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Mindless Link Propagation
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Thu, 07 Aug 2008
What to do when dodging a hail of bullets
After watching my copy of the Bourne Ultimatum the other day, I started wondering how a newspaper like The Guardian feels about being portrayed in such a film. Via one of the footnotes in the Wikipedia entry, I found my way to an article on their website on this very topic:
Obviously, I would have preferred to see this Guardian journalist do a little more ass-kicking, or indeed any ass-kicking … Nevertheless, he gets to show a fair bit of courage under fire. He and Bourne are shadowed by a creepy CIA surveillance spook who has already given a chilling order to “prepare rendition protocols”. Huh! Bring it on! Guardian journalists aren’t scared of Guantánamo.
The best part was the insight into the newspaper’s style guide:
They wind up in Waterloo station where they have to dodge bullets from a CIA sniper, that of course is the sort of thing which happens to us all the time. But there are inaccuracies. The Guardian stylebook clearly states that if you are under a hail of bullets in a public place from an assassin run by a deniable intelligence unit, you have to duck into the nearest internet cafe and start blogging about it to keep the readers informed.
The BBC’s website, by contrast, advises readers not to risk themselves when submitting comments from dangerous places like the scene of a protest being violently suppressed by the faceless state police, or when an earthquake is destroying the building they are in, or when walking down the streets of London. How can we possibly defend democracy in the face of such reticence?
:)
AfC
Comments have been disabled so that readers do not endanger themselves replying to this blog post.
Mon, 22 Oct 2007
Wonka’s last Golden Ticket found in Greenland
:)
Co-ordinates and photo interpretation from an email by Scott Elcomb on the Toronto Linux User Group mailing list.
AfC
Fri, 01 Jun 2007
Everything you need to know about how the world is explained by comics strips
Srichand introduced me to PhD comics the other day. It’s always a blast when you find a new comic, and while he’s obviously well known in the academic community, I hadn’t known of this strip before. It’s a riot!
I will not, of course, admit how much time this week I spent reading it.
My two favourites:
and
Which not only describes academia, but also open source… and most of human history, come to think of it.
If you hadn’t come across PhD before, enjoy! [and, of course, buy his books for all your friends! :)]. It’s free to syndicate into student newspapers too, which is great marketing on his part.
AfC
Sun, 25 Feb 2007
If Operating Systems were Airlines…
I came across a satire piece today about what it would be like if the operating systems were airlines. It’s short and to the point but really very funny.
Some choice quotes: If Mac OS X where an airline…
Every time you ask questions about details, you are gently but firmly told that you don’t need to know, don’t want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever having to know, so just shut up.
(I think they code-share flights with GNOME Airways —ed)
and the one for Windows XP:
The aircraft will not take off until you have signed a contract. The inflight entertainment promised turns out to be the same Mickey Mouse cartoon repeated over and over again. … If you go to the toilet twice or more you get charged for a new ticket.
:)
AfC
Mon, 13 Nov 2006
More awesome conference promotion posters
Harikrishnan Chandrashekharan (mDemon on irc.freenode.net) has been at it again,
creating his trademark awesome,
dynamic
conference posters including this one:
Registration is open, so take the hint and sign up quickly if you want to catch the early-bird discount! foss.in/2006, 24-26 November 2006, Bangalore, India. See you there!
AfC
Thu, 28 Sep 2006
SLUG stories
One day I joined the channel for the Sydney Linux Users Group and saw:
The topic for #slug is: ... | NO PLAID! PLAID WEARERS, GET OUT! | ...
After having tried to figure it out for a while, I finally gave in and asked. The conversation went like this:
AfC: So I don’t pretend to be up on every single pop culture reference in my latest-country-of-refuge; can someone explain what the plaid thing in the topic is? It’s endured up there surprisingly long.
purserj: It’s a kfish thing. Apparantly he was abused by a plaid wearing scotsman as a child
AfC: purserj: so you’re saying we should all wear plaid to community events so we can contribute to further reinforcing the damage?
