I've been getting really bad headaches the past 3 days with constant nosebleeds. God only knows what this could be.

March Madness

Well, March truly is the season of madness. I haven't blogged in a while and people have been wondering where I am, so I would like to oblige them with an answer--right here. Jack hasn't gone anywhere. The month has been pretty hectic. First of all there is the mandatory school stuff, which doesn't suck but needs to get done and often times takes a large amount of time to do. Secondly, traveling has been the ongoing theme this month, mostly back and forth, but nonetheless, the odometer is running. Spring break was uneventful as well.

Haven't done too many fun things lately--except the tourney. I've been following it extensively and getting ready for baseball as well, watching some spring training. I've been not feeling well pretty much the whole month. One thing to the next to the next, so I have been to the doctor more than a few times, rackin' up them bills! For break I just spent some time reading various things and working on projects I've been meaning to get done. Alot of VoIP and robotics stuff, mostly. The rest of the month has been pretty much the same working on school, side projects and helping out someone with a secret. Hopefully, I will be able to tell everyone what it is soon now. It's been under wraps for a while, and I've been devoting time to it, but hopefully soon I will be able to share. It kicks ass though, really.

Spent some time recording some songs too. Not bad. Anyway, that's about it. Need to finish reading a few things and take some pills and get to bed, but a lot of stuff is out of the way now. I promise to updated frequently. Including some posts about some current events that I meant to write about but didn't have time.

All My Friends are Brown and Red

In response, or addition to what Seth said earlier:

This is the ultimate in free and ultimate in open. Because it means anyone, ANYONE, who is willing to help out can move through the hierarchy of decision making. You can do almost anything b/c you do the work and people trust and rely on you.
This is what open source governance has always been. No one really speaks of it much b/c we like to think open == democratic. It doesn't. Open means unlimited social mobility. No glass ceilings.

This really isn't "the ultimate" in free and open-- it's what it free and open were supposed to be all along. Anyone who has any delusions about FOSS being a democracy or coming about as a result of some democratic process is foolishly mistaken. Ever since day one of GNU and then Linus' famous posting, the process has never been democratic. If it were, then everyone under the sun would be afforded a voice and say in every decision.

The model of buying in by contributing something useful is the way it's been, and the only way it should ever be. That really is the only way to get a good signal to noise ratio. It's been a Meritocracy all along, and that's the way it should stay.

Go Ahead and Play Dead

Great to be back in New York, albeit only for a few days, I got out of the Syracuse snow, which I hear hasn't stopped. Anyway, went to see Constantine last night with the crew. I felt the need to post a review and some comments. Overall I think the movie was decent. Being somewhat of a HellBlazer fan, the thing that annoyed me most was that they Americanized John Constantine, blasphemy I tell you. After the first or second scene though, Keanu was playing the part really well, so I was less annoyed about the Americanization.

Overall the acting was pretty damn good I must say. I was surprised to see some people in the movie, most notably Gavin Rossdale as Balthazar and Shia Lebouf. I think it might have been a good idea to consider Gavin for the part of John, but what's done is done. Shia Lebouf also plays his part really well. For those unfamiliar with Shia Lebouf, he was a pre-teen star doing Disney Channel shows and movies. I had always said he had talent, nonetheless, and last night proved that to me. He was pretty damn good. I was also surprised to see Rachel Weisz's performance. I've liked her acting and she was freakin awesome in Confidence as well, and she did not disappoint this time.

So the acting was really really good. What was bad about the movie? For starters, the characters were botched a bit. I think they should have spent more time on character development, it would have suited them well. Second, they played with the plot obviously and changed some things and added other. I don't want to mention them here, because I don't want to ruin the movie for others.

My review in a sentence: Really good acting and cinematography saves what could have been a better developed screenplay. The effects kicked ass too. Ok, I lied. Two sentences. I would still suggest that anyone who liked HellBlazer, likes comic book films and just Film Noir in general go watch it. I think people who are unfamiliar with the original HellBlazer story will give it a higher rating than my B-.

P.S. I think the best character in the whole movie was Papa Midnight. It was superb.

Up Here In My Tree

Okay, so here's the status log. I didn't have any time to post the last few weeks because we were planning and putting on LinuxWorld and FUDCon. Anyway, everything went off fantastic. I got to Boston on Sunday, met Byte, Nasrat and PJones. Then we did something and I finally got to Joe's and settled in. Joe kicks ass man, I wish I had more time to chill with him, but his asshole professor gave him a test which he was studying for all week.

