Planet Wolves

A few bits of Ubuntu news for you all.

Firstly, I am pleased to announce the next Ubuntu Developer Summit which will take place from Monday 8th - Friday 12th December 2008 at Google in Mountain View in California. We wanted to get the dates up ASAP so you can begin booking time in your calendar. We were at Google a few years ago for a UDS and it was excellent, and we expecting this to be a busy and productive UDS. Oh, and the food is incredible, but that is documented well enough already. Seriously though, reserve those dates in your diary. We will have more details about registering your attendance soon.

See the Ubuntu Developer Summit Wiki Page for more details.

Secondly, I uploaded another video to the Ubuntu Developer Channel. In this video Daniel shows you how to patch a package; a common skill used in Ubuntu packaging.

Can’t see the video? Click Here.

We have one more video left in this collection of Learning MOTU videos which I will put online in a week or so.

It’s now the trendy thing to write an essay about why Twitter is doomed, or why it’s not doomed and all its competitors are doomed instead. And god knows I wouldn’t want to break the back of that trend.

I’ve been playing with Identi.ca, a Twitter clone written in PHP. Lots of Twitter people are becoming frustrated with seeing the famous Fail Whale on Twitter’s “we are currently down” page, and people are starting to look elsewhere. There are lots (and lots and lots) of alterni-Twitters (which is a problem I’ll come back to in a moment), but identi.ca is attracting one of the communities I operate in, open source people. This is because identi.ca is entirely open source: the codebase is called Laconica. This is a nice idea.

First things first, though: I don’t want to update two places at once. Identica* doesn’t have an API (yet), but I wanted to post things to Twitter and have them appear on Identica too. So, I present the Twitter Identi.ca Reflector. Download as a tarball or check it out from Subversion or browse the source. The README tells you how to set it up. It uses Jabber to post to Identica, which isn’t ideal, but (as mentioned) there’s no API. So now you can send Twitter posts to Identi.ca, which is helpful.

Now, why Twitter is good, why Identi.ca is good, and why everything else isn’t. If you just wanted to post Twitter comments to Identi.ca then you can stop reading now.

Twitter looks like it ought to be easy to clone, and it isn’t. This is why there are lots of Twitter clones, and why none of them have taken off. The basic principle of microblogging is indeed an easy one, I agree. But all the other Twitter-alikes are missing something. They don’t have SMS sending, or SMS following, or they don’t have an API, or they don’t have lots of desktop clients, or they have one desktop client that doesn’t run on everyone’s machine, or they don’t do IM. What makes Twitter good is two things: the first is that you can get at it in so many ways. And because there are so many ways, people can build lots of things on top of it. For example, if you want to do the reverse of what the above reflector does (post your messages to Identi.ca and have them show up on Twitter) then you don’t need an extra program, because it already exists: Twitterfeed. Simply sign up at Twitterfeed, and use it to send posts from your Identica feed to Twitter, and it’s all done. That’s the power of having an expressive and complete set of APIs. It can’t be underestimated.

The second reason Twitter is good is that everyone’s already there. They got first-mover advantage. There’s no point going to an alternative because none of your friends are there. This is also the reason that Twitter has fifty desktop clients and that things like Twitterfeed exist; it’s worth the investment. It does mean that if people leave Twitter they’ll all leave together and the bottom drops out of their market, but that’s the way the internet cookie crumbles. Photo sharing sites have the same issue — it’s difficult to build a Flickr competitor because everyone’s already at Flickr, so none of the “social” stuff happens elsewhere because you never hit a critical mass of people.

So, what’s good about Identi.ca then? Well, for me, the big things are open-sourceness and federation. The underlying codebase being open source is a huge win, from my perspective. It means people other than the Identi.ca team can work on adding new features, it means that we can see what’s going on, and it means that there are more open source programs in the world. I like this. Other people may not, but what the hell.

