EDM 2141

Following Dan's lead, I have emailed Jeremy Wright, MP for Rugby and Kenilworth, concerning EDM 2141. Watch this space.

mod_macro

Interesting discovery of the evening: the third-party Apache module "mod_macro", packaged as libapache2-mod-macro for Debian. Awesome.

Interesting Times

I haven't written a blog entry for a week; obviously I have been busy with interesting things. Like xulrunner. Procrastination may be a valid time management strategy. By prioritising tasks and doing the more important ones today, lesser tasks are pushed back. Occasionally these tasks then fall over a deadline, and disappear. Whether this is a good thing... I'm not sure, but this has happened to me with around three tasks this week....

That time of year again

I tend to update DateTime::Event::WarwickUniversity at around this time each year, according to the changelog. Version 0.05 will appear on CPAN with the next update. My testcases still pass, at least.

Atheism

A day or two ago, I donated to the atheist bus campaign. They have now nearly raised £100k, which is quite impressive. To follow up, I have joined the BHA. I have asked them about starting a Humanist group in Rugby - as if I have surplus free time. I realise religion (or a lack thereof) can be a controversial issue, but I have considered and respect the BHA's position on these matters....

Fail

I tried to look at an RC bug this evening: bug #502657 on netmaze. It looked so easy - a segmentation fault, a backtrace... no. The package doesn't even build on sid, doesn't support the 'nostrip' option, and hasn't had an upload for two years. When you get past those stumbling blocks, it's a 64-bit compatibility problem that would probably need quite a large patch. So, in the end, I've increased the RC bug count by one this evening, in suggesting to the maintainer that netmaze should not be released with lenny....

Hydro

As a brief diversion from Debian, I spent the evening learning about small-scale hydro power. Remember, kids, the power available at your site is proportional to the product of the effective pressure head and the volume flow rate. I think at some point I promised the Rugby Friends of the Earth group that I would link to them. My PageRank, let me show you it. They have a social meeting tomorrow at the Alexandra Arms....

RC != Roman Catholic

I got a concerned phone call from my mother following my previous blog post, asking whether I owe Debian money. Fortunately, I believe I am fully paid up for all the T-shirts and BBQs that Steve McIntyre has given me. I have decided that the interest payment on my outstanding debt to Debian must be made in the form of RC bug fixes. I suck at RC bug fixes. They are generally boring, but of great value to the community....

WNPP bugs are like debt

Credit cards can be very useful, provided you pay off your outstanding balance at the end of each month. If you do not, the debt can pile up, and will be sticking with you for a very long time. Credit is a tool - it lubricates the economy. Without it, production would grind to a halt. However, it is very important that creditors lend only as much as debtors can afford to repay....

Meta

Ironically, the number of blog posts I make tends to be inversely proportional to the number of interesting things going on in my life.