Joey Hess blogs about possible dangerous ways to exploit the daylight savings time. Well, for the tenth year in a row (if I am not mistaken), we central-Mexicans can proudly announce we are GMT-5. When I was a kid, we were always told that daylight savings are a very important way to save energy in non-tropical areas, such as the North-Western states, USA, Canada and Europe. We understood that, as tropical beings, we didn't have to worry about that, as it would have neglegible effects for us.
Ten years (eleven?) ago, this changed, and we became first-class world citizens, together with the emotion of shifting the clock's hands twice a year. Of course, we all did stupid things once or thrice - The first time we got back to GMT-6, I moved to GMT-4 instead. We were laughing at the fools who forgot to move the watch. I went to the movies with Nadezhda, and was confronted by a less-than-amused clerk that had to explain the same to too many people along the day. At least he smiled when he noticed we were stupider than most.
Well, today I am a big fan of daylight savings. I simply like having sunlight up to 20:00, sometimes even 21:00 - But I have reversed the old logic I was taught at school. We Mexicans have very little variation in our clocks - We go from maybe 11 to maybe 13 hours of daylight comparing Summer and Winter. Ok, make it 10 and 14, to make it sound more dramatic. Having the sun raise at 6AM makes sense, no matter what time of year it is. Most electricity is spent in the early night (8-10PM)... So it makes a lot of sense. Even for the people in the USA, maybe even Canada, and most of Europe. But...
Why do Nordic countries adhere to daylight savings? I mean... You vary from 4 to 20 hours of sunlight a day - What difference does one hour make anyway? Why follow the hassle we all regular humans have to go through? I can't imagine people in Narvik and Rovaniemi trying to squeeze that little glimpse of sun they have during the winter, and trying to align their sleeping time to the exact the sun is only half-visible in Summer.

Clytie Siddall asked: "I don't understand why this election is restricted to Debian Developers. What about all the other people who regularly contribute time and effort to the Debian project?" This is a known bug, I think, but I don't remember any of this year's candidates pledging to solve it. There seems few votes in fixing this bug, as ...

Today was the Shamrock Shuffle, reportedly the world's largest eight kilometer, or (approximately) five mile, race with an estimated field of 25,000 runners. Having skipped it last years due to some traveling, my (reported chip) time of 33:24 (6:40 min/mile pace) is a nice improvement over the previous 37:06 from two years ago. Our little informal 'Owies' running group fielded a group of ten runners that were registered for the 'Chicago Challenge'. This a new competition where aggregated team results from today, the Distance Classic Half Marathon in August and the full Chicago Marathon in October count. Results are in (pdf), and we did well with a sixth place -- so let's see where can take it from here.

You can run MSIE 6 on Linux quite well by now. Not that there is any reason to do so. (Okay, maybe if you are a webdesign professional you'll want to make sure your layout works fine with MIES, too.) So for me, this is more a demo on how far wine is. Here's how:

• Get a recent wine, e.g. 0.9.9 or 0.9.10
• Add a new user named "windows" to your system, because you don't want to risk running windows software like IE with your regular user account, will you? It could read your email!
• Add the freshly created windows user to the video and audio groups (adduser windows audio) if you want 3D or sound
• Use gksu -u windows xterm to open a shell as the windows user
• From Microsoft, download dcom98.exe and ie6setup.exe and save them to /tmp
• Type the following:

  cd
  wget http://www.kievinfo.com/2/ie6_overrides.reg
  wine regedit ie6_overrides.reg
  wine /tmp/dcom98.exe
  wine /tmp/ie6setup.exe
  exit
  

• You can now surprise your favourite linux-critics ("but linux won't run my $favourite_program, will it?") with a working Internet Exploder by running gksu -u windows wine C:\\Program\ Files\\Internet\ Explorer\\IEXPLORE.EXE - and it should not be able to read your email, much more secure than if you were running Windows.

Or, you could just be happy with not using Windows software. There is so much good FL/OSS software around, that I'm always seriously disappointed when I have to fight some windows software. I don't need it, do you?

Wow, some people need to learn how to ask questions. Just saw a posting to a mailing list that said (paraphrasing):

I need detailed instructions on how to do easy task foo, and then fairly involved task bar. I want the whole command process including how to do trivial thing X, unnecessary thing Y, as I tried and could not get it work properly at all. And also irrelevant question Z.

