April 28, 2006

Marilyn Manson's site today's update

So, the website has been updated yet another time. This time I had no time to decipher anything yet, but the intro is obviously a reference to both Lewis Carrol, Lorraine, Spades and Crowley.

April 27, 2006

Marilyn Manson's site update

Again. After the sounds we've been given in Marilyn Manson's new website at the 21st of April (no, it wasn't at the 20th as I said previously), the sound just changed, like... now or during this afternoon (consider Portuguese time, please). The length is the same (2:41) and the filesize almost equal, but the contents differ.

First of all, the voice that starts at 0:20 till 0:31 is much louder than before. Also, another voice starts in the left channel at 0:31. Both voices sound like wartime radio command/orders/chatter.

More radio chatter at 0:51 and 1:07. you can tell by the characteristic static that you hear in walkie-talkies and radios when you press the talk button.

The radio voices seem to be in a different language, anyone have a clue as to which it is?

Distorted shouts and screams at 1:45.

The rest is the same pretty much, the same distorted voice at 2:02, and the higher pitch dist version of the "Perhaps i should mention..." speech at the very end.

Aleister Crowley

For your entertainement and pleasure:
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...hyrEnochian.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...hyrEnochian.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...thyrEnglish.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...la%20gitana.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...20pentagram.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...the%20woman.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...0the%20poet.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...%20at%20sea.mp3
http://www.christos-mythos.net/zzzz...fingernails.mp3

This are some Aleister Crowley speeches/rites, that seem to be an influence in Marilyn Manson's new era, and probably Phantasmagoria.

The speech

Last post I mentioned a Crowley's speech. Now, you can hear it here. The text goes like this:


Perhaps I should mention
That we have decided
That this, a flip or homicide
Is a little special
A little too macabre for the squeamish

Therefore we have labelled it
"For juveniles only"
Adults will not be permitted to listen
Unless they are accompanied by their children

Yes, that's the same speech we're able to hear on "Obsequy (The Death Of Art)"'s track from Manson's "The Golden Age of Grotesque".

Marilyn Manson update

As I've promissed, I'm here posting about news in Marilyn Manson's world.

Marilyn Manson's official site has been updated with a new intro chock full of subliminal sounds and imagery. When the intro movie is clicked, it redirects to a new splash page for The Celebritarian Corporation.


We get a flash presentation with lot's of obfuscated vocal samples buried in the new site's music, which seems also to be a player: just press your keyboard's space and enter buttons to change tracks and volume.



Lot's of Columbine/Hitler nods, a "FOR JUVENILES ONLY" speech, a paper about columbine, two gunmen dead, Charles Manson's eyes, a board saying the day the [person on the picture] cried, all ending in the Celebritarian picture.



The update was made at the 20th of April, years after Hitler's birth, who then died in a 30th of April. The 20th of April also was the day Columbine's massacre happened. Any relation?



But friends, let's not say only what you can see, let's say some refereces to keep us all busy until another update arrives. For instance, the speech you can hear is from the Enochian World of Aleister Crowley.



Plus, the numbers shown in January on the site are actually in Enochian. You can use this text to help you translate it.



More revelant pictures from the intro here. I'll be back on this issue when I manage to get the time to.

Ashram

Great news!


Ashram are back in business with a new album comming out, and they'll be touring here in Portugal! One new CD to order, one other GIG not to loose...

Scarling. new goodies...

Seems that our friends at Sympathy For The Record Industry have some excelent news. To be released:

SFTRI 773
SCARLING.
Staring To The Sun / City NoisE /
Wave Of Mutilation
CD/EP
OUT IN JUNE

SCARLING.’s latest attack to redefine noise and chaos within the context of their beautifully painful melodies is the first single from their latest full length release So Long, Scarecrow. “City Noise”, showcases the SCARLING. desperate, powerful and melancholy sound perfectly and is quickly becoming a trademark to throngs of the lost and lonely. Singer Jessicka’s perfected juxtaposition of sugar vocals and abrasive, yet welcomed outbursts have never collided better with the roaring guitars and pure wall-of-sound, creating a force to be reckoned with on this new release. This CD single also features a 2 brand new unreleased, non-album tracks entitled “Staring To The Sun” and a rather exciting cover of The Pixies "Wave Of Mutilation" making this a must have CD single for all scarred and non-scarred alike that is sure to leave you with a soundtrack to your next nervous breakdown. Original cover and back photos by Piper Ferguson.


