I have a disturbingly difficult JavaScript bug that I am trying to fix and needed a good introduction into using Venkman, the Javascript debugger. Here is a wonderful tutorial on just that subject. It works as a pretty good general introduction to using program debuggers. If you are not familiar with using debuggers in your application development process, check it out.
Author: Bobby Rockers
Sleep of the Oblivious
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has a superb article by Robert Kagan discussing the growing divide between Europe and the United States in how we handle international affairs. Kagan argues that a combination of Europe’s loss of international influence, combined with the relative safety provided by the umbrella of American military force have allow it to pursue its post Enlightenment Kantian ideal of “Perpetual Peace.”
The article was like a breath of fresh air in as much as it was an international policy evaluation that lacked almost all the red/blue, conservative/liberal, religious/secular bias that seems to be the norm for this kind of analysis nowadays. I believe Kagan undervalues the role that American individuality has played in our historically isolationistic world view. Specifically as it pertains to the UN and the role of international law. However I find its impossible to ignore the overall strength of his argument. I also disagree with the assessment that, “Americans apparently feel no resentment at not being able to enter a postmodern utopia.” I find that, increasingly, America’s “Ivory Tower” elite feel a great deal of resentment for the position soldered to the US and, to an even greater extend, that such a position even be necessary. Yet I suppose that such resentment has always been part of the La Trahison des clercs and is not to be unexpected.
Its a very long article (TTS is a god-sent at work!) but well worth the read. Especially if you are interested in the changing nature of America’s relationship with Europe and the long term ramifications thereof.
KDE in your own image
Stephan Binner of KDE fame has assembled a collection of distributor patches. Distributor patches are changes that different distributions make of the KDE sources to change the default behavior of KDE in some way.
For example Redhat would (for most of the Redhat 9.0+ versions) disable some functionality that KDE has that Gnome did not have because of a desire to see Gnome do better. Not all patches are for malicious reasons though. Many of the patches seem to be fixes to get specific compile time options working. Lindows has a patch to add text to kicker, thereby making it more “Windows like.” Overall there are some interesting modifications to KDE.
KDE Scripting Tools
Windows, How To Work Them is a tutorial chapter of the KDE Users Guide. The parts that are most interesting to me are the kstart application (for starting windows with specific window management facilities. kstart lets you start applications on specific virtual desktops, with/without specific window decorations, present/absent from the taskbar, etc.. Thus providing a dynamic scripting interface for detailed window management.
The second utility is ksystraycmd. Ksystraycmd lets you load ANY application as a system tray mini icon. The application will can be set to load in the background and minimise to the system tray just like the volume control or windows update. Want quick access to a calculator without having it on in your taskbar all the time, try:
ksystraycmd –title ‘kcalc’ kcalc
The best part is that it works with ANY Linux application available, it doesn’t even have to be a KDE application.
Peer Review & The Scientific Method
One of the cornerstones of environmental man-made global warming theories is the “MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate index” study. The basic findings of the Mann, Bradley & Hughes (MBH) study conclude the the 20th century is (by far) the hottest century on record; using known global temperature indicators such as tree rings and ice core samples. These number have been the basis for global temperature models and public environmental policy.
The primary rebuttal to this study is the ” M&M Critique of the MBH98 Northern Hemisphere Climate index.” McKitrick & McIntyre’s (M&M) basic findings are that the algorithms used by MBH98 produce a “hockey stick” shaped pattern (a pattern showing the 1900’s as the hottest century ever) in 99% of cases… even when the feed data was random noise! This would point to a statistical failure (or outright bias) on the part of the MBH98 algorithms. Using the same base data (i.e. the tree rings, ice core samples, etc..) against their own statistical analysis package, the M&M team gets a very different result. Their results conclude that the hottest century on record is the 15th century, not the 20th.
The debate has gone on for a number of years with strong opinions and heavy politics on both sides. Well things have taken a fairly significant turn recently. The M&M team has decided to open source their analysis and algorithm data. This provides for the much higher level of peer review. In addition, they use the well know (and well respected) R Statistics Package as the basis for their calculations suite. MBH has described their process but refused to open the entire algorithm suite (some select sources have been made available) to full peer review. While a number of third party studies have duplicated the MBH results, in each case the MBH algorithms (in closed source form) where used to produce the results. This leads to some serious questioning of the MBH methodology and therefore the validity of their results.
Real Applications without Real Programming
I have mentioned Kommander in previous posts. It occurs to me that it may be hard to conceptualize exactly how “functional” an application written entirely in Javascript, bash, or DCOP could be. So, anyone who is interested in some of the application capabilities of Kommander should check out Dik’s Kommander Applications. All of Dik’s applications, on that page, are written in Kommander without any real programming required. Another quick tutorial on using Kommander can be found at kde.me.uk.