Now, I don't know about you, but a flat-out demand like that doesn't exactly give me the warm fuzzies and make me want to help -- in fact, it makes me feel like a CentOS developer. Practically speaking, I know (roughly) the answer to this person's question, but it'd take me a couple of minutes to check I had the right answer, and to write it all up. Unfortunately my motivation levels for unpaid, gratuitous assistance just dropped to zero (coincidentally, as I was reading his message). Time to give the Internet a healthy dose of the "How to ask questions the smart way" salts, methinks.

Skype (that shady VoIP application which may eventually turn your computer into a "supernode" and use it for forwarding dozens of calls, that is packed with tons of anti-debugging techiques and tries to be very very shifty) seems to be incompatible with my Gnome. With the gnome session-manager, to be precise. Because I can run skype, if I launch it using

SESSION_MANAGER= /usr/bin/skype

Anyway, if you want to use VoIP, please use a standard protocol such as SIP. German DSL providers will currently give you DSL modems for free when you sign up with them that have SIP built-in, and where you can attach your regular phone (even ISDN) and do least-cost-routing. Some even give you a flatrate to landlines with their DSL service. And Freemail providers such as Web.de, Freenet.de and SIP specialists such as SipGate offer you a true phone number for use with SIP for free. There is tons of SIP software available. Linux users might want to try kphone (for KDE), linphone (GTK) or ekiga (former GnomeMeeting, Gnome). All of which should be included in your favourite Linux distribution (okay, maybe except for ekiga which has licensing issues with the OPAL library) Windows users might want to check out (I havn't tried it myself) Gizmo. I bet there is OSX software, too. Tons.

I'm in Madrid now. On Friday afternoon, I returned to Cambridge from Vienna. Unfortunately, I couldn't start packing straight away because I had to work on a paper which was due Friday night. At about midnight my co-author noticed that the deadline had been extended until Wednesday so I went to sleep. The next day I finished packing and then started moving everything into my office at the university. Unfortunately, that took much longer than expected and I missed my bus to the airport. Turbo boost (aka taxi) to rescue and I was at the airport in time. I'm really slowly getting fed up with moving and need to settle down. It's just so much work, and that even though I don't own terribly much. I wonder how other people cope... in the last five years, I've lived in London, Innsbruck, Vienna, Melbourne, Cambridge and now Madrid. Hmm. Anyway, Madrid is fun. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy my time here. The people in the group I work with at the university are incredibly smart and friendly. Last night, Gregorio (my main contact at the university), Diego (the guy I'm staying with) and I went out for dinner... nice food and Sangria! What more do you want? The place I'm staying at is nice... Diego is friendly, we have wireless, a fairly big apartment and there's a balcony where I can see myself sitting with my laptop working on stuff and sipping Sangria... I don't know yet how I'll cope with the commute given that I've always lived very close to work (5 minutes per foot in Cambridge was about all I needed for everything) but I'm sure I'll find something to do. It will also be a really interesting experience to life in a country where you don't speak the language.

Turning 45 today, making me enter the "seniors" with regards of a few laws for "old" people employment in France. Geesh.... Should I really begin to think about retirement, cruises in the Caribbean, buying glasses, yearly medical check-ups and the like? Oh my.... Better continue writing that i18n paper for Debconf with Javier....

Sarah's been helping someone at Google organise the Google Tour de Cure team, and so I've been roped in to ride. I don't know that I'm going to be able to raise a lot of money, as I don't really like asking people for money, and I don't know that many people here well enough to be soliciting donations anyway. I got this generic email to spam people with after registering:

Dear Friends and Family, I recently accepted the challenge of cycling in the American Diabetes Association's Tour de Cure fund-raising event. I am taking part in this event because I believe in and support the Association's mission: to prevent and cure diabetes and to improve the lives of all people affected by diabetes. You, too, can help by supporting my fund-raising efforts with a generous contribution. Your tax-deductible gift will make a difference to more than 20 million Americans who are affected by diabetes and another 40 million who are at risk for developing diabetes. It is faster and easier than ever to support this great cause - you can make your donation online by simply clicking the link at the bottom of this message. If you would prefer, you can also send your tax-deductible contribution to me at the address listed below. More information on the American Diabetes Association, its programs, and diabetes in general can be found at the Association's Web site, www.diabetes.org. To find out more information on our Tour de Cure, please visit http://tour.diabetes.org. Whatever you can give will help! I greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress. Sincerely, Andrew Pollock To donate online, click http://tour.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=3323&px=2791919. If this link does not send you directly to my personal fund-raising page, please cut and paste the entire link, from beginning to end, into your Web browser and hit return. To send a donation: Make all checks payable to: American Diabetes Association
Mail to: Andrew Pollock
Google, Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway,
Mountain View, CA 94043-4933

So remember Jerry Taylor, the man from Tuttle, OK that threatened to call the FBI on a Linux vendor because an unrelated hosting company had misconfigured Apache?

