Create and use favicon icon

I used the procedure described in
http://awebfactory.com.ar/node/106 and
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/favicon.html
to create a favicon. Namely:
Create a 16x16 pixel graphic in xpm format with GIMP
Use tool xpm2wico to create favicon.
Name it favicon.ico and upload to the website home directory.

contrast between New Testament and Old Testament

There are fundamental differences between the ideas of the New Testament and the Old. For example:
Ecclesiasticus 12:4-7

[4] Give to the godly man, but do not help the sinner.
[5] Do good to the humble, but do not give to the ungodly;
hold back his bread, and do not give it to him,
lest by means of it he subdue you;
for you will receive twice as much evil
for all the good which you do to him.
[6] For the Most High also hates sinners
and will inflict punishment on the ungodly.
[7] Give to the good man, but do not help the sinner.

compared to Mt 5:38-48
[38]

"You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'

[39] But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also;
[40] and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well;
[41] and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.
[42] Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.
[43]

"You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'

[44] But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
[45] so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
[46] For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
[47] And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
[48] You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Another comparison is:
Ecclesiasticus 13: 9:13

[8] Take care not to be led astray,
and not to be humiliated in your feasting.
[9] When a powerful man invites you, be reserved;
and he will invite you the more often.
[10] Do not push forward, lest you be repulsed;
and do not remain at a distance, lest you be forgotten.

The footnote in the Jerusalem Bible says: The words of Jesus in Lk 14:8-10, at first sight similar, are actually in marked contrast to this example of worldly wisdom" :

[7]

Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he marked how they chose the places of honor, saying to them,

[8] "When you are invited by any one to a marriage feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest a more eminent man than you be invited by him;
[9] and he who invited you both will come and say to you, `Give place to this man,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.
[10] But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, `Friend, go up higher'; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you.
[11] For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Deuterocanonical books and Christmas reference

I have just finished reading the book of Wisdom and am reading Ecclesiasticus. These are not part of the Hebrew Scriptures and I think Ecclesiasticus was originally written in Greek. I believe both are quoted fairly frequently in the liturgy, and I find both very inspiring reading. For example:

Ws 7:22-30 is a poetic praise of wisdom
Ws 18:14-16 the Word of God is personified as the executant of divine judgement. The Christmas liturgy applies this text to the incarnation of the Word.
Si 1:11-25 describes the fruits of the fear of God (fear in the sense of reverence and devoted obedience)

video mashes and DirectX

I saw episode #376 of Call for Help TV, and there were some interesting items:
- GameMaker.nl is a way of using a web tool to make video games.
- test the version of DirectX installed using dxdiag.exe
- create mashes of video, photos and audio using a web tool at Eyespot.com

Modify Thunderbird to work with Internode mail server

Some time ago I was told by tech support at Internode of a modification to the configuration of Thunderbird mail client that is needed to work reliably with their mail server. It is.....

Edit/Account Settings/Outgoing Server (SMTP)/Edit then untick "Use name and password"
Also, "use secure connection?" should be NO

Partitioning for openSUSE / Ubuntu / WinME

I got disks of the latest releases of Ubuntu (6.10) and openSUSE (10.2) and installed them on my Dell PC (along with the Windows ME that came with this PC - why not?) The installation order was Windows, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

When installing openSUSE, I used the included partitioning tool to shrink the Windows partition from 10GB to 4GB, leaving the allocated space for openSUSE the same. This left space for the subsequent installation of Ubuntu.

The resulting partitions are:
hda1 vfat 4GB Windows ME
hda2 extended 18.8GB
hda3 ext3 6GB Ubuntu
hda5 initrdswap 780MB (swap off)
hda6 ext3 7.6GB openSUSE
hda7 ext3 11GB openSUSE (used for /home)
hda8 swap 300MB (use swap)

Install NETGEAR WG311v3 on openSUSE 10.2

Followed
http://www.linuxquestions.org/hcl/showproduct.php?product=624&cat=149
23 Feb 2006 post:

" How I got mine working.
Install NDISWRAPPER using YAST

Copy WG311v3XP.sys, WG311v3.sys, WG311v3.cat, WG311v3.INF, TRANS.TBL,off the driver cd onto HardDisk