Web Presense
I just enabled a KDE Kopete plugin to publish my web presense for each of my IM accounts. You can check out my online status by clicking “Online Status in the right sidebar of this page under the title Vault Stuff.
No Comment
Because of problems with comment spam and a busted blacklist filter (it is actually so full that I cannot get it to run) I have to disable comments on my blog for a while. We are actively working on switching to another CMS. One that has better blacklist support and is open source. I hope it will be soon enough that I will not need to try and fix the blacklist filter for this old busted-ass version of MT.
Kconfigure 2.1
Its really late, but I have just released version 2.1 of Kconfigure. Externally the program has added support for Qmake, bzip packages, “What’s This?” functionality, and custom checkinstall options. Internally the program has changed a great deal. Settings have been moved from the preferences class to a resources class that will allow me to do things like create a setup wizard and distribution (and for that matter program) specific build templates. tar and rpm sources are available on sourceforge. Also added (probably more noticeable to the end users) are a F.A.Q. and an on line copy of (an admittedly old version) The Kconfigure Handbook.
If you don’t know what Kconfigure is, check out the screen shots on the project homepage.
The End of an Era
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to subscribe to The National Geographic (TNG.) This desire became a reality when I married by wife Heather. Evidently her parents believe that its an important part of their duty to provide a window into the the architectural and historical origins of civilization. I applaud this effort, but mostly just because it provides me with a free subscription to a publication I have always been interested in. While my interest in TNG has change a great deal from the time I was in the third grade, looking to find uncensored images of young females from some unknown tribe of recently found nudists living on the exact opposite site of planet from my Catholic grade school; my respect for the magazine has not changed. That is, until recently.
Each month my (I say my because I find that I generally have a great deal more interest in the TNG than any other immediate member of my family) brown grocery bag covered periodical arrives at my door and I eagerly open it, peer at the cover, and flip through a the magazine that I will, no doubt, read cover to cover at my next available bathroom break. A couple months ago I ripped open the paper cover to discover a startling headline.. Was Darwin Wrong? No, I am not kidding. TNG has placed the question of the origin of species in large bold print on the cover of their magazine. Obviously TNG would not have done so unless some startling new evidence was brought to light by a team of world renounced scientists that questioned the validity of Charles postulate. I skipped right over my usual reading routine and tore open to the page referenced by the aforementioned articled headline; and their in black and white was my answer… NO! The article when on to talk about evolution in animal species around the world.
Now I am being totally serious here. The National Geographic, a mainstay of international intelligence had printed up a National Enquirer style headline to inform me that the status quo had NOT change in our understanding of evolution. And they had done so to push a interesting (if not mediocre) article on evolution.
Now I wish I could say this was a single abnormality, but recently I have found that this same type of occurrence (although seldom quite as dramatic) is happening with startling regularity. For example, last months issue had a cover story that appeared on news stands but was not shipped as the default cover story to subscribers. I thought my TNG copy of The Great Gray Owl was a wonderful article, but was dumbstruck to find sitting on the new stand at Albertson’s, Tales from a Nazi Ghost Ship. I went home to find that, indeed, the Nazi Ghost Ship article was in my copy of TNG; but it was not so prominently displayed on the cover (being only in small white type at the bottom.) I read the articles pertaining to the Nazi Ghost Ship. The articles were wonderfully interesting, and spectacularly written; but had absolutely nothing to do with Ghosts. In fact the on location photographers didn’t even see any skeletons because of their desire to be respectful to the remains of the sunken WWII ship. Evidently being sunk is cause enough for a ship to earn the title ghost ship. Funny how I had always assumed that ghost != ship.
I guess this really started back about a year ago. Some of you may remember that TNG came out with a special (special meaning that it was not shipped to subscribers and thus could only be bought on news stands.) The special was (and I-shit-you-not) a TNG swim suite issue! The inside articles and photography has swim suites from around the world, from dozens of different cultures. It was NOT a bad publication, definitely not worthy of being a special, but not a bad magazine. However, the front cover of this no-nonsense, reliable, bastion of cultural integrity; was a VERY attractive, VERY California looking woman with three shells covering the three most important FCC locations. The bathing suite btw was not a suite that was particularly common amongst any indigenous peoples subgroup anywhere in the world (nor could it even be purchased at the time), it was custom made for that particular photo shoot.
The point I am making is that I had always hoped that TNG was somehow immune to the sensationalism that seems to have overtaken our culture. A publication that you could always count on to be a beacon of consistency for cultural, architectural, and historical reference. For the last 100 years or so TNG has been exactly that. There was once a time where I was in awe of a magazine that was so accurate in its depictions of world cultures that it was willing to show nudity (during the 50’s and 60’s no less) if that was the standard for that culture. Now it wouldn’t be enough to present the reality of the culture; it would, undoubtedly, be prominently displayed. And we are all the less because of it.