http://xkcd.com/344/ I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if it wasn’t for you. Thanks.

Recently I was talking with one of the best researcher know, Tim
O’Halloran. He has been able to inspire generations of middle and high
school students to care for the natural world. Tim told me that Gary
Larson has had a major impact on his teaching. Tim uses Far Side
cartoons to introduce topics, to illustrate points, and to “reinforce
the notion that the more we investigate the universe, the richer is our
experience.” When designing exam papers Tim finds the cartoons “ease the
tension and spark the memory.” It all began when, in the fall of 1985,
he was given the task of teaching science to 162 Tulsa ninth-graders who
were convinced that it was absolutely irrelevant to their futures. Tim
put one hundred Far Side cartoons on a large bulleting board, and told
the students to study them. The consensus was that they didn’t
understand the humor - The Far Side was “too weird”. However, Tim wrote
me, “Each time we completed a unit and the students approached the
bulletin board with newly acquired wisdom, I smiled quietly and thanked
the cosmos for Gary’s perspectives as the kids roared with the confident
laughter of the enlightened.” Having taught myself for a while, I can fully and happily relate.

http://xkcd.com/344/ I wouldn’t have gotten the joke if it wasn’t for you. Thanks.

Recently I was talking with one of the best researcher know, Tim
O’Halloran. He has been able to inspire generations of middle and high
school students to care for the natural world. Tim told me that Gary
Larson has had a major impact on his teaching. Tim uses Far Side
cartoons to introduce topics, to illustrate points, and to “reinforce
the notion that the more we investigate the universe, the richer is our
experience.” When designing exam papers Tim finds the cartoons “ease the
tension and spark the memory.” It all began when, in the fall of 1985,
he was given the task of teaching science to 162 Tulsa ninth-graders who
were convinced that it was absolutely irrelevant to their futures. Tim
put one hundred Far Side cartoons on a large bulleting board, and told
the students to study them. The consensus was that they didn’t
understand the humor - The Far Side was “too weird”. However, Tim wrote
me, “Each time we completed a unit and the students approached the
bulletin board with newly acquired wisdom, I smiled quietly and thanked
the cosmos for Gary’s perspectives as the kids roared with the confident
laughter of the enlightened.” Having taught myself for a while, I can fully and happily relate.

• [1] http://www.opednews.com/articles/This-is-Your-Nation-on-Whi-by-Tim-Wise-080916-307.html


• [2] http://www.keatingeconomics.com/


• [3] http://www.truthout.org/article/palin-can-launch-us-back-time


• [4] http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-10-08/news/the-book-of-sarah/


• [5] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/opinion/12rich.html?ex=1239681600&en=b38b2d4387d4e3c4&ei=5087&excamp=NYT-E-I-NYT-E-AT-1015-L1&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=NYT-E-I-NYT-E-AT-1015-L1


• [6] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/08/opinion/08friedman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=palin%20patriotism&st=cse&oref=slogin


• [7] http://www.sfltimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2024&Itemid=1


• [8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html


• [9] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4692408.ece


• [10] http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/23316912/makebelieve_maverick/print

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• I'll be speaking at the UKUUG Linux conference in Manchester this November.
• The ACM have chosen my article on power management from Queue last year as a shining example of such things, and republished it in Communications where you may now peruse it at your leisure. Fanmail may be sent to the usual addresses.
• I'll be in Boston from the 7th to 11th of December, and New York from the 11th to 15th. I will be endeavouring not to break any bones in the process. Might actually ensure I have travel insurance this time.
• I'll be presenting at LCA next January. Current plans involve spending a week in Melbourne afterwards and a few days in San Francisco on the way back.

• Visit Iceland. It sounds like it might be relatively cheap soon.
• Make this I C code work.
• Get dynamic power state switching on ATOM-based Radeons working. This probably involves actually plugging the card in.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2007/02/10/execmod/


• [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Geode


• [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child


• [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom

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• automatic expiry of messages whose deadlines have passed, possibly with an acknowledgement issued to the sender,
• delayed delivery of messages until they are due,
• prioritisation of message display within the user agent to highlight messages which require action.

