Comments from the rusty cage

How to know ...

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:54:18 GMT

In response to Lior:

How to know you're dating a free software guy?

You can recognize you're dating a free software guy by:

You've finally found someone who shares your interests.
He knows it is called GNU/Linux.
He understands why you refuse to talk via gTalk, MSN or icq.
His browser of choice is called Iceweasel, as is yours.
He likes to attend your talks at Open Source conferences.

And the #1 way is:

You've finally found a guy who stands above stereotyping women as technically and technologically ignorant.

More Blatant Advertising: Eleonore Digital

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 10:37:34 GMT

Here's one more post for my own little "advertising section", where I introduce gender-related projects that I think are a good idea but deserve some more publicity. So, last time we had geekspeakr.com, this time I'd like to introduce to you the Eleonore Digital Project.

In a nutshell they are organising a project where groups of students all over Europe work together in creating an educational 3D computer game that deals with the life of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Each team is assigned an episode or a certain aspect of Eleonore's life and they will research this, draft a concept and finally create their respective part or episode of the game. Doing this they will only work with free software, namely Debian as the Operating System, OOo, Blender etc. A longer (and better) description of what they want to do and the motivation behind all of this can be found in their project description or on the Eleonore Project site itself.

In my opinion the project seems to be a really good idea and I wish them the best of luck! What I like most about it is that it is not exclusively for girls, so that it does not create a kind of "artificial biotope" for girls to work in. Instead it aims to rise the girls ratio by means of a project topic that (so I assume) mostly appeals to girls. And I am especially happy that when looking for a topic that appeals to girls they came up with something better than fan homepages, foto love stories, and what else you find in "girls IT projects" these days. I am pretty sure that reading and researching on the life of one of the most influential women in European history is going to do them much more good that creating princess-themes webpages! I am also quite happy that they picked Debian as their operating system. I think Debian being used in a school project is a nice example that it is in fact not as "user-unfriendly" as it is often claimed to be! I've also introduced the project to the Debian Women Project and Miriam had the very good idea to also forward it to the Debian Games Team, so I hope we'll get some good cooperation here.

Where's Meike?

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 20:30:00 GMT

As September is traditionally the "conference month" I'll be travelling all around Germany within the next weeks. So, inspired by Matthew, here's a short list of events I'll attend in September 2008. If anyone's up for a coffee, keysigning or something let me know!

August 31st to September 4th 9th European Conference on Case-Based Reasoning, Trier, Germany
September 5th to September 7th 3rd Congress on Solidary Economy Bremen, Bremen, Germany (Will probably arrive on Saturday)
September 23rd to September 26th 31st edition of the Annual German Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Kaiserslautern, Germany (Will probably arrive on Monday)

3rd Congress on Solidary Economy Bremen

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:42:24 GMT

If you happen to be near Bremen, Germany around the 5.-7. September 2008 and have an interest in solidary economy, free software, renewable energies and the like you might want to stop by at the 3rd Congress on Solidary Economy (German website).

I haven't been at the first two of these congresses but I was invited as a speaker for this one, so I'll be around at least on Saturday and probably also on Sunday. I'll mainly be on a panel on free and open source software which will take place on Saturday evening at 20:00. (Prime Time :)) But I've also let myself be talked into joining another panel at 17:00 which is somehow ubuntu-related (Communtu). I am not yet sure if I'll have much to contribute there, I am neither a ubuntu specialist nor particularly fond of it, but the organiser said he wouldn't mind and he'd welcome critical remarks just as much, so, we'll see.

I am really looking forward to being a speaker on an event again! Ever since I started my PhD I've been much too busy to attend (leave alone prepare talks for) as many events as I'd have liked. I hope the situation will improve next year when things get rolling with my PhD. (Currently still in a "topic orientation/find a project/write proposals" state ...)

Happy belated birthday Debian!

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 14:05:58 GMT

On August 16th 2008 the Debian Project, joy and burden of my geek life, has turned 15 years of age. Congratulations! There have been celebrations all around the world, and we've also had a little party at our home, complete with nice unhealthy food, red wine and chocolate and strawberries for dessert.