Monday saw us getting to Hynes and fixing up the booth. Drove to Westford and saw everyone's cubes and met everyone under the sun. Tuesday was Day 1 of LinuxWorld and thus began the whirlwind that was the week. Most popular booth question: "How did you fit it all on one CD?" Everything went well on Tuesday and Wednesday and then we had our meetings on Thursday which I got stuck not attending because I had to man booth. I'm not bitter though, its all in a day's work. Luckily, I had Dennis G. and some other random folks including Fin and Jeremy from LQ to keep me company in the booth. I also spent Thursday morning trying to get VoIP working and once it finally did work, (Thanks to Mark and crew @ Digium) no one wanted to use it. Got some Oreilly books that I divied up once I got back to Syracuse.

Friday was FUDCon. It kicked ass. First question of the day when I came to set up was "Where is Havoc Pennington, I need to speak to him." Some guy came at 7:30 just to see you Havoc!! Overall, everything went smoother than expected and it was a blast. We had some issues with the streaming which were worked out and thanks to Thomas for Flumotion. It kicks ass and I am going to present it to the Syracuse University Board as a solution for doing recording and streaming of classes. Some people I have spoken to already love it, they were skeptical of doing it with WMV and faced some resistance. Anyway FUDCon went well, we gave out lots of shirts and have some really nice sessions and actually got some work with regards to policy done. So overall things went surprisingly well, look for the rest of the slides and video of the sessions to go up to the website as soon as possible.

Got back to Syracuse, aka the great depression where it is always snowing, on Sunday and hurried to make up the school work. Which I am procrastinating from writing this blog entry.

There is a long list of people to thank so here goes:
Michael Tiemann, Greg DeKoenisgberg, Colin Charles, Warren Togami, Seth Vidal, Tim Lee, Erik Logan, Everyone at Red Hat, Ender and yes even Eric Raymond who spoke at and made FUDCon possible--you know who guys are and listing you all would mean making this even longer than it is.
The whole lot of people at BU who made everything possible. Thanks for your gracious hosting, catering and sponsoring of the event. Pam Andrews, Aaron Caine, Matt Miller, Paul Stauffer, Jeff Albro and everyone else.

The people that made LinuxWorld great as always when friends get together from far corners of the world. Jeremy, Fin, TrickyKid and all the LQ guys, Sam Ockman, Brian Aker, Pete Z, the romanian anti-virus company that not only makes Linux AV software but has the balls to give out condoms as a marketing ploy, the person that made the RH Red Sox jerseys, Marty Connor for throwing a party for the .orgs, the LTSP guys who helped us carry shit and loaned us a thin client for the booth and everyone else in the .ORG Pavilion who just made every second a memorable one.

Happy Birthday Joe!!!!!!!!

I know I was too cheap to get you a card, so... Happy 30th birthday man. Thanks for everything over the years. For the hijinx at camp and dealing with us annoying "kids," for after-parties after the parties. For hangin out and doing cool shit. For Kathleen from Hazlet and opium. For Quinlan Nuggets, Quarter Drinks and always having enough TP for everyone's bungholio. For WWF and The Nature Boy-Wooooooooo. For Red Rico and having to put up with Mets, and now Red Sox fans. For Pearl Jam and all things music. And most of all for being around and being fucking cool about everything. Here's to the coolest old guy I know! Happy birthday and many more.

Crazy, how it is...

Well not much going on recently. The weather was nice over the weekend so I took it upon me to spend some time outside. It's never 50 in January in Syracuse, in fact it broke a record of 46 set in 1946. Other than that I haven't been blogging much just because I've been trying to get the all work out of the way before LinuxWorld and FUDCon. A few school items, writing papers and then finishing up some random loose ends at work with the new LAN upgrade. I've also been super busy resurrecting our school LUG which disappeared early last year.

At work while searching for some AirSnort drivers, I stumbled upon a very nice app for network analysis and packet capture in Windows. It's made by WildPackets and is called EtherPeek. A nice tool if you ever need to use something under Winblows. I'll stick to my Ethereal and Ettercap though.

That's all for now. Another update coming before I leave this weekend. Till then...

