Relating to the conservatives

Image from flickr.comIn the wake of the Obama victory the far right is really reeling in pain right about now. They feel that The USA has been played for the fool. The fear that terrorism, Satan and Karl Marx have jointly achieved a large victory.
On Tuesday The United States of America rejected fear, divisiveness, prejudice, and the status-quo. There seems to be a recognition by most that the time is now for our country to move forward in making important decisions that will determine our place in an increasingly globalized world. There is little doubt that our international stance is slipping fast (Bush openly rejected raising our stance in the international world in the 2004 debates) and that our current policies will only make it worse.
So in light of the major victory that we have gained by electing Obama it is easy to criticise and attack those who are scared by this new presidency. I think I may be able to relate to what they are going through.
In 1999 when Bush won I was shocked. This man had failure written all over him. Aside from his many failed attempts as a business man, he put a higher value on nationalism than patriotism. This guy represented the many kids I despised in grade school. He came off as an arrogant bully that thought that not only where his values and culture better than everyone else's, but that action needed to be taken to demoralize those who where not like him.
So when he was put in the oval office I was devastated. I could not imagine a worse person to lead our country. This was a rejection of all my values. How could my country be so stupid? It was inconceivable.
It turned out that Bush was much worse than I thought. I thought he would be bad, but I just didn't fully comprehend the scale of destruction he would institute. Torture, false wars, economic failure edging on the scale of the great depression, illegal domestic spying followed up by retroactive immunity, the destruction of the constitution, "with us or against us" politics, abortion rates go from declining to stagnating, etc. I just thought his policies would fail, I didn't realise they would destroy.
So now we have Obama and the religious conservatives are beside themselves in national disappointment. If Michelle Obama is proud of her country for the first time, they are disappointed in their country for the first time.
The USA didn't just reject Bush, the accepted a man who's pastor said "Goddamn America!" His wife was only recently proud of our country "for the first time." He sat on a board with a man who blew up domestic building in the sixties. His name is not "American." He is an advocate for the "Pro-Choice" movement. He wants to "spread the wealth around." Worst, he may be a Muslim in disguise, might not say the Pledge of Allegiance, and is probably being guided by Satan. He belongs culturally to the humanist atheists.
This is what the religious right is having a problem with. They don't see politics and people as nuanced. Sure, life has its curve balls, but problems are as easy as using as what they see as God's way to solve them. You do what you are suppose to and then you pray that the rest is just sorted out on its own.
The religious right will not do a self examination because they don't believe they where ever wrong. Sure, Bush had his problems, but overall he was pushing us in the right direction. He appointed two judges to the Supreme Court that bring us closer to overturning Roe V. Wade. The war in Iraq may have been mismanaged, but the ideal of bringing American (i.e. Christian) values to them with a gun and bomb was the right choice, even if the execution was less than stellar. They see this as God's country, and any efforts to build a pluralistic, inclusive society are dangerous. They don't see what good there is in compromising with the Pagan east.
For them these values are good, have been good, and always will be good. The see the last eight years as being great spiritually. They do not view the problems we face as being necessarily Bush's fault, and those that are do not trump the issue of abortion or unifying inclusion of those that do not agree with us.
Having had their values rejected is hurtful. Of course they are angry and baffled. I have been there too. My only hope is that Obama is able to use all of his talent and intelligence to bring about economic, social and global prosperity. I hope that in four years from now people are able to look back and say, "Thing have been going pretty good. I am happy overall with the direction of this country and optimistic about its future."
Four years is a short time to reverse the problems caused by the last eight. Destruction is much easier than construction. I believe with the right tone and the right policies Obama can do good and even make believers of his detractors. I hope this not because I want Obama to be glorified, nor because I want people to accept my point of view. I hope he does this because I want our country to succeed.

