Extreme Nerdiness

These aren't the posts you're looking for...

2009-01-24T09:04:58Z

For various reasons I am again moving my blog and whatnot, but this time to a far more permanent solution: my own domain name (which I've had for quite some time, but have used almost entirely for email only).

I intend to keep my LJ account active, but mainly for the purposes of staying updated on various friends-only postings and being able to comment/etc.

You should go check it out!

Nautilus Spatial Mode - Here I Go!

2008-12-21T09:23:37Z

With the recent clamour over Nautilus' default spatial-paradigm navigation mode as the default in Fedora, I decided to take a page from the book of David Nielsen and force myself to use spatial mode for a few solid days (at least). Having been a "Browser" user mostly of habit since I first started with Linux in 2003, I want to know first-hand why this decision is making so many people upset.

I'll report back soon with my findings! :)

Help Me, Oh Great Lazyweb...You're My Only Hope.

2008-12-21T05:54:32Z

One of the simple reasons I love F/OSS so much is that - in general- It Just F***ing Works(tm). Today, for the first time in as long as I can remember using it, this has failed me quite miserably.

Part of my gift this year to all of my friends this year is an audio CD - a custom compilation of various holiday-themed music. One thing I'd love to be able to do is add CD-Text to the tracks, so that their players (if capable) as well as their computer - should they choose to import it so - will easily have the metadata already in-place, and the tedium of having to enter that information manually from the decoratively printed track-list is substantially eliminated.

Well, this is proving to be far more difficult than I thought it would be. Rhythmbox, my favorite music player, currently just does not support this functionality, though it is under development. I've also tried Banshee, which uses Brasero for its CD-burning functionality, and that also fails quite epically. Next up in my attempts was K3b, which correctly burned the CD, did not add the CD-Text as I wanted it to. (It would not display any metadata in Rhythmbox on my Fedora desktop, and also failed on both my stand-alone CD player and my mom's Windows XP machine with both iTunes and WMP.) Lastly, I searched on Google and found a way to do it with cdrdao, but that attempt also went quite unsatisfactorily:

Writing lead-in and gap... ERROR: Write data failed. ERROR: Writing failed.

Oh Great Lazyweb, is there a straightforward way to accomplish this feat? Or am I doomed to copy the songs to my dad's PC and burn them with Nero (which I really don't want to need to do...)? For the record, my burner is a Pioneer DVR-110D.

Thanks!

Dear Matthew Barnes...

2008-12-14T07:17:29Z

...You are awesome!

You made my Evolution filtering work properly again, which is a huge necessity for my being productive. You are hereby added, again, to the list of people to whom I owe both a gigantic hug and a drink of their choice, at the very least, should we ever meet in person. Thanks for making my life a little simpler and a lot more readily organized!

Regards,
A Grateful Peter

The Present Presence of Presents!

2008-12-13T23:21:19Z

I just spent slightly over 200 USD in the online purchases of various gifts for family and friends, and in the process consumed nearly the entirety of my coffee fund for the next couple of months. Aww, well - I'm going to have a nice stash of Christmas presents for people this year, along with some home-made stuff ~~(since I really didn't do anything last year in terms of gift-giving)~~; so it will be well worth it. :)

Deluge 1.0+ for Fedora 9

2008-11-21T07:10:08Z

(Also posted on the Fedora Forums.) Hi, all. [...]
Since upstream has decided to no longer support the 0.5.x series (and also by popular demand ), I've begun to build official F-9 packages for recent Deluge releases. An update is currently enqueued and should hit updates-testing on a mirror near you soon.

Please note that these updates will likely stay in the testing repositories indefinitely though, as the 1.0 series is a near-complete rewrite and thus requires recreation of many aspects of a user's configuration - and I do not wish to intentionally break existing configurations for those users who are happy and comfortable with 0.5.9.3 (the latest stable update for F-9).

That said, however, I intend to continue pushing new updates to the F9-updates-testing repositories as they come out and I as push them to F10-updates, so whenever you need to update it on Fedora 9, it should in theory be as simple as:
yum --enablerepo=updates-testing-newkey update deluge
Another benefit to this is that you can verify that it is an "official" and far more trustworthy package to install/use, through Yum's use of package-signing and whatnot.

Regards...

I've decided against this; and will shortly push the packages to my personal webspace instead.

Today is November 15, 2008....Today is November 15, 2008....

