M50 @ 60km/h

Traffic planners must be kidding. The speed limits on M50 between N3 Blanchardstown and N2 Ballymun are set to 60km/h. To be fair, this is too much during the rush hours, when the maximum you can drive is 40km/h, but during the weekend... I did it myself today - drive at 60Km, and I was almost pushed out to the hard-shoulder! Literally nobody drives there at 60Km/h.

If the authorities really want drivers to keep their speed at 60, they should do something more efficient, or change the limits to something more realistic.

The Ryanair's Game

Cheap flights around the world are becoming more and more popular nowadays. In Europe, there are some companies really competitive, and they are capable of doing anything to beat the prices of their competitors. They put their prices as down as €0,00 (zero euros, which may be different than US$0,00 - zero dollars) to catch customer's attention, but then they come with a lot of hidden fees, which the customer has to be careful. They are all there, in the so awfully called Terms and Conditions. I call this The Ryanair's Game, because to my own healthy and well being, Particularly regarding to Ryanair, which is one of most aggressive in terms of prices and one of the worst - not to say the worst - in terms of customer services.

Starting from the check-in process which can only be made by internet. If you don't have internet access and have to call their ticket desk, your ticket flight will aggregate an extra "ticket desk" fee. If you are not european, there in the terms and conditions is stated that you will need an extra stamp in your online boardind pass. For what? For nothing, as other non-budget companies don't have this rule. It's there just to catch the ones who don't have the habit of reading the tiny letters. The same with the "40 minutes before departing check-in closing rule", which only Ryanair (maybe other low-budget companies) has. Flying Aerlingus to the USA, for instance, I was directed to the plane mere 20 minutes before departing! By Ryanair, in other hands, I missed a flight in London Stansted Airport because I call the check-in desk 37 minutes before the departure. The boarding area was only 5 minutes walking fromn the security, so I was plenty of time to get the plane, but they are strictly irreducible: No boarding within 40 minutes to depart!

So, you have two options: pay more to fly a proper airline and be treated as an human being, or play the game of slyness.

An Eye on Brazil

Brazil has weathered the recent global economic downturn better than many other countries. In fact, leading analyst firm IDC, predicts the IT market in Brazil will reach $32 billion USD this year alone, and grow nearly 10 percent through 2013. Much of this opportunity is found in faster growing industries such as telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and energy.

To help foster technology and skills growth in the region, IBM launched a Portuguese language version of IBM developerWorks, the world's largest online technical skills resource and community for developers, to support Brazil's growing ecosystem of 300,000 IT professionals. IBM also announced it is making developer instances of its Lotus software available at no-charge to accredited colleges and universities in IBM's Academic Initiative program across Latin America.

The IBM Innovation Center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, is part of a network of 43 centers in 30 countries globally, providing entrepreneurs, business partners, venture capitalists and academics with access to training, consulting services, a broad technical infrastructure, and hands-on assistance to help bring new technologies to market.

In 2008, more than 22,000 business partners attended workshops, seminars and architecture consultations to build their skills on IBM technologies, and over 7,000 new applications were enabled on IBM open standards-based technology at IBM Innovation Centers.

By cultivating and enabling the entire ecosystem -- from student to seasoned professional - we’re helping IBM Business Partners succeed and ensure the innovation of tomorrow.

It sounds like an exciting time for IBM in Brazil!

Borders' Shutdown

The only branch of the UK's bookstore Borders has shutdown this weekend. The Blanchardstown branch started to sale everything 50% off 3 weekas ago. Last week they've dropped the prices even more, to 75% off, and last weekend - just before shutdown - every and any item was only 1 euro! The store was quite out of options, I tell you, but even that was not a problem to me to spend 91 euros there! It means 91 items (1 "Instant Russian" CD and 90 books!) more to keep...

NAMA Banana

The squandering took place, the powerful and the richest people of this country have played their cards - and the governement is their partner: ordinary people have to pay the bill once again. But this time, the governement wants a blank check, because they don't even know the amount they have to bite yet!

Pixo

Focusing on the life of the ex-"pichador" (person who writes or paints on public walls, often illegally) Djana Ivson, the photographer of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, João Wainer and his brother Roberto Oliveira produced "Pixo", a documentary about "pichadores" in São Paulo city.

