I'm impressed!

So far, pretty much everything but playing DVD media has just worked right the first time out of the gate. I decided to run the Gnome based core system and I'm liking it. Still miss KDE, but the differences are not stark enough to worry too much about. What I need is there with few hassles.

Most importantly, the package management system is top-notch. Things just install with few worries. It's not that I can't go get some code and install it, then configure, etc... I can. It's that I don't often want to. Very good show so far.

One worry these days. How does one capture a snapshot of all the important software in case of a shutdown. With the legal environment today, this is a clear reality. As much as I love just grabbing the necessary bits online, will they be there later when / if I need them again?

I still read Slash daily, but have cut back on posting for some reason. Love the community, but have been spending my posting time elsewhere, mostly blogging and yacking about classic Atari game programming.

http://www.atariage.com

http://www.opengeek.org

(In reverse order)

Been doing a lot of thinking about political issues lately as well. Where Slashdot is concerned, the whole "protect the children" bit and net neutrality are the biggies.

Of course, parents need to watch their kids online just like they do anywhere else. There is just no way we can dumb the whole thing down in a way that makes any sense at all... unless!

We give up net neutrality! That's it, we can save the kids and shut up all the noisy (and increasingly relevant I might add) folks who have just a bit too much publishing power.

Makes me sick.

So, geeks start learning about advocacy and start practicing it, or we will not be happy geeks in the near future.

Think otherwise? By all means, enlighten me. I can use all the help I can get!

proven known good users.

I've been here since the very beginning. Never posted any crap, never will, yet I still have to deal with some posts getting mangled just because a small percentage of fools insist on polluting the discussion space.

Why not let those contributors actually do just that, without being ham-strung with goofy rules.

If you earn the right to make unfiltered posts, great. If you abuse it, you then lose the right for a good long time.

The noise level would probably be the same, but we might see some better posts.

(Like the Cue-Cat one that had the actual decoder program written in C. Copy, paste, compile, done! --Not sure that can be done today, or can it?)

Anyway, that's what's currently on my mind. What's on yours? Leave me a link in the comments below and I'll be sure to give your issue some of my mindshare in exchange for yours.

And do you care?

I seem to have tapered off a bit after gaining some regularly over the years. Has something changed? It's not a pride thing with me. I'm gonna write what I write regardless of the number of fans. It's just the geek in me noticing something and wondering what others think.

Are we seeing less new slashdotters lately? Political / personal views beginning to skew too much from the old school slash? (I've seen some of this, but not enough to matter just yet, IMHO. Thoughts on that?) Perhaps, nobody cares anymore? After we all futzed around with the relations, maybe they just don't matter?

Those interested left?

Just board, but busy at the moment, wondering what you make of it, that's all.

It's up at http://www.opengeek.org/ right now. Thought I would include a link here for those radioheads looking for HD radio information and opinion.

Comments, errors, flames, whatever welcome.

The no smoking thing really sucks. Had a big relapse today. Why do these bastards sell 'em 20 at a time? The battle continues....

Ok, those who know me, know better than that. So what's with the foul topic?

I'M QUITTING SMOKING TODAY. Actually started yesterday. Had a couple laying around, so I enjoyed them and sat in for the first of a string of long evenings.

Been down this fucking road three times already. I'm working as hard as I can to make this time my last.

So I've got coffee (thank god that's ok --might as well die if it wasn't!), the gum and the little tablets. Forget the patches. They just don't do it for me --even two of 'em.

First stage was happiness. Well today that's all over. Now it's stage two. You know the one where you look all through the house for 'leftover smokes'. Did that. What did I find?

The neighbor bitch who borrowed the car left her smokes and lighter in the car!

Bitch.

Nice lighter --tossed it anyway along with the smokes. Damn that's tough. I know they are in the can. All I have to do is a little digging and... back on the road again. Shit!

That brings me to this journal entry. I was doing fine, until that find. I was hoping for maybe one of my old smokes. Actually would have been happy with nothing at all. The looking was fun and was passing the time actually. Found some other stuff I had been missing, like my little FM modulator.

Why did she have to leave those in the car!

Fucking Bitch. (She knows too.)

Anyway given the number of /. members these days, I know some of you have been here. Any ideas to pass the time? How long it took to reach a stable point? Funny stories?

Doing the same thing?

Put it all here. I'm self employed and have nowhere to go until Monday. Hopefully that will be long enough to get past the can'tworkpoorfocusfuckingsmokeleavingbitchwhyismymonitorsofuzzytodaywhereismycoffee stage!

A comment pointed out how handy remote display capability, at the application level is. I agreed and wrote this. (Stashed it here for easy finding later.)

And I don't mean remote desktops. (VNC, RDP...) Don't get me wrong, those are nice and all, but nothing compared to remote display.

The X window system is the only *multiuser* GUI out there. The Mac is an interesting hybrid in that it features a nice multi-user kernel with a single user GUI bolted on. Being able to remote that would bring a lot of power to the already fine Apple experience.

