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  <channel>
    <title>Abram Hindle's Blog   </title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi</link>
    <description>The Personal Blog Of Abram Hindle</description>
    <language>en</language>

  <item>
    <title>Sketcha-mo-phone</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2009/03/22#1237773503</link>
    <description>
&lt;a href=&quot;http://softwareprocess.us/index.cgi/sketcha-mo-phone&quot;&gt;http://softwareprocess.us/index.cgi/sketcha-mo-phone&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
I've made an instrument using my arduino, some LEDs, some resistors, a
breadbord, some wires, and a pencil. The pencil provides us with a kind of
potentiometer. This allows us to use a line draw by hand, much like a guitar
string.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Qi II is NOT Open Source at all, M. Tarver is abusing the term open source with</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2009/03/12#1236865543</link>
    <description>his own homegrown definition.  Qi II is proprietary software it does meet the
definition of opensource put forth by OSI, Debian or free software by by the
FSF.

&lt;p&gt;
It really bothers me that educated people would take part in the dilution of
semantic meaning of something so legalistic as licenses.

&lt;p&gt;
To: dr mtarver ukonline co uk

&lt;p&gt;
From: abram hindle

&lt;p&gt;
Subject: Qi II License

&lt;p&gt;

Your license for Qi II is really confusing, it says &quot;not for the
production of commercial software&quot;, commercial software is not defined,
then later it says &quot;remain available as open source&quot;. If you read
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd&quot;&gt;http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd&lt;/a&gt; , which is considered to be the
standard for the definition of open source (since you did not define it)
Clause 1 states:

&lt;p&gt;
1. Free Redistribution

&lt;p&gt;
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the
software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing
programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a
royalty or other fee for such sale.

&lt;p&gt;
Clause 1 means that I can package any such open source software, put it
on a CD, sell the CD, charge money for any services related the product
etc. Even in a commercial setting. This is required of opensource, it
shouldn't matter how its used as long as the license and property is
respected (which can require that all future derivatives remain under
the same license).

&lt;p&gt;
So your license tries to be open-source but contains clauses which
violate the spirit open source. MySQL gets around this by dual licensing
and requiring copyright assignment in the case of accepting patches.

&lt;p&gt;
Can you address these issues?

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Your license claims to be opensource but can't be if it limits&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
commercial exploitation
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Alternatively you allow commercial exploitation, enabling it to be&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
opensource, but it is not very clear.

&lt;p&gt;
If it was dual licensed with the GPL and whatever license you want then
at least I'd know it was opensource, but as it stands Debian can't
include your software with their distribution and it certainly doesn't
sound like it is open source.

&lt;p&gt;
abram

&lt;p&gt;

License found at:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lambdassociates.org/whatsnew.htm&quot;&gt;http://www.lambdassociates.org/whatsnew.htm&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
This software is licensed only for personal and educational use and not
for the production of commercial software. Modifications to this program
are allowed but the resulting source must be annotated to indicate the
nature of and the author of these changes. Any modified source is bound
by this licence and must remain available as open source under the same
conditions it was supplied and with this licence at the top.

&lt;p&gt;
This software is supplied AS IS without any warranty. In no way shall ;
Mark Tarver or Lambda Associates be held liable for any damages
resulting from the use of this program. The terms of these conditions
remain binding unless the individual holds a valid license to use Qi
commercially. This license is found in the final page of 'Functional
Programming in Qi'. In that event the terms of that license apply to the
license holder.

&lt;p&gt;

And Dr. M Tarver responds:

&lt;p&gt;
From: Mark Tarver

&lt;p&gt;
To: Abram Hindle

&lt;p&gt;
Subject: Re: Qi II License

&lt;p&gt;

I don't adhere to the open source definition of Debian which is not
trademarked nor binding.  The source you quote to a retrospetive attempt
to bind the term.  For me, it means that the source code can be viewed
and changed.  Commercial = for money or anything of monetary value.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: IP Forwarding on OpenVZ for OpenVPN?</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/10/10#1192079283</link>
    <description>Masquerading got you down?