sftri 771
Jack Off Jill
Clear Hearts Grey Flowers
LP only - edition of 2000
OUT IN May

Although Jack Off Jill may never have topped the charts or headlined Madison Square Garden, their contribution to gothic-alt rock as well as the Grrl Band Revolution isn't any less important. Disbanding in 2000, they left their fans with their best album to date, "Clear Hearts Grey Flowers". At the time being closely linked with fellow Floridian Marilyn Manson did not necessarily help Jack Off Jill, as they were constantly being compared to Manson and his shock rock genre. The fact was Jack Off Jill had more in common with riot grrl acts such as Babes In Toyland and Hole, but because of the stigma that surrounded them, they found it difficult to gain acceptance from their female peers. After years of struggling with inner band turmoil and being lumped into date rape and nu-metal genres, Jack Off Jill begrudgingly released their second full length album, Clear Hearts Grey Flowers, produced by Chris Vrenna (Nine Inch Nails) and featuring an album cover painted by the art demi-God Mark Ryden. Never before released on vinyl. coloured vinyl Edition of 2000. psssssssssst: Lead singer, Jessicka can now be found fronting L.A.'s beloved and brilliant Scarling with many releases available on Sympathy.

tracks:
When I am Queen
Fear of Dying
Nazi Halo
Rabbiteen
Strawberry Gashes
Author Unknown
Vivica
Witch Hunt
Cinnamon Spider
Surgery
Star No Star
Losing His Touch
Clear Hearts Grey Flowers
Love Song

sftri 772
Jack Off Jill
Humid Teenage Mediocrity (1992-1995)
cd - OUT IN May

Before the world was introduced to Marilyn Manson, before the world even knew what sweet dreams were made of, there was Ft. Lauderhell, the Spooky Kids, Jack Off Jill and a club called Squeeze, which would later become a headquarters and home away from home for both bands. There Manson became the great Oz to Jessicka's Dorothy. And Ft. Lauderdale their yellow brick road of sorts… A golden trail leading them out of humid hell and onto bigger and better things. Humid Teenage Mediocrity is a collections of recordings produced during that Golden Age. The now defunct Jack Off Jill hit the South Florida scene in 1992 and was hailed by critics as a "childrens puppet show meets the Exorcist" The band lasted eight years, with only Moulder and Fodera remaining through all its lineups. The Original [all-girl] line-up consisted of Jessicka: Vocals / Lyrics , Agent [robin] Moulder :bass , Michelle In-Hell [guitar] and Tenni Ah-Cha-Cha [drums]. Jack Off Jill played with a relentless fuck-all attitude and sound that could rarely be duplicated by its predecessors. Releasing Children 5 and Up, Cannibal Songbook and Cockroach Waltz and touring with riot girl legends L7, Babes In Toyland ,7 Year Bitch as well as Goth icons Switchblade Symphony and fellow Floridian shock rockers Marilyn Manson, Jack Off Jill’s live show was one to be seen. They commanded the stage ruling it as their own private playpen complete with dolls -candy - blood - and a plethora of toys for singer Jessicka to fashion into weapons in order to injure herself or her unsuspecting band mates. Jack off Jill took the stage taunting you to play their game and play it on their turf. This 25 track collection of songs from the Florida based punk goth legends was produced by Marilyn Manson . The album includes 13 previously unreleased tracks and 9 songs that went on to be re-recorded for the classic debut “sexless demons and scars”. Manson also supplys liner notes with a Jack off Jill history and guitar parts to “Swollen”. Essential for all JOJ and Marilyn Manson fans. Contains new artwork and 3 tracks not available on UK version

COMPLETELY REMASTERED (2006) SOUNDS AMAZING !!

tracks:
Hypocrite
Horrible
Kringle
Lollirot
Media-c-Section
My Cat ('94)
Super Sadist
Spit and Rape
Swollen
Yellow Brick Road ('94)
American Made
Boy Grinder
Bruises Are Back In Style
Cherry Scented
Chocolate Chicken
Choke
Confederate Fag
Cumdumpster
Don't Wake The Body ('95)
Everything's Brown
French Kiss The Elderly
Girl Scout
Working With Meat
Cockroach
My Cat ('95)

SFTRI 718
ALRIGHT, THIS TIME JUST THE GIRLS VOLUME 2
SINGLE CD/DOUBLE GATEFOLD LP - OUT NOW

30 tracks by 30 bands featuring the female persuasion.

