sjh - mountain biking running linux vegan geek spice - mtb / vegan / running / linux / canberra / cycling / etc

Steven Hanley hackergotchi picture Steven
Hanley

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email: sjh@svana.org

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Aaron Broughton,
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Chris Yeoh,
Martijn van Oosterhout,
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2005
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Tue, 22 Feb 2005

Damn noisy machines - 22:09
One of the controlling nodes for the large Beowulf cluster here (the machine bunyip.anu.edu.au) just started making a racket (the power supply fan failing) as it is across the other side of the TSG area here I can hear it. I should wait for Bob before doing anything like shutting it down and replacing bits, so I think maybe it is time to go home, not everything I was trying to get done is finished, but hey it is after 10pm.

On a side note, I got the Jodi Martin album Twenty One Stairs today (as kind of recommended by BCG and the order placement mentioned here), I had to put a cheque in the mail and send off for it, and as it appears the retailer linked from the Jodi Martin website is out of stock of her studio album "Water and Wood", I am trying the postal request and delivery method for that album also. Once I have listened to Twenty One Stairs some more I will probably talk about it more in the correct category (this post is yet more evidence of why I want multiple category post capability in blosxom).

Oh and yeah I notice Hugh mentioned buying and using some white lightning lube on his recumbent. I agree the wax based lubes are good as you have a nice not messy drive train, however the thing I notice is they do not last very long before reapplication is necessary. I use dry lubes on my mtb usually, and have to relube once every 40 to 100 KM most of the time (so often more than once a day, and in endurance races usually once per lap or every two laps), on the road bike I tend to use wet lube (tri-flow being the standard) as it lasts a lot longer between reapplication, and the lack of dust to gunk it up means the drive train can stay cleaner. Of course for Hugh, YMMV.

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Eben and the GPL as discussed by Groklaw - 17:09
Eben Moglen is a speaker at linux.conf.au 2005, delivering a keynote address. Eben is the original Author of the GNU General Public Licence and is the General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation. Thus he has a lot of experience in the licencing of free software, the theories behind the licences and also in legal issues surrounding software licenced under the GPL.

I mention all this because today I saw on Groklaw a really good article "How Not to Kill the Golden Goose" talking about why the GPL is and has been necessary and why it has allowed Linux to ignore commercial interests rather than pander to them.

The article and the comments contain some good imagery or metaphors and views. Such as pointing out how Linux is more comfortable for users than proprietary software

Proprietary software lets me use their software, but only the way they want it used. Like staying at a friend or relatives house. They want certain things in the kitchen done a certain way, and this spice goes on the right and that one next to it, and those glasses can't go in the dish washer, and this pot has to be shined with this product, blah blah. At home, I make those decisions, and if I want to stand the little bottle of basil on its head in the spice rack or throw it in the freezer or mix it with the pepper, there is nothing but common sense to stop me. Do you understand?

Or later when discussing how businesses seem so short sighted, they see this huge cash cow and wish to subvert it to their current way of doing things, even though in the long term that will kill it off.

silly. Business sees one golden egg, Linux, and all it sees is gold, this minute, and if it needs to grab it, killing the goose to get it, so what? I know it's hard to change one's way of thinking, but this is a time when you simply must. Why? Because if you shut down the way Linux was developed in some misguided attempt to bottle it, or remove the license that made it so powerful, you will destroy it. And that's just counterproductive. Instead, you need to figure out not how Linux and the GPL need to change for you, but how you need to change for it.

This is a current concern in the way businesses, end even, unfortunately, governments around the world tend to operate. Governments often do not fund education anywhere near as much as far less important services, if you remember that the more educated your populace the more productive your entire country will be, and thus more prosperous in the world, it does make one wonder about the lack of funding to education around the world. Or in Australia some obvious recent examples, the Australian government selling off Telstra, or in Canberra, the DFAT building, which was sold to private enterprise. Both these actions bring in a large immediate cash swell but in the long term (20 years or more) will cost the government (The Australian People) more. This is the same sort of mindset that seems to behind (though possibly unconsciously) a business wishing to privatise and subvert Linux, a technology that they could never afford to develop or extend into the future.

PJ writes some great stuff here, I should mention a year ago when we were discussing who the invited speakers for linux.conf.au 2005 should be, PJ was on the short list. However no one we knew had seen her speak and we could not find out easily if she would be able to deliver a great keynote. In the end we decided to invite Eben Moglen, who will bring a relevant and important perspective to the Australian and international Linux development community members attending linux.conf.au 2005, especially in light of the FTA issue in Australia and the Legal issues surrounding Linux currently.

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Photos from the Cotter/Uriarra loop road ride this morning. - 14:08
So I had been wondering about taking photos more often, and I was wondering what photos taken while riding from within a road bunch might look like. I combined the two and have uploaded the results from the 65KM Cotter/Uriarra loop road ride this morning. 32 of the photos were IMO reasonable to put up, the rest I took were too blurry, dark, looking at nothing, etc. Anyway it is a great ride, with hills, not much traffic, away from the city and we were blessed with a great morning for it today.

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