I've decided to play around with dpatch cleanups.Documentation updates, and syntactical fixes.Hopefully, nothing is broken with the minor changes.Testsuites are updated as well, and no major regression seems to exist.Currently, a lot of wishlist bugs exist against dpatch, many of them will become a maintenance overhead if applied as-is.An active contributor is really sought.

Compiled over the last few weeks, here's a random list of some subjects I'd love to see covered in XTech 2006. There's now only three weeks left of the call for participation -- so it's definitely time get that proposal in! Mail me if you have any questions.

• OpenDocument vs. Microsoft Office Open XML (am I the only one annoyed by how this format is abbreviated as "Open XML"?)
• Ruby on Rails 1.0
• Firefox 1.5, including its many new features for developers. I loved the idea from Tristan Nitot that extensions are a way to keep Firefox successful. There's a lot of potential here. Anybody want to attend a tutorial on making Firefox extensions?
• W3C Rich Web Clients Activity
• XSLT 2.0 adoption and implementation--anyone but Saxon?
• The Web Desktop. I was incredibly interested in this post of Miguel de Icaza's. For a long time I've felt RDF could hold the desktop together, data-wise, but he also proposes that HTTP and web services could do a similar thing. I suspect these are two strands of development that go hand in hand.
• Design, usability and patterns for AJAX web applications.
• Open Content Alliance
• RSS and Atom: despite the release of Atom, RSS continues to grow down its own path. I reckon it's about time to sort out where each are going, and what they're best for.
• XSL-FO: I use this technology regularly for preparing PDFs with RenderX, and the specification itself is mature. It seems time to take stock of XSL-FO and where it might go in future.

Submit your proposal here: XTech 2006 Call for Participation. XTech will be held 16-19 May 2006, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

I currently use Google Reader to read most of the blogs I track. It seems to work in a way I like. However I'd like to be able to aggregate in Livejournal using my OpenID so I can read friends-locked posts. I don't think it's appropriate to use a public service like Google or Bloglines for this, which means running something myself. I've had a look around but not found anything that's close to Google Reader. I like just having all the posts in chronological order, not listed under each source feed. Most things I could find give you a sidebar of a tree for each feed and then you have to look at each feed in turn. I just want my content splurged at me goddamit! Planet does this, but I also want content I've read to go away by default, which Planet doesn't handle (being a generator of a static web page). So, any suggestions? I'm using Firefox under Linux, but I'm not tied to an in browser solution (I've a feeling it would be easier to get my OpenID stuff working that way though). So far I've tried Sage and Wizz. I've also looked at Straw but not installed it as it looks a little unmaintained. Liferea looks like it could be an option, so I think I'll go play with that for the moment.

Reading about California’s execution of Tookie Williams Monday night, it occurs to me that there are two categories of death penalty supporters:

1. People who don’t understand the legal system. If you’ve never sat through a criminal trial (or several), you can’t possibly understand the uncertainties in every case, including those cases that the press paints as “open and shut” (e.g, the O.J. Simpson Trial). Human fallibility permeates the process: the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the witnesses, the jury, and the judge. Sometimes it reduces to a question of whom to believe, and the legal process is not necessarily the most effective way to answer that question if your goal is to get to the truth. Sometimes “what happened” is actually pretty clear, but it still seems like fitting square pegs in round holes to match the facts of the particular case to the abstract categories set up by the law. The other thing that should be abundantly clear to anyone who has participated in or witnessed a criminal trial is that degrees of potential punishment have only a minimal impact on an individual considering a crime. For the most part, those individuals just don’t expect to get caught (or they aren’t thinking about it at all). I would be shocked if anyone could prove a crime was deterred because the death penalty was a potential punishment for the act in question, rather than, e.g., life in prison. It should be obvious that people who commit murder are generally not rational beings, weighing their options and the potential consequences. Certainly, there is no statistical correlation between increased application (or availability) of the death penalty and decreased violent crime.
2. People who use the death penalty for political advantage. These people, mostly politicians, may or may not appreciate the fundamental problems of the death penalty, but realize that most people do not understand the criminal justice system, and that taking a pro-death penalty position will communicate a message that they are doing their utmost to reduce crime and make people safer (regardless of whether or not that is actually true).