79 minutes of reverb-heavy rock, infectious pop, attitude-drenched punk assaults, a couple of countryish ballads, and various dreamy-sweet confections.

Artwork by Camille Rose Garcia. camillerosegarcia.com

TRACKS

1. DOWNBEAT 5 - radiates that charm
2. THE STUCK-UPS - anywhere but here
3. TINA & THE TOTAL BABES - tongue tied
4. A-LINES - four
5. THE FONDAS - yeah baby
6. THE BEARDS - my pillow
7. KIRBY GRIPS - washing machine
8. TUULI - tough guys
9. LISA MARR EXPERIMENT - little red bird
10. DETROIT COBRAS - bye bye baby
11. THE BRISTOLS - the way i feel about you
12. CANDYPANTS - nerdy boys
13. MR AIRPLANE MAN - lonesome road
14. MATSON JONES - a little bit of arson
15. THE EXCESSORIES - see in me
16. THE CHUBBIES - didjahavtasaythat ?
17. MISS DERRINGER - corpus christi
18. WANDA JACKSON - it happens every time
19. CHRISTA DeERYNN - sweet lies
20. KO & THE KNOCKOUTS - go-getter
21. SCARLING. - city noise
22. THE BANANA ERECTORS - you got that uh uh
23. 5,6,7,8’s - it’s rainy
24. THE COME ONS - dollar in my pocket
25. HOLLY GOLIGHTLY - won’t go out
26. THE MUFFS - everywhere i go
27. HELEN LOVE - debbie loves joey
28. REAL MINX - heather hotwheelz
29. LUDELLA BLACK - i’ve just seen a face
30. SUPERSNAZZ - our favorite thing

Well, seems it's time to find anyone wanting to order some stuff from SFTRI...

[UPDATE:] Seems that JoJo's usually order stuff from SFTRI, so I might buy the new stuff there when they have it in catalog, instead of ordering it on FNAC and pray. I don't order nothing from JoJo's for years (they weren't CDGO then), and I hope they're better than they were... Living in Europe has this kind of stuff...

April 26, 2006

GNUnet on Google's Summer of Code

As we can read, as a sub-project of GNU, GNUnet takes part in Google's Summer of Code.

Starting on May 1, Students may apply for stipends sponsored by Google to help GNUnet. The list of proposed projects is:

  • Port GNUnet to Java ("Freeway")
  • Create a webinterface for GNUnet
  • Port the GTK based user interface to Qt
  • Improve connection of NATted and firewalled peers
  • Other projects (give us your ideas)
IMHO, it would be real cool if someone decided to do a chat protocol over GNUnet. Even if an implementation is not feasible, a protocol definition and maybe a prototype would.

libextractor v0.5.12 released

libextractor v0.5.12 released.

This release adds an alternative implementation of the PDF extractor. Finnish, Frensh, Gaelic and Swedish are now supported by the printable extractor. Memory utilization for compiling the printable extractors should no longer be an issue.

For those that don't know, libextractor is a library used to extract meta-data from files of arbitrary type. It is designed to use helper-libraries to perform the actual extraction, and to be trivially extendable by linking against external extractors for additional file types.

2.6.16.11

For those that didn't noticed:

The latest stable version of the Linux kernel is: 2.6.16.11 2006-04-24 20:22 UTC F V VI C Changelog

Why does I have a feeling that 2.6.17 will be what should be named 2.6.0?

