GNU wget by default looks to use the GNUTLS library for SSL connections when it’s compiled. The error looks like this:
configure: error: --with-ssl was given, but GNUTLS is not available.
Naturally, that error comes up because GNUTLS is not on OS X 10.7. Happily, you can ask wget to use openssl instead.
./configure --with-ssl=openssl
make
sudo make install
The flag for configure will make all your GNUTLS problems go away.
Users who “live in” Emacs don’t get trapped paying for software upgrades just so they can continue to do their work or use their data. They don’t get told that their older computers are no longer supported (there’s a ten-year-old laptop in my living room right now that easily runs the latest version of Emacs). They don’t have to ponder the cost in time and treasure of switching operating systems. And they generally don’t have to worry about license agreements, proprietary file formats, or DRM. Emacs—and programs like it—may require a little more from their users, but in return they offer a remarkable escape hatch from proprietary lock-in and planned obsolescence. - Thoughts on Learning Emacs
I will usually prefer to stand outside in the rain if the alternative is a standing under a roof that comes with house rules. That’s why I carry an umbrella and check the weather before I leave my house.
Blogging was a direct attack on MSM hegemony at both the micro (fisking) and macro levels (explanation space). I just don’t see Twitter as the same threat. It is a flood of unmermorable chatter that is easy to ignore. Blogging had the potential to break the power of the MSM guild. Bloggers, at their best, presented arguments. Arguments can both change minds on the immediate subject and undermine the credibilty of those establishment pundits who present weak cases on a regular basis.
Twitter is an example of a relatively new medium. When information was expensive to transmit, it tended to be sent in large batches. For examples, books, newspapers, magazines, letters, etc.. When transmission became cheap with the internet, at first we made cheaper versions of what we already had with handcrafted web pages and their blog successors. I think it took a while for the internet to sink in (I think this still hasn’t happened, BTW) and Twitter was a natural outgrowth of the trend of cheap communication. If you can transmit as often as you like, why not just send out messages arbitrarily often? As tweets are more of a creature of the internet, and not a cheaper and faster version of a pre-internet form, I assume that Twitter doesn’t feel like competition to journalists. A blog can do what traditional periodicals can and blogs also have several advantages that periodicals are just now starting to catch-up with (mostly by launching blogs). Twitter is just different and can feel like a compliment to the “Old Media”.
All that said, if you’re as skeptical of traditional media as I am, then you can read the message of the blog post I link to above and remember that blogs are still the medium that can offer what the “Old Media” either can’t or won’t provide. Help save the world, read and write blogs!
Amelia Gray is an interesting writer. She lives in Austin, but is leaving town at the end of the month. Why?
“Austin is like the oasis in zombie movies.”
There’s more to it, of course. The overall unreality of life in Austin (and also the heat) over time wears on smarter people, it seems. I know it wears on me. I’ve seen a lot of very capable programmers leave town in the three years we’ve been here and I don’t expect the outward flow to stop. Austin is a small town and has a lot to offer, especially if you like to have mindless fun. Over time, though, ambition is a liability here and the ambitious seem to recognize that.