gmane.user-groups.linux.birmingham

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

nicholas prescott — 2012-02-13T15:32:54

I was also at that lecture and although Stallman gives a good show,the question and answer session after was not so impressive !

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

Matt — 2012-02-13T11:52:55

Hi Charles,


I was the first questioner, and I asked something like, what's your
response to what I hope is not a caricature of the business community's
views, that given the reduction of manufacturing and shift to
knowledge-based industry and services, how can businesses make money
without the kind of copyright and patent protections we currently have? (I
was aiming to portray the view that western economies are highly dependent
on such industry and there is a fear that those economies would grind to a
halt without the current IP regime or a more repressive one - a view I
don't share, and maybe a caricature in any case)

I don't remember much about the answer at all, except RMS said something
about who's fault it is for the lack of manufacturing, and I think he said
something about basic civil rights trumping protecting various business
models. Though I may be totally mistaken!

Matt

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

Dan Dart — 2012-02-13T11:52:15

Maybe someone could upload it to Bibud... As a demo user, everybody can see
it, and it's compatible with theora and webm using html5...
On Feb 13, 2012 11:38 AM, "Charles Barnwell" <cgbarnwell-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w< at >public.gmane.org> wrote:

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

Charles Barnwell — 2012-02-13T11:38:46


Remind us, what was your questions and what was the answer?

Charles.

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

Matt — 2012-02-13T10:12:25


RMS usually requires that any video of him is put online only using
non-patent encumbered video formats, which I believe rules out putting the
video on YouTube or anywhere else convenient, except perhaps as a download
or bittorrent. This may explain the delay.

I also would like to hear RMS' answer to my question again!

Re: Richard Stallman lecture

Tim Williams — 2012-02-10T20:42:13


I passed the video to Bob hendley in computer science but i'm not sure 
what happened to it after that. I haven't had the time to chase it up.

Tim W

Re: [Meeting] February - Education and Programming - JohnPinner

Martin Meredith — 2012-02-10T12:24:12

That's a good point...

Meeting is < at > 7:30pm on the 16th February.



On 10/02/12 11:37, Kelly Harding wrote:

Re: [Meeting] February - Education and Programming - JohnPinner

Kelly Harding — 2012-02-10T11:37:23

Might try to make it across for this, what date is it?

kelly

[Meeting] February - Education and Programming - John Pinner

Martin Meredith — 2012-02-10T11:22:36

Education and Programming



Raspberry Pi is a single board computer, costing $25 or $35 according to 
which model you buy, and should be the 21st Century replacement for the 
BBC Micro. As supplied it runs Linux and is expected to be available in 
limited supply this month.

John Pinner will discuss the Raspberry Pi project, and will have a 
system to demonstrate.


  Recently there has been considerable publicity around the shortcomings
of our educational  system teaching children 'ICT' (or how to use
PowerPoint) rather than programming skills, and this has been aided by
Government ministers jumping on the bandwagon.

Some pundits, looking through rose-tinted specs maybe, hark back to
the 'good old days' when schools had BBC Micros (too expensive for
most kids who maybe aspired to Sinclair ZX81s) and kids bought
magazines and typed in programs for text-console games and learnt
debugging skills as the published programs usually did not work.

The proposition is that if somehow we can return to a situation w

New sub/spin-off group update.

Keith White — 2012-02-09T08:09:57

Following the CovLUG tech meeting on Tuesday 7th, here is an update and 
my attempt at a summary of things so far. I have updated the web page 
http://www.covlug.org.uk/index.php?n=Members.Subgroup accordingly.

*Overview*
The group has multifaceted interests, two of the main ones are:
1) Both influencing and giving education to community, public, schools, 
government.
2) Microcomputers/controllers and their programming, electronics, robotics.

These is also interest in two types of regular meetings:
1) talks/presentations/theory/demonstrations.
2) hands on practical doing and hacking sessions.
Perhaps the meetings could alternate.

A first meeting was proposed for the last week of February pending:

*Issues to be resolved*

*Mailing List & Website* Are a priority for group infrastructure and 
communication. They will probably be set up soon after 11th February 
when our Server-Masters return from their holiday, so we have to be 
patient for a little while.

*Venue* To be arranged.
- City centre (Coventry) l

Formation of new sub/spin-off group at CovLUG

Keith White — 2012-02-05T11:50:53

Part 2:
Related to the presentation at the next CovLUG tech meeting, on the 7th 
February, there are some exciting developments going on to which your 
contribution, influence and involvement is invited:

The meeting will begin the formation of either a CovLUG subgroup or 
spin-off group, the nature of which may be determined by meeting 
discussion, on-line and by initial interested parties. The new group's 
interests may be some combination of open source hardware, micro 
computers/controllers, Raspberry Pi, Arduino and similar devices, micro 
computer/controller programming, electronics and may include some 
involvement with education at various levels, schools, academia, local 
community etc.

It's up to you. If you would like to have your say and have some 
influence on what happens and what gets formed then come along to the 
meeting.

