taniwha_nz

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

What's it's like to work at catalyst?

Sysadmins bring us beer regularly

We watch YouTube

eat cake

draw important things on whiteboards

Listen to great music

Wear awesome hats

Attend Pizza Thursday

Order lots of bacon in foreign countries

get creative on friday nights

wonder if the boss is nearby

When you get sleepy, the desks are really comfy for naps

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Digital NZ launched Make It Digital last week
http://makeit.digitalnz.org/

This includes a section where public propose and vote on collections they'd like to see make digital (and it seems implied they want it open as well)
http://makeit.digitalnz.org/voting

Top of the voting at the moment is:
Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives (AJHRS)
Electoral Rolls
School Journal
Lyttelton Times, 1851-1929
The Press (Christchurch, 1861- )
Stones Directories, 1884-1955
The New Zealand Herald, 1863-

I'd be nervous about today's electoral roll being online, but the electoral role from 50 years ago would be huge benefit to researchers without the same concerns.

Many of these are private publications, but outside the 50 year copyright monopoly.

Others, such as Journals of the House of Representatives are produced by our government - by people who work for us.
Government datasets are created using taxpayer money, they belong to us, hence I want easy access to them.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

The slashing of Adult and Community Education (ACE) funding will have a devastating impact on the ability of people to learn Sign Language in community classes, says Lynne Pillay Labour Spokesperson for Disability Issues.

“The majority of New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) classes are delivered through community education and are used by parents and families of deaf children, teachers, nurses, police, and workmates. They are taught by trained NZSL tutors based on a curriculum especially developed for community classes.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/stories/2009/06/26/1245b6a21a74
http://www.guide2.co.nz/politics/news/sign-language-classes-not-affected...
http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/Business/QOA/b/9/a/49HansQ_20090625_00...

Other info on this issue:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0906/S00353.htm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/features/2544933/Dark-times-lo...
etc... just google.

The Government announced in the 2009 Budget that ALL funding for adult education in schools (“evening classes” or “night school”) will end in December 2009. The Government regards the programmes that schools offer as mere “hobby” classes and if schools want to continue, all courses they offer will have to be “self-funded” - this will mean that the fees will increase by 50% or more at some schools and 200% or more at others, if schools decide to continue which is unlikely.

This axing of the funding will also mean that schools will no longer be able to pass on funds to local community groups who also provide classes for adults, training for volunteers and support for many of the disadvantaged in our communities. English language programmes for migrants and refugees will also disappear or will have to cost several hundred dollars more.

Night classes make such a tiny portion of the education budget (0.6%) but they are of such benefit to the community.

Refugees and migrants learn to speak English.
Parents, friends and colleagues of the Deaf learn Sign Lanuage.
New Zealanders learn foreign languages, which myself and colleagues use in business.
I learned Te Reo Maori at a night class.
Budgeting classes, something incredibly important right now, will either become far too expensive or disappear completely.

Fees at my local are currently about $80 per 16 week course - They tell me this will increase to $160 or $320 per course. I doubt they will run, as most of the students cannot afford this.

If you are concerned about the impact of these cuts, you can contact, by email or letter:

Your local MP
AnneTolley, the Minister of Education
Bill English, the Minister of Finance
Trevor Mallard or Maryann Street, Opposition Spokespeople for Education

It is FREE to write to any MP. You just have to send it to FREEPOST Parliament, PO Box 18888, Wellington.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Mono is a free/libre/opensource implementation of C#.

C# is a programming language that came out of a closed source software company named Microsoft. - and Microsoft own patents on C#.

Thus there's a threat hanging over any free software that relies on mono/C# - what if Microsoft suddenly decides enforce their patent.

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have released a Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C#.

The problem is not unique to Mono; any free implementation of C# would raise the same issue. The danger is that Microsoft is probably planning to force all free C# implementations underground some day using software patents. (See http://swpat.org and http://progfree.org.) This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it until the day it actually happens. We need to take precautions now to protect ourselves from this future danger.

Let me add my voice to this - don't write programs in C#.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

I've pondered for some days writing a post being an woman working with and contributing to open source software for the Down under feminists carnival - such a post would include how awesome it is to work in this great field.

Such a blog post would also include the seriously negative sexist incidents that happen from time to time. Especially the high profile ones. (They're not the norm, and they happen infrequently)

In the past when I've reported on such negative incidents on my blog (3 times) I've received email telling me to stop pointing it out. Usually it's from open source project leaders and people I do respect in the open source community. The form of the email is usually a very very long essay explaining that describing what has happened to me or my friends at a conference is going to damage the community, the project, and is going to drive women away from the field. Please be quiet.

They ask me why I want to do such a horrible thing to open source as to blog about the things that happen. Very clearly I'm part of the problem by reporting it. Often they'll throw in something about me not understanding how open source culture works.

