I am starting to wonder why every single bit of hardware that deals with wireless networks is utter crap. Really, I'd pay good money for an access point that doesn't crash when the firmware on the ipw2200 sends out a malformed packet while crashing because I used all the transmit buffers in the card. The zd1201 is no better, I've managed to have its firmware crash on me twice now, and unlike the ipw2200 which will at least admit that there has been a firmware error and reboot the card it just silently retries for an infinite time.

I decided to experiment.

Every time I see a post about changelogs (sorry Behdad, nothing personal), I die a little bit inside.

There are three problems here:

• In any merge, you always collide horribly on the ChangeLog, and it just makes working with more than one person and/or branch nigh on impossible, so you lose all the benefits of an RCS that actually supports merging.
• git gives you a system with very lightweight microcommits: in your local tree, you can easily amend, rebase, modify, and walk back, before you push. So, instead of queuing up ten million things such that you need a complicated changelog, do lots of little, relatively self-explanatory commits.
• Even when you have complicated commits that require explanation (e.g.), just make the commit log sufficiently verbose, so that git blame, gitweb, and any other tool, can offer people the full context, rather than making them dive into an unrelated file and remember the exact date, etc. In X, we just generate ChangeLog from git log, and we're really happy with that so far.

I just received the autumn 2007 edition of the Co-operative Group's membership magazine. It came with a cover letter that finally prompted me to answer the food ethical policy consultation The announcement was covered in the Guardian under the slightly inaccurate headline How green do you want your bananas? Co-op ballots members on ethical issues and in the Metro under the headline "Flight logo row" focusing on the criticism of the Tesco and M+S branding (which I think was a little unfair in some ways). Even so, it's good to see the Co-operative Group getting our message across and wrong-footing the BBC's attack dogs, described in Cambridge Co-operator: Ethical Policy. Last time on five live, our man got a bit mauled. Will this change make a difference, like it has to the Co-operative Bank? Can an ethical policy persuade you to change where you buy your food? (2007-09-19: 1 comment)

Yesterday I landed in Subversion a branch of Tasks I've been working on to remove all confirmation dialogs and replace them with infinite undo/redo. I'm really pleased with the end result, there are no more dialogs getting in the way and every action is undoable. To implement this I adapted MarlinUndoManager from Marlin by the most excellent Iain Holmes. The basic design is that the application has a global undo context. When an operation which should be undoable occurs, you start the context, add as many undoables as required, and then end the context. Allowing a single undoable action to consist of multiple undoables lets the application reuse fine-grained logic to build coarse user-level actions (in Tasks this is used to build the Remove Completed action from multiple Delete Task actions). To make integrating this into applications even easier, I wrote a GtkAction which reflects the state of an undo context, so it is trivial to add redo/undo to the interface. There is one remaining task left before this is ready to be released: undo support in the edit dialog entries. Once this is done, the next release of Tasks will be announced. I also plan to work with Iain on cleaning up this code and submitting it for inclusion into GTK+. NP: Money Jungle, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach

That SCO managed to postpone the trial in SCO vs. Novell by trying to get Chapter 11 protection one more time is old news by now. It just occurs to me that the continuation of glowbulb jokes by SCO is now “How many lawyers do you need to file for bankruptcy” (paraphrasing PJ.) In SCO's case it seems to be “As many as you can pay, and then some more.”

Just like an infinite number of monkeys, given infinite time are likely to produce infinite copies of Hamlet, I knew that given an infinite number of blog postings by Clint, I had to find one which both made sense to me and which I agreed with. Somebody please write a free syndicate (or syndicate wars) clone.