Planet Noori

Finaly I've managed to upgrade Planet Noori. It's far from perfect now, but it has the stuff it needed. Your RSS feeds will work, but if you had a non-RSS feed, you should re-subscribe. Sorry all for the trouble this might cause you, but, this way the Planet is now easy manageable. Now, I just have to find the time to customize the Planet in a way that makes it be less ugly. But that'll be in time.

OVERTHROW

OVERTHROW
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Hawaii
Cuba
Philippines
Puerto Rico
Nicaragua
Honduras
Iran
Guatemala
South Vietnam
Chile
Grenada
Panama
Afghanistan
Iraq

What do these 14 governments have in common?

You got it.

The United States overthrew them.

And in almost in every case, the overthrow can be traced to corporate interests.

In Hawaii, the sugar companies didn't want to pay export duties -- so they overthrew the queen of Hawaii and made it part of the United States.

In Guatemala, United Fruit wanted Arbenz out.

Out he went.

In Chile, Allende offended the copper interests.

Allende -- dead.

In Iran, Mossadegh offended major oil interests.

Mossadegh out.

In Nicaragua, Jose Santos Zelaya was bothering American lumber and mining companies.

Zelaya -- out.

In Honduras, an American banana magnate organized the coup of the Honduran government.

And on down the list.

Democratic Party critics charge that the Bush administration is ripping the United States from a long history of diplomacy by violently overthrowing governments.

Not true, says former New York Times foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer.

Kinzer says that in fact the opposite is true.

"Actually, the United States has been overthrowing governments for more than a century," Kinzer said in an interview.

He documents this in a new book: Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq (Times Books, 2006).

Overthrow is the third in a series of regime change books by Kinzer.

His previous two: All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (2003), and Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (1982).

Together, they would make a remarkable "regime change" boxed set for the holidays.

Kinzer left the Times last year. He says that the parting was "perfectly amicable" -- although he doesn't sound convincing when he says this.

What is clear is that Kinzer is not comfortable with establishment rationales for the American imperial project.

This became clear during an interview Kinzer gave on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross earlier this month.

Gross tried to get Kinzer to concede that if we hadn't overthrown these governments, the Soviets would have taken over, or today, radical Islam will take over.

Kinzer didn't give an inch.

For example, Gross said that had we not overthrown these 14 governments, "the Soviets might have won the Cold War."

"I don't think that's true at all," Kinzer responded. "In the first place, the countries whose governments we overthrew, all countries that we claimed were pawns of the Kremlin, actually were nothing of the sort. We now know, for example, that the Kremlin had not the slightest interest in Guatemala at all in the early 1950s. They didn't even know Guatemala existed. They didn't even have diplomatic or economic relations."

"The leader of Iran who we overthrew was fiercely anti-communist. He came from an aristocratic family. He despised Marxist ideology."

"In Chile, we always portrayed President Allende as a cat's paw of the Kremlin. We now know from documents that have come out that the Soviets and the Chinese were constantly fighting with him and urging him to calm down and not be so provocative towards the Americans. So, in the first place, the Soviets were not behind those regimes. We completely overestimated the influence of the Soviet Union on those regimes."

When Gross asked Kinzer what he thought of the "spread of radical Islam," Kinzer didn't hesitate.

"We sometimes like to think that our interventions in these countries don't have effects, but when we break down the doors of foreign countries and impose our own leaders, as we did in Iran and as we've recently done in Iraq, we outrage a lot of people," Kinzer said. "We like to think that everybody will soon calmly come to realize that by rational standards, this was a good thing to do. But that doesn't happen. We are not able to change cultures as easily as we are able to
change regimes."

The United States had a hand in many other overthrows, but Kinzer limited his cases to those where the United States was the primary mover and shaker.

So, for example, while the United States played a role in the overthrow of Lumumba in the Congo, Kinzer says that it was primarily an operation by Belgium on behalf of large Belgian mining interests.

This might be the most important book to read as the United States approaches a showdown with Iran.

President Bush says he's trying to bring democracy to Iran.

In fact, Iranians had democracy once.

And we crushed it.

Kinzer is on tour promoting his book.

And he's got a gig at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he lives.

