MrCopilot

7 Thoughts on patents, copyright and promoting progress of science and the useful arts.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:17:28 PST

The Congress shall have Power…To promote the Progress of Science
and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors
the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8

The subject matter sought to be patented must be sufficiently different from what has been used or described before that it may be said to be nonobvious to a person having ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the invention. USPTO

Hi there, I'm MrCopilot. I develop solutions, usually involving a general purpose computer and some clever arrangements of words and numbers. I am a product of the digital age, I grew up with technology in an era when it was just peeking its head into homes and business. I recall the brief flirtations with red LED watches, laser discs, the advent of the home computing, networking, email, 300 baud BBS ..., and on through to the present day where everyone is interconnected by multiple devices per person. I have come to understand a few things that are seemingly nonobvious to the major players in the information technology industry based on the current court dockets.

1) Software is already covered by Copyright law.

Program = collection of words, numbers and symbols.

Book = collection of words, numbers, and symbols.

Both offer the Author protection for his "writings" as defined above. Many tend to depend on that protection in the free software and open source world that I prefer to live in, and many more depend on it in the closed source world that I tend to not visit often. It needs no further protection. You can't use it unless I give you permission. Feel free to implement your own version or licence it under my terms.

2) No piece or collection of software is an invention.

It is software. It is writings, it is math, it is function.

That interpretation immediately precludes the issuance of any Software Patent. Unfortunately, that interpretation has not been the prevailing one by those in charge of issuance. Consequently we have battles in courts across the country about whether a programmer can develop utilizing in-app payments, device manufacturers having to change software because it allows a user to slide to unlock or universally search their device and internet.

3) It is all obvious.

Every single piece of software ever written could be written by any other programmer of ordinary skill in the area of technology related to the software. The level of sophistication, abstraction, design, and elegance would vary, but given the same input nearly all competent software developers can accomplish whatever is asked.

4) General Purpose Computing promotes the useful arts. Limiting their functions, development, deployments and sales does not.

Any software designed to run on a general purpose computer should be free from patent infringement as by definition of its use it is promoting the useful arts. Banning the import and sale of a general computing device based on software it contains is as ludicrous as banning a book for the ideas expressed as to similar to previous works. Essentially, "You can't sell a dictionary, We already sell a dictionary." The implementation of an idea may be patented, but the idea may not. and yet, that is what I see in every software patent case I come across.

5) Software & Hardware development move at different time frames from each other and "real time".

The current Patent grant of 20yrs is 4 to 10 lifetimes in the technology world. 5yrs is ancient in terms of hardware, The useful lifetime of a typical "novel' software innovation is limited by what it runs on and the constraints of the day. New interfaces, increases in computing power, memory capacity, easy networking and other improvements render old solutions unnecessary and obsolete sometimes in the time frame of months. In software we keep what we need, and incrementally improve it, but also cull out the cruft, thin out support for ancient hardware and disused protocols. Extended exclusivity of a certain function, feature or description implemented in software ensures it will never be useful to anyone but the patent holder, in other words the opposite of progressing the useful arts.

6) Patents have become weaponized.

A competitive advantage can be gained by disrupting normal operations of your competitors with long, costly legal battles and filed injunctions across the globe (even when you have no actual hope in winning in the end). If you can afford it and they can't. If you can get a temporary ban, well, than that is even better for the bottom line. Patent abuse is as old as patents themselves. The modern equivalent is something far worse, far more destructive to actual innovation than any abuse seen before.

7) Only Congress has the power to affect the changes required to solve this problem.

They set the rules, the limits, the renewal fees and time frames through legislation. That gives you the voter a lever to use to help solve this problem. This gives me both hope and dread. Hope that the problem rises to the level of congressional action (no easy feat), Hope that enough people pay attention for a minute to whatever godawful first draft comes outta the House subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, and properly raise SOPA type hell. Yes, it is really Chaired by Ben Quayle! Dread rising...

Fortunately many agree that there is a problem. The scope and severity is debated internally but many are of the opinion that something must be done and debates over possible solutions are occurring regularly.

SCU put on a lovely conference about what can be done.
http://law.scu.edu/hightech/2012-solutions-to-the-software-patent-problem.cfm

Groklaw has a decent overview written by a thoughtful attendee.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121124032902769
Wired is running an extended series of opinion pieces done by industry figures entitled The Patent Fix
http://www.wired.com/opinion/category/the-patent-fix/

Facts figures, news and analysis
http://www.researchoninnovation.org/
http://www.ffii.org/
http://www.progfree.org/

Pay attention and make your voice heard.

Now if you will excuse me I have some useful arts that need promoting.

-MrCopilot

Onlive Desktop or Windows for Android

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:13:38 PDT

OnLive Desktop is an Android or iOS App that gives OnLive users their own Windows 7 machine in the cloud. For free users have touch enabled desktop access, Microsoft Office, and some cloud storage.

Why? Full versions of Microsoft Office that will render and edit your documents with perfect fidelity, if you are in to that sort of thing. Also you'll be running a fresh clean Windows install, remember what that was like?

If you want access to speedy flash enabled browsing on your tablet, or customized desktop, be prepared to shell out $5 a month. Might be worth it to you if your tablet has a fruit on it.

Upon loading, the os syncs your Documents folder to your user account. You can upload files and documents at files.onlive.com. Which would seem a fairly painless way to test cross platform websites during development on the go. IE will let you browse local html files. It certainly less stressful than trying to run a vm on your hardware.

Unfortunately running foreign exes is a no- no. So if running portable apps or testing your own is important, that will cost you 9.99 a month. Bummer, really wanted give Blender a spin. Plan details.

Windows on a tablet is even less attractive proposition than Windows on a desktop. The technology is interesting, but with Windows as the only non enterprise consumer option, the appeal wears off rather quickly for this user. Something tells me OnLive Desktop could be an interesting tool for developer testing purposes, if the chains were loosened a bit. As it stands, stick with their gaming service which has the good sense to hide the Windows running underneath.

-MrCopilot

OnLive Cloud Gaming for Android, PC Gaming is Dead, Long Live PC Gaming.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 18:12:12 PDT

Abstraction is a prime mover of technology. Innovation gets all the press, but more often than not, that innovation is actually just abstracting away of existing technology. So it is with OnLive.
In a sentence, OnLive is an instant on subscription service for streaming PC Gaming.

The key abstraction here was to pull the hardware requirements away from the customer. The client has the requisite screen, input and sound hardware, and OnLive has the hardware that runs the game, and the software to stream the game video and audio to your screen and speakers as well as carry your inputs back to your game. Similar to the way various remote desktop and vnc software works, but If you have used a vnc client, your first thought was probably "graphical performance will be hit or miss, laggy and highly unpredictable." That is where OnLive has spent its R&D dollars over the last few years. Compression and optimization, to allow multitudes of gamers access to a fairly sizable and eclectic library of pc games. In addition to trailers and allowing users to become spectators and cheer or jeer the players for free, Onlive allows free timed trials of many games, a definite improvement over relying on reviews and boxart as your purchasing metric.