The other advantage is federation. This is all about the OpenMicroBlogging specification; it basically blows away the “all my friends are at Twitter so I must be too” point. It means that you can subscribe on one microblogging service to people on other microblogging services. I could be at Identi.ca, you could be at Twitter, someone else could be at Jaiku or Pownce or wherever else, and we all read one another’s messages, happy as Larry. It levels the playing field. I can subscribe Identi.ca to Twitter without problems. This is a great idea which is rather hampered by the fact that basically no-one has implemented it yet. It’s in Laconica, though, so Identica has it. It helps get around the scaling problems that Twitter are having, too: you don’t need one centralised Twitter service any more. There can be lots of little islands, all of which talk to one another. No more scaling problems. No more Fail Whale. People who need the extras that Twitter provides can use Twitter quite happily (as I’m doing; I like SMS!), people who don’t need that but do need other services can use something else that provides those other services.

The basic concept of microblogging has been commoditised thanks to OpenMicroBlogging — it’s become a simple thing to implement anywhere. Microblogging services can now compete on which extras they offer.

That’s why I like Identi.ca. Oh, and they let you create your account with OpenID, which I did. It’s a win all round. Development’s going on at a fast pace on the Laconica codebase, so expect to see more and more appear over there. Blizzard’s already added identi.ca support to Whoisi, so things are moving quickly. I don’t know whether the trickle of Twitterites in Identi.ca’s direction will continue, but thanks to the reflector code above, I’m now on Identi.ca without putting in any extra effort. That’s identi.ca/sil for those of you who want to track it.

• Collection: *FREE* seamless Textures!
  Useful flickr resource for 3D modelling
• Twitter / lowflyingrocks
  '...I mention every near earth object that passes within 0.2AU of Earth...' (via tomtaylor.co.uk)

Wow. That is the only way of describing how we all feel in the LugRadio team regarding the response to Monday’s news that we are wrapping up LugRadio. I have been, in a word, stunned at the incredibly generous and kind comments that we have been receiving. It was incredible to see so many comments on that blog entry, as well as Aq’s write-up, the LugRadio forums thread that announced the news, and the mountain of email to the show email address.

I have read every one of those comments, posts and emails and I am stunned at the incredibly kind things people have been saying. Some of the things that people have said have really made us all feel incredibly proud of the show. I love the fact that many of you said that LugRadio helped you get enthused about free software and the community, and many of you said that you feel part of something with LugRadio. A long time ago, Bruno, a LugRadio community regular said “LugRadio is my LUG“; it seems he is not alone in that sentiment based on many of the messages we have received.

So with all the thanks we have received and well-wishes for the future, I want to use this as an opportunity to say thanks to every one of you too. As some of you will know, I am rather fond of communities, and I am incredibly proud of the LugRadio community. It has demonstrated all the traits of a good community; it is a friendly, welcoming environment, and one that has never been short of people enthusiastic about getting involved. Heck, the foundation of LugRadio is a testament to this, with every single show being mirrored by a large number of contributors - this was a conscious decision that we made from day one to help make the show possible, and low-and-behold the community once again stood up and helped. Not only that, but had community contributions with sys-admin work, the planet, the facts database, the clan, the forums, the IRC channel, at LugRadio Live, with ideas for the show, emails and more.

There is though one little story though which I would like to share with you that really demonstrated to me what the LugRadio community is capable of. Back when we were organising LugRadio Live 2006, we spent months preparing for the event. It was twice the size of 2005, two days instead of one, three stages instead of two with more talk slots, had far more activities and events going on and involved a lot more coordination, sponsorship and more. We worked our respective arses off to get everything in shape, and the community was psyched up about it. People had booked flights from all over the world to attend, hotels were reserved and we were a few weeks away from the big weekend. Then, one evening while doing some recording, I logged onto the LugRadio Forums from my studio computer and noticed a comment that a rail strike was scheduled for the weekend of LugRadio Live. Crap. I can safely say that in 28 years of being on this planet, I have never been so angry as I was in that moment, and was fuming at not only the incompetence of the people who run the rail network but also the union deciding to throw their toys out the proverbial pram. Who the hell did they think they were? Did they not consider other people who rely on the rail network? Were they aware of how disruptive this was going to be? I stood there and envisaged all of our hard work slowly going down the drain as people could not get to LugRadio Live.