So on that note, I'm not going to write the post after all - I don't have the energy.

Instead I encourage you to check out the Geek feminism wiki

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

=== linux.conf.au Call For Papers ===

linux.conf.au ( http://www.lca2010.org.nz ) is pleased to announce the
opening of its Call for Papers for the coming linux.conf.au, LCA2010!

LCA2010 will be held from Monday 18 January 2010 to Saturday 23 January
2010 in Wellington, New Zealand.

linux.conf.au isn't just a Linux conference. It is a technical
conference about Free and Open Source Software, held annually in
Australasia since 2001 - covering everything from the Linux Kernel and
the BSDs to OpenOffice.org, from networking to audio-visual magic, from
hardware hacks to Creative Commons.

=== Important Dates ===

Call for Papers opens: Monday 29 June 2009
Call for Papers closes: Friday 24 July 2009
Email Notifications from Papers Committee: Early September 2009
Registrations open: Mid September 2009
Conference Dates: Monday 18 January to Saturday 23 January 2010

=== Information on Papers ===

The LCA2010 Papers Committee is looking for a broad range of papers
spanning everything from programming and software to desktop and
userspace to community, government and education but there is one
essential:

The core of your paper must relate to open source in some way,
i.e., if it's a paper about software then the software has to
be licensed under an Open Source license.

The LCA2010 Papers Committee welcome proposals for Papers on the
following topics:
* Kernel and system topics such as filesystems and embedded devices
* Networking topics such as peer to peer networking, or tuning a
TCP/IP stack
* Desktop topics such as office and productivity applications,
mobile devices, peripherals, crypto & security and viruses and
other malware
* Server topics such as clusters and other supercomputers,
databases and grid computing
* Systems administration topics such as maintaining large numbers
of machines and disaster recovery
* Programming topics such as software engineering practices and
test driven development
* Free Software and Free Culture topics, including licencing and
Free and Open approaches outside software
* Free Software usage topics, including home, IT, education,
manufacturing, research and government usage.

Most presentations and tutorials will be technical in nature, but
proposals for presentations on other aspects of Free Software and Free
Culture, such as educational and cultural aspects are welcome.

LCA2010 is pleased to invite proposals for three types of papers:
* Presentation - 45 minutes
* Tutorials - 1 hour and 45 minutes (short)
* Tutorials - 3 hours and 30 minutes (long)

Presentations are 45 minute slots (including questions) that are
typically a one-way lecture from you to the audience - the typical
conference presentation. These form the bulk of the available
conference slots.

Tutorials are either 1 hour and 45 minutes, or 3 hours and 30 minutes
in length, and work best when they are interactive or hands-on in
nature. Tutorials are expected to have a specific learning outcome for
attendees.

To increase the number of people that can view your talk, LCA2010 may
video the talks and make them publicly available after LCA2010. When
submitting your proposal you will be asked whether materials relating
to your paper can be released under a Creative Commons ShareALike
License.

For more information, see:
http://www.lca2010.org.nz/programme/papers_info

=== About linux.conf.au ===

linux.conf.au is one of the world's best conferences for free and open
source software! The coming linux.conf.au, LCA2010, will be held at the
Wellington Convention Centre in Wellington, New Zealand from Monday 18
January to Saturday 23 January 2010. LCA2010 is fun, informal and
seriously technical, bringing together Free and Open Source developers,
users and community champions from around the world. LCA2010 is the
second time linux.conf.au has been held in New Zealand, with the first
being Dunedin in 2006.

For more information see: http://www.lca2010.org.nz/

=== About Linux Australia ===

Linux Australia is the peak body for Linux User Groups around
Australia, and as such represents approximately 5000 Australian Linux
users and developers. Linux Australia facilitates the organisation of
this international Free Software conference in a different Australasian
city each year.

For more information see: http://www.linux.org.au/

=== Emperor Penguin Sponsors ===

LCA2010 is proud to acknowledge the support of our Emperor Penguin
Sponsor, InternetNZ.

For more information see: http://www.internetnz.org.nz/

=== Papers Enquiries ===

LCA2010 Papers Committee
Email: papers@lca2010.org.nz

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO, 1991:

"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today... A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose."

P.S. The New Zealand government has proposed allowing unlimited software patenting. Submissions due 2nd July.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

At the Wellington OLPC Friends in testing session yesterday, the beginnings of plotting for a OLPC/Sugar miniconf for LCA2010 began.

Leading the charge is Tabitha Roder, along with from Walter Bender and the Wellington OLPC team. They've called for others in the region to join their bid [olpcfriends.org]

While i was at the testing session I decided to try my hand at a hello world sugar app. (Sugar is the environment running on the OLPC XO laptops)

Someone sent me a link to Sugar installing on FLOSS manuals, which tell that all i need do is:

apt-get install sugar

well, that bit works - but X will crash and die back to GDM after starting. Turns out the Jaunty version doesn't work.

