Spoken Gems

Stephen Fry is not too exited about his copyrights.

Domain names drive Stephen Fry crazy.

According to BBC, Stephen Fry has the second most popular Twitter account. On Thursday 12 March, he talked to Kenan Malik for Analysis: Clever.com.

Listen to an excerpt at BBC.

And in case, you want his Twitter account to be number one,…

The great Stephen Fry explains what free software means and celebrates the 25. birthday of GNU.

If he got you interested what free software is all about, here are some sites you might want to visit:

• He recommends the gNewSense operating system. The most widely used operating system based on Linux is probably Ubuntu/Kubuntu. It’s not completely licensed under the GPL but definitely one of the most advanced operating systems you can get.
• If replacing a whole operating system sounds too scary, you can start with installing some programs:
  • Firefox (alternative to Internet Explorer)
  • Thunderbird (alternative to Outlook)
  • OpenOffice (alternative to MS-Office)
  • GIMP (alternative to Photoshop)
  • VLC (alternative to Windows Media Player)
  • And if you didn’t find a replacement you’re looking for, visit the GNU site.

Those programs are all free of charge. And especially Firefox and VLC are far better than their Microsoft counterpart. Just give it a try.

BBC started a lecture series about the future of public service broadcasting some weeks ago. The first lecture was given by Sir David Attenborough. This one is given by Stephen Fry, comedian and broadcaster. If you don’t know him, he had a comedy show with Hugh Laurie (House M.D.), called "A Bit of Fry and Laurie". Even if you’re not a familiar with the BBC, it’s worth watching:

Stephen Fry: The BBC and the future of Public Service Broadcasting (Video, audio and transcript)

Speech given in London, Wednesday 7 May 2008