John Mark's Good Times

A time for Christmas Cards... without my picture

2011-12-13T10:39:00.001-08:00

The most wonderful time of the year...

Look, there's a reason why older folks tend to show their kids in their blogs - it's because they're just so much cuter.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2011-01-29T16:32:00.001-08:00

Alex Aiken

tags: aiken stanford home
YouTube - Using Influence in Understanding Complex Systems

Professor Alex Aiken, from Stanford, gives an interesting talk about finding anomalous data and being able to correlate anomalies.

tags: aiken stanford anomalies complexity

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2011-01-15T16:32:00.001-08:00

The Fourth Paradigm - Data-intensive Scientific Discovery

tags: microsoft research

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2011-01-08T16:33:00.001-08:00

Python strftime reference

nice reference

tags: python strftime reference

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2010-10-09T17:32:00.001-07:00

RainyMood.com

tags: rainymood rain sound music ambiance

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2010-10-02T17:32:00.001-07:00

Open Cloud Meetup (San Francisco, CA) - Meetup

tags: opencloud cloudcomputing meetup

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2010-09-25T17:32:00.001-07:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2010-08-21T17:32:00.001-07:00

MUNI Community Vocabulary Ontology | A Community Instance of theOpen Semantic Framework

tags: community semanticweb opensource gov2.0 citizendan
Welcome to nova’s documentation! — nova v0.42 documentation

tags: iaas opensource nova amqp redis
Opscode

tags: automation opensource opscode chef
Puppet Labs: The Leading Open Source Data Center Automation Solution

tags: puppet automation opensource puppetmasterd
Parallel NFS: breaking the NFS performance bottleneck | Panasas

tags: filesystem distributed nfs opensource pnfs panasas
Ceph | open source distributed storage

tags: filesystem distributed storage ceph opensource
Gluster.org Community Website | GlusterFS is a cluster file-system capable of scaling to several peta-bytes.

tags: cluster filesystem gluster supercomputing opensource
Openfiler — Openfiler - Open Source Storage Management Appliance

tags: storage nas opensource openfiler
Main Page - KVM
KVM is a Linux-based hypervisor

tags: virtualization linux opensource hypervisor vtd
OpenStack Open Source Cloud Computing Software

tags: cloudcomputing openstack OpenSource rackspace
Eucalyptus | Your environment. Our industry leading cloud computing software.
Eucalyptus is an EC2 clone - elastic computing

tags: opensource eucalyptus virtualization cloudcomputing ec2
ganeti - Project Hosting on Google Code
"Ganeti is a cluster virtual server management software tool built on top of existing virtualization technologies such as Xen or KVM and other Open Source software."

tags: xen virtualization cluster cloud kvm drbd

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The Wages of Fear - My Entry in the WaPo Pundit Contest

2009-11-02T17:40:00.001-08:00

I'll never forget the first time I saw a mosque. I was about 12 or 13 years old and my father was driving around with me and my uncle in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I can't remember where we were going or why, but that funny-looking building eventually became my sole surviving memory from that day. I can still hear my dad saying, somewhat derisively, "Oh, and there's the mosque."

It did not compute, that funny, colorful building in marked contrast to the rest of the landscape. "What's a mosque?" I asked. I don't recall exactly how my father answered, but the lasting memories of that day tell me that not only did I understand that it was visually different, but that it somehow clashed philosophically with everything I had learned until then. At that time, my father was a Southern Baptist minister, and the world was clearly divided into two groups: born-again Christians and then everyone else, with everyone else consisting of witches and devil worshipers. In our world, not only were they non-Christians, but they were actually "against God" and, by extension, against Christians.

That was the first time I was ever confronted with the Other, ie. those against our values. I remember quite clearly thinking "Why are they here?" As in, why don't they go back to their own people and country - some place where they wouldn't torment those of us perfectly content to live in the world we had spent so many generations constructing.

Since then, I've had many opportunities to confront the Other and to get to know the Other. I've read much in the news about tea parties, birthers, town hall crashers, and many more who have been described at various turns as racists, crazies, wingnuts, and lobotomized dittoheads. Except for a few fringe groups who do meet those criteria, the sum of the rest of those who sympathize with these fringe elements are afraid of the Other. In their lifetimes they have witnessed demographic shifts that have brought the Other "intruding" into their daily lives. And in Barack Hussein Obama, they see a living manifestation of "The Other."

Hell, he's so Other, he's the Other's other: born in Hawaii, lived in Indonesia, and had a Muslim stepfather. This otherness drives the fringe stark-raving mad. This man, who so clearly is out of step with our vision of America, how dare he inhabit our throne? You can hear them ask, “Why is he here?”

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2009-03-28T17:33:00.001-07:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

auto post jm.org (weekly)

2009-03-14T17:35:00.001-07:00

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Things I Learned in High School: Critical Thinking

2009-03-10T01:14:00.000-07:00

There were many things I heard in high school which have long exited my brain, seemingly never to return, but some things have managed to stick. Like the time in 10^th (11^th?) grade honors English class, when our teacher, Ms. Hutchison, had us read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. We came to a point in the reading where Ms. Hutchison pointed out to us that Shakespeare wasn't actually writing about ancient Rome and the age of Caesar. Well, he kind of was, but only as an allegory for Elizabethan England. Shakespeare was delivering a message to his contemporaries encoded in the form of a historical play. That "Aha!" moment has remained etched in my memory. It had never occurred to me before then, being not very well read, to search for the hidden truth lying behind an author's slight-of-hand designed to force the reader to look at an issue from a new perspective.

Thinking in that way forced me to go through the process of trying to understand just what message Shakespeare was actually trying to deliver to his fellow inhabitants of Elizabethan England. And so began my introduction to literary criticism and critical thought in general. From there, it becomes a fun exercise to deconstruct old Westerns and understand them in their proper context – that of commentary on the times, ie. the cold war period, with an implicit yearning for simpler times and depictions of an obvious enemy in a black hat. In this context, it's easy to understand the messages about racism intended by the creators of “Planet of the Apes.” In the midst of the civil rights struggle, depicting apes fightings against oppressed humans was a clear allegory to our own civil rights struggle. There are several other examples - Idiocracy comes to mind. And everyone knows that futuristic sci-fi is really about us and our worship of technology, but not so much about the science of the future... right?

Once accustomed to understanding criticism and critical thinking, it's a subtle logical shift towards decoding messages from public figures, parsing statements and realizing what is left unsaid is every bit as important, if not more, than what is stated.

I bring this up because we're still dealing with the aftermath of what happens when you don't think critically and understand the "meaning behind the meaning." How hard did we really try to understand the motivation behind the invasion of Iraq? Did we honestly believe that the Patriot Act and looser torture regulations would make us safer? I think about this often, because I sometimes wonder if I'm one of a rare few who attempt to decipher the code of messages we receive. That's an arrogant thing to say, but I can't help but think that far too many don't bother, or that there aren't enough teachers who bother to make this point to their students. I often wish we had a few more Ms. Hutchisons, because that might save us from a lot of unnecessary effort spent fixing mistakes which could have been foreseen. Now that we're living through The Greatest Economic Crisis of Our Lifetimes(TM), it might be a good time to remember this lesson.

