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Fri, 27 May 2005

self-help group

Perhaps it's time to found self-help group? Seems to be a common problem to flood planet.debian.org.

At least it would be nice to have special "I flooded planet" badges at upcoming DebConf 5 :)

postet at 20:47 into [Debian] permanent link


Thu, 19 May 2005

Not so long ago in a cinema not so far away...

It's 02:26 AM local time, and I just missed the last train, that could bring me from downtown Frankfurt/Main to the suburb I used to live (if I'm not travelling around the world).

So I have roughly 3 hours, before I can get home, take a shower, take some breakfast, and get back to work. I could try to get some sleep (working for the university gains you a house key, being member of our student council a room with some couches)... or I left my books at home, so I have nothing to read again - I could increase performance of my script... but I have Internet access here, I could try to fix some RC-Bugs but I don't feel like that. I worked a bit to much, didn't slept very well the last days, and ate to much for diner...

Oh, diner! I could say, that I watched "Episode III" by accident. As said: I worked to much, and didn't had time to go to the supermarket. So went out for food, and while wondering what to do with this evening, I went by a cinema, and look! Episode III is getting into the cinemas today! And look! They still have some tickets! That wouldn't be far from the truth, but the truth is, that I planed to see the movie, but forget to buy tickets, and thought they were sold out. And by sheer coincidence I went to restaurant across the cinema, and by sheer coincidence, to get home, I needed to cross the street, passing the cinema, seeing they still sell tickets... so I went in and I mus say...

... that...

... watching...

... Star...

... Wars...

... Episode...

... III...

... Revenge...

... of...

... the...

... Sith...

... was...

... different from all the other nightly previews I have been.

Oh? Should I have placed a spoiler somewhere here? Hey, I don't plan to write any details about the story, don't worry. And by the way: You could have seen the End of the story some decades ago ;)

Well, something has changed. When Star Trek VI: The undiscovered Country came to the cinemas, the cinema was showing that movie and the previous five!

When Star Trek VIII: First Contact came to the Cinemas, the local Start Trek Fan Club showed some highlight episodes from the series, and the movie in German synchronisation AND in the English original.

When Star Wars: Return of the Jedi special edition hit the cinemas, I went at six a clock to the cinema, to watch all three episodes, while the cinema was decorated like the Mos Eisley cantina.

When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring hit the movies, I did needed to deliver a talk about XSLT for a seminar. All my examples where inspired by the book and in my audience where guys with pointed ears, which got nearly mad, when I overrun my time slot a bit...

Well, and today? I almost forgot to buy tickets, and no one organized an Episode I to Episode VI marathon. Although I saw, that in an other cinema, they had at least some decoration and some costumed fans - but running around in a weird dress most people don't recognize? Come on, I'm a geek! Long haired, T-Shirts with nice, geekish sayings. People think all the year, that I look some kind of weird, so why dress up, to see a movie?

An other interesting point: The other preview where exactly timed. The movie started at 0:00, no minute earlier. Today, they had several presentations, starting at 7:00pm. And they call that a special, nightly preview!

Perhaps, my generation is getting old...

Oh, about the movie! I must admit, that it wasn't that bad. I think, that what rescues this movie is, that I saw Episode I and Episode II previously. Unlike when watching Episode I for the first time, I didn't expected too much from the movie. So I conclude: Hearing the first stertorous of Darth Vader and seeing him for the first time with a symmetrical helmet (a fact, that got special attention in a "making of" I read the other day) is worth to spend some money for a ticket - but only shortly.

I would prefer, if George Lucas didn't had filmed the first three Episodes. Perhaps I should get back to my garage, and continue working on my time machine...

postet at 03:16 into [Debian] permanent link


Tue, 17 May 2005

Finally travelled home from Guetersloh...

... but unfortunately, I didn't had anything to read during the 4 hours in the train.

But the new ICEs have power sockets, so I could hack a bit:

for x in $(for i in $(seq $(python -c "print ord('a')") $(echo $(python -c "print ord('a')")+25|bc)) ;do printf \\x$(printf %x $i) ; echo " " ; done) ; do for y in $(for i in $(seq $(perl -e "print ord('a')") $(echo $(perl -e "print ord('a')")+25|bc)) ; do printf \\x$(printf %x $i) ; echo " " ; done) ; do echo -n $x$y " "; apt-cache search $x$y|wc -l ; done; done > /tmp/foobar ; for i in $(cat /tmp/foobar|sort -n +1 |head -n $(echo $(cat /tmp/foobar| sort -n +1|grep -n 2|head -n1|cut -d: -f1)-1 |bc)|grep 1|cut -d" " -f 1) ; do echo $i ; apt-cache search $i ; done ; rm /tmp/foobar

Try to guess what this does, before trying it ;)

Yes, I know it's not very elegant. Perhaps I will give it the final touch, when I again forget to take a book with me, when traveling in a train.

postet at 15:30 into [Debian] permanent link


Mon, 16 May 2005

Important information for woody -> sarge upgrades

Might not be new to most DDs, but according to my experience at the small developer gathering here in Guetersloh and after reading some upgrade reports in different mailing lists, it is not yet well know:

Citing from the release-notes of the upcoming sarge release: The recommended method of upgrading is to use "aptitude", as described here.

The release notes are quite unknown, but are quite important!

Beside some thing like better / other dependency resolution, consideration of recommends / suggests, the most important feature is, that aptitude remembers which packages are installed by the admin, and which packages are just installed as dependency (I think, synaptic has a similar feature, but I didn't played with it yet).

So, since people will start doing this, and talking about that, please spread it: There are release notes, and you should upgrade with Sarges aptitude.

postet at 00:45 into [Debian/events] permanent link


Sun, 15 May 2005

HOWTO unsubscribe from Debian Mailinglists:

For those of you, who don't read -user: Adam Hardy posted a nice HOWTO unsubscribe from debian lists ;)

postet at 14:49 into [Debian] permanent link


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About

Alexander Tolimar Reichle-Schmehl lives in Tuttlingen / Germany. He works as IT manager (specialized on Unix and SAN/Storage) for an international automotive supplier.

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