The documentary discusses wether graffiti is an artistic expression or a crime against property. The production records of different actions pichadores and unveils some of the codes of conduct of this tribe.

Watch an excerpt of Pixo here:

an extensive one here.

an Aoine

I had my third Irish class and I could say I'm doing VERY WELL! And just 'cause today is friday - an Aoine! - and my daily email "irish word of the day" was domhan, meaning Planet Earth - Tá muid uilig inár gcónaí ar an domhan, or We all live on Earth - I offer this video with from Playing for Change featuring Granpa Elliot: "God Bless America", home of the most of the Irish people in the world!

In the golf court...

Just as matter of having the right word in the right place!

whack to ya!

Are we back to the Middle Ages, where capital punishments were entertainment? Hopefuly not! But listen to the radio we realise the increasing reports of random attacks in Dublin... how come? Is it the crisis? Is it the drugs? Is it just vandalism? Maybe all of them! Uneducated, unoccupied people, drug addictives, racistis... It's not about money - no! Usually there's no robbery involved in this assaults, just the need of being violent and beat someone.

Someone will accuse right wing parties increasing popularity by instigating intolerance and facist speeches - "britain for the british" or something like that. As always in history, anything which is different frightens. And the defence turns into attack.

There's no boundaries for the rage, ignorance and stupidity. When your weapons are more than your words, you far loose the battle.

freestreets - facebook

It's hard to believe in humanity. More and more. I believe in people. Few people, the individual. Walk with faith I will, because faith does not usually fail, and there will be a day we will look back at our history and say "Oh, how cruel we were!". Unfortunately I'll no longer be here to witness this...

And while this doesn't happen, everybody should engage this cause against social violence. Only those who were assaulted know that the physical effects heal relatively quickly, but the long-term psychological effects of an assault which are most disabling. Those who have been attacked usually have symptoms of being highly sensitive to possible dangers while going about their daily activities and this, to some extent, renders them as prisoners to perceived threats in their everyday lives. This means that the victim continues to be controlled by their assailant long after the actuality of the event. Such experiences happen more frequently than we would like to imagine.

If you or someone you know wishes to take part, visit their website or look for freestreets on facebook or send a mail to them.

Where is it? Where is it?

You might be willing to know where to twit, ain't ya? Well, it's nothing particulary exciting, I'd tell you, but... nowadays we never know where and how this technologies will bring you!

Anyway... it's here: http://twitter.com/edotm/

Flash Fiction and Flarf, anyway...

Hey there! edotm is using Twitter!

Twitter is a free service that lets you keep in touch with people through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Join today to start receiving edotm's updates.

This is what they say. I'll be using it for Flash Fiction....

Weather Forecasting...

Definetely, the most efficient weather forecasting system in Ireland...

The Irish-Lisbon Treaty

The government remains confident it can get agreement today on the Irish legal guarantees to the Lisbon Treaty, despite British objections which caused the postponement of a decision yesterday. What the irish are asking, basically is to sign the treaty now, but leave an open door so they can change their minds later...

Does anybody see a problem with that?

Six Polish Poets

"6 Polish Poets: an Anthology" (part II) brings poets Dariusz Suska (born in 1968 in Złotoryja, 90 kilometres west of Wrocław) and Maciej Woźniak (born in 1969) among others. They will be reading the poetry as well... in English, I presume!

The old "Séimhiú "

Yesterday I (re)started my Irish classes - yeah! Even the class is on an advanced stage and I'm an eternal beginner, I asked Ciaran - the múinteoir - if I could just be a fly on the wall. Among several things I missed, I got something... this curio about the origins of the Séimhiú, the "h" after a consonant in the middle of a word, that in Irish generally silences the consonant before it. If found at the start of a word, it is generally pronounced as a "H" instead of the first letter.

The curio is that the original Séimhiú was a "dot" ("a Buailte) over the letter. When typewriters came into fashion in the country, the specialized ones weren’t freely available, and they decided to put the "h" after the letter instead!

pride... in the name of love!

