GEEK NIKE
GEEK NIKE
Dear Linux Magazine Reader,
A few months ago, if I had written a column that made reference to the Battle of
Thermopylae, I would have displayed a commendable command of the past (or at least, an adept ability to access the past at pertinent moments). Since the recent release of the popular film 300, however, the Battle of Thermopylae has passed temporarily into the realm of popular culture, where it shares the limelight with the iPod Nano and the haircut of Britney Spears, so for the next few months, if you talk about it too much, you run the risk of sounding trendy. Sometimes, though, you just have to talk about the Battle of Thermopylae. This glorious moment, in which a handful of Greeks put aside their conflicts to join together and defeat the whole Persian army, is considered a classic “last stand” victory, where the underdogs exhibit extreme tenacity and prevail. The battle is also useful for illustrating another classic theme that shows up frequently in human affairs. If the ancient Greeks had known about haiku, they might have expressed this sentiment as follows:
Read full article as PDF:
Comment.pdf (55.94 kB)Tag Cloud
News
-
KDE Announces Software Compilation 4.13
New release comes with better semantic search and improvements to Kontact.
-
Coverity: Open Source Code has Fewer Defects
Annual code quality report shows FOSS is more secure at all project size levels.
-
An Even Smaller Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced an even smaller version of the tiny computer that will fit into a DIMM slot.
-
Freaky Privilege Escalation Attack
A new class of problems lets a malicious app pre-configure an invisible privilege update.
-
Facebook Rolls Out New PHP-like Programming Language
New Hack language adds static typing and other conveniences.
-
Fedora Announces Innovative Crytography Policy System
New crypto policy system will offer easier configuration and more uniform security.
-
Shuttleworth Calls for Declarative Firmware
Ubuntu founder denounces insecurity in proprietary, close-source software blobs.
-
New TLS Attack Takes the S out of HTTPS
Vulnerability affects many Linux web servers
-
Munich Adopts Kolab
The Bavarian capital shuns Microsoft, Google, and other alternatives to implement an open source groupware solution.
-
Canonical Announces Ubuntu Smartphones
Phone vendor partnerships bring Mark Shuttleworth's dream of Ubuntu on a phone a step closer to reality.