Saturday, February 28, 2009

Improved display drivers for Fedora

Seems things will look good in the next release of Fedora:

"Enabled by default on Fedora 11 will be Intel kernel mode-setting (along with the ATI kernel mode-setting that can already be found in Fedora 10). More on this is also available from the Fedora Wiki. ATI kernel mode-setting has been enabled since Fedora 10, but in Leonidas the support will be extended to support KMS on ATI R100/200 hardware.

Kernel mode-setting allows for a nice, flicker-free boot process with the Plymouth project, fast VT switching, improved suspend and resume support, and other benefits. Kernel mode-setting is also a prerequisite for running the Wayland Display Server."

Full text here

My, I'm happy with the display drivers as they are in Fedora 10. Worked out of the box.

Back to school

I feel like at the beginning of school when I always get scared of the amount of material to be covered. At every other sentence I read I go like "should also read about..." The perfect example it's 5 min ago. I was reading a meeting report on the Fedora forum and I decided to attend myself the next meeting as I felt I could help with the issue. So.. where do I register? Turns out it's by IRC... WTF is IRC?!?!?!?! I know YM and probably I could get Skype to work. So... why not making a conference on good'ol YM? Is it really necessary to make everything so hard?! I mean, I understand the ideea (YM being proprietary software and all) but, isn't this a little on the fundamentalist side? We'll ask.
On the Java front... I managed to get some working concept about programming but the effort ahead only now became clearer. There is a basic set of rules and operations. The trouble is that to be efficient you need to know as much classes as possible. It's like learning Chinese writing. After you get used with the brush and ink starts the real thing - learning the 40000 characters.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Early morning

No erection this morning. Just a bitter feeling as I woke up. I dream about the magazine and what should I do about the printing house and to call..., ant to write to... When I woke up I was... here.
Have to stop thinking about that, have to wake up thinking about Java and Fedora. It will come. Hopefully.
Last night mom was seeing The Prestige on HBO and I realised I can't remember the last movie I saw. Think it was "The Wackness". No, I remember now because I really liked: "Waltz with Bashir" It made me remember another one witch I enjoyed even better - Persepolis. The one with this amaisingly insitefull view of teenage hell.

Practicalities

This morning I woke up with a huge (or at least stiff :D) erection and I realised this is going to be a problem. My mom lives in an 20.000 people small town where everybody knows everybody so right now I'm her darkest secret - "My woderfully successful son had a 15 years career in the press and now lives with me, unemployed..." - this just doesn't cut it at the local grocery store. Even if this wouldn't be the case, I know that if I'll start going out in this town (or any other), in 3 months max i'll be the "village drunk" and never get back to my feet again.
So going out it's, well... out. I'm left with good old jerking off or some kind of utopic exercise program (ha, ha, if you'll know me you'll laugh as hard as I do at this ideea)
I miss weed. With no money and probably no dealer in town it's going to be another "things I used to to"

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Maybe not only a desperate plan

Europe it seems, it's at the forefront of Open Source adoption. Here I found the annual report of Open Forum Europe that says:
"Looking back, 2008 will probably be perceived as a watershed for the recognition of 'openness' as an inevitable commercial requirement. (...)
No less than 16 governments have now chosen ODF as their preferred open document format, with Germany being the latest in the list of governments making this decision. Support for ODF has now moved beyond the desk top with support within applications and the launch of the ODF Toolkit Union."
As I live in Europe this only could mean a (slim) hope that my Don Quijote-an quest could lead not only to personal salvation but, in some time, to some way of earning a living.

Schedule

It seems that I find my to do list ready made for me here. I'll learn Java (at least this is my first option - I'll decide for good in the weekend). Now I just have to devise a daily routine, something like 2h math and theory, 3h coding, 3 research on the net.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

First steps

My former girlfriend came by to bring me a useless present (a telescope). She thinks she's still in love with me because she can't understand why I left her. I feel somehow sorry for her but I'm not compromising only to get us both suffer later.

As my future goes, I started to read about software development. I liked this: "Open source avoids the biggest barrier to entering the software industry: marketing and sales. Open source needs no sales and marketing budget, only a good development leader, quality software and word of mouth for adoption." Full text here.

I plan to read as much as I can tomorrow and over the weekend so Monday I'll be able to formulate a coherent set of objectives and some kind of timeframe. Right now I don't even know what question should I ask myself (apart from "how to muster courage to jump from brigde?"). Are there such things as freelance software developers? How many specialities are in "programming"? It depends on the language used (C++ or Java) or in the final destination of the code (game or network protocol). How do one gets in a open source team. What cridentials are needed? I'm pretty sure I'll be laughing in a few month at this stupid questions...

Happy birthday

I turned 35 years old today. I live in my mother's house and I have no job or any productive skills that I'm aware. I think this is enough to qualify me as a genuine looser.
Until last week I had a magazine that's gone bust. I sold everything, paid my bills and the last salaries to my former team. With the last 4000E I bought a new computer (sold even my personal MacBook Pro) and moved with mom. Paid 1000E for Vaio VGN-FW21E and left with 3000E. As I made an oath never to work in the media again I installed linux on my new laptop and I'm thinking to learn programming until I find something to do with my life.
This blog will record my path to suicide, insanity, learning linux, redemtion or a combination of the above.
Feel free to laugh at any point.