We are sorry to inform you that Progeny Linux Systems, Inc. ceased operations April 30, 2007.It’s always a little sad to see a former employer go away, even when you feel the company brought its troubles onto itself. Imagine how much worse it is to see something die that you thought had a lot of potential, with fabulous co-workers, above-average management, and really good ideas. It’s often been said that competence and vision are not sufficient for success; without getting into the details, Progeny is now Exhibit A in making that case for me. I am grateful for having worked there, and am proud of what we accomplished. It wasn’t easy surviving the dot-com bust and building a new business model for ourselves. And it’s certain that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the opportunities Progeny gave me. I wish my former colleagues well as they find new jobs. Nearly everyone who passed through Progeny was top-notch, and would make excellent hires.
free-thursday-subscribe@liw.iki.fi to
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Now, if someone will start a "Net Wednesday" event,
all will be perfect.
RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / #RewriteCond % REQUEST_URI ^/index.php/?(.*$) [NC] #RewriteRule . /%1 [R=301,L] RewriteCond % REQUEST_FILENAME !-f RewriteCond % REQUEST_FILENAME !-d #RewriteRule . /foo.php%1 [L] RewriteRule . /index.php%1 [L]Update: I am now using the permalink-redirect plugin (thanks for the tip Method) which solves the problem of the obsolete URLs as well as solving the problem of having two representations of the URL (with and without a trailing slash). I have updated the above htaccess file sample to reflect my new configuration (with the old settings commented out for the benefit of people who don’t want the permalink-redirect plugin). The way Wordpress allows the table prefix to be stored in the MySQL configuration section is very handy. Some time ago I asked for advice on a blog server for multiple users and Wordpress-MU was recommended, but it seems that for most situations where you want multiple blogs the non-MU version of Wordpress will do the job. It seems that the main benefit of Wordpress-MU is that setting up multiple blogs doesn’t require running shell scripts, which for the cases I’m most interested in doesn’t compete with the benefit that the non-MU version has of being packaged in Debian. On the topic of Wordpress in Debian, it’s a pity that none of the plugins are packaged in Debian. I plan to create a repository for plugins and themes that I use if no-one else has started such a repository. I believe that a repository of Debian packages for such things will provide significant benefits to users, including updates for security reasons and having plugins that are known to work (some of the plugins appear to only work on Windows). Also there are a few issues that I would like to improve in Wordpress. One is that the Uncategorised category is selected by default so if I select another category and forget to de-select Uncategorised then it’s a little confusing. Another is that the categories are displayed in the side-bar without mentioning the number of matching posts. The way blogger lists the number of posts per category (and sorts the categories in order) is much more convenient. Also another advantage of blogger is the handling of archives where you can click on a month to see a list of the names of all posts in that month. I’m not about to go back, but it would be nice to have those features. Does anyone have any ideas how to solve these problems?
/tpa/preset/system/sound). Now phone magically makes no
sounds when taking photos :-).
"Well, yes, there's the matter of triple damages for "willful infringement". That only kicks in once a court has found you liable, but it's an issue. There's been a change in the last few days though; a recent US Supreme Court decision should lead to a very large number of software patents getting tossed (though unfortunately they would have to be challenged one by one). My take: free software developers shouldn't go searching for bad patents. But people like the EFF and the SFLC should, the better to get those bad patents tossed."
On 26 April, just three days after the planet's existence was revealed, Dimitar Sasselov of Harvard University began using the small Canadian space telescope MOST (Microvariability and Oscillations of Stars) to observe Gliese 581. Sasselov predicts that, if the geometry is right, his team should see the star dim on 7 May as the planet passes in front of it.They reckon on 50/1 against a transit, on geometrical grounds. Good luck to them though. The point of all of this is that the current planetary detections of Gliese 581b and 581c are Doppler radial velocity measurements. While they tell us the period, they only give us a lower bound on the mass : 581c is at least 5 Earth masses, but could be much more (its M Sin(i), where i is the inclination relative to us is unknown). We also don't know the radius of the planet : the figure quoted in the news articles to date is just a guess based on 5 Earth masses and current theory. A transit measurement, where the planet passes in front of the star, could answer these questions. But it occurs to be we could get numbers tonight: there is a transit (alignment) of Gliese 581b tonight at 22:40 UT. Much more favourable to those of us in Europe. A transit of GL 581b, the big neighbour of Gl 581c, would tell is that a transit of 581c is likely, and would give us an accurate mass for 581b, and from this, a measure of the inclination. So we could also calculate the mass of 581b. Unfortunately I don't have a photometer or CCD. Anyone else up for it? Clear Skies over Ireland forecast , too ...