For a GNU/Linux distribution 15 years is quite a lot. We're almost the only distribution of such old age (Hi Slackware!) and there've been many, many others that didn't make it half as long. That said I am quite proud of this little project of ours and hope for many happy returns!

Artwork by Andre L.R.Ferreira, source: debianart.org (whose lack of thumbnails is still immensely annoying)

What everyone's been waiting for

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:01:00 GMT

Open Source Census Part 2

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:26:34 GMT

Finally, here's the looong overdue second post on the Open Source Census. Very shortly after my initial post on my experiences with the Open Source Census I got an e-mail from one of their engineers adressing the points I had made in my post. So here are a few additions to my first post:

You don't have to use the giant JRE including implementation, there's also a much leaner Ruby implementation of the scanning tool. Tolimar tested it and found it to be functional but also pretty time consuming.
Load-wise the scanner comes with a --throttle option that makes it pause every n scanned files, so that your system isn't knocked out completely.
Different from what I said there is a --help parameter, but the JRE has to come up first, so it takes some time until it outputs anything.

Tolimar was also contacted by the developer, he explained to him how to exclude individual directories using the Ruby version (not sure if it's also possible in the Java version) and how reports can be submitted anonymously. So, the privacy protection issues can also be taken care of.

I was very impressed by the quick and thorough reaction to both Tolimar's and my own post and hope this post will be of some help to the project and get them some more submissions.

One last note: Meike is indeed a female name. So no, he won't post a response, but she will ;)

A Debian Love Story ...

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:20:26 GMT

First encounter: LinuxTag 2005. Both were staffing the Debian booth. She was a speaker on debian-women, he organised the DebianDay
First feelings unfold: on #debian.de
First I miss you: During DebConf5, he was there, she wasn't
First gift: A Debconf5 shirt and Finnish chocolates
Next reunion and first kiss: At ApacheCon 2005, both were staffing the Debian booth
Preferred secret love notes medium: planet.debian.org
First "public appearance" as a couple: Berlinux 2005, both staffing the Debian booth and giving talks on packaging and user motivation
First relationship-stress-test: Both joining the DebConf6 orga team -- passed!
First anniversary: Exact date retrieved thanks to www.debian.org/events/2005/
Official engagement announcement: Over a planet.debian.org post
First Inter-DD-Marriage: Today in two weeks!

Debian, I owe you!

Open Source Census - kinda fishy

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I recently read about the Open Source Census and thought it would be a nice thing to also put my vote in and make sure my operating system of choice was properly represented (currently it doesn't seem to be). After creating an account there, downloading a 45M tgz including among other things a complete java runtime environment, starting the scan tool that takes neither a -h nor a --help parameter and watching it hog 70% CPU for over 20 minutes I lost patience and killed the script.

Somehow this whole thing is not exactly inspiring confidence and I start getting an idea why there are currently (Thu Apr 24 12:47:57 CEST 2008) only 53 Debian users who submitted their data. Although it's a pity Debian is (and will probably continue to be) so underrepresented there, I can't say I blame anyone for not taking part.

Thank you!

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:32:23 GMT

Yay! A big fat thank you to:

zobel for advocating me

aba for being a great (and thorough) AM

HE for checking my application so fast

DSA, DAM and the Keyring Maintainer for pushing the right buttons and especially for doing so on a friday, so nothing gets in the way of a proper celebration tonight!

Tolimar for moral support

Pia for her invaluable support with T&S2

PS: Independently from recent events my account and also the other 18 where not created by Jörg, but on James' initiative. Just to put things straight.

Blatant Advertising: Geekspeakr

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 20:04:45 GMT

No news in this post, just a little advertising. I just came across geekspeakr.com and think it's a really great idea. From the site:

Many organisers of technical conferences, meetups, and dinners want to have more gender-balance in their lineups, but they don't know where to find technical women speakers.

Enter geekspeakr.com, a simple directory and connections system to help technical women speakers and event organisers to find each other.

I guess this could also be interesting for a some of my fellow Debian Women.

What a sh***y week!

