Bush makes a speech… misses the irony

Story

In particular, I find the his use of the term ‘monopoly’ on power. Where does this asshat come up with the balls to label Fidel as a world leader who uses violence to spread a fascist agenda? Maybe if the President of the United States (I use the term loosely here, to compensate for his low approval ratings) was on duty, instead of on vacation, he would know of his administration’s own egregious abuses of power. Of course it would be helpful to note that the crackdown of civil liberties in Cuba are in part a reaction to the historical use of clandestine resources to undermine Latin American leaders (Hugo Chavez anyone?), but George Bush could care less about context.

I’m not trying to excuse Hugo, Fidel or Fujimoro (to name a few) for what they have done to their people over the years. This of course, extends to GWB. NO ONE should be allowed to sit up there up on a podium and spew their smug bullshit in the name of ‘democracy’ or ‘freedom’.

Fidel is right in several remarks however. George Bush is more than willing to use violence to accomplish his goals. It is no different in Cuba. His uncompromising stance on the issue of Cuban embargos is not the key to world diplomacy, in fact I would argue that it would be the opposite stance that we should embrace. But the key point is that he is choosing to take a stance against THE LEADERSHIP of Cuba. This has nothing to do with ‘freedom’ ‘power’ or ‘embargos’ The U.S. was more than willing to support Iraq’s dictatorship ways in the 80s and 90s.

I find it completely despicable that world leaders treat human rights as assets or liabilities, depending on the political climate of the day. I get it that it’s your job guys, but how about some humanism from time to time? I’m no extemist liberal or right wing libretarian, but it really does irk me when somone can get up on a podium and spew BULLSHIT, while claiming to do it in my best interest.

I realize that this is supposed to be a ‘free software’ blog, or at least in large part, but I can’t help feeling like the current power structure is on more drugs than Bill O’ Rilley.

Command Line…

I’ve been using Command Line more and more recently, and I have no major complaints about it. But I have been spending lots of time in the #kubuntu channel on irc.freenode.net, trying to help out any new users, fixing my own issues, hanging out, etc.

One thing I noticed was that users who tried to upgrade to Gutsy via GUI had a million more issues/bugs/crashes/problems than the users who did it via the CLI. This doesn’t surprise me at all, but it does bring to mind a solid question.

When, if ever, is it permissible to deny a user help? Or, to what limit are you willing to help a user with their issues. Open Source is Open Source, so I want to support it’s fans and users in any way possible. But I can’t help feeling frustrated with users who think GUI is easier than running Konsole/Terminal and typing in two commands.

I’ll admit that I like GUI tools alot, but I’m finding out more about the power of the terminal and I wonder if (in general) the move to make GNU/Linux user friendly is going too far. The obvious answer is ‘no’, but eventually the user WILL have to open up a terminal, and I just thought that maybe, upgrading the system to a new release would be a good opportunity to learn.

If God had a desktop…

It would be Kubuntu Gutsy 7.10.

Apparently my brother installed Gutsy and I was caught unawares. So now my kernel panic issues will be ignored, at least until Sunday’s CoD LUG Install Fest. Linkhere

Kubuntu documentation isn’t up yet. In fact, Fesity documentation is missing from kubuntu.org/documentation. Weaksauce.

I’ve had several big issues with Kubuntu Gutsy so far. Firefox did not load at all (errors about security something or another. See Bug #154196 for more info.

Amarok crashes my computer every time I try to click on it. The screen goes black (NOT X crashing. Literally no I/o) and I have to cold reboot.

Add/Remove Programs thinks that I already have a root instance open, and won’t let me run Add/Remove. This happened about 5 times; when I tried to do it again for the blag entry, it worked perfectly. go figure.

KNetworkManager was not set to recognize and start automatically at boot. I had to ifconfig and dhclient the thing. Thanks to Luca for helping me out on that one.

