Please move along
From 20th August 2007, this blog will no longer be updated.
You probably want Tim Retout’s website, or perhaps the Atom and RSS feeds.
From 20th August 2007, this blog will no longer be updated.
You probably want Tim Retout’s website, or perhaps the Atom and RSS feeds.
Python bindings as implemented the PyGTK way use files with extensions ”.defs” and ”.override”. By default in vim these will not have syntax highlighting.
Create ~/.vim
if necessary, and in ~/.vim/filetype.vim
put:
if exists("did_load_filetypes")
finish
endif
augroup filetypedetect
au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.override setfiletype c
au! BufRead,BufNewFile *.defs setfiletype scheme
augroup END
I heard on the radio this morning that the US have a new counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan – they’re going to pay rewards to governors for reducing poppy planting, among other measures. 90% of opium production takes place in that country, and it’s a delicious irony that the Taliban insurgency is probably mostly being funded by their enemies’ heroin addictions. Doubly ironic because the Taliban had nearly eradicated opium production by 2001.
It was a lot of work to assemble just for a captioned photo, but I think it was worth it.
I was particularly pleased with the patch I wrote yesterday; it added support for rhythmdb disjunctions to the python bindings, and needed some thinking through. After the requisite planning, during which I did in fact sketch diagrams on the back of an envelope, I went to the pub to numb the pain of the actual implementation. Two pints later, it worked.
What it means in practical terms is that you can now do all the really complicated Rhythmbox database queries from Python plugins; so, I now have search-as-you-type on podcast posts and feeds in my reimplementation. This is my seventh patch to make it into Rhythmbox.
Incidentally, git and git-svn have improved my productivity dramatically since I started using them – it’s great actually having revision control of all my local changes, and being able to easily merge the latest svn commits. Also handy is being able to create separate local branches within which to develop radical new features.
Bzr could probably do this as well, but I have grand dreams of one revision control system to rule them all; I’m worried that bzr won’t scale well to handle projects the size of Linux and X.org. It would be interesting to see a Launchpad equivalent that was based upon git. (Yes, I realise this is probably a crazy reason for choosing git over bzr, but that’s what’s in the back of my mind. It means I shouldn’t have to learn two revision control systems.)
Thomas Schwinge made a nice analogy in a mailing list post – studying the Hurd on Mach is like learning Latin – even though it’s obsolete, the knowledge you gain will be re-usable.
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-system-discuss/2007-07/msg00064.html
I finally got around to finishing off the packaging of IRC Services for Debian. Shortly after I’d uploaded it to mentors.debian.org, I noticed that it didn’t even compile on amd64 platforms – so CompSoc would have struggled to use it on our new servers, even if we hadn’t wanted to have it packaged. Still, I patched it up. It is now awaiting a sponsor to upload it properly.
I’m fairly sure I disagree with quite a few things about upstream’s coding – in the end, I’ve only really packaged it because it was the one we were using before. These days, there are many competing services implementations.
This blog has problems.
What to do, what to do.
I discovered today that my laptop can, in fact, do suspend and hibernate without problems. Kudos to whoever fixed that.
I changed my IRC Services package so that it uses cdbs, and added quilt to manage the patches. All it really needs now are some rewritten manpages, and testing.
GUADEC feels different from the other conferences I’ve been to this year – probably because I’m not staying overnight, and aren’t getting absorbed into the atmosphere. I was thinking this morning that we probably need a GNOME UK bof meeting, because it doesn’t feel like there’s a strong UK GNOME community.
Bought a book from Josette Garcia about programming embedded systems in C – every other talk seems to be about embedded devices, what with the new GNOME mobile initiative.
So I’m at GUADEC, in the middle of a talk about metadata. I’ve borrowed an N800 from Nokia, and it’s not too bad to type on – maybe a bit pricey, though.
I’ve finished most of the hard work for packaging IRC Services. Lamby noticed that Unreal are forking InspIRCd, so I think he’s packaging that, which may finally sort out CompSoc’s IRC setup in a sane way.
