Linux Switch – Sources And Info

As per my personal enrichment goals, here’s the first of hopefully many posts on switching to a Linux-based system.

With Dell’s recent decision to provide computers loaded with Linux, there’s a great deal of hype out there. There are also some very good sources for determining if this is a change worth making. Obviously, sites run by Linux users aren’t objective BUT their enthusiasm is catching. The better ones do a very good job detailing what criteria are helpful in determining if you want to switch. And, of course, what’s necessary to switch.

Most of the sources I looked out focused on Ubuntu Linux distributions. I wanted something that had a great deal of easy-to-find documentation associated with it. I found the most information on this particular distribution and, most importantly, what I found was informative, clearly-written and interested me.

Ubuntu Home Page - The definitive source for ubuntu and how-to switch. Links to the ubuntu.wiki and ubuntu help forums. Reading the forums for “absolute beginners” was a big help for me because it gave me an idea of what the common problems were and how to handle them.

Ubuntu Geek – Good weblog with lots of specific and interesting information. I have a feeling after I install Ubuntu, I will be returning here often.

Weblog of Marcel Gagne - Weblog for author of many how-to Ubuntu & Linux books. I read his “Moving to Ubuntu” (free on-line version). I’d recommend it for anyone considering a switch.

Wubi - the Ubuntu installer for Dummies (ie – what I plan to use). It creates a virtual hard drive partition automatically so you can run both Windows & Ubuntu. The same group is also working on a way to convert from this virtual partition to a real one. Just a warning: Wubi is in beta. I recommend reading the help forum and associated guides before installing.

Coming Up - Report Card on Installing Ubuntu using Wubi, Possibly also on initial post-install steps

Link to full post.

Auto News & CO2 Emissions

More interesting auto news from my Company-supplied e-zines:

Alliance partners Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co. are conducting a feasibility study for the potential of a $3,000 car for the Indian Market...Last week a French newspaper reported that Renault already was developing such a vehicle and plans to open a new technical center in India with 1,000 engineers to support the program.”
“Ghosn [head of Renault and Nissan] didn’t confirm that report. But he did vow that Nissan and Renault would be key players in the next wave of low-cost vehicles...
“…Ghosn notes that India’s low-cost engineering and manufacturing base – and growing number of local suppliers – makes the country well-suited for the program...

Ok, cheap cars for India are great. These cars represent continued upward mobility in the world’s largest democracy. And the mention of the suppliers shows there’s a solid reason for expecting long-term growth. Considering the market for cheaper cars in India is HUGE, this is a good investment for Nissan. But, articles like this one point out the futility of the following (also from industry e-zine):

[US] lawmakers are considering a compromise on fuel economy standards as dissent over the issue threatens to derail the U.S. Senate’s plans to vote on a new energy bill this week...
...The compromise would still raise average fuel economy requirements for cars and trucks to 35 miles per gallon by 2020...But it would eliminate 4% annual increases after that, which would have raised the standard to 52mpg by 2030 – a level automakers have declared impossible.

With India and China comprising an increasing % of the global car market, what good do tightened US car regulations do for bringing down world-wide emissions?

Answer: Not much, except continue to highlight the attitudes of those who think the US and Europe are solely responsible for environmental problems. And those same people who give the rest of the world a free pass.

In a more humorous excerpt, the e-zine had this TRW* advertisement:

Is it just me or does he look like an Asian version of Mike Myers’ Dieter persona?
See? See? Apparently, nothing says safety like a grim-faced men in black turtlenecks.

*Bias alert! I work for a competing automotive safety company. But I would totally make fun of our ads if given the opportunity.

Link to full post.

Thursday's Occurances of Note

1) Flemming Rose of Mohammed cartoons fame now has a blog with Pajamas Media. His first few posts cover everything from Sir Salman Rushdie, women’s lib for immigrants in Denmark and worldwide demographic trends. It definitely leaves me eager for more.

2) CA company develops lasers without heat. And it’s being tested for various commercial applications right now.

3) The latest weapon in the War on Terror – Cyborg Moths. The US military plans to use chip-implanted moths to find, track and eavesdrop on terrorist enclaves.

4) China surpasses US as No.1 in CO2 emissions. I eagerly await condemnation from environmental organizations.

Link to full post.

Great Article, Bad Attitude

Via Instapundit, I read this article on a key development in stem-cell research. A Japanese researcher has managed to get mouse adult cells to transform into stem cells. If successfully duplicated for humans, this is a breakthrough of astonishing magnitude. However, two quotes caught my eye.