&lt;p&gt;
Read this thread: &lt;a href=&quot;http://forums.vpslink.com/showthread.php?t=1864&amp;page=2&quot;&gt;http://forums.vpslink.com/showthread.php?t=1864&amp;page=2&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Corrupt countries were more likely to support the OOXML document format? With a correlation coeffecient of -0.31?</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/09/06#1189126528</link>
    <description>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html&quot;&gt;http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
For some reason they use a Wilcoxian test and fisher t test on the data.
The data has 2 random variables, corruption (continuous) and vote (yes/no)

&lt;p&gt;
They said they should with good p-values that there correlation between
voting for approval and corruption. Well using both Pearson and
Point-Biserial Correlation coeffecient I found a coeffecient of -0.3129
with a p-value of 0.009373 this means there was a weak or medium stength
linear correlation between corruption (more negative) and approval votes.

&lt;p&gt;
What's interesting is that EFFI keeps applying the wrong tests when they
want to show to correlation. I also did the rank based correlations and
they weren't as good as the linear cases -0.29 for Spearman-Rho and 0.24
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 for Kendall-Tau rank based correlations. So there is a correlation but
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;
not a really great one, nothing to write home about.

&lt;p&gt;
My data and a log of what I did is at: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/ooxml&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/ooxml&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
abram
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Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - &lt;a href=&quot;http://enigmail.mozdev.org&quot;&gt;http://enigmail.mozdev.org&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
iD8DBQFG4KGJnOrfa1yW8IURAhzJAJoCHDfl/vzKWrdoMNK3XrJQxpIaqgCfX0Ci
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&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: OCaml JACK JACKit Support</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/08/11#1186888104</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/ocaml-jack/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/ocaml-jack/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
To get it run:

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 darcs get &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/ocaml-jack/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/ocaml-jack/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: NVidia on Feisty or Gutsy</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/07/21#1185031661</link>
    <description>I've had no end of troubles with my new Feisty install of Ubuntu. I
wanted TV-Out to work on my NVidia card on laptop a Geforce4 420. Well
it turns out you need some special modules options and some special
lines in the xorg.conf just to get TV out working fine.

&lt;p&gt;
Anyways read through &lt;a href=&quot;http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Latest_nvidia_feisty&quot;&gt;http://doc.gwos.org/index.php/Latest_nvidia_feisty&lt;/a&gt;
for instructions on how to handle your card.

&lt;p&gt;
abram

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Hon. Maxime Bernier - Copyright Act</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/05/30#1180536332</link>
    <description>I got this back from the Minister of Industry.

&lt;p&gt;
Pretty bland response. I editted some email addresses.

&lt;p&gt;
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 10:15:26 -0400
From: &quot;Correspondence Minister/Correspondance Ministre: OCS&quot;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
     &amp;lt;CorrespondenceMinister ic gc ca&amp;gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;
To: Abram Hindle &amp;lt;ahindle cs uwaterloo ca&amp;gt;
Subject: Hon. Maxime Bernier - Copyright Act

&lt;p&gt;

Thank you for your electronic correspondence regarding possible
amendments to the Copyright Act (the Act).

&lt;p&gt;
In my view, the Act must continue to be supportive of innovation and
research while reflecting current technological and legal realities.  To
this end, a balance between adequate protection for copyright holders
and reasonable access to copyrighted material is critical.

&lt;p&gt;
With this in mind, I am working closely with my colleague, the
Honourable Bev Oda, Minister of Canadian Heritage, to determine the
appropriate next steps with respect to copyright reform.

&lt;p&gt;
Please be assured that your comments will be taken into account as we
move forward.

&lt;p&gt;
Sincerely,

&lt;p&gt;
Maxime Bernier

&lt;p&gt;
-----Original Message-----
From: Abram Hindle [mailto:ahindle cs uwaterloo ca]
Sent: April 16, 2007 9:12 PM
To: Correspondence Minister/Correspondance Ministre: OCS
Subject: Proposed changes to BILL C-60

&lt;p&gt;
Dear Maxime Bernier, Minister of Industry,

&lt;p&gt;
As a computer science researcher I am concerned over news that
anti-digital-circumvention laws are proposed as additions to BILL C-60.
By making digital circumvention illegal and the tools and means of doing
so illegal you provide NO market incentive to industry to protect a
user's privacy. Essentially computer criminals will use the latest
software exploit to access the private information of Canadians and use
this info in expensive and dangerous ways. They will do this regardless
of legality of circumvention. What this law does is it silences ethical
researchers who find bugs in software and devices which often protect
people. Without these researchers these bugs go un-found or they are
kept within the computer underground and used against unwitting victims.

