Search Results: "ana"

9 July 2006

Evan Prodromou: 20 Messidor CCXIV

No honking today; I guess there just isn't a big German population in Montreal. But, y'know, fourth place is pretty damn good, Portugal! Nothing to sneeze at. Still ahead of Brazil, for what it's worth. Tomorrow's the big finale, of course. The Paramount Famous Players on Ste. Catherine downtown is going to have a live showing, free for the first 300 people. I dunno... I guess it could be fun, but it seems a little impersonal. I think I'll be watching from Niko's again. It's easy to walk to Little Italy, or Barouf, from there. tags:

Grillr I spent the day putting together household furniture. We stopped by Canadian Tire on Tuesday to buy lawn furniture, and we got a shipment from Ikea on Wednesday. This afternoon cleared out a lot of cardboard boxes from our house. First up was Amita June's big girl bed, which she got as a present for her month birthday. Yeah, Amita turned the big one-oh yesterday (10 months!), and although we've been doing wp:co-sleeping, we want her to start learning to sleep in her own bed. (Most co-sleeping babies want to move out after about 1 year.) She got a toddler bed, which is actually pretty cute, and fits perfectly in her room. Building Ikea furniture isn't really all that fun. First, they optimize for shipping size and storage, not for ease of building (or stability), so you get some really shaky stuff. Second, the instructions have no words -- assumably to avoid translation costs -- so you have to interpret their graphical V lapuk into some kind of reasonable instructions. Fortunately, just about the time I finished building it, Maj and Amita came home from a walk. Amita had just fallen asleep, so we put her in to see how it fit. Looks pretty good to me! [image] After that, I watered my new lawn. The grass seeds I spread on Tuesday are coming up in teensity-tinesity leaves. Huzzah! Then I turned my attention to the wt:Muskoka chairs we got from Canadian Tire. These turned out to be a lot easier, and they were made from cedar wood, so they were pleasant to work with. Maj had invited over some friends for grilling, so she went to the store to buy food while I worked on the Muskokas. The baby hung out with me outside in her playpen. The chairs turned out great, and we had a nice grill. Brenda, Parise and Tony all came over. Brenda and Tony are librarians, and Brenda and Parise grew up together in wt:Moncton. The Muskokas were a hit; here are Brenda and Amita enjoying one. [image] tags:

Fireworks I can hear right now the dull thump thump tha-thump-thump of fireworks going off down at La Ronde, the amusement park in the middle of the St. Laurent River. They're the hosts of the International Fireworks Festival, which happens every summer. It's one of the great things about living in Montreal -- fireworks every Wednesday and Saturday from early June until the end of July. The festival is a competition -- national pyrotechnics teams each provide a half-hour long show on one of the nights, and then at some point after the festival they decide on a winner (I think... I've never actually checked who "won"). The fireworks are first-class, and it's just fun to have explosions over the city all the time. Tonight's team is wt:South Africa -- it's the first time there's been an African national team. Go SA! tags:

Best show ever One of the best music shows I ever went to was a "surprise" event by Camper Van Beethoven at the now-defunct Mint Platter record store on Telegraph Avenue in wt:Berkeley, California around 1990. Probably one of the next best music shows I ever went to was a surprise (for me) when Maj took me to see CVB at the Just pour Rire Theatre in Montreal in 2004, one week after we were married. (The band had recently reformed, and that night their equipment was stolen out of their tour bus in Mtl. Such a shame.) I'm just thinking about it because so many of the shows I love are on the etree section of the Internet Archive. Secret message to every taper I crabbed out because their big boom mike was blocking my view of the stage: sorry. You were right. Thanks. And what reminded me of that? The NPR Live Concert Series, aka All Songs Considered. Man, there's a lot of good music in there. tags:

One So, has anyone offered Kyle Macdonald of One Red Paperclip a marketing job yet? Guy knows his marketing. tags:

Bignose strikes again I'll be honest -- most of the time, I totally don't understand fellow piglogger Michael Bakunin's blog. Here's an excerpt from Gasoline: FD: small short position in one US refiner, and thinking about crack spreads. Does that mean something to some species of animal? I dunno. tags:

8 July 2006

Hanna Wallach: more mind mapping

Kathy Sierra on the importance of using mind maps (as opposed to a linear format) and drawings when taking notes and why this is hard to do using a (non-tablet) computer. (Thanks for the link, Daf!) I’ve said it before—we need a mind mapping program in GNOME. If people like Kathy are considering buying a tablet PC and running Windows just so they can use MindManager and include sketches in their mind maps, we’ve got to think about how we can make this experience possible under GNOME. (A side note: I’d love to be able to write equations on a tablet PC and have them automatically converted into LaTeX. That, as part of a mind mapping program with an “export to LaTeX” facility, would totally transform the way I work.)

Martin Michlmayr: LSM, FrOSCon, FLOSSWorld

Well, I've been conferencing again. I'm currently sitting in a train with Andreas Barth, returning from the Libre Software Meeting in Nancy, France. We attended the conference to take part in a workshop organized by EDOS, an EU-sponsored project which focuses on challenges the makers of Linux distributions are facing. Andreas, Enrico Zini and I gave overviews of various issues in Debian and the EDOS folks (which includes a number of people working on Mandriva) presented their work. Some of it seems pretty interesting and can potentially be integrated into Debian but time will tell. Andreas posted a summary to get a discussion going. Last week I attended FrOSCon near Bonn to present the keynote speech. I really liked the conference because it was a true community event, with lots of effort put in by the local organizers, and the event was pretty relaxing (at least for me, probably not for the organizers who did a great job hiding all the work that is required behind the scenes). Just before attending FrOSCon, I met up with a friend from high school and spent a few days in Amsterdam. A few weeks ago I attended FLOSSWorld in Brussels to talk about skill development in FLOSS communities. FLOSSWorld is a project to study free software communities all around the world as an extension of the work done a few years which focused on Europe. One of the nice things about FLOSSWorld was that my hotel was a few minutes on one side of the cathedral in Brussels and the conference venue a few minutes on the other side. So I finally managed to visit the cathedral, something I never managed to do in all the years I attended FOSDEM in Brussels.

Martin Michlmayr: Madrid: hasta luego

My stay in Madrid has come to an end and I'm currently sitting at Ralf Treinen's place in Paris. I had a pretty good time in Madrid. Basically, I just did the usual stuff (i.e., too much Debian, too little work for my research) but there are a number of nice guys in the group I was working in and we had lots of fun. Earlier this week, we went to Teo's place who has this massive swimming pool. He recently organized a BBQ, which was good as well, with lots of Sangria... A few weeks ago, Diego (at whose place I stayed), Alvaro and his cute girlfried Yaiza went bowling. It was really good fun and it turned out that Diego is a real master, scoring several strikes after each other! Now that summer is coming, a number of people are leaving for other places. Israel went to Canada for three months a few weeks ago, Gregorio left for the UK a few days ago and my stay is over too. Overall I had a pretty good time, even though I'm not particularly happen that I didn't manage to go to the beach once even though I was in Spain for three months... The last time I was here at Ralf's place in Paris was just before DebConf1 in Bordeaux in 2001, which feels like eons ago. Anyway, I'm heading out to take a look at Notre Dame.

