Pamelia Kurstin: Theremin, the untouchable music

Part of TEDtalks series

Richard Dawkins on the strangeness of science: TEDTalks

This is the first video I watched in the amazing TED talks that my friend Casswina told me about.

The rotten foundation

All over this island, little knots of intelligent men get together and talk as we are talking now, deploring the systems and methods of education, labour, politics, social services. Then they finish their cigarettes and go off to a film or a football match. There is a lot of fury and indignation on the surface, but no one does anything. It's a pity about Trinidad. She builds on a rotten foundation, introducing new ideas to fool herself and the world that she is progressing.

-Samuel Selvon An Island Is a World

This was written in 1955 and it's true today as it was then, probably more so. Take our nation's roads - the roads and highways are so choked with cars that almost every day there is a fatal accident. So what is a government to do? Well they could invest some of those oil dollars and bring traffic control officers and vehicles up to the required strength so that they can discourage excessive speeders or drunk drivers or any kind of breach of road rules. In the States and other countries we aspire too, you can't drive half-a-mile without seeing a police patrol car. Here you can drive the length of the Solomon Hochoy and Churchill Roosevelt highways and back without seeing a police car. But what do they do...well they bought a blimp. A fucking blimp for US $10 million dollars plus maintenance. So that the police can cruise around and watch the carnage below.

Surfacing

Wow I haven't written anything since July last year. That's half of a year. What happened - well GSoC was great, fall semester exams weren't too great, going home and packing away ham,turkey, black cake and every culinary xmas tradition by the plateful was great. It was good to be back home - I should go more often.

But time - 7 months? - It's like sand running through your fingers. Which incidentally is the point of this post. Here is my fix for people who have todo and idea lists miles long:

An hour is a lot of time

2 or 3 hours is a huge amount of time. I've always thought I couldn't do 1/10th the stuff I wanted to do because I didn't have time. But if I spend 1 hr a week on learning Gimp or practising piano or writing short stories or coding your dream project, it gets done. The hours add up. Over weeks, months, years an hour a week can get you to a place you never imagined.

So that's my New Year's resolution. Start doing all the stuff I want to do starting 1 hr a week or less.

Now with Blogger rolling out new features I gotta fix up this place. Finish my Google Maps mini-widget for one. Think I'll do that now.

The value of FOSS

Damn, I was just looking Ubuntu's help page and I realized something. In Windows we're accustomed to each Windows Server System product as a separate product delivering some kind of functionality - database server, systems management server, Email / collaboration, firewall...each coming at a hefty price with strict licensing on how and where you can use the software.

Contents Network authentication Web servers Web Applications Mail, Groupware, and Chat Servers DNS Database File Server Remote Administration Access Installation Servers Security Servers Folding@Home Monitoring Accounting Image boards

So checkout the functionality that comes with a typical Lunux distro:

Network authentication

• OpenLDAP server and LDAP client authentication - Authentication on an LDAP directory (server and client parts)

• SettingUpNISHowTo - Authentication via NIS

  
  

Web servers

• Apache PHP MySQL - Setting up a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) web server

• Ruby on Rails - Setting up RoR (Ruby On Rails)

• Apache Tomcat 5 - Java Servlet 2.4 engine with JSP 2.0 support

Web Applications

• Blogging with WordPress - Blogging (web publishing).

• Drupal - A robust content management system.

• Joomla - Content Management System (CMS) that will help you build websites and other powerful online applications

• Hive - How to set up a Digital Life Management System. Hive was formally known as Ubuntu Center.

• Moodle with MySQL - Installing Moodle to run on MySQL

• PhpBB2 - How to set up a PhpBB forum.

• PunBB forum - PunBB is a fast and lightweight PHP-powered discussion board.

• MoinMoin - a powerful and highly configurable wiki.

  
  

Mail, Groupware, and Chat Servers

• Email - The starting point for mail servers - covers the different software used, how they relate together, and more. Read this first if you're unsure of anything.