First of all:

The previous head of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, Lawrence S. B. Goldstein, had even dismissed reprogramming as quixotic. "If there are scientists who morally oppose [embryonic] stem cell research and want to devote their energies to uncovering alternatives, that's fine," said Goldstein. "But in no way, shape, or form should we ask the scientific community and patient community to wait to see if these new alternatives will work."

Note the dismissive tone. “Alternate views are ok, except that we're going to proceed like they don't exist.” In my opinion, this highlights the problem of depending on expert consensus to inform public opinion. For things like research, experts are there to provide grounding in seperating pie-in-the-sky from good science. They are successfull when they can read the trends of ongoing research and understand how to build upon it further. But, this ability could degrade in situations where something peturbs the trends. But pertubations, unforseen twists occur ALL THE TIME. Why is this a big deal? Here’s the second quote:

Two years ago, Dr Janet D. Rowley, an Australian working in the US who is an implacable foe of the Bush Administration's policy, dismissed ethical solutions like Yamanaka's. "We have extremely limited research dollars, and to use them to study these alternatives is wrong," she declared. "That money should be available for actual research."

Ah, the real reason for deriding alternate views. If scientists depend on money for research, then the stakes aren’t about truth anymore. The stakes are about who gets the biggest cut of the pie. So, the scientific community (which helps determine where the money goes) gets together and says “this is right, this is not”. They control the dialogue AND the pocketbook by advising the politicians (most of whom wouldn’t know pluripotency from pyromania).

What I find especially interesting is the tone. Some scientists and intellectuals often bemoan American’s anti-intellectual leanings. But it's not entirely undeserved on their part. Even as an engineer, I wonder how they can blame ordinary people for dismissing them when they do the same if it doesn't serve their interests. For a profession (theoretically) dedicated to objective thought, there are some who rarely bother with the effort. Note the utter lack of respect for someone who considers theraputic cloning to be morally wrong. Personally, I don't know if I agree with that but I also don’t walk around wholly dimissing such concerns.

Compare Dr. Rowley's response with, you know, a scientist actually peforming stem cell research.

Even the Australian doyen of therapeutic cloning, Alan Trounson, of Monash University, is enthusiastic. "It would change the way we see things quite dramatically," he says. He plans to start experiments "tomorrow".

Note he is not concerned about funding or speed. He's actually concerned about (wait for it) the science.

Everytime I hear someone like Dr. Rowley speak in this manner, I remember an episode of “Babylon 5” called “Deathwalker”. A former war criminal discovers a chemical treatment for immortality but the serum requires people die to make it. The human government offers the war criminal safe harbor in exchange for her formula. This Faustian pact is only avoided when another alien race intervenes.

Dimissing ethical concerns puts scientists in a position of dismissing those that would use, judge and determine the human utility of scientific research: everyday people. And this is no minor danger. As previously pointed out, with humanity headed toward potential transformation, the best bet for human permance is empowering individuals to make more intelligent decisions.

In this case, politicized science is a clear and present danger to our future because they inform our ability to assess risks and rewards. They compromise this ability by degrading the public's critical thinking skills as well as their own. As representatives of science, this orthodoxy is who advises those that make, enforce and interpret our laws. Meaning, the more we are dependent on experts then more we are subject to their will, their personal dogmas and their fallability.

Link to full post.

10 years of Stargate:SG-1

In mere days, the very last episode of "Stargate: SG-1" will air in the US. To commemorate this deeply sad occurance, here is a summary of all that is great and wonderful about Stargate fandom. Everyone talks about the show and deservedly no show = no fans. However, Stargate fandom is the first I got really sucked into with episode boards, meta-commentary, fanfiction, the works. It's been a blast the whole way. So, I got to give credit where its due because I wouldn't love the show quite so much without some of the people cited below.

Disclaimer: All items are linked to sources, no credit is claimed for anything but putting it all on one page. All pictures are from TWOP Motivational Poster thread (go here) except the last one whose source I do not know.



I. Actors Who Rock

2) The MacGyver prank. Amanda Tapping in action.

1) Michael Shanks and his snarky comment at GateCon. When asked for some insight into the show, something we fans don’t know, he said, "Daniel’s actually a night-time ninja. He fights crime in the streets of Colorado Springs. When everyone thinks he’s up late studying stuff, he’s actually fighting crime on the streets. There's a little tidbit for you fan fiction writers." And the writers ran with it, check out the Ninjafic Series here, here and here.

II. Fan Commentary

Stargate has some very creative fans. And not just for fanfiction. Here's some of my favorites.

