July 2005 Archives

Last week I updated the CPAN Ratings site to use our new (beta-ish) Bitcard service. While I was at it I also finally added the "was this review helpful?" functionality. (And you can vote without refreshing the page; it's very neat).

Anyway, one thing I've noticed is that some of the reviews that gets rated as not so helpful maybe are that way because the reviewer isn't a native English speaker (native English writer?) (like me!). Would they be more helpful if they were in the reviewers native language? Most likely. (Although not in my case, my written Danish is just as bad as the English by now!)

We can add a checkbox for choosing which language you are writing in and a few filters so you can choose which languages you want to see reviews in. Seems potentially useful. The only downside I can see is that when someone reviews Authen::Bitcard in French or Chinese and gives it two stars it won't be very helpful to me as the author. Hmn.

Any suggestions or opinions?

I'm working on the slides for my Build Easily Extensible Perl Programs talk at OSCON.

Usually I use black text on a white background, just because it pleases my aesthetic senses better.

Sometimes I've read the advice that light text on a dark background is easier on the eyes. Sure that applies if the room is all dark, but the conference rooms are usually not. Isn't black text on a white background easier to read when the projection is slightly washed out from the ambient light?

update: I've posted the slides

William and Raley Torkington reports (local mirror).

(via Nathan @ IM)

We only needed one of these, not two, so: bid early bid often! It's new and unlocked; works with any GSM network anywhere in the world. :-)

(the goofy shiny black is because of the protective plastic covering; it's really a cool matte black).

I found what seems like a fair review of it...

update: for a moment I was wondering if I'd regret making it a 5 day auction rather than the standard 7 days. It already got a bunch of bids and even more page views after ~4 hours, so I guess it'll be alright. It's still a steal at $150 $212.50 $307.75, so go bid already!

Do you know everything there is to know about Linux Software RAIDs?

Please send a mail to robert at perl.org. He could save some time benchmarking if someone could help him figure out what parameters to use to setup our new disk array.

Some months ago I got a Treo 650. (Short review: It's bulky and flakier than a regular phone, but it's great).

On their support page they say Palm Desktop software is not currently available as a web download for Treo 650 smartphones. Please use the CD installer. Of course I lost my CD. Ooops. Does anyone have a disk image I can borrow?

Or maybe the new Palm Desktop Mac 4.2.1 Rev b will work? Hmn.

I watched (most of) JFK the other day for the first (and last) time.

The editing is beautiful. The way they weaves the information together is great and completely mesmerizing. I loved that. Not enough to finish watching it (and it's rare I don't finish a movie. The only movie I've even gotten close to walking out on was Crash (1996), but that's for another day...)

Anyway, back to JFK: Holy shit, that sucked!

An hour or so into it I got too annoyed with what seemed like half-baked theories, so I paused and opened a web browser to read more (gotta love using the Mac Mini as a DVD player!). And yes, indeed, the movie is full of half-truths and lies.

I think it'd have been fine if the movie wouldn't have pretended to be more factual than it is. If it wasn't so pretentious. Even Michael Moore is honest about his documentaries being opinionated. I expected more from Oliver Stone.

But damn, it was well done. If only the story they were telling wasn't so annoying. I love conspiracy theories as much as the next guy, but this was dumb.

One of the editors was Pietro Scalia who also did a great job editing Black Hawk Down. And the delightful Playing By Heart (more on that one another day).

The story in Laurel Canyon is soap opera-ish and the main story arc is painfully predictable. Nonetheless I enjoyed it, mostly be Frances McDormand sucks you in with her charm. I'm not sure if it's her charm as an actor or as the charactor. Oh, and Kate Beckinsale is beautiful to the eye in this movie. And it's amusing when they film in easily recognizable locales.

Want to do a little good in the world? :-)

You can do your part by helping to run a system used massively by organizations and individuals all over the world.

Perl and Postgresql skills are at the center, but you'll also need to be intimately familar with SMTP and know your way around (or at least be somewhat familiar with) FreeBSD, MySQL, php, nanae, rsync, the DNS protocol, tinydns, bind, Request Tracker (RT) etc etc. You need to be willing and able to help out for a while. Over the long term it's not too much work, but there'll be a lot of catching up at the beginning and it's only going to work if you can commit to it for an extended period.

Email me - ask@develooper.com - if you are interested. We need a small group of comitted volunteers to keep this running. Of course there's no pay, other than the thanks (often unspoken) of millions and millions of email users all over the world -- probably including yourself.