IRC transcript from 2009-07-07

[Jim Tarvid]

(07:59:40 PM) #ubuntu-us-va: The topic for #ubuntu-us-va is: Meeting
Tuesday (yes, every Tuesday) at 8:00PM
(07:59:56 PM) tarvid: En punto
(08:00:19 PM) ***dwidmann googles for a translation
(08:01:11 PM) dwidmann: on time?
(08:01:24 PM) tarvid: exactamente
(08:02:06 PM) tarvid: stumbling with R tonight
(08:03:14 PM) tarvid: no matter how much screen real estate I have, it
is never enough
(08:03:40 PM) panickedthumb [n=travis at ubuntu/member/panickedthumb]
entered the room.
(08:03:40 PM) #ubuntu-us-va: mode (+o panickedthumb ) by ChanServ
(08:03:42 PM) tarvid: Nice series of "how I found Ubuntu" on the
mailing list this week
(08:03:48 PM) froller: then time for dual monitor (or more ;)
(08:03:53 PM) panickedthumb: hullo
(08:04:03 PM) froller: hi
(08:04:04 PM) dwidmann: More screen real estate is always nice to have
... I've got a 22" and a 19"
(08:04:06 PM) panickedthumb: tarvid, thought that would be a good idea
to lighten the mood and get everyone together
(08:04:06 PM) tarvid: hello to you too and everybody else
(08:04:28 PM) tarvid: a great idea
(08:04:36 PM) froller: 23+17 here
(08:05:37 PM) dwidmann: THat does seem to be working quite a lot
better on the mailing list than in the chan, for sure.
(08:06:02 PM) panickedthumb: yeah in the channel nobody really had a chance
(08:06:25 PM) dwidmann: And meetings are so easy to miss too
(08:07:04 PM) tarvid: as broken as it is, email is still my preferred
means of communication
(08:07:23 PM) panickedthumb: it isnt broken its just outdated
(08:08:07 PM) dwidmann: Outdated how? It works fine
(08:08:13 PM) panickedthumb: it isn't really meant for what it is
currently used for
(08:08:16 PM) tarvid: To a guy with 14,888 spams in his spam folder,
it looks worse than outdated
(08:09:18 PM) dwidmann: I've been using gmail for the 6 months to a
year or something like that now ... I've only seen 1 or 2 spams
actually hit my inbox ... it has crazy good spam filtering.
(08:09:43 PM) panickedthumb: it really does
(08:10:02 PM) tarvid: That's true. I get about 20 spams each day in my
inbox but my email address has been around so long, every spammer
knows it
(08:10:08 PM) panickedthumb: it gets really hairy when you try to do
more with text since there's no agreed upon standard
(08:10:26 PM) panickedthumb: and most people use outlook or outlook
express if they don't use webmail
(08:10:35 PM) panickedthumb: so good luck with like half of that stuff
(08:10:46 PM) panickedthumb: *more THAN text
(08:11:36 PM) panickedthumb: brb
(08:11:45 PM) dwidmann: email tends to have html in it ... that's a
whole can of worms by itself.
(08:12:24 PM) tarvid: Just checked. I have "Rich formatting" on in my gmail
(08:12:51 PM) tarvid: Used to wail about HTML mail
(08:13:38 PM) tarvid: as broken as it is, HTML is as close to
universal markup as you will find
(08:14:01 PM) dwidmann: Pretty much, yeah.
(08:14:16 PM) tarvid: I even use Kompozer for routine documents.
(08:14:21 PM) panickedthumb: html is fine, as long as standards are followed
(08:14:23 PM) tarvid: Prince when I want a fancy report
(08:14:24 PM) dwidmann: It's not so much html is broken as the
implementations are varying degrees of broken
(08:14:33 PM) panickedthumb: dwidmann, yes
(08:14:52 PM) tarvid: Glad to see you guys have an independent opinion
(08:14:57 PM) panickedthumb: plus the outlook standards
(08:16:02 PM) tarvid: Gmail's IMAP is a bit kludgy
(08:16:02 PM) panickedthumb: and outlook can just suck it
(08:16:10 PM) Othor: hi everyone, don't mind me if i don't talk much,
i am eating supper
(08:16:36 PM) tarvid: I did leftovers, but they were good.
