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• FOSSComm day 1

• Returned from a full day of fun with hackers from all around the Greek open source community. Had some great discussions. And flames.

  Slept at 6:30am, finishing off some details for Indifex’s business plan to present to some good investors. After an hour’s of sleep and a cold shower, we were ready to go. Picked up John and drove the lovely route from Patras to Larissa, passing the Rion-Antirrion Bridge, following the south coastline of the Greek mainland, passing through Bralos and on to Lamia, Volos and Larissa. The trip was great, and the weather was perfect.

  The day was full of catch-ups with Greek open source hackers, evangelists and enthusiasts. Talked a lot about Fedora, what we value in the community and why what we do matters. Had the chance to update a few folks about Transifex’s progress, and discuss how it could be used in other distributions and projects too.

  Oh, I met some trolls too. Rare species to meet in real life, not always a pleasant acquaintance, but always one to remember. ;-)

  As usual with any Greek happening, this too ended up at a tavern. Our event organizers booked us a tsipouro place, where you order alochol and the meze dishes continue to come until you ask them not to. Dangerous stuff.

  Off to polish my presentation for tomorrow now and get some sleep.

• at night, Sunday 10 May 2009
  Foss, Linux | FOSSComm day 1 (Comment!)

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• Dawn

• Successfully finishing a big task of yours with sunrise… Priceless feeling.

• at night, Saturday 9 May 2009
  Mini-Post, Personal | Dawn (Comment!)

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• Transifex appliance on cloud computing

• Testing a Transifex appliance running on Amazon’s EC2 for customers. rPath rocks.

• at night, Friday 8 May 2009
  Mini-Post, Tech/web, Transifex | Transifex appliance on cloud computing (Comment!)

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• Λαμπρινίδης on Telecom Package

• “Στην ηλεκτρονική εποχή, η πρόσβαση των πολιτών στο διαδίκτυο είναι θεμελιώδες δικαίωμα, η προστασία του οποίου απαιτείται και για τη θωράκιση πολλών άλλων θεμελιωδών δικαιωμάτων, όπως είναι η πρόσβαση στην παιδεία και τη γνώση, η ελευθερία έκφρασης και συνάθροισης και η ελευθερία πολιτικής δράσης.

  Το Ευρωπαϊκό Κοινοβούλιο σήμερα έστειλε ένα καθαρό μήνυμα προς το Συμβούλιο των Υπουργών της ΕΕ: Παραθυράκια στους ευρωπαϊκούς νόμους, που να επιτρέπουν σε ιδιωτικές εταιρείες να παραβιάζουν αυθαίρετα αυτό το θεμελιώδες δικαίωμα, δεν είναι αποδεκτά”.

  Σταύρος Λαμπρινίδης, Έλληνας Ευρωβουλευτής

  Respect.

• at night, Thursday 7 May 2009
  Digital Rights, Quotes | Λαμπρινίδης on Telecom Package (Comment!)

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• Tx interview on greek radio

• Tx was featured on a popular Greek radio station past week. I really enjoyed the discussion, where we had the opportunity to talk about the importance of universal access of information, open source and digital rights, beautiful code and entrepreneurship.

• at night, Sunday 3 May 2009
  Tech/web, Transifex | Tx interview on greek radio (Comment!)

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• The Bitter and the Sweet

• “You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy who goes home alone. Because, without the bitter baby, the sweet ain’t a sweet.” (Vanilla Sky, script by Alejandro Amenábar)

• at night, Thursday 16 April 2009
  Mini-Post, Quotes | The Bitter and the Sweet (Comment!)

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• Mozilla praise: Ctrl-select

• I just love Firefox’s ability to control-select certain cells from a table in a page.

• at night, Wednesday 15 April 2009
  Mini-Post, Tech/web | Mozilla praise: Ctrl-select (Comment!)

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• startup2.eu and Tx

• Transifex on the startup2.eu European web 2.0 competition! Votes are openly accepted at http://www.startup2.eu/upcoming.php.

• at night, Tuesday 14 April 2009
  Mini-Post, Transifex | startup2.eu and Tx (Comment!)

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• Abstraction layers: One, two, many

• 
  (cc) by piet_musterd

  It’s becoming pretty clear to me that when in doubt whether to write an abstraction, the rule is clear: “one, two, many”.

  Write something 3 times and you’re breaking the DRY principle. The cost of changing a bit in one place and needing to update the other places too is high.

  Abstract something you only use once (in case you want to re-use in the future), and you forgot the “two” in the above rule. The cost for later refactoring is probably not worth the extra load you’ll carry until that day comes. If it comes.

  “One, two, many” is usually better than “one, two, three” and “one, many”.

• at night, Monday 13 April 2009
  Django | Abstraction layers: One, two, many (Comment!)

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• Ignore Everybody

• 

  By Hugh Macleod, the titles of his new book.

• at night, Saturday 11 April 2009
  Books/music/films, Startups | Ignore Everybody (Comment!)

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• More power, more power!

• It seems that Indiplex was trying to pull more power from the network than what it could provide us. Luckily the electricity guys came right after we dropped them a call and quickly put things back in place.

