Cogs can think.

I would like to coin a new term.

The Dvorak defence.

When someone writes a story for his website or even personal weblog which is critical of either Apple of GNU/FSF/Linux, zealots of these two camps will immediately claim you are only expressing that critique to gain hits and ad money. No matter how good your integrity is, no matter if you get paid for your work or not (at OSNews, we don’t get paid a dime), the Dvorak defence always works. The Dvorak defence allows the zealots to draw attention away from the actual issues at hand, and instead discredit the author. It’s the perfect defence for zealots.

It is called the Dvorak defence because Dvorak actually really only criticises Apple for hits - he admitted to it.

I fcuking hate idiots like Dvorak. They are ruining it for us serious folk on the net.

It’s always a bit confronting when someone ridicules one of your favourite things in the world in such a fitting way you really have nothing to say in return.

A comment [Tobus 09-07-07 @ 15:36] on an item about Avril Lavigne possibly having stolen lyrics:

Yeah, well, it remains so that 90% of all lyrics revolve around any of the following 4 themes:

- I love you
- I hate you
- I want you back
- I want to lose you

Infringement cases are bound to occur.

But… But… Forget it, he’s right. Grumble.

So, DistroWatch replied to my moral rant about their policies towards Elive.

Thanatermesis has never asked DistroWatch not to post direct download links to the stable Elive CD images. I am in regular contact with the Elive developer and I’ve just checked all his recent emails (just to be sure), but I couldn’t find a single one (let alone “numerous requests”) where he would ask me not to post these links. So either he is lying to Mr Holwerda, or Mr Holwerda is lying in his blog.

Those are Thanatermesis’ words - “many times”, he wrote.

In six years of its existence, DistroWatch has never hosted any ISO images of any distribution, including Elive. Again, somebody is making things up.

Again, Thanatermesis’ words. I am assuming that “he uploaded it himself” does not necessarily have to mean to distrowatch.com/pub/incoming/, but any server.

Is it disrespectful of DistroWatch to provide direct download links to the Elive CD images? Yes, absolutely - and I agree with Mr Holwerda on this point. However, I don’t believe it is any more disrespectful than twisting the meaning of the word “donation” or providing non-existent links to a slow download server which, oops, is down and has been down for weeks. I have no problem with the Elive developer wanting to make money out of his hard work, but then he should be straightforward about it and go commercial, instead of playing these ridiculous “you must donate” and “feel guilty if I starve to death” games. Or he should come up with a better way of distributing his work than “hiding” it in randomly named “dot” directories on public FTP servers.

Look, I don’t agree with such a compulsory donation scheme either, and I would much rather see a voluntary donation scheme, but that is not a sound reason to be disrespectful and discourteous to another developer’s choice. It’s his god-given right to supply his users with his software in a way he deems necessary. You may not like that, but that is no reason to disrespect a developer who works really hard on his project in his free time, and post links to his work on fast servers - despite the fact that you are not legally prohibited to do so.

since Mr Holwerda portrays DistroWatch as a backstabbing organisation with little respect for other people’s work…

That’s a bit drama queenish of you. I am just saying that what you are doing with Elive is an ungentlemanlike thing to do, and I just pointed it out to you. You could have just added a “my take” or whatever to the newsitem, stating that you find it unacceptable of Thanatermesis to uphold such a donation scheme.

…while picturing OSNews as a moral-high-ground holding bastion of purity and innocence, here is a question to the author of the blog post: DistroWatch has donated close to US$14,000 to open source software projects over the last three years. How about OSNews, Mr Holwerda?

As a proper journalistic outlet [1], OSNews does not take sides by donating money to anything. We are an independent news outlet, and as such, we do not take donations, nor give them to anyone. We want to maintain our unbiasedness, and donations (either to or from OSNews) do not fit into that. So, even if we did give/receive donations, we would not talk about it.

Personally, I am not the type to scream my personal donations off the rooftops. I contribute to my free software project of choice in the best way I can, and on top of that, do the community a service by working hours and hours a day, unpaid (I don’t get a penny for my work on OSNews), on a website that provides that community with publicity. My donation habits are strictly personal, and not anyone’s business.

