Discoveries, no. 577.This past week I discovered the following awesome things:
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Autotitles in screen.This comes in really handy in ~/.screenrc:
Then add this in ~/.bashrc:
Restart screen in a fresh bash session and enjoy. UPDATE: I stupidly screwed up the screenrc line because I did it from memory instead of copypasta. No cookie for me! UPDATE #2: Aha, found that something in the innards of my blog software was removing an extra backslash that was needed in the export command above. Sorry for the mess. |
Snake for great justice.I took some time last night to make a couple additional fixes and changes to the irssi-libnotify project I posted about a few days ago. Among other things, I changed the upstream VCS from Subversion to git, which ended up being pretty simple. I’m much happier keeping the code at Google when I know the entire history resides with me, too. That way, I can move the upstream elsewhere if it becomes necessary. Thankfully, git-svn makes it incredibly easy to migrate, and there’s a helpful wiki page to help with the migration. I did find that the site docs left out an important part (to me) of the process, which is migrating the authorship information properly. This page was useful to find a quick recipe to use with the SVN log. For some reason, though, I was still on a hacking (or more precisely, “flailing”) kick. I was happy to have made some fixes to my project, but I’m not a big fan of Perl, so I checked out the current state of irssi-python. This project, as you might expect, provides a Python scripting interface for irssi. Unfortunately, the project hasn’t kept up with irssi, so it isn’t easy to build. I found a patch for 0.8.15, which applied cleanly and got most of the way there. However, I found for some reason that upstream irssi doesn’t install some of the development header files needed to build irssi-python. I created a patch and a new SRPM that will allow the project to build properly, and also put my work in a git repo with a README file that will help you build it if you’re interested. Once you install the plugin, you can do the following to experiment so you can build your own scripts:
Have fun! |
FUDCon Blacksburg, days 2-3.Saturday was the BarCamp session at FUDCon Blacksburg. This year there were workshops scheduled at the same time as BarCamp, which was different than usual. I wasn’t at any of the workshops so I’d be interested to know from those who held them whether they felt this was useful. I do know that most of the BarCamp sessions I attended had good attendance. The sessions I attended:
Overall, this year’s BarCamp was one of the best in terms of depth of technical content. It also had an excellent spread in terms of technical complexity — meaning there was plenty for new hackers to sink their teeth into, as well as stuff that appealed to more experienced folks. We had the usual assortment of great speakers from all around the community and they all delivered impressive presentations. You should be seeing a lot of these on blogs through the Fedora Planet with downloadable content. (If you delivered a presentation, make sure you make it available widely!) Saturday evening was the world-famous FUDPub. I was only around for a little while — since I was still trying to shake off the illness that had been dogging me since the middle of the week, I didn’t want to make things worse on my immune system by celebrating too much. Plus, it started to snow while we were enjoying the food, drink, bowling, and billiards, so I wanted to move my car back to the hotel before the roads got too dangerous. (Virginia is not known for its rapid and rational response to adverse weather conditions.) Later in the evening we gathered for poker at the “mezzanine” level of the hotel’s conference center. A few people played well into the wee hours but I headed to bed about 1:00am. Unfortunately, the medication I took caused me to oversleep a bit, but I still managed to get over to day 3 of FUDCon by 9:00am. Once there, I got together with Peter Borsa, Pascal Calarco, and Maria ‘tatica’ Leandro to talk Insight, our Drupal installation, which the team is trying to branch out into new and useful functions. Jared Smith and Robyn Bergeron also stopped by to give some input on our calendar project. We took notes throughout the session on Gobby, and will post them on the wiki shortly along with some additional context and plans. I feel like the Insight project is starting to take on a little more life, with a designer involved and some solid ideas about functionality that will help the project. For instance, we discussed the events calendar being able to automatically notify event owners or FAmSCo about milestones or other necessary activity, to promote better communication and awareness. A content management system makes it possible to build some fairly robust workflows around information — making the system not just another place to deposit information, but a facilitator in