Okay, so Summer is pretty much officially over here in New York. The last couple of days we've had 60 degree weather with cold winds. It just happened way to fast. Literally in the span of 3 days. Saturday was really nice and then on Sunday I needed to break out the jacket and jeans. Looks like its going be a long cold winter, which sucks. The upside though is that it means much more time indoors, thinking, writing, planning and working on cool things. Especially in a new environment there are many opportunities to exploit. Let's see what develops.
Jack
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
OSCON Day 0 - Freedom 2.0
So after 14 hours in the airport, I finally made it to Portland, got some rest, woke up right on time to head into the Conference Center for the O'Reilly Executive Briefing session, starring none other than our own Michael Tiemann. I wouldn't normally write about something like this, except that there was an interesting point made by Tim O'Reilly which was expanded upon by Michael.
A question was posed to the panel about what they thought the next big thing in technology will be? Obvious answers, such as virtualization, VoIP, "the ubiquitous network," faster and flashier toys, came pouring out rapidly. Then with a bit of a pause, Tim O'Reilly offered up an answer. "We seem to be heading towards a Cassandra complex." The unfortunate truth is, we have become so good at "doing tech", we are able to foresee and predict disasters and societal impediments, but we are still slow as ever to act, and sometimes it stems from just disbelief, or more likely just not being brave enough to face the future.
Michael expanded on this by relating a story of how while working with NOAA, they successfully rolled out a new platform which allowed them to track weather changes and patterns for windows as small as five minutes. The severity and likely damages of Hurricane Katrina were predicted two weeks in advance and we still failed miserably on the most important level of the game. A few hours later, irrelatively, Spot mentioned how odd it was to watch on television how the hotel which had just hosted the first Red Hat Summit in New Orleans, where an award was given out for Open Source Crisis Management Software, was being used as a triage center for Katrina victims.
Michael closed the talk by revising his earlier answer. The next big thing in technology will be when we can effectively democratize action based on the information which we have become so adept at processing. This is the true promise of a technologically advanced society.
Dean Raymond von Dran, of the Syracuse University School of Information Management related that many of society's most pressing issues are fundamentally, information problems. Whether it be faulty intelligence in a war or a certain Senator rambling on about the Internet being a series of tubes (I'm sure the intern feeding him information was fired), many of our modern dilemmas exist because of inability or callous reluctance to react to information.
Linux and Open Source have now grown up and matured past the point of arcane popsicle stick and glue black magic and Fantasia-like wizardry concocted with crude tools. Face it. We aren't alternative anymore, we ARE mainstream. The greatest contribution of the movement has been a truly viable and robust platform for processing all the world's information. We are now at a critical juncture where we must step back and face the future. If we cannot grow up and, as Michael said, enable the evolution of societal ripostes to our most critical contexts, what have we really accomplished? Have we really accomplished anything?
Everything seems to be 2.0 these days. We, as a community say we stand for freedom and rights. My dear friends, code for code's sake is fun, but now it's time to work towards Freedom 2.0.
A question was posed to the panel about what they thought the next big thing in technology will be? Obvious answers, such as virtualization, VoIP, "the ubiquitous network," faster and flashier toys, came pouring out rapidly. Then with a bit of a pause, Tim O'Reilly offered up an answer. "We seem to be heading towards a Cassandra complex." The unfortunate truth is, we have become so good at "doing tech", we are able to foresee and predict disasters and societal impediments, but we are still slow as ever to act, and sometimes it stems from just disbelief, or more likely just not being brave enough to face the future.
Michael expanded on this by relating a story of how while working with NOAA, they successfully rolled out a new platform which allowed them to track weather changes and patterns for windows as small as five minutes. The severity and likely damages of Hurricane Katrina were predicted two weeks in advance and we still failed miserably on the most important level of the game. A few hours later, irrelatively, Spot mentioned how odd it was to watch on television how the hotel which had just hosted the first Red Hat Summit in New Orleans, where an award was given out for Open Source Crisis Management Software, was being used as a triage center for Katrina victims.
Michael closed the talk by revising his earlier answer. The next big thing in technology will be when we can effectively democratize action based on the information which we have become so adept at processing. This is the true promise of a technologically advanced society.