The São Paulo Gay Parade is now the biggest one of its kind in the world. They say more than 3,000,000 people attended the Parade yesterday. One of the major tourist events in São Paulo, the event has official support from the city government of São Paulo. The Parade happens yearly in June; it is the beggining of Brazilian winter, when temperatures are lower, but rains are rare.

Unfortunately, homofobia still took place in the venue...

Official web site here.

The End of an Empire

Bowing to European competition rules, Microsoft Windows 7 will ship without Internet Explorer.

The company said it would make it easy for PC makers and users to get at and install the web browsing program.

In response Brussels expressed scepticism over the move and whether it went far enough to ally accusations of it abusing its market position.

The Long Way Home

I've finally applied for my Irish Citizenship (!) last Friday week. As a good disbeliever in anything related to governments and/or bureaucracy, I sent my papers by An Post as a registered post! You know, just to be in the safe side of the transaction. It is more to have a proof that they've received my package than to track it back, but An Post doesn't send you any confirmation - just a number which you have to look yourself in the web... so you are effectively tracking your item.

So I did. I got to the An Post website an give my track number to the "automatic search engine" which showed me the results: a receipt with not only my track number, but other 127! Assuming not every people register their posts, It's a lot for a single day!

Now I can imagine why they are processing applications from July 2006... and unfortunately - whith some luck - mine will take only 34 months to be processed!

Happy Red-Face Day!

The summer is coming! Since Thursday last week we are experiencing something very unusual here in Ireland - Sun! And after a Bank Holiday weekend, lovely weather, lots of things happening in the city... what would you expect? Red faces, of course!

Even for those more prepared - like myself! - the sun can trap you... you may think it's not strong enough, or due the cold wind which helps to dissemble the warmth... don't be fooled! Whip out your sunblock with no shame and stain allover yourself ! You won't feel like a fish out the water...

Synecdoche, New York

In one way or another, Charlie Kaufman scripts always end up talking about love, death, pain and suffering and their impact on the human mind. "Being John Malkovich", "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Adaptation," "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," "Human Nature." The exploration of the psyche is there.

"Synecdoche, New York" marks his debut as a director, and is no exception - is a natural progression of Kaufman's obsession, and possibly his most complex and distressing work. A journey through their most neurotic and pessimistic nightmares, but with grace.

The movie introduces a theater writer and director (the brilliant Philip Seymour Hoffman, from Capote, Doubt, Charlie Wilson's War) as the melancholic protagonist and naturally inclined to see the bad side of life. He seems to be always expecting his death.

"Synecdoche, New York" is a fascinating narrative, constructed in layers of complex structure - a shed in the shed in order to represent the simulacrum of simulacrum. A circle of many baffling dramatic representations of fiction - fiction of fiction of ficction. Mere co-stars in the universe, protagonists of our own lives... a great movie!

* Synecdoche - special kind of metonymy which uses a part for a whole or a whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in “a Rockefeller” for a rich man or “wheels” for transportation.

Edgar Mueller

He spent five days, working 12 hours a day, to create the 250 square metre image of the crevasse, which, viewed from the correct angle, appears to be 3D.
He then persuaded passers-by to complete the illusion by pretending the gaping hole was real.

Ask about his work, he said: 'I wanted to play with positives and negatives to encourage people to think twice about everything they see. It was a very scary scene, but when people saw it they had great fun playing on it and pretending to fall into the earth. I like to think that later, when they returned home, they might reflect more on what a frightening scenario it was and say, "Wow, that was actually pretty scary".'

Language & Open Source

Installing some IBM eclipse-based softwares - yes, I am... an ICT consultant, I am... - I noticed something... at least funny!

During the initial preparation, the installation program prompts you to chosse the additional language - apart of the standard english - would you like to install. Among the options are italian, spanish, simplified chinese, japanese and Brazilian portuguese! Not just portuguese, but Brazilian portuguese...

This could mean two things: or Brazil is quite famous among the Open Source community (Linux, Eclipse), or we have a bad name on the english speaker community!

I think I'll stick with the first one...

