Image via Wikipedia

So why the Drupal exploration? Partly curiosity and the fact that Drupal has a colossal user/developer community. You really cannot ignore it. Actually, I would venture to guess the Drupal install base has doubled in the past year. Likely in large part to the evangelism of Acquia, but also from community groups (ie Lullabot, showmedo, Mustard Seeds) which provide incredibly helpful instructional videos and netcasts. Clearly MovableType could benefit from the same type of how-to documentation. Don't get me wrong, much of things I have learned about MT came from stubbing my knuckles and a great deal of reading. Nonetheless, a video or podcast archive makes less mundane tasks much easier to accomplish. Anil if you're reading this please take notes.

Another powerful aspect of both of these modern blogging publishing engines are modules (Drupal) and plugins (MovableType). I really enjoyed the large variety and uniformity of installation that Drupal afforded me. For instance, the basic path for installation is the
../sites/all/modules.. Very simple to unpack tarball or zip archive and copy them to path. Very clean indeed.

One constant annoyance in installing MT plugins, is that the path structure seems to be random depending upon when the plugin was written. Some of the older plugins require that you copy the payload of the tarball to /tmpl /lib /cms /extlib very irritating. I would suspect that as plugins become more 'centrally' controlled that this sort of problem will disappear.

I have two current MT projects that hang around around like an unpaid bill. Action Streams and similar entries. Action Streams will help me reclaim my content that is strewn about the many social networks that I frequent. Similar entries will help readers easily move between earlier entries that are related to some of the current content. I understand that I can create similar entries by creating a mySQL query. Cool very cool, but the technique isn't very well documented. This sort of complexity could be minimized by a simple video. Hell, in the spirit of Open Source, once I get it done, I'll make a screencast and share it with Six-Apart. Once again, don't misunderstand me, one of the allures of MT is that it is the proverbial "thinking persons" publishing engine. It forces you to understand the powerful template tags to offer a much more customizable experience. I'm still learning
template tags and widgets (new to MT4.0).

Although, Drupal is built atop PHP I have not really needed to know much PHP. I did run into a bit of a snafu with installing it via c-panel. I simply dropped down into the commandline and resolved all difficulties. The Schema module even allowed me to interact directly with mySQL database schema, very slick. I'm sure there is probably some sort of mySQL plugin available for mySQL interface, but its use probably isn't captured in a video. I'd likely have to Brad Choate's or Bryne Byrne Reese's blog. I believe MT could really grab more of the install base if they could harness and really foster a community of open source thinking developers, which could help usher in the idea of extensibility and backwards compatibility. Accomplishing this would cement MT as the "people's champion".. Right now I think Drupal has control of this mythical title. Methinks MT has made tremendous strides to embrace community led evangelism. Anil is living proof of this point. 6A just needs to go that last mile.. I'll have more thoughts on this later.

Last thought.. Now that I've compared albeit briefly my experiences with Drupal and MT.
I thought it would be cool to share the unofficial theme music for MT and official Drupal theme music (by Jeff Robbins)..

I think Anil's re-mix is a bit less folksy and it incorporates snippets of Asterisk;-)

Roughly 4 weeks ago, sports writers and fans alike were grumbling about the Bx Bombers inability to defeat the Bosox in head-to-head contests in 2009 campaign. There could be any number of reasons for this problem. To be certain the manager Joe Girardi should take some culpability in the most recent failure. In a critical 3-game set at Fenway, he pitched AJ Burnett on extra rest. He showcased a struggling Chien-Ming Wang and CC Sabathia.
Burnett and Wang's starts were abysmal. The Yanks had been playing quite well, winners of 19 of 26. After being swept by Boston, they stumbled into interleague play. They then promptly lost the next two series to the Marlins and lowly Nats. The bats were anemic in both series.

They went into that Boston series tied for the AL East lead. After the dust settled they were 2 back. Fast forward to 7/1, they are 2.5 back of division leading Bosox. What I have learned over the years is that the division is never decided by how the Yanks and Bosox play against each other. It is certainly how well they play against the other teams in the division and other AL ball clubs. However, it is true that no Yankee club every started 0-9 against Bosox in regular season. If there is a silver lining, they still have 10 games remaining against their bitter rivals.

