blog/archive/2016/08/08.rss

   1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
   2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/'>
   3         <channel>
   4                 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen - Entries from August 2016</title>
   5                 <description>Entries from August 2016</description>
   6                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/</link>
   7
   8
   9         <item>
  10                 <title>First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator&#39;s Handbook now public</title>
  11                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html</link>
  12                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html</guid>
  13                 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
  14                 <description>&lt;p&gt;In April we
  15 &lt;a href=&quot;https://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html&quot;&gt;started
  16 to work&lt;/a&gt; on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the &quot;open access&quot; book on
  17 how to set up and administrate a Debian system.  Today I am happy to
  18 report that the first draft is now publicly available.  You can find
  19 it on &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/get/&quot;&gt;get the Debian
  20 Administrator&#39;s Handbook page&lt;/a&gt; (under Other languages).  The first
  21 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
  22 proofreading the content.  If you want to help out, please start
  23 contributing using
  24 &lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/&quot;&gt;the
  25 hosted weblate project page&lt;/a&gt;, and get in touch using
  26 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators&quot;&gt;the
  27 translators mailing list&lt;/a&gt;.  Please also check out
  28 &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/&quot;&gt;the instructions for
  29 contributors&lt;/a&gt;.  A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
  30 and update weblate if you find errors.&lt;/p&gt;
  31
  32 &lt;p&gt;Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
  33 electronic form.&lt;/p&gt;
  34 </description>
  35         </item>
  36
  37         <item>
  38                 <title>Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</title>
  39                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html</link>
  40                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html</guid>
  41                 <pubDate>Thu, 11 Aug 2016 12:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
  42                 <description>&lt;p&gt;This summer, I read a great article
  43 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger&quot;&gt;coz:
  44 This Is the Profiler You&#39;re Looking For&lt;/a&gt;&quot; in USENIX ;login: about
  45 how to profile multi-threaded programs.  It presented a system for
  46 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
  47 testing how run time performance is affected by &quot;speeding up&quot; parts of
  48 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run.  It does this by
  49 slowing down parallel threads while the &quot;faster up&quot; code is running
  50 and measure how this affect processing time.  The processing time is
  51 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
  52 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END).  It
  53 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
  54 runtime and running the program several times instead.&lt;/p&gt;
  55
  56 &lt;p&gt;The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
  57 get the system into Debian.  I
  58 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708&quot;&gt;created
  59 a WNPP request for it&lt;/a&gt; and contacted upstream to try to make the
  60 system ready for Debian by sending patches.  The build process need to
  61 be changed a bit to avoid running &#39;git clone&#39; to get dependencies, and
  62 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
  63 profiling information included in the source package.
  64 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.&lt;/p&gt;
  65
  66 &lt;p&gt;The way the system work is fairly simple.  To run an coz experiment
  67 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
  68
  69 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
  70 coz run --- program-to-run
  71 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  72
  73 &lt;p&gt;This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
  74 information.  To show what part of the code affect the performance
  75 most, use a web browser and either point it to
  76 &lt;a href=&quot;http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/&quot;&gt;http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/&lt;/a&gt;
  77 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch).  Check out this web
  78 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like.  To make the
  79 profiling more useful you include &amp;lt;coz.h&amp;gt; and insert the
  80 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
  81 code, rebuild and run the profiler.  This allow coz to do more
  82 targeted experiments.&lt;/p&gt;
  83
  84 &lt;p&gt;A video published by ACM
  85 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg&quot;&gt;presenting the
  86 Coz profiler&lt;/a&gt; is available from Youtube.  There is also a paper
  87 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
  88 titled
