I was reading over the trackback page this afternoon and discovered that the current implementation of trackback is slighly different than it has been in the past. It looks like just a few changes need to be made to tblib in order to gain backward compatability.
Month: February 2003
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tblib Backward Compatability
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Linux.Conf.Au Wrapup
Hemos attended Linux.Conf.Au while myself and others were converging on New York City:
I’ve just recently returned from Linux Conference Australia 2003, held in Perth, Western Australia. I’ve had an incredible time, and this has easily been the best technical/Linux show I’ve been to since ALS was still operating. I’ve got a write-up below, and some notes on what happened, what’s the plan for next year (It’ll be in Adelaide, and I’m greatly looking forward to it!), and a photo round up. A number of other articles have appeared, and Kate MacKenzie’s write up in The Australian was good as well, in addition to Telsa Gwynne’s excellent write-up and Linux Magazine Au has some articles as well.
This was the geekier of two simultaneous Linux conferences. LinuxWorld was the east coast biz Linux show, while the one in Austrailia had Linus. ‘Nuff said.
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The Ease of C#
Charles Cook: “After writing a lot of C#, returning to C++ make me realize how unproductive C++ is.” – This has been my experience as well. I’m looking forward to the day when I can spend most of my time implementing code in C#.
This is so true. It’s painful to go back to C++ after coding for awhile in C#. It’s just so easy to do so many things. I’ll be spending a good bit of time in C# this semester, and for that, I am quite happy.
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Matthew Dillon Looses Commit Access to FreeBSD
One of the most prolific and active developers of FreeBSD, responsible for a lot of the latest advances in the FreeBSD kernel, lost his right to commit code to the source tree. The FreeBSD Project didn’t give a solid reason on what lead them to this decision. Last year, OSNews interviewed Matt about his (truly immense) work on FreeBSD.
Ouch.
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Linuxworld.com.au on Firebird
NewsForge points to a Linux World Australia article about Firebird:
When you think of open source databases, MySQL or PostgreSQL may first spring to mind. However, hot on their heels is Firebird, a relational database which has been a hotbed of development activity for the past two and a half years.
Although a worldwide development effort, Firebird does have an Australian flavour: the FirebirdSQL Foundation (Inc.), an international non-profit organisation, was formed in New South Wales late last year. To discuss the Foundation and the development project, LinuxWorld talked to Helen Borrie, a Firebird project admin and documenter who is based in the Central Coast.
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Tyler Eaves’ Python Tutorial
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GPGrelay
Speaking of public keys, here’s a SourceForge announcement for GPGrelay:
GPGrelay is a small email-relaying server that uses GnuPG (the GNU Privacy Guard) to sign/encrypt (SMTP-Relay) or verifies/decrypts (POP3-Relay) emails. This enables many email-clients to send and receive emails that are PGP-MIME conforming. This release includes bugfixes and minor feature enhancements.
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Public Key Cryptography and Weblogs
As I see it, the most practical uses of public key encryption in blogging are going to be securing all those other things that we’re currently relying on a lack of idots to keep safe: Trackback, this FOAF thing, communication to community servers, and so on.
I’m hearing this more and more. Sam Ruby thinks that signing might be involved in his email comments experiment:
Signing is the next step, particularly given that e-mail clients already tend to have built in support for this. Ultimately, when the spam starts arriving, only signed e-mails will be accepted.
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Really SMaL Megapixels
SMaL Camera Technologies have today announced their new Ultra-Pocket 1.3-Megapixel digital camera, this builds upon the award-winning 6mm thin Ultra-Pocket® VGA digital still camera. It has the same credit card size of its predecessor, with only a slight increase in thickness due to higher resolution optics, plus a strobe flash and an SD card for expanded memory storage. -
Blojsom: Download, CVS, Javadoc
David Czarnecki has been hard at work on Blojsom. It is available on SourceForge, committed to CVS, and the javadocs and site docs are available.
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Weblog Comments Via Email
Sam Ruby is experimenting with weblog comments via email. He’s got the proof of concept up and working. The rest will follow.
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C# Namespace Aliasing
This is too cool. Sam Gentile gets the scoop from John Lam:
using Channels = System.Runtime.Remoting.Channels;
This is really nice if you have namespace conflicts and need to disambiguate your type references, or if you’re from the school of thought that says that you must always use fully qualified type names, but don’t want to obscure your code with giant namespace references.
This is a great little tip. I am in the process of committing this to memory.
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Russell Beattie: Redesign
Russ redesigned his site. I like it, even though I usually read it via RSS. Clean lines are good.
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Python News and Linkage
A sneak peek of some of the tracks and presentations for PyCon DC 2003 are available on the PyCon Wiki.
OSNews points to an InformIT article (free reg req’d) about writing a multithreaded GUI app with Python.