Enrico Zini: Debtags smart search

I did more thinking and prototyping to the debtags smart search ideas. The result is an interactive search session with quite some smartness inside. It shows two groups of tags to choose from. The first group of tags has tags related to the keyword search. The second group has tags that, if choosen, operate a substantial trimming of the result set. We're not yet reading for uploading the new library stack to Debian. If you want to play from subversion repositories, see this mail. I can however show an example interactive session needs to be shared. Notice how I get to a high quality solution in just 2 iterations: 
$ tools/debtags smartsearch image editor
Tag selection:
1) hardware::camera (44/18710)
2) works-with::image:raster (335/18710)
3) hardware::storage:dvd (27/18710)
4) special::meta (86/18710)
5) devel::debian (55/18710)
6) works-with::archive:iso9660 (44/18710)
7) use::typesetting (61/18710)
8) special::not-yet-tagged (5745/18710)
9) devel::library (3727/18710)
10) role::sw:utility (2707/18710)
11) interface::x11 (2434/18710)
12) interface::commandline (2137/18710)
13) x11::application (2040/18710)
14) role::content:data (1573/18710)
18710 packages selected so far.
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): +2 -9 +11
Tag selection:
1) interface::x11 (wanted)
2) works-with::image:raster (wanted)
3) devel::library (unwanted)
4) hardware::camera (10/113)
5) special::meta (1/113)
6) use::typesetting (1/113)
7) works-with::video (8/113)
8) made-of::lang:c++ (2/113)
9) suite::gnome (9/113)
10) uitoolkit::athena (9/113)
11) uitoolkit::gtk (50/113)
12) role::sw:application (41/113)
13) use::viewing (39/113)
14) role::sw:utility (33/113)
15) use::editing (30/113)
16) uitoolkit::qt (23/113)
17) suite::kde (18/113)
113 packages selected so far.
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): +15
Tag selection:
1) interface::x11 (wanted)
2) use::editing (wanted)
3) works-with::image:raster (wanted)
4) devel::library (unwanted)
5) hardware::camera (1/30)
6) special::meta (1/30)
7) works-with::video (3/30)
8) made-of::lang:c++ (1/30)
9) suite::gnome (2/30)
10) uitoolkit::athena (4/30)
11) x11::application (24/30)
12) role::sw:application (15/30)
13) uitoolkit::gtk (11/30)
14) uitoolkit::qt (7/30)
15) suite::gimp (6/30)
16) suite::kde (6/30)
17) x11::application (24/30)
18) role::content:data (5/30)
30 packages selected so far.
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): d
gimp - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
babygimp - An icon editor in Perl-Tk
cinepaint - motion picture image painting and retouching tool
cinepaint-data - data files for CinePaint
digikamimageplugins - image editor plugins for digikam and showfoto
kiconedit - an icon editor for KDE
kchart - a chart drawing program for the KDE Office Suite
gimp-data-extras - An extra set of brushes, palettes, and gradients for The GIMP
scribus - Open Source Desktop Publishing
xpaint - simple paint program for X
puredata - realtime computer music and graphics system
gimp-data - Data files for The GIMP
gimp-python - Python support and plugins for The GIMP
gimp-gap - The GIMP Animation Package
gimp-texturize - generates large textures from a small sample
gnome-iconedit - A small tool to create icons for the gnome-desktop
gpaint - GNU Paint - a small, easy to use paint program for GNOME
gsumi - pressure sensitive "ink" drawing
gtkmorph - Digital image warp and morph (gtk)
gtkmorph-example - digital image warp and morph, examples
xmorph - digital image warp and morph (x11)
imaptool - A tool for creating client-side image maps
junior-art - Debian Jr. Art
kcoloredit - a color palette editor and color picker for KDE
kolourpaint - a simple paint program for KDE
kimagemapeditor - HTML image map editor for KDE
pixmap - A pixmap editor
saods9 - image display tool for astronomy
sppc - Simple Panel Plot Composer
tkpaint - Versatile bitmap/pixmap editing tool
This other section is worth seeing as well: it shows the relevant tags computed for various keyword searches (I cut out the part which is always the same): 
$ tools/debtags smartsearch kernel image
1) admin::boot (132/18710)
2) use::driver (108/18710)
3) admin::kernel (252/18710)
4) protocol::dhcp (24/18710)
5) role::sw:source (79/18710)
6) admin::hardware (161/18710)
7) devel::debian (55/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): k audio editor
1) sound::midi (33/18710)
2) works-with::music-notation (25/18710)
3) works-with::audio:wav (51/18710)
4) works-with::video:oggtheora (5/18710)
5) field::arts (21/18710)
6) sound::mixer (65/18710)
7) sound::recorder (10/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): k package manager
1) x11::window-manager (79/18710)
2) suite::xfce (34/18710)
3) x11::display-manager (10/18710)
4) x11::theme (82/18710)
5) works-with::software:package (110/18710)
6) suite::kde (503/18710)
7) made-of::data:icons (43/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): k debian package
1) suite::debian (282/18710)
2) devel::packaging (75/18710)
3) devel::debian (55/18710)
4) works-with::software:package (110/18710)
5) use::dialing (47/18710)
6) admin::user-management (114/18710)
7) hardware::modem (87/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): k linux kernel
1) admin::kernel (252/18710)
2) role::sw:source (79/18710)
3) use::driver (108/18710)
4) interface::svga (31/18710)
5) hardware::usb (32/18710)
6) admin::filesystem (151/18710)
7) hardware::camera (44/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): k gps
1) field::geography (57/18710)
2) hardware::emulation (98/18710)
3) works-with::image:vector (107/18710)
4) devel::ide (41/18710)
5) works-with::software:running (93/18710)
6) made-of::lang:ada (26/18710)
7) x11::application (2040/18710)
Your choice (+#, -#, =#, K word, View, Done, Quit, ?): q
This thing is getting smart. Can't wait for this to get seriously picked up by some GUI (think adept!).

