I ve got a bit of a problem. I enjoy writing software. I often write software to solve some sort of problem that I ve had. Usually virtually any code I write winds up in my git repositories, on the theory that it might be useful to someone else. Some of the code that I think might really be useful to people gets even better treatment. OfflineIMAP, for instance, has a very comprehensive manpage, heavily commented example config file, wiki, mailing list, public bug tracker, etc. Most of these I did the majority of the work to create, but OfflineIMAP does occasionally receive code and documentation contributions from others. Now here s my dilemma. For my purposes, OfflineIMAP is, well, finished. It does everything I ever wanted it to do, and does it better than I ever expected it would. There are some people that would like it to do other things; for instance, optimize performance for IMAP folders with 100,000 messages in them, do UTF-8 folder name translation, and retry a sync if a connection is lost rather than crash (OfflineIMAP was designed to crash gracefully and be automated, so this has never bothered me.) None of these are features that I care about, and I don t have much time to devote to OfflineIMAP these days. It is not an interesting problem to me anymore as, well, I ve solved it already. Yet I ll be honest and say I feel guilty about the bug reports that are stacking up in the OfflineIMAP bug tracking system. OfflineIMAP is used by people that have an expectation for improvement. My efforts to hand over maintainership of OfflineIMAP have failed (the people have gone AWOL shortly after agreeing to maintain it). This problem is even more acute for hpodder, my command-line podcatcher. hpodder works great and is simple. But I no longer listen to podcasts. At all. (I blame my Kindle for that.) Therefore I no longer even use hpodder. Again, I feel guilty for not working on it; for instance, when language changes broke its UTF-8 support, I haven t gone in to fix it. Neither has anybody else, for that matter. This leads me to a dilemma. If I do nothing with my code but toss it on git.complete.org, few people will benefit from it. Most people need documentation, packages for their distribution, etc. git repos don t tend to show up highly in search engines. So, although technically I ve shared things with the world by putting them there, practically speaking I haven t done people many favors. On the other hand, if I go the whole responsible maintainer route, writing documentation, wiki, mailing list, Debian packages, etc., then I have the problem of, well, actual users who want actual support. I feel bad if I m not in a position to give it to them. Many people seem to have the expectation that software is never finished and will continue to be improved. (Ah, if only my name were Knuth I might stand a chance to evade that one. But only a chance, given all the TeX spinoffs.) This expectation, in turn, reduces my enthusiasm for publishing my code online as Free Software. Because now I can t just toss it up there and say help yourselves . Now I get angry emails about all the bug reports piling up. On the other hand, I also get occasional small contributions via my PayPal tip jar , which are awesome and motivating. Despite my grumbling, I do continue to maintain OfflineIMAP, primarily as a patch reviewer these days. I take an aggressive stance on quality, and when I get patches that add features without documentation, I usually write documentation for them before committing them. If I have evidence that a patch hurts quality, I yank it (as I had to do with IDLE support, which was a great feature, but the patch caused all sorts of stability problems due to its requirement of imaplib2.py). For that reason, I suspect, forks haven t taken off. So what s a person that writes niche software to do? OfflineIMAP isn t at the level of popularity of something like Gnome, or even debhelper, and never will be; its userbase consists of people that think that IMAP support in $MUA isn t good enough. hpodder is the somewhat small domain of console-loving podcast listeners. What are your suggestions? Should I abolish the bug trackers and just go for simple? Is there something more I could be doing to make the community feel more empowered? Is simple posting on git.complete.org not as bad as I thought?