500 Saves club member Mo Rivera has always lead by example. He has certainly been playoff battle tested, unlike all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. I would venture to guess that Rivera has had more saves under duress than his peers (Papelbon, Hoffman, etc).

It is remarkable how Rivera has largely been healthy during his career. He never seems to be affected by a poor outing (not that he's had many of these). My hat is tipped to a great leader and sure first ballot Hall of Famer.

*Aside* - One day the statistician in me will construct a model that will illustrate Rivera's greatness when compared to his closest peers.

My more recent encounter was much less enjoyable. There were approximately 42 prospective jurors, and I witnessed some poor but hysterical excuses people used to get themselves excused or disqualified from service. Some faked mental illness others simply said that they didn't care to participate. I suppose that I should have behaved in a belligerent fashion, jammed some gold fronts in my grill or bopped to my juror seat. Some people were even threatened with contempt of court, but it did not matter to them. They just wanted out. Perhaps the more interesting development was watching the gamesmanship of the prosecution and defense attorneys.

Both of them tried their best to stack the jury in a way which was most favorable to their clients. So while there were nearly four sets of 14 prospective jurors, at least four were dismissed by the defense or prosecution. In fact, after the dust had settled no alternates were available in the gallery. So, they agreed to seat just 13 jurors. Interesting indeed.

Judging from the first days of the trial, we may very well have 12 angry jurors. Appears to be too much teaching going on. Scarcely, have gone through all of the witnesses.

Image via Wikipedia

As I monitor the blogosphere for feedback on the just released Palm Pre. The results certainly have not been overwhelming. In truth, if Palm is unable to execute this product launch in a successful fashion, it would likely be there last opportunity to reclaim relevance in the smartphone market. I have always enjoyed the PalmOS, as it seemed that they had captured the mindshare of many developers. In fact, Palm founder Jeff Hawkins once stated that Palm purposely wanted their devices to be hackable with the hope that more developers would write applications for their devices.

However, with the recent launch of the Pre, some people have indicated that acquiring the SDK has not been seemless. Regarding relevancy in the smartphone market, there really is much room for the growth in this space, as there are only a few serious players, ie (Nokia, Apple, and RIMM). I didn't mention M$ because AFAIK, they do not make hardware for smartphones. Obviously, they do have a small share of the software stack for smartphone market. Clearly, Hawkins understands the urgency, so he hired two ex-Cupertino executives. Jon Rubenstein is credited with product creation effort for the iPod. In fact, he recently replaced long standing Palm CEO, Ed Colligan.

In truth, the majority of people who use cell phones are still tethered to the flip-flop style phones. Smartphones are still relative new comer and have a much higher cost of ownership. I purchased my unlocked Treo 650 on e-Bay roughly 4yrs ago for $225.00.
Since I have been using GSM/GPRS based phone, I have sworn never to go back to CDMA. I like the idea of a SIM card and the ability to have a functioning device in several countries.
Obviously, I do find the Pre's WebOS quite intriguing as it is running a Linux kernel.
According to other hackers, there is a bit of USB device driver slight of hand taking place, which permits functionality with iTunes. None of this matters to me, as I will never use iTunes, but I clearly understand that with Linux and open standards all things are possible.

There are other Linux based smartphones in production and on the horizon. Perhaps the most notable is the Neo FreeRunner, which is powered by the OpenMoko project. Unfortunately, there were several early manufacturing snafus and it appears that they have a glutton of inventory that they can not exhaust. IMHO the project still has a great deal of promise and contrary to popular belief, there is significant interest in a totally open smartphone platform. OpenMoko is essentially providing you the building materials to create your smartphone stack. The hardware is open, and of course the software is too. You can run any software image of your choosing. This is much more than the GOOG G1 is willing to offer. Although, Android is essentially a Java-based SDK it runs atop of Linux kernel. However, GOOG has attempted to appease T-Mobile by not allowing folks to gain root access. Nonetheless, if you probe deep enough, I would imagine that gaining root access is a trivial exercise. It is possible that Android will win out only because they have the tremendous GOOG capital warchest, and not due to any technical merit. This space does bear watching. Indeed it is a battle for the pocket and not the desktop. Linux can run everywhere and anywhere at any time.

