Armadillo Reticence

Moved to WordPress

2007-04-24T10:11:00.000+01:00

I have finally set up WordPress. Until further notice, my blog lives at http://blog.raz.cx/ and the RSS feed at http://blog.raz.cx/?feed=rss2

2007-04-24 10:26 UPDATE: There's also an atom feed at http://blog.raz.cx/?feed=atom

Movie: 300

2007-02-21T22:06:00.000Z

In the previous post, I mentioned that I'd attended a private screening of 300; here is a review of sorts.

Some preamble and disclosure: I have been meaning for a while to post reviews of movies that I've particularly enjoyed, not because I assume that I have anything amazingly important to say about them, and not to promote them per se (any more than I would when talking enthusiastically with friends in a pub about a movie that I've enjoyed), but for the same reason that I blog in the first place: to put myself in a position where what I write will be visible publicly and with my name on it because doing so shapes my writing in a way that nothing else does. Reviewing movies is an obvious topic for me because I enjoy cinema. I've been meaning to start doing so for a while, in fact I very nearly did after watching Children of Men, which I found rather moving. I feel the need to write this preamble as a disclaimer of sorts because the situation is unusual for me (I've rarely attended a pre-release screening, and never with the director present) and because the possibility of a perception of bias, indeed the possibility of actual bias, bothers me. I fully intended to write about it - whether I liked it or not - when I accepted the invitation for bloggers to attend. I loved the film, it is even possible that my appreciation was enhanced by the exclusive nature of the screening and the presence of the director, whose own enthusiasm for his work was obvious. What bothers me is:

that part of me feels as though I "should" blog about it (the invitation came to me as a blogger, albeit a less "influential" one than the promoters perhaps had in mind) because not doing so would be rude, despite the invitation being on a no-strings basis
in particular that a film where there is at least the possibility of [the perception of] bias is the one where I am first overcoming inertia and actually writing a review; perhaps I should simply view this as a helpful expedient, had I not accepted this invitation, I'd still not be reviewing films
that in publishing a review of a film where I had more and earlier access to than the general public (if IMDB is to be believed, it doesn't open in the UK until March 23, and the director will not be present for Q&A at public screenings, of course) I'll be publishing a review of an experience not available to the public generally; granted, professional reviewers seem comfortable with this as a neccessity (to be commercially interesting, reviews must be written and published before cinematic release).

Clearly I'm taking this all too seriously. Suffice it say that this review may be biased by my having attended free of charge, well in advance of public release, with a Q&A with the director. There was even free grog.

So, the film.

It is a movie adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name, which in turn tells the story of a group of 300 volunteer Spartan soldiers who took on the Persian army of ~1 000 000 at a narrow pass (the "Hot Gates") at Thermopylae in 480BC. According to the director (Zack Snyder), the adaptation is very close, with the notable exception of the addition of the Spartan Queen and therefore of scenes featuring her. The film (I assume through following the novel) introduces several historical inaccuracies, however the gist remains real enough; a minute force of Greeks, notably 300 Spartans, undertakes a suicidal mission which provides the bulk of the Greek states with the time, and perhaps even some inspiration, to subsequently defeat the Persian army. Even when the 700 Thespians are factored back in, the ratio comes in at about 1:1 000; this makes even the 1:20 ratio at the Battle of Long Tần appear unimpressive. Granted, the Aussies were a little more successful in that latter battle.

The film itself is, per its graphic novel inspiration, visually stunning. It is pretty violent, but no more so than the story would appear to require. The colour, film grain and lens proximity choices (there are long shots, but not many) are spot on and make for a gorgeous look. The soundtrack was flawless and, as Snyder suggested, was played loud in the preview; whether audiences will get the same treatment after release remains to be seen. With the exception of an opening shot (the arrival of a Persian messenger), the entire movie was shot on bluescreen, apparently at Icestorm in Montreal (where The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne was shot entirely indoors, entirely on HD, on green rather than blue of course).

The extensive blurb (press-kit?) provided to people attending the screening includes "Facing insurmountable odds, their valor and sacrifice inspire all of Greece to unite against their Persian enemy, drawing a line in the sand for democracy". During the Q&A, this was mentioned and Snyder acknowledged that the Spartans weren't exactly democratic, that perhaps freedom was a better word to use. It seems to me that the reference democracy holds, despite the fact that the Spartans themselves were not particularly democratic, for a number of reasons:

freedom and democracy, in any form, tend to be correlates; freedom is an essential precondition for any form of democracy, some form of democracy often arises where people are somewhat free; to the extent that the Spartans' action sustained freedom, it sustained an essential condition for democracy
a line in the sand (well, on a map) really was drawn by this action and, in that it happened to protect Athens, that was a line in the sand for democracy just as much as it was for freedom, or for Sparta; had this line not been drawn, the Persians would have crushed Athens, and Athenian democracy with it.

