Unix: March 2005 Archives

I've been ripping a lot of CDs lately (using grip mostly), so I thought I might as well write a script to automate the process. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you rip2mp3.
Bye bye grip.

For those of you wondering why I have a problem with software patents, have a read of this page.

New screenshot, just 'cause it's been a while. This page, the black one that says fluxbox. A thing of beyawtae.

I'm not laughing any more.
Yesterday, the (unelected) European Commission completely ignored the (elected) European Parliament's requests, and adopted the Software Patent Agreement without *any* debate. (The Software Patents Directive makes computer programs patentable, which is a bad thing, especially for the Open Source crowd.)
Yes, that's right: an unelected body in Europe completely sidestepped the democratically elected Parliament. The Parliament can throw the directive out, but only if there is an absolute majority decision - that means a majority of *all* the MEPs, not just a majority of those who turn up to vote. This is not going to happen.
Here's what Jonas Maebe of FFII had to say:

It is absolutely unfathomable what happened today. I cannot see how the promoters of the European Constitution can still support it with a straight face. This event shows that something is clearly rotten in the city of Brussels at the Council building. Why on Earth do we still have the rules that state that national parliaments should be taken into account by the Council?
Things would be much easier if we scrapped all those rules and simply wrote down "The Council presidency and Commission can do together whatever they like". There's no need for those pesky democratically elected parliamentarians to interfere with the smooth decision making process of the Council, since its only goal appears to be to please big business and to produce as many texts as the sausage machine can bear.
This is absolutely disgusting.

I agree wholeheartedly. This really is absolutely fucking disgusting.