Free Kareem
ALERT!! A serious injustice was committed. Please take action now! Kareem Amer, an Egyptian blogger who was imprisoned for exercising his right to freedom of speech, is still in prison and needs YOUR help!
Find out more information by visiting FreeKareem.org or by networking with us.
Latest News from freekareem.org- Free Kareem campaign in Berlin, Germany – PICTURES February 27th, 2010
- Video: Free Kareem rally in Washington, DC
- Kareem forbidden visits by his lawyer
- Meklit Hadero sings a song for Kareem
- Kareem’s final appeal rejected
Kareem has been in prison for: 1226 days.
Download this plugin!
Liviu Librescu
Liviu Librescu
Liviu Librescu (August 18, 1930 – April 16, 2007; Hebrew: ליביו ליברסקו) was a Romanian born and educated Israeli-American scientist and academic whose major research fields were aeroelasticity and aerodynamics. His most recent position was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech.[3] The 76-year-old Holocaust survivor was shot and killed in the Virginia Tech massacre while holding off the gunman at the entrance to his classroom so his students could escape through the windows.[4]
Read more
Immigration
Immigration
Although human migration has existed throughout human history, immigration in the modern sense refers to movement of people from one nation-state to another. Immigration implies long-term permanent residence (and often eventual citizenship) by the immigrants: tourists and short-term visitors are not considered immigrants (see expatriates). However, seasonal labour migration (typically for periods of less than a year) is often treated as a form of immigration. The global volume of immigration is high in absolute terms, but low in relative terms. The UN estimated 190 million international migrants in 2005, about 3% of global population. The other 97% still live in the state in which they were born, or its successor state.
Nicolas Sarkozy
Nicolas Sarkozy
| Nicolas Sarkozy |
Cloverfield Explanation
Cloverfield, the latest movie to steal the interest of moviegoers everywhere, is comprised video segment, which are shown as events taped on a hand-held video camera by characters in the film. Any scene taken before the main sequence are shown as though they were pieces held over from a previous use of the tape. The preface shown at the start of Cloverfield displayed at the beginning of the feature proclaims it to be classified material having been recovered from a site which was once Central Park (now referred to as “Incident Site U.S. 447″), designated “Cloverfield“. Also, a DHARMA Initiative logo is displayed in the corner of the screen for a moment.
In the opening scene, Rob (played by Michael Stahl-David) playfully records Beth (played by Odette Yustman), presumably after a happy night spent together. The video then switches to 30 days later; Rob’s younger brother Jason (played by Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (played by Jessica Lucas), are planning a surprise going-away party for Rob, who’s taken a job in Japan. Jason hands the camera to Rob’s best friend Hudson “Hud” (played by T. J. Miller), to record Rob’s last night in America. Beth comes to the party also, but brings a date with her, which surprises Rob. Post-party, Hud spends most of the time documenting messages from party guests to Rob wishing him well with his new position in Japan, while spending the rest of the time attempting to grab the attention of a new acquaintance Marlena (played by Lizzy Caplan). One of the Cloverfield secrets that is revealed is that Rob recently slept with Beth, despite being only friends, which complicates their relationship just before he leaves the country. After a confrontation between the two, she leaves the party with her date.
Rob is talking with Jason and Hud out on the balcony about how much he loves Beth when suddenly, the building shakes, a loud noise is heard, and the power temporarily fails. From the roof, the party-goers see a huge explosion in the distance, with debris striking the building and a Cloverfield splash. The primary characters run outside, where the head of the Statue of Liberty falls, as additional explosions and a huge monster are seen far off. Rob, Jason, Lily, Hud, and Marlena try to exit Manhattan by using the Brooklyn Bridge, however don’t when Rob receives a phonecall from Beth, who is hurt and trapped in her Midtown dwelling. Jason is killed when the creature topples the bridge.
