Search Results: "jr"

14 July 2006

MJ Ray: The 3rd International GPLv3 Conference

Some recordings and transcripts of this conference are now online.The schedule included presentations by Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, and Georg Greve, as well as panels addressing the key issues of DRM, software patents, and license internationalization.

13 July 2006

MJ Ray: World Cup Media

Apparently the World Cup final viewing figures were 17m BBC and 3.5m itv. Mark Beasley reads this as "Advertising is dead, long live advertising" but I think it's because itv's picture quality was absurdly inferior to BBC, as discussed at length on uk.tech.digital-tv. We noticed the difference during the group stage when no matches were on both channels, so we had to switch. In fact, itv's pictures had so many blobbies that I watched foreign broadcasters for some matches instead.

MJ Ray: Bike Week Event

13 July: Finally got round to finding the Lynn News coverage of the car-v-bike event.

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt 9 - Don't use air-con

Air conditioners are doing huge harm to our environment by sucking electricity, which is often generated by releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Even worse, many people are using them stupidly. For example, I used to use one shop with a one-piece air conditioner sat almost in the middle of one wall, with its air hose running along the floor to just outside the front door. [...] The best air conditioners seem to be the two-part type with an insulated coolant hose between. [...] After following the other tips in this series, I hope you won't need air-con any more, but if you do, please use it sensibly. [permalink to longer grumble, comments and other parts]

MJ Ray: Biking to Bristol

I commented on planning application 06/P/1285/F for National Cycling Network Route 33 from Backwell towards Bristol. I'm surprised they don't seem to have involved the communities before filing and that the Ramblers Association are objecting.

10 July 2006

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt 8 - Water the pavement and dry the washing

Yesterday, I mentioned it's useful to get more water into the air when it's hot, to take out some of the energy. Other ways of getting more water into the air include hanging washing out to dry (maybe not appropriate for your workplace!) and sprinkling stored grey water onto any paved areas next to your building. When you think about how those pavements and patios often act as giant storage heaters in summer, it seems amazing that more people don't deliberately try to cool them down in this simple way. [misdated original reposted]

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt 7 - Use plants and fans

I think this idea is a bit of a mindbender and each time that I try to explain it in detail, I have to go and reread the books because I don't understand biology, so I'm just going to give the basic bit that I do understand: changing water from liquid to vapour takes energy. You can take that energy from the air and so cool the air. It's transpiration and we do it naturally. Even better, you can get some help removing the energy from our little green friends: plants. [...] Finally, you can replace the vapour-filled air with more air by stirring it with a fan. [...]

9 July 2006

MJ Ray: Debian-Legal Package List June 2006

I hope this time doesn't include any misfiled reports like last month... June 2006 traffic discussed packages domainkeys ipv6calc ircd-irc2 ktorrent libapache-mod-proxy-html libjlha-java opencascade open-xchange postfix postgresql pygaim shc sofia-sip sun-java5-jre truecrypt xfonts-scalable xfonts-utils [link to my index]

8 July 2006

Uwe Hermann: ASCII art spam

Whoa, those spammers are getting really desperate now, aren't they? Today in my inbox: 
apy8       0lyk   b8xvdtfa        glb13            0uurqjl     5xju3p0jb            1uk9z
 yhak     o3vl    tytjx4ui        m6frp           64zx9238iq   128lkxk2wh           fzqpv
 mkqj     g1tn    wgd293sv       s3mnhaq        y1vvng731dsy   f39iqddc65f         5fgnwcx
 t9ba4   wg8j1      ucq8         uviyoz6        4k2g4     fo   wz0i   q7pn         hqblemz
  pu9t   1dwr       mocp         nlihfws       mm3w0           j4zb   0fzh         o6nljyq
  0luy   to8a       ljd0        5bi8 zpfh      93ab            tbpr   hztc        foza p7sf
  5vw7t a4nce       2fjr        oxto 2t0r      37v3   mxvfq0   x6qtw1j6me         ye51 b7pt
   pwtx gg5l        mtfr       h7390 0voxg     btc8   t7vj3n   twn72qv80         92sj8 8qhuc
   4xoq 9m3u        r3i0       4dgf   2k8l     o6u8   eegabt   70vrl5ukj         6bpp   u336
    9p5tqyo         ixkj       7mkcss82ko2     6dgtj    tdei   eayi tnjgi        ujh0x073p63
    jbxotva         alrs      ubvdw9kele9rs     ed7bi   vbjz   0tlb b1svn       15xh90ojyj56u
    zzfla7m       3o1jnrrc    kvlxt74rl46l1     yy5mng2kl7dj   8bmq  793jb      qzqkjf00glzsf
     e6doi        hfcqgi2t    w8bd     vydk      elqfyxtdk7g   upqf   ippbf     ca5l     cgrm
     npnrd        dzsgo4jz   q9zo       co4g       6kabvxc     sqpy    5ds54   qhpb       krpw

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!).