Diigo Bookmarks for johnmark

2009-03-09T17:15:00.001-07:00

Events | InitMarketing - Open Source marketing consulting and services

tags: open source, marketing, initmarketing
"Android is not open. It's a marketing label" - Networks - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

tags: android, symbian, stupid symbian oundation executives
http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/pub/wikileaks/wikileaks-crs-reports/

tags: congress, crs
SmallWorkarounds: Installing Collabnet Subversion + Tortoise SVN + AnkhSubversion for Source Code Sharing for Visual Studio related Development

tags: svn, howto
Miyomi's Music

tags: music, mp3
BeeQ - good music

tags: music, mp3
ILIAS Open Source LMS - SCORM 2004, Assessment, Course Management and more

newly discovered open source learning management platform - competes with moodle

tags: moodle, lms, elearning, ilias
Why I Love Twitter - O'Reilly Radar

tags: oreilly, twitter
KDE Wiki : Digikam Compilation on Kubuntu Intrepid

very useful kde4 build page for digikam

tags: digikam, kde4
Lemon Team’s blog » Blog Archive » Setting up Subversion 1.5 on Xcode

tags: subversion
Joseph Smarr at Web 2.0 on the New “Open Stack” « The Real McCrea

tags: socialweb
What You'll Wish You'd Known

tags: no_tag
The Reality Club: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt

tags: no_tag
The End of Wall Street's Boom - National Business News - Portfolio.com

amazing read

tags: cdo, creditcrisis, wallstreet
Traveling plan: How To Get Cheap Travel Tickets - CNN.com - Travel

cheap travel tips

tags: travel
San Mateo County -- Parks Department -- -- Crystal Springs (Sawyer Camp Trail)

nice bike trail!

tags: trail, parks
Playforyourclub - free online soccer game

great time-wasting flash game :)

tags: soccer, mls, major, league

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Diffing the Many Versions of the Stimulus Bill

2009-02-13T13:03:00.000-08:00

If you've been following the trajectory of the Stimulus bill as it winds its way through the house, senate, bicameral committee, back to the house, and then on to the senate for one final vote before going to the president, you might have a bit of an interest in the following:

just what is in the dang bill
what exactly has changed between each version

Well, huzzah! Thanks to the open source version control tool Subversion, it was a rather simple task to whip together a repository of the bill and track the various changes between each version. See links below:

root of stimulus bill repository (both HTML and text versions)
Final version after bicameral committee
List of each full-text version (from this screen, you can select which versions to compare)
Fully annotated final version (shows which lines were added by which version)

To check out your own version of the repository, here's your handy command:

svn co http://www.geek-pac.org/svn/stimulus-bill

And off you go!

7 things you may (or may not) know about me

2009-02-10T22:28:00.000-08:00

...and may not have wanted to know. The illustrious Sara Dornsife tagged me - like, eons ago - to blog about the 7 things you may or may not know about me. It goes without saying that you may not have even wanted to know this, in which case you should avert your eyes now. I throw out tons of garbage on my twitter feed, with a high noise to signal ratio, so it's quite possible that nobody knows anything about me. Well, no more!

1. from the age of 8 until 12, I was basically homeschooled. Ok, so it was actually a tiny fundamentalist Christian school with about 9 or 10 other kids, but my father was the principal, my mother helped with teaching, and the other volunteers were mostly other kids' parents, so it sure felt like home-schooling. When I was 12, we moved to hell^H^H^H^HCorning, AR, for which I never forgave my parents, and I attended a public school, where I soon learned the reward for being completely isolated from modern secular culture: incessant carping, bullying and a general sense of not belonging. There are those advocates of home-schooling who insist that socializing with other kids either doesn't matter or can be ameliorated via other means. I beg to differ. The key is unsupervised play time. Home-schooled kids just don't get enough of that - although I'm sure there are some enlightened parents out there. In any case, I always felt that those years left me at a disadvantage socially, an area where I didn't feel "caught up" until my mid-to-late 20's. I never did shake the feeling of isolation or not belonging, which I carry to this day.

2. As mentioned in #1, I was raised in a fundamentalist protestant - Southern Baptist, to be exact - family. When I see documentaries like Jesus Camp, I completely identify with those people, even though I rejected the religion of my youth long ago. When I see paranoid morons going off half-cocked on cable news shows, I understand them completely - because I used to be one of them. I will always have a soft spot for children who believe in creationism, because I remember what it felt like to be "under siege" from the unsaved, to know that scientists were conspiring against God, to know that "the others", ie. other colors, other religions, other nationalities, were assaulting our religious freedom, and that we had to prepare for the end times, assuming they weren't already here.

3. On account of #1 and #2, above, I was either born with or acquired at a very early age the desire to evangelize to others. In earlier days, it took a religious form, but now it takes the form of convincing others to embrace whatever I embrace, which are craft brewing, soccer, open source software, or whatever political arguments I've crafted. If I discover a new book or piece of music or interesting free software tool, then I want you to enjoy it, too. This is why I excel at my job - online community management (or "community organizing" if you will) and grassroots marketing.

4. I am a shameless and unapologetic beer snob and am only too happy to lecture you ad nauseum about the joys of traditional Belgian brewing styles. Nothing raises my ire more quickly than that poor, unsuspecting Belgian person who doesn't know their own country's place in the pantheon of beer... and tells me Stella Artois is a pretty decent beer. Like hell, it is. And I especially enjoy being the killjoy who gets the honor of informing ignorant Germans or English that their brewers are, with a few notable exceptions, stagnant, bland, and behind the vangaurd of American brewers. Tee hee... Oh, and then there's the matter of both countries killing off many of their traditional styles *sigh*.

5. I enjoy finding the flaws in other people's logic and clobbering them over the head with it. Especially when they're ideological, free-market worshipping Republicans. And *especially* when they're dittohead, cult-of-Rush koolaid drinkers... but then that's like shooting fish in a barrel.

6. I had an existential crisis when I was 12. I couldn't convince myself that I wasn't living inside someone else's imagination - that everything I saw, smelled or touched wasn't a complete fabrication inside someone else's head. I finally got over it by deciding that I had to roll with it, whether it was someone else's fabrication or "reality." When I was 14, I couldn't stop counting the number of letters in words I spoke or thought about and trying to find the right words that would make the letters per word average out to an integer. In both cases, I never told anyone until long afterwards. In the latter case, I sometimes still do it.

7. I have somehow managed to find another human being and convince them to stay with me, even though she long ago caught on to my imperfections. God knows why. This is our 12th year, and it astounds even me. Before I met Cathy, I never lived in the same house for more than 2 or 3 years at a time, and we're now in our 8th year in our Bay Area house. I still yearn to be a rolling stone, but I've learned the advantages and disadvantages of each.

