Archive for 'Uncategorized'
A carpenter’s explanation of OpenSource
Imagine that you are a shop teacher intending to teach children how to build a wooden footstool:
The shop teacher and the prefab ‘lumber’yard
You go to the lumberyard and ask for some lumber and nails. The guy at the lumber store shakes his head and says, “Sorry, we don’t got that, we only carry EasyDone or NanoHouse products. How about this beautiful prefab bathroom?” You tell him you don’t need a bathroom.
“Perhaps I can interest you in a EasyDone kitchen?” he says.
“Just wood and nails,” you say. Frustration is beginning to show in your voice.
“O.K. then you must choose between an EasyDone or NanoHouse prefab livingroom.”
“I only need wood and nails! Ten penny nails, 2X4s, plywood!”
“We don’t sell that.”
“O.K. then how much is an EasyDone bedroom, I can take it apart and use the wood and nails.”
“$40,000″
“What? That is far too expensive for my budget!”
“It’s fully integrated, painted, the carpet is in place and the bed is even included, it’s ready to go!”
“But it doesn’t do what I need. I’m only going to take it apart and we are going to use the wood in shop class.”
You go to the lumberyard and ask for some lumber and nails. The guy at the lumber store shakes his head and says, “Sorry, we don’t got that, we only carry EasyDone or NanoHouse products. How about this beautiful prefab bathroom?” You tell him you don’t need a bathroom.
“Perhaps I can interest you in a EasyDone kitchen?” he says.
“Just wood and nails,” you say. Frustration is beginning to show in your voice.
“O.K. then you must choose between an EasyDone or NanoHouse prefab livingroom.”
“I only need wood and nails! Ten penny nails, 2X4s, plywood!”
“We don’t sell that.”
“O.K. then how much is an EasyDone bedroom, I can take it apart and use the wood and nails.”
“$40,000″
“What? That is far too expensive for my budget!”
“It’s fully integrated, painted, the carpet is in place and the bed is even included, it’s ready to go!”
“But it doesn’t do what I need. I’m only going to take it apart and we are going to use the wood in shop class.”
Posted: September 10th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Tags: education, opensource
Comments: none
ZFS in Apple’s OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard
Storagemojo’s blog has some interesting comments about Apple’s decision to leave the next generation ZFS volume-manager/filesystem out of OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard. I have no idea why they did this. Command line read-only ZFS existed in OSX 10.5 Leopard and an opensource plug-in gave it read write capability. ZFS has proven itself both in saving [...]
Posted: September 3rd, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
28 August Broadmeadows low evening tide
I don’t remember the broadmeadows estuary water level ever being quite so low so close to a high tide. Notice the entire length of the pier is out of the water. Today is partway between a spring tide and neap tide so I wouldn’t expect extremes. The wind was strong out of the west but [...]
Posted: August 28th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: none
Repairing Pentax *IST DL DSLR mode switch
Update February 8, 2010 The problem came back two more times while I was in China but while I was shopping for and considering buying a replacement camera, some guys in the basement of Top City Electronics in the Zhonguancun district of Beijing fixed it for about $20, while I waited. I watched and saw [...]
Posted: August 17th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 2