For a project of mine I needed the pictograms for man and woman (as also known from toilette doors), in two different sizes, once filled and once as an outline. I coud not find these as a LaTeX symbol nor as a defined unicode character, so I searched the internet. I found some material as vector graphics (EPS), which I was using first, imported into my LaTeX document as images. But it felt wrong to use images for something that s a symbol in the text.So I installed fontforge, the apparently usual tool for that, imported the EPS files and with surprisingly reasonable effort created a TrueType font with these nice eight glyphs:
One of the main UK computer security websites (Get Safe Online, GSO, a public/private partnership) has recently changed to using a website for security alerts, instead of sending emails that contained a “secret” word. Of course, a non-SSL website is not really safer or easier to verify than the emails, so I asked them: why don’t you use OpenPGP or GPG, like debian’s excellent security advisories?
The reply essentially boils down to “our target audience doesn’t use encryption software and we’re not going to educate them and other countries don’t either.” The encryption instructions on their site consists of an extremely vague explanation and links to a dozen or so other websites, along with insulting open source programs (which is disappointingly usual for GSO). The site is a little better than it was last year, but not much.
I think it’s a terrible shame that the gov.uk-supported site is failing to encourage encryption software use. Do you think this stems from a fear of strong encryption making it harder for the public sector to snoop on us?
So I guess this falls to the common/civil sector to promote personal security. How could we spread encryption software to the masses? GnuPG and as many mail client plugins as you can find? Icedove/Thunderbird and Enigmail?
One of the main UK computer security websites (Get Safe Online, GSO, a public/private partnership) has recently changed to using a website for security alerts, instead of sending emails that contained a “secret” word. Of course, a non-SSL website is not really safer or easier to verify than the emails, so I asked them: why don’t you use OpenPGP or GPG, like debian’s excellent security advisories?
The reply essentially boils down to “our target audience doesn’t use encryption software and we’re not going to educate them and other countries don’t either.” The encryption instructions on their site consists of an extremely vague explanation and links to a dozen or so other websites, along with insulting open source programs (which is disappointingly usual for GSO). The site is a little better than it was last year, but not much.
I think it’s a terrible shame that the gov.uk-supported site is failing to encourage encryption software use. Do you think this stems from a fear of strong encryption making it harder for the public sector to snoop on us?
So I guess this falls to the common/civil sector to promote personal security. How could we spread encryption software to the masses? GnuPG and as many mail client plugins as you can find? Icedove/Thunderbird and Enigmail?
Today is Blog Action Day about poverty. As a member of several cooperatives, I have a pretty strong hope that the responsible lending of credit unions can help people escape from poverty. The basic process of a credit union is that you save for a while, then when you’ve shown that you will put aside that amount of money regularly, you can borrow some multiple of it and repay at the same rate you were saving. In addition, you get a voice in controlling the credit union itself, although it is limited by financial services regulations and so on.
At yesterday’s meeting of the Cooperatives-SW board in Taunton, some members expressed concern about a “social enterprise” called South-West Pound backed by a company called South West Community Banking Partnership. Although it’s called that, apparently it’s not a bank and also not a credit union: its members don’t manage it. It’s working with credit unions, but I’m very unclear on how it’s regulated. From the few details on their website, it looks to me like it could even be running a Farepak-style scheme which happens to hold deposits in credit unions instead of banks. Why is concealing member-controlled unions allowable as a “social enterprise”? Why would anyone go to a “community banking partnership” instead of direct to a credit union? (Coo, I’m getting a bit angry again, both at the lack of information and the hide-them-to-promote-them idea.)
Tomorrow (Thu 16 Oct) is International Credit Union Day. If you’ve not already done so, please go open an account and help your local community to fund itself, then see if you can get involved in publicising them to communities who suffer financial exclusion.
