Search Results: "reg"

25 April 2010

Russell Coker: Links April 2010

Sam Harris gave an interesting TED talk about whether there are scientific answers to moral questions [1]. One of his insightful points was that when dealing with facts certain opinions should be excluded it would be good if journalists who report on issues of science could understand this. Another insight was that religious people most strongly agree with him regarding the issue of whether there are factual answers to moral questions but they think that God just handed the answers to their ancesters rather than making it an issue that requires consideration. He cites the issue of gay marriage as being a distraction from moral issues such as genocide and poverty. He asks how have we convinced ourself that every culture has a point of view worth considering? . He asks how the ignorance of the Taliban on the topic of physics is any less obvious than on the topic of human well-being. Dan Gilbert gave an insightful TED talk titled Why Are We Happy? [2]. One interesting fact he cites is that people who become paraplegic are no less happy in the long term than people who win the lottery. He points out that a shopping mall full of Zen monks is not going to be particularly profitable and uses this fact to explain the promotion of natural happiness over synthetic happiness in our society. Dan Barber gave an amusing and informative TED talk How I Fell in Love with a Fish [3]. He speaks about ecological fish farming and how the fish are more tasty as well as the farm being good for the environment. The farm in question is in the south-west of Spain, hopefully there will be more similar farms in other parts of the world soon. Gary Lauder gave an interesting brief TED talk about road signs [4]. His main point was to advocate a road sign saying take turns , but there are already signs in the US at freeway on-ramps saying that 1 or 2 cars may enter every time the light turns green which is a similar concept. The innovative thing he did was to estimate the amount of time and petrol wasted by stop signs, add that over a year based on the average income and then estimate that an annuity covering that ongoing expense would cost more than $2,000,000. This makes two stop signs at an intersection have an expense of $1,000,000 each. He suggests that rather than installing stop signs it would be cheaper to buy the adjacent land, chop down all trees, and then sell it again. Alan Siegel gave an insightful TED talk about simplifying legal documents [5]. He gives an example of an IRS document which was analysed with a Heat Map to show which parts confused the readers the IRS adopted a new document that his group designed which made it easier for taxpayers. He advocates legislation to make legal documents easier to understand for customers of financial services. Tim Berners Lee gave an interesting TED talk about Open Data, he illustrated it with some fantastic videos showing how mashups have been used with government data [6] and how the Open Street Map project developed over time. Martin F. Krafft gave an interesting Debconf talk about Tool Adoption Behavior in the Debian project [7]. One thing that I found particularly interesting was his description of the Delphi Method that he used to assemble a panel of experts and gather a consensus of opinion. The post-processing on this talk was very good, in some sections Martin s presentation notes are shown on screen with the video of him in the corner. As an aside, I think we really do need camera-phones. The Big Money has an interesting article comparing the Mafia Bust Out with the practices of US banks [8]. Mark Roth gave an exciting TED talk about using Hydrogen Sulphide to trigger suspended animation [9]. They are now doing human trials for suspending people who have serious injuries to reduce tissue damage during the process of surgery. Pawan Sinha gave an interesting TED talk about how brains learn to see [10]. He started by talking about curing blindness in people who have been blind since birth. But he then ended by showing some research into the correlation between visual processing and Autism, he showed that an Autistic child had significantly different visual patterns when playing Pong to an NT child. Adora Svitak gave an insightful TED talk about what adults can learn from kids [11]. She made some particularly interesting points about the education system requiring that adults respect children more and expect them to do better than their parents which is essential for all progress in society. The NY Times has an interesting article on animal homosexuality [12]. In terms of research it focusses on lesbian relationships between albatrosses. But a large part of the article is devoted to the politics of scientific research into animal sexuality. BrowserShots.org shows you what your web site looks like in different web browsers [13]. Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article titles Can You Survive a Benevolent Dictatorship about the Apple DRM [14]. He describes the way the Apple Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) doesn t stop copyright violation but does reduce competition in the computer industry. He is not going to sell his work on the Apple store (for the iPad or iPhone etc) and suggests that customers should choose a more open platform. It s unfortunate that he didn t suggest a better platform.

24 April 2010

Andreas Metzler: balance sheet snowboarding season 2009/10

Since we had little snow this year shows a negative trend. Less days spent snowboarding, less meters of altitude. In December and around christmas I basically went snowboarding instead of talking a walk, stopping after an hour or two. The first reasonable day was January 23rd. My season ended April 17th with a perfect day at Warth. Here is the balance sheet:
2005/06 2006/07 2007/08 2008/09 2009/10
number of (partial) days2517293730
Dam ls101051016
Diedamskopf154242313
Warth/Schr cken03041
total meters of altitude12463474096219936226774202089
highscore10247m8321m12108m11272m11888m
# of runs309189503551462
On good days I had problems stopping ;-), ending up with three 11000m+ days. Not included above is one day in Brand (with the company I work for, I also did this last year) and my very first time at Lech am Arlberg. The road from Bregenzerwald to Lech is usually closed in winter due to danger of avalanches which is what stopped me before. This year it was open for some time due to little snow. I had great day there, although the snow cannons did not manage to cover all rocks.

