IM2 | OQP

2005/09/30

Trop de ***** / Too much ****

Filed under: English, Français, real life Robin @ 10:02 (8865 lectures)

Je vais changer d’email mardi. Je vais changer beaucoup de choses, prendre du recul, etc. Si vous voulez continuer de communiquer avec moi (ça se pourrait), juste à m’écrire le plus tôt possible pour avoir mon nouvel email.

I’m changing email address Tuesday. Gonna make a lot of changes, take a step back, etc. If you still want to contact me (it’s a possibility) afterwards, write to me asap to get my new address.

links for 2005-09-30

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:18 (1023 lectures)

2005/09/29

In the public interest, a book by Michael Geist

Filed under: Canada, English, droits d'auteur Robin @ 22:37 (3377 lectures)

« In the public interest

and it’s creative commons.

i assume you already knew about this but didn’t want to risk it. » — Mike in an email, from London.

Nope, didn’t know ;)

Thanks a lot Mike !

“Creative Commons” here really means CC2-NC-ND. But I can still repackage the files to prevent you from clicking the shrink-wrap agreement nonsense. Here’s the whole deal, all 19 chapters, in original pdf and converted to text and html files, all wrapped in one big tarball. Let me know if you need other versions.

Download In the public interest by Michael Geist, ISBN: 1-55221-113-4.

Dingwall démissionne : De la monnaie (royale) pour faire de l’argent

Filed under: Canada, Français Robin @ 21:31 (1696 lectures)

« En conclusion, j’aimerais remercier M. Dingwall pour les services qu’il a rendus aux Canadiens et lui souhaiter la meilleure des chances dans ses réalisations futures. » John McCallum dans un communiqué à propos de la démission de M. Dingwall, président de la Monnaie Royale canadienne.

Déjà en mai 2004, je mentionnais les grosses dépenses de cette société de la Couronne. Il semblerait qu’après quelques requêtes aidées de la Loi sur l’accès à l’information, les signaux se soient rendus à destination.

Dingwall pourra toujours aller se réfugier en Nouvelle-Zélande

« En ce qui concerne mes dépenses, celles-ci étaient toutes liées à mes responsabilités. Elles ont été toutes déclarées au Conseil d’administration et une vérification approfondie de ces dépenses prouverait qu’elles étaient tout à fait justifiées dans mon rôle de président de la Monnaie. » Dingwall s’explique.

Est-ce qu’on va faire le ménage au Conseil d’administration ? Plus d’info selon Google à propos de l’affaire Dingwall / Monnaie Royale.

Chu

Filed under: Amis, Français, real life Robin @ 17:46 (2501 lectures)

Cette semaine, chu

« parano, condescendant, je délire, je suis bloqué »

et j’en passe. Et ce n’est que jeudi !

Update 23h43 (alors que ça fait trois heures que je me promets de dormir) : j’ai corrigé la ponctuation pour indiquer qu’il ne s’agit pas d’auto-mutilation comme Mathieu semblait le croire. Le comble,

« The username millette has been blocked. »

quand j’essaie de me logguer sur son site pour m’expliquer. Je me couche, je me réveille lundi prochain.

links for 2005-09-29

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:17 (1303 lectures)

2005/09/28

links for 2005-09-28

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:17 (756 lectures)

2005/09/27

links for 2005-09-27

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:17 (933 lectures)

2005/09/26

Human uptime management

Filed under: English, real life, uptime Robin @ 11:24 (1051 lectures)

If you’re new here, you probably never seen my uptimes log, where I also keep my downtimes. And when I say my, I mean me, asleep and awake. Maybe I’ll take it to the next level, it’s been over a year I’ve been collecting this data. Almost 400 days, in fact. I’ll get to drawing a few nicer graphs, eventually or with enough prodding, or maybe some generous soul is going to do it for me :)

« Human Uptime Management Tool

A comprehensive management tool that empowers front line supervision to achieve measurable success in reducing the human and financial costs associated with lost time and disability. The resource has worksheets for managing MSI’s as well as developing a plan for prevention activities. The tool is anchored by the ‘Human Uptime Calculator’ that quantifies progress so that operations can measure the success of their initiatives. “WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS DONE.” » — source : ergorisk.

And something a little lighter, Human Uptime :
« Syötä kenttään syntymäaikasi, niin palvelimemme kertoo. »
Oups, I mean « Enter your Birthdate in the field below, and we’ll tell you. » with this handy human calculator.

links for 2005-09-26

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:17 (781 lectures)

2005/09/25

Why Microsoft Matters

Filed under: English, GNU/Linux Robin @ 07:47 (792 lectures)

I just got permission from Leslie Satenstein to post part of a thread we shared on the MLUG mailing list. I only reformatted it to fit this blog and added hyperlinks where it made sense. Comments are welcomed, as always :)

Thank you Leslie !

millette@waglo.com> wrote:

> Leslie Satenstein wrote:

>> the future, for some file sharing between my xp pro system which I lost to my son, and the linux system.

> I think you got that reversed… you most certainly mean that your
> son is lost to xp. Really !

