Okay kids, gather ’round, I’m going to reminisce. When I was about six, I had what is classed as well developed literacy skills—I could write some words, I could read books about Jenny and Jack on the ...
I finally began learning python. I wrote my last program in the 80s in Apple Basic, and here I am again starting to learn a new language. I can already guess what my biggest problem will be. I am incr ...
Time to get on with the move. Giving up Windows is like kicking a drug habit. It’s easier to take the path of least resistance and keep using. If quitting proprietary software was a twelve step progra ...
Freedom. It’s such a loaded term. It represents so many things: the ability to do stuff unfettered, letting the press say whatever they want, invading foreign nations to pass the time, a glorious idea ...
For the last couple of months I’ve been on a mammoth trip to the east, or east as far as my home in the UK is concerned, to relatives in Malaysia. As they live in the more rural areas of the country, ...
At the very beginning of the “commercial internet” era, around 1995, the internet was all about communities. Mailing lists and Usenets were crucial tools which allowed people with similar interests (a ...
If you’re connected to the internet, you are vulnerable to attacks. I don’t care what operating system, which browser, what firewall, anti-virus, or anti-spyware you have installed—there’s a vulnerabi ...
There are lots of things that worry tabloids, current affairs programs, and talkback radio shock jocks. Some of these things are immigration, neighbours from hell, love-rat rip-off merchants, termites ...
My children recently started school. I wanted a way for them to be ableto chat with their friends, get help with homework, and generally have funon the Internet without exposing them to the world at l ...
A few years ago, when you wanted to use a GNU/Linux distribution for your desktop computer, you still needed to concede a part of your freedom to open some PDF files, run most Java programs, or all Fl ...
Now that the new versions of Ghostscript are available under the free software GPL license other projects relying on Ghostscript can be fully GPL software as well. One of these projects, PDFCreator, I ...
How much material has been lost through the years? Now the question is of course what do I mean by material. For example, do I mean the trivial stuff such as typed office memorandums or the less trivi ...
One of the most disturbing ideas I've encountered in intellectual property law is the peculiar idea of owning and being able to patent naturally occuring gene sequences, such as those in the Human Gen ...
Last week I mentioned my decision to learn Python and write a free software program. I found some cool online tutorials. I found my Learning Python book, and I was ready to begin. So like many a progr ...
My younger son likes tractors; big machines and anything that can lift large objects up and throw them great distances. You know the sort of thing, The Hulk, Superman, Terminator III, my wife and some ...
Last week I wrote about using GNU/Linux, and justified why I use it. But, as I confessed, the main reason I started using it wasn't because I'm a rigorous political activist with a go-get-em attitude. ...
Why aren't there more female free software developers out there. In my attempt to find out, I decided to write a program and see what barriers got in my way. Most free software developers are men. Wom ...
If you had a matter economy based on free-licensed design, what would you do with it? Why does this apply to space settlements? Are there practical projects? Who would need them? Why is free-design th ...
The world is a very big place. However, every sub-world, no matter how big it looks, is itself really quite tiny once you’re in it—and always made up by the same few “famous” people. I was at the MOCA ...
With the draft of the GNU General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) have come many interesting comments, although not all of which I have found positive. While I understand proprietary vendors have off ...