koans explained

Well folks, the true teaching of the banana split koan is contained in itself, but here's an attempt to explain. The master was really trying to say that arbitrary occurences in the past cement themselves in the present and future. So out with the strawberry, let's canonize other flavors of ice cream.

On the fine topic of koans, go to
[ http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/cgi-bin/koan-index.pl ]
for Mumon and his mysterious enlightening ways, and this next url will springboard me to the next part of my post:
[ http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ ]
in case you liked that, there's weirder stuff here:
[ http://www.gu.uwa.edu.au/users/greg/ ]
By the way, I've got an interview with MINDEF tomorrow, which is a shirt and pants, security clearance affair.

As some more attractive side-tracks to divert you from the reading of this blog post, here are
[ http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html ]
and
[ http://www.catb.org/~esr//faqs/loginataka.html ]
Note that I highly recommend the tabbed browsing features of a browser like firefox, which is in it's preview release 0.10 (zero point ten):
[ http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ ]
Really, you should click to see if you've never seen it before...

So, on the bus back after the entire day with James where we helped him pack (i.e. Say Yang doing his best to keep as much of his house out of his suitcase), and we went to eat and went to Parkway Parade to shop, and went blading in the afternoon. Say Yang bought a new bag and I think James is going to buy a pouch to try to go around the 1+1 carry-on item restrictions. Bladed quite far; I was the chosen one not to fall down. Oh fate, pulchritudinous!

Talked to James about software patents. The Amazon 1-click business can be discussed here:
[ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/amazon.html ]
and that document links to this site which contains lots more discussion:
[ http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html ]

On the bus back with Say Yang, he was asking about why use linux/open source. I said a lot of things, but I wasn't able to think abstractly enough to deliver the kicker, which may not be that much of a kicker for you guys.

Linux empowers the user. The user is not locked into proprietary (closed source) systems, where you are at the whim and economic interests of corporations like Microsoft: if anything goes wrong with Windows, no one can really fix it except the people who wrote Windows in the first place. The common analogy is of a car: Windows is sold to you like a car with a special lock on the hood, so while you can try kicking the car if it won't start, you'll need to go back to the car dealer to get them to open the hood and fix whatever is wrong with it. With open source software, you can go to any mechanic you know and if the mechanic is your friend she might even top up your engine oil for free.

Linux empowers users, which definitely explains why power users love it. It's a solid product: the design philosophy is to create lots and lots of tiny, solid working parts and then with these tools there are all sorts of possibilities. In comparison, Windows is shipped as this huge thing that just works, and you're not supposed to really understand how it works.

In linux, you have the freedom to modify whatever you like: you can take apart the system like you take apart a radio and use the parts to make a paperweight, if you so desire. There are all sorts of software written by people who actually use the software they develop, which is the main reason why they write the software afterall. So they are invested more in the quality of the software, not how well the product will sell.

This
[ http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=review-debian ]
says about Debian linux, and I quote:

Fortunately, the installation/configuration issue is being addressed, and there is hope that Debian will finally have an installer worthy of the name when Sarge is released. The new installer, which is named appropriately enough "Debian-installer", is under active development.

In the meantime, fearful newbies looking for a free alternative might want to try a "live CD" distro such as Knoppix, Morphix or MEPIS. These are Debian-based and can be installed onto the hard drive, and from there you can use "apt-get install" to build up a real Debian box. Even better are the offerings such as Libranet, Xandros and Lindows - all three are Debian-based, the only disadvantage being that they cost money.

The part I wanted to highlight was that one can consider Libranet, Xandros and Lindows (now Linspire), which aim to be simple to use, like Microsoft Windows. So try them out if you're frustrated with having to pay Microsoft for software that's lousier than software you can get for free.

But maybe you don't want the power and freedom linux provides. You probably are familiar with Microsoft Word documents. They suck. Read a little here:
[ http://www.goldmark.org/netrants/no-word/attach.html ]

I'm not saying the Office program is lousy in terms of functionality. The problem is that the .doc format is proprietary: you pretty much need others to have Word installed in order for them to read it. Ok, maybe you think that's fair, you need someone to have a computer, so why not require them to have Word?

There is an open standard for documents, Rich Text Format (.rtf), which isn't very advanced in terms of supported functionality. The .doc format has more functionality, and so does the .sxw format of OpenOffice. The difference is that the .sxw format is an open format, and XML-based (basically similar to html documents, which any browser can read). The format is specified so if you don't like OpenOffice you are free to use some other program that you write or download somewhere which can read .sxw files. Because the .sxw format is publicized instead of being kept secret like .doc, it can be a good, proper standard like .rtf, only better.

One will never find a page like this published for the .doc format.
[ http://xml.openoffice.org/general.html ]
The .doc format is closed, proprietary, and the more it is proliferated, the happier Microsoft is, because they pretty much control who can read and write such files. That ability is usually granted you if you pay a lot of money or you use pirated software and hope they don't come to collect from you later.

Pretty much control because well, there are ways to guess how the .doc format works, though these ways are imperfect. The OpenOffice suite is able to guess, and for regular not-too-fancy documents the guessing is good enough. My point is that you should really move away from .doc and use a format like .rtf instead, or even better, install OpenOffice (it's free, no need to pay!) and use the .sxw format, which is an improved format.

Microsoft is so successful because it knows the secret of this .doc format and sells the secret decoder rings, without giving away the secret in the process.

Do you wish to be free? Empower yourself and take this unholy power away from the monolithic corporation that treats users as sources of income. The free software movement treats users as people.