Tonight there’s free beer, win.
Today, I solved the problem of lack of internet access in my bedroom.
While staying in Derby, my bedroom is on the top floor of a three floor town house. The BT router is on the ground floor, next to the main computer. There is no possibility of a wired connection running up three flights of stairs, but there is a wireless network. My laptop’s wireless card appears to suck (and has crap drivers, damn you Broadcom), so will only receive packets one floor up.
We just happened to have a spare Linksys WRT54G – this afternoon, I tried out OpenWRT for the first time, using the prepared White Russian firmware images (because I’m lazy). Using the documentation on setting up client mode, I was able to connect to the BT router’s wireless from two floors up, and can plug my laptop in using a wire – hence avoiding some nasty repeated crashes seemingly from the aforementioned crappy wireless drivers. The whole process took less than an hour.
This evening, I’m considering making pancakes to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Debian Social Contract, and probably also need to bake another batch of cookies before the weekend.
This morning, I had a hospital appointment about my arm – I was discharged within five minutes of seeing the consultants, who said I wouldn’t be needing that sling thing, or physiotherapy. Apparently my elbow is making good progress, considering I hurt it less than two weeks ago. I still can’t fully extend it, or touch my shoulder; and I’m not to do any heavy lifting or contact sports for the next four weeks.
The software that the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary uses (at least for X-rays) is called Centricity – although from what was described to me, they’re using the ‘Remote Hosting’ solution. Apparently, it gives less than optimal performance, but purchasing their own server would cost too much. Proprietary software is negatively affecting the quality of service of the NHS! Boo, hiss.
With the rest of the day, I baked some white chocolate chip cookies, reducing the amount of flour in the English version of the Wise Guys’ recipe to sensible levels. The results are almost indistinguishable from the supermarket ones, except that mine perhaps taste more strongly of vanilla. It turns out that the expensive white chocolate I bought contained large amounts of vanilla as well. (Insert joke about BDSM here.)
Today, I failed to transfer all my stuff back from Coventry to Derby. I’ve been making repeated trips over the past week (ignoring the CompSoc LAN, alas), so tomorrow I’ll have to go back and arrange a taxi, I think. I have far too many possessions.
This evening was my stepmother’s parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, so the extended family went out for a meal. The food was very nice, and there was a piano being played next to us – so we got to play ‘name that tune’ for the whole evening. I ate far too much, I think.
So, back in Derby. My main concern at the moment is that my laptop does not connect to the wireless network from the top floor successfully – this prevents me using the internet from my room, which would avoid waking people up in the middle of the night, I think. My current thinking is that I might be able to modify the firmware on this Linksys WRT54G we have, which has two fairly good antennae, and turn it into a point-to-point relay thing.
Meanwhile, I want to settle down with all my belongings, start looking for a job, and actually get some spare time back to work on things. DebConf was reasonably productive, but there are a couple of projects hanging in the air at the moment.
Also, when I’m in Derby I start paying more attention to the news again. Gordon Brown and the new cabinet look quite interesting.
Today (i.e. Monday), I caught the train back from Edinburgh. An initial plan to alight in Derby was foiled by the fact that the train chose to go via Carlisle and Crewe instead. Still, I made it home to Coventry.
On the way, I mostly packaged ircservices for Debian with one hand, by reading the debhelper manpage and studying a couple of other packages. It needs a patch or two for FHS compliance, and some testing.
Looking at my desktop usage, I have a horrible UI problem. I use irssi for IRC a lot, because running on a remote server in a persistent screen session is very handy. However, this means I have to poll the screen for new messages, rather than receiving notifications or window highlights of some kind, as I would with a new instant message. To fix this, I could use xchat or xchat-gnome, which is fairly usable for the most part – but then I would probably have to set up some kind of bouncer (like irssi-proxy), and I’ve still not got around to it. Argh.
Today was the day after DebConf. Early this morning, I wandered around Edinburgh with Pixie and daven – it was epic, if mostly unbloggable for fear of prosecution. Not much sleep.
