BitFreedom

I like WordPress–a lot. It’s been my saving grace for constructing websites without having to write the code from scratch. But it’s gotten very, very bloated. I took a look at version 3.0 and the upcoming changes. It looks ok, but it worries me for the future. Now users actually expect updates and new features on a regular and frequent basis.  Whatever happened to just wanting something that worked well, and was patched for bugs and security?  I’m also worried about backward compatibility of things like themes and plugins.

Part of the reason I like WordPress is because it’s written very well compared to most open source LAMP products that came before it.  It has a plugin and theme API which is relatively simple to learn.  I would prefer WordPress to focus on improving the robustness of the API, rather than adding new features.

Overall I’m fairly confident in WordPress’ developers to keep things straight.  I just hope they’re not making changes just to keep themselves relevant.

Latest News: As of November, 2010, these child themes are no longer necessary.  Instead, Dragonskin version 2.1 and later supports selecting a preset color from the WordPress admin area.

The Dragonskin Theme now also had child themes to give your site the skin of a different colored dragon. The child themes should be included in the download for the theme, and are simply used to modify the color scheme. You select them just as any other theme.

Note: The WordPress repository did not support child themes when I uploaded version 1.5.  Therefore, they will not be included in that package.  Please download them from this page below (added).  My intention for the next version is to include all of them in one package with an switching tool on the admin menu to select the one to use.

Dragonskin Gold

Dragonskin Gold

Download Dragonskin Gold 1.5

Dragonskin Green

Dragonskin Green

Download Dragonskin Green 1.5

For the longest time, my Dragonskin Theme has had WP-PostRatings integration. Recently I removed the integration because it is easy to modify the rating plugin to accomplish the same goal. (I hope that in the future WP-PostRatings will provide a simple way to do this through the admin interface–it really isn’t that hard.)

All you need to do is open wp-postratings/wp-postratings.php and find a line that looks like this:

//add_action('the_content', 'add_ratings_to_content');

Simply uncommenting that line will put the post ratings at the bottom of every post and page. In Dragonskin, I only included it on posts and at the top. To achieve the same, make some modifications to the next block of code, so that it looks like this:


function add_ratings_to_content($content) {
if (!is_feed()&&!is_page()) {
$content = the_ratings('div', 0, false).$content;
}
return $content;
}


I followed the instructions here for installing an akismet-based spam filter on phpBB2, but I found that it didn’t play nicely enough with the current Akismet API.  So instead, I downloaded an Akismet class and used that instead.  Basically, you should use Akismet.class.php instead of functions_akismet.php in your spamwords.php file.

1. Install the spamwords mod
2. Download Akismet.class.php and put this under your phpBB2 includes/ directory
3. Modify the spamwords.php file so that it looks like this (include your Akismet API at the top):

I’ve been wanting to write about the self-righteous attitude that some people have about speeding for years. I’ve never had the motivation to spend time on it before. But now we have speed cameras handing out citations, and the rallying cry to support this is that speeding is dangerous. Here are some examples of their claims:

• Speeding = Actually Dangerous
• No Respect for Speed Limits
• Speeding is a dangerous way to waste money
• Think SPEEDING Isn’t dangerous?

First let’s get some perspective. If we all drove between 10 – 15 mph everywhere, we’d all be a lot safer. So why aren’t the highways set at 15 mph, and local roads at 10 mph? I think it’s because we’ve decided that being able to drive 65 mph to places regularly outweighs the chances of fatal accidents. I don’t see a big push from these self-righteous people to reduce speed limits everywhere, or to enforce speed minimums even though going 10 mph below the speed limit results in 6 times the chance of getting into an accident.

The people who claim speeding is dangerous like to point to government statistics. The statistics show high rates of fatality for what they call speed-related accidents. The statistics are misleading at best, implying causality where there may be none.

For example, if we say that nearly 100% of all traffic-related deaths are caused by driving a vehicle, it may seem true because 100% of driving accidents involve someone driving a vehicle. But it’s a bogus claim because the mere act of driving a vehicle does not directly cause the accident. To make things worse, in the case of speeding statistics really mean that “one of the drivers involved in the accident was ‘assumed’ to be exceeding the posted limit. It does not mean that speeding caused the accident.” That’s statistics.

However when we actually study the causes of accidents, we find that speeding is only a minor factor.  Don’t believe me?

• “US Department of Transportation study finds only five percent of crashes caused by excessive speed.”
• “federal and state studies have consistently shown that the drivers most likely to get into accidents in traffic are those traveling significantly below the average speed”
• “the majority of drivers will not go faster than what they feel is comfortable and safe regardless of the speed limit”
• “if a speed limit is raised to actually reflect real travel speeds, the new higher limit will make the roads safer”
• “inappropriately established speed limits cause drivers to take all traffic signals less seriously”
• “crash rates were lowest for travel speeds near the mean speed of traffic, and increased with greater deviations above and below the mean”
• “Most “speed-related” crashes involve speed too fast for conditions such as limited visibility or reduced road traction, rather than speed in excess of the posted speed limit.”

With the new speed camera technology being everywhere, we are also now seeing what everyone knew before:  the majority of people drive over the posted speed limit.

That doesn’t mean that speeding has no effect on the danger of what happens to you when you drive–it just means it’s the wrong place to focus your energy. Does anyone really think that going 46 mph in a 45 results in any risk change?  Sure, going 120 mph on the highway, weaving in and out of cars isn’t safe. But that is a far cry from going even just 70 mph on the highway when everyone else is going 65 mph. (More likely everyone else is breaking the speed limit too, making driving 70 actually safer!)  Worrying about the technicality of whether or not someone went over the posted speed limit is a total waste of energy and money.

