From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Tue Aug 3 06:03:36 2010 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:03:36 -0700 Subject: [buug] I/O redirection and named pipes Message-ID: <20100803060336.142930gcdqtqgz40@webmail.rawbw.com> A few things from the 2010-07-15 BUUG meeting, ... among other things discussed, I/O redirection and named pipes I/O redirection - much of what was said/covered, I've covered before, even on this list - for starters, see: http://www.weak.org/pipermail/buug/2004-June/002444.html In addition to that, a few (additional) points were made/emphasized: Order matters - I/O redirection is (mostly) processed left-to-right. Though 2>&1 can be thought of as redirecting file descriptor 2 (stderr) to file descriptor 1 (stdout), it more literally and properly means copy file descriptor 1 to file descriptor 2. Here, with strace(1), we can see what happens at the system call level. Using strace(1), and here showing only the specific calls of interest: $ strace -fv -e trace=dup2,fcntl64 sh -c '2>&1 echo -n ""' dup2(1, 2) = 2 $ strace -fv -e trace=dup2,fcntl64 dash -c '2>&1 echo -n ""' fcntl64(1, F_DUPFD, 2) = 2 $ references: sh(1), strace(1), dup(2), fcntl(2) And named pipes - rather like shell pipes, but they're a named file on a filesystem. A few points were made - need to have something reading the pipe before trying to write the pipe. The pipe stores no data on disk (file of type pipe/FIFO has no data blocks - though buffered data might be subject to being paged or swapped to disk). And a practical example. Let's say we've got a large ISO image file (e.g. DVD, but I'll use CD in this example), and we want to compute multiple hash algorithms on the file - but we don't want to have to read the file's blocks from disk multiple times (which would be inefficient in its redundant disk I/O). We can use named pipes (and a bit of use of tee(1) and asynchronous job execution). Let's say we already validated (via gpg) our files giving the hashes. I'll introduce my comments with // at the start of the line: //So, let's say we first snag information on mtime and length from //archive: $ 2>>/dev/null curl -I http://releases.ubuntu.com/lucid/ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso | fgrep 'Modified Length' Last-Modified: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:56:34 GMT Content-Length: 710412288 //Next we determine block count (2 KiB blocks for CD-ROM/R/RW) and copy //our data from CD to file: $ echo '710412288/2048' | bc -l 346881.00000000000000000000 $ dd if=/media/cdrom0 bs=2048 count=346881 of=ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso //we then set our mtime to that of the archive copy: $ TZ=GMT0 touch -t 201004271056.34 //we examine our expected hashes: $ fgrep ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso *SUMS MD5SUMS:8ee25c78f4c66610b6872a05ee9ad81b *ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso SHA1SUMS:74a8ee0a72a539d76dadb4ac2ed233e4cbf9b4df *ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso SHA256SUMS:212cdd71b95b8ee957b826782983890c536ba1fde547e42e9764ee5c12f43c2d *ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso //we create our named pipes: $ mknod p p && mknod p2 p //we start our processes reading those named pipes: $ < p > md5 md5sum & $ < p2 > sha1 sha1sum & //we then use tee(1) to feed the named pies $ < ubuntu-10.04-server-amd64.iso tee p | tee p2 | sha256sum > sha256 //we wait for our background processes to complete then examine our //results and remove our no longer needed named pipes $ wait; cat md5 sha1 sha256; rm p p2 8ee25c78f4c66610b6872a05ee9ad81b - 74a8ee0a72a539d76dadb4ac2ed233e4cbf9b4df - 212cdd71b95b8ee957b826782983890c536ba1fde547e42e9764ee5c12f43c2d - $ //We then compare - confirming all our hashes matched as expected. Left as an exercise :-) ... How could we be even more disk I/O efficient? Hint: did we really need to read the file we wrote to disk? From lemseffert at sacsewer.com Tue Aug 3 08:11:27 2010 From: lemseffert at sacsewer.com (Lemseffer. Tahar (SDA)) Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 08:11:27 -0700 Subject: [buug] PERL,FTP script Message-ID: <52CCB635EFBCEA47966C6F04568FC63A06F81DE9@cosp-m-exch13.cospub.saccounty.net> Goos Morning All, I would like to write a perl script to be able to read from a directories. Search for daily reports to be send to . Must provide a beginning day, ending day , and amonth. This script will pull reports for days and month specified. I appreciate any help Thanks ____________________________________________________________________________ EMAIL DISCLAIMER: This email and any attachments thereto may contain private, confidential, and privileged material for the sole use of the intended recipient. Any review, copying, or distribution of this email (or any attachments thereto) by other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender immediately and permanently delete the original and any copies of this email and any attachments thereto. _____________________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Thu Aug 5 17:02:24 2010 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:02:24 -0700 Subject: [buug] PERL,FTP script In-Reply-To: <52CCB635EFBCEA47966C6F04568FC63A06F81DE9@cosp-m-exch13.cospub.saccounty.net> References: <52CCB635EFBCEA47966C6F04568FC63A06F81DE9@cosp-m-exch13.cospub.saccounty.net> Message-ID: <20100805170224.13034d6toxry8cu8@webmail.rawbw.com> > From: "Lemseffer. Tahar (SDA)" > Subject: [buug] PERL,FTP script > Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2010 08:11:27 -0700 > I would like to write a perl script to be able to read from a > directories. Search for daily reports to be send to . Must provide a > beginning day, ending day , and amonth. This script will pull reports > for days and month specified. Well ... FTP is rather messy protocol, and format of results returned - e.g. directory listing - can and do vary greatly depending upon operating system and/or FTP server software, nevertheless ... Various perl modules - e.g. from CPAN will likely come in very hand. Perl certainly has WWW::Mechanize ... not sure if it includes FTP protocols, but it might, or there may be other modules that would well deal with FTP. Perl also has an expect module, which might also be quite useful. There are also local Perl user groups, e.g.: San Francisco Perl Mongers http://sf.pm.org/ Silicon Valley Perl http://www.svperl.org/ Oakland Perl Mongers still has a list, though they've not met regularly in quite a while: http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/oakland From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Thu Aug 5 18:27:17 2010 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 18:27:17 -0700 Subject: [buug] A bit more[1] on named pipes In-Reply-To: <20100803060336.142930gcdqtqgz40@webmail.rawbw.com> References: <20100803060336.142930gcdqtqgz40@webmail.rawbw.com> Message-ID: <20100805182717.16287kycpp3jsqkg@webmail.rawbw.com> Some more practical named pipe examples. Here's scenario I used to semi-regularly encounter. A large database. It's desired to do a full dump of the database, but the particular database can only do that by writing to a named file - it has no provision to write to stdout. Due to the size of the database, it's desired (or required) that the output be compressed (e.g. pack(1), compress(1), gzip(1), bzip2(1), or what have you). It's also desired to avoid all the double I/O of writing to uncompressed file on disk, then reading that whole file to then write to compressed file. There may also be insufficient room to have both the uncompressed and compressed file around at the same time or there may even be insufficient room to have the uncompressed file around at all on disk. So, dumping such a database via named pipe to compressed file, something like this: $ mknod p p $ < p > dbdump.bz2 bzip2 -9 & Launch database dump, telling it to write to file p (our named pipe) we created. The named pipe (p) can be removed after our compression (bzip2) process has completed. A highly similar procedure can be used to reload database that has same type of limitation - where the database only knows how to read an uncompressed file, and cannot do the load via stdin: $ mknod p p Launch the database load, telling it to read from file p (our named pipe). This will need to be left running until we're done doing our uncompress (bzip2 -d) and the load has completed. Note also that it will block on I/O until something starts writing to the pipe, then it will proceed. We then do: $ < dbdump.bz2 > p bzip2 -d Once the uncompress (bzip2 -d) has completed and the database load has completed, we can then remove our named pipe (p). (Actually, if we remove it earlier, as long as we do so after the processes reading and writing it already have it open, we're actually okay. It would just persist as an unlinked