Forgive me, Intarwubs, for I have sinned. It has been a little over seven months and seven days since my last confession (regarding secretfs) and I have done much and little in that time.

In brief, I had a birthday, a 4th wedding anniversary, an 11th “togetherness” anniversary, a two week stint in hospital with cellulitis (Stepping Hill—the same place that had the deaths from insulin infested I/V drips, and yes, at the same time I was there), I have changed jobs (I now work for Codethink ) and I have ended up spending around a month in Korea so far.

Obviously there has been the usual plethora of events such as the Debian BBQ. Also a few less usual events such as the marriage of our new friends Paola and Malcolm; and of our old friends Steve and Jo.

Google+ has come, but Facebook has not quite gone yet. I bought an Asus Eeepad transformer and an HP Microserver yet I don’t really feel like I’ve spent much on interesting stuff this year.

Programming-wise—I am working on Caius at last, and also having thoughts about using my secretfs tech along with bluetooth, NFC and/or 802.15.4 to produce a physical proximity N/of/M authentication/key-storage mechanism. Perhaps the two techs might combine to mean I have a complex keyring on my laptop which is effectively just a random load of junk until the right combinations of devices are together at which point I can access stuff. That’d be pretty cool.

Also, I’ve started using Spotify a lot. While their Linux based offering is not as featureful as the Windows based one; their dev-team is reasonably responsive to politely worded support queries and I have had a lot of joy from it. However, their access library is pretty poor. It is threaded to the max and unpleasant issues arise from that as you’d expect. As such, I have decided to re-learn Vala by writing initially a simple binding to libspotify, then a reasonable set of GObjects wrapping it, and then hopefully a DBus binding for it; so that I can write multiple UIs all talking to one nearly compartmentalised-over-DBus backend. No idea if libspotify allows for multiple concurrent logins though (Not that it’s likely to be necessary).

That’s all for now. Ciau!

I am a proud Kindle owner. I love my Kindle and try to buy books in an electronic format whenever I can. However, I am in a bit of a quandry. You see; I won’t buy a Kindle e-book if it’s more expensive than the paperback plus P&P. For example, I recently considered buying One Day, by David Nicholls but one look at the price list had me in severe confusion. How is it that a £9.99 hardback, which is only £3.99 in paperback manages to cost you £6.49 in Kindle format, despite being a 564KB file? Even the most expensive 3G data contract I can find suggests that the bandwidth cost for that book is a mere 28 pence. I can’t imagine the Kindle format book had anywhere near enough effort put into it to warrant the price hike; nor can I imagine that the publisher never found the 70% cut option when uploading the book.

Therefore I can only assume that you Amazon, as the distributor and retail outlet, are not trying to explain to publishers that e-books are intrinsically of lower value than paperback books due to their severe restrictions and thus that they really shouldn’t be more expensive than a paperback book.

If I buy the paperback, I can read it, then lend it to a friend who can read it before returning it to me; and I can do that as many times as I like. Myself and my partner can both read the same book, using visually different bookmarks, and, perhaps most importantly, there’s nothing you nor the publisher nor the author can do to stop me doing this. Yet if I buy a Kindle e-book, only I can read it, on my device. I can’t lend the book to a friend without lending them my entire Kindle which stops me from reading my other books in the meantime; and I cannot share the book with my partner because not only does it exclude me from the rest of my bookshelf in the meantime; but the device isn’t really designed to allow that.

Given all that, you really should be displaying big scary warnings on any Kindle book page where the paperback (or hardback) is cheaper than the Kindle book. If the publishers are refusing to understand that an electronic copy, with the restrictions you put on them, is less valuable; then it falls to you as the distributor and retailer to protect your customers.

Also, I believe there’s a feature where you say “Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited” on your Kindle pages. This appears to imply that the e-book is DRM free, making it possible for me to let my partner read a copy, or allow a friend to read the book. Why not make a point of highlighting such books in a way which gives them more advertising on your page. Make yourselves look better to your customers and encourage publishers to allow a wider use of their e-books.

I assume that you are familiar with the Lost Book Sales website and that you actually care about losing money because your platform is being misunderstood and mistreated by your suppliers (publishers).

Bah.

Oh and while I am at it; Dear Gov’mint, please drop the idiotic VAT on e-books; or else add VAT to real books. Kthxbye.

In no particular order, I have read (and enjoyed) the following recently:

• Anthem by Ayn Rand
• Blindsight by Peter Watts
• Halo by Tom Maddox
• The Defenders by Philip K. Dick
• The Gun by Philip K. Dick
• Arm of the Law by Harry Harrison
• Velvet Glove by Harry Harrison
• Masters of Space by E.E. "Doc" Smith
• 2 B R O 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Francis Scott Fitzgerald
• Deathworld by Harry Harrison
• The Ethical Engineer by Harry Harrison

And I will be moving on to Postsingular by Rudy Rucker.