LinuxToday has this weeks Python-URL. There are a few interesting links, but nothing spectacular.
I think that’s about it, I’m pretty much caught up on Python stuff.
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Slow Day
*Yawn*
I’m tired. I’m hoping to catch up on my feeds later this evening.
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Tragedy
I’m unplugging for a bit. This Google News query will give you the most up to date (most recent news at the top). It looks like Google News passed its first major disaster, it was extremely helpful today.
I blogged my first entry today at school. It was eerie. I was in class, learning about Java, JSPs, Servlets, RMI, and all kinds of stuff like that while I was reporting the news. I don’t think anyone else surfed over to a news site. Nobody seemed to acknowledge what had happened after class. I just left quickly and quietly.
The only reason that I knew something was up was because of RSS and my aggregator.
The rest of the news entries today were done while at work. I only caught some TV coverage, but felt pretty informed.
Today is grouped together with a few days in my life that I can remember exactly where I was when something major happened: Challenger, Desert Storm, 9/11, and this. I’m sure there are others, but these are the ones that come to mind.
This is one of those days that is like JFK’s assasination for my generation.
We won’t know exactly what happened for quite some time. We may never know completely.
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Problems on the Wing; Sadness
The first indication of a potential problem occurred minutes before 9 a.m. EST, when there was a loss of temperature sensors on the shuttle’s left wing, said Ron Dittemore, the program manager. During Columbia’s liftoff, a piece of insulating foam from the fuel tank was believed to have hit that wing.
Dittemore said the loss of the sensors on the left wing was followed seconds later by several other problems, including a loss of tire pressure and indications of excessive structural heating.
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Military satellites with infrared detectors recorded several flashes as Columbia broke apart, according to a defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was unclear whether those “spikes” of heat indicated an explosion, the burning of pieces of debris re-entering the atmosphere or something else.
[…]
In another room at Kennedy Space Center, O’Keefe met with the astronauts’ families, who had been waiting at the landing site for the shuttle’s return, spokeswoman Melissa Motichek said. Six of the seven astronauts were married, and five of them had children.
This is so sad. I’m sorry that this had to happen to these people and their families.
[…]
“When the countdown clock, when it got to zero and then started going, instead of counting down, counting up and they were still not there, I told my friend, ‘I have a bad feeling. I think they are gone.’ And I was in tears,” Barr said.
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Space Station Astronauts Retrievable With Soyuz
A Soyuz vehicle attached to the space station could bring the three astronauts onboard back to Earth at a moment’s notice. But if the space agency’s remaining shuttles are out of service for an extended period in the wake of Saturday’s catastrophe, as seems likely, it could prove difficult to maintain the station’s operations.
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Last Communication With Columbia
KRNV:
Johnson Space Center, Houston-AP — It sounded like routine communication — but now it’s taken on a whole new meaning.
It’s believed to be the final radio communication between NASA and space shuttle “Columbia,” which broke up this morning on its way to landing. All seven astronauts on board are dead.
The communication message was heard shortly before nine a-m Eastern time.
It starts with a mission controller at the Johnson Space Center in Houston saying, “Columbia, Houston we see your tire pressure messages and we did not copy your last.”
A reply comes from an astronaut believed to be shuttle commander Rick Husband, who says “Roger.”
The transmission then breaks off after the crew member starts to say a word starting with the sound “buh.”
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Full Text of Bush Speech
The Washington Post has the full text of the brief speech that Presiden Bush made this afternoon:
BUSH: My fellow Americans, this day has brought terrible news and great sadness to our country. At 9 o’clock this morning, Mission Control in Houston lost contact with our space shuttle Columbia. A short time later, debris was seen falling from the skies above Texas.
The Columbia’s lost. There are no survivors.
Onboard was a crew of seven–Colonel Rick Husband, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Anderson, Commander Laurel Clark, Captain David Brown, Commander William McCool, Dr. Kalpana Chawla, and Ilan Ramon a colonel in the Israeli air force.
These men and women assumed great risk in this service to all humanity. In an age when space flight has come to seem almost routine, it is easy to overlook the dangers of travel by rocket and the difficulties of navigating the fierce outer atmosphere of the earth.
These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.
All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You’re not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.
The cause in which they died will continue. Mankind is led into the darkness beyond our world by the inspiration of discovery and the longing to understand. Our journey into space will go on.
In the skies today, we saw destruction and tragedy. Yet farther than we can see, there is comfort and hope.
In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Lift your eyes and look to the heavens. Who created all these? He who brings out the starry hosts one by one and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.”
The same creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today. The crew of the shuttle Columbia did not return safely to Earth, yet we can pray that all are safely home.
May God bless the grieving families, and may God continue to bless America.