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LXer: HiFiBerry DAC8x and Amp4 Pro for High-Quality Multi-Channel and Stereo Sound

Published at LXer: The HiFiBerry DAC8x and HiFiBerry Amp4 Pro are two significant upgrades for enhancing audio capabilities on the Raspberry Pi 5. These devices expand the audio options for users...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Install Deluge BitTorrent Client on Ubuntu & Other Linux Distros

Published at LXer: In this article, you'll learn how to install the Deluge BitTorrent client on Ubuntu and other Linux distros, how to use it, and then how to remove it. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux 6.12 x86 Platform Drivers Brings Improvements For Laptops Plus Intel ELC

Published at LXer: The x86 platform driver changes that were merged last week for the Linux 6.12 kernel continue to be quite lively with changes for enhancing Linux laptop support along with other...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: GParted Live 1.6.0-10: Enhanced Stability and Updated Features

Published at LXer: GParted Live's latest release removes cpufrequtils, adds pm-utils, and updates the Linux kernel to v6.10.11. Read More... (https://linuxiac.com/gparted-live-1-6-0-10-released/)



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Mission Center (Linux System Monitor) Now Reports Fan Info

Published at LXer: A major new release of Mission Center, a modern system monitor app for Linux desktops, has been released. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: qBittorrent 5.0 BitTorrent Client Adds Support for Systemd Power Management

Published at LXer: qBittorrent 5.0 has been released today as a major update to this popular open-source, free, and cross-platform BitTorrent client written in Qt that introduces numerous new...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: HardenedBSD and Protectli Partner to Build a Censorship-Resistant Mesh Network

Published at LXer: The HardenedBSD Foundation has partnered with Protectli, a manufacturer of open-source firewall appliances, to develop a censorship- and surveillance-resistant mesh network. ...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux 6.12-rc1 Released With QR Code Panic Messages, PREEMPT_RT & Sched_ext

Published at LXer: As expected the Linux 6.12-rc1 kernel is out today in marking the end of the very exciting two-week Linux 6.12 merge window that saw many high profile features land. Read...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Creating a public counterpoint for AI

Published at LXer: Mozilla is releasing a vision for Public AI, a robust ecosystem of initiatives that promote public goods, public orientation and public use throughout every step of AI...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Void Linux (Finally) Bids Farewell to Python 2

Published at LXer: Void Linux finally replaces Python 2 with Python 3 and upgrades its buildbot to enhance package delivery. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: September 29th, 2024

Published at LXer: The 207th installment of the 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup is here for the week ending on September 29th, 2024, keeping you updated with the most important things happening in the...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux 6.12 Hardware Monitoring Supports More OneXPlayer Gaming Handhelds

Published at LXer: The hardware monitoring "HWMON" subsystem updates for Linux 6.12 added some new drivers as well as adding new device support to some of the existing drivers. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Machine Learning in Linux: Reor - AI note-taking app

Published at LXer: Reor is a private AI personal knowledge management tool. Think of it as a notes program on steroids. Each note is saved as a Markdown file to a �vault� directory on your machine....



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux Kernel 6.12 RC1 Released: PREEMPT_RT Mainlined and Sched_ext Merged

Published at LXer: Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux Kernel 6.12 RC1. Kernel 6.12 RC1 brings important new features like PREEMPT_RT and sched_ext. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux Mint 22.1 Slated for Release in December with Revamped Cinnamon Theme

Published at LXer: In the latest monthly newsletter published today, Linux Mint project leader Clement Lefebvre shares a sneak peek at the new default Cinnamon theme coming to Linux Mint 22.1 later...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Raspberry Pi Launches $70 AI Camera with 12MP Sensor and Broad Compatibility

Published at LXer: Raspberry Pi has launched a new low-cost AI Camera, bringing powerful AI capabilities to all Raspberry Pi models. Unlike the AI Kit, which is limited to the Raspberry Pi 5, the...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: AMD Ryzen 9000 Series Excited Linux Users The Most In Q3

Published at LXer: With the third quarter drawing to a close, here's a look back at the most popular Linux/open-source related content for the quarter. This quarter there's been more than 730 news...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux kernel 6.11 lands with vintage TV support