A Day for the Books

Today has been a momentous day for our country. The world has been watching us.
This morning Kim and I started by dropping Arianna and Athena off at daycare and then heading to the polls. We arrived shortly after the seven o'clock opening. There was probably around fifty people already there. The wait was not very long.
On accident I voted against Amendment One, which I felt pretty dumb about. Amendment One was to remove a provision that allows the legislature to discriminate against the property rights of legal aliens. The reason it is not a big deal is that Florida has never used that power, and it is very unlikely it ever will. It did not pass anyhow.
Kim cast her ballot first and then I cast mine. The ballots where paper scantrons. You simply bubble in the name and put it through the machine. When I put mine in the machine read that the ballot was read, but jammed. The lady with the key to clear the jam took her time to clear it and a line quickly formed of voters who had voted and needed to submit their entries. Finally the jam was cleared and my vote was in the system.
The act of filling in the bubble for Obama seemed very powerful, yet very simple. I knew that the moment I cast my vote for him I was fulfilling a broken promise of liberty for all Americans. The reasons for this are many. The most obvious is the strong movement forward this is for a mostly stagnant civil rights movement. The gravity of this action goes beyond that. It is a small part of a larger change of the direction of our country. Bush's presidency has been more disastrous than any hardcore liberal ever dream. He didn't just work against liberal values, he systematically worked to destroy America from every facet. He used fear and blind nationalism to destroy our credibility as a free and far country. He destroyed our economy, fought to institutionalize and legalize torture, recklessly gave to the wealthy while leaving the poor to defend for themselves, and worked against any and all positive values of conservative ideology. He was an ideologue and crony. More on all this.
Aurora cast her ballot for Obama, and I think she was pretty proud to.
The event was just surreal. I had voted for Nader the past two elections, and did not expect myself to actually be in a position where our country had a democrat on the ballot with values similar to mine. Growing up in the middle of all the racism I encountered as a grade schooler, I didn't think our country had it in us to nominate a black man with a funny name.
All day long I was giddy about the prospect of the nights results. I was just feeling good all day.
We had dinner tonight at Sue's. Kim and Katie made some eggplant Parmesan that was awesome. At seven, the time of the first poll closing, I turned on the news. It was useless like usual, but my excitement to start consuming election data had to be quenched.
At home we do not have TV. Fortunately the Internet has matured such that one does not need the TV. In Firefox I had, at minimum, the following websites opened in tabs:

• http://www.npr.org/#/president?view=race08


• http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/main.results/index.html#


• https://www.google.com/reader/


• http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/


• http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21376522-Official-election-night-results-tracking


• http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home

I also had NPR streaming in Firefox.
McCain's speech was very good. McCain began by highlighting how important this event is for the hopes and dreams of many who have fought hard for civil rights. This received what seemed to be earnest applause from the audience. Then McCain went on to say that we have to move forward and that he would work with Obama to bring about the policies our country needs to strengthen us. McCain's crowd went from gracious to mean spirited. They were interrupting him and being very disrespectful to what must have been a very difficult time for McCain. Many have commented that they wish the McCain that delivered this speech was the McCain that ran for president. This sentiment was echoed across the political spectrum. I mentioned it before I read anyone else said it, so it must have been a universal thought that crossed most people's mind.
Shortly thereafter came Obama's acceptance speech. I discovered C-SPAN's live video stream and watched it, with what was probably a thirty-second delay, streaming on to my computer.
Everything about the speech was good as far as acceptance speech goes. He highlighted his call for change and action. You could tell the crowd was beside themselves in joy. The camera showed Jesse Jackson and Oprah a lot. You would have thought their first daughter was getting married by the look on their faces.
Tonight has been a moment of history. Obama has four years to tackle some very difficult problems. It is probably unreasonable to believe he can tackle them in only four years, but it is his assignment and he fought hard to be assigned the task. I believe if anyone can do it, it is Obama.

Biden campaign

On Sunday Joe Biden held a rally in front of FSU's Doak Campbell Stadium. I met up at Joe Brightbill's house and we walked to the stadium. There was a long line that took about twenty minutes to get through. At various points in the line there where members of the Obama campaign recruiting volunteers. There was only one person that approached us to sign something pledging to do something green, I don't remember and I didn't sign.
The entrance had metal detectors and secret service checking each person and their belongings. The area was covered in police cars, and some uniformed men where standing watch at the top of the stadium. The event was held in front of the stadium, not inside the stadium.

There was easily a few thousand when we arrived and probably about another thousand entered after we did.
The music at the event was a rotation of more-or-less bad songs with the exception of about two oldies. Brooks and Dunn's "Only in America" was also heavily in rotation, which was hands down the worst song they had on their list. Waiting for the event to start was similar to purchasing a car. You are made to wait and wait in what seems like an obnoxious amount of forever.
While waiting I discovered I was standing next to Mary Rozofsky, friend's mother. She is an exceptionally nice lady and it is always nice to meet up with her.

