No need to shower, I use linux.

So now that the formal introductions are out of the way I think it's about time we got to writing something actually worth reading. Well, maybe next time. For now, I want to talk to you about one of the great loves of my life. My Parents? Brothers? Girlfriend of 4 years? Even my basses? Oh no.

Ubuntu makes my life so much easier in many ways, so much so that I've been totally Windows-free (on my main machine at least) since early 2007. I like linux in general. I like the idea that software should be free and that it shouldn't cost a penny either. (FOSS geeks will understand, for the rest of you, look up 'Free Software') I like the package management, which makes installing anything totally painless. I like the near-absence of drivers and fact that 99% of hardware is support natively. Speaking of hardware, I like the fact that my machines can be a little bit special, everything from a shiny quadcore desktop to an ancient beige box can run some version of linux and get a very useable desktop. I love the fact that things like TinyCore, a 10MB operating system that only needs an i486DX and 32MB of RAM, exists purely because they can and because they are useful to maybe 100 people worldwide. But that's enough to make them useful enough. I like the fact that the last virus I got was 4 years ago, and I like the fact that that makes surfing for porn much more hassle-free. I like the system stability, that nothing ever goes wrong. And when it does, I like the support and that there are a few million people just a click away wanting to help.

But most importantly, I like the geekiness factor, the exclusivity. I like it when people ask what it is or how my computer does things like that. Candidly, I like the fact that people see it as a little bit nerdy and a little bit different.

On the new-found popularity of unix-based systems, I'm unsure. I don't want more people to use linux. When they do, we will lose our advantages. The support pool will be diluted, the average technical ability will dwindle and the vulnerabilities from viruses and the like will increase as the potential market for said vulnerabilities increases. On the plus side, we will receive more support from manufacturers and perhaps even some more video games. But why? I have a Windows machine for the odd game of Theme Hospital and I buy from manufacturers who bother to support unix in the first place. I bought an Nvidia card because I adore nvidia-settings-manager and because VDPAU is the best linux development in recent years. The nice company who cares about linux and bothers to put this stuff out gets my money. You can twat on all day about there being no money to be made from FOSS. Ask Nvidia and my 9500GT what they think.

Once more, with feeling.

After staring at that first post for a whole day now I'm feeling a little remiss. So let's get some things cleared up.

The name. Well, that sort of comes from my old band. technically, we still are a band, it's just that we haven't really had the time to do anything since we all grew up. Ignorance were Chester-le-Street's premier shitrock band. And don't go thinking that we coined a new genre or anything, oh no. We were just shit. But we had a laugh and total strangers actually paid good money to come see us.

As I was uploading that picture, which I selected because I thought it was relatively recent, I noticed the metadata. That was taken in October 2007, a full 2 years before this post was written. And that makes me more than a little sad. In fact, if I was any more sad this post would be worthy of LiveJournal.



Milla Jovovich

Ok, I'm happy again. As for the ' Café de l' ' part. (How do you enclose something that ends with an apostrophe in apostrophes?) I just thought it sounded nice. I even asked a girl I know who is on placement in France if it made sense.


Myself: Well, I have nothing really to blog about. Which, so far as I can see, makes me eminently qualified to have a blog. I'm currently 20 (although I only plan on being this way until around March) and I live in Newcastle which is in the North-East of England. I'm reading Chemistry and Biology (Joint Honours, BSc) at Newcastle University and I'm in my final year. I'd blather on and on about my flat and such but you don't care. I do work for the university, and I work in a shop too. But I'm not telling you which, lets just say I'm looking to move somewhere else sometime soon.

The very first post.

So, my first entry. And I can't really think of anything worthy of this post to be honest. I've never had a blog before, and I'm not really sure what's going to fill these columns over the life of this blog. Typos probably. And plenty of commas. Mr Hoggart, my truly fantastic English teacher, kept telling me that I overused bracketing commas.

Thing is, I've always been really good at starting things but never too good at finishing them. All I can tell you is, I've been seeing, hearing and doing things lately that I think would probably look good on something like this. I kinda wanted to be a journalist for a bit, before common sense pulled me into science. It was probably for the best to be honest, as I feel you're about to see that what I write about is neither particularly interesting or even particularly . . . . . . . .good.

I'm right in the middle of my dissertation at the moment. Couple that with the fact that I don't have really interesting to say and you won't be expecting frequent updates.

At least the best thing about having a blog like this is that nobody is reading it, so there's nobody to disappoint. Self-deprecation, there'll be more of that, too.


Sincerely,
Jack