The secret: FOSS is more than 100% alive

El-Randomo^WEl-Reggo has put this article up, which makes an interesting point which — perhaps unintentionally — applies very directly to the way Open Source actually works. It says, in part...

Ninety-six per cent of the human body is alive. This part is composed of living, “organic elements” present in many different forms. [...] The remaining 3.8 per cent of the human body is technically composed of non-living, “non-organic elements” [...] their quantities are fairly miniscule, they are absolutely critical for the maintenance of the body's structure and smooth working order.

This USyd PhD (one Stephen Juan, new to me) seems to have exemplified (possibly — as mentioned — unintentionally) Open Source in a mere two lines: the “pointless” extras typically included with FOSS are the real and internal life-support and explain why it is so hard for a traditional vulture to compete against FOSS: in essence, this is Flexible Real Life Defeating Limited Robot. Simple enough?

This effect is not a guarantee of eventual success, but it is a definite head-start. Please take this start and run with it! Run hard!

Comments

Leon RJ Brooks said…

The revenge of the undead? Unkillable? The Totally Alive?

Hey, just as long as it works! (-:

14 May, 2006 17:31

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b...

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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