And, golly gee, but I guess I can't stop talking about myself, so here goes...

8. I continue to aspire to political office and have for many years. In fact, when I was 5 or 6, my 3 possible vocations were 1. scientist, 2. football player and 3. politician. My goal is to hold some office by 40. I still have 5 years :)

Rules of this game according to @SaraD:

Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
Let them know they’ve been tagged.

So herewith, I tag the following victims (name, twitter ID, blog URL):

Stephen Walli @stephenrwalli (blog)
Stacey Schneider @sparkystacey (need to start a blog?)
Lisa Hoover @lisah (blog) oops, she's already been tagged. It's a good read :)
Joseph Arruda @zeruch (blog)
Tony Guntharpe @fusion94 (blog)
Jeff @toxic (blog)
Angie Danielson-O'Keefe @SadieBug (blog)

The Free Software Song in a Previous Life

2009-02-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

All I can say is.... holy christ, this was 9 years ago. And it's still just as embarrassing today as it was then - but because I'm further removed now, I can LMAO about it :)

Gotta Love a Band that Understands the Interactive Web

2009-01-31T12:08:00.001-08:00

Nice little widget from a band I had never heard of before today - Annuals.

Washington Post: Activist Parents and School Boards

2009-01-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

Here's an interesting article I just discovered on the washington post all about how parents are using the internet to organize campaigns designed to influence their local schools. This can naturally be a positive thing, but also not.

Read the full article here.

This appears to be the worst of both worlds: 1. the school system is just closed enough that only the most well-connected parents with free time (read: wealthier) can break through to school administrations and 2. the school system is just open enough that these online campaigns do make an impact once off the ground.

This type of impact can be positive, but it can also be short-sighted and geared only to the success of a select few. It would seem to me that the obvious solution is to create a truly open community for every school district on the web that engages with all parents, but somehow I don't see most public school systems being that engaged or forward thinking - yet.

The Inevitable Decline of Deregulated Markets Into Crony Capitalism

2008-11-30T14:22:00.000-08:00

It must be said that one of the most pernicious trends in government has been the resolute path toward libertarian ideology with the desire for a laissez faire utopia trumping all pragmatism and good sense. We've tried this deregulation experiment a few times now with mostly disastrous results: 1. California energy deregulation and 2. US banking deregulation. One would think that libertarian ideologues would at some point need to present actual evidence that their deregulation fantasies can come to fruition. As yet, none exists. Can we now agree that the natural result of market deregulation is almost necessarily graft, corruption and crony capitalism? As with peace activists and pacifists, libertarianism is too naive and dependent on the goodness of other humans.

Take a survey of the world's industrialized economies, both now and since the beginning of industrialization. One would be hard pressed to find just one that fit the model of a libertarian's ideal state. That's because such a state doesn't occur in nature. Just as the middle class does not naturally occur without the assistance of a strong central government (and progressive taxes, natch), so too is a well-oiled, corruption-free, strong capitalist economy accompanied by a government that intervenes on behalf of its constituents, balancing the needs of all parties such that one cannot completely dominate all the others. This is not the same as mandating income equality, which is a pointless exercise, but rather a system of checks and balances to ensure that hard work does not go unrewarded.

Let us now enjoy our new foray into Socialist Democracy.

In case you didn't know what day this is...

2008-09-19T07:54:00.000-07:00

Avast, me hearties...

GeekPAC to fight for information rights

2008-08-14T08:50:00.001-07:00

This is a nice introductory article about GeekPAC and its goals. Basically, a PAC is forming to address much needed intellectual property reform in the US - think copyright reform, patent reform, DMCA reform, etc.

read more | digg story

UEFA Euro 2008 Schedule

2008-06-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

This is the schedule for the 2008 version of the European Cup.

johnmark.org: 10 Survival Tips for the Modern Wageslave

2008-06-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

When it comes to developing career and business sense, I must confess to being not simply a late bloomer and a laggard, but a complete imbecile for most of my adult life. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I started to take career development more seriously. And what was the catalyst for that? Why, the birth of a child, of course.

Since then, I’ve learned a few things that I’ll share here. In case you’re wondering, I don’t or haven’t done all of these, but I regret not doing some of them and will incorporate the rest now and in the future. However, I will mention that I’ve used many of these tips to triple my earnings in 4 years. Also, I’ve wanted to write this article for some time now, and it is the accumulation of knowledge gathered from my experience at several companies, not just one or two.

Read the full post at johnmark.org

Yet another reason not to drive

2008-04-10T09:28:00.001-07:00

As if there weren't enough already, including skyrocketing gas prices and pollution, now we can add "might get shot" to the list.

See this latest incident in San Francisco. It's getting *scary* out there.

Return of the Quakes - Home Opener vs. Chicago

2008-04-09T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 3 years since I last saw the earthquakes play live - and now we'll get that chance again. Unfortunately, it just had to coincide with Lug Radio Live, which I must attend for BytesFree.org.

This Saturday the Quakes take on the Fire in the same big-ass stadium in the east bay where the Raiders and A's play. What is it, again? Oh yeah, the coliseum.

So while I'll have to miss it, *you* can still go, and you should. Unfortunately, I've already given away my tickets to some other lucky individual, so you'll have to get yours elsewhere ;)

Lug Radio Live; New BytesFree.org Position Paper

2008-04-07T01:14:00.001-07:00

I’m happy to announce that BytesFree.org will be represented at its first event, Lug Radio Live, which will be held at the Metreon in San Francisco on April 12th and 13th. Several of us have been working on the challenge of gettings things going organizationally, and appearing at an honest-to-goodness event looks to be a tangibly rewarding experience.

We will have a table at the expo. Also, Ilan and I will be speaking on Sunday at 3pm.

If you’d like to come by and say hello, or if you’re interested in helping out, please do let us know.

In getting ready for Lug Radio Live, we've had to refresh the site material to reflect some of the changes we've made organizationally, including a new mission statement:

Note: BytesFree.org is a group of concerned citizens currently in the process of incorporating as a non-profit in the state of California.

The Rolling Stones Now on eMusic.com

2008-04-04T16:08:00.001-07:00

If you're like me and thing that the Rolling Stones reached their peak between 1966 and 1971, there is some very good news for you: The Stones have now arrived on eMusic!

Listen now - doesn't include Sticky Fingers, but it's really really good stuff.

Did you feel a tremor???

2008-04-03T18:00:00.001-07:00

Don't be alarmed, that shaking you feel isn't the San Andreas going berzerk. Nope, not Hayward fault either, nor any of the other numerous fault lines in the area.

No, what you just felt is the IMMINENT START TO THE REVIVED SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!!

Set your calendars - the 'Quakes take on the LA Galaxy tonight on ESPN2 at 7:30 PDT.

Trader Joe's Doppelbock for 2.99!

