phone

I want one of these RAZR2 V8 phones.

http://www.linux.com/feature/119159

"This summer, in a perfect storm of activity, the cell phone suddenly became a full-fledged wireless computer. Those prime-time TV commercials promoting the iPhone downplay the telephone application to emphasize data-rich Internet media capabilities -- email, Web surfing, GPS navigation, music, photos, and video -- all on a cell phone. Hard on Apple's heels, a blitz of new handhelds is beginning to vie for attention, led by Motorola's US launch of the Linux-based RAZR2 V8, now taking place. Has Linux become a contending competitive platform, pushing open source to the front of the stage in this market?

"It appears so. Market research firm ABI Research, in a late August press announcement entitled "Linux to Be the Fastest-Growing Smartphone OS over the Next 5 Years," predicted a compound annual growth rate "in excess of 75%." By 2012, this growth rate means that Linux will "account for nearly 31% of all smart devices in the market ... representing more than 331
million cumulative shipments over the same period." Research Director Stuart Carlaw said, "Serious initiatives from the likes of Intel and Access are gathering pace and momentum, whilst the carrier community continues to identify Linux as one of the few operating systems that it intends to support in its long-term plans.""

Google at 9

Google is 9 years old today, and what a 9 years it's been. There was a time when I had seen every public web page there was. It seems like only yesterday that "what's new" web sites were manageable, I even had one for awhile. I remember to first time I saw something funny on the web, the lunch pages, the coffee maker, the other first web cams and early hints at the copyright fire storms to come.

It wasn't long before HTTP become what people meant when they said "internet". It exploded. Internet news, commerce, interactive sites, Java, the browser wars, the dot-com silliness... And through it all Google did something simple that we all needed - it helped us find things. Google never made a browser. Google never made a web site that required it's software. Google never tried to lock people out and charge fees. It just provided a useful service, and sold unobtrusive ad space.

It worked, but Google didn't stop there. As one of the very few companies that "get it", Google has continued to provide new and (more importantly, useful) services. Today, an iGoogle page, Google mail, news, a few "portlets",web albums and you've got a window on the internet world that's hard to beat. And in fact, no one is beating it.

But there's more to do, and we all know it. Here to the years to come, and the products and services to be invented...

What I take away from this is that you don't need to be complicated to be successful. You don't need to sue people. You don't need tricks designed to herd customers into platform lock-in. Just create something that works, that does something people need and enjoy. A product that doesn't fight its customers, alone, may not assure riches, but a product that's in our way, that fights us, that sues us, that deliberately doesn't work with our other tools and refuses to fit in with our lives is sure to fail.

A Cure for a Common JAI Exception

The Java advanced imaging framework (JAI) will throw a confusing and harmless exception if hardware specific classes are not available;

Error: Could not find mediaLib accelerator wrapper classes. Continuing in pure Java mode.
Occurs in: com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/sun/medialib/mlib/Image
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor$1.run(MediaLibAccessor.java:248)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor.setUseMlib(MediaLibAccessor.java:245)
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor.useMlib(MediaLibAccessor.java:177)
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor.isMediaLibCompatible(MediaLibAccessor.java:357)
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MediaLibAccessor.isMediaLibCompatible(MediaLibAccessor.java:315)
at com.sun.media.jai.mlib.MlibScaleRIF.create(MlibScaleRIF.java:67)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)

...etc.

A good cure for this is to get the stuff it would like to have installed. But if you can't do that, or can't predict something about the target hardware, there's a nice way to get the exception ignored.

JAI includes a listener for imaging errors. Create an instance of such a listener and add it to your JAI default instance like so:

public class MyErrListener implements ImagingListener {
 public boolean errorOccurred(String arg0,
   Throwable arg1, Object arg2,
   boolean arg3) throws RuntimeException {
     // Do nothing.
     return false;
 }
}

and then...

