A few hours ago, I sent the following to both the R development list and the informal R / GSoC list:

Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:27:29 -0500
To: R Development List <r-devel>
CC: gsoc-r <gsoc-r>
Subject: R and the Google Summer of Code 2010 -- Please welcome our new students!
From: Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd>
Earlier today Google finalised student / mentor pairings and allocations for
the Google Summer of Code 2010 (GSoC 2010).  The R Project is happy to
announce that the following students have been accepted:
   Colin Rundel, "rgeos - an R wrapper for GEOS", mentored by Roger Bivand of
      the Norges Handelshoyskole, Norway
   Ian Fellows, "A GUI for Graphics using ggplot2 and Deducer", mentored by
      Hadley Wickham of Rice University, USA
   Chidambaram Annamalai, "rdx - Automatic Differentiation in R", mentored by
      John Nash of University of Ottawa, Canada
   Yasuhisa Yoshida, "NoSQL interface for R", mentored by Dirk Eddelbuettel,
      Chicago, USA
   Felix Schoenbrodt, "Social Relations Analyses in R", mentored by Stefan
      Schmukle, Universitaet Muenster, Germany
   Details about all proposals are on the R Wiki page for the GSoC 2010 at
   http://rwiki.sciviews.org/doku.php?id=developers:projects:gsoc2010
The R Project is honoured to have received its highest number of student
allocations yet, and looks forward to an exciting Summer of Code.  Please
join me in welcoming our new students.
At this time, I would also like to thank all the other students who have
applied for working with R in this Summer of Code. With a limited number of
available slots, not all proposals can be accepted -- but I hope that those
not lucky enough to have been granted a slot will continue to work with R and
towards making contributions within the R world. 
I would also like to express my thanks to all other mentors who provided for
a record number of proposals.  Without mentors and their project ideas we
would not have a Summer of Code -- so hopefully we will see you again next
year. 
Regards,  
Dirk (acting as R/GSoC 2010 admin)

In a comment to my previous blog post, I linked to the DebConf photo gallery page with the DebConf8 mugshots. Felix Brandt, a friend of mine, noticed the per-picture view statistics there and plotted them, differentiating between male and female. He finds that the number of views on an image gives a fairly good indication of the sex (or gender?) of the person in question: The most notable exception is the image of bubulle. He does not even look feminine. Maybe it s because he s like a mother to us Debianers, always kind and always helpful? :-) This observation fits my experience when I created a top-100-statistic of individual picture page views of my personal gallery: I got a collection of pretty much all pictures of girls in bikinis, lying at some beach, across the various pages and years, and hardly any other picture. I won t post these top-100 here, as I don t want to additionally increase the effect...

A couple of things I loved in the past few days:

• While talking about IP over DNS and aircrack techniques with a friend, being given some credentials to use a near-by hotspot directly (without tunneling).
• Attending a very nice concert with an old friend: das Hager-Trio in Villa Falkenhorst [de]. It featured Claude Debussy, Silvio Lazzari, and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Of course I'm going to lack words to describe the wonderful moment I had in that very tiny room (approx. 60-70 seats, which probably helped obtain a very warmish atmosphere). Reminds me I should go out more often. :)

: Unfortunately, I can't seem able to find a related webpage. Its member: Inge Hager (violin), Elke Hager (cello), and Enrico Pompili (piano).

Poking around the web site for Law in Contemporary Society, a class taught this semester by Eben Moglen, (who is counsel for the Free Software Foundation and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center), i found Felix Cohen's Trancendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, which (according to wikipedia) is one of "the most-cited law review articles ever written". I haven't read the whole thing yet (and i'm neither a lawyer nor a philosopher) but it's fascinating reading. And from what i've read so far, it's a strong push toward directly addressing the values that lie hidden beneath our technical or mechanical decisions, and to avoid mistaking technical success or skill with a worthwhile outcome and clear goals at a societal level. This is something we software developers and system administrators struggle with as well (or at least i think we should). It's neat to get my head around these concepts from a different intellectual sphere, and a different era (74 years ago!) when the technical and mechanical tools i work with didn't exist in anything like their present form. This kind of reading makes me wonder what works from Computer Science or Systems Engineering or Information Technology will have this kind of exhortative power and social relevance so far into the future. Do you have a favorite (or abhorred?) text from your field that offers the kind of moral and technical challenges that Cohen's work does?Tags: law, moglen, philosophy