Also, the primary (well, loudest) arguments against regarding Sparta as democratic (apart from the fact that they didn't think of themselves this way anyway) are about the status of women, slaves and resident aliens. Note however that women have had the vote in most western democracies for less than a century, resident aliens today ordinarily have not merely no political rights, but severely constrained economic rights and, while no western democracy openly tolerates slavery (any more), the status of lawfully highly-indebted low-wage earners is somewhat more constrained than that of their better off country-men and, of course, actual (if illegal) slavery is in evidence throughout the world. Further, as western democracies tend to be "representative" rather than "radical", it can be argued that they are actually oligarchies rather than democracies. Advancing this argument is clearly ad hominem on my part and does demonstrate that the Spartans' action supports democracy; my point is rather that many of the people who reflexively object to the depiction of the Spartans' action as supportive of democracy are likely to be implicitly viewing Sparta, and for that matter Athens, as lesser societies than current-day western democracies when, perhaps, the comparison paints current western democracies in a rather less favourable light than those objectors imagine.

Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the film and wholeheartedly recommend seeing it. I will seek brevity in future reviews.

Whoosh!

2007-02-21T18:06:00.000Z

{{ The sound of another month speeding past... }}

Well, I am now back in the UK, am finally resident in London and have just accepted a job offer which will see me spending almost as much time in south-east Asia as in the UK over the next few months. Travel appears to be becoming a habit.

Here's what I've been up to (highlights, anyway):

Attended the rest of LCA2007.
Spent a week in Auckland, stayed with Camilla, attended my cousin Chris's wedding to Andrea, met/caught-up with various family (John, Joey, Tania, Stephen, Samantha, Graham, Cheryl, Mary), caught up with David Garnier. Went out with Camilla and David (on different evenings :-)) to go dancing; the only dancing that I did all trip in fact. Visited Devonport, Te Aroha, Paeroa, and travelled some of the way up the Coromandel Peninsula. Had an unexpected encounter with the North Shore Hash House Hussies.
Feb-1: Dinner in Chinatown with Chris Wood, John Malouf, Nyssa, Simon Rumble. Drinks with the above plus Christian and assorted ProgSoccers.
Feb 2: Spent the afternoon lurking at Blackbird; caught up with Janelle, Chris Thill, Sbug, Josh and family. Dinner at Rosalina's Italian Restaurant in Newtown with Silvia, Christian, Jane, Chris, Cathy, David, Alexander, Brad. Roberto was a saint; he didn't bat an eyelid at the sheer amount of noise that Alexander managed to make after dinner.
Feb-3: Brunch at Micky's Cafe in Paddington with Jane, Chris, James Vodanovich, Terry, Mary and a small fleet of sprogs. Afternoon tea with Roland (yes, another one), Amita and two offspring; this included a walk in the Chinese Garden of Friendship. Drinks with Adesh at the Hilton's Zeta bar (I was a little underdressed, I fear). Dinner at Had to Happen in North Sydney (North Sydney is even more dead on a weekend than I recalled; parking was available right outside the restaurant) with Michel, Linda, Kearon, Erika, James Davidson, Ian Woolf.

(Spent those three nights and Jane and Chris' great, newly acquired, apartment in Woollahra.)

Dug trenches and laid pavers at Dad's place. (What, you don't dream about travelling halfway across the world to landscape family members' gardens? :-) Actually, a day's hard physical labour in hot, humid conditions was a nice change, at least in that it felt good to (a) complete something and (b) stop.)
Feb-6: Lunch with Lydia. Dinner at Billu's Indian Eatery in Harris Park with Denny, Marina, OB, Paul Peterson, Wendy, Stuart, Christian and Bronwyn.
Feb-8: Back at Blackbird, lunch with Sammy, Tony Horton. Dinner at Il Cugino in Leichhardt with David Littlejohn, Psyke, Colin Panisset, Nathan, Ros, Anthony Rumble, Jedd, John Elliot, Christian.
Feb-9: After checking in at Mascot, coffee with Mum, Dad and Tony Macinante.

Thanks to everyone who made time to catch up! Apologies to anyone I've forgotten to mention.