Image by Jamison via Flickr

I've finally refreshed all of the system templates. Essentially updated the old MT 3.x to MT 4.x system templates. Some of you have correctly pointed out that several (if not all) of my archive files had been broken for quite awhile. The truth is that I am not a styles whore, that is I do not find building CSS very interesting. Nor do I care much for themes. I'm an engineer who is more interested in the data and facts. In fact, if I could simply serve up a site that could happily be rendered by a lynx browser I would be happy indeed.

Theming and all that shyt never tickled my fancy, probably because it takes more time than I have at the moment. Publishing platform not withstanding, I tend not to care much about style points. I never blogged because I wanted to share pretty images with you ;-)

Nonetheless, I now have rebuilt the templates and dirify all previous entries.
Soon, I will also institute re-Captcha to address the random but annoying spambots. A number of very cool plugins now help me power the MT 4.x site. My diabolical plan is to "take back" all of my content which is strewn about the global interweb. Active Streams happens to be another very powerful tool that Six-Apart has unfurled and included for all movabletype properties.

After I have "re-claimed" my content, you'll begin to see most of integrated on the blog. Sorta like a one-stop shop for my social networks. After all this was how it was designed to be. I built my social network from the blog, as most of these other so-called web2.0 sites didn't exist when I began blogging in '03.

As time permits, I will continue to make the site more readable primarily for the odd occasion when people actually abandon their feed reader and scan the page outside of the RSS client. Perhaps, I'll even get adventurous and grab a different 3-column theme. These days, I did grow tired of the dark theme that I've had forever.

Image by Roscoe Van Damme via Flickr

*Disclaimer* - The thoughts expressed here do not represent those of my employer
Some of asked me about my opinion regarding some unprecedented times in the auto industry. Both Chrysler and GM have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past 2 months. Clearly, the North American market and manufacturing base is undergoing drastic changes.
There is a substantial amount of acrimony surrounding the tough love stance the US government leadership has delivered to the industry. Perhaps at the eye of the storm are the deep haircuts the bond holders have taken and the scorched earth policy which will significantly reduce the number of auto dealerships.

As mentioned previously in this space, I often watch C-Span in an effort to gain a different perspective. Typically their coverage is not your average talking head. What I have found most interesting is the special hour for the Republican Party. Many of these representatives attacked President Obama for the so-called spending spree. There was also talk of 'gangsta' politics. In that, the gov't just bumrushed dealerships and shut them down for no reason.

Though, I fully understand that dealerships and ancillary businesses (ie body shops, aftermarket, etc) play a large role in the labor market and the auto industry ecosystem.
It is important to understand how we arrived at this place.. 10-15 years ago, the production volumes of NAFTA countries was roughly 16mil.. units. In 2007 those numbers had dropped well below 10mil units. Many economists are projecting those numbers to fall even further in 2010. Obviously, the current market conditions will not sustain these high volumes. Poor consumer confidence, no bank loans, upside down housing market. Need I continue?? So what you have are plant closings and too much product sitting on the lots of dealerships, all dressed up and no where to go.

The irony is that US automakers have historically under utilized their manufacturing plants. 10-15 years ago it wasn't so bad because the margins on SUVs was so deliciously intoxicating. Automakers would put cash on the roof (insider term for customer rebates), and it still would not put a dent in their profits. Times are so hard now, this sort of tactic stings greatly. Hell, even mighty Toyota and Honda have resorted to the cash on the roof strategy to push sales. I digress..

The point here is that market is shrinking. In fact, it has been shrinking for a number of years. It cannot sustain high volumes of autos, thus dealerships must also shrink proportionally with the demand. I understand that this is not a popular stance, but it is absolutely necessary. US automakers have been aggressively reducing their white and blue collar workforces and some are also permanently killing off vehicle name plates(See Oldsmobile, etc). What makes folks believe that dealerships are untouchable?
Yes, I know that these dealerships are basically franchises, but at the end of the day they pretty much have to march to the beat of the industry. It's ugly.