Users are given a chance to have or watch a real players experience and decide whether this is or is not your type of fun. Since they are just streaming the game to you, streaming the video to multiple clients needn't even require that much technical wizardry, It is highly impressive to use though.

OnLive has either very deep pockets or very favorable developer licensing terms, probably both. A look at the breadth of content available and the various pricing levels shows a depth of target market strategy that is kind of brilliant. OnLive checks all the focus group boxes, no matter whether you are a Mac, PC, iPad or Android Gamer. None of the above, no problem, they sell a console or a seperate controller too.

What kind of Gamer Are You?

Rental Gamer Day passes 2.99 5.99
Subscription Gamer Netflix: 9.99 all you can game 150 game play pack.
Purchase Gamer: Full Game at varying discount prices 4.99-54.99
Bargain Bin Hunter: Frequent Bundle Sales and Discounts
FreeLoader Timed Trials
IndieGamer Nice library of Indie Hits and releases
Parent: Instant Library Play Pack + Console

OnLive Play Pack gives you access to over 100 games pulling from every genre for about the price of 2 AAA games a year, $9.99 a month. Not bad if you have always on internet with a decent speed above 3Mbits recommended.

Lets take a look at the OnLive Gaming experience for Android. (Android Market)

You get 2 choices of Android client. Spectator Only, works well on our Logitech Revue for a bit of gaming voyeurism on the big screen.

Fully compatible Android devices allow actual gamelplay. OnLive is quick to point out they are adding more tablets and phones to the fully compatible list everyday.

While OnLive has customized some games to enable touch only controls, the majority require at least a mouse and keyboard.

The android client is every bit as smooth as on the PC and Mac, same Ozymandias wall of screens showing live games you can drop in and out on to watch or play. Gameplay is surprisingly fluid and the visuals are frankly amazing.

As long as you keep a good wifi signal, compression artifacts are hardly noticeable.

Take a few steps outside your wi-fi zone and things get blocky, and you get warned before OnLive drops you out of the game completely.

Find yourself a good internet connection, an OnLive client and have yourself a afternoon of gaming. Watch em, Try em, Buy em, Rent em, Subscribe em.

With a bit of manual Wine tweaking or the help of the linux gamer tool playonlinux, you can run the client on your Ubuntu box as well, checking off the last box, Console, Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, and Linux.

PC Gaming is Dead, Long Live PC Gaming.
-MrCopilot

Asus Transformer Ice Cream Sandwich and a Bluetooth Keyboard

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 10:16:09 PST

Text input on a touchscreen device is a necessary but painfully evil problem. It is true there are a few on screen keyboards are better than others, high praise akin to the improvement in soup with the addition of 1oz versus 4oz of rat poison. OS vendors and device manufacturers are well aware of the problem, which results in a plethora of on screen keyboard choices, varying degrees of annoyance inducing autocomplete and text prediction engines, and hyper active haptic feedback complete with IBM selectric sound effects, and finally with the admission that the problem just cannot be solved, most devices support bluetooth, usb or/and hardware keyboards.

When choosing which new device to purchase for everyday usage, you need to consider your needs carefully along with your budget. Last year, when in need of a tablet for a development project, we took some time to consider the use cases and set up some sensible requirements.

Recent Android OS
External SD or microSD Storage
Keyboard Support
Large Tough Screen
HDMI Out
Capacitive Touch Screen
Reasonably Priced
Front and Rear Cameras
No Contract

Google handed out the initial batch of Honeycomb Xoom tablets at their annual Google IO conference, making it the odds on favorite. Despite being Google's official Android development device, the Xoom version released for sale was far less attractive, being overly high priced and shipped knowingly with non functioning SD reader hardware/drivers. Briefly the Atrix was a possibility with their linux based webtop dock, but after a few too many complaints from friends, slow to non existent updates and Motorola was off the list.

Acer and Asus had dueling 10 inch tabs with virtually identical specs. Acer's Iconia line offers full size usb ports, while Asus has a nifty if a bit pricey physical keyboard dock equipped with an extra battery "transform"ing it into a first class Android net/notebook with a ridiculously long time between required wall wart copulations.

Foolish nights investigating the many thousand variations on 6 or 7 Chinese designs wrapped in horrid iPad plastic cases, attached to flaky resistive touchscreens and oddball screen sizes with stale Marketless versions of Android. Low memory, low on storage, missing features, every corner cut twice, In a word cheap. The whole lot of them come off the list.

An unexpected sale knocking $99 off of any tablet forced a decision with the Asus Transformer (TF101) winning out in the end.

6 months and 4 timely over the air updates later, Ice Cream Sandwich in the last one, (thanks Asus), there are no regrets save one, purchasing the slate without the keyboard dock. But In a household with 5 Android devices and counting, the expense just wasn't justifiable for a single device keyboard and without impending trips away, the standard battery lasts long enough for my daily usage. However, as usage increased, the realization that a real keyboard was needed to fully utilize the technology productively. The on screen is fine for a quick chat or post but tedious for any sort of long form communication and you can forget coding.

Unlike the Acer and Xoom tablets, Asus has a proprietary connector for charging, data USB, and docking. If you would like to attach a USB device, like say, a keyboard, an additional $40 USB adapter or the $150 keyboard dock is required, leaving Bluetooth as a real alternative.

Once upon a time you could pick up a bluetooth keyboard for a song. But then someone figured out that ant Bluetooth keyboard works on an iPad and therefore should cost near as much as Apple's keyboard. Look at this list from Staples

Apple Wireless Keyboard $69

Apple makes some mighty fine hardware, but pairing it with my droids feels like it would be wrong. Not ironically enjoyable wrong, like pairing Microsoft's mouse and keyboard with a linux box ( bonus achievement for plugging in a wired Xbox360 controller, another for doing so without actually owning a 360.) Truthfully this is one of the finest wireless keyboards ever available and you could do much, much worse.

Logitech Android Keyboard $69
Logitech has been making keyboards for nearly the entire history of consumer computing. Our Logitech Revue's keyboard is brilliant and would be perfect at home if not for its oddly named unifying wireless protocol. No usb port, no unifying adapter. Not to worry Logitech has you covered with a solid slim chicklet keyboard with Android specific keys and a clever case that does double duty as a stand when not holding the keyboard.

Microsoft Mobile Keyboard 6000 $89
They make plenty off money off Android devices they don't really need your $90, which is why you can find it online for around 40 or 50.

We'll pass without review.

Model specific Case and Keyboard Combos
For Transformer owners this option is fairly far off the table. Third party case and cover makers rightly assume if you bought a Transformer and want a keyboard you probably want the Asus keyboard dock eliminating the need for a cover. If you are a Xoom, Iconia, Thrive, Kindle Fire, or iPad owner there is a plethora of folio style case/keyboard combos available from $40 through $199.

Various roll-up, fold-up or micro sized keyboards

If you are pretty sure you'll always be typing on a hard surface, a roll-up wireless silicone keyboard might be up your alley for $49 to $59.