open file[2] until it's no longer open by any processes). Here's another example, relatively similar to before. I'd just created debian-505-amd64-netinst.iso by using jigdo[3][4] - specifically jigdo-lite(1) and mounted image debian-505-amd64-CD-1.iso which had also itself been earlier created with jigdo-lite(1) and likewise been validated. I wanted to validate the debian-505-amd64-netinst.iso image against the hashes it should match, and I also only want to only read that file once to do so. So, I proceed as follows ... note also that the lines below starting with > are PS2 (secondary prompt), not I/O redirection: $ mknod p p $ mknod p2 p $ mknod p3 p $ < p > md5 md5sum & [1] 2996 $ < p2 > sha1 sha1sum & [2] 2997 $ < p3 > sha256 sha256sum & [3] 2999 $ < debian-505-amd64-netinst.iso tee p | > tee p2 | > tee p3 | > > sha512 sha512sum; wait; cat md5 sha1 sha256 sha512 [1] Done md5sum < p > md5 [2]- Done sha1sum < p2 > sha1 [3]+ Done sha256sum < p3 > sha256 2de6321d0e9ab431f59b0c95eb84cc2c - 03f97c6284d50dc799dbcc5d873c2ab9aaa5c404 - 111039bd95fb68a0426c8dcb1f4ae2d147ade092d01f9f2a3bfe790849b0d02a - ba6663987664833b026dd149172c690b5fdc5cf637c9039391571dd40ba046d805b704ffa572974b0fff4643042c0e05112d50d57bf96fdd388b40c961c1f673 - $ rm p p2 p3 $ I then compare those hashes above with hashes in files I validated via gpg signatures, and I find that they indeed match. footnotes/references: 1. continuing from: http://www.weak.org/pipermail/buug/2010-August/003639.html 2. unlink(2) news:56d4652c-8f86-45e6-90b4-0b7e212a484a at v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com 3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jigdo 4. Downloading Debian CD images with jigdo http://www.debian.org/CD/jigdo-cd/ From ezekielk at goct.net Fri Aug 13 17:51:49 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:51:49 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco Message-ID: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> I'm sure everyone hear already is aware of the excellent whistle-blowing by Wiki Leaks, but now we have "El Blog Del Narco": "MEXICO CITY ? An anonymous, twentysomething blogger is giving Mexicans what they can't get elsewhere ? an inside view of their country's raging drug war." Read the rest of the article here: http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20100813/LT.Drug.War.Mexico.Narco.Blog/ The actual link to El Blog del Narco is: http://www.blogdelnarco.com/ I'd say that Wiki Leaks and El Blog Del Narco are two excellent examples of how the use of open source services (wikis and blogs) and an open Internet, empower individuals who are passionate for justice to be served. Such potent tools never existed before, and couldn't come at a better time when our conventional news sources have failed their duty to keep citizens informed, including as whistle blowers against gov't, military, religious and corporate skulduggery. Even for individuals, such as myself, in a time when all local progressive activism has been usurped (for the most part) by egotistical, self-serving libertarian types who really have no sense of justice or democracy, and only see such groups as stepping stones towards some sort of career, celebrityhood, or (gasp) sabotage. If you have something to say, do not wait in some imaginary line in hopes of having your voice heard in a newspaper, local gathering, or radio call-in. Just go straight to the Internet, where you will discover many effective venues to contribute your proposals, philosophy, and maybe even some startling revelation that is the hallmark of courageous whistle blowers everywhere. -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com -- "Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content." -Robert Thomson, Wall Street Journal, Charlie Rose Show, 2009-02-11 -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com -- "Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content." -Robert Thomson, Wall Street Journal, Charlie Rose Show, 2009-02-11 ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From grayarea at reddagger.org Fri Aug 13 20:04:47 2010 From: grayarea at reddagger.org (John Withers) Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:04:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> On Fri, 2010-08-13 at 17:51 -0700, Zeke Krahlin wrote: > If you have something to say, do not wait in some imaginary > line in > hopes of having your voice heard in a newspaper, local > gathering, or > radio call-in. Just go straight to the Internet, where you > will ... Here, let me fix that for you: Just go straight to a low traffic topical newsgroup and hijack it... There ya go. From ezekielk at goct.net Sat Aug 14 03:01:36 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 03:01:36 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> Message-ID: <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting John Withers : > Just go straight to a low traffic topical newsgroup and hijack it... > > There ya go. Jeez, I wasn't even considering newsgroups, since they are no longer a viable venue for contributing worthwhile comments (for the most part). I'd suggest progressive and liberal web forums, such as Alternet.org, Commondreams.org, and Buzzflash.org...where you'll be guaranteed of reaching a wide audience that is also thoughtful, intelligent, and passionate about justice. Though I may be wrong: hijacking a low traffic newsgroup just might drum up the desired attention...depending on your intent and subject matter. I might use some newsgroups as a handy adjunct...though you need to find those relevant to your interest, that are not submerged in a sea of spam, or ravaged by right-wing extremists and nasty trolls. Some worthwhile newsgroups do remain relatively undamaged, still...so I'm not knocking newsgroups entirely, and I thank you for your suggestion, John. There are numerous other excellent forums and wikis one can participate in, that deal specifically with Inernet security, Linux issues, social media, and so on. Such as: OLPC (1 Laptop per Child) http://laptop.org/en/participate/index.shtml Pirate Radio Party http://smf.rantradio.com/index.php?board=21.0 Open Source & Linux Forums http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ Ubuntu Forums http://ubuntuforums.org/ Hope Forums (includes hacktivist topics) http://talk.hope.net/ Of course, those I just mentioned are a ridiculously tiny drop in the bucket, as there are *countless* excellent forums and wikis out there that enable a poster to become politically or socially empowered, if you are truly passionate about a cause. No waiting for your raised hand to be noticed in a large sea of folks at a noisy gathering (where if you are noticed, you get maybe 60 seconds to speak your mind and heart); no waiting to see if, perchance, your important letter to the editor gets choses among hundreds, to be printed; no exhaustive and often failed attempts to create your own group of like-minded folks, where you really only have wasted a heck of a lot of time for nothing, perhaps even paying big bugs to reserve a room for your hopeful gathering that never pans out. You need to select a forum with intelligent members...that would be those of a progressive bent. Then, you need to see just how large the online community is. Check how often ideas/comments are posted...you want a daily or weekly avalanche of posters, not a forum with just a few dozens comments per week. You should also make sure the forum permits comments of essay length, no less. You certainly don't want to be limited to a few lines or paragraphs, when you have something important to disseminate. And you might consider *not* settling for just one forum community that proves to be your cup of tea. You could find two, or even three, forums dealing with the same interest, that are all worthy of your contributions. Finally: You can also start your own blog with a ready-made, large community of users, activists, and experts. Such as Wordpress, Blogspot, and LiveJournal. And in the case of wiki hosting, check out this list of popular wikis (some free): http://wiki.wetpaint.com/page/Wiki+Hosting Also this: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms And this: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From itz at buug.org Sat Aug 14 10:35:42 2010 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:35:42 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools Message-ID: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> Does anyone know of a usable free tool for this task? I have tried: ufraw rawtherapee rawstudio darkroom They All Suck. Not only so, They All Suck Really Bad! I feel like browsing the www before Mozilla. In terms of image processing algorithms and quality of output, rawtherapee seems best, but the UI is absolute madness. -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From rubinson at email.arizona.edu