That was a pretty good weekend. I set up someone s new Samsung N150 netbook with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. If you like Windows, you might want to skip this long paragraph: the N150 came with Microsoft Windows 7 Starter. When I realised what that was, I thought it was some sort of joke. It s more like an advert for Windows than a proper operating system. They even removed the option to replace the branded backdrop image, which gives you an idea of the pettiness of that distribution. I read that Win7 Starter used to have a 3 simultaneous application limit but an update removed it because of the sheer volume of complaints and rumblings about court cases to get money back. Microsoft justify all the limits with the argument that it s optimised for low-power netbooks, but the N150 goes like stink compared to my own (7-year-old) work laptop and how much power is saved by loading the Windows logo backdrop instead of a nice picture anyway? What did that make me want to do? Well this:
But I d read that Samsung view nuking Win7 Starter from orbit as voiding the warranty and I couldn t see anything to confirm or reject that in the paperwork, so I made it dual-boot with Ubuntu netbook remix. If it ever has to go back to the shop, I ll hide the boot menu. I had enough trouble installing it that I did contemplate get.debian.net with some of the Debian Eee PC things, but I wasn t sure what I needed and I didn t have that much time. There were two big gotchas when installing:

1. When you switch between Ubuntu and Windows, it won t boot the first time. Second and subsequent boots are fine, but the first one just reboots immediately. I suspect this would be the same for all GNU/Linux distributions.
2. I didn t realise that the current ndisgtk (or the underlying ndiswrapper?) couldn t use Win7 drivers. Once I downloaded some XP drivers, it worked. There are some native drivers for the rtl8192 but I didn t have time to go compiling on it yet.

After figuring those out, Ubuntu seems to work fine. Better than the Windows. I got particularly appreciative comments about the large clickable spaces on the launcher that netbook remix uses (which is what I d expect from Fitts s Law). Debian probably has a similar launcher, but I don t know what it s called yet. It looks like some Gnome window or file manager and I m a GNUstep throwback. Setting up the mobile phone for internet access was also a breeze. It s a later model than my old k608i, so it supports PANU, so after the Bluetooth pairing, it appeared in the networking menu on the top panel bar and it just worked. On Sunday, I cycled to Clevedon (7 miles away as the crow flies, but 12 by bike because of a missing river crossing). Pretty good weekend.

