The Whole is Less than the Sum of the Parts

For my friends who never tire of inviting me to join up, this is why I keep giving you the cold shoulder.

Just back from a week holiday at the lovely Greek island of Kalymnos — excellent climbing, food and company. Uploaded some pictures to flicker, also my pals have some more here.

I would much recommend Kalymnos as a climbing destination for anyone leading a French 5 and above; the rock is excellent, as is the bolting standard (only came across one poorly bolted route during the week, called Hibiscus Market), and the routes are plentiful. We stayed at the Melina’s (also to be recommended) in Myrties, which is a bit further away from the cliffs than Massouri, but the main climbing area is pretty compact and it turned out to be of no real consequence (and for the further away places scooter / car can be rented in any case). Plenty of places to eat, and eat well; the Agean was probably the best place we ate at, but none of the other places we tried was anything but excellent. The locals are very friendly, helpful, and everyone seems to speak English.

Couple of days ago I went looking for an update to PagasusMail, and discovered that after some 16 years, David Harris decided to stop working on Pegasus. I have used Pegasus for many years, my only reason for moving over to Thunderbird couple of years back needing to be able to access my mailbox both from Windows and Linux. Pegasus was by far the best email client I have ever used; it did for me everything that Thunderbird does, but without the resource drain, without taking incredible amount space on my disk for the mailbox, and in all the years I have used it never ever crashed. Many thanks.

P.S. I see that the news has made it on ./, and in a true ./ fashion generated shitloads of inept comments; it reminded me how intensely I dislike all narrow-minded zealotry, Free Software zealotry notwithstanding — ironic how enslaved people can be by their obsession with what they think is ‘freedom’, their attitudes doing more harm to the Cause, then their code can ever undo.

How the time flies; today is an anniversary of me working at OpenedHand, and great year it has been (this is where I wave to my boss — hello Matthew).

Seriously. I was naturally a bit apprehensive this time a year ago, but the new job has proven to be all I have hoped for. (And no, I do not miss teaching — I have experienced few things so frustrating as trying to teach students who do not want to learn.)

I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later; I am now a proud owner of a bright red, sporty, and for my needs undoubtedly overpowered, vehicle. Read the rest »

I want one of these running free (as speech) software; imagine the possibilities, the size of the market, the captive audience, your splashscreen in so many public places.