Well, during the weekend some Debian machines were unreachable as MJ Ray wrote on debian-devel:

gluck, merkel, samosa and raff uncontactable (192.25.206.* network problem?)

I don't know anything more at this time, but wanted to push a small
message out so that others know it isn't just them and lists and IRC
are both still up, as far as I can see so far.

Except the topic on #debian-devel channel there was no other official notice, afaik.

I think handling of such issues can be improved. Although nobody apparently seemed to know what happened or when the problem will be solved, it would have been nice to publish information that actually were available:

1. What happened?


2. When did it happen?


3. What services are affected?


4. What is done to solve the problem?


5. When will the problem be solved most likely (ETA)?


6. Is there an alternative for the services affected by the problem?


7. Where can I inform myself about any progress?

A webpage similar to that one for DSA-1571 would be a very nice idea, IMHO.

...but, really, Fiji would have deserved the victory. They did put the Stade Velodrome on fire this afternoon, pushing South-Africa to play....a quite bad rugby with few imagination and many errors. In the RSA team, only Steyn emerged and saved his team from sinking (37-20). RSA scored 5 tries mostly only because they have good four-wheel-driven "trucks". In the Fiji side, Sisa Koyamaibole and Mosese Rauluni lead their team to even the score 20-20 on 65th minute...unfortunately, losing in the last 10 minutes despite the support of the entire French crowd. The Springboks need to improve their play dramatically if they want to have a chance against Argentina (very probably unless Scotland realises a miracle). My conclusion today: the Three Nations from southern hemisphere (RSA, NZL, AUS) should really consider opening their annual tournament to other nations such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji or Argentina. That would certainly force them to play another game than their usual game. Of course, that would mean being less attractive to players (just count the number of players from Samoa, Tonga and Fiji who play with New Zealand and Australia) but considerably widening rugby in the Pacific area.

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.

Thursday featured Wales-Japan which we briefly watched. Easy win for the Welsh who begin to secure down their qualification for the 1/4th finals. They'll just need a victory over Fidji on Sept 29th to do so (but Fidji would qualify by winning so that match will be one of those to watch during last round). Nothing really interesting to say about WAL-JPN (72-10). The difference in the front lines was too obvious for Japan to get any chance to win. However, at least during the first half of the first half-time, the were even leading after scoring one of the best tries as of now in the tournament. Yesterday was a key day for the French team. Victory against Ireland was mandatory. They made it (25-3, two tries) which is by far the most important. That wasn't definitely an easy match but noone was hoping it to be one. The french game is still far from being perfect (sometimes strange kick play and weird decisions by the rear players, sometimes slow assistance to players in rucks and sometimes stupid fouls giving their opponents opportunities to kick penalties (or expelled players as Traille was at the end of the game). On the other hand, some parts of the game were good quality: scrums (two balls won), line-outs (4 or 5 balls won on opponents' throw: great Julien Bonnaire there) and the magic inspiration of Elissalde and Michalak on the two tries as well as Clerc scoring these tries. There is still room for progress for the French, definitely (the same play against New Zealand, Australia or South Africa would be a loss). They're however on a good way. Next step is winning over Georgia, hopefully scoring a bonus point (that may be harder than expected as Georgia showed good defense) and hope that the Irish team will win over Argentina. Again, this week-end will be busy:

• Saturday:
  • South-Africa-Tonga: both teams won their first two matches. Tonga is hoping to qualify, still, so while they probably can't beat RSA, they can hope scoring the defensive bonus point.
  • England-Samoa: England has to win to keep their chances to qualify. This is Johnny Wilkinson's come back and they should do it. We can expect good support by the French audience for the Samoans and very interesting match to watch
  • Argentina-Namibia: I already explained why I think that Argentina is really able to reach the semi-finals. This should be a quite easy match for them with one goal: score the offensive bonus point to secure down their 1st rank
• Sunday:
  • Australia-Fidji: Fidji didn't show a very strong play as of now against Japan and Canada, so I think that Australia will have a quite easy win
  • Scotland-New Zealand: I really fear for the Scots that they are crushed by the All Blacks and they will probably more think about the upcoming match against Italy and probably don't hope that much for this one.