Published at LXer: Released remotely from Vienna, Linux kernel 6.11 is here, with improved monochrome TV support. Yes, in 2024. Emperor penguin Linus Torvalds was attending the Open Source Summit...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux Mint Gives First Look at New Cinnamon Theme

Published at LXer: As revealed last month, Linux Mint is working on an improved default theme for the Cinnamon desktop � and today we got our first look at what�s coming. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake Graphics Performance Disappoints On Linux

Published at LXer: While I have been very eager to test out the Core Ultra 200V Lunar Lake series on Linux in part due to the new Xe2 integrated graphics, after several days of pushing a new Lunar...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: How to Run Linux Commands without Typing Sudo Password

Published at LXer: Learn how to eliminate the hassle of typing your password for every sudo command in Linux, whether you want to run specific commands or even all of them, with this step-by-step...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux SED Command: Everything you Need to Know

Published at LXer: In this tutorial, we will explain the Linux SED command using some real examples. SED (Stream Editor) is one of the most used Linux commands in scripts and command lines. It...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: How to install Arch Linux alongside Windows 11 (Dual Boot)

Published at LXer: Arch Linux is a robust operating system often chosen by power users and IT professionals. While there is no doubt that it is an extremely powerful OS, the need to use other...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux Candy: PyBonsai � generates procedural ASCII art trees

Published at LXer: PyBonsai is a Python script that generates procedural ASCII art trees in the comfort of your terminal. This is free and open source software. Read More......



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: This AI Startup "Copied" an Open-Source Project and Got Half a Million Dollar Funding by Y Combinator

Published at LXer: There are plenty of people who do not actually understand AI and open-source (or its licensing). But, they choose to jump on using those terms to market their products somehow...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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Ultrathin Keyboard Folio m1 connected but no typing

Hello Gents, I wanted to connect my Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Folio m1 which worked OK in the past but now is not typing anything. The battery is freshly charged and connected. Removing/Adding...




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LXer: RISC-V-Based KVM Solution in PCIe Form Factor with Low/High Profile Compatibility

Published at LXer: The NanoKVM-PCIe is a recent solution from Sipeed, designed to simplify remote management of ATX PC cases and 2U servers. Built on the RISC-V architecture, it offers low power...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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LXer: Linux 6.13 To Bring Big/Super Pages For The Raspberry Pi Graphics Driver - Better Performance

Published at LXer: While the Linux 6.12 merge window only ended this weekend and won't be out until November, already code is beginning to accumulate for DRM-Next of graphics driver improvements...



  • Syndicated Linux News

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How Can I Set Up an Executable Script in Linux?

I try to pre-process pdf files so that they load faster, and so they won't crash kindles or tablets. In MacOS, I could use Automator to run a bash shell script. In Fedora w/ Cinnamon, I tried to...



  • Linux - Software

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Ratonnade dans Sanlitun

Vendredi soir la flicaille du quartier Sanlitun accompagnée des mini barbouzes de 16 ans a lancé une opération commando dans ce quartier très animé les soirs de week-end. Pour ceux qui se rappellent, je vous avais présenté mes amis les What’s up men dans...




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Toxic Linfen

Pendant que les JO se déroulent parfaitement à Pékin, je vous invite à visionner ce documentaire concernant la ville de Linfen dans le Shanxi, surnommée ville la plus polluée du monde. TOXIC LINFEN Petit rappel des faits: Le charbon compte pour plus de...




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"Ich wollte endlich ich selbst sein"

Ein Coming-Out ist für die meisten homosexuellen Jugendlichen der letzte Ausweg, um ein Leben voller Lügen aufzugeben. Für viele fangen die größten Probleme jedoch erst danach an. Jakob hat sich geoutet, weil er sich selbst nicht mehr leugnen wollte. Sechs Jahre lang versteckte er seine Gefühle, aus Angst, ausgegrenzt zu werden. Seit sein Freund über ein Outing nachdenkt, begegnet er seiner eigenen Geschichte noch einmal.




