Rescuing SUSE Linux

According to this report, IBM, Intel, and some smaller firms are coming to the aid of SuSE Linux–to the tune of $45.5 million.  Even though SuSE has perhaps the most popular Linux distribution in Europe, the company is still failing.  Red Hat here in the U.S. is doing a little better, but hardly setting the world on fire.  Other Linux companies (VA Linux, for example, and Loki Games) are having similar problems.  Now how was that you’re supposed to make money selling something that people can get for free?

It’s one thing to see companies like IBM and Intel throwing money at failing Linux companies.  $45 million is, literally, pocket change–between the two of them they have over $12 billion in cash.  And perhaps $45 million will be enough to get the company profitable again.  I still think IBM and Intel would be better served to create their own distribution company or just buy an existing one, but I have to assume that they more about this stuff than I do. 

But then I see posts on Slashdot from people who are buying games from Loki in an attempt to keep the company afloat.  Whenever Slashdot posts an article about a failing Linux software company, dozens of people will leave messages that say “I bought Bartender Deluxe from BottomsUp Software, and I don’t even drink.  But I believe in supporting Linux software companies.”  Heck, if you’re not interested in the product, why make the company spend money sending it to you?  If you want to piss money down the drain, just send the company a donation.  In the case of Loki games (see my August 17 entry), it’s doubtful that any amount of money could save that company.  Other Linux companies have similar problems–they’re spending more on production than they can recoup in sales.  Maybe they’re trying to make it up in volume?

Movie review: War of the Worlds

Flipping the channels over the weekend, I found that AMC was playing the 1953 film War of the Worlds, based on H.G. Wells’ book but taking place in the mid-20th rather than in the late 19th century.  I remember seeing this movie in 3-D back in the early ’80s, and liking it even then–despite the hokey glasses.  The story is old hat to us now and was maybe even a little stale back then.  I find the whole love-story-mixed-up-in-apocalyptic-events story line tiresome in anything, and in that regard this movie is a major offender.  But it was a technical masterpiece at the time.  Of the movie’s $7 million (or was it $12 million) budget, over half was spent on special effects.  The movie won an Academy Award for special effects.  And the colors were so vivid.

The movie isn’t without its flaws.  We all laughed when in Independence Day, a computer virus written on an Apple Macintosh could somehow infect an alien computer system.  I noticed the same kind of flaw in War of the Worlds.  When the hero returns with one of the Martians’ cameras, our scientists had no problem hooking it up to a projection television showing a blurred picture.  “This,” they say, “is how the Martians see us.”

But the movie is a classic, flaws and all, and worth seeing if you get a chance. 

How to dispose of a toilet?

Yes, that is a toilet in the back of my truck.  Sunday was rip out the bathroom day.  I disassembled the entire back bathroom in yet another step of our remodeling project.  Sink, cabinet, mirror, baseboards, toilet, and door all went with me to the RE-store at the local Habitat for Humanity.  The RE-store accepts donations of building materials that they resell in order to raise money for their building projects.  It’s a worthy cause, and a much better place for my old building materials than the city dump.  But the RE-store wouldn’t take the toilet!  It’s one of the old 3.5 gallon-per-flush models.  The 1992 Energy Policy and Conservation Act established a $2,500 fine for anyone who doesn’t install low-flow toilets in a new or remodeled bath.  Yes, you heard right, $2,500 fine if you replace your existing toilet with an old model. To make matters worse, the City of Austin came into Habitat one day and threatened to fine them or shut them down if they continued to sell the old models.  Excuse the pun, but what kind of crap is that?

I can understand passing a law that encourages using new low-flow (1.6 gallons per flush) toilets, and perhaps even prohibiting the manufacture, import, and sale of new 3.5 gpf units.  But to prohibit people from reusing their old toilets seems like a shitty thing to do.  It’s not environmentally friendly, either.  There are very few places in the country that will accept a toilet for recycling (to be ground up and used as fill dirt or to create heat-resistant ceramic material for industrial use).  So the toilets end up in our already overcrowded landfills.  Now there’s a good idea!