the process. The team has yet to figure out exactly how this should look but thankfully Maria is on the case and will help figure this out over the next few weeks. My day job is making it harder for me to lead this team, but the other members are committed to working on some exciting new features, and I’ll continue to find ways to contribute, and wherever possible remove roadblocks and continue to scale out access, privileges, and empowerment to the rest of the team. By this time, it was close to noon. I started saying goodbyes to various people, and made sure I had picked up as many riders as I could to drop off at the airport on the way out. I ended up taking Máirín Duffy to the airport, as well as Jared’s son with me (since they live within a half hour of me). It was good to finally get home at about dinnertime. My daughter was hosting a sleepover with a friend so it was pretty boisterous at our house, but nice to see my family again. All in all, it was a great FUDCon. I could have done without the illness the first few days, but I managed to pull through, doing a good portion of what I intended at the event. To everyone who was there, I hope you had a fantastic time and were able to really use the event as a jumpstart for collaborations of your own. Now, make sure you spread the word on what you’re doing, and carry some of that energy and ingenuity into our discussion lists and other venues! I hope everyone has or had safe travels home and we’ll see each other soon online. |
FUDCon Blacksburg, Day 0.I’ve been a little ill for the past few days, but not gravely so; there was no chance I was going to skip FUDCon when it’s in my own home state. So yesterday I had a great drive from home to Blacksburg — the roads were clear, the weather was mostly sunny and 60 F, and of course I was in the swanky new funmobile, so it was a totally enjoyable ride. I picked up Jon Stanley at the Roanoke airport, and since Justin O’Brien happened to be on the same flight, I grabbed him too for the ride to Blacksburg. We checked in at the Inn, and saw a number of Fedora folks already there, including Spot, Robyn, Kevin Fenzi, and Peter Borsa who flew in from Hungary! I also ran into Red Hat genii Phil Knirsch and Karsten Hopp, in from Germany. I had dinner with Dan Walsh, Bill Nottingham and Eric Paris at a typical collegiate hole in the wall nearby called “Top o’ the Stairs.” It was very nostalgic, between the good barbecue, “unassuming” decor, and beer in plastic cups. Great company and a good time. My navigational skills proved barely adequate to get us back to the hotel but we did make it without disaster, fortunately. I said hi to many other Fedorans at the hotel when we returned, and since I wanted to get some sleep to conserve health before FUDCon started today, I turned in a little early. (Well, early being relative; I stayed up until midnight catching up with work email and a couple other tasks.) We’ve started the day on a great (albeit incredibly cold!) note, with temperatures around 25 F here in Blacksburg but a very warm and hospitable environment in McBryde Hall at Virginia Tech. I’m currently sitting in an early session regarding secondary arches with Phil, Karsten, some IBM guys, Garrett Holmstrom, and a smattering of other Red Hat and Fedora folks. Later today, assuming my voice holds out, which is not a given, I’ll be blundering my way through a session on Drupal internals. Also, I’m going to drop by a “try my keyboard” session that Toshio Kuratomi put together. I brought my new Das Keyboard Model S Silent with me, so it will be one of the models available to try. Looking forward to a great FUDCon! |
Comin’ round the mountain.On Thursday, I’ll be driving to FUDCon in Blacksburg, VA. FUDCon in North America is an event I look forward to attending annually even though I’m not neck-deep in Fedora as often these days. I used to love going to the international FUDCons as well, and I’m thrilled to see those events being planned in advance on a regular basis. I get to drive to this particular event, because it happened to end up only about 4.5 hours drive from where I live. That suits me fine, because I got a new car (warning: Flash) I can’t wait to take on its first long trip. Weather should be fair for this time of year, I hear. I also got some new vanity plates that will touch the hearts of Linux geeks, but probably elicit only head scratching from others. However, this post is about more than my car, as much as I like that topic! I wanted to say a couple things about what I’m planning to do at FUDCon. First, I plan to spend some time with the Fedora Insight crew on Friday night and on Sunday morning. I want to see the feature sets the amazing Peter Borsa has been working on, and hopefully we can make some progress on streamlining deployment so other people can help. We’ll also be working on Sunday with a designer (cross fingers!) to design an interface for a project/events calendar. Unfortunately, I’m leaving Sunday afternoon to get home that