All too often, technologies are pitted against each other in the popular imagination, and Linux and Solaris are no exception—”Linux vs. Solaris” certainly does make a catchy soundbyte. Despite the juxtaposition, Linux and Solaris have much in common—both are open source, have common ancestry, and are similar enough that both users and developers can move back and forth between them with comparative ease. The “vs.” mentality is caused as much by lack of understanding of the “other side” as anything else. In this track, we will focus on the similarities between Linux and Solaris rather than the differences, the goal being to increase understanding of Solaris among Linux users and developers and vice versa. Where we discuss differences, these differences will be expressed in terms of “how we can learn from each other”. We will also discuss the migration up the stack of developer platforms and address the question, “Do operating systems still matter?” The ultimate goal of the track is to change the conversation: Not Linux vs. Solaris, but open vs. closed.The track includes four sessions. I’ll kick things off by answering the burning question: “What’s a Linux guy doing at Sun?” Next, Jeff Bailey of Canonical and Bart Smaalders of Sun will take us “inside the sausage factory” to show how Ubuntu and Solaris, respectively, get made. Next, Don Kretsch of Sun and Joe Little of Stanford will show us Solaris Express Developer Edition and Nexenta, two very different takes on OpenSolaris. And last but certainly not least, Josh Berkus, Robert Lor, Harpreet Singh, Tim Bray, and Greg Luck will highlight why the OS still very much matters even as software development moves up the stack. Of course, there are a number of other great tracks as well. If operating systems are your bag, you should also check out the OpenSolaris track. Fortunately, my times don’t overlap with Ben Rockwood’s introduction to OpenSolaris, nor will I have to miss the opportunity to see the amazing Bryan Cantrill, Adam Leventhal, and Mike Shapiro educate, entertain, and gesticulate wildly! If you’re in San Francisco or the Bay area or are already planning to be at JavaOne, you should definitely plan to attend CommunityOne too. Register today! (P.S. - It’s free!)
custom_url_rewrite function to change the
target of the URL alias depending on the value of the
$locale variable (which contains the current interface
language). Turns out that this breaks the language prefix (i18n.module
installs its own custom_url_rewrite function). Efforts to
change my function or the i18n version of that function to change in
such a way that both translations are done have failed; they seem to
confuse drupal in some way. This is possibly due to the fact that the
custom_url_rewrite function in i18n.module only performs one end of the
translation, while my needs require both ends; I don't know enough about
drupal to figure out how i18n's other side is implemented.Another reason being anonymous didn t work for me is really internal to Zen - er, Wesleyan, stultifying features of which I was trying to escape following the Unfortunate Events. Like being watched and talked about all the time and treated like yesterday’s news for having done the teaching and institutional work I was asked to do while struggling to find time for my scholarship even as other people were chosen to be groomed as “the scholars.” What happened to me during the last three years nearly destroyed me as a writer and an intellectual (I am actually not joking about this), and I had to start all over again, recreating a literary voice for myself and a confidence that I could command an audience with my thoughts and prose, from the ground up. It was either that or quit. ….
Do not dare feel sorry for me about this, and let me underline the point: I am a highly privileged, senior faculty member at a very wealthy institution, and many other bloggers are not. Furthermore, regardless of this messy coming-out period, my strategy actually worked. Because of this blog *and its audience*, I was able to start writing again, to finish articles that were lying about undone, to write a book review for the Village Voice, to write a book proposal, to get going on revising the book that various people and committees eliminated all over during the Unfortunate Events, to do a ton of research on a new project and to begin speaking about some critical reforms that might really help faculty on the right and the left enjoy their work as academics again. In other words: I Saved Myself. And I have been transformed into something more powerful as a result of my trials.
Meanwhile, Gian-marco, my future flat mate, had spent the day packing up
everything that was left in my old flat, where I had left an utter mess.
A colleague of mine was to sublet the place starting that Saturday, so there
were roughly 48 hours left to empty and clean it, and to hand it over. There
are more pleasant things in heaven and earth than to have someone else empty
your flat for you.
Morphine is a really crazy drug. Most people think of it as fuzzy and often
joke about taking it if only they could get their hands on it. Having made the
experience, I'd rather not take it again unless I have to. Watching television
turned out to be impossible, even the weather report went too fast for me.