The TEDxVolcano The TED conference franchise has been extended to TEDxVolcano [1], this is a small conference that features people who are stranded by the Eyjafjallaj kull volcano in Iceland. As usual TED is an inspiration to us all, so there is obvious potential for other conferences to be organised in similar situations there s no reason why a free software conference can t be organised in Europe right now! What You Need to run a Conference If a conference will have limited attendance (EG due to a volcano preventing anyone from flying to the area) then filming everything is very important. I ve seen adverts for digital cameras that support Full HD resolution (1920*1080) for as little as $AU400. $AU600 will get you a digital camcorder that does Full HD which will offer some benefits for recording long movies (such as the ability to store the video on an external hard drive). If I was stuck in a foreign hotel with not much to do then I would be prepared to buy a digital camera or camcorder for the purpose of running such a conference (my current digital camera is 5.1MP and only has 3* optical zoom, it s a nice camera but I could do with something better. A tripod can cost up to $100, but I recently bought myself a 15cm tall tripod for $10 that would do at a pinch. Once you have high quality video you can easily upload it to something like Blip.TV. Of course you get a better result if you do some post-production work to merge images of the slides for the lecture into the video, but that is a lot of work and probably requires a camera that outputs uncompressed video for best results. The next issue is getting a venue. Different hotels cater for different parts of the market, some cater to tourists, some to business travel, some to conferences. If you want a venue at short notice you may be able to get a good deal if you find a hotel that is adversely affected, for example I m sure that there are some quite empty conference hotels in Europe right now but the tourist hotels are probably reasonably busy (why not do some tourism if you are stuck). I expect that hotels really don t want to have empty conference rooms and are prepared to offer good deals for bookings at short notice. Of course you would want to try to ensure that hotel rooms aren t too expensive in that hotel as some delegates will want to stay in the hotel which hosts the conference. The minimal staffing for a micro conference is probably two people, one for taking payment, directing people, etc, and the other to film the lectures and moderate panel discussions. Rumor has it that attending without paying is a problem at conferences, for conferences that are planned in advance corporations will try and send multiple employees on the one ticket and have them share a name-tag one issue with this is that there is a fixed quantity of food supplied and if extra people appear then everyone who paid gets less, another is that people who pay really hate to see freeloaders. The best reference I ve found for people not paying at conferences is Jon Oxer s description of how Leslie Cachia of Letac Drafting Services brazenly stole a book from him [2]. Name-tags are needed for any meeting with more than about 15 people. I m not sure how to get proper name-tags (ones that pin on to clothing and have printed names maybe the bigger hotels can add this to the conference package). But a roll of sticky labels from an office supply store is pretty cheap. Costs in Wellington Along with a few other people I considered running a small security conference immediately before or after LCA 2010, that ended up not happening but I will consider doing it in future. When considering that the general plan was to get a hotel to provide a meeting room for 10-30 people (we had no real idea of the demand). When investigating the possibilities for running a conference in Wellington I discovered that the hotel fees for a conference room can either be based on paying a fixed fee for the room plus additional expenses for each item or you can pay a fixed rate per person. It seemed that there was the potential to save a small amount of money by paying the fixed fees and avoiding some payments for things like tea/coffee service. But the amount that could be saved would be small and it would incur extra effort in managing it saving $5 per person is a good thing if you have 600 delegates, but if you have 30 then it s probably a waste of time. So it seemed best to go for one of the packages, you tell the hotel what time you want the lunch and snack breaks and how you want the tables arranged and they just do everything. The cost for this seemed to be in the range of $nz35 to $nz55 per delegate per day. There is some flexibility in room arrangement, so a room that seats 12 people in the board-room layout (tables in a rectangle facing the center) would fit 25 in the classroom layout (tables all facing the front) or 50 in the theater layout (chairs facing the front with no tables). So the hotel could accommodate changes in the size at relatively short notice (whatever their notice period for buying the food). The cost for a catered conference dinner seemed to be about $nz45 per diner. In many cases it would be possible to get a meal that is either cheaper, better, or both by going somewhere else, but that wastes time and effort. So that gave an overall conference cost of about $nz135 for a two day conference with a dinner at the end of the first day. Given that the cheapest budget rate from Wotif.com for a 3 star hotel in Wellington is currently $nz85 per night it seems that $nz135 for a two day conference including dinner is pretty cheap as the minimum accommodation cost would be $nz170. Also note that the hotels which I considered for hosting the conference had rates for their hotel rooms that were significantly greater than $nz85 per night. The hotels all offer other services such as catered cocktail parties , these would be good things for any company that wants to sponsor the conference. Different cities can have vastly different prices for hotels. But I expect that the way conference rooms are booked and managed is similar world-wide and the ratio of conference costs to hotel booking fees to also be similar. Most of the hotels that cater to conferences seem to be owned by multi-national corporations. It would probably make sense to charge delegates an extra $10 or $15 above the cost of running the conference to cover unexpected expenses. Of course it s difficult to balance wanting to charge a low rate to attract more people with wanting to avoid the risk of a financial loss. Conclusion The hard part is getting speakers. If you can get speakers and panel participants who can fill the time slots and have interesting things to say then all the other parts of organising a micro conference should be relatively easy. When the cost is less than $150 per delegate then a syndicate of a few people can easily agree to split the loss if the number of delegates turns out to be smaller than expected, a potential loss of $2000 shared among a few people shouldn t be a huge problem. Also if the conference is booked at short notice (EG because of a volcano) then the hotel shouldn t require any deposit for anything other than the food which is specially ordered (IE not the tea, coffee, etc) that limits the potential loss to something well under $100 per delegate who doesn t attend. Anyone who has enough dedication to a topic to consider running a conference should be prepared to risk a small financial loss. But based on my past observations of the generosity of conference delegates I m sure that if at the conference closing the organiser said unfortunately this conference cost more than the money you paid me, could you please put something in this hat on the way out then the response would be quite positive. Note that I am strictly considering non-profit conferences. If you want to make money by running a conference then most things are different.

• [1] http://blog.ted.com/2010/04/tedxvolcano_exp.php
• [2] http://jon.oxer.com.au/blog/id/224

Some people use '--without-recommends' switch and the problem is gone. I think that's overkill.