Apart from that, even if you donated tenhundredmillionbillion Dollars to the free software world, that does not give you the right to disrespect individual developers. No matter how many lives a doctor has saved, it does not give him the moral right to kill someone.

Morality is not for sale, Distrowatch.

[1] OSNews is a voluntary effort, and our editors and webmaster do not get paid in any way for the work we do. In other words, the word “proper” in this context is relative. I’m honest in that.

Soon, my dear beloved readers, I will explain what this was all about. Events are currently unfolding, but one thing is already clear: someone did a really naughty thing to dear ol’ me.

And that’s generally not a very wise thing to do. Because I bite. I kick. I scream. I fight until I get even. And even I will get.

Sometimes, I really wonder whatever the hell happened to courtesy and gentlemanship.

The (bascially a) one man project Elive, a Debian-based installable live CD which uses Enlightenment 0.16 and 0.17 as its desktop environment, has just released version 1.0 of their project. Since nobody pays Samuel ‘Thanatermesis’ F. Baggen to work on Elive, he gives his users two options when they want to download stable Elive releases: a slow, free server, or a fast server for which you have to donate any amount of money (USD 1, 2, or whatever you want) to get access to. This way, the one-man project gets a few bucks to fund Elive.

Of course, this world is filled with idiots without any form of respect, so you soon get people who post the stable .iso’s somewhere else, so others can enjoy a free fast download. This in itself is of course extremely lame, but hey, I don’t think there’s anything legally you could do to stop this - the license permits redistribution.

On OSNews, I wrote an item about the Elive 1.0 release. In the comments, a user posted direct download links to a fast server hosting the Elive 1.0 releases, which, of course, while not illegal, is still not very gentleman-like. So I emailed Thanatermesis, asking him if he wanted the links removed - you know, out of courtesy and respect. He said he would like that, so Eugenia and I removed the direct download links.

However, Distrowatch posts a direct download link on its frontpage announcement of Elive 1.0. Thanatermesis explained to me that despite numerous emails and request to, like, not do that, Distrowatch continues to do so. In fact, when Thanatermesis moved the stable .iso somewhere else, Distrowatch just hosted the .iso themselves, in spite of the fact that they know about the mild donation request.

Shame on you, Distrowatch, this is a very lame thing to do. I will be sure to not link to any Distrowatch story until this situation is resolved. For whatever that’s worth.

Will somebody please take that knife out of my back? Some backstabbing bitch put it in there.

Thank you.

Writing about Fiat in my previous post, I realised that the American readers of my blog may have never even seen a Fiat - or, more worringly, may have never even seen an Alfa Romeo at all. Since Alfa will be returning to the American market in 2008, a few words for my American friends regarding Alfa are in place.

Every self-respecting American will know at least one Alfa Romeo - the Duetto Spider 1600 driven by Dustin Hoffman in 1967’s The Graduate. When Alfa returns to the States in 2008, they will kick off by selling you guys the sexiest and most beautiful car in existence (apart from the Tipo 33 Stradale): the Alfa 8C Competazione, followed a year later by the world’s most beuatiful sedan, the Alfa 159, the automobile pornography known as the Alfa Brera, and its spider sister, the Alfa Spider. Alfa Romeo’s will be sold at Maserati dealerships throughout the US.

The promotional video, including a few glimpses in Alfa’s glorious past, of the 8C.

Before you think about checking them out, there are a few things you ought to know about Alfa Romeo. Firstly, when referring to the brand as a whole, it is “Alfa Romeo”. When you refer to specific models, you drop the “Romeo” part, i.e. “Alfa Brera” (and not “Alfa Romeo Brera”). Alfa Romeo also has a long lineage, a racing pedigree predating that of Ferrari.

Secondly, contrary to American cars or cars for the American market, Alfa Romeos are driver’s cars. In other words, the suspension won’t come in setting ’slinky’, and it will - in fact - not steer like an oiltanker filled with dead elephants. In other words, when you turn the steering wheel, the car will in fact actually steer in the designated direction. On top of that, the brakes will actually brake.