***purserj imagines a room full of plaid wearing geeks. I suppose it could be worse
AfC: Not one of them would be colour co-ordinated, but the group as a whole would be a mighty gestalt of blazing fashion harmony.
purserj: They might achieve critical mass though
yama: a room full of mostly overweight geeks is critical mass without the fancy attire!
In honor of Conrad Parker’s last day in Sydney before he heads off to do his doctorate in Kyoto, I hope there will be a big turnout at SLUG’s monthly meeting Friday night to wish kfish well (and, more to the point, to drink him under the table).
Make sure you wear plaid.
AfC
Thu, 21 Sep 2006
Save Pluto!
On August 24, 2006, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Prague declared that Pluto is no longer a planet.
This is terrible! How can this cute fellow possibly be demoted from planet status?
There is a petition to force the IAU to reconsider. Important reasons cited as to why Pluto should be restored to full planetary status include:
The tiniest planet is beloved by kids, who are themselves tiny.
and:
Adults like Pluto, too. It rounds out the Solar System with the wonderfully-odd number Nine.
There’s also some technical babble about “gravity” and “cleaning up the neighbourhood” and such, but what further justification could you need? Sign the petition! Save Pluto!
AfC
Fri, 15 Sep 2006
Saturday is Software Freedom Day!
On the way to breakfast this morning, I turned to my fiancée and said:
“Tomorrow is Software Freedom Day!”
She pondered that for a moment and then replied:
“Does that mean that you’re allowed to not use your computer for an entire day? Excellent! Let’s go shopping!”
Apparently I still have some explaining to do :)
Software Freedom Day is Saturday 16 Sep 06 here there and everywhere. See events planned for your city on the SFD wiki (for example, Sydney) and help support the global culture of freedom and innovation.
AfC
Tue, 15 Nov 2005
Conference promotion posters
These posters, by Hari Krishnan (mDemon on irc.freenode.net), are among the most amazing, creative, and dynamic posters I have ever seen promoting a conference, anywhere — and these are for a linux conference! Awesome contribution!
AfC
P.S. Yes, I am a tad self-conscious about the first one. Oh well. I wanted to prop this guy’s artwork. What’s one to do? :)
Sat, 12 Nov 2005
Paul Kedrosky, Venture Capitalist.
For those of you who are addicted to reading blogs, I recommend Paul Kedrosky. He is a once upon a time techie who is now a fairly prominent venture capitalist (!). He blogs compulsively (frequently quoting other very with-it people), is highly opinionated (on just about everything), and has a pretty good take on trends in the technology marketplace.
A recent favorite was post titled “Just Say No to Marketing”: first he quoted an awesome comment from Bob Feld:
I despise the word “marketing” — it’s often the weakest link in a startup company. “Marketing” is vague and non-specific, often poorly executed and measured, and usually a huge waste of money relative to the output.
Several years ago, I suggested to my portfolio companies that they fire their VP of Marketing and hire a VP of Demand Generation (it could be the same person if the VP of Marketing was willing to accept a quota and meaningful, measurable variable compensation.) Hopefully, this VP of Demand Generation understands the incredible power of having your customers so happy with your product that they’ll talk about it online.
then Kedrosky wrote:
I often tell companies I’m working with that too often marketing (and business development, for that matter) is a joy-ride, essentially sales without a quota. One test when hiring a marketing veep is to tell him/her that 20/30/50% of their comp is variable on revenue — say it even if you don’t mean it — and then see how they react. It’s usually instructive as heck.
The deer-in-the-headlights interview question. Gotta love it.
AfC
Sun, 14 Aug 2005
Paul Graham on the similarities between Open Source and Blogging
Paul Graham recently put up an essay based on a talk he gave at OSCON. The title, “What Business Can Learn from Open Source” is somewhat bland, but the subtitle hints that you’re in for a doozy: “Open source and blogging have a lot in common: amateurs, workplaces, bottom-up organization and startups.”