2008-11-16T07:42:56Z

Apparently much of southern California was once again ablaze today, but this time it seemed almost as if the end of the world was nigh for a while. All of the ash and smoke from the flames turned our beautiful blue sky into an ugly orange-ish red hue for several hours earlier. We even had our A/C turned on full-blast for much of the day, solely to help keep out the pungent stench that we inevitably inhaled upon opening any of our doors or windows. Our cars had just been washed too, and now they're all covered in a fine gray blanket of ash and particulate.

Reports from friends say it came pretty darn close to us, too: there was especially quite a lot of traffic around the CSU, Fullerton area as people got out of Brea and Yorba Linda. :O

The following images were taken without altering my phone's camera settings in any manner; I merely pressed "Take Picture." This is truly how bleak it seemed. The first one is looking almost straight upward, and the second is looking to the east of my street - both only a few feet outside my front door.

On the Fedora side, a recent kernel update seemed to completely make Grub go ker-splat; but booting from the trusty LiveCD and running the grub-install script manually seems to have fixed it. Just to be sure (and to kill a bit of time instead of watching news about the fire earlier), I reinstalled Fedora 9 entirely and updated to today's builds, and the error does not persist.

That means it was a one-time fluke, or so it seems. Those are the worst sorts of bugs. :\

We did it...kinda!

2008-11-05T08:32:04Z

It took two years of hard campaigning, lots of FUD-debunking, and countless sacrifices of time and labor, but we did it. Here at last, Barack Obama is officially the president-elect to serve as this country's 44th leader. This election brings to the White House the first African-American leader. As his victory has thusly overturned one aspect of our traditional government, my hope is that he as a leader can overturn the setbacks and failures of the past several years and bring this once-great nation back on the road to prosperity and civil freedom.

This victory for Senator (now President-elect) Obama comes only decades after various civil rights laws were enacted to enhance the civil and legal equalities for African American people. That said, many leading polls for Prop. 8 are not looking good: It's likely to pass with about a 52-55% “Yes” vote. Just when I thought we had learned from the mistakes of our history, we go and restrict one of the most basic civil rights of people: to marry the person they love. How is it then, that we as a society emphasize tolerance when we cannot even show such a fundamental right to our own citizens?

Up until this point, signs and ads for Prop. 8 have held a myriad of slogans, such as “Prop 8 = Protects Marriage,” “Prop 8 = Free Speech,” and “Prop 8 Protects Our Children.” These are all absolute hogwash, except for one, which reads: “Prop 8 = Civil Rights” - and that is exactly what this is. While current civil union and domestic partnership laws do give these couples most of the benefits of normally given to a marriage between a man and a woman, it lacks many important aspects of marriage, such as proper employment and insurance benefits for one's spouse (among other things).

One of the main arguments for it was that it passed in 2000 and was wrongly overturned by the State Supreme Court. But just because people agree to it does not make it fundamentally a correct idea. Was slavery wrongfully outlawed? Were the Jim Crow laws wrongly overturned, too? Were the laws denying women suffrage also wrongly overturned? I know what you're thinking, probably: “Oh, but that was different. That was racism and sexism and stuff.” Oh, come now; don't give me that load of crap. This is exactly the same thing, only against another group of people. I, for one, am ashamed at how closed-minded we can be as a society, and even moreso at how dumbfounded we can be to believe the outright lies and scare tactics that were used in advocacy of this proposition. Are we as a people so apathetic that we can simply be spoon-fed this nonsense and believe it so unquestioningly? Can we not think logically for our own selves and realize the idiocy of this?

One thing that strikes me as odd with it is the Judeo-Christian (and similarly-believing) religious groups who advocate against gay marriage and this proposition, but then proceed to preach about tolerance and love to they neighbor. Many (such as the Mormon Church) even went so far as to raise several millions of dollars in support of the “Yes on 8” groups...Why did they not spend that amount on, I don't know, things like feeding and housing more homeless? Hah!

As a final sentiment, to those of you who voted “Yes” on Proposition 8: I pray that you can one day forgive yourself for such irreverence. Until then, live forever with the guilt that you helped directly restrict so many loving couples and their families the happiness of taking their love just a bit further in the eyes of the law. It was you who helped directly remove the simple right of so many millions of people to marry their beloved. And it is you who keep them separate but equal.