Feb-10/11: A stopover in Bangkok. What a place! Hot, humid, smelly, vibrant, crowded, fascinating. I can't wait to go back; which it now appears that I'll do rather soon.
Had the longest jetlag recovery time that I ever recall having (passed out early on four consecutive nights).
Saw a private screening of 300 (thanks Hugh!); an incredible story, a visual feast. Loved it.
Feb-17: Made my first foray into the London Ceroc scene (Chiswick Town Hall). As anticipated, there are plenty of good dancers here, which pleases me immensely.
Feb-18: Chinese New Year celebrations in London (which now just means "hop on the tube for half an hour" rather than "spend hours in transit each way") with Chris and Angie. Threw throw-downs about the place, which I've not done since I was a child. Discovered the Prince Charles Cinema just off Leicester Square which runs recent, but not most-recent, films for as little as £1.50. Saw Volver (fun) and Little Miss Sunshine (riotous; the trailers don't do it justice).
Feb-20: Wandered back to the Prince Charles Cinema to see Manhattan (yes, I like Woody Allen films).

Phew!

{{ A message on a "use new Blogger" nag page that came up after I logged in suggests that the old UI and, more importantly, the ability to continue to use blogger.com without a gmail account and thus without accepting a cookie from google.com, will be removed as of my next login. If so, my procrastinating about shifting to WordPress may be about to come to an abrupt end and my intention to return to posting daily may not bear fruit for a couple of days. }}

Calvin and Hobbes on creativity

2006-11-20T10:35:00.000Z

Can't find the cartoon, however:

Calvin: “You can't just turn on creativity like a faucet. You have to be in the right mood.”
Hobbes: “What mood is that?”
Calvin: “Last-minute panic.”
- Bill Waterson

Indeed.

UPDATE 2007-02-02: Thanks Rado, the comic is here.

Catching up...

2007-01-18T01:49:00.000Z

Wow, it's been a month since I've posted. Things have been exciting. I've

vacated my Reading apartment
spent Christmas with Martin, Elaine and co.
flown to Sydney
had an additional family Christmas gathering on 27-Dec
spent a few days in Illawong with James, Christian (photos), Jane and Chris; walked up Kosciouszko
spent about five days in Perisher Huette with Anand, Geeta, Pran, Kathy, Aiden, Mum, Dad, Brad, Dave (photos), Cathy, Alexander, John, Rebecca and Elle; walked up Twynam and performed maintenance on the geocache
am now staying at Brad's place in Coogee and attending LCA2007

Here are some bits and pieces:

Creative Commons music can be found at Jamendo, Opsound, Common Content and (for a price) Magnatune (thanks to Jacinta Richardson for the links).
When Britain and France nearly married (thanks to Ovlov for the link).

Body impact timelines for quitting smoking, drinking cola

2006-12-18T11:00:00.000Z

Intriguing descriptions of the short-term effects of quitting smoking and drinking cola.

(via a crick in the net)

Links for 2006-12-09

2006-12-09T09:19:00.000Z

A NAS "bridge" board. (thanks to Colin McCormack for the link)
Kosciuszko Park's centenary. (Intriguing: the ABC and the Park's Plan of Management disagree about the size of Snowy Mountains National Chase; 160 vs. 300 square km. Unfortunately the 1906 Gazette is not available online.)
An adjustment on the earlier linked Complex life on Earth may have been spawned by an ecological disaster ~250 million years ago. I missed the discrepancy between the article's heading (disaster "spawned" complex life) and its body (disaster increased the "proliferation" of complex life, upping the complex:simple ratio (on what scale?) from 1:1 to 3:1). A loosely related article by the same author speculates that the end of a glaciation ~550 million years ago led to a boom in phytoplankton, which oxygenated the air and thus the water, which made way for more complex life (hard shells, mobility, ...) to arise in the first place.

Maintaining other Debain releases in chroots

2006-12-05T13:59:00.000Z

This question came up on the mvpmc-users list in response to my throwaway comment:

The VLC in Debian Sarge (0.8.2) doesn't appear to be able to do this. Instead I fished whatever version happened to be in sid yesterday (0.8.6).

My reply:

On Tue, 2006-12-05 at 14:12 +0100, Marc wrote:
Roland --

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 19:13:21 +0000, "Roland Turner (mvpmc-users)" wrote:

> I maintain a number of chroot environments (one each for woody, sarge,
> etch and sid) on my machine:
> 
> - created with debootstrap
> 
> - some cleverness with bind mounting /tmp and /home, plus some tweaking
> of /etc/passwd, provides an equivalent-to-host environment
> 
> - accessed with dchroot

Would you mind sharing that bit with the cleverness? I currently run a server with sarge,
for peace of mind. I experimented with VLC on my laptop and enjoy it a lot, but I'd prefer
 to run it on the server.

