Oh, an ex-NCR guy from the AT&T merger days in the early 90s.

So, like me you remember Chuck Exley's rants about AT&T's takeover as being "grossly inadequate"?

It has been downhill ever since for NCR, even post spinoff ...

That is the original reference for it.

But for long time slashdotters, this has been one of the recurring jokes from the Slashdot subculture.

Here are a few others.

So, let me ask, "you are new here"?

You are mixing up things, causing confusion, most probably unintentionally.

As unfortunate the CDDB/Gracenotes was, it is very different from MySQL.

First, MySQL is code, not data. The GPL is a good license for free software, but should not be used to non-code stuff. It was not meant to be used for things that are not code.

Second MySQL is GPL, the CDDB data is, well, there is a dispute about it. The GPL protects a given version that it will remain free forever. The copyright holder, if they so chose, can license newer versions under something else, but the old version will remain GPL.

So, Oracle can choose to not license future versions of MySQL under the GPL, but the existing versions will remain GPL. If enough people care for it, and rally behind it, it can be a viable fork of the product by a community team and/or sponsored by other companies. MySQL is being used by large companies and web sites all over the place. This includes Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Digg, Slashdot, ...etc. It is too widespread to be just killed off ...

I had the same pain with Kubuntu 9.04: very buggy, many things broken, it was a real struggle. The most annoying thing was notifications were broken: a message would get "stuck". Many widgets did not work (weather for example) either.

Luckily, Kubuntu 9.10 solve all of these issues, and now I have a stable desktop again.

I normally stick with LTS releases, but the KDE 4.x vs 3.5 issue made Kubuntu 8.04 a non-LTS release. Once an LTS is released, I will stay with that.

Found a partial solution. It is not XMPP based, but rather uses JSON to interface directly to Facebook.

It is in the Ubuntu repository as kopete-facebook. Install that package and you are good to go.

I have used Pidgin in the past, but since I am using KDE, I'd rather have a KDE application that integrates better with the desktop.

This would instantly allow me to use my usual desktop chat client to connect to non-tech people who I am friends with.

But, Kopete on Kubuntu 9.10 does not work. I get this error message:

"There was a negotiation error. Unsupported protocol version. XMPP 1.0 is required."

Is there a solution to this?

As much as the claim "a bunch of Imams got together and basically stated that Math and Science were of the devil" plays into contemporary stereotypes, it is a very superficial and incomplete assessment.

What happened was a period of scientific breakthroughs and constant progress in conjunction with the expanding empires of Islam from Andalusian Spain, to Kashgar in Western China.

Then, several events started the slow but steady decline. The first was the Mongol invasion from the east, which destroyed Baghdad as a seat of science (and government) for the Muslim east. Great libraries were lost in the event. The Silk Road trade was eliminated, and with it all the hinterland that produced luminaries such as Al-Farabi, Al-Biruni and many more for many centuries.

The second was the Reconquista in Spain which took several centuries. Again, untold amounts of books were burned or lost.

Then following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, 1492 saw two events: the final fall of Muslim Spain, and Columbus' discovery of America. With the wealth of the Americas, Europe now had access to new trade and riches, and developed many technologies for sailing, trade, military, ...etc. No longer were they constrained by the Muslim Orient being a barrier between them and trade limited to India and China.

Then came the rejection of modern technology: the most stark example is the printing press. While Europe started the Renaissance, and printed books started an intellectual revolution, the printing press was rejected in Muslim lands. I am not sure why, but perhaps the Ottoman authorities feared it as a means of insubordination. Regardless, the end result was 3 centuries of relying on manuscripts only, causing poor dissemination of knowledge.

You can see the effect even in religious disciplines, for example, jurisprudence: the later commentators were just compilers/editors/summarizers of earlier texts. Even they declared that the "door to ijtihad has been closed", and all that has been said has been said, nothing new was to come about. This decline happened under late Mameluke and Ottoman rule.

This was soon followed by the colonialism period from Mughal India (1700s by the British East India Company), North Africa (France 1830s), Egypt (Britian 1882), Palestinian mandate, and the rest of it.

Following World War II, military dictators came to power (Nasser, Sukarno, Assad, Saddam, Qaddafi, ...etc.)

At least the Arab countries have not yet recovered from those last 2 stages.

For more on Science under Islam, watch this awesome BBC documentary: Science and Islam - Episode 1.

The three episodes are described here:

• Science and Islam: The Language of Science
• Science and Islam: The Empire of Reason
• Science and Islam: The Power of Doubt

Also articles, books and talks by Dr. George Saliba (Columbia University) are highly recommended in this regard. He is interviewed in the above documentary.

Poor people at the bottom of the social ladder seldom rise on their own against injustice. When it happens it is often mob violence not organized resistance, or activism. More often the leaders of resistance/activism are middle class or from the wealthy.