I told you I was re-reading Paul Graham s Hackers and Painters essay in order to update one of my lectures. I feel I like Ruby for I too have the same coding style as Paul s:
I found that I liked to program sitting in front of a computer, not a piece of paper. Worse still, instead of patiently writing out a complete program and assuring myself it was correct, I tended to just spew out code that was hopelessly broken, and gradually beat it into shape. Debugging, I was taught, was a kind of final pass where you caught typos and oversights. The way I worked, it seemed like programming consisted of debugging.Ruby sort of frees me of figuring out everything beforehand. Of course, Ruby is not the only language with that in it It s just the one I like the most Anyway This is not a language-versus-language rant Rather this is about another article I just read by Carol S. Dweck The article focus on teaching kids that challenges can be taken as opportunities to improve. Failure at a challenge, in this sense, has less to do with intelligence than with effort. And I just mentioned Paul s essay because I think what Carol is really talking about is that hacking can be taught ... or rather that we should teach kids to be hackers. Here I mean hacker in the broad sense of the word, as in Paul s essay, or in the Jargon File.
7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations.Maybe if knowledge researchers, teachers and psychologists embrace and extend what we already understand as hacking, and begin applying it at schools, we can all improve as a society. Who knows Hacker-society might very well be our future society! ;-) What do you think about it?
One of the things I've wanted to do since I discovered that Caltrain (and the VTA light rail) are well-equipped to take
bikes, was go for an outing further afield on our bikes using one of these
methods of public transport.
So we finally got around to doing that yesterday, when we threw our bikes on
the train, and BART, and went for a ride
around Golden
Gate Park.
The grand plan was to bike to the Caltrain station, take Caltrain to
Milbrae, BART to downtown, then bike from there to the park, and then catch
an afternoon showing of The
Dark Knight in IMAX at the Metreon, then bike back to the
BART station, and reverse the whole thing.
We had a minor hiccup in that Sarah had just gotten her bike back from a
friend she'd lent it to, and as we were about to head to the Caltrain
station, discovered that it a broken spoke. She managed to extract the spoke
and we got to the station with a couple of minutes to spare.
It turned out that Mike's Bikes were
fairly close to the BART station, so we stopped in there on way to the park,
and they were able to fix the spoke on the spot in 20 minutes for the
princely sum of $21.
Unfortunately the weather was pretty typical summer San Francisco weather,
and it was quite cold and foggy. It didn't get any better as we got closer
to the park (and the coast), so the ride around the park itself wasn't
terribly exciting. The hill we had to get over (Hayes Street) was a bit of a
slog. On the way back we saw the filming of a Japanese Nissan commercial
(complete with right-hand drive car).
I'd done some research into bike parking beforehand, and found that all of
the parking garages are required to provide bicycle
parking, and there's a pretty comprehensive
list.
So we parked our bikes in the Moscone Center garage, which was about a block
from the Metreon, and went and caught the movie.
The Dark Knight was really good. Very... dark. I really liked Ledger's
portrayal of the Joker, much better than the original. I wonder if they'll
just keep re-imagining the Batman movies over and over? There was pretty good
continuity from Batman
Begins. I thought the voice of Batman was a bit ridiculous though, at
least initially. You kind of got used to it after a while.
Anyway, we got back to the parking garage, and some lowlife had cut through
the cable lock that we'd used to lock our bikes to each other and the rack,
and stolen Sarah's bike! Annoyed does not begin to describe it.
We trundled off the seven or eight blocks to the Hall of Justice to file a
report. The SFPD weren't the least bit interested, really. The somewhat
astounding thing was the bike racks were right behind the cashier's office,
and there was video surveillance, and someone still managed to just walk
right in, cut the cable, and walk out with the bike. We checked with the
duty manager, and he reviewed the video footage and said they have footage
of him walking in and then walking out with the bike. So hopefully the
police will get hold that.
We have to see if we can dredge up the purchase documentation for the bike
and see if the serial number is recorded. I have no idea if we'll ever see
the bike again. Our renter's insurance may cover it, but I suspect the
deductible won't make it worth our while to make a claim.
I have to say (and it's not like it's a recent discovery or anything) that
the Bay Area's public transportation is a joke. It cost us $32 to go from
Mountain View to Downtown San Francisco, via Caltrain and then BART. Our
Prius takes about 11 gallons at worst, and with gas prices being at say
$4.30 a gallon, that's about $47 a tank. We get about 400 miles out of a
tank usually, and it's vaguely 40 miles from home to the guts of Golden Gate
Park. So it's cheaper, and faster to drive to San Francisco than it is to
use a bicycle and public transport. Particularly when you factor in the risk
of theft of your bicycle.