There are core.12727 and core.12900 and core.14019 (you get the idea) files in my /home/user folder. What they are, how they got there, and what they are doing there is beyond me. However, these are program crash data files. File extension- unknown.

And more issues exist somewhere. Hopefully this will get ironed out as I go along.

Computer Issues

It started a few months ago, maybe 6 or so. KDE would freeze up, and give me all sorts of errors. Reboots would usually revert the computer to computer back to it’s state of happiness. However, I should have realized that their no such thing as a state of happiness when Linux needs to be rebooted, and indicative of larger issues.

Later it was ‘i-o slave’ errors. KDE wouldn’t launch anything properly; I would have to reboot and run any errors through a manual check of FSCK, after which point I could cruise the web-tubes again. Again, this should be indicative of larger issues, but I chose to ignore them.

Last night, it was a major system freeze. X froze, after which point I did another hard reboot. This time, attempts to launch Feisty (7.04) gave me the following error:

[27.077987] VFS: Cannot open root device “UUID=b9909cbb-3f43-4c53-bb42-7fbad6 7719be” or unknown block (0,0)
[27.078051] Please append a correct “root=” boot option
[27.078051] Kernel panic – not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)
[27.078156] ___

The underscore on the last line is the cursor, which is funny only because I wasn’t allowed to put any input into my comptuer. This error occurs in both the normal boot and in recovery mood.

So of course, being an uber 1337 hacker, I did the most logical thing to mind- grabbed my bookbag and pulled out a LiveCD to take care of this ‘boot’ business for the time being. I launched the cd, hit ‘run and install’ and …. nothing. My computer refuses to load the OS from the cd.

Issue One- My HD is slowly dying. This much is certain from the noises and broken sounds it’s making.
Issue Two- My feisty partition is also broken.

Fix One- A new HD should be on it’s way from Tiger Direct, and I can set this up before the end of Fall Break.
Fix Two- Gutsy release is tomorrow!

Issue One with Fixes One and Two- How do you load an OS onto a new HD if the computer wont read from cd?
Issue Two with Fixes One and Two- How do you get a gutsy cd without a proper HD/cd drive? (friends/family is the obvious choice here)
Issue Three with Fixes One and Two-It is no secret that Gutsy is not close to release ready and that errors/bugs will be rampant on release day.

Issue Number Main- My computer is broken and this makes me unhappy.

-Eddie M.

I’ve said it before….

and I’ll say it again.

The Democrats of the United States need to stop tip toeing around Capital Hill. They need to stop making excuses for these J. Edgar Hoover politicians. And they need to stop pretending that ‘bring the nation together’ is a smart and catchy sound bite for the 2008 election.

Seriously, who came up with this crap? Dane Quayle? Give me a break.  Forcing the jaded Americans to suffer through more bombs, more deaths, more duct tape, is not going to make the Democrats look better in the long run. It’s already making them look like insensitive, petty assholes with political agendas getting more weight than the safety, stability and opinions of the country. History will record the 06-08 Congress as spineless (yes this includes Obama and Satan… erm Hillary) jerks who perpetuated a prolonged attack on Constitutional rights, for short term goals.

The issue is not short term goals. I expect political moves such as this, seeing as how we are run by politics, and not Fidel or any other strongman dictator in Latin America. The problem is that this sort of mentality points to larger patterns of action in the future. One example is the funding of Al-Qaeda/Taliban by the Americans in the 80’s and 90’s. This  sort of government is not one I’m going to vote for.

In conclusion, the Democrats are not doing themselves any favors by letting the Bush Administration get away with murder. Literally, they are getting away with murder. I for one, am against such politics.

-Eddie M.

Don’t you hate it when….?

Don’t you hate it when your throat hurts from the accumulated efferts of a weeklong cough.

So you have to warm up a scalding hot cup of tea.

And as you pull the sugar out the cabinet, the coffee falls out and spills said cup of scalding hot tea everywhere.

So you have to run to change and get the water off of you.