(And now that the rant is done...) Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Preview was released today! Go try it out and help make it rock-solid for its full release ! :)

(Last Night's) 3rd Presidential Debate: Obama vs. McCain

2008-10-16T19:27:53Z

I didn't get a chance to watch it live due to classwork; but thanks to C-SPAN's YouTube channel, I was able to watch it recorded online when I got home last night. I'd like to make a few comments about John McCain's demeanor and stated plans, if I may.

The first question to both of them was, essentially: Why is your economic plan better than his? Senator Obama clearly - I felt - explained his plan to cut taxes for the lower 95% of people and raise them a bit for the remaining large businesses and whatnot that could afford to pay such taxes, citing examples of Exxon Mobile and other oil companies which intake multi-billion dollar annual profits already. Yet, in your mention of the "Joe" that Obama spoke with, you assure Joe that Obama's plan would create fines and levy more taxes on him as a small business owner...immediately after Obama had already stated that small businesses were "the drivers of this economy" and would likely receive a decrease in taxes and be exempt from these fines. "Decrease" and "increase" are antonyms. (That means the words' meanings are opposites.) Please don't confuse the two; thank you. Twice later you state that Obama wants to increase the average family's taxes again. Oy!

Secondly, Obama (near the middle of the debate) specifically explained his affiliations with Ayers and ACORN and why they should not be held against him as a presedential candidate. Yet, a short time later, you go on to claim that all the details about Obama's relationship with Ayers and ACORN need to be known. RIght after he just told you those details. Are you not even listening to what Obama is saying? If you can't even pay proper attention to what one person is saying for 90 minutes, then how are we supposed to trust you to pay attention to what the 200-plus million voters¹ of our Public are saying for a full four years?

Soon thereafter, the two candidates were asked why their running mates would be the better president, should something unforeseen happen to either of these senators as president. Mr. McCain, when you were expounding on Governor Sarah Palin's good traits, you mentioned that she "resigned when she saw corruption." How is this a good thing? Running away from a problem is not the proper way to fix it.

Then, you went on to describe Senator Joe Biden's negative attributes; and said, "He voted against it [...] and obviously we had to take Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait [...]"; and, when mentioning Senator Biden's experience on foreign policy and past decisions he has made thereto, you stated that "He's [Biden has] been wrong on a great many of them." Two claims. No supporting evidence: be it demographics, statistics, quotes from other reputable experts, etc. We want to know what makes the Kuwait situation so obvious. We want to know some examples of Biden's wrong foreign policy decisions. Nothing? Seriously, Mr. McCain, 101-level classes in college teach that aspect of critical thinking. ~~(*sigh*)~~ If you don't tell us why you believe that what you're saying is true and valid, then what reason do we as a Public have to believe the same?

On the the other hand, Obama was very positive in his explanation. He did not belittle Sarah Palin; he merely explained why Biden was superior: more qualified, better understands the average family, etc. - specific and precise support for his claim. I feel that this helps show not just the aptitude for clear content in his talking, but the fact that he is skilled in keeping a debate or discussion peaceful when its topics are otherwise quite heated. This moderating ability is exactly a trait that a good leader requires - especially one who is and will undoubtedly play a top role in the governments of and interaction between nations around the world.

Both candidates were also asked about health care. McCain gave an overview for his plan to reform much of what is already in place and give everyone a $5,000 tax break which they should then further use for health costs. Only a few minutes later, he said, "The average cost of a health plan is about $5,800." So, Mr. McCain, you effectively want us to pay eight hundred dollars, all out-of-pocket, for our own health care. Essentially, encouraging people to accrue debt. As it stands, many can barely afford to pay that amount for rent or housing; how can they be expected to pay twice that for the added benefit of their health care plan?

Before concluding the debate, both candidates were also asked about their education policies. ~~(Where to begin?!)~~ Mr. McCain, you declared that we should recruit military veterans and create more teaching positions by allowing or perhaps encouraging them to become teachers while bypassing credentials and competency/qualtification exams. You want men and women who have just come back from fighting, potentially, a major war or battle...to teach our children and future generations of thinkers. ARE YOU BATSHIT INSANE?!

While I don't feel that Obama's plan is entirely right (I'm in agreement with James Cape on this one), I do feel that he has much of it in the right direction: especially the aspects of it that encourage higher pay for better-performing teachers and requiring oft recertifications, with additional and updated training for those who fail these.

Lastly, Mr. McCain, you mentioned that, instead of making college more affordable, we should increase the availability and repayment flexibility for student loans. Again, you're recommending that instead of fixing a problem, we workaround it by accruing debt.