Our next bike lock will be one of those fancy Kevlar ones.
I won. My text will be published this fall. More information on kagge.no.
We actually got home last Sunday, but I've been too jetlagged, and then too
busy with work to really have a chance to write anything...
We got back in at around 2pm, but our bags fell victim to Heathrow's
Terminal 5, and didn't arrive until around 11pm. I think I lasted until
about 8pm, when I had to crash. Poor Sarah had to stay up until 11pm when
they finally got around to delivering our suitcases.
The week in Zurich was wonderful. The Zurich office is everything the photos
make it out to be, and then some. One weird thing: apparently there's some
Swiss regulation about how much you're allowed to cool a building in
relation to the outdoor ambient temperature, so there's no air conditioning
in the office. Instead, you can open the windows. Unfortunately, there's a
fairly busy set of train tracks right beside the office, so it can get a tad
noisy... It was a pretty warm week, I think around 30°C. I certainly
prefer being colder rather than hotter when indoors, so found the lack of
decent cooling to be a shame, given the rest of the building's features.
That said, it was pretty amazing sweltering away in Zurich, and then looking
up and seeing snow on the mountains. It was surprising how much of a
temperature difference there was.
On the last evening in Zurich, we went on a reconnoitre to try and find the
river that we could hear (and see on the map) behind our apartment. We
eventually found some street access to it, and it was another world back
there. It was fairly thickly wooded, and the sunlight was heavily filtered
through the trees, so it was cool and shady.
The river was fairly fast flowing over some rocks in parts, which is what
was making it so audible. The whole setting was absolutely beautiful. There
were a couple of paths, and the whole thing felt like something out of a
fairy tail. We think we stumbled onto a fox, but we're not sure. It's a
shame we only discovered the place on the last day, as I'd have liked to
have explored it further.
I really liked Zurich. It was nice and flat, and had an excellent tram
service. Monday
Night Skate made me wish I'd packed my roller blades. We were wandering
around on Monday night, and it felt like the entire city had donned skates
and were going out. Apparently the authorities really get behind it, and
close roads, and the police go along behind the pack and reopen the roads
behind them and pick up the stragglers. Great way to encourage an active
lifestyle.
We've got all of our photos up now from the Europe trip, and they're here.
This brings the total countries I've visited up to 10, excluding Hong Kong
and Macau. I don't like selecting China when I generate this map, as I've
never been to mainland China.
| ISP | RAM | Disk | Bandwidth (per month) | Price $US |
| Linode | 360M | 10G | 200GB | $20 |
| Linode | 540M | 15G | 300GB | $30 |
| Slicehost | 256M | 10G | 100GB | $20 |
| Slicehost | 512M | 20G | 200GB | $38 |
| VPSLand | 192M | 6G | 150GB | $16 |
| VPSLand | 288M | 8G | 200GB | $22 |
| Quantact | 96M | 4.5G | 96GB | $15 |
| Quantact | 128M | 6G | 128GB | $25 |
| rimuhosting | 96M | 4G | 30G | $20 |
| XenEurope | 128M | 10G | 100G | $16 (E10) |
| XenEurope | 256M | 20G | 150G | $28 (E17.50) |
| Gandi.net | 256M | 5G | 3Mb/s | $7.50 or E6 |
Memory leak in a certain Red Hat patch, applied to vsftpd 2.0.5 on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5 and Fedora 6 through 8, and on Foresight Linux and rPath appliances, allows remote attackers to cause a denial of service (memory consumption) via a large number of CWD commands, as demonstrated by an attack on a daemon with the deny_file configuration option.Rather embarrassing given vsftpd's focus on security... Of course this is nowhere near the scale of last week's OpenSSL bug, but it seems to indicate that Debian is not the only distro with insufficient review processes. (The patch was added in 2006 to fix this bug.)
Geeks not only designed the Internet, an indisputably revolutionary medium, but also implemented, and continue to maintain it, and then in their copious spare time, also engage in fighting back the political, legal and corporate encroachment which threatens to limit the very revolutionary nature of the Internet (as Chris Kelty’s new book on Free Software argues). If these acts by geeks are not enough political action, then maybe the development of not just one, but multiple entirely open and free alternatives to the only two proprietary operating systems that exist today might be a political act that would satisfy? Many would agree that even simply using a free operating system is a political act. It would be better to claim that individuals, lawyers and other political actors are not doing enough to save the Future of the Internet, rather than imploring the already overtaxed geeks to set aside everything that they are already doing to do something even more.