Furthermore, I believe this kind of mentality makes people worse drivers. When people are trained to focus on who is legally “right” or has the “right-of-way,” they tend to make decisions based on the letter of the law rather than the real situation at hand. It’s obvious to anyone who drives well that safe driving is about paying attention and sometimes giving up your “right-of-way” when it’s safer.

For example, in the US many people have the tendency to “claim their lane” since in the US merging traffic does not have the right-of-way. This leads to an attitude that as long as we stay in our lane, we can do whatever we want and do not have to let people merge, regardless of the circumstances. And in cases where someone merges in by force (either through aggression or necessity), a common reaction is to feel slighted which can lead to road rage. If instead, we encourage and attitude that driving is about cooperation instead of who has the “right-of-way” then we’d all be a lot safer.

Furthermore, the posted speed limit does not take into consideration other factors such as the type of vehicle being driven. Older and less maintained cars can be much more dangerous at higher speeds. Newer and well maintained cars can be driven safely at higher speeds. That means the posted speed limit reflects society’s lowest common denominator. They are based on what the worst of drivers might do, not the average. I’m not against posting speed limits this way in principle, but then to turn around and act like anyone who goes over the speed limit is acting dangerously is just disingenuous.  I think that every speeding situation should be judged subjectively by law enforcement, and especially not by a camera.

So while I’m not saying that speed has absolutely no effect on the danger in accidents, I am saying that it is an area that gets way too much attention because it generates revenue.

Danger on the road is caused by accidents, but accidents are not caused by speeding.  Accidents are avoided by individuals paying attention to their surroundings and making judgments about what is safe.

More reading:

• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/17/AR2009101701575.html
• http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2008/us-crashcause.pdf
• http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/effects-raising-and-lowering-the-speed-limit/
• http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/new-york-dot-study/
• http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/a-recommended-speed-zoning-practice/
• http://photoradarscam.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/how-dangerous-is-exceeding-the-posted-limit/
• http://blog.motorists.org/traffic-tickets-are-big-business/
• http://blog.motorists.org/7-ways-to-shut-down-a-speed-trap/

Reading against photo camera enforcement:

• http://dccamerafraud.wordpress.com/maryland/
• http://www.motorists.org/photoenforce/
• http://blog.motorists.org/10-reasons-to-oppose-red-light-cameras/
• http://blog.motorists.org/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/
• http://www.stopbigbrothermd.org/2008/03/speed-cameras-oh-where-to-begin.html

(Note: I may not agree wholly with the above articles and their causes. They are provided only for further reading.)

First, let me give you the link to opt-out of unsolicited emails from Boxbe:
https://www.boxbe.com/unsubscribe

Please Note: even after several months from using the above link, I still receive messages from Boxbe to join.

I’ve been hit by Boxbe spam. This company promises to reduce the spam its users receive, and in return spam every one of their contacts on a regular basis.  The only problem is, they do not provide the above link (which I cannot yet confirm it actually works) within their email.  To the best of my current knowledge, it is still a requirement that they provide this link.

Other folks have been having problems with Boxbe as well:

• Boxbe’s spam. A fatal mistake for them and me.
• boxbe.com is it spam or scam?
• Boxbe anti spam filter – a cure worse than the plague

Using computers is not intuitive.  We may feel it is intuitive because we have used computers for a long time, or have become familiar with them.  However, computers are not intuitive—especially their interfaces.  Someone who is used to Windows may find the MacOS GUI frustrating.

Most people are familiar with Windows.  The Windows GUI environment has become so familiar to us, that some of us may find it difficult to operate in another environment.  Even down to the direction mouse pointer (arrow) is pointing—seeing a right-pointing arrow may make one a little uneasy about having to adjust their “aim” for the pointer to the right side of the pointer instead of the left side.

But there is one point I’d like to make:  Windows isn’t intuitive either.  I’ve seen people use Windows for the first time, and it’s a little bit awkward.  The most noticable thing that people have difficulty with is “double-clicking.”  Double-clicking is certainly not intuitive, and makes Windows difficult to use for first-timers.  But other than that Windows contains other non-intuitive items as well:  menu item names, descriptions of features, locations of files, etc. all contain counter-intuitive elements.

Therefore, if you know Windows, you had to learn Windows.  You probably learned it because “it was there” and you wanted to use the computer.  So, you should not become afraid of Linux when your first attempts prove frustrating.  Linux requires you to learn a different set of rules for operating the computer, and even though Linux has come a long way with its GUI, the operating system and applications may seem so unfamiliar that navigating them and trying to be productive may drive you back to Windows.  But there are ways to start to become more familiar with items of Linux and ease yourself into using the new system.

Probably the number one thing Windows users use their computers for are the Internet and word processing.  Luckily the free software that runs on Linux for these things is also available for free for Windows.  That means you can start to use software which will be familiar to you on both Windows and Linux, while at first retaining a lot of your familiar Windows features.  The following software installed on your Windows machine should help you if you find going cold turkey to Linux difficult.

• Mozilla Firefox: a web browser for surfing the ‘net, similar to Internet Explorer
• OpenOffice.org: an office suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, HTML editor, presentor, etc.
• Mozilla Thunderbird: an email client similar to Outlook (or Outlook Express)
• GIMP: an image editing and manipulation tool
• VideoLAN Player: a great media player that can play many file formats.
• Wine: an emulator that can allow you to run many Windows programs on Linux (helps with games)
• DOSBox: an emulator to allow you to run old DOS programs.

And the best part about the above software is not only is it free, but it’s super easy to install.  Most Linux, like Ubuntu, have an easy-to-use interface that will automatically download and install software packages for you.  Just search, choose, and apply the changes.