This post will tell how (would I recommend) to deal with unwanted recommends. The following text tells about cupt package manager, and though ideas are applicable to any package managers, the techniques may differ.


Stage 1. Facing problems

Suppose we want to install the package kde-minimal:

-8<-
$ sudo cupt install kde-minimal
[sudo] password for jackyf:
Building the package cache... [done]
Initializing package resolver and worker... [done]
Scheduling requested actions... [done]
Resolving possible unmet dependencies...
The following 16 packages will be INSTALLED:

dolphin kappfinder kde-minimal kdebase-apps kdebase-bin kdebase-data kdepasswd
kfind kinfocenter konqueror konqueror-nsplugins kwrite libkonq5
libkonq5-templates libkonqsidebarplugin4 plasma-widget-folderview

The following 1 packages will be UPGRADED:

konsole

Need to get 6024KiB/6024KiB of archives. After unpacking 14.9MiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q]
->8-

Umm, kinfocenter? No, we don't want it to be installed.

Stage 2. Searching for a reason

Now we will use the 'reason tracking' feature of libcupt's resolver. Let's add '-s' switch (simulating) and '-D' switch (tracking reasons):

-8<-
$ cupt -s install kde-minimal -D
Building the package cache... [done]
Initializing package resolver and worker... [done]
Scheduling requested actions... [done]
Resolving possible unmet dependencies...
The following 16 packages will be INSTALLED:

dolphin
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'dolphin (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kappfinder
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kappfinder (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kde-minimal
reason: user request

kdebase-apps
reason: kde-minimal 5:55 depends on 'kdebase-apps (>= 4:4.3.1)'

kdebase-bin
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kdebase-bin (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kdebase-data
reason: kappfinder 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kdebase-data (= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kdepasswd
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kdepasswd (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kfind
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kfind (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kinfocenter
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 recommends 'kinfocenter (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

konqueror
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'konqueror (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

konqueror-nsplugins
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 recommends 'konqueror-nsplugins (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

kwrite
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'kwrite (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

libkonq5
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'libkonq5 (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'

libkonq5-templates
reason: libkonq5 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'libkonq5-templates kdesktop'

libkonqsidebarplugin4
reason: konqueror 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'libkonqsidebarplugin4 (>= 4:4.3.4)'

plasma-widget-folderview
reason: kdebase-apps 4:4.3.4-1 depends on 'plasma-widget-folderview (>= 4:4.3.4-1)'


The following 1 packages will be UPGRADED:

konsole
reason: synchronized with package 'kdebase-apps'


Need to get 6024KiB/6024KiB of archives. After unpacking 14.9MiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q]
->8-

Now, the output is much bigger. Every package has reason(s) to change its state appended. Let's look at the chain: kinfocenter is installed, because... kdebase-apps is to install. Ok, look further, kdebase-apps is to install because... of kde-minimal. The final chain is 'kde-minimal -> kdebase-apps -> kinfocenter'.

Stage 2.5. Analyzing reason

After determining a full chain one may try to think - is this dependency chain looks OK? Maybe, some Depends/Recommends should be turned up to a less strict dependencies? If that so, it's a good idea to fire a command 'reportbug <package>' to report an unwanted dependency.

In this example, the dependency chain looks OK (at least, to me :)).

Stage 3. Installing a package without unwanted dependency(ies)

The resolution of the problem depends on the answer to the question "Why I don't want this package to be installed?"

Case 1. Only this time/package

If the answer is, say, "Because dependency 'kdebase-apps -> kinfocenter' doesn't make sense on this system", then you do:

-8<-
$ sudo cupt install kde-minimal kinfocenter-
[sudo] password for jackyf:
Building the package cache... [done]
Initializing package resolver and worker... [done]
Scheduling requested actions... [done]
Resolving possible unmet dependencies...
The following 15 packages will be INSTALLED:

dolphin kappfinder kde-minimal kdebase-apps kdebase-bin kdebase-data kdepasswd kfind konqueror konqueror-nsplugins kwrite libkonq5 libkonq5-templates libkonqsidebarplugin4 plasma-widget-folderview

The following 1 packages will be UPGRADED:

konsole

Need to get 5463KiB/5463KiB of archives. After unpacking 13.2MiB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [y/N/q]
->8-

And that's all, kinfocenter won't be installed.