Anybody who’s used one of the early model 1.6 gpf units is familiar with having to flush at least twice to send everything away (which reminds me of a military school joke:  “Flush twice.  It’s a long way to the mess hall”).  Anyway, 1.6 gallons times 2 flushes is…carry the one…3.2 gallons.  Wow!  Those new toilets are saving us about a quart of water each flush.  If it’s true that the later model low-flow units have solved most of multi-flush problems, then shouldn’t the 1992 Act be amended to prohibit installation of the early model 1.6 gpf units?  This law has also spawned a black market for the older toilets.  $300 each?  Hmmm…there are three bathrooms in this house, each with its own vintage toilet.  On second thought, perhaps I should hang on to them just in case the new 1.6 gpf units I have my eye on don’t work as expected.

Eliminate X-10 popups

Those X-10 camera advertisements that pop under my Internet Explorer browser are the most annoying thing yet on the web.  Spam is a bit of a nuisance, but it’s pretty easy to ignore.  These X-10 ads and other pop-up or pop-under gimmicks get on my nerves much more than a couple dozen daily emails.

A coworker pointed me to www.noads.org, where they have a link that will eliminate the X-10 ads for the next 10 years.  Click on the Remove X10 Ad link near the bottom of the page.  The site also provides some information about how marketing companies are using cookies to track your web usage, and how you can prevent that, or at lease reduce it.

Is the World Wide Web destined to become a war with users on one side pitted against advertising and marketing types who are trying to gather information about and push products at us?  Of course, why would I think the Internet would be any different from the billboards, radio, and TV advertisements?  Somebody has to pay for Yahoo’s bandwidth and server space.  I guess it’s up to me to stop visiting Web sites that use those techniques that I find objectionable.

I think I’m going to turn off cookies for a while and see what happens as I browse.  Or maybe I’ll try one of those cookie controller programs that the guys over at No Ads talk about. 

Movie review: Bound

Debra acquired a movie called Bound from a friend of hers.  Neither of us had ever heard of the movie.  We plugged it in the other night to check it out, and were pleasantly surprised.  Starring Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon, the movie is odd, hard to characterize, and mildly disturbing.  I don’t know if it’s a “good” movie, but we enjoyed it.  Bound was made in 1996 and apparently wasn’t much of a hit, so it might be difficult to find at your local Blockbuster Video.  It’s worth looking for, though.  Check it out if you get a chance.

Homebrew!

I have beer on the brain lately, even more than usual.  I’m turning 40 in a couple of months, and have decided to throw a big party–40 hours long starting at 6:00 AM on Saturday and closing down at 10:00 PM on Sunday.  For the party I’m making 40 gallons of homebrew.  Since I have somewhat limited production capacity, I have had to brew the beer over a several-week period.  As of today, I’ve brewed all but one of the beers.  At the party I will have:

5 gallons of Mexican Amber similar to Negra Modelo
5 gallons of Crisp Rye–probably my favorite of all the beers I’ve brewed
5 gallons of Wheat Stout–something new that the guys at the brew store suggested
5 gallons of an Octoberfest/Marzen
5 gallons of Crystal Honey Ale–a lighter beer I use to experiment with different hops and spices
5 gallons of Saison–a Belgian style that I’ll brew up next week.
7 gallons of a semi-dry mead
3 gallons of sweet mead

I’ve also brewed up a batch of Amber Bock that will accompany me to Dallas next month for a school reunion.  If we don’t drink it all (not likely, but stranger things have happened), the remaining bottles will be at the party.

I’m getting pretty good at this brewing thing.  Haven’t had a boil-over in months.

How the Moon was created

Somebody at work pointed me to this article that describes a theory of how Earth’s Moon was created.  It’s an interesting theory, but I hope those guys have more than a computer model and some wild speculation to go on.