The Saturn brand has been abandoned. Fiat will ultimately steer the direction of new GM. Some people derisively call GM, Gov't Motors. Sure the gov't stepped in pushed change. Methinks that sort of jolt was necessary. In fact, the "jolt" came well before the Obama administration. It came in the form of the Asian automakers (ie Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, etc), the rising cost of precious metals I compare it to the jolt that Free and Open Source Software gave to woolly mammoth behemoth M$. The plan that GM leadership offered was unrealistic and would take too long to execute.
The major points of contention in the GM plan were

• Assumed Sales Volumes


• Company Market Share


• Timetable for TARP Payback

For whatever, reason GM projected growth in sales volumes and market share. Very different from reality. Particularly in a regressing market place. These factors led to the Wagoner resignation

So, the automobile task force was organized to push change. Love it or hate it, something had to be done. One might argue that the bondholders got screwed. Some would also blame Obama for that too. I suppose the gov't major stake in GM will eventually shift to the public after all of the taxpayer debt is paid back. Unfortunately, the bondholders held onto these assets much too long. Perhaps there was not enough communication between the OEM and its bondholders. A couple of scenarios come to mind when I think about the bondholders strategy.
Some probably were misinformed, as they thought GM was too big to fail. Thus, they held out for a huge gov't bailout which would keep GM out of bankruptcy court. Obviously it never came. Secondly, they thought wrongly that their votes in the recent election would provide them infinite protection.

Additionally, methinks that it took too long to get all the parties to pseudo compromise(ie bondholders, labor union, and OEMs). Tough choices had to made. Nobody likes the shrinking job market, but as the North American Auto Market begins to resemble its European counterpart, that is a smaller market share for each manufacturer. The days of one company owning 21%-30% of the market are over and likely never to return.

What does puzzle me is the absence of Chinese. Sure Hummer went to a Chinese suitor.. I had anticipated that the Chinese would be clamoring for the distribution channels that GM vacated, particularly the Saturn network. I would not be surprised to learn that there was a huge effort on behalf US automakers to keep them at bay. Regardless, of what goes on behind close doors, the Chinese will eventually penetrate the US distribution channels. Once this occurs, the world will truly be flat.

Last words... It would behoove those parties that are left standing after the dust settles, Don't think for a moment that it is cool to gloat and pound your chest while proclaiming victory. It would truly be penny-less prosperity to repeat the failures of the past. Take advantage of this strategic time afforded to you by the collapse of your domestic rivals. Clearly the perennial leaders who have demonstrated exceptional quarterly profits are not standing idle pondering their next moves. Are the sales spikes a result of internal re-organization or the collapse of rivals?

I had the pleasure of visiting the new stadium for the Interleague matchup Yanks vs. Phils. Memorial Day festivities abound, I was also treated to umbrella at the ballbark. Though it was a great game, the Bx Bombers fell in extra innings 4-3.


The impressive array of Cisco networked LCD monitors caught my eye immediately. However, the severe latency problems also were quite remarkable. It almost reminded me of watching Kung-Fu theatre, as the audio lagged the video. I wonder what sort of video codecs they're using? Moreover, what sort of network pipe is Cisco using to push the data to probably 10K LCD monitors around the stadium.


Onto the less exciting stuff, the concession stands were plentiful and accessible at every deck. In fact, I didn't have to wait more than 10min for my nacho supreme - $9 ouch.. Once curious oddity was the you couldn't order pizza in nachos line. Basically, the food spread about the entire stadium, no consolidation here. Luckily, I pay for nathan at the ballpark. Err should I say , I don't pay for much.
Needless, to say I was not running all over the place to order food.


I got my mugshot snapped prolly twice by headz working for the Yankees Photo Program. Heh, perhaps they wanted to get some flava for their digital photo album. I was in the bldg for real ;-)


Though we arrived roughly 1.5 hrs before first pitch, I still did not see Monument Park. It seems they stop tours about 2hrs before game time. Try as I might, the new stadium has a very different feel than the other spot on 161St. Something about the old stadium. I miss the acclaimed facades that nearly encapsulated the upper deck. The new stadium seems to have toned it down significantly.