&lt;p&gt;
Essentially you're taking the most capable researchers who help protect
your digital security and putting them in chains. Even worse you're
allow industry and the market to become lazy, you're removing incentive
for industry to fix security issues.

&lt;p&gt;
If you think these are laws are only for music and videos I suggest you
read about the abuse of the DMCA in the USA and how it is used to
protect faulty voting machines and buggy software from &quot;exploitation&quot; by
people who have every right to audit the safety of these devices.

&lt;p&gt;
Do not make common sense illegal, software research has shown that there
are numerous bugs created per every 10 lines of code written. Most
software packages you use are over 100,000 lines of code. Bugs are not
going away and computer exploits are not going away. Do not disable our
ability to secure ourselves against criminals.

&lt;p&gt;
Ref: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1875/125/&quot;&gt;http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1875/125/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Abram Hindle

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Ric's brilliant idea</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/02/16#1171697754</link>
    <description>During the last meeting, before Mike arrived, Ric and Abram were
discussing editing techniques. Reading aloud was one technique, but it
had the distinct failure of relying on your ability to not auto-correct
your mistakes.

&lt;p&gt;
Ric then came up with the idea of getting the computer to read your work
to you. The computer reads accurately and perfectly, it only leaves out
things it doesn't understand. It doesn't skip over double words like
&quot;the the&quot; and doesn't say &quot;blah blah&quot; when a word is too long. Also, its
tongue never tires.

&lt;p&gt;
Anyways, in a fit of yak shaving I made an emacs macro that piped text
from a region to festival (a CMU text2speech engine). I found that emacs
blocked even if I ran festival with &quot;&amp;&quot; to run in the background. So I
made a daemonize script to run festival (I copied it from perldocs). So
now when I hit ESC-\ on a region in emacs it pipes the text through
untex and into festival, which then reads to text outloud to me using a
Scottish voice.

&lt;p&gt;
Was it helpful? Yes it was. I felt that it helped immensely. It would
read text accurately and not skip words, a problem that I have. It
wouldn't tire me out. It didn't hurt my eyes, I could just follow along
slowly. The benefits of a speech synth is that it makes it apparent when
your timing is off, when you are missing a comma. When a sentence is too
long the voice runs out of breath. When a sentence keeps repeating
similar sounding words too much you will notice it.

&lt;p&gt;
Even more interesting is that it seems to use a different part of the
brain to process what has been written. When you listen to something
that is incorrect you can usually notice it. Anyways, it made editing a
lot more fun and I felt more confident about it. Perhaps it was novelty,
it seemed to work.

&lt;p&gt;
If I wanted to check if what I wrote was correct I just made it read it
out and it became pretty apparent if I was missing something.

&lt;p&gt;
I've inlined the results of the yak shaving below (it didn't take a lot
of time).

&lt;p&gt;
I did a tiny bit of research and it seems some people advocate this, and
some people even sell software to do this.

&lt;p&gt;
Thanks for the great idea.

&lt;p&gt;
abram

&lt;p&gt;
Attachments:

