Zardino, new physical computing freeware

While its still a long way away from a home-grown semiconductor industry  it is nice to see our local Cape Town Linux User Group (CLUG) getting stuck in with the equivalent of the Arduino. The Arduino is to open source physical computing as Linux is to free software, and a local site called Geek Studio has published the schematics of an "Arduino derivative designed specifically for South African Arduino users but available to anyone. It uses the most common sized components which are the easiest to find here in South Africa."



The day when locally built CPUs and backyard silicon chips pop out of a factory with an Ubuntu open specification may still be a pipe dream, but Geek Studio is providing incentives for geeks to get soldering on their own projects. A recent talk by Peter Ing's sent some CLUG members into a feeding frenzy. According to the CLUG wiki, there are now some 50 or so boards in the process of being populated with doodads and gizmos.  Enough to make even the most hard-core software junkie salivate.

Remember, computing is not only software. It's all about the hardware dammit, and frankly we are at the mercy of badly made Chinese imports and expensive American designed chips, the combination of which invariably creates minor disasters for Linux users as they struggle to get their hardware to do anything non-proprietary. Zardino signals a turning point. The board will hopefully allow customised electronics projects to leap out of the conceptual ionosphere, and I am fairly certain I won't be the first member to sign up for a robot-slave able to knock out my enemies.

Ubuntu = Empathic Civilisation

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7AWnfFRc7g[/youtube]

Jeremy Rifkin narrates some core concepts from his latest book

Compiz in your browser - unlock Firefox 3.6 hidden features

If you're running lucid, you should have the latest version 3.6 of Firefox from Mozilla.

Here are some hidden features  disabled by default, similar to Compiz expo and shift-switcher.



Open a new tab and type "about:config" into the address bar. Then find the following value and set it to true instead of false:

 browser.ctrlTab.previews

Once activated, you can preview tabs using  keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Tab (or Ctrl + Shift + Tab if you want to have the search engine as well).

To activate the display, also change the following option to true:

 browser.allTabs.previews

Flattr your neighbour -a new way to spread the economic love around

Flattr makes sense in so many ways, it won't be long before many "appreciation" systems like Digg follow suite because, the Free Culture movement is really not about being anti-Money. Rather, FOSS is all about removing the primitive element of coercion, aggression and violence from the world economic system.

As we move towards true post-scarcity  money becomes just another way to show gratitude. Remember the time when it was just an abstract means of exchange for the pre-Industrial, pre-Net age -- an abstraction which existed only to drive people away from acts of altruism while  enslaving their fellow human beings with Copyright and Intellectual Property Laws?

Flattr is in beta right now, but you can request to join as a beta tester.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zrMlEEWBgY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Libre Graphics Magazine #0

The fifth annual  Libre Graphics Meeting 2010, was held in Brussels earlier this year.  Developers and users of Free, Libre and Open Source graphics software gathered to discuss the wonderful topic: --  "Cutting edge graphics software meets free culture"  Libre Graphics Magazine #0 was launched. Finally I have my mouse on a copy.

You can download it right here

Man interviews his sister about Ubuntu

Patrick L Archibald of hacker public radio interviews his sister Wynn Godbold who recently starting using Ubuntu Linux. She is a kindergarten teacher in South Carolina. They talk about her experience as a new Linux user. The also discuss open source adoption in the education field. At times it sounds unintentionally like an Ubuntu promo but there are some good snippets in the interview.

Go to this episode

FROM: Binary Revolution

Briquolo, a cool game

Type this in a console:

sudo apt-get install briquolo