Mount Erebus

Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano on the Earth. It is located on Ross Island on Antarctica.

Image is very interesting to me because it looks like a landscape from some distant world.

Space colonization, geological events, part 1

If humans want to survive, as soon as possible they have to emigrate out of Earth. As time is passing, possibility for global catastrophe is increasing. Yes, we may prevent some of them, like wars are. However, our technology is not able to exert influence on natural events. Dangerous pandemics are still possible, more then 90% of asteroids and comets which may be dangerous for life on Earth may be discovered too late, volcano on Java 70.000 years ago destroyed 98% of human population.

This article is about geological reasons why to emigrate into the space.

This idyllic lake on the left side is known as Taupo. It is on the North Island of New Zealand. Climate on North Island is subtropical and I am sure that it is very nice to be near and to swim in the lake.

But, this lake was dangerous place in the past. Lake Taupo is caldera of former volcano. The most famous eruption of this volcano happened 26,500 years ago and last one was 181 AD. Taupo is supervolcano with Volcano Explosivity Index 7.

Geological events, like supervolcano eruptions are very dangerous for human specie. Eruption of supervolcano Toba, today Lake Toba (satellite image of Lake Toba is on the right side) which was happened around 70,000 years ago, according to Toba catastrophe theory, left human population on few tens of thousands. This event probably caused different skin colours of modern humans.

Our contemporary knowledge about events inside of the Earth is not so big. There are only statistics which say how much time would take from one to another eruption.

Volcano Krakatoa, which is responsible for existence of two islands instead of one (Java and Sumatra), has has Volcano Explosivity Index 6 and eruptions occur once per 100 years or more. The last eruption occurred at 1883.

Desktop from Kazakhstan

This image is on my desktop. This is Kaindy lake in south-east of Kazakhstan. The sticks are dead Picea schrenkiana trees.

Image was picture of the day on Wikimedia Commons at November 19, 2006.

Photo is made by Jsx and more of his his photos on his site http://satkauskas.com/ (i.e. http://satkauskas.blogspot.com/).

GM-NAA I/O (History of operating systems)

It is widely accepted that GM-NAA I/O was the first operating system. It is designed by Bob Patrick of General Motors and Owen Mock of North American Aviation in 1956.

Operating system was installed on IBM 704 (on the photo) and it's main function was batch processing.

GM-NAA I/O preceded SHARE Operating System.

(There is no relevant documentation about this operating system on the Internet and if you know something about it, please write the comment or write somewhere and give a link in the comment. Existing references only mention information from the first two paragraphs of this text.)

References

• Software history in the Library of the Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation.
• George Gray, Unisys History Newsletter. Volume 1, Number 3, March 1993 (revised 1999), Exec II.
• Timeline of Computer History on Compupter History Museum.
• Computer History Timeline by Robby Peterson.
• GM-NAA I/O on Spanish Wikipedia (translation in English via Google).
  

Sunset

What do you think: from which continent this photo is coming?

The future came to us. Images of distant worlds now exist not only in our imagination.

Learning GNU/Linux

Very often my friends ask me to tell them what is the best way to learn GNU/Linux system. So, I decided to write it. The first version is available in Serbian, but I'll try to maintain this maunal in English, too.

Before you start

• Learn English up to the lever that you are able to read technical language. This is not so complex level of knowledge. If you are able to read this text, then you know English good enough. However, this note is important for the people who are not native speakers of English. So, if you want to translate this manual in your own language, keep this information as the first one.
  
• Read Eric Raymond's document Unix and Internet Fundamentals (one HTML file, PDF).
• Continue with Eric's document How to Become a Hacker.
• Keep in mind that I am not telling you to accept Raymond's ethics ;) Also, keep in mind that he is a controversial. A good source for reading about him is the article on Wikipedia about him.
  
• The next document is also Eric's, How to Ask Smart Questions.

System

• When you come to this stage, find someone who knows how to install GNU/Linux operating system. The best way to find someone is to find your local Linux user group. Read LUG HOWTO for more information. Keep in mind that GNU/Linux distributions are free and some of them, like Ubuntu, are shipping their distribution to your home for free.
  
• You are ready now to read the first book: Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide (one HTML file, tar.gz, PDF).
• My intention is to introduce you into the system core. The next document is From Power up to Bash Prompt (PDF).
• Learn to write scripts. Learn bash:
• Read document Bash Guide for Beginners (one HTML file, tar.gz, PDF).
• If you want to continue with bash, read the document Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide (tar.gz, PDF).
• Learn how to make your own GNU/Linux distribution:
  
• Make your distro on floppy disc or on CD using the document Bootdisk How to (PDF).
• Note that this document is partially outdated and there are some better tools instead of suggested inside of the document (GRUB instead of LILO; Busybox is very good tool now etc.). However, this document will give to you the basic knowledge of making your own distribution.
  
• If you want to continue with making your own distribution, try to study the document Linux From Scratch (one HTML fajl, tar.gz, PDF).

Reference guides and other documentation
There are a lot of documentation for GNU/Linux systems. I suggest you some sites and documents as the first step toward further learning.

• Keep with you GNU/Linux Command-Line Tools Summary (one HTML file, tar.gz, PDF).

• The main site for GNU/Linux documentation is The Linux Documentation Project. This project has the next sections:
• HOWTO documents
• Guides
• Frequently askec questions
• man pages
• Linux Gazette
• Visit this site periodically.

Notes

1. This document will be develped in the future. You may contact me via email.

Belgrade from Google Earth

I made the first version of places in Belgrade using Google Earth. You may download the file.