US Military ground forces arrive on the scene, battling the huge menace and the dog-sized spider-like creatures it is dropping. Rob resolves to rescue Beth, and the three others reluctantly join him as the situation becomes chaotic. They are attacked by the smaller creatures in a subway tunnel and Marlena is badly bitten. They stumble upon a military field hospital, where Marlena’s body rapidly bleeds and causes her to explode. With information about how they can evacuate by helicopter in advance of the planned bombing of Manhattan, the surviving friends continue their effort to reach Beth.
They climb to Beth’s apartment in her nearly-toppled high-rise, where they find her badly injured but still alive. Together they make their way to the evacuation site, where Lily is placed in the last seat of a departing helicopter. Rob, Beth, and Hud board another helicopter, where they witness an air-to-ground assault on the monster, which lashes out and strikes their craft, causing it to crash in Central Park. The three survive the crash, but Hud is soon chewed up and killed by the monster. Rob and Beth quickly grab the camera and take shelter under a bridge, where they each briefly address anyone who might find the camera. Civil defense sirens begin to sound and an explosion collapses the bridge, partially covering the camera in rubble. Rob and Beth can be heard expressing their feelings for each other before a second explosion occurs that covers the camera completely in rubble. It is left unclear whether either the monster or the two remaining protagonists survive the final attack depicted. At the movie’s end, however, it is made clear that a Cloverfield sequel will be made, perhaps called Cloverfield 2?
The Cloverfield last scene returns to footage from the month before, in which Rob and Beth enjoy a date at Cloverfield Coney Island, happy and carefree, while in the distance something falls out of the sky and splashes into the water, unnoticed. The film ends with Beth stating with a smile, “I had a great day.”
During the Cloverfield ending credits, a brief radio transmission is heard. The exact words spoken are a topic of debate as the dialog is unclear and contains static.
As of yet, we are unable to watch Cloverfield online, but rest assured that will be coming soon.
Bush on track to become the Vacation President
President Bush tries to set an example for Americans whenever he can, in terms of physical fitness, faith, optimism and a certain overall moral rectitude. He also sets an excellent example on taking vacation.
On Thursday, Bush left for a weekend in Kennebunkport, Maine, and his family’s summer compound, Walker’s Point. On Monday, he heads to his Crawford retreat, where he has spent all or part of 418 days of his presidency, according to Mark Knoller, a CBS News White House correspondent and meticulous record-keeper.
Never a fan of Washington’s more cosmopolitan pleasures, Bush will be in Central Texas for about two weeks, with an overnight trip to Ottawa to meet with the leaders of Canada and Mexico.
At a White House press conference Thursday, Bush appeared to be already inhabiting his vacation mode, shedding the businesslike, sometimes grim demeanor he’s had of late to slouch against the podium and be avuncular.
He gamely joked and mugged with reporters, at one point raising two fists in a boxing stance to illustrate what not to do in a photo op with the president of Iran.
“You don’t want the picture to be kind of, you know, duking it out, you know?” Bush said ” ‘OK, put up your dukes.’ That’s an old boxing expression.”
Bush’s August sojourn will be his 65th trip to Crawford, according to Knoller.
The 1,600-acre ranch has proved a durable haven for Bush, who often disappears into its varied landscapes for days or weeks at a time without public appearances. He has an attractive stone house, shaded swimming pool, miles of rugged bike trails and law enforcement at every entry point keeping people out.
“I fell in love with it the minute I saw it,” Bush said of his ranch in 2001. “I like being out here. I like spending a lot of time outside.”
The presidential vacation-time record holder is the late Ronald Reagan, who tallied 436 days in his two terms. At 418 days, and with 17 months to go in his presidency, Bush is going to beat that easily.
Even so, this year’s August vacation for Bush is a contrast to previous years such as 2005, when he dragged out vacation in Texas to five weeks. That was also the year Bush remained on vacation immediately after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Vice President Dick Cheney generally takes August off, often heading to Wyoming or coastal Maryland. Congress left last weekend and is gone until Sept. 4. The Iraqi parliament is taking August off, too.
Still, all this governmental time off is more than most Americans are taking. A recent survey by Yahoo Hot Jobs found nearly half of American workers did not take all of their vacation days last year.