Sunday's matches featured three interesting games. We didn't watch much of Fidji-Canada because it was scheduled at 14:00 but announced at 21:00 on the schedule I had..:-(.. That's too bad because these two teams are the only two I haven't seen during an entire game yet. Fidji won after being menaced by Canada up to the last minute. So Fidji keep their chances of qualifying, which they'll have to win by beating Wales. Samoa-Tonga (15-19) was very promizing and turned out to be a deception for me. We watched only the first half of it (Eurosport wasn't broadcasting it live... suckers!). The suspense was there, particularly at the end of the game, when Tonga were playing only with 13 players for five minutes, while leading by 4 points only. However, Samoa obviously played quite badly and never really succeeded during that match to push their very physical way to play rugby. Tonga keep their chances to qualify, which they'll have to defend against England. France-Namibia was the last match and was obviously eagerly awaited by most of my fellow French supporters. Seen as "the match of revival" (as if losing to Argentina was a shame....), this was indeed a mor ethan easy match, as one would expected. Anyway, France played it well and played it the way it had to be played, so even if 87-10 doesn't really mean anything (particularly when playing against 14 players most of the time), they used all the strength of the team to build that victory and I believe there are still many strength in the French team. Critical rendez-vous against Ireland on Friday. Today (Monday): no match. Tomorrow, only one (Scotland-Romania in Murrayfield: critical match for the Scots). Everybody, us included, is resting.:)

I’ve just landed in Madrid ready for OSiM tomorrow. If you’re there and want to chat about Codethink, GNOME Mobile, Tinymail, OHM and power management, HAL on embedded, D-Bus or anything else, do feel free to search me out!

As uclibc's removal from Debian has been requested already, it is really time to push forward with this package. The technical bits of the package haven't changed in ages, and could be said to be pretty solid (I use the package daily). The problem with this package in the Debian context is that the licencing is somewhat less than clear, as no one really cared about adding their name to the list of copyright holders. I can see a few different variants how to deal with this: Number one would be the "massive audit" approach. This is the first thing I'm going to try, simply hang out on IRC for a few days and try to find people who join me (on freenode's #uclibc, mostly). If that doesn't work out, there will be lobotomized uploads, where I start a "new" package and subsequently move the functionality back in, in whatever tempo I can manage, until I get back to "pristine upstream source".

Sound Juicer "The Best Blue Is Through The Trees" 2.20.0 is out. Tarballs are available on burtonini.com, or from the GNOME FTP servers.

• Remove a work around now that GStreamer is fixed, and update requirement (#472650, Jaap Haitsma)

Also thanks to the tireless translation team: Djihed Afifi (ar), Ihar Hrachyshka (be), Alexander Shopov (bg), Runa Bhattacharjee (bn_IN), Jordi Mallach (ca), Ask Hjorth Larsen (da), Hendrik Richter (de), Tshewang Norbu (dz), Kostas Papadimas (el), David Lodge (en_GB), Jorge Gonz lez (es), Ivar Smolin (et), I aki Larra aga Murgoitio (eu), Ilkka Tuohela (fi), Christophe Benz (fr), Ignacio Casal Quinteiro (gl), Ankit Patel (gu), Eyal Mamo (he), Gabor Kelemen (hu), Francesco Marletta (it), Takeshi AIHANA (ja), Young-Ho Cha (ko), Erdal Ronahi (ku), ygimantas Beru ka (lt), Raivis Dejus (lv), Arangel Angov (mk), Kjartan Maraas (nb), Wouter Bolsterlee (nl), Tomasz Dominikowski (pl), Og Maciel (pt_BR), Duarte Loreto (pt), Mugurel Tudor (ro), Nickolay V. Shmyrev (ru), Danishka Navin (si), Matic gur (sl), Elian Myftiu (sq), (sr), Daniel Nylander (sv), Dr.T.Vasudevan (ta), Theppitak Karoonboonyanan (th), Baris Cicek (tr), Maxim Dziumanenko (uk), Clytie Siddall (vi), Funda Wang (zh_CN), Chao-Hsiung Liao (zh_HK, zh_TW).

Eurosport coverage of Vuelta a Espa a at 19 east continues with commentary in English (analogue only) and German. Scheduled times:-

Mon 17.09.2007

(no show, rest day)

Tue 18.09.2007

16:00-17:30 CET

Wed 19.09.2007

09:00-09:30 and 16:00-17:30 CET

Thu 20.09.2007

15:00-15:45 and 15:45-17:30 CET

Fri 21.09.2007

16:15-17:30 CET

Sat 22.09.2007

16:00-17:45 CET

Sun 23.09.2007

17:15-18:00 CET

TVEi are broadcasting in Spanish at 13 and 19 east. Scheduled times:-

Mon 17.09.2007

(no show, rest day)

Tue 18.09.2007 to Sun 23.09.2007

16:40-18:00 CET

Enjoy the finale!