Russell Coker: Is the NBN a Good Idea

Since writing my post about whether the National Broadband Network can ever break even [1] I ve had a number of people try to convince me of it s merit. He is my summary and rebuttal of some of the arguments for the NBN: The FUD Claims are made that Australia may fall behind the rest of the world, children may be disadvantaged in their education, or many other bad things may unless a faster net access is provided to everyone. That is FUD. If we are going to spend $43,000,000,000 then we should have some evidence that it will do some good. One thing to note is that rural areas will not get anything near the 100Mb/s speeds that FTTH will deliver to people in the cities. So if faster net access is actually essential then it would probably make sense to start by delivering ADSL2+ speeds to rural areas something that is not planned to be part of the NBN. Some people claim that having slow net access (ADSL2+) is going to preclude unknown future uses of the Internet. However the NBN is only going to be 100MB/s so any such claim is essentially that unknown things will happen in the future to make 24Mb/s too slow, but those unknown things won t make 100Mb/s too slow . I started using computer networks when a 1200/75 modem was considered fast. Over about the last 25 years typical net access speeds have increased from 1200b/s to about 12Mb/s, that s a factor of 10,000 speed improvement! Now the people who believe that we only need to multiply the current speed by a factor of 4 to address all future needs could be correct, but it seems unlikely and doesn t seem like a good idea for a $43,000,000,000 bet. If they were talking about 1Gb/s net access then things would be different in this regard. Technological Development Some people compare the NBN to the Apollo Program and suggest that the scientific research involved in implementing a FTTH network might result in useful developments in other areas. The Wikipedia page about Fiber to the premises by country indicates that Hong Kong had 1Gb/s available in 2006. It seems that a service which is rolled out 4 years later and 10 times slower than in Hong Kong is not going to involve a huge amount of research. Certainly nothing like the Apollo Program. It would allow multiple HDTV channels to be viewed at the same time According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2001 the average Australian household had 2.6 people (3.0 in NT) [2]. The incidence of every member of a household wanting to watch a different live TV channel at the same time is probably quite low, it seems that young people nowadays spend as much time watching Youtube as they do watching TV. Based on the Wikipedia bit-rate page it seems that an ADSL2+ link could stream two HDTV channels. I could use fiber speeds today There are some people who claim that they need faster speeds for their data transfers right now. The problem is that the latency of data transfer is a bottleneck in transfer rates. In some quick tests between servers that have reasonably fast connections to the Internet I was only able to get one international transfer in excess of ADSL2+ speed (24Mb/s or 3MB/s). I was able to transfer data between London and Germany at a speed of 11MB/s which was possibly limited by the 100baseT Ethernet connection in the data center in Germany. Now if the people who pay for that German server were to pay more then they would get a higher speed. So anyone who downloads anything from my web site in it s current configuration would get a significant performance boost by using an NBN connection if they live in Europe! But if they live in Australia then they will probably get a fraction of that speed (a quick test indicates that my ADSL2+ connection gives me about 500KB/s from my web server. I need to have at least three transfers going at the same time to get more than 600KB/s when downloading files from other countries, and it s rare to have a single download run at a speed higher than 100KB/s. It would be handy if I could download at higher speeds from my ISP s mirror (which seems to be the only way someone in Australia can even use full ADSL2+ speeds). But it s certainly not worth the $5,000 per household installation cost of the NBN to get that. I m sure that there are some people who really do have usage patterns that could take advantage of fiber net access, one possibility would be downloading large files from a local source such as a major web site that uses a CDN. It seems likely to me that the majority of people who fit this category are using major porn services. Fiber would be good for Video-Conferencing To be better than ADSL for video-conferencing a NBN connection would need a faster upload speed. Internode is already selling NBN connections for the trial areas [3]. The cheapest fiber plans that they offer are at the 50/2 speed, that s 50Mb/s download and 2Mb/s upload in theory ADSL2+ should have a higher upload speed. In my tests the best result I ve got from sending files over my ADSL2+ link to another country is about 110KB/s (880Kb/s). The fact that the theoretical speed of a fiber connection is better than the measured speed of an ADSL2+ connection in this regard doesn t mean much, let s not assume that a fiber connection will get it s theoretical maximum speed. Not that you necessarily need higher speeds for video-conferencing, Youtube is one of many services that uses a lot less bandwidth than the upload speed of an ADSL2+ connection. Also video-calls which are supported on most 3G mobile phones use even less bandwidth again. I want an NBN connection to run a server at home The fastest connection for uploading that Internode offers to home users is the Home High plan at 100/8 speed, that is maybe a bit more than twice as fast for uploading as ADSL2+. They also offer a SOHO plan that supports 16Mb/s upload speed (at extra expense) and suggest that customers who want higher speeds contact their business sales department. But they include both sending and receiving data in the bandwidth quota for the fiber connections. Transmitting data at 16Mb/s isn t that great for a server. The cheapest virtual server plan on offer from Linode [4] includes 200GB of data transfer per month and has significantly higher transmission speeds. You could get a Linode virtual server plus an Internode ADSL2+ connection for about the same price as an Internode fiber connection to the home. There are two down-sides to virtual servers, one is that they are limited in the amount of RAM that they have (I can easily afford to buy 8G of RAM for a home system but renting an 8G virtual server is going to be expensive) and the other is that the storage is limited. Shared storage on virtual servers can be slow and is limited in size. If you need to run a server with a few terabytes of data storage (which is cheap on commodity SATA disks but expensive on server-grade disks) and you don t need to transfer much of it then a home server on the NBN might do well. Otherwise it s probably not going to work well for server use. The NBN will avoid people leaving their PC on to do downloads and save electricity To save electricity you would have to have a significant incidence of situations where a download can complete fast enough over the NBN to allow the user to turn their PC off before going to bed but be slow enough over ADSL to require that it be left on overnight. That would probably only apply to downloads from a CDN or from a local ISP mirror. From the Internode mirror I can download a test file at a speed of 850KB/s (I guess this means that my ADSL connection is not delivering full speed I suspect poor quality wiring in my home and would try to fix it if the current speed was too slow). In 5 minutes spend brushing my teeth I could download 250M of data, in the same time if I had a 100/4 connection on the NBN I might be able to download almost 3G of data. So in the unlikely event that I wanted to download a CD or DVD image and turn off my PC immediately before going to bed then the NBN would be a good thing. But then of course I would want to burn the CD or DVD image to disc and that would take long enough that I would leave it on overnight My ADSL connection gives really low speeds or I m out of range for ADSL Some people who live only a short distance from an exchange are unable to get ADSL2+. Some people live a long way from exchanges and are outside ADSL range. The ideal solution to these problems is not to provide fiber access to the majority of the population, it is to provide ADSL to everyone who is near an exchange and maybe provide fiber access to some people who are a long way from exchanges. I find it rather ironic that some people in the country are essentially saying because net access in the country is so slow we need fiber in the cities . The NBN is not going to give fiber to rural areas, satellite is one of the options that will be used. Really High Speeds I have been informed that to get the distances needed for the NBN they have to use Single Mode Fiber, this permits scaling up to higher speeds at some later time by changing the hardware at the end points. So we could end up with a Hong Kong speed network at some future time with the same fibers. This is a good thing. But I don t think that we need to get fiber installed right now so that we can use 100Mb, we could wait until there is enough need to get the faster transmission rates from the start. At the moment it s just a waste of money.