Open root shell

Install Driver
ndiswrapper -i WG311v3.INF
ndiswrapper -m
modprobe ndiswrapper

Disable improper Suse configuration in Yast
Network Devices
Delete Netgear entry

Configure the new hardware with Yast
Network Devices
Network Card
Add
Device Type: Wireless
Module Name: ndiswrapper
On next several pages enter your networks information

Reboot"

and 5 March 2006 post:

More info on the WG311 v3 From http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/List#N " # Netgear WG311 v3 (Marvell 88w8335 Libertas) * Chipset: Marvell 88w8335 Libertas 54Mbps Wireless Interface * pciid: 11ab:1faa * Driver: Copied WG311v3.INF and WG311v3XP.sys from Netgear CD to local ad hoc directory and ran ndiswrapper 1.2 there. Please see hint at http://linuxcompatible.org/Netgear_WG311v3_WLAN_PCI_Card_with_Debian_Linux_Testing_t33271.html * Other: Running SuSE 10.0 - needed some tweeking in YaST - threw out old card from Network Devices / Network Card configuration and installed new card with Module Name as "ndiswrapper" in Manual Network Card Configuration. Runs 128 bit WEP at 54Mbps.

"

Install NETGEAR WG311v3 on Ubuntu 6.10

Followed
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Ubuntu
and
http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/index.php/Installation
using the Windows drivers on the installation disk.
After configuring the driver using the Ubuntu networking tool, and rebooting, the wireless connection works, with WEP

Verses from Wisdom

Wisdom 3: 1-11
The destiny in eternity for good and bad men
(would be suitable for a requiem Mass)

Wisdom 5
Virtuous men and godless at the judgement

More verses from Proverbs

Some verses from the book of Proverbs which mean much to me are:

Pr 25 11,12
Pr 26 4,5
Pr 26 11
Pr 27 6
Pr 28 23
Pr 29 11
Pr 29 15
Pr 30 7-9

Christmas carols

I don't understand Christmas carols. First of all, it seems to me that a lot of them don't have anything to do with Christmas (eg jingle bells, drummer boy, 12 days of Christmas)

I found a web site which describes the popular English carols:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A832420

and another site which has the words of hundreds of carols:
http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/HTML/The_hymns_and_carols_.htm

There is also a Wikipedia entry for Christmas at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

According to this, Christmas was banned in England in the 1647 but then became more popular in the 1800's:
"By the 1820s, sectarian tension had eased and British writers began to worry that Christmas was dying out. They imagined Tudor Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration, and efforts were made to revive the holiday. The book A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens played a major role in reinventing Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion (as opposed to communal celebration and hedonistic excess)."

According to Wikipedia, similar things happened in America:
"The Puritans of New England disapproved of Christmas and celebration was outlawed in Boston (1659-81). Meanwhile, Virginia and New York celebrated freely. Christmas fell out of favor in the U.S. after the American Revolution, when it was considered an "English custom"."

Maybe this explains why so many English Christmas carols seem to be written in the 1800's, because celebration of Christmas was becoming more popular in England and America at that time.

Personally, my favourite Christmas carol is "Mary's Boy Child", which was sung by Harry Belafonte:
http://my.homewithgod.com/heavenlymidis/Christmas/boychild.html

Verses from Proverbs

Chapters 8 and 9 of Proverbs are the height of Proverbial teaching on wisdom. A very interesting stand alone biblical quote.

A couple of other quotes from Proverbs:

A golden ring in the snout of a pig
is a lovely woman who lacks discretion
(Pr 11:22)

In the eyes of a fool the way he goes is right,
the wise man listens to advice.

The fool shows his displeasure straight away,
the discreet man overlooks the insult.

To tell the truth is to further justice,
a false witness is nothing but deceit.
(Pr 12:15-17)

Selection of psalms

Today I finished reading the book of Psalms. I started reading the Bible from cover to cover in Lent 2006 and I should finish by next Easter. So far I have read the New Testament and I am now starting on the book of Proverbs.