The fold out portable keyboard has been with us since the early days of palm and pocket pc devices, and most still feel like they are breaking if not with every keystroke, then during the origami storage and unfolding rituals. pass.

The tiny remote sized keyboards might be great for texting but would be clumsy to use on a table top and repetitive multi-modal shifting required for anything but the alphabet earns them a pass as well.

Generic Bluetooth Keyboards
You might expect there to be a sea of choices under this heading, but once you lop off the high end close to or more expensive than the Asus dock, the list gets paired down quite a bit to a few wireless standard pc keyboards that use bluetooth, a few mac keyboard clones, and a very few generic tablet\iPad.

With the full size PC keyboards, although your fingers might find them comfy and homey, they do not travel very well. The mac clones are of questionable quality yet priced at nearly the same cost as Apple's aluminum beauty, better off spending the extra $19. So our test bench is graced with something from the generic tablet / iPad category from a manufacturer familiar with tablets, designers of many a case, aCase.

$39 Acase(TM) Ultra Slim Bluetooth Keyboard Stand for Any Tablet PC / SmartPhone
Design
Slim and sexy, the smoke grey folio cover closes with large magnetic tabs that when open attract to form a sturdy enough stand to support nearly any tablet or phone in either orientation. The all black interior and width might fool you into thinking it was made for the Asus Transformer. When closed up, it is so thin that even in its packaging it was delivered in a priority mail envelope. Placed on a flat surface the keys seem to rise up from the surface lending comparisons of a supermodel draped over one of David Coverdale's sports cars not entirely unjustified. When was the last time a keyboard could make that claim?

Setup
Android 3.x devices and higher work fairly seamlessly with nearly any HID Bluetooth keyboard as does iOS. Testing with our newly Ice Cream Sandwiched Transformer, setup was a breeze. Turn on Bluetooth from the status bar, search for devices, select, enter the number on the keyboard and you are paired and ready to go. After 10 minutes of inactivity the keyboard goes to sleep, Android's Bluetooth status notification turns grey, touch a key too wake it back up and the status bar indicator lights blue. As a nice touch if you are currently editing text when the keyboard nods off, the onscreen keyboard pops up, when you wake up the bluetooth keyboard, the on screen keys hide automagically. A small but delightful thing.

Layout and Keys
Very much in the vane of other folio style keyboard cases, with a single piece of silicon covering all the keys, providing both the spring for the keys, as well as keeping dust and the occasional splashes of carbonated beverage from invading its innards. The keys feels spongy to type on but are spaced well and after a while your fingers get used to the odd way each button travels when depressed. The qwerty layout is complete with F1 through F12, del and backspace, and arrow keys. Noticeably absent were pgup, pgdn, home, end, and damn it all, the right hand shift key. Clearly marketed toward iPad customers, the fn, control, alt/option and command keys are to the left of the space bar. An Apple Home/Back rectangle button lurks ominously in the top right corner and function as a Home button in Android.

Android Function Key Mappings

f6 Search works like a dedicated hard search button, within an app with search capability it shifts focus to the search box.
f7 Previous Track,
f8 Play/Pause
f9 Next Track
f10 Mute
f11 Volume +
f12 Volume -
All of the media keys work perfectly and will not interrupt your current app or activity.

Through sheer rote testing, we have found a few more hidden shortcuts for Android as well that are universally available even while within any app.

Command P    opens Google Music App and shows current playlist. (does not start playing)
Command C    opens Contacts App, or the People app in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Command A    opens the Calculator Application
Command L    opens the Google Calendar
Command M opens Google Maps
Command B   opens the Browser.

and Hey, what do you know...
Command UpArrow is PgUp
Command DownArrow is PgDn
Esc = Back

The control and alt keys appear to not function in any apps, (current vim is a bit of a challenge without control.) The habit of shift arrow highlight, ctrl-c and ctrl-v is a tough one to break even after the third time watching your text be replaced with a "c" followed by the futile attempts to undo adding "z","z","z" and realizing that block of text is now also gone into the aether.

Performance
OK here is where the Acase falls a bit short. comfortable enough to type on, it has a rather annoying habit of randomly repeating keys. Admittedly, re-editing occasional double esses is still miles less frustrating than the every other word correcting the onscreen hoists on you. All hail the arrow keys which make quick work of these edits. It should be noted that on at least one occasion, possibly due to a low battery, there was a mad dash to try and stop the keyboard from backspacing over an hour of work, flipping of the keyboard's power switch ended this writer's newest nightmare. So far at least, after a good charging, that issue has yet to recur. Too soon to gauge the battery life, but the ever so helpful manual claims:

Maximum working time:25 days
Uninterrupted Working time:90 hours
Standby Time: 100 days

Not bad from a 4 hour usb drip charge.

The rest of the manual is dedicated to pairing with your iPad. The box however, is quick to point out just how device agnostic it is, and I quote:

"The case with slim and lightweight
also functional to folding into a stand,
FOR A VARIETY OF MODEL TYPES,
such as iPad, iphone 4 and majorities of tablet PC can be using this keyboard,
the main material of Silicone, thickness within 1.35cm,
"ULTRA SLIM, light and easy to carry
even vacating more space"

Add in the extra points for engrish hilarity, the utility of editing and working with a whole page of text at a time unobstructed, a very nicely angled stand, Android 4's elegant integration, subtract the annoying repeating and slightly spongy keys, and Acase still manages to squeak out a buy recommendation, well worth the $39, especially if you have multiple smart devices around the house.

Honeycombs good yeah yeah yeah

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 21:13:34 PDT

ITS NOT SMALL NO NO NO.

Green Lantern Movie Review: Go See it.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 22:41:45 PDT

Ah, Green Lantern, the unsung protector of the universe's sector 2814.
Good Ole Hal Jordan, DC's goto guy when they need boost sales with a number of crossover events spanning several paychecks worth of pulp.

Now at long last parent company Warner Bros looks to the Emerald Knight to see them through the Batman-less Summer 2011 blockbuster movie season. A full length live action feature film with A-list stars and a CGI budget that was out of this world even before the execs at Warner kicked in an additional 9 million towards the end of production. Which incidentally Warner will tell you had nothing to do with some very vocal fan reactions to early looks at the effects, *coughBS.
Full on promotional marketing, Action figures, Animated DVDs, Video Games, Little Paper Rings in your subway meal and Ryan Reynolds staring at you from the chocolate isle at the grocery, you know the works.

In preparation for this review, lets just say, many many comic pages with a green hue were turned over one reviewers lifetime, while another more demographically appealing female subject was chosen having only cursory knowledge of Mr Green and Sparkly.

In addition, the professional critics were consulted to excess before actual viewing. It was the most thorough drubbing of a film in recent memory and the one-upmanship barrage of insults hurled at supporting cast members, its director and herd of writers, was only to be outdone by their near universal fawning admiration of Ryan Reynold's ab-tastic physique if not his gravitas.

