"Today, let us talk about a simple, yet another must-have utility in your arsenal. Meet agedu, a small utility that tracks down the wasted disk space in your Linux system. Running out of disk space? No worries! Install agedu and find out which directories or files are consuming more space. Just delete them if they are no longer needed or move them safely to an archive medium to free up some space. It works on Windows and Unix-like operating systems. It is available under MIT license. That means you can use it for free, copy, distribute, and reuse."
"If there's one thing to be said about 2016, it's that it's full of surprises. This year has seen events you wouldn't have dreamt of a decade ago. When I read that Microsoft joined the Linux Foundation, I couldn't believe it at first. There's plenty of exciting news for developers in this new partnership, but not much for Linux desktop users."
"How does an open organization make decisions when stakeholders have contradictory priorities? And what if safety and human life are two of those priorities?"
"RSS site feed
Political notes from 2016: May - August
[ 2016 May - August | 2016 January - April | 2015 September - December | 2015 May - August | 2015 January - April | 2014 September - December | 2014 May - August | 2014 January - April | 2013 September - December | 2013 May - August | 2013 January - April | 2012 September - December | 2012 May - August | 2012 January - April | 2011 September - December | 2011 May - August | 2011 January - April | 2010 September - December | 2010 May - August | 2010 January - April | 2009 September - December | 2009 May - August | 2009 January - April | 2008 September - December | 2008 May - August | 2008 January - April | 2007 September - December | 2007 May - August | 2007 January - April | 2006 September - December | 2006 May - August | 2006 January - April | 2005 September - December | 2005 May - August | 2005 January - April | 2004 September - December | 2004 May - August | 2004 January - April | 2003 September - December | 2003 May - August | 2003 January - April | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 ]
Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link. "
"Henry Ford famously quipped that if he'd asked what people wanted, they'd have said, "faster horses." There are countless numbers of ideas being funded every day that are aimed at essentially building faster horses. The result is that we have available an enormous embarrassment of riches in technology, information and economy - but how many of them are truly groundbreaking or innovative?"
"
Become An Insider
Sign up now and get FREE access to hundreds of Insider articles, guides, reviews, interviews, blogs, and other premium content. Learn more.
Latest Insider
tabtops 2
InfoWorld
Invasion of the tabtops: The new hybrid tablets reviewed
Top 25 Windows 10 Free Tools
CIO
Your step-by-step guide to repairing Windows 10
ted talk
CSO
10 security Ted Talks you can't miss
Hashtag chalk marks
Computerworld
A look inside the Microsoft Local Administrator Password...
See all Insider
Writing a resume means knowing your audience. If you try to please everyone, you'll only wind up with an unfocused and disjointed document filled with unconnected work experience and accomplishments."
"If you've spent much time in open source projects, you have probably seen the term "copyleft" used. While the term is quite commonly used, many people don't understand it. "
"Stop us if you've heard this one before: Comcast has done something wrong to one of its customers and didn't make it right until he contacted a reporter."
[New hacker ethics
Steve Mizrach of the dept. of Anthropology, University of Florida, analyzed several recent hacker texts in the paper Is there a hacker ethic for 90s hackers? (1997). He summarizes his findings in a new set of ethical principles.
Above all else, do no harm.
Do not damage computers or data if at all possible. Much like the key element of the Hippocratic Oath.]
[Linux.ie is your site - if you want to submit something please don't hold back, just read a quick run through of advice first and use the contribute page second. ...]
"When it comes to weight loss, there's a ton of advice out there. The problem is, most of it is terrible, outdated and scientifically disproven. And if you believe it, it could be getting in your way. So let's take a look at the Top Ten Food Lies that keep you sick and fat"
"If asked, what would you think is the biggest challenge facing Linux mass adoption? Jack Wallen takes on this question with an answer you might not expect.
By Jack Wallen July 22, 2015, 8:43 AM PST // jlwallen
RSS
"
"So what might a commons-based economy actually look like in its broadest dimensions, and how might we achieve it? My colleague Michel Bauwens of the P2P Foundation offers a remarkably thoughtful and detailed explanation in a just-released YouTube talk, produced by FutureSharp. It's not really a video - just Michel's voiceover and a simple schematic chart - but the 20-minute talk does a great job of sketching the big-picture strategies that must be pursued if we are going to invent a new type of post-capitalist economy."