Evan Prodromou: 19 Messidor CCXIV

Our male cat, Topaz, had to go to the vet today. He's a formerly feral cat, and while he was living in the wild somebody shot him in the face with a .22. The bullet's still lodged in his upper palate (the X-rays are pretty cool...), but his jaws and skull are all healed up. Badly. A lot of the tissue has grown back in wrong, and it irritates the other parts, and it hurts him a lot. It doesn't look bad from the outside, but the inside's kinda gross. Anyways, he had to go to the kitty doctor and get the bad tissue taken off, as well as a couple of teeth. They're gonna go back in in a couple of weeks; they just got out of his mouth previously six months ago. Poor fella. He's back home now, all dilated eyes and wobbly legs from the anasthesia, but hopefully he's gonna be feeling a little better now. tags:

7 July 2006

Martin F. Krafft: Returning the E60

I went back to the shop today to return the Nokia E60 I had previously sought out. There were just too many gripes with the phone, and even though I could have possibly worked around (some of) them, I was looking for a phone that works, not one that I could tweak to work. Among the most prominent problems were:
  • Lack of STUN support, which means that you cannot do VoIP behind a NAT router without configuring a port-forward (which is often not possible). Nokia is also unlikely to add STUN support because the phone's target audience is clearly large businesses equipping their employees with phones that will work with VoIP locally, and "fall back" to GSM when on the road.
  • Broken WPA2 implementation. I could not get my phone to associate with my WPA2 router. Reasons may be the AES implementation, which seems broken (see below), or just a faulty WPA2 implementation. I can get other devices, including my Palm, to talk to the router over WPA2 just fine.
  • Broken AES (or VPN) implementation, meaning I could not get a VPN connection to either of a Cisco router, a Check Point VPN-1 gateway, a Linux host running FreeS/WAN, or OpenVPN when AES was used. I could connect to all but the OpenVPN client using 3DES.
  • No WLAN reconnects. If your WLAN connection drops while you're using it, you have to exit the programme (or reassociate with the VoIP gateway) to get it back up. This sucks when browsing the web!
  • Sucky battery lifetime. I was playing around with the device, using a fully-charged but two year old battery. After about 2.5 hours, it displayed the first low battery warning. Obviously, WLAN consumes a lot of power, but that's just too much and too fast.
Other than that, the phone seems to have the usual features you expect from an advanced phone that tries to also be a PIM. Believe it or not, I could make phone calls, but there was weird crackling noises to be heard; I am not sure whether the phone's at fault, I do have crazy power lines around my place. One thing that did drive me up the walls was the configuration. To set up VoIP, I had to first configure a WLAN connection (which you cannot do in the "Connection Manager" -- that one seems to be only used to kill connections and associate with unencrypted WLANs) in the system settings (which are to be found under Menu/Tools), then set up a SIP profile, then set up a VoIP connection, and then make sure it's active. If you change WLANs, you have to modify the VoIP connection, it cannot use an existing WLAN connection, or the current best default. I want a VoIP/GSM combo not because I want to spend two minutes to configure VoIP in a foreign network. Also, while we're on a topic related to WLAN: the device does not allow you to connect to a WLAN without starting an application that uses it. Sure, it's power-optimised, but still. Also, neither ESSID nor encryption status are shown anywhere when you're connected, and I did not find out a way to display the phone's IP address. Another beef was with the general device speed. There's a quick access button to write SMS. If you press that, it takes 5-6 seconds until you can type the SMS. I don't need to say more... The display of the E60 (and E70), however, do warrant their own paragraphs: it's gorgeous! Simply gorgeous. Unfortunately, that's not a selling factor for me. So I decided to wait for the next generation of WLAN/VoIP/GSM combos (or at least firmware updates to the E60), and especially the Motorola A910, which runs Linux. I am grateful to the shop manager for being so patient, making sure that I am satisfied rather than trying to make money, and generally just giving me a pleasant shopping experience the way it really should be these days -- given that there are shops out there that won't let you try electronic devices before you buy them. So, if you're ever in Zurich and in need of mobile communication devices or paraphernalia, visit the mobilezone shop in Oerlikon (Einkaufszentrum Neumarkt) and ask for Andreas Iseli! Apart from being next door to my flat, I'm definitely going to go back there next time I need something. PS: to all those who have been toying with the idea of buying (or otherwise drooling over) the E70, do note that the two run the same software, so most of these issues will apply to the E70 as well. However, it's always best to make up your own mind, so find a shop as professional and fair as mine and get your hands on it.

Jordi Mallach: B tera 2006

For most of the past winter I've been trying my best to get back into a somewhat regular schedule of training. I have failed miserably. At most, I've managed to go swimming at 7AM once or twice a week with my teammate Rafa, but I've been quite irregular. I also tried getting some running done, which revealed my condition is the worse in the last 7 years, probably. The first days I went running I felt I couldn't go faster than 4.5 mins/km without having my legs warn me about what I was doing. It was horrible. And when I started to get into the habit, I had to stop. I started getting some pain in both knees whenever I ran more than 45/50 minutes, and I associated it to my weird knee crack I get after a while of cycling. So, in March or so, I decided to stop, frightened of the pain being a serious injury or something. I wanted to visit a physiotherapist as soon as possible, but that only happened a few months later. I visited my teammate Jordi Reig in Alcoi, and after exploration, he deducted my knee problems probably come from the massive contractures in both quadriceps. I was meant to start running again, adding minutes to the sessions progressively until reaching the problematic 50 minutes of pain. I've been so busy though, that I haven't been able to do anything in the last months, so I can't say how bad my quadriceps are now. Two weeks ago, during the WarmUp Weekend in Vilanova, I got a bad kick on my calf during the semifinals game, and the day after even walking was painful. I had already signed up for the B tera triathlon, so I thought I may not be able to finish it. I signed up as I did with other competitions last year, with the goal of finishing and nothing more. This time, all my cycling training was a 40km stage I did back in December. B tera is a sprint with swimming done in a 50m pool, 27kms of cycling in an irregular circuit and a bit more of 5kms of running around the town. It is organised by our team mate Jordi Jord , and this year was the second edition. I already attended last year. On Sunday, I had to wake up at 6:10AM after going to bed at 3 or so, had some chaotic breakfast and drove up to B tera. This year I haven't got a triathlon licence, so I was in the teamless and veteran people leg. The judges made us wait in the water for nearly half an hour, apparently because one team was missing and was about to arrive. They could have warned and I wouldn't have frozen in there. The people in my lane tried to organise the start of the race, in order of what people said they swam. As the older people claimed they swam in 14m or so, and I had no idea of how much I would do, I offered to go last. Ok, that was a fuckup. It seems the 4 guys immediately before me weren't exactly van den Hoogenband or Phelps. After the first 100 metres I got tired of swimming at half speed and decidedd to overcome a few of them. I managed to get rid of two on the 350, but when I tried with the third, he didn't seem too cooperate too much, so when there were just 200 metres left I decided to not waste more energy on that. My swimming time wasn't spectacular, but at least I got out without being tired at all. Cycling made me remember my biggest problem when there's some climbing in the circuit. I climb very well, but everything you climb you'll have to descend eventually. So the three laps were the same: I passed many people on the way up, but on our way down they would go past me again like rockets, due to my minimal body weight. That sucks. At this point, I thought I would have abandoned the race due to my calf injury, but as I was feeling more or less ok, I decided to give it a try. The first lap of two wasn't so good, I felt my legs weren't used to the transitions, but after they warmed up a bit I started running faster. Until, 1.5kms away from the end, the quadriceps started warning me; I had to slow down again until I crossed the finish line.