Consequences:

1. This answer implies that you are not against installing kinfocenter if some other package needs it. So, while installing other packages which recommend kinfocenter cupt will suggest you to install kinfocenter again.

2. If you will want to upgrade the package, and the new version contains the same relation, cupt will not suggest to install kinfocenter.

Case 2. Forever

If the answer is "Because I don't want to see kinfocenter in my system ever", then the good choice is APT pinning system.

Place the next three lines into your APT preferences file (usually, /etc/apt/preferences or any file in /etc/apt/preferences.d directory):

-8<-
Package: kinfocenter
Pin: version *
Pin-Priority: -10000
->8-

-10000 is a very low priority, usual priorities are (0 - 1000), so cupt will not ever suggest you to install kinfocenter because of soft (Recommends or Suggests) dependencies. Moreover, if in some actions cupt will need to choose between, say 'kde-virtual kde-virtual-alternate', where kde-virtual depends on kinfocenter and kde-virtual-alternate does not, then cupt will choose kde-virtual-alternate. The exceptions possible in (very unlikely to happen) cases, when non-installing kinfocenter will result in very bad solution for selected actions. The less priority kinfocenter has, the less chances it has to be installed when not requested explicitly (as in 'cupt install kinfocenter').

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.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2008/07/05/new-dell-server/
• [2] http://lists.luv.asn.au/wws/arc/luv-main/2010-04/msg00141.html
• [3] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2009/05/02/cpl/

let's face it After having tamed for a day and a half my INBOX, my IRC log, and my @replies, of an unexpected message flow about the election results, after having being pinged by the -press team to contribute a quote for a very nice and professional press release, after having fired mutt -s "Bits from the (newbie) DPL" debian-devel-announce@lists.debian.org, ... it's time to realize that I've been elected DPL. I still have a bunch of mixed feelings (happiness, fear, responsibility, etc.) to disentangle, but above all I'm really proud of our processes (well I don't mind the result either!). I'm grateful to the other candidates and to all the people that took part in campaigning discussions. As I've observed already, campaigning has been exciting for me. It wouldn't have been so without the courage of all candidates and the inquiries of all contributors. No wonder we have had both the highest percentage of voters of recent years (yes, WAT runs of course helped that), and an absolute number of voters close to that of past "heated" elections. In days in which most of the big players in the distro market are companies (and hence take money-driven decision), I can't be more proud to be a member of a huge volunteer project whose processes are driven by a truly do-ocratic and democratic constitution. See you in a bit. PS 1 in case you wondered, yes, I've fired mutt, but I'm far from having written something in the body of the mail! In the next few hours I'll first distill a personal TODO-list / detailed-plan out of my platform and of the inputs that I've already received. Then I'll finalize my first ever DPL bits to d-d-a. PS 2 In the meantime ... I'll surely be looking for a new "maintainer" for RCBW, any taker? PS 3 shameless plug! The mythical Debian Kilt is being weaved again, and you still have your chance of getting one in time for DebConf10. If you're interested, check out this post by Phil Hands and sign up on the wiki, I'm definitely getting one!

OK maybe the title is a bit of a reach, but she is pretty and my topic is dull.

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.

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.

