J5’s Blog

Slashdot posts a story about how moving from the Red Hat build systems to the Fedora build systems means that through some sort of magic, OLPC is now subject to export restrictions. Here is a hint, OLPC is a US based non-profit and as far as I know, though I am not a lawyer, OLPC is subject to US law in any case. What that says about export restrictions I don’t know - ask a laywer not Slashdot. Add the fact that it is no secret that Red Hat is the creator of the Sugar interface and that the OS is a derivative of Fedora and all you’ve got is FUD. <sarcasm>Oh no Slashdot users don’t spread FUD they only combat it</sarcasm>. The “article” gets it wrong on so many accounts and I am easily reachable via IRC or e-mail (they link to a mailing list post with my e-mail in it) that you think someone might have fact checked. So to set the record straight here is a mini FAQ:

Why did OLPC move to Fedora?

OLPC didn’t move to Fedora. Sugar, the software layer, was already being built on top of the Fedora OS within Red Hat’s build systems. With the merge of Fedora Core and Fedora Extras we felt it prudent to move the Sugar packages to the Fedora infrastructure. This lessens the burden of maintainership as we were branching a lot of packages just so we could build against them. It also gave us access to a legion of Fedora packagers, developers and translators, which has so far payed off very well in terms of quality of the packages.

What does this mean to people in the community?

It means people in the community have more ways to participate. The Red Hat build servers are accessible only to Red Hat engineers, Fedora’s are open. Go here if you want to contribute to the base OS.

What else is gained?

By not reinventing the wheel we free ourselves from having to think about infrastructure such as signing packages or hosting builds which leaves us to think about the forward moving innovative bits.

For more information you can read my post announcing the move.

I snagged this from my brother’s facebook page.  For years I have been pleading with my parents to get another dog.  My dog had passed away after my sister and I moved out of the house and I can’t have one in the place I am living at.  My parents finally got one some months back.  Cookie, the world - the world, Cookie.

I’m not a vegetarian but looking back to the things I cook, I mostly stick with vegetables, legumes and pasta. It is mostly because it is easier, safer and less expensive but at times I just prefer it. One such dish which has become a staple in my arsenal of
quick and tasty foods is the portobello mushroom burger.

Unlike most other vegi-burgers this one does not pretend to be a burger in disguise that ends up tasting like burnt vegetables. This is a straight, unprocessed mushroom which happens to be put on a burger bun and topped with cheese. Portobello mushrooms are perfect for this because they can usually be found at your grocer’s in a size that is comparable to a standard burger.

What you need for the basics:

portobello mushroom caps
salt
pepper
extra virgin olive oil
honey wheat roll
a mild cheese (my favorite is Jarlsberg)

First clean the mushrooms by lightly wiping them with a damp cloth. Do not run them under water as mushrooms are sponges and will soak up any liquid. Now sprinkle the olive oil liberally over each side. Salt and pepper each side like you would a good steak. Depending on how strong a taste your wheat rolls have you may want to use more or less salt. Place the mushroom on a heated grill or pan and cook on each side until soft. Put it on a roll and layer some cheese on top.  That is it. You will be amazed at how much taste comes out of such a simple process.

Being that it is so easy I am also amazed that I have yet to find a restaurant that makes a good portobello mushroom burger. Usually the bread is so huge you cant taste the mushroom, there isn’t enough salt to bring out the taste or they get too fancy and put ingredients which are overpowering.

Other topping that go well:

sauteed onions
caramelized tomato
Worcestershire sauce
a marinated and grilled slice of eggplant

He like OMG makes me laugh

ONE is a campaign to make poverty history. I found out about it through a news story on the CNN. It is a nice complement to the work I do at OLPC as it focuses on some of the more basic needs outlined by the UN Millennium Goals. What I liked about this particular effort is it is bipartisan, having picked up members from all over the political spectrum. Their One Vote ‘08 initiative is geared towards putting political pressure on all the US candidates towards focusing policy into trying to solve the issues of world poverty. This is a much better strategy than backing one horse in the race and brings change through unity and not division. I’ve signed the declaration, joined the facebook group, and offered to help and am now seeing if there are any like minds who would like to do the same.