As entertaining as the critical review of the critical reviews was, you kinda got the vibe that maybe Warner's great green hope is not only the worst movie of the summer, but quite possibly the "Worst Comic Book Movie Ever!" which in itself is intriguing, in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 kinda way, if you are in to that sort of thing. More importantly at least one of our intrepid reviewers was actually interested to see the translation from page to screen, no matter how mediocre Dana Stevens thought it was and he was paying, so....

The Movie:

Hal Jordan is your every day mild mannered, cocky, defense weapons contractor fighter-jet test-pilot. You know the type, drives fast cars, has casual sexual encounters, not very punctual, but nice to look at. Whilst being particularly cocky Hal destroys his jet and two irreplaceable prototypes, the consequences of which nearly destroys his employer, his relation ship with his ex-girlfriend/boss/bosses daughter/wingwoman, and their potential contract with the government, also destroying the jobs of many an angry townfolk. Hal's grounded.

Oh yeah, there was some stuff going on in space too.
Good Guys are Green and use power of will, Bad Guys are Yellow, and use the power of fear. Big Bad Yellow guy, stopped and imprisoned by Green Guy. Yellow Guy escapes and mortally wounds aforementioned Green Guy. Green Guy's ring recruits Hal.

Hal eventually becomes Green Lantern defeats yellow guy, saves universe. Roll Credits, after credits ending scene setting up sequel.

Of course that description leaves a lot to the imagination, doesn't it. To make any of that appear to make any kind of sense requires a fair amount of esplaining to be done, and splaining Green Lantern does and fairly successfully, with lots of green stuff in space and some excellent voice over work. Guardians, Oa, Kilowog, Sinestro and the Corp. A tiny outline of Carol Ferris and Mrs Samuel Jackson, I mean Amanda Waller, And for no reason at all Tim Robbins as a Senator who hates his son, Tim Robbins, everybody.

What more could you ask? Top of the charts opening weekend, Done.

Was is it a great film?
No. It was at the same time over and under done.

Was it an entertaining movie?
Yes. However you can still feel the studio notes trying to wrench that away too.

Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern?
Works for us. See ya in the sequel Ryan.
Now that all the explaining is over with, make with the ring slingin.

Rating:
Go see it. Have some popcorn. We enjoyed it.
Some of it was really pretty, some of it was silly, but most of it was fun.

Note to Mark Millar, RE Worst Comic Book Movie Ever, Do you include the ill fated Fantastic Four and Captain America movies?

-MrCopilot

Thanks for the reminder, Google doodle. Chaplin is a genuis.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:44:06 PDT

Every couple of decades we are collectively reminded how much of a genius artist was and is the man Charlie Chaplin. Last time it was Robert Downey Jr or Johnny Depp, this time Google video doodles us all.

I prefer the real deal myself. Happy 122nd Birthday Charlie.

This was a new one for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zskO9O3hF78

Mobile blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 15:06:21 PDT

Mobile post from android using Blogger app from Google Inc.

Seems to work well enough:
Painless publishing to multiple Blogger blogs, Check.
Attach images, Check.
Attach photos from camera, Check.
Editting published posts, Check.

Apple vs Everyone.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:03:37 PDT

Not a day goes by without rampant speculation on the machinations and possible motives of Apple or Steve Jobs splashed all over the blogowebspheretubes.

Yesterday, for once the news was just that, actual news. None of that speculative unsourced stuff we are used to seeing. As often is the case with real news, it requires more than a "sound bite" of history to understand the impact of the "new reality". But hey this is the internet, right?

&nbdip;Library of Congress Wants You to Root Your Android Phone&nbdip;

&nbdip;An Emancipation Proclamation for the iPhone&nbdip;

MrCopilot

That's it I'm going back to Windows

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 17:17:21 PDT

I've had it. I can't stand the independence of my PC smugly running for months and months without needing any support from me whatsoever.

I miss the reboots, the re-installations, and oh how I miss the joy of re-purchasing my OS every couple of years. I miss the constant support calls from relatives. I miss the hour a day I spent on my kids.

So sign me up Mr. Balmer.
You win and Season's Greetings.

MrCopilot

If you are in China you cannot read this.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:16:57 PDT

The wise and powerful leaders of China have decided to shield their fragile citizenry from the wretched horrors of words on a screen.

It always starts out in cases of Government Censorship (tripped another flag) that only some small collection of words cannot be looked at. Obviously there would be no point in restricting information that your economy may depend on for growth.

The Chinese government encourages the development and spread of the Internet, and promotes the opening of the Internet to the outside (world). Discussion and expression on China's Internet are very lively, and digital commerce is developing rapidly. The facts demonstrate that China has a healthy environment for investing in and developing the Internet. China will unwaveringly adhere to a guiding policy of opening up, and it welcomes participation by foreign businesses in developing the Chinese Internet."

See, China is still cool.

China has a simple solution, Mandatory Self-Censorship.

All companies operating in China must, well I'll let China explain.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement. We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from Google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we've faced—it's entirely legal and will meaningfully increase access to information for people in China. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services. We will therefore be carefully monitoring access issues, and have created this new web page, which we will update regularly each day, so that everyone can see which Google services are available in China.
Google Blog

Oh thats not China's response, that was Google.

An unnamed official representing China states.

Foreign companies operating in China must abide by Chinese laws. Google has violated the written promise it made on entering the Chinese market. It is totally wrong in halting (censorship) filtering of its search provider...

All coverage is provided via China's official news agency. You can lose quite bit of time reading through the Chinese Embassy press releases, Foreign Minister Q&As. May I recommend you lose at least a few minutes at the winner for all time best government acronym, the Ministry of Science Technology also known as MOST. most.gov.cn

I particularly enjoyed this most-posted LAW while looking for the regulations that were so maliciously disregarded by Google. I'll just quote the first Chapter, but really, go read the whole thing.

Law of the People's Republic of China on Popularization of Science and Technology

Article 1
   This Law is enacted in accordance with the Constitution and other related laws for the purpose of implementing the strategy of invigorating the country through science and education and the strategy of sustainable development, redoubling the efforts to popularize science and technology, raising the citizens’ scientific and cultural level and promoting economic and social progress.

Article 2
   This Law shall apply to activities conducted by the State and the community to popularize scientific and technological knowledge, promote scientific approaches, disseminate scientific ideas and carry forward scientific spirit.
For popularization of science and technology (hereinafter referred to as PST), such ways as may make it easy for the general public to understand, accept and participate in shall be adopted.

Article 3
State organs, armed forces, public organizations, enterprises and institutions, anal Grassroots organizations and other organizations shall work for PST.
Citizens have the right to participate in PST activities.

Article 4
PST is a public welfare undertaking and an essential component of the socialist material and spiritual civilization. It is a long-term task of the State to develop the PST undertaking.
The State supports efforts for PST made by people in minority ethnic areas and in outlying and poverty-stricken areas.

Article 5
The State protects the lawful rights and interests of the PST organizations and workers, encourage them to carry out PST activities independently, and initiate PST undertakings according to law.