I would look more like an athlete if I shaved... The rest of the team did pretty well on their leg, specially Rub n who came in third after having raced on Friday night. A few hours and many children races later, we received the team award for the Komando's second place.


Everyone loves the Komando. Go Komando! It always feels good to do races like B tera. I plan doing a few more races this summer: Val ncia, Pinedo, maybe Antella, maybe Cuenca...

Jordi Mallach: Jo no t'espere

Not at all! The Pope is visiting Val ncia next weekend. According to Rita Barber Noya, the mayor of the city during the last 16 years (I mildly remember her predecessor), All Valencians will welcome him warmly . Well, not exactly all. The Pope's visit was decided by the previous one a few years ago, and Ratzinger, shortly after being elected his successor, announced he would still visit Val ncia for the World Meeting of the Family. In principle, I would have no problems with him come visit the city, even if I have no sympathy at all towards his figure or the role of the Catholic church either in Spain or other places of the world. For example, I think the last two popes are direct responsables for the AIDS drama in many countries of the African continent. It is unacceptable and quite unethical that still today, after decades of fight against this deadly plage, the Vatican keep saying no to the usage of condoms. As I said, I would have no problems with his visit, if it was a normal visit. But no, this is the Val ncia, and the government likes to show that they can do things in a grand way. Not so long ago, Ratzinger visited Poland, and from what I've read, the authorities there didn't organise anything grotesque like what's going on here, in the sense that people living in the areas affected could more or less keep on with their lives, and the visit didn't cost much of their tax money. Val ncia won't work like this. Anyone who has visited us will probably know what I mean: the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ci ncies, Terra M tica, the America's Cup harbour... are examples of pharaonic projects, all funded with public money that are real black holes of budgets that never end up growing. The Pope will stay in Val ncia around 24 hours, and will give a series of sermons and speeches. For the ocassion, the Valencian local government has gone all the way to make his visit the most spectacular event of the decade. Although the government won't disclose it officially, the press talks about a cost of 30 or 40 million Euros, paid by all of us, including atheists, agnostics or muslims. Spain is not a catholic state, officially. Sadly, it is in practice. According to Vatican sources, 94% of Spaniards are catholic. The number goes down to 76.1% according to CIS, but the reality is that just a small fraction of these people are practising catholics. The Spanish church uses these figures to get funds from the state. I am included in that 76% just because I was baptised soon after I was born. There are people trying to apostatise, but it seems in most cases their efforts are futile, as the documentation sent to the eclesiastic authorities is either ignored or sent back with a hilarious excuse such as your baptism is a historic event and cannot be changed . Parts of Val ncia have been closed to transit for two months. This is because the authorities found that the optimal place to build his giant altar with a special microclimate was on top of the bridge of Mont Olivet, one of the arteries of south Val ncia if you want to leave the city. The neighbours of the area now popularly called "ground zero" have been subject to all kind of annoyances: the access to their houses is restricted, they've had to give lists of people living in each place, and they are now not allowed to use the upper terraces of their buildings (they are taken by snippers). The local police has designed a plan to restrict any kind of transit that affects basically half of the city, even my area which is like 6 kilometres away from the event. For months, our authorities have used this great opportunity to make religion and the greatness of our pope something normal and quotidian. I haven't seen such a big interference of my life by the church before, not even with the Aznar government, or when I was a small child and the dictatorship had just ended. They are also using the event to promote the achivements of the right-wing local government (via speeches and the propaganda that is distributed in the backpacks given to volunteers) and to bash the socialist central government (which recently approved gay marriage, a new education law that weakens the weight of religion study in public schools, etc.). I could go on and on, but this rant would get even more boring. I, like many others, think that all of this is not acceptable. As we tend to not shut up when things like these happen, a civic movement appeared two months ago, with a main goal of letting people know that we are not waiting for him, contrary to what the mayor says. The Jo no t'espere campaign has managed to make opposition to this pompous week by placing banners on balconies. Of course, I have my own, and I've also distributed a few more among my friends, one of them being placed a mere 70 metres away from the pope's altar.


No, jo tampoc t'espere Of course, the amount of Vatican flags outnumbers us greatly, in a ratio of at least 1:100, but anyway. There are so many Vatican flags that this looks more like St. Peter's Square. Others have taken the opportunity to exhibit Spanish flags all over the place, something that probably had not happened in Val ncia since the most obscure years of Franquism. Oh well, this is Val ncia. One piece of good news: due the chaos starting in just two hours, we're allowed to leave offices early today, so we can actually get back home. As soon as I get home and have lunch, I'll flee away to the mountains, like a maqui until the madness is over. The 1.5 million pilgrims can have my holy city. Have a nice time, Ratzinger!

Clint Adams:

False.

6 July 2006

Steve Kemp: Tonight is going to be scandalous

A busy few days with a new release of mod_ifier, and a new toy: 20gb hard-drive based MP3 player for keeping me company on the train to work. I’m going to spend tonight figuring out how to get access to POST data sent to Apache, by looking at the source of mod_tcl - It seems to be annoyingly complicated, but I’m sure there are reasons.. Nothing else much happening at the moment. I spent a few hours writing scripts to setup a virtual hosting environment for Apache2 + Exim4 + Bind, so I can add/list/remove domains from my server with ease. Nothing terribly complex, but nice to use. Probably they will never be useful to other people since they work with my perculiar setup: If I had the patience I’d make a pretty front-end, but I have no intention of getting in any kind of conflict-of-interest situation with work, and also I know for any “hosting control panel” the polish is almost more important than the facilities - too many people are very very new to server management and I’m not really good at dealing with that kind of audience. If there is any interest I could share the CVS repository, but it is mostly simple stuff.

Martin F. Krafft: Ubuntu and Debian

Ubuntu caused a lot of friction with and for Debian. In discussions with its founder, Mark Shuttleworth, and other Ubuntu developers during (and before) Debconf6, I was able to spell out the main criticisms from the Debian perspectives of the way Canonical/Ubuntu is handling things (without a claim to completeness). These criticisms mainly stem from discussions with fellow developers over the past 18 months, and I largely support all of them. I am publicising them here to help make the status quo more transparent. Before I go on, I want you to know that my neutral and somewhat even supportive stance towards Ubuntu has led many Debian folks to conclude that I must be a Canonical employee; I never was nor will be. Let's go:

  • A major point of friction I've gathered from many (Debian) sides stems from the fact that many developers are largely unsatisfied with how Canonical/Ubuntu cooperates and "gives back" to the Debian community: essentially, at the moment all we get are monolithic patches describing the differences between Debian packages and their Ubuntu counterparts. Even though Mark has claimed that the patches should be modular if the underlying package uses a modular package management system (such as dpatch), this does not seem to be the case at first glance (c.f. e.g. squid). You have to look inside the monolithic patch to note that its changes are compartementalised into dpatch files. Yet, Canonical/Ubuntu continuously claims to be "good" and to "give back" to the Debian community, but that's just not happening in that way. Canonical/Ubuntu either has to start giving back according to their own claims, or stop pretending that it does, and it's good that I have heard this voiced by one of the Canonical employees as well.