23 April 2010

Joerg Jaspert: Bash power

Something that regularly happens when I get to see other peoples shell scripts is me thinking Why do they not use the powers of bash? . Sometimes it s fine to not use bash specific features, like when you are limited by the Operating System you have to run on (don t you try some commercial Unix systems. Or this WIndows crap. Brrr). Sometimes you want it for some perceived performance win, sometimes a full bash doesn t fit the target system (think embedded devices). Thats all fine, don t come up with those, I know them. What I mean is - people are using things that bind you to bash and your hashbang also makes your script use bash. But people still jump out to a different command just for some variable modification which are easily doable in bash too. A few examples follow, always imagine them in a script starting with the header of 
#!/bin/bash
set -e
set -u
Example Get rid of newlines (actually, any replacement you can think of): 
var1="something with
space and
linefeeds"
var1=$ var1//
/_ 
echo $var1
This is a simple but powerful demonstration of the Pattern substitution bash can do for you. Read its manpage, it can do much more than what I list here, but the above simply replaces all occurences of a linefeed with an _. Make the double // a single one and it is just the first that is replaced.
Example Removing a prefix (or suffix) from a string: 
VAR1=$ VAR1##sync:archive:
This removes the text sync:archive: from the beginning of the VAR1 variable. Replace the ## with %% and its gone from the end. The topic to look for in the manpage of bash is Remove matching prefix pattern (or suffix, of course).
There are many more possibilities, you might want to look through the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide, it contains some helpful information. Or read the bash manpage. Or (shameless self-ad) look at the latest ftpsync script, the one and only official (mirroradm) supported mirror synchronization for the ftp.*.debian.org mirrors.

Wouter Verhelst: Touching up a video with Cinelerra

I found myself with a problem: trying to linearly edit a movie clip with a non-linear editor isn't very simple, nor is it meant to be. Case at hand: I have about 1 hour and 40 minutes of film material that was recorded with dvswitch, and which is 90% fine; but given what we wish to do with it, we really wish to remove the errors from the recording things like failed transitions, rogue camera movements, and so on. This is why we recorded the individual video streams on tape too, so that we could indeed do some retouching afterwards. Cinelerra, however, is not really made for that. If you want to create a transition, you need to have two segments of clips that are stuck together on the timeline, and the transition is then applied to the border between the two. You can create multiple video tracks, but you cannot cut from one track to another; you really have to add a clip to the timeline. Doing that has obvious issues if you have multiple video streams that were recorded on the same time and that can be time-synced on multiple tracks. You would prefer to just select one track or the other on a certain point in time, but cinelerra just doesn't do that. So the workflow that I found is the following: Add all video streams to the time line, each on a separate track. Make sure the to-be-touched-up stream is on top; when multiple tracks are in use, and the are not faded to 50% or so, cinelerra will only show the top stream in the final rendition. Synchronize the streams: first, create a rough alignment by moving them with the mouse. Then, press arrow-down until you can see the streams on a frame-by-frame basis. Now for each of your camera streams, do the following:
  1. In the 'main' stream, search a section that was filmed by the camera which we are trying to align.
  2. Hit 'l' to create a label
  3. Search for the exact same frame in the camera stream. It may help to disable playback for the 'main' stream temporarily to visually verify that the frame is the same in the compositor window.
  4. Move the cursor to that frame, and create another label.
  5. If the streams are indeed desynced, then one of the tracks will lead, and the other will follow. If the leading track is the 'main' track, arm the main track and any tracks that you have already synced before, and make sure to remember the audio tracks. If, on the other hand, this is the camera track, then only arm that camera track. At any rate, make sure to disarm the track(s) that are following.
  6. Use the control and arrow keys to select the first label. Use control, shift, and the arrow keys to select the section up to the second label.
  7. At the bottom right of the program window, you can see three entry boxes with time indexes. The first is the time index to your first label; the third the time index to your second label; an in between those, the second is the length of the interval from the first label to the second label. Set the contents of the first box to all-zeroes, to move the selection to the beginning of the time line; then press tab (to move to the second entry box) and enter (to confirm that you wish to create a selection of that length at the beginning of the timeline).
  8. Press Shift-Space to insert silence at the location of the selection. This will move the armed tracks to the right, and not touch the not armed tracks.
  9. If you did everything right, the two tracks should now be aligned. Move the cursor to the second label, and verify that this is true by disabling 'play' for the main track and any tracks in between the main track and the track you're syncing. The frame in the compositor window should not change if you re-enable the main track. If it does, use 'z' for undo, remove your labels and try again.
Once your video tracks are aligned, you need one final video track that comes all the way on top. This is an empty, 'override' track. Anything you put in this track will override the main track. This way, you do not have to cut from the main track to another camera; instead, you just copy from a camera track and paste on the override track. It is, of course, possible to paste onto the main track, but that has the disadvantage that you cannot easily undo such edits after a 'save' operation. Using a separate 'override' track does allow that. To copy from one track to another track without moving in time, use the following method:
  1. Select the region where you wish to select another camera.
  2. Arm the camera track that you wish to copy from, and make sure not to arm any other track.
  3. Hit 'c' to copy the clip at that point.
  4. Disarm the camera track, and arm the 'override' track
  5. Without moving or removing the selection, hit 'v' to paste onto the override track.
All this may be basic knowledge for people who are more flexed in nonlinear editors than me; but I couldn't find this procedure on the Internet, so I thought I'd put it out there so that the next person who tries this doesn't have to try for days on end to come up with this, as I had to do.

22 April 2010

Joey Hess: Sponsoring non-regulars for DebConf10

DebConf 10 will be held this August 1-7, in New York. I love DebConf, and I look forward to seeing friends at it each year. It rekindles my interest in the project; I leave each DebConf with new things to do. Many developers make it to most DebConfs, helped by the conference's impressive travel and lodging funding. But I know others have never gotten to experience DebConf, or have not been in years. If that's you, there's probably a reason. Maybe the scheduling never works out for you, and I can't help with that. But if your reason comes down to "money" or "they'd never pick me", we can help. This year there is special funding available for Debian Developers (and DMs) who have not been to DebConf before, or who have not been in years. Outgoing DPL Steve McIntyre has previusly mentioned this special funding, and his successor Stefano Zacchiroli has asked me to manage it, since it was originally my idea. Email me soon (before May 15th) to apply, or to suggest that a team member should be sponsored. This wiki page has the details. Let us get you to DebConf -- I promise you won't regret it! PS, going to dc10.png

