The future of employment in a digital world

What jobs will be left for humans when computers/robots take more ground in manufacturing? This is the debate that began with workers questioning how they could compete with machines that could do their job better and more efficiently than they could. Their response was to throw shoes into the machinery; the root word of sabotage is sabot. The trend gained more momentum with Ford's assembly line at the beginning of the 20th century, and continues to accelerate in this century. It manifests with highly automated factories producing motherboards, cell phones, pharmaceuticals, and anything involving any repetitive task.

I joined today's On Point in the middle. It sounded very interesting and I am going to download the podcast. Let me know if you'd like the audio cached here.

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Good Default Printer for Slackware

I just noticed this slackbuild that creates a virtual pdf printer. This printer could be useful when used on live-usb system as the default printer. One improvement would be the ability to query the user for the filename to use. That would be very similar to "print to file" on other OSs.

A Funny Comic (Rage Meme)

I found this online. I wish I could find the original poster to give proper credit.

Updated Google Talk plugin for Slackware

I finally got around to checking if google voice was working any better than it had been in the past. When I first tried it last year, the quality was lacking, especially when compared to skype. Now that Microsoft has completed their acquisition of Skype, I thought that it was time to see if any improvements have been made to google's offering. I did some simple tests and I think it's now working on par with Skype. Yeah! That's good news because it allows free video calling from computers to other google users, and free voice-only calls from computers to real telephone numbers in the United States, and other voice calls to real telephone numbers at rates comparable, or cheaper than skype (YMMV). Skype offers the same, except at $0.02 for calls in the US, and other rates worldwide.

Getting it working
Here is the procedure I followed to get this working.

• Downloaded the Debian 32-bit package from google talk/chat.


• -- verify md5sum: c6d5d8f881960483f6cb9a84d955a8e9 google-talkplugin_current_i386.deb


• Downloaded the slackbuild for Slackware 13.37, as maintained by Erik Hanson.


• -- The slackbuild repackages the Debian package, and it worked without incident- including automatically building the 2.3.2.0 version without modifying the slackbuild.


• Installed the package, per the normal slackware drill


• Restarted firefox, and voila, the talk plugin with video capability is now present in a google mail window (it is on the left, with the chat the sidebar

When firefox is restarted, you should see the google-talk addin listed:

Configuration tweaks
It can be tricky to find where to setup your devices, especially because the phone works as plugin within a browser. The phone is part of the "chat" component. I've seen it shown on the lefthand sidebar within two windows: google mail and google+ (when viewing "stream" content). To setup your devices, look for "options -> chat settings." You can change your device settings from that page.


By the way, I ran these tests while using a live USB version of Slackware 13.37. Let me know if you'd like my prebuilt package to apply directly to your devices.

• 19faaaa2752fda7eaf555f67b2b931bd google-talkplugin-2.3.2.0-i386-1_SBo.tgz

Update: 2011-11-27 The talk plugin has been updated to version 2.5.6. The same installation drill applies. Also, let me know if you'd like a slack package.

• fda69b2b6d1b59f080b9c5c84ae5f9cd google-talkplugin-2.5.6.0-i386-1_SBo.tgz

Interview: Darger family

Radio West:
This is the family that inspired HBO's Big Love: 1 husband, 3 wives, 24 children.

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Interview: Brad Pitt in Michael Lewis' Moneyball

Terry Gross interviewed Brad Pitt today about a new movie, Moneyball.

I want to listen to this sometime soon: (mp3). Let me know if you'd like the audio cached.

Paint Your Wagon...really

Radio West: So rugged and mountainous, this interview by Doug Fabrizio was interesting.

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One tidbit fact: it really was a good idea to paint your wagon. Linseed oil helped to waterproof the canvas.

main title from the 1969 movie