Dean Raymond von Dran, of the Syracuse University School of Information Management related that many of society's most pressing issues are fundamentally, information problems. Whether it be faulty intelligence in a war or a certain Senator rambling on about the Internet being a series of tubes (I'm sure the intern feeding him information was fired), many of our modern dilemmas exist because of inability or callous reluctance to react to information.
Linux and Open Source have now grown up and matured past the point of arcane popsicle stick and glue black magic and Fantasia-like wizardry concocted with crude tools. Face it. We aren't alternative anymore, we ARE mainstream. The greatest contribution of the movement has been a truly viable and robust platform for processing all the world's information. We are now at a critical juncture where we must step back and face the future. If we cannot grow up and, as Michael said, enable the evolution of societal ripostes to our most critical contexts, what have we really accomplished? Have we really accomplished anything?
Everything seems to be 2.0 these days. We, as a community say we stand for freedom and rights. My dear friends, code for code's sake is fun, but now it's time to work towards Freedom 2.0.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Intending to Burn
This is primarily a test post, so you can go ahead and ignore it. I wanted to test out the new automatic feed translation that I enabled on my feed. I would prefer to publish in Atom, but of course not every reader (including Planet) likes parsing Atom feeds, so I had resorted to manually doing the Atom -> RSS 2.0 conversion. Theoretically, this should allow automatic detection of the client's capabilities and give it the right version of the feed. If things look messed up to someone, or if your client is choking and/or is spewing garbage please email me and let me know.
Friday, June 30, 2006
Fedora in Israel פדורה בישראל
Slow rolling clouds exhale warm winds along the picture perfect Eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The water glistens, as if unsullied from creation, and soaring palm trees dot the landscape. The remainder of the scenery, green all over with abundant fruit trees, would seem a bit embellished, as if to indicate you've stumbled upon paradise. For me, it's a pleasant departure from the usual gray, washed out, maneuver your way through the multitude, concrete streets of New York City. So where am I, and what am I doing here?
It is far from a pristine paradise undiscovered by humanity. In fact, just a few meters from the shoreline you will find the same hustle and bustle of New York City and one hell of a falafel, too. A short cab ride through the streets miraculously unveils some of the world's oldest standing structures juxtaposed against a flurry of billboards bearing its newest names: Oracle, Intel, IBM, HP and yes, even Novell has a couple. Quite an amazing and amusing site the first time you see it. In the middle of this desert oasis you will find tech's second coming.
I am on a quest to seek out Fedora community members half a world away. The community needs strengthening and one of our weakest links is in a country which is a tech powerhouse and yet often neglected by geekdom at large--Israel.
That is quite unfortunate though, because there is a tremendous amount of interest and involvement in technology around here--especially around Linux. Somewhere along the last 15 years, Linux became related to business. I'm sure many geeks are still scratching their heads, but the courting is being played out all over again on this side of the globe. Linux runs rampant throughout the university system, so students are introduced to it fairly early. The economy is experiencing a boom similar to the one the U.S. had, although it is more tempered and as a result, businesses are looking to modernize, extended their presences and improve processes. Additionally, startups, in every sector, are abundant and each must look for cost-effective means to break into their respective markets. Many have gravitated towards Linux due to previous exposure and for the obvious advantages it provides. While the people have struggled to build a country, their geeks certainly are not afraid of building a kernel.
Of course the big boys have set up shop as well. Anyone who owns an Intel Centrino laptop must thank Intel's Israel R&D, almost all of the latest microprocessors have been designed here (and named after rivers near the Intel HQ). IBM, whose outlandish, CRT shaped, spherical Petach Tikva HQ has become an icon in the country, has a massive presence here as well. Oracle must be making a killing here; it has bought up the ad space on literally every other billboard throughout the country. Google is coming too. It all stems from a government which is very pro-tech and has passed much legislation to subsidize high tech, in both education and industry. Now I hav come to find the geeks and rally them.
