September 2013 - luv-talk

Re: [luv-talk] Combating Microsoft FUD.
by Daniel Jitnah 30 Sep '13

30 Sep '13

Copied to LUV-Talk. Honestly, I dont think its worth your effort trying to talk someone like the Burser to have Linux. Can you by-pass him/her? You really have to know who you are talking to... for some people its just not worth the effort. There are many strategies and what works for one will not work for someone else. Sometimes its just better to not tell them its Linux, set up the machine with Linux and it does the job - if its a server they wont know Talk Open Source Software, Ubuntu etc... Find someone who is likely to be willing to give Linux a try, can understand that Android = Linux (for the purpose of the argument here!!) instead of said Burser to talk to. Talk up application and systems like Scratch, Edubuntu etc .. Talk security - NO virus Show them the OpenCD Assure them they dont have to give up Windows Show them data that shows where Open Source software Linux is used very successfully: Top500 Supercomputers, Top website (Alexa), NASA, etc .... : assuming here that they are willing to listen. Tell them that Microsoft share of the Market is in decline and that MS soft share price is going down. Tell them like it or not, people are using PC's less and less, and Microsoft has only a small share of mobile devices (Tablet and smartphone) - ie: people will be using Windows much less, so getting to know another system is advantageous. Just some ideas. Cheers Daniel. On Mon, September 30, 2013 17:51, Peter Nunn wrote: > Hi Guys, > > At the risk of starting a thread that runs for months, how do you overcome microsoft FUB in the education sector. > > I've just quoted a couple of machines for a local, not for profit, school up my way that were intended to run KVM and > file services with Winblows servers on top of them "because they have to have windows"). > > The Buresr, whom I do have some sympathy for, given the amount of crap he's been told, has made the decision that > Linux is 'too risky', after consulting other bursers on some network of bursers (god knows) and being advised that > "Linux is no good in an education environment, can't get staff, no-one uses it except a few 'out there risk takers'". > Of course the M$ suppliers are pushing the same line. > > How the hell do you combat this bull shit? > > I have to say I'm amazed that a school with so little money is happy to throw it away to M$ (despite the heavy > discounts they get for the licenses). > > Peter. > _______________________________________________ > luv-main mailing list > luv-main(a)luv.asn.au > http://lists.luv.asn.au/listinfo/luv-main >

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Fwd: [@OKFNau] HealthHack Melbourne] Oct 25 (evening)-29
by rdbrown＠pacific.net.au 30 Sep '13

30 Sep '13

OKFNau == Open Knowledge Foundation Australia ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Fiona Tweedie Date: Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 7:13 AM Subject: [@OKFNau] HealthHack Melbourne To: okfn-au(a)lists.okfn.org Hello lovely Melbourne friends! We've got an exciting event coming up at the end of October, a weekend long hackathon bringing together medical researchers and people with clever techy skills to tackle some real problems in health research. Example problems include: - I use multiple online data sets but I don't have a good way of knowing when I have looked at all the available information. I'd like an intuitive search panel that allows me to select exactly what I need, and report back all the relevant results - I generate vast quantities of data; I would like a visualisation panel that lets me quickly and easily compare multiple data sets against each other - I regularly search for information about disease occurrence; I'd like a tool that reports on aspects of previous research, e.g. statistical significance, number of patients, number Or you might just do an exploration of an interesting dataset without a fixed goal. So if you are great at data visualisation, data management or analytics (or have other great skills like data journalism and can coax the story out of a dataset) we'd love to see you there! You can find some more details here: http://au.okfn.org/2013/09/21/healthhack/, and register here: http://healthhackmelb.eventbrite.com. _______________________________________________ OKFN-AU mailing list OKFN-AU(a)lists.okfn.org http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/okfn-au

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The Decriminalisation of Drugs
by Lev Lafayette 27 Sep '13

27 Sep '13

People will possibly know that I have a life outside of work and LUV. Part of this is being a general stirrer in a variety of political causes, one of which goes by the name of Isocracy ("equal rule"). Said organisation is hosting a meeting after the Software Freedom Day event om Saturday, 21st September, 2013, at the United Voice union offices, 117-131 Capel St North Melbourne. The (short) formal meeting starts at 18:00, but at 18:30 there will be a guest speaker, Greg Denham, the Melbourne representative of LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), and Law Enforcement and Harm Reduction Training and Advocacy Consultant. The mission of LEAP Australia is to bring an end to drug prohibition and the "war on drugs" approach to drug law enforcement and promote a supportive legal and policy environment for regulated and controlled access to all drugs. LEAP Australia will also advocate for evidence-informed and cost-effective policies and practices that seek to reduce the risks and harms from drug use. If you are interested in this subject, or would like more information, you may wish to come along. A few links on the subject that are worthy of consideration: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/calls-to-legalise-cannabis… http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/n… http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/07/how_portugal_tre… http://libertycrier.com/government/top-10-cannabis-studies-the-government-w… And, in cartoon form, an interesting scientific experiment on the subject http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/ -- Lev Lafayette, BA (Hons), GCertPM, MBA mobile: 0432 255 208 RFC 1855 Netiquette Guidelines http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1855.txt