What Did You Learn In School Today?

So I was sitting in a class today and the professor kept rambling on about software development methodology and blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, as my mind started to wander I started to think about many things and had sort of an epiphany. It's not really an epiphany because I already knew all these things, but today I realized that I just wanted to list them and accept them as being truths and try and learn from them. It seemed very important to do at the time which is why I'm doing it now, even though the mystique has worn off more than just a little at this point.

1. People drive technology, technology doesn't drive people. No matter how good or creative a design is, if it is not pleasing to people, they won't care.
2. Standards are crucial in all facets of life. It's the rules of engagement.
3. Group Dynamics are important to study. I always thought I would be wasting time learning all that "dumb shit" about groups and people and relationships, but today, and this was my epiphany I guess, this shit is actually interesting. How elements interact and what each bring to the table. Its like Chemistry but on a more abstract scale. I guess that's why I like it. And especially in Open Source development where everything is a meritocracy and group interaction is clutch, its good to learn these things.
   
4. Windows sucks and so does Microsoft. But we all knew that one. ;)
5. The 60's never really died.
6. There is but one eternal truth and that is "Software."

My next two blog entries will expound on the last two. I would do it now, but I am dead tired and its 02:46 and I need to be up at 08:00.

P.S. You would think that Blogger would have the word blog on their dictionary. Well apparently they don't. WTF is up with that?

A Few Good Reasons to Stay Indoors

1. ThinkPad T42, which I finally got today. First, UPS had a mechanical failure on their plane from Hong Kong, how convenient. Then, I leave a notice to leave my package in the office, which the UPS guy ignores. I drive to the UPS center when they tell me the driver returned it there, but they lied, of course. I go shopping and come back to find the UPS truck returning to drop off packages at my place for his last run of the day. Nice toy and should help me get some work done. Well, it just so happens that I am going to be indoors for the next few days.

2. Tonight's Forecast: Cloudy intervals. Cold. Low -3F. Wind chill -16F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph.

3. Tomorrow's Forecast: A few clouds early, otherwise mostly sunny. Very cold. High near 5F. Wind chill -19F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.

4. And Saturday: Some afternoon light snow. Highs in the low teens and lows 2 to -2F, Wind chill -18F.

5. The current 3Ft of snow already on the ground.

I almost lost my fingers when going up the stairs from parking the car. That would have really pissed me off. I would have locked myself out of my ThinkPad because the fingerprint reader does a thermal signature as well. Cool Stuff. I might actually end up doing something useful now.

The Wheels on the Car Go Slip, Slip, Slip

On Sunday, when I was driving back up to Syracuse (a.k.a. The Great Depression) some kid hit my car. His insurance gave me a rental, and boy do the wheels suck. I got the car yesterday and started driving back to the great depression at 13:00. I couldn't get the car faster than 40mph without losing traction. A 4 hour drive to me 8 hours. I'm pissed.

This morning, they didn't plow the driveway so I couldn't get the car out and missed my 09:00 appointment. Syracuse sucks. As usual.

Ch, Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes

Thanks to the marvelous work of Mr. Matthew Miller and the graciousness of the Boston University ECE department, FUDCon has been moved to Boston University. Not to dis MIT or anything, they just weren't on top of their game. Anyway, this is somewhat better since it is alot closer to Hynes and there are certain benefits we will be getting at BU that MIT couldn't or wouldn't provide. Thanks Matt. FUDCon is still on Friday February 18, 2005.

Two Words: IBM Rocks

I ordered a ThinkPad T42 because my 6 year old Dell Inspiron 5000e is shot. I've also been having issues with it for a while before it decided to die anyway. So I ordered the T42 and all was well until I got my order confirmation email which showed only a 1 year warranty. So I called up IBM tonight and told them the order should have been for a 3 year warranty and the sales rep was happy to oblige. Then all of a sudden he pauses and tells me that I can get a better model with almost all of the specs doubled for $200 less than what I'm paying now. I was ecstatic!! So my T42 now has an Pentium M 745 which is 1.8GHz, a Gig of RAM, and 80GB 7200 RPM drive with a nice ass video card as well. And yes, its $200 less. Still, thats not the best part--It comes with the IBM fingerprint reader!! I can't wait to play with that thing. Anyone know if PAM has hooks for this or am I going to have to do some hacking?