We watched either parts or the entire three matches yesterday. So, long report..:-) The day began with the most unbalanced game of this world cup, featuring New Zealand, world's top rugby team, against Portugal, ranked 22nd. Rugby in Portugal is played by about 4200 people only, in less than 50 clubs. All players are amateur but one (Gon alvo Uva, playing in Montpellier, France), being dentists, students, etc...and coming to RWC during their holidays. The result (108-13 and 16 tries) was expected but the feeling when Portugal scored a try was great, with the 40,000 attendees in Lyon supporting Portugal. Personnally, I had great time chatting on IRC with Miguel Figueiredo, one of the leaders of the portuguese l10n team in Debian, during the match. We watched Wales-Australia (20-32) during the evening. That game was obviously the key match of this pool, with the winner very probably finishing 1st in the pool. Wales playing in Millenium Stadium in Cardiff is always astonishing and show how much the Welsh people love this sport. During 1st half, Australia strongly dominated and logically lead 25-3 with 3 tries. Berrick Barnes, their new fly half (Stephen Larkham injured), is a very promising player and, imho, the match's MVP (even after being severely bashed by Gareth Thomas on Australia's first try). After half time, the Welsh team courageously fought and came back to 13-25, menacing Australia which was more hesitating. Unfortunately, Australia scored a try after a big mistake by Stephen Jones. So, even with good play by Wales and another try by the incredible wing player Shane Williams, Australia logically won this game. Again, a southern hemisphere team dominated a northern hemisphere one. This is probably what will happen during this entire WC and I bet that New Zealand, Australia and South Africa will end up in semi-finals, quite probably along with Argentina, unless France does a miracle and ends up 1st in their pool. I think that Australia is slightly weaker than NZ and RSA, though. So, my current bet is NZ-RSA for the final (this can happen, given their respective track to the final and given that they certainly will end up first of their respective pools). Finally, we watched the second half of Ireland-Georgia (14-10). *That* was quite a surprise. Ireland was very close to lose this game with Georgian forwards crushing them repeatedly at the end of the match and nearly scoring a try that would have made them win. Everybody was waiting for Georgia to swell after their strong 1st half (3-7) but they managed to fight until the last second, supported by Bordeaux 40,000 attendees (minus a few thousands of Irish supporters, of course). So, while the initial question was whether Ireland would score a bonus point, the final question became about them to *win* the match. This gives even more credit to Argentina's victory last Tuesday. Full standing ovation for Georgia at the end of the match. Today is again a busy day. I'll probably skip Fidji-Canada (which happens at the same time than France-Namibia) but certainly won't miss Samoa-Tonga and, of course, France-Namibia. Samoa have to win to keep their chances of qualifying (they can beat England, really) and, well, France has of course to win *and* score a bonus point. In this world cup where to so-called "small" teams are not that small, everything can happen and France is anything but safe, ehre.

There are many amazing things in Puerto Rico and one of them is the technologically (and I would add, aesthetically) stunning Arecibo Observatory, which was featured prominently in the Jodi Foster movie, Contact. Due to massive funding cuts, its future is threatened. This is a site of great scientific and cultural importance for PR, so I really hope they manage to find the funding that will make it survive far into the future. There is a facebook group
(by the name of “Do NOT close the Arecibo Observatory: Earth’s largest radiotelescope”) opposing the closure but I don’t yet know of any other site for halting the cuts. I will post one once I do. And if we lose the observatory, we might sadly lose another fine creature, the mysterious chupacabra who apparently was first called into his goat sucking action thanks to the great observatory of ours, which does send signals to find alien life. So sans Arecibo, we lose a great scientific instrument and may lose the beloved mascot of goat terror, the Chupacabra

Satellite TV commented:

"Wow, all that seems pretty complex to me. The U.S is so much more simple, we just chose Dish Network or DirecTV or some kind of cable and call it a day. Then again I don't know if thats a bad or a good thing."