The DPL vote is over. I did not win, apparently. Let me start off by thanking the other candidates for running, and congratulating Stefano for winning. My own results aren't too bad; I beat 'none of the above' by a comfortable margin of almost 10 to 1, and ended up defeating Charles Plessy by a slightly smaller margin. My margin to NOTA was far better than during the previous DPL election that I participated in, though I did end up defeating more than half of the other candidates back then, which I didn't this time around. All in all, not enough to win, but enough to conclude that I might have a chance some other time. Margarita and Stefano were just better candidates this time around. My own vote was:

[ 2 ] Stefano Zacchiroli
[ 1 ] Wouter Verhelst
[ 4 ] Charles Plessy
[ 2 ] Margarita Manterola
[ 3 ] NOTA

If you run, you have to be serious about running, and support yourself. So I did. After that, I wasn't sure that Stefano would do a better job than Margarita (or vice versa), so I put them at the same spot. Finally, I became convinced during campaigning that Charles has a lot to learn still about what lives in the Debian community, and I am of the opinion that feeling the community is a vital requirement for a DPL; so that ruled him out. So why did I not win? Obviously because there were better candidates in the election, but the real question is: why is that the case? What did I do, or what did other candidates do, that meant they fared better than I? One possibility was given on IRC:

< svuorela> ol: and "I'm running because no other runs" is also
not a good way to get votes ...

Which is fair enough; but I did run with the intention of winning, and I did try to make that clear. I'm hoping that worked out okay, which would imply that there could be other reasons. I'd like to know about those. So if you voted, and did not place me on the top spot, I'd very much appreciate learning about your motivations for doing so especially so if you were one of the 39 people who would rather have redone the vote than see me win. Comments on this blog post are welcome, or by private e-mail if you'd rather not see them made public.

I tend not to be a huge Apple fanboy. They make nice stuff, but it's just too closed for my liking. I like to tinker. I had a PowerBook for a while, but I gave it to Sarah in favour of a Linux laptop. Sarah's been a happy Mac user for a number of years, and had an iPhone (until I gave her a Nexus One). For a "normal" user like her, a Mac is fine, especially if you want to embrace Apple's entire ecosystem. Anyway, the iPad. When it was announced, I sat up and took notice. Why? This seemed like something I might actually use as a casual computing device. I mean, I'm almost in the target market for Chrome OS these days. I spend most of my time in a web browser, and the rest of my time in a terminal window SSHing to another computer. I could leave this thing lying around on the coffee table in the living room, and instead of digging my phone out of my pocket to look something up, I could pick this up instead. It is also appealing because I found Microsoft's Surface to be pretty cool. The iPad is like a more affordable, portable, version of that. It also appeals to me as a computing platform for my parents. Their computing needs have simplified over the years, but they're still running Windows, largely because I've never had the time to try and foist Linux on them. Since I moved to the US, my visits back home have been too brief to do a proper migration. I think an iPad that supported user switching would be perfect. Mum and Dad could share it, and read their email and do their web browsing from anywhere in the house. Since the first generation iPad doesn't do user profiles and lacks a camera, I'll wait impatiently for the second generation one. I heard a rumour today that it would have a camera, and do user profile switching based on the face of whoever was in front of it. That would be pretty cool. I'd also be very interested in an Android tablet. I love Android's speech to text input support, and I could really see an Android tablet stuck to the wall in the kitchen, instead of a whiteboard on the fridge and a paper calendar. The WePad also sounds intriguing. So I'm not so bothered by the iPad's closed nature. I think for the set of users who have basic computing needs, and don't care about openness, it's very cool.

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.

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.

For those of you who don t know, I occasionally write for Linux Format. As I ve got an article coming out in the next issue (available on April 29th), I thought I d have a check to see if the PDF s are available in the subscribers area yet. Unfortunately, they re not, however, I did notice that my first article for Linux Format has now been released to the general public. If you head on over to Issue 121, you ll find my tutorial Security: Protect your server has a Click here to read! link underneath it. One of my other articles for them, Super Snooper , has also found it s way onto TuxRadar, and, while it doesn t have the pretty artwork (or a mugshot, or any mention of me, it seems!) that the magazine does, it s still well presented on the site! Let me know in the comments if you ve any feedback to either of them! Along the same lines, I m thinking that I want to write a book (mainly so that I ll eventually come first in Google, rather than what used to be second and now for some reason seems 7th ). But what should I write about? I ve a few thoughts, and the one that I feel like I want to write the most is about becoming a Google Ninja (using Analytics, Website Optimiser, etc etc to their full potential) but I don t know would people be interested in buying that?