In all the commotion, the LugRadio community…unasked…and unprompted, jumped right into action and started organising car sharing, investigating alternatives and getting a plan in place. Discussions happened, wiki pages were created, capacity was developed. We even had someone volunteer to pay or a nationwide coach service out of his own pocket. When I went to work at OpenAdvantage the following day with a black cloud hovering over my head, I was touched by just how much the community had pulled together. In my mind, this is the definition of what this is all about - we are all coming together to not only do incredibly cool things with technology, culture and new perspectives, but there is a noticeable atmosphere of people looking out for each other. The greatest communities in the world are not just places where you feel empowered, they are places in which other people empower you.

…oh and for the curious, the conclusion of this tale was that when I got into OpenAdvantage that day I called the rail network officials and the union and gave them equal doses of my derision. Fortunately, said strike was called off and everyone lived happily ever after. I even shaved off that insane beard at that LugRadio Live. Retrospectively, that was a deeply wise move.

So in conclusion, thanks everyone for everything you have been saying to us, we really do appreciate it.

Come to LugRadio Live UK 2008 for one last shindig

So everyone, with the show wrapping up, you absolutely, utterly have to come along to LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th and 20th July 2008 for our farewell LugRadio Live. Of course, its not just our last recording of a show - there will be three stages of speakers, a full exhibition, parties and other fun for the weekend. Its only a few weeks away, so get booked into a hotel and come and join us.

I needed to be able to control Banshee from another application, and it turns out it has a lovely D-Bus API.

Skip to the next song*:

import dbus
bus = dbus.SessionBus()
banshee = bus.get_object("org.bansheeproject.Banshee",
  "/org/bansheeproject/Banshee/PlaybackController")
banshee.Next(False) # use banshee.Previous(False) to skip back one song

Start Banshee playing (this works even if Banshee isn’t running; D-Bus starts it up!):

import dbus
bus = dbus.SessionBus()
banshee = bus.get_object("org.bansheeproject.Banshee",
  "/org/bansheeproject/Banshee/PlayerEngine") # note PlayerEngine, not PlaybackController
banshee.Play() # use banshee.Pause() to pause playback

I found these commands using D-Feet*, J5’s D-Bus browser thing, which is great. The program I’m using to call this stuff is open source Enso from the Humanized team, which is also pretty darn useful.

My Dad has had something of an interesting life. When he was very young, he was part of a large family that didn’t have a lot. He struggled at school and suffered some health problems as a kid, but his determination and enterprising nature lead him through a maze of interesting little adventures. When he was younger, despite becoming the scathe of the small Northern local town’s officials due to trying to resolve some dangerous safety problems at a local factory, he went on to prove himself as a local councillor and subsequently became mayor of the town. He went on to run a nightclub, car retail businesses, become an executive running a collection of car retail outlets in Lancashire, became a hypnotherapist, lead a multimedia project to produce interactive motor-trade kiosks as well as one of the UK’s first motor-trade websites, then retired and bought and run a country pub, campaigned and succeeded to change the law regarding women’s rights in working mens clubs, and he now has a seat as a local magistrate and runs an antiques company with my mum who trained as a master restorer and has been rated as one of the top restorers in England. Most recently he was accepted for admission into Cambridge University to pursue his lifelong love of Criminology and Law, and yesterday he received his first grade on his course and was in the top 15% of the course. His sense of grounding and background made him a touch antsy about how he would fare in his first assessment (remembering he has not been to University before, and he is at Cambridge of all places), and he stormed it.

