Yesterday those of you who were around might recall seeing the [kuro5hin.org] site down or really slow for a good chunk of the day. There were some database problems, then a really bizarre thing with the Scoop servers which was solved by rebooting them, but after the reboot one came back up without sshd running so I can’t get in to configure it, and then some kind person decided to DoS us mildly. Oh, and I upgraded the database somewhere in there too.
So we’re on one Scoop server at the moment, and the database really needs to be archived more. I wrote a script to do archiving a lot faster, but it needs to run for a while, and it’s 4AM here and what with everything else I think I’m just calling today a maintenance day so I can go to bed.
It’s summer, and I’m sure many of you have things you’ve been meaning to get to. So now’s the time. Enjoy your K5 vacation day, and we’ll see you bright and early on Wednesday.
–rusty
Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi , Minister of Public Service and Administration of South Africa, writes in The Sunday Times:
[ITWeb, 4 Jul 2003] The increasing role of information technology in government offers an integral tool for the strengthening of state institutions. Last year, at the eAfrica Conference, a conference about developing information technology in governance on our continent, delegates - both politicians and officials - told of the challenges of providing government services in countries ravaged by decades of war, famine and political instability, where infrastructure is minimal.
Along with IT development comes considerable cost. In a developing country like SA, billions are spent on software licences - billions of dollars in valuable foreign exchange, money going out the country that could be used to build houses, roads, hospitals and schools, are going to multi-national companies in order to use their software.
Is there an alternative? Yes, and it is called open source software (OSS).
(via Linux Today)
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Keith Meyers/The New York Times
An old New York City subway car was pushed into the ocean Thursday off Cape May, N.J. A total of 50 cars were added to an artificial reef.
(via BoingBoing)
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