Visitors appeared sort of blurry, I would often not follow the things they
said, and it was definitely impossible to entertain thoughts for prolonged
periods of time, or to engage in any sort of productive thinking. Organising
a cleaning lady for my old flat and giving instructions to my cousin, who
would hand over the flat took all my energy
On Friday, I was to have an important business meeting with three people, so
I organised a room in the hospital and asked the nurses to put me on optional
morphine so I could be a bit more present during the meeting. As
a consequence, I could press a button once every ten minutes for a dose of
morphine, and with this new level of control, I began to reduce the drug
amount in my blood gradually.
The meeting did not take place in the end but I came to regret my choice to
reduce the morphine at around midnight, when the pain in my knee became
unbearable. I kept pressing the button for more morphine like a madman, but
the device would only deliver a new shot every 10 minutes. The nurse was not
authorised to change that and instead gave me other pain and sleep medication,
but not even the combination of morphine, Tramal (an opiod), Novalgin,
Mefenacid, and Paracetamol could dampen the level of pain, and so I spent
almost three hours in real agony, biting the pillow with tears running down my
cheeks, until finally the medication won, I became indifferent (thanks to
Temesta) and drifted off into sleep.
After breakfast the next morning, the morphine applicator suddenly had a fit,
started beeping, and pumped more drug into my body than it should have. It
took me about 20 minutes or maybe an hour (who knows ) to put my brain
together, realise what had happened, and come up with a way to lift my finger
to the button to call the nurse. Despite the horrible night, I told them to
remove the morphine because I'd rather stand the pain than have my brain
mushed like that, plus there are always plain morphine injections delivered by
humans instead of machines.
In fact, the next night I could feel the pain approaching and since it's
easier to suppress pain than it is to remove it, I asked for a sleeping pill
and a morphine injection. The injection did three things: first, it hurt so
much that my knee immediately became pain-free while nerve central was
occupied trying to figure out what the heck had just happened in my right
thigh. Second, it did not take three minutes to kick in, and it kicked in so
strongly that I just barely realised that my head was suboptimally positioned
on the pillow and the lights still on, but failed to do anything about it.
I did not wake once until breakfast. And third, I am glad to know that
morphine does actually (still) work. Pain is complex, fascinating, useful,
sometimes even pleasurable to some, but when you know the cause and you'd
rather make it stop, it's comforting to know that there are ways the
previous night had instilled some doubt in me.
From then it was all downhill and I left the hospital after eleven days on
Thursday, got by without pain medication the same day and off the sleeping
pills the next night. Two days later I was already racing around town in my
wheel chair:
By now I can actually walk again, albeit slowly, and even though I still
cannot lift heavy stuff or get my hands wet, my hands are a lot better; on 21
May, the casts shall be removed and I'll be able to bend my knee again, but it
may take up to a year to return to sports, such as running, to which I had
just become addicted. In fact, I can comfortably claim that I had just
reached an acceptable level of fitness just before the injury. Tough luck.
My mother has come to Zurich twice already to help unpack and with her
invaluable help, as well as the help of Gian-marco and several others, we are
actually almost done moving in. Ironically, it's actually quite annoying to
sit and watch others do your work; I would have helped as well, had the roles
been inverted, and yet I am still greatly indebted. Human relations tend to be
funny like that.
Let me end with two points: first, Zurich's university hospital probably ranks among the best hospitals in the
world, and that makes Zurich even more attractive to me (even though I
certainly don't plan my next hospital stay). I felt very comfortable throughout
my stay, had the impression of being in very capable hands, and had most of my
countless questions answered. In addition, the hospital is very nicely
surrounded by a park and could not be more central, which makes it easier for
visitors.
And that brings me to my final thought: thanks to everyone who stopped by or
called in to make my stay a lot more pleasant. I spent eleven days in the
hospital and I got bored and annoyed for the first time on Wednesday, the day
before my release. Most of the credit for those ten days of lack of boredom
goes to everyone who supported me. It did help that I had Internet access via
a convenient 2 /day GPRS flatrate
(even though I could not really type), but it became crystal clear to me that
visiting someone in the hospital, whether you're close to the patient or not,
is one of the most beautiful gifts you can give. In the past I have neglected
this opportunity occasionally; now I would want to make a special effort (even
though I hope there won't be any need).
And I would not be a geek if I did not end this post with a reference to
Debian: I know of a case when one of our developers
ended up in hospital and two others (or was it more?) drove hours to visit and
check in on him/her. Now even more than before can I say that I am proud to be
a member of a project in which such things happen.
PS: this post took me about 4 hours to compose. Sucks to be typing one-handed.
Next.