Dylanttante

I had the opportunity to attend to a Bob Dylan's concert. Yes, the Great Bob Dylan... godded for his brilliant lyrics and delightful melodies, accurate. But I tell you, Bob disappointed. Not artistically, but in his attitude. He arrived quite an left in silent. He didn't even say good evening, or thanks to the public: he only sang and played keyboard (!), three or four of harmonica solos and two songs on his guitar.

I, who despite not being a fan to know all the songs by heart, know his legacy and I can say ... I barely knew three or four songs he selected for the night - It seemed a "B side" show - which is not that bad, but I believe it would demand a little more interactivity... even more affection! And the songs (re)arrangements left many fans disappointed, just because the most of the songs were unrecognizable! Again, this is not that bad, but a little bit more... respect? Yes, that's it!

For those who consider him a god of folk music, a guru of poetry and literature, and now also a virtuoso because of his paintings, better know that his aura is less shiny now... unfortunately!

Radio conversation...

Irish: - Mayday, mayday, please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision...

British: - Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North.

Irish: - Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision...

British: - This is the Captain of a British Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Irish: - No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.

British: - This aircraft is part of The Grand Fleet of the British Royal Navy! We are accompanied by 8 Destroyers, 4 Cruiser Minelayers, 3 Minelayers and I don't know how many U-Class submarines... So, in the name of the Queen I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees North, I say again, that's one five degrees North, Or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.

Irish: - We are a Lighthouse...

cultural overnight

This is the fifth year of the Cultural Overnight. Performed by São Paulo's city hall, through the Municipal Department of Culture, it's a big uninterrupted 24 hours party spread over hundreds of attractions in 150 different venues.

Music is the most attraction: from samba-rock to electronica, from rock to romantic; circus performances, speeches, theater, movies, dancing, urban interventions, workshops. From May 2nd 6pm till the next day on 6pm, something around 800 attractions... It is estimated that more than 3.5 million people attending the event.

It's faaar too many people!

Monday, monday...

Monday - "day of the moon" - has a similar meaning in many languages, but some of them prefer to eschew the pagan origin of the word. This is the case in chinese, 星期一 (xingqi yi), meaning "day one of the week". Also in Georgian, Greek and Syriac means "first day". For similar reasons the official liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church refers to Monday as "Feria II". The Portuguese name for Monday reflects this - the Portuguese word for Monday is segunda-feira. The Russian word for Monday is понедельник (poniediélnik), meaning "after holiday." In Hungarian (hétfő) means "head of seven"

As I don't do Mondays - even if I had a quite weekend - eitheir because of the metaphoric sense of the moon or the post-holiday role, doesn't matter...

doing the maths!

This is not mine, but nice to make you think...

What makes 100%? What does it mean to give MORE than 100%? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100%. How about achieving 103%? What makes up 100% in life?

Here's a little mathematical formula that might help you answer these questions

If the letters were represented as numbers, like that:

A B C D E F G H I  J  K  L  M  
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 

 N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then:

HARD WORK = 8+1+18+4 + 23+15+18+11 = 98%

KNOWLEDGE = 11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5 = 96%

But:

ATTITUDE = 1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5 = 100%

And:

BULLSHIT = 2+21+12+12+19+8+9+20 = 103%

ASS KISSING = 1+19+19 + 11+9+19+19+9+14+7 = 118%

Capitalism, the big winner

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the international organization of the United Nations system that assists in developing the world economy and were responsible for many of the countries in the 70's and 80's breakdown because of their extortionate interest rates, is back on business. If they were kind of out of fashion in the recent years, itr seems that they will have their revival now.

World Bank

The World Bank is not a “bank” in the common sense. It is another one of the United Nations’ specialized agencies, aka International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). Together these organizations provide high-interest loans, and grants to developing countries - at their coast, of course!

Both institutions - World Bank and IMF - are known collectively as the Bretton Woods Institutions after the remote village in New Hampshire, U.S.A., where they were founded in July 1944. The World Bank and the IMF are twin intergovernmental pillars responsible for the vast majority of the money borrowed by developing and developed countries. To the international community and to the rest of the world, the niceties of the division of labor are even more mysterious than are the activities of the two institutions... apart from exploiting poor countries.

Are we doing this again?

All the eyes of the world seems to be on G20, looking for responses... Are we doinf this again? Relying on such people and organisations which have sunk us at this level of shitness? Yes, they are!