Senator McCain, you truly scare me. Quite a lot. Increasing debt does not fix an economy. Running away from problems does not solve them. Soldiers as-is do not make good teachers. Aside from that, your age means that, purely from a statistical perspective², we can expect you to die within the next decade and even more likely, to die within the next four years - what would be your term of office should you become president. Not only have you shown yourself to be unfit for presidency in this debate, but Governor Palin has done worse against herself in the vice-presidential debates and if she took office...well, I think (quite frankly ) we'd be in an even more horrid position than we were at the lowest of George W. Bush's presidency.

As a final comment, Senator McCain's appearance and attitude versus Senator Obama reminded me quite heavily of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, wherein Nixon looked very unfocused and distant. This paralleled McCain last night with his squirming in the chair, constant interruptions for often-contemptuous remarks, and rarely ever looking directly at the camera (and through it, we, the American Public). He seemed to be in is own little world, as the saying goes.

This contrasted well with Obama's Kennedy-like behavior: he presented himself as very confident and very prepared, with well-thought out plans of action and many statistical, anecdotal, and other reasons for why he believes his views to be correct. He held our eye-contact through his talking. When watching it, I just felt like Obama was almost talking to me directly; while on the other hand, McCain seemed to be talking only to the audience of that university hall.

If McCain wins this election, the American People will lose, and quite drastically. As Forrest Gump would say: "That's all I have to say about that."

Footnotes:

[1] This is according to the population pyramid from the 2000 US Census, assuming a significant majority of those in the "20-24" group and above are eligible and registered to vote. \

[2] The CIA World Factbook 2008 gave 2007 estimates of about 78.1 years for life expectancy at birth, with males having it reduced slightly to about 75.3 years. The United Nations also put out a list average for the 2005-2010 expected period, with numbers in approximate agreement: 78.2 years at birth, reduced to 75.6 years for males.

Back on the Grid!

2008-10-15T04:35:47Z

As those who know me may know, my phone has been quite telephony-incapable for nearly the past week; but I finally got my replacement from Verizon earlier today and have finshed resetting my preferences and reloading some of my frequently used "Get It Now" apps (such as VZNavigator). I can actually stay in communication again!

Also, my battery seems to be slowing dying (getting quite warm, and barely holding a full-day charge, even in "standalone" mode), so I've taken the liberty of ordering an extended battery (and corresponding battery door replacement) from Amazon to replace it, which should be here by early next week. (I could have had it shipped and to me by Friday or before, but that would have been nearly an additional 26 USD in cost - more than half of the cost of the battery and door....so, yeah. Not wanting to do that.)

So, if you need to get in touch with me, I'm available by phone!

Also, I've recently submitted Haze 0.2.1 for the Fedora 9-testing repository, after which it'll go stable in about a week or so. I've had this in Rawhide for quite a long time, and completely forgot to back-sync the version updates to prior distributions. (Alas, Haze 0.2.0+ has a lot of newer dependencies down the Telepathy stack, so Fedora 8 will probably stay at 0.1.4 until it goes EOL.)

I'm going to try to be more prudent with WebKit updates too, especially now that GIMP's help stuff (among others) are starting to use it quite heavily. I will make a strong effort to bump the packages in Rawhide every weekend or so (major/crasher bugs aside, of course).

Proposition 8 Supporters: Get your facts straight!

2008-10-14T17:50:39Z

[No pun intended in the title.]

At my college this morning there was a table near the student center building with a bunch of young Proposition 8 supporters attempting to rally passing students into voting yes. Thankfully, nearly all of the students that were asked are vehemently opposed to the proposition; and to make the experience even more fun, we (as a group) we're debating the proposition with the advocates until they got stumped on facts, multiple times. Of the main supporting advocates in attendance, two young men correctly identified the issue as one of Civil Rights. They then went on trying to equate it to slavery (!!) and - as you can imagine - it all went downhill from there.

One young woman proponent (the wife, as we came to understand, of one of the aforementioned two young men) even tried sympathizing with us: telling us that she knows some gay friends and relatives who wish to get married - to which we promptly replied in thanks for her violent opposition of their happiness. Another of her arguments was that it would allow teaching children about homosexual couples and marriage, which are "morally wrong values." Yet, she admitted to being a couple of months pregnant and held a lit cigarette with her. What moral values does that teach our children, miss?

