Linux

Linux is an alternative operating system for your computer. This means that you can start Linux instead of Windows. Why would you want to do that? Well many reasons, the major one being that Linux is free. Other reasons include: Linux claims to be more secure, more stable, more open (you can download the source code for the operating system), less resource intensive; as a method to recover/inspect/hack your Windows installation; to run an alternative configuration to be more anonymous on the internet; to avoid Windows spyware and viruses; sticking it to "The Man"; to be part of something community driven rather than corporate driven; to increase your respect amongst the nerds; to see what the fuss is about; to expand your knowledge of computers and operating systems. And so on. If you are getting a new computer then why not put Linux on the old system, see how it works.

Unfortunately Microsoft Windows programs don't run under Linux, solutions include:
* Find equivalent software for Linux (usually free)
* Install Windows in a seperate partition on your computer and "dual boot"
* Install a virtual machine to run Windows at the same time as Linux (VMWare, Parallels)
* Install a windows API emulator in Linux (WINE)

HELP. The online Linux community is excellent, there is plenty of help about for Linux users scattered all over the internet. Check out Linux Questions. I would also recommend getting into IRC using one of the instant messaging clients installed in Linux and after connecting to an IRC server you would join the channel of your distribution name (eg: /join #slackware), you should get very quick responses from the people online. Also check Low Fat Linux, Linux command line,

GET LINUX. Usually your ISP will have an ftp site that should contain a number of Linux distributions that you should be able to download without affecting your download quota if you have one, otherwise you will often find various Linux distributions on a CD stuck to the front of computer magazines or you can download them directly from their respective home sites. Downloading an ISO from the internet means that you are going to have to burn that ISO image to a CD using your CD burning software (like Nero).

There are many different types of Linux being developed by different organisations. Check out Wikipedia Linux Comparison. Apart from installing on your computer you can use special "Live" CDs, which means that you can run Linux from the CD without having to use any hard drive space on your computer (notably Knoppix), but CDs are much slower than your hard drive so you don't get the real feel of speed at all, particularly laptops which tend to have very slow CD drives.

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UBUNTU is excellent even tho it uses the much derided gnome windows manager. A single slick CD to install all the good bits, could have been prettier, but better than most.

Like most Linux installations that I have tried, Ubuntu detected nearly all the devices on the old laptop (850MHz Celeron) and runs reasonably well in only 64Meg of RAM. Wouldn't find my external mouse, stuck with the scratch pad, can't easily configure the xorg.conf for the device.

Check out this Ubuntu for Novices

On my HP e-Vectra: Takes quite a while to install on a P3-600 128Meg RAM. Runs reasonably, even when the resolution is 1400x900. Nice and slick speed. Sound works well. Has GAIM XChat GIMP GnomeTorrent OpenOffice.

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KNOPPIX runs well as a Live CD but there isn’t an obvious way to install it on the HDD (although I have done this). Laptop CD drives tend to be slow so I got bored of it real quick. Google about if you want the guide to installing Knoppix on a HDD.

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SUSE Never did the full SUSE. Not for mere mortals I think, as it wanted all 4 CDs and I was not prepared to download the later ones for a Linux that has such a crappy installation process.

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SIMPLY MEPIS (Debian based) Installs nicely, just like Knoppix it can run in live mode, but unlike Knoppix, it has a neat Install icon on the desktop in the live version to put the whole OS onto the hard drive.

Mepis has issues with a text mode when booting and SCAN for video mode seems to have killed my machine. Just pick a number and everything goes fine. It detects both my mice (unlike Ubuntu). Defaults to KDE desktop. Has Azuereus built in. Open Office etc. More tools and utilities than Ubuntu. Mepis is more techie aimed I think. Runs like a rocket.

In 800x600 you run into problems, you should configure the task bar to be on the side, be custom width 128pix wide and to disappear after 1 sec.

Still uses XFree86 and not Xorg! Feels faster than Ubuntu, unsure why.

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SLACKWARE - my distrbution of choice for my little server. Is NOT for the simple installation crew. This is the Linux I use when I pretend to be hard core. No graphic interface for me! Pixels are for pansies. Runs like a rocket on my 300MHz Celeron 128Meg RAM machine. Excellent for web services, small database engine etc.

I have a bunch of notes that I use to configure Slackware that I think would be of help to other who attempt to use this distribution. I would NOT recommend slackware for people who don't want to get involved in the low level functioning of their computer.

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XANDROS Excellent simple installation. OS is good too. KDE I think but no Konqueror! No XChat, no bit torrent - all of which can be downloaded - but mepis already has it. Detects both my mice. Doesn't look like there is an option for external monitor tho. Still seems to come with all the usual basics and a couple extras like Skype, PalmOS tools, real media can be played from within web. Really good control panel. Good file manager. Pretty slick package.