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Realitätsscheuklappen in der heilen Welt

Und wieder hat Deutschland sein neues "Littleton". Wie an dem aus Michael Moores Film "Bowling for Columbine" bekannten Ort, an dem zwölf Schüler ihr Leben verloren, stürmte Sebastian B. am 20. November 2006 seine ehemalige Schule in Emsdetten. Bewaffnet mit vier Gewehren und drei Rohrbomben schoss er um sich. Rund 30 Menschen wurden verletzt, drei davon schwer. Der 18-jährige Amokläufer tötete sich noch im Schulgebäude selbst. Ein Kommentar über die Hintergründe.




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Aller Anfang ist Flirten

Beziehungen, Affären und die Liebe des Lebens. Das alles sind Dinge, die Jugendliche täglich beschäftigen. Selten wird beim Flirt in der Bar jedoch daran gedacht, dass es sich hierbei auch nur um die Beherrschung der Regeln der Kommunikation handelt und diese erlernbar sind. Entweder durch Übung im echten Leben, im Internet oder in einem Flirtkurs.




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Weitere 70 Flüchtlinge kommen in Osterode an

70 Flüchtlinge kamen am Dienstag in zwei Bussen in Osterode an, 100 weitere sollen am heutigen Tag aus Bayern folgen. Das gab Gero Geißlreiter, Erster Kreisrat des Landkreises Osterode am Harz am letzten Mittwochnachmittag in einer Pressekonferenz bekannt. Die Helfer wurden erst am Mittwoch eine halbe Stunde vor eintreffen der Busse ...




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Frontex: Regierung Merkel hat angeblich gelogen

Die EU-Grenzschutzagentur Frontex hat gemeldet, dass sie die deutsche Bundesregierung bereits im Frühjahr 2015 über die hohen Flüchtlingszahlen informiert habe. Der Leiter von Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri bestätigte, dass er die Bundesregierung im März über eine Zahl von ca. 500.000 bis 1 Millionen Flüchtlinge informiert habe. Bereits zu diesem Zeitpunkt war ...




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GRÜNE fordern vom Bund mehr Unterstützung bei der Unterbringung von Flüchtlingen

Zunehmende Kritik an der Flüchtlingspolitik der Bundesregierung kommt jetzt von der Partei BÜNDNIS 90 / Die GRÜNEN. Die Länder und Kommunen könnten die finanziellen Lasten nicht mehr tragen, und die Zuschüsse vom Bund reichten bei Weitem nicht aus. Bisher will der Bund die Länder mit zusätzlich 500 Millionen Euro bei ...




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Free Pascal 3.0 "Pestering Peacock" veröffentlicht: Viele neue Funktionen im größten Update seit 10 Jahren

Am 25. November 2015 wurde der verbreitete Free Pascal - Compiler (FPC) in der aktualisierten Version 3.0 (Pestering Peacock) veröffentlicht. Die Vielzahl der Neuerungen hat die Entwickler zum ersten großen Versionssprung seit 10 Jahren bewogen. Version 2.0 war 2005 eingeführt worden, die letzte Hauptversion war 2.6 aus dem Jahre 2012. Version ...




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US-Präsidentschaftskandidat hält an abenteuerlicher Pyramidentheorie fest

Der US-amerikanische Präsidentschaftskandidat Ben Carson vertritt eine abenteuerliche Theorie über die ägyptischen Pyramiden: nach seiner Überzeugung dienten diese als Getreidespeicher. Diese Theorie verkündete er bereits im Jahre 1998 und wiederholte sie vor kurzem gegenüber dem Nachrichtensender CBS. Bis 2013 war er der heute 64jährige Carson als Facharzt für Neurochirurgie tätig ...




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Have A Good Flight


Today's category: Pilots

Have A Good Flight

      This is Captain Sinclair speaking. On behalf of my crew I'd like to welcome you aboard British Airways flight 602 from New York to London. We are currently flying at a height of 35,000 feet midway across the Atlantic.

      "If you look out of the windows on the starboard side of the aircraft, you will observe that both the starboard engines are on fire.

      "If you look out of the windows on the port side, you will observe that the port wing has fallen off.

      "If you look down towards the Atlantic ocean, you will see a little yellow life raft with three people in it waving at you.