(08:16:54 PM) panickedthumb: Gmail's own interface and organization is
so far away from everthing else, it's hard to translate that to imap
or pop
(08:17:10 PM) dwidmann: Speaking of that html deal, I recall reading
this (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/03/17.html) and it was
pretty good
(08:17:53 PM) dwidmann: panickedthumb: yeah ... I think one of the
things we need is a new mail protocol that can keep up with the times
(08:18:15 PM) tarvid: we do have to decide how much anonymity we want
as a sender
(08:18:31 PM) panickedthumb: good luck getting a new mail protocol to take off
(08:18:44 PM) panickedthumb: ko,
(08:18:48 PM) dwidmann: If google decided to do it, the world might roll with it
(08:18:55 PM) panickedthumb: my cat says hi, ignore the "ko,"
(08:20:47 PM) Othor: is that how cats spell hi?...lol
(08:24:18 PM) tarvid: One thing I haven't learned is how to exploit
box and div and I am not to keen on CSS in general
(08:25:31 PM) tarvid: And has anyone learned to love "Opera"?
(08:25:33 PM) gletob [n=glenn at c-98-204-175-192.hsd1.va.comcast.net]
entered the room.
(08:25:43 PM) gletob: Sorry I'm late
(08:25:57 PM) tarvid: You are here!
(08:26:00 PM) gletob: I just got back from DC
(08:26:03 PM) dwidmann: I like Opera.
(08:26:16 PM) dwidmann: It has been my primary browser for a few years now
(08:26:19 PM) panickedthumb: I'm ok with Opera
(08:26:23 PM) tarvid: The boys at Opera are close to W3C
(08:27:03 PM) panickedthumb: indeed. They love standards thats for sure
(08:27:24 PM) gletob: Opera is ok, but I prefer firefox for my
noscript/adblock/delicious plug ins. can't do without those.
(08:27:46 PM) panickedthumb: I can't really say why I prefer firefox, I just do
(08:27:57 PM) dwidmann: ad/script blocking in opera isn't heard
(08:28:15 PM) Othor: i like my Chromium
(08:28:15 PM) gletob: Firefox 3.5.1pre scores a 92/100 on the acid three test
(08:28:33 PM) panickedthumb: acid3 isn't everything though
(08:28:40 PM) gletob: dwidmann, what about delicious toolbar?
(08:28:41 PM) tarvid: I saw a new Chromium float by today
(08:28:54 PM) dwidmann: gletob: dunno about it, haven't tried it
(08:29:14 PM) panickedthumb: I haven't used delicio.us in years
(08:29:25 PM) gletob: So I took the metro downtown today
(08:29:28 PM) Othor: i think they are close to getting flash working
in chromium, i get sound but no video
(08:29:29 PM) dwidmann: Hmm, looks like Opera 10b is nailing a 100/100 on Acid3
(08:29:52 PM) gletob: And went on the DC Duck
(08:30:00 PM) panickedthumb: DC Duck?
(08:30:01 PM) tarvid: gletob: still puzzled about the train crash
(08:30:32 PM) gletob: You go for a ride around DC then tour the
potomac in the same vehicle!
(08:30:35 PM) tarvid: I wonder what it costs to moor at the marina these days
(08:31:09 PM) tarvid: Used to be a tourist grabber in Wisconsin Dells
(08:31:32 PM) gletob: It's an old D.U.C.W, a military vehicle built by
GM during World War 2
(08:31:48 PM) panickedthumb: aha, yeah I've heard about those.
(08:32:49 PM) gletob: tarvid, when was the last time a metro train
crashed like that
(08:33:02 PM) panickedthumb: Unfortunately, I saw a bunch of
unsubscribe notifications coming across once the "How did you come to
Linux" conversation was in full swing
(08:33:03 PM) tarvid: never to my knowledge
(08:33:36 PM) gletob: Link!! http://www.dcducks.com/
(08:33:59 PM) panickedthumb: that wreck was rough. There was a guy on
Reddit today whose best friend was actually the conductor of the train
(08:34:41 PM) gletob: tarvid, Wikipedia knows
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Metro#Accidents
(08:34:53 PM) panickedthumb: Wikipedia knows all. Wikipedia sees all
(08:35:53 PM) gletob: You know technically Wikipedia is the most
accurate encyclopedia in the world
(08:36:23 PM) panickedthumb: it is. Unfortunately who knows whether
the article you're looking at is a fake or not
(08:37:01 PM) panickedthumb: Of course, even though it's more
accurate, it's inaccuracies can be more severe.