JAI.getDefaultInstance().setImagingListener(new MyErrListner());

Here's the relevant documentation:

http://download.java.net/media/jai/javadoc/1.1.3/jai-apidocs/javax/media/jai/util/ImagingListener.html

http://download.java.net/media/jai/javadoc/1.1.3/jai-apidocs/javax/media/jai/JAI.html#setImagingListener(javax.media.jai.util.ImagingListener)

Clockmakers

People are always asking me about mechanical clocks, because I work on mechanical watches. I can't help them. Clockmaking is a completely different thing from watchmaking. However, one thing that they do perhaps have in common is that it is, strictly speaking, a completely impractical
skill.

Here's a nice piece about a local clockmaker and his shop.

http://www.kgw.com/lifestyle/stories/kgw_091607_lifestyle_clockmakers.dd1cf4f6.html

MP3

Amazon has launched a new music download service with no DRM and variable pricing, both things Steve Jobs has resisted (particularly a variable price structure).

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK1GR94T4PJ38D6

If anyone can challenge iTunes, it's Amazon. Amazon already has a well established customer base for books, CDs and other merchandise. Selling music for download is for Amazon the equivalent of placing impulse buy items next to the cash register at the grocery store.

Meanwhile...

AnywhereCD is shutting down. It's founder, Michael Robertson, writes here with his views on what went wrong.

http://www.michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_id=245

Interesting stuff, and indicative of a retail entertainment and media industry that still just doesn't get it, and a high-tech industry still struggling to find a way to co-exist with those big media companies.

In other news, we can also add Virgin Digital to the long list of services that have not worked out. Maybe Richard Branson will have better luck with his airlines.

http://www.virgindigital.co.uk/Message.aspx

It's been many years now since since digital media and the internet came together. And we still don't know what we're doing.

Sony's New Smile Cam

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20773324/

"Using face-detection technology, the 8-megapixel, DSC-T70 and DSC-T200 Cyber-shot cameras won't snap a high-definition picture until a selected subject smiles."

Java on Fedora 6

Here's another reason to avoid Fedora. I don't know exactly what sort of Java comes installed with Redhat's Fedora 6 Linux, but save yourself some grief. Head over to Sun,

http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp

and get a current JDK/JRE.

For one thing the JVM Redhat is including with Fedora 6 is 1.4.2, which is pretty old in my opinion. I've already been doing things that require 1.6. Secondly, the GNU Java maybe more open, true, and you may heve some feelings about that, but the Sun JVM is the reference implimentation. So, if you're wanting to get real work done, it better run on the Sun JVM.
At the very least, there's significant benefit in having more than one JVM available.

Note, you can switch JVMs by simply changing your PATH (and CLASSPATH if you've got one). Or, what I like to do is make an /opt/java a symbolic like to whatever Java install I want to use at run-time.

Eclipse can be configured to know about multiple Java installs and so you can switch between them at will. You can also run Eclipse with one Java, but run and debug your application with other Java. Situations where this is needed come up more than one might think. I do it all the time.

The Java Commandline on Windows

I hardly ever have to do this so when I do, it's always a struggle for a minute: running a java program, from a jar file (on Windows). Also online I see question frequently asked about the java command line. Here's a brief run-down.

There are two forms the command line can take.

1) java.exe -classpath ;; com.newpackage.MyClass

Each jar file is a full path to the file including the ".jar". The class to run is given at the end without a ".class" of course. The class of course needs to be in one of the jar files. "-cp" may be used instead of "-classpath".

Here's the part that always throws me. On crappy Windows, you separate your jar files on the command line with a semi-colon, ";", not a colon, ":" as it would be on a grown up operating system. In addition, on Windows, it doesn't handle drive letters well, as in "c:\my_jars\xyz.jar". Escape those, or use a different arrangement.

Here's the other form of the java command line.

2) java.exe -jar myfile.jar

In this form, the jar file should contain everything needed and the "main", or class to run, has to have been designated when the jar was created. When using the "-jar" option, classpath options are ignored.

Complete documentation is found here:

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/tooldocs/solaris/java.html

Have fun.

Whew!

