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GRAFFITI -- July 30, 2007 thru August 05, 2007 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable.     About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
July 30, 2007

0711 - Good morning. Yesterday I spent some time in the late afternoon trolling through Freshmeat. I still do that from time to time. It's interesting to see what development efforts are active, hot, and getting attention from people. Freshmeat is a great place to keep up with many open source projects at a glance. Of course, the project page itself for a specific piece software is always best, and some packages don't post announcements to Freshmeat, but many do.

Of particular amusement to me is software naming. The strange attractor of recursive naming, especially self-referential self-denying recursive naming (like this: Wine: Wine Is Not (an) Emulator) is often spotted at work. Sometimes, I find myself convinced that a particularly clever coder found an acronym he liked, converted it into a self-referential expansion, then figured out what sort of software program he'd be learning how to write, based on the name alone. Of course, putting the clever up front, and all the hard work at the back end is an easy recipe for not quite all the hard work getting done. But there's plenty that do, releasing early, releasing often, and putting out some marvelous and useful itch-scratching code.

First impressions are important, too, when naming programs. Usually, in commercial software, the marketeers and branders find a way to make up a brand-new trademark-able "word" or phrase that manages to evoke some sense of what the program is for, or does, while also conveying robustness, ease-of-use, and security, all rolled up into one. Usually ends up sounding a bit ludicrous to my ear. On the OSS side of the fence, the name is often simpler, sometimes untrademarkable (which is a good thing - trademark searches are beyond the means of most Open Source coders). Other than the recursive, there's just ... names. There's so much software out there. Firefox was once Firebird, but that stepped on the toes of the RDBMS software of the same name. I guess they thought they couldn't coat-tail the browser, and that with a much more popular program around, they'd never get any Google love. So, sometimes, there's just a word for a name. That can backfire... For example, there's a refactoring library and IDE called Python Rope. I'm sure it's interesting and capable, but the first thought that flitted through my consciousness was "enough rope to hang himself", not precisely a Follow the Yellow Brick Road sort of thought to have when looking for software. Rope may stand for something that makes more sense in its context, but I didn't find that in a cursory traversal of the site.

Finally (on this thread),I came across GraphicsMagick while mucking around in Freshmeat yesterday. You'd think I'd have noticed this major fork of ImageMagick sometime in the last five years! As I looked around the web figuring out why I'd choose one over the other (both projects coexist peacefully on any given computer, so that's not a gating factor), I found this Linux.com article by Nathan Willis that helps clear up any confusion. Then I tried some time trials on a simple operation: JPG to PNG file conversion. For the first pass, I used a smallish (1.3M) JPG image from my camera:

            IM      GM
Pass 1    2.234s  4.807s
Pass 2    1.883s  4.331s
Pass 3    1.716s  3.933s
Pass 4    1.909s  4.362s
Pass 5    2.028s  4.301s

That's not particularly auspicious. But I know that GM uses an actual library with interfaces and all, maybe that's the trouble, and a larger image will show what GM is made of. The implication from the comments in the above-linked article is that GM is faster, not 2X slower. Let's pick something nice and big from the HiRise site. How big? How about 2,399,020,901 bytes: the JPEG2000 image of Layers in Arabia Terra PSP_004434_1885, the front-page image on HiRise today. Nice thing to have FiOS: a 2.2G image file takes about 19 minutes to download — I was peaking at 1.84MB/s which is above the 15 megabits that we're due according to our service level. The "funny" thing is that the image is linked off of a page with plenty of other format/sizes available, including assorted wallpapers in stock computer display sizes (though not 1600x1200). So, at 100px/inch, how big a display does one need to natively display this full-size version? 356" x 1143", or 29 feet by 95 feet. Now THAT'S a jumbotron! (Hey, Jumbotron might be one of those nasty made-up trademarked words. If so, then it would be owned by Sony, famous for their rootkits, as well)

bilbrey@magickthyse:~$ ls -al PSP_004434_1885_RED.JP2
-rw-r--r-- 1 bilbrey bilbrey 2399020901 Jul 18 23:44 PSP_004434_1885_RED.JP2

Going in, I didn't know if this would work. After all, the image file is actually larger than main RAM on my system (I'm doing these tests on Magickthyse, the AMD 64 X2 home server. Whoops. That simply doesn't work. Nothing will open it. Okay, how about a 184M TIFF file from the Visible Earth site? Here's five timed passes of each converting from TIFF to PNG, after one pass to "prime" file caching.