• Met Princess Sirindhorn of Thailand on Friday while helping out Walter Bender give an update presentation on the OLPC project. It was a great honor for me, being of Thai decent.
• Drove down to New York for one of my best friend’s graduation party. He just graduated from Art school and has a job with a company down in Atlanta, GA which does a lot of animation work for shows on the Cartoon Network.
• Saw my first grade teacher, Mrs. Donahue at the party and told her she was the best teacher I knew. It is true. Where other teacher got fed up with me she could focus me and make me feel like I could achieve great things. I went to summer school with Mrs. Donahue because the principal thought my handwriting was atrocious. It still is, but look at me now. We discussed the first grade teacher who replaced her. A mean old Nun who you could hear yelling at kids and slapping rulers from down the hall. I knew a person who had her as a teacher. That person’s life didn’t turn out so well. Not making any concrete correlations but I see what I see.
• Went to a one o’clock am showing of Knocked Up. It had some funny parts but the whole premise was just sad. Too heavy a subject to make a comedy out of. Most of the interactions between characters just seemed like they wouldn’t play out that way in the real world. Not that a movie has to be plausible to be good but this one just delved into some serious subject matter where it would seem to be important to keep some sort of connect with reality. In the end I just wasn’t able to relate to any of the characters.
• Drove back to MA at 4:00 am. It was pretty cool to see the sun rise over the horizon just as I crossed from CT to MA. It did blind me for a bit which was not cool, but I got home safe.

As of Fedora 7 Red Hat had relinquished control of Fedora to the community by merging extras and core into one distribution and giving the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) oversight over the whole project. FESCo is somewhat analogous to the GNOME Board. Today it was unanimously approved by FESCo for the OLPC operating system Sugar to become part of the fold.

This means we will be moving from the Red Hat build and CVS servers to the Fedora servers which are open to the community. It also means we will be working within Fedora towards making it more and more flexible for targeted projects such as OLPC.

In the coming weeks I will be rebasing Sugar on Fedora 7 and moving all of our packages over. More information about the OLPC/Fedora partnership is on the Fedora wiki.

I always keep pasta ready in the cupboards for times I don’t feel like running to the market for food.  Not only is it inexpensive, it is also quick to make and lasts forever.   Being of Italian decent I would be disowned if I ever considered using premade sauces.  The great thing about tomato sauce is that it can be easily made from ingredients which also have long shelf lives.  Adding a few fresh ingredients to the mix, whatever you can find in your fridge, allows for a different experience every time.

A good tomato sauce for me always starts with sauteed garlic and onions.  It doesn’t matter what onions you use.  Tonight I used shallots because that is what I had.  It is more of a French ingredient but I don’t think anyone was looking.

I also had some large portobello mushrooms which I use for grilling.  Simply slicing them up made them ready for the pan.  If you wanted to you could brown up some sausage or other meats at this point.  Even  some anchovies would really spice things up.  I kept things simple and just sauteed the vegetables in butter and added a little olive oil later.

This is the point you want to add your salt and pepper.  You can always add more later but the salt draws out the liquids, and hences the flavor from the veggies, leaving them like sponges to soak up all of the flavors that end up mingling with one another.

Once they are sauteed up, and the meat browned if you used any, it is time to deglaze the pan and get any of the flavors that have been sitting on the bottom.  If you are browning fatty meats you might want to drain some of the grease out of the pan before going to deglaze.  I usually use an acidic liquid to deglaze - lemon juice, tomato juice (from the can of tomatoes you are using not V-8), vinegar, or my favorite, a nice table wine.  You can also use water if you want.  I used some Fallegro Favorita, a white wine from the Piedmont area of Italy that I happen to have a case of.  Any white wine you like will do.  Just add a bit to taste, stir and let the alcohol boil away.

The next step is adding the tomatoes.  What tomatoes you use is all dependent on what you have around and what is in season.  Since I was making a quick sauce I decided to try the canned, diced tomatoes I had in the cupboard.  To spice things up a bit more I decided to use the one with jalapeno peppers in it.  Another way to spice up tomato sauce is adding some red pepper flakes but the jalapenos gave it a different dimension.  If you have time I suggest using canned plum tomatoes and dicing some fresh tomatoes to be added right before taking the sauce off the heat.  That gives it a bit more of a fresh taste and a better texture.  You can also add fresh herbs like basil or oregano at this point but I didn’t have any and I really don’t like the dried variety in my sauces.  The one thing I will do next time is cut the can of tomatoes and jalapeno with a can of regular tomatoes just to bring the heat down a bit.  It tasted awesome but was just a bit too hot.

At this point if you like what you got it is ready to serve but I personally like my sauces a bit thicker.  You can get the sauce somewhat thicker by simply keeping it on the heat for longer and reducing the liquid.  You can also do what I do and add a bit of tomato paste.  The more you add the thicker it gets but watch out because too much paste will ruin the texture.  It also changes the taste somewhat.

Taste you sauce when you are done and add some more salt and pepper if needed.  Put on top of pasta and you have a meal.  Next time just switch up some ingredients and you will have a whole new sauce.   It is really hard to get wrong and believe me will be a hundred times better than anything you can get in the pasta sauce isle of your local grocery store.