3) Lost City Spoof by sgeureka: A fanvid made parodying the season 7 finale. All sound and dialogue is taken from the DVD commentaries. I can't imagine how long this took.

2) Stargate Sg-1 Cartoons by Leah Rosenthal Comic: Parodies the show. Other good Stargate comics are here.

1) Everybody's crazy about a Sharp Dressed Man by niamaea: Part 1 of 5. A picture essay discussing Dr. Jackson's clothes through the years. Because on a show about aliens, world-in-peril and the future of humanity, everyone stresses about the clothes. Or the hair.



III. Fanfiction
Stargate is my favorite place for fanfiction. This fandom has the most gems, the most variety in types of stories and the most of my favorites. You wouldn't know it, but this is the short list.

1) “$14.95 plus tax” & it’s sequel “Shipping & Handling” by martyfan: SG-1 reacts to their action figures after disclosure.

2)“Teal’c’s Five Favorite Board Games” by paian: There's a whole sub-genre of 5 things stories. This is one of the best.

3) “The Towers on the Heights…” by minervacat: Technically this is a Stargate:Atlantis story but there’s some crossover characters. Plus it’s about sports in the Stargate universe something I never thought necessary or interesting until I read this.



4) "Look to the Heavens and Number the Stars” and “The Silent Language of the Star” by minervacat: The trials and terrors of being the SGC’s librarian.

5) "Flying Fists, Crouching Archeologist” by Recognizing Orion: Sam teaching Daniel self-defense, set in the first season.

6) “The Harry Situation” by Neuropsych: SG-1 attends a Harry Potter conventions to convince Teal’c the books aren’t real. It really doesn’t go as planned.

7) “Certified” and “Certainly” by Tallulah Rasa: SG-1 and psychiatric evaluations, set in season 2 and 7, respectively.



8) “How Being on SG-1 Isn’t All Space Babes and High Adventure” by kellifer_fic: Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell adjusts to leading SG-1.

9) “Scotoma” by rydra_wrong: Alternate Universe. What if Daniel’s wife had been saved after he died?

10) "Of Belonging to Another” by pellucid: Former Goa'uld hosts support group.

11) “Unforgotten” by cofax: Teal’c’s son joins the SGC with a question on his mind.

12) "Folsom Prison Blues” by Eve11: SG-1 are in jail. Again.



13) "Performance Reviews" and "Training Exercises" by redbyrd_sgfic: SG-3 and Dr. Jackson get de-briefed and forced to participate in training exercises after allowing their space-ship to be hijacked.

14) “The Barista” by dietcokechic: The improbable friendship between SG-1 and a coffee shop employee as told from the barista’s perspective. SG-1 fanfic writers do very good outsider POV pieces but this is one of the best (and longest).

15) “A Million Years Into the Sky” by niamaea: One possible future for SG-1.



(sniff)

Link to full post.

One Small Step...

NASA Signs Commercial Space Transportation Agreements. Another commercialization milestone for NASA. Here’s the key bit:

"...said Scott Horowitz, NASA associate administrator for Exploration Systems. 'First there were two, and now there are a total of five private companies cooperating with NASA by dedicating entirely private funding to help establish a robust commercial space transportation industry.' "

NASA provides design requirements but the private sector provides the design and not on the taxpayers’ dime. Hopefully, if this works we can expect more such ventures in the future.

Link to full post.

A Weird Combination of Unrelated Events

1) Robot ‘Minister’ Performs Wedding – And of course it's in Korea.

2) Squirrel Attack Injures Three Poeple - Filthy Tree Rats. At least they killed this one. But there are many more out there, just waiting for their chance.

3) Ok, I may get struck by lightening for this but, LAMEST SUPERHERO EVER! (forwarded by a co-worker)

4) In an effort to combat the shallow offerings of YouTube, this Wall Street Journal writer composed a list of more edifying sources of on-line videos.

Link to full post.

Misogyny in Britain

An absolutely horrifying account of honor killings & forced marriages in Britain. I can’t imagine what some of these women must be going through. The very idea of someone telling me what to wear much less who to marry makes me what “to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.” Preferably with something explosive and painful.

Link to full post.

Monday Morning FYI

1) Ok, this is like a week old but it's too neat not to link to. A team at MIT has develop a means of wireless power transfer with magnetically coupled resonators. Via Futurepundit.

2) The Speculist has some interesting thoughts on masculinity in the age of virtual and optional gender.

3) Shadow sculptures, an art form that both never occurred to me and totally impresses. Although, it does give “Allegory of the Cave” flashbacks.