&lt;p&gt;
The macro in .emacs :
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 (defun tex-speak ()
   (interactive)
   (shell-command-on-region (point)
                            (mark) &quot;untex  - | texspeak&quot; nil nil))
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 (global-set-key &quot;\M-\\&quot; 'tex-speak)
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
texspeak:
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 #!/usr/bin/perl
 use POSIX qw(setsid);
 system(&quot;killall festival&quot;);
 my @in = &amp;lt;STDIN&amp;gt;;
 daemonize();
 $|=1;
 open(FD,&quot;| festival $ENV{HOME}/scripts/festivaltts&quot;);
 print FD $_ foreach @in;
 sub daemonize {
     chdir '/'               or die &quot;Can't chdir to /: $!&quot;;
     open STDIN, '/dev/null' or die &quot;Can't read /dev/null: $!&quot;;
     open STDOUT, '&amp;gt;/dev/null'
                             or die &quot;Can't write to /dev/null: $!&quot;;
     defined(my $pid = fork) or die &quot;Can't fork: $!&quot;;
     exit if $pid;
     setsid                  or die &quot;Can't start a new session: $!&quot;;
     open STDERR, '&amp;gt;&amp;STDOUT' or die &quot;Can't dup stdout: $!&quot;;
 }
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
festivaltts:
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 (voice_cmu_us_awb_arctic_hts)
 (tts_file &quot;-&quot;)
 (quit)
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: KDE is coming along quite well</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/02/08#1170981312</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://lukeplant.me.uk/articles.php?id=3&quot;&gt;http://lukeplant.me.uk/articles.php?id=3&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
You can use dcop from the commandline to automate various KDE related
tasks. This is the kind of desktop integration we need more of. The
ability to use graphical apps yet still script them. This kind of thing
has been available for a while but is really just starting to really
catch on in KDE and GNOME on linux. It has been available to Windows for
ever and OSX has their appletalk and automator interfaces.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Good MPI article</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/02/08#1170981022</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9082&quot;&gt;http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9082&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Blurring</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2007/02/08#1170980802</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://dheera.net/projects/blur.php&quot;&gt;http://dheera.net/projects/blur.php&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
I wouldn't have gone about this problem the way he did. I would've used
feature vectors and machine learning to characterize and classify the
bitmaps (which he'll probably have to do). Though what I thought was
great is he actually analyzed the problem and came up with a very novel
solution (I doubt it works in all cases but still close enough).</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Latest Movie Recommendation</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/09/10#1157908699</link>
    <description>Mean Creek &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377091/&quot;&gt;http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377091/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
The Caulkins plot to teach a bully a lesson. Well acted and serious. One
of the few movies with kids in it which is actually any good.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Gmail admins need to get their act together</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/08/30#1156993616</link>
    <description>Got this from gmail:

&lt;p&gt;
Received-SPF: softfail (gmail.com: domain of transitioning iywhk@abez.ca
does not designate 63.229.116.57 as permitted sender)

&lt;p&gt;
Go look up SPF, it is a way of denying hosts from sending mail as you by
allowing spam filters to filter based on a txt entry for your domain.

&lt;p&gt;
Regardless on a softfailure gmail is sending me spam from people
pretending to send mail from my domain. I've sent them emails
complaining about this in the past but they've been ignored.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Multiple Keyboards and Linux</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/08/30#1156976689</link>
    <description>I want a keyboard dedicated to a musical instrument. I want 300+ keys of
musical control. I want keys for pitch, I want keys for sliders. I want
options out the wazoo. Frankly Linux's automatic behaviour makes this
difficult for me. Luckily with 2.6 their new input handling code
seperates the keyboard out for me.

&lt;p&gt;
I've been recently trying to get multiple keyboards providing me
multiple input. There are a few ways one can do this:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; You're going to have to read for /dev/input/event*. I recommend&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
  hacking evtest.
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; If you have 2.6: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/realevtest.c&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/realevtest.c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; If you have 2.4: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/evtest.c&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/evtest.c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Way 1: Just let linux handle everything. Accept that your keyboards will&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
output to the standard linux keyboard and if you use &quot;kdb&quot; in xorg as
your driver they will all mirror each other. You can't do any keystrokes
that your window manager likes etc. It is like using your normal
keyboard but if you read directly from /dev/input/event* you'll get all
the keypresses and the different keyboards. This means your main program
in focus has to handle all the keyboard input :(.
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Way 2: Let XORG handle it and disable the extra keyboards. Use the&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
Keyboard input device &quot;evdev&quot; and use /dev/input/event0 as your keyboard
(probably your main keyboard). You might have problems with keybindings
(redo them). The problem with this method is that your VT in linux still
is handling the other keyboards. So if you do a ctrl-c you're probably
going to kill X. At least this way you can just read the devices. If you
use a builtin keyboard or a ps/2 keyboard you can try and disable the
linux usbkbd driver and see if that saves you from ctrl-cing your xorg
session.
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Way 3: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-usb-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg13879.html&quot;&gt;http://www.mail-archive.com/linux-usb-users@lists.sourceforge.net/msg138...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
Get a list of your special keyboards that you want to disable from
normal input and edit the driver blacklist. Tell it to ignore
(HID_QUIRK_IGNORE) your devices. I think this is probably the most convienant way
actually or just don't load usbkeybd at all. If you do this make sure
you have network access to your machine just in case you lose all
keyboard input in some accident (it is possible).
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Way 4: Assign your other keyboards to a seperate virtual terminal. I&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
don't know how to do this.

