Executive Day Labor

Speaking words of wisdom...

Om Malik's observation bears repeating...

Before I go, I will leave you with these words from Indian philosopher Mahatma Gandhi:

“Live as if you would die tomorrow, learn as if you would live forever.”

Stupid is as stupid does...

Posted on The Hill

RNC candidate distributes controversial Obama song

By Reid Wilson

Posted: 12/26/08 12:10 PM [ET]

RNC candidate Chip Saltsman’s Christmas greeting to committee members includes a music CD with lyrics from a song called “Barack the Magic Negro,” first played on Rush Limbaugh’s popular radio show.

Thomas L. Friedman, from his posting "Time to reboot America"

We can't continue in this mode of "Dumb as we wanna be." We've indulged ourselves for too long with tax cuts that we can't afford, bailouts of auto companies that have become giant wealth-destruction machines, energy prices that do not encourage investment in 21st-century renewable power systems or efficient cars, public schools with no national standards to prevent illiterates from graduating and immigration policies that have our colleges educating the world's best scientists and engineers and then, when these foreigners graduate, instead of stapling green cards to their diplomas, we order them to go home and start companies to compete against ours.

From the country that not only brought you Dumb and Dumber ... but also produced a pre-quel Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd comes the RNC!

As long as we insist on being 'Dumb as we wanna be' I guess we will continue to "does stupid."

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I so much so wish that we could put the stupidity of our previous political life behind us and move forward as a country. It just makes me sad to see such fine and upstanding people make such utter fools of themselves.

Can you believe it?

Slackware 12.2: Trials & Tribulations...

I have always insisted that an operating system isn't any good until it has been loaded 2 or 3 times. True to form this is the third loading of Slackware 12.2 on my trusty IBM R51 laptop. Load number 3 is important because the first two loads were very disquieting/uncomfortable/confusing.

As recently as Slackware 12.1 it was simply a matter of loading up the operating system and I was off and running. As I detailed in Slackware Linux & IBM Thinkpad R51 (Disclaimer: Slackware 11 - It was April of 2007 after all.) I had only to load Slack, download MadWifi and I was in business. Migrating to 12 and then 12.1 was just the same.

Then I loaded up 12.2 for the first time. Eagerly I went out and got the latest version of MadWifi. With resolute belief in Slack I did the make and... the compile did not complete. There were errors. My heart sank. This old laptop without wifi is a deal breaker. With disappointment and a sense of personal failure I took out the 12.2 harddisk and put the old reliable 12.1 back in.

Not to be denied a couple of days later I put my blank HD back in the old work horse. The second load and subsequent attempt to compile MadWifi met with the same end. At least the failures are consistent. Googling slackware 12.2 madwifi lead me to AlienBob's version of MadWifi. It was worth a try. Except for one small detail - something I read scanned - I would have to blacklist ath5k and manually modprobe ath_pci. Ok, anything to get and keep this antique working.

Then I noticed that the middle button on my touch pad wasn't behaving like it did in the past. I grep-ed dmesg and noted that there was no mention of "synaptic". Call me an old dawg but it is hard for me to learn new tricks - I really need that middle mouse button. This time I turned to IRC and Freenode: ##Slackware for assistance. I carefully crafted my middle-button problem as a question. I was quickly rewarded with an advice pointer to /etc/modprobe.d/psmouse. Remming out the default options statement and a reboot and I had my middle-button back, good as new.

Reload #3 affords me the luxury of a clean system. No installed/uninstalled packages leaving remnants about. Then I stumbled on the next and hopefully last sniggling little issue. Isn't it funny how the smallest things seem to be the most important. Favoring as I do Xfce I rely on a number of panel applets in my day to day work. One that is very important is the battery indicator. I had success with Netload, SystemLoad and NotePad but the Batter plug-in just would not compile. Of course I tried the previous version just to be sure. No luck. I would just have to make due without it.