Article 6
   The State supports all quarters of society to initiate PST undertakings. Such undertakings may be operated under market mechanism.

Article 7
Work for PST shall be characterized by mass participation, socialization and regularity and shall be integrated with practice and carried out in light of local conditions, and take various forms.

Article 8
In PST, the scientific spirit shall be upheld and pseudo shall be opposed and resisted. No unit or individual may, in the name of PST, engage in activities at the expense of public interests.

Article 9
The State supports and promotes cooperation and exchange with foreign countries in the field of PST.

Now, I'm no fancy city slicker Beijing lawyer, but by my count, The government blocking access to Google's services would seem to violate 6 or 7 of these Articles of Chinese Law, and violate the spirit of the Popularization of Science Technology Law in total.

The State supports all quarters of society to initiate PST undertakings. Such undertakings may be operated under market mechanism.

No Thanks, Chinese citizens don't need the customers sent by Google search or the information found by same. Nor are they secure enough in their national loyalties to view random blogs ranging from technology sites like this one to the weekly habits or fern growers. The people of China cannot be exposed to unfiltered YouTube videos of teen Lady Gaga impersonators and clips of cats and puppies falling asleep.

Citizens have the right to participate in PST activities.

Or do they?

Can you say World Trade Organization? I bet Google can.

No, no, no, the government of China must actively protect its citizenry. Apparently by blocking foreign websites wholesale without regard for actual content.

"Online opinion exchanges are very active in China and e-commerce grows rapidly here. As facts have demonstrated, the environment for Internet investment and development in China is sound," Xinhua

I wonder how much of that exchange of opinion and commerce runs through a Google server at some point in the transaction? Every Chinese language web page that I have ever even remotely understood was translated by Google, and although my count may be higher than most, I'd bet that experience is typical. On this side of the wall, Google facilitates commerce into China. With it's immense population, an increasingly upwardly mobile consumer base, China is as important to Google as Google is to the Chinese people.

As a citizen, I would be vary wary of my government, if it actively tried to block access to the biggest bridge to the global marketplace. But hey, who knows, perhaps the Chinese people appreciate the way their leaders protect them from the rest of us.

If the government of China is to censor me from its people without cause (not cool, China, not cool), the least I could do was to offer my "Lively Online Opinion" on this action.

There is an interesting, but distracting side story with accusations of international espionage, cyber targeting of Human Rights Activists, privacy intrusions, and other high technology skulduggery. China of course denies this fully and completely.

Rather than get bogged down in the details, I suggest we all just wait for the inevitable movie. Somebody call Matt Damon. I was more interested in how the
Chinese people feel about this turn of events. Any of you digital gold farming, boot selling spammers care to comment?

MrCopilot

In the spirit of the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:30:07 PST

I want to say thank you.

I want to say thank you to all the people of the world who contributed to the following efforts, without ever having even met me.

My Employment: Tools that make my job not only easier and more productive but honestly, possible at all.

My Entertainment: Continuing to make it accessible and affordable.

My Curiosity and Education: The ever expanding index of knowledge accessible at my fingertips.

My Creative Outlet: Tools and infrastructure to give any human the ability to broadcast to the world whatever they want.

To list them individually by name, this post would quickly be the focus of the entire blog. Although not a bad idea, (mental note....) So keep in mind, if I leave you out. Thanks.

Richard, Lawrence, Linus, Bruce and Eric, Sergey, Larry, and Eric, Mathias, Aaron.
TO all of you who use, develop, report bugs for, write articles, criticize and praise open source projects like KDE, Debian, Linux, Busybox, Ant, Apache, Ruby, GNU anything;
To all the trolls in Europe, and the Ubuntu groups from here to S Africa, To the Podcasters and Support Sites and Forums, To all the managers, who after being shown, recognize not only the value and cost savings, but also the efficiency gained by having access to the source and documentation and a community. I even want to thank Big old blue, IBM and it's new generation of software engineers freed from the shackles and limitations of the previous model.

In the spirit of the season I want to also thank Microsoft, Thank You for showing me the error of my ways. And Kudos to you for making a nice tidy bundle in the process. Specifically thank you Bill. Thanks for leaving us Steve. Its almost as if you wanted to make the transition easier.

I want to thank you the consumer for choosing your devices based on their functionality and ease of use rather than their Operating System Developer.

So once again, on behalf of myself, my employer and my family:

Thanks to all of you, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

In the spirit of the coming season, I have something I'd like to give to all of you, but not today. In the coming weeks I will be unveiling it. Please stand by,

MrCopilot.com

Les Paul, Legendary Life ends at 94

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:50:55 PDT

Legend of Rock and Roll, Inventor and father of the sweetest sounds of Rock, Les Paul died on Wednesday at the age of 94.

Rolling Stone Coverage

Thank You sir.

Clapton, In Your Honor, on your instrument in 64....

Twitter facebook outage plot thickens, wait, there was and nobody could tweet?

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:41:33 PDT

Quote of the day goes to LeetLuXX0rz a commment on the contuing saga of twitdown 2009.

by L33tLuXX0rz August 6, 2009 5:16 PM PDT
That is quite intense to just target one person. But I guess we can say that although millions of people experience discomfort Im quite sure these were some of the most productive hours some people experienced since joining the social media revolution.

Actually, theres quite a few choice quotes in the actual article particularly the one from google.

A Google spokesman offered this statement: "We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DOS attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services."

Nissan sees a futire in Zero Emmision Vehicle

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:27:59 PDT

After lagging behind the rest of the automotive industry for the last few years, Nissan has finally jumped on the bandwagon, and turned over a new L eaf.

Capitalizing on it's partnership with Renault, Nissan announced their Zero Emission all electric production vehicle dubbed the Leaf scheduled to hit selected U.S. markets in 2010.

Although no pricing is yet available, Nissan claims the MSRP will be in the range of the average V6. While most manufacturers are charging a premium for their electric vehicles, Nissan is considering a leasing arrangement for the expensive battery technology. While the consumer owns the car, Nissan would lease the battery components, effectively rendering the normal economic advantage of not having to pay at the pump a moot point. The added benefit being, when the battery has reached end of life (typically around 10yrs), Nissan would still be responsible as long as the lease is still in effect. I imagine this would give them maximum flexibilty to take advantage of cost savings over time and keeping the (ever more profitable) lease agreement in place.

Nissan claims cooperation with local governments to help build the education and infrastructure required for charging and maintenance of all electric vehicles.

Nissan looks at this car as the stepping off point to an everyday commuter EV not just another expensive toy. With nearly 100 mile range, and a 30 minute charge time, a ton of gadget friendly technology, combined with their possible leasing scheme, could this be THE EV to rule them all?

We'll let you know in 2010.

For more info check out Nissan's Leaf WebSite where they are utilizing twitter technology to answer user questions. Something I've not seen before.

Update: Gas2Go has some more pics and in depth Info, thanks Nick.