So I have come to seek out members of our Fedora community sporting an essentials-filled backpack, a water canteen, sunscreen and a 103 degree fever (39 degrees in Celsius) which I picked up somewhere along the way. I knew we had a Fedora Ambassador here, Moshe Roffe, whom I have now spoken to on several occasions, but judging by the otherwise initially lukewarm communication efforts with groups around here, I almost drew the conclusion that the Israeli Linux scene was either deep underground or dead, as in BSD. ;)(Come on, I just
It is much easier to win a battle when you are on the ground and combat ready and I did what I have been trained to do, "find your friends." So I first emailed Moshe Bar whom I met a while back in New York City. I knew he often hung around these parts. Moshe is a true champion of Open Source, being the founder of some great projects such as OpenMosix and of course co-founding XenSource. Luckily enough, Moshe was in the country and we decided to meet up the next day. After some nice chit chat I got to take a tour of the offices of Moshe's new venture (it's super secret) and talk with some of the guys. The whole office runs on RHEL on the backend with Fedora on the frontend, which is a good sign! We had a nice site down with about 5-6 people from his staff who had many questions about Fedora. The whole RHL -> Fedora progeny, how to get things into extras, the QA process, what other projects we have up our sleeves. It was quite interesting conversation, with much learned on both ends.
Next, I got to stop by Intel and chat with some of the engineers in their Haifa center. The people over at Intel are very smart. I know this because all the engineers have standardized their desktop platform on Fedora. If you are running a Core Duo chip, odds are that it was designed on Fedora Core 2. It was kind of nice to see people who actually Get It(tm). There weren't too many questions. Some people asked me some RHEL5 and Xen questions, and I responded with what I knew and pointed them to where they could get more info. One of the managers there asked me something about Red Hat opening an office in Israel. I told him I will get right to work on it, that it was priority A1. He liked my response and laughed me all the way out the security gates. (Just Kidding).
A couple of days later, I finally coerced someone I know into setting up a visit for me at the IBM HQ here. IBM is all about their services division lately, which has netted them great growth. It was no surprise to learn that more than half the IBM employees here work outside of the office. The visit was real brief, but I got to see some nifty projects they are working on and then went out to eat with a few of the software engineers at the end of the day. IBM's role here has been has been pretty much the same as their role everywhere--design a custom software solution and then convince the customer to deploy it on IBM's hardware and software stack. The engineers work on projects ranging from websphere development, custom solutions development and one guy here even works on code for the cell processor which he is writing for the next version of the Blue Gene supercomputer. Overall, some really cool guys, they all run Linux at home and some do at work as well. Out of the 7 of them I was with, four ran Fedora, one was a die hard Debian fan and the other two ran Ubuntu.
After all of the above, madly racing around I finally got to spend time working on the Fedora Event Kit. See my email to fedora-ambassadors-list for more info, this post it too long as it is. (We finally got Fedora stationary, too, thanks again to Diana for the awesome work). Also, our local Ambassador, Moshe Roffe, finally stopped by and we got to talk about a few things. We discussed the event we are planning on having here, the general state of Linux affairs here and of course the World Cup. Moshe happens to work for Matrix IT, the official Red Hat reseller in the country, so he has a pretty good sense of the Linux uptake and what really needs to be done in order to gain more widespread Linux adoption. Truth is, no one around here is too fond of Microsoft and most companies would rather not trust their whole infrastructure to them. At least that's the feeling you get when talking to people around here. Hilti, for example, a power tool and construction equipment manufacturer, is constantly dealing with problems with their Windows Server deployment and they recently decided to switch off of Windows and are currently looking at SuSe and Solaris.
A lot of my interaction with the greater Linux community here came when visiting the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Open University. There are a large number of students in the Computer Science and Engineering programs of which a large majority love Linux. There are so many projects being worked on at HUJI and the students were telling me how much of it would not have been possible without Linux. I did the standard Fedora talk twice to two very different groups of people and everyone loved it. Many people came out feeling very energized and enthusiastic, and hopefully we will have some new community members soon.