He's teaching a course in regime change.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, <http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>. Mokhiber and Weissman are co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2006/000237.html>

Vacations

Four alcohol abusive sleep depravational days vacations are comming to an end. Hangovers apart, this made me extremely well, specially because gladly I'm someone with true friends. No regrets, just a feeling that I'll need a lot of sleep in the days to come. Some work on Merankorii was done, and I feel Melencolia III is about to become. But I'll speak more about that in the propper place at the propper time.
For now, a great hug for those fabulous people at Lamego I was with. And off to bed.

BTW:


  • CP's firewall is nazi.

  • CP still sucks. This time the train was only one hour late.

  • It's the 25th of April, an historical date in Portugal. We then achieved Freedom (not as much as we should have, but yet), but we should work on the Responsability that should had come with Freedom.

April 21, 2006

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated (r2)

This is the second update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (codename ‘sarge’) which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with some corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

Please note that this update does not produce a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 but only adds a few updated packages to it. There is no need to throw away 3.1 CDs but only to update against ftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes.

Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the ‘apt’ package tool (see the sources.list(5) manual page) to one of Debian's many FTP or HTTP mirrors. A comprehensive list of mirrors is available at:

More Details on AOL’s “MySpace Killer”

Seems that there are more details on AOL's "MySpace Killer", as pointed out by TechCrunch:


From what I am hearing (and which isn’t contradicted by Ted above), AOL plans on building a social network on the back of AIM, which will pre-populate your AIM friends as your social network friends as well. So the key AIM integration will be to pre-build relationships into the new service.

The service will launch at AIM.com, and individual user pages will be aim.com/[username]. Functionality will be similar to MySpace - with blogging, photo and music widgets available for integration.



Damn, why does this smells to me as a flop on the issue of doing "a great application to users", even if it serves AOL as a MySpace Killer?

Oh my God, they killed Python, you bastards!

kristof's blog has this funny post pointing out to this hilarious page that shows the release names of some packages. Here are the funniest:

* The "please buy me a brain" release
* The "I speak better English than this villian Bush" release.
* The "Let's do it cleaner" release.
* The "Fuck Me Harder" release.
* The "What's my name? Say my name, bitch!" release.
* The "I *hate* when that happens" release.
* The 'DOH!' release.
* The "laptop envy (damn tbm for having a nicer one than me)" release.
* The "Follow the white rabbit" Release.
* The "someone should take my compiler away from me" release
* The "Ooops, I did it again" release
* The "Argh-I-took-the-wrong-version" release.
* The 'Yes, I need more sleep, and also to test my releases' release.
* The "you can't get sunburn at Finland" release.
* The "Chainsaw Psycho" release.
* The "Perl Sucks" release.
* The "I fucking hate libtool" release.
* The 'No, I don't use CVS' release.
* The "Throwing stuff away like mad and seeing if it still builds" release.
* The "This Space Intentionally Left Blank" Release
* The "From now on all of my world-killing weapons will be kept a TOTAL SECRET!" release.
* The "Lesbian Seagull" release.
* The "Oh my God, they killed Python, you bastards!" release.
* The "Evil Bitch Monster of Death" release.
* The "Pain as bright as steel" release.
* The "I've been hiding under a rock for two weeks" release.
* The "Suddenly the Dungeon collapses!! - You die..." release

April 20, 2006

Blogspot sucking more

Dear Lazyweb,

Can you please tell me about a service like Feedburner or something like that, which takes my invalid ATOM feed that Blogspot guys graciously provide me with and converts it to a valid something (Atom, RSS, whatever)?

The fact that Blogspot spits moronic XML instead of a valid ATOM feed is the only thing that is taking me this long to update Planet Noori to a way better (and easier) implementation...

Linux Kernel versions and versions

Did you noticed that the latest stable version of the Linux kernel is 2.6.16.9? Two stable kernels in one day, two in the previous day... Can you get it now about what I disagree about the "stable" kernel development?

(And no, this isn't criticizing Greg KH's -stable work, but criticizing Linus').

Interesting Debian fork

Here's an interesting Debian fork: A/DeMuDi. I haven't tried it myself (yet), but it's the first Debian fork I see that does it in the right way (well, except Knoppix, that does it in the right way considering that what you want is a live CD and not a distribution to install).