• Mailing List Server - Set up your own mailing list server with Mailman, as used on the Ubuntu mailing lists!

• Groupware with Kolab - Setting up this complete mail and calendar server system.\

• Groupware with Hula - Setting up this modern mail and calendar server

• Lotus Domino - Setting up Lotus Domino groupware server.

• IrcServer - Set up an irc server.

• SettingUpJabberServer - Set up a Jabber server.

  
  

DNS

• BIND - Setting up a DNS server with BIND

• Dynamic DNS - Set up DNS for your home computer.

  
  

Database

• MySQL 5.0 - Setting up a MySQL 5.0 server in Ubuntu

• PostgreSQL quickstart - Setting up a PostgreSQL 8.1 server in Ubuntu

• Installing Oracle 10g - Install Oracle 10g Enterprise Database in Hoary

• Installing Firebird 1.5.x How to install and set Firebird server in ubuntu

• Installing JDBC for MySQL 5.0 Install and setup of Java Database Connectivity for MySQL 5.0

• Using MySQL, JDBC and OpenOffice Using Java Database Connectivity, MySQL and OpenOffice

• Ingres 2006 - How to build, install and set up an Ingres 2006 server in ubuntu.

  
  

File Server

• NFS Server - Setting up Ubuntu as an NFS server.

• Samba Server - Setting up Ubuntu as an Samba server.

• iFolderEnterpriseServer - Setting up an iFolder server.

• GPFS Cluster - Setting up a GPFS Cluster.

Remote Administration Access

• SSHHowto - Setting up SSH remote access.

• SerialConsoleHowto - Setting up serial console access.

• AjaxTerm - Ajax Terminal access.

  
  
  

Installation Servers

• PXEInstallServer - Set up a server to bootstrap installations.

• Apt-Cacher-Server - Setup a local cache to speed up package installation.

Security Servers

• IptablesHowTo - Set up a Firewall using iptables.

• VPNServer - Setup and configure a VPN server.

• DansGuardian - Setup an Internet Content Filter.

Folding@Home

• Folding@Home - Do some good with your idle CPU cycles.

Monitoring

• Nagios2 - Installing and configuring Nagios2 for system and network monitoring.

• Zenoss - Installing Zenoss network monitor on Ubuntu Server

• Internet Traffic Monitoring - Monitor bandwidth usage on an Internet link.

• Logwatch - Installing Logwatch to monitor your system logs and have them emailed to you

Accounting

• Quasar - How to install Quasar Accounts, a fully featured client-server business accounting application.

Image boards

• Danbooru

  
  

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A mind-boggling set of functionality in one 'product' And yeah I know the licensing only makes up a fraction of the TCO of software, but still, the fact that the functionality you can get from one distro that frankly is way better than a lot the stuff that would cost you $100K + from MS (ISA? Sharepoint? MCMS?, please...) has a lot of implications for the future of commercial software.

Ok, this isn't rocket science - why am I now realizing/writing about this. Well I'm not. But I was chatting with my SoC mentor Rok Zlender, who's from Slovenia, and he mentioned that all his CS program at uni uses is Windows. Which is exactly the case at UWI. For some reason, some of the countries that could probably benefit from the nature of FOSS are the ones where MS is firmly entrenched.

Now I'm not being cyniclal - I think MS is doing a good thing with its low-price desktop suites for developing countries and programmes like Microsoft Unlimited Potential and its initiatives in Africa, but it would be really good to see people developing hard skills in software development and administration using FOSS. FOSS offers the opportunity for developing countries to create a set of highly knowledgeable IT workers at a very low cost.

The main problem is, I think, that all the consulting firms in countries like ours only know how to make a profit selling licenses for software and implementing MS infrastructure. They are making their money with commercial software so there's no incentive for them to turn to anything else, regardless of whether it would benefit the country or not.