(08:37:11 PM) gletob: True
(08:37:51 PM) gletob: Did y'all know that lowes uses kde on top of
some linux distro?
(08:37:54 PM) panickedthumb: For example, brittanica could say that
Columbus left for America in 1493, oops. Wikipedia could say that in
1492 Columbus had a slumber party with the king of france
(08:37:55 PM) Othor: did they find out why the metro train crashed?
(08:38:26 PM) tarvid: signal failure I heard
(08:39:50 PM) gletob: Othor, computer guided braking failure, operator
tried emergency brake but was too late.
(08:40:19 PM) tarvid: a black eye on the electronics and computer
programming industry
(08:41:45 PM) Othor: gletob, thanks
(08:43:42 PM) panickedthumb: anyone with a netbook have any experience
with Moblin? My eee 900 is having some issues with Ubuntu NR
(08:44:40 PM) panickedthumb: and unfortunately Moblin doesn't want to
install. I boot it up, it starts Xorg, I get the mouse pointer, then
nothing else
(08:46:58 PM) tarvid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Washington_Metro_train_collision
says it was signals had not been reliably reporting when that stretch
of track was occupied by a train
(08:48:53 PM) tarvid: Strikes me as an error is program design
(08:49:39 PM) tarvid: What is not permitted should be forbidden. A
train should not enter a segment unless it is known to be empty.
(08:50:06 PM) tarvid: Instead, it looks like what is not forbidden is permitted.
(08:53:11 PM) froller left the room.
(08:55:34 PM) tarvid:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062400815.html
(08:55:58 PM) tarvid: This is a programming fiasco
(08:56:48 PM) tarvid: at least the number of trains entering each
block should have been logged and if one block underreports, someone
should have investigated
(08:58:14 PM) panickedthumb: any other ideas for conversations we can
send out to the list?
(08:59:04 PM) tarvid: local support? I have people who are hesitant to
try Linux because aren't aware of sources of help
(08:59:24 PM) tarvid: outreach? demos and presentations
(09:02:34 PM) panickedthumb: Good ideas. Conversation seems to work
better over email
(09:03:20 PM) tarvid: lets move to email for awhile and switch to
monthly IRC meetings, first Tuesday 8:00
(09:04:14 PM) tarvid: Any discussion?
(09:05:52 PM) panickedthumb: I'm ok with that.
(09:06:09 PM) tarvid: Tarvid plans to return to IRC on August 4th,
2009 at 8:00 PM
(09:06:27 PM) panickedthumb: Wow that seems like such a long time
(09:06:33 PM) gletob: tarvid, why so far away?
(09:07:03 PM) gletob: My vote would be for biweekly
(09:07:22 PM) panickedthumb: bi-weekly could work too
(09:07:32 PM) tarvid: The emails over the past week were constructive.
I have the urge to wail about the Metro crash on IRC, I'd probably
think more about flapping my mouth in an email
(09:07:35 PM) panickedthumb: I think the turnout would improve with
fewer meetings probably
(09:07:43 PM) panickedthumb: haha
(09:08:01 PM) panickedthumb: I think we all seem to work better over email
(09:08:16 PM) gletob: This is very true.
(09:09:11 PM) tarvid: I am also open to adhoc meetings on IRC. If
anyone has an idea, send it to the list and I will try to meet them at
their appointed time for discussion
(09:09:24 PM) panickedthumb: likewise
(09:09:30 PM) gletob: Ok I think I'm off to #ubuntu-offtopic
(09:09:36 PM) panickedthumb: good luck in there
(09:10:10 PM) tarvid: I am off to write a Metro Manifesto.
(09:12:36 PM) panickedthumb: good luck in there as well
(09:12:50 PM) panickedthumb: I guess I'm off to the races too
(09:12:53 PM) panickedthumb: gnight folks
(09:13:01 PM) panickedthumb left the room (quit: "Leaving").
(09:24:23 PM) gletob left the room (quit: "Leaving").


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