Well I’ve thrown some more media files into my Flickr and Youtube accounts.
They’re from a little day trip we made last year to Morewellham Quay in Devon. I know they’re old, but they’ve made good desktop wallpaper for me over the last year, so I figured I’d share them.
I was lurking in my Google Reader the other day checking the news and I noticed a story about the Windows Vista release date slipping again. Now when given the choice, I tend to reach for Ubuntu Linux, so this news doesn’t bother me. What interested me is the reason, the fact is that Windows has grown so big and complex that it’s giving Microsoft real headaches.
From a Taoist viewpoint, this sort of monolithic complexity is a real no-no. Far better, the more modular Unix and GNU/Linux approach, with a collection of small programs that each do one job and do it well. Small programs can have functionality added quickly and improvements and fixes will help everything that depends on them.
This is a much better approach than trying to create a huge monolith. Firstly, bits can be added or removed to tailor the system to a specific task, secondly new functionality can be easily built on top of the standard tools, anyone who’s tried their hand BASH scripting can testify to this.
But a Linux install can take hundreds of Megabytes or more, isn’t that a monolith? No, each component comes from a different development team, and they are drawn together into a cohesive distribution.
This model isn’t a lumbering monolith, it’s a collection of smaller more agile units working together, I think a good word is “swarm”.
A news item came to my attention the other day, it was from a consulting firm that was making all sorts of claims about why Windows was better than Linux, etc. The thing was, I could shoot most of them down, even without doing any research! Annoyingly, I can’t find it in my reader or I’d post a link. This isn’t the first time that FUD has been used against OSS, and it’s usually shot down in flames fairly quickly.
Now I personally believe that if the tool is right one for the job then you use it. In some situations, it’ll be Windows and in some Linux, both are just tools in a toolbox. Each has it’s strengths and weaknesses, my own leanings are obvious from my previous posts but I currently use both Windows and Linux at work and home.
When I see a company resorting to FUD to promote it’s products, I start wondering. It seems to me that if a company needs to do that, or to pay others to do so on it’s behalf, then you have to not only question their ethics but you have to question the prospects of their product.
Either line of questioning leads me to the conclusion that it’s worth investigating alternative tools.
In many of the things we do everyday, we are required to focus and concentrate. There’s a slight problem though, we tend to do it inefficiently. Consider, you try to concentrate, so are you concentrating? Or is your focus on trying to concentrate, not actually on the job you’re doing?
Multi-tasking is another thing, how on earth are you expected to concentrate is you have to keep your mind on your other tasks? It’s an interesting problem, and certainly one that I’ve had myself.
I always find that the Taoist principle of Wu-Wei comes in handy, I always try to relax into what I’m doing. Instead of trying to force my focus, I allow myself to focus, I also find meditation works better like this. Multi-tasking is simpler this way, I find that relaxing into it helps you to keep from getting flustered and that leads to easier multitasking.
It’s always important not to force it, if you try to force it, you just trip yourself up. The point of Wu-Wei is to let it flow, not to get in your own way, this needs a lot of practice though.
Well, it’s about that time again. I’ve got a few more views to air, this time I try to order my thoughts on the topic of Judgementalism.
You can find the article here. If you fancy a bit of further reading, you can find a list of my articles here. The site that hold all this can be access from the My Sites section on the left hand side of my blog.
Xenia found a groovy quiz the other day, and also predicted every answer I gave.
That’s my girl!
I came across this story on BBC News today and I strongly encourage everyone to read it.
It concerns Abdul Rahman, an Afghan Muslim who has converted to Christianity. Anyone who knows me will know that I care little for organised religion, but this case highlights something I’d like to comment on.
I’ve talked before about the need for moderate Muslims to take back their religion, as I believe that the militant extremists are doing a massive disservice to the people they claim to speak for.
What this story shows is the close-minded position of religious militants of all persuasions. Many religions claim to be peaceful, tolerant, and kind, but only on their terms and conditions. I’ve found that the less dogmatic religions (Taoism, Buddhism, etc) are far more tolerant and peaceful as they are less inclined to enforce a point of view, the teachers aren’t threatened by dissent, in fact they welcome discussion as it serves to further our ability to work in harmony with the world.
As far as conversions go, a Taoist may decide to change his or her beliefs, but that’s always seen as their choice. Frankly, I think a line from Star Wars - A New Hope can be adapted here:
“The more you tighten your grip, the more believers will slip through your fingers!”
I saw this and thought they were joking, unfortunately, they’re not. Marvel Comics and DC Comics have tried to jointly enforce trademark the term “Super Hero”.
This is ridiculous, OK, superheroes as currently recognised are largely an American creation and we can mostly thank Superman for that. But the whole genre goes back much further, to Tarzan, Dick Tracy, The Phantom and Zorro. Even in other countries, there are certainly plenty in Japanese Anime and in Britain, Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and many other 2000AD characters come to mind.
You can find more info and commentary here on Slashdot, and here on BoingBoing.
The Tao Te Ching warns us what happens when you try to over regulate something and enforce your will through legislation. All this will do is generate bad publicity and ultimately they’ll do their own cause damage.
Well, I finally got off my backside and uploaded some new content to Flickr and YouTube!
On YouTube you can find some concert footage of Duran Duran from Earls Court in December 2005. On Flickr I’ve had a quick rearrange and uploaded some more photos. Firstly, a nice night photo of the Birmingham Wheel. Secondly, a small selection from our trip to New York last April, these are fairly sober as they’re of Ground Zero but I do want to share them.
You can find the links to my Flickr and YouTube sites on the right hand side of my Blog.
I recieved an E-Mail from the Five Dragons Acupuncture University today, they run www.kungfu-torrents.com.
There’s a Bittorrent tracker there that held a great deal of good material on Chinese and oriental traditions, healing and Martial Arts. It was all shared for research purposes and material was contributed by researchers. All under the Fair Use provisions of copyright law.
Not anymore.
A Hollywood lawyer has gone out of his way to make trouble for the site, by contacting copyright holders and offering to sue the webmaster personally, which has resulted in a very valuable resource being shutdown, at least for now. To win any copyright case would take many thousands of dollars and frankly, the MPAA has massively deep pockets.
It’s ridiculous, they see the word Bittorrent and leap to judgement, and we all lose out as a result. This actually ties in with an article I started writing last night on judgement. As soon as it’s finished I’ll put it online.