After checking out of the hostel at 9am, we went up to Teviot to help with clearing up. At this point, I made the mistake of slipping on some rain-soaked decking, twice. The first time, my phone was damaged; the second time, my arm was damaged. I got sent up to the hospital, and was given some X-rays, a blue sling thing to match my fading hair, and a bunch of painkillers. It might be broken, but I won’t find out until I go to Derby tomorrow. This may prevent me from turning up to CompSoc’s LAN this week in any meaningful way, as I am currently typing one-handed.
In the afternoon I caught up on sleep, then went to an Italian restaurant for dinner with a bunch of Germans. (They’re quite entertaining.) I’m typing this from a slow wireless connection in a pub down the road, where we’re all sitting around drinking coke.
Yes, also, I have mislaid my phone charger; don’t expect me to be sending too many messages for a day or two. This, combined with my crushing the antenna with my upper leg, might be the excuse I need to update my five year-old handset.
EDIT: This was really from Sunday. It was pointed out to me that it was “der Arm”. If the wireless weren’t so bad, I would have looked it up. Also, I knew the translation for “arm”, honest.
I’ve swapped my function pointer problems for threading/garbage collection problems. Gragh.
In other news, pancakes are great.
Yesterday, Nattie and I baked chocolate chip cookies, using the recipe from the English version of the Wise Guys song. We took them along to the night venue – they tasted pretty nice, and hopefully we’ll be repeating that experiment sometime before the end of DebConf.
I’ve been working on cleaning up some of the work I’ve done, and sending it back to GNOME’s bugzilla. I fixed a second bug that I was confused about (by talking to lamby persistently while thinking), so have nearly got all the GUI bits out of the way.
This evening, the drinking occurred courtesy of Sun Microsystems, and the pizza was paid for by Google. They rock. Currently everyone is at the Ceilidh, but it’s pretty exhausting stuff.
I haven’t been blogging as much the past few days, suggesting I’ve been busy. It certainly feels that way. DebCamp finished on Friday – the place has been noticably busier these past few days.
For Debian Day (Saturday), I sat on the front desk for twelve hours or so – it’s a cunning way to meet people, and I earned a free volunteer’s T-shirt for it all. The free T-shirt count is up to three, now – sponsor-tastic.
My blue hair is causing lots of people to speak to me, which is great. Some woman with a camera in Edinburgh took my photo, saying she was entering a competition run by the National Portrait Gallery. Outside the hacklab yesterday, someone random offered me the end of a cigarette, which my friends later informed me was probably a joint. Sadly, I’d already declined.
Sunday was the first day of DebConf proper – I went to a few of the talks. Mark Shuttleworth showed up – I’ve got photos of him talking to Sam Hocevar, but haven’t thought of a caption. (Aside: SELinux looks interesting.) In the evening, it was misty:
Today I slept all day, then made up for it by finally fixing the horrible pointer bug that I’d been worrying about for three weeks. Woo!
Last night, I had a fried mars bar, which was interesting. For health reasons, it was shared between several people.
Today, I’m sitting at reception, welcoming people to DebCamp, handing them their badges and meal tickets and so on. Today, the building has been really busy, because it’s a university open day. There are lots of sixth-formers wandering around.
Just now, a Debian banner was put up:
Hopefully all the people arriving tomorrow for Debian Day will be able to find their way here.
This was originally sent to me from a Spanish friend, hopefully the humour is not lost in translation.
(FYI Galicia is a coastal region of Spain)
An ALLEGED conversation between Americans and Galicians recorded off the coast of Finisterre, Galicia.
<Transmission begins>
Galician:
"This is A-853, please change your course fifteen degrees South to avoid colliding with us. You are coming straight towards us, distance 25 nautical miles."
American:
"We recommend that you change your course fifteen degrees North to avoid a collision."
Galician:
"Negative. We repeat, change your course fifteen degrees south to avoid a collision."
