Silly description of internal state
As mentioned before I am speaking about KDE today in a congress.
I always get very jittery when I have to speak to an audience. Which, to someone that teaches 3 or 6 3-hour classes a week, is pretty stressing.
On one hand, I am pretty sure I can speak about the life of crabs for two hours and have the people thank me on the way out. I am pretty good at this.
On the other hand, I have a tendency to underprepare when it's a once-off affair (like today).
I don't like using slideshows, so I just hook my comp. to the screen and start speaking.
I don't have notes.
I don't have a set of points planned.
So, every time I speak, it is a different thing. Which is good. But it makes me very nervous.
What will happen if today I fail to figure out what to say? What happens if I come 20 minutes short? Well, nothing happens, I just stretch the Q&A section a bit and let them go get free food earlier.
But it still makes me nervous.
Damnit, lost my ranking!
This site is no longer an important resource about hinges, says google. :-)
What is flexibility
Ok, a rant.
A word you see a lot on the free software (whatever) circles, is flexibility.
In particular, people always like to say how a certain program, or operating system, is flexible.
For example, some people say gentoo (or GNOME, or KDE, or fvwm) is flexible.
Poor misguided souls. They should say they are configurable.
Flexible doesn't mean configurable!
A flexible program will handle many different conditions without user intervention (or with minimal intervention). The metaphore is that flexible objects are bent with minimal force.
Kudzu (or Knoppix's hwconfig) is flexible.
Recompiling your kernel to statically link a new driver is inflexible.
If you think that just because you can manually reconfigure your system into a bazillion different configurations, your system is flexible, then you surely agree that marble is flexible.
After all, you can turn marble into many different statues, all different!
No, silly putty is flexible, because you can shape it into different forms easily and quickly and with little effort.
If in order to change the ink settings on your printer you need to create a new printing queue, or print to a file and perform a magic incantation with a .ps file, your printing system is not flexible.
In fact, the only remotely flexible printing system on Linux is CUPS. The rest are rigid, inflexible and bad at their work (at least the ones I know).
If in order to access a device someone tries to use you have to reconfigure your system, or download more stuff, or hunt for a driver, or rebuild your kernel, or recompile applications, your system is broken.
If you think that your system is flexible just because after applying force to your system it performs, you are wrong. Your system is rigid, and you are the flexible buffer that is adapting, it's like a bakelite rod wrapped in rubberfoam. And you are the foam.
You know, when you take an inflexible object and you try to make it adapt to something, it breaks. That's why inflexible software is broken so often.
Since almost everyone has this silly idea about what flexible means, I will probably start using malleable or plastic instead.
Thank you very much, try the veal, I'll be here until thursday.
Strange w3m screenshot
Aggregate all KDE/Qt blogs!
Someone wih good bandwidth should do it.
Like Planetgnome, only about something interesting ;-)
Double feature at the Electric
Sometimes, on saturday afternoons, I am a cheap bastard. When that happens, I go to the Electric.
The Electric is an old cinema, that shows two movies (usually 6-month old releases) for $4.50.
That´s 4.50 as in pesos. Roughly 1.5 Euros. As I said, on saturday aternoons, I am a cheap bastard.
The programmer there is probably a crotchety old geezer who has seen 89000 movies in fity years, but the pairings he comes up with are a thing o beauty.
Right now, you can see Secret Window with Taking Lifes. Or Hidalgo with a Denzel Washington movie. Or Startsky & Hutch with Master and Commander (!?!)
I chose the first menu, armed myself with a radioactive-yellow drink called Pomelo Neuss, and prepared to see Mr. Depp get weird.
I had read rather bad reviews of both movies, and was surprised to like both of them.
Secret Window
I must confess I have read almost everything Stephen King published (noone has read everything he publishe, including him), and liked, when younger, a lot of it. I hadn´t read this one, though.
It´s a unusual movie. The opening through-the-mirror shot is damn good, and makes lots of sense in the end.
Depp is a disturbed individual. Here he plays a crazed person.
Taking lives
It features Angelina Jolie´s naked breasts. That´s an automatic two-star movie at least. It´s also not a bad thriller, although it has enough plot holes to drive a truck into them.
