distractedbyathing.net

It’s in my phone, my PC, my laptop, our MythTV PVR, Charlie’s netbook… It’s Linux!

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/20th/

Happy 20th Birthday Linux

At the end of yesterday’s BBC R4 Media Show special on the #NotW [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b012t97p] they mentioned “Project X, Project Y” – looking into ways ahead for NI in the UK, what to do with the various titles and how to merge things.

I found this blog post (know nothing about the author or his connections) which summarises it:

“Inside News International there are two secret projects: Project X, cut costs by 50%. Project Y, move to a seven-day-a-week newspaper. A couple of days before James Murdoch with Rebekah Wade in tow, accompanied by security guards, told staff at the News of the World it was being closed, two web addresses were registered for The Sun on Sunday. It is goodbye News of the World, hello Sun on Sunday.”

http://keithpp.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/good-riddance-news-of-the-world/

… the boy done good…

(I’ll even let him off the YOUR/YOU’RE thing)

Fathers Day

Following on from yesterday’s inspired Dilbert is today’s XKCD strip.

XKCD on Server Naming

Interesting comments on convenience vs complexity from (Linux creator) Linus Torvalds on emerging devices. For someone as key to the development and propagation of open and free software he is commendably relaxed about the philosophy/ideology – yet arguably has achieved more than anybody through the wide reach of his Linux kernel. Rest of the interview interesting too.

–Do you think about the notebook Chromebook Google? It is an irony of open source software have made an open system while leaving the user as “slave” of a single company?
–You really have a very negative world-view, don’t you?
–No, I don’t have a negative world view, I am just journalist!
–Hey.. Much of my family are journalists (mom, dad, uncle, grandfather..)
–But it is not ironic?
–I don’t think you need to be pessimistic even as a journalist. I’m not sure where chrome will go, but at the same time it’s very clear (just look at all the cellphones and tablets), that most non-techies really don’t want a general-purpose “computer” – there seems to be a fairly large base of people who really don’t want to maintain their own computer setup, but want to get access to the most common things – web browsing, email, some text processing, photo management etc. And while tablets may be sexy right now, I think a lot of people do want the keyboard and mouse. Writing stuff on a tablet really isn’t all that great. So I think a chromebook makes sense in that kind of area. Why would that make anybody a “slave”? It’s about convenience. Are you a slave to the electricity company just because you depend on them (and have to pay them) making electricity available to you?

Source: marianoblejman.com

I have to thank the Doonesbury cartoon strip for alerting me to this. If your non-sinning and righteous neighbours (think Ned Flanders) simply disappear on Saturday don’t say you weren’t warned!

The 2011 end times prediction is a prediction made by Christian radio host Harold Camping that the Rapture(in Christian belief, the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will take place on May 21, 2011^[1][2] and that the end of the world as we know it will take place five months later on October 21, 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_end_times_prediction

Lots of coverage of this in US media via Google News

UK Guardian touched on it yesterday

Doonesbury

Interesting to see how news organisations report the arrest of 5 people near Sellafield and to watch it unfold via Google News (link).

The story seems to be: routine security procedure of well protected highly secure nuclear establishment routinely picks up people acting a bit suspiciously – as you would expect them to. Not many details have been released by the police – though it is mentioned in some reports that the 5 men are in their 20s and of Bangladeshi descent.

Some orgs though can’t help but tell us we should feel terrorised!!!

e.g. “Nuclear terror alert as UK police arrest five men at Sellafield” and some love to make the link to OBL and AQ by stating things like “no link proven to AQ or OBL”.

Of course it could prove to be a really huge threat to a nuclear plant by a well trained group of killers – maybe they were away on the day they did “don’t wander into routine security patrols with cameras looking suspicious” training.

As others have said in recent years, and I’ll repeat… If the objective of “terrorism” is to terrify the civilian population it seems you don’t even need to have a credible plan or the means to execute it… rather you just need to feed a story to our media and we’ll terrorise ourselves!

Looking forward to see if they are charged let alone convicted of anything serious.

Charlie, Grumps and Steve visit Wendy, Richard & girls in Kirkby Stephen.

Rode on a couple of old classic buses as part of the ‘13TH EASTER CLASSIC COMMERCIAL VEHICLE RALLY’

(http://www.cumbriaclassiccoaches.co.uk/ecvg.asp)

Photoset here

Charlie, 5 friends and family enjoy a birthday curry at the Bengal Spice Restaurant in Catterick.

Photo set here