Some more information about my current research for flights to Debconf. First of all, the conditions:

• Departure from Paris, either Orly or Charles de Gaulle, Aug 8th
• Arrival to Buenos Aires
• Return on Aug 17th

All this is non negotiable The best quote is still EUR902, which I obtained for an Air Europa flight (Paris-Madrid-Buenos Aires) on www.expedia.fr. The same flight is quoted higher is many other booking sites...including www.aireuropa.com. Moray Alan pointed me to www.checkfelix.at which is indeed one of the most convenient search engines around...but it misses my EUR902 quote... Don't ask why the very same flight booked from Madrid, thus direct is much more expensive: that's the joy of air transportation where nothing is logical (except in terms of getting the most out of your pocket, of course). Probably more random results to come in my blog in the next days/weeks. I hope that all this is already useful for some of you.

Up until recently, I’ve been supporting John Connolly as candidate for city council. In addition to the recent concerns about anonymous mailings, I’m now getting hammered by his auto-dialer. I’ve received four prerecorded phone calls today and yesterday reminding me to vote for Connolly. (By contrast, I got one real human phone call from a Michael Flaherty supporter.) Now with a few hours left to vote, I’m on the fence. I wish this guy would leave me alone. In the meantime, a WBUR interview claims that Felix Arroyo is the most vulnerable candidate (something I’ve never heard elsewhere). If that’s the case, I’m tempted to just bullet-vote for Felix. I hope this last-minute vacillation doesn’t make me an idgit voter. 5pm update: three more automated phone calls! One for Murphy from Consalvo; and two for Connolly (one from Tobin, the other I forget). They’re pulling out all the stops, only at the last minute. I wonder who the dismal weather (and poor turnout) favors. 7pm update: three or four more calls, now including real humans! My wife figured out part of the reason we’re getting so many — separate calls each for her and me, even though it’s all on the same phone number. In any case, we’ve all voted now. I did end up including Connolly in my votes despite these over-the-top tactics. I guess it shows, at least, that he’s well organized. Technorati Tags: Boston, City Council, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly

Share This

I was quoted in a recent Needham Times article regarding my complaints with the T:

But Adam Rosi-Kessel, a Roslindale resident who takes the Needham Line to his job in the financial district, said 15- to 20-minute delays have kept him from getting to work before 9 a.m. since May. Now Rosi-Kessel, a lawyer who biked to work when he lived in Jamaica Plain, is thinking about trading in his Charlie Card again. It used to be, living here in Roslindale, the train was always the fastest way to get in, he said. Now, it s slowed down to the point where it s starting to get competitive with biking again.

I’m glad they got my biking quote. Here’s the part I don’t understand (emphasis added):

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokeswoman Lydia Rivera said Needham Line delays have been caused by construction work and speed restrictions on tracks that don t go anywhere near Needham. In order to maximize train use, the T often transfers trains between tracks, rather than leaving underused trains empty in the MBTA yard. The method helps the T get trains where they re needed most, but it also means a delay on one track can slow service on a seemingly unrelated track. It s a Catch-22, Rivera said.

I don’t think the T spokesperson knows what a “Catch-22″ is. I refer those interested to the Wikipedia article on the subject, but it is nicely summarized there as “heads I win, tails you lose.” The T’s problem is not a logical paradox, but some combination of inadequate resources and poor organization. Can someone please help them out? Also on Boston local topics: I’ve received several unattributed mailings lately related to the city council election that do not facially promote any particular candidate. Today’s mailing attacked Stephen Murphy for repeatedly trying (and failing) to win some other office or get some other job than City Councilor. The return address was 31 Milk Street, which is the address of many different businesses. A few days ago, I received another unattributed mailing bemoaning how long it has been since an at-large city councilor came from the Parkway Area (my neighborhood), but not mentioning any candidate in particular. My guess is these mailings are all meant to support John Connolly, a West Roxbury resident, attorney, and ostensibly good guy. I was feeling pretty happy about the possibility of Connolly replacing Murphy on the Council (I have to admit some unfair prejudice in that the only house in our neighborhood I’ve ever seen prominently posting a sign in support of Bush also features a Murphy billboard). But these questionable campaign tactics are giving me pause. Does anyone know anything more about this? In any case, here are my endorsements for next week’s election, notwithstanding the concern outlined above: (1) Felix Arroyo, (2) John Connolly, and (3) Sam Yoon. I have no pick for a fourth candidate. I’ll also throw in a vote for Matt Geary. I really wouldn’t want the socialists running the City, but a broader spectrum of political opinion within the council wouldn’t hurt. Incidentally, it is remarkably hard to find any information summarizing all of the candidates’ positions and records. It’s almost as if the election isn’t even happening. (A commenter properly points me to Brighton Centered as a good resource.) 11/3/07 Update: More discussion here. Technorati Tags: Boston, City Council, Elections, Felix Arroyo, John Connolly, Sam Yoon, Stephen Murphy, Politics, MBTA, Transportation, Roslindale, Needham, Matt Geary