Gunnar Wolf: A FLISOL critic

Once again, I was invited by several different groups to be present at FLISOL, a quite interesting phenomenon: FLISOL (Latin-american Free Software Installation Festival) is s very large-scale, very loosely coordinated thing put together for five years already in over 200 cities in basically every Latin American country. Go to the FLISOL page, it is quite interesting to try to understand it! Now, I don't like FLISOL. I managed to avoid it in 2005 and 2006; in 2007, I was present at a FLISOL, although I didn't know beforehand it was the reason for the conference I was invited to. In 2008 and 2009 I took part for reasons I should not go into right now. This year, again, I will not be part of any of its activities (regardless of rumors to the contrary I was invited to be present at a panel on ACTA, but I have not followed the topic enough to be aware of anything besides the very basic aspects, I have no authority to speak about it; I told the organizers I would like to be there as part of the audience, but not present the topic. And I am quite work-stressed, so I doubt I'll make it). Why am I against FLISOL? FLISOL itself, as I said, is a positive and interesting phenomenon, and I have enjoyed the conference cycles which often happen together with it. What I am against is installfests In my opinion, in the stage we are at today, instead of promoting Free Software, an install-fest just works against it. Free Software Linux-based distributions at least is widely known already, as a concept, even though most people dare not come anywhere close to it. Few people outside our already consolidated groups recognize programs such as the Mozilla and OpenOffice suites as being also Free Software, and valuable, quality alternatives for their everyday needs in the environments they currently use. If we need to show how to install and understand the GNU/Linux ecosystem to people who have not got close, it is not IMHO to end users. Installing a GNU/Linux system is easy enough for anybody interested in doing it, or at least, for him to request a one-on-one help session, handholding and understanding the basic ideas. We need, in any case, for the computer corner shop technicians to be somewhat acquinted, at least with the basics, at least with one popular distribution (and with the fact that there are many, and that they are different). People who have not had the curiosity and courage to try to install Linux by themselves do not need to be evangelized (a verb that should be out of our vocabularies by now, as that phase in our movement should be over by now) End users have simple needs: Things should work, and be as surprise-free as possible. They don't want to depend on a specific time-starved person (or even on a small group of people, all of which have a sanctity delirium/aura). When they go to technical support, they expect the problem to be solved Not even understanding what was wrong. End users are willing to pay a small fee to anybody to help them solve their problems. The key word is anybody. If we (myself, or me and my 10 friends who were there at the gathering, or any sufficiently defined small group) are the only support point for the OS, it is no good. Online support forums are not good either, in my experience, as the end user will prefer just lugging the computer to the nearest technician and get it fixed. Even if fixed means just installing one more readily-available package (not to mention, of course, when an update breaks something). I have witnessed, after an install fest, people walk very happy with their new system as a new toy. After a week or two, they cannot install the latest virus^Wscreen saver, or a legitimate program they need for their work. As it does not work, they take the computer to the technician... Who will end up formatting his system and installing something more usual. On the other hand, some people prefer installing a dual-boot system That guarantees the user will feel he is carrying some kind of moral superiority on his computer, and will often remember he has something Not Evil. This will often happen, of course, at boot time When they see GRUB at boot time, and rush to select Windows before That Strange Thing starts up. Anyway... Go ahead, install Free Software, enjoy the day. The conference cycles are usually interesting, and are the best part of it all I'm not saying you should stop doing it. But I'd urge you to take the focus away from the mass-installs, which become often just lost work (even detrimental to furthering Free Software). Try to see things as a non-technically-interested user would. Try to design ways to get corner shop technicians interested. Maybe that can be useful in the long run.

20 April 2010

Andrew McMillan: DAViCal 0.9.9 - Tickets, Binds & CalDAV Scheduling

I've now released DAViCal 0.9.9, after five pretty intensive weeks of work. This includes a number of features that were implemented to support dotCal, which has now replaced their old Cosmo backend with DAViCal to break through a performance bottleneck. That turned into a six-week challenge, because Cosmo had wandered some distance from where calendaring standards are currently going, and so there was a lot of work under the covers of dotCal to switch from using various Cosmo-specific features to do the same thing, using open calendaring standards like CalDAV. One standard that Cosmo did support, and which DAViCal now supports also, are WebDAV tickets. Unfortunately the draft RFC for webdav tickets expired, and was never very well thought through, but the functionality is useful, in order to be able to hand people a secret 'ticket' that they can use to grant specific privileges to a single calendar. There's no UI in the DAViCal admin pages for this yet, but expect one to arrive in 0.9.9.1. Something that dotCal lets people do in the web calendar, is to add subscriptions to other dotCal user's calendars, which is a very nice feature, and certainly one we didn't want to lose. In Cosmo this was done by simply duplicating the calendars on a regular basis - a very resource intensive approach! So in order to support this in DAViCal I decided to add support for the WebDAV 'BIND' method, allowing calendars to be linked from one place into another, without requiring all the events to be duplicated. Mixing that up with the WebDAV tickets, it turns out to be very easy to make that stuff work in a read/write manner, and so I did that as well. Again, unfortunately there is no UI to see this at 0.9.9, but something should be in place for 0.9.9.1 because I know that this combination will be particularly useful to people using principal-centric CalDAV clients like the iCal, and especially like the iPhone, which can't see delegations, and where this would be an especially useful feature. The other major feature added in 0.9.9 is the long-awaited work on the Scheduling Extensions for CalDAV. This is currently an expired draft, but I've checked with Bernard Desruisseaux and there will definitely be a new draft out very soon with a few minor changes, and then there will be a push to finalise it as an RFC. Most of the work on this was done by Rob Ostensen, who has been working on a few DAViCal features now, and it was great to meet up with him in person at LCA 2010. Rob has also added support for pulling groups from LDAP into DAViCal 0.9.9 too, which will please a few people. This is the 0.9.9 release for a reason, too: it implements pretty much all of the functionality that a CalDAV server can usefully do at this point. The work that Rob did to get the scheduling extensions done was really the only hole in coverage of what current clients can do, and in the 0.9.9 series I plan to polish up what we have, add some basic UI to expose the tickets and binds (since no clients really do that at all, other than dotCal, which is proprietary :-). I'll also be working on implementing the bones of CardDAV support, and Rob will be moving on to implementing some parts of the iSchedule draft for server-to-server calendar scheduling. Enjoy!

