jmoiron.net

Fresh off my install of KDE 3.1 RC5, I've been given a reason to use Linux and a reason to love KDE again. Its not how great keramik combined with everaldo's crystal theme look, or how polished the gray facade of my WM makes the OS as a whole feel; its how open source software makes way for innovations that closed source software simply doesn't allow.

Lets take the desktop and traditional taskbar + windows + icons setup. It's been in place with minor refinements for a good 20 years now, and many critics have criticized, as is their right and job to do, Linux for only implementing or emulating existing standards and not taking the freedom to innovate. However, over the past few days, it has come to my attention that innovation in the Linux community; specifically my favorite, the KDE community, is alive and well. Feast your eyes on acard based task manager; an interesting replacement for the "kicker". Then theres a new document management system that replaces the old hierarchical file system with a database designed to make it easier for you to access your files. I'm not sure how it works because I haven't installed it, but any innovation in these frozen areas of non-developement is welcome.

Speaking of new development, at least from my point of view, I discovered some interesting comments by microsoft; in particular, Halloween 6 and Halloween 8 are great. Some of the links off of this page are great; especially the "reasons to hate microsoft" page... not that you need any more after reading any part of this page, but its still interesting to see why people out there harbor an even more extreme hatred than that of my own for the company.

I said I had lost it, but I just left it at work. Here's a link to that page about the double standard in US foreign policy. And yes, all of that is a link. In other parts of the world, people's homes are being blown away, UN aides are being killed, and Iraq is doing a double take at Bush's supposed wish for a peaceful middle east resolution, remarking "it was hard to believe Bush has suddenly become rational". Trust me my brothers, it'd be just as hard for us to believe it, too.

Another cause for quandary as far as our government is concerned is its continual support of capitalism when other forms of government (Socialism anyone?) would be far more secure and beneficial to the people the institution is supposed to serve. Because of no existing national health care bill, and because the rich and republican run our country, the government contracts out its medical work to private companies. This means that the rich benefactors of senators get their post-political donation money deficient pockets healthily relined with cold hard cash; cold and hard because its ripped from the cold, dead, blood soaked hands of the poor and needy. Pushing the efficiency of this capitalist system, a government contracted company has promptly lost half a million health-care records in an experimental digitization effort for military personel and their families. Hot diggity dog.

Enough of my propaghandi. To follow up my concerns from yesterday, my boss didn't show up to work today, so I guess I survived without being overly scathed. Come Monday the 6th or whatever, I'm sure he'll be plenty annoyed that I haven't done the December monthly reports due before the 1st of january. Work was uneventful but fun; filled with constructive conversation and endeavors in telephone and Microsoft hating technology. We didn't make fun of Stan for liking java, but we could have.

Vito's delivered me from a week of food that was not made in or around Vitos. Besides updating my content with a short piece on using htaccess files for security and creating my own slackware-current cd, I didn't really do much. I spoke to all of the usual suspects, I read all of the usual spots, and I complained about my usual boredom. Life is good.