Sat Aug 14 10:54:27 2010 From: rubinson at email.arizona.edu (Claude Rubinson) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:54:27 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <20100814175427.GL2128@wagner> On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 10:35:42AM -0700, Ian Zimmerman wrote: > > Does anyone know of a usable free tool for this task? I have tried: Jon Corbet did a Grumpy Editor's Guide to Working with Raw Images a few years back, so it'll be dated but perhaps nevertheless useful: http://lwn.net/Articles/227852/ Entire series of Grumpy Editor's guide is at http://lwn.net/Articles/grumpy-editor/ Claude From itz at buug.org Sat Aug 14 11:19:03 2010 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 11:19:03 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> (Ian Zimmerman's message of "Sat, 14 Aug 2010 10:35:42 -0700") References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> Joseph Zitt: > Image processing is a rather wide scope. What are you trying to do? The things the camera firmware does for you if you take JPEG images. That usually includes most (ideally, all) of the following: 1. demosaicing 2. sharpening 3. noise reduction 4. white balance adjustment 5. saturation adjustment 6. exposure adjustment 7. restoration of detail in highlights and (especially) shadows 8. scaling down to a resolution suitable for output 9. exporting to JPEG or TIFF typically the tool has a "batch" mode where you save your settings and then apply them en masse to a whole collection of images (otherwise, doing all of the above steps manually would be far too time consuming). GIMP has a lot of these algorithms, but it can (currently) only work on 8-bit images, which means you lose some color resolution before you even start, and GIGO applies. That's why the specialized tools exist. -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From jzitt at josephzitt.com Sat Aug 14 12:33:09 2010 From: jzitt at josephzitt.com (Joseph Zitt) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:33:09 -0400 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: You're probably already quite aware of it, but IIRC, this is what the Apache-licensed ImageMagick [1] is designed to do. But I don't know if it has limitations that would be an issue for you. [1] http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php (hoping I got this footnote email notation right). On Sat, Aug 14, 2010 at 2:19 PM, Ian Zimmerman wrote: > > Joseph Zitt: > > > Image processing is a rather wide scope. What are you trying to do? > > The things the camera firmware does for you if you take JPEG images. > That usually includes most (ideally, all) of the following: > > 1. demosaicing > 2. sharpening > 3. noise reduction > 4. white balance adjustment > 5. saturation adjustment > 6. exposure adjustment > 7. restoration of detail in highlights and (especially) shadows > 8. scaling down to a resolution suitable for output > 9. exporting to JPEG or TIFF > > typically the tool has a "batch" mode where you save your settings and > then apply them en masse to a whole collection of images (otherwise, > doing all of the above steps manually would be far too time consuming). > > GIMP has a lot of these algorithms, but it can (currently) only work on > 8-bit images, which means you lose some color resolution before you even > start, and GIGO applies. That's why the specialized tools exist. > > -- > Ian Zimmerman > gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD > fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD > Ham is for reading, not for eating. > _______________________________________________ > Buug mailing list > Buug at weak.org > http://www.weak.org/mailman/listinfo/buug > -- Joseph Zitt ::http://www.josephzitt.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ezekielk at goct.net Sat Aug 14 13:01:04 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Sat, 14 Aug 2010 13:01:04 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <20100814130104.196079ye1gjayl8g@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting Ian Zimmerman : > ufraw > rawtherapee > rawstudio > darkroom > > They All Suck. Not only so, They All Suck Really Bad! I feel like > browsing the www before Mozilla. Worst case scenario, Ian, is running a Windoze image editor under Wine. Don't know *how* sophisticated your needs are, but I find Irfanview a most useful editor for my own images...has tons and tons of features. Runs excellent via Wine. And, it's freeware. http://www.irfanview.com -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From itz at buug.org Sun Aug 15 11:04:07 2010 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:04:07 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: (Joseph Zitt's message of "Sat, 14 Aug 2010 15:33:09 -0400") References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <87d3tjlpm0.fsf@matica.localdomain> Joseph Zitt writes: Joseph> You're probably already quite aware of it, but IIRC, this is Joseph> what the Apache-licensed? ImageMagick [1] is designed to do. But Joseph> I don't know if it has limitations that would be an issue for Joseph> you. Joseph> [1] http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php (hoping I got Joseph> this footnote email notation right). Debian bug 575837 [1] seems to establish that Graphicsmagick, at least, has the same 8-bit limitation as GIMP. I'm not quite sure that this applies to Imagemagick as well, will check. [1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=575837 -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From itz at buug.org Sun Aug 15 11:38:45 2010 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:38:45 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87d3tjlpm0.fsf@matica.localdomain> (Ian Zimmerman's message of "Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:04:07 -0700") References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87d3tjlpm0.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <8739uflo0a.fsf@matica.localdomain> Ian> Debian bug 575837 [1] seems to establish that Graphicsmagick, at Ian> least, has the same 8-bit limitation as GIMP. I'm not quite sure Ian> that this applies to Imagemagick as well, will check. Looks like this is: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=557879 -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From rick at linuxmafia.com Mon Aug 16 14:25:41 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:25:41 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> Message-ID: <20100816212541.GH18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Ian Zimmerman (itz at buug.org): > GIMP has a lot of these algorithms, but it can (currently) only work on > 8-bit images, which means you lose some color resolution before you even > start, and GIGO applies. CinePaint is a GIMP fork for 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit raster images. Might be useful in conjuction with, say, UFRaw. My understanding is that the big problem with raw raster formats is that they aren't standardised. Adobe's Digital Negative Format (DNG) might become a commodity standard for that purpose, but hasn't persuaded the camera manufacturers, yet. From rick at linuxmafia.com Mon Aug 16 14:33:47 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:33:47 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (ezekielk at goct.net): > Jeez, I wasn't even considering newsgroups, since they are no longer > a viable venue for contributing worthwhile comments (for the most > part). Only if you use a terrible, worthless NNTP service provider, e.g., Google Groups ne DejaNews. Which of course form the basis for most badly informed comments on the subject. > I'd suggest progressive and liberal web forums, such as > Alternet.org, Commondreams.org, and Buzzflash.org...where you'll be > guaranteed of reaching a wide audience that is also thoughtful, > intelligent, and passionate about justice. The inherent technical problems with Web forums are pretty much fatal to intellectual content: excruciatingly bad threading, effectively no killfile or scoring feature, and centralised control tending to reinforce a high degree of groupthink and social conformity. From sami at juvonen.org Mon Aug 16 14:35:37 2010 From: sami at juvonen.org (Sam Juvonen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:35:37 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <20100816212541.GH18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> <20100816212541.GH18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <4C69AF29.4070105@juvonen.org> On 08/16/2010 02:25 PM, Rick Moen wrote: > Quoting Ian Zimmerman (itz at buug.org): > >> GIMP has a lot of these algorithms, but it can (currently) only work on >> 8-bit images, which means you lose some color resolution before you even >> start, and GIGO applies. >> > CinePaint is a GIMP fork for 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit raster images. > Might be useful in conjuction with, say, UFRaw. > If non-free but Linux-supporting software is an option, check out LightZone. http://www.lightcrafts.com/lightzone/ I've dabbled with it a little, but not enough to fork over the cash (yet). Their support is responsive though. -s. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ezekielk at goct.net Mon Aug 16 15:15:17 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:15:17 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <1281825405.1997.0.camel@vulcan> References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <20100814130104.196079ye1gjayl8g@webmail.gct21.net> <1281825405.1997.0.camel@vulcan> Message-ID: <20100816151517.94963o8096c20ar4@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting PR : > drop wine, and use virtual box by sun/oracle. > just a thought ;) works for me I will see; I think there are certain RAM requirements my netbook couldn't meet, but it's been almost two years since I played with it. Now, I also have a real laptop (16" screen) w/3G RAM and 2Gh CPU...so I definitely *will* resume my virtual box adventure. I just needed someone to remind me; thanks Ian. -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ezekielk at goct.net Mon Aug 16 15:38:35 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:38:35 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting Rick Moen : > Only if you use a terrible, worthless NNTP service provider, e.g., > Google Groups ne DejaNews. Which of course form the basis for most > badly informed comments on the subject. Definitely, standard news service remains the superior medium. Unfortunately, the majority of quality newsgroups have been wiped out by spammers, trolls and whatnot. I have new server access via my dialup service, and all the groups that I posted and read in the past, are useless. But it's been a while since I've run a news client, and I should check out what groups of interest may indeed still be viable. > The inherent technical problems with Web forums are pretty much fatal to > intellectual content: excruciatingly bad threading, effectively no > killfile or scoring feature, and centralised control tending to > reinforce a high degree of groupthink and social conformity. You'd think forums like Slashdot would have worked this out by now...it's certainly not technologically impossible to build a web-based forum that resemble the efficiently of your old-school text-based BBS forums. It has indeed been my frustration with posting to most web-based forums because of their overall kludginess. But I was also thinking in terms of online communities...and where one can find reasonably active and large forums where you'd have the best chance of like minds reading your posts. And they *are* out there...you just need to sift through so many bad forums, to find the few good apples. But you're right, web based forums have none of the efficiency of text-based ones that once ruled the day. I know someone else still on dialup from home...an old SF friend who returned to his home town of Philly nine years ago...and he finally took my suggestion of dropping Netzero for his service, and switch to goct.net (the one I've been using for over five years now). Goct provides not just reliable dialup, but a news server for no extra charge, with tens of thousands of groups to pick from. Unfortunately, he has no experience with Usenet, and is having trouble wrapping his mind around it. So it will be a while, before he realizes how useful newsgroups can be, for his cartooning skills, music interests, Linux, etc. Guess I'm still upset that most ISP's dropped Usenet as part of their standard (or any other) package. During those times I used dialup w/o Usenet server access, I resorted to Dejanews...truly a headache and a half. Took at least 10 times longer to read and post, than via a text-based client. I gave up my preferred custom of reading lengthy threads, and pared down the number of groups I subscribed to. Now that I have standard Usenet access again, things have changed for the worst, re. quality of the content. Still, I'm glad to have that access. -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblolg.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rick at linuxmafia.com Mon Aug 16 15:54:49 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 15:54:49 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (ezekielk at goct.net): > > >Only if you use a terrible, worthless NNTP service provider, e.g., > >Google Groups ne DejaNews. Which of course form the basis for most > >badly informed comments on the subject. > > Definitely, standard news service remains the superior medium. > Unfortunately, the majority of quality newsgroups have been wiped > out by spammers, trolls and whatnot. Again, _not_ when you are using a well-administered news feed, which accepts cancels from trusted sources. > I have new server access via my > dialup service, and all the groups that I posted and read in the > past, are useless. You probably need a better news feed. Most ISPs cannot be bothered to administer NNTP service, let alone competently, because it is no longer a trendy service, i.e., it's seen as costing money and expertise without being strongly in demand. > You'd think forums like Slashdot would have worked this out by > now...it's certainly not technologically impossible to build a > web-based forum that resemble the efficiently of your old-school > text-based BBS forums. Actually, text-based BBS forums suffered from nearly all of the ills that I cite, equally as much as 'Web boards' do -- and I speak as a longtime BBS sysop. > But I was also thinking in terms of online communities...and where > one can find reasonably active and large forums where you'd have the > best chance of like minds reading your posts. Actually, 'like minds' are part of the problem. Ideological echo chambers are a huge waste of time -- and it's difficult to imagine anything more stultifying than talking solely to people who share my views. (Of course, you do not agree.) The reliance on 'handles' instead of something approaching real-world identities also does little to elevate the tone of discussion. In any event, Web forums have all of the cited inherent techological drawbacks. Plus, they tend to have very low Web-search rank, plus they make it gratuitously difficult to preserve an independent copy of one's postings for reference and archival purposes[1]. Plus they have a tendency to fold up and disappear, taking all of your work, and all of your participation, with them when they collapse -- and typically you end up walking away without even the means to re-establish contact with the fellow former participants, because your sole means of contact was via the Web forum (unless you've taken active measures to the contrary, as I do when I put my real name and real contact information at the bottom of all Web-media posts). From itz at buug.org Mon Aug 16 20:16:56 2010 From: itz at buug.org (Ian Zimmerman) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:16:56 -0700 Subject: [buug] Raw image processing tools In-Reply-To: <20100816212541.GH18988@linuxmafia.com> (Rick Moen's message of "Mon, 16 Aug 2010 14:25:41 -0700") References: <87y6c9umfl.fsf@matica.localdomain> <87tymxukfc.fsf@matica.localdomain> <20100816212541.GH18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <87fwyeudw7.fsf@matica.localdomain> >>>>> "Rick" == Rick Moen writes: Rick> CinePaint is a GIMP fork for 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit raster Rick> images. Might be useful in conjuction with, say, UFRaw. Indeed! I suspect that, as so very often, you've started the subthread that will lead to the eventual solution :-) Rick> My understanding is that the big problem with raw raster formats Rick> is that they aren't standardised. Rick> Adobe's Digital Negative Format (DNG) might become a commodity Rick> standard for that purpose, but hasn't persuaded the camera Rick> manufacturers, yet. That may be a big problem from the big picture, "world domination" point of view. It is not a problem for me since dcraw (and ufraw which uses dcraw code for the initial import) recognizes the native formats of both my cameras, as well as DNG which one of them can be prodded to output. So my problem really is just finding a tool that can efficiently edit a normal format (tiff or ppm) but at 16 bit depth. -- Ian Zimmerman gpg public key: 1024D/C6FF61AD fingerprint: 66DC D68F 5C1B 4D71 2EE5 BD03 8A00 786C C6FF 61AD Ham is for reading, not for eating. From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Mon Aug 16 21:14:20 2010 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 21:14:20 -0700 Subject: [buug] BALUG TOMRROW! Tu 2010-08-17 BALUG meeting; & other BALUG news Message-ID: <20100816211420.18064s6nvygxfou8@webmail.rawbw.com> BALUG