(That's Merry Christmas in Irish)

All the blessings of the season to you and yours.

Cad é Nollaig, gan tú?

Deora ar mo chroí...

I have tried to use it, but the browser doesn't work with the javascript interface and no option is visible to revert to html. Thoughts?
Solution: in opera preferences, choose to prefer mobile interface.

I'm still confused as to why Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google don't agree amongst themselves to use their own services + XMPP + some plugins to openly replicate Facebook and immediately become big players in the social business. When your competition is eclipsing you like FB is, you need to start making some hard choices. There's no collusion if it's an open platform, right? Old and slow. Old and slow.

I started working in the worst school in one of the worst districts in the U.S. a few months ago, and the level of brokenness of the entire system is shocking. I won't go into too much detail, or talk about the insane assumption that teachers will purchase supplies for their classes, something I have never witnessed in other professions. Instead, I'll talk about something that makes we want to cry.

I got a new student last week: she's a refugee from a Central American country. Her father was killed by the gangs there, and when her family fled through Mexico, they were kidnapped and raped for weeks. She speaks no English at all, yet she makes more effort than 98% of my other students, and I can teach her algebra and geometry in half the time it takes the other kids. Wonderful, right? The only problem is that she's going to be deported in a few weeks because her family has applied for refugee status, but they won't get it because the people who want to kill her don't work for the government.

Meanwhile, about 15% of my students are known undocumented aliens (read that as illegal), but schools aren't allowed to talk to immigration.

Summary? The kid who really needs and would profit from staying in country won't be able to (and will likely be killed when deported) because her family tried to follow the law, while people who didn't make any attempt to and merely sneaked into the country are staying.

Well shit. Never did I believe here on Slashdot, I would get a troll for a frank expression on Linux. Wonders abound it seems.

I've been in and around here for a very, very long time. The troll is actually funny. I won a bet on that one, BTW. Now I can go collect! Thanks for that.

I've thought about the state of open software off and on for many, many years. I think we've a clear case of a self-fulfilling reality happening with Linux Desktops. The current state of the computing industry mostly ignores the movers and shakers in favor of ordinary users doing what users do. Some of that happens on a Linux desktop, a lot of it doesn't, but does that mean the desktop is dead?

No! If you look out in the embedded space, just as one example, there is a TON of Linux. Most of those users run --wait for it! The Linux desktop! That kind of thing happens on a Linux system, just a safety tip from your buddy potatohead.

Now, maybe saying the word "fuck" got me the troll rating. Really? Come on folks! This isn't disneyland --or is it? You all tell me.

Finally, the core thing to remember about the growing body of open source software is all about the use value. For those who make the investment to make use of the open software tools, their use value and their skills are not mapped to closed things, and that value goes off the charts.

That's not gonna change for a percentage share metric published on some industry rag, filled with a lot of people, who don't actually understand the power of multi-user computing, nor the multi-user X window system for the powerful gift it is.

Those of us who do understand those things are not going anywhere! Why? Because we simply don't have to, and that's a fact often ignored when the failed comparison between Linux and proprietary software desktop solutions is invoked.

Think that one through kids. Think it through really hard, and maybe you may come to see how the open software dynamics work, and through that, why a pronouncement that the Linux Desktop is dead ends being as silly as I make it out to be. We users of that desktop will be perfectly happy to let you know when it's dead, k?

        Maidin 's tús an lae
        's fágaim mo bhaile
        Tá mo chroíse go brón
        Is fad ar shiúl m'óige

        Oíche 's mé liom féin
        Spéartha dubh go domhain, a choíche
        Ag cuimhneach ar laethanta a bhí
        Gan ghá agus gan ghruaim
        Éistim leis an ghaoth
        Uaigneas mór, go deo, a choíche

        Deireadh an turas mór
        Táim brónach, buartha 's briste
        I mo dhiaidh nach mbeidh níos mó
        Ach, tá sé i ndán dúinn, a pháistí
        Tá sé i ndán dúinn, a pháistí

        Is fada anois an lá
        A d'fhág mé mo bhaile
        Níl áthas i mo chroí
        Níl ann ach an marbh,
        Níl ann ach an marbh.

                                -- Eithne Ní Bhraonáin

What the heck is in that museum? If it had not been for the dog, the guy might well not have been caught.

https://slashdot.org appears to be unavailable this morning. The regular address (http://slashdot.org seems to be working as usual.

(SSL access is available to subscribers, and generally provides a more stable Slashdot experience, such as it is.)

I'm planning to start a computer tech club at my school, oriented around receiving donations of parts and putting computers together for poor families (possibly of other students). Of course we'll need to put a free OS on them.

Any suggestions on what organizations would be likely to donate or how to approach them? What pitfalls should I avoid? Do you think this is a reasonable way to get kids involved in the hardware side of computing? I've never done anything like this before.

World Suicide Prevention Day. Story worth reading. Learn about causes and warning signs.

It may well be closer to you than you think. And you can make a difference.

Although he has admitted covering up sexual abuse, Cardinal Sean Brady, archbishop of Ard Mhacha (Armagh), will not resign. He ought to be in jail. The continuing record of the Catholic Church on this is shameful - going right up to the Pope. No one in the hierarchy really seems to understand.

It's interesting to note that despite its modest size (a population of just under 15,000 in 2001), Ard Mhacha is the seat of the primates of both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

        Look at my face I can hear you
        Just how I feel I will tell you
        Wake up and start feel emotions
        When you're dancing on the club

        We are the kings of the music
        I wanna be your illusion
        Wake up and start feel desire
        When the beat is coming up

        The beat is coming up

        Look at my face I can hear you
        Just how I feel I will tell you
        Wake up and start feel emotions
        When you're dancing on the club

        We are the kings of the music
        I wanna be your illusion
        Wake up and start feel desire
        When the beat is coming up

        And sometimes
        I wanna see the sunshine
        The night is cold
        I can freeze so hard

        And sometimes
        I wanna see the starlight
        The moon is dark
        We can see the stars forever

                                        -- East Clubbers

I would be the warmth in your coldest night...

        i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
        my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
        i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
        by only me is your doing,my darling)
                        i fear
        no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
        no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
        and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
        and whatever a sun will always sing is you

        here is the deepest secret nobody knows
        (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
        and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
        higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
        and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

        i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

                                        -- E. E. Cummings

As ever...