Maybe if I head back in time and change that ! for a smiley, the universe will be better off. Nope, didn’t work.

> Je suis tres ouvert a des systemes d’exploitation non-linux. Je ne
> vivre pas avec le regle que “when the only tool you have is a hammer,
> all solutions look like a nail”. There are other solutions in life to
> problems then Linux ones. Whether we like it or not, if it was not

Actually, I didn’t mention GNU/Linux, but it was strongly hinted at using “reversed”. I’m not anti-Microsoft. I’m not anti-much-of-anything, actually. But I am a proud member of FACIL, pour l’appropriation collective de l’informatique libre. In fact, I’m president of that provincial non-profit association, but this mail is just me talking. I’ve been tinkering with GNU/Linux since 1994 or 1995, but only let go of my w2k box a little over a year ago.

I believe strongly that all software should be Free Software. But I’m in no rush, and I accept that not everyone feels the same way.

> for Microsoft, the internet would not be where it is today. Did

Sounds like an ad, « where do you want to go today? » You probably mean the Web, because Internet was doing just fine before Microsoft even acknowledged it was there.

> Microsoft have a vision, or was the vison built on Microsoft tools?
> This question, only our grandchildren will be able to answer..

I’ll take a stab at it :)
Content. People. Millions of them. It’s not about vision, it’s about dedicated work, achieved on a scale never imaginable before. Microsoft’s monopoly almost destroyed that with their embrace and extend strategy. Of course, if everyone used exclusively Microsoft products, there would be nothing to embrace. Why would Microsoft let a bunch of random people litter their bandwidth to transmit lame web pages ? There would be nothing to extend. No Web.

The only way the Web exists is thru standards. Just like email lets anyone use their favorite client, server, etc. Standards are actually pretty good in a capitalist world, where true competition exists.

> Then came linux. What is our argument against MS?. Well, MS made
> some architectural errors in their software design, and also, did not
> consider virus attacks at significant., until they fell victims.

GNU/Linux was first on the Web, compared to Windows, which only appeared in 1995, unless you count Trumpet Winsock. But that’s not a Microsoft product.

You heard about Trusted Computing, I hope. Ah, finally, a cure against all virus attacks. Have a look at this short (3 minutes) movie if you’re not convinced :
http://www.lafkon.net/tc/

> And if MS was not so “répandu/prevalent, it would not be taught in
> CGEPS and Universities.

Sure, it’s a monopoly. I’ll get to CEGEPS and Universities when time permits. I gotta put a stop to those classes. Like I said, I’m in no rush.

> Back to Linux. 1) Linux does not have the funding that a “for profit”
> company has, and current developers do not have the marketing skills
> or wherewithall to market the alternative. That is one problem.

From http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/
They found that Debian 2.2 includes more than 55 million physical SLOC
Windows NT 5.0 (in 2000) was 20M SLOC
Windows 2000 (in 2001) was 35M SLOC
Windows XP (in 2002) was 40M SLOC.

From http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2005/3/up6-3Amor.pdf
Value of Debian GNU/Linux. The paper Measuring Libre Software studying the size of the source packages in Debian 3.1 calculates the size of sarge (close to 230 million lines of source code), the use of the various programming languages in which the software has been written, and the size of the packages included in the distribution. It also estimates cost to create something on the scale of Debian from scratch with a classical and well-known cost method (COCOMO) to be over 8 billion US dollar.

But you’re right, that’s just developpers. Marketing doesn’t see that kind of money. IBM poured 1 billion on GNU/Linux marketing last year though.

> 2) The big box stores (Future Shop, Best Buy, Staples, etc. etc) make a
> profit from the software that Microsoft provides. What profit can
> they earn from Linux?

Oh. Well, who says they have to make a profit ? Look at the record sales. They’re dwindling. Something tells me the market is ready for another form of distribution.

> 3) With Microsoft and the “Network Neighbourhood” software they provide, I can easily be setup with
> sharing files on a second computer, or even sharing printers. So
> far, I have not learned to do it with Linux. Do I want to?

I truly hope you get that resolved. I saw a few good tips fly by in this thread.

[snip]

> Today we think nothing about the equipment under the hood of the car.
> We buy a model we like and we go to the specialist garage for
> maintance and repairs. Isn’t that what we want to do with any
> software system. Do we want to be the insignificant number of
> individuals who bit-fiddle?

Actually, there’s a lot less fiddling possible these days. It’s all electronics. You *have* to bring your car at the specialist. And said specialist *has* to buy the 100,000$ machine to read your cars microchips. I’m sorry, but I don’t want more of that.

Think of plumbing or the law. Sure, maybe you’re not a plumber or lawyer. But you can hire anyone qualified to do the work for you. You might even find help pro bono.

If the big companies have their way, you can kiss that goodbye and depend forever upon them to take care of you. In french we say “Il veut notre bien”. Generally, I add “Il va le prendre.”

links for 2005-09-25

Filed under: Général del.icio.us @ 05:17 (681 lectures)
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