The European Central Bank is expected to cut eurozone interest rates by 50 basis points to 1 per cent on Thursday, but the key question is whether the ECB will follow the example of the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England in pumping more money into the economy via quantitative easing (QE).

The ECB seems sure that the eurozone recession is a normal cyclical downturn and appears unconvinced that the credit crunch will result in a severe and prolonged slump that would require “non-standard” measures as a response.

Until now the European Central Bank has resisted temptation for easing measures, like pumping more money into the economy, as the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England have done - they are such a sissy, arent't they? Buying back government bonds, however, remains a more complex and politically delicate issue - a more stinky bunch of shit, if you know what I mean!

They want to relax the collateral criteria.

Mr. Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics presages that “The longer that it takes (the ECB) to come up with a plan, the greater the risk that the eurozone will experience a longer recession than elsewhere”. Sounds apocaliptic? Or too pushy? Well, here in Ireland we know how it works: they first throw you something nobody understands entirely and try to play a frind's fair game. When they loose, they will frighten you to dead before play the game again - viz. Lisbon Treaty. Others say there is a “high probability” that the ECB will embark at some stage into QE with purchases of private debt being more likely than buying of government bonds. No matter what they do, you know who will be paying the bill, don't you?

Ireland is doing its job already. Primer Minister Brain Cowen (yes, the one portrayed last week in some art galleries) has announced will be 5 years of "hard-times", and our life standard might be reduced at least in 10%.

I wish we could say that on our taxes, which seems to go all the other way round...

welcome to the world

We've learned that the advent of the G20 Summit in Central London could cause some disruption. On 2nd April next, the G20 Summit - the annual convention for the world's Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governers, which in fact is composed of 42 countries as we learned in here - will be held at the ExCeL centre in London's Docklands. The venue is close to London's City Airport, and spans stations within the Jubilee Line and DLR.

The Metropolitan Police expect potential disruption to travel into and around Central London, the City (financial district), and Docklands on 1st & 2nd April. They also anticipate additional disruption caused by potential activities from several large protest groups.

Companies are like to advise its employees to not travel into London on 1st & 2nd April unless absolutely critical. Work from home.

Additional security will be in place in South Bank; you are asked to fully co-operate with all security identification checks.

THEY WANT TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE! THEY WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU GO! THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU DO!

It's a brave, brave new world!

20 -1 - 4 + 27 = G20

If you search the net for G-20 you'll find out they are composed of 19 countries + the EU. Among this 19 countries, are France, Germany, Italy and UK (all of them EU members). So, with world leaders gathering this week in London to plot a response to the gravest global economic downturn since World War II, they could start like...

Did you know G-20 is made of 42 countries?

G20 is Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United States of America (15 so far) and the EU - European Union, which is composed of 27 states itself, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

In the end, we are paying more for less... Who are these people trying to deceive?!?

our rioters are better...

Last week, art-lovers in National Galery and Royal Hibernian Academy were delighted to see a brand new piece of work of the most fine taste: the primer minister Brian Cowen nude! The painting above were exposed at the Royal Hibernian Academy for a couple of days till they realise it wasn't "official". The other one bellow, survived only for 20 minutes...


It is a very creative way of protesting, indeed, but the brazilians, I'd say, are far more creative and inventive in the ways to protest against their leaders...

what we've learnt this week...

The non-religious Americans are growing... Being an evangelical christian or a benedict catholic is not so "cool" as used to be, says The Sunday Times. It seems like the faithless are a growing force as the churches duck the challenges of the age!

The iraq journalist who hurled his shoes at President George Bush during a visit to Bagda last year has been jailed for 3 years! Bush is still free, after all...

The Pope Benedict XVI sent a message to everyone affected by the fires in Australia... he said "I am lighting a candle to you all!"

This year's EuroVision song context will be held in Moscow, and Georgia has a song called "I don't Wanna Put In" - Put In pronounced as Poot In"... But tell me something... Who wants to be Put In ?!?

single union, single currency

Taking the chance the credit crunch, Europe, after embrassing Iceland, will change the crown of the Euro - instead of each country have your own, as today, they all will have the new "The Government and its People". Just to be sure everybody understand the relationship...