Are there any death penalty supporters who don’t fit into those two categories? Perhaps certain victims and their families, who view the death penalty as necessary to reestablish some sort of karmic balance in the world and “put the whole thing behind them”?

A shiny new release of Quantian is now available! Release 0.7.9.1, available as a iso file of 2.5 gb, contains almost 7 gb of quantitative, numerical or scientific software. This release is the first one based on Knoppix 4.0.2 and features:

• Kernel 2.6.12, KDE 3.4, OpenOffice 2.0, ... and more from Knoppix 4.0.2
• a backport of the openMosix-enabled 2.4.27 kernel and openMosix tools from the last clusterKnoppix release,
• very comprehensive support for GNU R with over 800 packages from CRAN and BioConductor, plus ESS, Ggobi, Rpad, RKward, ...
• newly added packages such as scigraphica, polyxmass, gromacs and more
• content from metapackages from Debian Med, Debian Edu and Debian Junior
• and still loads more of math, bio, engineering, LaTeX, ... software

Downloads are available from the Quantian site at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and at from Greg Warnes' machine at Yale. European mirrors should be in sync within a day or two, Bittorrent support via the Linux Mirror Project should also be available soon. Note that http transfers seem to be problematic due to the file size of over 2gb; rsync and bittorrent are probably a better approach. More information is as always available at the Quantian pages.

