dgoodwin's blog

Count me in for the mass migration from twitter to identi.ca. Open source, cleaner look, jabber integration, and seemingly better performance.

Jabber updates don't always seem to come through, and on one occasion an update I sent didn't either, but the web UI seems to work reliably.

http://identi.ca/dgoodwin

After a little over a year of insanely sporadic development, we've finally made it to a 0.0.1 release. This release features functional network play for $2/4 limit hold'em and a simple chat interface, but no persistent stats or account information. Source and Fedora 9 RPMs available here:

rounder-0.0.1.tar.gz (MD5: d99dd7c446c7441cd7caf26a8ba59b54)
rounder-0.0.1-1.fc9.noarch.rpm (MD5: d4174d646c4c3acedb2f633621e8d762)
rounder-0.0.1-1.fc9.src.rpm (MD5: 8e783b730ac6e1c334fac631691ef043)

I'll be submitting for Fedora package review in the coming days and get it into the F9 repos as soon as possible.

I'm going to try to keep a single table server up for a little bit. You should be able to reach it by firing up rounder and connecting to 24.89.250.181 port 35100. Use whatever login name you want (so long as it's not already in use) and the password "password". Fire up rounder-server if you'd like to have a private server.

Quite rough around the edges across the board but it should be mostly playable. UI could use some love and I'm absolutely certain there's unseen bugs lurking around, so please feel free to report anything you come across. I hope to use Red Hat's Bugzilla once the packages are approved for inclusion in Fedora but feel free to mail me anything you find until then. (dgoodwin AT dangerouslyinc DOT com)

More info available on the project page.

Feel free to stop by #rounder on the Freenode IRC network if you'd like to chat or try to get a game together.

My thanks to James and Kenny for their kickass code contributions, and my wife Anette for getting us some graphics!

Big day for those of us on the Satellite team here at Red Hat, after weeks of preparation our baby has finally been released to the community, re-branded as Spacewalk and under the GPLv2. The Spacewalk project will transition to being the upstream for all future versions of Satellite, and the primary location for our development from today forward. Satellite will continue on as our stable, quality assured, and officially supported solution for official Red Hat content. Spacewalk will be community driven and see features earlier, but will not be accompanied by the official support and testing that goes into Satellite. (see this comparison)

No idea what I'm talking about? Spacewalk is a Linux systems management solution which you can read all about here: http://spacewalk.redhat.com

If you're at all interested in the project please feel free to check out our wiki, sign up for either the mailing list or the devel mailing list, or stop by #spacewalk on freenode.

Development specific posts coming soon. (it may have something to do with PostgreSQL)

Hats off to the entire Satellite (now Spacewalk) team on a job well done!

After months of rumblings and delays and general lack of public consultation, Canada's Minister of Industry The Honourable Jim Prentice has finally presented Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act to Parliament.

There's probably nothing I could say better than Michael Geist (who has done a tremendous job making the public aware of the issue and what it's implications are) already has, but I'm going to take a stab anyhow because now is the only chance we'll get to do something about it.

Earlier today I received an email from some form of mailing list I must have signed up for when the discussion started on this bill late last year.

The Government of Canada has introduced Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the
Copyright Act. The proposed legislation is  a made-in-Canada approach that
balances the needs of Canadian consumers and copyright owners, promoting
culture, innovation and competition in the digital age.

What does Bill C-61 mean to Canadians?

Specifically, it includes measures that would:

 *  expressly allow you to record TV shows for later viewing; copy legally
    purchased music onto other devices, such as MP3 players or cell phones;
    make back-up copies of legally purchased books, newspapers, videocassettes
    and photographs onto devices you own; and limit the "statutory damages" a
    court could award for all private use copyright infringements;

 *  implement new rights and protections for copyright holders, tailored to the
    Internet, to encourage participation in the online economy, as well as
    stronger legal remedies to address Internet piracy;

 *  clarify the roles and responsibilities of Internet Service Providers
    related to the copyright content flowing over their network facilities;
    and

 *  provide photographers with the same rights as other creators.

What Bill C-61 does not do:

 *  it would not empower border agents to seize your iPod or laptop at border
    crossings, contrary to recent public speculation

What this Bill is not:

 *  it is not a mirror image of U.S. copyright laws. Our Bill is made-in-Canada
    with different exceptions for educators, consumers and others and brings us
    into line with more than 60 countries including Japan, France, Germany and
    Australia

Bill C-61 was introduced in the Commons on June 12, 2008 by Industry Minister
Jim Prentice and Heritage Minister Josée Verner.

For more information, please visit the Copyright Reform Process website at
www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/crp-prda.nsf/en/home

Thank you for sharing your views on this important matter.


The Honourable Jim Prentice, P.C., Q.C., M.P.
Minister of Industry

The Honourable Josée Verner, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women
and Official Languages and Minister for
La Francophonie

Doesn't sound too bad does it? And then when you take a closer look things start to fall apart.

I first enjoyed the comment about a "made in Canada" approach, excellent way to combat the rampant accusations that this bill is catering to the demands of some very massive corporations originating south of the border. Tell people something, it must be true right?

