Entries posted in July 2005

"Open Source Surveys"

Perhaps I'm too cynical, but whenever I get a mail asking me to take part in a "survey of open source users/developers/lovers" I just hit delete nowadays.

I'm reminded of this again, after seeing a survey request on debian-devel.

I'm sure some of them do learn interesting things, and are legitimate requests; but for each of the initial five or six I've taken part in I've never seen the promised results. (These are the surveys where people say "take part and I'll show you my results when they're ready").

Sure I'm insanely busy right now, but these things always seem like wastes of time. Especially when they repeat the same old things over and over again.

Perhaps I should insist on the surveyors completing a 'steve-survey' beforehand. Especially the particularly clueful person who mailed me in March asking me to take part in an "Developing Open Source Software on MacOSX Survey" - clearly she didn't even bother to read the description of the project to which my name was attached, as I've never used/developed/wanted an OSX machine in my life!

</rant>

Going to wander round computer stores, at the start of the G8 protests in Sunny Edinburgh looking for a router. The SCSI errors on the Netra are getting worse.

Network access is frustratingly intermittant.

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Route Ordered

Not finding anything local I ordered a Linksys BEFSR81 8-port router online last night.

Despite being shown as "in stock" on the site when I made the order, when I now use the tracking facility I see "awaiting shipment from supplier".

If that doesn't change by tuesday I'll cancel the order and take my business elsewhere - somewhere who can actually show their proper stock levels online.

sigh

My sun is currently running only on it's first SCSI disk, the second is offline - meaning I no longer have access to my MP3 collection… The horror!

I'm still getting random network disconnects, but I've managed to sort out the libnids1 mess, upload new revisions of late, and komi to the Debian archive.

I also released two new versions of debian-updates, and celebrated the 1000th new user on the Debian administration website.

The only thing that I didn't manage to do was stay awake for the "Make Poverty History" march in my home-city of Edinburgh - I slept in until 6pm, so I completely missed it.

Grr.

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Hardware

New router ordered and en route.

(I'm sure there's a pun just dying to be made there, but I'm too sleepy to think of it).

Software

I made an upload to the new security queue. Hope it didn't break.

Romain Francoise uploaded the new release of ngrep, which now supports IPv6.

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Haha

As time goes on I find that my favourite Simpsons character is Nelson.

He's the one that typically just pops up to say "Ha Ha!", but there are a lot of different episodes in which he's a major character, or in which he plays an important role.

One of my favourites right now is the episode in which he acknowleges his deviation from tradition and says:

HA ha! Your position has been usurped. That's right, I said usurped.

That nicely sums up how I feel.

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Sadness

Due to my continued illness (which contrary to what that post suggests is I'm 95% certain a sleep apnea sufferer - untreated. sigh.) today I put my cat up for adoption.

I am now cat free.

To say this sucks would be a complete understatement. But I cannot care for her to the level which she deserves.

I genuinely believe she will be better in somebody elses care, so I had to do it. For her.

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Endgame

Went to a club last night, I think it was a one-off, which was "Post Apocalyptic" themed.

Nice collection of beatiful people in good costumes.

I wore a pair of leather trousers, and a chainmail top. (5kg / 10lbs) I was sore when I took it off!

Left a few hours early because I was tired, but otherwise a nice night. Lots of good music, NIN, Ramstein, Ministry, etc.

Debian News

Noticed a new site in my referer logs yesterday Debian-News.net.

Seems sparse, not a whole lot of content.

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