It is common for a dad to be proud of his kids, but I am hugely proud of my dad. Part of me is proud of his patchwork of achievements and his diversity in life over the years, particularly from such humble beginnings, but I am mainly proud of who he is as a human being. He is a man of unparalleled integrity, deeply committed to his family, has told my mum he loves her every day for 28 years, and has a strong belief in working hard but also playing hard. He strikes the perfect balance in terms of being motivated and career minded, maintaining a strong and loving relationship with his wife and kids, and always retaining a grounded sense of reality. Both of my parents are funny, engaging, wise and inspiring.

He and my mum have been incredibly supportive at every point in my life - both in terms of my career and my personal life. They have always been supportive of every element of what makes me who I am - my work, my music, my viewpoints and my choices. They are my template for the perfect relationship, and they are a significant inspiration in the values that I hold important in the world. Mum, Dad, I love you both and I am incredibly proud of you.

Mucho, mucho, mucho thanks to NickG for informing me that new tickets went on sale for Iron Maiden at Twickenham on Saturday. I consequently went and snapped up two tickets for Aq and I. This Saturday, we will be watching Iron Maiden re-creating songs that I have been listening to since I was 10 years old.

Anyone going along?

The LugRadio team have announced that the show will end with the recording at LRL UK 2008.
See:
http://forums.lugradio.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=421,
http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2008/06/30/the-end-of-lugradio
and
http://www.jonobacon.org/?p=1208

I will be sorry to see the show go, it has been great fun to listen to and the LugRadio Live events have always been highly enjoyable. Through this I have met people that I would have had little or no chance of meeting otherwise, so thanks guys for a great show.

LugRadio is ending.

Yep. After 106 shows, two million downloads, five thousand emails, 134 hours of recorded material, five conferences, and fourteen presenters*, LugRadio is coming to an end. I’ve just released “More on that later”, episode 21 of season 5, which is the antepenultimate (!) episode. We’ve got one more “ordinary” episode after this, and then the live show at LugRadio Live UK on the 19th and 20th July in Wolverhampton, and that’s it.

There’ll be a certain amount of reminiscence at LRL in a couple of weeks, but this might be a good place for me to talk a bit about everything that’s gone on. It’s been a pretty cool ride, I have to say. We talked to loads of people, shone a spotlight on loads of projects, won an award for marketing and been elected best podcast in a magazine, done LRL in America and four times in the UK, and basically had a great laugh doing it. I’m really proud of what we’ve done. And now it’s ending. A sad moment.

I probably ought to say: it isn’t because we’ve had a row or anything. We want the show to go out on a high — always leave ‘em wanting more, isn’t that the showbiz mantra? — and everyone can name programmes that have outstayed their welcome by stringing it out for just one more season. I would like to keep those people who don’t think that we jumped the shark 104 shows ago to be still thinking that the show was good even after it’s over.

So, this is it, kids. This show, one more show, and then the live show at LugRadio Live. That’s our chance to say thankyou to all the people who’ve made the show what it is, and your chance to see the last ever LugRadio recording live on stage. Drop us an email or post to the forums to tell us what you’ve liked and disliked about the last four years and what you want to see us talk about at LRL, and come and celebrate the end of an era with us. There’s going to be rather a few drinks that weekend: make sure some of them are yours. I’ll see you there.

Other comments around the place: Jono’s writeup, digg the end of the show

DIGG THIS!

Today we announced that we have decided to call it a day with LugRadio. Our last show will be LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th and 20th July 2008 at The Lighthouse in Wolverhampton. We announced this in the latest episode of LugRadio, Season 5 Episode 21 - go and have a listen to the show to hear more.

In a nutshell, we have decided that LugRadio has had a good run for the last four years and five seasons, and a show such as ours has always faced the risk of getting old and tired unless the formula is changed to keep it fresh. This growth and evolution has happened to a decent degree over the seasons as we introduced interviews, musical comedy skits, points based segments, competitions, focusing on different types of content etc, but as we near the end of Season 5 we came to the conclusion that the show was nearing its natural conclusion. From the beginning, when we have discussed if and when LugRadio was to finish we were always determined to take it out on a high, and this is part of the reason we feel now is a good time. The last thing we would want people to say is “yeah LugRadio was fantastic, well apart from that dire sixth season“. We feel we have had five good solid seasons under our belt, so now is probably a good time to wrap things up.