&lt;p&gt;
Everytime you'll have to parse the event devices. Good things to search
for in google to help you out &quot;multi seat linux&quot;. You might need a ruby
kernel.

&lt;p&gt;
I'm not done yet so I think I'm going to hack usbkdb and tell it to
ignore the USB keyboards I have. I have not verified that it'll still
work as an event device (I sure hope so).

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Even more china photos</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/08/28#1156783605</link>
    <description>I didn't take these (phillip and his wife Ping did (thanks)) also the resizing is horrible. I might fix it later.

&lt;p&gt;
Wedding Photos:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_P102&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_P102&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_147CANON&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_147CANON&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_148CANON&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_148CANON&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_146CANON&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_146CANON&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_149CANON&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_149CANON&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_IMG_5&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_IMG_5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_IMG_4&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060819_IMG_4&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Sunday outing:
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060820_HuMen_DongGuan/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060820_HuMen_DongGuan/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060820_BaGuang_Shenzhen/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060820_BaGuang_Shenzhen/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: More Photos</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/08/28#1156779183</link>
    <description>In china they have a very cheesy style of wedding photo where you play
dress up:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/sese1/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/sese1/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/sese2&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/sese2&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Here are photos of some dinner &amp; hong kong:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060826/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060826/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060827/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060827/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
I liked hong kong because it was cleaner although it was more expensive than
the mainland.

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: China</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/08/22#1156255349</link>
    <description>I visited china! I got married there! I learned some more mandarin and
learned what it is like to be be illiterate.

&lt;p&gt;


&lt;p&gt;
Here are some pictures:

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2214-03/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2214-03/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2217-50/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2217-50/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2237-50/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/2006-08-15-2237-50/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060822/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060822/&lt;/a&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Marital Status</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/07/28#1154107743</link>
    <description>I am legally married To Lixin Luo Hindle (2006-07-08).

&lt;p&gt;
Formal Cermony will be held August 19th in ShenZhen, China. I'll have to
wear something strange.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: DJBDNS (DNSCACHE)</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/07/25#1153888869</link>
    <description>I had to change QUERY_MAXLEVEL from 5 to 7 so I could get stuff from
download.microsoft.com :( Thanks DJB, I love recompiling due to
hardcoded constants.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: New Abez Font</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/06/21#1150941617</link>
    <description>abez font version 0.2 is released:

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Here's a new abez font and it works a little better:
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
 wget -r -np &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
X11: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/abez.pcf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/abez.pcf&lt;/a&gt;
windows: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/AbezMedium-0.2.ttf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/AbezMedium-0.2.ttf&lt;/a&gt;
OSX: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/AbezMedium-0.2.mac.dfont&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/AbezMedium-0.2.mac.dfont&lt;/a&gt;
debian/ubuntu: &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/xfonts-abez_0.2_all.deb&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/abez-0.2/xfonts-abez_0.2_all.deb&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Thanks to mikael &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.deepwood.net/~mikael/tumblelog/&quot;&gt;http://www.deepwood.net/~mikael/tumblelog/&lt;/a&gt;
for the deb and Makefile (which I probably broke).

&lt;p&gt;
Oh the purpose of the font is to have a thin font which is about 13-15
pixels high as well as do nice line art. Mikael made the braces and
parans and brackets very pro-fontish.