/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
Setting IM through im-switch for locale=en_NZ.
Start IM through /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/all_ALL linked to /etc/X11/xinit/xinput.d/default.
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/jarabe/desktop/meshbox.py:19: DeprecationWarning: the sha module is deprecated; use the hashlib module instead
import sha
/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/jarabe/desktop/keydialog.py:17: DeprecationWarning: the md5 module is deprecated; use hashlib instead
import md5

The folks on #ubuntu-sugarteam tell me it works in intrepid(the previous edition of ubuntu) -- and there's a new version in karmic (the upcoming, unreleased, next version of ubuntu).

I grabbed the karmic version - it's the exact same version as the broken one in jaunty - and compiled it. Alas, same errors.

I'd like to report this as a bug. the ubuntu sugar team wiki says:

The bug reporting page contains useful information on how you can report bugs in a way that will helps the team to process them more efficiently.

however the bug reporting page says only:

TODO

i'll try virtualbox instead.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

4 June 2009 marks 20 years since the day Chinese army opened fire on Beijing students protesting in Tiananmen Square.

No one knows for certain how many people died over the two days. The Chinese Red Cross initially reported 2,600, then quickly retracted that figure under intense pressure from the government. The official Chinese government figure is 241 dead, including soldiers, and 7,000 wounded.

Eyewitness accounts of the events on the night of June 3 and the early morning of June 4, 1989 continue to emerge from former student leaders and intellectuals, broadening the scope of the original reporting of the massacre by Western media outlets.

Further reports show that the theatre of the massacre spanned across Beijing, and was densely concentrated on Chang'an Avenue, literally the "Forever Peace Street," or the main approach to Tiananmen gate where citizens returned to locate missing protesters driven from the square hours before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

Video footage shows the military repeatedly open fire here on unarmed citizens and medical personnel advancing toward Tiananmen Square to locate the missing and assist the wounded.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Video of the "Manners Mall Emo Song"

(manners mall is a Wellington pedestrian area, which is soon to be ripped out and replaced by a bus lane. The indigenous population are being forced to relocation - here's a song about it in the native manners mall style: emo).

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

I spend Friday afternoon at the aotearoa digital arts symposium.

I brought with me 50 DVDs of Ubuntu Studio. Alas i didn't realise they aren't live CDs, install only. Douglas rescued me as he brough with him 25 CDs of standard ubuntu januty so folks can try before they install.

The laptops that turned up were half windows laptops, and half mac os. All recent hardware and generally very tech savvy people as you expect from "digital artists".

Five people left with Ubuntu studio, - many more CDs handed out. Some turned up without a laptop, but took CDs with them to try later.

Also spent some of the time talking about OLPC, Freedom in general, and opensource that works on closed source OS like Audacity (audio editor) or Gimp (kinda like photoshop).

All in all, a good afternoon.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Last weekend I attended the Digital NZ hacktest. A large group of hackers getting together to try out the new Open Data API.

Here's the blurb explaining who they are:

DigitalNZ is a collaborative initiative led by the National Library of New Zealand. We work with a wide range of contributing institutions and organisations. Without these content providers and their content, DigitalNZ would not be possible.

There was coffee, lollies, pizza. And a good group of people making mashups. I had a few ideas for mashups so i reached for good old reliable perl. Before long I had a perl module completed, which I've shared with the world on cpan:
http://search.cpan.org/~shiny/Net-DigitalNZ-0.15/lib/Net/DigitalNZ.pm

For now there is only the search method, but i've started the get-metadata methods and soon some more for images etc. This can be found in my Git Hub repo.

and the mashup? coming soon.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Here i'm quoting from Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, but i wonder how much different New Zealand's members of parliament are:

The average age of a Member of Parliament is 55. And I point that out, only to underline the fact that the average Canadian watches about 26 hours of television a week. Those under the age 25, it's about 12 hours a week. But they're consuming more media than ever before. But, they're consuming it where they want it on their iPhones and on their Blackberries and on their PVRs and on their laptops. And they're doing it through mechanisms that didn't exist.

And you'd be surprised the number of Members of Parliament who have never held an iPhone, who couldn't tell you, functionally, how a Blackberry works and have no idea how these things integrate. And when you ask the average member of Parliament "How do you consume your music?" They'll say "well, maybe I'll go out and buy a CD and drop it in the thing or maybe I'll hear something on the radio on the way" and you say "How do you watch movies" and they'll say "Well, I'll go out to the theater when I have the time on a Friday night or maybe rent a DVD at home" and you say "How do you listen to radio or get your news?" and they'll say "Well, I'll sit at 6 o'clock after the meal, finish a steak and watch the news, or get the paper in the morning."