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,

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.:)

...but, really, Fiji would have deserved the victory. They did put the Stade Velodrome on fire this afternoon, pushing South-Africa to play....a quite bad rugby with few imagination and many errors. In the RSA team, only Steyn emerged and saved his team from sinking (37-20). RSA scored 5 tries mostly only because they have good four-wheel-driven "trucks". In the Fiji side, Sisa Koyamaibole and Mosese Rauluni lead their team to even the score 20-20 on 65th minute...unfortunately, losing in the last 10 minutes despite the support of the entire French crowd. The Springboks need to improve their play dramatically if they want to have a chance against Argentina (very probably unless Scotland realises a miracle). My conclusion today: the Three Nations from southern hemisphere (RSA, NZL, AUS) should really consider opening their annual tournament to other nations such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji or Argentina. That would certainly force them to play another game than their usual game. Of course, that would mean being less attractive to players (just count the number of players from Samoa, Tonga and Fiji who play with New Zealand and Australia) but considerably widening rugby in the Pacific area.

Sunday was a quiet day for the top teams. Neither Australia nor New Zealand were in danger against Fidji (55-12) or Scotland (44-0). I'm still impressed by the australian team. They didn't show much weaknesses against Fidji, despite the strong physical contest bringed by the Fidjian forward players. The australian rear lanes were impressive, particularly Matt Giteau, scoring 27 points and designed as MVP for Australia-Fidji. The All Blacks crushed a B team from Scotland. The scottish staff decided that winning against New Zealand is nearly impossible and therefore they choosed to have their key players resting, which is a wise choice, but not a gift for the Murrayfield supporters. As a consequence, New Zealand quitely won the match and therefore qualifies for 1/4th finals (and they'll win their pool unless Romania plays with 30 players against them....). No match for yesterday and two matches today. Unfortunately, Canada-Japan (12-12) in Bordeaux was broadcasted too early for me and I haven't seen it. For Japan, this is the end of 13 consecutively lost matches in RWC for Japan, so kind of victory. I've seen parts of Romania-Portugal. I wished Portugal wins that one as they're clearly the most courageous team in the RWC and certainly, among the non top teams, the most promising one. The Portuguese lost 10-14 even though they lead 10-7 for a while. Quite a deception for me but surely these players will never forget the support of the French crowd (most of these being the strong portuguese community we have in our country). Tomorrow will feature Georgia-Namibia and Samoa-USA. I'll try to watch the latter, which is played in St-Etienne, my welcoming home town (ask the Scots supporter and team!).

After the stunning match between RSA and Tonga, we watched an also very good England-Samoa (44-22). Even if their play was still far from perfect (lack of imagintation, mostly), the English players succeeded quite easily against Samoa who never gave up. Johny Wilkinson's come back is a success, imho, and England will then play against Tonga for qualification on Thursday. The winner of that match will end up 2nd of that pool (assuming that RSA wins over USA) and should logically play against Australia (while RSA will play against Wales or Fidji, this assuming that Australia wins over Fidji today). Argentina had to win against Namibia with the bonus point. They easily made it (63-3). As usual in such situations, Namibia resisted about 30 minutes (and were even leading 3-0 for a few minutes). However, the imprecision of their game (a disastrous kick play) left dozens of balls to the Argentinians who then could easily score lots of tries. The Argentinian were, at the end, obviously sparing their energy for the upcoming fight against Ireland next Sunday. In this pool everything can happen (even Argentina being eliminated, which is however not very probable). From what they showed, the Argentinians can definitely win over Ireland, which would then give them the first rank and an easier 1.4th final against Scotland or Italy. Two matches today: Australia-Fidji and Scotland-New Zealand. Australia and New Zealand have a strong advantage and I don't really expect any surprise here.