And so the story continues. I have 10 days left here and plan on making the most of them. We still have to go pick up Fedora DVDs and T-shirts, an event to run and hopefully lots of more meetings. More as it happens. Right now though, I just got word that there is a large rally of Fedora fanatics at the beach. Yeah, I should go check that out. ;)
It is far from a pristine paradise undiscovered by humanity. In fact, just a few meters from the shoreline you will find the same hustle and bustle of New York City and one hell of a falafel, too. A short cab ride through the streets miraculously unveils some of the world's oldest standing structures juxtaposed against a flurry of billboards bearing its newest names: Oracle, Intel, IBM, HP and yes, even Novell has a couple. Quite an amazing and amusing site the first time you see it. In the middle of this desert oasis you will find tech's second coming.
I am on a quest to seek out Fedora community members half a world away. The community needs strengthening and one of our weakest links is in a country which is a tech powerhouse and yet often neglected by geekdom at large--Israel.
That is quite unfortunate though, because there is a tremendous amount of interest and involvement in technology around here--especially around Linux. Somewhere along the last 15 years, Linux became related to business. I'm sure many geeks are still scratching their heads, but the courting is being played out all over again on this side of the globe. Linux runs rampant throughout the university system, so students are introduced to it fairly early. The economy is experiencing a boom similar to the one the U.S. had, although it is more tempered and as a result, businesses are looking to modernize, extended their presences and improve processes. Additionally, startups, in every sector, are abundant and each must look for cost-effective means to break into their respective markets. Many have gravitated towards Linux due to previous exposure and for the obvious advantages it provides. While the people have struggled to build a country, their geeks certainly are not afraid of building a kernel.
Of course the big boys have set up shop as well. Anyone who owns an Intel Centrino laptop must thank Intel's Israel R&D, almost all of the latest microprocessors have been designed here (and named after rivers near the Intel HQ). IBM, whose outlandish, CRT shaped, spherical Petach Tikva HQ has become an icon in the country, has a massive presence here as well. Oracle must be making a killing here; it has bought up the ad space on literally every other billboard throughout the country. Google is coming too. It all stems from a government which is very pro-tech and has passed much legislation to subsidize high tech, in both education and industry. Now I hav come to find the geeks and rally them.
So I have come to seek out members of our Fedora community sporting an essentials-filled backpack, a water canteen, sunscreen and a 103 degree fever (39 degrees in Celsius) which I picked up somewhere along the way. I knew we had a Fedora Ambassador here, Moshe Roffe, whom I have now spoken to on several occasions, but judging by the otherwise initially lukewarm communication efforts with groups around here, I almost drew the conclusion that the Israeli Linux scene was either deep underground or dead, as in BSD. ;)(Come on, I just
It is much easier to win a battle when you are on the ground and combat ready and I did what I have been trained to do, "find your friends." So I first emailed Moshe Bar whom I met a while back in New York City. I knew he often hung around these parts. Moshe is a true champion of Open Source, being the founder of some great projects such as OpenMosix and of course co-founding XenSource. Luckily enough, Moshe was in the country and we decided to meet up the next day. After some nice chit chat I got to take a tour of the offices of Moshe's new venture (it's super secret) and talk with some of the guys. The whole office runs on RHEL on the backend with Fedora on the frontend, which is a good sign! We had a nice site down with about 5-6 people from his staff who had many questions about Fedora. The whole RHL -> Fedora progeny, how to get things into extras, the QA process, what other projects we have up our sleeves. It was quite interesting conversation, with much learned on both ends.
Next, I got to stop by Intel and chat with some of the engineers in their Haifa center. The people over at Intel are very smart. I know this because all the engineers have standardized their desktop platform on Fedora. If you are running a Core Duo chip, odds are that it was designed on Fedora Core 2. It was kind of nice to see people who actually Get It(tm). There weren't too many questions. Some people asked me some RHEL5 and Xen questions, and I responded with what I knew and pointed them to where they could get more info. One of the managers there asked me something about Red Hat opening an office in Israel. I told him I will get right to work on it, that it was priority A1. He liked my response and laughed me all the way out the security gates. (Just Kidding).
