The team at ProFUSION (and other helpful contributors) have done an awesome job at quickly turning the Plumber’s Wishlist for Linux kernel module loading library item into reality. libkmod is linkable into udev, will speed up module loading, and has a stated goal of remaining backward compatible with the existing behaviors already present within module-init-tools. Therefore, the average user should notice nothing other than an improved in module load times in switching to the replacement library. Those features not yet present in libkmod will be added over the coming weeks. The new library could do with some testing on non-x86, bi-endian, and will need some further thoughts around index cacheing (e.g. within long-lived processes), but is ready enough for wider use. To find out more about the library, visit the initial blog posting from the ProFUSION team:

http://www.politreco.com/2011/12/announce-kmod-1/

Jon.

Traditional news media, like the New York Times is under constant threat from those who seek its destruction and replacement with mindless crap written in 140 characters or less. Regurgitated opinion of the collective Tweeters of the world will not create media outlets in war zones, or fund researchers to trawl through years of government records. Wikileaks alone will not displace the need for professionally, carefully presented (fair) treatment of horribly offensive abuses of the governments of the world. RSS aggregation of news media and proliferation of links online has been phenomenal in disseminating news and readers such as those available from Google (and others) have presented it well. But all of these news stories ultimately come from somewhere real, somewhere tangible, somewhere less Web 2.0 and more “real world 1.0″. Take the Times (and a few others) out of the picture and you’ll quickly notice the dearth of good quality news sources available for others to regurgitate.

This is why I have two subscriptions to the New York Times. I pay for my quality journalism, and I pay double (or many times more) what some others pay because I care that the United States paper of record remain in business. Those of us who care must band together to disrupt and undermine others who seek to destroy quality journalism and replace it with mediocre populist nonsense of the kind favored by contestants on Reality TV shows. Is this elitist? Absolutely. It is absolutely the case that most people don’t care about the minitia reported in the Times, about the investigative undercover stories, and about the analysis that goes into them. Most care more about what some famous moron said today or which YouTube video is hot. And that’s ok. Let them eat cake, and let them enjoy it too. But don’t take away quality news from those of us who are interested in knowing what’s really going on in the world.

Jon.

I’ve tried complaining to Spotify, asking how to switch my account to the non-Facebook mode (that hopefully just plays songs, like I paid for). I have heard nothing yet. My next recourse will be to complain to Facebook that Spotify have an app that is malicious and should be removed from the site. I suspect that would then get a customer service reply from Spotify. Not my preferred means to make contact and get this fixed, but certainly an option.

Jon.

This kind of thing happens because busybodies run around generating revenue the City is too scared of generating using alternatively sane means (by increasing taxes) and so it has gotten the parking situation out of control. It’s ludicrous to hold someone’s car hostage and then charge them for failing to move that car without any third option. This isn’t the first thing Boston has done to annoy me along these lines.

It’s important to realize cities like Boston only understand things that impact tax revenues. Moving to Boston next year is very unlikely as a result – they don’t need to generate revenue from me, they’re waving neon signs saying “we’re unreasonable, don’t live here”.

Jon.

consumer: “I’m here to get my car inspected”
mechanic: “ok, which model car do you have?”
consumer: “The frobulator 9000, second edition, build number 29785, release 27, from yesterday”
mechanic: “ah, yes, I remember it well. Unfortunately, that’s ancient history at this point. Yea. Last night, we got this awesome idea that we’d rewrite the whole thing…but don’t worry, in a few years it’s gonna be awesome!”
consumer: “dude, I just want my car inspected…”
etc.

This is a scenario that plays out all too often in the Linux community. Not ubiquitously. There are many of us who understand the true value of longevity, standards, and consumer demand. But there are also many who are losing sight of how consumers actually work, and what they actually want. What they want is not a moving target, they want rigid “just works and I don’t care” as their modus operandi. Let’s hope we can get more of our very own OBD-II standards, defined as an entire industry through pragmatic agreement between everyone involved.

Jon.