The Missing Link

Okay, I forgot to mention that the registration link isn't functional yet. Still working on it, Elliot needs to get back to me.

Extra, Extra! FUDCon is On

The Fedora Project Announces Its First Conference

The Fedora Project, a Red-Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source project, today announced a packed program for their first international conference.

The Fedora Users and Developers Conference, affectionately termed FUDCon, is the first of its kind, which aims to bring together both users and developers alike. It is to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass. on February 18th, 2005.

The conference promises an eclectic mix of sessions, bringing together the interests and expertise of those involved in The Fedora Project. Sessions will be conducted in a two-track format, for users and developers, with talks ranging from Package Management to Stateless Linux, to the current state of the Fedora Project.

The Fedora Users and Developers Conference provides the opportunity to meet the community, developers, and users that are contributing to The Fedora Project, to exchange ideas and advance the project forward.

Keynotes and sessions delivered from a varied panel of speakers include Michael Tiemann, Vice President, Open Source Affairs at Red Hat, as well as Havoc Pennington, Desktop Architect at Red Hat.

Did we mention that attendance to the conference was FREE?

For full conference details, and for details on how to register your
attendance, see: http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon1

FUDCon is graciously co-sponsored by Red Hat, Inc. and Pogo Linux, Inc.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading open source and Linux provider, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with satellite offices spanning the globe. Red Hat is leading Linux and open source solutions into the mainstream by making high quality, low cost technology accessible. Red Hat provides operating system software along with middleware, applications and management solutions. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide and through top-tier partnerships. Red Hat's Open Source strategy offers customers a long term plan for building infrastructures that are based on and leverage open source technologies with focus on security and ease of management. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com

About Pogo Linux, Inc.
Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Redmond, Washington, Pogo Linux Inc. is a hardware vendor of servers, workstations, and storage systems. With a Linux focus and in-house technical expertise, Pogo Linux is dedicated to delivering powerful, and reliable Linux-based servers, workstations, and storage solutions for exceptional value. Our systems highlight hardware from the industry's top leaders, the cost-effective benefits of IDE RAID, Serial ATA, and dual-boot workstations with Windows and Linux. Pogo Linux delivers deep 'real world' Linux expertise. When you buy a system from Pogo Linux, you're investing in our Linux knowledge and experience. Pogo Linux is fully committed to the progress of Linux and the success of the Open Source movement. Learn more @ http://www.pogolinux.com

The Fedora Project Press Team
press@fedoraproject.org

The State of the State

I don't know how many people have actually been conscious since the new year began because alot has happened. In particular, alot has happened that is changing the face of computing, and no one has been making a big fuss. Well I'm here to make that big fuss.

I remember a few years ago when IBM started toying with the whole Linux idea and began a cautious crawl towards accepting Linux whole-heartedly, throughout their organization. I remember it distinctly because on one of those days I was in the car with my friend listening to 1010 WINS and I heard a report on IBM embracing Linux. I was a bit shocked to hear the word Linux on a car radio in New York City and I stopped and told my friend "The company of the past just became the company of the Future." Today, IBM solidified the premise of that quote when they announced that they would be allowing FLOSS to use 500 patents without fear, uncertainty and doubt, in essence creating a patent commons, and asking other corporations to step up. Where are you Novell?

IBM has unequivocally, to me at least, proven their commitment if not to Linux and Open Source, then at least to open software. Software that is free from risk and vitriolic admonishment. Software that can be creative and innovative and take an idea an mold and fold it into something incredible. Software that does what software is supposed to do--help people achieve and help others. For a geek, especially, who knows what software means to geeks, and knows how hard we struggle and fight for our rights to create software that solves problems creatively, it just makes me feel like someone, somewhere is starting to get it.

I had alot of naysayer friends that said once IBM find a newer more viable and marketable platform, they would dump Linux in the toilet. To them I say that there is no platform more viable and more marketable than Linux. Linux is many things to many people, all at once. Linux is what software is supposed to be, something that bends to suit your needs, not the other way around. And as IBM has proven, they get software. You can say that its a strategy to get at Microsoft all you want, I don't think so and that brings us to the next topic.

IBM doesn't need to destroy Microsoft because Apple just did it for them. I think the $500 Mac is the smartest thing that Apple has ever done. Let's just face it Windows fuckin blows. If you say that Windows doesn't blow, then at least Microsoft's policies towards it blows. The whole Microsoft development ideology is somewhat flawed and just adds crap on top of something that is already crap.