Thursday featured Wales-Japan which we briefly watched. Easy win for the Welsh who begin to secure down their qualification for the 1/4th finals. They'll just need a victory over Fidji on Sept 29th to do so (but Fidji would qualify by winning so that match will be one of those to watch during last round). Nothing really interesting to say about WAL-JPN (72-10). The difference in the front lines was too obvious for Japan to get any chance to win. However, at least during the first half of the first half-time, the were even leading after scoring one of the best tries as of now in the tournament. Yesterday was a key day for the French team. Victory against Ireland was mandatory. They made it (25-3, two tries) which is by far the most important. That wasn't definitely an easy match but noone was hoping it to be one. The french game is still far from being perfect (sometimes strange kick play and weird decisions by the rear players, sometimes slow assistance to players in rucks and sometimes stupid fouls giving their opponents opportunities to kick penalties (or expelled players as Traille was at the end of the game). On the other hand, some parts of the game were good quality: scrums (two balls won), line-outs (4 or 5 balls won on opponents' throw: great Julien Bonnaire there) and the magic inspiration of Elissalde and Michalak on the two tries as well as Clerc scoring these tries. There is still room for progress for the French, definitely (the same play against New Zealand, Australia or South Africa would be a loss). They're however on a good way. Next step is winning over Georgia, hopefully scoring a bonus point (that may be harder than expected as Georgia showed good defense) and hope that the Irish team will win over Argentina. Again, this week-end will be busy:

• Saturday:
  • South-Africa-Tonga: both teams won their first two matches. Tonga is hoping to qualify, still, so while they probably can't beat RSA, they can hope scoring the defensive bonus point.
  • England-Samoa: England has to win to keep their chances to qualify. This is Johnny Wilkinson's come back and they should do it. We can expect good support by the French audience for the Samoans and very interesting match to watch
  • Argentina-Namibia: I already explained why I think that Argentina is really able to reach the semi-finals. This should be a quite easy match for them with one goal: score the offensive bonus point to secure down their 1st rank
• Sunday:
  • Australia-Fidji: Fidji didn't show a very strong play as of now against Japan and Canada, so I think that Australia will have a quite easy win
  • Scotland-New Zealand: I really fear for the Scots that they are crushed by the All Blacks and they will probably more think about the upcoming match against Italy and probably don't hope that much for this one.

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.:)

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.

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,

Today was the day we had tickets for *the* match of the day between South Africa and Samoa (59-7). Of course, the Springboks won this game after the Samoan players were exhausted of their battle after 60th minute. However, we really enjoyed a great game during 1st half (21-7) with solid play by RSA (without great vista, as usual, but, well, I'm not a Springboks fan) and ultra-solid defense by Samoa. And, well, as long as the Samoans have the ball in their hands, everything can happen, especially with Henry Tuilagi, impressive number 8, which has been acclaimed by the Parc des Princes public when finally quitting the game on 60th minute. Three great moments in the game:

• The Samoan try by Gavin Williams who made the whole Parc stand up and shout
• The Samoan team spending 10 terrible minutes in RSA camp, unfortunately without scoring but being pushed by 43000 people in the stadium (ie the 44000 attendants minus about 1000 South-Africans...), yelling out "Samoa" even though probably 99% of us aren't able to even point Samoa on a world map.
• The standing ovation of the public to the Samoan players at the end of the game when they came back and thanked us for the support

South-Africa is however much more organized, of course, and their attacks were terribly devastating sometimes, with Bryan Habana scoring 4 tries. They're however a little bit hesitating with the ball in hands and their defense wasn't *that* impressive. While writing this, I'm watching Scotland-Portugal (56-10) as we came back from the Parc des Princes. This game happens in St-Etienne, my home town. I imagine the noise and feast in town, where we still remember a famous Scotland-Morocco during Soccer WC 1998. Apparently, the Scots like St-Etienne. Apparently, Portugal resisted during about one half and they even scored a try and sometimes endangered Scotland. Good game by the Scots who can hope to qualify for 1/4th finals. Tonight, Ireland-Namibia. If we aren't too much rugbyfied, I'll watch even if the result is quite predictable. Both teams are in France's pool, so watching team will be interesting. And even now, 2h before the game, there are 25.000 Irish people in Bordeaux. Probably interesting noise over there. Another match today, which I didn't watch because we were on our way to the stadium: Wales-Canada (42-17). Canada was leading 12-7 on half-time and even 17-7 on 45th minute. So, well, not very brilliant for the Welsh. Finally, their most experienced players came back (S. Jones, Gareth Tholas and Collin Charvis) and they easily came back and overscored Canada...who never resigned and were very close to score again at the end of the game. Brilliant day and, believe us, watching rugby *in* the stadium is really a great experience (we don't do this often enough...).