Keith
%%%%%%%

Micro machines and computing in schools: Invite to CovLUG techmeeting,

Keith White — 2012-02-05T11:48:43

Part 1:
Following recent discussion on the mailing list relating to the 
Raspberry Pi and government educational announcements, the CovLUG 
technical meeting this coming Tuesday 7th February, may be of interest. 
You are invited and welcome, as you always are, to attend:

*Micro machines and computing in schools*
By Dr.Steve Matthews

Practical experience in architecture design has been around since the 
BBC micro, but is now making an interesting comeback in the Arduino and 
the almost here Raspberry Pi.

The first question posed by the evenings talk is whether the LUG could 
be developing a part of its activity to encourage members to buy such 
micros and simply have fun programming with them for the greater 
strength of the LUG's traditional interests in Linux and open source.

The second question, following on from the first, is the recent 
conclusion of government that the ICT curricula in schools needs to be 
strengthened this year by "programming", "computer science", and "open 
source". The fear of m

Fast broadband

Stephen Welch — 2012-02-01T20:52:12

I thought some of you might like this picture......

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1744237244.png

Fazeley Studios, Birmingham.  Looks like a leased 100MB contended
connection to the cloud.

So the architects office of three partners and a secretary paying a
reasonable rent for an office in the media center of Birmingham opt
for the cheapest internet package for their office.

OUCH.  At circa 10 am they were getting 68 down and 55 up.  The
needles were in red - barring you tube this is the fastest I have
seen.

Funnily enough this morning near Selly Oak I see a new BT telco box
next to one stripped out with a sticker on it for BT fibre.

Following this I get all excited and put a call into BT to enquire
about BT fibre  Selly Oak are being done as we speak so it might be up
and running now or very soon if anyone makes enquires.  As for
Edgbaston or kings Norton it going to be another 18 months I get told
- STD stock answer - who knows!?

Bloody good advert for Fazeley Studios if anyone is looking for a plac

Richard Stallman lecture

Antonio Roberts — 2012-01-31T17:58:33

Was the video of Richard Stallman's lecture last year ever put online?

Ant

Ripple Monetary System

James Haigh — 2012-01-27T15:26:33

Hello,
Has anyone heard of the Ripple Monetary System? Or know of any
Midlands group where this would be on-topic?

James.

(
https://ripplepay.com/
http://ripple-project.org/
)

FLOSS UK Spring Conference

John Pinner — 2012-01-27T13:56:48

The FLOSS UK Spring Conference is in Edinburgh in March. It is an 
excellent conf, with a very high signal-to-noise ratio. A Bursary is 
available to assist a student to attend:

"""
Due to generous sponsorship from Opengear <http://www.opengear.com/>, we 
are pleased to announce the 'FLOSS UK 2012 Conference Grant' to 
encourage students in computer science and related courses to attend and 
participate in the UKUUG 2012 conference, 21-22 March, Edinburgh, UK.

We encourage all students to apply.

One person will be chosen from the applicant pool to receive:

    * free registration for the main conference (Accommodation not
      included).
    * up to 400 GBP for travel costs and accommodation (to be claimed
      back from UKUUG after the event).

To be eligible for a conference grant candidates must:

    * Be a student studying Computer Science or relevant course
    * Attend both full days of the main conference
    * Be over eighteen

See: http://www.flossuk.org/Events/Spring2012/Bursaries

for more

configurating Linux

Joerg Hahn — 2012-01-19T12:26:46

Hello all

Once upon a time...

Ok, not that long but long, I wrote the last post on this list. Now I
have a question to all Linux users out there.

After one installed Linux, you have to configure this and that. For
example vim or mutt or fetchmail or procmail or exim...
Sure there are lots of information on internet, but I like to know what
things you configured to make the programs fit your wants/needs. Maybe
this could lead to a very small database on what switch has to be,
should be, or shouldn't be switched.

Questions that come up are i.e.

mutt/vim: set the appropriate spelllang for the language the message is
 written in. Maybe give a additional parameter to each list you
 subscribed.
mutt: When a spam mail gets through and you push it into a spam
 folder, run a script afterwards which adds the sender address
 to a spam blocker.
vim: Switch on cindent, autoindent... whan needed. When to use
 which one?
procmail: Tell me some more details when a mail is processed. i.e. Who
 wrot

Re: Thursday's meeting

Martin Meredith — 2012-01-19T11:59:23

Hi there,

The room is booked for tonight... All is go.


On 19/01/12 11:16, Martin Meredith wrote:

Re: Thursday's meeting

Keith White — 2012-01-19T11:22:17

I have a couple of mini talks I would like to give, unfortunately there 
is only a small chance of me being at the meeting as I am on health 
condition monitoring duties at home :-(

Keith.

Re: Thursday's meeting

Martin Meredith — 2012-01-19T11:16:47

Hi all,

I'm unsure as to whether the room is booked correctly for tonight.  Our 
normal contact no longer works for BSP-A, so therefore, I'm trying to 
contact someone else regarding this.

Please stand by, I'll update ASAP.


On 17/01/12 17:37, Charles Barnwell wrote:

Thursday's meeting

Charles Barnwell — 2012-01-17T17:37:14

We don't have a speaker for Thursday's meeting so we shall be having
lightening talks (enlightening talks?).

Please come along with a lightening talk if you can do.  We shall retire to
the Sack of Potatoes  afterwards.

Charles