Was googling around a bit with debootstrap and dchroot as my keywords, but no result... 
The following is from memory. I suggest that you peruse the relevant documentation (man pages, etc.) at each step to verify (a) that you understand what you're doing and (b) that I haven't goofed.

# apt-get install debootstrap dchroot
# mkdir -p /chroot/sid
# debootstrap sid /chroot/sid
# echo 'sid /chroot/sid' >>/etc/dchroot.conf
# cat /etc/debian_version
# dchroot -c sid
# cat /etc/debian_version

Note (check!) that the Debian version changed.

At this point, you've got the basics up and running. You still have a superuser shell, but you're inside a chroot with a copy of sid in it.

# vi /etc/apt/sources.list

Set up relevant sources for sid and save

# apt-get update
# apt-get install vlc
# vipw

Place a copy of your personal account from your "real" /etc/passwd. In particular, be careful to preserve your UID.

# vigr

Put your personal username into whatever groups you require.

# ^D
# cat /etc/debian_version

Verify that you're back in the real root.

# vi /etc/fstab

Add:

/home /chroot/sid/home none bind 0 2
/tmp /chroot/sid/tmp none bind 0 2
/var/local /chroot/sid/var/local none bind 0 2
proc /chroot/sid/proc proc defaults 0 0

N.B.:

/home will mean that your normal non-root-user environment continues to work; this is the reason for preserving your UID.

/tmp gives you access to the local X server at /tmp/.X11-unix/X0

/var/local may not be of interest to you; I keep all kinds of useful stuff there.

# mount -a

$ dchroot -d -c sid
$ vlc somefile.mpeg

Voila!

- Raz

A seasonal use for those excess business cards

2006-12-04T11:39:00.000Z

I was talking with Shalin and Fazny last weekend about the whole "we've had 1000 business cards printed, we'll never actually use that many" problem that most people have encountered at one time or another. I was reminded of my time at Discreet, the 1500 (!) cards that each engineer was issued with and what one of my colleagues (J I think, Mark vdB may have been involved) did with some of his one Christmas. Teams throughout the company were invited to decorate a tree for the lobby, this entry was one of a couple (both from R&D) that didn't actually look like a Christmas tree:

Threshers revisited

2006-12-02T12:22:00.000Z

So, the coupon that I mentioned last week has been downloaded 800 000 times! Hugh has created a monster! Says BBC:

Queues have formed at one store while the Threshers website has crashed under the strain of demand for the offer.
"It was never intended to get this big," a company spokesperson said.

The company admits it is slightly concerned about the popularity of the offer.

Threshers' website appears to be down as I type...

(thanks to Fazny for the link)

Thresher's word-of-mouth campaign

2006-11-25T13:52:00.000Z

Of particular interest to UK residents planning to stock up on wine/champagne for Christmas; Threshers is offering 40% off purchases between November 30 and December 10 to anyone who presents this coupon. There is no mainstream advertising for this, it appears to be aimed particularly at those "in the know".

(Note that the link is to Stormhoek, a South African wine maker which has been successfully building its UK brand with Hugh Macleod's help, almost entirely on his Hughtrain's markets-as-conversations basis. It sounds as though Stormhoek is gradually persuading Threshers of the value of the approach. Well done Hugh!)

A repeat of the Starbucks fiasco (free coffees for friends and family, which got out of hand, which led to the cancellation the offer) seems unlikely; this is "only" a 40% reduction, and noting that it can't be used in combination with the existing 3-for-2 offer (33.3% reduction) which covers most/all of their wine anyway, really does look like a promotion rather than a giveaway. Still, if you're aiming to stock up for Christmas anyway, and Threshers is convenient to you (my only local bottlo is, in fact, a Threshers), an extra 6-7% off is not to be sneezed at.

Enjoy.

(via gapingvoid)

UPDATE 2006-12-02: Hugh wrote the Hughtrain, not the Cluetrain...

Travelling at the speed of Wikipedia

2006-11-30T13:47:00.000Z

Upon reading the New Scientist article about the Antikythera mechanism's purpose it occurred to me to wonder whether it was mentioned in Wikipedia. In the time that it took for me to:

locate the appropriate article,
notice that it went straight from the abacus to Schickard's mechanical calculators without mentioning the Antikythera mechanism and
work out how to add a discussion section to suggest adding a reference to the Antikythera mechanism,

someone else had come along and added a paragraph on the mechanism to the article itself!