Increasingly over the last few years, quite a number of us have progressed from being excited about the fact that Open Source works to pondering why it works. What I love about Paul’s essay is that it abstracts some of what we’ve learned and applies it to other phenomena that are rocking the foundations of the conventional world.
He makes an interesting point about blogs - because of the network effects and the low barrier to entry, there is indeed a lot of rubbish out there, and at first, it’s easy to dismiss amateur work as substandard compared to what “professional” writers:
“…and so the average person expressing his opinions in a bar sounds like an idiot compared to a journalist writing about the subject.
On the Web, the barrier for publishing your ideas is even lower. You don’t have to buy a drink, and they even let kids in. Millions of people are publishing online, and the average level of what they’re writing, as you might expect, is not very good. This has led some in the media to conclude that blogs don’t present much of a threat…
Those in the print media who dismiss the writing online because of its low average quality are missing an important point: no one reads the average blog.”
He then reaches back to the Open Source world and shows how the forces create better software are also at work in the publishing world. And that’s going to change everything. It already is:
“The New York Times front page is a list of articles written by people who work for the New York Times. Delicious is a list of articles that are interesting. And it’s only now that you can see the two side by side that you notice how little overlap there is.”
In fashion reminiscent of Scott Adams’s the Dilbert Principle, Paul spends a lot of time rubbishing the conventional practices in corporate organizations:
“Many employees would like to build great things for the companies they work for, but more often than not management won’t let them. How many of us have heard stories of employees going to management and saying, please let us build this thing to make money for you— and the company saying no?”
The point that so many tend to miss is that it isn’t that corporations are evil, but rather that corporations tend to cause so many counter-productive behaviours that the net effect is dramatic inefficiency.
I know a lot of hackers who are frustrated with modern organizations. Simply raging against the system won’t fix it. Essays like this, however, point the way to a very different future — if you’ve got the courage to break free of the safe world that results from not rocking the boat.
AfC
Fri, 12 Aug 2005
The conference formerly known as…
Linux Bangalore, India’s foremost, coolest, (not to mention hugest) Linux and Open Source conference decided last year that they weren’t going to call themselves that name anymore. So for the last 8 months it’s been:
The-Conference-Formerly-Known-As-Linux-Bangalore
LB was about more than just Linux in the same way that linux.conf.au and others are; they wanted to come up with a name that was more broadly inclusive, and also conveyed the message that they represent more of India than just Bangalore (as certainly their awesome conference pulls in Open Source people from across the region and around the world), and may lead towards the conference someday moving around the country like LCA moves around Australia (and then some!)
Well, as of today, I can pass on the word that they’ve finally announced their new name! Believe it or not they were considering linux.conf.in (and, ever conscious of not wanting to step on toes, they even went to the trouble of contacting Linux Australia about the idea; we told them we thought it would be awesome if they did). But pursuing the wider inclusiveness theme, they came up with an even better name: foss.conf.in. Even with our positive assurances, they did want to differentiate from the LCA branding, so now…
Linux Bangalore Presents
FOSS.IN/2005!!
That’s right, foss.in! Their name is their URL: the Indian Free and Open Source Software conference! I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty rad as domains go.
This year the conference is running 29 Nov 05 through 2 Dec 05. There’s not much on their public site yet, but their CFP will be out in the next couple weeks, and they’ll be starting regular news updates soon.
But the real reason I’m posting is to encourage people to go. Sometimes people read announcements like this and think “oh, well I’m not a speaker type, so that’s not for me.” Forget that; you just need to be there! Linux enthusiasts, business people, open source developers, kernel hackers, and yes, even free software nuts — I recommend to one and all that you make your way to Bangalore for what promises to be an unsurpassed event — and in a venue that will blow your mind.
AfC
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