2008-04-03T16:21:00.000-07:00

I was disappointed by the winter seasonal doppelbock offered up by Trader Joe's under the "Josephs Brau" label (contract brewed by Gordon Biersch). Knowing it was brewed by Gordon Biersch, I expected the same quality but came away disappointed. But that was when it was sold for $5.99 per 6-pack. Last week, I guess they were trying to move excess inventory, and it was going for $2.99! Apparently, I wasn't the only one unimpressed. So at $5.99, I'll pass, but at $2.99? Oh yeah, baby! I see more decent but not that great doppelbock in my future.

84% Geek

2008-04-03T16:01:00.001-07:00

Apparently, I'm only 84% geek - My Star Trek knowledge has apparently diminished :(

84% Geek

Ooooohhhh USAAAAAAA - USA in Olympic Qualifying Finals

2008-03-22T13:31:00.000-07:00

After drubbing Canada 3:0, the USMNT u-23 team goes on to face Honduras (again) in the final. Both teams have already qualified for the Beijing Olympics, so this game is almost, but not quite, meaningless. However, it will have an impact on seeding, so winning is still important.

You can see the match live on Fox Soccer Channel (613 on DirecTV) at 2pm PDT / 5pm EDT on Sunday.

Live Twittering a Birth?

2008-03-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

My wife is almost ready to give birth to our son. I'm debating whether to live twitter developments from the delivery room. Is this just TMI? Not a good thing to do? I still have a couple of weeks yet to decide...

The streaker, part deux

2008-03-20T13:38:00.001-07:00

For those of you who missed it, the above video clip saves for all eternity the "streak" that took place in last weekends Olympic qualifying match between the USA and Honduras.

Someone managed to track down her MySpace page and interviewed her. And of course, the obligatory snapshot:

(above photo Borrowed from SF at The Offside Rules)

USA vs. Canada Tonight on Fox Soccer Channel

2008-03-20T12:54:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have had your fill of March Madness for the day, you will want to check out the Olympic qualifying semifinals tonight between the United States and Canada.

If the US wins, they're guaranteed a place in Beijing. If you're interested, the match is on Fox Soccer Channel and ESPN Deportes at 9pm EDT / 6pm PDT.

U-S-A! U-S-A!

I love ankle bracelets

2008-03-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

(photo courtesy of Soccer by Ives)

It's official - soccer matches are where streakers come to party. Ok, so she's not a *real* streaker, but close enough for our Puritan value :)

Republicans Voting for Clinton?

2008-03-17T00:52:00.000-07:00

So I wonder if this is finally going to get some mainstream press: story on Republicans "spiking" the Democratic primaries in the hopes of pushing Clinton over the top.

Adios, Mexico! El Tri Crashes Out of Olympic Qualifying

2008-03-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Poor Mexico - they sustain yet another soccer disappointment after crashing out of the olympic qualifiers in a wild game against Haiti (they actually won this match 5-1, but didn't make it out of their group due to goal differential).

Mexican arrogance about soccer is almost entirely undeserved - and inexplicable. The fact is, they've always been on the wrong side of Brazil and Argentina and really have not fared better than your run of the mill South American contenders. Yet, from hearing them describe their love affair with futbol, you would think they deserved to be in the upper soccer echelon. They don't.

In many ways, and this will bring a tear to many a Mexican eye, their soccer history really isn't so much further along than the USA. Until very recently, many of their players were just as tactically naive as Americans - everyone knows the craftiest footballers come from the big 2 in South America. Everyone else is just fighting over the scraps. Other than better foot skills, which does count for something, Mexico really doesn't have any better coaching, better soccer IQ, or for the last 10 or so years, a better team.

The Wonders of CHDK and My Canon Powershot A630

2007-09-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've had my Canon Powershot A630 for almost a year now, and while mostly satisfied, there were a couple of minor annoyances: 1. the interface was sub-par in comparison to my previous camera, a Fuji Finepix 2. I could grab the raw graphics and had to trust the camera's conversion to 8-bit JPEG. The resulting JPEG's were mostly good, but there were definitely times where I wished I could do better constructing shots in less than optimal lighting. The ability to take raw graphics and tweak it was pretty enticing, but as a Linux user, I figured I'd just have to deal... until yesterday when I discovered CHDK in this article at linux.com!

Naturally, I had to try it out as soon as I got home, and it was pretty darn simple. The best news is that it won't wreak havoc with your camera if you get something wrong, because it leaves the manufacturer's firmware intact. The downside from that is that you have to load the CHDK firmware every time you turn on the camera - but it's not that hard. Basically, you follow the steps in the linux.com article and the CHDK wiki to load the firmware build onto your camera's SD card. Load the card in your camera, hit "menu" and select "update firmware" at the bottom of the menu list.

My biggest challenge was not having a card reader, but I improvised with my Epson printer. I just loaded the card in the printer, attached it via USB to my Ubuntu-enabled Thinkpad, and voila, I had a card reader. After loading the firmware, it didn't take long to figure out its usefulness. Not only can I capture images in Canon's raw format, but there are all sorts of things that can be scripted via CHDK's BASIC-like script interpreter. For example, there are scripts so that you can change the depth-of-field to put background objects in focus (requires some scripting and mashing up graphics). Another nice feature is the live histogram and the battery statistics. Also, push the shutter button down halfway and get a live reading of current depth-of-field/hyperfocal distance calculations.

After taking the raw photos, I had one slight problem: my version of dcraw, a "raw" image format processing application, was not compatible with my camera's format. But, a few minutes searching led me to the culprit: an older version of dcraw. I had 2 options: either get a newer version or use another piece of software. I chose rawstudio and it worked like a peach.

A note: I couldn't grab the raw files via my camera's standard USB interface. I had to load the card into my "reader" again and transfer files that way. A minor hassle.

Edit: this one's making it ALL OVER the interweb: engadget and wired's gadget lab, among many others.

Hair be Gone!

2007-08-02T22:47:00.001-07:00

I did it -

InfoWorld Features Hyperic - part of Month of Enterprise Startups

2007-05-22T12:36:00.001-07:00

InfoWorld Senior Editor Paul Roberts gets the skinny on Hyperic, from purchasing the technology for a buck, to landing 250 paying customers and securing OEM deals with MySQL and JBoss. A great read.

read more | digg story

Web Site Dedicated to California AB 1668 - Open XML-based Formats

2007-04-10T11:10:00.001-07:00

Here's a new web site that just started up to promote AB 1668 - This bill will mandate that the State of California use open, royalty-free, XML-based document formats. Support open government!

read more | digg story

Nagios network monitoring felled by SNMP false alarms

2007-04-10T10:51:00.001-07:00

With more companies finding that they don't have to pay astronomical fees for systems management software, they're turning to Open Source alternatives. In this case, mynewplace.com chose Hyperic HQ over Openview when Nagios failed them.

read more | digg story

live from sf beta

2007-03-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

Blogging from sf beta! It's like a frat party for web 2.0 types. Complete with groupies! @ 111 minna