      "That's me your captain, the co-pilot, and one of the air stewardesses. This is a recorded message. Have a good flight!"
View hundreds more jokes online.
Email this joke to a friend



  • Clean Christian Jokes

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Using TCP Keepalive to Detect Network Errors

This is not only a H.323 topic, but since H.323 also uses TCP connections, it applies to H.323 as well:

To detect network errors and signaling connection problems, you can enable TCP keep alive feature. It will increase signaling bandwidth used, but as bandwidth utilized by signaling channels is low from its nature, the increase should not be significant. Moreover, you can control it using keep alive timeout.

The problem is that most system use keep alive timeout of 7200 seconds, which means the system is notified about a dead connection after 2 hours. You probably want this time to be shorter, like one minute or so. On each operating system, the adjustment is done in a different way.

After settings all parameters, it's recommended to check whether the feature works correctly - just make a test call and unplug a network cable at either side of the call. Then see if the call terminates after the configured timeout.

Linux systems

Use sysctl -A to get a list of available kernel variables
and grep this list for net.ipv4 settings (sysctl -A | grep net.ipv4).
There should exist the following variables:
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time:   time of connection inactivity after which
                               the first keep alive request is sent
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes: number of keep alive requests retransmitted
                               before the connection is considered broken
net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl:  time interval between keep alive probes

You can manipulate with these settings using the following command:

sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_time=60 net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_probes=3 
    net.ipv4.tcp_keepalive_intvl=10

This sample command changes TCP keepalive timeout to 60 seconds with 3 probes,
10 seconds gap between each. With this, your application will detect dead TCP
connections after 90 seconds (60 + 10 + 10 + 10).

FreeBSD and MacOS X

For the list of available TCP settings (FreeBSD 4.8 an up and 5.4):

sysctl -A | grep net.inet.tcp

net.inet.tcp.keepidle - Amount of time, in milliseconds, that the (TCP) 
connection must be idle before keepalive probes (if enabled) are sent.

net.inet.tcp.keepintvl - The interval, in milliseconds, between 
keepalive probes sent to remote machines. After TCPTV_KEEPCNT (default 
8) probes are sent, with no response, the (TCP)connection is dropped.

net.inet.tcp.always_keepalive - Assume that SO_KEEPALIVE is set on all 
TCP connections, the kernel will periodically send a packet to the 
remote host to verify the connection is still up.

therefore formula to calculate maximum TCP inactive connection time is 
following:

net.inet.tcp.keepidle + (net.inet.tcp.keepintvl x 8)

the result is in milliseconds.

therefore, by setting
net.inet.tcp.keepidle = 10000
net.inet.tcp.keepintvl = 5000
net.inet.tcp.always_keepalive =1 (must be 1 always)

the system will disconnect a call when TCP connection is dead for:
10000 + (5000 x 8) = 50000 msec (50 sec)

To make system remember these settings at startup, you should add them 
to /etc/sysctl.conf file

Solaris

For the list of available TCP settings:

ndd /dev/tcp ?

Keepalive related variables:
- tcp_keepalive_interval - idle timeout

Example:
ndd -set /dev/tcp tcp_keepalive_interval 60000

Windows 2000 and Windows NT

Search Knowledge Base for article ID 120642:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/120642/EN-US

Basically, you need to tweak some registry entries under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetServicesTcpipParameters




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New releases of H323Plus and PTLib

 H323Plus 1.27.2 and PTLib 2.10.9.4 have been released.

Changes in H323Plus:

- support for Alpine Linux for smaller container images
- crash fixed on invalid RTCP packets
- memory leaks fixed
- GetCrytoMasterKey() restored that got lost in 1.27.1
- better support for cross-compiling
- various updates for newer compilers
- some smaller bug fixes

https://www.h323plus.org/source/

 

Changes in PTLib:

- support for Alpine Linux
- better support for cross-compiling
- various smaller bug fixes

https://github.com/willamowius/ptlib/releases




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New release of PTLib

I have just bundeled up the changes and bug fixes of the past 2 years and released PTLib 2.10.9.6.

Most notable in this release is working IPv6 on *BSD, macOSX and Solaris as well as support for newer compilers and many small platform fixes.