Having read the psalms, I'd like to note down the ones I found most useful and relevant at first reading. These are:
psalm 1 The two ways
psalm 23 The Good Shepherd
psalm 27 In God's company there is no fear
psalm 32 Candid admission of sin
psalm 49 The futility of riches
psalm 51 Miserere
psalm 52 The fate of cynics
psalm 90 The human condition
psalm 102 Prayer in misfortune
psalm 103 God is love
psalm 112 In praise of the virtuous
psalm 119 In praise of the divine Law
psalm 130 From the depths
psalm 131 Childlike trust in God
psalm 133 Brotherly love
psalm 138 Hymn of thanksgiving
psalm 141 Against the attractions of evil
psalm 146 Hymn to the God of help

trial of WYD2008 blog

I have uploaded a video clip to YouTube to try out video blogging. The URL is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zDCD9pzHm8

or embed the video:

Pope Benedict on Islam

The following  comments by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger were published in 1997 in the book "Salt of the Earth" Ignatius Press, San Fransisco, and quoted in
http://www.chiesa.espressonline.it/dettaglio.jsp?id=45084&eng=y

”Shari’a shapes society from beginning to end...”



by Joseph Ratzinger





I think that first we must recognize that Islam is not a uniform
thing. In fact, there is no single authority for all Muslims, and for
this reason dialogue with Islam is always dialogue with certain groups.
No one can speak for Islam as a whole; it has, as it were, no commonly
regarded orthodoxy. And, to prescind from the schism between Sunnis and
Shiites, it also exists in many varieties. There is a noble Islam,
embodied, for example, by the King of Morocco, and there is also the
extremist, terrorist Islam, which, again, one must not identify with
Islam as a whole, which would do it an injustice.


An important point, however, is [...] that the interplay of
society, politics, and religion has a completely difference structure
in Islam as a whole. Today's discussion in the West about the
possibility of Islamic theological faculties, or about the idea of
Islam as a legal entity, presupposes that all religions have basically
the same structure, that they all fit into a democratic system with its
regulations and the possibilities provided by these regulations. In
itself, however, this necessarily contradicts the essence of Islam,
which simply does not have the separation of the political and
religious sphere which Christianity has had from the beginning. The
Koran is a total religious law, which regulates the whole of political
and social life and insists that the whole order of life be Islamic.
Sharia shapes society from beginning to end. In this sense, it can
exploit such partial freedoms as our constitution gives, but it can't
be its final goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now
we are present just like the Catholics and the Protestants. In such a
situation, it would not achieve a status consistent with its inner
nature; it would be in alienation from itself.


Islam has a total organization of life that is completely different
from ours; it embraces simply everything. There is a very marked
subordination of woman to man; there is a very tightly knit criminal
law, indeed, a law regulating all areas of life, that is opposed to our
modern ideas about society. One has to have a clear understanding that
it is not simply a denomination that can be included in the free realm
of a pluralistic society. When one represents the situation in those
terms, as often happens today, Islam is defined according to the
Christian model and is not seen as it really is in itself. In this
sense, the question of dialogue with Islam is naturally much more
complicated than, for example, an internal dialogue among Christians.


The consolidation of Islam worldwide is a multifaceted phenomenon.
On the one hand, financial factors play a role here. The financial
power that the Arab countries have attained and that allows them to
build large Mosques everywhere, to guarantee a presence of Muslim
cultural institutes and more things of that sort. But that is certainly
only one factor. The other is an enhanced identity, a new
self-consciousness.


In the cultural situation of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, until the 1960s, the superiority of the Christian countries
was industrially, culturally, politically, and militarily so great that
Islam was really forced into the second rank. Christianity – at any
rate, civilizations with a Christian foundation – could present
themselves as the victorious power in world history. But then the great
moral crisis of the Western world, which appears to be the Christian
world, broke out. In the face of the deep moral contradictions of the
West and of its internal helplessness – which was suddenly opposed by a
new economic power of the Arab countries – the Islamic soul reawakened.
We are somebody too; we know who we are; our religion is holding its
ground; you don't have one any longer.


This is actually the feeling today of the Muslim world: The Western
countries are no longer capable of preaching a message of morality, but
have only know-how to offer the world. The Christian religion has
abdicated; it really no longer exists as a religion; the Christians no
longer have a morality or a faith; all that's left are a few remains of
some modern ideas of enlightenment; we have the religion that stands
the test.