The old way of doing things is over. These things are all now one. And it's great and it's never been better and we need to be enthusiastic and embrace these things.

I point out the average age of a member of parliament because don't assume that those who are making the decisions and who are driving the debate understand all the dynamics that are at play here. Don't assume that everybody understands the opportunities that are at play here and how great this can be for Canada. Tony is doing his job and I'm going to do my job and be a cheerleader and push this and to fight for the right balance as we go forward. The opportunities are unbelievable and unparalleled in human history.

(transcribed by the folks a Tech Dirt)

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Miniconf are mini 1 day conferences (or sometimes 2 days). They happen on the Monday and Tuesday of LCA Linux conferences. The 2010 conference is in Wellington, and the call for miniconf proposals is open now.

By proposing a miniconf you're agreeing to host it: you find the speakers (usually you do your own call for papers after you announce your miniconf) and you find volunteers to do the MC announcement of the next speaker etc. The Main conference will find you a room, and AV gear etc.

They mini confs provide great variety to the conferences - the topics are diverse

Here's a list i've compiled of miniconfs from the past.

2009:

Open Source Databases
Linux Kernel
System administration
MythTV
LinuxChix
Mobile Devices
Business of Open Source
Linux Security
Multimedia
Virtualisation
GAming
Freedom

2008:

Community Wireless
Debian
Education
Embedded
Fedora
Multimedia
Security
Virtualisation
Distro Summit
Gaming
Gentoo
Gnome
kernel
LinuxChix
MySQL
System Administration

2007

Debian
Gnome
Education
Embedded
Virtualisation
MySQL
Research
Gaming
Kernel
Postgres
OpenOffice
LinuxChix

Here are some things I know the NZ opensource community is into, and I'd like to see proposed by somebody for Wellington 2010:
Linux/opensource Automobiles
Opensource in Governments
Opensource in Mobile and/or Telecommunications.
One Laptop Per Child / Sugar.
Anything else that's awesome and happening, especially by local in Wellington, New Zealand and Australia.

and inevitably someone will do a cloud talk -- how about anti-cloud?

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Mike Moreu's cartoon in Wellington's Dominion Post (June 23, 2009)

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

some ugly news about the Amazon kindle (The ebook reader)

The books are resticted by DRM-ed, as we already knew, but there is a re-download facility if, for example you lose your kindle and buy another, have it replace on warrunty, or maybe upgrade to a kindle version 2 later.

however, the publisher can choose to turn off re-downloading - or limit it to 2 or 3 downloads. Especially ugly is, amazon don't tell customer what restrictions the publisher has has chosen.

Those books you bought are only yours to read if you never move from your original kindle you bought it on.

Not such a big deal if it's a flick of a story you want to read once - but what if it's an encyclopedia?

http://www.geardiary.com/2009/06/19/kindles-drm-rears-its-ugly-head-and-...

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

The misery drupal module will :

make life difficult for certain users. It can be used:
As an alternative to banning or deleting users from a community.
As a means by which to punish members of your website.
To delight in the suffering of others.

Currently you can force users of a certain role to endure the following misery:
Delay: Create a random-length delay, giving the appearance of a slow connection. (by default this happens 40% of the time)
White screen: Present the user with a white-screen. (by default this happens 10% of the time)
403 Access Denied: Present the user with an "Access Denied" error. (by default this happens 10% of the time)
404 Not Found: Present the user with a "Not Found" error. (by default this happens 10% of the time)

There are hooks for developers to unleash and contrive more misery.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

The NZ Open Source Society is having an Auckland meet-up on this coming Wednesday (24th). Anyone interested in the wider aspects of Open Source, getting it into schools, government and so forth and who happens to be in the area might want to come along.

Venue is hopefully Red vs Blue (RvB) at 155 K Road, starting at 6:15 pm with initial mingling expected at 6:00.

If you plan on coming, let me know so I have a vague idea of the headcount.

The NZOSS will be making an exclusive announcement to Auckland based members and Free Software advocates about the G2009 and how we can change our government. Please spread the word and generally light the fires of revolution.

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

Here's the missing photos of the upcoming Linux Conference LCA2010 venue -- the Keynote venue. (conference is 18th to 23rd January 2010).

More photos of the rest of the venue

Originally published at coffee.geek.nz. Please leave any comments there.

i'm really sick of people, when they learn i'm not doing something because I'm pregnant, will then say "But people have been doing that while pregnant since forever and been fine!"... because, that's actaully complete bullshit.

Women have been miscarrying pregnancies since forever - and at times getting themselves also into serious medical danger.

and seriously, I'm not going to listen to your idiotic theory ahead of medical advice.

KTHNXBYE.