I’ve been keeping an online journal over at LiveJournal since 23rd February 2002. To support them I actually bought a “Permanent Account” a while back, an example of putting money behind companies and/or services which are useful - even when it isn’t required. After getting into the swing of things there I started the blog which is used upon Planet Debian and have also been enjoying that. Livejournal is a nice service, and they have great software powering the site. The Livejournal code is available and it is reasonably simple to install. (I’ve setup a few installations of the codebase, and played with them. I admit I’ve never run it in anger). Obviously it is completely overkill to run your own installation of Livejournal - unless, perhaps, you’re a school or a large company. So for my personal blog I use Wordpress. I don’t particularly enjoy using wordpress. To be honest I need only four features/abilities of weblog software:

• The ability to create posts.
• The ability for users to be able to leave comments upon entries.
• The ability to search previous entries.
• The ability to export the blog entries as a feed.

Everything else is utterly overkill. The downside of using Wordpress is threefold:

• Because it is popular there are multiple bots crawling the web and leaving spammy comments.
• Because it uses some funky addressing system any replacement would leave lots of broken links.
• It has historically had a couple of security issues.

I’ve been telling mysefl for the past few months:

• This software has got to go.
• I’ll wait until there is another security hole discovered.

So .. HTML::Template & CGI::Application will at some point come to the rescue. I’m just not sure when. I guess this means I’ve not yet written a bloggin system…. I want to only cover the basics:

• Multiple users.
• Multiple catagories/tags.
• Comments with a sane anti-spam system.

A last view over Manhattan Mako was developing a plan in secret, though, which involved micah and his car. Micah found out soon after. We went back to Clint's, expecting to find sladen somewhere, but we didn't. I packed my things, and when we really needed to go, we resolved to put his things in the entrance so he could find then and do whatever he wanted on his return. We went on the Metro to Union Square, where, hear this helix, I saw TONS of raperos doing their break-dance thing (ok, maybe not tons, but I did see them). And two blocks away, we arrived to the most incredible book store. Mako has blogged many times about buying very rare books at the Strand for ridiculous prices, but this was totally unexpected. The Strand is huge. On the outside, there's carts with hundreds of second-hand books, all for one dollar. Mako used to go there and browse the books to find interesting stuff. The Acetarium is full of them! Most of the dollar books are total crap though. A very high percent talk about god, religion, "our troops" and stuff like that. Mentally filtering what might be good and what is not is not easy when you haven't done it before. Mako started scanning the shelves as soon as we arrived, and every now and them he'd pick some totally stupid title. I was on my own shelf, missing many good stuff, while mika, Clint and mako did their own. Clint found quite a few titles, but mako didn't find anything good. I got lucky though, and found the precious book of the day: The Spanish Anarchists. The heroic years 1868-1936, by Murray Bookchin. Although old, it was in very good condition, and mako immediately asked if I was taking it. :) I won! The inside of the Strand was incredible too. Three very big floors packed with books, plus the half-priced "reviewer's copies" at the basement. I was totally overwhelmed by the amount of books I'd be interested in buying, and the limited weigh I should be carrying back, so I did my best not to look too carefully. For a few hours, I didn't have a too clear idea of what mako's plans were. At some point, micah phoned him and we rushed to the PATH, the train that goes to New Jersey. Apparently we were meeting micah at Newark, but I still didn't know why we had to go there. During our ride, I could see how pleasant New Jersey is to the human eye. Miles and miles of heavy industries. I'm pretty sure it's the ugliest place I've ever seen. What I couldn't see, and I'm still disappointed, is any of the viciously arrogant rats of the New York metro system. Mako had told me about how they look at you, like saying "if you come down here, you'll be left with 9 fingers", and the incredible number of them on the tracks. Unfortunately I couldn't see any. I blame Michael Bloomberg. At Newark, micah appeared in his car, and we all hopped into it. We apparently were going by car to Boston... including Clint. I was puzzled, as he had to work on Monday, but he'd said that he'd simply "come back". There was a problem though, mako had dilinger's keys, and he was going back to NYC from Boston, and we didn't have time to get to Boston before he left, so we had to find a way of leaving the keys in NYC so he could get into his appartment. Finally, mako resolved that Clint would be left in a cold street, in a rough area of NYC, and he would handle the keys problem. I still didn't understand what was going on. We headed North, and I quickly fell asleep on mika's nap. I'm getting old. When the car stopped again and I suddenly woke up, I looked ahead and... HORROR! We were at the door of a McDonads. WTF WAS GOING ON? So it seems that when you're on the road, there's no much other choice than shit food. After a quick discussion with mako about how badly those burgers taste, I quickly went back to sleep, until we were in Boston. It took a while to find a parking spot, because all of them "permit only". It's impossible to park if you come from somewhere else. I was finally at the Acetarium, a very cool flat in Cambridge, 15 minutes away from the MIT. It was 3:30 in the morning. The day after, we woke up pretty late, and as I opened my laptop and found a privmsg from sladen, he was was knocking at the door. This man has an incredible ability to disappear and reappear when he's most unexpected. Apparently he managed to grab his stuff in NYC, fetch the bus and arrive at 2 in Boston, meeting dilinger at the station, and mako as he went out to MIT. micah and I went to explore Boston, but never managed. We consumed a few hours when trying to ship some equipment to micah's colo, and then trying to find food. When we were ready to go, micah got a very badly timed call, which made him go back to the Acetarium: a server at work was dying or dead. At one point, it was late enough that going to Boston wasn't worth it, so we went to visit the Media Lab instead. On our way there, micah and I kept chatting about this and that, and found out how small the internet is. We both know a bunch of common people from uncommon places like Per , from our involvement in social projects in the net like Indymedia and Sindominio.net. The MIT is incredible, specially the Stata Center by Frank Gehry. We wandered around as we only got voice mail from mako, until an hour later we found we was like 20 metres away from us. He gave us a tour through the Media lab, and it was incredible. I had never seen something like that. Every lab was colourful and fun, and very cool developments were going on everywhere. I also saw the coolest mame box ever, with an arcade case and everything.

