Battlestar Galactica: Beyond the Red Line is a 3D space combat simulation which takes place inside the Battlestar Galactica universe. The game is free, and the good folks over at Game Warden have also released a Linux client for it. Here’s how to get it up and running on Ubuntu.

One of my resolutions this year is to try to cut down on the carbon I spend on music. Notwithstanding my purchase of the In Rainbows discbox, I’ve amassed an awful number of discs of metallized plastic in barely-recyclable containers. (I say “barely” because K. got me a pencil for Christmas made out of old CD boxes, and a pen from dead car parts. But there’s only so many pencils the world can use.)

One of the things I love to hear about is success stories of Linux in education, especially in the K12 arena. Early adoption and exposure to Linux and Open Source has the very positive effect of opening the horizons of these students to the vast array of options available to them.

“Software alternatives are just not available for Linux.” I hear the statement above almost everyday. What makes the statement so ridiculous is that it is completely inaccurate 99 percent of the time.

To say there is a lot of debate about MS Windows XP on the OLPC XO is an understatement. What confuses me is that everyone is getting angry about it only now. I was already complaining about it in April 2007!

I have received a spate of emails in the past 60 days, complaining about various universities and corporations that are disallowing most anything but Windows to access their systems.

I hear daily about open source projects, the open source business model, what it means in terms of freedom, choice, risks, investment, etc... What I rarely hear about is what is life like for those who actually contribute and dedicate a part of their life to open source?

It seems as if the Dutch are tired of Microsoft's finest breaking all the time, and they've set up a hotline for consumers complaining about Windows Vista.

If you ask for the languages of the moment, you will hear people talk about Ruby, C#, JavaScript, Erlang, Python or even Haskell. You probably won't hear Perl mentioned. Perl's current standing is like that of JavaScript a few years ago.