• performance and RAM usage improvements: most significant is a tremendous speed-up of the function that calculates dpkg calls sequence, achieved by throwing away standard Graph library and writing a small private one, optimized for Cupt usage


• support of '-y' command-line switch


• reinstalling packages is now possible

          source            rc_bugs   all_bugs 
--------------------------+---------+----------
 wnpp                             0       3024
 installation-reports            10       2119
 apt                              4        682
 linux-2.6                        0        617
 aptitude                         0        576
 iceweasel                        3        490
 openssh                          1        417
 evolution                        0        362
 util-linux                       1        344
 dpkg                             1        343

albatross, bell, brick, cigar, cirrus, clegg, diamond, echo, embryo, eugene, fishbowl, gerald, gnome, lapse, lust, mother, pict, pig, piper, pulse, seamus, sheep, time, vera, wall.

emily, lucifer, fletcher, lunatic, arnold, flesh, gig, bike, moon, brain, hand, balloon, hope, alan, marmelade, wing, heart, summer, thunder, sam, tropez, sky, stethoscope, khyber, lotus, jugband, cymbaline, remergence, dawn, hell, desert, worm, eclipse, dog, sysyphus, julia, scarecrow, sun, overdrive, vizier, matilda, eiderdown, babe, pillow, funkydung, atom, fore, shout, breast, domine, swan, charade, grantchester, money.

arnold, gig, bike, moon, alan, khyber, lotus, julia, sun, vizier, matilda, atom, domine, swan, charade, grimble, crumble.

• Figure out how the rescue mode works and how to construct a rescue image that the device can boot: I knew that the mv2120 had a rescue mode that can be activated by keeping the the power and reset buttons pressed when starting that would request a rescue image via the network. This rescue mode can be used to start the Debian installer. Eugene San figured out how to construct a rescue image that the mv2120 would accept. Marc Singer has also written a tool, uphpmvault, to serve such rescue images from Linux.
• Figure out the best way to make one image that contains the kernel and ramdisk: the mv2120 only loads a kernel and no ramdisk, but a ramdisk is needed to start Debian. I discussed some really ugly hacks with Marc Singer to get the mv2120 to accept an image consisting of kernel and ramdisk but Marc wanted to try something else first. u-boot, the boot loader used on the mv2120, can accept something called a multipart image which can consist of a kernel and a ramdisk. When Eugene San heard that we were trying to load a multipart image, he went ahead and figured out how to construct an image that the mv2120 would boot.

First time I had read the Bible
It had stroke me as unwitty
I think it may started rumor
That the Lord ain't got no humor Put me inside SSC
Let's test superstring theory
Oh yoi yoi accelerate the protons
stir it twice and then just add me, 'cause I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling From the maelstrom of the knowledge
Into the labyrinth of doubt
Frozed underground ocean
melting - nuking on my mind Yes give me Everything Theory
Without Nazi uniformity
My brothers are protons
My sisters are neurons
Stir it twice, it's instant family! I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling My brothers are protons
My sisters are neurons
Stir it twice dlja prekrastnih dam... Do you have sex maniacs
Or schizophrenics
Or astrophysicists in your family
Was my grandma anti anti
Was my grandpa bounty bounty
Hek-o-hek-o-hej-o
They ask me in embassy! 'Cause I don't read the Bible
I don't trust disciple
Even if they're made of marble
Or Canal Street bling And my grandma she was anti!
And my grandpa he was bounty!
And stir it twice
And then just add me!
Partypartypartypartypartyparty
now afterparty...

It is our intention in this book to avoid the limits of academic writing in favor of a more experimental, speculative approach. To that end, we adopt a two-tier format. Throughout Part I, “Nodes,” you will find a number of condensed, italicized header that are glued together with more standard prose. For quick immersion, we suggest skikking Part I by reading the italicized sections only…. In this sense, we hope you will experience the book not as the step-by-step propositional evolution of a complete theory but as a series of marginal claims, disconnected in a living environment of many thoughts, distributed across as many pages.