10th EGTI

Yesterday I attended to the 10th EGTI, and, as promised, here's a quick review.

Before the event:

  • thumbs down to CP with his Alpha train that broke in the middle of the trip to Coimbra
  • thumbs down to the Tryp Hotel that starts breakfast time at 7:30 and at 8:00 has almost nothing left to eat
The event:
  • thumbs up: Against the odds, all the panels were preety good
  • thumbs down: the program was misleading. Their loss, because they had better panels and presentations than they were publicizing
  • thumbs up: overall the best EGTI since the 7th
  • thumbs down: overall the EGTI will less people attending that I can remember of
The panels:
  • Information Systems (they weirdly called it "Software de apoio à Gestão")
  • Emerging Technologies (they weirdly called it "Melting Pot Tecnológico")
  • Teaching management
Information Systems:
  • Auto Sueco - They presented their vision on how to create, maintain and evolve an Information System, taking their own case. Very good presentation
  • Luís Simões Group - Their Information Systems Department history and steps was presented. The presentation was good, but their design decisions suck. They have nine people managing eight different systems! The only thing I think they are doing right is that fact that they only outsource work, not know-how. Anything that means "we don't know how to do it" will end being "we now know how to do it" at the end of the job. That also means that only outsource 10% of their work.
  • Sumolis Group - I found this presentation good and funny. They also presented their own implementation of their Information System, showing how did they evolve to the actual solution, and which steps further they think they must have. Thumbs up to the way they stressed the importance of integration
  • Information Builders - A good presentation about Enterprise Business Intelligence, how to gather it, how to deal with it, and (it had to be) they shown one of their products as being the best of breed on that area
Emerging Technologies:
  • Critical Software - They talked about Ambient Networks, and, more than talking about their role in it (gladly), they talked about the concep of Ambient Networks and why do they think them as the future. I never expected to say this about a presentation made in name of Critical Software, but it was good. Left lot's of unanswered questions on my brain, but I'll take those as my own lack of knowledge about the theme, which, thanks to this presentation, I will investigate further.
  • IPLNet - A presentation about the implementation of VoIP in IPL network, their steps, the state of it now, and the steps they'll make in the future. Quite interesting and very well done presentation. I'm not very found of the theme, but they have my thumbs up
  • OutSystems - Well, this was the presentation about Web 2.0 and I must say I was quite skeptical about it. And I was wrong: with no technicity, the guy showed what's the Web 2.0 real paradigm, what's the challenges on it and what does it challange. He pointed useful stuff rarely talked very well, as, for instance, the fact that the value of an Web 2.0 Application isn't in the App itself but in it's users, which can be both a menace and an opportunity. I'll talk my own ideas on that when I have time to.
Teaching management: This panel was made as a presentation from various people in the teaching world (except the presence of one representative of Enabler that was giving the enterprise point of view, which was a good way of having both faces of the coin) about their visions about how to and the importance of teaching management in Engeneering courses. Then there was a debate, with them and us from the attendance. Almost all the themes ended as a reflection of the impact Bologne can/will have on it, since the education system in Portugal can't be much worse than it is nowadays, and because it's quite important for an Engeneer (even a computer-related engeneer) to have a management point-of-view of several things, and because there's a big lack of social and soft skills among students.

After the event: I'm tired, and I guess this thursday will be a hard day of work. But it was both fun and worthy.

AOL To Launch “Myspace Killer”

Yesterday, in Coimbra, I was talking with cha0s about how MySpace sucks, but, even while sucking, it's the best webapp like that. Now, it seems that AOL is going to work on an alternative.

From downloadsquad:


Ooh, here's some juicy, unsubstantiated buzz: According to Dave Winer, AOL (this blogger's employer) is planning a new service that will challenge MySpace "head on." The announcement will allegedly be made in two weeks.


There are some comments on it on Techrunch too.

I find this good, but, comming from AOL, I'm quite skeptic on wether this will be really a "MySpace Killer", or only "one more MySpace wannabe".