After long amounts of waiting people stood up and start cheering. Then nothing for a long time. Finally some people came up and started talking. One lady was some one from congress I think. The next was an Obama volunteer that packed up and left California to fight for Florida. She spoke about the importance of volunteering these last two days to make sure Florida goes blue this cycle.
Once they where done it was more waiting. Joe's dad, David, gave up his spot in a comfortable seat to come stand with us.
During the wait they had people they selected to sit behind the podium and cheer. Someone down below had them practice different chants. This would later be put in action to create some video camera magic for the news.
David and I had a long talk about computer and technology such as the EEE PC, I-Phone, G-Phone, Linux, Mac, etc. David also has his own audio-cast and blog at http://www.tallycast.com/ He had his camera and handheld audio recorder. Each time people stood up and cheered for what turned out to be no reason, he would start his recorder and then turn it off once we realized there was no action yet.
Finally Senator Bill Nelson, Jill Biden and Joe Biden took the stage. Bill started off and gave some forgettable speach and then introduced Jill. Jill gave a quick synopsis of Joe's past and current life as a senator and then brought him to the podium. Joe's speech was exactly what you would expect from any person running as the Vice President under the Democrat ticket.
Sitting just outside of the blocked in area where just under thirty McCain supporters. Their presence would have otherwise all been in good political sport, except someone brought a siren with them that the blasted during the whole speech. I thought they where being very childish in their disrespect. Thousands of people came to see history in the making and some sore losers found it their duty to do what they could to ruin it. The more inevitable the Obama win looks, the more desperate the other side becomes. On the positive side, at least we don't kill each other in events like this, such as what happens in too many other countries.
Joe did have one good line. The first time the siren went off I think most of us assumed it was an ambulance. The second time the blasted it Joe said something to the effect of, "At first I thought that siren was an ambulance, but now I see it is just some people on the edge whining." That evoked some good laughter.
The most interesting part of the whole event was the crowd seated right behind Biden. There was a person running down below camera level telling this group when and what to chant. These people where on mic so it came out loud through the speakers. I can imagine that from the point of view of the camera's the crowd was cheering Joe on. In reality, most people listened silently and the vast majority of cheering came from those behind Joe. I guess it looks good on camera.

I was pretty glad when Joe was done speaking. My legs hurt and most everything about the event was, well, non-eventful. Joe and I walked back to his house, eating at a place I think was simply called "burrito" (my treat) on the way. He treated me to a rib sandwich later on so it was all good.

Events like this usually make better stories than they do make for good experiences. Standing for hours to have a politician make a very canned politician's speech isn't really all that exciting. I wonder how running around a state and giving canned speeches to groups of people already in agreement with you inspires anyone that is undecided, or leaning the other direction to vote for you.

Useless fact

Here's a useless fact I just discovered while programming leap years. I was born February 28, 1980, a leap year that began on Tuesday. This year, 2008, is the first time since I was born that a leap year began on a Tuesday. A leap year will not begin on Tuesday again until I am 56.

Computers and education

Our local newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat, had a call out for people willing to be interviewed about how the use video games to promote their child's education. I called the lady doing the article and told her about my setup. She seemed pretty excited about the things I was telling her and we agreed to have her and a photographer come over and watch the kids play on their computer and ask them questions about it. I also told her about our XO, which she seemed pretty excited about seeing.

Updating goodness

The new version of Ubuntu comes out on Oct. 30th. After running my machines through beta versions of Ubuntu during the last development cycle, I decided to be a bit more patient this go around. I left my laptop and primary desktop machines alone, but last weekend I updated the girls machine to the beta version last weekend. It seems I updated during a window in which a bug was causing some upgrades to fail. The bug would cause the machine to bootup and right before login would just give you a brown background. I filed a bug, which got marked as a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rarian/+bug/284074 After it was fixed, a fix for broken systems was posted and I got the girls machine back up and working.
The wallpaper was going to be this, which looks like poop through a kaleidoscope. It looks like they finally changed it to this, which looks amazing and is on par with their previous wallpaper's quality.
The next major noticeable difference is that everything feels a lot more responsive.
Wallpaper candidates can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Intrepid/Desktop_Background_Submissions There are some really great pieces of art in there.
About a month ago I tried to update our XO. The update left me with an unusable machine. I couldn't even get to the terminal to try any repaired. After some searching last night I found out how to restore it to factory default settings. Once that was done I did a clean upgrade which essentially wipes the drive clean and builds the latest version off of a USB key. The latest updates give a better user interface and it also feels a little more responsive. I even gave it the brand-spanking-new Flash 10 which seems to run fine.
In just about two weeks I will be upgrading my primary PC and laptop with the final version of Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex.