Amazing.

Links for 2006-11-30

2006-11-30T13:12:00.000Z

Anti-matter creation observed in a star system.
A 10% weakening of the conveyor current may have caused the recent mini-ice-age. The claim about removing a vital climate-change skeptic's argument seems like a strawman; my understanding is that clerical errors alone are enough to account for the hook in the hockey stick graph, an argument about the absence of the mini-ice-age is only only a supporting one, not a "vital" one.
Antikythera, a 2200-year-old mechanism recovered from an ancient shipwreck, appears to have been an eclipse calculator.

Links for 2006-11-29

2006-11-29T13:08:00.000Z

Keith Packard's Repository Formats Matter (making a strong case for git) and Tyrannical SCM selection (making a case against democratic decision making; I'm reminded of my Discrete Mathematics lecturer's even stronger demonstration of democracy's inapplicability to mathematics). (Thanks to Anand for the links.)
Dave Winer suggests what Crash 2.0 might look like.

Sun's Simon Phipps in London, 20-Dec

2006-11-28T10:36:00.000Z

(Simon is Sun's Chief Open Source Officer)

The BCS Open Source Specialist Group is arranging a talk by Simon on, you guessed it, opening Java. I'll be there.

Links for 2006-11-28

2006-11-28T09:03:00.000Z

How cocaine is made. The best anti-drug video ever? I'm not so sure. Plenty of people eat sausages and chicken "nuggets" despite knowing what they are. Still, the amount of petrol/gasoline used is remarkable.
Makezine's Open source gift guide. Cool! (Thanks to Jedd for the link.)
Mark Cuban finally posts something link-worthy :-) An analysis of which of a local newspaper's customers are most strongly bound to it (i.e. local display ad buyers, vs. national display ad buyers - which Google etc. have on their radar - and classifieds buyers - which Craigslist has already grabbed) and how to derive new benefit from it. Interesting.

Links for 2006-11-25

2006-11-25T13:10:00.000Z

The Stunt Train SEO Marketing Manifesto, a potted summary of the SEO school of thought; no so much how to tweak your web pages to get better rankings, but how to structure your business/activity as a whole to that end. (via gapingvoid)
Rodrigo Dauster's Elusive Customer Manifesto, which points out in not so many words that ignoring the cues and information that customers provide continually in favour of intrusively asking for the same information (surveys, call centre scripts for common transactions, polls, ...) is dumb, a blog post Brands should learn from my wife which offers some motivating examples. (via gapingvoid)
Complex life on Earth may have been spawned by an ecological disaster which, unlike previous ones, happened to occur when more complex species with higher resource requirements were ready to appear (and the removal of competition from simpler species paved the way). This reminds me of ideas about the sudden increases in personal power (and what we'd now call human rights) following the Black Death in medieval Europe; that the sudden reduction in population allowed former serfs to acquire productive land cheaply.
Litvinenko appears to have had radioactive polonium in his system (Po-210, half life is 138 days, rather than decades or millenia for other isotopes). This is a little odd; pre-mortem his doctors had already publically eliminated heavy metals, in particular thallium.

Links for 2006-11-24

2006-11-24T09:45:00.000Z

Bruce Perens petitions Novell to renegotiate its deal with Microsoft.
The 800 bed development in Perisher gains an approval. (The article says "approved a $112 million concept plan"; it is not clear whether this is a formal DA or more an agreement in principle, but it would suggest that the development is now [near-]certain.)
A group of scientists establishes a series of connections between gasses released from a fissure in Iceland in 1783/4, an unusually cool northern winter (through increased albedo), lowered water levels in the Nile and possibly even drought in India. This work provides a predictive model for the consequences of eruptions at northern latitudes, a counterpart to existing models for the northern consequences of tropical eruptions.
The laws of simplicity. (Life simplification, etc.)
DRM is dead, sort of (son of DRM?): "the new model for us is partnership. It always was, I’m just not sure we got it". (via Boing Boing)

On Novell's open letter

2006-11-22T09:31:00.000Z

I've just posted this to the SCLUG list:

On Tue, 2006-11-21 at 23:05 +0000, ed wrote:

> personally i'm in mixed minds about novell now. i cannot decide if their
> intentions are good or evil.
>
> http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/community_open_letter.html
>
> from the above they want to make it appear that their ideas are good and
> pure.