Well, this story is just getting funnier and funnier.

First off is this story from the Tuttle Times. It basically repeats Taylor's view that the CentOS people were expected to help him with his problem, and that he was somehow entitled to their help. But there are some funny tidbits in the story:

"Phone calls from across the country started coming in to the newspaper and city offices, and e-mails from Switzerland, Australia, Wales and England were received. Many of the web sites discussing the exchange are in foreign languages." I hate to break it to you, but Australia, Wales, and England all speak English.

(Ok, so they did switch from talking about email to web, but it still sounds funny.)

"In their search to find out more, web surfers discovered that the Tuttle Times online forums were hacked, and theorized that it was in retribution for the e-mails. Those forums, however, were corrupted several months ago, and the newspaper s now former web hosts did not repair it after numerous requests. New forums should be available at the Times site in the coming weeks." I'm so glad to know that your forums were merely corrupted for months and not hacked. Sounds like the IT problems in this town extend well past the city building.

Taylor said: "[CentOS is] a free operating system that this guy gives away, which tells you how much time he s got on his hands." Grumble.

Quoting Tuttle Mayor Paxton (trying to say what was more important than this): "We have issues with sewer. People here want better park facilities. They want a library." I think this has just validated every stereotype people have about Oklahoma.

Tuttle is more than 7 times larger than my hometown in Kansas, and yet my hometown has had a library for years.

Jerry Taylor also reported having 500 e-mails and numerous phone messages when he arrived to work Monday.

There's a new blurb on the Wikipedia page about Tuttle about all this. And in their talk page about the now-deleted article on Jerry Taylor, one person wrote: "Mr. Taylor's actions have coined a new term of art "Tuttled", in reference to the invocation of criminal consequences by one who is ignorant of the true situation. Since this is now a part of the English vernacular the story behind the term should be explained to give it an historical context. It is no longer about the action of a single person and an attempt to publicly vilify him, it is about a world-wide common experience of dealing with a Kafka-esque minor government official who, through ignorance, creates problems far beyond their normal sphere of influence. The page should be returned to the public."

The Register has two new stories about it. The first reports that Taylor has been interviewed by all sorts of media and says that he did the right thing. The second, Linux conquered, Tuttle man takes on London is a story about the grandson of the namesake of Tuttle, OK -- who happens to be the current US ambassador to the UK. This person is refusing to pay the regular London car fees. The mayor of London said: "It would actually be quite nice if the American ambassador in Britain could pay the charge like everybody else and not skive out of it like some chiseling little crook."

And finally, there's some incredibly funny photoshop work on this one over at fark.com (you have to scroll down a ways). Also, this comment:

"A small-town American politician wants a British newspaper to turn off the Internet.

Say that to yourself a few times. Please."

A couple of days ago, I mentioned the Register article about the Tuttle, OK city manager that threatened to call the FBI on a Linux developer because his webhost misconfigured their server.

Now The Register has a great followup. Apprently people all over are justifiably upset at the city manager.

There are also some great reader comments over at The Register.

Also, that city manager has removed his e-mail address from tuttle-ok.gov. But fortunately, we all remember that it's citymgr@cityoftuttle.org.

I just read a story on The Register entitled Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over "renegade" Linux maker. Quite hilarious.

Apparently Jerry Taylor, city manager for Tuttle, Oklahoma, noticed that the city's webpage wasn't working right. He got the default "test page" for the Apache webserver on CentOS.

Instead of calling the hosting company, he sent a series of vicious emails to CentOS, even threatening to call the FBI. The CentOS folks really went out of their way to help this guy -- he was not even their customer. And he repaid them by saying they should have helped him sooner.

Of course, there was the obligatory comment about being computer literate: "I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation. Now, can you tell me how to remove 'your software' that you acknowledge you provided free of charge? I consider this 'hacking.'"

The Register story is hilarious, and the original discussion even more so because it includes a full transcript of the event. Favorite quote (to the city manager):

If you will not let me help you, or at least talk to someone who knows what Linux is, then you will look like an idiot.

Your choice.