Link to full post.

Personal Enrichment

At the beginning of 2007, I started a To-Do list. This is not a leap for me. I’m a To-Do list fiend. But, this list was not about chores, errands, work or bills. The prompt was “What would I like to improve about myself?” Here are some of the items on my list:

1) Do Volunteer Work: I’ll donate $$ without blinking an eye but give up my precious weekends? Ha!

2) Switch to Linux: More like develop dual-boot capability. I figure learning more computer stuff is never useless. Research stage is complete. I’m in the backing up & cleaning up my computer stage. Toward the end of July, I will be partitioning my hard drive and installing Ubuntu (gulp).

3) Take A Self-Defense Course: I signed up for a Krav Maga class but I had to go out-of-town for work a lot so I missed most of the sessions. Need to re-sign up.

4) Unclutter Apartment: Have given away old clothes, thrown away old boxes / stuff-I-saved-for-reasons-that-elude-me-now, re-organized my personal files and been cleaning my apartment more often. Still need to re-sell some books/DVDs, give away some more clothes, re-organize entry closet / under my bed storage and dust my baseboards (my mother has repeatedly insisted this is necessary).

5) Start a weblog: (ahem) Now I just have to keep up with it.

6) Be More Sociable: To accomplish this I thought, join something that requires actual interaction with actual people. I’ve been looking & I’m a bit torn between the local Astronomy club, a shooting club, or a gardening club.

7) Take 1-2 Classes: Can be on any topic. I signed up for a First Aid course but missed it because of travel for work. Perhaps a language class to go with it?

8) Re-plant my patio garden: I let this get into dis-repair over the last winter so it’s good to see green & flowers out there again. Apartment patios are terribly bleak without something growing in them.

9) Improve Photography Skills: I’m terrible! Lately, I’ve been taking more pictures but there’s a lot of room for improvement here.

There are a few other items, but they’re smaller, more like preparations for next year’s list.

I think I’m going to start 1 or 2 regular features on this blog to further some of these goals. Here's some ideas:
- Updates on PE Goals: Monthly summary of status of above.
- Off the Beaten Path: Texas: Review some of the smaller, less well-known Texas attractions. Examples: Central Texas Antique Car Musuem or The Menil Collection in Houston. I’m thinking one every couple of months.
- Switching to Linux: This is the biggest computer-related anything I’ve ever attempted. I kinda want to record it and, if possible, help anyone out considering the same change.

Right now, I think the most good I can do is in improving myself, getting better at blogging and paying attention to the world around me. As far as further work goes, I’m going to keep an eye on the building of Ejectia. According to Mr. Whittle, version 1.0 will be up and running around July 4th. I have a feeling, next year’s personal enrichment list will be a great deal more interesting than this year’s.

Link to full post.

Britain's Got Way More Talent.

If the American version was this good, I might actually watch it. Some of exerpts from “Britain’s Got Talent!”:
Jack – Tap Dancer
Craig – Baton Twirling
Mike – Impressions
Scott – Break Dancing
Dominic - Singer
Connie Talbot – 6yrs old!
Paul Potts - Opera singing phone salesman
Monkey singing Michael Jackson

Link to full post.

TGI Miscellaneous

1) Did you ever wonder how your cursor arrow worked? Mystery solved! Drag your cursor over the magnifying glass to see.

2) Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – HILARIOUS. When Will Ferrell is on, he is on-fire. Everyone in the supporting cast managed to be over-the-top and sincere. The only drawback is the second act drags a bit but it picks up again. How can you not love a movie with a gay French stock car driver as the antagonist? Although he had great lines, this is my favorite:

“If we wanted wusses, we would have named them ‘Dr. Quinn’ and ‘Medicine Woman!’ “ – Carly, referring to her two sons, Walker and Texas Ranger

3) One of the perks about working for a Japanese company is the exposure to new and interesting experiences, especially those of a culinary nature. Sometimes, these experiences are unpleasant (shrimp-flavored Cheetos = blech) but every so often, you find something delightful. Today is a latter example:

Chocolate Oreo-like outside + creamy banana filling = YUM

4) In conclusion, zucchini!

Link to full post.

GO! SPURS! GO! (part deux)

In honor of the Spurs sweep of the NBA finals, I give you the fans:

Children love them....


Pets too....



Hell, even the French like them (b/c of Tony Parker)


The most important thing is to get them young...

This is an earlier picture of one of the newest San Antonians.

More pictures can be found here.

Link to full post.

Go to BBspot More Often

Because all three were found there....