There was only on homer hit in the ballgame and it came off the bat of 1B big Tex.


My thoughts of Bombers 0-8 futility against the Bosox (thus far in 2009 season) will be forthcoming.

Though not surprising, you can appreciate that pharmaceutical industry is a mega-business which does an excellent job capitalizing on FUD campaigns. A prime example would be this so-called swine flu. There has been a huge up swell of influenza claims and other types of virus hysteria.

Moore also does a decent job connecting the government to the large pharmaceutical lobbyists. The pharmaceutical ecosystem is quite immense and there are organizations that simply do not wish to see it dismantled.

My sincere apologies go out to my special guest Robby Workman, as I took much longer than I expected to publish the talk. We had a great discussion and would be happy to chat with him again soon. Consider this show a Part 2, of the slackware series. We talked about everything from anatomy of a slackbuild script to his thoughts on the OLPC.

Lastly, I revealed the inaugural "Hit and Run" segment. Pure bliss ;-)

I still have not setup an 'ogg' feed, it is forthcoming. Thx for your patience. I'll likely use Listgarden to resolve this matter. In the meantime, feel free to simply download directly.

Download Ogg (67.10min || 36MB)

Download mp3 (67.10min || 21MB)

Shownotes:

• College Linux
• Slackbuilds Project
• Slackbuilds For Slamd64 Project
• Slackware Project
• Slackbuild Central
• Slackpkg
• Slapt-Get
• Linux Questions
• Xdg-open
• Checkinstall
• One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC)

Robby's Blog.

Heated debates have sprung up in a few social networks that I frequent. With the ouster of GM CEO Waggoner, some folks have used this as fodder for the cries of dictatorship, socialism, communism. It all seems pretty ludicrous to me.
People must realize that inaction is not going to solve any of the current problems. Yes, it is true that Japan and Europe suffered through disastrous economic downturns and their governments also infused cash with very little positive effect. However, the US is dealing with effects of a constant erosion of its manufacturing base. As I have stated numerous times previously, America is in the midst of transforming itself into a service based economy. I don't believe the current leadership is willing to allow this transformation to occur.

Returning to the auto-industry.. Much of what I have heard is that the auto industry is largely responsible for creating the middle-class in this country. While this is a fact, we must also consider that those jobs were likely first generation middle-class and largely located in middle-America. I'm certain that my pops did not benefit from those jobs. Unfortunately, most of those beneficiaries are nearing retirement. Moreover, the jobs which were created by a healthy auto industry are now being replaced as the manufacturing base shrinks in this country.

So the gov't has two choices: (a) Stand-By and follow the same laissez-faire practices as the previous administration or (b) Infuse capital and help guide the economy in a proper direction.

If this involvement means firing warning shots at CEOs whose companies are squandering taxpayer dollars so be it. Waggoner took a spear for his peers on Wall Street too. Methinks it was more a show of force than anything else. Wall Street does seem to be handling business with an air of impunity.

To be very clear, I am not naive. For whatever reason, gov't seems handle Wall Street very differently than it is handling the auto industry. Not taking the conspiracy theorist stance _yet_, nonetheless, it does bare watching. Since we're talking about gov't intervention. What if both GM and Chrysler go the route of Chapter 11 restructuring? Perhaps it would be best to explain what will not happen. You will not witness anything remotely similar to what occurred with the now defunct Circuit City. Despite what some pundits believe, autos are not commodity items per se. Sure you can obtain off-the-shelf replacement parts fairly easily. Auto service parts are supposed to be available for 10yrs after the discontinuation of a particular model. So, service parts are not the major concern. The supporting value stream that is the ecosystem is at risk when a major player goes bankrupt. Obviously, many people lose their jobs and supply base suffers immediate problems. Most of the suppliers have not been paid the debt owed to them by both GM and Chrysler. This was done to help address the bond holders and potentially pay back the government (senior debt). So there could be a very large sucking sound after the death of a GM or Chrysler.