The Stata Center, right next to the Media Lab After the tour, micah and I headed back, while sladen stayed to have a look at one of mako's projects. When we got back to the flat, there were a few people already there for mika's sushi party, and I rolled my first sushi rolls, which was fun. A bunch of Debian people joined us, including zufus and gravity, and had a great chat with them. The party ended way too late and after too many beers. sladen used his secret disappearing abilities, and a few colleagues from mako crashed, so there was a bit of overbooking. Mako's solution was simple. mika, him and I could share their bed. I can't say I have slept too much, because mako would keep pulling the blanket and leave me out in the cold, and I was trying not to squish mika. But it went ok, although we discovered too late that mika was hot while I was cold, and we swapped our places too late. Today, we'll go find the Freedom Trail and walk a bit around it, meet gravity and zufus for lunch, and I will sadly have to go back to Cambridge, quickly pack and head to the airport to catch my plane. My hours in North America are expiring.

Nov  8 02:13:16 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov  8 02:13:16 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov  8 02:13:16 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov  9 01:08:33 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov  9 01:08:33 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov  9 01:08:33 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov  9 10:01:13 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 11 00:02:35 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 13 02:05:47 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 13 02:05:47 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 13 02:05:47 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 13 02:05:48 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 13 02:05:48 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 13 02:05:48 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 13 23:03:05 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 13 23:03:05 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 13 23:03:05 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 15 02:37:32 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 15 02:37:32 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 15 02:37:32 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: errno2result.c:109: unexpected error:
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: unable to convert errno to isc_result: 14: Bad address
Nov 15 02:37:34 daedalus named[6933]: dispatch 0x80f6970: odd socket result in udp_recv(): unexpected error

In these days of VPN, IPsec, dynamic routing, tunnels, IPv6, and autoconfiguration protocols, one would expect that it would be possible to configure a laptop to find all kinds of hosts automatically, both for those that are network-specific (proxy servers, NNTP-servers), and for those that are not (mail servers, version control systems, ...).

1. Run tests. A test will check whether a condition is true, and set a location based on the result. An example of a test could be

   testmii eth0 lan
   

   which checks whether the MII detects a cable (testmii) on eth0, and will set the lan location if that is true. Tests are the raison d' tre of detect.conf; the point is to run as many relevant tests as possible, to get as much information as possible about the location where you are; that way, you can configure the system later on from whereami.conf (see below). There's other things like testdhcp (check for the presence and/or the returned IP address of a DHCP server), testap (test for the presence of an Access Point), testmodule (check whether something loaded a given kernel module), or even testarp if you're desperate (to test whether a node with a given MAC address lives on the network).
2. Checking locations. For instance, you might want to run testdhcp on eth0 only if the location lan is set already. This way, you don't get timeouts if you're on the train or anything. Checking locations is done with if <location> ... elif <location> ... else ... fi. Which is to say, you get a multi-line block of if structures, in which you can then run other tests conditionally. I'm just too lazy to write it out here :-)
   Unfortunately, it is not possible to nest if structures in detect.conf; but I don't think it's actually necessary for the detection (it might be nice for whereami.conf later on, but there the issues can be worked around).
3. There's also the possibility to do things like setting environment variables, default locations, and some similar housekeeping things.

