wget --no-check-certificate -O - https://username:PASSWORD@identi.ca/api/statuses/friends.xml   \
	sed -e '1a\
<?xslt-param name="site" select="identi.ca"?>\
<?xml-stylesheet title="Site Summaries" type="text/xsl" href="twitters.xsl" ?>
' > identica.xml

<?xml version='1.0' ?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0"
 xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
 xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
<xsl:param name="site">twitter.com</xsl:param>
<xsl:template match="/" xml:space="preserve">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head>
<title><xsl:value-of select="$site" /> Friends</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mirrors.css" />
</head><body>
<dl class="statuses">
<xsl:apply-templates />
</dl>
</body></html>
</xsl:template>
<xsl:template match="/users/user" xml:space="preserve"><dt><a href="http:// $site / screen_name "><img src=" profile_image_url " /><xsl:value-of select="name" /> (<xsl:value-of select="screen_name" />)</a> - <a class="time" href="http:// $site / screen_name /statuses/ status/id "><xsl:value-of select="status/created_at" /></a></dt><dd><xsl:value-of select="status/text" /></dd>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>

1. The only outside communication with the ikiwiki community was doing a design proposal at the beginning, and a code dump toward the end of the project.
2. There was an existing complex spec for how to limit who could upload what files, but Ben didn't choose to implement those access controls.
3. The code dump was not even noticed until much later, when I was putting the finishing touches on my own implementation of an attachments plugin.

• There needs to be a well-defined place where students check in their code regularly, and where it is regularly reviewed. Either give them each accounts and branches in the project's main subversion repository, or better use distributed VCS. Ikiwiki switched to git as a direct result of the problems I saw with students publishing their code in the ad-hoc ways that resulted from not having that. And I keep backups of every ikiwiki git repo I am aware of, because any could fall off the net at any time.
• If your goal is to have a student develop something that is included in your project, that needs to be one of up-front success criteria for the SoC project. Otherwise, most of them will fail to get all the way there. Students need an incentive to deal with licensing issues, to respond to maintainers' feedback, and to keep following up until their code is merged. I suspect that requiring students leap over this sometimes very tall bar will scare a lot of them away though. You have to decide whether your goal is indeed to get working code in production, or if it's more to mentor a student for the summer.
• Just because one is very familiar with a code base and very productive in working on it, and has had lots of success getting others to contribute to it in the usual free software manner, does not mean that one will be a good mentor for a student working on that code base. In fact, it probably means you won't be, unless you have some prior experience teaching students. Which is why I've not participated in SoC since. :-/

A crowd of 2m or more is making its way to Washington, DC, to witness the inauguration of Mr Obama. Billions more will watch it on television. [link]

raid5: raid level 5 set md1 active with 3 out of 3 devices, algorithm 2
RAID5 conf printout:
 --- rd:3 wd:3
 disk 0, o:1, dev:hda2
 disk 1, o:1, dev:hdg2
 disk 2, o:1, dev:hde2
[...]
hdg: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdg: DMA timeout error
hdg: 4 bytes in FIFO
hdg: dma timeout error: status=0x50   DriveReady SeekComplete  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdg: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdg: DMA timeout error
hdg: 252 bytes in FIFO
hdg: dma timeout error: status=0x50   DriveReady SeekComplete  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdg: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdg: DMA timeout error
hdg: 252 bytes in FIFO
hdg: dma timeout error: status=0x58   DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdg: DMA disabled
ide3: reset: success
hdg: dma_timer_expiry: dma status == 0x21
hdg: DMA timeout error
hdg: 252 bytes in FIFO
hdg: dma timeout error: status=0x58   DriveReady SeekComplete DataRequest  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdg: DMA disabled
ide3: reset: success
hdg: status timeout: status=0x80   Busy  
ide: failed opcode was: 0xea
hdg: drive not ready for command
hdg: lost interrupt
hdg: task_out_intr: status=0x50   DriveReady SeekComplete  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown
hdg: lost interrupt
hdg: task_out_intr: status=0x50   DriveReady SeekComplete  
ide: failed opcode was: unknown

 md: super_written gets error=-5, uptodate=0
 raid5: Disk failure on hdg2, disabling device.
 raid5: Operation continuing on 2 devices.
 RAID5 conf printout:
  --- rd:3 wd:2
  disk 0, o:1, dev:hda2
  disk 1, o:0, dev:hdg2
  disk 2, o:1, dev:hde2
 RAID5 conf printout:
  --- rd:3 wd:2
  disk 0, o:1, dev:hda2
  disk 2, o:1, dev:hde2

 $ cat /proc/mdstat
 Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] 
 md1 : active raid5 hda2[0] hde2[2] hdg2[3](F)
       584107136 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/2] [U_U]

 $ smartctl -i /dev/hda   grep Serial
 $ smartctl -i /dev/hde   grep Serial
 $ smartctl -i /dev/hdg   grep Serial

 $ mdadm --manage /dev/md1 --add /dev/sda2
 mdadm: added /dev/sda2

 $ cat /proc/mdstat 
 Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] 
 md1 : active raid5 sda2[3] hda2[0] hde2[2]
       584107136 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/2] [U_U]
       [>....................]  recovery =  0.1% (473692/292053568) finish=92.3min speed=52632K/sec

 md: md1: recovery done.
 RAID5 conf printout:
  --- rd:3 wd:3
  disk 0, o:1, dev:hda2
  disk 1, o:1, dev:sda2
  disk 2, o:1, dev:hde2