So this morning I saw in my Google Reader that Moss had posted a new Google Shared item!

http://www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=100511491322054142276

So I checked it out, pretty interesting... I clicked "Share" in my reader so the item will show up on my blog and on my stuff to read web page.

http://blapandsuch.blogspot.com/

Then it occured to me that I should add links on my stuff to read page to my Shared Stuff, and to Moss's Shared Stuff to the stuff to read too.

http://www.rdrop.com/~jsexton/reader.html

That done, I added Moss's shared stuff link to my Shared Stuff.

http://www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=104405056094644812060

Then I posted this:

http://blapandsuch.blogspot.com/2007/09/whew.html

Open Source Says "We will bury you"

"You can try to avoid open source, but it's probably easier to get out of the IT business altogether. By 2011, at least 80% of commercial software will contain significant amounts of open source code..."

-- Gartner research vice president Mark Driver

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/092007-open-source-unavoidable.html

In nearly every sector of software technology, open source solutions are no longer just an alternative, they are now the superior alternative. In coming years, organizations that realize this advantage will prosper. Those that do not, will not. It's as simple as that.

Shuttle Photos

These are some of the best space shuttle mission images I've ever seen.

http://www.texasjim.com/NASApix/NASA%20pix.htm

Things Google Should Do

* I'd like a way to email, or otherwise transmit, photos from my phone to my Picasa web albums.

* It would be nice to use adsense on the web albums site, and anywhere else content is shared (such as things created with the Google office web applications, and the calander).

* I find Google maps a bit tricky to use on a phone. The interface could use some work here and there.

* I can't seem to get an RSS feed from gmail into Google reader. It seems like it should be allowed, but it doesn't work when you set it up.

* I'd like to be able to control caching on a mobile device for Google applications. I'd like to add storage, and reduce network access.

* I'd like more control over the appearance of text-based adsense ad units. I can come close to matching the look of my own content, but not exactly (maybe this is deliberate?).

* I'd like to be able to configure Google to "permanently" exclude selected domains from my search results.

* I'm not Windows user, I'd like a full-featured and stable linux version of Picasa.

* A Google calendar view that tied to photos in the web albums would be nice.

* More photo storage. Perhaps Google could offer more storage for photos that include tags, so the are more easily indexed.

* I'd like to see Google create a tiny linux distribution that booted from a "live CD" (or better yet a flash memory device) and included simple and direct access to the Google applications suite, and very little else. Google could give away thumb drives that did this. It would be open
source naturally, and people would very quickly port it to all sorts of unconventional devices.

* I'd like to see Google Earth tied into various live web cams, where they exist, to show live images of places.

* Perhaps Google could create some sort of identity/reputation management/search system that would allow a signed-in user to pull together identities from social networking sites and other sites that include reputation, like eBay.

* If Google creates a hardware device of any sort, it should it include a biometric sign on.

* Wouldn't it be interesting if Google Earth included a time dimension, are an as-of date in the search options?

* Google just added something called "shared stuff", with a toolbar button to automaticly create a link to the current page on a "my shared stuff page". Here's mine:

http://www.google.com/s2/sharing/stuff?user=104405056094644812060&aoff=true

Ok, this nice, there's a way to subscribe to the RSS feed and it does a nice job of integrating with gmail. But what's the difference between this new feature and this, the shared items from the Google reader?

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/08377747788536767911

Google, what are you doing here? I don't get it. The reader's shared stuff has a nice way of appearing on the blog page. Does the new "shared stuff" do that?

Google is doing an outstanding job of providing valuable tools and services. I hope they keep up the good work!

DIY Guillotine

Determination? Madness? Or just a sense of drama?

"The body of a 41-year-old man was found in a wooded area next to a guillotine he built and used to kill himself, police said."

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/14099445/detail.html

"I can't even tell you how long it must have taken him to construct," he said. "This man obviously was very determined to end his life."

"According to investigators, the man had to make several trips to carry the wooden and metal parts to the area in the woods."

Yum!