So the Muslims now have the consciousness that in reality Islam has
remained in the end as the more vigorous religion and that they have
something to say to the world, indeed, are the essential religious
force of the future. Before, the shariah and all those things had
already left the scene, in a sense; now there is a new pride. Thus a
new zest, a new intensity about wanting to live Islam has awakened.
This is its great power: We have a moral message that has existed
without interruption since the prophets, and we will tell the world how
to live it, whereas the Christians certainly can't. We must naturally
come to terms with this inner power of Islam, which fascinates even
academic circles.
"

Install OpenOffice 2 in Puppy Linux

I installed Puppy onto the hard disk and followed the following instructions from the Puppy forum to convert the OpenOffice rpm files and install them onto Puppy:

http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=7938&highlight=openoffice

post from:
rarsa
Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 1746
Location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Posted: Tue May 09, 2006 10:25 pm Post subject: My preferred way for installing OpenOffice in Puppy is the following:

1. Go to the Open Office website and download the latest stable version to an empty folder I prefer to do it outside the pup001 file if you are using one as it is a large install, also make sure that it is not a FAT file system.
2. Extract the file with the following command (use the file name that you downloaded)Code:
tar -xvzf OOo_2.0.2_LinuxIntel_install.tar.gz


3. The previous command will extract all the files to a subfolder. Change folders to the RPMS folder under that newly created folder. e.g.Code:
cd cd OOB680_m5_native_packed-1_en-US.9011/RPMS


4. Extract the RPM files with the following command (all one line)Code:
for FILENAME in *.rpm ; do exec rpm2cpio "$FILENAME" | cpio -i -d; done


5. The previous command will create a opt subfolder and under that an openoffice.org2.0 folder. Move that folder to a final location. Please note that it must be a place with enough space such as your /mnt/home folder. e.g.[code]mv opt/openoffice.org2.0 /mnt/home (Paul's note: I actually moved the files to /root )
6. Create a symbolic link (symlink) to the open office executable. e.g. [code]ln -s /mnt/home/oppenoffice.org2.0/program/soffice /root/my-applications/bin/soffice
7. Execute open office by executing soffice

Reading related to worthwhile works

From the Second letter of Timothy (New Jerusalem Bible):


"Turn away from the passions of youth, concentrate on uprightness, faith, love and peace, in union with all those who call on the Lord with a pure heart.Avoid these foolish and undisciplined speculations, understanding that they only give rise to quarrels; and a servant of the Lord must not engage in quarrels, but must be kind to everyone, a good teacher, and patient. He must be gentle when he corrects people who oppose him, in the hope that God may give them a change of mind so that they recognise the truth and come to their senses, escaping the trap of the devil who made them his captives and subjected them to his will."

.....

"Before God and before Christ Jesus who is to be judge of the living and the dead, charge you, in the name of his appearing and of his kingdom:proclaim the message and, welcome or unwelcome, insist on it. Refute falsehood, correct error, give encouragement-but do all with patience and with care to instruct. The time is sure to come when people will not accept sound teaching, but their ears will be itching for anything new and they will collect themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes; and then they will shut their ears to the truth and will turn to myths.But you must keep steady all the time; put up with suffering; do the work of preaching the gospel; fulfil the service asked of you."

Blogging plugin for Firefox

On Call For Help TV show (episode 324) I heard about a plug in which speeds up blog posting. It's from
http://performancing.com/firefox
I've installed this and it seems to work well.

The hope of the little match seller

I remember hearing about the tale "The Little Match-Seller" by Hans Christian Andersen:
http://hca.gilead.org.il/li_match.html

Hans Christian Andersen has thoughtful ideas, conveyed by memorable stories. He seems to have a theme that different people can look at the same thing and see it differently. This is obviously true of some of his other tales, such as "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Ugly Duckling", but I think it is also true of "The Little Match-Seller". For some people, this is just a sad and sentimental story. But is it also a story of hope and happiness?

Scarlet and the Black

Watched the film "The Scarlet and the Black" starring Gregory Peck. This is the story, which I had not heard of, about Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty and Colonel Herbert Kappler. Msgr O'Flaherty saved thousands of prisoners duing the German occupation of Rome in the Second World War.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_O'Flaherty
http://www.rootsweb.com/~irlker/scarlet.html
http://www.terracetalkireland.com/profiles/hugh.htm
http://www.catholicireland.net/pages/index.php?nd=68&art=490
http://www.answers.com/topic/hugh-o-flaherty

Picasa on Linux

from:
http://picasa.google.com/linux/thanks-deb.html

Installing Picasa

If you have a Picasa window open, or you have the Picasa icon in your toolbar, please close them before installing a new version.
If you're using a recent version of Linux, you should be able to pick "Open With Default Application" or double-click on the downloaded .deb file to install.