Hyperic Giving Away $5,000 Scholarship

2007-03-20T12:16:00.001-07:00

Hyperic is giving away $5,000 in scholarship money to the winner of an essay contest on the subject of "Managing the Next Generation Data Center". Open to all university students and employees (including faculty). If you're an employee, the money goes to your departmental budget. Details at hyperic.com/essaycontest/

read more | digg story

Hey Donatella: Please Shut Up

2007-02-27T02:52:00.000-08:00

I realize I'm late to this party, but I couldn't help myself. Hey Donatella, when you get to be a senator or hell can hold any kind of office, perhaps then you can tell Hillary Clinton what to wear. Until then, just STFU. Having just watched "The Devil Wears Prada" it brought this recent episode to mind. Remind me, why do we need people to tell us what's acceptable to wear? Can someone explain that one to me?

gpl3 panel

2007-02-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

One panel i'm attending right now is on gpl3. One guy from dla piper, one from sun, and another from softwarefreedom.org - Eben's group. main idea - will have a limited impact... nothing earth-shattering but many attendees aren't very knowledgeable. sun guy mentions solaris - nervous about gpl2 but more comfortable with v3. doesn't say it, but looks like cddl is history in the future.

live from new york...

2007-02-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

Blogging with my nokia 800... Ok, it's not really mine, but i'm using it while at linuxworld new york. but now i'm hooked, so i'll probably end up buying one. more on lw ny in a bit. the show has been toned down into a conference. frankly it's better now thaqn when it was an expo. lots of interesting people. more later.

Open Source is Now Boring

2007-02-05T12:22:00.001-08:00

As seen on TINOSC: Regardless of what transpires, we don't get any more silly stories about whether Open Source will survive. Well, sometimes we do, but I don't think anyone actually takes them seriously. The market has matured to the point where many finally understand that any one company's failing is not representative of the entire Open Source community

read more | digg story

Kung Fu Monkey

2006-11-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

So I'm a little slow, but Kung Fu Monkey is freaking brilliant. In particular, I greatly enjoyed this gem.

Republicans are Pansies... Pass it on

2006-11-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

Republicans are living in fear, and they're making policy inspired by this fear. They're dreadfully afraid of terrorists and extremists - so much so that they're willing to drop their freedoms in the hopes of saving their own skin. The Iraq war is a manifestation of this fear. The PATRIOT ACT is an expression of this fear. The willingness to subvert habeas corpus, detain *possible* terrorist group members indefinitely without criminal charges, enact broader search and seizure guidelines, and engage in torture all reflect a basic, inate fear of the enemy. The fear stems from the belief that keeping our freedom intact results in a higher risk of a terrorist strike.

Does this not strike anyone as hypocritical? Aren't republicans in this country fond of saying "freedom isn't free," "our troops are dying for our freedoms," and other similar phrases? If it is true that "freedom isn't free" and that it's worth dying for, then what gives with the cheap sellout of freedom in exchange for our collective safety? In short, shouldn't Republicans be willing to grow a pair and accept the risk that comes with freedom?

I'm tired of what is obvious (republicans' white-knuckle fear of terrorism) being passed over in favor of what is simply untrue - that they hold the roadmap for the most effective anti-terrorism policy. Maybe all Americans need to grow a pair and realize that taking the high road of morality and human rights means facing up to the inherent risk.

Given the choice between dying for our founding principles and living on in a pale imitation of said principles, I know what I'll choose.

If there are evil people in this world who will exploit our laws and governance to strike us, then may God have mercy on their souls. I'm not going to use that as an excuse to drop the very things that made us what we are today, and neither should you. When you vote on Tuesday, bear in mind that exactly one party has overwhelmingly ruled from a position of fear. You know which party that is, and now is the time to send them the message that you won't tolerate this shortchange of principles.

Republicans are pansies. Pass it on.

Google Spam Recipes! Woohoo!

2006-10-16T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've discovered an amazing new "feature" of GMail - whenever you go to your spam folder, look near the top of the page where Google normally inserts topic-related links, and you'll mostly likely see one of several recipes that make creative use of spam ©. Note here that I'm talking about the canned spicy ham - not the junk mail that gmail sorts into your "spam" folder. And now, so that you don't have to, I've collected a few of my personal favorites below:

Spam Primavera

Spam Breakfast Burritos

French Fry Spam Casserole

Spam Quiche

Add your favorite spam recipes below!

John Mark's "There is no Open Source Community"

2006-09-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hi there, dear readers (all 2 of you). I am putting all new posts on open source-releated topics in my new blog, John Mark's "There is no Open Source Community". Enjoy!

Talk Like a Pirate! Arrrr!

2006-09-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

In commemoration of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I give you my 2-year-old talking like a pirate.

Pssst - I just found another TLAPD web site!

On Red Hat and Commercial Open Source

2006-09-06T22:08:00.000-07:00

I recently had lunch with a friend from RedHat. Suffice it to say, it was rather revelatory. At some point, the conversation drifted to rPath and how they split off because Red Hat "couldn't afford to please the diehards" - they had to make money, and the only way to do this was by ignoring the "diehards". This Red Hatter then went on to talk about how they couldn't just continue to give stuff away, they had to charge for it, yadda yadda - pretty standard stuff we've heard from Red Hat for a while now. It then occurred to me how Red Hat continues to get it wrong in the marketplace - they still think it's about engaging in solid business practices in spite of the resistance of the GNU diehards.

This very premise is simply wrong. They seem to have neatly categorized criticism of its abandonment of the desktop as just noise from the "diehards" wanting Red Hat to serve the free software community and give stuff away for free. This line of thought ceased to be relevant about 6 years ago.

What Red Hat doesn't seem to understand is the effort that will be required to bring parity to the desktop landscape. The reason this is important is that Microsoft is continuing to use the leverage from its large desktop install base to build server-based technologies. While Red Hat is laser-focused on web servers and other back-office sales, Microsoft continues to bundle more services into its offerings, and for the most part, it just works - assuming, of course, that you use Microsoft on both ends of your transactions.

Red Hat does not now, nor has it ever, grasped how much leverage it would have with a ubiquitous, user-friendly desktop. They want so badly for everyone to equate Red Hat with Linux, and they have been very successful at this. However, Red Hat just isn't large enough to outflank, on its own, a company as large as Microsoft, and yet they continue with their market myopia. Witness their absence from LinuxWorld San Francisco. Witness the bad relationship between them and some of the larger commercial entities (there are several). They want to single-handedly drive Linux forward, and they do not have a great track record in terms of working with other companies. It's no secret that they have not been strong advocates of the LSB. One note of hope is their acquisition of JBoss, but there is a distinct lack of solid partnerships between Red Hat and other strong commercial open source players. They continue to strive for a Red Hat-only market, without engaging users on a large-enough scale to create new markets.

