The other day I had a (virtual) conversation with Arif that went something like Arif, to no one in particular: when did we become a nation that DIDN'T see the inherent problems with the practice of driving bees all over the country? Me: Since forever, dude. Since we realized that Science ...
Some of you know about my ongoing debate with dkg about documentation and public lists. Or publicly archived lists. We go round in circles about whether all lists should be publicly archived by default. In free software communities, public list archives are an important source of information, context and technical support. In political organizing communities, lists can be much more complex, places where people are exploring political and theoretical ideas that they might be embarrassed by later. If I say something foolish and naive on a technology support list, and then years later a colleague finds it, people will understand. They'll believe that I get it now, that my grasp on Apache configuration syntax has grown. If I say something foolish and naive on a political list, though, that can haunt me for years. Even if it doesn't hurt me in some objectively measurable way, it can sting. Even if you aren't worried about embarrassing yourself one day, it is a little creepy to realize that anyone with a web browser can assemble a short history of my life and career by following posts I've made to various mailing lists over the years. I don't like it. On top of that, I firmly believe that a bit of privacy facilitates frank and honest conversations. We can learn together as friends if we aren't broadcasting our every exchange. I'm certainly more comfortable working that way. I treat my posts to large lists very differently than I treat small ones and on the whole I am much, much less likely to weigh in on a conversation that is widely archived because I feel more pressure to fine tune my thoughts and carefully edit my phrasing. I like to look good. I know not everyone does, or maybe I know that not everyone judges "looking good" on the same terms, but I take pride in my prose. So we go back and forth, dkg and I.
I manage some servers with a small group of guys here in En Why See. We just built a new server and so far, the version of Vim we are running doesn't support color coding. I found some How To that actually makes the whole process sound redunkulously complicated when I'm about 100% sure there is an easier way. A package, I'm guessing. I don't really want a teachable moment here. I want someone to say "I think that you're looking for vim-full. The vim package doesn't include any of the color syntax files." That is all. If you know, maybe you could fill me in. If you don't know, no big thing. I don't know either. Just thought I'd ask.
I'm working on migrating our forums into drupal and struggling with a simplish thing. Not so much struggling as idly contemplating, but you get the idea. Right now, our homebrewed CMS requires someone (not me, thank fsm) to create a forum for the article manually each time an article is added. That is crazy talk, in my book. In my book, anything you do more than twice and don't script is crazy talk, and Oates has had to do this at least a thousand times. My head just exploded. Seriously.
Hypothetically, lets say your (GNU/linux) computer is choking. Sending errors about disk space, perhaps. Maybe a message from the mail server about /var/mail being full up, maybe a little pop up on your desktop that says "warning. 100% full" Since Stillwell is the second machine in so many weeks to fill ...
hey bike friends- As some of you know, my trusty old pal the green bike dodged its last pothole a couple of weeks ago. We had some good times, me and that bike, but I guess it was time to ride off into that great stretch of fresh pavement in the ...
Dear readers, I want you to know that you fall in two discreet and vociferous categories. Some of you sit on front porches and share your beers with me and tell me that you do read this notebook, but that you do not understand so much of it. Or do not want to. Others of you, you also share your beers with me, but you tell me that I do not document enough. That I should document more. This one is for the second set.
October 11, 2007 SICKNESS, "ABSURD" DOJ PROSECUTION FORCE SCIENTIST TO PLEAD IN PRECEDENT-SETTING CASE Scientist's Wife and Daughter Comment on Case Buffalo, NY - Today in Federal District Court, Dr. Robert Ferrell, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, under tremendous pressure, pled guilty to lesser charges rather than facing a prolonged trial for federal charges of "mail fraud" and "wire fraud" in a surreal post-PATRIOT Act legal case that has attracted worldwide attention.
Thoughts? I have a couple of conferences coming up; I always think my bio is cheesy. All bios are cheesy. Amanda is the Technical Director of Gotham Gazette, a news and policy website in New York City, and a member of the steering committee of the Non-profit Open Source ...
No joke. "Coming up next? Studies have found that plastic may be bad for you!" Where do they get this stuff? Am I really that far ahead of the curve on this? In other breaking news, Blackwater isn't accountable and they're siphoning immense amounts of money off of the federal coffers. ...
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