  • The perception that Canonical/Ubuntu is taking advantage of Debian seems to prevail. Taking advantage in this definition entails using but not giving back, as well as dragging integrative work out of Debian, something Joey Hess described as the supermarket thing, which has the potential to ruin the Debian project. Whether this is true or false, intentional or unintentional, it is important to recognize that these sentiments do exist among a number of members of the Debian community. There's a related point, namely jealousy about Ubuntu's success, and the fear that it steals Debian's users. In response, it is often said that while Ubuntu depends on Debian, the reverse is not the case: Debian does not need Ubuntu. This is false and true at the same time. Debian surely need derivatives like Ubuntu, for derivatives bring users, and users bring improvements and weight. However, Debian does not need any one derivative more than any other, and in fact it has been considered harmful if any derivative stands out.

  • Many of those with whom I've spoken perceive that Canonical/Ubuntu do not acknowledge Debian enough, nor give credit where credit is due. And this lack of credit and acknowledgement further amplifies the fear. Two examples seem to stand out:

    • The "universe" community that gathered around Ubuntu's core surprisingly often does not know about Debian, or do not know how Ubuntu and Debian relate. I do not have any data on this, unfortunately (see below). This is something to take up with the Ubuntu Community Council.

    • On the ubuntu.com front page, Debian is not mentioned at all; if you actually follow the About Ubuntu link, you can find Debian mentioned once in the first paragraph (albeit without a link), and if you did notice the right hand menu expanding, you may even decide to click on Ubuntu and Debian, where the relationship is finally illustrated from the Ubuntu point of view. To many, this is just not enough. Update (+6h): the About Ubuntu page now links to the Debian homepage. Thanks!

  • Canonical people, and Mark especially, draw an important line between Ubuntu (which is mostly free/open-source), and Canonical with its other products (Launchpad, Rosetta; which are non-free). However, from the outside, this line does not exist, or at least it appears as if there's a much stronger relationship between the Canonical and the Ubuntu project. This impression casts a corporate shadow over Ubuntu which deters many developers, even if it's undeniable that Ubuntu is a project of its own (to a large degree).

  • There's no question about Mark being on an agenda, for which he has assembled an impressively powerful team (which indirectly includes many Debian developers) at an (even more impressively) cheap cost. It's not my business to speculate about other people's finances, but those that do conclude that Mark is very likely not running too much of a risk with what he does at the moment and could basically pull out at any point in time. To some, who have dedicated large parts of their lives to Debian, this seems like an unwelcome way to play a game.

  • When Canonical entered the market and hired some developers to work on a Debian-related project, a lot of jealousy boiled up among those who didn't get a job, because back then it seemed that Canonical was out to pay people to work on Debian -- which is a common dream among us developers; at least people hoped that's what it would be. Many fundamental contributors felt left out and confronted with the question why they should continue their work for free when others are now getting paid for it. The twist is that nobody wanted to ask themselves that question, because money was never the reason why they started to work on Debian. The situation has leveled by now (I think). More and more people realise that Canonical is taking Ubuntu into a direction where many Debian developers do not want to go. Nevertheless, it seems that some of the frictions we are currently facing between Debian and Ubuntu still have their roots in the bad feelings from those times (which may well still exist in the individual case). Canonical/Ubuntu (and some Debian developers) need to realise (and get over) this, and somehow I think they've got a long way to go.

On Friday night of the Debconf6 conference, Mark assembled a bunch of people discuss the inter-project relationship. The (large) number of people who eventually joined, as well as the choice of venue (with live music) made the discussion somewhat awkward, but we did manage to get some good talking done, and I raised all of the above points. See the minutes of the meeting if interested. With their latest release out the door and a little more time on their hands (at least for a while), I hope that Canonical will follow up on the resolutions of the evening, as they have promised. The same goes for Debian, of course. There's very little Ubuntu can do about the jealousy other than acknowledge it, but it would be an important start. In addition, I hope to see all of the following take place rather sooner than later:
  • quality improvements to the patches they "give back" to Debian, and the adoption of a more appropriate medium of exchange. Instead of patches, active reaching out to the Debian developers by the Ubuntu developers would be even better in certain cases. The claim by Mark and one of his employees that this is simply impossible because of the commonly misconceived size of the paid body of developers (which is just too small) is really their challenge, and if they cannot meet it, maybe they have to go around it. It should be noted that efforts along these lines exist, so Canonical does not have to start from scratch. Note to Debian developers: if you're so inclined, please add your name to the bottom of that page.
  • a clear statement about how Canonical/Ubuntu plans to coexist or cooperate with Debian, and then the execution of those plans without leaving any doubt.
  • a survey of the Ubuntu community to gather (and publish) information about common perceptions of Debians position and role with respect to Ubuntu and vice versa. Again, this is something for the Ubuntu Community Council.
  • steps to ensure better familiarity with the Debian-Ubuntu situation among the Ubuntu community members.
  • a dedicated space for Debian people to go and be heard. Maybe the #debian-ubuntu channel on irc.debian.org will suffice, if some of the Canonical/Ubuntu higher-ups make an effort to keep an eye on it.
  • further steps by Canonical towards improving the relationship between the two projects, which could include regular meetings (or even irregular ones), uniting prominent representatives from both sides.
If I may add a thought that has come up lately (it's not only mine): a derivative like Ubuntu, namely one pushing Debian to the desktop, is an important asset for Debian. However, the only way this is going to work from the Debian perspective is as a mutual effort. If Canonical/Ubuntu do not realise this, maybe another derivative has to step in to fill the void? I hope this blog entry accomplishes what it tries, namely to shed some (more) light onto the relationship between Debian and Ubuntu, and to help the Canonical/Ubuntu side better understand the Debian perspective. Sorry for the length, I've worked on this entry ever since Debconf6 and despite a lot of editing (also by others; thank you!), it just wouldn't get shorter. Thanks for reading it all (assuming that's what you did if you arrived here). Update: this post has spread significantly, it seems. Thanks to all who've passed it on. I know of the following threads that ensued: If you find any others, please let me know.

Simon Richter: Praise

My DSL arrived today. A little earlier than expected (7:40 rather than 8:00 to 12:00), but it works absolutely flawlessly (as I expected). About ten minutes later, I had VoIP working too. I can still only recommend QSC, they manage to get things working, have a customer support line where they pay when the call takes longer and where the first person you speak to has access to all the data and metadata (so they can tell you why you had to wait five minutes to get VoIP, which is extraordinarily long, it seems). The email I was promised was there ten seconds after I had hung up. I guess the reason it works for them is that their focus is on businesses and technically minded people, as their list of services lists ping times (15ms, which is far from the truth; it's more like 8ms). I doubt they could maintain that level of service if they had to tell everyone how to turn on their computer.

Erich Schubert: When soccer gets disappointing...