Because Apple and Microsoft didn't create multi-user GUI environments, a very high percentage of the computer using population has exactly NO IDEA WHAT MULTI-USER COMPUTING REALLY IS ALL ABOUT.

That's too bad because they would benefit from it.

Honestly, the multi-user X window system and virtual desktops/workspaces/whatever, are the two features that keep me using Linux/UNIX in general. Once you understand what it means to send an application to a particular display, it's really limiting to not have the ability to do so.

The single-user GUI environments also sharply limit the types of group computing possible. Single user GUI systems are all client-server or web-services kinds of systems. This means the software must reside directly on the computer that serves the needs of the user currently using it.

For a single person using their computer, or maybe somebody running a portable one, this makes perfect sense and I'm not bashing it.

However, the potential benefits of workgroup computing are sharply limited by these single-user GUI environments. Just look at all the kludges, we have Novell ZenWorks, install scripts, and other junk all designed to move the increasingly complex software environment from one machine to another as users move.

It's all pretty stupid actually.

In an X window environment, the applications reside where ever they make the best sense and the users run them, where they live, and simply request the application display I/O come from the machine they are currently using.

This has a number of very significant advantages:

- Sharing powerful machines. Does every user have to have the super box? No. With the X window system, everyone who needs to run something on a powerful box can simply do so, from the machine they are running.

- Sharing expensive applications. Look at MCAD, or analysis, or simulation applications. These things are very expensive and are often complex to administer. Making a package like this available to a group of users is a lot harder than it needs to be, when you don't have the X window system working for you. The application needs to be loaded on each machine, then complex and error prone floating licensing schemes regulate the use of the software.

In an X window environment, any user that wants to run the application simply does so by running the one copy on the computer it is loaded on. When they get the data they need, they put it on the network where they have more local access to it and move on. This has licensing implications also. Many companies charge more for floating licenses because they know workgroups need that capability. The X window system mitigates this cost in almost every case.

- Data Management. In a client/server environment, a user must have a copy of the data on their machine in order to manupulate it. However an X window capable application can isolate the user from the data in powerful ways, mostly for free because of the way the UNIX and X window systems work together.

Imagine a data pool located on machine A, data manupulation application on machine B and user running on machine C.

When the user wants to do something with the data, in the data pool on machine A, they run the application on Machine B, remoting the display to their machine C, while the application then manupuates the data on Machine A.

In this case, the user has no direct access to the data in question. Possible actions and even copying of the data can be made as easy, structured, and or difficult as necessary to meet the design parameters. (Render text as bitmaps, for example to allow only screen captures.)

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I think my point is clear.

Most of the computing population has no idea just how powerful of a gift the X window environment is and a lot of them really should.

Love the Apple, plan on getting one, pissed as hell they decided to go with a single-user GUI. If the multi-user capability of the X window system would have gotten the Apple treatment, we all would have been better off.

Better still, Microsoft would have had one hell of a time playing catch up to that!

(Thinking this might make a nice essay in the near future... copies to Journal for viewing later.)

Haven't used P2P for a while so the question really is what is out there right now that works and is reasonably safe? Ideally, the system would allow browsing of other users shared media. I like to search on stuff I like, then see what others are listening to.

Don't harp on me for infringement either --I buy lots of music. How do you think I figure out what I would like to buy?

Yes, this was prompted by the Kazaa story posted just this morning.

I am interested in non-mainstream music, or extremely deep cuts from the mainstream. Lets put it this way, FM radio is really boring. Need to seek out some new names as my current set of music is getting stale.

I've started a new site called http://www.pdxradiospots.com/

Some production engineers and I have decided to put some old archive material up on the Internet for others to listen to. Right now it's mostly airchecks, jingles, commercials, and other odd bits 'n pieces. It's in a blog format, mostly because that's very easy to publish with.

In the near future, I plan to put up some radio news filler material. Tower changes, formats, people, etc.. are all on the roadmap. How much of that actually happens depends on how things go and what the overall interest level is.

Have some old Radio stuff that might be interesting, or maybe you just want to share with friends. Maybe just want to share for the hell of it? Drop me a line and I'll get your content on the site, with commentary written by you or me --doesn't matter really. It's all about the audio from the past, with the rest being whatever makes sense.

Any feedback welcome.

This sucks. Clear Channel communications is recommending all AM stations reduce their bandwidth to 5Khz, down from 10Khz. Their stated goal, for this stupid move, is to reduce adjacent channel interfearance. (I know spelling sometimes sucks --deal) The big hole in this happens to be their 6Khz recommendation for music stations. Any amount over 5 is going to cause problems, so that's a wash.

The real truth is they want to make room for AM IBOC. This is a digital radio transmission that increases the bandwidth of an AM station to 30Khz!! The extra signal can be heard on existing AM radios as digital hash noise.

As a long time AM listener, this serious assult on the AM band will make listening on ordinary radios a far less quality experience. Listening on wideband and stereo radios is not possible in an IBOC environment due to noise.

Despite serious concerns, the industry appears to be pushing forward on this front while setting the interests of the general public aside. Ibiquity, the creator and owner of this technology, for both AM and FM, refuses to license FM only solutions. FM IBOC does raise similar issues but is far more benign in that most all ordinary radios will see little impact.