Bush, on his 10th visit to Kennebunkport as president (according to Knoller), is scheduled for lunch Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Indeed, on the issue of vacation, at least, Bush is much like a pleasure-seeking Frenchman. According to Expedia.com, French workers get about 39 days off a year and generally take all but one.
Julie Mason
Liz Claiborne, Designer of Women’s Clothes, Dies at 78
Liz Claiborne, the designer of indefatigable career clothes for professional women entering the workforce en masse beginning in the 1970s, died Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 78.
Is Ubuntu an Operating System?
Is Ubuntu an Operating System?
Is Ubuntu an operating system? Last week at EuroOSCON, Mark Shuttleworth gave the closing keynote outlining what he believes are the major struggles faced by the open-source/free-software community. During his talk, it became clear that Ubuntu is trying to achieve a radical shift in the software world. Ubuntu isn’t trying to be a platform for mass-market application software: it is trying to be the primary provider of both the operating system and all the application software that a typical user would want to run on his machine. Most Linux distributions are like this, and I think it is a dangerous trend that will stifle innovation and usability, or even worse make the desktop irrelevant.
Mr. Shuttleworth’s initial point was one that few people disagree with: that software installers are bad for users and usability. Indeed, the typical method of installing Windows software (downloading a setup.exe file from a website or running it from a CD) manages the software very poorly. Each vendor must construct its own scheme for where to install, how to update, and most of all how to manage dependencies between pieces of software. Of course, Windows has guidelines about installing to C:\Program Files\Vendor\Application Name, but even Microsoft does not consistantly follow the rules. Everyone recognizes that installers are not good for users, even Microsoft, who in an effort to fix the mess invented the (complicated and poorly-tooled) MSI installer format. Apple uses disk images, application bundles, and relocatable software to avoid the problem. It is good to see a major Linux distribution thinking through the problems that installers present.
Mr. Shuttleworth’s statements, however, go much deeper than the technical deficiencies of Windows installers. He talked about how Ubuntu was leading a paradigm shift away from “users installing software†towards a system where all the software a user needs is provided by the operating system. Ubuntu should provide all the software a users needs or wants in the packages. Does that mean that users should not be installing software directly? According to Mr. Shuttleworth, the way to provide a good user experience is for users’ software should be provided by the central Ubuntu repository and managed through the Ubuntu update system.
Granted, Ubuntu has done a good job of making the Linux desktop usable1. A properly managed centralized software repository can make it a lot easier for users to confidently choose software that is tested and compatible with their system. By releasing an entire set of software that has been tested together, Ubuntu can provide the necessary support to guarantee the suite will work together more seamlessly and provide a better user experience.
Users must be able to make their own software installation decisions.
People use Windows because the software they want uses Windows2. People have an amazing variety of wants. There are those who cannot install Linux because a particular piece of software they need is not available, be it InDesign or a specialized accounting program, or any number of new products that have yet to be conceived.
Free-software fundamentalists and practicalists often loudly disagree whether encouraging proprietary software on Linux is irresponsible or essential. It is either misguided or arrogant, however, to think that all users’ needs can be met by a central software repository, even if all software were open-source and free. Some of the best software available today started out small, was distributed on the internet, and made popular by word of mouth. The impetus of “Download Now†is strong, and promotes healthy competition and diversity. Whether a video player by a startup company or a newly-released version of Firefox that hasn’t yet made it to the central repository, stumbling blocks in the software distribution process caused by this centralization will reduce the ability for small projects to promote new software through viral marketing.
This is not an absolute restriction. Authors could provide the download as a .tar.bz2 archive or even .deb package, but those types of packages require the user to perform complicated actions such as opening a terminal and knowing the magic incantation. Ubuntu cannot prevent users from installing software, but it does intentionally make installation difficult. If Ubuntu achieves mainstream status, an alternative packaging format that allows users an easy way to install software will inevitably emerge (e.g. AutoPackage). Instead of fighting this tendency, Ubuntu should embrace the world of “external†software, and provide a simple and standard way for users to install these packages.