night, but I will try to provide a ride out of town to the airport for anyone whose schedule matches up. By the way, you may want to check out the travel planning page if you need to arrange rides. The other thing I’m planning is an open workshop on Saturday on Drupal internals. I still haven’t decided whether this is best done as a workshop vs. BarCamp. I’m interested to know how many people really would show up — which means it might be good for me to pitch this at BarCamp. If there’s very little interest, I can spend the day learning instead of blowing hot air. But if it turns out people are interested, I have some books and materials I’m bringing with me that I can recommend too. As usual, I will be taking on the role of “person with meager skills who managed to scramble onto the first plateau with help, and wants to pass it on.” (It worked for PyGTK, maybe it will work here too!) Thankfully Peter will be on hand, and I trust he won’t let me get away with horrible errors. There’s an enormous list of proposed hackfests and workshops on the wiki page. That’s fantastic, and it means we’re going to have a very content-rich conference as usual. I also see the General Schedule on the wiki is quite bare. I believe the organizers are encouraging talk owners to try to schedule in advance — at least when it comes to the hackfests and workshops. My understanding is that these form an outgrowth of the BarCamp — essentially widening the schedule for Saturday. That means there will be a lot to choose from, so I hope everyone brings not just their thinking caps but also their voices and appropriate input devices to participate. UPDATE: Robyn has a great FUDCon blog post on scheduling. Go read it. Now. I’m looking forward to seeing a bunch of my Fedora friends there, and of course celebrate at the ever-entertaining FUDPub event. Remember, though, that Sunday starts early, so don’t go overboard! The statute of limitations has expired on my one FUDCon event that was a little too entertaining, so I’m allowed to revert to schoolmarm mode now. But seriously, there’s so much to do and see at FUDCon that I’m sure people will put the priority on content and collaboration as always. Hope I see you there! |
Wireless at FUDCon Blacksburg.In case you hadn’t seen it elsewhere, and you are attending FUDCon in Blacksburg, there is a pre-registration available for wireless. All attendees are asked to follow these instructions to grab a guest wireless account — before they show up! Usually I’d have a much better entry for my first post of 2012, but I was really pressed for time. I’ll try and do better next post. Until then, you’ll have to just say hello to my beefy friend. |
Holiday break 2011-2012.I’m not sure whether anyone still gives out (or even needs) these kinds of notifications, but I thought I would mention the upcoming holiday closing at Red Hat. Every year the company tries to make sure there are at least a few days employees can be gone and not worry about catching up to their co-workers when they come back. So for some time between about December 24 and January 1, the entire company is closed, except for UPDATE: The above failed to mention that “essential” includes our entire awesome support organization, who remain on duty for our customers all the time! The reason I’m posting about this isn’t to say how nice Red Hat is as a company (even though generally it is), or how much I like vacation time (even though I do). Rather, I wanted to make sure the Fedora community is aware that many Red Hat employees will probably take advantage of the holiday closing to visit family or take vacation to places without Internet access. As a result, some people might not be around as much as usual over the holidays. Personally, I’ll be around somewhat this year, because my family lives fairly close by and I have no long-term vacation scheduled. But I do intend to make some shorter, one-day family trips, so it will certainly be a reduced presence from usual. My goal is for this advance notice to give you some time to figure out if you have any expectations for before the holidays, or work you want to reschedule for afterward instead, or perhaps you want to accomplish some things when fewer people are going to be distracting you! Whatever your goals, I hope the holiday season will bring you some time for them, and that you’ll enjoy 2012 all the more for it. |