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Social Networking</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/06/08#1149823710</link>
    <description>New Scientist Technology - Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&amp;nsref=mg19025556.200&quot;&gt;http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&amp;nsre...&lt;/a&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: PrintfGentle</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/06/05#1149542383</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://mlton.org/PrintfGentle&quot;&gt;http://mlton.org/PrintfGentle&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
A Type Safe Printf in MLTon. Impressive.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: More Chicago Photos</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/05/03#1146681264</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060502/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060502/&lt;/a&gt; I also met Tory in London and we ate
at 2 seperate Tim Hortons :O</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Chicago Stuff</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/05/02#1146602790</link>
    <description>
Here is IO_BURN's photoset on a proprietary webservice:
&lt;a href=&quot;http://flickr.com/photos/io_burn/sets/72057594122040242/&quot;&gt;http://flickr.com/photos/io_burn/sets/72057594122040242/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060501/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060501/&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/100_0345.JPG&quot;&gt;&lt;img max-width=300 src=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/100_0345.JPG&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
YEAH INTERNET FRIENDS.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Chicago Pics</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/04/30#1146443913</link>
    <description>Here are some pictures of food and Chicago.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20060430/&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
IO_Burn wants gr33ts. So gr33ts 2 IO_BURN.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: In Chicago</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/04/28#1146275803</link>
    <description>After travelling for 12 hrs by bus, I arrived in Chicago at Sam and
ScheisseGern's place. I slept and then we went to UIC and saw a talk by
Richard Stallman. I bought a T-shirt and got his auto-graph. Then we
waited around for Ioburn, Catbus, koshersalami, and winkie.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Oh wow GPG</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/03/09#1141952172</link>
    <description>I feel so much safer now I have set up GPG. Except I don't have anyone
else's public key.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://abez.ca/~abez/public-key.asc&quot;&gt;http://abez.ca/~abez/public-key.asc&lt;/a&gt; &amp;lt;--- here's my public key if you
need it. (for abez@abez.ca)</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Random Entry</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/03/08#1141832958</link>
    <description>I want to get to work on some simple computer vision algorithms.
Specifically shape recognition software. What I want to do is to have a
live performance where I spend the performance drawing on newsprint
underneath a webcam, while the computer processes the image and pulls
out symbols and shapes. These symbols and shapes signal certain
instruments to start, queue up or change the parameters of instruments.

&lt;p&gt;
Best of all, I could this wearing a wizard cap.

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Casper Was Helpful</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/01/31#1138759670</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/casper-abez-font.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img max-width=300 src=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/casper-abez-font.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;
Pal Casper converted the font to True Type with fontforge so it could be
used on the mac.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/AbezMedium.ttf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/AbezMedium.ttf&lt;/a&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Made a new font</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/01/31#1138756451</link>
    <description>It is a thin size 14 font based on misc-fixed. It is meant to be
thinner.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/misc-abez.bdf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/misc-abez.bdf&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/misc-abez.pcf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/misc-abez.pcf&lt;/a&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/fontdemo.png&quot;&gt;&lt;img max-width=300 src=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/fontdemo.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: WINE</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/01/16#1137463362</link>
    <description>I installed Wine to try out simearth for windows again (I have a version
but no windows). Anyways it said I didn't have enough disk space so I
had to run dd count@ bs=1m if=/dev/zero of=./winfs and mkfs.ext2
./winfs, then mount it: mount ./winfs /mnt/winfs -o loop . Once that was
done I got it installed but could not run it because I lacked sound.dll
:(. Oh well.

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Speech Recognition On Linux</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/01/15#1137362810</link>
    <description>Alas IBM discontinued Via Voice and it is very difficult to find the
RPMs necessary. As well they aren't free software.

&lt;p&gt;
I've tried different packages from CMU Sphinx2 Sphinx-2 Sphinx3 Sphinx-3 Sphinx4 Sphinx-4

&lt;p&gt;
I first tried Sphinx-4, it worked well for live demos but when I tried
to integrate more complex languages into it, such as HUB4 or WSJ I just
couldn't. Classpath problems and like even though I directly referenced
both the jar files and class files.
So Sphinx-4 was a bust simply do to it's very lame and over XMLify
configuration system. Making if very difficult to get started.