Along the side of the table were taped signs that proclaimed things such as "Protect Marriage!" "Prop 8 = Free Speech" and "Prop 8 = Less Government." For one, how does restricting marriage (especially that between two people who deeply love each other) protect it? Secondly, what the FUCK does Free Speech have anything to with this? The proposed amendment reads as follows:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Nowhere in this is Free Speech mentioned. Nowhere. Not once. Cluestick, anyone? Last, but not least, is the "Prop 8 = Less Government" spiel. Someone please explain something to me about that. Prop 8, if passed, would add (keyword!) government restrictions to marriage. How does adding to it make it less?!

In conclusion, HOW DAFT ARE YOU PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY?!

The pen may be "mightier than the sword," as is said; but the trained mind is far sharper.

Birthdays and Awesomeness and Politics, Oh my!

2008-09-30T04:56:29Z

Recently, Fedora turned 5 years old; and Google turned 10! How I have missed such awesome passings until now is probably due to schoolwork and job-hunting. ~~(Or it could be due to sheer laziness.)~~ The numbers on the Red Hat news page are quite astonishing:

"More than 13,500 Fedora Account System members [...],"
"About 6,500 total source packages in Fedora with more than 10,000 binary packages in the development branch," and
"Over 550 volunteer representatives in Fedora’s global Ambassadors program."

I am excited to see the Fedora community so strong, and continuing to grow steadily. In fact, the Statistics wiki page shows many strong metrics figures. With Fedora 10 set to be released in November (and the Beta of which is slated for release tomorrow!), I am so thrilled to see so many people - not only using it - but contributing back to it and helping ensure that for each of their contributions, Fedora is that much improved. Keep up the great work, everyone!

On the Google side of things, It delights me to read about Google's official position on California Prop. 8:

"[...] While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love." (Emphasis mine.)

I am hopeful that, with such extensive support as theirs, along with that of Senators Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, and Barbara Boxer, and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (among many others), this stupid proposition will fail miserably, and the State Supreme Court's prior ruling in In re Marriage Cases will be upheld. This would mean that same-sex couples in California who would like to marry have ample opportunity to do so without such daft and staunchly conservative-religious beliefs precluding them from it.

Edit: Changed text referencing Statistics wiki page; was misinterpreted in the original post. (Thanks, simo!)

"(to) be like" is not a verbum dicendi!

2008-09-23T05:17:42Z

To whom it may concern:

Your attempted usage of "was like," "is like," and similar phrases consisting of a copular conjugation prepended to the word "like" is not a proper verbum dicendi. English has a myriad of ways to introduce a quotative clause, especially (though not limited to) transitive and ditransitive verbs involving speech such as (also not hereto limited) "to say," "to speak," "to tell," "to inform," and others. The english language is filled with different ways to express that someone said (or says, et al.) something: each with their appropriate and inherent variation in exact meaning or method by which that something is, was, or would be said.The language is there to more fully express oneself and more clearly define verbal actions. I suggest it be used as such.

Thank you.

Playing Catch-Up

2008-09-04T03:55:55Z

So, over the weekend my parents and I decided to head out of town for a bit, mostly on a whim. We came back to find that only about a fifth of our house's electricity worked: random outlets around the house gave us just enough for essentials: refrigerator/freezer, microwave, stove, some lights, one TV, and a couple of extra outlets for plugging in our mobile phones and other rechargeable portable electronics - and this was after being clever with the use of some extension cords. Apparently, one of the two main bus fuses to our house had literally cracked open due to the weather and the natural wear and tear of its nearly 20 years of loyal service to my family.

We were soon able to get the city's electric company to fix it all up nicely (and replace some of our outdated power cabling in the process); but this is such an antiquated part that it needed to be special-ordered. We ended up spending the past half-week or so just living on what we could power, and that amounted trying to stay out of the house much: dining at local restaurants and going out shopping or to the library, etc. It did give me much reading time though, so I finally finished Deathly Hallows. (!) When we were at home, there wasn't much to be done other than talk and read, or play Sūdoku on our phones, et al. (While I enjoy this abounding of quality family time, it just goes to show how much we've vested technology into the very fabric of our lives.)

Anyway, now that I'm back online, I see I've got a whole slew of updates to bake for my various Fedora packages. I promise I'll get to those soon but I'm going through them as quickly as I can (and this Midori build failure is still driving me nuts...) - please be patient! I should have them all bumped and building by the weekend, assuming no other show-stoppers.

I've also got a solid 2300 new emails to sift through too. Evolution's filters help significantly, but it's still a mess sometimes. :( It eems that no matter how much I love it, technology and I just can't seem to get along quite right most of the time. Sadness...