  89 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger&quot;&gt;Coz:
  90 finding code that counts with causal profiling&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  91
  92 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz&quot;&gt;The source code&lt;/a&gt;
  93 for Coz is available from github.  It will only build with clang
  94 because it uses a
  95 &lt;a href=&quot;https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606&quot;&gt;C++
  96 feature missing in GCC&lt;/a&gt;, but I&#39;ve submitted
  97 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67&quot;&gt;a patch to solve
  98 it&lt;/a&gt; and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.&lt;/p&gt;
  99
 100 &lt;p&gt;Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
 101 of software in Debian.  I would very much like some help with the
 102 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
 103 C++ libraries.&lt;/p&gt;
 104 </description>
 105         </item>
 106
 107         <item>
 108                 <title>Sales number for the Free Culture translation, first half of 2016</title>
 109                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html</link>
 110                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html</guid>
 111                 <pubDate>Fri, 5 Aug 2016 22:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
 112                 <description>&lt;p&gt;As my regular readers probably remember, the last year I published
 113 a French and Norwegian translation of the classic
 114 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture book&lt;/a&gt; by the
 115 founder of the Creative Commons movement, Lawrence Lessig.  A bit less
 116 known is the fact that due to the way I created the translations,
 117 using docbook and po4a, I also recreated the English original.  And
 118 because I already had created a new the PDF edition, I published it
 119 too.  The revenue from the books are sent to the Creative Commons
 120 Corporation.  In other words, I do not earn any money from this
 121 project, I just earn the warm fuzzy feeling that the text is available
 122 for a wider audience and more people can learn why the Creative
 123 Commons is needed.&lt;/p&gt;
 124
 125 &lt;p&gt;Today, just for fun, I had a look at the sales number over at
 126 Lulu.com, which take care of payment, printing and shipping.  Much to
 127 my surprise, the English edition is selling better than both the
 128 French and Norwegian edition, despite the fact that it has been
 129 available in English since it was first published.  In total, 24 paper
 130 books was sold for USD $19.99 between 2016-01-01 and 2016-07-31:&lt;/p&gt;
 131
 132 &lt;table border=&quot;0&quot;&gt;
 133 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Title / language&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Quantity&lt;/th&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
 134 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html&quot;&gt;Culture Libre / French&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;3&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
 135 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html&quot;&gt;Fri kultur / Norwegian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;7&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
 136 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html&quot;&gt;Free Culture / English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;14&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
 137 &lt;/table&gt;
 138
 139 &lt;p&gt;The books are available both from Lulu.com and from large book
 140 stores like Amazon and Barnes&amp;Noble.  Most revenue, around $10 per
 141 book, is sent to the Creative Commons project when the book is sold
 142 directly by Lulu.com.  The other channels give less revenue.  The
 143 summary from Lulu tell me 10 books was sold via the Amazon channel, 10
 144 via Ingram (what is this?) and 4 directly by Lulu.  And Lulu.com tells
 145 me that the revenue sent so far this year is USD $101.42.  No idea
 146 what kind of sales numbers to expect, so I do not know if that is a
 147 good amount of sales for a 10 year old book or not.  But it make me
 148 happy that the buyers find the book, and I hope they enjoy reading it
 149 as much as I did.&lt;/p&gt;
 150
 151 &lt;p&gt;The ebook edition is available for free from
 152 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 153
 154 &lt;p&gt;If you would like to translate and publish the book in your native
 155 language, I would be happy to help make it happen.  Please get in
 156 touch.&lt;/p&gt;
 157 </description>
 158         </item>
 159
 160         <item>
 161                 <title>Vitenskapen tar som vanlig feil igjen - relativt feil</title>
 162                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Vitenskapen_tar_som_vanlig_feil_igjen___relativt_feil.html</link>
 163                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Vitenskapen_tar_som_vanlig_feil_igjen___relativt_feil.html</guid>
 164                 <pubDate>Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
 165                 <description>&lt;p&gt;For mange år siden leste jeg en klassisk tekst som gjorde såpass
 166 inntrykk på meg at jeg husker den fortsatt, flere år senere, og bruker
 167 argumentene fra den stadig vekk.  Teksten var «The Relativity of
 168 Wrong» som Isaac Asimov publiserte i Skeptical Inquirer i 1989.  Den
 169 gir litt perspektiv rundt formidlingen av vitenskapelige resultater.