If that doesn't work, save the file in the /tmp directory, then open a terminal window and install with a command like

$ sudo dpkg -i /tmp/picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb

or

$ su
# dpkg -i /tmp/picasa_2.2.2820-5_i386.deb
# exit

Starting Picasa
Start Picasa by looking in your Linux distribution's Graphics menu. If you can't find it there, give the command /usr/bin/picasa in a terminal window.

Tips

* If you use NFS, when Picasa first starts, tell it to scan just your desktop! Otherwise Picasa gets real slow while it scans all your NFS directories!
* To get Picasa to see pictures on your hard drive, click "File / Add Folder" (NOT "Import").
* When adding a folder to Picasa, the default action is to remove the folder from Picasa. You have to actively choose Scan once or Scan always.
* Picasa is not supported over remote X connections.

Wow, Picasa found all my photos!

When you start Picasa, it instantly goes to work, organizing all the pictures on your hard drive by date in the "Folders on Disk" collection. If Picasa finds folders you don't want, go into Tools > Folder Manager to tell it which folders to scan once, scan always or remove. To remove individual pictures from your library, simply select a photo and right-click to delete it permanently from your computer or hide it from Picasa.

Visit the Picasa for Linux FAQs

Kororaa server Linux

An Australian company in Canberra is working on a Gentoo based distribution for servers.

See www.kororaa.org

Kororaa is a pre-configured binary install method for Gentoo Linux, complete with a fully automated dialog installer. It comes with a pre-configured KDE system and, being based on Gentoo, it sports the full power of portage and other great features. It takes the best open source packages and combines them into one very powerful and quick Linux desktop. Kororaa is designed to have programs to support a wide range of everyday tasks like email, web browsing, instant messaging, and multimedia support for photos, videos, TV, music, burning, etc. Also look at a program like ruby on rails to see what is necessary to set up a web site including podcasting

control scripting in firefox

I loaded the firefox plugin from www.noscript.net
This can be used to control java scripting allowed when visiting websites

Add CastPodder to menu

create a desktop file by:

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/CastPodder.desktop

insert the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=CastPodder
Comment=CastPodder podcast aggregator
Exec=CastPodder
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/gnome-squeak.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Internet;

For some reason, CastPodder has been included in the "Other" menu instead of the "Internet" menu.

Da Vinci Code vs HBHG

I have heard about the court case in England where the publisher (or is it the author) of the 70's book "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" are suing the publisher (or author) of "The Da Vinci Code" for copying their ideas. Authors are following this case with interest, because it might define what it means to copy an idea. I have read neither book, but I believe that HBHG has the form of an academic study, whereas TDVC has the form of a fictional novel based on the same ideas as HBHG. Since neither are based on fact, is it legal to copy the ideas.
All this seems to be a messy battle over profits and far removed from the great ideas both books claim to be true. Truly, God is not mocked.

Is the following a fair comparison....
Thomas Keneally wrote "Schindler's Ark" and said he studied the story, spoke to as many witnesses as possible and made his novel as faithful to fact as possible. If the story had been documented in a book, would it be plagiarism to then base a book on it? Maybe that fact that the story is true (unlike HBHG) is a defence.

Using theology to teach English literature

I found high school English very interesting because of the range of books we studied and the ideas and ways of appreciating them. However, looking back, I think I did not appreciate the background and philosophy of the authors. What made Byron different to Keats or Shakespeare or T.S Eliot? What made Dickens different to Hardy or Thackeray?

We studied the form of each book or poem and what motivated each character and how they related to each other. But there was some context missing. Possibly the philosphical or theological motivation could supply this. Authors are to some extent creatures of their period (or some authors change their period), so it is interesting to relate humanists to Byron, the spirit of nature to Wordsworth, Christianity to T.S Eliot etc. I think I would have found this a fruitful way of studying English literature.