Then in my travels I came across rworkman's Slackware Packages. The first thing that caught my eye was OpenOffice.org 3.0.0. Then, right below it, was listed xfce4-goodies for xfce 4.4.x. Starting the OO3 download I had some time to kill so I sifted through the Xfce plugins. There was my battery plugin. One download and an installpkg later and I have a working Battery level indicator. This is almost too good to be true.

Once OO3 was down I held my breath and did the installpkg. I should know better that to question rworkman but... the last three packages of OO3 that I had worked with didn't let me use the arrow keys or the backspace key in Writer. (I even went so far as to register an official 'bug' note to LinuxPackages - the package they offer still ha[s|d] the same issues.) I should know better than to doubt rworkman. His OpenOffice 3 is backspacing and arrowing perfectly.

Slackware 12.2 loaded for the third time is the charm. There remains however a couple of questions that leave me very unsettled. Specifically with the MadWifi and the Xfce Battery Plugin why do they not compile natively but Slackware rock stars like AlienBob and rworkman can get them to go? What setting did rworkman have to tweak to get OO3 Writer BS and arrow keys to work? I don't mind relying on smarter people than me but I do like the fact that for the most part Slackware just plain cooperates.

Trying to get connected...

Where I want to be...

...when the time comes.

Kat-man-die

If you dare

Kin-tuck Techgnarligy

27,000,000

I encountered this sentence at kottke.org

There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in human history.

...again I am brought to the edge of my ignorance. I am so cloistered. I am so insulated. I am so privileged.

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Free The Slaves

It will take just a moment...

We can do anything -
- we just don't yet know how.

Thanks for the eloquence...

Ran across this in The Lumber Room...

as Orwell observed in 1984, take the word away and you take the possibility of its thought away also.

More will follow on the power of vocabulary...

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Read smitten kitchen

Awesome but...

I have been watching this window manager for X for some time. I like everything about it except for one small thing. One tiny thing really...

DEPENDENCIES!!!

From the README file...

In order to build awesome itself, you need header files and libs of:
- cmake (>= 2.6)
- Xlib
- xproto
- xcb (>= 1.1)
- xcb-util (>= 0.3)
- Lua (>= 5.1)
- cairo built with xcb support
- pango and pangocairo
- libev
- glib
- Imlib2
- dbus (optional, use -DWITH_DBUS=OFF with cmake to disable)
- gperf

In order to build the awesome man pages and documentation,
you need these tools:
- asciidoc
- xmlto
- docbook XSL stylesheets
- luadoc

In order to build the source code reference, you need these tools:
- doxygen
- graphviz

Stock, right off of the .iso image, Slackware has allowed me to compile some pretty large applications with nothing more than...

./configure
make
make install

Then there are packages like awesome. I am not sure what Distro the author(s) of awesome are using. Perhaps theirs is natively better appointed. If, on the other hand, the author(s) had to download all this stuff just to develop the product then might want to reconsider.

The bottom line for me is if there are an excessive number of dependencies - I just turn my back on the product. it is sad and unfortunate but my time is valuable and I cannot afford to do the developer's work for them.

It might be awesome but...

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Slackware

Real Patois

I chose "Pa^2 Patois" (pronounced Papa Patois) as a combination nerd-math-geek + poetic alliteration branding. In the mix is an allusion to my (ab)use of the language. Now on the occasion of this, my 1000th posting, I thought it appropriate to acknowledge the true(er) origins of Patois. To do so I will borrow from my cyber-neighbor (who of course borrowed from her...)

iriegal, in her blog A Fe Me Page Dis Iyah writes...