 $ cat /proc/mdstat
 Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] 
 md1 : active raid5 sda2[1] hda2[0] hde2[2]
       584107136 blocks level 5, 64k chunk, algorithm 2 [3/3] [UUU]

 $ hddtemp /dev/hda
 dev/hda: SAMSUNG HD300LD: 38  C
 $ hddtemp /dev/hde
 dev/hde: SAMSUNG HD300LD: 44  C
 $ hddtemp /dev/sda
 dev/sda: SAMSUNG HD322HJ: 32  C

-Werror -Wcast-align -Wno-uninitialized -Wall -Wformat-security

        if (XRRGetOutputProperty (brightness->priv->dpy, output, brightness->priv->backlight,
                                  0, 4, False, False, None,
                                  &actual_type, &actual_format,
                                  &nitems, &bytes_after,  ) != Success)  
                egg_debug ("failed to get property");
                return FALSE;
         
        if (actual_type == XA_INTEGER && nitems == 1 && actual_format == 32)  
                *cur = *((int *) prop);
                ret = TRUE;
         
        XFree (prop);
        return ret;

static inline GstBuffer *
gst_buffer_ref (GstBuffer * buf)
 
  /* not using a macro here because gcc-4.1 will complain
   * if the return value isn't used (because of the cast) */
  return (GstBuffer *) gst_mini_object_ref (GST_MINI_OBJECT_CAST (buf));
 

Suppose I see a beautiful sunset and I want to describe it to a loved one on the other side of the world. Today's communication technology makes this possible. In the process, however, the technology in question puts constraints on message communicated. For example, if I pick up my cellphone, my description of the sunset will be limited to words and sounds that can be transmitted by phone. If I happen to have a camera phone and the ability to send a picture message, I will be able to communicate a very different type of description. If I'm limited to 150 characters in an SMS message, my message will be constrained differently again.

Network Services Last year, the FSF organized a meeting on software freedom and network services that lead to the creation of the Autonomo.us group and the release of the Franklin Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services. As network services --- like those built by Facebook, Google, and others --- continue rise in popularity, progress in this conversation is of increasing importance. This year, I will direct the FSF to build on the work of Autonomo.us to launch the first of what I hope will be several FSF position statements on software freedom and network services. More importantly, the FSF will begin to provide support and planning for solutions --- technologies, social campaigns, and legal steps --- that will protect computer users whose freedom is currently threatened by network services. Enforcing free software licenses Early on, people who decided to work on free software did so because they agreed with --- or, at the very least, were willing to abide by --- the principles and rules laid out in our licenses. In our push for software freedom, we have created software of immense value and attracted companies and individuals to our community who are less willing, or simply less interested, in protecting users' freedom. In December 2008, the FSF went to court for the first time in the organization's history to force Cisco to uphold the freedom of the users of FSF copyrighted software. This lawsuit asks Cisco to live up to its obligations under the GPL and to ensure that it does so in the future. The FSF needs the support of its community in this and in future enforcement actions. The FSF has operated a compliance lab for several years and has ensured software freedom for countless users. As free software becomes more successful in the next year, the FSF will be playing an increased role in protecting software freedom from those who do not share its principles. Continuing the fight against software patents As I said last year, one cannot write non-trivial software today without running a serious risk of infringing patents. The software patent minefield we've found ourselves in is a very fundamental threat to the success of free software and we've already begun to see the first casualties and costs. We must eliminate software patents. Now. The FSF will continue its work toward this end. The FSF's End Software Patents project's major contribution this year was a brief submitted in the In Re Bilski case at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Recently, an opinion was issued which seems to mark an important shift away from broad protection for software patents. With this victory, now is the time to keep up this momentum. The FSF is drawing up a strategy to do just this and will be announcing the relaunch of its campaign on February 9,2009 led by Ciaran O'Riordan.

• Set up some sort of networked filesystem connection to the file server. I hate to admit I'm still using NFS.
• Log into the file server, init a git repo, and check all your music (or whatever) into it.
• When checking out on each client, use git clone --shared. This avoids including any objects in the client's local .git directory.

    git clone --shared /mnt/fileserver/stuff.git stuff

• Now you can just use git as usual, to add/remove stuff, commit, update, etc.

• git add is not very fast. Reading, checksumming, and writing out gig after gig of data can be slow. Think hours. Maybe days. (OTOH, I ran that on an Thecus.)
• Overall, I'm happy with the speed, after the initial setup. Git pushes data around faster than unison, despite not really being intended to be used this way.
• Note that use of git clone --shared, and read the caveats about this mode in git-clone(1).
• git repack is not recommended on clients because it would read and write the whole git repo over NFS.
• Make sure your NFS server has large file support. (The userspace one doesn't; kernel one does.) You don't just need it for enormous pack files. The failure mode I saw was git failing in amusing ways that involved creating empty files.
• Git doesn't deal very well with a bit flipping somewhere in the middle of a 32 gigabyte pack file. And since this method avoids duplicating the data in .git, the clones are not available as backups if something goes wrong. So if regenerating your entire repo doesn't appeal, keep a backup of it.