Novell is not in a position where it can admit "it is our intention to
co-operate with Microsoft in destroying its only serious platform
competitor, thereby helping Microsoft to re-establish its effective (and
unlawful) monopoly". Consequently, no useful information about Novell's
actual intentions can be gleaned from Novell's stated intentions.

> am i right in thinking that the gpl now prevents Novell from
> distributing gpl'd code, since they have an alliance with a company now
> that is taking/trying to take action against gpl'd code distributors...
> all seems like a big mess now.

RTFL!

Note in particular clause 7. If Microsoft is maneuvered into actually
suing someone for patent infringement over use of non-Novell Linux, and
wins (so it becomes established in law that running Linux does require
licenses on Microsoft patents), then Novell will have to abort (or at
least suspend) its Linux business overnight:

GPLv2> For example, if a patent
GPLv2> license would not permit royalty-free redistribution
GPLv2> of the Program by all those who receive copies
GPLv2> directly or indirectly through you, then the only way
GPLv2> you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
GPLv2> refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

Note that this is a constraint on Novell's activities, not a constraint
on its licensees' activities; consequently Novell can't escape this
particular constraint by indemnifying its licensees (customers). This is
different to a prohibition arising from co-operation with an attacker
that you suggest; such measures are being discussed for protection
against DRM and patents in GPLv3.

It is conceivable that Microsoft is planning to do this to Novell, but I
suspect that it's more likely that Microsoft is aiming to repeat the FUD
campaign that it has already waged under the SCO banner (which requires
that the game be played for an extended period; the FUD being more
valuable than victories in court). It will, no doubt, successfully FUD
at least some customers into choosing Windows over Linux.

Note also that it may in fact be pure FUD, that Microsoft may have no
patents that a court will uphold against Linux distributers.

Some thoughts on the open letter:

Novell> Our interest in signing this agreement was to
Novell> secure interoperability and joint sales agreements,
Novell> but Microsoft asked that we cooperate on patents as
Novell> well, and so a patent cooperation agreement was
Novell> included as a part of the deal.

This is a non-sequiter. To see why, imagine that it had said "but
Microsoft asked that we cooperate on large-scale armed robbery as well,
and so the hiring of a few hundred mercenaries was included as a part of
the deal". It is not enough to state that a term was included at the
other party's request; by virtue of acceding to this request (and
signing the deal) Novell has itself implicitly asserted that this is a
reasonable term, despite any spin that it's now trying to put on it.

Novell> We disagree with the recent statements made by
Novell> Microsoft on the topic of Linux and patents

Oh dear, how astonishing. Perhaps Novell's lawyers are so inept that
they neglected to even form an opinion on, and/or discuss with
Microsoft, the possibility of patent infringement in distributing Linux.

- Raz

MediaMVP and DVDs, via VLC

2006-10-13T16:50:00.000+01:00

I've been playing for a little while with a Hauppauge MediaMVP (running mvpmc).

Amongst several other things that I wanted it to do was to play a DVD sitting in my notebook's drive on the MVP (and thus on my TV+stereo). The device is supposed to be capable of playing DVDs directly from the VOBs (via NFS or SMB) but I was also interested in using VLC's transcoding. There is built in support for using VLC on a more powerful machine to perform various sorts of on-the-fly transcoding, but the cases in which it will do so are hard-coded and not at all user controlled. After a while, I realised that I could get VLC to make the stream available via HTTP and just connect the MVP to the HTTP stream, as long as the stream was one that the MVP's hardware could decode in real time. To find out what parameters to use I poked around inside the mvpmc source. Here is what I came up with:

$ /usr/bin/vlc --vlm-conf vlc.cfg -v -I telnet

(the "-I telnet" prevents a gui from appearing) where vlc.cfg contains:

new foo broadcast enabled
setup foo input dvd:@2:1-
setup foo output #transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=2048,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:5212}}
setup foo option sout-http-mime=video/mpeg
control foo play

This is pretty much a template for setting up network streams in VLC; note in particular the 2Mb/s MPEG-2 video- and 192Kb/s MPEG audio- streams in a Transport Stream (TS) container, per the MVP's hardware spec. The resulting stream is available to the MVP as http://notebook:5212/. There are some open problems, of course:

No DVD menus.
Playing starts immediately when vlc is launched, rather than waiting for the MVP to connect. There are options for VLC to provide video-on-demand, however the documented examples that I've found so far all depend on RTSP which mvpmc doesn't support.
Somewhere a codec is playing up, there's a lot of green as new objects enter a scene. It looks as though the green remains until the next I-frame. This is apparently not uncommon for broken codecs, but I've not yet isolated the at-fault component.
(Not critical) The VLC in Debian Sarge (0.8.2) doesn't appear to be able to do this. Instead I fished whatever version happened to be in sid yesterday (0.8.6).

