Robrt's Journal

HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently

Robrt — 2007-05-28T05:01:10+00:00

Location: http://blog.rbrt.com

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource SHOULD use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.
The new permanent URI SHOULD be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response SHOULD contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

Weird spam

Robrt — 2006-07-27T01:19:12+00:00

The perl.org webmaster alias recieved the following email this week:

implementation of alarm seems to fail on some/all of the implementations may refere to http://URL for a better alternative of handling timer based sub calls. thanks and regards Venkat Ravi Shankar k 00919848226880

I've replaced the actual url with "URL", because I don't really want to link to it. But.. here's an excerpt:

This is to confirm that enclosed BIODATA / Curriculum Vitae, and Specs of all Projects undertaken in the Past and those that are due are Original Independent work, derived from my own Market research, I Vouch for the authenticity of the Specifications and Facts Mentioned.

It goes on to contain an entire resume... with large sections on how he only wants to be paid in government bonds.

Weird.

Summer of Code accepting applications

Robrt — 2006-05-03T04:53:17+00:00

Google's Summer of Code is now accepting applications. We've got a whole bunch of ideas and more.

Line Noise

Robrt — 2006-05-03T04:37:13+00:00

I wrote this regular expression yesterday: /\._.*/

My thought at that moment? Yes, perl is line noise.

Anyone want to guess what it's for?

LISP History

Robrt — 2006-03-14T01:45:45+00:00

LISP != perl, but Perl owes a lot to LISP. Here's two interesting origin of LISP papers:

OSCON Deadline Approaches

Robrt — 2006-02-13T05:07:18+00:00

Today (Monday) is the last day to submit your proposal (on time) for OSCON 2006 (aka the 10th Annual Perl Conference.)

You know you want to.

CAcert

Robrt — 2006-02-12T06:06:33+00:00

At SCALE today, I joined CAcert. It feels like a less chaotic version of the PGP web of trust. I've got enough points that I can start to "assure" (or vouch for) others identity.

So, if you run into me at a pm meeting, or conference, feel free to ask me to assure you. Just be sure to bring the proper paperwork and ID!

Update: Got some more CAcert points today, so I can now give people 35 assurance points.

xrl.us expansion

Robrt — 2005-12-24T18:41:52+00:00


perl -MLWP::Simple -pi.bak -e 's{(http://xrl.us/\w+)}{get("http://metamark.net/api/rest/simple?short_url=$1")| |$1}ige'

Vee!

Robrt — 2005-12-24T00:32:54+00:00

Update:

At the O'Reilly Open Source Conference this year many of the speakers put money in a hat in order to get Vee, the speaker coordinator a gift. We got her a gift certificate to a swanky spa near her house.

A few months pass...

I realize that I never checked in to see how the swanky spa was.... so I checked in and she was raving about it. (In a good way!)

So, if you helped, Thanks!

2006 Conferences

Robrt — 2005-11-20T04:10:30+00:00

If you know about a 2006 perl related conference, please send me an email to robert (the thing that goes here) perl.org and I'll update the perl.org list of events.

Off By One Error

Robrt — 2005-11-04T04:40:19+00:00

I updated the Parrot smokeserver today, and suddenly the output display was horribly garbled. I started taking apart the regular expression, converting it into a //x with comments, and suddenly the answer was clear!

Someone added a field to the middle of the data set, and didn't increment all the following field id's. (I.e., $7, $8, $8, $9...).

Lesson #1: Be careful when inserting to the middle of a set. If you can safely insert at the end, do so.

Lesson #2: Don't use the numbered regexp capture syntax for large numbers of capture groups. Use ($foo, $bar, $baz) = /(.)(.)(.)/ instead.

I didn't write the original code - I just had to fix it. (Luckily, I like fixing things.)

Producing Open Source Software

Robrt — 2005-11-04T00:28:29+00:00

I've only read the table of contents and skimmed a few chapters, but Karl Fogel (of CVS and Subversion fame) has written a "must read" book.