(Oh, and L'arc~en~Ciel's new single album, "Nexus 4 / Shine" is AWESOME. Let it be so known!)

Folding@Home

2008-08-29T03:07:15Z

I have the following as a reference for myself; but since it may be helpful to others, I've decided to post it here. This is a how-to based on the official F@H FAQ, but giving it its own user account for a bit tighter security.

Become the superuser ("root"):

$ su -

Add the user, and switch to its ID:

# useradd -d /opt/folding -c "Folding@Home user" -m --user-group foldinguser
# su - foldinguser

Download and unpack the F@H client stuff:

$ wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.02-Linux.tgz
$ tar xvzf FAH6.02-Linux.tgz

Configure it, as necessary:

$ ./fah6 -configonly

Switch back to root:

$ exit

Create the startup script

# echo "# chkconfig: 345 93 14" > /etc/init.d/folding
# echo "# description: will start FAH client as a service" >> /etc/init.d/folding
# echo "su - foldinguser -c \"cd /opt/folding; ./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9 </dev/null >/dev/null 2>&1 &\"" >> /etc/init.d/folding
# chmod +x /etc/init.d/folding

Enable the startup-script and begin folding!

# chkconfig --add folding
# service folding start

Empathy/Haze & MC Profiles Update

2008-08-16T06:10:49Z

Thanks to Colin Walters, Empathy should now automagically take care of the MC profile renaming upon startup.

Well, it will...once Koji is back up. The changes are tagged in CVS and simply need to be built. :)

Rawhide Warning: Empathy/Haze & MC Profiles Update: Slight Manual Fixing Required

2008-08-14T03:47:12Z

Posted this to the development mailing list; but the more I post it the more people will see it... :)

Hi, all.

The Mission Control profiles in the telepathy-haze-mission-control package were originally created manually based on the Jabber/XMPP profile to allow Telepathy-using applications to support the basics of libpurple's more common protocols: AIM/ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo! IM.

However, these are getting rather stale and upstream Empathy already has nicely-working profiles for Haze (with more protocol support than the old subpackage). So, in an effort to more closely track upstream's code and profiles (therefore slightly reducing the package maintenance work), I have committed and am now building new telepathy-haze and empathy
packages that use Empathy's profiles instead of manually-created ones.

These should hit tomorrow's rawhide but unfortunately it means that the profiles have been renamed. I have included a script named "upgrade-haze-profiles.sh" (installed as documentation) with Empathy that automagically fixes this on a per-user basis; but this script needs to be run manually.

(Come to think of it, we may need to add this as a minor upgrade-related fix in the Release Notes...)

Thanks, and happy hacking.

Can't talk; playing.

2008-08-07T23:59:42Z

So my brother and I recently splurged on some new toys, and they have since been reason for my general lack of availability over the past week or so...

Along with Wii Sports, they've kept us pretty busy. 8)

[RFC] Package Updates/Bodhi Notification Content Policy?

2008-08-02T01:52:24Z

(I posted this to the mailing list last week but didn't really receive much input/discussion on it. I'd like to change that, so I'm re-posting it on my blog. ^_~)

Hi, all.

[I use X/Mesa stuff as an example only. Many other package updates contain similar problems, and the X/Mesa stuff certainly isn't one of the worst. Also, "notable changes" and similar phrasing in this message hereafter refer to any major bug fixes (such as those which resolve crashers or problems which cause loss of data), new enhancements (new features or changed subpackages), security fixes, and the like.)]

Recently, there have been a slew of updates (especially X/Mesa related packages, though not exclusively) that have no helpful message in their update announcements. The last several %changelog entries are included, thankfully; but even those often fail to describe the update properly.

I, for one, have not updated my system's mesa-related packages yet, because the new release (-37 versus -35) seems to cause rather severe performance issues. (FPS in Tremulous, for example, drops from a normal 45-55 to barely double-digit.) I can imagine a similar situation with dial-up users or users with limited bandwidth, such as with pay-per-use connections: Is the update useful enough to spend the time and/or money in downloading?

The only notification in the recent X updates, for example, is that it contains a new RC5 snapshot (and that's from the package %changelog). From the perspective of an end-user, I am thinking "What's changed? What's fixed? Any cool new features? Will the packages fix my DRI/OpenGL slowness?"

Noting a new version or snapshot is a good thing, sure; but users should not need to go hunting through down upstream changelogs or bug trackers or to figure out why the package update is being issued.