A couple of days later, I finally coerced someone I know into setting up a visit for me at the IBM HQ here. IBM is all about their services division lately, which has netted them great growth. It was no surprise to learn that more than half the IBM employees here work outside of the office. The visit was real brief, but I got to see some nifty projects they are working on and then went out to eat with a few of the software engineers at the end of the day. IBM's role here has been has been pretty much the same as their role everywhere--design a custom software solution and then convince the customer to deploy it on IBM's hardware and software stack. The engineers work on projects ranging from websphere development, custom solutions development and one guy here even works on code for the cell processor which he is writing for the next version of the Blue Gene supercomputer. Overall, some really cool guys, they all run Linux at home and some do at work as well. Out of the 7 of them I was with, four ran Fedora, one was a die hard Debian fan and the other two ran Ubuntu.
After all of the above, madly racing around I finally got to spend time working on the Fedora Event Kit. See my email to fedora-ambassadors-list for more info, this post it too long as it is. (We finally got Fedora stationary, too, thanks again to Diana for the awesome work). Also, our local Ambassador, Moshe Roffe, finally stopped by and we got to talk about a few things. We discussed the event we are planning on having here, the general state of Linux affairs here and of course the World Cup. Moshe happens to work for Matrix IT, the official Red Hat reseller in the country, so he has a pretty good sense of the Linux uptake and what really needs to be done in order to gain more widespread Linux adoption. Truth is, no one around here is too fond of Microsoft and most companies would rather not trust their whole infrastructure to them. At least that's the feeling you get when talking to people around here. Hilti, for example, a power tool and construction equipment manufacturer, is constantly dealing with problems with their Windows Server deployment and they recently decided to switch off of Windows and are currently looking at SuSe and Solaris.
A lot of my interaction with the greater Linux community here came when visiting the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Open University. There are a large number of students in the Computer Science and Engineering programs of which a large majority love Linux. There are so many projects being worked on at HUJI and the students were telling me how much of it would not have been possible without Linux. I did the standard Fedora talk twice to two very different groups of people and everyone loved it. Many people came out feeling very energized and enthusiastic, and hopefully we will have some new community members soon.
And so the story continues. I have 10 days left here and plan on making the most of them. We still have to go pick up Fedora DVDs and T-shirts, an event to run and hopefully lots of more meetings. More as it happens. Right now though, I just got word that there is a large rally of Fedora fanatics at the beach. Yeah, I should go check that out. ;)
Monday, June 19, 2006
Technological Nose Picking
It's called Balloon Sinuplasty and it freaking awesome!! The doctor shoves a tube/needle with a balloon up your nose, all under local anesthesia, so it feels really weird. He then inflates the balloon which expands the sinus cavity and begins to slowly drain the sinus. Yes it sounds nasty and disgusting, and if you get a chance to look at the product, it most certainly is. Other than the "ewwww" factor though, it is an awesome procedure which everyone with sinusitis should be aware of and requesting.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
I Feel A Sickness, Coming Over Me...
... but it's a good one.
Many of you know of my longstanding obsession with the world's greatest band ever--Pearl Jam. Just wanted to announce that their new album, which is appropriately self-titled (i.e. Pearl Jam for all those of you who don't understand) is released as of today May 2nd 2006. The reason I say it is appropriately self-titled, is because it is much like a debut release, with the band getting back to the basics which made them so well accepted in the earlier parts of the 1990s.
This is, in my opinion, and in the opinions of many of the popular review sites, the best Pearl Jam album in 10 years, and the more I listen to it, the more I start to think it is their best ever. Seriously, it's not like previous albums, it's real good.
The maturity of the lyrics make this album well worth the 10 bucks you'll pay; it's not kiddy stuff. The songs are all catchy and the musical arrangements have such uncharacteristic (for PJ at least) depth to them, that you might mistake them for something off a Pink Floyd record. With this album, Pearl Jam renews its reign over the kingdom which is Alt Rock and are well on their way, blazing a path, to the retake throne of Rock and Roll, which is so rightfully theirs.
Many of you know of my longstanding obsession with the world's greatest band ever--Pearl Jam. Just wanted to announce that their new album, which is appropriately self-titled (i.e. Pearl Jam for all those of you who don't understand) is released as of today May 2nd 2006. The reason I say it is appropriately self-titled, is because it is much like a debut release, with the band getting back to the basics which made them so well accepted in the earlier parts of the 1990s.
