EasyLinuxGuide Blog

UFC 73 was touted as “Stacked” due to the collection of fighters it featured. Surely, there was no disagreement among the fans. The big challenge was whether it would live up to the hype. Previous PPV’s have delivered very well and asserted the often mentioned claim that UFC is the most entertaining sport on the biggest rise. And onto the fights…

Hermes Franca challenged for the lightweight title. Hermes had dropped to his knees, begging Dana White for a title shot in true GSP form and he ended up getting his chance. The fight went the full duration of 25 miunutes. Sherk dominated the fight, taking Franca to the ground at will and then controlling him like a rag doll from there. Franca was successful with kneeing Sherk in the head at the start of nearly every round but Sherk’s hard skull endured the strike each time and then the match continued with Sherk’s ground domination. Surely, lots of fans considered this a boring fight, but Sherk’s impressive ground skills for those who appreciated the tenacity demonstrated by the Muscleshark. Sherk took a unanimous decision victory. The only downfall is that he was only paid $28,000 for his efforts.

The Ortiz and Evans fight ended up a draw due to Ortiz grabbing the fence too much and being deducted a point. This may have worked in Tito’s favor because he seemed even happier at the idea of a rematch. Considering his $210,000 payout, the next fight promises to garner more attention and a bigger earning for him. Tito appears ready to retire and trying to build up enough money to comfortably do so. It likely would have been a worse scenario had Ortiz dominated or outright won. Ortiz did clearly dominate in the first round but seemed to weaken as Evans got stronger through the next two rounds. Ortiz did report a couple of injuries after the fight. While this may not go to 3 fights like the Ortiz / Shamrock rivalry, a rematch is already a done deal. If Ortiz is healthy and wants to prove something, he has the capacity to win.

In the Middleweight championship bout, it was Anderson Silva vs Nate Marquardt. Even though the UFC tried to tout up Nate as much as possible for the fight, he was easily disposed of by Silva’s precision strikes. The best news about this result is that it sets up a rematch between Rich Franklin and Anderson. These are two class act fighters that always keep things exciting so whichever PPV this is shown on, is well worth the price of admission.

Overall, “Stacked” wasn’t a failure by any stretch, however; it definitely did not live up to to its billing.

I’ve been noticing this tendency lately and it has some really mixed implications. What I am referring to as “Distro Ditching” appears to be more and more prevalent as time goes on.

I will define Distro Ditching as the abandonment of one’s choice of distro on a main machine or computer that is used regularly (not a test box) where the switching may be considered either chronic or due to seemingly minor reasons.

So, now that I’ve qualified the expression, let me give some more information. First, I would never criticize someone for trying out a new operating system as this has many possible benefits (of course depending on the user). These benefits include learning new processes and understanding a different system as well as being able to troubleshoot in a variety of operating systems. This can really help one get a better understanding of how computers work under the hood on both a software and hardware level.  Also, the exposure to many variances gives someone more of an opportunity to grasp a preference for a specific style of OS.

What are some examples of Distro Ditching? I specifically called it Distro Ditching because of the nature or conditions under which the change takes place. There have been circumstances for various Linux users where they have found through trying a different distro that one satisfies their needs more than another. I experienced this myself several years ago while trying out a plethora of distros. I can remember changing from SuSE to Gentoo to Red Hat and at the onset of Fedora, I switched to Arch. None of these choices were on a whim or without much thought even though I was a new user. Each suited my needs better each time I changed. The testament to that is my use of Arch Linux as my primary distro on several machines for around 3 years now.

It seemed to me, that it was normal to go through the ritual of learning this different OS and facing the unsuspected belittling on certain nasty IRC chats and forum members and if you survived such rite of passage, you came out on the other side only the wiser. There appeared to be a sense of branding in this experience that was worthwhile.

Lately, this rite of passage appears to be lost. I am not saying that people do not encounter struggles with learning a new OS, only that perhaps the overall reaction may be different. People are too fast to give up and throw in the towel. This may mean switching back to Windows or Mac or it could mean wiping off that hard drive only to try a different version of Linux that may or may not magically satisfy all computer needs.

Where does this all or nothing mentality come from? It could be a derivative of the distros getting more automated so users have come to expect the transition to require less adjustment. This could be taken as a compliment I suppose. Perhaps it is a perpetual motion machine sharing the option to say uncle early as normalcy. Of course the risk in this is cheating themselves of the learning experience. There was a time (and it is still my opinion) that any Linux user after a short period of time needs to learn to compile his own kernel as this is a fundamental aspect of the inherent value of using Linux.

Fast food distro society? Are people less patient in the Linux world overall lately? While strides have been taken to make processes (installations, adding packages, configurations etc) easier, it doesn’t mean that the value of learning what is underneath is gone. Typically, it is human nature to only put as much energy as is required into a task.

So what? The risk is that anyone who can’t be bothered to learn what’s under the hood will cheat themselves of the ability to troubleshoot their choice of OS. Linux will give you logical error messages most times that can point you in the right direction of providing a fix should it arise, unlike other OS’s that give useless error messages, blue colorized screens that are not usable or useful or just do nothing at all in return except not provide the requested result.

Old school? Yeah, I can admit I am a bit old school, although I began using Linux only about 4 or 5 years ago. I consider the learning experience, while frustrating at times, the most valuable experience in terms of computers that one could endure.

The journey or the destination? Those fast food OS types get to experience plenty of destinations due to the vast array of Linux flavors. The unfortunate part is because of the tendency to participate in Distro Ditching, the destination is often short-lived and under appreciated.

Showing on Saturday July 7, UFC 73 - Stacked, features the first time since Tito Ortiz is fighting a rising competitor in a long time. Ortiz may be facing a passing of the torch himself if he loses to Ultimate Fighter TV Show winner - Rashad Evans who is undefeated at 10-0. Evans has just looked better and better with each fight. This will be Evans’ first real test. There is a lot at stake for both fighters in this bout, but moreso for Ortiz who risks a blow to his ego if he loses. Ortiz was very vocal complaining that he wasn’t getting the proper billing for this UFC event despite being featured on several billboards and advertise to the point where the exposure undermined the main event.

Anderson Silva makes his second title defense, this time against Nate Marquardt. Surely Rich Franklin is hoping Silva wins so he can have a rematch for the title.  I would expect Franklin to win if a rematch took place.

Also on the card is Hermes Franca challenging for the Lightweight title owned by Sean “The Muscleshark” Sherk.  If Franca fights at his best, he should win the title. The last time Sherk fought, he looked gassed in the third round. It has been a long time since Sherk fought in a UFC event as well and this will be his first title defense since winning the belt in a fight against Kenny Florian who is back himself to take on Alvin Robinson. In another lightweight even Frank Edgar is going to battle Mark Bocek which should be interesting since both fighter are undefeated. Edgar is a very exciting fighter to watch.

Stephan Bonnar and Jorge Gurgel also make appearances on the card. This should definitely be a great show.

The Smashing Pumpkins last released a CD back in 2000, nearly 8 hours ago. Back is Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain who actually reunited in 2005.  This is rather ironic because Jimmy was the first one to leave the band when its members started going their own ways.

Zeitgeist which is German for “The Spirit of the Age”, definitely has the unmistakable Pumpkins sound of old. Not just with Billy Corgan’s vocals, but also similarities in guitar playing and arrangements  and of course Jimmy’s signature drumming.

The singe “Tarantula” received a lot of airplay and “Doomsday Clock” was featured on the Pumpkin’s myspace page.

After only a couple of listens, it’s hard to make a judgment, but it sounds more like candidates for “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness”. Check it out if you are a Pumpkins fan.