I'd like to propose a short policy of sorts to ensure that users are properly notified of notable changes.

1. Any such notable changes should be briefly described in the Bodhi entry. Essentially, package maintainers should summarize the key points of the upstream changelog for these.

2. Relevant bug numbers or IDs should always in the Bodhi entry, either for Red Hat/Fedora bugs (in Bodhi's "bugs" field), or as bug numbers from an unambiguous tracker (in the update comments). For example: "Fix GNOME Bug 98765" is good; but "Fix b.g.o#98765" is bad, since that could be (at least) bugs.gentoo.org, bugzilla.gnome.org, or even bugs.gobolinux.org, et al.

Corollary: However, we don't want to be overly redundant in the notices. If we already include a bug number in Bodhi's "bugs" field, and that bug's title is descriptive enough, then it may very well be that simply referencing that bug in the update will tell users what's fixed - since Bodhi will automagically retrieve that and insert it into the announcement. For example, if your update through Bodhi shows "bug 123456: App crashes: segfault when enabling option foo," then it is not entirely necessary to note this fix in the update comments. Other changes should still be mentioned (if any). Similarly, if the %changelog includes a mention of these notable upstream changes, the update comments do not need to also include them (since the %changelog entry is also inserted as part of the update announcement).

3. Any and all attempted empty Bodhi updates with no bug references should return an error message, telling the maintainer to add a brief comment describing the change and/or referencing appropriate bugs (and perhaps referencing this policy).

Simply being a new version is not always a good reason to update! On the contrary, new versions often bring new bugs and potential regressions - especially with snapshots of upstream sources instead of deemed-stable release tarballs.

[Rawhide does not use Bodhi updates and is generally not intended to be as stable as releases, so merely noting the version bump is OK in the package %changelog, though I still recommend summarizing some of the more important notable package changes.]

Thanks for your time!

Anything, Everything, and Nothing at All.

2008-07-18T23:18:11Z

I'm shamelessly stealing this sciathan_file...

Send me about with my camera!

Ask me to take a picture of any aspect of my life that you're interested in/curious about - it can be anything from the house I live in to my favorite books, etc. Leave your choice here as a comment, and I will reciprocate by taking the pictures and posting them as an LJ entry. That way you get to know a little bit about my life. =]

Thanks, Comaintainers!

2008-07-18T01:35:21Z

As many around me have probably noted, I've been extremely busy with my new job and get-togethers with friends/family over the past week or so; and I've thus not had much time recently to devote to Fedora hacking. There have been prior times too where I've just up and vanished from the 'Net for several days at a time.

However, the comaintainers of my packages have gladly kept my various packages updated and working nicely in my stead. I'd like to give special recognition, then, to the following couple of maintainers who've been of great personal help in this regard:

Brian Pepple, aside from the awesome work he does on his own for the Fedora Project in many ways, has kept Empathy and other aspects of the Telepathy stack updated when I am otherwise preoccupied. Thanks very much!

Mamoru Tasaka, who consistently helps me squash nasty bugs in the WebKit stuff and in keeping it up-to-date. どうもありがとうございます！

One Secondary Language Explains Another

2008-06-30T05:29:28Z

I just briefly explained the etymology of the 言 (words, to say), 時 (time, hour), 間 (interval), 本 (book), and 森 (forest) Kanji to a visiting neighbor...in Spanish.

I'm quite proud of myself for being able to accomplish that. However, I'm a bit embarrassed that I needed to ask my mom about some Spanish vocabulary that I at the time forgot (especially "mouth" and "to ring a bell"). This is stuff I should know already.

I hope my Kanji-a-week study is not making me forget Spanish! Ack!

Mail Issues

2008-06-24T05:55:20Z

Hmm. I had been tweaking my mail server's junk filter recently and inadvertently made it too strict, it seems. Unfortunately I have it set to auto-delete anything older than a few days and only rarely do I check it for false positives.

I believe it is now fixed. So if you sent me an email within the past week or so and were expecting a reply but never received one, please re-send it. Thanks!

Big Buck Bunny

2008-06-21T20:28:06Z

Ya acabo de ver la película «Big Buck Bunny», y ¡me gustó tanto!