+lan ln -sf /etc/news/leafnode/config.generic /etc/news/leafnode/config
+werk ln -sf /etc/news/leafnode/config.werk /etc/news/leafnode/config
+thuis ln -sf /etc/news/leafnode/config.thuis /etc/news/leafnode/config

The skyline of South Manhattan We walked over the Brooklyn bridge, giving me other very cool views of Manhattan, while I hammered Clint with questions about this and that. I saw that since 9/11, you can't go past the Town Hall. "Security reasons", of course. I was very surprised to see police cars in every single street. It's like a Police State, and if you ask me, it didn't make me feel safer. After some walk, we finally got in Chinatown, which is the craziest place ever. People sell stuff on the sidewalks, and many streets are packed with people. We had to meet with mikah, biella, dilinger and his cat at some Chinese place for breakfast/lunch. The place, as Chinatown itself, was crazy. As soon as we sat down a few waitresses landed a few plates on the table, without asking or anything. A few minutes later I could see that the way they serve you is going around with carts with lost of food, and you either want it or not. We left dilinger at the metro station, and moved on to the SoHo. I wanted to go to the SoHo Apple Store to see if they knew about replacement Spanish keyboards for my Powerbook. My powerbook was bought in the US last year, so it has a US keyboard. This is mostly ok, but only mostly as it's missing a key. After SoHo, we went back to Chinatown to pick up bubbles. It was nice to see her after Debconf, and she made the effort to come just for a few hours even if she was ill and had lots to do in Philly. We headed to South Street Port, where I had a long chat about Cuba with micah while we sat on a bench looking at Brooklyn bridge. And then, we gathered all our braveness and headed to the heart of the beast, to the kernel of the system. We walked into the Financial District, and soon enough I was walking in Wall Street no less. If I breathed hard, I could smell the money. The road was paved in gold, and there were skyscrapers everywhere. I discovered the rulers of this world had opened a "public space" in JP Morgan's building. To their despair, probably, it had been taken over by the poor. I wonder what Bloomberg will do about it. As I walked up the street, a strange feeling in my heart grew and grew, until, behind a corner, I saw it. The source of all evil was ahead of me, guarded by George Washington himself.

The New York Stock exchange and it's black evil aura of Capitalism I was standing ahead of this building where so many people behave like bastards everyday, pushing millions to povery for a bit more profit margin. The doors were closed and surrounded by security officers, which despite being asked politely, didn't let us in for "security reasons". Next to it was the Church of Capitalism, at the end of the street. It's curious that such an old church still stands where it was build near the harbour probably a century ago, now surrounded by some of the most modern and tallest buildings in the planet. And then, we visited the bull, which I didn't know is the "friendly" symbol of how Capitalism works.

I had Capitalism by the balls We moved down to Battery Square, past the old US Customs building with the four statues representing the four continents. We saw the damaged sculpture which lived in the WTC, and sat down at the pier to watch a beautiful sunset over the Statue of Liberty.

The Statue of Liberty seen from South Manhattan At that point, biella and micah had to meet some friends at one cinema to see the Wal-Mart documentary. We went to a funky place to have some tea, decided to go see Times Square and then walk to Central Park. At the time, mako was arriving to NYC on the Chinatown bus, so we agreed to meet in a restaurant to have lunch. Paul Sladen finally managed to get lost, after many tries during the day, and wasn't seen until we got back home. Mako and Mika waited for us at the door of an... ethiopian restaurant in the SoHo, despite Mako knows I can't stand spicy food. But in the end it wasn't so bad, I just needed a few more glasses of water than average. And I finally got to know mika, after lots of time of chatting over IRC. Greg, SPI's lawyer, also appeared, and was a nice addition to the group. Mako knew where to take us after that. The Belgian bar was packed, but there was a private party in one of the spaces and we took over some of that space. After a few rounds, we were ready to leave the pub and go for Falafel and some tea. I was terribly falling asleep though, so instead of tea we took a cap back to Brooklyn, where we found Paul waiting at the door. After an hour of inflating a mattress, we were ready for sleep, at 4AM. It didn't look like the morning after would be very productive...

Cleaning my apartment is a bit like going on an archeological dig: A dried spaghetti noodle... when did I have spaghetti for dinner? Oh, yeah, three weeks ago.

The 22nd Chaos Communication Congress (22C3) is a four-day conference on technology, society and utopia. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a multitude of topics including (but not limited to) information technology, IT-security, internet, cryptography and generally a critical-creative attitude towards technology and the discussion about the effects of technological advances on society.

• If I don't get hit by a bus, I'll be there.
• They have an (English) event blog which should keep you up to date.
• The 22C3 public wiki launched today.
• There are very nice 22C3 wallpapers available now (thanks to Antenne).
• The CongressRadio team will be podcasting during the congress.
• There is a 22C3 Planet (actually there are two).

Kiko and I managed to not fall over while taking all of these pics in Mont Royal