7 July 2006

MJ Ray: Welcome, Panu Kalliokoski

The second of my New Model Advocate sponsorships to get a package into the archive was Panu Kalliokoski with the NEW tinyscheme package. It's good to have a lean, stripped scheme in the distribution for all those times when you just want to do a quick function or two. On the way, we bumped into various bits of policy like executable naming conflicts, but I think we ended up with a useful package. Thanks and welcome, Panu.

MJ Ray: ID Cards: If you tolerate this...

I wrote the following item a few months ago and didn't post it to my blog because I thought it was too ranty, too scaremongering, too frothy, and I was trying to reduce the amount of that sort of stuff I posted. Now I see the top story in the latest NO2ID newsletter and it looks like it wasn't ranty enough. A few years ago, the Blair government introduced Higher Education student-paid fees despite quite a large opposition movement. Part of the success was by introducing them for new students only [...] Forward to 2006. ID Cards are controversial and apply to the whole population, but there's widespread opposition to compulsary registraion. Could the same tactic be used? Compulsary registration for "new people" only? [... cont with links...]

6 July 2006

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt 6 - Close against the sun

Once your building is full of cold, fresh night air, close the windows when the sun appears. Modern glazing not only helps you keep warm in winter, it can help you keep cool in summer. Most people seem not to realise this and react to a warm day outside by throwing the windows open as soon as they enter a room [...] Have you noticed how your hand gets hot in strong sun, even if it's behind a good window? The same thing is happening to all the air in the sunlight, so close your blinds or curtains on the side of your building that is in full sun. [permalink to full text]

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt Footnotes 2

We were a bit cooler for most of the day, but the evening sun is starting to raise the temperature again. Updated part one with a link to a recent BBC report of the Energy Saving Trust predicting an upwards trend. An interesting comparison from Monday: two bottles of frozen water, one stood in the house (temperature controlled with these tips) and one in an office (not controlled like this): the office one was all water by noon and the house one still part-ice at 4pm. Finally, had a nice email from some friends that said they're enjoying this series and "we moved our freezer out of the (light and warm) kitchen into the (cool and dark) garage, where we hope it'll use less power (cooler environment) and it won't be churning out heat somewhere that's hot enough already." I remember the freezer at my childhood home being in the garage: are we just rediscovering old ways?

MJ Ray: Media law reform, Irish style

Funferal comments that the Republic of Ireland plans to replace libel and slander with defamation, which is an interesting simplification, but the current draft law leaves unanswered questions about whether "small media" will be protected as much as the state broadcaster.

MJ Ray: Anti-pirates

Chris posted this quite fun retake of the terrible MPAA anti-'piracy' (it's not piracy, no ships are involved) video from youwouldnt.net

MJ Ray: From the "well that was always gonna happen" department:

Cristiano Ronaldo is up for auction on the web. Shipping: anywhere but Manchester. [cont with link to el reg]

4 July 2006

MJ Ray: Something strange just happened during an apt update.

It started repeatedly downloading lots of pdiff files, averaging 3kB/s (usually 100+kB/s) and then the update aborted with an 'internal rred error'. Rerunning the update didn't download any pdiffs and didn't abort. What's going on? Looks like I just met apt bug 372712. Surely we should default=off an option that reduces speed to 3% of what it was? [links in permalink version]

MJ Ray: Pirates and ex-pirates

We don't get much pirate radio here in the wilds, as far as I can tell. We do get Caroline, an ex-pirate that pays big money to Murdoch for proprietary satellite channel listings service. The music's not bad, but that's a shame.

MJ Ray: HOWTO not melt Footnotes 1

Well, the temperature is soaring here again and a few people have expressed interest in this. I've also had some interesting side discussions. Simon Richter emailed me notes about the different types of disk - which I don't really understand so I've asked him to publish them himself - the gist seemed to be server disks don't like being power cycled repeatedly and yanking the power is very harmful to desktop disks. Ted Harding sent a "Medical Tip of the Day" to ALUG Main: "I assert that caffeine is a good preventative of DVT in computer users."

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