Note to Apple, RE Google Voice & iPhone

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:58:56 PDT

Mr Jobs,

As you must no doubt be aware, Google has submitted their Google Voice application for inclusion in your beloved App store, with hopes of taking up a small square of real estate on the most popular tech toy since the invention of the mouse.

Word on the street is that, in your infinite wisdom, you have chosen to reject this application, and I'm sure you have your reasons. Competing functions, network bandwidth considerations, I'm sure they are very similar to the reasons not given for the initial rejection of Skype on the iPhone.

It is well known that you were out of office for extended periods over the last 18 months. I wonder if you had time to watch any of the political coverage as you were recovering.

It would seem impossible, that you were unaware that one of the lead technical advisers to the current administration was one Eric Schmidt, Google Chief Executive and Apple Board Member. Given this fact, one would think that Apple would think twice before tweaking the nose one of it's own board member in such a transparently anti-competitive manner.

Google makes a phone OS as well, as I am sure you know, but not content to offer their services to their brethren only, The Google Voice application for iPhone was developed at some expense to Google, and offered up for use on your platform as well as some other not so picky handsets. Clearly a cum baya moment if ever there was one.

Even as the tech world is now is scrambling to cover the fallout from your decision, the mention of Mr Schmidt's association has not even come up. Odd that, it would seem an obvious line of journalistic investigation.

One well placed phone call from Google's Chief Executive and the questions would start flying. But perhaps I am jumping to conclusions here. There is, of course, no direct evidence that the aforementioned phone call ever took place, It could be that the FCC was just reading the news, and saw a problem for the public and is acting proactively to ensure and foster fair competition. Yeah, that sounds like a government organization.

Whatever the reason, the FCC has, in fact, decided this whole situation is worth a look-see. The finger pointing on whose call it was to deny this little square to Google has already begun. Some point at AT&T, while AT&T is pointing squarely back at Apple.

AT&T does not manage or approve applications for the App Store. We have received the letter and will, of course, respond to it.Customers can use any compatible GSM phone on our network, not just the ones we?ve approved and sell. And they also can use apps we don?t approve. We don?t approve iPhone applications.

Seems pretty cut and dry. Except that Apple has a responsibility to it's carrier partners to deny any app that will negatively impact the carrier's network or business model. An argument could be made, and indeed has been made, that Apple was just honoring this agreement (Which we are not privy to the text of).

So in closing, Steve, if I may call you Steve, what gives here?
Where is the legendary foresight? (Not seeing the inevitability of Govt intervention.)
Where is the visionary thinking? (If the carrier can't compete with VOIP that is their problem)

Where is your responsibility to your customers on this?

Meanwhile Google is not content to stand idly by.

"We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple Inc. did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users - for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers."

Translation: It's coming whether you or At&T like it or not, so why the runaround? Maybe your hope is just to cripple it in the same way as Lattitude.

Thanks for listening,
MrCopilot

Dear Mr President.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:01:43 PDT

To the Office of President Barack H. Obama:
Submitted through the White House Office of Public Liason

I have been researching the development of transportation transformation from fossil fuels to renewable energy for some time now.

As I am sure the administration is aware, governmental incentives do spurn consumer interest and capital investments.

Given the problems facing the American auto industry and the massive amount of on the road "dirty" vehicles, has the administration considered any policy to incentivize conversion of existing vehicles to electric or hybrid technology?

It would seem logical to assume the new energy economy development costs to the auto industry could be reduced by creating and offering to the public "engine" technology that mates with standard proven drive train, braking and chassis designs. This development would help ensure the jobs of many of the American auto workers and suppliers.

As dealerships are cut, so are jobs cut in the auto repair and maintenance shop in the back.

If the the government in conjunction with the major American auto companies would invest in this type of retro-greening technology, a significant revenue stream could be realized for the participating companies with the added benefit of reducing both our carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

In all the debates on these issues I have heard nothing to address the current number of vehicles on the road.

As many enthusiasts around the country will attest not only can this be done, it is actively being done. Their only question is, "Why wouldn't the auto industry and government like to be involved?".

Environmental researchers, Electrical engineers, Consumers and Laid off mechanics would all surely agree this would be a positive initiative.

To reiterate the specific question:
Has the administration considered any policies to incentivize conversion of existing vehicles to electric or hybrid technology?

Thank You, you may view this annotated and with public comments at http://mrcopilot.blogspot.com/2009/03/dear-mr-president.html

Bill Gates unleashes Bugs, No kidding.

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:22:45 PST

True to his nature, Microsoft founder unleashed an untold number of Bugs on the giants of technology during his talk at the TED conference.

This time he could confidently assure conference attendees that the bugs carried no virus.
Yes Malaria, these bugs were a swarm of mosquitoes.

That's about all I want to contribute to besmirching Mr Gates in regards to raising awareness of the problems of Malaria.

But feel free to add your own captions to the picture in my head of Bill releasing bugs.

Here are the first few that came immediately to mind.

"I know, Bugs, Bill Gates, who'd a thunk it?"

"Relax, they're features."

"We'll take care of these with the next service pack"

-MrCopilot

Election 2008:Postscript

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 06:16:05 PST

Just under a month after America's most historic election since the Kenedys, it feels like the perfect time for bit of sober considered reflection.

At tmes throughout the general election, it felt as if we were all part of an old fashioned 80s style grand wager.

Randolf: Isn't it a wonderful time to still be alive, and wealthy, Mortimer?

Mortimer: We've certainly witnessed and profited on a chunk of history.

Randolf: Indeed, capitalizism defeating comunism, the dot com bubble over shadowed by the Internet, the triumph of equal rights over racism.

Mortimer: I think the latter may be a bit premature.

Randolf: Surely, with african americans, and other minorities in congress, on the supreme court, not to mention cabinet posts, America must be seen as an society of diverse equals.

Mortimer: But never the top post. I'd wager a well educated, articulate, fully qualified black candidate with a populist platform would lose to almost any rich white candidate no matter how incompetent a campaign he runs.

Randolf: Would you indeed, I agree to your terms sir, and I think I know just the two chaps for the job.

Daily, we watched McCain start and stumble through as Obama hardly missed a step, no matter the issue

On election night we all watched as the numbers rolled in. Taken as a whole there is a signifigant Obama margin. On a district basis however this was a lot closer race then I feel comfortable with.

Given the incomptence shown by the McCain campaign, it is startling to me how many americans were willing to give the reigns of American power over to him.

Just how close did Mortimer come to being a dollar richer?

4%

Staggering, isn't it? 46% of Americans comprised of those who voted for McCain, combined wth those voting against Obama. My shock at this number is tempered by the majority of these voters seem genuinely supportive of the incoming administration and maybe even a little prouder of America.

Of course, the transition team's swift and confidence inspiring actions haven't hurt either. Weekly adresses, near daily economic press conferences are showing a clear purpose to action that is (sadly) refreshing.

Experts being appointed to advisory positions in the administration may seem like a no-brainer to most people, but it hasn't been seen in recent memory.

Cabinet members being appointed "early" gives us all some hope that there maybe some grown ups in the room during the remaining days of the current administration.

