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2005

My Christmas Present

Kelly got me one of the best gifts I’ve got in a long time, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes Collection.

Weighing at just over 22 pounds, the collection consists of 3 hardcover bound books, with every comic done by Bill Watterson. Kicking off with a 14 page foreword, which was worth it a lone, as Mr. Watterson discusses his love of comics, and touches on why he never granted interviews or went ahead with merchandising.

Each book contains 3 years worth of strips, interspersed with water color paintings that take up a whole page. The comic strips are laid out in order, and the background color of each page is an off-white that really makes the strips stand out. Each page has the dates the comics on the page were originally run.

I love Calvin and Hobbes – not only does it take me back to my childhood, but those strips still make me laugh out loud as I was reading them this weekend. It truely is one of the timeless classics.

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Merry Christmas for Linux

The Gstreamer team at Fluendohas licensed the MP3 codec for use on Linux! From the article:

Why are we doing this ? Quite simple. mp3 is a very widespread format, and the fact that Linux could not legally play it out of the box in countries where patents apply is posing a lot of problems for adoption. It is one of the most commonly heard complaints about distros these days. Fluendo still fully supports open formats, and we hope people move to using them. Part of that move is being able to play your legacy formats, where you have no choice over the format. Remember, we are not giving away a free encoder.

What does this mean? That one of the biggest oversights in all Linux distributions has been fixed – Distro’s can bundle in MP3 decoding support out of the box, and not have to worry about patent issues.

Thanks Fluendo!

  • in Politics
  • 1 min read

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

Senate Rejects Extension of Patriot Act

Sen. Feingold has Senators listening! With a vote of 52-47, 8 short to override a filibuster, Senators today rejected extending the Patriot Act. Senators from all sides joined Sen. Feingold in opposing this terrible piece of legislation that stomps on American’s civil liberties.

“We can come together to give the government the tools it needs to fight terrorism and protect the rights and freedoms of innocent citizens,” said Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., arguing that provisions permitting government access to confidential personal data lacked safeguards to protect the innocent.

“We need to be more vigilant,” agreed Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record), a Republican from New Hampshire, where the state motto is “Live Free or Die.” He quoted Benjamin Franklin: “Those that would give up essential liberty in pursuit of a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

Classic Doom Mod

Flaming Sheep Software has released the Classic Doom mod for Doom3. Bringing back the look, feel and maps of the original Doom now running on the Doom3 engine.

Quake IV on Linux has been a breeze to run, I’m going to have to install my Doom3 copy that’s around here somewhere and try this mod out.

Ubuntu Desktop News

The first Ubuntu Desktop News has been published.

It contains an overview of all the work being done on the upcoming 6.04 Dapper Drake release of Ubuntu, specifically around desktop improvements.

With lots of topics, including speed improvements, being able to install packages by just double-clicking on a .deb file (!), Rhythmbox mention, and an interview with Sebastian Bacher, if you’re an Ubuntu user, this is worth a read!

Second Life Linux Port Update

Back in July, I blogged about Icculus starting a port of Second Life.

About a month ago, I signed up for a Second Life account as it was: a) free and b) you need an account to get on the Second Life forums. I was looking for an answer or update on the Linux port. I didn’t find anything, but I headed back today, and found this post by Andrew Linden on the Linden staff:

_Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Zaius

I think LL’s contractor has gone walkabout. We saw some initial screenshots, then nothing._

Actually, he [ed: Icculus] did go missing. As far as I know the project was started on his own initiative. He wanted to work on it in his copius spare time and LL’s stance was, “If you can do it, great!”. He made some rapid progress, then got sidetracked and never got back to it. I prodded him twice but he didn’t reply.

Which is very unfortunate. I don’t even have access to SL at home anymore since our Windows computer finally succumbed to a virus. I transferred all of the important data over to a Knoppix/debian machine and haven’t had time to rebuild a fresh Windows installation.

I would love to work on a GNU/Linux port of SL but I already have a full plate of stuff to do that I can’t get done fast enough. 🙁

Very interesting. Nice to have an update, and I’m intrigued that Icculus started the port on his own. I’m curious if he had the source from Linden Labs, or used the Mac client to port it to Linux. I’m disappointed that it never got finished, but I more than understand getting sidetracked when you were working on it for free.

Icculus.org is down (just today) switching ISPs, and I think Icculus has a FAQ up about contacting him – and this is one of those topics that are probably taboo. Bummer.