UPDATE 2006-11-17: New improved all-in-one script:

#! /bin/sh

if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
source=dvd:@2-
else
source="$1"
shift
fi

/usr/bin/vlc "$@" --audio-language eng -v -I telnet --vlm-conf /dev/fd/0 <<EOF
new S broadcast enabled
setup S input "$source"
setup S output #transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,scale=1,acodec=mpga,ab=160,channels=2}:standard{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:5212}
setup S option sout-http-mime=video/mpeg
control S play
EOF

Sun, Java and GPLv2

2006-11-17T10:00:00.000Z

I just posted a comment on Cringely's pulpit which (a) ended up being a little long and (b) had its formatting dropped. Here is what it was supposed to look like:

> Because this isn't your father's GPL,
> that's why. Sun put Java under GPL v.2,
> which gives the original licensor some
> unique rights.

Gnu GPLv2 is now 15 years old and covers substantially _ALL_ software that's under any version of the Gnu GPL (indeed, I had trouble locating a copy of the text of GPLv1). This has been the case since before the term "open source" entered wide use.

(It's possible that you're thinking about GPLv3 but (a) it's still a draft and (b) it's even more hostile to the sort of co-opting that you describe.)

What Sun's actually done, and what almost no company before them has done, is to bend over backwards to do this right. They've resisted the siren-song of corporate counsel who feel the need to FUD their employer into paying them to invent entirely new legalise, which doesn't interoperate with anyone else's legalise. (My own failure to convince Zawinski that a GPL dual-license was a good thing for Mozilla still smarts; it meant that for the first couple of years of the Mozilla project (until dual-licensing took place, after Zawinski quit), Gnome developers were shut out completely. This experience has perhaps biased me, but to see a major corporate source drop done right is fantastic.)

Further, note that Sun hasn't merely pinned the tail on a politically-correct GPLv2 donkey, they've gone through this in excruciating detail to get it just right. Instead of taking the "obvious" LGPLv2.1 option for the libraries, they've taken note of the existing practice by other open-source Java projects and adopted GPLv2 with "the classpath exception". With respect to the transition period for their own libraries (they hold outright copyrights in the compiler and VM, but the libraries contain encumberances which will take time to remove, so they've not made a library release yet), they've worked with the Software Freedom Law Center to craft a specific exemption that avoids trapping applications atop the standard APIs becoming GPLv2 encumbered when shiped _with_ the open-source Sun VM under GPLv2 and closed Sun libraries.

The legal groundwork that they've done is exemplary; it's really, really impressive. Someone inside Sun has asked some open-source/free-software advocates how it _should_ be done, and then listened very closely to the answer(s).

> Say you extend Java, under GPLv2 the way to
> give your improvements to the world is by
> giving them back to Sun.

No, your obligation is to make the complete source for the modified work available to your own licensees under the terms of the GPLv2. Note that Sun will not accept contributions into their _own_ source tree unless you sign a contribution agreement granting them what amounts to co-ownership. (You lose no rights, other than the right to sue Sun for using your work; Sun gains equal rights.) This is actually a weaker requirement than the FSF itself requires for contributions to the GNU project (they require outright assignment). In Sun's case it allows them to solve the sticky problem of continuing to service their paying customers for whom GPLv2 is a non-option (primarily embedded software developers). I wish I'd known about this variant of dual-licensing in 1998!

(Note also that Sun has the good sense/fortune to own almost the entire JRE+JDK outright; Mozilla had far more encumberances in 1998, so the GPLv2 was never going to work as the only option. They ended up releasing an eviscerated source tree anyway (wouldn't even build), but this is as much about how widespread the encumberances were as about licensing limitations. This takes nothing away from the brilliance of what Sun has actually done.)

> Or, if you'd like to keep those changes to
> yourself, it requires negotiating a non-GPL
> license with Sun, which means you'll have to
> PAY Sun to USE YOUR OWN CODE.

Here copyright and property concepts get a little muddled (and thus Stallman's railing against the term "intellectual property"). If you keep your changes to yourself, or only distribute them within your own organisation, then the GPL does not oblige you to do anything. Indeed it cannot, as a naked license (not a contract/agreement), it cannot impose obligations unless you are performing an act (e.g. distribution) that is controlled by copyright law. Note that "use" is _not_ controlled by copyright law, and therefore not restricted by GPL.