&lt;p&gt;
Then I started on Sphinx2, I tried to make my own LM files from random
internet text and that was very troublesome. I could only use their web
service to generate the files from text files. They only allowed for
5000 uniq words as well. Once I had that it was easy to run sphinx2-demo
with the new ml and dic files (put into a new directory) except that it
was very very picky of what I said. So picky that rarely did it ever
print any output at all.

&lt;p&gt;
Very disappointed I tried to figure out how to make it more liberal. I
could not find the right parameters at all.

&lt;p&gt;
So I was limited by vocabulary sizes, I was limited by the transitions
between words in these vocabularies, and I was limited by the strict
sensitivity of sphinx-2. I was rather unhappy. I had searched for
general models etc and couldn't find them. Until I remembered, with
Sphinx 4 I had tried to use HUB4 and WSJ data...

&lt;p&gt;
So I tried to the HUB4 dump file with sphinx2 (to no avail). I then
searched for hub4 and sphinx2... I found:

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.arborius.net/~jphekman/sphinx/full/index.html&quot;&gt;http://www.arborius.net/~jphekman/sphinx/full/index.html&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
So now I am waiting for this guarantuan file to load and see if it will
recognize anything useful at all.

&lt;p&gt;
Sadly it doesn't work well for general dictation at all :(

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: I wasted time time solving sudokus</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2006/01/10#1136923117</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/sudoku.txt&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/sudoku.txt&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Getting the computer to solve them in perl :| Runs reasonably fast.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Christmas letter</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/12/26#1135635153</link>
    <description>I hope you have a great holiday season.

&lt;p&gt;
Lixin and I are settling into our new home in Waterloo. We live right
downtown, so we have access to all the amenities and Lixin can go to
work by bus. Lixin has found work as a private tutor and a Supply
Educational Assistant at Waterloo School Board, this means she gets real
classroom experience. She went to different schools (primary or
secondary) almost everyday. Thus she saw various ways/styles of teaching
and learning.  She is having fun and is very busy.

&lt;p&gt;
I, Abram, have been exceptionally busy with a full course of 3 graduate
courses while acting as a teaching assistant for a course he calls
&quot;Programming for Newbies&quot;. The courses were &quot;Software Architecture&quot;,
&quot;Artifical Intelligence: Reasoning through Uncertainity&quot; and &quot;Databases:
Web Data Integration and Stream Databases&quot;. The database course required
at least 15 hours of work a week. This combined with random 16 hour
marking stints virtually killed me. Unfortunately one course is left.
The professor said the final report is due in January. Anyways the
courses at Waterloo are more work intensive than at UVic, I'm not sure
if they are harder but there is more work. I think it is more busy work
to be serious.

&lt;p&gt;
The course work has impeded my ability to think. Thankfully Lixin is
around. What I do know is that Ontario is expensive, dirty and busy.
Waterloo feels like a good school. Waterloo has lots of good students who
care about research.

&lt;p&gt;
I have made some friends who enjoy UNIX and IRC and other computer stuff
I enjoy as well. We hang out in a channel #beer and meet up at the Grad
House for dinner or so they can drink (I drink Coke).

&lt;p&gt;
Christmas is consists of Lixin and I in Waterloo. We spent the afternoon
of Christmas Eve cleaning and recycling. After that, we went to the mall
which promptly closed on us, then we had a great meal at the Keg,
followed by the Narnia movie which was entertaining. We came home and
cuddled up watching the Aviator while Abram was chatting online at the
same time using his new laptop.

&lt;p&gt;
I, Abram, look forward to the next term where I take a course about how to
generate and draw flower patterns onto spheres. My TA duty will be Tech
Support to both students and faculty (at least it is regular hours).
Anyways I expect the next term to consist of less work I don't care
about and more actual research.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/postgresql.swf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/postgresql.swf&lt;/a&gt; is an example of some of the
fun I had this term.

&lt;p&gt;
Anyways I'm doing better now, adjusting to Ontario, Waterloo etc. I hope
to get some papers out this coming term and probably go to China for the MSR
workshop.