18 April 2010

Russell Coker: ATI ES1000 Video on Debian/Squeeze

The Problem I ve just upgraded my Dell PowerEdge T105 [1] from Debian/Lenny to Debian/Squeeze. Unfortunately the result of the upgrade was that everything in an X display looked very green while the console display looked the way it usually did. I asked for advice on the LUV mailing list [2] and got a lot of good advice. Daniel Pittman offered a lot of great advice. The first suggestion was to check the gamma levels, the program xgamma displays the relative levels of Red, Green, and Blue (the primary colors for monitors) where it is usually expected that all of them will have the value of 1.0. This turned out to not be the problem, but it s worth noting for future instances of such problems. It s also worth noting the potential use of this to correct problems with display hardware, I ve had two Thinkpads turn red towards the end of their lives due to display hardware problems and I now realise I could have worked around the problem with xgamma. He also suggested that it might be ICC, the command xprop -root grep -i icc might display something if that was the case. I m still not sure what ICC is about but I know it s not set on my system. The next suggestion was to use the VESA display driver to try and discover whether it was a bug in the ATI driver. It turned out that the VESA driver solved that problem, I was tempted to continue using the VESA driver until I realised that the VESA driver has a maximum resolution of 1280*1024 which isn t suitable for a 1680*1050 resolution display. After reviewing my Xorg configuration file Daniel noted that my frame buffer depth of 16 bits per pixel is regarded as unusual by today s standards and probably isn t tested well. As 24bpp is generally implemented with 32bits for each pixel that means it takes twice the frame-buffer storage (both in the X server and in some applications) as well as twice the memory bandwidth to send data around. So I generally use 16bpp for my systems to make them run a little faster. (II) RADEON(0): Not using mode 1680 1050 (mode requires too much memory bandwidth) I tried using a depth of 24bpp and then I saw messages such as the above in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. It seems that the display hardware in my ATI ES1000 (the on-motherboard video card in the Dell server) doesn t have the memory bandwidth to support 1680*1050*24bpp. I tried using the gtf to generate new mode lines, but it seems that there is no 24bpp mode which has a low enough vertical refresh rate to not exhaust memory bandwidth but which is also high enough for the monitor to get a signal lock. The Solution My current solution is to use 15bpp mode which gives almost the same quality as 16bpp and uses the same small amount of memory bandwidth. It seems that 15bpp doesn t trigger the display driver bug. Of course one down-side to this is that the default KDE4 desktop background in Debian seems perfectly optimised to make 15bpp modes look ugly, it has a range of shades of blue that look chunky. What I really want to do is to get a better video card. Among other things I want to get a 1920*1080 resolution monitor in the near future, Dell is selling such monitors at very low prices and there are a bunch of affordable digital cameras that record video at that resolution. Even if I can get the ES1000 to work at 1920*1080 resolution it won t support playing Full HD resolution video I can barely play Youtube videos with it! I ve previously described my experience with the awful Computers and Parts Land (CPL) store [3] where they insisted that a PCIe*16 graphics card would work in my PCIe*8 system and then claimed to be doing me a favor by giving me a credit note for the full value (not a refund). This convinced me to not bother trying to buy such a card for the past year. But now it seems that I will be forced to buy one. What I Want to Buy I want a PCIe*8 video card that supports 1920*1080 resolution at 24bpp and has good enough performance with free Linux drivers to support Full HD video playback. Also PCIe*4 would do, and I m prepared to compromise on support of Full HD video. Basically anything better than the ES1000 will do. Does anyone know how I can buy such a card? I would prefer an ATI card but will take an NVidia if necessary. Note that I have no plans to cut one of the PCIe sockets on my motherboard (it s an expensive system and I m not going to risk breaking it). I will consider cutting the excess pins off a video card as a last resort. But I would rather just buy a PCIe*8 video card. Note that I am not going to pay cash in advance to a random person who reads my blog. Anyone who wants to sell me a second-hand card must either have a good reputation in the Linux community or ship the card to me on the condition that I pay after it passes the tests. Update: The first version of this post said that I upgraded TO Lenny, not FROM it.

Christian Perrier: Debian Installer localization status

I just published the following in debian-i18n. If you read this on Planet Debian, please followup on debian-i18n. The situation for D-I translations is currently the following. It is not that brilliant, I have to say. And I limit details to "level 1". In very short: 33 languages are in good shape. *26 languages are in danger of being deactivated* More details The safe side 16 languages are complete: 
ar bg cs de es fr ga it ja lt nb pt ru sk th vi
14 languages were complete before changes to sublevel 5 and only have 5 fuzzy strings to very seldomly used packages: 
ast bn el eo et eu fi gu mr pl sl sq sv tr zh_TW
3 languages have a few strings to update in sublevels 1 to 3 but have active translators who will probably easy cope with them: 
be nl zh_CN
The unsafe side 12 languages had random updates since lenny but not on a regular basis. These languages are at risk of being deactivated for Squeeze if they are not complete for sublevels 1 and 2: 
da gl ko pa ro he hi hu ka pt_BR ml tl
8 languages were complete in lenny but had no update since then. These languages are at risk of being deactivated for Squeeze if they are not complete for sublevels 1 and 2: bs ca dz hr id km lv mk ne nn ta wo Other languages are in various situations. Those marked "(P)" are not activated and have nearly no chance to be activated for Squeeze, the exception being Sinhala (si) which is making great progress. The 6 active languages listed below are at risk of being deactivated: 
089%  uk     1
087%  ku     1
086%  am     1
083%  kk
083%  si (P) 2
072%  sr     1
069%  cy     1
064%  is (P) 1
043%  ms (P) 1
034%  kn (P) 1
025%  br (P) 1
015%  se     1
014%  mg (P)
014%  te (P) 2
012%  fa (P) 1
009%  xh (P) 1
008%  ur (P) 1
002%  hy (P) 1
000%  lo (P)
Squeeze release plans have not been made yet but I would say this is time to become aware of the situation and start hunting for translators for "endangered" languages.