It s no surprise that information visualization and related fields have been active research topics in the past decade. The widespread availability of large, valuable data sets has created a need for improved tools and techniques for making sense of it. This is highly technical work, requiring expertise in design, mathematics, software and other fields, and there is a vibrant community of professionals and amateurs who experiment and critique the latest methods. In the geeky blogs that I follow, I see more and more amateur interest in visualization. Visualization is starting to take on political significance as well, as evidenced by the appointment of information design pioneer Edward Tufte to a US government advisory panel to help explain economic policy to the American public. A technology is confirmed to be truly and vitally relevant, though, when it enters the mainstream consciousness in the form of humor. In the case of visualization, geeks have been trading funny charts and graphs for many years, but this phenomenon seems to have finally crossed the chasm into popular Internet culture with the advent of the Venn diagram meme. Now, anyone with an elementary education and a drawing program can create their own chuckle-inducing infographics and enjoy their 15 minutes of Twitter fame. Likewise for the X as seen by Y two-dimensional grids, revealing how various (stereotyped) groups perceive each other. This is the future, becoming more evenly distributed by the minute.

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.

Only for running junkies: my route at Paris marathon. I use this occasion to congratulate Christelle Daunay, who broke the French national record for women for the second year in a row, bringing it to 2h24'22", a world-class performance, after finishing 3rd in the so famous New York City marathon.

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.

There is no clear reason, but for many months already, I have almost given up running Which is a shame, as I enjoy it so much. And yes, I can talk a lot about why not, but outside of one seemingly stupid point there is really no reason. And yes, I have taken on cycling, although on a very different fashion: Cycling is by far not as good as an exercise as running Yes, cycling for ~1h on average 3 times a week has kept my body from becoming sedentary again, but I do feel some increased clumsiness and a undeniable weight gain that I don't want to allow. I said there is one seemingly stupid point: Shoes. My running shoes are around two year old, and they are an important factor on me not running. Why? Because they started giving me blisters at ~5Km. And my shoe size is beyond what is considered as normal by Mexican standards European 44-45 (US 10 -11). Shoe-shopping is always frustrating and very off-putting for me, as instead of what most people do (go to one store, ask for their favorite n pairs on their size, test them on, pay, be happy), I follow almost the opposite process (go to n stores, ask for whatever they have on my size, test it on, pray, pay). Of course, for some people, entering many stores and checking what's offered at each is a thrill by itself. For me, that sounds as thrilling as visiting the dentist for an endodontic treatment. Oh, and to make things even better, I am quite low on cash. Scarcity economics explain that if a given good is hard to find, it will probably be more expensive. So, while many people in Mexico buy ~US$30 shoes, I often get to pay ~US$90. Fun, hah? Anyway, I had a short semi-vacation to Argentina. I decided to kill this excuse, and went shoe-shopping. Fearsome memories sprang in my mind when the first store said they didn't have anything right for me. But they pointed to a second store, one block away, where I found (I was even able to choose between several models!) a nice pair of Olimpikus. In 2008, I was routinely running slightly over 10Km. Today I went out to get back the feeling, and made a not-so-great-but-still-satisfying 4Km. And upon arriving back home, I read Christian's chronicle on his Paris Marathon run Well, only 10% of what my fellow DD achieved But I am definitively back on track. I expect to make some time to get a run, at least three times a week, trying to push my limit at least back to the nice spot I was at two years ago.

Snail mail has become a despised media. While I still held long conversations at a distance written with ink on paper, with latency measured in weeks and not in milliseconds, that's basically history now. Snail mail is where invoices are received. Ocassionally, a joyous invitation finds its way into my mailbox But its regular use has been almost completely abandoned. Which probably makes it more striking and more of a surprise to receive a very short note of a good friend living far away just stating a very warm greeting. (of course, the paper was not GPG-signed, but I'll have to believe it was sent by him ;-) ) (Oh, about the title: The card is a print of Don Nisbett's Fly By , which recreates Ilwaco, Washington's panorama)