Now, as with when Matt left, some people are bound to jump to conclusions why we are calling it a day. To clarify:

• We have not fallen out. We are all still best friends.
• Severed Fifth is not why I am leaving.
• Adam’s business dreams is not why he is leaving.
• Aq has not decided to join a travelling circus.
• Chris has not set up a cult around the Network Block Driver. Actually, that’s a lie. He has.
• We have not been acquired by the Linux Action Show and Jupiter Enterprises.

A am massively proud of what we have managed to achieve. Over 100 shows, 7 full-time presenters and countless guest presenters, 200+ hours of audio, 100+ guests, 2million+ downloads, 1000+ forums members, 40000+ forums posts, 5 live events in two countries, 5000+ emails to the show and an incredible community of people who have surrounded the show, discussed it, got involved in some way, and otherwise given us all an immense enthusiasm to keep doing LugRadio. I am also proud of every one of my co-presenters over the years - Steve “Sparkes” Parkes, Matt Revell, Ade Bradshaw and the current roster of Adam Sweet, Chris Procter and Stuart “Aq” Langridge. I am particularly proud of Aq, my best mate and someone who has been my partner in crime in LugRadio since Season 1 Episode 1.

The thing I am most proud of about LugRadio is that it shook things up. It has always been raw, unexpected and at times uncomfortable to listen to. We always set out to do a show on our terms, knowing full well it would not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we forged ahead and I am proud of how the history looks.

Everyone has their favorite moments, and I just wanted to highlight just a few of mine:

• Our many incredible guests - Nat Friedman, Jeff Waugh, Eric Raymond, Miguel de Icaza, Mark Shuttleworth, Matthew Garrett, Rob McQueen, Sacha “Sago” Goedegebure, Alexandre Juillard, Havoc Pennington, Colin Walters, Quim Gil, Greg Kroah-Hartman and many more.
• The many strong debates Aq and I have launched into on the show. We have a somewhat unusual style of debating and some people have been worried we were on the verge of falling out, which has never happened. I know, its odd, and something that started back in 2001 at LUG meetings. It never stops being fun.
• The Gong-a-thong was an idea that Aq and I concocted late one night while on the phone. The first time we did it in Wolverhampton, we both stood at the side of the stage and it was a very surreal, proud and frankly hilarious moment. We replicated such insanity in San Francisco with Aaron Bockover and it was another comedy gem. The final gong-a-thong will happen at LugRadio Live UK 2008 in a few weeks.
• Ade’s random stories, and strange expectations of life. Who can forget Ade asking if any of us looked at our arses in the mirror, expecting a fully reasoned and learned discussion about said activity. Oh, and Ade’s perspectives on women in technical roles and his idea of compliments to a lady in a nightclub (”You sit well for an old girl…“). Bonkers.
• The booting of Matt Lee and GNU/FSF on the show and his admirable efforts at retort. Oh, and RMS refusing to come on the show as we use the words “Open Source” in the description of the show.
• Theatrics and comedy skits - The National Lottery segment, musical efforts (Pigeon Street, Lion Sleeps Tonight), Mrs Mudchild appearing because Matt was late for the show, Stallman only wanting a kipper, the What The F**k Book Truck, Filthy Gamble and more.
• LugRadio Live USA 2008. Wow, what an experience - a lot of fun, and a lot of work, but well worth it.
• LugRadio Live And Unleashed - there is nothing like doing a show in front of hundreds of people. It is a lot of fun and a real buzz.
• Sparkes availing us of his many stories, particularly the girl taking the piss out of his shoes in Wolverhampton. When I was editing his best bits segment I had tears streaming down my face laughing.
• Filming the LugRadio Live 2007 promo videos. It was a lot of fun making them. Actors, we are not.
• The emails. Our emails were always eclectic. Sometimes random, sometimes wise, sometimes hilarious, sometimes deeply offensive, but always inspiring. We loved every one of them, even the ones we thought were crap.
• The competitions - Stupid Hat For Corporate Tat, Look Queer In The New Year, Pimp My LugRadio, Asa Raskin’s Hat Dilemma and more.
• Bruno’s talk at LugRadio Live 2006 about how much we all swear in LugRadio and his rather amusing delivery and graphs.
• Matt’s impressions, particularly his Irish leprechaun impression. Specifically, Matt’s leprechaun impression that he used to impersonate Lucky Charms when at Skycon in Limerick.
• The Finger Of God.