16 April 2010

Andrew Pollock: [life] 34 weeks down, ~5 weeks to go

Monday saw us at the 34 week mark. Yesterday was the point in Sarah's first pregnancy that we lost Joshua. So we're in scary uncharted territory now. Sarah's OB has said that he doesn't want her to go past 39 weeks, given prior history, and he won't induce because of her heart (and they don't induce for a VBAC anyway), so if we want a VBAC, then the baby has to come of her own accord between now and the 17th. That means that in a month from tomorrow, we should be parents! So far our future daughter is keeping her presence felt, which is very reassuring. We've only had two unplanned trips to Labor & Delivery so far. One for decreased fetal movements at around 30 weeks (the baby had flipped head down it turned out) and the other for an unexplained blood pressure spike on Sunday (it sorted itself out). Sarah's doing a non-stress test twice a week (up from weekly) starting this week. The nursery is pretty much all ready to go. Just add baby.

David Welton: Make Life Easier for European Startups: Simpler/Cheaper Limited Liability Companies

As I've mentioned here before, one of the differences between "Europe" and the US is just how cheap it is to start a company in the US. Before we go any further, I'll take a moment to add the standard "yes, I know that Europe is not one country" disclaimer, and specify that I'm mostly talking about continental Europe. Starting a company in the UK or Ireland isn't nearly as bad. In Oregon, I spent $55 to create DedaSys LLC. If I'd created it with one or more partners, I would have spent something on a lawyer in order to create a solid agreement, but that is of course a voluntary expenditure that we would pay for because it provided us with some value. In Italy, it costs thousands of Euros just to get started with a company; before you've made any money at all. And, while there are gradual improvements, it's still a bureaucratic process that pretty much must involve at least an accountant and a notary public. And you have to involve the very arbitrary number of 10,000 euros of capital in the company, supposedly there as a guarantee for the people you're doing business with. But 10,000 is not nearly enough to cover some kinds of problems you might cause, and way more than, say, a web startup with a couple of guys and their laptops need. My friend Salvatore says it's possible to sort of "get around" sinking the full 10K into your company, but in any case, the principal of "caveat emptor" is a more sensible one. At most, make a transparency requirement so that people dealing with companies can tell exactly how much reserves they have. During a recent bout of cold/flu, compliments of our daughter's nursery school, when I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to do something about this, however much it may be pissing into the wind. I set up a site: http://www.srlfacile.org (warning: Italian only) As well as a Google Group, and petition for people to sign, in an attempt to make a little bit of noise about the problem, here in Italy. While it's likely that the actual bureaucratic mechanisms are more smoothly oiled in other European countries, I have my doubts as to whether the actual amount of paperwork can compete with the very minimal page or two required by many US states. And in any case, the costs are still quite high, and while we all have different levels on the idea of the role of government, and ideal levels of taxation, I think we can agree that it's sensible to levy taxes only after a company has begun to make money! So - how about it? Anyone want to create sister initiatives in other countries in Europe where things aren't as simple and easy as they should be? Anyone care to tell of how this problem has been fixed elsewhere? I've heard tell that in Germany, there is now a simpler/cheaper way to create limited liability companies.

15 April 2010

Bernd Zeimetz: gimp-plugin-registry package updated

Yesterday I finally found the time to update gimp-plugin-registry, the (hopefully!) largest and best collection of plugins for The GIMP. As usual here comes a short summary of the changes: Hope you like my work, suggestions and bug reports are welcome as usual!

Steve Kemp: Planning to be surprised when you deliver?

I'm constantly amazed by how blas electricians are with regard to live voltage. I'm used to mixing with software developers, who have a healthy fear and respect for "hardware", or physicists who're a very cautious bunch on the whole. A week or two ago I developed a leak in my flat's roof, which lead to a small amount of minor water damage and a failure in my lighting. I've had a couple of people out to look at it, and they all seem quite happy poking around with the (potentially soggy) electrical cables without me disconnecting the ring / main supply. Still I guess they must know what they're doing; they've not previously been killed ... ObFilm: Juno

Clint Adams: DebConf Sponsorship Application Deadline Today. Register Now.

H&R Block is like a KFC for your chicken. No, not really.

Biella Coleman: Cultural Cornucopia

Today all across America, many are experiencing a soft form of hell, anxiety, and constant cursing for it is tax day. Thankfully last night I squared those away (more or less). Today is also the last day to register forDebconf sponsored registration. Even if there is a chance you can t make it, it is worth filling out the form just in case. For those spending a little extra time in NYC or planning on sneaking out to take a whirl in the city, here are some more fun options. NYC is known to be a cultural cornucopia of sorts and one reason are the many museums. I just found a twitter list listing those museums with a feed. Probably one of my favorite museums is located in the far north of Manhattan, the Cloisters. It is a haven, an oasis with small beautiful gardens, as well large stone rooms and buildings filled with medieval art, tapestry, and manuscripts. If you need to get away from people, chatter, and computers, this might be a good place to visit. Museums are easy enough to find but there are other spots in NYC that may be a little harder to spot. If you want to hit Chinatown for dim sum, I would recommend Jing Fong, which is mind blowing largely because of its LARGE (like there are escalators that take you up) room, which gets pretty darn packed on the weekend. If you want something that involves not just food but involves sweat, water, food, sun, hot rocks, body scrubs, funny looking pink, orange and blue uniforms and all in a cross-cultural context, then Spa Castle is the place to go to. Just check out the website and you will see what I am talking about. It s family friendly, has a cornucopia of saunas (filled with jade, gold, ice, Tibetan bricks), some decent Korean food, among many other attractions. In general is one of the best deals in NY.

Biella Coleman: Cultural Cornucopia

Today all across America, many are experiencing a soft form of hell, anxiety, and constant cursing for it is tax day. Thankfully last night I squared those away (more or less). Today is also the last day to register forDebconf sponsored registration. Even if there is a chance you can t make it, it is worth filling out the form just in case. For those spending a little extra time in NYC or planning on sneaking out to take a whirl in the city, here are some more fun options. NYC is known to be a cultural cornucopia of sorts and one reason are the many museums. I just found a twitter list listing those museums with a feed. Probably one of my favorite museums is located in the far north of Manhattan, the Cloisters. It is a haven, an oasis with small beautiful gardens, as well large stone rooms and buildings filled with medieval art, tapestry, and manuscripts. If you need to get away from people, chatter, and computers, this might be a good place to visit. Museums are easy enough to find but there are other spots in NYC that may be a little harder to spot. If you want to hit Chinatown for dim sum, I would recommend Jing Fong, which is mind blowing largely because of its LARGE (like there are escalators that take you up) room, which gets pretty darn packed on the weekend. If you want something that involves not just food but involves sweat, water, food, sun, hot rocks, body scrubs, funny looking pink, orange and blue uniforms and all in a cross-cultural context, then Spa Castle is the place to go to. Just check out the website and you will see what I am talking about. It s family friendly, has a cornucopia of saunas (filled with jade, gold, ice, Tibetan bricks), some decent Korean food, among many other attractions. In general is one of the best deals in NY.