This is, in my opinion, and in the opinions of many of the popular review sites, the best Pearl Jam album in 10 years, and the more I listen to it, the more I start to think it is their best ever. Seriously, it's not like previous albums, it's real good.
The maturity of the lyrics make this album well worth the 10 bucks you'll pay; it's not kiddy stuff. The songs are all catchy and the musical arrangements have such uncharacteristic (for PJ at least) depth to them, that you might mistake them for something off a Pink Floyd record. With this album, Pearl Jam renews its reign over the kingdom which is Alt Rock and are well on their way, blazing a path, to the retake throne of Rock and Roll, which is so rightfully theirs.
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Diamonds in this Coalmine
So a good friend of mine just called me in response to my recent blog post and she wasn't too happy with my pessimistic outlook. She also reminded me that I forgot to post about the good news I got on Friday -- NYU has formally agreed to put me another $60,000 in debt. (Get It?!?)
I'm sure once I have a chance to relax and let some time lapse things will be looking better again. So until then, can someone please post a review of FUDCon for all to see. I would do it myself, but I'm too damn tired and don't feel like concentrating enough to write a proper review.
Also, Fedora has been officially invited to the O'reilly Open Source Convention this year. I have all the forms and paperwork ready and have spoken to the coordinator for that, so I'll post up some more info when it's available.
I'm sure once I have a chance to relax and let some time lapse things will be looking better again. So until then, can someone please post a review of FUDCon for all to see. I would do it myself, but I'm too damn tired and don't feel like concentrating enough to write a proper review.
Also, Fedora has been officially invited to the O'reilly Open Source Convention this year. I have all the forms and paperwork ready and have spoken to the coordinator for that, so I'll post up some more info when it's available.
Down In A Hole
Just got back from Boston. This has ended up being the worst and most expensive trip of my life.
$800 Auto Glass Replacement + $350 Traffic Ticket + $200 Gas = $1350.
I now realize that I could have gone on a weeklong European vacation and saved money. Anyway, somebody must be giving me the evil eye or something because this is just insane. Just when I got over the broken window, and had the weekend to relax, a stupid fucking state trooper pulls me over.
I've learned my lesson though. Time to take a break from travel for a long while. I think I am going to crawl into some hole and disappear for a good long time.
$800 Auto Glass Replacement + $350 Traffic Ticket + $200 Gas = $1350.
I now realize that I could have gone on a weeklong European vacation and saved money. Anyway, somebody must be giving me the evil eye or something because this is just insane. Just when I got over the broken window, and had the weekend to relax, a stupid fucking state trooper pulls me over.
I've learned my lesson though. Time to take a break from travel for a long while. I think I am going to crawl into some hole and disappear for a good long time.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Do The Evolution. Or Not.
In response to Jesse's recent posts about filing evolution bugs:
Have fun. I myself have filed numerous bugs, especially over this past summer working with Dave Malcolm, and all are yet to be fixed. Wait, scratch that, one was fixed, but that was the one which we included a patch with, and it was a stupid fix anyway. The important things, including the potential to lose mail, don't seem to bother them. I doubt you will get very far using bugzilla reports. Me, I prefer baseball bats and brass knuckles.
Evolution was sucking hardcore and no one cared to fix anything so I switched to Thunderbird. Thunderbird has open bugs about reply-list and guess what, it's actually been fixed already. Chris Aillon is out in California this week and is meeting with some of the moz dudes. So I had him talk to the people responsible, and that bug is fixed and ready to be rolled out in the next update.
Mozilla is actually willing to work with people and invest the time and effort to fix things and I proudly support their efforts.
P.S. Why did we ever abandon Mutt and Pine?
Have fun. I myself have filed numerous bugs, especially over this past summer working with Dave Malcolm, and all are yet to be fixed. Wait, scratch that, one was fixed, but that was the one which we included a patch with, and it was a stupid fix anyway. The important things, including the potential to lose mail, don't seem to bother them. I doubt you will get very far using bugzilla reports. Me, I prefer baseball bats and brass knuckles.
Evolution was sucking hardcore and no one cared to fix anything so I switched to Thunderbird. Thunderbird has open bugs about reply-list and guess what, it's actually been fixed already. Chris Aillon is out in California this week and is meeting with some of the moz dudes. So I had him talk to the people responsible, and that bug is fixed and ready to be rolled out in the next update.