How to spend a million dollars a day on meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner:

http://www.bocajoescatering.com/Miami-Florida-Catering.html

Here's a dessert:

"This sundae is made with "5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23 carat edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world's most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao
chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela's coast. The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It's sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac. The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgence served with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel." It is sold at New York's Serendipity Restaurant for $1,000."

Free Beer from IBM

IBM plans to offer free desktop programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations; OpenOffice. They're calling it "IBM Lotus Symphony".

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/technology/18blue.html?ref=technology

You'd think IBM would make more of this, but then again they've always been stunningly bad at advertising.

http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

More On Fedora 6 - Modems

I've had to give up on getting a serial modem to work with Fedora 6. The best tip I ran into on this was here:

http://www.fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread.php?t=150818

I had installed the xen kernel, just to play with it. It seems the xen edition makes the serial ports unavailable to the O/S. That makes some sense. So I tried installing Fedora without the virtualization option (since installing it with virtualization fails to install the non-xen kernel as a boot option).

However, the non-xen install gets to the point of actually formating and copying over the selected software and crashes. I tried it five times with simpler and simpler options selected. Everytime, the install just crashed.

This is the 64-bit Fedora 6, on a brand new AMD dual core, a mid-range motherboard, no extra video card or anything else fancy, a couple of big SATA drives (also new) and 2 GBs of memory.

Linux normally works really, really well these days. But Fedora is pathetic.

New!

Here's a new watch internals tour:

http://www.rdrop.com/~jsexton/watches/museum/elgin28563994.html

The Elgin Grade 315, 12 size pocketwatch.

Not Too Far Off - The Future

The living room of the future, a 1979 prediction:

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1271028593&context=pool-441605@N25&size=l

Such "views of the future" are always interesting once "the future" gets here. This particular one is humorous at first glance, but actually many elements are things that have come into our lives, although perhaps in slightly different forms.

No flying cars yet though.

Taxing

I was researching how something was going to work for me this year and came across this:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/ustax/ustax.html

It's a searchable and hyper-linked on-line edition of the US Internal Revenue Code. Someone's done a lot of work! No, it's not bang-on current (it's to 2004), but it's pretty good for many purposes.

From the web site's description:

"The complete Internal Revenue Code is more than 24 megabytes in length, and contains more than 3.4 million words; printed 60 lines to the page, it would fill more than 7500 letter-size pages. Looking for something buried in that mass of verbiage can be daunting. By harnessing the freeWAIS-sf indexing and retrieval engine to the Web version of the tax code, you can search the entire Code for words or combinations of words, navigating directly to sections that matched the query by following a link. For example, entering "forfeiture AND beer" in the query box and pressing Start search locates all 13 sections of the Code containing those words, ranked in descending order of relevance as determined by the weighting algorithm in freeWAIS-sf. You can compose more complex queries using the standard freeWAIS-sf query syntax."

Nice!

This site also has a link to the text of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act.

Patraeus

So, maybe I missed the news item where the President and commander in chief stepped down and put a general in charge of US policy?

Bush has gone from hiding behind this "wait to see what the General says" thing for months now. Now Bush seems to have taken that a step further to "we'll do whatever the General says". Um, who's "The Decider" again? Does the buck stop anyplace at all, ever? Maybe Patraeus should be running for office. Or maybe he doesn't need to.

And Congress isn't helping. The General goes up there and all the ask him about are policy and politics. They nearly all disagree with the policy, so they want a chance to say so, and try to get the General to say so.

Well, in this country, the military does what the civilian leadership tells it to. The General was ordered to settle down Iraq (I guess), and he's trying. And they ask his things like, "is this making America safer"? How is he supposed to know? Ok, he's an American, a citizen, a voter... I'm sure he has an opinion, probably a pretty well informed one too. But how about asking him something about the military actions he's taking in order to carry out his orders?

Oh, I forgot. Apparently he doesn't get orders, and Iraq is the Generals problem now. Whatever.