13 April 2010

Gunnar Wolf: Regarding the fatal cycling accident in Ciudad Universitaria

My blog is written in English, even though I sometimes post content relevant locally. Anyway, I want this to be as widely known as possible. We are about to launch a website/community for my University's cyclists, BiciUNAMonos. Please note the site I'm linking is still very preliminary in several ways. But that's the least relevant for now. I am translating here a message written by fellow cyclist (and researcher in the Institute of Astronomy of my University) Sergio Mendoza.
Regarding the fatal cycling accident in Ciudad Universitaria Yesterday night I got home, and was quite surprised to open my mailbox and find a considerable amount of messages under the subject Urgent: Fallen cyclist! I immediately noticed something was very wrong, and was surprised they were contacting me. When I decided to read the first such message, I realized what happened: Dr. Jorge Villanueva was run over by the Puma [internal University service] bus number 14, route 2, which was being driven over the speed limit. This happened last Sunday, April 11. On Sundays, all of Ciudad Universitaria becomes a cycling and running circuit. I was immediately brought back to the moment that, when I was leaving my office in the Astronomy Institute and heading towards Cerro del Agua avenue, a lady driving over the speed limit on the circuit that comes from Metro Universidad threw her car at me. I saw her at a few centimeters distance from her windshield... To the day I don't know how I pulled my bike away, as I was going to hit the windshield with my shoulder. Everything happened in slow motion, I just heard several cars honking at this imprudent lady. I didn't have a scratch, but got excessively close to getting a strong hit, and with the adrenaline raging I gave a kind caress with my closed fist to her brand new car. I had to free my adrenaline somehow... My legs were trembling when I tried to pedal. I told her, lady, I am excessively visible in my bike, why did you do this? , she didn't answer, she just looked despectively at me. This kind of accidents happen every day in the University and its main entries. Precisely today, a University professor threw his car at me entering the University via Cerro del Agua. When I reached him and confronted him, he told me completely sure of his words that I was invading the lane with my bike, and that it was my fault. Anybody would have thought a car-driving university professor is capable of reading the Metropolitant Transit Regulations that clearly states on its 1st article: The priority for using the public space, for the different transport modes will be according to the following priorization: I. Pedestrians; II. Cyclists; III. Users and providers of massive, collective or individual public transport service; IV. users of particular automotor transport; and V. users and providers of freight transport. We are now organizing to put up the first ghost bike in Ciudad Universitaria. This happens few days before the formal inauguration of BiciUNAMonos, the universitary association of urban cyclists; we will do this remembering our university mate. I see every day more people in the University hitting their bike pedals to get to their faculties, centers and research institutes, but what is striking is the lack of University infrastructure. The few cycleways we have are built to use a bycicle system that is open only until 16:00. It is good, but it is in no way useful for those of us who use the bike every day and at every hour, no matter the weather. The main problem lies at the communication points, when cyclists arrive from outside Ciudad Universitaria and have to take the regular circuits to reach the cycleways. The Transit Regulation, in the 1st article I quoted above, defines in an excellent way the priorities that must exist to allow human movility. In this regard we have to mention that:
  1. The pedestrians must be enormously protected with walkways and semaphores to allow them to safely walk. In Ciudad Unviersitaria there are many places that don't even have a walkway or semaphores, and drivers do not respect the pedestrian's preference. Also, now in the central area of Ciudad Universitaria we have the Pumabus system on a confined lane, providing an excellent service to the pedestrians to move within the campus.
  2. The cyclist comes next in this priorization, but there is nothing obvious for him. There are a couple of cyclist ways, usually invaded by pedestrians, and explicitly made to use the Bicipuma system. Cyclists need their own lane for circulation in the Universitary circuit; pedestrians have walkways, Pumab s has its confined lanes, but the cyclists still lack it. The third lane that remains is precisely for the IV and V entries in the Metropolitan Transport Regulations. They can perfectly share the remaining lane in the campus.
The last thing I wanted was to formally announce BiciUNAMonos reminding a fallen cyclist and dedicating a ghost bycicle to his memory in Ciudad Universtiaria, but we don't have a choice. We have to make it very clear to the University community that the bicycle is the best transport system, and that the drivers' imprudence inside Ciudad Universitaria must be strongly punished. Sergio Mendoza
President
http://www.biciunamonos.org
Coincidentally, today I also had a freightening experience. Taking one of my usual routes to work, going up from the sporting area in the Western half of the campus (just before where the map lists the highest point in my ride), just by Investigaciones Biom dicas, I heard a car hitting the breaks behind me and passing me (on my right side) quite narrowly. I was, as always, driving towards the center of the lane, to be able to respond to unforseen events (as this one, precisely). The Universitary authorities had the great(?) idea of placing round, small bumps before the Pumabus stations to avoid drivers parking in front of them. I have seen a strong accident caused by them, and was close to suffering one myself some months ago. I know that just after Biom dicas there are some such bumps, so I never ride too much to the right I don't know what was on this driver's head. Ciudad Universitaria has a 40 Km/h speed limit. Yes, it might seem too low - Circuits are wide and well planned. But there is a lot of cyclist and pedestrian transit, at all times, and I must recognize such a limit is well in place. I often take a longer route to my Institute, bordering the University along Av. Delf n Madrigal. People tell me I'm crazy, as this is an avenue that's often taken at high speed - Usually, cars pass me by between 60 and 80 Km/h. However, I even feel safer going that way than going inside the University. Contrary to the popular belief, Universitary people do not have better driving habits than the bulk of the population. And it's often much easier to drive along a way where the traffic even if it goes at three times my speed runs only in one direction, unlike the swarming of people going in every possible direction inside the main campus. Anyway, last Sunday we lost a University professor, we lost a cyclist. Some people lost a friend, a family member. We have to make this case well known, we have to speak with the authorities so they see the Bicipuma system is good, but not enough. Cycling is the only way to go for a city as complex as ours. A much needed first step is to allow proper vial connections linking the University and the many avenues that surround it. Another one is to make a campaign so the cyclists are not seen as Sergio regards as intruders in the streets The street belongs to us all. Cyclists should never drive on walkways or among pedestrians. Drivers need to learn to share the streets with us.