X-Message-Flag: Follow up
Reply-By: Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:00:00 +0200

will mark the message with specific symbol,and at the time specified it will pop up a notification in the same way as it does for calendar events and after that it will show the mail in red in the index until it s marked completed .

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/08/23/apparmor-is-dead/


• [2] http://blogs.msdn.com/crispincowan/archive/2008/09/02/go-ahead-make-my-day.aspx


• [3] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9796140-39.html


• [4] http://freshmeat.net/projects/apparmor/


• [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparmor


• [6] http://forge.novell.com/pipermail/apparmor-dev/


• [7] http://forge.novell.com/pipermail/apparmor-general/


• [8] http://forge.novell.com/modules/xfmod/project/memberlist.php?group_id=1864


• [9] http://linsec.ca/blog/2008/09/03/crispin-responds-to-allegations-that-apparmor-is-dying/


• [10] http://www.coker.com.au/selinux/play.html

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• [1] http://lastinfirstout.blogspot.com/2008/07/estimating-availability-of-simple_04.html


• [2] http://blog.reidreport.com/2008/08/war-for-iraqi-oil.html


• [3] http://gnubies.com/comment/oil.html


• [4] http://taossa.com/archive/bh08sotirovdowd.pdf


• [5] http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/marriage.html


• [6] http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/networking/?p=637


• [7] http://diamondjohnmccain.blogspot.com/

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# polyrun manager 0012345678

#!/usr/bin/python
# (C) 2008 Enrico Zini
# Most bits of this are stripped from zhone, which is:
# (C) 2007 Johannes 'Josch' Schauer
# (C) 2008 Michael 'Mickey' Lauer <mlauer@vanille-media.de>
# (C) 2008 Jan 'Shoragan' Luebbe
# (C) 2008 Daniel 'Alphaone' Willmann
# (C) 2008 Openmoko, Inc.
# GPLv2 or later
from dbus import SystemBus, Interface
from dbus.exceptions import DBusException
import logging
logger = logging.getLogger( __name__ )
from dbus.mainloop.glib import DBusGMainLoop
DBusGMainLoop(set_as_default=True)
import gobject
import sys
from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
class Phone:
    def tryGetProxy( self, busname, objname ):
        try:
            return self.bus.get_object( busname, objname )
        except DBusException, e:
            logger.warning( "could not create proxy for %s:%s" % ( busname, objname ) )
    def __init__(self):
        try:
            self.bus = SystemBus()
        except DBusException, e:
            logger.error( "could not connect to dbus_object system bus: %s" % e )
            return False
        # Phone
        self.gsm_device_obj = self.tryGetProxy( 'org.freesmartphone.ogsmd', '/org/freesmartphone/GSM/Device' )
        if ( self.gsm_device_obj is not None ):
            self.gsm_device_iface = Interface(self.gsm_device_obj, 'org.freesmartphone.GSM.Device')
            self.gsm_sim_iface = Interface(self.gsm_device_obj, 'org.freesmartphone.GSM.SIM')
            self.gsm_network_iface = Interface(self.gsm_device_obj, 'org.freesmartphone.GSM.Network')
            self.gsm_call_iface = Interface(self.gsm_device_obj, 'org.freesmartphone.GSM.Call')
            self.gsm_test_iface = Interface(self.gsm_device_obj, 'org.freesmartphone.GSM.Test')
        # Main loop
        self.loop = gobject.MainLoop()
    def send(self, number, message):
        def onSent():
            print "SENT"
            self.loop.quit()
        def onStore(index):
            print "STORED AS", index
            self.gsm_sim_iface.SendStoredMessage(
                index,
                reply_handler=onSent,
                error_handler=self.onError
            )
        self.gsm_sim_iface.StoreMessage(
            number, message,
            reply_handler=onStore,
            error_handler=self.onError
        )
    def onError(self, result):
        print "ERROR", result
    def mainloop(self):
        self.loop.run()
if len(sys.argv) != 3:
    print >>sys.stderr, "Usage: %s grammarname phonenumber"
    sys.exit(1)
message = Popen(["/usr/bin/polyrun", sys.argv[1]], stdout=PIPE).communicate()[0]
number = sys.argv[2]
print "Sending to %s:" % number
print message
phone = Phone()
phone.send(number, message)
phone.mainloop()