Given this view, a lack of engagement with the commercial open source ecosystem, and a bias towards its own technologies, it would seem that Red Hat is doomed - in terms of matching its ambitions to eventual success. Unfortunately, a doomed Red Hat spells a temporarily doomed commercial Linux space, and thus a temporarily doomed commercial open source space. Red Hat does not seem to recognize that a lot is riding on their success or failure - like, say, the entire commercial Linux ecosystem. And since Red Hat/Fedora Linux is the default development platform for open source ISV's, a lot of other software infrastructure would fail with it. Realistically, Red Hat can push out most of its competitors on the server landscape - Sun, Novell, et al. - and lose to Microsoft in the back office and the continuously growing web infrastructure. It would be a classic case of winning battles but losing the war.

The other strike against Red Hat is they seem to discount Microsoft's efforts in the commoditized web infrastructure area. They do this at their peril. Microsoft appears to be learning how to make its software cheap enough to make it compelling. Given their established user base and the fact that many admins feel at home with it, IT buyers are willing to pay more for it. Again, a ubiquitous desktop is largely responsible for this. It certainly doesn't hurt that a large amount of open source software runs really well under Windows. Conceivably, assuming Microsoft doesn't screw up and that open source .NET continues to flourish, one could imagine a day where Windows becomes the de facto open source development platform.

Enter Ubuntu/Canonical. If one takes the view that the desktop is vitally important *and* a market in need of a brash, ambitious upstart, then Ubuntu seems to be a Linux distribution that understands what is needed to clear the major hurdles. That is, many many more users (and eventually developers) are needed to bring the software market to parity and give leverage to the smaller software players. New markets need to be pushed wide open, and they need a compelling reason to use Linux. Yes, this means stuff needs to be given to them. Yes, Ubuntu is bleeding money at the moment. My point is that this is a necessary evil - for now. I don't think it's a coincidence that Red Hat is public and Canonical is not. Of these two companies, despite Red Hat's current market position, it would seem that Canonical/Ubuntu is best positioned to drive commercial open source in the future - only they seem to understand the scale of the task before them. "Community building" is not some touchie-feelie exercise in charity - it is shrewd business development.

Oh but wait, Ubuntu is just a free toy given away by a crazy South African spaceman to please the GNU/Linux diehards, right?

Notes from the UbuCon

2006-08-22T17:12:00.000-07:00

The UbuCon was a blast. Read about it on The UbuCon Blog.

The UbuCon: Full Steam Ahead

2006-07-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

The UbuCon will indeed happen. The UbuCon will take place on August 18 and 19 at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, CA. Please RSVP if you plan to attend.

A Star is... cough cough

2006-07-29T01:16:00.000-07:00

Hoo boy... Join us now and share... my choad.

US National Anthem - USA vs. Italy (World Cup)

2006-06-30T07:22:00.000-07:00


Listen to the fans belt out the anthem and then erupt in spontaneous chants. There's just no substitute for world cup atmosphere. The US may have disappointed overall, but that night in Kaiserslautern was magic.

Lovely Susana Baca

2006-05-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

Above is a very grainy and perhaps indecipherable picture of Susana Baca in concert. Man, what a graceful performer with commanding vocals.

The Ubucon Blog

2006-05-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

And now there's a blog! You can't have a conference without a blog ;)

Announcing: The Ubucon

2006-05-21T01:05:00.000-07:00

I'm putting together a conference - The Ubucon (rhymes with Rubicon) - for Ubuntu users, developers and admins. Many many thanks to Google for letting me use their space. A huge debt of gratitude goes to Chris and Leslie over there for helping with this.

The Ubucon will be held August 18 and 19, the days immediately following LinuxWorld San Francisco.

Here's the conference wiki. As you can see, there's not much there yet. With your help, however, that will change RSN.

There is a mailing list - theubucon AT linuxpip, and you can subscribe at theubucon-request or go to the mailing list info page.

I'd love to get your feedback and ideas about what the conference should be.

Thanks!

LinuxWorld Podcast: Jeremy Allison

2006-05-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Allison is a household name among the open source-aware, having co-founded the SAMBA project, continuing his role as a lead developer there, and currently serving as one of several rock-star developers now employed by Novell.

In this podcast, Jeremy Allison explains why *all* software is going free and why it's all due to the GPL. You also get to listen in as a special guest drops by to visit.

Listen to the edited version (23 mins.):

linuxpip.org/jallison.mp3

OR get the raw, uncut, full version (50 mins.) with lots more on Microsoft, patents, and other goodies:

linuxpip.org/jallison full monty.mp3

As always, you can get the latest LinuxWorld podcasts at linuxpip.org/lwpodcast.rss

Note to Pamela Jones: Should Have Stopped Long Ago

2006-04-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

In an utterly gratuitous and knee-jerk slam of Linspire yesterday, Pamela Jones took it upon herself to criticize Linspire for *gasp* including non-free software in their community distro. I'm sorry, but what was that? Would you mind explaining *how* this is a problem? Pamela, I used to admire you a great deal; your work on the SCO case was exceptional and provided a guiding light to those of us trying to make sense of what was happening.

But this is just absurd. Your assertion that communities don't form around non-free software is so wrong as to be greeted by uproarious laughter. Tell that to Mac fans. So tell me, why would folks care that Freespire will come with optional proprietary software? It's funny, I just thought folks wanted stuff to work. Silly ole' me.

Repeat after me: open source is not a social or religious movement. I made that point pretty clearly here.

LinuxWorld Podcast: Jim Zemlin and Larry Augustin

2006-04-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

In the first podcast, Jim Zemlin sounds off on the Linux desktop, free standards, and being the Switzerland of Linux-land. Jim has much to add to the standards debate, and he's done a lot to make freestandards.org worth mentioning again. Listen to Jim clarify the difference between open standards and open source:

Jim Zemlin podcast

In the next podcast, you get to hear it straight from the open source Godfather, Larry Augustin. The "other" Larry of Silicon Valley talks about his historical involvement with open source, and where things are heading in the commercial open source world. It's all about commoditization, innovation, and bad hygiene... ok perhaps not so much the latter. Somewhere in between, Larry forces me to agree with Eric Raymond.

Larry Augustin podcast

LinuxWorld Podcast: Clint Oram, SugarCRM

2006-04-19T02:14:00.000-07:00

***You can always catch the latest LinuxWorld podcast at linuxpip.org/lwpodcast.rss ***

I sat down with Clint Oram, General Manager of Sugar Online at SugarCRM, and we had a nice chat about open source communities, the CRM market, where SugarCRM fits in, and how one goes about converting downloaders into paying customers. He makes several interesting points, including talking about "passion-ware" - the deciding factor between open source and proprietary software:

LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 1

Unfortunately, we were sitting outside behind a local cafe, when the garbage truck paid a visit. So, I stopped the recorder and resumed after it left:

LinuxWorld Podcast with Clint Oram - Part 2

Open Source Developers: The New Customer/Partner

2006-04-19T02:12:00.000-07:00

To many of us in the world of Linux and open source, it seemed pretty clear that open source development and the democratization of software - not to mention commoditization - was turning software as product development into a 2-way street. The trend was away from nice snazzy development kits that software vendors would release every 6 months and transforming into open development processes. This required giving something of value to prospective developers in the hopes that they would find a vendor's software compelling enough to contribute to its development, whether in the form of QA, documentation, bug reports, or in a small number of cases, writing actual code. This new 2-way street forced vendors to rethink their 3rd party development strategy, because simply viewing developers as consumers wasn't going to cut it. To remain competitive, vendors had to develop communities and ecosystems, partner with individuals outside the company, and generally convert their entire development process into an SOA.