Since PTLib is the foundation for the GNU Gatekeeper and many H323Plus projects, all these improvements get propagated into those projects as well.

Changes:
- IPv6 support fixed for *BSD, macOSX and Solaris
- support for newer compiler, eg. gcc 13 and VS2022
- support for C++-17
- support for Win64 builds
- support AIX as platform
- small OpenBSD fixes
- other small fixes

Download from https://www.h323plus.org/source/




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Installation Notes for Kubuntu 18.10 on the Alienware 17 R5 Laptop

Before Installation Installing Kubuntu / Ubuntu on the Alienware 17 R5 Laptop NVME Drive To get the NVME drive or M.2 drive to show up as an installation candidate for the installer, you need to make a small BIOS change and modify two kernel arguments at boot time. First, boot into the BIOS on the […]

The post Installation Notes for Kubuntu 18.10 on the Alienware 17 R5 Laptop first appeared on robotthoughts.




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Build PlatformIO on Windows Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu)

I usually prefer running platformio from command line so I can stream the build process into my backup and recovery processes. With versioning, I can roll back to a know good working build. I am most often building Marlin firmware for my 3D print farm so there is a small example of the build commands […]

The post Build PlatformIO on Windows Subsystem for Linux (Ubuntu) first appeared on robotthoughts.




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Long Term Life Tips: Top 5 Regrets People Make on their Deathbed

Long Term Life Tips: Top 5 Regrets People Make on their Deathbed:

An astonishing “top 5 list” blog comes to us via longtermtips and I’m pleased to say I’m pretty sure I won’t have any of these regrets when my time inevitably comes.

By Bronnie Ware (who worked for years nursing the dying)

For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they…

Go read. It’s worth it. Then think on it.




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bookoasis: The World In A Bookshop by infra-leve. My living...



bookoasis:

The World In A Bookshop by infra-leve.

My living room is starting to look like this actually…




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How Steve Jobs made me want to "Stay hungry, stay foolish".

The moment Steve Jobs’ and Apple’s work first came into my life was back in 2002. That first brush, I hated it. 

In time, I came to see him for the genius and pioneer that he was, and the work that Apple did - and does - as amongst the most extraordinary in the World today.

First some context:

In 2002, I was at the European BSD conference and Jordan Hubbard, founder of FreeBSD and then newly-employed release engineer at Apple, had secured for the “terminal room” a sponsorship from Apple which meant the room was full of the 2002 iMacs. The 2002 iMac was a little “alien” in that each machine was a dome with a flexible protruding screen. Installed on them was OS X, an operating system I had beta tested before its first release on an ancient iBook, and I had very mixed feelings about.

It was pretty. But was it really a Unix? The other developers of BSD Unix in the room needed very little convincing. The command line was Unix, but the desktop and applications on there were beautiful. It was what they dreamed a Unix should be. Many of them left that conference committed to buying Apple equipment and moving to OS X within the year.

I resented this “attack” on the community, but could see where they were coming from. It was - and remains - a key part of Apple’s renaissance: build great tools for developers and alpha-geeks, and in turn the developers will build an ecosystem that users crave. Instill in the developers an aesthetic and teach them a way to do the things they struggle with (human interface guidelines, for example), and they will reward you with loyalty.

In short: empower your customers, and they’ll empower you.

No technology firm had done this as successfully before as Apple were doing between 2002 and 2004.

By 2004, I had just about had it with the drain away from the community Apple had “caused”. On one mailing list I wrote a very angry email in response to somebody else’s request for configuration advice on their latest Apple laptop:

http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat/2004-October/002684.html

“Yes, of course. My advice is that you sell your over-priced fashion-victim toy with it’s Fisher Price Unix installed, and use the money instead to buy yourself a top of the range Thinkpad. It will outperform it, run FreeBSD, not look out of fashion next season, has been built by a company that is truly committed to the open source movement and whose execs don’t patronise you by assuming you travel to work on a skateboard in cargo pants or worse, pander to your girlfriend’s idea of what a computer should be.”

Ashamed by my petulant anger, about six month later I decided to reconsider, step back and think about what they were doing in a wider scheme of the industry I was in. This was when I started to “get it”. It was when I could see what others lauded about Apple and its founders.