Mozilla is actually willing to work with people and invest the time and effort to fix things and I proudly support their efforts.
P.S. Why did we ever abandon Mutt and Pine?
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Announcing FUDCon Boston 2006
Hot on the heels of the release of Fedora Core 5 and the success of previous FUDCon events worldwide, the Fedora Project is proud to announce FUDCon Boston 2006. FUDCon Boston 2006 will offer a wide range of speakers on an even wider range of topics, in three separate tracks, and is sure to have something for everyone.
More Info can be found at:
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConBoston2006
==When==
Friday, 7 April 2006. This is the Friday right after LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.
==What==
FUDCon Boston 2006 is the fifth such event globally and the second to be held in Boston, Mass. USA. FUDCon Boston 2006 will feature an expanded three track lineup which includes a user, developer and applications track. The application track will feature unique individuals and corporations, such as Levanta, MySQL, Pogo Linux and even representatives from the Catalonian Government in Spain, who have
leveraged Fedora for unique purposes and have contributed to the community.
The complete schedule can be found on the wiki and will be updated to reflect any time conflicts speaker may have. Please use it as the definitive timetable for the day's events. Additionally, the wiki will be updated with more detailed speaker, abstract and room info for each specific talk.
==Where==
The Fedora Project is honored to be able to work with Boston University once again to make this FUDCon a reality. The event will be graciously hosted once again by the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management gets in on the fun.
Also, as last year, we plan on offering streaming video and audio of all tracks and sessions. This year, these streams will be higher quality than previous attempts, as we think we've gotten it right this time. The streams will be Ogg Theora and should work out of the box for users of Fedora Core 4 and 5. Check the wiki in the coming weeks for links to the streaming content.
==How==
As spaces are limited we urge all those interested to pre-register by emailing fudcon-register@fedoraproject.org . Those who pre-register will have badges available for pickup the day of FUDCon and will receive preference for sessions which may fill up quickly.
==Thanks==
Thanks go out to all who made this possible and have contributed so much to the massive growth and success of the Fedora community. You know who you are.
See you in Boston!!
More Info can be found at:
http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon/FUDConBoston2006
==When==
Friday, 7 April 2006. This is the Friday right after LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.
==What==
FUDCon Boston 2006 is the fifth such event globally and the second to be held in Boston, Mass. USA. FUDCon Boston 2006 will feature an expanded three track lineup which includes a user, developer and applications track. The application track will feature unique individuals and corporations, such as Levanta, MySQL, Pogo Linux and even representatives from the Catalonian Government in Spain, who have
leveraged Fedora for unique purposes and have contributed to the community.
The complete schedule can be found on the wiki and will be updated to reflect any time conflicts speaker may have. Please use it as the definitive timetable for the day's events. Additionally, the wiki will be updated with more detailed speaker, abstract and room info for each specific talk.
==Where==
The Fedora Project is honored to be able to work with Boston University once again to make this FUDCon a reality. The event will be graciously hosted once again by the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management gets in on the fun.
Also, as last year, we plan on offering streaming video and audio of all tracks and sessions. This year, these streams will be higher quality than previous attempts, as we think we've gotten it right this time. The streams will be Ogg Theora and should work out of the box for users of Fedora Core 4 and 5. Check the wiki in the coming weeks for links to the streaming content.
==How==
As spaces are limited we urge all those interested to pre-register by emailing fudcon-register@fedoraproject.org . Those who pre-register will have badges available for pickup the day of FUDCon and will receive preference for sessions which may fill up quickly.
==Thanks==
Thanks go out to all who made this possible and have contributed so much to the massive growth and success of the Fedora community. You know who you are.
See you in Boston!!
Friday, February 24, 2006
FUDCon CFP Almost Closed
The Call for Papers for FUDCon Boston 2006 is drawing to an end. The official deadline is about to lapse, although we will still consider submissions that come in over the next few days and are encouragin. Thanks go to everyone who has submitted abstracts and we look forward to announcing the final lineup and events schedule later next week.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
FUDCon Boston 2006 Call for Papers
I would like to start out by thanking both the community and developers who have helped make Fedora such a huge success on so many different fronts.