This is not an easy process, and it has taken some time. Some companies got it much sooner than others, Red Hat being the prime example of the company that got it before many and is actually able to turn a profit. Without naming names, others are still lagging and one wonders if they're going to make it. It seems as though this process has turned a corner in the last year, and you can tell simply by the language used by woftware vendors. In the past, many commercial vendors have remarked that their #1 target audience was enterprise IT, both management and systems engineers, because they were the ones buying product, and it was easy to justify investing in marketing campaigns designed to reach that audience. What about developers? Oh, they were ok, vendors shrugged, but they're not going to buy much.

But things have suddenly changed and developers are no longer simply "tolerated". In the case of LinuxWorld, we're hearing from an unprecedented number of exhibitors that they want to work with us to find more developers. Almost overnight, software vendors have come to realize that in order to maintain a competitive advantage, they've got to have 3rd party developers, and they have to support an ecosystem around their platforms. If they don't succeed, developers will go elsewhere, and then the vendors have to spend enough on R&D to counter the armies of software guerillas working with and for the competition - for free. Hence the need to view independent developers as partners. And the companies that will succeed will be the ones that develop the most vibrant ecosystems, attracting open source developers, companies, and anyone else that benefits from access to the software. I went through much of the underpinnings of this process in my "There is no Open Source Community" article, and while it's still too early to say I told you so, it's certainly heading in that direction.

First LinuxWorld Podcast! Bill Weinberg of OSDL

2006-04-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a series of podcasts I'm releasing on this blog. In this first installment, you'll hear Bill Weinberg, of OSDL Mobile Linux Initiative fame, wax rhapsodic on everything you ever wanted to know about mobile, embedded, and real-time Linux - and then some! He gives a great rundown of the challenges for Linux in these markets, including power consumption, security, and creating common API's to spur 3rd-party development. Enjoy!

Listen to Bill Weinberg

Notable LinuxWorld Keynotes

2006-04-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

I finally posted two keynotes from LinuxWorld Boston: Nicholas Negroponte of One Laptop Per Child and Bill Hilf from Microsoft. Look for the rest tomorrow!

New LinuxWorld Blog

2006-04-01T10:26:00.000-08:00

Hi gang, just so you know, the new LinuxWorld blog is now at LinuxWorldBlog.com. If I were smart, I would have left it up on blogspot.com for a while, but I didn't *sigh*.

Daniel Lyons: I'm Still Retarded

2006-03-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

If anyone wishes to read Forbes' Daniel Lyons give lovin' spoonfuls to Steve Ballmer, then follow this link. Or not, it's up to you if you need the laugh. Lyons is perhaps the most consistent writer on Forbes - he consistently refuses to do his homework or any basic analysis. For example:

Right now, I can go out and get a free alternative to just about every product Microsoft sells. Why do people keep paying you for something they could get free?

And that's just the first question! No need to beat around the bush. It's the type of softball one comes to expect, unfortunately. He could have phrased the question as, "Open source software continues to make inroads into more than one of your key markets. What are you doing to thwart this advance?" But then, that would have required more than two firing neurons.

The only thing funnier than Lyons' questions were Ballmer's answers:

You know, IBM doesn't stand behind Linux. They promote Linux, but if there's a bug in Linux, IBM is not the responsible party to fix that. It's whoever in the community. And you know, let's say that person has a death in the family.

This is just silly, and I don't know whom Ballmer is trying to kid. Of course IBM fixes Linux bugs. Of course there are IBM engineers whose job is to fix bugs in Linux (and Apache and a bunch of other free software tools). Notice his distinction between IBM and "whoever in the community" - as if to say that IBM engineers and researchers are not in the Linux community, when they very much are. The part about "death in the family" is just eery.

Later on, Ballmer goes on to say that he's not as worried about open source as he used to be, because it's become more commercialized, and MS knows how to win that game. But wait, isn't that in direct contradiction to his "whoever in the community" quote above? That was a complete gaffe on his part - he could not have possibly tried to paint free software with the community brush and then argue that it's commercialized so thus nothing to fear. That has to be a mistake.

Not one to be outdone, Lyons comes back with this gem:

"What's going on in terms of Microsoft IP showing up in Linux? And what are you going to do about it?"

Never has there ever been any evidence of any code in Linux having come from Microsoft. Gosh, would it be too much to ask for a citation? There is, however, plenty of evidence of Microsoft code being lifted from Open Source projects. BSD's TCP/IP stack, anyone? Of course, the BSD license allows that, but the point is that it's much easier for Microsoft to use code from open source projects than the other way around.

Furthermore, it's almost guaranteed that some proprietary Microsoft code lurks in other companies' proprietary software and possibly vice-versa. Unfortunately, we cannot know for sure due to the nature of proprietary software.

The funny thing about Microsoft is that they still don't understand what they're facing. They still think that if they can kill the "community spirit" of free software, that they'll win. Witness the open source commercialization comments from the article in question. Little does Ballmer understand that open source is just the result of the same process from which Microsoft benefited in the 80's and 90's - the incessant downward price pressure on software, particularly general use software. Back in the 80's, Microsoft made waves because they made good enough software for cheaper.

Well, in this century, the way you leverage economies of scale to produce good enough software at a lower price is by building a large user base of free software customers or tapping into those that already exist. You can read all about that in my article on O'ReillyNet.

CBS Sports Does IT The Right Way™

2006-03-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Hey Yahoo, are you listening? After years of wrestling with your "media helper" (which doesn't, by the way), I've been pleasantly surprised by CBS Sports' treatment of live netcasts. You see, you don't actually need to lock out people who don't use a specific operating system or web browser. You can actually *gasp* make yourself accessible to everyone by simply letting your audience determine if they have the requisite technology. So the question I have for Yahoo is, if I can access CBS Sports' video streams just fine using my Linux laptop, why can't I do the same for yours?

Kudos to CBS Sports with their online production of the NCAA basketball tournament; bullocks to Yahoo.

South Park Creators: the Million-year War for Earth Has Just Begun!

2006-03-18T23:45:00.000-08:00

Throw this in the cheap-publicity-enhances-already-legendary-satire bucket. Tom Cruise, taking actions that are sure to backfire, has thrown around his Hollywood weight in support of his creepy religion once again. To wit: Cruise threatened to pull all promotional support for MI:3 if Comedy Central continued with its plans to run a South Park episode with a satirical broadside against Scientology - both Paramount (the studio behind MI:3) and Comedy Central (the cable TV channel that brings you South Park) are owned by Viacom. Just say "GAH".