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Re: [luv-talk] Fwd: The Decriminalisation of Drugs
by Petros 20 Sep '13

20 Sep '13

From: "Craig Sanders" <cas(a)taz.net.au> > On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 10:16:35AM +1000, Trent W. Buck wrote: >> That reminds me of a story from the hospitality sector: smokers were >> allowed regular smoking breaks, whereas non-smokers had to stay on >> their feet and working continuously for an umpteen-hour shift. >> The result of which was they all started smoking. >> >> (I forget who told me this story, so it my be from another country.) > > sounds like the non-smoker's version of "damn refugees get free cars > from the government" to me. So we all become refugees to get free cars from the government? Regards Peter

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Re: [luv-talk] wildcard expansion......digression
by Rohan McLeod 20 Sep '13

20 Sep '13

Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Russell Coker (russell(a)coker.com.au) > >> In regard to David's question, files with spaces cause needless pain, I'll >> just rename them. > It's also useful to darwinate Googling "darwinate definition" found ; -/Darwin ate/ chocolate cake *... and -*autodarwinate - To cause one's own death in a spectacularly stupid manner.; a ' moenism' ? :-| regards Rohan McLeod

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International Talk Like a Pirate Day today
by Carl Turney 19 Sep '13

19 Sep '13

Ahoy Me Hearty Mateys! The subject line be saying it all, now. Carl "Old Shellback" Turney

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Re: [luv-talk] avconv for movies on a phone......aside
by Rohan McLeod 17 Sep '13

17 Sep '13

Russell Coker wrote: > avconv -i foo.mkv -strict experimental -b:v 400k -c:v libx264 -b:a 80 -c:a > libmp3lame -ac 1 -s 1280x720 foo-s3.mp4 > > I'm experimenting with avconv settings to convert movie files for watching on > a mobile phone. Russel just out of idle curiosity why do you want to watch movies on a mobile phone ?; regards Rohan McLeod

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Filling Software Freedom day "Sugar on a Stick" CD & "Edubuntu 12.04.3 + OpenDisc 12.09" DVD
by Rodney Brown 15 Sep '13

