I haven't written a diary entry for a while so I'll make up for it with a long entry.

PenguinSound

My cd player is developing nicely. I did a bit of work on my tracker. I obtained Maarten de Boer's Fl_Envelope widget, and used to to create a dialog for my wave shaping filter, and to display volume and panning envelopes for instruments. I fixed a small bug with the drawing of the margins and sent the patch to Maarten. I created a pattern widget and a piano widget. I love fltk. It so easy to create nice widgets that work on both windows and linux. I might try and set up a PenguinSound page on sourceforge. It use to be on sunsite.auc.dk but I stopped uploading it there when PenguinPlay died. There is some source on my xoom page but its a bit out of date, there is no current source in a cvs repository. I didn't get any contributions to the source code when Penguinplay was still going so I don't think that I will get any by simply putting it on sourceforge. I think the best way would be to create working applications that people can use. When those users (the techie ones) get frustrated by missing features or bugs, hopefully they'll contribute patches to fix the application. I've just got to write some complete applications and then release it - or should I release buggy applications and hope people see some use for them and help to fix the bugs?

Mozilla's (build 2000072311 - got it through apt) text area widget seems to like moving around with the arrow keys by two characters instead of one.

advogato
After the discussion about advogato's trust metric I finally took a look at the source. I've downloaded and compiled the module, but I have not yet set it up with apache properly. I haven't worked on apache modules before, so I've got some learning to do. My previous experience with web applications comes through developing ISAPI and Active Server Components for work. I'd like to add the ability to associate a message with a certification. I'd like to be able to search advogato's diary entries and articles. As advogato gets bigger, i think it would be nice to add the ability to watch for recent diary entries from a selected group of users. I think that the diary entries should be dated with a timestamp, so that more than one can be entered in a day. The users should be able to customise their locale so that the times are meaningful. I'd like to have the comments I make under articles listed under my personal page.

stuff

The coach of the Australian Women's Basketball team (Tom Maher?) was invited to speak at the quarterly meeting at the company at which I work. He revealed the secrets of successful teams. One of the basic characteristic of a successful team is that they don't complain or gripe. The team members should be positive and try to build the others up.

Kostya Tszyu was interviewed on The Panel after his victory over Victor Chavez. He was asked about what you need to achieve your dreams. He said that you need more than dreams, you need to be realist about what you can achieve.

I read the recent story about Stallman's visit to Teradyne. After seeing RMS tirelessly respond to the same questions over and over Rene Hollan ask him how he could tolerated it. RMS replied "I have a mission!". Rene noted: "I suppose that he's the only person I can describe as an evangelical atheist without it being an oxymoron." RMS is also fond of portraying himself as the Saint of Free Software. I thought it would be interesting to look at how the early christian evangelists operated. My research degenerates into a list of quotes from the bible. I may have gone a bit overboard. I'll keep the list here because I think they are interesting and I'd like to have a list handy.

When RMS was accused of being a communist, for his stance that everthing should be "free", he responded with a cryptic remark that sharing possessions is a concept that was being practiced at least 2000 years before communism.

Acts 2:44-47 "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, prasing God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Acts 4:32 "All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." Acts 4:34 "There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."

One of the basic concepts the christians had was that they should live their life as an example for others to follow.

Matthew 7:12 "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Matthew 7:1-2 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Developers who criticise Microsoft for their buggy software had better make sure that their own software is free from bugs.

1 Thessalonians 5:21: "Test everything. Hold on to the good."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who won the nobel prize for literature, experienced life in the soviet gulags. He became aware of christians in the prison camps. They were able to persevere despite their suffering - they retained their hope for the future and didn't succumb to depression.

Romans 5:3-4 says "...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perserverance; perserverance, character and character, hope."

Ephesians 4:32 "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

Colossians 3:13 "Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you."

Ephesians 4:29 "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen."

Romans 12:3 "... Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement,..."

Matthew 7:7-8 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."