IMHO, Chrysler will never be a viable company under any economic conditions. I assert that the Obama administration latest actions would suggest that my thoughts are shared. Hence. the thirty day ultimatum given to Chrysler. heir products are to monolithic and the company has done very little to improve its so-called killer app, the HEMI.

GM has been given 60 days because it would appear that the administration believes it to be more viable. The GM restructing plan actually was very instrumental in the ouster of Waggoner . Much of the change was pushed out to 2013. Not very aggressive at all. GM also projected 13.5 million sales volumes as late as 2012. That is an overly optimistic forecast considering that sales volumes for 2009 are roughly 9 - 10 million units. Competition and economic conditions will certainly keep sales volumes far lower than GM projections. You don't need a degree from HBS to see through the smoke screens and false promises.

One last point on GM, it does seem that the Volt is looking more like a failure and that is quite a shame or sham. Take your pick. There is some noise about the GM / Segway venture, but I see this as a diversion from the real issue. They are not really invested in the electric vehicle. While I know that the electric vehicle is not the only means to end dependence on fossil fuels (ie Biodiesel, hydrogen, etc). However, electric is viable today, but none of the US automakers are in position to leverage it because they do not own the patents for the technology. GM sold its NiMH battery patents to Chevron. One can draw their own conclusions, and also figure out where the once dominant US automaker placed its priorities when it produced the EV1. However, as oil prices declined and profits were plentiful they gave up leadership for the rich profits. All US automakers fell prey to this shortsighted way of thinking. Do your own research and refute me if you wish.

Anyway, what industry will spawn the next generation of middle-class Americans? The new middle as it were. Thomas Friedman has his own ideas; however, it is clear that the automotive industry will not assume that leadership role again. Perhaps it will be renewable energy? Time will tell.

So, after having to endure the tour through the non-engineering spaces. I was thrilled to get a peek at the CCS, MER1 and AUX1. I was taken aback at the elimination of the DCC, PCC, and EPCC. Gone were the signal conditioning enclosures and seemingly millions of incandescent light bulbs. The consoles and enclosures were replaced by SMCS terminals which are oddly powered by M$ XP. Imagine that you're underway steaming at 40knots and you get the ubiquitous BSOD. That's some scary shit. I would imagine that these consoles have two processors and some level of redundancy to protect the ship from an unreliable OS.

I spoke with one of the watchstanders and he informed me that the system has been known to fail at inopportune times. Nonetheless, he did emphasize that not having to take manual readings with clip board and pen was quite lovely. Each watchstander gets a PDA which has a USB connector which enables you to simply download a trendlog spreadsheet to the PDA. The data is then stored and can be reviewed by EOOW and analyzed for abnormal behavior.

The changes certainly save taxpayers money, as the ship can be manned by fewer sailors.
Apparently with the technical advances and various innovations, the ship's crew has been reduced by one-third.

In case of computer failure, the watchstanders are trained in contingency strategies, that is they are expected to know where every temperature gage is located in there respective spaces. These are done during various drills. Ironically, manually recording lube oil temps and climbing over the main reduction gear was our normal practice underway. Heh, times have changed indeed. I would imagine that preventative maintenance can also be simulated too. It was not unusual that an improperly/properly performed PMS check was the cause of an inadvertent failure on some equipment.

Lastly, the other very interesting development was the introduction of females aboard combatant ships. During my days in the US Navy ('85 - '91), woman typically served aboard Tenders, Oilers and other non-combatants. The only exception was the humongous aircraft carriers. It seemed odd to walk by berthing areas designated "women only" and various other changes. There are roughly 30 females and nearly 320 males. I could imagine 6-month deployments are rather interesting. In truth, after being underway for 48 consecutive days without pulling in for a liberty call. I would have welcomed having a conversation with a woman. However, it seems hard to believe that more problems are introduced when people are asked not to be human. Perhaps some would argue that it is no different than corporate America.. Being confined to small and tight quarters is very, very different. Perhaps if the numbers weren't so lopsided, there would be fewer tempations? Who knows.

There were many changes aboard the old boat, very good to see her for one last time.