It is certainly going to be unusual not having my mates around to my house every two weeks to record a show, drinking endless amounts of tea, taking an average of 15 takes to record an intro (really), regularly ribbing each other about everything under the sun, and then releasing a show and hearing about how it was received by our community.

So, the last episode of LugRadio will be recorded in front of a live audience at LugRadio Live UK 2008 on the 19th July 2008 in Wolverhampton. Why not come and share it with us, and the Saturday night we will be toasting to four years surrounded by our friends from the community; I can’t think of a better way to get off the roller-coaster.

Also see Aq’s write-up.

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OMG!

LugRadio is to end! I’m absolutely mortified! After humble beginnings back in 2001 when Jono discussed the idea on the Wolves-Lug mailing list I've followed every episode. LugRadio is part of my routine downloading the latest release and listening to it on my way to work, many a time nearly crashing due to gut wrenching belly laughs at the comments and antics.

I feel numb at the moment the show will be sadly missed by one and all, if you can make it to LugRadio Live UK get there! its going to be the last chance to see LugRadio.

“I felt a rift in the force, millions of voices cried out then was silenced”

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OMG!

LugRadio is to end! I’m absolutely mortified! After humble beginnings back in 2001 when Jono discussed the idea on the Wolves-Lug mailing list I've followed every episode. LugRadio is part of my routine downloading the latest release and listening to it on my way to work, many a time nearly crashing due to gut wrenching belly laughs at the comments and antics.

I feel numb at the moment the show will be sadly missed by one and all, if you can make it to LugRadio Live UK get there! its going to be the last chance to see LugRadio.

“I felt a rift in the force, millions of voices cried out then was silenced”

HTML clipboard <!-- p.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin-top:0cm; margin-right:0cm; margin-bottom:10.0pt; margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; } -->

OMG!

LugRadio is to end! I’m absolutely mortified! After humble beginnings back in 2001 when Jono discussed the idea on the Wolves-Lug mailing list I've followed every episode. LugRadio is part of my routine downloading the latest release and listening to it on my way to work, many a time nearly crashing due to gut wrenching belly laughs at the comments and antics.

I feel numb at the moment the show will be sadly missed by one and all, if you can make it to LugRadio Live UK get there! its going to be the last chance to see LugRadio.

“I felt a rift in the force, millions of voices cried out then was silenced”

Dammit! I missed out grabbing tickets for Iron Maiden at Twickenham on the 5th July. This is the tour I have been waiting years for. If anyone knows of any spare tickets I can get my hands on, please email me. I will be super grateful if someone can help hook me up with some tickets!

When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather

In a beautiful world
And I wish I was special
You’re so fuckin’ special

But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.

I don’t care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When I’m not around
You’re so fuckin’ special
I wish I was special

But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.

She’s running out again,
She’s running out
She’s run run run running out…

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You’re so fuckin’ special
I wish I was special…

But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo,
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.
I don’t belong here.

• tinker.it : Extenv
  '...introduction to networked sensors, making particular use of Extended Environments Markup Language (EEML) and Pachube, a web-service for connecting together and sharing real time sensor data...' - if anyone went to this drop me a line and tell me more!
• haque :: Remote
  '...connects together two spaces, one in Boston the other in Second Life, and treats them as a single contiguous environment, bound together by the internet so that things that occur in one space affect things that happen in the other and vice versa...'