This digital bandaid is a poor attempt to make up for poor industry and FCC leadership on AM Stereo --a superior technology all things considered. AM Stereo brings many advantages to the AM band, but entered the market largely stillborn due to poor FCC leadership and industry greed and failure to agree on standards. Receiver manufacturers largely ignored the mess leaving the American public without the improvments AM Stereo technology promised.

Rather than simply address this, as many nations around the world have, the broadcasting industry, fearing growing satellite competition, is pushing digital radio in the hopes the increased quality will overcome the serious issues AM IBOC brings to the table.

Of particular interest to Slashdotters is the proprietary nature of the IBOC technology. Ibiquity is quickly owning the radio industry on their own dime. [industry dime that is..] Ibiquity will be charging annual license fees to broadcasters, based on number of listeners. Additionally, Ibiquity will also charge a per radio royalty for use of their technology. Ibiquity refuses to license any solution that does not include AM IBOC even though the technology appears to pose serious consequenses for AM listeners nationwide.

If successful, Ibiquity will own radio. Listening to radio broadcasts will invove a fee paid to Ibiquity. Given the public nature of the RF spectrum, Ibiquity appears poised to profit from a public resource without competition or incentive to act in the best interests of said public.

Doesn't deregulation suck?

If this matters to you, consider a quick note to your local radio station along with a call to your elected representatives.

I sure do. Growing up in the small town of Molalla Oregon, I was lucky to be blessed with one of these, complete with drive thru! Being able to pick any combination of flavors you wanted was what made the Pop Shoppe special for me growing up. While chatting about local TV Station KPDX on PDXradio.com, the topic of conversation drifted toward the Pop Shoppe and commercial spots. One of the folks just happened to have one and let me post it here. You know you just wanna click it and bring back a memory or two so go for it!

was?

After a lot of consideration, I have my doubts. Now I am sure some of those come from Kerry sitting down in the losers seat, but even had he won I am pretty bothered about elections where we don't keep an actual record of the voters action.

A few things I am soul searching about:

Can we actually do electronic elections in a trustworthy way, and should we? Maybe basic democracy is better done the standard human way, with marks on paper and people gathering, counting and coming to consensus. The geek in me wants it to be online, like everything else that's cool. However, the human in me wants to see it all happen and take a little time. Democracy should be worth something more shouldn't it? Lots of people gave their lives to start this whole thing, maybe fast, impersonal electronic elections are an insult?

Thoughts?

I want more choices dammit! We are largely polarized at many levels in this country? Does everything have to be one way or the other? The binary nature of political discourse in America really has me thinking about a lot of things.

For example, I am socially pretty liberal. It's easier when one's various lists of bad behavior are short, provided the incentive to not infringe on others basic rights is there and working properly. However, I am financially conservative, for the most part (though you would not know it from how our family spends...) I could say more and probably lose a few friends, so I won't just yet. My point is that we all are very complex, yet we get boxed into two basic sides.

This is all very frustrating really because our system forces us to choose the best clump of issues and hope for the best.

How do things work in other nations where there are more parties? Do you feel the same?

This last year or so, I got pretty political, but managed to keep it from getting too personal. The basic view I take is that the other side could be right, so it's important to hash things out. (Almost always learn something that way.) For all of you on the winning side right now, give me some hope will 'ya?

As it stands now, things feel awfully one sided. Anyone on the winning side have regrets? Positive thoughts? I think I am going to need some of them...

Things have been pretty busy for the last few months. I am now working on my own and it's great. Feeling a little scared, but positive things will go well for the time being. All of you friends who regularly write in your journals provide me with many hours of entertaining reading.

Thank you all for that.

That's it for now...

I have just learned about the Ibiquity IBOC scheme. On FM, I believe it to be a tolerable improvement to radio, but what of AM? Seems to me the issues are just too complex to make for a good solution compared to existing analog methods. Low bitrates, reduced analog bandwidth, hiss/noise on existing radio units... Just put a longer article on my blog [http://www.opengeek.org/] If you have something to say at all about the state of radio today, put it there. Comments?

Subject says it all really.

For me, it's the economy. I believe Bush Co. is selling us out fast and hard. The bleeding has got to stop sooner rather than later. Fix that, and other issues can come after I can afford to help do my part.

Many people vote on one issue, what's yours? -->You ARE VOTING AREN'T YOU?

Great Left leaning talk show. She hit the airwaves here in Portland a while back and I got to love the show. It's a wonder this talent did not get out of the box earlier. This lady is the real deal. Hard core talker with almost no holds barred. Very entertaining listen.

I enjoy talk when I am in the car. As of late, the format has been bent way toward the right, making a good idea tough to listen to. Hopefully, shows like this one will bring some much needed diversity to a rapidly growing stale medium.

Interested in talk, but growing jaded as of late? You can stream at http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/, or listen on the new Air America radio affliiates. http://www.airamericaradio.com/

Regardless of your politics, if you enjoy good radio, this show defines the medium. --Worth a listen.