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 11:09:25 GMT

Last weekend didn't exist due to deadline on Tuesday.
Yet another night shift on Monday due to deadline on Tuesday.
After meeting the deadline on Tuesday came home to find the house in scaffholding and a note from the owner: "We're going to do the whole facade, new insulation, colour etc. The construction works are estimated to take about eight weeks. We kindly take the liberty to point out that �554 BGB forces you to tolerate this. This modernisation is accompanied by a raise in rent of 22 Euros per Month
Thursday: Dentist appointment. Got my first filling ever. Personal Waterloo and also not an experience I whish to repeat. Still hurts a bit.
Saturday: It becomes clear that the DPL elections are going to happen without me, although I had hoped otherwise. Well, at least this is a problem shared.
Sunday: My favourite candidate didn't win. Meh.

And now, off to clean the flat and hope for better luck next week.

*sigh*

Yay, I'm through

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 06:19:00 GMT

Since yesterday I am through with my NM procedure. Looking back I get to the same conclusion as probably most NMs have: not overly hard, but time-consuming and glad to have it over with. Anyway, so far so good, just waiting for DAM approval and my account now. There are still a couple of people in front of me but I hope for another processing before the elections close. (I guess it would at least be good for the turnout.)

For now, many thanks to my Application Manager Andreas Barth who has been very responsive and always answered my mails quickly and thoroughly, and also to Martin Zobel-Helas for advocating me.

Chemnitz Linux Days 2008

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:14:00 GMT

Seems as if the Chemnitz Linux Days somehow turned out to be the only Linux event I still attend regularly. These days I miss out on most of them, simply because of a total lack of spare time, however, I somehow always make the CLT ... no matter how big the hassle may be! They're just worth it :)

My talk went well, even though I actually got a bit pressed on time this year and had to cut the Q&A part. The (German) slides for my talk are as usually on my talks page.

Look Ma I'm on Podcast!

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:01 GMT

I recently had my first podcast experience, when I was approached by Mario Heide of the German podcast pofacs.de ("Podcast für alternative Computer Systeme") who asked me for an interview. To be true, I first had to read up a bit on podcasts, but after a little research I was very happy to accept his invitation. We did the interview via Sykpe, which wasn't exactly optimal sound-wise but still very nice. We talked mostly about Debian, primarily from a first time user point of view.

The (German) interview is online now and will, as I just heard, also be included on the next LinuxUser magazine CD. If you do understand German also have a look at the other podcasts there and thanks again to Mario for giving me the opportunity to brag a bit about Debian.

My current favourite debian package

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 10:34:00 GMT

... and the reason I get nothing done. Please meet cuyo. Fun, addictive, drives you nuts!

Happy new year!

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 18:01:21 GMT

The year is almost over and a lot has happened. I finished my studies and got engaged, (Again, thank you very much for the many, many congratulations and warm wishes!) now, just before the year is really over I decided to finally make another commitment.

Now, I guess the first thing I'll turn to will be Tasks and Spätzle. ;)

Without words ...

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 15:37:16 GMT

Intercultural disclaimer: In Germany it is customary to buy the wedding rings
on the occasion of the engagement and wear them on the left hand until the
actual marriage. Afterwards they are worn on the right hand.

Symptoms

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:07:41 GMT

The German language has an expression that is "Zeichen der Zeit". Literally translated this means "Signs of the time", the idea behind that expression is that sometimes there are certains things or events that are symptopmatic for a current development or a general change of times.

One of these "Zeichen der Zeit" can currently be observed very nicely in our neighbourhood. In the last half year three shops in our direct vicinity closed down. One was a quite cute 60s cafe that was later rented out to a citizens' action committee, the second was a shop that sold wooden toys, the third was a health food shop. I don't know how long these shops where around, but all of them had lasted for at least a couple years if not longer. Now all three shops are rented out again, two are now temp work agencies, the third is a "consumer bank" that specialises on small consumer credits for things like cars, washing machines or entertainment electronics. Apparently they also cooperate with some mail order firms.

Is this really where we want to go?

Back from the bookshop

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:32:22 GMT

I am wondering ... when exactly did cookbooks stop being about cooking and start being about cooks?