It's been an interesting 24 hours. Monday
8:00 PM
I get home after working a regular day and having supper with a friend. 8:15 PM
One of our friend from church -- who happens to live a few blocks from my workplace -- calls. "Did you know your workplace is on fire?" "Uhh, no...." "Yeah, big fire, flames, dozens of emergency vehicles..." "Hmm..." So then I call my manager... "Did you know the company is on fire?" "Uhh... no...." "Yeah, sounds bad, I'm going to head in and see what's going on." 8:30 PM
I arrive at work. Cops have blocked all the entrances. I identify myself as an I.S. manager and am directed to the "manager area". (Others are kept across the street.) An eerie orange glow -- and lots of smoke -- is visible above the rooftop. This looks bad. We learn that something in the compressor room caught fire or exploded. Fire spread upward quickly. Most importantly, everyone got out without any injuries. 8:35 PM
Our T1 provider calls my cellphone. These are really, really good folks. I answer, as I'm standing next to a noisy fire truck. ISP: Hi. Just calling to let you know that your T1 is down and we're looking into it. Me: Hmm. That might be because it's on fire. ISP: Uhm, did you just say it's on fire? Me: Could be. There's a fire in the building and we're not allowed in just yet. Plus the electric company is trying to cut the power. ISP: OK then, I think we're going to assume the problem is at your end for now. This sounds bad. I know the I.S. dept. still has UPS power, since the phone system attendant is answering. But if the T1 is down, it seems that it must have burned up (its run goes very close to the affected area), and taken some phone lines with it. 9 PM
It's below freezing already, and I didn't bundle up very well. Several waiting -- but unused -- ambulances are nearby and the paramedics invite those of us waiting inside the heated vehicles. 9:30 PM
The CEO and CFO are permitted to tour the building with a firefighter. Word is that sprinklers have come on and there's water in the I.S. dept. This is potentially really bad news. The I.S. dept is in the basement and water has been a problem before, so we're prepared, but water and computers are never a good combination... After a little while, we are allowed inside as well. There is 1 to 2 inches of water on the floor in the basement, but fortunately nothing has reached the raised floor yet. The fire department supplies an AC generator to power the sump pump, plus 6 squeeges. We supply 6 people. We keep on the squeege duty until about midnight. Meanwhile, it turns out that a water pipe broke out in the shop near the fire. Water gets shut off. But the floor up there appears to unfortunately slope towards the staircase that leads to the basement. Water is coming down fast. We find what we can to block the path, and that seemed to just make the collection deeper. I periodically try to find someone that can bring a pump and a generator -- or something -- to help this get cleared up. Midnight
I head home. The water situation is improving, but not resolved yet. Others remain. Once home, I post a notice on our public website saying that our power, Internet, phone, and FAX lines are down. You just might have a problem reaching us. I also e-mail some consultants, saying that the reason the VPN doesn't work is that we had a fire. I also e-mail the new I.S. person who has an hour commute and advise him of the situation. Our fire was top story on one of the local newscasts. We watch the video of it, sigh at the annoying "on the scene" reporter (motto: "things were interesting an hour ago"), and turn in. 1AM
Time to sleep. Tuesday
6AM
Get up, in to work by 6:45. Everything is dead. No power, no water, no phones, no heat, no gas. Also, fortunately, no more water coming down. I call the other I.S. developer and tell him not to bother coming in right now, but maybe we'll call later. 8:30 AM
An impromptu meeting happens. The CEO sets communications as the #1 priority: phone and basic Internet access. Plants 2 and 4 have working power, so if we can bring up some servers and network gear on a generator, computers over there will work. No water in plant 1, where my office is. So nearest restrooms are a 5-10 minute walk through dark and damp areas. Bottled water, coffee, and donuts appear at the halfway mark to the restrooms ;-) 9:00 AM
Generators start appearing near the I.S. dept. After getting them powered up, proper extension cords found, etc., we start plugging in the phone system. Power strip 1 works. I flick the switch on power strip 2, and it all goes dead. This generator's circuit breaker keeps doing that every time we try to turn on the phone system. So we try generator #2. Phone system finally powers up. But all incoming lines are ringing at phones in sales. Volunteers go up to answer those phones. Meanwhile, phone tech shows up, and orders his own, larger generator. I call our person that's an hour away and tell him to go ahead and head in. 10:00 AM
Now we turn to the computers. We're going to have to be careful what we bring up so we don't overload the generator (and thus have an unclean shutdown on anything that's already up.) I recable power to some switches, our T1 router (ISP calls: the T1 just came up! yay!), and our firewall. Flick the switch on firewall. Generator stays up. Firewall emits a high-pitched whine. Eeep. Flick the switch again! After checking things out, we adjust the voltage a bit and determine that things are generally OK. I run the firewall on one of its two power supplies. At least if it burns one out, we can still run it off the other later. Turn it back on -- whines again, but it goes away after a few minutes. Phew. Next step: our main Linux file server. Flick the switch, and there's a satisfying "whoosh" from the fans. Excellent. Our developer shows up and observes later: "John, this was odd. When I got here, there were 7 guys standing around watching you boot up machines." 11:00 AM
Decision time. Our main ERP server is an AIX box. 8U. About a dozen disks. Certain to be a large draw. Can the generator handle it? Yes, it should. Should we power it up, given that it takes 45 minutes to come up and 20 to go down? We opt to try. I cable it up and press the power button. Nothing happens. But that is normal for AIX. After a few minutes, we start seeing hex codes on the LCD. A few minutes later, disks start coming up. All looks good... 11:15 AM
Orange alert lamp comes on for the AIX box. Uhoh. Turns out one of the drives in the RAID is bad. Time to call IBM, but at least it's mirrored to the box is up. IBM service calls are always "fun" for this. I spent a total of about an hour on the phone with them, 90% of which was spent with them analyzing error logs trying to find out what exact part number to give is, and 10% spent trying to look up our account information. Plus, the phone guy is now switching the phone system to his genset. He tries to hook it up through a home-type UPS, which is giving him fits. I get disconnected from IBM at least twice. Noon
My supervisor goes to Subway and brings in lunch for all four of us in I.S. since we don't really feel like we can leave. Word arrives that the generator that's powering the servers is leaking oil. Eeep. But it should be good until evening. On the plus side, the generator will automatically shut itself off when it runs out of oil. Won't damage itself. 1PM
IBM calls, trying again to get information about what exact part they need to bring out. Only 29 minutes on the phone this time. Word arrives that a 60kW generator has arrived that they will attempt to hook into the mains supply for the building. The main power distribution center has been burnt. Plus we aren't allowed to touch large parts of it since fire inspectors and insurance adjustors aren't done yet. But no ETA on the big generator. We make a preliminary decision to cut power to computers & the network at 5PM, and maintain the single phone system generator overnight. 2PM
Local IBM rep calls. He'll be out between 3:30 and 4. I say that'll be fine, but warn him that if he's any later, the power may be down. 3:45PM
IBM rep shows up, replaces the dead disk. It works. Whee. 4:15PM
I start powering down the AIX box. We then learn that ETA on the big generator is 5PM. So we start shutting down other servers as planned. 5PM
Big generator comes up. It works. We slowly bring up our systems. Everything is good. BUT -- we are basically maxing out the capacity on the generator. People will not be able to just come in and work like usual tomorrow. We'll be meeting in the morning to figure it all out. 6PM
We post signs at entrances warning people to not turn *anything* on. Finally head home at 6:30.