If application developers can’t attract users to the desktop, the only alternative is for new applications to be deployed entirely on the web. Although some people believe that the trend of applications moving onto the web is irreversable, I’m more optimistic. There is value, power, and security in the desktop. But without cooperation, I certainly wouldn’t plan to deploy my next application on Linux.
Allowing users to install their own software does have some consequences. Unfortunately, the discussion of how the software should be packaged and distributed quickly devolves into flamewars over the relative merits of RPMs, dpkg, or <insert technology here>. This is counterproductive, ignoring the fundamental issue: Linux software is typically not a self-contained package that could be placed in a single directory. A collection of files that are variously placed in /usr/bin, /usr/share/man, and perhaps many other locations, making it very difficult to relocate binary software because library dependencies are resolved to a fixed set of paths, and never relative to the binary location.
I do not pretend to have a solution in hand for installing software on Linux. I think that Mac-style application bundles could be made to work, but supporting them would require additional features in the dynamic linker, along with something like mac Launch Services to provide good cross-application integration. In addition, since regular software updates are an essential part of modern system security, it is important to have a good and simple way to update software. If distributing software in relocatable packages is completely impractical for technical or social reasons, the same problem could perhaps be solved by allowing users to easily install packages from non-default software repositories.
The final (and perhaps most pernicious) problem when thinking about redistributable software is the ongoing binary incompatibility between various Linux distributions and between versions of the same Linux distribution. While it is important not to hold back development of new features, it is a problem that every major operating system has had to face, and has faced (more or less) successfully. This is a problem that needs to be faced at all levels of the software stack, from the compiler to final packaging. Perhaps, if Linux in general and Ubuntu in particular continue to disclaim responsibility for ABI changes, software will use managed runtimes or scripting languages out of necessity to isolate itself from the shenanigans of the underlying OS. As it is, creating software that is compatible with multiple Linux distributions in multiple flavors is a nightmare.
This attitude is not unique to Ubuntu. Although this essay is inspired by an Ubuntu keynote, it applies to all the Linux distributions. Ubuntu should not be marked for special criticism, except that I hoped their focus on users and usability would lead to better appreciation of and support for user-installed software. Since Linux vendors are typically in the support business, they can define a set of software that they package and support; they have little financial incentive to do serious work on binary compatibility or software installation.
Free-software zealots may be also to blame: “users have the software source code, they are free to compile and install it themselves!â€, mixing a philosophy and a technical decision which are not inherently related. Human nature wants software that works, and this includes software which can be installed and tried without the technical prowess needed to unpack software and run “configure && make && make install†and interpret the resulting console spew to figure out whether it succeeded or not and then figure out that you really needed make 3.80, and your gnome headers are too old, or too new, etc.. The issues of licensing software freely should be divorced from the ability of users to install and use the software.
In the process of creating a usable and supportable Linux, Ubuntu has created a software cathedral with “more than 16,000 pieces of softwareâ€3. I do not wish to disparage this effort; this cathedral has produced a usable Linux desktop. But the Linux desktop must also provide a method for users to install software from the bazaar. Unless Linux provides a software installation mechanism, the central Ubuntu software repository will stifle the development of the software it is designed to distribute and protect.
Notes:
- # Why did Ubuntu choose the obnoxiously self-gratifying motto “linux for human beings� Of course it’s for human beings; the question is whether those humans can use it.
- # For the purposes of this essay, it’s not important why developers write software for Windows, or whether the application/OS cycle is vicious or virtuous.
- # http://www.ubuntu.com/, 2-Oct-2006
source: BSBLOG
Are Presidential Expectations too High?
Watching the Nevada Democratic Discussion, it becomes apparent that we expect our Presidents to be experts on every subject. They need to be economists, commanders, educators, visionaries, leaders, cheerleaders, serious-minded,and likable. They must command all issues and have well-reasoned positions for everything. On top of that, we shun change, abhor weakness, and decry dishonesty. We demand good looks, skinny ankles, and good teeth.
Perhaps it’s one of the reasons why so many Media Age presidents have been governors.
Read more