April 18, 2006

EGTI

In a couple of hours I'll be heading to Coimbra, since tomorrow I'll be there attending to EGTI. I intend to post something here about the event, later... But I must admit that the thing that's making me curious about it is only the Web 2.0 panel.

April 17, 2006

Pagan Holidays

I know that this information is all over around the internet, but this way I'll make sure the frequent readers of my blog will read it.

A "definition" of Pagan Holidays would be more vague as the one I'm going to describe. Despite of that, all you have to have in consideration is the fact that some Pagan sub-cultures doesn't regard to all the holidays I'm going to list, of they don't call it by the same name. The nomenculatures I'm going to use are the most common to Wiccans.

There are two kinds of holidays pagans celebrate: I'll call them Sabbats and Esbats.

Esbats (the days of the moon), the less commonly celebrated among non-wiccan pagans, are the Lunar cycles of Nature, celebrated at full moon in each of the thirteen lunar months.

An esbat is a smaller and less solemn occasion than the sabbat.

The solar cycle is maked by eight sabbats (time to rest), referred colectively as the Wheel of the Year: the two solistices and both the equinoxes (the four minor sabbats) and the four points in between (the major sabbats).

The Wheel of the Year spins like this (# means Major Sabbat, * means Minor Sabbat, dates refering to the North Hemisphere):

# Samhain (known as Halloween) - 31 October
* Yule (Winter Solistice) - 21 December
# Imbolc (known as Candlemas) - 2 February
* Ostara (Spring Equinox) - 21 March
# Beltane (known as May Eve) - 30 April
* Litha (Summer Solistice) - 21 June
# Lugh (full name is Lughnassadh, known as Lammas) - 1 August
* Mabon (Fall Equinox) - 21 Setember

About the dates presented, you must take in consideration that:
* The dates aren't fixed: the Winter's Solistice, for instance, isn't allways at the 21st of the December.
* There are two ways of presenting the dates, and I did in the "pagan way". The pagan Sabbat begins at dawn and ends at dawn. Taking the previous example of Yule, Yule's celebration starts at the dawn of the 21st of December and ends at the dawn of the 22nd of December.

Great to be on the Internet

It's great to be on the internet. I've just found that someone found my blog, and from here found Merankorii, that she likes.

And yes, this is a critic on those who say that music on the internet is evil.

April 13, 2006

Fedora screwup

Fedora Core 5 doesn't ship k3b... Nice job, assholes.

Testing Linux Kernel development

Yesterday, when I arrived home, I had a little surprise: my harddisk was spinning as hell, and my laptop was almost kaboom'ing. Of course that it was mainly my fault, I was the one who had spend some time the previous night playing with the Linux Kernel. So, I was trying to find some documentation (offline, since I don't have an internet connection at home) and at the same time I remembered to do a "test". How much time will the LK team take to fix a non-problematic bug in their documentation?

A bug report has been done. Let's see the iterations...

Memories

When I was a kid I was totally fascinated by stuff like this... And now, several years later, I find this video:

Awsome!

April 12, 2006

OSS contributions

After a phone call I've just recieved, I've noticed that I'm no longer interested in working on Help Center Live or Aardvark - at all. Those are two great pieces of software, but there are too many projects worth contributing to, and I can't do them all, right? So, as you can notice, the links to their project are already gone, since noth projects have a company (Ubertec) developing them. They won't notice my absence, and I think I won't miss it that much. Now I have no excuses to not contribute to all those other projects listed...

Picoverse

I just want to go home... and keep reading Picoverse, an Sci-Fi book I've got without many hopes about it, and that I'm really enjoying it. As allways happens to me when I find a book so interesting that I keep reading it at night way over the time I should be sleeping, today I'm feeling an urge to go home and keep reading it.

If you like Sci-Fi, you must read this book.

April 11, 2006

HowTo uninstall Asterisk

After so many times answering this question, here is on the web an HowTo uninstall Asterisk:

  1. Check if your instalation has the "uninstall" Makefile target: $ make uninstall
  2. If the output is "make: *** No rule to make target `uninstall'. Stop." you have to look to the next items, If it worked, voilá, Asterisk is uninstalled.
  3. You have to choices here:
    • You can upgrade Asterisk to the latest version, which already has the uninstall target;
    • You can patch your Makefiles to add the uninstall target.
  4. If you want to upgrade Asterisk to the latest version, just do: $ make upgrade
  5. If you want to patch your Makefiles, the patch you need is this one

Easy, isn't it?

