Remembering those less fortunate

It is the time of year in the Northern Hemisphere where many of us give thanks for living another year, the harvests that have come in, and the friends and family that we have. It is also the time of year that we try to do what we can for those who don't have it as easy, safe, or nice as we might. It is also the time of year where I begin to go maudlin because there is so many who need help be it just a Teddy Bear to sleep with at night or an extra pair of socks to keep their feet warm. So when I was reading through the BBC today, the above picture brought forth the usual feelings of helplessness and sadness that have always predominated my Winters.

For what I try to do (buy 2 OLPC laptops for some child to have a better future, test various kid learning games so that K12LTSP is better, etc) how can I help a child who cries himself asleep at night thinking no one loves him, without at least a teddy bear to talk to about what life could have been. Well today all I can think of is that if you end up reading this, please take a moment and try to help someone who needs it. Remember those whose lives are short, filled with pain and loneliness, and try to do something for them. Even if its buying a teddy bear for a kid in Intensive Care at a hospital.

Feature Request for Perl7: UTF-X preprocessor

One of the biggest problems with perl5 is that it isn't enough like line noise at times. Oh people say that a true Perl wizard only outputs line-noise, but it only looks like a limited segment of ASCII-7 bit noise. You really can't write code with Ĕ all the time.. but what if you were able to set up a preprocessor and you were able to just set up a many:1 relationship between various 'line-noise' and text/keywords/etc.

So

#/usr/bin/perl
print "HelloWorld!"

became

#/usr/bin/perl
π⅝∫₤‡

in this case " could be replaced by ⅝ and ‡ and who knows what other text.

Once we are able to meet this, we will be one step closer to meeting Perl is line noise!

Response to lamonitor editorial

http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/10/27/features/editorial01.txt

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Richardson's disinterest leaves bad taste behind

What began as an upbeat reception ended in disappointment a week ago Monday in Santa Fe when presidential candidate Bill Richardson ignored two requests to address his position on Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Given the financial uncertainties plaguing LANL and Sandia National Laboratories, we thought the former secretary of energy and our current governor would jump at the chance to clear up the conflicting messages he's recently expressed on the subject.

We were wrong.

------

Actually I think Richardson had a very good reason to not answer the questions. One, Bill Richardson got royally screwed by Los Alamos National Labs when he was Secretary of Energy. The various security problems and the passive aggressive way the lab shared data with DOE made things worse and made his testimony in front of Congress laughable when LANL management told him everything was 'contained' and after his testimony 'updated' him that the proverbial (and previously non-existant) poop was going to be in the NY Times the next day.

The second reason is that NNSA was not a great solution for the problems at LANL. Adding another layer of bureaucracy, political agendas, and indirection does not bring more sunlight onto a moldy place. Moving the groups now under NNSA over to DOD or finding ways to remove the layers that already existed above it would have done wonders in getting to the heart of the problems at the labs.

Legit Linux Codecs In the U.S.

An interesting article from Computer Security source Cerias about how hard it is to get legal codecs for Linux (and the various BSD's) to play their training and other videos. My hope is that Fluendo will be able to release the rest of the codec's needed to watch h.264 and DVD items soon. I have bought a bunch from them to help support the company, but was disappointed that I couldn't play a DVD yet. Oh well... back to coding my game applets.

Legit Linux Codecs In the U.S.

In Honor of Fedora 8

I saw a werewolf with a Compviz menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Boston in the rain
He was looking for a place called Fed Ho Ro's
Going to get a big dish of packages Yum mein

Ah-ooooo, werewolves of Fedora
Ah-ooooo
Ah-ooooo, werewolves of Fedora
Ah-ooooo

If you hear him howling around your Server door
You better not let him in
Little old admin got mutilated late last night
Werewolves of Fedora again

{Refrain}

They're the hairy-faced gents who ran amok in Swansea,
Lately they've been overheard in Raleigh
You better stay away from them
They'll rip your deb's out, Mark
Ha, I'd like to meet his lawyer

{Refrain}

Well, I saw David Jones walking with the DVD
Doing the werewolves of Fedora
I saw Jesse Keating walking with the DVD
Doing the werewolves of Fedora
I saw a werewolf making a Respin at Trader Vic's
His LiveCD was perfect

Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London
Ah-ooooo, werewolves of London

Original Lyrics by LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon
Mutilated as a Parody by Stephen Smoogen

Meme Train 002

So I found out about the great Stupid Linux rater, and had to try it out.. sadly I am not as cool as Dave Jones, but was more popular than Natalie Portman. I was also more popular than Val Henson who was the creator of the ranking software. Ms Henderson is the coolest Linux (TM) kernel hacker I have ever met, even surpassing Alan Cox (though not as cool as Telsa, Alan's better half).

There that should increase the rankings of myself and Val :).

Obituary: Great Uncle Wilfrid Newland

Been sick this week so I am rather behind on blogging. I found out on Sunday that my great Uncle Wilfrid had died. Wilfrid Newland (my mother's mother's younger brother) was one of my last links to the English side of my family. Every time I met him, he always came across as Britain from long ago. He had been born in 1917, and had served in World War II as a commando... possibly in the same unit as the actor Christopher Lee (having read about some of Mr Lee's exploits during the war.. they were in the same area doing the same kind of work.) After the war, he had been in various 'diplomatic channels' doing 'overseas' work of various sorts.

I would remember my Grandmother reading a letter or two of his from various parts of the world, and I remember how frostily he would treat my Grandfather whenever he came across the pond to check on his sister (Grandmother had married down in class to a chauffer's son ). The big worry came around 1979 or so when he was 'assigned' to Iran and had to be evacuated with the rest of the British embassy during the revolution.

I remember him visiting in 1987 or so, doing his morning regimental walk, doing 1 arm pushups, and showing how to drive a car in case of being chased by bandits (which in some ways seemed to be the way he always drove in America...) He always had his tea in the afternoon, and brought his sister Turkish delight from across the pond (though never too much as he detested the stuff). He is always what I thought of as an English gentleman, and now I wish him a well earned rest.