Gymnophobia i.never.nu sounds a lot like "I'm never nude". I'm just saying. tags: never-nude i.never.nu

Wikitorial triumphant Last summer, the Los Angeles Times tried an extremely interesting experiment in creating a wikitorial, or wiki-based editorial. The experiment was a notorious disaster: due to excessive abuse and fighting, the Times cancelled the experiment before publishing the results. The entire experience stained wiki's reputation for an entire year. Fast forward to 2006: oh, how times have changed. Ryan Singel of W I R E D magazine put up a 1000-word article about wikis on a wiki at SocialText. He invited the general public to edit the article. The result, which is a reasonably cohesive article on wikis, was published in wired under the title Veni, Vidi, Wiki. It's not the best article in the entire world on wiki, but it's not half bad. Some people have been down on the project -- mostly wiki businesses who felt they didn't get prominent enough coverage -- but I think that the bar was set so low by the LA Times that it's hard not to call getting to publication a success. Looking back, what were the possible factors that made the WIRED article work when the LA Times one didn't?

• Point of view. The LA Times article was an editorial, while the WIRED article was ostensibly a news story. Editorials are intrinsically opinion-oriented. Wiki can work for expressing personal opinions, but it's not easy, and the result usually isn't a very good read. It's much better as a means for expressing agreed-upon consensus information.
• Topic. The LA Times decided to use the extremely divisive issue of the war in Iraq as the subject of its editorial. How they expected to have a collaborative editing success with this topic is hard to understand. By concentrating on the wiki method itself, on the other hand, the WIRED article covered a much cooler topic that lent itself better to dispassionate discussion and consensus.
• Shared goals. The Times tried to reach out to a mass-market audience that was extremely passionate and divided on the topic at hand. The discussion of the Iraq war had already largely degenerated to name-calling and demonization at that point; the people who were participating had more to gain from keeping the other side from getting a say than from getting their own opinion across. For the WIRED article, the audience was experienced wiki community members -- people who know and understand the technology and culture. They had a shared goal with WIRED and with each other -- to spread the word about wiki in a way that's easy to understand. Although Angela Beesley's point and Mike Cannon-Brookes's article correctly note that the increasing commercial interest in wikis did bring some baggage along, I think there was some common ground that participants could reach.
• Organizational commitment. This, I think, was the key success factor. The LA Times posted their wikitorial as an experiment -- they dipped their toe in the water and pulled back as soon as the going got tough. As far as I know, they had no community management or leadership, and no seasoned wiki community members participating. On the other hand, Ryan Singel's article was hosted on SocialText, and SocialText has made a good business out of teaching companies and organizations the Wiki Way. They've got some of the best wiki minds around on their payroll, and it shows in their ability to manage a wiki project.

Although I think that these experiments are interesting, I don't think they make a very good measurement of whether wiki can work. Obviously, we have thousands of examples that wiki works (see WikiIndex if you need more convincing). I think that people's engagement with a wiki is proportional to their belief in the importance of their own work. If wikis are relegated to a tiny part of a Web site or publication, participants pick up on this de-emphasis and don't put much effort into the project; it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think that to be healthy, a wiki needs to be a major part of its parent project, if not the whole thing. That's why, I guess, WikiNews is going to continue to be more relevant and important than one-off wiki article stunts. tags: wiki wikitorial W I R E D latimes ryan singel socialtext

Hyperscope I'm psyched to see that Hyperscope has achieved its 1.0 milestone. Hyperscope is the extension of wp:Doug Engelbart's ideas about hypertext and human intelligence augmentation into the technologies of today's World Wide Web. Eugene Eric Kim has been working hard on the project and gave a great demo of the tool at Wikisym in August. Congratulations to EEK and the entire Hyperscope team! tags: hyperscope hypertext doug engelbart eek