15 Sep '13

For Software Freedom Day, I try to fill the media we write to give away For "Sugar on a Stick" Fedora-Live-SoaS-i686-19-1, the CD will have 5-6Mb left, not enough for very much, but text and links in the Readme are small. I've assumed this CD may interest people with younger children. Suggestions are welcome. The DVD will be similar, I'll aim to fill it, maybe removing "Battle of Wesnoth" from the OpenDisc collection for it's 300Mb, but suggestions for links and text would be welcome. ../Win32-SFD-2013/ total 96M 1.8M Sep 10 21:37 Antikythera.045.pr 24M Sep 6 2012 BYOB 3.1.1 Setup.exe 16M Sep 6 2012 Pingus-0.7.6.exe 2.4M Sep 6 2012 pyglet-1.1.4.msi 20M Sep 9 08:43 python-3.3.2.msi 1.5K Sep 10 23:11 ReadMe.txt 34M Sep 10 00:23 ScratchInstaller1.4.exe du -sh .. 694M .. --Current ReadMe.txt-- This CD boots Sugar on a Stick, version 9 Avocado http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick (Fedora-Live-SoaS-i686-19-1) The directory Win32-SFD-2013 contains other Free Software which is not part of Sugar on a Stick ==Windows installers in this directory== Antikythera.045.pr ameso — The Antikythera Mechanism on Squeak EToys http://www.spinellis.gr/sw/ameso/ EToys is an application on Sugar, but can be downloaded for Linux and Windows. BYOB 3.1 — Build Your Own Blocks (a/k/a SNAP!) http://byob.berkeley.edu/ The newer version now called Snap! is browser based running in Javascript Pingus is a free Lemmings(tm)-like puzzle game ... http://pingus.seul.org/ pyglet: a cross-platform windowing and multimedia library for Python. http://www.pyglet.org/ Python Programming Language 3.2.3 http://python.org/ Scratch 1.4 http://scratch.mit.edu The new release 2.0 is browser based requiring Flash ==Links: Other== Wikipedia: Category:Educational programming languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Educational_programming_languages Racket — programming language previously called DrScheme http://racket-lang.org/ SEUL.org — Simple End-User Linux, currently focusing on Linux in education, Linux in science http://www.seul.org/ Visual Transistor-level Simulation of the 6502 CPU and other chips! http://www.visual6502.org/ KhanAcademy Computer Science http://www.khanacademy.org/cs Software Freedom Day 2013 Melbourne http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2013/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/SFD --cut-- Last year's DVD ReadMe.txt --cut-- SFD Melbourne 2012 http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2012/Australia/Victoria/Melbourne/SFDMel… OpenDisc 12.09 with some updates http://www.theopendisc.com/ Edubuntu-12.04.1 x86-64 live DVD http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/edubuntu/releases/12.04/release/ Virus scanned with Microsoft Security Essentials on 2012-09-08 ... ==Windows installers in this directory== BYOB 3.1 — Build Your Own Blocks (a/k/a SNAP!) http://byob.berkeley.edu/ Intel 4004 - 35th Anniversary Project http://www.4004.com/ Pingus is a free Lemmings(tm)-like puzzle game ... http://pingus.seul.org/ pyglet http://www.pyglet.org/ Python programming language (2.7.3 & 3.2.3) http://www.python.org Racket programming language http://racket-lang.org/download/ The R Project for Statistical Computing (R Programming language) http://www.r-project.org/ SQLite http://sqlite.org/ Vim http://www.vim.org/ ==Suggested Firefox plugins== Adblock Plus NoScript ==Links: FSF== Philosophy of the GNU Project http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html The Right to Read: A Dystopian Short Story http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html ==Links: ODF== Rob Weir's Writings (on the ODF OpenDocument Format) http://www.robweir.com/blog/presentations-and-publications (2009-04-25 - Document Freedom Day)"Taking Control of Your Documents" http://www.robweir.com/blog/publications/Taking-Control.pdf http://www.robweir.com/blog/publications/Taking-Control.odt ==Links: Other== Guide to Open Source Software for Australian Government Agencies http://www.finance.gov.au/publications/guide-to-open-source-software/index.… KeePass Password Safe http://sourceforge.net/projects/keepass/?source=recommended KhanAcademy Computer Science http://www.khanacademy.org/cs Open Hardware http://openhardware.org/ SEUL.org http://www.seul.org/ The Go Programming Language http://golang.org/ Visual Transistor-level Simulation of the 6502 CPU and other chips! http://www.visual6502.org/ ==Links: Licensed Microsoft Software available for download - (non-Free)== Office Online File Converters and Viewers (Read Word documents) http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/office-online-file-converters-a… Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier (MD5 and SHA1) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=11533 Microsoft Security Essentials (anti-virus program) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentialsv --cut-- Linking David Wheeler's 2007 "Why Open Source/Free Software (...)? Look at the Numbers!" paper http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html and some others of that ilk is obvious. Other suggestions?

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Re: [luv-talk] petition for FTTH
by trentbuck＠gmail.com 11 Sep '13

11 Sep '13

trentbuck-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w(a)public.gmane.org (Trent W. Buck) writes: > "Pidgorny, Slav (GEUS)" writes: > >> So if I only use 4G wireless, why should I pay for your fiber-to-whereever connection? > > Perhaps for the same reason that you pay for other public goods -- > roads, hospitals, police, &c -- even if you don't use them. > > (I believe this was discussed at length either here or in -talk a couple > of weeks ago.) Sorry about that. IHBT before I read Lev's redirection downthread.

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Re: [luv-talk] petition for FTTH
by Petros 11 Sep '13

11 Sep '13

(Moving it to luv-talk) From: "Slav Pidgorny (GEUS)" <slav.pidgorny(a)anz.com> > Why? FTTN is thought to be cheaper. Not true in a suburban area (most of Australia) You need additional nodes with fibre/copper converters - they need to be sheltered against any weather and need power - means additional power lines. The only environment to make sense, economically, is an apartment house where the infrastructure is there already (sheltered place and electricity). Add to that re-negotiations with Telstra, new contracts etc. - we will pay a lot more if it goes a liberal way and will get inferior services. Most likely they will do it the old-fashioned Liberal way: Don't do anything and stare at their AAA rating. Good if you want to borrow money to invest. But why invest? We just dig holes until the economy collapses. And then we blame the unions. In the current media climate Liberal can claim everything. Yesterday Naphtine: The elections was a vote for the East West link. The East West link will be build in the electorate of Melbourne. 43% of the primary votes for Green, 27% for Labor. A vote for Dr.Napalm and his East West Link. Indeed. Regards Peter

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