A Conservative Techie

As I saw on GOP Bloggers today, Tom Delay officially called out Matt Lauer for his bias in dealing with the recent problems the GOP has had with Senators and Representatives and scandals.  While we do have some problems in our own house to clean up, which means not elect these people again, it seems we have slightly less problems then the Democrats do, becausee we don’t re-elect people who have issues/scandals.

I think Delay hits the nail on the head with his comments:

DELAY: Well, I hate to say this Matt, but you just showed the problem, the double-standard, and you just participated in it. You listed a whole lot of scandals that involve the Republicans but you didn’t mention one Democrat.LAUER: But you didn’t hear me. I also just said do we only have two bad apples or is there a case of an entire party embroiled in scandal?

DELAY: I think in your premise if you had listed all the Democrats that are having problems right now it would have been different. You see the Democrats re-elect the people with their problems; the Republicans kick them out. If you look at what’s going on, it’s how you handle it as a party and as a political group.

For a complete video, check out Tom Delay’s site and watch for yourself

In a suprise, the new release of Ubuntu 8.04 was announced today by the wonderful community manager Jono Bacon.  In a blog post, we get to read the next version of Ubuntu, the Hardy Heron, will be the next Long Term Support, which means 5 years of support for the product.  Part of the suprise is these announcements usually come from our SABDFL, Mark Shuttleworth, but instead have come from the community manager. 

While I excited to hear the name of the new release and the official announcement that it will be a LTS, long rumored, I was a little disapointed it was made at the time it was.  I don’t even feel like 7.10, the Gutsy Gibbon, is completly finished and baked yet.  There still are some bugs, including problems with the free flash plugin and Konqueror and possible issues w/ OpenOffice.org.  Also missing from this anouncement was a vision, some form of “goal” to shoot for.  When Mark made his previous announcements, there always seemed to be some vision casting done, which would help guide where the release would go to and target.  I didn’t see that in this release.  But maybe someone can correct me?

I post some comments, read a lot of articles and vote quite often on Juice, but don’t understand how the voting works. I mean I understand the need to limit people spam voting to get points for the rewards, but how do you calculate the only 5 times in 24 hours. I’ve talked several times with the admins but still don’t understand how the process works.

So i read at least 5 posts today at work. I voted on at least 5 posts before 5pm EST. However tonight at 8:30 EST and 9:30 EST I tried to vote again but apparently haven’t passed the 24 hour time frame? What time zone does this magical 24 hour number exist in? Do I have to wait until Mountain time, which Altiris is in? Or does it go by the 24 hour clock? Or as hours pass do I get to vote again?

I mentioned earlier the Japanese version of the Official Ubuntu book, but on his blog, Mako mentions a Spanish and German version of the book.  Don’t mind me whoring for a copy of these different language books, if I you could point me in a direction to get one of these?

In a post that I read through the Ubuntu Planet, Tristan Rhodes argues for unifying the different types of (X)(K)Ubuntu in to different names such as Ubuntu School Edition to replace Edubuntu, Ubuntu Lightweight Desktop Edition would replace Xubuntu, and finally Ubuntu Desktop Edition with KDE would replace Kubuntu.

I disagree, I think these names and brands are currently too well established to change.  Maybe if Ubuntu was still known as No-Name, thne we would be able to create these types of names.  Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Edubuntu are all too established players to change the name.  It is too late in the game. 

Besides I think these names place them in a “lower” position then they really are.  By changing the name it seems you you are a creating a second tier of citzens in the distribution world which Edubuntu, Xubuntu, and Kubuntu are certainly not.  I thinkyou are doing a great disservice to the community that is built around the different version.

I also agree with what Freddy says in his blog post as well

I’m not a big fan of Mr. Bonds, but you have to admit, he has great skill and has accomplished something amazing with (as of now) tying Hank Aaron’s record.  I’ve read a lot of blogs and stories in regards to his alleged steroid use, but still now matter how many “roids” I take I couldn’t hit 755 home runs.

 In this article, the author looks at the arm guard that Barry wears that is totally different then anything any other atheletes use.  Is there anything to it or just another player hater?

There are 7 different reasons behind this thinking and I’ll list them, but read the article as it goes into greater depth.

1. Apparatus is hinged at the elbow
2. Apparatus locks the elbow when the lead arm is fully extended
3. The wieght of the apparatus sels his inner upper arm to his torros at impact
4. Bonds performs less well at home run derbies when he is not using the apparatus
5. Apparatus allows him to turn mor rapidly on the baseball
6. Apparatus adds additonal mass which is not available to the average hitter
7. Apparatus allows him to lean over the plate without fear of getting hit.

Does this help him hit home runs?  I don’t know…. I do know he has been hit by over 103 pitches according to Baseball-reference.com

This writeup is a great look at the utility Automatix.  For those that don’t know a lot of new users to Ubuntu often jump to solve codex problems instead of using the tools created by the distribution to solve these issues.   While a lot of codecs are not allowed due to problems with copyright, or other legal issues, Automatix circumvents these problems.

The technical board of Ubuntu has spent some time looking at the problems related to Automatix and now with this post we can point people to new users to show them why to stay away from this problem.

Read the post and learn why you should use the automatic programs instead of bad third party script

I’ve seen several posts in regards to a vote the Republicans won and then the Democrats allowed votes to proceed after closing the vote and thus allowed the Democrats to win.  Don’t know what really happened here but posting some links