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  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
  
  Cartoon artwork created with Stripgenerator; dialogue copy/pasted from #ubuntu-offtopic on Freenode.
  

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Today, I logged off of Google Talk and logged in on jabber.se exclusively. See the updated About page. The reason is simple: real Jabber has better Jabber support (no surprise there!), and I’m cutting down on recreational IRC usage. Jabber transports can easily handle the few channels I need to be on (unlike Google Talk). Proper MUC support is also a plus.

What this means is a change in priorities. I like having all my chat in one place. This means you have to compromise. I’ve enjoyed irssi’s awesome IRC capabilities but suffered from Bitlbee’s (and gTalk’s) poor Jabber support. Now I’m trying full Jabber with poor IRC support. Lets’s see how it goes.

Before: All-In-One, Always-On remote irssi session on my server.

On the desktop I’m now using Gajim because it lets me enjoy every feature provided by the server. On the mobile phone I’m trying out BombusMod. It’s very complete, but it’s also Java. Couldn’t find a better option. Tips for a good Jabber client for S60 phones are welcome. Needs to have MUC and transports at least, preferably account editing with full vCard support.

After: All-In-One, On-Demand, local Gajim session. The Gnome Do build on the background has nothing to do with it :)

Which reminds me, while the jabber.fi domain is fortunately secured by a cool Finnish Jabber and Free Software fan, we don’t know what to do with it. I don’t know of any concrete plans about a server. This needs to be fixed.

Today, jay_davis taught freebse and topyli valuable truths. I feel obliged to share this wisdom with the community, so that we can all sleep better now.

We’re living in confusing and perilous times, and they (you know, they) will try to silence us all the time. Nobody expects the spanish isquisition, make no mistake. This is why we need more heroes like recon.

Featuring recon, gord, and topyli.

Update, Oct 8: recon, feeling he looks better in real life than in my vision, delivered this modified version of the cartoon:

First time the tales get a little touch of a human artist. Thanks, recon!

Ten years have passed today since Miguel announced the GNOME project:

We want to develop a free and complete set of user friendly
applications and desktop tools, similar to CDE and KDE but based
entirely on free software.

We’ve come a long way since then!
Congratulations, Freedom lovers. Rock on!

GNOME birthday cake via Marco.

There’s this work area meme going around apparently. OK, I’ll bite. :)

My office office looks like this:

My home office (just the desk really, the surroundings are none of your business ;-) ) looks like this:

Both boxen run Ubuntu edgy. I run Enlightenment DR16, with quite a bit o’ GNOME magick mixed in. I like lots of space on the desktop, so the screenshot isn’t much to look at really (I’ve described my philosophy wrt. interfaces in an earlier post):

So there! Go ahead and bite the meme if you feel like it :)

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on a very sad and interesting court ruling in Australia. In effect, linking to copyrighted material is infringement. Read again: not hosting, or distributing it, just linking to it.

So I reckon here’s what will happen next:

• Google will close shop in Australia. Sorry mates, from now on you’ll learn to find the information you need on your own. Remember not to help each other.
• Record companies and other branches of the Mafia will push even harder in other parts of the world, in order to destroy the Internet. Never mind that their own businesses will be ruined in the process, the next couple of quarters should still make a nice profit without the ‘Net.

I’ll evaluate the risk to myself and my host Gandi, and consider taking this site down soon as well. After all, it’s full of links to copyrighted material, so the stakes are high! Gandi operates from France and I myself from Finland, so effectively it should be enough to monitor the situation in the EU.

(via BoingBoing)

Being allergic to pretty much everything, I was glad to hear about Allerca, a company producing genetically engineered cats that won’t bother allergic people (or as they prefer to say, "lifestyle pets"). A minor drawback is the $4000 prize tag (close to $6000 since apparently i live "overseas"), but the preposterous EULA looks like it came from a proprietary software shop.

"Purchaser shall not sell or transfer any Cat purchased hereunder to anyone other than an immediate family member, and shall not offer to any person the purchase of a Cat or any genetic material from a Cat, the rights Purchaser may have under this Agreement, or any other right related hereto, without the Company’s express written authorization."

The cats are sold neutered of course, so that only Allega can provide them. No free kitties for the neighborood! Reminds me of Monsanto selling farmers new seed every year. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get myself a GEGL instead.

(via Wendy’s Blog and Boing Boing)

By Mad Kane:

The Constitution
Was cast aside by Congress.
Hideous corpus!

From the actual story:

The bill would create military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects. It also would prohibit some of the worst abuses of detainees like mutilation and rape, but grant the president leeway to decide which other interrogation techniques are permissible.

Since this guy is in the Senate, I’m afraid there must be suckers in Kentucky who have actually voted for him:

"We are not conducting a law enforcement operation against a check-writing scam or trying to foil a bank heist," said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "We are at war against extremists who want to kill our citizens."

Good luck folks.

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