Esta película habla de un conejito gigante (y guapo) que acaba de despertarse de una siesta. Después, ve una bella mariposa volando cerca de él. Pero él no sabe que un ratón y sus compañeros le darán mucha pena. Ellos la matan y sus acciones le dan al conejito ganas de vengarla. (No diré más...para que ¡la vean y se sorprendan! :)

La película no es larga (más bien es un poco corta), pero me importa porque es completamente de Contenido Abierto. Con toda la película se permite modificar y compartir (para ganar dinero, si quiere) con la única condición que tendrá que incluir los créditos en la manera apropriada. (Hagan el favor de leerla en su página web.)

Ahora tengo tantas ganas de abrazarlo (al conejito). ¡Que lindo es!

(Editado para corregir algunas cositas. ¡Gracias al usuario anónimo!)

Random, Off-Topic, and Sometimes Unnecessary

2008-06-15T23:27:42Z

We just came back from an El Torito restaurant nearby, where I took my dad out for Father's Day, and I cannot help but to think, "What the heck is up with El Torito's chefs?"

My dad and I both had to get our orders switched twice because the dishes they gave us were too spicy, even though we had explicitly told our waiter that we did not want any spices on them at all - which he seemed to comply with at first, since the dishes came with the sauces and salsa on the side, and those are normally the significantly spicy parts of the meal - but this was not a good kind of spicy. This was just spicy for the sake of being spicy. Even the meat had tiny pieces of Jalapeño or something in it.

I can definitely understand adding spice, even very strong if necessary, for the sake of augmenting the food with a specific tang of flavor (such as is done for many east-Asian dishes, and many meats used in Italian cuisine). But this was not it. No addition to taste or anything of the sort. It was just for the purpose of ensuring that one's throat burned sufficiently as the food was swallowed. (As a minor comparison point, those who know me know that my mom is of Spanish descent, and even she had trouble eating it because of the spice.)

But I digress, I suppose it's time for another meme!

Acquired from the great sciathan_file...

You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

First Name?
Peter, sometimes "Pedro," and ピーター ("piitaa") in Katakana. And yes, named for that Peter, of Biblical fame; though my faith is nowhere nearly as strong. And for those who still need clarifying, it stems from the Greek Πέτρος (Petros), meaning "stone" or "rock." (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

Age?
22. Though some say how I act is anywhere within 10-15 years of that in either direction depending on the circumstances. ;_;

Location?
Anaheim, California. (Home of the Disneyland Resort, and - according to Wikipedia - one of the safest cities of its size in the entire nation. Sweet.)

Occupation?
Full-time student, part-time Fedora hacker. Previously an Inventory Control Technician for a microelectronics firm (part-time from 2000-2005, full-time from 2005 to mid-2007).

Partner?
None, and currently not looking. (Though, I did have a bit of a crush in high school; but I suppose I'm glad that stayed merely a friendship without the "benefits" as some would say.)

Kids?
This implies getting laid, something which is of very little plausibility for me in the future. That said, would God want me of all people to be ~~warping~~ influencing a young child's mind? ;-)

Brothers/Sisters?
One elder brother, currently a Doctor of Law. (I've got some pretty big shoes to fill.)

Pets?
While I enjoy the company of my friends' pets, I'm probably absent-minded enough that I'd almost certainly forget to properly care for it should I get one. I can just imagine it now: "Peter, we got you a puppy!" / "Aww, how cute!" / A month later: "Uhm, there's a dead puppy in your doghouse, Peter..." / "I had a puppy? OOHHH YEAHHH! Oops."

List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life.
- My brother graduating with his Juris Doctorate last month.
- Currently doing some freelance web-development for a friend's dad's colleague.
- Vising Sci next weekend for her graduation, with lots of purported academic bling. (Congrats!)
- Job-hunting...important, but definitely not fun or entertaining.

Where and for what did you go to school for?
Those who know me know this information; and to those that don't, this is not something I'd want to divulge publically due to privacy concerns. (Email/IM me if you don't know and wish to do so.) Expecting a BSc (CS) in a year or two. Another few years after that for graduate studies in CS as well as Spanish and probably Japanese, with a goal to focus on i18n/L10n in software development and translations.

Parents?
Though sometimes overprotective, they are awesome without question; and both of them have post-graduate degrees. My dad and I are both technophiles, while my mom and brother are also, but to a much-lesser extent. But they both are ever supportive of me. They both work in microelectronics.

Who are some of your closest friends?
They know who they are. My brother deserves great mention here, too. No matter how much we may tease or argue with each other, no matter how much we may annoy each other at times...he's always there for me when I need it. I only hope that I can properly repay him for it all somehow. :O