With regards to The previous post of Wouter, DebConf6 has been scheduled in May as the local MX team are concerned about the potential instability of the political situation and potential demonstrations during the run up. The elections are coming up on July 2nd, so a good month beforehand should be adequate clearance.

It's a shame you can't make it, and I hope to see you, and everyone else who can't make it, at the next one :)

I see that plans start getting ready. Bubulle is coming, Wouter is not, and people will soon start getting their plans ready. I am quite excited about it! Of course, I need to devote more time to it, which is hard to me - but I will do it. Oaxtepec rules, you will _love_ the place. I went there again to spend a weekend with Nadezhda - Took some more photos, added them to the album. Debconf guys: Yes, I owe you a full report... It will come. Soon. Promise.
Anyway... I'm excited. Debian friends, Mexican interested friends: What are you waiting for? Join us! Register!
[update] Well, I published this entry, but then realized I wanted to answer to Wouter's question: Why in May? ;-)
First of all, weather: The weather is plainly better in May. Somewhat warmer... The rainy season starts in May/June, but believe me, you don't want to have your laptop out during Morelos State's well known thunderstorms!
Second, I fear of political instability. Next July we will be having our federal elections. We don't anticipate instability such as what we had in 1994 (which, please you all be quiet, didn't even mean violence in the streets), but still... It's better not to have Debconf too near the elections.
Third, prices - Most places are noticeably more expensive during Summer.
And, yes, I know some people will not be able to attend... I am sorry to learn you are one of them. Still, I'm sure some other people would not be able to make it in July.

As it looks like blogging is now the preferred way of sharing your thoughts, I guess I'll have to answer in my own blog to the problems starting with Thomas Hood post about withdrawing from the NM process.

Some people have replied to this and I think I should present my position, as I'm the most active of the unresponsive NM Front Desk, yaddayaddayadda.

Until Thomas blogged, I did not know that he considered the missing report as an issue.

To clear up the situation: Thomas completed all stages of the AM checks after he was reassigned to Alexander (formorer) this spring.
When Alex wanted to prepare the reported, he noted that some mails from the conversation between Madkiss (the old AM) and Thomas were missing. No problem, FD to the rescue, I still had those mails in my archive. After these initial problems, Alex' daytime job needed a lot of attention, so he didn't write the application report. I kicked him on a regular basis to do so, but it needs time and is not really very interesting, so it got delayed.

OK, that delay is not a good thing, but Alex told me that he planned to do the report on Saturday. Yes, this delay is quite annoying if you worked so hard and always had to wait for your AM to check your stuff and blabla. Now, the problem I have is that in this case, it's simply not true. Madkiss was assigned as AM to Thomas for 18 months - of these 18 months, 15 were spent waiting on a reply from Thomas to the usual NM questions.

Thomas, I can understand if you don't like the templates and think that they're boring, useless and whatever. But don't blame other people for time you have lost.

There have been a lot of hype lately about Social Network or Web 2.0. Of course this is not anything new, but a translation of natural social relationships to the network. Haven't you ever showed your travel photos to your friends or family? Well, in an exercise of exhibitionism you can now show them to the World using a tool like Flickr. Yeah, you could show them before using your blog, which it is also a way of Social Network, but now you can see not only your friend's and family's photos, but a set of them made by people from all around the globe. At the same time, you can still publish your thoughts in your blog, and read other people's thoughts in these different Planets or using an RSS aggregator. Was blogging what started all this? Well, talking with a friend of mine the other day we realized that the impulse of publishing in people is amazing. Before blogs started to exist everyone wanted to have his own personal webpage in Internet. And the revolution was GeoCities. With it anybody could publish his homemade webpage... which usually was a webpage talking about a hobby, or the family, with different links, but few live content. People want to share... want to share experiences, photos, ideas, bookmarks, ... want to talk with friends and family, wherever they are, and this is why IM now (and VoIP in a near future) have had so great success. First half of the 21th century is going to be voyeurs epoch!