TOMRROW! Tu 2010-08-17 BALUG meeting; & other BALUG news In this issue (details further below): 2010-08-17 Tu: TOMORROW! BALUG meeting Linux/Ubuntu CDs 2010-08-21 Sa: Picn*x 19 - The Linux 19th Anniversary Picnic ------------------------------ Bay Area Linux User Group (BALUG) meeting Tuesday 6:30 P.M. 2010-08-17 Please RSVP if you're planning to come (see further below). For our 2010-08-17 BALUG meeting, at least presently we don't have a specific speaker/presentation lined up for this meeting, but that doesn't prevent us from having interesting and exciting meetings. Sometimes we also manage to secure/confirm a speaker too late for us to announce or fully publicise the speaker (that's happened at least twice in the past five or so years - including last month's meeting). Got questions, answers, and/or opinions? We typically have some expert(s) and/or relative expert(s) present to cover LINUX and related topic areas. Want to hear some interesting discussions on LINUX and other topics? Show up at the meeting, and feel free to bring an agenda if you wish. Want to help ensure BALUG has speakers/presentations lined up for future meetings? Help refer speakers to us and/or volunteer to be one of the speaker coordinators. Good food, good people, and interesting conversations to be had. So, if you'd like to join us please RSVP to: rsvp at balug.org **Why RSVP??** Well, don't worry we won't turn you away, but the RSVPs really help the Four Seas Restaurant plan the meal and they help ensure that we'll be able to eat upstairs in the private banquet room. Meeting Details... 6:30pm Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 2010-08-17 Four Seas Restaurant http://www.fourseasr.com/ 731 Grant Ave. San Francisco, CA 94108 Easy PARKING: Portsmouth Square Garage at 733 Kearny: http://www.sfpsg.com/ Cost: The meetings are always free, but for dinner, for your gift of $13 cash, we give you a gift of dinner ticket to join us for a yummy family-style Chinese dinner - tax and tip included (your gift also helps in our patronizing the restaurant venue and helping to defray BALUG costs such treating our speakers to dinner). ------------------------------ We'll also have various Linux/Ubuntu CDs available at the 2010-08-17 BALUG meeting (and likely also future meetings as long as our supply lasts/continues), most notably presently including: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) Desktop CD PC (Intel x86) i386 (also at least some Fedora, Knoppix, and other Ubuntu variants presently) Thanks to Grant Bowman and the Ubuntu California Team for getting CDs to us. ------------------------------ 2010-08-21 Sa: Picn*x 19 - The Linux 19th Anniversary Picnic http://www.linuxpicnic.org/ ------------------------------ Feedback on our publicity/announcements (e.g. contacts or lists where we should get our information out that we're not presently reaching, or things we should do differently): publicity-feedback at balug.org ------------------------------ http://www.balug.org/ From pi at berkeley.edu Mon Aug 16 23:27:42 2010 From: pi at berkeley.edu (Paul Ivanov) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:27:42 -0700 Subject: [buug] archiving postings In-Reply-To: <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <4C6A2BDE.9090909@berkeley.edu> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Rick Moen, on 2010-08-16 15:54, wrote: > preserve an independent copy of one's > postings for reference and archival purposes[1] Hi Rick, did you mean to include a link there? was just curious about what that might have been. best, Paul Ivanov -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkxqK90ACgkQe+cmRQ8+KPc2fACgi2lKtKWXO+h0XbNzMJclzpq3 W8AAn26KuT/hsAghm6S1+/1Q8KWBa4Lp =M8Xe -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- From rick at linuxmafia.com Mon Aug 16 23:46:56 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010 23:46:56 -0700 Subject: [buug] archiving postings In-Reply-To: <4C6A2BDE.9090909@berkeley.edu> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <4C6A2BDE.9090909@berkeley.edu> Message-ID: <20100817064655.GL6071@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Paul Ivanov (pi at berkeley.edu): > > preserve an independent copy of one's postings for reference and > > archival purposes[1] > > did you mean to include a link there? was just curious about what that > might have been. Hi, I did -- but I wasn't actually sure it would be of interest. Here's an example of sorts: Back in 2002, I'd been invited to participate in a private newsgroup, linux.astcomm.net on NNTP server news.astcomm.net (now long defunct). Because I was using a good netnews client, I had automatic local copies of my postings -- which was a good thing, because a number of those threads were ones with long-term value that I had use for in the future. About six months later, I found myself drawn into an inadvertent disagreement over a point of technology with the proprietor of Advanced Systems Technology Communications (ASTcomm), owner/operator of the NNTP server, that turned acrimonious for reasons I didn't understand until later: He'd been talking up the merits of Real Networks's Helix Server, Helix Producer, and RealPlayer software as the only practical and cost-effective means of doing streaming media. I did not agree, gave counterexamples of alternative software that is open source, does not suffer the disadvantage of vendor lock-in, isn't from firms with track records of spying on customers, builds on actual open standards, and even scales better. He heatedly claimed I was completely wrong; I showed particulars to demonstrate that I was not -- and he summarily ordered me off his NNTP server, to my amazement. What I hadn't figured out was that his _clients_, to whom he'd sold the expensive, proprietary Real Networks solution, were reading the thread, and that accordingly I'd embarrassed him and shown him to have given them really bad business advice. Anyway, getting back to the local copies of postings: Having that local copy, I was able to very easily concatenate them and turn them into a Web page for reference: http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info2/astcomm.html A short while later, the guy took down the NNTP server, so it's doubly a good idea I had that. By contrast, it's real work to keep an independent archive of Web-forum postings you think you might want to keep around even if, say, the Web forum itself folds up its tents in the night without notice, as so many do. From ezekielk at goct.net Tue Aug 17 14:16:45 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:16:45 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <20100817141645.20153d1ms59kwuww@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting Rick Moen : > Actually, 'like minds' are part of the problem. Ideological echo > chambers are a huge waste of time -- and it's difficult to imagine > anything more stultifying than talking solely to people who share > my views. (Of course, you do not agree.) On the contrary. That's why I feel my presence here, matters. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From ezekielk at goct.net Tue Aug 17 14:57:30 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 14:57:30 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting Rick Moen : > You probably need a better news feed. I don't think so; I've tried some commercial ones. Even when most of the trash and spam are snipped away, on many formerly useful newsgroups, what relevant posts remain, are quite scant. Not like the old days. Of course, *some* newsgroups remain that are worth one's time...but that is a relative handful compared to the total number of groups available. > Most ISPs cannot be bothered to administer NNTP service, let alone > competently, because it is no longer a trendy service, i.e., it's seen > as costing money and expertise without being strongly in demand. And they saw *to* it that Usenet would never be trendy, by so quickly eliminating that option. Google saw it's value: still does, at the cost of new users never knowing what Usenet really was, and should be...and having to put up with phenomenally awkward browsing and posting. > Actually, text-based BBS forums suffered from nearly all of the ills > that I cite, equally as much as 'Web boards' do -- and I speak as a > longtime BBS sysop. I was also a sysop of several boards during that era...not simultaneously, mind you. Still, I found BBS message boards far more workable than web-based boards.You would prefer Usenet format as the best...and I would like to see that, too. > Actually, 'like minds' are part of the problem. Ideological echo > chambers are a huge waste of time -- and it's difficult to imagine > anything more stultifying than talking solely to people who share > my views. (Of course, you do not agree.) The reliance on 'handles' > instead of