The bill supposedly grants us rights to record TV for time shifting and copy CDs to our iPods, but the email fails to mention that this is *unless* the content is protected with some sort of DRM. So yes, corporations could just start applying any form of weak DRM to everything they produce and suddenly we're liable for fines of up to $20,000 if we circumvent it, intentionally or not. Even if I could somehow be convinced that corporations should get their wish to be able to sell us content and then continue to control how we access it within our own homes, this is an absurd sum and the fact that it would probably never be applied isn't the point, it *could* be, and that's unacceptable.

The email states that the bill does not give customs agents the right to seize laptops or portable electronics at the border. Why was the word "seize" used here? What about "search"? "Seize" doesn't seem to exclude detaining me, or taking a copy of the entire hard drive?

This is about our right to keep corporations from telling us what we can and cannot do in our own homes. It's not surprising to see corporations doing whatever they can to make money, problem is in this case they're pushing much too far into the realm of privacy and will subsequently be having a vast and negative impact on how we can use technology we've grown to love.

I guess that's all I have to say for now and hopefully none of the above is misguided or misinformed.

Keep an eye on Geist's blog to see how it all shakes out. His list of 30 Things You Can Do is more important now than ever, with #1 being write to your member of Parliament.

Several things I've been meaning to post but haven't gotten around to it.

For starters we finally have our dog, he's a 4 year old adopted greyhound and his name is Seamus.

The breed's supposed to make exceptional pets and he's doing great so far. Remarkably calm and well behaved, almost never barks, completely leash trained and batting 100% on house training so far too. Still haven't had much luck getting him assimilated with the cats, he's prone to try to get too close to them, they hiss, he barks, they freak out. One's pretty unphased by him but the other is still terrified.

Up and running with Fedora 9 on both my work system and my desktop. preupgrade failed on both, first due to this bug, and the second system failed with an unable to find stage2.img message (iirc), haven't debugged this one yet. In both cases I resorted to a trusty (completely unsupported and probably dangerous) live yum upgrade. Working great on both systems post upgrade, stuck with the nouveau driver for now but it's behaving nicely with just an occasional switch to the console and back to alleviate this slight performance problem. I'm actually strongly considering replacing my desktop system as it's about 3 years old now, ridiculously loud, and refuses to suspend/hibernate which I'd like to use every night. Have my eye on Dell Inspiron 530 so far but suggestions would be appreciated. I read that it's pretty quiet, and within the price I'd like to spend to get a quad core system with a integrated Intel graphics (really sick of dealing with binary graphics drivers).

Rounder 0.0.1 is pretty much ready, like packaged up and ready to roll pending just a little bit of testing. It should have been released several weeks ago but I've been distracted because...

It's been a *HUGE* month for PS3 owners. Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Grand Theft Auto 4, a new Warhawk expansion pack, there's just too much to find the time for. GT5p is visually stunning but I didn't find as addictive as I thought I would, just not enough content to keep me going and the online play really sucks. (chaotic, rude drivers, and no way to play with friends yet, just random matchups) Once GTA4 hit I've left it aside for now but will be returning sometime soon. GTA4 on the other hand is just stunning, easily the greatest game I've ever played. It looks fantastic but most importantly the whole city just feels alive. I could wander the streets in this game for hours on end, really enjoying it and the break from fast paced online gaming. Had some good times just screwing around in free roam with friends in the multi-player mode as well, but spending most of my time enjoying the single player experience.

I've caved and joined another cursed social networking site. You can find me as dgood on twitter.

I guess that's it.

I made a few mistakes this week when a salesman from Protection Plus Security (a company name that seems too common for me to identify a link) showed up on my doorstep.

When told they contract and install security systems for ADT and were running a promotion for cheaper installation in return for logo advertising, despite having been thinking about installing one, I should not have assumed it would be a convenient time to get the information.

When presented with the rather shocking costs of equipment I'd be saving as a result of this "promotion", I should have inquired exactly what the "normal" installation fees are. (according to ADT's website the normal price is virtually indistinguishable from what I was presented with)

When (following a reasonably decent discussion of the systems specifics) I mentioned I was interested but wouldn't be making a decision on the spot and was told in vague terms that he was only in the area that night after which they wouldn't be able to offer me said "promotion", I should have immediately become suspicious.

When told that I could sign the contract now and then cancel within 10 days if I change my mind, I should have become more suspicious.

When told that I could not be given a "blank" copy of the rather lengthy contract to review while considering, I should have inquired why an unsigned contract is dangerous to them, or if there's just something in there they don't want customers to uncover.

When told that the contract wouldn't make sense to me anyhow as I'm not legally trained, I should have told him to get the $*%^ out of my house.

When told that by not being willing to sign I was telling him I'm not ready for a security system (and implicitly, just wasted his valuable time), I should have pointed out that perhaps I'm just not ready to sign a long 3 year contract I won't be able to understand on the spot for a guy who spontaneously showed up on my doorstep 20 minutes ago and refuses any possibility of letting me consider the prospect beyond the evening.

During this I did manage to do two things right, refuse to give him the name of two family or friends who might be interested in a security system in exchange for free fire detection (which magically was still included after I refused), and ultimately get this assclown out of the house with nothing but my first name.

I don't know how much of the blame for this rubbish is actually on ADT vs this lame local contracting company, but guilt by association, I won't be buying ADT.

And so begin the lessons in home ownership, NO SOLICITING.