Never one to miss out on a good fad, I've recently been getting interested in Ruby on Rails. (OK, maybe it's not fair to call Rails a fad -- it looks really good -- but it is the Tech Of The Moment). What's the first thing you do when you hook onto a fad? You find the relevant blogs. Handily, RoR (as the in-crowd calls it) has a Planet-style aggregator, Planet Ruby on Rails. Less handily, the site is running a *very* half-arsed aggregator script that doesn't escape any of the HTML in the entries, so Liferea summarily spits the dummy at them all and I see nothing but titles in my viewing window. I sent a polite (yes, really!) e-mail to the site admin, asking if it might be possible to get an escaped version. I haven't had a response in a few days, and a lot of the entries look really interesting. So, I've installed my own local Planet RoR aggregator -- running The Real Planet. Planet is astonishly easy to install -- 3/4 of the work was writing the shell script to take the OPML from the original Planet RoR and massaging it into Planet config.ini format. So now I have Real Articles to read again. Life is good.

I just received my first Tribe.net “internal” Nigerian-type scam email:

There’s a new message in your Tribe.net inbox from jenny
Message details: hello Adam
Dear Adam, Please i decided to write you because i have no other alternative. Since after the death of my father in the hands of the rebels i have been in a very big difficulty of how to safeguard the money that my father left for me before his death because,the money is too much that i am afraid i dont know how and where to start to go about it. Please if you can help me try to reply me urgently and i will tell you how much and explain more to you and we can discuss fully and God will always bless you for your help whch i know you shall never regret as i am going to take you as my father. I am Waiting eagerly to hear from you.you can write me through jen_221n@yahoo.com Sincerely Jennifer.

I suppose it was only a matter of time. I wonder if Friendster and other similar FOAF services are prepared to deal with the infiltration of their networks by scammers and spammers.

That'll be about World Cup 2006 in Germany.
Poland has Germany, Equador and Costa Rica in its group. It's always hard to play with an organizer of cup, but maybe we can at least draw with them. Rest of teams seem to be within our range, but at previous cup we disregarded potentially weak teams and didn't promote to second round ;)
Good luck to every competitor!

I have quit LinuxTag. In April I already left the legal association LinuxTag e.V. but continued my work in order to support and not to hurt the community, projects and supporters. On December 1st I finally declared that I'm not going to organise LinuxTag 2006. This step was not easy for me since I was a member of LinuxTag since 1999 and have formed the event from the time when it had to leave the University of Kaiserslautern. However, I don't see a basis for proper co-operation anymore. Too many issues and people went bezerk in the past and didn't refrain from that. 2005 was already a disaster looking at the organisation. Instead of trying to keep a team together, it was demoralised. During the event it was more important to talk about problems instead of finding solutions. Phrases like "there is no community" were heard, and the work of supporters wasn't honoured. For the first time I anticipated that I'll be forced to throw the towel during the event and registered for the keysigning party. This was prevented only by me not being able to attend core meetings. A lot of the problems I have result from the current chairman of the association. When they don't honour us, they'll have to run the event without us. So it's time to close the windows and spend ones precious time elsewhere. At the end of October I decided to give LinuxTag a last chance and defined conditions that have to be fulfilled when I should continue working on the event. Instead of discussing them or even acknowledging them they depended on a phone call that didn't have any useful result. So after more than one month I announced that I won't be available anymore. However, it has been a lot of fun for me to work on the past events, with you, the projects and supporters. For me the event itself in 2005 was the best since the issues in which I was involved simply worked when they were started, without the need of me to interfere all the time, and I wasn't able to attend the core meetings. Even though I have never had this little sleep for one week I had a lot of time to meet people and talk to them, since the event worked so well. It is sad that this has come to an end.

