“Divine ordination is a very dangerous idea, especially when combined with military power. With God’s approval, you need no human standard of morality.” Howard Zinn expands on the myths of American exeptionalism.
bostonreview.net
Use pen… to unlock bike
Kryptonite, makers of ‘Tough Locks for a Tough World’, are now known to have been selling bicycle locks which are not only more expensive, but can also be opened with a ball point pen. Apparently, this keyless mechanism was first documented in 1992…
Nein zum Krieg
Millions around the world were united in protest against going to war in Iraq.
Hamburg, February 2003
The hidden dangers of documents
“The UK government has now largely abandoned Microsoft Word for documents that become public”, writes Mark Ward. If only they had used OpenOffice.org’s one-click PDF export…
news.bbc.co.uk
The real reasons Bush went to war
“Oil and the dollar were the real reasons for the attack on Iraq, with weapons of mass destruction as the public reason now exposed as woefully inadequate.” A disturbingly coherent explanation put forward by John Chapman.
www.theguardian.com
10 truths about trade
“Is globalisation sending the best American jobs overseas? If you get your news from CNN’s Lou Dobbs, the answer is ‘of course’.” Brink Lindsey puts some commonly made assumptions about the US American economy to the test. Useful reading even if, like me, you do not live in North America.
reason.com
Slackware 10: first impressions
“Above all, I am impressed by Slackware’s stability, clean layout, easy customisation, and excellent package management system.” Michael Hall gives his opinion on Slackware.
www.osnews.com
A cloud over civilisation
“Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement nurtures this threat.” Economist John Kenneth Galbraith argues that companies control the state.
www.theguardian.com
Microsoft’s sacred cash cow
“Recently, I’ve had a crisis of faith. Perhaps I’ve rebooted Windows one too many times.” Former Microsoft employee Jeff Reifman tells on why addiction to Windows revenue, mediocre products, and missed opportunities could spell doom for the software giant.
www.seattleweekly.com
Monitoring hard disks with SMART
“Many users and system administrators don’t know that SMART systems are built into most modern ATA and SCSI hard disks.” Bruce Allen explains how to use Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) to monitor the health of your hard disks and preempt catastrophic failures.
www.linuxjournal.com