              IM          GM
Pass 1    1m57.004s   1m30.775s
Pass 2    1m59.534s   1m28.600s
Pass 3    2m01.247s   1m28.609s
Pass 4    2m01.929s   1m28.557s
Pass 5    2m04.664s   1m30.265s

Wow. Now there's a difference. And just for fun, with the generated PNG files, one pass of each:

bilbrey@magickthyse:~$ time convert one05.png one05.jpg

real    1m20.568s
user    0m36.286s
sys     0m9.213s
bilbrey@magickthyse:~$ time gm convert two05.png two05.jpg

real    0m32.533s
user    0m29.870s
sys     0m1.728s

Okay. I'm convinced. Are you? Happy Monday!

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July 31, 2007

An abundance of vegetables

1844 - Good evening. I finally had time to make it out to the garden and see how things were holding up. With the excessive heat and humidity, coupled with lack of rain and regular cooling cycles, the plants are all struggling. But clearly they're not struggling so much that they can't produce an abundance of ... produce. I mean, wow! If you click on the image at right to see the larger version of the picture, you'll see a steel cup measure bottom left to give you a sense of the scale of those squash. Plus there are just a tonne of tomatoes and peppers.

Last night was Monday-as-usual busy, but everything got done at a reasonable hour. There have been times when I'm up past 11 trying to get Jerry's column into shape for Tuesday morning (no, not because of formatting or writing, but because of a late arrival or boat loads of pictures). Sometimes the column is a day late because I don't have time to get it done ... and sleep leading to the day job can't be scrimped too much.

A bloke I know is at Black Hat in Vegas, where he won't be attending any training sessions by Halvar Flake, since he got turned back to Germany by our wonderful INS/Customs folks ... In another forum, here's what I had to say:

18:42 < bilborg> re Flake... I think the Feds could have said, yeah, okay, you've been doing this every year for a while now,

18:43 < bilborg> we'll let you slide this time, but there's now a note on your file - do it right next year.

18:43 < bilborg> that would have been gracious

18:47 < bilborg> admittedly, "gracious" isn't something our beloved gummint is well-known for.

Now, let me go see what kind of trouble I can make with that much vegetable matter. I'll probably get cited for hoarding raw materials for alternative fuels... Ciao!

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August 1, 2007

0656 - Good morning. I'm taking a bucketload of those vegetables to work in a few minutes. Yep, mutant squash exhibiting gigantism and all. Last night, after that post, I finished up with the email, did a few housekeeping chores around the computers, and puttered for a bit. Then Marcia and I played Jeopardy on the console - that's fun, though sometimes frustrating to Marcia because I'm both quick on the trigger, and likely to remember nearly anything I've read or heard. The side-benefit is that the more knowledge you have, the better guesser you can be, because you have better definitions of the spaces you know, and thus the spaces that you don't know. There was a question the other night about a most popular form of woman's slip-on shoe. Now, I know jack-all about women's shoes, except that that can be bloody expensive, and if they're really good, they hurt her feet something fierce, too. But "popular" and "slip-on" ... I guessed "pumps" and the game said I was right. Marcia would have looked at me funny if I'd guessed "Patent Leather Thigh-highs".

Later, I picked up Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. I've seen most of that series on Nova, and seen the man himself lecture on the topic. As I started to read, that little voice in the back of my head started up, "Isn't there this whole faith-vs-science thing that's got people all worked up about string theory?" I started to get a little worked up, and realized, yeah, and I've probably thought about this before.

Yeah, I have thought about this before, but not yet deeply nor completely. So I unventilated, and ordered Smolin's book (I sure wish they had Physics as a category on the O'Reilly Safari Bookshelf). Kevin: I finally used that Barnes and Noble gift card from a year and a half ago! Thanks! I'll read it, and think about it, and get ventilated again another day. Say, I wonder how Uncle Orson is doing... Damn. Fine writing as usual. Learning from History

Now, to work with me. Happy hump day.

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August 2, 2007

0707 - Good morning. Five years ago, right about now, we were asleep in a Best Western motel in Salt Lake City, shortly to wake up and do our second 600+ mile day. Yow. On Sunday it'll be the five year marker for our arrival in Maryland. Of course, 6 days later, I *really* arrived, as I hared back to Nebraska three days later, to pick up the Blazer that broke while we were in Lincoln. The worst off it was that we ended up trading in that vehicle for next to nothing when we bought our second new car of the month, not more than 7 weeks later. I also recall that we arrived in town just in time for a bit of a time with a sniper in our area...