PC sound to iTunes and TotalRecorder

I use iTunes to playback audio and video podcasts, and I also use TotalRecorder to record from audio streaming. I found that I have to change a setting in the control panel depending on which I am using.

Select control panel/Sounds and audio devices/audio. I change the sound playback and recording: Avance AC97 audio when I am playing back on iTunes, and playback through TotalRecorder when I am using that. If I have TotalRecorder seleced and use iTunes, the sound is distorted and has echoes.

commonwealth.tv

An interesting country in the Commonwealth Games parade is Tuvalu.
Area: 26 sq.km.
Highest point 5 metres
Income sources include: sale of stamps and coins, and leasing the internet domain name .tv
Flag: Union Jack in the upper hoist-side quadrant, with 9 stars representing a map of the islands (that is, the stars are not a constellation)

The business of privatisation of schools

Many people want to send their children to large private schools. IMHO, the private schools have responded by turning themselves into businesses first, schools second. I read about a school with a Board, a Chairman, and Chief Operating Officer, and oh, by the way, also a Principal. I know they have to manage themselves efficiently and transparently, but it seems a case of the financial tail wagging the educational dog.

Other evidence of the expanding school sector is the fact that their fees are rising faster than inflation. The rising demand would push this, as well as the increasing capex required to compete with other private schools. It is not enough to provide facilities for academic studies, and some sports fields. These days, parents expect all the potential of their children to be explored, such as music, leadership, arts, commerce and of course networking with the other students who may become their business peers in the future.

How is this for a financial analogy?.... The share price of a listed company represents the expected value of future income. In the same way, the (rising) school fees represent the expected value of future income and lifestyle opportunities which result from attending a private school.

CastPodder 4.0-2 vs iPodder 2.1-1

As I mentioned in my last post, I downloaded the Alan Kohler market report podcast using CastPodder 4.0-2 and it works fine.

Previously I had used the version of iPodder in the Ubuntu repository (2.1-1) and it did not work.

Onwards and upwards!

Linux podcast aggegator: CastPodder, nee iPodder

The podcast aggregator in the Ubuntu repositories is iPodder 2.1. I installed this, but there seems to be a problem. Some of the files I download using this have a MIME type of text/html, even though the "enclosure" tag in the xml gives a MIME type of audio/mpeg. These files do not play, although the XMMS audio player is loaded, but it says immediately that the file is finished. I tried a few files, and the xml files which contain iTunes tags do not work, but the ones without iTunes tags download and the audio plays correctly (and the MIME type is correct).

I could not find this as a bug on line, but the latest version of iPodder is 2.1.9, so maybe this has changed in the latest version.

To test the theory that this is a bug in the program, I downloaded and installed CastPodder from
http://borgforge.net/frs/?group_id=6

using the method given in
http://www.psychocats.net/linux/installingsoftware.php

After this installation, I can start it with /usr/bin/CastPodder

CastPodder is the Linux fork of the iPodder project after copyright objections to the name iPodder
(Juice is the fork for Windows and Mac)

CastPodder works with a xml feed which contains iTunes tags. I'll try it with the Alan Kohler podcast tomorrow when a new episode is available.

Pope Leo XIII, marxism and modernism

An interesting figure in the development of the Church's relationships to modern philosophy is Pope Leo XII. He identified the flaws in Marxism, as well as the errors in the way workers were treated in his encyclcal Rerum Novarum. He also set up a school of Thomistic philosophy at the University of Louvain to discuss and study the issues brought up by modernism.
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pope0256.htm

Divine consolation

These are thought of C.S. Lewis after the death of his wife:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/transcript/grief.html
Note especially the last paragraph in the quote below:

Narrator: "A Grief Observed" is Lewis's description of the journey he took after Joy's death, a portrait of grief and a struggle with his own faith.

Lewis: Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolation of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand. The conclusion is not "So there's no God, after all" but "So this is what God is really like, the Cosmic Sadist. The spiteful imbecile?"

Peter Kreeft: He lashes out at God and he says, "How can you expect us to live this way?" Very much like Job. Very honestly, he doesn't just argue. He emotes, the whole of his being is there, in front of God, it's a deep trust in God that allows him to give vent to his distrust.