Thirdly, and most importantly, Alfas appeal not to your brain, but to your heart. Alfa Romeo is about emotion, butterflies in your stomach, love, and passion. An Alfa Romeo is about as Italian as it gets; it’s about style. An Alfa is like a beautiful woman; sure, she can be annoying, whiny, demanding, and dumb; but you’ll forgive her because she’s so darn pretty.

I have a deep love for Alfa. My heart skips a few beats whenever I see one, and jealousy pours out of every pore in my body.

Fiat has seen a miraculous rising the past few years. A few years ago, Fiat, owner of Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Maserati, and others, was basically done for; the company was dead. However, the management was replaced, styling cues were taken from Alfa Romeo and Maserati, and the tide was turned.

It all started with the Fiat Grande Punto, a massive hit (at least) here in The Netherlands. The car sports an obvious hint to Maserati (the nose).

Following the Grande Punto was the beautiful Fiat Bravo, my personal favourite. There’s definitely some Alfa Brera cues in there. Check video too, I love this commercial.

And today, Fiat celebrated the 50th birthday of the legendary Fiat 500 by launching the new 500. Not exactly my kind of car, but hey.

Alfa Romeo didn’t need to resurrect. Maserati did ressurect, followed by Fiat. Let’s hope Lancia is next.

I’ve fcuking had it up to ^here with this whole hypocritical Live Earth and Al Gore crap. Seriously. They can kiss my shiny metal ass.

Wake up call. Driving hybrid cars won’t stop the destruction of our environment. Using three LED lamps in your home doesn’t stop the cutting down of our vital rainforests. Not putting your TV on stand-by at night won’t stop the useless mass killing of wildlife. Buying 10% of your meat intake at responsible farmers won’t stop the barbaric mistreatment of animals in the bio industry. Watching a promotional marketing film documentary about manbearpig global warming doesn’t make you a concerned citizen. And so on.

All these things are marketing ploys. They are here to sooth your conscience. Ecofriendliness is a serious market now, people, and you are all deceived into believing that a car with two fcuking engines is actually more environmentally friendly than a modern car with one small petrol engine, that a chicken with two A4 sheets of paper to live on is actually happier than one living on one A4 sheet, that not putting your TV on standby will make a fcuking difference in the grand scheme of things, and so on. Ecocrap sells, but does it actually make a goddamn difference?

I always proclaim that the people are stupid (I mean, look at democracy); however, I would really like to be proven wrong, but damnit, you aren’t making it any easier for me. The mass deception that is called ecofriendliness and carbon-neutral really proves once again that we are, in fact, stupid. The Romans already knew (panem et circenses), and little has changed since then.

If we want to save our planet, we will need to do some massive, massive changes. Contrary to what your government and Toyota want you to believe, driving hybrids and eating low-fat food won’t save the world. We’ll need to make serious and unpopular changes that none of our pansy politicians dare to force upon us.

Sadly, the people put in power by the people are barely worth enough to use as ass wiping paper.

What a day.

I had to get up at 7am. Marco, Levi, Thei, and I planned a daytrip to Six Flags Holland today. The weather was a bitch all the way up to Amsterdam, where I met up with the others (I live far, far away from Amsterdam), so we were afraid we had picked the wrong day. Everything turned out well in the end, we barely had any rain while in the park. We rode all the coasters, and it was fun. Especially the long line in front of a suspended coaster proved to be a golden wait; we had a lot of laughs with the people around us.

I was dead tired on the way home, and due to all the trashing around on the coasters, I had a huge headache. We stopped by a McDonalds to fill up, and when I dropped the ladies off in Amsterdam, I could finally put the pedal to the metal. Completely fed up, I unlocked my front door, and greeted my Twiek. I noticed an envelope lying on the floor.

It was a card from my bestest best friend Renate. A ‘thank-you-for-being-you’ card. I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. What a perfect way to end the day.