Spend a little time over at change.gov and you begin to realize this guy really does believe he is a representitive of the citizens. The general feel of interaction is "we may not always agree but we are here to listen, and welcome your help."
Which, again, is (sadly) refreshing. I get one other impression, this president has a firm grasp of the role technology can, should, and will ever more play in governance. Having Eric Schmidt as an advisor probably does not hurt.

Even that word, governance has meaning again.
Websters says:
The act of governing; specifically: authoritative direction or control.

Also, refreshing, and not scary.

In summation. I have to agree with Randolph on this one. It is indeed a wonderful time to be alive.

The End of the BSD?

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:17:35 PDT

Bracing myself for another ill conceived, passionate argument for the exaggerated, premature death of the BSD family of Operating Systems, I clicked the following link. The End of BSD

Instead I stumbled across a new definition of what I thought was a familiar acronym.

The term entered the lingua franca via Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker. (Relevant quote: "If he could make millions of dollars come out of those phones, he became that most revered of all species: a Big Swinging Dick.") BSDs are the perennial winners of the game of conspicuous earnings (giant bonuses), conspicuous consumption (giant co-ops and summer homes), and conspicuous philanthropy (giant plaques on public edifices).

Despite the all too appropriate vulgarity, the article does a fine job of trying to explain one small piece of the financial crisis. Making sure we know at least some of the guys responsible have lost a pretty chunk of change. I know I feel better.

Meanwhile, never fear, our government is on the case, even on the Sabbath. Announcing an agreement on details of the proposed plans.

While some lawmakers argued against Congress setting an artificial timetable, Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) warned Saturday that delay would be deadly.

"What will they say come Monday if another major bank fails?" he said. "What will they say Monday if the international markets refuse to buy any American paper? One of the reasons you cry wolf is because there is a wolf actually at the sheepfold."
LATimes

Yep sounds all wrapped up to me.

Details of the plan are:

The $700 billion would be disbursed in stages, with $250 billion made available immediately for the Treasury's use.

Curbs will be placed on the compensation of executives at companies that sell mortgage assets to Treasury. Among them, companies that participate will not be able to deduct the salary they pay to executives above $500,000.

An oversight board will be created. The board will include the Federal Reserve chairman, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, the Federal Home Finance Agency director and the Housing and Urban Development secretary.

Treasury is allowed the option to take ownership stakes in participating companies under certain circumstances.

Treasury may establish an insurance program - with risk-based premiums paid by the industry - to guarantee companies' troubled assets, including mortgage-backed securities, purchased before March 14, 2008.

Source: CNN Money

See we'll all be fine. Continue shopping normally.

MrCopilot

McCain Obama Debate #1

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:29:25 PDT

Politics.

Debate 1 Foriegn Policy

War:
Obama
Get out of Iraq, Get more into Afghanistan, and maybe a little into Pakistan (Couple of Predators don't really count, do they?) Reserves the right to talk to any one at the time and place of his choosing in order to keep America Safe.

McCain
Keep "winning" in Iraq, Keep losing in Afghanistan, Wouldn't threaten Pakistan,
Won't even look at Iranian President (he actually couldn't bring himself to say President) but will possibly invade his country with a Legion of Doom, sorry League of Democracies. Reserves the right to kick the crap out of Iran, Syria, and North Korea.

There were also some economic discussions about a financial crisis, but really, yawn, who cares about that.

What amazed me was how many times Henry Kissinger was mentioned. Giving his thoughts and opinions weight on both sides. I wasn't the only one.

Mcain has experience, he has been a Senator during every military action since he belatedly got out of one. He has some wins and some losses. He has met leaders from around the globe. His only problem is his feverish desire to ensure the Iraq Veterans come home not like the Vietnam Vets. It is entirely possible in his mind that sets the bar for withdrawal so high we probably will be there for 100 years.

Obama did well, McCain, surprisingly (after the last 2 weeks) did the best he could. Almost a draw. Despite the pre-debate premonitions,I'm calling it for Obama, mostly for answers like these.

/Politics.

How Shiny is Chrome? Part 2, The Chromium Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:54:12 PDT

Last week, I mentioned my disappointment concerning Google's Chrome beta for Windows. Mainly that it was an open source browser for Windows only.

Knowing the source is available, It was only a matter of time before we had a Linux and Mac version. Enter Crossover Chromium from Codeweavers 7 days later.

Codeweavers is a company that specializes in Wine development. Knowing Google itself admits Chromium (Chromium is the open source base for Chrome) only builds and works under windows, Codeweavers went to work on getting that build running under wine on Linux and Mac, releasing their modifications.

Kudos all around. It runs, It browses. It is free, and by free I mean free as in free.

but...

It is not really a fair representative of the browser, taking one of Chrome's features and making it a huge drawback. Unlike Chrome, Codeweaver's Chromium takes an eternity to load a page.

Gmail is all but unusable.

FlashPlayer installs and just barely runs, crashing out more often than not.
Even they describes this release as a proof of concept.

Should I run CrossOver Chromium as my main browser?
Absolutely not! This is just a proof of concept, for fun, and to showcase what Wine can do. Chromium itself is just beginning. As the Chromium project progresses, they will be providing more compelling support for Mac OS and Linux, particularly with process security and memory management. Those future versions from Chromium will be better suited for daily use than this version

Yes it can be done, but should it?

This is an all too common occurrence.

I want to run the new open-source, cross-platform, next-generation browser from Google.

I do not want to run Chromium for Windows on my Linux machine. Thanks for trying.

Richard Stallman has shared a few thoughts on Chrome.

The license for those binaries is unacceptable for several reasons.
For instance, it says you give Google the right to change your software and requires you to accept whatever changes they decide to impose. It purports to forbid reverse engineering. It also uses the confusing and biased propaganda term “intellectual property”. (See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html for why this term should never be used.)
You should not agree to those terms.
Google is following the footsteps of Firefox. Firefox has done this since it first appeared: the source code is free, but the binaries released by the Mozilla Foundation carry an unacceptable EULA. ......I hope someone will distribute free binaries made from the Chrome sources. People have done that for Firefox for years. It doesn’t need to be the GNU Project. GuiDoc Blog
Crossover Chromium technically fits that description, and yet, I would personally prefer to see GNU pickup the development and stewardship of the GNU/Linux* port of Chromium.
*See Richard, I do care.

So here is my verdict. For now, if you need to run Chrome on your Linux box, you are probably better off running it in a Virtual Machine. I run Chrome in VirtualBox seamless mode, the performance is faster, and the browser is fully featured. All right, it is not as free, but it does actually work.

If you are technically adept (I'm lookin at you Crossover) please dig back in to it's source and contribute to get Chromium running natively.

MrCopilot

So who do ya think's gonna win?

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:14:35 PDT

So he says to me, he says, "So who do ya think's gonna win?", never having met the gentleman. Seen him around work a few times. As he put down his lunch at the table one up in front of mine, I was only slightly amazed that without any reference or implicit signals, I immediately understood the subject to which he was referring.