Producing Open Source Software - How to Run a Successful Free Software Project (read online, Buy buy from Amazon, buy from O'Reilly) is an overview of most aspects of the open source world. He covers everything from Version Control Systems to Hired Guns to Releases and Version Numbering. Karl's been doing open source for years, and has some great anecdotes to share, and he does it in a friendly and explanatory manner.

Even if you've been doing open source for years, you'll get something out of the book, even if it's just reassurance that you're not the only one who thinks that way.

Karl has been one of the driving forces behind the Subversion project. I'm consistently impressed with how Subversion is run. Decisions are well thought out, things are planned, flamewars are rare, discussions are civil. You too can have a happy project.

Blades!

Robrt — 2005-10-01T00:10:18+00:00

Brian and Andrew of Ejelta LLC (creators of isbndb.com) donated a blade server to perl.org. It's a few years old, but still quite capable. We're not totally sure what we're going to use it for once we get it running. It's a RLX 300ex.

Ask and I spent yesterday afternoon playing with it, and have it mostly figured out, although we need a little more time to get it just right.

The management interface on it is sweet (to use one word.) Built in console server, remote management, etc all in a very snappy and easy to use web interface.

Blades. They are the way of the future.

Fire! (Again.)

Robrt — 2005-10-01T00:06:30+00:00

The hills above my house are on fire again. Fun to look at, not so great to breathe. Its close enough that (if I could get past the firemen) I could go roast marshmallows if I wanted. (No, this is not the "big" Los Angeles fire of the week, but a smaller one.) I am perfectly safe.

Serenity

Robrt — 2005-09-30T23:59:45+00:00

Go see Serenity. It's good.

The movie was consistently enjoyable, same high quality as the show, good story, good action. (No spoilers here.)

I went to see a 1:30 matinee and the theatre wasn't close to packed. I suspect tonight will be a lot busier. The audience definitely enjoyed it, and managed to turn off their cell phones and clap only at the beginning and end.

If I do have one misgiving it is that I didn't see it on a digital projector. (I've been spoiled.) It was a fresh print, no scratches or dirt, and everything was quite nice... but I would have liked just a little more sharpness.

Still reading? Get thee to a theatre!

RT Essentials found (almost) in the wild

Robrt — 2005-08-22T03:13:55+00:00

Jesse has snagged Tim's copy of Essential RT. There's photographic evidence.

Conference Dangers

Robrt — 2005-08-05T23:31:01+00:00

Acme hit me on the head with a stuffed camel. I survived.

RT: Mass Custom Field Update

Robrt — 2005-07-17T07:25:16+00:00

Steve Peters asked if I could consolidate the Win32 and mswwin32 types in the Operating System CustomField in perlbug. Definitely a reasonable request, especially since we couldn't figure out what the difference was.

First try was to use RT's bulk update, but it didn't want to let me change custom fields... so... I wrote a script:

#!/home/perl/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use RT; use RT::Queues; use RT::Tickets; RT::LoadConfig(); RT::Init(); my $tx = RT::Tickets->new($RT::SystemUser); my $cf = RT::CustomField->new($RT::SystemUser); my $q = RT::Queue->new($RT::SystemUser); $tx->FromSQL(q[queue="perl5" and "cf.perl5.{Operating System}" = "Win32"]); $q->Load('perl5'); $cf->LoadByNameAndQueue(Queue => $q->Id, Name => 'Operating System'); while (my $t = $tx->Next) { my $os = $t->FirstCustomFieldValue("Operating System"); $t->DeleteCustomFieldValue(Field => $cf->Id, Value => $os); $t->AddCustomFieldValue(Field => $cf->Id, Value => 'mswin32'); }

It gets the job done. There's a few things that aren't quite "simple enough"... but we'll see about knocking those out in the next version.

Learn more about RT in the soon to be published book RT Essentials.

Room at the RT inn at OSCON

Robrt — 2005-07-08T03:00:56+00:00

Apparently there are still a few seats available for the RT Tutorial at OSCON this year. Get them while they're hot.

