Image courtesy of OgMaciel

GNOME people had so much fun lately with jokes on notebook tabs. While some are obvious jokes (like d-bus one and tab on tab), some of the mock-ups really look realistic: gcalctool, banshee, pidgin, totem, empathy, panel, and possibly there are more.

None except Nautilus is real.

However, they don’t get the point at all. They are just all triumphing about their precious dark jokes, without realizing what people’s reaction means. Even some of the developer themselves did question if the tabmania is real. The point is, people’s reaction indicated fairly well that those FOSS gods high up there are inept enough, so casual observers truly believe they will really do stupid things, that is perfectly possible, as was shown in numerous occasions in GNOME history — be it the spatial mode (which is the greatest GNOME innovation ever happened), or the constantly changing Metacity behavior (for every release), or the you-can’t-guess-it hidden shortcut keys, or buggy stuff that keeps wiping out user configuration or data, or whatever hideous feature forced upon users.

Stupidity of GnomeICU

This particular GnomeICU quote amplifies my disdain:

GnomeICU has had them for years, since 2002. You guys are like sooo late.

It’s soooooo similar to XV author hiding in some dark corners within bazaar, yelling: “Hey, all that stupid OSS developers are just reimplementing image viewers I’ve done centuries ago. Look at me!!! Look at XV!!! See???”

If it were the users saying the same thing, that means they are laughing at current FOSS developers re-re-re-re-re-re-implementing the same thing over and over without doing anything beneficial to users. But if it’s the software maintainers and developers reiterating and re-emphasizing stuff that already passed into oblivion, they just look like grumpy old man wanting to get people’s attention about their great egos. Both are so equally laughable. Indeed no FOSS software developer would ever admit a project is dead if they don’t explicitly claim it, GnomeICU is no different, at the same sense that XV is not dead. Yes, it’s not dead; the fact is, it is just irrelevant now. Soooooooo similar to the irrelevant attempts of gnome-chess maintainers wishing to bring back their glorious egos, immediately after glchess made it into gnome-games, not before, not afterwards. Human nature.

這個 video 不得不大力推介。

問：「形容一個人有逃避問題的性格，會用甚麼政策呢？」
答：「八萬五政策。」

香港社會未來的主人翁比我們小時候實在醒目得多了，如果有適當環境學習和生活，將來很有前途，只可惜生於香港。這班頭腦精靈的小孩兒，恐怕回到學校後不知會被多少老師和校長規勸接受再教育，直至洗腦或整死為止，可惜。

我是從這個 blog 找到 video 的，裏面不單是內容的嬉笑怒罵，comment 也不乏好戲看，裏面的保皇黨和左翼份子的針鋒相對，一樣值得搬凳坐睇戲。

以下是不知多久前積累下來的 blog spam 統計，和上次一樣，只看 user agent:

mysql> select count(*) count, substr(comment_agent,1,50) agent from wp_comments where comment_approved = 'spam' group by comment_agent order by count desc limit 10;

今次比上次的集中很多，淨是頭三種加起來已經超過八成了（總數為 18419）。如果留意排行榜最高幾種，將一些不像 user agent 的過濾掉，會怎麼樣？單是計算標記了深色那三個，已經隔絕 6 成 spam 了。6 成夠不夠？絕對不夠。但起碼，用最簡單的方法先濾掉 6 成的 spam，餘下的才用較強的方法去處理，可以減輕負荷（縱使我的 blog 沒有甚麼負荷，哈哈）。這樣稱為 defense in depth，使用多種方法防衛，才算得上是比較安全。如果這世界有一種方法能夠 100% 擋掉全世界的 spam，發明的人老早就發達了，不用現在連電郵都信不過。WordPress 那羣跟尾狗只懂阿諛奉承而已，連 MD5 也可以稱為加密，有甚麼說不出。

現在就這種方法擋一下自己的站，看看有甚麼效果。

gcc 2.96，一個夾雜臭罵、怨氣、憤怒、譏笑、失望的名字。已經過了這麼久 (對於軟件行業來說)，但當需要數 RedHat 臭史的時候，仍有人不時將這段被埋葬的過去拿出來訕笑一番。當初我和主流意見一樣，對此也有不滿，因為它在包裝套件時製造了不少麻煩。但隔了這麼長時間，回頭一看，現在反而覺得 Red Hat 當時的決定是「犧牲小我」，成就大局的所為，縱使 Red Hat 本身可能沒有這種想法。

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這純粹是個人臆測而已：我總覺得 Ubuntu 和 VMware 以往曾有過一點點合作關係，但近幾個月無聲無息地中止了。憑甚麼這樣說？主要是看 Ubuntu 的 VMware appliance。打從 06 年末開始，Ubuntu 就一直在提供官方的 VM image，更是打正旗號放在 ubuntu.com 的。它們的時間追得很貼：7.04 的 VM 在 4 月 20 日，7.10 的 VM 在 10 月 22 日，都是差不多在推出 release 後立即製作 VM image 的。但 8.04 呢？現在已經是 7 月中了。我敢賭 100 元，到了 10 月也不會有。如果真是需要 Hardy 的 VM image，最好找個新地方了。

還有另一個原因，就是 VMware Server 1.05 在 Hardy 中安裝造成的問題。1.06 稍為好一點，安裝後打兩個指令就 OK，但安裝 1.05 可就痛苦了。問題大得要人自行將 bug fix 製成 package 放上網流傳，這段時間完全沒見到 Ubuntu 的人出來放過半個響屁。反觀 1.04，Ubuntu 甚至有 VMware player 和 server 的正式套件。用戶出聲就有，但只是各地的 Ubuntu 用戶自救而已。

說甚麼「暫時未有支援」，又是隱惡揚善吧？

(photo courtesy of Wired)

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This question is taken from Mathematical Excalibur Volume 9 Number 2, with the real source coming from XVI Asian Pacific Mathematical Olympiad which took place on March 2004.

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