1) Digital Camera memory card with wi-fi (“Look Ma No Hands!”) – I don’t know about the $100 target price but once that drops down to about $50, I’ll be on that bandwagon.

2) Launch Ubuntu in your browser. I’m thinking of switching to this system so it’s a hassle-free chance for me to play around with it. Cool.

3) HOLY MOLY. The largest digging machine on the planet. Or maybe it was an erector set exposed to that same weird radiation that made Them? I have a sudden and inexplicable urge to buy a wrench.

Link to full post.

A Wandering, Wondering Mind

*WARNING: The following post is a bit rambling. The gears in my head are making too much noise for me to think straight. I'm undergoing something of a paradigm shift. Historically, those can be messy.

In re-reading my review of Radical Evolution, I got to thinking.....The Future is a whole industry nowadays. People with differing visions of where we are going, where we should go, are all competing with one another for our attention and presumably, our allegiance. These are the visionaries, the trendsetters. They are necessary and powerful, but that last part has always been true, hasn’t it? What distinguishes this time & place, is that the masses have the ability to respond back in kind through weblogs, on-line communities and message boards. While the bigwigs debate policy, trying to determine what’s best for us, is standing around listening really carefully the best we’re capable of? Are we to use all this hard-earned technology to become nothing more than a peanut gallery with a megaphone?

Instead of trying to prevent the bad effects of technologically empowered individuals through oppressive control schemes modeled after historical failures at suppression, shouldn’t we instead be focused on making ourselves better able to handle, wield and make use of that power? To modify our systems to be better able to counter and react to the threat posed by malicious or short-sighted individuals? Having read science-fiction my whole life, having read about the history of science & technology, having read weblogs since around 9/11/2001, I wonder, does Bill Whittle have the right idea?

Because Mr. Whittle calls them, The Remnant. Those average everyday people who, when a crisis arises, they appear out of the woodwork, do “the right thing” and then, they return to being average everyday people. Or, rather, they continue to be the people they have always been, only they continue to do it when no one is looks or cares anymore. Currently, people like Bill Joy worry about what crazy individuals empowered by technology could do. It occurs to me that reading “Radical Evolution” & Mr. Whittle’s essay one right after the other, stirred something up in my head. Drew a line between two things that I would not ordinarily put together. Maybe, in order for the Prevail scenario to work what we need to do is empower and strengthen the Remnant?

You know, use random individuals with sound judgement and situational expertise to counter randomly dangerous individuals with malicious intent? Fight fire with fire.

Whittle recommended creating something called “Ejectia” which although it sounds like a bad sci-fi movie is instead a proposed community to link up people, to spread knowledge & know-how, to prepare them. And from reading the follow-up posts, from seeing the enthusiasm of his readers, this will actually happen. Perhaps, by dedicating ourselves to self-improvement before a crisis we can each be ready to do our part when the time comes? Hmmmm…..Isn’t it interesting when an old idea becomes new again?

In the comments to his essay, people have been posting what they could bring to this venture. There’s person after person who opens with “Well, I don’t really know much” and then lists 8 skills or talents that blow me away. People who’ve built their own houses, home-schooled their children, had 4-5 careers, know five languages or served in the military. These people make me feel deeply lazy, make me want to tidy up my computer desk or something. And they make me want to learn…..

Reading the comments to Mr. Whittle’s essay reminded me of something I came across a few weeks ago. It was a rant by one my favorite authors in which he responds to reviewers who find some of his characters unbelievable. The punchline is that the characters in question were modeled after people the author in fact knew quite well.

We now live in a society that does not question superpowers, alien invasion or wild conspiracy theories on the basis of ridiculous conjecture, BUT what stops people in their tracks, what brings them out of a story is that people, with no superpowers/alienDNA/handwavium, can be capable, competent and able to defend the planet because of it. That is unacceptable if we are to Prevail.

I have no idea what kind of contribution I could make to Whittle's grand experiment but too often in the past, I’ve let that type of thinking stop me. This blog was created to help me get over such tendencies. To provide me a place to record, to organize and (in some instances) to correct. Because it is not enough for me to say “Prevail sounds Lovely this time of year”.

There are some who say nothing can be done, that it has gone beyond even the abilities of the powerful to control. There are some who say, that it is not our place, that there are others, “experts” who will determine the future. Both of these groups believe, that in a crisis, this Remnant is hopelessly outclassed. If the experts cannot respond effectively, then these people surely cannot. Both of these groups are, in my opinion, utterly wrong. Now, (somehow) Bill Whittle and many others (including me) have to prove it.

…More to follow.

Link to full post.