Email Rules

Email can be such a poor way to communicate. I often write emails
that are too terse and the people who receive them think that I am
cross or that I am being deliberately rude. So I have decided I will
now publish the rules by which I have lived for a while:

• If I wish to convey that you are a fool I will use the
  phrase: “You are a fool”.

  
  

• If I am bored of talking to you I will use the phrase: “I’m
  bored of talking to you”.

  
  

• If you have upset me then I will use the phrase: “You
  have upset me”.

  
  

• If I wish to upset you in an indeterminate way I will use the
  phrase: “I have a higher opinion of Conservative M.P.s than I
  have of you.”. Just trust me that will be an insult.

  
  

If you get an email from me that does not contain those phrases,
but you are upset or insulted by it, then it is just my poor use of
English. Please accept my apologies.

Good Morning Build 76

It is coming to something that I was too busy to check to see if
build 76 had been installed on our Sun Ray server yesterday. Lets
face it it is not hard to type “ssh estale uname”. Anyway
it is here now:

: estale.eu FSS 1 $; uname -a

SunOS estale 5.11 snv_76 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire

: estale.eu FSS 2 $;

Had I done so I could have had 24 hours less of the deskbar applet
being missing, as it was in build 75. Although I’m not sure I like
the new one as it seems to have become more of a stand alone window,
which displays at the top left hand side of my screen when I have the
applet on the bottom right.

Screenlock, bugs, bluetooth and wifi

How do you file a bug against the image displayed by screen lock?

My, well Tim’s,
solution was to use my phone. The picture is not great but still good
enough to file the bug, what is slightly worrying is how long it took
to suck the image over bluetooth and then email over wifi, via Tim’s
PDA.

Now I have to file the bug if it is not filed already

So Long Matt

Yesterday the first person that I mentored at Sun left. 18 years
ago Matthew Finch joined the OS group in the UK answer centre and Sun
became a much better place to be. I’m sure our customers noticed it
and still notice it. His dogged determination to solve the problem,
find the answer, make sure the problem does not reoccur for that
customer or any customer set Matthew apart. Then his knowledge of how
systems work, how they are built, how they should be built if you
want to diagnose them. I will miss his ability to persuade
development that “yes we do need the ability JTAG
scan of the system when it hangs” and I suspect so will
development.

To anyone who employs Matt: Don’t give Matt a problem you don’t
want solved.

And to Matt: Good luck in what ever you choose to do, I hope that
choice includes returning to Sun.

Government responds to Helmet compulsion MP

Some sense from the Government, from Hansard:
Jim Fitzpatrick is the under secretary of state for transport (he
does not to my knowledge type, or do shortand). Mr Bone is an MP who
wishes to reduce cycling by introducing a mandatory helmet law:

Mr. Bone: To ask the Secretary
of State for Transport if she will bring forward proposals to make it
mandatory for children under 14 to wear a helmet when cycling on a
public highway. [159870]

Jim Fitzpatrick:
We have no proposals to bring forward legislation on compulsory cycle
helmet wearing. We believe that it is sensible for cyclists,
especially children, to protect themselves by wearing a cycle helmet.
A 2002 review commissioned by the DfT concluded that, overall there
is evidence that bicycle helmets can be effective at reducing the
incidence and severity of head, brain and upper facial injuries and
that they can be effective in reducing injury for users of all ages,
particularly for children. However, the report also concluded that,
making cycle helmet wearing compulsory may in some cases discourage
some people from cycling, leading to decreased bicycle use. We will
shortly be commissioning further research on a range of cycle safety
issues, including the use of cycle helmets.

Our regular surveys of helmet
wearing rates show that cycle helmets were worn by 28 per cent. of
all cyclists on major roads in built up areas in 2004; this compares
to 16 per cent. in 1994. The corresponding figures for child cyclists
are 14 per cent. in 2004 compared to 18 per cent. in 1994. The
wearing rate for teenage boys has decreased from 16 per cent. to 11
per cent. The 2006 helmet wearing rate survey will be published later
this year.

While compulsion remains an
option that we will review from time to time, it has been our view
that, at current helmet wearing rates, making helmets compulsory
would cause enforcement difficulties and without greater public
acceptance could have an effect on levels of cycling. Meanwhile, we
will continue to encourage all cyclists to wear helmets, through our
road safety publicity campaigns and advice in publications such as
The Highway Code.

We are yet to see the evidence that helmets can be effective, but
that does not seem to stop the DfT drawing conclusions that they
help.

Last ride on my summer bike

Next week the clocks go back so today was the last outing for this
year of my “summer” bike. I’ve already stopped riding it
to work as I need lights to get home, so I did not know until I got
on it this morning that the speedometer is not working, I hate riding
without a speedo. Silly I know but I have just got used to it.