Goffice

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/09/google-apps-gets-important-endorsement.html

AP reports that Google Apps gained more credibility as "technology consultancy Capgemini will begin recommending Google Inc.'s online suite of office software to its corporate customers. (...) Capgemini, based in Paris, France, influences the type of software used on more than 1 million personal computers in companies worldwide. Its major customers include drug maker Eli Lilly & Co. and accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers."

Meanwhile...

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_10_reasons_against_google_apps.php

Up till now, Microsoft has been very quiet about the nascent Web Office threat from Google. But today, in response to the news that IT systems consultancy CapGemini has partnered with Google to sell Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) to enterprises, Microsoft issued an email listing 10 "top questions that enterprises should ask when considering the switch to GAPE." The questions read more like reasons why enterprises shouldn't choose Google Apps. This list was first published by Mary Jo Foley, who says it was an unsolicited email from a Microsoft "corporate spokesperson".

The 10 reasons make for fascinating reading - and show just how concerned Microsoft really is about not only Google Apps, but Web Office in general.

The conclusion is pretty obvious. This is a replay of the early stages of MSFT vs. Linux, and MSFT vs. [insert new and better technology here] before that. Like Linux, Google applications work. Like Linux, Google applications are way ahead of MSFT (which never really invented anything at all). MSFT doesn't like it when something better comes along, and when people *finally* realize that not only do they do not have to be tied the latest MS-Junk, but that the alternatives offer huge advantages.

So how will Microsoft fight Google in the market place? First they'll make sure Vista won't load Google web sites (seriously, they'll do that). Then they'll get sued and have to back down. Meanwhile the huge pile of cash that Micro-"what-have-you-done-for-me-lately"-soft made off Windows 98 gets smaller every single day.

Microsoft is finished. No doubt about it.

They Might Be Giants

From Dial-a-Song, to podcasts, to Myspace... An interview with John Flansburgh:

http://www.gearlog.com/2007/08/interview_they_might_be_giants.php

HD DVD 3x

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2007/09/11/hd_dvd_51gb_approved/

"The DVD Forum, the organisation that oversees DVD and HD DVD technology, has approved Toshiba's proposed triple-layer, 51GB disc structure. The move paves the way to exceed - for now, at least - the 50GB capacity of a two-layer Blu-ray Disc."

(Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again...)

Narratives of Fatal Flaw

"Class is impossible," says Debord; however, according to Pickett[1] , it is not so much class that is impossible, but rather the futility, and therefore the absurdity, of class. Baudrillard suggests the use of the predialectic paradigm of reality to attack sexism.

In the works of Fellini, a predominant concept is the distinction between within and without. However, if textual theory holds, we have to choose between postmaterialist socialism and subsemantic socialism. The subject is contextualised into a neocapitalist paradigm of consensus that includes consciousness as a paradox.

If one examines postmaterialist socialism, one is faced with a choice: either reject textual theory or conclude that culture is part of the collapse of narrativity. In a sense, in La Dolce Vita, Fellini analyses postmaterialist socialism; in 8 1/2 he examines textual theory. Sartre promotes the use of postmaterialist socialism to deconstruct and modify society.

Therefore, a number of dematerialisms concerning the role of the writer as poet may be found. The subject is interpolated into a textual theory that includes culture as a totality.

Thus, the primary theme of Scuglia.s[2] model of postmaterialist socialism is the difference between sexual identity and class. Wilson[3] implies that the works of Gaiman are modernistic.

In a sense, the premise of precapitalist theory holds that discourse comes from the collective unconscious. Bataille suggests the use of the neocapitalist paradigm of consensus to attack class divisions.

It could be said that the characteristic theme of the works of Gaiman is the collapse, and eventually the genre, of dialectic society. If textual theory holds, we have to choose between the neocapitalist paradigm of consensus and subtextual cultural theory.

http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo

My Fedora 6 Installation Nightmare

My efforts to build a working 64-bit Fedora 6 install continue... Here's some highlights of the problems.

1. Fedora 6 is not able to correctly configure even very common graphics cards, nor does Fedora's install offer to configure a text mode boot. If you want to install Fedora 6, expect to do this stuff the hard way.