American:
"You are talking to the captain of a ship of the United States of America. We insist you turn your course fifteen degrees North to avoid a collision."
Galician:
"We do not consider that feasible or advisable, we suggest that you change your course fifteen degrees South to avoid colliding with us."
American (very angry):
"You are talking to Captain Richard James Howard, at the bridge of the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln of the USA Navy, the second biggest warship of the North American fleet. We are escorted by two battleships, three destroyers, five cruisers, four submarines and numerous amphibious support vessels. We are on our way to the Persian Gulf to prepare military manoeuvres before a possible attack on Iraq.
I am not suggesting, I am ordering you to change your course fifteen degrees North! Otherwise we will be forced to take any measures necessary to guarantee both the safety of this ship and the force of this coalition. You belong to an allied country and a member of NATO, so obey immediately and get out of our way!"
Galician:
"You are speaking to Jose Manuel Otero-Rivas. We are two people. We are escorted by our dog, our food, two beers and a canary that is currently asleep. We have the support of Radio Coruňa FM and Channel 16 for marine emergencies. We are not intending to move anywhere as we are speaking to you from the mainland, from lighthouse A-853 of Finisterre on the coast of Galicia, and we don’t have a f*cking clue what our ranking is of Spanish lighthouses.
You may take whatever measures you consider opportune and bloody well feel like to guarantee the safety of your goddamn ship, which is about to shred itself on the rocks, but what we continue to insist and suggest as the best, most sane and more recommendable course of action, is to turn fifteen degrees South to avoid colliding with us."
American:
"OK. Received. Thank you."
<End of transmission>
I like :D
Mx
I don't know about everybody else, but some lists of "Things to do before you die" drive me mad. I am never going to make it to the moon ok?! Nor am I any more likely to see the Titanic in person or climb mount everest. And those are the better suggestions. Some are plain insane. Surely anyone with two braincells to rub together can tell that "lighting a match with a rifle" is probably going to be the last thing they do before they die! It just makes me want to poke the authors in the face with a blunt spoon until they get a nasty looking red patch on their cheek and tell me to stop.
It is rather biased. After all, I'm going to be dead for a hell of a lot longer than I'll be alive; infinitely so in fact. A little preparation wouldn't hurt... Oh well, revision insanity last year helped to compile this list and I've only just rediscovered it, so here it is. If you're sure the exams are going to kill you this year then get reading...
Follow-up to The Something Random Guide to: Making A Vodka Infusion. from Something Random
I figure it's about time i did a follow-up, especially with post-exam-celebration season looming!
In the interest of thorough scientific practice I’m expanding my collection of alcohol related recipes by adding the immortal creation that is “Something Random’s Perfect Jelly Shot”. This recipe is still largely unknown among my friends, one reason for this being that those who encounter the fabled shots do tend to experience a certain amount of amnesia the following morning. But regardless of the memory-loss everyone agrees that they taste amazing; even if they still can’t understand how they managed to fall asleep on the floor curled up around a small potted plant and with their hand taped to a spatula.
As always read through completely before you start and make sure there is plenty of kitchen roll to hand just in case. It may not be the definitive recipe but it 's fast and simple and hasn't let me down yet.
Ingredients:
8 packets of jelly (where each packet is to make 1 pint)
1 x 70cl bottle of vodka (again cheap wodka is fine, you won’t notice)
2 x 225g bags haribo tangfastics
1 clean empty bottle with lid
Water
About 40 shot glasses (the usual size for jellies is 6.5cl = 2.3 fl.oz.)
Method:
Points to remember:
Prices:
Two rounds of this recipe will use:
2x70cl cheap vodka £13.00
4bags haribo £4
16 packets jelly £3.50
80 glasses (100 incP&P) £10.00
Which should come to about £30.50 in total.
Or £0.38 per jelly which, I think you’ll agree, is pretty good going for party fodder - especially considering they're the equivalent of a shot each.
I’ve not yet had the opportunity to work out the calories or weight watchers points per jelly shot but will do so at the next available opportunity.
Mx