Was the historical Buddha a poor person? No he was royalty. He did sympathize with the poor and sick that he became one.

Did you know that Nelson Mandela, for example, comes from local royal lineage?

Bin Laden was rich initially, by inheritance, until he went to Afghanistan for fighting the Soviets. He spend a lot of his money there. His wealth dwindled after he criticized the king of Saudi Arabia and his citizenship was dropped and forced into exile (first to Sudan). After he was exiled, his wife and kids in Saudi Arabia were supported by his brothers: they were never given cash lest they would send it to Bin Laden, but the school bills and grocery were all settled on his brothers' credit. He never sent a penny, nor did he receive any from his family.

Another example of rich people going astray: Patty Hearst was initially kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army, but then joined them, wielded a weapon in robbery for them. She was partially coerced, but she could have also ran away. She was from a rich background too being an heiress of publishing empire.

The Nigerian guy has changed over the years. He was lonely, cut ties with his rich family too. See here for more.

You are on to something but then totally miss it: titles are big in Egyptian Arabic, not the profession itself.

Speaking as someone born and raised in Egypt, Arabic being my mother tongue, the society there is very large on titles. If you are writing a letter to an official in the USA, you address it to "Dear Sir/Madam" or to "Mr. John Doe/Ms. Jane Doe". In Egypt, you are asked to address the official with all the titles that he/she got. For example "Al Sayed Al Ostaz Al Doctor Al Kimya'ee John Doe" (Mr ? Dr Chemist John Doe, meaning he has a Ph.D and a Chemical Engineer).

Unlike a few other places in the Arab world, you never call someone with their first name, unless they are a close friend or relative of the same age as you. Anyone else has to get a title, even menial labor. For relatives there is "uncle" for older male. "Father and mother" for parents. "Abeh" for male older cousins (From Turkish Agabey), "Ablah" for older female cousins ...etc. So, this is where Ostaz comes in (derives from Farsi Ustad, meaning "Master", but used for anyone you don't know the qualifications for). Then comes Bash Muhandes (Bash is Turkish meaning "Head", so this means Head of Engineers), which applies to the man who fixes your car who has no degree at all, the untrained plumbers ...etc. Then comes Doctor, which applies for physicians, pharmacists, dentists and vets too. And so on and on and on ... In some cases calling someone by the wrong title annoys them, for example calling someone a mere Ostaz, while he is actually a doctor!

In other parts of the Arab world (Levant, Gulf), the kunya is used (hence the names, "Abu-something"), so the titles are used less.

It has gotten annoying that you find email addresses and Facebook profiles with the title in the name "Dr Ashraf Something" or drsomething@gmail.com.

Two professions are at the apex of social respect: they are doctors and engineers (architects, civil engineers, ...etc.) because the universities ask for the highest marks to admit students. Doctors being more respected I would say.

So, being an engineer is not something everyone just craves. There are other social status professions that are perhaps more appealing. But the main point is that the overuse of titles is rampant, and means little in practice.

Thanks for that. Made me smile ... touche ...

$ wget -S -O /dev/null http://santa.org/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 2009 03:25:26 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3 (Red Hat)
X-Powered-By: PHP/5.2.11
Set-Cookie: h=6bcc6f5aa7ec4549c0e5a837dd8cedb0; path=/
...
Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0
Expires: Mon, 31 Dec 2001 7:32:00 GMT
Vary: Accept-Encoding,User-Agent
P3P: CP="CAO PSA OUR"
Pragma: no-cache
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8

If you want apt functionality, and a free version of Chrome, and you are running Ubuntu, then you can use the PPA Chromium daily builds.

I have been running it on Kubuntu 9.10 64bits and it has been stable and very fast.

To do that, just add the repository:

# sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily
# sudo aptitude update
# sudo aptitude install chromium-browser

If you are running older versions of Ubuntu, then go to the Chromium PPA page for instructions.

As far as slavery and forced labor goes, the long-running genocide in Darfur is essentially Muslim controlled militias attacking indigenous tribes-people, people that have been a source of slaves for Muslim slavers for hundreds of years.

The rallying cry for some of the Janjaweed (means "devil on horseback") militia forces has been "Kill the slaves, kill the slaves!"

But then again, the region where the Janjaweed are killing defenseless, unarmed villagers also happens to center around a government-held oil pipeline that sends 80% of the regions oil to China.

Some missing data points here:

1. Both sides in Darfur are Muslim. This is not a bad Muslim vs. infidel thing.

2. Each side belong to a different linguistic group (African/Arab).

3. Each side have a different lifestyle (nomadic tribes vs. settled agriculturalists).

4. Desertification has caused resource issues and helped one group encroach into the others. Previously each group had enough.

I am not saying that other factors (e.g. oil, China, Khartum ...etc.) are not relevant, but there are other relevant factors that are ignored by most news outlets.