This Week in Links - April and May

Exciting to do this! This was supposed to be weekly, but time slid away from me. But there are so many tabs open FF is hardly working, so it's TIME.

Amazing article, highly recommended: 150 Years After Fort Sumter: Why We're Still Fighting the Civil War: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2063679-1,00.html. 150 years later, it is high time to look back and learn the lessons of that horrible war, and the scourge of slavery which stained this country for so long. The racism which remains shows that we have NOT owned up to that full history, but have continued to ignore all the causes. We nearly lost our Union then, yet talk of secession still simmers now.

OMG, want: http://www.moccamaster.com/uk/. Freaking all-flash site, but that coffee-maker looks amazing!

Interesting old slideshow (2004), history of the beginning of KDE: http://events.kde.org/info/kastle/presentations/kastle-history/index.html

If ever I do write a thesis, this might come in handy! http://www.cs.umd.edu/~nspring/software/style-check-readme.html

Lots of cool videos of ants in action: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/04/25/fire-ants-assemble-into-living-waterproof-rafts/#more-4381

Amazing track by Johnny Cash. If only the radio preacher and all his suckered believers had listened to this, instead of to the radio: The Man Comes Around.

Yay, I had lost this link until someone posted it! Great online comic: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/

For those who are having Flash problems recently in Linux, this is supposed to help: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flash-aid/. What helped ME in Natty was removing and purging flashplugin-nonfree, then reinstalling flashplugin-installer.

Best reply to the idiots in the Tennessee Legislature who recently passed a bill banning the use of the word "gay" or "homosexual" by teachers in school: http://geeks.thedailywh.at/2011/05/19/george-takei-psa-of-the-day/. That is SO Takei!

A series of links I've found concerning my dead mic and headphone jack: http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=3116917.0, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1755827&highlight=headphones&page=2, https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/184314, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=205449, http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/02/this-is-the-route-to-hell/

The great Bill Withers, Ain't No Sunshine While She's Gone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo.

John McCain regains his integrity? A bit late, but better late than never: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/john-mccain-to-bush-apologists-stop-lying-about-bin-laden-and-torture/2011/03/03/AF10AnzG_blog.html.

The cost of cowardice. I used to support Sojourners, but they have let me down, they have let gay Christians down, and in doing so, lost their integrity and value: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/4605/tainted_love%3A_the_cost_of_sojourners%E2%80%99_refusal_to_take_sides_on_lgbt_issues.

Nice explanation of Kubuntu repositories: http://dohbuoy.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/kubuntu-and-its-repositories/.

Eric Clapton, Tears in Heaven, live: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AscPOozwYA8.

Cool project! Use the idle time on your computer (Windows, Mac, or Linux) to cure diseases, study global warming, discover pulsars, and do many other types of scientific research. It's safe, secure, and easy: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/. Thanks for the link, Himanshu.

Possible use for Alsachat? http://www.crawltrack.net/, http://loadimpact.com/.

Fun link - my first computer! The Coleco ADAM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Adam.

Fascinating discussion of How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/how-the-robber-barons-hijacked-the-victorian-internet.ars/.

Discussion on reddit about how teams best manage artwork: http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/h6pku/teams_how_do_you_manage_your_artwork/.

Quite funny, and a bit mind-bending for Americans, maybe: http://www.galacticempiretimes.com/2011/05/09/galaxy/outer-rim/obi-wan-kenobi-is-killed.html.

Interesting discussion of religion and atheism (anti-religion?): https://profiles.google.com/u/0/anirbit.mukherjee/posts/8BQ8Cgh3vxC

Obviously I like *this link, since I tried to raise my kids this way: Let Kids Play With Fire, and Other Rules for Good Parenting.

God Help The Girl is a story written by Stuart Murdoch, which is in the process of being turned into a film, and which has already yielded a self-titled album, an EP (‘Stills’) and a handful of live shows.

So cute! Animals with Stuffed Animals. And http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2011/05/australias-newest-bundle-of-baby-rhino-joy-1.html

Important to remember: http://xkcd.com/896/. Also, after reading a biography of Marie Curie when I was young, I admired her so much. But I didn't want to BE her! The reason we are here on Earth, is to be our Selves, as much as possible. In my opinion.

Bizarre, and so opposite from the xkcd message, is: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/09/removing-women-from-situation-room-photo/. This might cheer you up, though: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/12/6634301-best-new-thing-how-dyou-like-that-situation. Clickety-click!

Interesting article about Nokia and open source.

World IPv6 Day. Get ready, people! Unlike the End of the World, this is actually happening.

Open Source Sewing? Yeah, including this Teddy Pig pattern.

Why are there so many engineers in India? Interesting article about higher education in India, some of which is true in China too. http://thenextweb.com/in/2011/05/08/why-there-so-many-engineers-in-india/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hackernewsyc+%28Hacker+News+YC%29.

I had a blog with links about helpful travel sites, but I think it's way outdated. Easier to link to Hypatia's blog: http://hypatia.ca/2010/08/travel-tricks/.

This sucks, but doesn't surprise me: http://thedailywh.at/2011/05/22/this-is-all-kinds-of-wrong-of-the-day-4/. It would discourage me, but I just got a nice card from Sen. Fayn as a response to an email I sent him. And he's a Republican. One of the good guys.

No idea if this works, is practical, etc. But it is interesting: Android, Chrome OS, and Ubuntu United in One Platform: A new option from Always Innovating adds a fourth Linux-based operating system for a quad-boot alternative. I don't have a Beagle board, but who knows the future?

Spreadsheet with Google Summer of Code students, and their distribution around the world: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgL4N-OdGxhQcDZEdW9BMmxKVG9LbVV6b1NxNnJhWlE&gid=5.

If you didn't see it, President Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner - now is as good a time as any!

From NPR: Size Matters: The Hidden Mathematics of Life.

That's quite enough, don't you think? I do too. More later, of course!