2. Some important packages are not installed in a typical install. And there is no way to install new packages on a built machine from the discs. It will only install packages using an internet connection.

3. The default install is "secured" to the point of being unusable. No obvious ways of disabling enough security to use the system are provided. It takes research.

4. The installer crashes in a couple of places. When this happens you have to start all over. Believe it or not, this is the most minor problem.

My task is complicated by the fact that I am doing this in order to save a large amount of data from a failing drive. I had to get the new box up, ftp a lot of data around, and build the new system up to the configuration I need.

Fedora reminds me of the earliest days of linux when installs had to be done over and over to get what what you need and there was a huge amount of hands on package building and configuration. It is NOT easy. It has set linux back. It's the only 64-bit distribution I have at hand.

Here's the procedure I've come up with and a few tips. There are three areas I had to work with to get the system at least usable. The video, selinux and vsftp (security).

Video

Fedora will almost certainly not configure its graphics correctly. When this happens, it will not start up correctly.

1. Boot the install disk to "rescue" mode.

2. Change the runlevel to a text boot and reboot.

3. Use system-config-display to create a usable /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. You'll find many forum posts about using "Xorg -configure" to do this. That doesn't work (remarkably it creates a config file different from the one the install creates, but just as wrong). Use the "startx" command to test the configuration out. You can change back to a graphical boot if you like.

Another note on graphics and Fedora's flaws; for whatever reason sometime X11 fails to start correctly on boot. You find yourself with a text login. Running startx will tell you that a lock file already exists (indicating that it thinks X is already running) - and it is. In this case, login, delete the LCK file, find the xorg process and issue a "kill -HUP" on it. I don't know why this happens...

selinux and "Security"

My advise would be that unless you're building a server for the NSA or something, disable selinux completely. Edit /etc/selinux/config and reboot to disable selinux.

I ran into this because I needed to use an ftp server on the box. Fedora comes with vsftpd, which is naturally configured to do pretty much nothing. Which is hard to understand since ftp is not allowed by the default firewall, and ftpd is also not activated (nor is it even installed
in fact) by default. Naturally, you get no choices about these things in the install.

Why on earth do they put up so many obstacles?

But anyway, even if you can get the ftpd configuration file correct for your use (it's in /etc/vsftpd), selinux will still prevent ftp connections from doing anything useful. I spent a lot of time frustrated, thinking my vsftp configuration wasn't working before figuring this out.

Getting Packages

You can't install software on this distribution except via the internet, or completely manually (stunning). I tried to do a re-install without reformatting in hopes that I could get more on there from the CDs. Don't bother trying this. It gets to the package dependency check and fails
claiming that what is already installed conflicts. Whatever... After the initial install, your CDs or DVD are useless.

I'm making some progress with my setup. But it's slow going. My two biggest complaints are the shockingly bad video configuration created by the install and the "security" issues. In the case of the video, there is no reason in the world that a plain-jane driver should be setup by the install if it can't detect the hardware correctly. This distribution does an especially poor job of hardware detection, but I'd except that. The real problem is that it, with no word of warning, builds an unbootable system.

The "security"... I put the word in quotes because what Fedora does for security makes the system unusable - I may as well leave it unplugged, that would be "secure" right? It installs unusable configurations, but also disables those services an two of more ways anyway. This leaves even a relatively sophisticated user with a lot of layers to unravel before being able to do some pretty common tasks (like use ftpd). All this happens with no choices offered during the install process (I can just hear someone saying teh install process should be simple, what? And then require 10 or 20 hours of googling to get NFS working?).

Whatever...

Beef

http://news.opb.org/article/e-coli-beef-infects-deschutes-mother-child/

"Oregon health officers say your ground beef may be dangerous and should be thrown away if: You bought it at a QFC, Fred Meyer, or a Safeway store. It was ground by Interstate Meat Distributors in Clackamas County. The beef was labeled as 'Northwest Finest' natural ground beef and 'Northwest Finest' organic ground beef. The sell-by dates are from August 1st to August 11th 2007."