On my HP e-Vectra: takes a while to install and seemingly forever to boot up for the first time. Memory hungry. Everything takes a long time to load.

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MANDRIVA / MANDRAKE is quite good for the beginner. Although it has at least 3 CDs, it never seemed to ask me for more than the first one.

Caring government gives tax break to needy rich

For too long the rich have suffered at the hands of the poor, but oh how the tables are turning now. Take that you evil poor people. Draining valuable money from the coffers of the wealthy for petty things like food, rent, health and education while the rich go without a luxury yacht, second holiday home and ivory back scratchers. Don't you people realise that spoiled snotty kids are extremely demanding?! Plastic surgery isn't getting any cheaper either, and have you seen cocaine prices lately? It's insane.

The Prime Minister says about the budget "One of the best ways to help people with high petrol prices is to put money in their pockets." Which means the wealthy can keep guzzling fuel via their oversized four wheel drive vehicles while the poor should stay at home, in their own suburbs, away from the wealthy people. $36 billion and major investment in roads and infrastructure so the wealthy have nice smooth roads to use their fuel upon.

Peter Costello, champion of the rich business man. Making it easier for them to fire poor people for no reason at all. Giving $37 billion to the few wealthy amounts to about $120/week. Imagine how the poor would waste $120 a week. They might get themselves educated, afford child care so they can work, get out of debt cycles and eventually not be poor anymore. Who will the wealthy oppress then?

Yes, I'm sure his tax break wins praise from the uber wealthy who run the media. The media are only too happy to roll over and report what their wealthy masters tell them to.

What can the small guy do? Aren't you glad you left your union? Aren't you glad you stopped going to church? These two institutions were the power house of social justice for the masses but you've deserted them and let yourselves down. The media played no small part in this, of course, paedophile priests, union bashing. What does the small guy want to do? Nothing. Apathy will drive this alleged democracy into the dictatorial realms we used to associate with juntas and communism. Your rights and lifestyle are being eroded and you simply shrug. As long as there is tv, footy and beer. The wealthy are organised, they have a plan and they are going to take you down and keep you there.

Check out News.com's calculations to see how well you do out of the pork barrelling.

Ultraviolet Tattoo

Not that I want a tattoo particularly, but if I did then "Blacklight reactive ink" is what I would want it done in. Glows in UV light but is invisible in normal light! Apart from finding somebody local who actually does this, there would be the matter of picking the right design; Apple/IBM/Commodore logo, Quake logo, circuit diagram, Escher drawing, biohazard, radiation symbol, "THX1138", a barcode, "Property of Donna". There are all sorts of ideas for geeks and physics geeks.

Safety
Note that not all ultraviolet tattoo inks are equal, some cause nasty reactions so make sure you know exactly what inks the tattoo artist is going to use. Check out Tattoo Health and the PMMA products by BioMetrix/NewWest. And check out the general health issues with getting and maintaining your tattoo from the many sites out there.

Then I would have to go and buy a UV torch. While I was at "United Nuclear" I would just have to get a Geiger counter; a model that detects alpha, beta, gamma and Xrays. You know, so when society collapses after the USA sends its radioactive gifts of love to whatever country has resources that it wants, I can detect if it safe to go outside. Or breath. In the meantime, I could prove to myself that the microwave oven doesn't actually produce ionising radiation, and maybe neither does my mobile phone. Oh, the wireless network is suspect too. That glowing crap I'd like scratched into my skin. Monitors. The backyard. Water. The cat. Babies. Whatever.

Check the article at PostStar about UV tattoos.

Bottled water = Snake Oil

I went into BiLo across the road and noted down the softdrink, fruit juice and water prices (23 April 2006), dropped them into a spreadsheet for a quick comparison of what the various liquids cost per litre (the last column). The cheapest beverage was BiLo softdrink at 52 cents per litre. The most expensive was Evian at $2.96 per litre. That is Evian spring water, no juice or carbonation. This has to be one very magical spring. Certainly the shareholders would think so.

Rough median price for softdrink is $1.17/L, juice is $1.35/L and water is $1.54/L.

I think that we can extrapolate and say that by adding sugar and flavour to water, then carbonating the mixture you have actually devalued the water. A farmer growing fruit for juicing may well consider letting the damned plants dry up and just filter his quota of water, bottle it and sell it as "Farmer Joe's Purified Fruit Water".