On the bright side, perhaps South Park is about to become relevant again.

Bill Gates Hates Children!

2006-03-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

Well, ok, perhaps the title is a little over the top. But still, you gotta love the ease with which Uncle Bill demonstrated a debilitating case of myopia with a splash of self-serving egomania. Go Bill, go! Oh yeah, here's TFA.

AC/OS: LinuxWorld football grudge match: Funambol vs. Alfresco/Juventus vs. Arsenal

2006-03-13T18:10:00.000-08:00

I'm always amused by Matt Asay's weaving Arsenal's football woes into his blog entries, but this one takes the cake.

Edit: I'll probably watch the match with them.

Edit2: Up the Gunners!

Free-dumb, Free software, and free beer!

2006-03-13T15:18:00.000-08:00

So... was open source a mistake?

Has anyone ever been more fundamentally wrong than Eric Raymond, when he wrote in "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" almost nine years ago, that open source is "better quality"? How the heck do we know that? Unfortunately, we don't. We don't know that open source is inherently better - or worse - than its proprietary cousins. Nor do we know if open source software is inherently more secure. We don't know that the TCO of open source software is any lower than proprietary versions.

But if we look at what's actually happening out in the IT "wild", we can see what open source does actually give customers that adopt it - freedom. The freedom to try it a little bit without having to agree to any terms (GPL and other licenses notwithstanding). The freedom to download it whenever you want without talking to some sales dork first. The freedom to fire your vendor and hire someone else to manage and maintain the software and your deployment. Nowhere in this equation do we get customers adopting "better software, faster" or better security fixes and patches, or lower TCO. We see customers adopting more open source software because it's easy, it's quick, it works (sometimes), and it's possible to change course later if things don't work out. Open source is the perfect technology for IT grunts with a fear of commitment.

About eight years ago, a few smart people got together and decided that the term "free software" didn't cut it. Ironically, the term they chose, "open source", seems to de-emphasize the very thing responsible for its success: freedom. When the open source people cut out the term free software, they were expressing a few fears: fear of confusion in the marketplace, fear of misplaced value (of course it doesn't work - you get what you pay for...), and of course, fear of St. Ignutious himself. In hindsight, perhaps we should consider the possibility that adopting the term "open source" is more of an inhibitor to free software than an enabler.

underheard.org

2006-02-27T00:10:00.000-08:00

As a college radio fan, I want to throw my support behind a great meta-website, underheard.org, that hosts downloads from a plethora of weekly shows on community radio stations around the country. Download directly in MP3, stream (via M3U, or MP3 playlist files), or P**cast the sucker - sorry, I can't type that word. Just like I can't - or won't - type w**2.0. It has some of my personal favorites from the great California stations, KFJC, KZSU, and KDVS, as well as several others that I had not heard of until now.

Yummy sounds all around.

$100 Laptop Photo

2006-02-23T13:49:00.000-08:00

$100 laptop display (empty plastic cases), as photographed at the MIT Media Lab.

Off to the World Cup!

2006-02-02T10:04:00.000-08:00

I got my tickets! So for the price of about 1/2 a ticket to the Super Bowl, I got tickets for the US national team's group stage games (three) in Germany this June. World Cup 2006 is gonna be a blast. And if they advance past the group stage... well, I guess I'll pay slightly more than what I already have to scalp those tickets ;)

Yeah, I'm that kind of guy

2006-02-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

So a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article called "There is no Open Source Community". Some liked it, some hated it, and it generated some good discussion - without, surprisingly, degernating into namecalling. You can find the article here.

John Mark's Good Times

A time for Christmas Cards... without my picture

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

The Wages of Fear - My Entry in the WaPo Pundit Contest

auto post jm.org (weekly)

auto post jm.org (weekly)

Things I Learned in High School: Critical Thinking

Diigo Bookmarks for johnmark

Diffing the Many Versions of the Stimulus Bill

7 things you may (or may not) know about me

The Free Software Song in a Previous Life

Gotta Love a Band that Understands the Interactive Web

Washington Post: Activist Parents and School Boards

The Inevitable Decline of Deregulated Markets Into Crony Capitalism

In case you didn't know what day this is...

GeekPAC to fight for information rights

UEFA Euro 2008 Schedule

johnmark.org: 10 Survival Tips for the Modern Wageslave

Yet another reason not to drive

Return of the Quakes - Home Opener vs. Chicago

Lug Radio Live; New BytesFree.org Position Paper

The Rolling Stones Now on eMusic.com

Did you feel a tremor???

Trader Joe's Doppelbock for 2.99!

84% Geek

Ooooohhhh USAAAAAAA - USA in Olympic Qualifying Finals

Live Twittering a Birth?

The streaker, part deux

USA vs. Canada Tonight on Fox Soccer Channel

I love ankle bracelets

Republicans Voting for Clinton?

Adios, Mexico! El Tri Crashes Out of Olympic Qualifying

The Wonders of CHDK and My Canon Powershot A630

Hair be Gone!

InfoWorld Features Hyperic - part of Month of Enterprise Startups

Web Site Dedicated to California AB 1668 - Open XML-based Formats

Nagios network monitoring felled by SNMP false alarms

live from sf beta

Hyperic Giving Away $5,000 Scholarship

Hey Donatella: Please Shut Up

gpl3 panel

live from new york...

Open Source is Now Boring

Kung Fu Monkey

Republicans are Pansies... Pass it on

Google Spam Recipes! Woohoo!

John Mark's "There is no Open Source Community"

Talk Like a Pirate! Arrrr!

On Red Hat and Commercial Open Source

Notes from the UbuCon

The UbuCon: Full Steam Ahead

A Star is... *cough* *cough*

US National Anthem - USA vs. Italy (World Cup)

Lovely Susana Baca

The Ubucon Blog

Announcing: The Ubucon

LinuxWorld Podcast: Jeremy Allison

Note to Pamela Jones: Should Have Stopped Long Ago

LinuxWorld Podcast: Jim Zemlin and Larry Augustin

LinuxWorld Podcast: Clint Oram, SugarCRM

Open Source Developers: The New Customer/Partner

First LinuxWorld Podcast! Bill Weinberg of OSDL

Notable LinuxWorld Keynotes

New LinuxWorld Blog

Daniel Lyons: I'm Still Retarded

CBS Sports Does IT The Right Way™

South Park Creators: the Million-year War for Earth Has Just Begun!

Bill Gates Hates Children!

AC/OS: LinuxWorld football grudge match: Funambol vs. Alfresco/Juventus vs. Arsenal

Free-dumb, Free software, and free beer!

underheard.org

$100 Laptop Photo

Off to the World Cup!

Yeah, I'm that kind of guy

A Star is... cough cough