The double feature (spoilers)
Amazingly, both movies are about the same subject. In one, a man contains two souls, in another, a soul so dislikes his human vessel, it reformats it into others through murder.
The clinical term for the first case is schizophrenia, for the second there isn´t one because it only exists in fiction.
The idea of a person loathing himself so much he wishes to become someone else appears for example in Les Miserables. Here we have Jean Valjean as a psycho.
Jean Valjean is shown goodness by a priest, and decides to become good, and he becomes a respected man, then he is shown evil in law, and becomes a father, and a fugitive.
Here, the assassin is shown contempt by his mother, and becomes a hermit crab, changin human shells, becoming someone else for a few years at a time, over and over.
And Javert is played by Jolie, looking damn good in discrete white blouses and black suits (she should keep dressing that way).
In Secret Window Depp is harassed by himself, and ends the movie by embracing his other personality, and is, in the end, thoroughly happy with himself.
As you can see, the characters in both movies are victims of self-esteem issues, of different kinds.
I am writing this on a public computer, and the keyboard is sticky. In particular, the d often fails. So, some letters may be missing.
New Stylesheet
Ok, so I touched it a little.
If anyone hates it too much, or it's broken somehow, let me know how to fix it, since I have no idea about CSS.
I think the code snippets look a lot better now, and specially, thanks to Georg's tip, they don't screw the layout anymore.
One weird thing, though (not really related).
Apparently, long ago, I knew how to put the source of the item on a post (see here, the Source KDE Dot News part).
Either the option is gone, or I forgot how to do it. Even if I edit that old post, I can't see where it is.
Bedazzled By Bejeweled!
My Sony Clie came with a game called Bejeweled.
I have played 450 games of bejeweled in the last 72 hours.
This game is:
- Simple
- Addictive
- Evil
I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Or like a rat in a maze. I can almost feel new connections in my brain cortex, as my subconscious brain is taught to react without rational thought to the sight of three almost-touching coloured thingies.
My current high score: 49980 points
Update: Someone has apparently scored 10026350 . I feel so small.
Qmail Address Lister
It has been way too long without posting a longer item, so... I recicled a script I wrote for a customer, and here it is:
A python script that lists (almost) all email addresses in a qmail system.
Also, a slightly tweaked CSS, thanks to Georg!
The Roberto KDE Show
I will be speaking at the Primer Congreso Nacional de Software Libre on May 27th, at 15:00.
Now, I am not all that thrilled about it, since it's a commercial event and I am not getting any money for it, but it's a chance to show KDE, and I am a pretty good demo guy.
However, look at the sponsor list: IBM, HP, Sun, Novell, and Microsoft.
Yeah, Microsoft.
So, I did whine a little to the organizers, about how this was not exactly a free software event, and that I didn't just speak for free for anyone who asked me.
Well, they told me that the sponsors pay, but it's a free software event, and that I am important for the event, as a member of the free software movement, or whatever.
Ok, since it's like all other free software events, I am now considering wardrobe.
Jeans and T-Shirt is an obvious choice. I use that even on commercial events.
But... what t-shirt? Here's one good candidate.
I specially like the "KILL BILL" model because it shows my combined admiration for Linux And Quentin Tarantino.
Too bad I can't order a t-shirt from North America. I will have to gimp it, hope they don't mind!
Ok, I always preferred Mindi anyway!
Found this here.
Nice stuff about the Mork file format Mozilla is using for some stuff. Nice if you like pain, that is.
Here's JWZ's original blog specially read the comments.
Here's the associated bugzilla entry.
Just because I'm whimsical, Mindi is a Linux distribution, used by Mondo.
And just because I am a free software guy:
I have no idea what Konqueror does about its history file, but it seems Mozilla is now storing mail in Mork format? That's gonna hurt if you ever want to import it from some other app!
Perl programmers!
I am debugging a perl program written by someone else.
Here's all I am going to say about it:
- For someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
- For a sufficiently advanced hammer, everyhing is indistinguishable from a nail.
- Perl is a sufficiently advanced hammer. It probably can do anything. It is not a pretty sight, though.