And as you walk back to the computer you notice that KDE has crashed.

So you now every time you try to open a file, you get a “io-slave” error.

And so you have to rebuild fsck back manually after getting an ‘exit 4 status’ error.

So you spent valuable time rebuilding a computer instead of eating because it’s 8:30 in the morning?

Yea, I know. Happens all the time to me too.

-Eddie Matinez

ps- to fix this error, reboot. wait for the error. log in as root. run the system check. Hit ‘y’ to have fsck fix said errors. Reboot.

Sunday!

This Sunday is the next Ubuntu-Chicago Loco meeting. I dont think we’ve had one since Bar Camp Chicago, which was quite a while ago.

Buffalo Wild Wings

3:30 pm on Sunday Oct. 14th.

149 N. York Street
Elmhurst, IL 60126

This is actually a great location, because it is where the first Loco meeting took place over a year ago.  It is going to be very ad hoc and no one will be on topic for more than 3 minutes,  but I think it will be a good time.  We will be talking about Gutsy instillation and our plans for the next release cycle, which is all that is set for the agenda to date.

Party on dudes,

Eddie M.

“The music industry is dying! :( “

The usual rounds of RIAA extortion and court cases are making their way onto the internet again. For a while there, the cracks for AACS were all the range, not to include all the god awful stories about Ron Paul (for the record: I could care less about your hero(es)), Paris Hilton, and more articles about Moveon.Org than I could possibly want to read. For the record, there are more serious issues, such as the fight between the JNF and the ILA, the aids epidemic, the fight FOR free software etc.

But I will take a quick moment to talk about the music industry again. I wrote a similar blog much earlier in the year. Over and over we hear the record industry crying about lost sales (refrence to the title of this blag entry) or about the effects of P2P in general.

Boo-fucking-whoo.

I’m not going to feel guilty if BP goes out of business, simply because nothing inherent in a business existing which makes it a mandate for me to shop there. Granted, I need to get gas from somewhere, but other gas companies (hopefully ones who wont try to dump chemicals into Lake Michigan) will emerge. Similarly, I am sure that other modes of spreading music or selling it, will emerge.

However, that last sentence is critical. There is a difference between music, and music for hire. Of the many shows I’ve seen, and bands I’ve talked to, none of them had any interest what so ever in any ‘industry’. In fact, it is the actual music (playing, listening, creating) which drives people to enjoy it. Economics comes second. “Lives and cultures matter more than capitalist interests.” This is the point that the record industry keeps missing over and over again. This is also a point lost of the war hawks of the Iraq war.

The two can’t be equated fairly. However, the underlying issue is the reality on the ground (fans/homeowners doing what feels natural) and that of the lumbering dinosaur (institutions which refuse to back down on broken policy).

Maybe the music industry is dying. Maybe p2p is killing it. That doesn’t mean we should stop it. Does anyone seriously believe that the demise of Tower Record is going to be correlated to the quality or quantity of music? That last time I went in, their selection was massive. The last time I checked, the music is getting cranked out. The only difference is the consumer mindset, and no amount of law or crying is going to change the way a consumer views your industry.

As a last thought, I would link to link you to this story.

Collaborative File Editing

At my office, we are working on a project which requires massive editing of our excel sheets and in the near future, we need to revamp our system of file management. In the short term however, we are looking to edit these excel spreadsheets ASAP, a feature missing in the Standard Office instillation. Specifically, I want to roll Gobby out into the networked computers and use that to edit the files, and increase productivity. This is one of the big reasons why I fell in love with GPL software and why I am so frustrated with the work computers.  However, I see a big problem with FL/OSS projects in general.
I can never google the files supported by the program.

I can find bug reports, the list of  libs associated with the instillation, etc. However, I can’t find which files are, and aren’t supported by the programs. Specifically:

Are Excel and word documents supported in Gobby? If so, I will Gobby forever. If not, what are my options.

Thanks!

-Eddie Martinez