Enrichment day 4.This week was the last enrichment class for my group of fifth graders. As I reported in the last installment, the syllabus ended up changing a bit to adapt for the unexpected difficulty of some of the concepts. Variables in particular were difficult, but eventually the students started to understand them pretty well. This week built on variables to teach the concepts of conditionals and loops, using the if and while statements in Python. It was at this point that I could tell that most of the students had really grasped the concept. One of our exercises was to follow the logic of a simple counting/printing loop. The kids seemed to like putting themselves in the role of the computer. It was also at this point that the kids started to understand the power of booleans (True and False). We tried a number of additional comparisons to understand cases where conditions evaluated to each. The emphasis on True and False paid off in the section where we discussed conditionals and loops because we could pay more attention to the actual branching operation, as opposed to getting stuck on figuring out why the branch happened. This week I also discovered what I think was a good way to increase the idea of collaboration in the class. Obviously there wasn’t time to check every child’s work at every step of the way. But I could make things easier and less pressured on the kids by rotating a “look and see” duty around the class. Since the class was relatively small (only six kids), I could have all of them gather around one person’s console to see the results of a program or exercise. We could even figure out what went wrong together in some cases. Hopefully this removed a little of the pressure of having the instructor point out something that was wrong — a friend could point it out and even help fix it. Of course, it wouldn’t be a last class without some bonus for the kids! Thanks to the fine people at the Fedora Project, I had stickers, temporary tattoos, and buttons for the kids, which they loved. They also got to take their Fedora Live USB keys home, which several of them had been waiting for since the first class. Speaking of keys, I sent home an information sheet for the parents to go with the keys, so they’d understand what was on it, how to use it, and where to find more information and help. The keys also had two complete electronic books (both CC BY-SA licensed, check them out here and here) included that are specifically aimed at teaching Python to kids, so if the kids want to go further they can. A couple of the students demonstrated really serious aptitude, so I think chances were good the class ignited the imagination of a future computer genius! I’ve posted the last lesson (and miscellaneous resources) in my fedorapeople space, and as with previous lessons, it’s all licensed as CC BY-SA 3.0 so it can be reused by others. I hope you got something out of reading about the class. I had a great time teaching it and I think the kids enjoyed it too. Thanks again to my employer, Red Hat, for lending me a few hours this month to give back to some kids in my community. |
Enrichment days 2 and 3.I’m sorry I got behind in posting about the enrichment class last week. After week 1 went so well, I thought I’d easily be able to post updates weekly, but alas, it was not to be. However, this wasn’t just because of other workload. The week 2 class actually didn’t go as quickly as the week 1 class. The lesson plan I thought would be light enough to cover in one session has actually taken up the hours for both weeks 2 and 3. I’ve posted the lesson in my Fedora People space. It turns out that one of the most difficult things for the kids to grasp has been return values. That is, understanding that when you run a function in Python, a value is often generated as a result. Python can either do something with it, or not. This is deeply tied to understanding the usefulness (if not the concept) of variables as a way of holding on to those results for later use. This concept is inherently difficult for fifth graders who haven’t yet been exposed to concepts of algebra or the unknown. Math and science up to this point in their education are decidedly concrete, and focus strictly on known quantities. I underestimated the difficulty of introducing the concept of an unknown, indeterminate object like a variable. Fortunately, Python has made it simple for the kids to try smaller steps on their way to understanding this concept. Python’s particular style of input/output at the interpreter allows them to see how return values are generated. Then it becomes a matter of understanding the concept of variables, and assigning that return value to a variable. This is not as easy as it sounds for fifth-graders, but by the middle of week 3′s class light bulbs were switching on! Regardless of the difficulty of the class, the students in general have loved the class, and are excited when they show up each day. I wish I had more time with them, but alas, the class only lasts for four weeks. We have one more class coming up on the Monday afternoon after Thanksgiving. Based on the experience thus far, I expect we’ll spend the majority of the last class on conditionals, and understanding the if statement. Courtesy of the Fedora Project, I have some wonderful swag items to give out which I think the kids will love, like buttons, stickers, and temporary tattoos. Also I plan to give them their Live USB keys, as well as a note for their parents on what the keys contain and information on how to use them. I will try like mad to have a blog post up sooner after next week’s class! |