Lewis: From the rational point of view what grounds has Helen's death given me for doubting all that I believe? Should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No. And it wouldn't for a man whose faith had been real faith. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow it is because it was a house of cards. Indeed, it's likely enough that what I shall call, if it happens, a 'restoration of faith', will turn out to be only one more house of cards.

Something quite unexpected has happened, it came this morning early. Suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned Helen least, I remembered her best. Imagine a man in total darkness. He thinks he is in a cellar or dungeon. Then there comes a sound. He thinks it might be a sound from far off — waves or windblown trees or cattle half a mile away. And if so, it proves he's not in a cellar, but free, in the open air. Lord, are these your real terms? Can I meet Helen again only if I learn to love you so much I don't care whether I meet her or not? When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of "no answer." It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent gaze. As though he shook his head, like, "Peace, child, you don't understand." How wicked it would be, if we could, to call the dead back. She said, not to me, but to the chaplain, "I am at peace with God." She smiled. But not at me.

Using cash from the AWB for appeasement

Why is the question "is there any proof that ministers knew what the AWB was doing" by pouring millions into Saddam's pockets?

The real question should be "how is the government keeping us safe"?

We were told by the PM with breathless urgency at the time that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical weapons, and was within months of having nuclear weapons. The smoking gun could be a "mushroom cloud" with thousands, or millions of casualties. But now, we are told, no minister knew that the AWB was shovelling money Saddam's way to protect its contracts, even though the negotiations over the contracts were a major issue at the time. That would be like British ministers in 1939 saying they didn't know Hitler was going to invade Poland, because no-one sent them the memo.

Who have we got for a PM, John Winston Howard, or John Neville Chamberlain?

Models of marriage

Same-sex unions are legal in some countries, and some people want the description "marriage" to be used.

Just a question: why are same sex marriages limited to only 2 people? What convention or law imposes this limit? There are pretty obvious reasons why marriage is limited to 2 people, a man and a woman, although there have been some well-known cases of open marriages involving 3 people, eg H.G.Wells (one man and 2 women) and Ayn Rand (one woman and 2 men). But for same-sex unions, there seems to be less reason for this restriction. Or is it the case that even the people who want same-sex marriage have an idea of what a real marriage is, but don't want to admit it?

Too much cricket is finally enough

For years now, there have been debates about how to compare cricket statistics from the past with now. The wise words are always said that this is impossible because players from yesteryear never played as many games as they do now. Bradman could never have scored 10,000 test runs.

Well, now we know, we have reached saturation point in cricket. There are so many games now that players have to be rested, lest they suffer mental and/or physical breakdown. Players even ask to be excused from international games. So cricket records will now reach a limit and the statisticians can go to work.

Equal work for equal pay

The Australian Open tennis tournament is the sport du jour at the moment.

I have always wondered why the men play best of 5 sets at grand slam tournaments, but women still play best of 3. This is despite that fact that women have received equal prizemoney since the 70's and 80's (The Australian Open first offered equal prizemoney in 1984).

First of all, this means women's tennis can be very boring. How many women's finals at grand slam tournaments have been non-events, with 6-1, 6-1 walkovers finished in less than an hour, leaving large crowds with nothing to do but go home early and read books to the kids? The exciting 5 set marathons of men's tennis can never happen.
This has to change. There was a time at the Olympics that only men ran in long distance races, but now there are women's marathons, women's weightlifting, and woe betide any man who criticises women's rugby or boxing. Admittedly, Olympic swimming is still also behind the times. I believe that only women swim the 800m races and only men the 1,500m, but why? Come on gals try to keep up!!

What do you call German?

Can you please explain this to me:
The names for countries are similar, if slightly different in each language (eg England, Angleterre, Engeland etc)
However, the words for "german" seem to be completely different in each of the European languages, ie:

In german: deutsch, Deutschland
In dutch: duits, duitsland (of course dutch is close to low german)
In english: german, Germany
In french: allemand
In italian: tedesco, Germania
In russian: nemetz, germania

Why the difference? It must be something to do with the history of the formation of the German nation.

West frightened by the poor

The international community has just pledged $2.5 billion to fight
bird flu (Jan 19: "Cash flows as experts warn of bird flu's cost").
The wealthy west is terrified by the sight of sick children living on
poor farms in the third world.