 170 Jeg har hatt lyst til å kunne dele den også med folk som ikke
 171 behersker engelsk så godt, som barn og noen av mine eldre slektninger,
 172 og har savnet å ha den tilgjengelig på norsk.  For to uker siden tok
 173 jeg meg sammen og kontaktet Asbjørn Dyrendal i foreningen Skepsis om
 174 de var interessert i å publisere en norsk utgave på bloggen sin, og da
 175 han var positiv tok jeg kontakt med Skeptical Inquirer og spurte om
 176 det var greit for dem.  I løpet av noen dager fikk vi tilbakemelding
 177 fra Barry Karr hos The Skeptical Inquirer som hadde sjekket og fått OK
 178 fra Robyn Asimov som representerte arvingene i Asmiov-familien og gikk
 179 igang med oversettingen.&lt;/p&gt;
 180
 181 &lt;p&gt;Resultatet, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skepsis.no/?p=1617&quot;&gt;«Relativt
 182 feil»&lt;/a&gt;, ble publisert på skepsis-bloggen for noen minutter siden.
 183 Jeg anbefaler deg på det varmeste å lese denne teksten og dele den med
 184 dine venner.&lt;/p&gt;
 185
 186 &lt;p&gt;For å håndtere oversettelsen og sikre at original og oversettelse
 187 var i sync brukte vi git, po4a, GNU make og Transifex.  Det hele
 188 fungerte utmerket og gjorde det enkelt å dele tekstene og jobbe sammen
 189 om finpuss på formuleringene.  Hadde hosted.weblate.org latt meg
 190 opprette nye prosjekter selv i stedet for å måtte kontakte
 191 administratoren der, så hadde jeg brukt weblate i stedet.&lt;/p&gt;
 192 </description>
 193         </item>
 194
 195         <item>
 196                 <title>Techno TV broadcasting live across Norway and the Internet (#debconf16, #nuug) on @frikanalen</title>
 197                 <link>https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html</link>
 198                 <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.hungry.com/~pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html</guid>
 199                 <pubDate>Mon, 1 Aug 2016 10:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
 200                 <description>&lt;p&gt;Did you know there is a TV channel broadcasting talks from DebConf
 201 16 across an entire country?  Or that there is a TV channel
 202 broadcasting talks by or about
 203 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625529/&quot;&gt;Linus Torvalds&lt;/a&gt;,
 204 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599/&quot;&gt;Tor&lt;/a&gt;,
 205 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/624019/&quot;&gt;OpenID&lt;/A&gt;,
 206 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625624/&quot;&gt;Common Lisp&lt;/a&gt;,
 207 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625446/&quot;&gt;Civic Tech&lt;/a&gt;,
 208 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625090/&quot;&gt;EFF founder John Barlow&lt;/a&gt;,
 209 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625432/&quot;&gt;how to make 3D
 210 printer electronics&lt;/a&gt; and many more fascinating topics?  It works
 211 using only free software (all of it
 212 &lt;a href=&quot;http://github.com/Frikanalen&quot;&gt;available from Github&lt;/a&gt;), and
 213 is administrated using a web browser and a web API.&lt;/p&gt;
 214
 215 &lt;p&gt;The TV channel is the Norwegian open channel
 216 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, and I am involved
 217 via &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the NUUG member association&lt;/a&gt; in
 218 running and developing the software for the channel.  The channel is
 219 organised as a member organisation where its members can upload and
 220 broadcast what they want (think of it as Youtube for national
 221 broadcasting television).  Individuals can broadcast too.  The time
 222 slots are handled on a first come, first serve basis.  Because the
 223 channel have almost no viewers and very few active members, we can
 224 experiment with TV technology without too much flack when we make
 225 mistakes.  And thanks to the few active members, most of the slots on
 226 the schedule are free.  I see this as an opportunity to spread
 227 knowledge about technology and free software, and have a script I run
 228 regularly to fill up all the open slots the next few days with
 229 technology related video.  The end result is a channel I like to
 230 describe as Techno TV - filled with interesting talks and
 231 presentations.&lt;/p&gt;
 232
 233 &lt;p&gt;It is available on channel 50 on the Norwegian national digital TV
 234 network (RiksTV).  It is also available as a multicast stream on
 235 Uninett.  And finally, it is available as
 236 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;a WebM unicast stream&lt;/a&gt; from
 237 Frikanalen and NUUG.  Check it out. :)&lt;/p&gt;
 238 </description>
 239         </item>
 240
 241         </channel>
 242 </rss>