... is when the result seems to depend a lot on the referee. In the germany vs. italy game, an intentional handball close to their own goal by italy didn't gain the germans a penalty shot (which could have given them the lead). And in the france vs. portugal game, the french goal was a debatable penalty kick. It's also disappointing when one team makes a goal in the 119th minute, when the teams were of equal strength. Thats when you feel a penalty shootout would have been more appropriate. But thats life, and it just reminds me why I don't really like watching sports. And this probably means that both the final and the "small final" will be interesting to watch. Just don't pay attention to the final results. Still I think that soccer is more fun than e.g. basketball. In the basketball games of "march madness" I watched last year, most games were actually decided in the last 2 minutes of game time (which took them more like 20 minutes), which usually was one team trying to make a quick foul, so the other team gets two free throws, then trying to make a quick 3 point throw. And fouling again when the other team has the ball. Repeat until time is actually up, or you have the lead. Or your players don't manage to get the 3 point throws right, but the other team is too successful with their free throws. It's much like the actual game before that didn't really matter. I guess basketball could benefit from an extra time handling like in soccer. What I hate most about sports is that people who have just been watching the game on TV celebrate as if they had won themselves. There is no skill in cheering a team on TV... So please, don't sing "we are the champions", but more accurately "they are the champions". On the other hand, the "worldcup party" here in germany has been outstanding. It's like the whole country is celebrating with its visitors. We've raised the bar too high for south africa in 2010, I guess.

5 July 2006

Martin F. Krafft: The Nokia E-series cell phones (E60 and E70 specifically)

I am on the look for a new cell phone, and now that the Nokia E60 and E70 are out, I went to the shop to had a close look at them, and one thing I can say up front is that they're both quite okay for people who like Series 60 (v3) phones and all the colourful navigation stuff you (have to) do with them. I personally don't really care as long as I can quickly learn to find my way, and as long as the physical aspects of navigation are okay and responsive (which rules out Sony Ericsson for me). With that I can start at one difference between the two E series phones: the navigation nipple on the E60 seems a lot easier to use than on the E70. That said, the two phones are otherwise very similar under the hood (see this link for details, in the following are only the points I consider important):
  • both are triple-band with WCDMA support.
  • both come with bluetooth, infrared, GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, and WLAN (incl. WPA/WPA2 and EAP support).
  • both have a VoIP client, though the store manager didn't know for sure whether I could connect to a SER (SIP express router) on the 'Net over a WLAN connection. They say that you can connect to a local gatekeeper [0], so I'd assume it's possible, but that's something to try out; read on...
  • both can assign ring tones per contact. Nokia heard my cries...
  • both can reuse my 6230's battery and charger. This is really a major selling point of Nokia -- all of their phones have the same charger, and batteries are compatible across many!
  • both run Series 60 v3, Symbian OS 9.1, which is somewhat outdates (9.2) is current, but it does give you "improvements in the OS [which] mean that applications and content, and therefore a developers investment, are better protected than ever." (Wikipedia). Boy am I glad!
  • both can run ScummVM, meaning I can play all of the best games ever released! If this is not a selling point for a business phone, what is?
Obvious differences include:
  • the E60 has no camera, while the E70 comes with a 2 megapixel one. I am actually not sure whether this is a plus or a minus, given that it is nice to have a camera handy when your life isn't all cubicles and security-conscious companies.
  • the E70 sports a keyboard that you can fold out (as does the 6822). Unfortunately, here in Switzerland, all they offer is a QWERTZ version, which I'll avoid if at all possible. I don't think I'll be using the phone for "working" (as in word processing or spreadsheet editing; who does?), and I avoid SMS when I can, so even though the keyboard is certainly cool qand usable, I won't draw too much benefit.
  • the E70 seems to have better battery life (according to the specs), but that's something that can be addressed with a more powerful battery, I'd say (plus, I can use my 6230 battery with both).
  • the E60 is 3 cm smaller and weighs 10 grammes less than the E70. That said, it's still a lot bigger than the 6230 I now have.
You can compare the specs of the two phones as well as the 6822 (which is like the E70 in some ways, but without WLAN and VoIP) at this link. Oh, and then there's the Motorola A910, which runs Linux, comes in a little heavier and at about the same volume as the E60, doesn't include infrared support, and doesn't seem to provide a VoIP client, which I'd say is less of a problem given the Linux basis. Unfortunately, it does not seem to available in Switzerland. Together with a contract extension, I can get either of the E series phones at about half the street price. In addition, the shop manager told me he'd allow me to return the phone within three days if it didn't meet my expectations. All of this, and the above combined makes me want to sleep for another night, and then try out the E60 over the weekend. I have to make a decision whether to prolong my contract by 24 months, or only 12 months and pay CHF 100 more for the phone. That comes down to around 5 /month, which is around 10% of my monthly bill. Given that I was always happy with Sunrise as provider, it would seem natural to bind myself for 24 months. However, prices are expected to drop substantially over the next year, and I am not sure whether a provider could lock you in to an existing contract, even if the government ordered a price decrease. So in the light of the expected availability of more and enhanced WLAN phones, such as the Motorola A910, I think a 12 month contract will be the better choice.
[0]"gatekeeper" is an H.323 term and I brought it up in the conversation because I am new to SIP and, well... He said it would be able to connect to a company-internal "thing, like a Cisco router," so this leads me to assume it will be able to connect to any SER out there. Thanks to Mark Brown for bringing this to my attention.

4 July 2006

Clint Adams: Exploding moon pie

December came by, and the girl proceeded to remind everyone that her birthday was in a week. My birthday is in a week! she said. I like flowers and candy. I just love roses and chocolate, she said, and my birthday is next Tuesday. After making the rounds, the girl went to visit the boy. My birthday is in a week! she declared. Yes. Next Tuesday, he replied. I like flowers and candy. Do you like my shoes? she said. He looked down. You know I hate high heels, he sighed. She pouted and stormed off. He threw away the birthday card he had been making. He's so mean to me, she told everyone. I hate him! she announced. I hate him because he's so mean to me! Everyone mumbled supportive nothings, and soon she was pacified by a couple of passing rhinestones and a length of ratty yarn. Before long it was her birthday. The girl woke up to a plethora of Hallmark cards, flowers, and candies. She brushed her hair and went to see the boy. It is my birthday! she announced. I know, he said. I didn't see a present from you, she stated, puzzled. That's because your present is here, he retorted, grinning. She beamed while he went to fetch her gift. What the? she squeaked, her brow furrowed. I got you a new coat, he explained. It has reinforced thumb holes so you won't have to cut your own and repair them, and it has extra pockets for your herb bags. Do you like my shoes? He looked down. You know I hate high heels, he sighed. But they're shiny! Well, I like you. Then why didn't you get me flowers and candy she shrieked and stormed off. December came 'round again, and the girl proceeded to remind everyone that her birthday was in a week. My birthday is in a week! she said. I like flowers and candy. I just love roses and chocolate, she said, and my birthday is next Wednesday. After making the rounds, the girl went to visit the boy. My birthday is in a week! she declared. Is it? On Wednesday the boy bought her a box of chocolates and a dozen roses. Flowers and chocolate! she exclaimed, delighted. How thoughtful!