Riding on the success of the series of FUDCon events worldwide I am proud to announce that we will be holding FUDCon Boston 2006, taking it back to where it all began. The event will be graciously hosted by Boston University once again with sponsorship from BU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management. The date for the event is Friday April 7th, the day following the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.
We are looking for interesting topics and presentations covering a number areas. Talks should be focused on one of the 3 main tracks.
Track 1 - User Track : Topics that deal with the user experience, desktop innovations, etc.
Track 2 - Developer Track : Topics that deal with software development in the Fedora environment.
Track 3 - Application Track : Either topics that deal with applications/uses of Fedora in other Open Source projects or topics that showcase a specific Open Source application.
To be considered for presentation, abstracts should be submitted to fudcon-cfp@fedoraproject.org by no later than Thursday February 23, at 11:59pm. We welcome submission from both developers and community members alike, new and old.
After the review process, notifications will go out on Thursday March 2nd followed by a full schedule for FUDCon Boston 2006 and official announcement on Monday March 6th.
Thanks.
Riding on the success of the series of FUDCon events worldwide I am proud to announce that we will be holding FUDCon Boston 2006, taking it back to where it all began. The event will be graciously hosted by Boston University once again with sponsorship from BU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the BU Office of Information Technology, and this year, the BU School of Management. The date for the event is Friday April 7th, the day following the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo.
We are looking for interesting topics and presentations covering a number areas. Talks should be focused on one of the 3 main tracks.
Track 1 - User Track : Topics that deal with the user experience, desktop innovations, etc.
Track 2 - Developer Track : Topics that deal with software development in the Fedora environment.
Track 3 - Application Track : Either topics that deal with applications/uses of Fedora in other Open Source projects or topics that showcase a specific Open Source application.
To be considered for presentation, abstracts should be submitted to fudcon-cfp@fedoraproject.org by no later than Thursday February 23, at 11:59pm. We welcome submission from both developers and community members alike, new and old.
After the review process, notifications will go out on Thursday March 2nd followed by a full schedule for FUDCon Boston 2006 and official announcement on Monday March 6th.
Thanks.
Monday, January 09, 2006
There's No Place Like ~
Okay, so it's been a struggle getting caught up with everything and finally being able to breathe, but lo and behold, sometime between 11 and 12 today, I accomplished that exact feat. So what now? Well, I've been working on a little project on the side with a few friends for the past month and things have really begun to pick up steam. I might be headed to NYU in the fall to participate in the most awesome ITP Program. Lot's of good stuff coming out of there.
However, don't be fooled. As of Jan 9, I am able to step back into all my Fedora work full force, and I find that awesome. There is much to be done on every front. Marketing is always busy and we are trying to get together another awesome FUDCon and a most special event for the LinuxWorld expo, so look for updates on that. As part of the ambassadors, I am almost done writing my letters to the U.N. and Mayor Bloomberg. I'm looking forward to picking up pieces of the triage stuff as well and maybe getting my hands dirty in a few other things.
It feels good to be able to breathe again.
P.S. Howard Stern's first Sirius Broadcast is Jan 9 as well. I'm looking forward to listening to the first show and seeing what it's like. I got my Sirius Radio last year for other reasons, but I'm sure this will be interesting.
However, don't be fooled. As of Jan 9, I am able to step back into all my Fedora work full force, and I find that awesome. There is much to be done on every front. Marketing is always busy and we are trying to get together another awesome FUDCon and a most special event for the LinuxWorld expo, so look for updates on that. As part of the ambassadors, I am almost done writing my letters to the U.N. and Mayor Bloomberg. I'm looking forward to picking up pieces of the triage stuff as well and maybe getting my hands dirty in a few other things.
It feels good to be able to breathe again.
P.S. Howard Stern's first Sirius Broadcast is Jan 9 as well. I'm looking forward to listening to the first show and seeing what it's like. I got my Sirius Radio last year for other reasons, but I'm sure this will be interesting.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
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.
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.
Friday, August 05, 2005
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.
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
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.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
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!
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!
Sunday, July 10, 2005
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
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.
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.
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