My new, great, weird PDA
Ok, so, as I said, I bought myself a Sony Clie PEG-SJ30.
Just for good habit, I decided to go to Sony's website and check if there were any updates on the software for it, or whatever.
Mine is a PEG-SJ30/U model. Sony has never heard of it. If you check for it in Sony's product support DB, it says it's a bad model name.
Everywhere you gonna find pictures of the PEG-SJ30 and will see a silver-plastic case.
Well, mine has a teal-and-black plastic case.
The one you see everywhere has a flip-top nylon screen cover.
Mine has a (sony original) book-shaped leather cover (I don't like it, it's way too thick).
Oh, sure, it exists, you can find it in google, but it seems it's a very unusual model. It works great, though.
Troy (not McClure)
I saw Troy last night. I live close to the Atlas theater, which sports the largest screen in South America (although, sadly, no THX sound), which is well suited for this kind of thing.
And it is a traditional movie. It´s like Cleopatra, only the girl can´t act and the guy is not a middle-aged alcoholic.
I think Ebert got it right when he said that the actors are trying to make their characters human, and it´s counterproductive because the characters in the Iliad are not human, they are archetypes.
It´s a damn greek tragedy! The whole idea of greek tragedy is men without will being thrown into their fates by evil gods. I wonder how the greeks managed to stay religious considering all their deities seem to be bastards.
On the other hand, Bana as Hector was ok. He has that what the hell am I doing here look a character in tragedy would have if he at the same time was aware of what he is doing, thinks it´s nuts but can´t stop it, which I think is how anyone would look if the gods forced him to go fight hand to hand against a guy that´s supposed to be invulnerable, while a thousand nice archers who are on your side just look.
What distracted me most during the movie is how modern military ideas made the logistics of the troy siege incomprehensible. For example, the landing is like a Delta-Day: D-Day with greeks. Saving Private Achilles. Any half-not-braindead guy would decide that maybe it was a better idea to lad a few kilometers away in a non-defended coast, take over a few farms, whatever. But no, they land smack in front of Troy. The boats are rammed into the beach. You know what that does to a flat-bottom greek boat? (I am assuming they were flat-bottomed, or it´s just too stupid).
Those things were pretty fragile. And if the tide was low, they would flood and sink as soon as it went up.
There is a reason why the amphibious troop transport ship was invented: you can´t do that with regular seagoing ships.
Then they don´t surround Troy. So, any Trojan that felt like fleeing could use a secondary gate and walk away from it all.
Oh, and just for kicks, the greek camp is at the bottom of a hill.
Not to mention massed armies running at each other over hundreds of meters. Marching was invented because if you do that, you are already tired when you get there. And fighting with bronze-age sword, spear and shield is a tiresome job!
Ok, I admit that 50000 greeks walking wouldn´t be so cinematographically exciting, but hey, I am just whining here.
Oh, and it seems the siege lasted all of a month. I wonder why the trojans didn*t just sleep through it. Ok, they are supposed to be morons, with the horse and all that.
But don´t get me wrong, I have seen much worse movies, like return of the lobster man or eyes wide shut. It´s just that Homer (or as he is known in Hades, "Spinning Guy") wrote a rather fun epic poem, and it really didn´t need all that much tampering.
Fun with referers
A long while ago, I posted a silly article explaining what was first, the egg or the chicken. Noone seemed to notice until now.
Anyone reads estonian, cares to translate?
On a similar note: according to my zeitgeist this blog is mostly about nerdy stuff, and hinges.
So, here's another way to fool google. Pick a word noone cares about, and write an article about something popular while using a metaphor which has the useless word in it.
Suddenly, you are the number one google link for that word. This site has been, according to google, the place to go for information about hinges, for months already.
Kill Bill Vol. 2
As I mentioned, I saw Kill Bill Vol. 2.
While I enjoyed Volume 1's childish notion of grandeur by accumulation, I must confess I was waiting for that emotional moment, like S. Jackson's monologue at the Diner in Pulp Fiction.
Or the whatheheck moment like the death of Robert de Niro's character in Jackie Brown.