First day of the Rugby World Cup around here. Here are some of my impressions (for those of you not aware, I'm a rugby fan for ages and this event in my country will definitely affect my work on free software in the next 6 weeks). France-Argentina (12-17): being beaten by Argentina is a surprise only for people who don't know that much about Argentina in rugby. Argentina is currently ranked 6th in the world national team ranking, very close to Ireland (5th) and before England (7th), the last RWC winner. The argentinians played the best rugby they could play against a very hesitating French team. All players know each other very well as 2/3 of the Argentinian team plays...in France. The world's top player (imho), Juan Mart n Hern ndez, lead his team to victory while the french were anything but brilliant. Nothing really harmful, indeed: in rugby, completely screwing a match happens and does not necessarily mean anything for other games. Only drawback, if France qualifies, it becomes more and more likely that the 1/4 final could be France-New Zealand. Ouch... New Zealand-Italia (76-14): I haven't seen that one, therefore missing the first "haka" of that RWC. All Blacks are still the favourites of the RWC and they scored the quickest try as of now. Italy team fought quite well, from what I read, with one of my favourite players (Maurizio Bergamasco) scoring a try. Australia-Japan (91-3): in the past, Japan was closer to the top rugby world teams, particularly because of a long tradition of playing 7-players rugby and therefore being very efficient in rear lanes play. However, rugby changed last years and the power is the key. The japanese team was obviously lacking it...and then they had 14 tries scored against them by a very strict Australian team. England-USA (28-3 as I'm writing this): England is not that impressive but serious, still. The USA team plays well around the scrum and defend pretty well. On the English side, Mike Catt could be one of the stars of that RWC. And, yay, while writing this, USA scored a try against England *and* Lawrence Dallaglio got expelled for 10 minutes. Two occasions for me to be happy..(sorry in advance to my friends in England). Tomorrow, we'll attend South-Africa vs Samoa at Parc des Princes, Paris. That will definitely be a great feast and a nice rugby match. We'll of course put our heart on the Samoan side (I'm afraid I've never been enthusiast with the South African way to play rugby).

And no, I don't mean Mao.
How was Thursday 23 for me?
6:30 Wake up, knowing it will be a long day. No, don't get those delicious extra 15 minutes of sleep.
8:00 Arrive to work, ~90min earlier than usual, to finish the Rails app you have to demo at 10:00
10:00 Meeting with the Institute's Director, Academic Secretary and Technic Secretary to show them the system for following the internal inter-tematic colloquium information workflow. Thankfully, they were happy with it.
11:20 (20 minutes after scheduled): As several academics have said they are interested in getting to know Linux, I'm giving a series of introductory sessions on Debian to them. So, I went with some of them through the Etch installation. Of course, mostly everything was fine. What was not? Resizing a Windows partition is still a step that requires several jumps through hoops (i.e. booting Debian LiveCDs, some console-based interactivity which I wanted to avoid...), and... Well, d-i does not time out if the selected mirror is not responding. Will file a bug, yes. Anyway...
14:30 Managed to leave the lab working, with no damages. Went to the bank to check some data and to have a quick lunch.
16:00 Get back to the institute. Jos Luis, from Difusi n y extensi n was already waiting for me to show a set of components for the Comas-based system we use for tracking attendance to the Institute's activities
16:45 The people from AMECIDER arrived so I could show them my proposal for their new website. Can you believe most of the websites I host are still completely static HTML, and, what's even worse, generated by the $ despiseful_adjective Dreamweaver? Yes, I am proposing them to move over to Drupal
17:30 I finally received another person, one of the people that's attending my Thursday lessons, wanting me to help with some Linux questions. What's Linux's killer app for my Institute's researchers? Believe it or not, a not-brain-dead PDF reader. They are amazed that, using Gnome's Evince, they can just copy-paste bits of PDFs into their documents (and the fact that pasting tabular data into OpenOffice's Calc allows for an easy import feature - Yesterday I spent ~1hr with this researcher importing data generated by the International Monetary Fund into his work), and they are even more amazed with the gnome-screenshot they can directly include graphics from such documents without redrawing them.
19:45 (45 minutes behind schedule): Went to the Astronomy Research Institute, to meet with Sergio, H ctor and Eric, to decide on bits of the implementation of the new gear we will be putting in nisamox, our dear and faithful ftp.mx.debian.org mirror. Thanks to everybody! We will soon tell you what we got and what we did with it, it's mostly settled by now.
20:30 Had the first of some... Four calls regarding yet another system I have been working with for the ICME conference, to be held in Mexico in 2008. Several pushing details that need my attention and work, bah :-/ Have to work on them...
21:00 Got home. Did a couple housekeeping activities (i.e. take out the trash, buy some food...). I was too burnt out to start making my bags for going to Vienna (I'm leaving tonight!), work on the pending systems I have to work on, or even stay awake.
Leaving work for a week to go a conference is always fun and great... But man, it's stressing!