Are you interested? I'm NOT!

I received this text below by email. Before this kind of fraud being a crime, this is an offense! An offense to everybody's intelligence! Under something that can look "innocent" - nobody is asking you to send money, your bank account or your credit card number; they ONLY ask you to CONFIRM your full name, phone, fax, mobile, company name, home address, profession, age and marital status. Harmless information, one nay think, as your friends also know that... But they are your friends and will not try to harm you.

Here is the email:

Gooday My Dear. 25 TH Jan 2009,

Please do not be offended for receiving this email from me Mr. Hassan M. Ahmed. I am the Chief secretary to the commissioner of works here in United Arab Emirates,U.A.E Abu Dhabi city. I have $12Million United State Dollars in a safe custody in Abu Dhabi National Bank for investment and I secured this fund through the advantage of my position in the government.

I am looking for a foreign partner who will be sincere with me as my partner, industrious in working with me and also capable in assisting me invest this fund into lucrative business ventures with little or no risk involved in his/her country or else where and still make good returns from the business in near future.

Please re-confirm to me the following:
(1) Your Full Name:
(2) Phone, Fax and Mobile Number:
(3) Company Name, Home Address
(4) Profession, Age and Marital status.

As soon as this information is received, i will be starting the processing of the fund to your end as soon as possible .

This Investment project has to be done in a confidential manner to avoid jeopardizing my job, although I will be going on my retirement by first part of next year to join you on the project and I need this investment project to commence as soon as possible for the betterment of my retirement future. If you are interested in assisting me as my partner on this project, get back to me as soon as possible to enable me give you more details.
Thank you.

God be with us as i wait for your reply fill free to email me your details.
Yours faithfully,

My Regards,

Mr. Ahmed.....Tel: +97......

Yes, there was the phone number there!!!

I was wondering if Mr. Ahmed is the guy pictured above...

They know how to do it...

Totally in line with the United States's war against terror, the anti-bomb irish squad have found their way using a interesting technique - reliance. We've learned they believe that if they ask, gently, terrorists not to do bad things like planting a bomb inside a waste bin, they will not...

Although the disbelieve of lots of people, method has proofed as an efficient method...

What Now?

We've learned that neo-liberal doutrine and free market haven't saved the world from poverty as they have promissed. Even worse, have thrown it away in a miserable state - ecologically and economicaly speaking.

From the ecological point of view, the earth's resources are finite and cannot be streched to accomodate the unlimited craves of an exponentially growing human population. Human progress should not transgress the limits imposed by nature. Unfortunately, since the Industrial Revolution this insight is lost, although neo-liberals still think that a global free market in conjunction with progress and technological development will bring a world of no shortage on necessites of life.

We are having a clear example of the opposite of that, with the geopolitical conflicts for the wealth of the earth. The war in the Gulf and in Iraq are not merely a war on terror, or in the name of the democracy, as USA want the world to believe. It's far more complicated and less noble.

Barack Obama emerges as a hope; a hope on a fairer world, where the USA interestingness should now move towards the world's sake. If they want to think globally as they claim, they have to understand once for all that the world is not made of western values only. And western values do not mean USA advantage over other countries.

It's a hard lesson to learn, Obama, but somehow, a lot of people are betting on you.

a wonderful free world

Free software has more and more triggered a vast number of people. There are some characteristics that make the phenomenon particularly attractive. For instance, they have an extensive impact on the economy and society, as they are free and they offer an alternative to oligopolies (microsoft, Apple, IBM). When free softwares are also open source softwares, they offer developers an unprecedented access to data. The community of open source software developers frequently engage in a dialog on its functioning. Open source software are a real demonstration of the power of collaboration, and I don't think they could be done any other way. They could have chosen to be commercial, and they would have sold five copies or so...

Give it a try! Go Linux - any flavor! Go OppenOffice for your office softwares, go Firefox for browser and email, go WInamp for music and movie player, go to the Internet and search for free software. Youĺl be surprise how many offers you can find.

The next challenge now is to bring the propose the open source software model to other areas than software, like goods and entertainment, and this would be a wonderful free world.

Freedom, everybody...