The rest of my evening last night went to reviewing that time in our lives, from the DC sniper to past the time when Sally had her first stroke. Then I headed off on a Feynman tangent, which is always too easy for me to do. Yeah, he's long gone, and so is Andy Kaufmann, but I wish I'd managed to meet one, the other, or both ... for different reasons. Now, to work with me. Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
August 3, 2007

0912 - Good morning. Yesterday afternoon we discovered that last month, comcast contractors crushed/kinked our FiOS line while burying a cable to the neighbors. The most affected signal was Video. We (me and the Verizon tech) managed to actually locate the problem spot on the cable, straighten it out, and splint it until next week when the trenching crew comes back out to lay a new line. Signal is at full strength across the board, and all is okay at the moment. We also paid the rest of the roofing bill. Whew.

I'm sure glad it's Friday. Later...

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
August 4, 2007

1033 - Good morning. So far, Molly was sick this morning, but apparently just from hunger. After cleaning that up, and having my own breakfast, I managed to get a couple of public-facing nameservers updated without incident. In a bit, I'm taking Molly down to the veterinary for her annual shots, and I'll have her nails trimmed as long as we're there. No point in outside projects, it's already into the 90's out there. More later if events warrant.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
August 5, 2007

1404 - Good afternoon. I appear to be motivationally challenged. All I did much of yesterday afternoon was lay about, take a nap, etc. I don't know what's gotten out of me? I do know that Doc Searls has a new blog site, in association with his Fellowship at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. His old site, at doc.weblogs.com, is (in theory) in parking mode. So it should continue to be available ... but it wasn't most of yesterday, when I was looking for the new link to spruce up my Start page.

I've got a little going on, today. Of course we did the shopping. And I've seared a 5# top round roast, then popped it into slow roast mode out on the grill. I'll cook that until done, then shred most of it for assorted purposes: primarily a chili made with the red sauce I've been enhancing over the last couple of weeks. I'll add chili spices, the meat, and a couple of cans of kidney beans, and maybe one fine-diced jalapeño to make a kickass pot of chili. What meat I don't use for the chili will go nice as fajitas or some other sort of dish yet to be determined.

In the Middle East, the beat goes on, both for our troops in the field, and for US authors and publishers who are being attacked in foreign courts where the libel laws are tilted rather dramatically against the writers and publishers (by comparison with US laws). That's a big deal, but in my eyes, still small potatoes by comparison with the sacrifices of our young men and women in uniform. This week there's someone who's probably a third or fourth cousin - there aren't that many Bilbreys around... More about Charles, here.

• Sgt. William R. Howdeshell, 37, of Norfolk, Va., died July 26 in Saqlawiyah, Iraq of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Spc. Charles E Bilbrey, Jr., 21, of Owego, New York, died July 26 in Saqlawiyah, Iraq of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Spc. Jaime Rodriguez, Jr., 19, of Oxnard, Calif., died July 26 in Saqlawiyah, Iraq of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Pvt. Michael A. Baloga, 21, of Everett, Wash., died July 26 in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device.
• Spc. Daniel A. Leckel, 19, of Medford, Ore., died July 25 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
• Pfc. Cody C. Grater, 20, of Spring Hill, Fla., died July 29 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy direct fire.
• Maj. Thomas G. Bostick Jr., 37, of Llano, Texas, died July 27 near Kamu, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations
• Staff Sgt. William R. Fritsche, 23, of Martinsville, Ind., died July 27 near Kamu, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when his unit came in contact with enemy forces using small arms fire during combat operations.
• Staff Sgt. Wilberto Suliveras, 38, of Humacao, P.R., died July 29 in Taji, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
• Cpl. Sean A. Stokes, 24, of Auburn, Calif., died July 30 from wounds suffered while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
• Spc. Camy Florexil, 20, of Philadelphia, died July 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle during combat operations July 23 in Baghdad.
• 1st Lt. Benjamin J. Hall, 24, of Virginia, died July 31 in Asadabad, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit during combat operations in Chowkay Valley, Afghanistan.
• Sgt. Stephen R. Maddies, 41, of Elizabethton, Tenn., died July 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from enemy small arms fire.
• Cpl. Jason M. Kessler, 29, of Mount Vernon, Wash., died July 30 in northern Iraq of wounds suffered from a rocket-propelled grenade.
• Spc. Zachariah J. Gonzalez, 23, of Indianapolis, Indiana, died July 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Pfc. Charles T. Heinlein Jr., 23, of Hemlock, Mich., died July 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Pfc. Alfred H. Jairala, 29, of Hialeah, Fla., died July 31 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Sgt. Taurean T. Harris, 22, of Liberty, Miss., died Aug. 2 in Kala Gush, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.

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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.

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