I've been so busy, I haven't had time to blog. Rather than putting it off any longer, I'll just dump what I can remember. Last Wednesday, Sarah arrived after her holiday in Singapore, and from all accounts, had a great time. Photos as well. Sticking with the whirlwind theme, the next day, we had a "building warming" party at work for the new building we'd moved into the week before Michael and I started. The next night we had the work Christmas party, which blew the socks off any work Christmas party I'd ever been to before, and then on Saturday night we went to a party in San Francisco that we'd been invited to. On a life in general front, I'm still waiting for a Social Security number. The lack of one makes life a bit difficult for a lot of things. It also turns out that Sarah's work permit will take about 90 days to approve, so she's going to be a lady of leisure for the next few months. I've finally been issued with a work mobile phone (or "cell phone" as they call them), and so can stop roaming and paying through the nose for the privilege. We've found somewhere to live. We take possession of a 2 bedroom townhouse (split-level) in a complex in Mountain View that is 3 miles from work on the 18th. The rent is $1725 a month, which is a bit better than we were expecting. The complex we're renting in does have shared laundries, which we'd not too keen on before getting over here, but they're quite modern and secure, and there's a laundry block close to our townhouse, so hopefully it won't be too bad. The whole place had been renovated about 5 years ago, so it's all in good condition. We could have rented a 3 bedroom apartment (single level) in the same complex for about $125 a month more, but we're trying to actually make some money while we're over here... Driving on the other side of the road becomes fairly "normal" after about a week of doing it regularly. Sarah's adapted fine. Lane placement is the hardest thing, because your body's used to being in a certain spot on the road, and it's all different sitting on the other side of the car. We've managed to open a rudimentary bank account, even with my lack of Social Security number. Unfortunately I can't get paid until I have an SSN. Upside of that is that if it doesn't happen until next year, I presumably won't have to worry about income tax for this US financial year. Downside is kind of obvious... By far one of the stranger things of everyday life here is the lighting situation in the average residence. Lamps are all the rage, to the point that light switches don't exist in some rooms (notably bedrooms). Take where we're currently living for example. There's a light switch at the bottom of the stairs, there's one at the top. There's a bank of four in the living room, two of which control lights in the kitchen, and one the hallway. The last one controls a lamp in the corner of the living room, which is connected to a power socket (or power point as we'd call it). The bedroom with the attached bathroom (en suite) has two bedside lamps, and that is the sole source of light. The bathroom attached has light switches, and the walk-in robe has a light switch. It's so weird. So walking into a darkened bedroom involves walking all the way in, and fumbling around with a lamp. It's often easier to turn on the light in the wardrobe so you can see what you're doing first. I can't think of any reason for it, except tradition. It's not like they're avoiding wiring the walls or the ceiling, because it's done partially already. The bedroom has a ceiling fan, but where in Australia, there'd be a knob on the wall near the light switch to control it, it has a little chain you yank on. To add to the strangeness, there are two switches on the wall, one of which seems to allow you to turn off the ceiling fan if it's already been switched on by pulling the chain. The townhouse we're renting has a similar lamp dependency, so we're going to be making a trip to Ikea for some lamps it would seem. That's about everything I can recollect right now... Oh, I should point out that I'm really loving it over here.

And yes, the advertisement below my blog entries will go away soon. I haven't found a decent free alternative to my mobile blogging client (if it weren't for the time I spend on the train, I would probably never write anything as it happened with my Advogato blog, so mobile is the way to go for me), so I will just register it and live with it until my j2me skills reach an adequate level or I grow up, whichever happens first.

 Anyway, I think Portugal is not, at all, a small team, and I think, on group D, is the one that we have to pay more attention. Iran qualified as the 3rd out of 4 on the Asian seats, and we cannot minimize them, neither. And Angola qualified as the first of their group on the African zone; they made 21 points, just behind Côte d'Ivoire. Group D is a hard group, yes it is. In case Mexico qualifies to the second stage, the 1st and 2nd place of group D would go against 2nd and 1st places (respectively) of group C, where I, personally, fear Argentina :) Go Mexico! :) 

I'm looking for somebody who would be willing to work on a timeline for 2004, similar to the one from 2003 since I still haven't been able to allocate time for it on my own. Additionally, I'm looking for somebody who would is interested in the same for 2005, since this year only has a couple of weeks left over. I don't anticipate to be able to write it on my own as well, so a volunteer is definitively welcome. While we're at it, I'm also in need of people contributing to Debian Weekly News. Regular contribution would be best, if people want to be added to dwn@, please drop me a note as well.