11 April 2010

John Goerzen: Final comments on our trip to Europe

I wrote a lot about our trip to Europe here, and I had a few more comments to share. I had a great time there. It was fun to stay with people, and it was also fun to explore cities on our own. I am eager to be able to go back. Communication
I ll admit I wasn t sure how I d do there. I speak only a little German, and no Czech at all. I have never been in a situation in which I don t speak the dominant language, and this is probably typical for Americans. (I m not going to count the few exceptions of eating at small Mexican restaurants in the USA where the staff speaks little English, as it s not really the same experience to be in that situation for an hour or two.) I was most apprehensive about our time in Berlin and Prague. In those cities, we didn t know anyone. And, although I speak a little German, I speak no Czech at all. In the end, though, it all worked out fine. I never saw anyone get frustrated with us for our lack of language knowledge, and we also never got rattled. With patience and a bit of ingenuity, we figured things out in every different situation. I feel a sense of accomplishment from that, and I think it s left me more ready to travel in the future. And, I d also have to say, that was one of the most interesting lessons of the trip: how two people that don t share a common language can still communicate. It might be slow, but it s also rewarding and easier than I might ever have thought. I remember particularly buying a couple of fragile carved wood souvenirs at the Zeidler Holzkunst (wood art) shop in the Altes Rathaus in Leipzig (Seiffener Volkskunsterzeugnisse was on the window). The shopkeeper spoke no English. We were interested in some rather fragile items, and I wanted to ask her if she could pack it in a box. I didn t know the German words for pack or box . So after a couple seconds thought, I realized I knew how to tell her, in German, that we re from America. And then I asked, Can you? (in German) and gestured for a square box, figuring maybe she d put it together that we d need to pack it well to take it home with us. Success. She quickly produced a box, and asked if that s what we wanted. A few minutes later, a bit of pointing towards the glass case communicated what we wanted to buy. It took a little longer than it would have from someone that spoke English, but this was more rewarding in the end. The train station in Prague was another challenge. It didn t have nearly as much English signage as other train stations we d been in. We did a little wondering around, and some educated guesses, and a brief English conversation in a bank, we eventually found an ATM, a place to change the big bills for smaller ones, and a Metro ticket shop that was open. Clothes Many Americans, and American travel books, suggest not wearing jeans and tennis shoes in Europe. Many commented that people dressed more formally in Europe. That advice appeared to be rather wrong, especially in L beck, where it appeared that many people dressed less formally than in the USA. As we went south and east, we saw fewer jeans, but still they were rather common. Our biggest blunder here was probably the shoes that we brought for Terah. She brought some shoes that looked nice, but weren t very good for walking. She wound up with some painful blisters on her feet, and wished she had just brought her regular tennis shoes. Luggage and Packing We try to travel light when we can. All of our luggage for the entire trip fit into two carryon-size suitcases, though we sometimes separated some items out into a backpack for ease of use in airports/airplanes. This worked out about right. We did laundry once in Germany so we didn t have to pack enough clothes for the entire trip. As far as electronics go, we brought along an international GSM phone from onesimcard.com, my Droid (which could use Wifi but not GSM), Terah s iPod Touch, a GPS, my digital camera, and a laptop. That also was about right. We used the Droid to call back to Indiana to check on the boys, using SIP over WiFi for free calling via Google Voice. The laptop is a small one, so didn t add a lot of weight or bulk. It was nice to have to check out maps and Facebook. The GPS was somewhat less useful than I had anticipated. I had pre-loaded it with street-level maps of most of Europe, and also put on it points in Berlin that had been suggested to us. The transit maps were really more useful most places, especially when combined with a detailed street-level map. In Berlin, though, the detail on the street-level map from our hotel was somewhat lacking, so the GPS came in handy. It was also nice to quickly be able to see where the nearest S-Bahn and U-Bahn stops were, then cross-referencing with our transit map to figure out how to get where we wanted to go. One night in Leipzig, after a concert at the Gewandhaus, we made a couple of wrong turns on our way to a tram stop. The GPS would have saved us 15 minutes of walking had we brought it along, but we figured it out with our street map and it wasn t really a problem. Rick Steves is a big advocate of money belts when traveling. These are a belt with a zippered pouch, and are worn under your pants (though over your shirt, if it s tucked in). The idea is that it s hard to pickpocket. He suggests having a days worth of cash in a front pocket, and passports and larger bills in the money belt. We brought one but never used it. I kept small cash in my pocket, and we kept passports and my wallet (with larger bills) in Terah s purse, which was on a strap around her neck, zippered shut, and held under her arm. We had no problems. I tend not to keep my wallet in my back pocket even when traveling in the USA. Also, the hotels we stayed in had safes, and the residences were of course plenty safe, so we had no problem leaving valuables there. I brought only a single lens for my Digital Rebel XTi, a 28mm fixed lens that is small and light. That was just fine, and I was happy to have a fixed lens for photography in dark churches. Also, I wouldn t have wanted to carry around a bulky zoom lens all over. We sometimes took the camera with us, and sometimes not. In Berlin in particular, we just left it in the hotel room. I figured (correctly) that there would be plenty of photos on Flickr of the sites we were visiting, and we could just enjoy the time a little better if we weren t worrying about a camera too. But I was glad to have it along. Transportation The transportation systems in the cities we visited felt more, well, balanced than they often are in the USA. It s not that there weren t busy car-filled avenues, but more that there were also quiet shopping streets where cars were banned. Cars often seemed to be more of an option than a necessity, and not always the best option at that. Public transportation was common, as were pedestrian routes and bicycle lanes. The only American city I ve visited that felt even close to this approach was Portland, OR. I wish we adopted it more often here. I also admire the German intercity rail service, operated by Deutsche Bahn. You can get all over the country pretty quickly. The trains we rode on were quiet, smooth, and timely. I wish we had that kind of service in more parts of the USA.

Gregor Herrmann: RC bugs 2010/14

a short overview of my RC bug activities. more than usual, most of them in the debian perl group, some of them new bugs.

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