Should anyone wish to write to the city manager of Tuttle, OK, to complain about his outrageous behavior, his e-mail address is citymgr@cityoftuttle.org. Assuming they have figured out how to properly configure e-mail.

He's probably not worth his $63k salary and with a personality like this almost certainly isn't giving his employees the "feeling that we're 'working together'" (see that link).

Sigh. Why do people hire a guy like this in the first place?

I just read a story on The Register entitled Oklahoma city threatens to call FBI over "renegade" Linux maker. Quite hilarious.

Apparently Jerry Taylor, city manager for Tuttle, Oklahoma, noticed that the city's webpage wasn't working right. He got the default "test page" for the Apache webserver on CentOS.

Instead of calling the hosting company, he sent a series of vicious emails to CentOS, even threatening to call the FBI. The CentOS folks really went out of their way to help this guy -- he was not even their customer. And he repaid them by saying they should have helped him sooner.

Of course, there was the obligatory comment about being computer literate: "I am computer literate! I have 22 years in computer systems engineering and operation. Now, can you tell me how to remove 'your software' that you acknowledge you provided free of charge? I consider this 'hacking.'"

The Register story is hilarious, and the original discussion even more so because it includes a full transcript of the event. Favorite quote (to the city manager):

If you will not let me help you, or at least talk to someone who knows what Linux is, then you will look like an idiot.

Your choice.

Should anyone wish to write to the city manager of Tuttle, OK, to complain about his outrageous behavior, his e-mail address is citymgr@cityoftuttle.org. Assuming they have figured out how to properly configure e-mail.

He's probably not worth his $63k salary and with a personality like this almost certainly isn't giving his employees the "feeling that we're 'working together'" (see that link).

Sigh. Why do people hire a guy like this in the first place?

Now that fellow Opened Hander Emmanuele has landed the GtkRecent code into GTK+, I started to think about if I could use it in Sound Juicer. Consider this a personal Is It Crack Or Not. Should Sound Juicer add songs it successfully rips to the recent files list, so they are trivially opened from the Recent Documents menu and so on? Answers on a postcard, or if you don't have my address, in the comments on this posting. NP: Regulate, Warren G

I've got some exciting news about the Ajax Developers' Day at XTech, which is on Tuesday 16 April.  Ajax guru Alex Russell of the Dojo toolkit project will be delivering the day's keynote presentation. He's subjecting himself to a punishing flight schedule on our behalf, so I'm grateful that he's able to take part.

In addition, Yahoo! genius Simon Willison will be chairing the Ajax day. As well as delivering a talk on the Yahoo! interface toolkit, Simon will be marshaling the speakers and discussion so everybody gets the best out of the day.

Be there, or forever regret your old fashioned UI.

I’m taking Rojo for a spin, mostly because of recent upgrades that add some interesting features, including a “sort by relevance” function that lives alongside the usual “sort by date”—a “personalized digg”, as some have called it. One thing I like about Rojo is that it’s a River of News style aggregator, which means all feeds get combined into a single stream that’s very easy to scan for interesting items, rather than serving as just another way of filling my inbox with stuff I won’t have time to read anyway (the “aggregator as an extention to the email client” model). With River of News style aggregators, it’s no big deal if you miss something, kinda like it’s no big deal if you don’t read every last article in the newspaper every morning. Trouble is, how do you make sure you read the most important stuff first, so in the event you don’t get through everything, the likelihood you miss something is small? “Sort by relevance” would appear to solve this problem nicely. Rojo appears to calculate “relevance” by analyzing a few things: What I read (i.e., what I click on), what I tag (either by giving it “mojo” or by tagging it in the Web 2.0 sense of the word), and what my contacts read and tag. That seems like a reasonable enough algorithm. Problem is: 1. most of the things I read Rojo doesn’t know anything about (they’re in my browser clickstream); 2. I already have about a year’s worth of tags accumulated at del.icio.us, and I have no intention of moving those tags anywhere else (ironically enough, because del.icio.us gives me the ability to do just that); and 3. I already have more social networks and contact silos than I know what to do with, and I certainly don’t want another one. So, Rojo’s new features are less interesting than they appear at first glance. Guess I’m going to have to continue doing without, either until I decide to dump all my stuff in one place (ahem) or until small pieces loosely joined evolves a bit further. Update: On second look, it looks like relevance is actually calculated by the total number of reads and tags rather than by the number of reads or tags by me or my contacts. Not sure how that can be called personalized, but I guess those are the words of others, not Rojo’s.