Share This

A nice recent example of the benefits of open-sourcing software is Second Life, the well-known online virtual world. The Second Life client was released under the terms of the GNU GPL (version 2) roughly two weeks ago. Since then a lot of community activity has been observed:

• A Solaris x64 port.
• A PowerPC port.
• A Mandriva package.
• A Debian package is in the works.
• Initial build notes for Ubuntu are available.
• OpenSL, an independant project not affiliated with Linden Labs, has been formed (I'm not sure what their exact goals are, though).
• Felix von Leitner (fefe) has done a cursory code audit and identified several potential security issues, which have also been reported on the Second Life development mailing list (I don't know whether they have already been fixed).
• Susan Wu mentions lots of other potential benefits of open-sourcing the client.

Most of these things (and others I might have forgotten) would certainly not have happened with the closed-source client anytime soon...

And then, I shall not be less verbose, but danes, dalton, montxo, and pablo. LT: Najwa, My own shout

Last week Thomas Schultz added a patch from Felix Schueller which adds iconv support for incoming and outgoing postings to the slrn cvs repository. I already prepared an updated package for experimental and uploaded it. Use it with care, there are known bugs.

Amaya -- so sorry about Emacs. I had two cats for a couple years, and lost Felix during a move back East, The saddest thing has been that Leo lost a brother to play with and had to become sort of a loner, and rely more on human companionship. Last night Leo suprised me, I was idly swinging my headphones around and he began to play with them and we had a good old style tussle like we used to when he was a kitten, and I thought, hmm, I should probably get him some proper toys again, cats never really outgrow that even if they get to go outside and hunt small furry creatures and butterflies and annoy other cats. Wish his brother was still around.. Anyway, I think you should still take Vim to the beach sometime.

Hey, no one asked me, but here are my endorsements for tomorrow’s city council election:

• Mayor: Maura Hennigan. I actually think Tom Menino is doing all right, and he will obviously win, so this is more of a “strategic” vote. I think it’s generally bad for elected leaders to be too certain of their grip on power, and voting for the challenger hopefully will keep them on their toes and more responsive to the community. It also may lay the groundwork for a better challenger in the next election four years from now. (This is why I voted for Bobbie Rush in Chicago in 1999, even though he had no chance of winning).
• City Council - At Large
  • Felix Arroyo: Hands down the best guy on the council. I heard him referred to as a “rock star” on WBUR this morning. I can’t think of anyone I would prefer for Mayor in 2009.
  • Matt O’Malley: I agree with him on just about every issue, plus there’s a strong Roslindale “home town” feeling for Matt. Someone showed me some of his campaign literature from the last time around where he was unfairly critical of Felix Arroyo, but my feeling (and hope) is that he has matured significantly since then.
  • Sam Yoon: Yoon seems to have the best chance of the newcomers/outsiders of actually getting elected, and he has been absorbed into the progressive fold with Arroyo, Chuck Turner, and Charles Yancey. That would be a nice block to have on the council. Certainly having the first Asian-American on the council would be a good thing as well.
  • John Connolly: Mostly, I just prefer him to the remaining four candidates. Although I’m a bit torn because I would also like to see more women on the council, I’m not convinced that Patricia White is the candidate to do it. Ed Flynn’s entire campaign platform seems to be “veteran,” and he opposes reproductive rights and same-sex marriage, so he’s (way) out. Steve Murphy lost my support when the only house in our neighborhood to sport large Bush/Cheney signs also posted Murphy signs. Michael Flaherty lost my support when he procedurally squashed a resolution that would have opposed the PATRIOT Act.

In any case, if you’re a Boston voter, be sure to participate tomorrow, whomever you choose to support.