Everyone who has attended the class loves it. It's based on our full day tutorial, which leaves people stunned. (And I mean that in a good way.)

Bundle::Everything 0.04

Robrt — 2005-06-26T05:14:24+00:00

Apparently some one actually uses Bundle::Everything. So, I uploaded an updated version tonight.

Label Maker

Robrt — 2005-06-25T04:06:51+00:00

The local Staples had some refurbished P-touch RPT-11xx label makers near the register. $29.95 minus a $20 mail in rebate. They're $24.95 on the website, plus shipping.

Seems like a pretty good deal, so I got one. The best part, the rebate can be applied for online. No stamps to lick!

All is not perfect. The rebate website uses the user agent to block out Linux, (but works fine with firefox/mozilla once you lie about the UA). But, after that, it was the easiest rebate form I've ever filled out. And, the device takes six AAA batteries, not AA as the box says.

OSCON Early Registration Deadline Approaches (Rapidly!)

Robrt — 2005-06-16T18:39:09+00:00

You are going to OSCON this year, right?

You're coming to my talks? And hearing all the other great speakers?

The price goes up on Monday. Remember to register now.

(Ok, now that I'm done shilling, really, this is the Open Source event to be at. Maybe I've been living in LA too long, but Portland is a beautiful city, with great weather the week of the conference.)

learn perl

Robrt — 2005-05-27T20:30:17+00:00

It is long past time to redo learn.perl.org.

What would you want to see on a site for people who want to learn perl? (Probably beginners mostly.) Email me at new-learn at perl.org with your ideas.

noc log

Robrt — 2005-05-09T00:50:00+00:00

For those of you who are looking for information on perl.org developments, you probably want to look at the noc log.

YACTABGM

Robrt — 2005-03-07T06:01:01+00:00

Yet another cool thing about Google Maps...

You can misspell street names, and it's still happy. Try it.

"Geeky Music"

Robrt — 2005-02-20T18:20:38+00:00

These two songs recently came across a programming language list...

RAID rules

Robrt — 2005-01-03T07:11:24+00:00

Got home from New Years Eve party to find my computer acting odd and eventually totally locking up. Turns out I had ended up with a bad sector on one of my drives. Rebooted, the the drive was marked as failed. (But by that time the drive had figured out that it was a bad sector and to remap it.) Reactivated the drive, waited a while for it to re-sync, and all was back to normal. No data loss! (And only minor hassle.)

Gifts

Robrt — 2004-11-14T04:52:30+00:00

What do I want for the holidays/my birthday?

(My grandparents want to know.)

perl.org: spam + virus stats

Robrt — 2004-11-14T04:28:46+00:00

I should have been doing something productive last night, but instead I ran some analysis and aggregation against perl.org's caught spam mailboxes.

The end result, a lot of numbers, not enough pretty graphs. What I really want to do is put the data into RRDtool, and update it regularly -- but properly configuring RRDtool to do fancy things is a black art I have not mastered yet.

In the end, we get a whole lot of spam and viruses every day. We get around the same number of messages -- but the viruses take up an order of magnitude more space. (And don't compress very well either.)

On the positive side, we're not passing this stuff on to the mailing lists or @cpan.org users. On the negative side, there's no sign of this tapering off. The spam level has stayed relatively constant for the past few months, although we've begun trapping a bunch more since we started using SURBL. Virus levels fluctuate widely.

If anyone is interested in playing with the data, let me know. I'd expect some pretty graphs in return.

I'd plug National Shoot a Spammer Day, but really it's the virus writers. Why can't they write small viruses? In some ways, the latest MyDoom variant is progress. In my book, it gets classified as spam.

When threads collide!

Robrt — 2004-10-06T04:43:23+00:00

mod_auth_mysql is not thread safe. This means it does not play well with Apache2's Worker MPM.

When two threads try and use the same database handle at the same time, bad things happen. Kaboom!

Temporary Workaround: set ThreadPerChild to 1.

Eventual Workaround: make it thread safe.