Why would I note down prices? Aside from being a nerd, I am NOT a trainspotter. I was going to the stupid football to watch my idiot team get beaten by the bottom of the ladder team, grrrrr. Anyways, my girlfriend, who is full of great practical ideas always insists that we take in our own snacks, seeing as the food at the football is two to four times more expensive than reasonable standard pricing. Aside from twisties and chocolate we also get water. I was checking the water prices and noted that the softdrink was cheaper in the same volume. I wanted a 1.25 litre bottle of water. It was less than half price for me to buy some 69cent BiLo softdrink, pour the contents on the ground and fill the now empty bottle with my filtered water from home than to buy the cheapest ($1.49) 1.25 litre bottle of water. It was then that I felt a blog article coming on.

I like water. Often when I am out and about on this little ball of dirt, I become thirsty and require hydration. I like my water to be taste free and filtered if possible which means that occasionally the local tap water just doesn't cut it. Bribie Island leaps to mind; I'm thinking they pipe their water straight from the swamps.

Fortunately, shops are everywhere that sell a range of water products along side the fizzy sugar laden beverages, fruit juices and occasional pseudo-milk drinks. Unfortunately, these retailers want a premium for their plain old water.

The marketers would have us think that the water comes bubbling up from mystical pure springs found high in the mountains, either straight from a melting glacier or filtered through tonnes of dirt before being scooped up, dumped into handy plastic containers and shipped to your local shop. Naturally these springs contain some minerals and such - Sodium, Chloride, Magnesium, Calcium, Potassium. Oh and probably more Aluminium than you really should be consuming (thank you Coca-Cola; owner of Peats Ridge / Neverfail / Mount Franklin). Also various FDA tests in the US have reported harmful levels on Nitrates, Arsenic, Chloroform, Bromodichloro-methane, Phthalate (hormone disrupter and carcinogen) and Lead.

So is bottled water better than tap water? No, no, no, no, hell no.

Is bottled water better than filtered water? Well our friends at the The Australasian Bottled Water Institute (ABWI) would have you think that water filters are poisonous traps for people-killing bacteria. The conclusion of the ABWI

"Because of the problems and costs associated with water filter use, the ABWI recommends bottled water as a safe and reliable alternative."

So putting my filtered water in a bottle that used to contain softdrink is unsafe, unreliable because my water filter system has problems!

"By purchasing water from an ABWI accredited bottler, you can be guaranteed every drop you consume is safe and sanitary."

I think this statement equals "please sue me if our water is ever found to be unsafe". Nice one. I wonder if Tony Gentile, Executive Director of ABWI, can cover the legal liability, if the ABWI organisation has any funding or insurance to cover law suits when one of his members starts poisoning people with some arsenic or heavy metals.

The Australasian Bottled Water Institute (ABWI) would like to remind you "that human blood is 95% water" or maybe "Blood is 92% water", it seems the ABWI are not that certain. Most other sites quote 83%. I imagine the folks at the ABWI have more dilute blood than the rest of us. I don't trust any of the sites as they are all non-medical and do not site sources. I'm happy to go with: there is a lot of water in our blood ... so if you're really thirsty then ... no, let's not go there.

The ABWI claim the products of their members are a "chemical free alternative". They should be VERY nervous about making that claim for a variety of reasons. I also like thier claims under "Benefits of Good Hydration" one of which is "Protection - Cancer Research!" ... so water protects you from cancer research? Sweet. Those cancer researchers are a menace.

The hippies over at The Earth Policy Institute have a great little essay on bottled water.

If you want to kill off bacteria in water then SODIS method sounds like an exceedingly easy method to follow. Basically, just put the water in a clear bottle on your roof for six hours of daylight, heat and UV radiation kill the bugs.

Choice have an article on bottled water that has a more comprehensive list of bottled water prices taken from a number of stores around Sydney in March 2005. The median price is reduced somewhat to about $1.15/L. Assuming there has been no recent price rise, this brings water into line with softdrink pricing ... which is still freaking insane for something that the company adds so little value to. Frankly I don't think pricing is worth more investigation other than collusion for price fixing.

More recently PBS have an article about bottled water looking at just how safe the water is and where it all comes from. Mmm, can you say SCAM.

Conclusions: Bottled water has a very high stupidity tax on it, that is being collected by the beverage companies. It is OK to be stupid every now and again; forget to bring your own water once in a while, but you have to learn to BYO or you'll just be funding the next Beverage Company junket.

My recommendations:

• Get a water filter.
• Change your water filters regularly.
• Avoid buying bottled water where possible, BYO.
• Don't buy softdrink in cans.
• Buy Pepsi instead of Coke, Pepsi-Max instead of Coke-Zero
• When BiLo has 2L Pepsi-Max on special for $1.27 then buy them all!