something approaching real-world identities also does little > to elevate the tone of discussion. Seriously now, Rick, you seem far more intent on disproving anything I post, than speaking the truth. How on earth could I agree with such a false remark like this one? You know, I really should have to explain what I meant, it would seem totally clear to anyone, but there you go once more, muddying the waters as if your pretentious veil impresses anyone as to your superior intellect. But here goes: Say one seeks help and support re. insomnia. If he's lucky these days, he can find it in a medically or socially oriented newsgroup. (By "lucky" I mean, if all such formerly-useful newsgroups have not been sabotaged by spam and trolling.) Or if a gay person living in rural Amerika seeks a break from our pathetically macho society, he would seek some sort of gay friendly newsgroup. Of course, there are "like minds" in these newsgroups...else there'd be no need to break them down into specific topics. Why, even mailing lists (such as the very one in which you participate) lives by the same rule: to attract like minds by a topical group name. In our case, that is Berkely Unix User Group...which I presume, is intended to attract people who have a common interest in Unix. Now, what I believe *you* (oh excellent IQ king that you surely are...it's just your EQ that I question) mean by 'like minds' are those groups that turn into self-serving cliques. There is always that danger in most any group...and I suggest that perhaps BUUG like any group, is not immune to such an unsavory outcome. > In any event, Web forums have all of the cited inherent techological > drawbacks. Plus, they tend to have very low Web-search rank, plus they > make it gratuitously difficult to preserve an independent copy of one's > postings for reference and archival purposes[1]. That is most certainly not true in every case. The are some very large and successful forums such as Alternet.org and Ubuntu Forums, where I often find my search results pointing to their boards (political topics for the former, and of course Linux topics for the latter). There are numerous other highly successful web forums out there, I know of them, and such forums are easy enough to track down via a simple search. Plus, one can always save one's posts (and that of anyone else) in his own text file or database. Which is what I do. But in a backdoor way, you've affirmed the thesis of my original post: that is one wants the best chance of having his voice hear in a public venue, use the Internet, and find the most popular ones know for their thoughtful and intelligent posts. Usenet just doesn't cut it any more. Sorry. I wish it did! > typically you > end up walking away without even the means to re-establish contact with > the fellow former participants, because your sole means of contact was > via the Web forum (unless you've taken active measures to the contrary, > as I do when I put my real name and real contact information at the > bottom of all Web-media posts). And it is just such "measures to the contrary" that others use, on those forums that really matter. Granted, person-to-person contact is not facile as it was in pre-web, but I still think the odds are much better striking up new online allies via the better forums, than our now spam-ravaged Usenet. You are aware of course that many Usenet denizens use fake email addies. But I guess pointing that out wouldn't make your argument appear so solid. In conclusion: I would never dream of steering someone who seeks a voice, to Usenet exclusively, or even more than a secondary resource. And my original post covered all this, in a nutshell. As well as being a celebration of how open source has helped in a big way, towards democratizing cyberspace. Thanks to all the brilliant Unix wizards such as yourself (whether or not sometimes seeming way too full of themselves to the point of driving away potential future OSS/anti-M$ advocates). -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From grayarea at reddagger.org Tue Aug 17 15:22:00 2010 From: grayarea at reddagger.org (John Withers) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:22:00 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> > Thanks to all the brilliant Unix wizards such as yourself (whether or > not sometimes seeming way too full of themselves to the point of > driving away potential future OSS/anti-M$ advocates). > Actually, Zeke, at least in one case, it is you driving people away. Your thinly veiled political rants aren't what I have the bandwidth or time for in a technical forum. And the funny part is that I am pretty sure we share most of our political world view and I actually agree with you. But this is a technical users group and in that capacity the signal to noise ratio has gotten too high for me. You initial post that started this thread said nothing at all that any tech doesn't already know, and was a thinly veiled political rant you were foisting off on us, probably for our own "good" as well as to get attention, and has degenerated into a ton of noise. I have been signed up here for the last 9 years, but now I am off. Be well all. -j From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue Aug 17 15:36:28 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:36:28 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <20100817223628.GZ18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (ezekielk at goct.net): > Quoting Rick Moen : > > >You probably need a better news feed. > > I don't think so; I've tried some commercial ones. For example? > Even when most of > the trash and spam are snipped away, on many formerly useful > newsgroups, what relevant posts remain, are quite scant. Not like > the old days. Of course, *some* newsgroups remain that are worth > one's time...but that is a relative handful compared to the total > number of groups available. That much, I'll certainly agree with. However, all it takes is a couple of worthwhile groups to make Usenet worthwhile. The existence of several thousand others that don't interest you is rather beside the point. > And they saw *to* it that Usenet would never be trendy, by so > quickly eliminating that option. Google saw it's value: still does, > at the cost of new users never knowing what Usenet really was, and > should be...and having to put up with phenomenally awkward browsing > and posting. I honestly don't know what Google thought they were going to do with DejaNews. Possibly, they didn't, either -- which would account for how it was quickly sidelined in favour of Google's own groups. > I was also a sysop of several boards during that era...not > simultaneously, mind you. Er, by 'sysop', you do _not_ mean 'person who constructed, owned, and administered the system', right? You mean something like 'nanny for a message section on someone else's BBS', I'd guess. I knew all of the BBS sysops in the Bay Area, and you weren't one of them. Of course, you could have been elsewhere, of course -- but, if you'll pardon my being a bit blunt, I'd be really, really surprised if you had the technical knowledge to run them, let alone build them. If you nonetheless say you put together BBSses, and did so multiple times, then I believe you, but I'm surprised. When I say I was a longtime BBS sysop, I refer to The Skeptic's Board, which I constructed, funded, owned, and administered for about six years. It was BinkleyTerm with several FTN memberships, RBBS-PC for the main software, Tim Pozar's Fidogate to communicate directly with Usenet and SMTP, and a whole bunch of other software kludged in. > >In any event, Web forums have all of the cited inherent techological > >drawbacks. Plus, they tend to have very low Web-search rank, plus they > >make it gratuitously difficult to preserve an independent copy of one's > >postings for reference and archival purposes[1]. > > That is most certainly not true in every case. Thus the term 'tend', which you seem to have missed. > The are some very large and successful forums such as Alternet.org and > Ubuntu Forums, where I often find my search results pointing to their > boards (political topics for the former, and of course Linux topics > for the latter). Ubuntu Forums is an _excellent_ place to get bad recommendations. It's one of my current poster-children examples for what is wrong with Web forums. http://lists.svlug.org/archives/svlug/2010-May/033353.html > There are numerous other highly successful web forums out > there, I know of them, and such forums are easy enough to track down > via a simple search. Obviously: Your unstated criteria for 'successful' probably neatly ignore my points, given your example of ubuntuforums.org. > Plus, one can always save one's posts (and that of anyone else) in > his own text file or database. Which is what I do. You are again choosing to ignore my point: You _can_ go out of your way to do so, but it's kludgy and gratuitous work, whereas with better media, it's automatic. > But in a backdoor way, you've affirmed the thesis of my original > post: that is one wants the best chance of having his voice hear in > a public venue, use the Internet, and find the most popular ones > know for their thoughtful and intelligent posts. You can take those two phrases, 'most popular' and 'known for their thoughtful and intelligent posts' and grind flour with them. > Usenet just doesn't cut it any more. 