I absolutely love having e-books on my phone

I am currently stuck taking four times the suggested daily dose of two anti-histamines in order to combat my body and its reaction to plants having sex all around me.

I am taking two 10mg Loratadine tablets, and two 10mg Cetirizine Hydrochloride tablets, twice daily. This is effectively four times the recommended dose of twice as many anti-histamines as I should need.

I wasn’t this bad last year, but the year before was similar. Irritatingly, once the drugs kick in (45 minutes to an hour after taking) my runny nose, itchy/burny eyes, slight dopeyness induced by feeling crap, etc. all fade away. Yesterday I needed my second dose a mere 8 hours after the first, but I didn’t need to re-dose until this morning after that.

I guess what I’m asking is—what is the expected side-effects of taking such a high dose of antihistamines. Do any of you out there have to take such high doses, have you seen a doctor about this? All I expect a doctor to do is to either supply me more loratadine on prescription (which is of dubious value unless I get a lot given prescription charges in the UK), or to try me on a nasal spray, which tend to induce nosebleeds for me. If you’ve found other ways to cope, I’m interested. Otherwise I guess I’ll make an appointment to see the doctor in the next week or so.

It’s been a long time since I did any Debian work.

Last login: Tue Jan 10 11:38:14 2006 from haddenham.pepperfish.net
dsilvers@merkel:~$ date
Sat Feb 7 15:12:13 MST 2009
dsilvers@merkel:~$

Perhaps I should do more Debian work?

As you are no doubt aware, assuming you’re not living under a tech rock, the Internet Watch Foundation has recently blocked access to an article on Wikipedia on the premise that it depicts child pornography.

First and foremost, I disagree with the IWF’s assessment of the imagery linked to by the article, as does the person depicted in the image, and clearly as do all the jurisdictions in which an attempt has been made to have the image removed; since all such attempts have failed.

The image in question is the cover art for an album made many years ago, which features a naked pre-pubescent girl with censorship in the form of a broken-glass effect. The album, with this very artwork can still be purchased on Amazon and in shops up and down the UK. It has not been deemed illegal.

However the IWF believe it is bad and have attempted to block access to the image on Wikipedia following a tip-off from an apparently disgruntled viewer of the website. The IWF is not pro-active in searching for contraventions of the child pornography act, instead they rely on Joe Public to tell them about problems, and then they consider exactly that case and no others which could plausibly be related. So, in investigating an album’s cover art, they forgot to check if any online CD retailers also carried the imagery – oh well.

Also the IWF are, it seems, unable to actually effectively perform their duty, even when they do decide something is bad. Specifically, while access to the Wikipedia article itself was blocked, access to the offensive image itself was not. (Also, you can view the article easily by knowing an alternative URL form for Wikipedia.)

Upset that my own business internet connection, which was sold to me as explicitly unfiltered and unproxied, was prevented from accessing wikipedia in a full and unfettered way, I finally gave up and rang ntl:Business and lodged a complaint. They asked me to write my complaint in full and email it in, and so I did. Below is what I said.

From: Daniel Silverstone <dsilvers@digital-scurf.org>
To: <censored>
Subject: Complaint, ref <censored>
Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:37:06 +0000


Hello,

As requested, here is a full explanation of my complaint.

When I originally looked for business internet connection at the start
of this year, I was told that the ntl:Business lines were direct IP
connectivity. i.e. that they are not metered, filtered, proxied,
monitored, traced, etc at all.

Recently it has come to my attention that this is quite simply not the
case. With specificity, access to URLs which the Internet Watch
Foundation have deemed inappropriate is blocked transparently.

My issue with this is multi-fold:

1. You are clearly monitoring / filtering / proxying my business
internet connection which goes against that which was explained to me
when I looked to open the account.
2. Your proxying of these sites reduces access speed to them and in the
case of any URL which the IWF has deemed inappropriate, you incorrectly
reset the TCP stream rather than providing a full and explicit
explanation of why you have blocked access. This kind of behaviour makes
the user believe that the remote site is broken and can result in
erroneous fault reports to website owners which wastes time and money
for both user and site owner.
3. The content which the IWF deemed inappropriate is not blocked by the
blacklist whatsoever, instead, a textual discussion of the controversy
surrounding the imagery is blocked. If the IWF got this wrong, how much
more legitimate content are you blocking because of the IWF.
4. Additionally, in the specific case brought up today (see the BBC news
site, or the Register site) the image in question is still available on
many other large websites such as Amazon, where you can, just for
completeness, still purchase a copy of the image quite legally under UK
law.
5. Because accesses to these sites are proxied, all connections from
Virgin Media customers appear to be coming from the same IP address,
which makes proxying and self-policing impossible for those sites. This
increases costs to the site, or alternatively such sites end up banning
all Virgin Media customers since they are now unable to distinguish
those legitimate users from any malicious ones.
6. That you blindly obey the Internet Watch Foundation's recommendations
comes across a shades of China -- that a single entity gets to say what
I may and may not access on the basis of whether or not J.Random user
has reported that specific instance of something which may at some point
be considered inappropriate or illegal in some fashion.

You can resolve this in one of the following ways, from most specific to
me, to least technical cost to you:

1. Cease and provide written confirmation that you will desist from
filtering my internet connection.
2. Cease and provide written confirmation that you will desist from
filtering all business internet connections.
3. Cease and provide written confirmation that you will desist from
filtering all internet connections for all Virgin Media and ntl:Business
customers.

Alternatively, given the incredible and quite frankly distasteful terms
and conditions of acquiring the Internet Watch Foundation's blacklist of
URLs, you could break your contract with the Internet Watch Foundation
and provide full written disclosure to all of your customers of all of
the URLs which you are blocking their access to, and why.

The Internet Watch Foundation's blacklist is, as I am sure you
appreciate, utterly and completely worthless for preventing people who
*want* to view inappropriate content from doing so. There exist many
options, including, but not limited to moving one of the numerous ISPs
who do not use the list, using one of the many internet access
anonymising tools which exist such as Tor or simply by using secure
connections which cannot be statefully proxied or filtered.

All the blacklist serves to do is to prevent access to legitimate
resources which are "unfortunately" caught by overzealous or simply
incorrect filtering rules; and to reduce the likelyhood that someone who
didn't want to see inappropriate content would be exposed to such
inadvertently.

The former is an unwanted side-effect, the latter can easily be
performed by allowing customers to elect to use a proxy supplied by
yourselves which implements the blacklist.

Thus the only purpose your transparent proxying of this traffic serves
is to annoy legitimate users such as myself.

I respectfully request a prompt confirmation of the receipt of this
message; and I look forward to hearing about your proposal for a
resolution of the issue.

Regards,

Daniel.

This year, after 12 months of trying, I have finished my ESCape. With my new-found freedom I shall be separating files. I expect my husband Rob will be rebelling after his year of SUBstitution as he too attempts to ESCape. Still, at least I’m not 100000_b yet.

…Slim ShadyDaniel Silverstone.

I just thought I’d take this opportunity to back Martin F. Krafft up on the point of names and IRC. Those of you who know me on IRC know me as Kinnison. There exists exactly two people in this world who I tolerate calling me that in real-life. One is my husband and the other knows who they are. The main issue is that my brain works very very oddly and as such I don’t actually recognise the sound of ‘Kinnison’ as someone trying to get my attention. Plus it takes a conscious effort on my part to link that name to myself in anything other than realtime online communication.

So, along with Martin, I’d like to raise the point once more that unless you’re actually speaking to me on IRC or a talker, please remember, my parents gave me the name ‘Daniel’ and surprisingly I quite like it. Also note, I am not ‘Dan’ ‘Danny’ ‘Dannster’ ‘Dan the man’ or any other irritating diminutive or cutesy variant.

</rant>

…or “How much does it cost to fly to Argentina? Fuff that!”

The Ubuntu developer summit (UDS-Intrepid) is in Prague this year. The Debian Developer conference (Debconf) is in Argentina (at Mar del Plata) this year.

Flights to Prague are ca. £100 for two people, return tickets, from Manchester, at convenient times. Flights to Argentina are ca. £700 – £800 per adult, return tickets, from Manchester, not particularly convenient timewise. Or around £1700 for two people, return tickets, from Manchester, at convenient times.

So, basically I have to spend less than £1500 on the accomodation and the Ubuntu conference becomes cheaper than the Debian one to attend. As such, I’ve sent an email to the Ubuntu guys travel agents and we’ll see what they say. I doubt Debian can offer me £650 each for myself and my partner in order to bring the costs thus-far into alignment. Pity really since I love Debian conferences.

(Oh yeah, and not to forget the Lua workshop this year, Washington DC, mid July. Best flights I could find for that were around £600 each also, so no Lua conference for me :-( Not that I’d fly to America right now anyway given the supposed issues with taking any form of electronic medium through customs. At will, they supposedly can take copies of any media you have with you, including USB sticks. So even though my laptop and USB stick can individually be stolen and not compromise my key, moving through US customs might force me to revoke my digital identity. So not happening.)

