Older blog entries for Ilan (starting at number 124)

As long as we're quoting excellent postings of mine (Kudos to Tk for linking to it. That was one of my best to the gnome-gui list, and I heartily stand by it), I thought I might post a something I wrote to Slashdot recently about the leaked letter of Microsoft's urging it's supporters to engage in an underground campaign of sabotage against linux. I consider this a necessary public service announcement for those who read advogato diary entries.

How to spot a Microsoft Mole

Microsoft moles can be identified by their unwavering committment to preventing windows users from installing linux. A microsoft mole might be identified by one or more of the following activities:

1. Tells a newbie who is having a problem to shut up and RTFM
2. Claims that a user-hostile program that lacks any kind of usability is "perfectly ready for the desktop"
3. Tells said developer of program to "keep up the good work".
4. Tells people who criticize a badly designed free software UI to "quit whining" or "you get what you pay for".
5. Uses the word "Idiot","Simpleton" or "Moron" in the same sentance as "GUI". An example would be the sentance "GUI's are for morons who can't think".
6. Runs around screaming "Don't standardize linux GUI's. It's a matter of choice--don't promote facism."
7. Assaults the credibility and necessity of UI designers, chasing them off and therefore insuring that linux will be as user-hostile as possible.

If you see your friend, spouse, employer, LUG members, or poster to on-line forums such as Slashdot or Advogato engaging in one or more of these counter-revolutionary activities, there is a very good chance that they are an agent of microsoft committed to making sure that linux will never be installed on the machines of existing windows users.

The point to my silly piece is the same one I made two or more odd weeks ago: Bill Gates doesn't have to lift a finger to sabotage linux on the desktop because so many people in the linux community and Free Software development community do his job for him.

Long time since last update....

1. Finally started getting into GNOME 2. Created a build script that creates a build script that builds gnome2. It almost works, except for one minor thing. PKG_CONFIG_PATH--I hate you. I hate you oh so very much. Why do you taunt me so after I properly set you?...
2. Did a test run of multi-threaded POS. Was 3 times faster than non-multi-threaded POS (at least before I add the cartoon feature). Of course, when you're hitting multiple sites on the Internet to download crud, multi-threading might speed things up ever-so-slighly (do ya think?). Now to cast off my wimpiness and move from the thread to the threading module.
3. Drool, especially considering Point #2.
4. Last week I created an OPML browser that works with this hour's OPML specification (okay, the hour that was this hour last week). I have been reading way too much DaveNet. That is not good. Dave influences me to waste my time writing strange things. And then he randomly adds more crud to a specification, which means I must spend even more time writing more strange things...
5. RMS has a girlfriend? Wish I had a girlfriend to go skiing with on the slopes of Hell. RMS is getting more laid more than I am. That's really pathetic. It's usually been my experience that women are turned off by men who have anything to do with computers. At all. I accept involuntary celibacy as the price I must pay to correct the terrible problems in the computer industry. But still...

If tomorrow I am a lowly observer, I leave you with a quote:

"I regret nothing"--Casanova.

As part of trying to be a responsible individual and shedding my old ways, I will not post a reply to the "Free Software and Usability" article tonight. I have something for a team project due tomorrow, and when my team relies on me, I must come through. If think of a very short good response, I might post that, but if I can't think of one quickly, then the team comes first.

That being said, there will be a few choice words in my response. I consider my diary entries to be nothing more than diary entries and not a post in a public forum. So when people post things in response to my diary entries, I hold myself back from responding even though I would really like to. Well, it seems someone has "taken it outside" so to speak. Time to start taking a switch to their ass.

"Every day the bucket goes to the well, one day the bottom will drop out."

Helped Andrew pick out a good motherboard. Will go to Cook Out tonight for kick ass milkshakes. MMMmmmm, carmel capuccino milkshakes.....watermelon..egg..nog. Must leave low. Andrew is quite hungry and may resort to cannabalism. If you don't hear from me after several days, get Andrew's stomach pumped and run DNA analysis.

I am finally surfing the web at D.H. Hill library using my laptop + wavelan card. Sometimes things just don't get any cooler. Okay, maybe if I didn't have a group project I had to work on. And maybe if I finish the graphical wireless config tool I wrote last night. But other than that, this is the apotheosis of cool.

The dancing pencils. pH is so easy. So they say. What, burn everything to the ground? Sounds like a good idea. You're made of wood and graphite. You can't hurt me even though you do taste like really bad coffee.

Back to studying for chem. Day-o, me saaaaayyy dayyyyy-o daylights comin'...

Went to the TriLUG meeting tonight. Worked on the XML-RPC client a little more; assuming this post gets through, I'll have increased functionality. Nothing else eventful to report.

Created a special version of the Tkinter-ized POS for a friend that does what POS does, plus it shows the daily User Friendly cartoon. It was really the first time I've tested Tkinter POS in a cross platform situation (he was using windows). He seemed to have a good reaction to it. Though for two hours I was trying to figure out why the cartoon gif that showed up perfectly on my linux box didn't show up at all on his windows machine. Ok, it showed up, but as a corrupted and scrunched up version of itself. Then I remembered that windows has a binary filestream mode. Once I added the "b" filestream option, things went perfectly.

Created a special version of the Tkinter-ized POS for a friend that does what POS does, plus it shows the daily User Friendly cartoon. It was really the first time I've tested Tkinter POS in a cross platform situation (he was using windows). He seemed to have a good reaction to it. Though for two hours I was trying to figure out why the cartoon gif that showed up perfectly on my linux box didn't show up at all on his windows machine. Ok, it showed up, but as a corrupted and scrunched up version of itself. Then I remembered that windows has a binary filestream mode. Once I added the "b" filestream option, things went perfectly.