Within 14 months of writing that email I had acquired a 12” iBook. It was all I could afford at the time, and even then it was subsidised by the fact that I was working in a University faculty and so got a discount.

I immediately loved the fact I had a Unix machine with WiFi and Bluetooth that I didn’t need to spend a week configuring. I loved the software I could buy, and that all the open source tools I loved would work too. I loved the thought that had gone into developing that code underlying OS X. I loved the developer tools and Safari. I found myself thinking more and more about aesthetics and craftsmanship as part of what I do as a developer. Suddenly programming wasn’t just a dry science of mathematics and engineering: Steve’s ideas were getting to me through the product of his and Apple’s work.

Two things then happened like thunderbolts. 

First, I had found a copy of Steve’s commencement speech to Stanford in 2005.

Steve’s speech stuck with me. I had studied rhetoric, and was pleased by the simple construct he had used - a structure I would begin to notice he used in product announcements - but the content had hit me somewhere deep.

In it he talked about three things:

  • Follow your intuition, because in hindsight the dots will join up. You can’t plan to be great, you just have to let the intuition guide you.
  • Do what you love, and change things if you find yourself not enjoying life
  • Death is inevitable. It’s coming. Deal with it as an agent of change, and don’t waste your life.

The second thing that happened around then, was that I discovered the Ruby programming language, a language that was designed to be beautiful and enjoyable for programmers to work with.

It astonished me.

I don’t think it would have done if by that point I had not started to “get” aestheticism in software, the Apple way. It’s no secret that the Ruby on Rails framework is developed almost entirely on Apple OS X machines. A Ruby conference is basically a hang-out of Apple fans. The two seem to go hand-in-hand together, just like how in 2002 it was Apple and the BSD guys.

Last night as I watched the speech again on YouTube (on my iPhone, natch), I realised I was connecting dots back, and in hindsight the impact this speech and this discovery had on me was immense.

Coupled with the discovery of Ruby, what happened next was perhaps inevitable, but still surprised me.

I went and started my own business.

I had always wanted to, but right there and then, something clicked, and I got rid of all the fear and doubt and realised that when I looked back on my life I wanted to be able to say that for a while at least I had been an “entrepreneur”.

I made the decision that I would not work on projects in that business I did not enjoy. I would only work on things that brought me joy: that is to say, I would only write code in Ruby. A brave choice in early 2006 when Rails had yet to reach v1.0 and Ruby was still considered a “toy” language by many.

I had no money, no client roster, and survived the first six months coding away on that tiny, slow little 12” iBook for friends who had piece work for me. I had never been happier.

I ate noodles and beans on toast, drank donated Guinness and chose to love my work. Working from home I would love waking late on a Monday morning, but I could never lie-in: I always wanted to just get started.

I spent the next few years helping other businesses, talking about development as a craft, not just a science.

I went into schools and told kids that learning how to write beautiful software was the most powerful skill you could cheaply acquire in this generation. Like me, they could come up with an idea and with a laptop and internet connection share it with the World in a weekend.

In the years since, I have helped dozens of start-ups, spoken to thousands of teenage children (and hopefully inspired a few to give programming with an artistic flair a go), and changed my life substantially.

I am not the same man I was in 2005. The depression and anxiety I had suffered prior to then have more or less gone. I have a brilliant relationship with an amazing girl who I consider to be my best friend, and I do work that makes me excited almost every day.

The decisions I made in those few months in 2005 and early 2006, looking back, are what made me who I am today.

I had to call time on my main business in 2010 partly because I was finding myself looking in the mirror and not looking forward to the day ahead any more - just like Steve had said, I decided I needed to change something. As sales had dried up I realised I was doing something I no longer enjoyed.

I then turned down one job offer for another on a quarter of the salary because it felt right, it felt like more interesting work and ultimately I knew it might lead to an exciting adventure I had dreamed about.

Today I work on an amazing product with brilliant people and finding myself learning new things every day.

Looking back I realise I have developed a new sense of intense curiosity. I will wander in my work, inquisitively poking whole areas I know little about. I read more, listen more and learn more. I teach where I can, I play, and I explore.

