(phone rings) Excuse me (he answers phone) Hello......no, not now......shtoom...shtoom....right......yes, we'll have the watch ready for you at midnight.......the watch.....the Chinese watch....yes, right-oh, bye-bye.....mother
Oops, wrong diary. Diary should be titled 'China Watch'. The Chinese have a clearer vision of what the future will bring than we do. They understand that innovation, creativity, and moving the culture forward depend on open source, free information (just not about democracy), and yes, copying the efforts of others.
While we are busy with our TV Talking Heads, Presidential flame wars, Celebrity porn watch and other trivia, they are stealthily preparing for the twenty-first century.
So never you mind, let another Linux nutcase diary slide on by, and believe that whoever you elect is going to stop the big corporations from shipping the entire US workload overseas. Jobs that are never coming back.
Best to prepare yourself for the coming reality; either the corporations win, and we are locked into their vision of what the world should be, or you take a stand and find out how best to shape our lives and take back the world for a better, more equitable tomorrow. Take a moment from your busy day browsing and maybe you'll learn a thing or two.
Like how freeing yourself from corporate control of your digital life will not only further strengthen one of the last bastions of democracy, the internet, but will also allow you to participate in it, and eat, and pay for health care (choose two).
If Google's motto is 'do no evil', then the other corporate giant in the modern digital world must be 'do only evil'. And when the armed wing of Microsoft US Government is trying to push laws (and being greeted with loving arms by Congress) that criminalize file-sharing attempts (with longer terms than rape and murder offenses), or pushing trade bills that rebuff the voters' will expressed in Nov. 2006, then something is amiss, and in a bi-partisan manner.
I know that part of it is just stubborn pride; of all the people I've convinced to try Linux, their first reaction when I mentioned it was embarrassment..for me. Like I'd ripped a long, loud one and they didn't know quite what to say. But once they got into it, and fully realized how much power and freedom using Linux gave them over their computers and their digital lifestyle, they never looked back.
It's always been the same; when some new and surprising technology comes out, those that have invested the most in it, are the loudest to wail that it will destroy the economy --audio cassettes, VHS tapes, CDs, DVDs, mp3s, the internet, and now Linux. Those that can't adjust try to force inequitable and unjust laws to legislate their outmoded view of the world on the rest of us; and in the end, the new technology wins out, and society surges forward on a new wave of creativity.
The Chinese get this. So do the Taiwanese. And the South Koreans as well. Count Japan in, too. While the US slips further and further behind, in broadband penetration, in education, in technology sectors, those countries are taking advantage of open source to further themselves, and position themselves as global leaders for the post-US era (coming soon to a Green Zone near you).
Head on over to China's version of Google--baidu.com. More like Google without the hassles. Click on mp3, and see what that brings up. Or images, or movies. They may pay lip service to intellectual property protection, but in reality they are so busy sharing stuff that their servers must be close to melting.
Yes, artists should be paid for what they perform, but for eternity? Is their work that seminal that they deserve to reap the profits, even after their death? For a series of shows they gave, or books they wrote forty or fifty years ago?
The South Koreans have near universal broadband penetration; the Japanese and Taiwanese trail by only a smidgen, and many of these countries are adopting new technologies that will further strengthen their lead in the tech world.
Linux is open source, for you to modify, to copy, to share, to tinker with, and the only price is that you leave tired old ideas at the door. Like the idea that corporations should decide what you should do with your music and movie collection; the idea that you only have the right to a pay-per-view or pay-per-listen, and once you stop paying up, all that investment is gone; that you pay again, and again, and again, forever, for software 'upgrades' so that they can buy third homes in Monte Carlo recoup their research costs (???!?).
And the truly amazing thing about Linux is that it's better than what they have to offer! It's about time people gave a hoot about what is coming down the pike in their digital futures, and try to squash Ubuntu bug #1.
Here's a really nifty link that allows you to add more than three hundred (!) fonts to your Ubuntu installation. I'm going to get going on those as soon as this diary is out of the door. Someone yesterday requested a diary on gaming; well, I just downloaded the trial version of Crossover Office, and will put it to the test in the next couple of days; the only things that I ever publish are things that I have first tried out myself. Wouldn't feel right otherwise.
Finally got a new (SATA) hard drive for my main machine, and though I haven't done anything with it yet (posting this from the USB-ified version of the old drive), I am sorely tempted to go with Debian. Or perhaps Fedora 7, when it comes out; the point is, now that I can dual boot on two separate hard drives, there's an easy way to share data between the two, and if wireless isn't working with one drive (definitely the case with Fedora and Debian), I can drag the necessary files from one source (Ubuntu) that is internet ready to the other. Should be fun. Still haven't had time to fix up wireless on the test machine yet.
Feeling confused by some of the language in this post? Wish I would start at the very beginning for you? Well, you can look here for a simple overview, or perhaps here; if that's not enough, you can go to the beginning of my own writing, easily reached here. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I can't keep re-inventing the wheel every single day. And of course if you have any questions about your own distro install, or other tech-related items, then drop a comment.
And here's Suse 10.1 and more treats for the eyes: