Thursday, April 24, 2014

the future is...............

Tomorrow is all about the future but if I think of yesterday I am in the future today, right?

OK, If you want to get a handle on up to date thought about what has happened to Black folk then check out the documentary film "Hidden Colors" by Tariq Nashed. Mind you these are points of view but it gives a good idea of the real inner workings of what has happened to us. Now when I say good idea, I mean it ties together some loose ends, lets the cat out the bag, tears the mask off and opens the door for your own research. You'll discover your mind is not lost after all.

I noticed that many of us ghetto scholars (the term of endearment given to us who are not university trained and have the audacity study for ourselves and come to our own opinions "AND" openly discuss them, by certain black scholars) do cling to what we discover as gospel. We should avoid ego slashing, we are not at war with our own. Instead, adopt a trading card frame of mine, I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours. Put it all on the table cause the names and times have been scrambled to confuse the innocent, us. Is the puzzle piece a sky or a reflection of the sky? You can't tell if you are coveting the piece alone. OK, the covetous, zealous love of information is a disease and a trap. If you can't apply it you must go on a diet. Pace yourself, new stuff discovered by other people is normal. Discernment is a good tool for seekers of knowledge and wisdom.  

As far as PC's are concerned I switched from Mint Linux to Ubuntu 14, why? Because I wanted to get back to original Ubuntu and figure out the Unity desktop. The Unity desktop is awkward if you wince but I found that after using Mint and tweaking it to my liking I had designed a version of Unity only slightly different. Thus I can live with Unity just fine. How did I lick the lack of MS Windows type menu? There is a Gnome menu app that puts a menu button on the system bar, drops down a text menu if I get impatient.

My Linux upgrade/switching secret is: Two disk partitions, one for the system (10-20 gigs) and one for /home directories. This way if you must reformat to fresh install, upgrade, switch, you only have to do it to the system partition. Don't forget to back up settings, email addresses, note network and wireless configs, web bookmarks, etc; because some Linuxes do not save them. Now plug the ethernet wire in so that while the Linux iso image you saved to DVD or flash drive is installing it can go to the net and get updates while installing. This cuts a lot of time. When done check drivers, adjust, tweak, add programs.

Why do I even bother to fuss with Linux? It's free and as easy to use as Macs or MS Windows. The hard part is like going to a discount food store where the same food has different brand names. They may taste a little better or a little worst than the popular brand names but that is all. Most of all, Open Source has done a lot to make programs that handle the popular file formats and operate with the same or similar tools and interfaces as popular brands (did I say free!). Free is good, free is not cheap or evil, or lacking but does require intelligent choice.

There you have it, from ghetto to chateau in the same hood, gotta go, bye. 


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