Jamaica Patois Sound Clips
To listen to a the patois sound clips, just click on any of the link with a next to them (requires Real Audio).
A fe me car It's my car.
Unno nuh fe heat de green mango dem You all are not to eat the green mangoes
Gwaan go heat Go on and eat
Whey yuh a seh! Whats going on!
Yuh too renk! You too out of order!
Mi a tutty years old I am thirty years old
A nuh jus Yessideh de pickney born! Isn't just yesterday that child was born
Mi nuh wan nutten fe eat I don't want anything to eat
Tretch out yuh han. Stretch out your hand
Ooh yuh fraid a? Who are you afraid of?
Weh Bigga puddung de bag? Where did bigga put down the bag?
Memba mi haffi lef Chewsday Remaber I will have to leave on Tuesday
Das why wi lose Thats why we lost

Audio sunshine on a winter's day...

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Read Time To Eat Mon

Breaking the boundries...

Odetta

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Read ALLIED by Jeneane Sessum

Picture > 1K Words

This graphic says it all...
Take Back The Tech

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Read Global Voices Online

Free The Children

Iqbal Masih was sold into bonded labor at a carpet factory in his native Pakistan at the age of four. For six years, he was forced to work 12-hour days in a dark room, tied in place to the carpet loom he worked on. He was never permitted to go outside, and was fed so little that he looked like a boy half his age.

At ten, he ran away from the carpet factory to hear a speech by the Bonded Labor Liberation Front (BLLF), and realized that he was entitled to the same rights as any other citizen. He refused to return to the factory, and began to travel the world, visiting rallies, meetings, and even elementary school classrooms, to tell the story of the abuses he had suffered as a child slave, imploring others to help fight for an end to human trafficking.

Iqbal was honored with many awards for his bravery, but tragically, he was assassinated at the age of 12.

Originally reported here...

Five Former Slaves Who Are Changing the World

By Kathryn Hawkins, Razoo.com [Story Link]

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Free The Children

I want to go anywhere...

/ambivalence

In pictures: world’s most dangerous places - Telegraph

I know I am doing this link listing thing wrong but at least they are there.

I went to the Telegraph site and viewed ...

20 of the world's most dangerous places

The thing that leapt out at me was how much I would like to visit the places depicted in these photographs ... and how unwelcome I would be in most locales. Even in peaceful time I would not be welcome. Simply the color of my skin or my nation of origin would make me a target.

When I was very much younger I hitchhiked where ever I wanted to go. I summered in central Mexico without a care in the world. I thought nothing of walking the streets of New York City at all hours of the night. Perhaps I was naive, perhaps I was foolish. Either way I was able to go anywhere.

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Read /ground

Five things...

Five things you do that help keep you mentally well

At the suggestion of MindApples

1. Feed the birds - This helps to keep my "abundance" of riches in perspective.
2. Engage my children in conversation - something we all need to practice.
   
3. Let the muse loose - I seldom know where she leads but if I don't follow then I won't get there.
   
4. Aspire to great things - while seldom achieved it gives me license to attempt (and to fail).
   
5. Silence: practicing the fine art of being silent and then trying to listen.
   

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Read Scripting News

Act Now!

Iran: Save the life of Farzad Kamangar

Act NOW!
Iran: Save the life of Farzad Kamangar

Please join with the thousands of trade unionists and human rights defenders around the world who are mobilising in defence of Farzad Kamangar, an Iranian Kurdish teacher and trade unionist who is at risk of execution.

Education International received information from reliable sources that on 26 November Kamangar was taken from his cell 121 in ward 209 of Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution by hanging. However, the latest information is that he is still alive and was able to meet with his lawyer on 27 November for the first time in over two months. His situation remains precarious nonetheless.

Kamangar, aged 33, was sentenced to death by the Iranian Revolutionary Court on 25 February 2008 after a trial which took place in secret, lasted only minutes, and failed to meet Iranian and international standards of fairness. His lawyer, Kahlil Bahramian, said: "Nothing in Kamangar's judicial files and records demonstrates any links to the charges brought against him." Indeed, Kamangar was initially cleared of all charges during the investigation process.

Education International, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Transport Workers Federation, Amnesty International and LabourStart are appealing to the Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence and ensure his case is reviewed fairly.

Click Act NOW! to make your voice be heard.

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Act NOW!