This Old Blog

Orlando Diary There's an interesting article on Ars Technica that discuses about what separates us from other animals and makes us uniquely human. Attributes cited in the past include our use of tools, our use of language, and our domestication of animals and farming. Now, it looks like there's another, more fundamental attribute, that just so happens to underpin and tie all of this together: our "animal connection". According to this new theory our connection with animals started nearly three million years ago, when we first invented stone tools and used them to hunt other animals. We had to learn about animals to effectively hunt them, and we also had to learn about the other animals that were our competition, the other carnivores. It was that understanding that helped the next stage, the domestication of animals (tied with farming). Our understanding of animals also  provided inspiration for our first use of symbology (such as the Palaeolithic cave paintings)....

Orlando Diary Call me a tree-hugging, left-leaning enviro-kook, whatever will make you feel superior. Starting with this post I'm going to add a new tag and subject; the environment. It'll start with what I shocking about Orlando, and then add links to articles about the Bigger Picture around the world. Living in Florida since 1984, I've seen too much change; whole swathes of the land mowed down and covered with massive development (parking lots, shopping centers, highways, subdivisions...), all in the name of economic growth and progress. The photo on the right was taken while out walking to a sub shop close to where I work. It was lunch time. What caught my eye was the contrast of the billboard standing about the trees, trees which had been trimmed to give full exposure to the billboard, with it's admonition to eat less and exercise more, standing over a street full of supersized vehicles with just one driver/vehicle, who probably never gave the billboard and it...

I'm on record (see " OpenSolaris is here to stay " from May 2008) as saying that OpenSolaris was here to stay, and even thrive, as an open alternative to Linux. Unfortunately, some two years later, it now looks like history is ready to prove me wrong. I really wanted OpenSolaris to succeed. Up until 2007 I was a pretty happy proponent of Linux, preaching its benefits and the joy of using various distributions such as openSUSE, Ubuntu, and Mandriva. But some time around the middle to latter part of 2007, Linux's overall quality began to decline; updates to distributions released in the early part of 2007 (openSUSE 10.2, Ubuntu 7.04) were suffering breakages in various packages and the loss of certain capabilities. I became less enchanted with my distributions of choice. Then I stumbled onto OpenSolaris, specifically the Project Indiana Developer Preview, which I wrote about . Later in 2007 I ran a mini-comparison between openSUSE 10.3, Ubuntu 7.10, Fedora 8, and th...

Apple's been in the news lately, starting earlier this year with it's loss of an iPhone 4 prototype in a bar , through the release of the iPhone 4 , the iPad , Antennagate and finally the latest story; the librarian of Congress rules that it's OK to jailbreak your iPhone (and just about any other device you purchase). Before we go wallowing about in our  Schadenfreude over Apple's apparent missteps, let's all take a moment to reflect upon the following important fact concerning Apple: in July 2010 Apple reported fiscal third quarter net income of $3.25 billion, or $3.51 a share, on revenue of $15.7 billion. Woah ! No matter how much Apple is disliked in certain quarters, or how disenfranchised you may feel over not being able to do with your iToy as you see fit ( and I raise my hand to signify my displeasure ), Apple is so popular right now they can't make product fast enough to satisfy demand, especially in the portable device market, especially with th...

There is a tradition amongst the hard-core Linux aficionados to extol Linux's various virtues as a list of 10 or more reasons to substitute (as in "dump") an existing Windows installation with Linux. There's no reason to point them all out; a simple Google search (" 10 reasons to use Linux ") will provide you with such lists stretching back through the years, as well as hours of entertainment. One very recent list caught my eye over the weekend, published by PCWorld. Their article, " Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux ", seems to have hit a nerve with me. Normally I just ignore such journalistic pap, since the majority of it comes courtesy of one ill-informed blog or another (such as this one). But in this instance a "real" publication put some time and journalistic "credibility" into this list, which places it in front of a wider audience than the typical blog poist (again, such as this one). So let's consider al...

Orlando Diary 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth , and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. KJV, Genesis 1, verses 26-28 Since April 22nd I have been watching with a a growing sense of horror as Transocean 's Deepwater Horizon exploded, sank, and left a well spewing millions of barrels of raw crude into the Gulf. The disaster has been a constant part of CNN, with a live link to the spewing well place on CNN's front page since late April. It's...

I'm on a roll here. Another review, this time reviewing the 40-150mm kit zoom + MMF-2 adapter on micro four-thirds. While I fell in love with the 17mm, I'm not so happy with the zoom combination, especially the adapter. Read the review, I know you want to.