Author: paul

bonus quote of the day

If people a hundred years from now are soberly engaged with phenomena we have no nouns and verbs for, I think that’s a victory condition.

On the other hand, if they’re thumbing through 1960s Small World paperbacks and saying “thank goodness we’ve finally managed to pare our lives back exclusively to soybeans and bamboo,” well, that’s not the end of the world, but it’s about as appealing as a future global takeover by the Amish.

To me, “sustainability” means a situation in which your descendants are able to confront their own problems, rather than the ones you exported to them. If people a hundred years from now are soberly engaged with phenomena we have no nouns and verbs for, I think that’s a victory condition.

On the other hand, if they’re thumbing through 1960s Small World paperbacks and saying “thank goodness we’ve finally managed to pare our lives back exclusively to soybeans and bamboo,” well, that’s not the end of the world, but it’s about as appealing as a future global takeover by the Amish. [From Why We Love Bruce Sterling]

quote of the day

By contrast, Obama is more or less at the same level of support nationally, even having decreased some since his Iowa win (for most of mid-Decemeber, he was at 27-28 points)…. They hate Edwards, hate his message, and thus rendered him invisible long ago, only now to declare him dead — after he came in second place in the first caucus of the campaign.

Speaking of petty, vacuous journalists acting like giddy munchkins,

Edwards — who, just one week ago, was 10 points behind Obama nationally among Democrats — is now only two points behind him. Less than a month ago, he trailed Clinton by 29 points. Now it’s 13 points. He is, by far, at his high point of support nationwide. Apparently, the more exposure Democratic voters get to Edwards and his campaign positions — and that exposure has been at its high point during his surge — the more they like him. By contrast, Obama is more or less at the same level of support nationally, even having decreased some since his Iowa win (for most of mid-Decemeber, he was at 27-28 points).
Yet to listen to media reports, Edwards doesn’t even exist. His campaign is dead. He has no chance. They hate Edwards, hate his message, and thus rendered him invisible long ago, only now to declare him dead — after he came in second place in the first caucus of the campaign.

[From Glenn Greenwald – Political Blogs and Opinions – Salon]

This whole idea of making the facts fit the narrative doesn’t end with pointless wars in the desert, apparently.

quality time with my assistant

After incurring $450 on a plumbing bill that may lead to a more serious job down the road, I’m far from being able to pony up for a more useable device…. There’s a quote somewhere from Bill Atkinson ( who invented HyperCard, among other things ) about how HyperCard and the web were similar, but HyperCard was limited to a single document (stack) on a computer where the web was not[1][2].

This is where those smartphones or the like would be handy. I am trying to make use of the I Want Sandy service to keep track of things but it still requires email, ie sitting at my laptop. Well, maybe not 100%: I haven’t tried Jott yet. Apparently you can speak your instructions via phone and have Sandy keep track of them. But it would be useful to send notes from somewhere else, like a portable device. I find myself racking what’s left of my brain to put stuff into the calendar/to do list. After incurring $450 on a plumbing bill that may lead to a more serious job down the road, I’m far from being able to pony up for a more useable device.

But so far, I can recommend the Sandy service. I think it fits an interesting niche, even as it reminds me of what the Newton Messagepad tried to be — an intelligent assistant, pre-ubiquitous internet. Maybe that’s one more example of Apple’s box-centered thinking. There’s a quote somewhere from Bill Atkinson (who invented HyperCard, among other things) about how HyperCard and the web were similar, but HyperCard was limited to a single document (stack) on a computer where the web was not[1][2].

Is Sandy a more compelling product as something that runs on your device (smartphone, etc) or as it is now? Maybe they’ll do both.

1. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/18/road_to_mac_os_x_leopard_safari_3_0.html

2. http://www.w3.org/People/Raggett/the-early-days-of-the-Web.html

building debugging symbol-enabled software in FreeBSD

Serious hackers/advanced users will know this, but in the event someone else is as clueless as I am and needs to generate a backtrace (aka stack trace/ or trace), this is what I ended up doing.

…[Switching to Thread 0x806f000 (LWP 100225)] 0x2847b90a in icaltzutil_fetch_timezone () from /usr/local/lib/libecal-1.2.so.7 (gdb) bt Well, that tells me where the bug is.

Serious hackers/advanced users will know this, but in the event someone else is as clueless as I am and needs to generate a backtrace (aka stack trace/ or trace), this is what I ended up doing.

make install WITH_DEBUG=1 FORCE_PKG_REGISTER=1

[From Bug 507579 – crash in e_timezone_dialog_set_timezone (zone=0x0) at e-timezone-dialog.c:693 (Evolution)]

I was seeing an instantaneous crash in evolution and when I reported, the developers asked for a trace. Hmm. It took awhile to look up how to do it (seems obvious now) but turns out the bug is actually in evolution-data-server.

I ran the debug version of evolution in gdb, the GNU debugger.

[/home/paul]:: gdb evolution GNU gdb 6.1.1 [FreeBSD] Copyright 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you ar ewelcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions. Type “show copying” to see the conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for GDB. Type “show warranty” for details. This GDB was configured as “i386-marcel-freebsd”…

(gdb) r Starting program: /usr/local/bin/evolution

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. [Switching to Thread 0x806f000 (LWP 100225)] 0x2847b90a in icaltzutil_fetch_timezone () from /usr/local/lib/libecal-1.2.so.7 (gdb) bt
Well, that tells me where the bug is.
% pkg_info -W /usr/local/lib/libecal-1.2.so.7 /usr/local/lib/libecal-1.2.so.7 was installed by package evolution-data-server-1.12.2

And now I know what application contains that chunk of code. So I built a debug version of it, and that was what was needed.

So always report bugs, even if the program isn’t one you rely on (I have never used evolution, but if I get it running, I might try it).

1 out of 3?

I assume mass-appeal usefulness is what prevents me from achieving global domination.

…Seth Godin, master marketer, sums up the best way to drive traffic to your website (or store, or organization, etc.).

I assume mass-appeal usefulness is what prevents me from achieving global domination.

It’s a deceptive title — but in part that’s marketing. Seth Godin, master marketer, sums up the best way to drive traffic to your website (or store, or organization, etc.). Three words: be useful, unique and updated. [From Money for Nothing]

links for 2008-01-07

recycled quote of the day

It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying ‘Don’t feed the American people false hopes…. I mean, you can picture JFK saying, ‘We can’t go to the moon, it’s a false hope.

Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark.

“I find the manner in which they’ve been running their campaign sort of depressing, lately. It was interesting in the debate, Sen. Clinton saying ‘Don’t feed the American people false hopes. Get a reality check, you know?’ I mean, you can picture JFK saying, ‘We can’t go to the moon, it’s a false hope. Let’s get a reality check.’ It’s not, sort of, I think, what our tradition has been.”

— Sen. Barack Obama, in a forthcoming interview on Good Morning America, about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

[From Extra Bonus Quote of the Day]

quote of the day

I’m conditioned to know exactly what each of the beeps mean and what device they come from, even when they’re quite similar…. I can imagine the bragging now — “I just caught my first Nokia N70 receiving a text message in the wild, they’re not even offered by US carriers!”

On ubiquitous electronic beeping:

I’m conditioned to know exactly what each of the beeps mean and what device they come from, even when they’re quite similar. Maybe one day identifying objects by their beep will be a discipline akin to identifying birds by their call. I can imagine the bragging now — “I just caught my first Nokia N70 receiving a text message in the wild, they’re not even offered by US carriers!” [From Life by the beep]

links for 2008-01-06