It was cold.
Despite having proper gloves and a hat on my hands got cold (normally
I find that if I keep my head warm my hands are o.k. at all but the
coldest weather). I should have put my thick gloves in my pocket. We
rode out to Byefleet and Pyrford and then up Newlands Corner. By the
time I reached the top I was then warm and beginning to regret
agreeing to a short ride but a deal is a deal. So along to Dorking
and then Breakfast at Leatherhead. Two of us to a slight detour over
Ranmore, via one of my least favourite hills, White Down, it has two
1 in 7 stretches and I find it really hard to get a good rhythm going
on it (code for I need a smaller first gear). We still got to the
Cafe first though the others suffering a broken spoke which slowed
them.

Return
journey was fast and uneventful until we reached Esher and I turned
off with a rider who lives in Weybridge to head for home. Two proper
roadies went past, did not say good morning, and then failed to get
away from us. I know it is not big and it is not clever but I could
not resist putting my head down and seeing if I could drop them. The
other rider from BBT followed and we had dropped them when I turned
off. However they were looking like reeling in my riding buddy which
I felt bad about as I started it.

No
idea how far or how fast.

Good Morning Build 75

Build 75 is now installed on enoexec one of our SPARC servers
which means I can now use the latest and greatest build and not run
thunderbird remotely. The reason I had to run a remote thunderbird
when using x86 is due to thunderbird keeping it’s extensions in your
home directory but without taking into account the architecture of
the extenstion. IE they all go in
~/.thunderbird/*.default/extensions. If you install an extension for
SPARC that clearly won’t work on x86 and visa versa. I filed bug
6613224
for this.

Anyway I am now back on a SPARC system.

: enoexec.eu FSS 1 $; uname -a

SunOS enoexec 5.11 snv_75 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire

: enoexec.eu FSS 2 $;

The only problem so far is that pidgin is unable to join any rooms
that have the auto-join property set. Curiously this bug was seen
when pdigin was called gaim but went away when it was renamed. Again
a bug has been filed: 6617918
(it is not in bugs.opensolaris.org at the time of writing but
should turn up there soon)

Cycle helmet compulsion again….

Like a broken record an attempt to reduce the numbers of cyclists
by making cycle helmets compulsory has turned up as a 10 minute rule
bill the the House of Commons:

Motion:
Ten Minute Rule Motion – Bicycles (Children’s Safety Helmets) -
Mr Peter Bone

As with the best attempts to deter behaviour this just targets
those below the age of 17. If you can stop then cycling young then
they should be saved from ever taking it up. Once again time to
write to your MP. For those who still believe cycle helmets are
effective, and I wish that they were, see http://cyclehelmets.org
for the depressing reality that the only
thing they are effective at doing is reducing the levels of cycling.
They don’t have magic properties that allow polystyrene to protect
cyclists from the effects of being hit by motor vehicles.

Back on the bike

I’ve had two weeks off the bike and had to put up a US engineer
telling me how wonderful a Bike Friday is when travelling allowing
him to take his bike all around the world. I can see his point.
However:

1. I would need to travel more to make it worth while (ie I
   can’t afford another bike at the moment).

   
   

2. I’m still limited to 3 bikes by She who must be obeyed
   (although if the bike is in a suit case then it is not really a
   bike).

   
   

So that is not an option for at least a few days
years. Perhaps a travelling bag for the Brompton.

Back to todays ride. I felt fat and unfit as I rode down the road
and on turning onto the main road to Molesey I could see a rider ½
a mile down the road so went in pursuit. This allowed me to show that
I am unfit and I only caught him as we entered Molesey making up the
½ mile in 2 miles so perhaps not that unfit after all.

We went off to Newdigate to meet one of our number who was
marshalling the Redmon cycling club’s Gentlemans Grand Prix (a two up
time trial where one rider must be over 40 and follow the younger
rider). We went over Coombe bottom and headed for Horsham where we
got lost but eventually found the road to Rusper and then to
Newdigate. Breakfast at Henfold Lakes then a “fast”, well
not that fast (as I am unfit after all) run back to Molesey so the
Marshal could be home by 12:30.

68 miles Average speed 16.25 mph

Grrrr Muffett

Only Alec
could get me to write another CEC20007 entry after I had said that
was that.

I’ve just finished attending his CEC
presentation, via the web and two things are obvious:

1. More people will attend his presentation than attended any
   of the presentations at CEC as it is now out there forever.

   
   

2. The presentation was
   interesting and thought provoking I recommend it to everyone, even
   those who are not geeks.

   
   

suncec2007