On the other hand, if you want to take Sun's source, create a derivative work and distribute it without GPL obligations then, yes, Sun offers an option which involes money changing hands. Note that the difference with other projects using the GPL (Linux, GNU toolchain, EMACS, ...) is that there is _no_ legal way to distribute your derivate work without GPL obligations (most projects' copyrights are too widespread to get get unanimous consent (not hypothetical; it's actually been tried with the Linux kernel) and the FSF would point-blank refuse), so Sun is providing an additional option (for a fee) not extracting monies for activities that would otherwise be free of charge.

> Under GPLv2 Sun benefits significantly more
> than it would have under the original GPL.

No, GPLv2 was essentially a cleanup of GPLv1.

> Sun controls the code, it controls forking,

No, it doesn't. Anyone is free to fork it tomorrow. Seriously.

> and anyone who wants a special deal has to pay.

True, this option exists. For most projects using GPLv2, anyone who wants a special deal simply can't get one. This plays nicely into the hands of proprietary software developers. Sun's approach avoids this competitive exposure.

> For a product that was generally given away,
> anyway, going with GPLv2 will probably make
> Sun more money -- probably a LOT more money
> -- than the company would have made by
> keeping the source closed.

Perhaps. The JRE+JDK was a loss-leader from the outset; the intent was to get adoption as widespread as possible so that they could sell related products and services. Sadly, they were obsessively focussed on preventing forks, which meant no open-source licensing, which severely curtailed reach amongst their largest natural constituency (developers with horizons wider than "we use it because it comes from Microsoft"). Sun has at last realised this error, realised that trademark law makes it possible to prevent forks from creating confusion, perhaps even realised that the ability to fork is a good thing, not a bad thing (Stallman himself opposed the EGCS changes to gcc, until that group forked gcc, refined the approach and convinced everyone that it was a better approach; Stallman finally relented, so EGCS is now known as gcc version 3).

So, big picture, yes, if opening the most widely used Java implementation (a) releases a lot of pent up demand (there was so much that there are already open-source implementations of most of the JRE+JDK) and, (b) more importantly, leads to the embrace of Java by a lot of open-source developers who have to date carefully avoided it because of Sun's stance, then yes, the platform's presence will enlarge and Sun's related-products-and-services revenue will increase substantially. This is good for Sun, good for the open-source community and good for the free-software movement. In fact it's good for just about everyone except Microsoft.

Links for 2006-11-16

2006-11-16T09:58:00.000Z

Medieval nanotubes! It seems that the forging and annealing techniques used by Saracens to make their remarkable sabers actually resulted in the creation of nanotubes and nanowires in the [wootz] steel.

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.

2006-11-14T11:48:00.000Z

{{ Another "I've fixed this before, but had trouble remembering how, so here it is for posterity" post. }}

I periodically encounter this, particularly in chroots:

perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
LANGUAGE = "en_AU:en_US:en",
LC_ALL = (unset),
LANG = "en_AU"
are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").

The cause is that /etc/environment contains:

LANGUAGE="en_AU:en_US:en"
LANG=en_AU

The fix is to run

# dpkg-reconfigure locales

and to turn on some useful locales (en_(AU|GB|US) with various UTF-8/8859-1/8859-15 character sets in my case).

Links for 2006-11-13

2006-11-13T19:46:00.000Z

A new study suggests that space elevators may have a problem for human passengers: the Van Allen radiation belts. Not only is the radiation considerably stronger at the equator than elsewhere but, more importantly, anticipated space elevator speeds (think high-speed train, just vertical) are about a hundreth of rocket speeds, thus increasing single-trip radiation exposure to potentially lethal levels.

Sun's J2SE under Gnu GPLv2, TODAY!

2006-11-13T10:33:00.000Z

I can't help having an "I'll believe it when I see it" response to this news but, allegedly, just seven hours from now Sun will make a partial j2se source release under the Gnu GPLv2. A live webcast is scheduled for 10:30am PT (5:30pm UTC) today and according to Tim Bray:

Unmodified GPL2 for our SE, ME, and EE code. GPL2 + Classpath exception for the SE libraries. Javac and HotSpot and JavaHelp code drops today. The libraries to follow, with pain expected fighting through the encumbrances. Governance TBD, but external committers are a design goal. No short-term changes in the TCK or JCP.

I wonder whether Sun will be a little more reasonable about Java trademarks than Mozilla has been about Firefox (think Iceweasel).

(via Scobleizer)