Tag: celebrations

Happy Software Freedom Day!

Apparently, today is the Software Freedom Day.  If you are asking yourself the question: “What is Software Freedom Day?”, the official website has an answer for you.

Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere!

Being a great fan of, user, and contributor to Free and Open Source Software I think that this is an excellent idea.  I also understand the benefits of always having it on a weekend day, so that meetings could be organized easier.  But I have to say that I am not a big fan of using moving dates for holidays.  It makes it difficult to remember and prepare to.  Just have a look at how popular Sysadmin Day is and that one is celebrated for years now.

Either way, happy Software Freedom Day!  If you are a contributor to Free and Open Source Software, I thank you and hope you will get more appreciation for the work you do.  If you are just a user, I hope you will find a way to contribute soon, even if that is just buying a beer to a contributor next to you.  And if you are a poor soul who haven’t heard about Free and Open Source Software, please educate yourself – you are missing out. You can start with Wikipedia pages for Free Software and Open Source Software.  If you need any help, feel free to contact me or anyone else who is already a member of the cult.  One thing is for sure though.  It doesn’t matter if you believe in Free and Open Source Software or not, if you are reading this – you’ve definitely used and benefited from it.  No?  Yes you did.  You are on the Internet, aren’t you…

Happy Programmer Day!

Today is the 256th day of the year, which means it’s Programmer Day once again.  I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate all my colleagues around the world and wish them all quieter rooms, better tools, larger salaries, faster computers, and fewer bugs.  Let the source be with you! If you write code and 256 has a special meaning to you, I tip my hat to you and hope you’ll enjoy this little comic strip from Geek And Poke.

For those of you who are not programmers, but curious about a special meaning of 256, the explanation is really simple.  Bit a smallest unit of information, which can only take values of 0 or 1 in binary notation.  Bits are organized into bytes.  There are 8 bits in a byte.  Which means there are 2 to the power of 8 combinations of ones and zeros in a byte.  2 to the power of 8 is 256.  There are a few more meanings to the number, if you are still interested.

33 down, 66 to go

I’m 33 today.  Feels exactly the same as yesterday and a year ago.  But getting all those best wishes from people all around the world is, of course, super cool!  Thank you all so much.

And while we are on the subject of age, here is a screenshot of hilarious comment from this Linux Questions thread (kudos to Chris for the link):

Dear women, I love you. Not only today.

Today is the International Women’s Day.  While it is getting more recognition worldwide in recent years, being Russian, I am used to having it as a public holiday since the USSR days.  This is the day to once again tell women how beautiful, smart, and appreciated they are.

Dear ladies, have a nice day!  Thank you for your smiles, for your charm, for your beauty, and for your inspiration.  The world wouldn’t be worth living in without you.