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The author of this article likes to poke at the glitches in the Linux desktop. None of that sounds any worse than Windows. With a Linux desktop I don’t have to fear it slowing to a crawl under the load of malware you accumulate simply by installing “free” software or browsing the “free” Internet. With a Linux desktop I’m confidant that 99% of the drivers I need are already included and require no downloads or installs or extra work for me. If I want to install Windows 7 on a Windows 8 laptop how many hours will it take to get all of the drivers downloaded and installed? How many reboots will it take? How many calls to support or the help desk will it take? Does Matt’s straw man feel the brisk breeze blowing him down the way? The reliability and flexibility of the Linux desktop are unequaled. Even when canonical goes in some lame direction, the community forks and good things keep happening. How did the community alternatives to Windows 7 fare? Oh, they’re impossible because they don’t accept the value of openness or competition? I know I can keep running a Linux desktop forever and I can pay somebody to write patches if I desire. Someday Windows will follow OS/2, geos, and AmigaOS to the dust bins of history. No corporation can do that to Linux. ...

Everybody has an awesome invention buried inside waiting to get out. Links How a Young Girl Developed an Innovative Chemotherapy Device | Qmed Shared with: Public

Why can’t we just ban patents? Links Patents that kill Shared with: Public +1’d by: Caskey Dickson

Is crisis price gouging actually good for you? Links Toledo can’t drink its water. There’s an economics lesson there. Shared with: Public

We have another chance to validate the GPL in court. While the author reiterates and dismisses the analogy of the GPL to a virus, I want to build on it. Imagine for a minute that the current case succeeds in confirming the gist of the GPL in that you must release your code if you build on top of GPL technologies. That’s a step up from the settlement in FSF vs. Cisco. This solid legal ground inspires an intrepid geek in the Dakotas to reverse engineer Microsoft C++ libraries to discover serious GPL violations. This leads to every major software vendor being sued and forced to release their source code under the GPL. ...

This is a great presentation of the available instance types for Amazon Web Services. (Why didn’t Amazon make it?) Links Amazon EC2 Instance Comparison Shared with: Public +1’d by: Scott Francis

So, linked-in is using cfengine and svn this year, right now, in 2014. Consider that git has been release quality for nine years this December. If they replaced svn with git, which is a no brainer, then maybe they could appreciate how painful cfengine is. Links Virtual Panel: Configuration Management Tools in the Real World Shared with: Public

SpaceX’s new Dragon capsule is the sexiest spaceship yet! Links SpaceX unveils human capsule Shared with: Public +1’d by: Caskey Dickson

gorgeous! Video Watch Video Shared with: Public +1’d by: Chase Van Huisen, Paul Fernandez

You should not be shocked at how much copyrights are abused by now. Most people have forgotten that not long ago copyrights were 0 years long. Newton did not write because of copyright. Fair use is not fairly defended. We need a political party to take this up for the people instead of corps. Free Mickey Mouse from corporate tyrany! Links Op-Ed: Bad copyright rules killed Hadfield’s Space Oddity Shared with: Public