Almost lost my fingers

Monday night I was working on my new Vanagon. I came in side after a while to eat dinner and get everyone tucked in to bed. By that time it was dark, so I was working with my trusty flashlight that is powered by shaking it to charge the cell.
I was attempting to locate the slave cylinder. I had crawled under it during daylight and was very sure that the only thing going in to the transmission from the front was the rod that connects to the shifter. Somewhere the clutch has to go in to the transmission at the slave cylinder, but I could not locate it.
After I had everyone tucked in I used the instructions at http://www.type2.com/bartnik/clutchslave.htm It says to take of the rear-"left" wheel. I assumed left meant driver-side. Note to everyone, always say driver-side or passenger-side, not left and right.
So I jacked up the rear driver side. The jack that comes with the Vanagon is pretty cool in that it has a bar that goes in to a hole in the van so there is no possibility of slippage. The only problem is that the base is about 2.5" x 2.5", so there isn't a lot of base to carry the weight of the vehicles back end. I found some wood and stuck it under the jack. On the last turn of the jack the handle broke. This was pretty frustrating, but I trucked on and got the wheel off. I stuck my flashlight back in and thought I saw the slave cylinder, but on the other side of the vehicle.
I broke out another jack and jacked up the other side, leaving the driver-side up, unable to crank it down. When I finally had the passenger-side jacked up I pulled at the wheel to get it off when both of my jack slipped and jammed my fingers between the tire and the frame of the bus.
My neighbors got their fair share of late-night choice words. I seriously did not think I was going to be able to get my fingers out by myself and was not sure how I would be able to signal anyone, with everyone asleep at this time.
With my left hand I put my palm under the frame, knelt down and with my whole body pushed up. I was not able to push the frame off of the tire, but was able to push it up enough that I could pull my hand out.
My adrenaline was pumping pretty hard and I was shaking. My fingers didn't hurt that bad and didn't immediately appear broken. I moved them around and they appeared to work just fine. There was a few layers of skin peeling back, but it just peeled right off and there was no bruising, scabbing, or broken bones. With a bag of ice and some time to calm down I put all my tools away, including both jacks and called it a night.
I was worried that I would be unable to type at work, but aside from a little pressure from some minor swelling, my fingers where just fine.
I already don't' trust jacks, and I don't even feel comfortable climbing under a vehicle with all four wheels secured, but now my trust levels have gone even further south.

As

I just got my grades in for the first half of the semester. I got two As. Next week starts the second half of the semester with a philosophy class and a database class. If I can get As in those two classes as well I will have had my second ever straight-A semester.

Canonical's place in the Linux ecosystem.

Greg Kroah-Hartman recently gave a talk in Portland, OR on Canonical's contribution to the core of Linux. The talk was at the first Linux Plumbers Conference. The conference was designed to get as many of the core Linux developers together and talk face to face.
One key point to open-source software is upstreaming and downstreaming. Project developers, like Mozilla's Firefox, are the core of a product. Downstream companies grab and reuse the code of the upstream core team. So when Ubuntu pulls down Firefox, they package it for their users.
When users have problems they report them to their provider. So if I notice a bug in Firefox I go to Canonical's launchpad and file a bug. What should happen is that bug report, once verified, should go upstream. This means that the bug may be fixed by Canonical, or may be fixed by Firefox. If Canonical fixes it then they push that bug fix upstream to Mozilla, and downstream to their users. So not only do Ubuntu users get the bug fix, but all users of Firefox get the bug fixed as well.
This sort of collaboration amongst upstream and downstream users across the web of providers is one of the most powerful parts of open source software.
Another important aspect of open-source software is that upstream doesn't have to accept patches from downstream. If Canonical fixes a bug, but the patch for the fix does not meet Mozilla's quality standards, or Mozilla doesn't consider it a bug, that is fine. Canonical is responsible for producing what it views as is best for its users. Ubuntu users could also demand a feature in a product, and Canonical could implement it an upstream it, and the upstream could not accept the new feature. For example, Ubuntu users may want to use Firefox as a file-system browser. Canonical could add this support and send it up to Mozilla. Mozilla could simply conclude that being a file system browser is not part of its vision and not implement these changes. Other downstream could get these patches and put them in their product if they wish, or not if they don't.
What is important is that downstream communicates with upstream so that all downstream users of a product are able to benefit from each others work.
Back to Greg and the LPC. Firefox is none of their concern. They are interested in the core of what makes up the Linux OS. Firefox is not part of the OS. It is simply a browser that happens to run on Linux (as well other OSes.) The LPC is for people who work on core parts like the kernel, xorg (the graphical part of Linux), and other specific components.
Greg has two arguments:

1. Canonical's contributions to the core components of Linux are too small.
2. Canonical does not upstream their core work very well.
3. Ubuntu is too many degrees downstream to effectively get its work back to the core.

A small review of Ubuntu's relationship to upstream projects. Ubuntu is based off of Debian, another Linux OS. Debian packages together programs from across the OSS Linux communities and builds their distribution. Canonical takes the Debian OS, tweaks it and ships Ubuntu. Every six months Ubuntu synchs up with the latest stable Debain, applies all of their patches, makes all the new adjustments, and ships a new version Ubuntu.
So, in practice Ubuntu doesn't actually upstream to projects, they upstream to Debian. Debian accepts what they like and then upstream that up to the main project. The problem, according to Greg, is that these never make it back to the main project, and thus never trickle down to the rest of the OSS community. The accusation is basically that Canonical is not acting a good member of the community, effectively free riding off the rest of the group. His proof is in the low number of contributions to the core of Linux.
In the context of the LPC this makes sense. So what if Ubuntu has made major strides in fixing problems, and implementing new features in Gimp, Gnome, various translations, Nautilus, etc. In the context of LPC these are not important, just like an engine designer is not concerned with the improvements made in a car's dashboard.
Greg's mistake is pointing this out as if it is relevant. He completely misunderstands Canonicals place in the Linux ecosystem. Mark Shuttleworth did not set out to build a stable and secure operating system. Linux had been both stable and secure long before he come on the scene. The problem was that the stability and security of Linux was out of the grasp of users. It took months to learn how to install Linux, and then even longer to figure out how to use it. It was like having a car that never broke, but was more difficult to drive than a space shuttle. The strengths of Linux where irrelevant as it was obfuscated from usability by the average human being, indeed even the average computer geek.
So Mark set out to build on top of the Linux's greatness, and conquer its weakness. He wanted to bring Linux to the masses. He built a distribution that is easy to use and install. Linux is still not easy enough. In fact, no OS is easy enough. The fact of the matter is that every OS has really crapy usability. Mark is looking to fix that problem, and to make Ubuntu not only more user-friendly than Windows and Mac OSX, but to bring it to the level of usability that users are expecting of our future technology.
This is why you see him personally attending to bugs like this one. When you look at his comments, he is only commenting on the usability aspect of the bug, not the technical aspect of the problem. When you read his interviews he is always talking about the user experience. You will never hear him say that in the next version of Ubuntu he wants to bring killer features to the file system, or really great caching in the kernel. These aren't the things that he stays up late at night thinking about. He understands that there is already a really large team of great engineers working on these problems. He also understands that Linux lacks such a team for fighting for usability and the end-user experience.
Marks fight and Greg's fight are different fights on the same team. Greg is the butcher and Mark is the chef prepping the plate that is going to make the customer want to come back. The two should be patting each other on the back for doing such a great job.

Another trip out to Saint Marks.

Andrew and I had planned on camping in one of the primitive camping spots in Saint Marks, but when we called the for a permit we where informed that they where only for people hiking the whole forty-mile trail. Not to be deterred from a great weekend, we just hiked out for an afternoon stroll.
What made this walk better than the first was that there where no mosquitoes. We started around 5:30pm, so it was also much cooler.
The whole trail has waters on both sides, and we saw a lot of alligators.
We turned around at one of the primitive spots. It was a very cool camp site. It was a circle off of the trail that had a little pond in the middle. We walked from here to here.
Unfortunately, I could not locate my camera, but Andrew got plenty of good shots, and I took a few too.
The moment we reached the camp ground the sun ducked under the horizon. We ran about half of the way back, and spent about the last third in darkness. Andrew had his bicycle light, and the night was pretty bright, but it was not what we would have preferred with snakes and gators that like to come out at night. But, we made it back healthy, and we had an excellent time. Photos start here.