My cat appears to like cola and also twiglets. Did I get a defective model?

If you happen to have my landline number (starts 0161) then it’s important to know that it has changed.

In order to know the new one, either ask me by email, ring me on my mobile phone, or follow these instructions to mutate the old number:

1. Split the STD off the front.
2. Split the number into a three digit section and a four digit section.
3. Subtract 27 from the three digit section.
4. Subtract 8000 from the second section.
5. Add 724 to the second section.
6. Reassemble the phone number.
7. To verify your result, the digits of the phone number, including STD, should add up to 29.

1. Who is to say how large a potato can be?
2. Does this koan have the budda nature?
3. If a monkey falls from a tree, can a fruitarian eat it?

Kthnxbye,

Daniel

Today I started fencing again. After a year of swimming I felt that I could end my nine-year-long gap with a chance of not dying horribly in the first five minutes. Indeed I lasted almost fifteen before I had to stop. In two hours I managed a small warmup/stretch, a ten minute hit about to get the feel of the weapon again, a short fight, which I lost 5–2, but to be frank, that I got two points was going well by then. And then later, once I had caught my breath and the burn in my legs had gone down, I had a short following/simple-movement lesson with another of the fencers who was kind enough to provide a body and prompts. I chatted with various of the people there, volunteered to help with the Ashton Open which is coming up at the end of the month, decided to join the club, got volunteered to help look after their website and ordered a jacket in OMG-HOW-BIG-ARE-YOU?!?! size. I really enjoyed the evening, and it is scary to once again realise how close-knit and friendly the british fencing community is.

My quadriceps really need a lot of work, they’re where all the burn is/was, so I guess I’ll be practicing standing en-garde and lunging. My balance is way off as well, but that will come back with time and practice. The two people who helped me this evening both commented though that I appear to have retained the finger and wrist technique, so as soon as I can marshall my elbow and shoulder into behaving properly again, I stand a chance of actually being able to fight more effectively.

I really must go and get my eyes re-tested though, I fenced without my glasses this evening and it was quite difficult at times to judge distance, despite not being terribly short-sighted.

Still, all in all an excellent experience. So I’ll be heading back next week.

You know who you are, oh yes. Perhaps you’ve forgotten to email. Perhaps you posted something instead of emailing, perhaps you’ve lost the info sheet (you idiot) and haven’t quite gotten around to getting the common sense together to email me about it. Whatever the issue is, I need to know now!

I spent a lovely weekend with my family, unfortunately I was informed that the party’s rsvp address was not being flooded with responses. Indeed we did some maths and worked out (excluding family since that is kinda being handled out-of-band) that of 32 invites sent out covering 47 invitees, we have received only 14 yes I’m coming messages covering 18 (including a +1 we hadn’t expected, and lacking two +1s we had been expecting) people. We have received four ‘no’ responses covering 7 people (fortunately we’ve managed to have a mini party for five of those up here in Manchester) so that’s a mere 18 replies to 32 invites.

This isn’t just poor-showing, it’s causing problems. I can’t invite more people who perhaps weren’t on the first list because of space, without knowing whether or not people are planning on turning up. My parents (to whom the reply address goes) can’t book catering, plan for the bar, etc, without knowing who is coming.

I know some of you just don’t know yet, but a mail saying “I want to come, I’ll be doing ‘foo’ and will be able to tell you for sure by ‘bar date’” helps a hell of a lot.

If you’ve lost the inlay sheet, either email me and I’ll send you a PDF, or else find me on IRC.

At this rate, there won’t be much of a party :-(

As a reference, people who still haven’t replied include: a couple who used to (and presumably still do) own a cute orange snake which loves belt loops and pockets. An angry young man who lives near a Zebra. A chemist/astronomer’s namesake. Someone who owned a launchpad long before Mark did. An Audiophile. A brit in america with an american who is a brit at heart. Someone who simply doesn’t know. The suckee. A frenchman in spain. A Cambridge educated walker in London. La Femme, et sa Femme. Leif’s parents. An ex-uni friend of mine who works for the dark side. A release manager and his wife.

If you recognise yourself in that list, please email in your reply NOW.

To head off this question (already been levelled at me umpteen times)...

It feels exactly the same.

Yes I now wear a ring, but then again, I did before from time to time. Yes I have a bit of paper saying it’s all legal, but then legalities never meant much to my relationship before so why should it now?

In fact, the only thing that’s different is that people keep asking me if I feel different, which makes me feel slightly irritated :-)