[Foss-cafe] Greetings!

[Daniel Cassidy]

Hi Tim,

I drafted half a reply to this two months ago, then got bogged down
attempting to reply to the bits about US politics and didn't send it
:). Well, better late than never...

On 11/28/06, Timothy Butler <tbutler at ofb.biz> wrote:
>         Oh, pretty well, thanks. Just seem to be keeping busy all the time
> without accomplishing nearly what I'd like, but... I've been busy
> writing a lot with the hope of maybe doing a book one of these days
> and OFB has relaunched with a bit more of a general focus -- I'm
> trying to bring in commentary on issues outside of computers.

It looks like you're also trying to eradicate the name 'Open for
Business' in favour of OFB; I take it you weren't happy with the focus
on open source for business audiences and are trying to make the site
a more general tech-zine? It's a shame if the business focus is
something you found wasn't really appreciated.

>         On the computer front, since the last time this list was very
> exciting, I also became a full time Mac user...

Ah? Did anything in particular push you away from Linux and the other
FOSS OSes, or did Apple do something to lure you? :)

I regret to say that my main machine spends most of its time running
Windows these days, for various reasons but mainly due to the abysmal
state of ALSA. I have looked fairly closely at the code, and it looks
like I could feasibly fix most of the things I have a problem with,
but that's somewhere in the middle of my extremely long TODO list, and
for the time being I've less than an hour a week to work on personal
projects. Hence, my reliance on less hacker-friendly OSes doesn't seem
like such a bad thing for now.

>         How about yourself?

Like you, busy, but without apparently accomplishing very much (at
least in my own unforgiving eyes).

I ceased to be a student in July, which I was glad of because higher
education in the UK is becoming an increasingly depressing place to
be. Unfortunately it did mean having to move away from Colchester, a
town I very much enjoyed living in, due to the complete lack of any
decent employment for programmers in that area.

Since then I've been working for a well-known Cambridge organization
which I am for some reason contractually forbidden from naming. At the
moment I'm a Flash developer, which is odd because I hadn't looked at
Flash twice prior to starting the job, and I wouldn't have dreamed of
even applying for it if I hadn't been fairly desperate for the money.

But, actually, the job is much more of a serious programming endeavour
than you'd expect from the usually design-oriented Flash, and I'm
quite fond of graphics programming, so as luck would have it, it suits
me right down to the ground. The software I'm working on is also only
used internally, so I don't feel (so) guilty about polluting the
public internet with inaccessible proprietary nonsense :).

> > What's needed is for someone to slip some highly controversial
> > subjects into the conversation, such as the war in Iraq, and whether
> > it was for oil or freedom. Although Bush seems to have settled that
> > argument on the midterm campaign trail...
> [ ... ]
>         I'm going to go with those pundits who see this as a loss primarily
> of the Republican/neo-conservative movement of the last few years and
> not conservatism in general. I don't think it establishes Iraq as a
> warfront for oil, but rather shows Americans were (1) never really
> that into the whole idea and (2) have a very limited ability to stick
> to things. Remember, the media labeled Iraq a "quagmire" after just
> three weeks -- hardly time for a quagmire to form -- and the public
> agreed. Americans have short attention spans, and I think that is the
> hardest thing in dealing with this. (Along with fairly incompetent
> management of the situation over the last few years with the various
> abuse cases, etc. The army should pay more so that the soldiers there
> would be a bit happier about being there.)

How times change, I agree with you almost entirely. That is, I agree
that Bush's comment that I referred to doesn't establish oil as having
been the reason to go to war in the first instance, just a handy
excuse to stay there in the current political atmosphere.

That said, while I don't doubt your motives for having supported the
war, I don't think I will ever be convinced that the reason for going
to war at the highest government level was anything other than oil;
there are just too many vested interests there for it to be otherwise.

That is, unless you consider Bush to be the highest government level,
in which case I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was as
simple as a childish desire to get back at Saddam for beating Daddy.

I also suspect you're being a bit harsh in your description of
Americans, since it is my experience that British people behave in
almost exactly the same way, and I would be willing to go so far as to
say that people in general are like that; they are always full of
enthusiasm to go to war, and always expect results within weeks rather
than months or years. Twentieth century European history says it
all...

>         I think I am like a lot of conservatives when I say that I was
> willing to back the armed forces in as much as I realized the
> inevitability of action (and, supported the overthrow of Saddam,
> though more in principle than an overwhelming urge to go get stuck
> invading a country), but conceding to the inevitable is not the kind
> of feeling you want the "base" of a party to have.

I don't recall being under the impression at the time that you were
merely reluctantly conceding support, but it is possible that my
memory is at fault...

>         Anyway. So, as a free market kind of guy, I'm not excited about > the Republicans at the moment -- they are now the "big government
> party," and though I don't trust the Dems talk of smaller government
> (since it doesn't fit with their overall agenda), I think this damaged the
> GOP's one major base.

Ugh, if you think you're stuck between a choice for big government and
bigger government, you should see the appalling state of affairs in
the UK at the moment.

> Really, the election was all
> about the stupidity of forgetting what people elected you to do and
> not even really trying to lie about it and pretend next time will be
> better.

Isn't that what every election is about?

Dan