Finally, a SF alternative

Many of you know that I had some problems in the past with SourceForge members, policies and masses culture. More important than that, many of you know that SourceForge isn't quite the thing you want/need to your project, but you can't find a decent alternative. Well, that can be changing now.

TuxFamily.org has just launched its new web site. It now supports English, Spanish and, of course, french.

For whose who don't know TuxFamily yet, it's a non-profit organization aiming to provide hosting services for free software projects. It's like SourceForge somehow, except that they don't use gforce but vhffs, their own hosting system. The main difference is that we don't provide a lot of pre-installed tools like bug tracking system, release publishing infrastructure, forums, etc.. They "only" give web spaces (with PHP support), MySQL or PostgreSQL databases, Subversion and/or CVS repositories, DNS servers hosting, mail hosting, mailing-lists, etc. For free, and for all projects which are free as in free speech. And not only free software projects, they also host some free art stuffs. For example, we host the prism54 project.

I'm quite convinced by them, and I guess that my next OSS project (whatever it might be) will be hosted there. Why don't you also give it a try?

April's Music

Now, April is the month I've learnt to love Music-wise. This is the month where labels doesn't release anything (or at least nothing big), when they manage themselves about how the previous year ended and what are the resolutions to the upcoming year. What does this mean? Well, it means that most dealers and resellers use this month to update their stocks, fish for old goodies and keep track of their catalogs about all the stuff that has been released until then. Which, in other words, means that you finally get to grab a copy of that "sold out" CD you thought you would never be able to have, and to manage your CD collection to get the complete discography of your favourite bands.

Of course I allways forget what April means music-wise until I notice it again, so I'm never prepared to it. We're at the eleventh of April and I've already ordered more than twenty CD's. And I'm only getting that "now or never" items. WOW.

Merankorii: Straight to Art

For those who doesn't yet know, Merankorii is a musical project of mine. I've just released a new song, to be featured on Merankorii's third CD. More info here.

April 10, 2006

Planet Noori on your Cellphone

Planet Noori now has an WAP version for those wanting to read it on your cellphone (or, in other words, so I can read it on moy cellphone ;-)). There are LOT's of tweaks to do, but it already works.

April 07, 2006

Linux 2.6.16.2

Linux Kernel 2.6.16.2 has been released. This is the latest stable version of the Linux Kernel.

The USB and IPW2200 fixes may be useful to you.

TODO

I have to make Planet Noori to have a WML interface, so I can read the news on my mobile phone. For now I'm doing it but reading P*, which, despite of not having a WML version, is well parsed by Google's WML proxy.

April 06, 2006

10th EGTI

EGTI is a Portuguese conference that will be held at the 19th of April, in Coimbra, Portugal.

I'll be there, and you?

April 05, 2006

Ranting on Linux Kernel

OK, round 2. We already know by now that the latest "stable" kernel has a not so stable ALSA, when ALSA's website points 1.0.10 as the latest stable version. Now, What I can't understand is... Why can't at lease we stick with 1.0.11rc4, the latest development release, while 1.0.11 (final) isn't here, and instead we go and suck the CVS version? And how, doing that on the stable version instead of using -mm for all those masturbation purposes, dare we to rant saying that "Apparently nobody had tried to compile the ALSA CVS tree without power management enabled"? That's not even a development version, for ${DEITY}'s sake, it's fucking work in progress!

April 04, 2006

Anti-Piracy in Portugal

So, the theme of the day here in Portugal has been the fight against piracy in Portugal, with Music industry's anti-piracy lawsuits in Portugal.

From the article:
The international record industry will for the first time sue people in Portugal who illegally share music over the Internet, the head of an industry trade group said in an interview published yesterday.

The big problem here is that people still fail to see that the major problem in all this discussions and takes is that nobody is caring about the artists and the consumers, only about the record industry and their profit shares.