That's a bad thing. Look at the situation: In the US, there seems to be very little free-to-air (FTA) satellite TV for most of the country, except PBS and religious channels. The main US FTA FAQ answers "Should I drop cable/Dish/DirecTV and switch to FTA?" with "Probably not." I'd say "Probably yes" to similar questions in Europe, as long as you aren't dependent on one of the few incompatible pay-TV channels. Channels like MTV, Nick, TVEi and DW are all pay-TV in the US, but FTA in Europe. But if you're in the US, look on the bright side: Canada seems even more behind on this. In Europe, you can still call whatever satellite broadcaster (such as Canal Satellite, Premiere or even Sky) and get a system installed if you choose, but you can also install your own. That's what my FAQ is about: giving people in "the land of the free TV" some starting info on how to do that. Some broadcaster-supplied systems only really work well with one broadcaster's "approved" channels (Sky are particularly bad for that), are more expensive to upgrade than standard systems and don't give viewers the equipment to repair it when it breaks, which encourages them to keep paying the broadcaster's agents. Some of those agents do some pretty dishonest tricks when installing dishes, such as putting them far higher up than necessary, to discourage viewers from fixing it themselves and to advertise satellite TV to the neighbours. It's pretty easy to install a standard satellite system... if you can put up a wall bracket and tune in a video, you can probably do it. Alternatively, there are independent installers who will do it for you, who might seem like they charge more than the broadcaster's agents, but remember that a good one won't keep charging you every month or try to sell stuff to you forevermore!

After Argentina-France on the first day, that one was planned to be one of the few big matches of first round. Of course, after the game won by South Africa (36-0), that seems pretty silly to say... The Springboks were definitely better than England, in all parts of the game. What stunned me, particularly after watching South Africa live , is their complete control on the game, which is a great improvement over their match against Samoa. South Africa scored three tries all of them great examples or organized attacks by the rear lines. Two tries for JP Pietersen, after 3 by Habana on first game: the South-African wing players rock. Despite this, the player of the game was definitely Jason Du Preez, the scrum half (hope this is the correct term in English) who organised all attacks from RSA. England was missing too many key players (several injured) to be able to be a menace for South Africa. They never were really dangerous, except maybe when the magic Jason Robinson has the ball in his hands (what a player!). I was particularly disappointed by their center back players, and even more particularly by Farrel. Ditto for Andy Gomarsall as scrum half. So, South Africa is now probably qualified with two quite easy games against USA and Tonga. England will have to fight to qualify and noone can tell if Samoa or Tonga can surprise them. Watching Samoa-Tonga on Sunday will be interesting and Samoa-England or Tonga-England are already key matches. A great rugby week-end is about to begin, again. Today, Wales-Australia is the match of the day, for sure, with wales playing home (some matches are not in France, but in Cardiff and Edinburgh). New Zealand-Portugal will be...interesting, though the only incertainty is the number of scored tries. And finally, Ireland-Georgia is of some interest for the French. Tomorrow, France could have hard times against Namibia. Of course, the challenge here is winning *and* scoring the bonus point. That match is 5 days before a key France-Ireland, so the challenge is also not wasting too much energy. Of course, tomorrow's top match for me is Samoa-Tonga while I whileprobably skip Fidji-Canada (too bad, I haven't seen those playing yet). BTW, if someone has a recording of the most intense match as of now (Japan-Fidji), I'd be delighted. Rugbystiquement v tre,

Over in alt.anarchism rages a discussion on the "efficiency" of markets, mostly circling around the medical sector as an extreme example (lots of government interference). Since this is Usenet, we haven't found consensus on the definition of a free market yet. The definition I learned in school was that free markets are fully transparent, i.e. buyers and sellers both have the necessary knowledge to determine a product's quality and are aware of the other market participants. The proponents of anarcho-capitalism contend that a free market is one that is devoid of regulation. These definitions are pretty much opposites in highly specialised fields (such as medicine), as patients usually lack the expertise to recognise "quality", so market regulations are established to promote transparency and establish a free market. So, which definition were you taught? Update: corrected the name of the group.