And remember "that human blood is 95% water" (or maybe 83%), the other 5% is pure evil.

Bottled Water Lobby’s Misinformation Campaign Oct 2008

Bottled-water sales begin to dry up Aug 2009

YouTube

YouTube is a phenomenon. Anyone can post their video up on the net for anyone else to watch. 99% of the content is complete rubbish, there are only a couple gems, ah but what gems they are.

And the Evil Easter Bunny is just a great tribute to amatuer film. Kevin Smith did a great spoof of the junk on YouTube included in his Clerks II Behind the Scenes Special which should be rated not suitable for people to watch (this Special not the movie).

Search for your favourite people like Bill Gates and get great videos like Bill Gates & Napoleon Dynamite (helps a LOT if you have seen the movie "Napoleon Dynamite").

Seek and ye shall find.

Actually that's about it.

So what is the attraction to YouTube? Well. Boredom I guess. Seeing what other people do when they are bored. Damn this completely discovered world! You need a double PhD to do any real exploration these days. With no excitement of discovery we could watch YouTube or spray paint a building. These are the choices.

I have heard some rumours that good people at PhotoBucket are moving towards a YouTubesque interface and there are claims from certain podcasts that I listen to that Photobucket have a similar upload rates to YouTube but all I see is a new option to upload video.

Poetry

When you're feeling mellow and creative and you don't have a camera then poems can be an easy outlet for those creative juices or even a distraction with the sweet endorphin burst at the end when you think you have done something particularly clever with words.

Throw in some math and you get things like poems based on the fibonacci sequence and more rules to better "fibs". Slashdot it and the nerds provide a plethora of good examples. Kind of like haiku except to a different beat.

Then there is the poetry based on spam. I've always wanted to do that, the trouble is that I would actually have to read the spam, so my brain is having a war with itself and unfortunately the clever side just makes the "read the spam" side forget.

This is a good way to point at the now unupdated SatireWire which held an annual spam competition. SatireWire also has gems like "Australia gets drunk, wakes up in North Atlantic". Rather than being creative at this point, I am going to reproduce a spam poem here:

The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my credit and consolidateth my debts,
For as little as $1,750,
If I act now.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for thou art with me,
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
And can now be 50 Percent Larger in Three Weeks.
Guaranteed.

There are plenty of other examples of spam poetry if you want to google around like Spam Haiku and Kristin's site.

The logical progression of this is the combination. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my original work (stolen from the subject titles of spam email that I have received):

Spam Fibonacci Poetry

Stock
Buy
Invest
Dollar falls
Great portfolio
Education is not needed

Says so much doesn't it?

Shriek
Alert
Bedroom
Pharmacy
All your online meds
Chemical assisted lifestyle
Viagra, Cialis, Xanax, Valium, Soma

That hurt as much to write as it does to read.

This is not to be confused with the spammers attempting to use poetry to get past spam filters.

So all of this is really an attempt to give you the background for another comic I created. You'll notice the dramatic changes to the background are similar to the dynamic range of the characters' physical expression. You probably read the comic first right? Unless I have put so much text in here that it scrolled of the bottom of the screen. Sweet!

Make your own comic online

Back in the day, when we were first thinking about POP1, we wanted to have a cartoon featured. None of us had even a modicum of artistic skill but we all thought we were fairly witty. This simple online tool Strip Generator allows you to create very basic comic strips without much fuss. There are some shortfalls, like you can't change facial expressions and there is only a very limited set of "items" but you can usually still get across what you want and damn if it aint fun. Just look at my example - it is the same image in each frame; minutes to construct. I made two more comics based on almost the exact same background unchanged. Creative.

Of course you could do a similar thing using clip art and whatever graphics package you might have. People have recommended Comic Life for the Mac which takes your digital images and lets you arrange, title and balloon them like a comic (I am tempted to try it out).

Well it is either use something like this Strip Generator or I am going to have to buy a Wacom Graphire4 and get my drawing skills up to muster. I may still do that.

Also check out Pixton.

read more | digg story

20 years later: Right, stripgenerator disappeared sometime around 2015 I think. The hosting company for POP1 apparently didn't pay their bills and the new host ransomed our data at a huge cost, which we would not pay, so we lost months of posts - and with it, the desire to continue. My personal web page host decided they didn't want to do that anymore, wouldn't relinquish control of the domain, wouldn't even redirect a sub-domain name to another host; so my decade old site that was referenced all over the place (including Wikipedia) simply vanished, nothing I could do. Digg became a toxic cesspool and died. Plasq and Pixton are still around. AI has become reasonable enough to produce consistent characters between frames, if you're comfortable with using those services.