I don't think I will use this much anymore. Go here for new posts.

Is there no better way to OR procmail rules than these horrid kludges?

For now I'm going with the DeMorgan Rule method, because it's more efficient and to the point that the alternative kludges. I still feel a little dirty writing things this:

      :0
      * ! condition1
      * ! condition2
                      # official procmail no-op. MUST LEAVE SPACE
      :0 E
      action_on_condition1_or_condition2    

It would be nice to have a recipe flag that means "OR the conditions below"

I am amazed by MIT's decision to move it's EECS curriculum away from scheme, doubly so at the fact that they're swapping it for Python. It has been part of their definition, at least in my mind. It makes sense to me, but I suppose I have some bias. I see it as a move from a language with deeper cognitive benefits to a language with stronger pragmatic benefits-- a move towards actually building things. Of course, it's just a language, and the same course could be taught with either one.

Debian Security talk went well!

I broke my glasses about 2 minutes before starting and a kind Lehigh student (engineer?) repaired them--- with a staple? Thanks, whoever you are!

My 150 (!) slides are here: PDF, ODP, SWF.

I spent some time this weekend reading Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software, and found it quite enjoyable. It is anecdotal, much of it reminding me of folklore.org. Regardless of what you think of RMS, it's worth a read, and might just change your mind. (Full text is available here.)

Thanks to Martin, the logcheck repository has finally moved from CVS to SVN. Hurrah! not CVS!

"Through its Science and Technology Directorate, the [US] Homeland Security Department has given $1.24 million in funding to Stanford University, Coverity and Symantec to hunt for security bugs in open-source software and to improve Coverity's commercial tool for source code analysis."

Link

"The United States Patent and Trademark Office plans to announce today that it will cooperate with open-source software developers on three initiatives that it says will improve the quality of software patents."

Link

Two optimistic things in US Gov't.... (It's not April 1 yet, right?)

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Found this under heading "What is a statement of verifiable fact" while browsing EFF's Legal Guide for Bloggers

A statement of verifiable fact is a statement that conveys a provably false factual assertion, such as someone has committed murder or has cheated on his spouse. To illustrate this point, consider the following excerpt from a court (Vogel v. Felice) considering the alleged defamatory statement that plaintiffs were the top-ranking 'Dumb Asses' on defendant's list of "Top Ten Dumb Asses":

A statement that the plaintiff is a "Dumb Ass," even first among "Dumb Asses," communicates no factual proposition susceptible of proof or refutation. It is true that "dumb" by itself can convey the relatively concrete meaning "lacking in intelligence." Even so, depending on context, it may convey a lack less of objectively assayable mental function than of such imponderable and debatable virtues as judgment or wisdom. Here defendant did not use "dumb" in isolation, but as part of the idiomatic phrase, "dumb ass." When applied to a whole human being, the term "ass" is a general expression of contempt essentially devoid of factual content. Adding the word "dumb" merely converts "contemptible person" to "contemptible fool." Plaintiffs were justifiably insulted by this epithet, but they failed entirely to show how it could be found to convey a provable factual proposition. ... If the meaning conveyed cannot by its nature be proved false, it cannot support a libel claim.

looks like Zawodny has made the same conclusion about Google that I wrote about earlier. Re: moving in on existing markets rather than creating new ones. Like I said before, isn't that what they've always done?

If you're interested in doing sysadmin work in a heavy Debian/Ubuntu environment in the Boston area, check out this posting for a Senior Network / Systems Administrator.