I thank God that Apple finally wised up and decided to release a product that is in the average consumer price range. I don't know about anyone else but just coming out of the holiday season I am sick of fixing people's Windows XP problems and getting 9pm phone calls from people about how I need to come to their house right away to fix their pop-ups flooding their screen. Even that Microsoft Anti-Spyware thing they just released sucks as well. It doesn't actually remove 90% of the spyware, it'll detect it and try to remove it, but the spyware hackers are two steps ahead of Microsoft. Although, Ad-aware and Spybot aren't any better.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into an anti-Microsoft diatribe. The point is, OS X is better and nicer and more user friendly. Now that it's cheap, every idiot I know is getting one of these. Whether they want it or not, I will force them on to it. There is no reason not to. Even if it ends up taking $5000 of my own money I will make sure that at least the least computer competent of the bunch has one of these machines. I don't expect that the rest of the world will be far behind.

To the brain trust behind Apple's recent strategy and behind this MiniMac, I would like to extend my thanks. I guess it really took the iPod to give Steve Jobs and crew the self-esteem needed to accept the fact that their products could succeed in circles other than those of the hipsters and artsy fartsy and finally act on it. I look forward to January 22nd.

Vote Fedora in 05

As many of you know, LinuxQuestions.org runs a yearly Members' Choice Awards. Jeremy, the very cool proprietor of the site is a good friend of mine and a very big supporter of the community. A Fedora user as well, in case anyone cares. He recently opened up the awards and Fedora is nominated for Distro of the Year. Please get your browsers to the voting booth and get your vote on. The awards will be given out at LinuxWorld in Boston and it would be really nice if Fedora won distro of the year.

While you are there, please check out the site as well. It is a great site that has been servicing the community for a long time and has helped out so much. Who knows, you might make a new friend or two.

Skillz that Killz

Okay, so I'm back for 2k5 and looking to blog. Here goes the post New Years wrap up. I didn't do anything special for new years, in fact I spent the night of the 31st sleeping. I was too tired to care and knew that my celebration would be coming in the night of the 1st anyway. I was however, woken up at 00:10 by really loud fireworks that went on for a good hour or so.

On Saturday night, the crew took me out for my birthday, which was already on Thursday. We went to some Japanese place that was awesome and I had lots of sashimi and incredible udon soup. I hadn't had udon in a few months, so it really hit the spot. Then comes the celebration!

On Sunday the 2nd, I was invited to Atlantic City as a birthday gift by my good friend Dan. We all had a lot of fun and won bags of money. I hit a $20 bet on 17 on the roulette wheel, which paid very well, and I also did nicely in blackjack the whole weekend. Dan hit four-of-a-kind Jacks playing Let it Ride and we got comped lots of free food, drinks and a suite at the Resorts Casino and Hotel.

Part of this comp was 4 tickets to see Snoop Dogg live and in concert. Snoop showed up 2 hours late amid rumors that his wife was taken to the hospital. What I think happened, though, is that the delayed 2 hours so that Donovan McNabb could arrive. The second he came in, Snoop magically appeared on stage. The show was awesome and very fun, as I imagined a Snoop show would be, never having been to one before. The best part though was that Donovan McNabb was sitting 4 inches in front of where we were and at one point, I called out to him and said "Donovan, SU '04." He turned around smiling and gave me a pound and said "SU Love." It was cool to have connected with someone you never thought you could relate to and all.

Anyway, Donovan was very cool the whole time and was very into Snoop Dogg and the concert was awesome. We then stayed up gambling until like 8 in the morning and Dan had a very interesting game of blackjack with the man now dubbed "The Blackjack assassin." I wish I had taken a picture of that guy.

The next morning we woke up and went back to gambling for a few hours until checkout and won some more cash and laughed at the funny things Dan did the night before. All in all it was a great trip and I really need to thank Dan for one of the best belated birthday gifts that I have ever had in my life.

I also watched Dodgeball (HILARIOUS!!!) on the night of my birthday, which is how this entry got it's title. I think it describes quite well how we made out like bandits in AC.

Shout out to Joe - Good Night and God Bless.

Now back to reality and setting up FedoraCon.