Not wanting to politically identify myself, I responded, "I think Obama will probably win", but not in an overly enthusiastic way. He said ,"I liked what I was hearing from Obama but, lately I'm not sure where he's coming from." I had finished my lunch and I left with "I haven't heard anything I didn't like from him, meanwhile I've heard almost nothing I like from the other side." All true and noncommital.

I found myself wondering all through the rest of the day, the purpose of the original question, as well as questioning my wariness to answer.

First, at some point in the American experience, we have switched from being interested in who you were supporting and why, to "Who you thinks gonna win?". It's fair I guess, we all want to pick a winner, and no one wants to be identified as a loser. Which leads to my second point.

Second. The question may have been asked for pure speculation, of no consequence whatsoever.

Or

The Question could have been asked as an attempt to categorize/label/assess, which led to my general uneasiness to even answer. OK, so I'm a little paranoid. But it happens right. Like one of those questions, Like, "Don't ya just love Madonna* ? Right. Later.", But what the hell, What do I care if some Republican looks down or feels incompatible with me merely because I am sickened by what I see from what I believed was an Honorable man.
*or insert musician you personally can't stand, if you do happen to enjoy Madonna

Remember way back during the 2000 primary season? I do, at that time I declared, If John McCain were the nominee, I would vote for him over Kerry, maybe even Gore. People who knew me were shocked.

I realize now, just how much he really wants to be president. He wants it bad enough to find a anti-Hilary running mate. He wants it bad enough to change life long fundamental beliefs. He wants it bad enough to blatantly lie, and thats the one that gets me. McCain sold himself as the ultimate truth teller. The polar opposite of Bush.

If I remember correctly way back in 2000, lemme see, McCain lost. Beaten by a liar, someone who blatantly made stuff up, slapped it on the TV and generally ruined reputations. In the intervening 8 years, you can watch a little more of what made John McCain "the right guy for the job" fall away. With each visit to the White House, with each hug photo op with his new best friend his ideals were eroded a little more.

I suppose we should all understand why he feels he has no choice. We the people, taught him this lesson. This is the road that leads to the White House. He watched another guy go right by him at the exit of the Straight Talk Express.

So now he has free reign, can say whatever he wants. Given this new freedom of not being bound by truth, the un-truths carefully chosen to be broadcast to the masses in the name of Senator John McCain, further erode any confidence you may have held on to in the honorable gentleman representing Arizona. He makes it very difficult to make a thinking person believe John McCain shares my views, will uphold my values.

Of particular annoyance, his choice of running mate. Make no mistake, I want a woman to be president. I wanted it to be Hillary. I voted for her. Mostly because I think Bill should be the First Man. But, She lost, no dice.

Grabbing the nearest conservative female in an attempt to appeal to the Hillary Vote was a stroke of political genius ... executed by morons. There must be 3 to 4 thousand female conservative lawmakers, leaders, judges, etc that would have been a perfect vice presidential candidate. Instead he chose Miss Alaska.

Everyone keeps asking what her experience is. I think John McCain had a very clear understanding of the qualifications he was seeking. I'm pretty sure they weren't policy related. I'm pretty sure they had nothing to do with foreign relations, economics, or ideology of any kind. She Wins. She has won Beauty Contests, Mayoral and Gubernatorial Races. The fact that she is a she, practically wraps up the vetting process. She's a winner.

Man, ain't she though.

MrsCopilot asked me if everyone can see the total transparency in the attempts of deception. I'm not sure everyone can. But I'm sure a lot of intelligent, good hearted Republicans can, and I feel for them. They deserve a better representative after the last 8 years.

But I digress, the point of this post is the question.

To the nameless co-worker and anyone else who is interested:

I think Barrack gonna win.

What y'all think?

ScareFest 2008 Lexington

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:39:47 PDT

This tiny news advert caught my eye last week.

MrsCopilot is quite the Horror buff, with bookshelves stuffed and straining under the weight and bulk of the almighty Steven King and a DVD collection of blood, murder, mayhem and pychotics. ScareFest 2008, Seemed like just to thing to spring on her as a surprise. Stars of Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" (one of her favorite feel good flicks.) Sid Haig and Bill Mosely are scheduled to appear.

Off we go for a spooktacular Saturday afternoon. Lexington Convention center. Check.
Yep that's a Good sign,
this appears to be the place.

Inside was as advertised.

Creepy Artists and Collectible merchants crammed side by side with psychics and mystical crystal salesman,
With back area lined with genre celebrities available for autographs and pictures.

What better way to spend an afternoon than celebrity gawking and rampant discretionary spending. Admission, Tarot Reading, T Shirt, Autographed Photo, a few nick nacks, etc. There were also Panel Discussions and film Screenings in two other halls we did not attend.

Haunting the floor were the assorted monsters and ghouls only too happy to mug for the camera.

The weekend events included a costume contest and a Friday the 13th cast reunion and Screening.

Upon entry, a small reminder is posted informing you that entering the premises gives Paramount permission to use your likeness in an upcoming Anniversary DVD re-release of the classic.

The event was sponsored by Ghost Chasers International, but they were kind enough to invite the competition, Ghost Hunters International investigator an TV star Shannon Slyvia. Nice lady, sold me a shirt.

The guy who drew the longest line though was definitely Sid Haig. Small Children (under 6 admitted free) were in line to have their picture taken with him. Just down the Aisle his cast mate from Devils Rejects and House of 1000 corpses were also popular. CandyMan, One of the guys who wore the Jason mask, Tom Savini and Pluto from The Hills Have Eyes (Micheal Berryman) were talking with fans and signing autographs, showing little wear from the VIP party at the hotel the night before.

What frightened me more than the Zombies, Spirit Photographers or Mystical Crystal Vendors (I just love saying Mystical Crystals) was the line that did not exist in front of David Naugton. This guy transforms "in camera" into the baddest werewolf captured on film, while at the same time manging to make us laugh all through the movie. Here, see for yourself.

That deserves at least a 2 person deep que. All of the emo, goth and teens of the damned seemed more interested in mindless serial killers than one of the greatest wolfman thespians of all time. I would have asked him too, how he feels sitting across the room from the line formed in front of Captain Spaulding,
but I was too busy standing in that line to get Sid Haig's autograph.

I've been to my fair share of conventions, Comics, Star Trek, Sci-Fi, Electronics, Embedded, Microsoft, AMD, Linux etc.. but somehow I had never made one of these. I had no idea what to expect, but was eerily unsurprised by what I saw.

We skipped on a lot of what ScareFest had to offer, I hear there was even a UFO panel. Next time it comes around, maybe we'll attend the whole weekend, and catch a few panels.

All in all, a fun day, and it certainly surprised MrsCopilot, and in a good way.

MrCopilot

How Shiny is Chrome?

noreply@blogger.com (Allen Shockley) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 07:02:20 PDT

Like everybody else, I was intrigued by Google's latest venture.

A new browser, promising to redesign the browsing experience. Introduced by the company who redesigned all of our browsing habits.