'Most popular', no. Too many cruddy ISPs can't be bothered to properly run NNTP servers, nor pay services like Supernews for their customers' access. Also, ISPs and everyone else make a whole lot more money off the Web, which is much more friendly to advertising, data-mining, and other spying on the users and selling their private data. > You are aware of course that many Usenet denizens use fake email > addies. But I guess pointing that out wouldn't make your argument > appear so solid. Once again, you are going out of your way to ignore my point: In Web forums, there is not even a provision for a real contact method, nor a convention that there's a place where a real name is _supposed_ to go (the GECOS field). Thus, the only way you can provide same on a Web forum is to go to explicit, personally initiated extra steps to provide one, e.g., the real name and real e-mail address I make a point of including at the bottom of every post. The _ability_ to use fake personal data in GECOS fields on Usenet (like pretty much everywhere else) is irrelevant to my point. > In conclusion: I would never dream of steering someone who seeks a > voice, to Usenet exclusively, or even more than a secondary > resource. Good. Send 'em to blogs and podcasts. Thank you for helping reduce the noise level on Usenet. ;-> -- Cheers, "One of the reasons it takes such a long time to make a picture Rick Moen like 'Jaws' is because it's not the time it takes to take the rick at linux take that takes the time; it's the time it takes between takes mafia.com that takes the time that takes the takes." -- Roy Scheider From ezekielk at goct.net Tue Aug 17 17:10:32 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:10:32 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> Message-ID: <20100817171032.92113att38vpgf0g@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting John Withers : > Actually, Zeke, at least in one case, it is you driving people away. > Your thinly veiled political rants aren't what I have the bandwidth or > time for in a technical forum. And the funny part is that I am pretty > sure we share most of our political world view and I actually agree with > you. But this is a technical users group and in that capacity the signal > to noise ratio has gotten too high for me. You initial post that started > this thread said nothing at all that any tech doesn't already know, and > was a thinly veiled political rant you were foisting off on us, probably > for our own "good" as well as to get attention, and has degenerated into > a ton of noise. Wrong on all counts; I don't need to defend myself whenever someone gets a hissy fit. Suffice it to say this is *not* just a technical list. (Mr. Moen even *affirmed* this point in a recent, previous thread.) That just happens to be the majority interest. *And* throwing in the occasional non-technical post is one way to invite those curious about Unix/Linux/OSS and/or considering switching from Windows to Linux. Check out the home page, says so right at the top. In fact, it was written by yours truly. If present members care to change that declaration, they are free to do so...and if you were correct re. technical talk only, it would've been edited quite a few years ago. > I have been signed up here for the last 9 years, but now I am off. Yes, and obviously it's all my fault. Thanks for the hilarious rant. > Be well all. Me too? Oh please please please don't leave me out. -- Zeke Krahlin Hilarity seeks its prey. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue Aug 17 17:25:11 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:25:11 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100817171032.92113att38vpgf0g@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100817171032.92113att38vpgf0g@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <20100818002511.GA18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (ezekielk at goct.net): > Wrong on all counts; I don't need to defend myself whenever someone > gets a hissy fit. Suffice it to say this is *not* just a technical > list. (Mr. Moen even *affirmed* this point in a recent, previous > thread.) Please don't use my name to mislead other people. Especially when you're trying to invoke one of your own cheesy misdirection ploys, this having been in a thread in March. Quotations that follow are verbatim: Zeke: I also question your conclusion that the ideological clash between FS and OSS is trivial at this point. Rick: That is _not_ what I said. In fact, I said nothing at all about 'ideological clash', which is your obsession, not mine. Zeke: You are being at least as ideological as I am. Stop pretending. Rick: Fascinating, sir! Please do tell us about my ideology, to whatever level of detail you can manage: I cannot recall having spoken to the subject with you, here or anywhere else. I'm quite sure I would have remembered. [Zeke completely ignores the question, my point having been made.] [Someone else objects to Zeke gratuitously attempting to abuse the BUUG mailing list as a place to inject his leftist politics.] Zeke: I'm surprised Rick even posted his original remark to this list, as it seems to be one for discussing technical matters and meeting announcements...not political issues, or rants. Rick: Discussion of open source, free software, the OSI, the Free Software Foundation, and Richard M. Stallman might indeed be off-topic. Novel concept, but possible. But I don't think I'm going to ask how your posting either of your recent blog links complies with your own criteria. ;-> It's a good thing that I didn't ask, because you had no answer. And, of course, my point was to politely call bullshit on the blatant hypocrisy of defending gratuitous political rants on BUUG by labelling discussion of open source, free software, the OSI, the Free Software Foundation, and Richard M. Stallman "off-topic", and _especially_ of my debunking on BUUG the blog link that _you_ posted here, sir. Your now attempting to cite said bullshit-calling as _supporting_ your continued attempt to spew political advocacy here is, if anything, even more cheeky. From ezekielk at goct.net Tue Aug 17 17:25:25 2010 From: ezekielk at goct.net (Zeke Krahlin) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:25:25 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100817223628.GZ18988@linuxmafia.com> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <20100817223628.GZ18988@linuxmafia.com> Message-ID: <20100817172525.870412ubeo54blas@webmail.gct21.net> Quoting Rick Moen : > That much, I'll certainly agree with. However, all it takes is a couple > of worthwhile groups to make Usenet worthwhile. The existence of > several thousand others that don't interest you is rather beside the > point. I have just resumed my newsgroup activites...and am searching for any useful groups that remain viable, for my topics of interest. So far, no luck...they are mostly flooded with spam. I really miss my frugal spending groups, political/philosophical discussions on gay issues, alternative medicine, conspiracy, herbal wisdom, creative writing, and so on. So far, I've founding nothing worthwhile remaining. Though I hope to find some. Granted, many of the computer-tech groups have weathered the trogloydyte invasion better than most others...and that would be your major field of interest. For me, it is just one among various others, Internet-wise. I understand all your points Rick, however I still have to conclude that you'll have much better odds with web based forums, if you choose wisely. Better than any newsgroup. I am talking about more than just getting something posted into an Internet database. I give you Wordpress as a great umbrella 'cause it is a blog service not limited to a single topic...but it does have a ready-made community with excellent tools to promote your works across that community...and across search engines. You could do a lot worse. It's popular worldwide, with a large base of intelligent users. Your odds of getting known for whatever, are much better via Wordpress, than a newsgroup. Even if there *are* some newsgroups worth reading and posting to...most of the public's attention is on web-based media, and that is where one has a better choice of gaining a popular voice. No guarantee, of course...one could be the most excellent, entertaining writer in the world, and