&lt;p&gt;
Love,
&lt;code&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
	Abram &amp; Lixin&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/code&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: :|</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/12/07#1133990181</link>
    <description>I recently finished CS746: Software Architecture. It was a neat reverse
engineering course. We analyzed Open Office and my group analyzed
PostGresql see &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/postgresql.swf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/postgresql.swf&lt;/a&gt; for a
demonstration of our postgresql visualization. I'm glad the course is
over because it was group work and that is always stressful. I'm now
trying to get started and finished on my CS886 (AI) Project which is about
extracting the software process stages from the evolution of a project.
See slides at &lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/aipres.pdf&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/aipres.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Then once I hand in the AI project I have to work on my databases
project.

&lt;p&gt;
Weather wise: More snow but it is scraped off the roads quickly. It is
slippery.

&lt;p&gt;
I'm not coming home for Christmas :(, it'd cost too much, I'll probably
spend some of the time slacking off and watching Dr Who.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: White Stuff?</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/11/17#1132247103</link>
    <description>White stuff is falling from the sky, and it isn't rain :|</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Worthless</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/11/14#1132014043</link>
    <description>My blog has been pretty worthless as of late. Primarily because I am
taking 3 courses and I am very busy. They take up a lot of my time.

&lt;p&gt;
I've met some new friends here at Waterloo, thank god they use IRC
otherwise I'd never talk to anyone other than Lixin. Lixin seems to be
doing ok, she's trying to get an job in education.

&lt;p&gt;
I'll try to update more as it doesn't take that long.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: LONG TIME</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/10/13#1129252289</link>
    <description>I moved to Waterloo to start my Phd under Ric Holt and Mike Godfrey
(both great guys).

&lt;p&gt;
Here's the latest picture set, it includes across Canada as well as
Waterloo.

&lt;p&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;http://churchturing.org/w/20051013&quot;&gt;http://churchturing.org/w/20051013&lt;/a&gt;</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Saddened by Bram Cohen</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/06/21#1119378030</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/20140.html&quot;&gt;http://www.livejournal.com/users/bramcohen/20140.html&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Tis sad that Cohen doesn't quite get the benefits of using something
like Reed Solomon codes with Bittorrent. The primary benefit is to
reduce the rarity of blocks and to allow for an effecient resolution of
the 99% problem where peers are searching the network for the last
block.

&lt;p&gt;
You might ask how does this reduce rarity? Well imagine our seeder is
spitting out blocks in a linear order, after it is done the data blocks
it starts to spit out error code blocks. Basically a leecher just need
to wait til he has enough data and or code blocks to rebuild the file
(the size of the file). If these error blocks are in the network other
leechers can grab them and once enough are accumulated rebuild their
file. This reduces rarity because each error block is not localized, it
is related to the whole, so it doesn't really matter what combination we
use. (I'm not saying avalanche uses this). The point is that suddenly we
have a bunch of blocks which by working together act as other data
blocks, then effectively reduces the rarity of data because you no
longer need to ask for just that one block, you can be taking code
blocks while you are searching for relevant data blocks.

&lt;p&gt;
So you send code blocks out when there is extra bandwidth, but from
the seeder point of view it doesn't matter which blocks they send out,
if they send out code tho it allows people to rebuild easier. We are
effectively adding more blocks to the network almost increasing the
rarity of other blocks but this counteracted by the fact the error code
blocks are not locallized and can rebuild other blocks.</description>
  </item>
  <item>
    <title>Subject: Go Daddy guy Bob Parsons admits belief in Fascism</title>
    <link>http://abez.ca/~abez/blog/index.cgi/2005/06/20#1119289335</link>
    <description>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bobparsons.com/CloseGitmoNowayThinkourinterrogationmethodsaretoughPrisonersintheMiddleEasttalkquickHereswhyt.html&quot;&gt;http://www.bobparsons.com/CloseGitmoNowayThinkourinterrogationmethodsare...&lt;/a&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
With praise for the Cuban based US military base which is mired in
scandal over torture, Bob Parsons comes out in support of it. Even worse
when posters post facts about the US's involvement in past events and
abroad he says he simply does not believe it.

&lt;p&gt;
Bob, I guess you're allowed your beliefs but you can't refute facts just
by not believing them. If that were true I'd be cruising throught the
Grand Canyon at 500 km/h with my new anti-gravity beliefs.

&lt;p&gt;
abram</description>
  </item>
  </channel>
</rss>