Here's an idea: try to relieve poverty for pity's and morality's sake,
not just because we are afraid that the poor and sick will bring
crashing down the comfortable castle we in the west are living in.

The high cost of losing our religion

Julia Baird (SMH 19th January - "The high cost of losing our
religion") laments that the enlightened activists and feminists of the
70's did not take the time to revolutionise the churches at the same
time as changing society.

Excuse me, but what I see now are magazines telling teenage girls what
to eat, wear and do in order to please their boyfriends. Prominent
businessmen and sportsmen marry blonde models rather than challenging
life partners. The lifestyles and life responsibilities of most women
haven't really changed much since the 70's. Symbols of passive women
as objects abound.

Maybe Julia Baird should spend more time re-energising feminism and
worrying about falling attendances at her church of feminism.

Install GnuCash

I installed GnuCash in Edubuntu, using the instructions in Ubuntu Help (note that I had to enable the universe repository:

How do I install an accounting application (GnuCash)?

1.Make sure the universe repository is enabled. (See How do I add Universe and Multiverse?)
2.Install the gnucash package with Synaptic (See How do I use Synaptic to install packages?)

Gnome Desktop Environment (universe) gnucash

3.Remove some unnecessary directories and files.

sudo rm -fr /usr/share/gnome/apps/Applications/

4.Start a new desktop configuration file in the /usr/share/applications directory.

sudo gedit /usr/share/applications/GnuCash.desktop

A blank file called GnuCash.desktop opens in gedit.

5.Add the following lines to the new file.

[Desktop Entry]
Name=GnuCash
Comment=GnuCash Personal Finance
Exec=gnucash
Icon=/usr/share/pixmaps/gnucash/gnucash-icon.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Application;Office;
/>
6.Save the file and close gedit. (See sample/GnuCash.desktop_gnucash for an example.)

7.To open GnuCash, choose Applications → Office → GnuCash.

Enter special language characters in Windows (c)

Select regional and language settings in the Control Panel and then languages and details.

As well as EN (Australia), add EN (United States) and select the US International keyboard.
With the US International keyboard, you can enter special languages characters for language which use only latin characters. This requires pressing 2 keys in sequence as follows:

Press this key Then press this key Resultant character
' (APOSTROPHE) C Ç
'(APOSTROPHE) e, y, u, i, o, a é, ý, ú, í, ó, á
"(QUOTATION MARK) e, u, i, o, a ë, ü, ï, ö, ä
`(ACCENT GRAVE) e, u, i, o è, ù, ì, ò
~(TILDE) o, n õ, ñ
^(CARET) e, u, i, o, a ê, û, î, ô, â

(ref: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;306560&sd=tech)

This is more practical when you are using the same (US) keyboard for all these languages. On the other hand, if you selected French as the language, with a french keyboard, the layout os azerty instead of qwerty.

Now I have to work out how to select the Russian phonetic keyboard for Windows (c). Under Ubuntu linux, I was able to select the Russian phonetic keyboard, which tries to preserve the keys which are common between Latin and Russian keyboards (which the conventional Russian keyboard layout does not)

nature vs nurture

Attributing human behaviour to nature or nuture seems to be something which is hotly debated, on very little evidence.

An example is female characteristics. Many feminists would say these are learned from an early age and are not inherited. If this is the case, they are learned at a very early age, so it is impossible to prove this.

On the other hand, is there a "gay" gene? Some people say there is, so there is no such thing as indoctrination into a lifestyle. Again, has anyone seen any evidence of this?

Play .ram audio files from website

In order to play .ram files using Edubuntu, I installed RealPlayer10:

Download realplayer_10.0.6-0.0-i386.deb

cd ~/Desktop

sudo apt-get install libstdc++5 (infact I had already done this step when I installed the Flock browser)

sudo dpkg -i realplayer_10.0.6-0.0-i386.deb

Crime novels are really plays

Most of the popular crime novels have become successful plays, movies or TV shows.
When you think about it, this is natural, because a crime novel is really a drama: the story depends on a narrative, and it usually takes place over a limited time in a particular place. Apart from the puzzle of the crime, the interest is in the reactions of the characters to the events.
All of this fits well into drama, although most crime fictions seems to start life as novels or short stories.