The article says that the Moon is thought to have been much closer to Earth, and the Earth and the Moon continue to get more distant from each other by several inches (centimeters) a year.  The distance from Earth to Moon is approximately 240,000 miles.  If its been moving away from Earth at the rate of 1 inch per year for 4.5 billion years, that means its moved about 71,000 miles.  I wonder what tides would have been like when the Moon was only 170,000 miles away.  Since the effects of gravity are inversely proportional to the square of the distance, the Moon’s gravitational effects on Earth at that distance would be approximately double what they are today.

One other tidbit.  The article implies that the Moon moving away from the Earth is what causes the rotational period to slow.  Does this mean that if the Moon were to disappear, the Earth’s rotation would stop?  I was under the impression that the slowing of the rotational period is at least partially an effect of the Moon’s gravity, and as the Moon moves away, its effects on the Earth’s rotation would lessen.  Was I wrong?

There’s another article on this topic here

Kyocera Smartphone

Back in November of last year I was wondering why I couldn’t get a combination PDA/mobile phone.  I said that I’d pay $500 for one.  Guess it’s time to put my money where my mouth is.  Sprint PCS recently released their Kyocera Model  QCP 6035 phone/PDA with Palm OS.  One of the guys at the office has one, and it looks pretty sweet.  And at $399, it’s well under the $500 I said I was willing to pay.  I’m looking into it, and will report when I finally obtain one.

And now I have an HTML formatting question that I hope somebody can answer.  If you’re viewing this on a wide screen (like 1600 pixels), then the phone image at left probably overlaps the date line below.  How do I stop that?  If I use a table, then I don’t get the text to wrap below the phone when the screen is narrower.  Any ideas?

Open Source versus Free software

Well the Open Source versus Free Software debates are in full swing again.  Everybody’s saying the same old things, nobody’s learning anything, and all but the most rabid are hoping that the moles participating in the debate will just crawl back into the holes from which they emerged so we can beat some other poor dead horse for a while.  I’ll recap it for you and let you make your own decision.

The Free Software Foundation, led by Richard Stallman and represented by Bradley Kuhn, believe that all software should be “Free.”  Their stated position is that the product of a developer’s work belongs to the community as a whole, and should be licensed by the GNU General Public License (GPL) in order to prevent evil corporations from taking the work and using it in a proprietary (“non-Free”) program.

Members of the Open Source faction, led by nobody but represented here by Tim O’Reilly, believe that developers should have the freedom to release their work under whatever license works for them.  Eric S. Raymond also weighs in on this one with some comments.

If you’re interested in all the sordid details, start with Tim O’Reilly’s My Definition of Freedom Zero, and follow the links from there.

I’ll leave the detailed analysis to others.  I just want to note that one of these groups of freedom lovers employs a coercive license to prevent certain uses of their software, advocates limiting programmers’ salaries, and has suggested a “Software Tax” to be imposed on the purchase of new computers in order to fund a government agency that supports software development.  It’s all in their vision document–read it for yourself.  “Your software will be Free (under our definition).  We will force it to be so.”

Bending spacetime in the basement

Most of us take gravity for granted:  stuff falls.  In high school physics we learn about the universality of gravitation–all objects attract all others–but because gravity is such a weak force we can’t readily see the gravitational effects between small objects.  Or so I thought.  I was cruising the Web the other day and ran across a very cool site called Formilab, on which I found a page titled Bending Spacetime in the Basement.  The third paragraph explains the title.

This page has a reasonably good discussion of the gravitational force, and introduces an experiment that you can perform at home to demonstrate the gravitational attraction between two small objects.  The author also poses an interesting question:  could Archimedes have discovered the universal nature of gravitation 1,900 years before Newton published his Philosophi naturalis principia mathematica?  After pointing out the information available to Archimedes at the time, the author states:  “It seems plausible, then, given the knowledge at hand and a chain of inference which, in retrospect at least, appears straightforward, that Archimedes could have suspected the universality of gravitation.”  He then demonstrates how Archimedes might have proven such a theory using materials that were available to him.  It’s an interesting speculation:  how would history have unfolded if Archimedes had done this?