(end rant)
It also seems that when it comes to political questions related to the Internet, net neutrality being the hot topic now, or fighting restrictive and problematic laws like the DMCA, one of the only groups of people (outside of lawyers and librarians) to actually understand and dissect the fine print (and geeks actually are pretty attuned to and like to dissect the fine legal print), to protest these unsavory laws, and to support the organizations who are doing something about it (like the EFF), are geeks and hackers. While many geeks are not necessarily keen on conceptualizing their labor in traditional political terms, or aligning their technical projects with a political affiliation, and yes would rather just be writing good code, they do fight for their productive freedom and this productive freedom just happens to relate to most questions and concerns related to an open, accessible, and tweakable Internet, built by the geeks, lest we forget
What was perhaps most surprising was that he also seemed to think that geeks and developers have not turned to “apprenticeship,” nor policies and procedure to coordinate their development projects, unlike Wikipedia, which he considers a shining example that geeks should look towards as a beacon of policy that geeks should consider emulating in their projects (comments made answering my question). He clearly has not been hanging out with any Debian developers in the last 10 years nor has he gone through their New Maintainer Process 
In other words, he seems to think they are allergic to regulation due to their accentuated libertarianism, or are against structure because of their anarchism, neither which is remotely true. I think I found this characterization most ironic and problematic for before Wikipedia was even an entry on a Wiki, projects like Debian (and most other F/OSS projects) were transforming and changing to integrate normative procedures and policies that allowed a group of people to work together, scale, grow and deal with crises’. No, they don’t have the Wikipedia badge system, but that system is emblematic of Wikipedia’s own transformation into integrating its own normative procedures and policies for working together, not an example of an idealized policy system that other projects are too primitive to have evolved into yet.
About one hour into the talk when questions opened up, I objected to his characterization, but given his answer back to me, I did not make much of a dent in his thinking. Another lawyer Tim Wu (who also wrote a wonderful book on the Internet) chimed in to give me some props and also made a good point that even if geeks are the only groups of people who would storm AT&T and know intimately about the importance of net neutrality, there is a lot of room for thinking about how to strengthen and improve the tactics and politics among geeks and developers so that we can ensure the type of open and generative Internet and set of technologies we value.
As part of thinking and rethinking new strategies, it is as key to acknowledge and honor the past. In this regard, free software development has been pivotal both in terms of providing software (and making it is an important political act as is choosing to use free software over propriety software) and a set of important set of ideas that a lot of lawyers like Yochai Benkler and Lawrence Lessig have run with to make some important political claims of their own.
So despite my rant above, which was a rant and thus exaggerates things to some degree, I do think there is much more that geeks and non-geeks can do, such as help translate these uber-geeky issues into less geeky terms (and actually this is already being done by some geeks as the work of Jelena Karanovic has shown, or translate the technical issues into new domains as the uber-geek Karl Fogel is doing with question copyright but first lets give credit where credit it due and recognize that labor is political
In the end, I just bought a
Brother HL-5250DN. Yeah I know, it wasn't in the list, but in
the end, the lexmark one (which had postcript+duplex) wasn't
available at a nice price, but I thought duplex printing was still
a good idea. So I had to decide between a
Samsung and a Brother. The Samsung had official Postscript
while the Brother supported IPv6.
I ended choosing the Brother one, and it's a good idea. The
printer indeed support IPv6, but postscript too. Choosing
“Postscript generic driver” in cups works pretty
fine.
IPv6 works too, but I faced two (linked) problems:
I'm currently looking for a printer. I want a Laser printer,
black & white should be enough, but color may be ok too if not
too expensive (especially toner). I guess I prefer a network one,
even if I don't really understand the way everything should
work.
As I understand it, a network printer just listens on a defined
port (9100/jetdirect or ipp/63), and prints jobs sent by a spooler.
There is no integrated spooler, so there are two solutions:
Next.