I like coding, but I also like to meet up, share ideas, and exchange information with other programmers from time to time. So I "spammed" a few people I found via google, and met up with Sudara and Samo yesterday for a beer and chit chat about Rails, Austria and life in general. It was fun, so we went ahead and created an Innsbruck Ruby and Rails google group, and are thinking about doing a "real" meeting at some point in the future. Samo had a nice presentation in German introducing Rails that I bet people would find interesting. Should be fun! I enjoyed getting out of the house and talking with some interesting people.

python-gammu now supports service numbers dialogue. How it is useful for you depends on services your network provides. For example with Vodafone in Czech republic, you can use it to configure various services:

$ ./service-numbers.py 
This example shows interaction with network using service codes
Enter code (empty string to end): *111#
Talking to network...
Network reply:
Status: ActionNeeded
Vitejte v Kapesni Samoobsluze!
1 Muj ucet
2 Me sluzby
3 Nastaveni telefonu
4 Info a zabava
5 Oblibene
Enter code (empty string to end): 1
Talking to network...
Network reply:
Status: ActionNeeded
Muj ucet
1 Vyuct. a platby
2 Vydaje pod kontrolou
3 Osobni udaje
4 PIN a PUK kod
------
0 Zpet
00 Uvod
Enter code (empty string to end):

Python code which can be used for this is available as example. It will be probably one time integrated to Wammu, but it needs a bit more time than hacking this simple script :-).

On January 13, I sent a mail to debian-private saying I'd be on a semi-vacation until around February 10 - And yes, for over a month I've basically not touched my packaging, and for around three months my general profile in Debian has been really low. I sent this message because the Institute I work at moved, and I got the task of taking care of everything related with electrons flows carrying information (namely, voice and data networks).
It's not that I'm really-really-back now - Work is still too absorbing, users still come too often to me expecting me to solve their problems. I can often try to do so on the data network, but I'm far from even having access to the voice equipment (I've done my hardest effort not to get such access, because that'd instantly turn me into the phone operator for life). However, for the first time in many weeks, today I had some quiet time, I catched up with some mailing lists, and... Well, I expect to work on my QA page.
Boy, team-maintainership rules! pkg-perl friends, thanks for saving me from the creepy bugs sometimes too often. I expect to pick up work I haven't even looked at since I committed to doing so with the pkg-ruby-extras team as well, specifically, getting mongrel in shape and into Debian, despite our deep differences with its author. This will make Rails roll smoother and faster in Debian. And of course, there is Debconf. After last year's burnout, I think I recovered - I'm not a core organizator anymore, but I'm back to work my way to Edimburgh ;-)
As for my local activities (Mexican Free Software conferences, meetings and people): Partly because so I decided and partly because so it happened, I've been off the hook with the local community since before Debconf 6. Before, because I was too busy to think about anything besides it, and after, because I was burnt out and somewhat bitter at several facts. I've been to few regional or local conferences, also because I knew that between last October and today I'd be too tied up at work. But last week we had both CONSOL and BarCamp Mexico. Somehow I managed to be at both (well, at CONSOL I was only enough time to do my two talks, for which I miraculously managed to get prepared, and BarCamp was during the weekend). Both were very positive for me, and I'm willing again to find some time to devote to promoting and developing Free Software in our country.
Oh! One more note: Thanks to Sergio Mendoza for pushing me and for co-discussing on the subject, we are getting small but tangible results pointing to a Debian-UNAM project. Not much to see yet, besides having received the domain authority, which for now just means a nicer name for Nisamox, Mexico's main (and only long-running) full Debian mirror.