Or even the goofy quarter-pounder-with-cheese moment.
But all I got in Volume 1 was Uma Thurman in the slick Bruce Lee outfit, blood, Yakuzas, and the brass of RZA's version of "Battle without honour".
Which is not exactly a small amount of things to get, don't get me wrong, but not quite what I wished for.
And much later I started reading the reviews for Volume 2, and it seemed a more QT flick, and I like those, and I saw it.
And it's good. And it has the quater-pounder-with-cheese moment (Superman), and the whattheheck moment (Elle's), and it has the emotional moment (a lot of them), even if they are darker, and let's face it, basically evil.
So, there's a lot I liked. I was even happy about David Carradine's part (although his lisp drove me nuts (and I don't mean LISP (I mean he says yeth instead of yes))).
BTW: I read on a newspaper an excerpt from an interview he did for Uncut magazine... he's one crazy guy.
The Pai Mei stuff is hilarious. Michael Madsen's Budd is awesome. The very picture of moral decadence wrapped around the nastiest little-brother syndrome ever.
So, I actually quite loved this movie. It's not my favourite QT flick ever (that's Pulp Fiction, then Jackie Brown), but it's a hell of a lot better than almost everything else I saw in the last year or so.
All I want to know is what happened to Sofie Fatale (cheesiest name ever for a french character), and I would be happy as a clam.
Checking old stuff
I looked at my old stories, and found some rather new comments :-)
In my Squid authentication via POP or IMAP article, Edwin Groothuis asked for it to be updated for Squid 2.5. Which is pretty reasonable, so I did it ;-)
And plovs, at 04:00:27 AM on April 05, 2004 posted the first comment on the very first article I ever posted here, Simple KDE Trick #1 (first and last of the series ;-).
That first feedback only took... 14 months and 4 days, since the article was posted on March 1st 2003.
Isn't it amazing how nothing is ever lost?
Hard Python question
I am trying to do something which is, I think, pretty cool, in python.
However, I like showing things working, and I am having troubles with the last final step on what I am trying to achieve.
Since I know a few better python programmers read this...
Suppose I have this:
def fun(self,x): pass class C: pass C.a=fun C.b=fun
What code should be in fun() so that it figures out if it has been called as C.a or as C.b?
I am thinking something like reading the higher step in a backtrace, but I don't know enough python to figure out how to do that.
Updating my palm
I have been using my Palm m100 for appointments and reading etexts for two months already and it has been really really nice.
However, after reading a slashdot discussion, I am upgrading, to a almost-new Sony Clie SJ-30
Reasons:
- Color vs Black&White (not grayscale)
- Higher resolution (320x320 vs 160x160)
- Smaller
- Rechargeable battery vs AAA batteries. This means that as long as I remember to plug it every once in a while, I won't lose data.
- I can sell the m100 and pay part of the Clie that way, so it's not all that expensive (about US$100 in the end)
- More memory (8MB vs 2MB)
- Memory stick slot
- Almost everyone likes the Clies as far as I can see. Almost everyone hates the m100. Why? ;-)
The only possible con is that with a nice set of Duracells, the m100 could go on for two weeks of reading about 4 hours a day, and the better screen in the Clie will eat battery much faster (I've read about 2-day battery lifes from some users).
Mingetty autologin patch
A student asked me how to autologin on a linux terminal. I thought... that can't be hard... I just don't know how it's done.
So, I googled, and there's a patch for mingetty that allows autologin... but it's for an older version (0.9.4) and I can't even find it.
After a while, I check the SRPM from RH9... and it has the patch in the source tarball, but doesn't apply it. No wonder, since it doesn't work.
So, I patched the patch, and here it is: a autologin patch for mingetty 1.0.1... I have so clear in my mind why I don't program in C :-) (although it was rather easy).
The patch
I even have a patched SPEC file (no biggie there), and even src.rpms that should work on any Red Hat like thing.
After you install the patched mingetty, you can put a line like this in your /etc/inittab
1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty tty1 --autologin=ralsina
And a session for user ralsina will open in tty1. You can't even quite logout, since it logs you back in.
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