I realise that my time on this little rock is limited, and I try and make sure every day I do something that makes me smile.

In hindsight then, Steve’s words and work have had a substantial impact on who I am today professionally. Because that impact made my work more joyful, pleasant and fulfilling, in turn, his words and work have made my life better than it would have been without his impact.

“This was a very typical time. I was single. All you needed was a cup of tea, a light, and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.”

It’s all the more impressive because according to “the rules” society is meant to work by, he should have been another liberal arts wash-up. As I said on Facebook earlier:

“I don’t think the economically right-wing anywhere - US, UK, Eurozone, China, anywhere - would be able to deal with the idea that the largest company on the planet was founded by a Buddhist counter-culturalist of complex family origins who made decisions based on intuition, aestheticism, love and curiosity.

Yet, it makes perfect sense to me.”

I never met him, never got close to knowing him the way that his friends and family did, or even his colleagues, but in my own way I learned to love him. His impact will be with me for the rest of my life, and late last night as the news broke here in the UK, despite it being on the cards for a while, the news came as a shock and I had to hold back the tears.

His critics’ words (and there are many!), sound very much like my own before I “got it”. Right now - today - though, it is petulant, angry, juvenile scribbling, and unworthy of any mature grown-up, given it is less than 24 hours since his dying.

Some call him a fascist, others a megalomaniac. In essence all he was trying to do was produce the best - and most human-friendly - technological products humanity was capable of producing right now. He did so within the rules shareholders gave him along with their money, because after being fired once, he didn’t want to mess up and be fired again. As ever, he exceeded their expectations and produced a company larger than any other on earth in terms of market capitalisation.

When you have a vision, as long as nobody gets hurt along the way, there’s no harm in following it ruthlessly. That’s what he did.

Some point to the fact that he didn’t donate much to charity in his life time, but I’m quietly confident that is because he didn’t want the ego stroking whilst he was still alive, and in coming years and months his wealth will quietly reach parts of the World that need it. He felt that shareholders’ money was their, and he shouldn’t give it away. He felt the best way he could help the World was by empowering as many people as possible. There’s no real shame in that. And in that, he was immensely successful.

He was also a subversive, and this is a point that his critics miss - or point to - the most. Biologically he was a half-Syrian Muslim, which when acknowledged in the last decade caused the conservative right in the US a huge problem: was the leader of the hottest thing on Wall Street one of them? They needn’t have worried - he’d discovered Buddhism many years ago. Adoptively he grew up to be a counter-culture Bay Area “hippie” and counter-culture type that worried some in the establishment even more.

His critics point to the consumerist message of Apple, without realising its founding principle was to go against the grain and to help people push further than the establishment wanted them to. The fact that he was able to make a living - a good living - as reward for that vision should not be seen as a fault or flaw.

Those unfamiliar with this background with questions to ask might want to start here. It might change your mind about him.

He wasn’t perfect. Nobody is. But regardless, he was an inspiration to millions who right now are working at building the next generation of technology. He showed us what we were capable of when we tried, and his death some 20-30 years “before his time” shows what a great leveller pancreatic cancer can be. So, if you are a critic: please shut the hell up and let us deal with paying tribute to him in our own way. You’ll reap the benefits as we march forward, inspired by his vision, into giving you the technology you deserve to make the World a better place.

I genuinely believe those who hate him haven’t given him - specifically what lay beneath his vision - a chance, in the same way I hadn’t.

The moment I did though and started to use the tools he and his company produced the way they were designed, my life got better and my attitude to what I wanted to do with my life improved.

I can’t think of another businessman I could say that about. I can’t think of another businessman anybody will be able to say that about when they die.

As I watched that commencement speech another time, the words were as fresh and as poignant as ever. His final few words seem particularly appropriate to me today, and so I will leave you with them. You may love him, you may hate him, but you can’t disagree that his vision was sharp, and worth sharing.

My thoughts and condolences today are of course with his family, his friends and colleagues, and all who were impacted by Steve from a distance the way I was. Steve was an amazing man, who inspired so many and has changed the World for the better, forever.

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960’s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.




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