Evan Prodromou: 16 Messidor CCXIV

We hit Movies 4 Mommies again this morning, although some horrible construction project on Av Papineau around Jean Talon made us about 20 minutes late. They say that there are two seasons in Quebec: winter, and construction. I think they say that about a lot of places, though. Today's movie was The Devil Wears Prada, which reads much better in French on the posters at the theater: Le Diable s'habille en Prada. It's the story of a girl who wants to be a journalist and takes a job as the assistant to a powerful fashion publisher. It stars Anne Hathaway of The Princess Diaries as the earnest young striver and Meryl Streep as the Andy Warhol-like cruel and judgemental boss-lady. The girl learns about love, life, and being true to yourself. In other words, it was sappy dreck. But it was watchable dreck, unlike the horrible Click we saw last week. I didn't feel stupid for sitting through this movie, which is pretty low praise but for the Mommy Matinee there's only so much you can do. The only bummer is that Streep's character spoke in a ferocious, disdainful whisper, which was hard to hear over the crying babies. tags:

Lawn After the movie we stopped by the Canada Tire in March Central for some garden supplies. I'd promised Maj for a Mother's Day gift that I'd convert the 10'x10' square of weeds and trash outside the front door of our apartment into a nice lawn for sitting on and drinking white wine, but it was raining on Mother's Day and one thing or another got in the way of me actually doing what I said I was going to do. Until now. I had weeded the lawn on Sunday, which was pretty damn hard -- the weeds were waist-high and full of barbs and fluff and procrastination and other defense mechanisms. But I managed to rip out almost everything with a leafspan greater than half a centimeter, which left most of the area bare of plants. We spread out some grass seed given to us by friends Tara and Chris, but I wanted to give it a little more care. So I got one of those pushy lawn mowers at Canada Tire, and a big rake, and some grass seed with fertilizer mixed in since I'm apparently too lazy to mix it together myself. I assembled the mower when we got home, then mowed what was left of the grass down to a low buzzcut. I raked the little square like the dickens to get out the old leaves and dead grass and rocks and sticks and cigarette butts and wrappers, which had the side benefit of turning over the soil, too. Then I threw big handfuls of grass-seed with fertilizer pellets all over the resulting mulched up soil. Some water, some cleanup, and voila: I have what looks like a patch of dirt with seeds in it. Hopefully this will become a lush lawn sometime in the near future, because we also bought some beautiful fold-up wt:Muskoka chairs to put on the front lawn. I think these are just about the same as wp:Adirondack chairs, but I'm sure some expert in patio furniture could explain the difference. They are, however, my favorite kind of chair, and I'm looking forward to sitting out there with some white wine in a few weeks once the lawn grows in. Like, I dunno... maybe Labo[u]r Day. tags:

Hey, Baby Speaking of national (international?) holidays, in the aristo calendar it's the 4th of July. Happy Independence Day, everyone. My favorite 4th of July media item is the great song "4th of July" by X from their album See How We Are. X has an X the Band myspace thingy, which seems to play 4th of July when you navigate to it today. Which, like, hooray for them. Go, X. Amita June and I danced around the house this morning singing the "America -- Fuck Yeah!" song from Team America: World Police. Sometimes I wonder how Amita June is going to feel about her "dual heritage" when she grows up. She's got a Canadian passport and an American one; I hope for her that she'll be better able to appreciate the world by having that dual perspective. I've heard that there are parts of the world where Americans living abroad get together on the 4th of July and have hot dogs and toss the ol' pigskin around and stuff. I don't know if there's an Americans get-together in Montreal, and I kind of don't care. It's not like we're stationed in Siberia here, and we need to congregate once a year to remember what "home" was like. Quebec isn't so far from the US that I feel homesick for American culture -- just homesick for the people. I think the US Embassy in wt:Ottawa has a big party, but the Montreal US Consulate doesn't seem to. Which is probably just as well -- it's at the top floor of a 30-story building, which would make barbecuing hard, and playing tag football on the roof would probably be dangerous ("Go long!"). tags:

.de vs. .it Of course, there aren't any Stars and Stripes flying in Montreal today -- all the houses we passed today were flying the Italian flag, for the World Cup semifinals. Montreal has a vibrant Little Italy, and the residents and other Italians in Quebec are going nuts for the Cup games. I can't imagine what's going to happen tonight if Italy wins. I saw one car driving around with a German flag on the roof today... I hope they guy makes it home in one piece, is all I can say. I like the name "Little Italy" -- it makes me think of a cross between wt:Palermo and wp:Munchkinland. Like, 1-meter-tall Italians drinking espresso and playing tarantellas and dancing and cheering with those tiny squeaky speeded-up Alvin-and-the-Chipmunk voices. Teensy-weensy Italy! Itty-bitty Italy! It's so cute! tags:

Grilling After reading the Meathenge slapdown for once-a-year barbecuers, I'm once again happy that I'm a vegetarian (more or less). I just can't compete in that league, and my little propane BBQ with veggie burgers, portabellos and an occasional trout is enough for me, thanks. tags:

Wikitravel 10K Party I just announced on wt:Wikitravel:4 July 2006 that Maj and I are going to throw a little Wikitravel 10K Party during Wikimania 2006. I'm going to be presenting about Wikitravel and travel guide wikis, so it's going to be an exciting event for us. On a side note, it looks like we'll be in wt:Odense for Wikisym. Lots of people we like there, and Maj has always wanted to be in wt:Saint Petersburg for her birthday, so this will probably be close enough. tags:

El Destino One of the great minds of the Internet goes incognito as El Destino on Pigdog Journal. He may be one of the best media commentators I've ever read, and I'm proud to say that I know him well. Or, well, used to. He's written two articles for Pigdog Journal lately after a 3-4 year hiatus (I think... something like that). His article on the Devo + Disney combination is really funny and good. I hope I hear his voice more often; sometimes I wonder what he thinks of the Web in 2006. tags:

Stephen Hawking and the Long View Dr. Stephen Hawking asked Yahoo! Answers, " How can the human race survive the next hundred years?". tags:

Gunnar Wolf: The morning after: Mexican elections aftermath

Yes, this is one of those postings I'd like to make in Spanish. However, a long time ago I decided my blog should be in English, as many of the people I write it for don't speak Spanish, so don't bug me with that ;-) Besides, I do think it is very important not to leave this information inside the country. International pressure has proven fundamental to stop some of our government's flaws.
So... What happened with our elections? Nothing yet. As many expected, and as we all hoped it would not happen, the results are too close to call a winner. Ugly and tiring trend, just as it happened in the USA six years ago, and more recently in Germany, in Per (twice in the same elections!)...
As it stands now, it seems the candidate I have been favoring and promoting for quite a long time will not make it. The first results from the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) show a ~1% advantage for the right-wing PAN candidate. That's a sad result for me and for those that think like me, yes... But what is even sadder is that there is evidence pointing out it might not be true after all. It is sad that we might end up winning. Or losing, for that matter. Why? Because it will show that we are not over the fraudulent electoral system that made my country famous for decades.
As a side comment: Blogs suck for interactivity. Either we read replies on the different planets that syndicate us (and come up with unfollowable threads) or we leave comments on people's blogs (and risk never being read, and never read an answer)... Damog [update No, it was not Damog, it was somebody else cowardly using his name :-/ ] left me a reply to my previous post that I think I should address: Regarding the FeCal website I launched with some friends a couple of weeks ago: A site meant to point out the lies on the campaign of the right wing candidate, Felipe Calder n. And, yes, the site is meant (now) to attack him. Dirty, yes. But definitively, it was the only way to answer, and it was the only way not to let his lies dig further into the collective mind of the people. And to a very good exent, we (not only FeCal, but the whole L pez Obrador camp) managed to turn the trend, pointing out Calder n's uncleanness and disrespect for the people and the law. And even if in th beginning we thought of making a site that would just make fun of the Feliz-pillo, we ended up writing or refering to articles we think are relevant. And after the elections are really over (the IFE will start doing the exhaustive official vote count only tomorrow, and it can take even until next Sunday), we will see how to transform this site (or at least this group of people, we will see what happens next) into an observatory, following the politicians' decisions and trying to avoid they are as obvious as they have always been.
Anyway, back on track: Hundreds of complaints have been reported already. A site that keeps track of many of them is El sendero del Peje al 2006 - There are many criticisms we can make to this site, and up to now I have avoided linking to it too much... But their work is very important today. There are many photos of the vote booths' sheets of results, compared with what is registered in the IFE's preliminary results program, and they show slight differences - Strangely, in the 1% margin. Strangely, small enough so most people will not complain. Strangely, just the exact amount needed to give the elections to the right-wing PAN party.
From the first minutes after the results were announced, L pez Obrador told the media that there are around 3 million missing votes. Today, the IFE president (and a polemic figure himself, obviously) Luis Carlos Ugalde admitted those 3 million votes exist, but their data shows irregularities. Lets see what happens. Lets hope the irregularities do not mean the results will be modified.
There are also reports about the data reported by the preliminary results being too perfect, following a linear trend that would be impossible to achieve in a real vote count. The results of both candidates have a constant distance, going up or down together, depending only on the third candidate (a distant third) going slightly up or down.
There are also reports of voting booths that were already captured and disappeared from the system, to reappear some time later - with very slight differences.
So... It is too early to call this a fraud. Yes, many of those things might happen because of real corrections, capture errors or such.
I want not to call fraud. I want to trust the authorities no matter what they decide.
They are just making it harder for me -and for a hundred million Mexicans- to do so. Lets see what comes in the next days.

Mike Hommey: Undeleting opened files on ext3

I’m a specialist when it comes to delete files I didn’t intend to. 3 years ago, I did an rm -rf that cost me most of my $ HOME , and I wrote some software (which i really should work on, BTW) which helped recover most of it (it’s tricky to get files back from ext3 once they are removed from the filesystem, since ext3 clears the block pointers from the inodes then). Today, I somehow managed to remove log files. Fortunately the log files were still in use by a process, so they were still in the filesystem. Unfortunately they were still in use by a process, filling and filling and filling… and in no way i wanted to lose all this data. Let’s consider, for the needs of the demonstration, the following case:
mh@namakemono:/mnt/test$ while true; do date; sleep 1; done > log That fills a 'log' file every second with the current date.
mh@namakemono:/mnt/test$ tail -2 log
2006 7 4 20:48:02 CEST
2006 7 4 20:48:03 CEST The file keeps growing and growing. Now, let’s remove it.
mh@namakemono:/mnt/test$ rm log The file is not in the directory any more, but remains in the filesystem. It is actually readable through /proc:
mh@namakemono:/mnt/test$ ls -l /proc/10724/fd
5
lrwx------ 1 mh users 64 2006-07-04 20:52 0 -> /dev/pts/1
l-wx------ 1 mh users 64 2006-07-04 20:52 1 -> /mnt/test/log (deleted)
lrwx------ 1 mh users 64 2006-07-04 20:52 10 -> /dev/pts/1
lrwx------ 1 mh users 64 2006-07-04 20:45 2 -> /dev/pts/1
lrwx------ 1 mh users 64 2006-07-04 20:52 255 -> /dev/pts/1
mh@namakemono:/mnt/test$ tail -2 /proc/10724/fd/1
2006 7 4 20:52:45 CEST
2006 7 4 20:52:46 CEST As you can see, it kept filling while deleted. The usual technique to recover such a file is to copy it from /proc. I happen to have done so some times before, it works pretty well for static files. But that doesn’t in our case: we’ll get a new copy of the file, frozen at some point in time. Here, we’d want to ‘re-link’ the file. Basically, that can be done with debugfs. The problem is that I didn’t find a clean way to get the inode number from the /proc/10724/fd/1 file. But that can be worked around. You need root access (what a surprise), and hope your filesystem was mostly clean before removing the file. namakemono:/mnt/test# e2fsck -n /dev/namakemono/tmp
e2fsck 1.39 (29-May-2006)
Warning! /dev/namakemono/tmp is mounted.
Warning: skipping journal recovery because doing a read-only filesystem check.
/dev/namakemono/tmp contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Deleted inode 113570 has zero dtime. Fix? no
(…) Don’t worry, the -n option will make the filesystem opened read-only, so there’s no risk for your data.
The interesting part of the output is obvious: the number of the deleted inode. You now only need to link the inode:
namakemono:/mnt/test# debugfs -w /dev/namakemono/tmp
debugfs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
debugfs: cd test
debugfs: ln <113570> log
debugfs: q And see how it worked:
namakemono:/mnt/test# tail -2 log
2006 7 4 20:58:40 CEST
2006 7 4 20:58:41 CEST You can tail again, it will show you the file is being appended to. I guess you can do something along these lines to restore a file from ext2. I don’t know for other filesystems. If someone knows how to get the inode number without e2fsck, comments are opened :) Update: Well, it didn’t take long for me to actually find a better way:
namakemono:/mnt/test$ lsof -p 10724 -a -d 1
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE NODE NAME
bash 10724 mh 1w REG 254,3 13552 113570 /mnt/test/toto (deleted)
Basically, when the file can be found in /proc/$pid/fd/$fd, run lsof -p $pid -a -d $fd.

Daniel Baumann: Debian New Maintainer

Today (one day before my birthday), I got accepted as a Debian Developer. I would like to thank the following persons (in order of appearance) which supported me in the one or other way within the NM process over the last two years. Sponsors Advocate Application Manager New Maintainers Front Desk Debian Account Managers For the sake of completeness: This is my old and my new QA packages overview, my NM status page, my NM application report, and my account name is 'daniel' (although my nickname is 'panthera').

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