  I asked the guy whether we burned out the cables from too much hacking. Without even smirking, he said it was probably the wind.

  

• at night, Friday 10 April 2009
  Humor, Indifex | More power, more power! (Comment!)

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• A happy hacking summer

• 

  (Printable, linkable, shareable. All the good stuff.)

• at night, Thursday 9 April 2009
  Foss, Linux, Indifex | A happy hacking summer (Comment!)

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• Spork rebasing

• As seen on IRC: “Right now I want to rebase a spork into someone’s skull.”

• at night, Wednesday 1 April 2009
  Mini-Post, Random | Spork rebasing (Comment!)

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• Notes from Amsterdam

• 
  (cc) by liber

  • Feeling like the guy with the best host’s house in the world.
  • Went for a walk at the local Saturday market. We bought a few stuff to cook some nice dishes during the week.
  • On Saturday afternoon the city felt more like Edinburgh than Amsterdam. The World Cup took place and the city was full of Scottish people drinking and singing in the street. The city center was so alive from all the joy — a great Saturday night. The Dutch set them crying back across the English channel™.
  • Saturday night in Amsterdam, we couldn’t not go for a walk through the Red Light District. The atmosphere in that part of the city was amazing, felt like London’s Soho and other districts where primitive feelings flourish. Upon returning home I was thinking how interesting it is that there are places in big cities in the world where restrictions are lowered and freedom is given another perspective.
  • Very close to where we’re staying was the place where Anne Frank wrote her diaries. It’s a bit stupid, but it makes me feel a bit strange inside. Wakes up a desire of me to stop whining and improve.
  • I’ve said so many times “Thanks! I’ll buy you a beer next time we meet!” to Max Spevack. Now that I am in Amsterdam, I’ll need to get him wasted to repay those back. Instead, I’ve decided to do some cooking for him and Diego when I’m having a break from the Transifex stuff I’m doing here. The menu so far included strong Spaghetti aglio e olio, with a note of rocket and gin, Tagliatelle carbonara with chorizo sausage and paprica, and roast chicken with rosemary and melted cheese for today.

  
  (cc) by Vitorio Benedetti

• at night, Tuesday 31 March 2009
  Fedora, Personal | Notes from Amsterdam (Comment!)

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• New books: Spring ’09 bookshelf

• New books arrival for our bookshelf.

  • Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister)
  • It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be (Paul Arden)
  • A Smile in the Mind: Witty Thinking in Graphic Design (Beryl McAlhone and David Stuart)
  • Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition (Guy Kawasaki)
  • Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time (Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz)

  
  (cc) by gadl

• at night, Sunday 29 March 2009
  Books/music/films, Indifex, Tech/web | New books: Spring ’09 bookshelf (Comment!)

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• Amsterdam, baby!

• I have been looking forward to this trip for quite a while. My travel has been reduced lately, as I’m preoccupied with all the great stuff happening at the Indiplex. Long hours of hacking and designing, planning and talking with clients — not much time to think and interrupt the spree.

  But coming to Amsterdam for a week-long hackfest/brainstorm-fest with Max was just an ingenious idea to pass. The flattering comments about Max’s hospitality, house and Amsterdam itself made me much excited about the idea.

  A consequence of working in a dynamic startup at which you’re having the time of your life, is that your sleep hours get reduced. At some points, they get reduced a lot. While [releasing with the sunrise][1] is indeed a great feeling, a man needs to get a proper sleep every a few days. I could use some rest at this moment, so being in Amsterdam makes it the best excuse to just say “I’ll try to get some rest in the weekend”.

  And this is exactly what I’ll do. No coding for this weekend. I swear.

  
  (cc) by kevindooley

• at night, Saturday 28 March 2009
  Fedora, Tech/web | Amsterdam, baby! (Comment!)

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• Amsterdam packing

• Almost ready for a week-long trip to Amsterdam, hosting courtesy of Max Spevack. Expecting lots of hacking, fantastic discussions and good food. Two meetings in Athens before leaving Greece at 2:30pm… long first half of day tomorrow, looking forward to the special moment before the plane take-off.

• at night, Thursday 26 March 2009
  Mini-Post, Personal, Thoughts | Amsterdam packing (Comment!)

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• Transifex on LWN.net Weekly Edition

• Transifex featured on the current LWN.net weekly edition: “Easing software Localization with Transifex” (subscriber-only for now)

• at night, Thursday 26 March 2009
  Foss, Linux, Mini-Post, Tech/web | Transifex on LWN.net Weekly Edition (Comment!)

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• La trappe

• Enjoying a nice, strong, rich La Trappe.

• at night, Wednesday 25 March 2009
  Food, Mini-Post | La trappe (Comment!)

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• My Media Camp Athens 2 presentation

• Super-charge your Startup with Openness — The bullet points from my Media Camp 2 talk on Startups, Openness and Open Source (aka Loving the Bomb) are now collected and available as a presentation with a catchy title.

• at night, Tuesday 24 March 2009
  Foss, Linux, Indifex, Mini-Post, Startups | My Media Camp Athens 2 presentation (Comment!)

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