"
More good reads
linus keynote
Linus Torvalds: Security is never going to be perfect
Why did you start using Linux?
OS X versus Linux: Which is more practical?
on IDG Answers
If I buy a Chromebook and can't get to grips with OS can I convert to windows?
In today's open source roundup: Linus vents his frustrations about people who design "new and improved" interfaces. Plus: Ten Linux dream jobs. And five open source alternatives to Gmail"
"
Your laptop computer lets you to stay in touch and be productive regardless of where you are. But if you aren't careful that portability can be your downfall.
Paul Mah By Paul Mah Follow
CIO | September 11, 2015 "
Not sure I buy the no-training-wheel argument though :-) Even if they impede the learning process, training wheels make it easy and safe to bike around at an early age.
well, I can tell from experience that the " "wibble-wobble method" works just fine (did with me as with my own youngsters). true enough, training wheels make it easy, however in the long run the ingrained habit of micro-steering as a way of enhancing one's capability to overcome apparent obstacles and innovate in and with the chaotic flow of events is quite the advantage.
There were no training wheels when I learned to ride a bike in AR - you learned or fell off - and, everyone that I knew learned on their own without any problems at all. Training wheels and the "wibble-wobble method" are manifestations of our over-protective (well-meaning, of course!) nature with our children from the 70s, 80s and 90s and now ... I used training wheels with my son until he insisted that I take them off, so he could ride like the other kids in the neighborhood that were younger and used no training wheels and rode better than he did. I'm encouraged by that recollection (if I remember it correctely? lol) to believe that training wheels are a bit of a waste of time and that the "wibble-wobble method" or other 'throw-in-th'-mix-and-see-what-happens' would serve the person better. Micro-steering must be learned no matter what at some point - the subtly of the motion of a bike require it.
"When does the wisdom of crowds give way to the meanness of mobs?
In the 1990s, Jaron Lanier was one of the digital pioneers hailing the wonderful possibilities that would be realized once the Internet allowed musicians, artists, scientists and engineers around the world to instantly share their work. Now, like a lot of us, he is having second thoughts.
Mr. Lanier, a musician and avant-garde computer scientist - he popularized the term "virtual reality" - wonders if the Web's structure and ideology are fostering nasty group dynamics and mediocre collaborations. His new book, "You Are Not a Gadget," is a manifesto against "hive thinking" and "digital Maoism," by which he means the glorification of open-source software, free information and collective work at the expense of individual creativity."
This paragraph - "To save those endangered species, Mr. Lanier proposes rethinking the Web's ideology, revising its software structure and introducing innovations like a universal system of micropayments. (To debate reforms, go to Tierney Lab at nytimes.com/tierneylab." from this article is exactly how I imagine moving our project forward. But, who knows how to do it?
"Social butterflies who shine at parties may get their edge from special genes that make them experts at recognizing faces. Scientists have found the strongest evidence to date that genes govern how well we keep track of who's who.
The findings suggest that face-recognition and other cognitive skills may be separate from each other, and independent of general intelligence. This could help explain what makes one person good at math but bad at music, or good at spatial navigation but bad at language
"People have wondered for a long time what makes one person cognitively different from another person," said cognitive psychologist Nancy Kanwisher of MIT, coauthor of the study published Jan. 7 in Current Biology. "Our study is one tiny piece of the answer to this question."
The ability to recognize faces is not just handy for cocktail parties, it's crucial for distinguishing friend from foe and facilitating social interactions. If face recognition increases our ability to fend off predators and find mates, there is an evolutionary drive to encode this ability in our genes.
To test this, Kanwisher's team looked at whether the ability to recognize faces runs in the family. They found that identical twins, who share 100 percent of their genes, were more similar in their face-recognition ability than fraternal twins, who share only 50 percent of their genes. This suggests the ability to recognize faces is heritable."
"Half a billion people around the world spend more than 20 hours a week "wearing" avatars, that is, using digital representations of themselves.
Did you know that a virtual representation of a politician could be more convincing than the politician himself? That your heart beats just as fast when your girlfriend winks at you from your computer screen as when she walks into the room? That if you make your onscreen surrogate mimic your friend's head movements, he's more likely to do what you say?
Within three years, many online interactions will not simply involve passages of text typed on a keyboard but will instead be rich exchanges involving sophisticated representations of ourselves. Those digital beings are called avatars, and today at least half a billion people around the world are routinely socializing through them over the Internet, for example in online games."