still go unknown. In fact, I've seen many excellent blogs (and newsgroup posts) worthy of such public reknown, but it just doesn't happen. Other factors are involved. I'll stop there with examples, as you're baiting me. Please, have the last word; I need to get back to my renewed Usenet activities, see what I come up with. -- Zeke Krahlin http://zekeblog.wordpress.com ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue Aug 17 17:37:15 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:37:15 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <20100817172525.870412ubeo54blas@webmail.gct21.net> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <20100817223628.GZ18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817172525.870412ubeo54blas@webmail.gct21.net> Message-ID: <20100818003715.GB18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Zeke Krahlin (ezekielk at goct.net): > I understand all your points Rick, however I still have to conclude > that you'll have much better odds with web based forums, if you choose > wisely. Especially if you want _really bad_ technical advice. Quod erat demonstrandum. Every time I research, say, public information about Linux drivers for a wireless chipset or a printer, I dig up really bad answers on ubuntuforums.org during my searches. It's like a bad vaudeville joke that keeps repeating. http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2010-April/005462.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/conspire/2008-March/003955.html http://linuxmafia.com/pipermail/sf-lug/2010q1/007643.html Representative quotation from the last of those: By the way, I notice that people giving advice about drivers on distro Web forums, especially the Ubuntu ones, have a lamentable tendency to recommend proprietary-software solutions without bothering to mention the restricted licensing -- and often without taking the time to mention open-source alternatives. Please notice that I always try to mention _all_ solutions including the proprietary ones, and to be clear about which are open source and which aren't. > I give you Wordpress.... Eew. No thanks. From jzitt at josephzitt.com Tue Aug 17 17:54:57 2010 From: jzitt at josephzitt.com (Joseph Zitt) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:54:57 -0400 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> Message-ID: On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 6:22 PM, John Withers wrote: But this is a technical users group and in that capacity the signal > to noise ratio has gotten too high for me. Don't you mean that the signal to noise ratio has gotten too *low* for you? Or is this a negalogism, like saying that you could care less about it? -- Joseph Zitt ::http://www.josephzitt.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rick at linuxmafia.com Tue Aug 17 18:16:36 2010 From: rick at linuxmafia.com (Rick Moen) Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2010 18:16:36 -0700 Subject: [buug] El Blog del Narco In-Reply-To: References: <20100813175149.9201641r5afsmnk8@webmail.gct21.net> <1281755087.3798.414.camel@Frank-Brain> <20100814030136.10041j9u423cxmrk@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816213347.GI18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100816153835.73806cmimorl7m8s@webmail.gct21.net> <20100816225449.GM18988@linuxmafia.com> <20100817145730.89883y18uakwtvs4@webmail.gct21.net> <1282083720.9063.129.camel@Frank-Brain> Message-ID: <20100818011636.GC18988@linuxmafia.com> Quoting Joseph Zitt (jzitt at josephzitt.com): > Don't you mean that the signal to noise ratio has gotten too *low* for you? See also 'steep learning curve'. (A steep learning curve actually means that one learns _quickly_ at the beginning.) From Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu Wed Aug 18 07:59:49 2010 From: Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu (Michael Paoli) Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2010 07:59:49 -0700 Subject: [buug] Pearson Education User Group Program: Books - review copies for BUUG Message-ID: <20100818075949.18195g7kkhdzx38k@webmail.rawbw.com> These review copy books from the Pearson Education User Group Program arrived 2010-08-16, I should be bringing them to the 2010-08-19 BUUG meeting tomorrow. Official Ubuntu Server Book, The, 2nd Edition http://www.informit.com/title/0137081332 o By Kyle Rankin, Benjamin Mako Hill o Published Aug 8, 2010 by Prentice Hall. o Copyright 2011 o Pages: 592 o Edition: 2nd o Book ISBN-10: 0-13-708133-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-708133-2 o eBook (Watermarked) ISBN-10: 0-13-216798-0 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-216798-7 UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, 4th Edition http://www.informit.com/title/0131480057 o By Evi Nemeth, Garth Snyder, Trent R. Hein, Ben Whaley o Published Jul 14, 2010 by Prentice Hall. o Copyright 2011 o Dimensions: 7 X 9-1/8 o Pages: 1344 o Edition: 4th o Book ISBN-10: 0-13-148005-7 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-148005-6 Official Ubuntu Book, The, 5th Edition http://www.informit.com/title/0137081308 o By Benjamin Mako Hill, Matthew Helmke, Corey Burger o Published Jun 21, 2010 by Prentice Hall. o Copyright 2010 o Dimensions: 7 X 9-1/8 o Pages: 448 o Edition: 5th o Book ISBN-10: 0-13-708130-8 ISBN-13: 978-0-13-708130-1 Also of note: o Appears all of the above are also available as eBook (Watermarked), though I didn't spot ISBN-10/ISBN-13 numbers for some of them (see the referenced URLs). o Kyle Rankin is very active in NBLUG, and has also done talks/presentations at BALUG. o this book: UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, 4th Edition generally comes highly recommended - especially for those new(er) to UNIX and Linux systems administration, but probably also still a handy reference for those with up through at least intermediate levels of experience on any particular flavor of UNIX/Linux where they may find themselves doing systems adminstration. From grantbow at gmail.com Fri Aug 20 22:00:06 2010 From: grantbow at gmail.com (Grant Bowman) Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:00:06 -0700 Subject: [buug] LinuxPicnic.org Tomorrow, Aug 21 Message-ID: What: Picnic to celebrate the Linux Kernel's birthday When: Tomorrow, Sat, Aug 21, 2010 Where: Sunnyvale Baylands Park - http://linuxpicnic.org List of reserved tables in alphabetical order: Fedora Ambassadors - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors Haiku OS - http://haiku-os.org/ Homebrew Robotics Club - http://www.hbrobotics.org/ OLPC San Francisco - http://www.olpcsf.org Silicon Valley Perl - http://svperl.org/ Silicon Valley Wireless Users and eXperimenters - http://svwux.org/ TWiki - http://twiki.org Ubuntu California Local Community - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam Thank you to our sponsors this year. Planning is beginning for the 20th event as well. Regards, Grant Bowman From jim at well.com Tue Aug 24 07:37:03 2010 From: jim at well.com (jim) Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:37:03 -0700 Subject: [buug] BayPIGgies meeting Thursday, August 26, 2010: Instrumentation with Python Message-ID: <1282660623.3383.465.camel@jim-laptop> BayPIGgies meeting Thursday, August 26, 2010: Instrumentation with Python Tonight's talk is Instrumentation with Python by Keith Dart Meetings usually start with a Newbie Nugget, a short discussion of an essential Python feature, especially for those new to Python. Tonight's Newbie Nugget: defaultdict from the Python High-performance container datatypes, by Glen Jarvis LOCATION Symantec Corporation Symantec Vcafe 350 Ellis Street Mountain View, CA 94043 http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&ei=w6i_Sfr6MZmQsQOzlv0v&hl=en&t=h&msa=0&msid=116202735295394761637.00046550c09ff3d96bff1&ll=37.397693,-122.053707&spn=0.002902,0.004828&z=18 BayPIGgies meeting information is available at http://www.baypiggies.net/ ------------------------ Agenda ------------------------ ..... 7:30 PM ........................... General hubbub, inventory end-of-meeting announcements, any first-minute announcements. ..... 7:35 PM to 7:40 PM ................ Tonight's Newbie Nugget: defaultdict from the Python High-performance container datatypes, by Glen Jarvis ..... 7:40 PM to 8:40 PM (or so) ................ Instrumentation with Python by Keith Dart This talk overs the use of Python in test and measurement using the open-source code base "powerdroid" for illustration. This includes instrument control by IEEE-488 bus and software interfaces and includes numpy array usage and matplotlib usage. ..... 8:40 PM to 9:30 PM ................ Mapping and Random Access Mapping is a rapid-fire audience announcement of issues, hiring, events, and other topics. Random Access follows people immediately to allow follow up on the announcements and other interests.