Damn. First major code submission and my first major screw up. The libao mega-patch I submitted to vorbis got integrated and broke the build for NetBSD users. Some guy started mouthing off on another list about how vorbis sucks because the tools (ogg123 and vorbize) don't work for NetBSD. Actually, they do (since NetBSD supports OSS) I just forgot to include that in the configure script. Grr..

I feel bad that Monty has to put up with crap like that when it was my fault in the first place. It also irritates me when people start mouthing off about how crappy a program is when the effort required to fix the problem is trivial. Email me about the problem and I'll fix it! Don't go complaining like a helpless fool. That's what you do when you run software that is written by people who don't care (or aren't paid to care) about users (cough, cough, insert your most hated program here).

I guess this is part of the learning experience. I can hardly wait until I get my very own flames. :)

Update: Argh. I hate script kiddies. Some prick buffer overflowed our ftp server and installed a root-kit. Fortunately, the root-kit install deletes samba (why?) which is rather essential to the operation our server. So I noticed right away when I got back from lunch that something was wrong. Next, rpm -Va saved my butt and showed me what had been screwed with. Actually finding the root-kit took a while until I noticed that all of the files this kid created were owned by the ftp group. "find -group ftp" quickly turned up a "/lib/   " (yes, that's three spaces) directory. Bingo! The installation script and all of his goodies were left there. Additionally, the kid left his buffer overflow login in the log, so I had his IP on a DSL modem. A quick letter off to the abuse address of his ISP will hopefully take care of things.

My lesson for the day is read the RedHat Security Advisories. They had the wu-ftpd exploit up for a month already. (Smack!)

[Dang Netscape sucks. My brother showed me his webpage which promptly killed Netscape, and my partial advogato entry. Doh!]

Odd. I feel a disturbance in the trust network. :) This morning I discovered that I had been certified by more people (thanks, whoever you people are), but that my overall trust level dropped back to Observer. I don't get it.

Update: Weird. I'm back at apprentice again. I don't get what happened.

In other news, we had a bomb threat in the building where I work. It's got a whole bunch of laboratories and offices. The police "inspected" the building and decided to let people back in. My boss and I wondered how the police are supposed to tell the difference between a bomb and a vacuum pump, or a lithium oven. Heck, any complex electronic device could be a bomb. I don't get it. Oh well, I've decided that people who make bomb threats are jerks.

I've decided that I don't like programming with a mouse. LabVIEW is a neat concept (graphical programming), but it is fairly cumbersome to do anything other than data-flow style programs. Loops are kludged in for completeness. I want source that is a text file, not a picture. I can't grep a picture.

ian: Conclusion -> People hate computing. :)

nymia: IIRC, threads are processes in Linux. The kernel treats them almost the same. The threads just share more parts of the process structure. I wish I could find a reference for this.

In other news, I'm still waiting for Kenneth to integrate libao into the vorbis CVS. Maybe I have to pester him a little.

While I wait for word on that, I've been spending my time hacking on some old code of mine. I wrote some code to interface to those netshooter remote controls that plug into the serial port. I stopped after the basic decoding was working. Now I need to figure out how to parse a config file describing the actions that should be performed when I press a particular button on the remote.

mrorganic: My theory is that Linux has become "trendy" enough to attract a different type of user/programmer than in the past, one which tends to be less productive and more vocal. Reading Freshmeat (as someone pointed out here) is a good way to see gauge the culture. You find lots of inexperienced (myself included) programmers with minimal abilities, often driven more by ego than technical issues. The joke about the project that has no design and no code (but certainly a project lead) which is looking for programmers demonstrates the "leader looking for a following" mentality.

Fortunately for the BSDs, Linux has become the lightning rod absorbing all of these people due to its exposure and growing ease of installation. The result is the BSD talent pool has not been diluted to the same extent the Linux talent pool. I still believe that there is as much good Linux code as BSD code, but good luck finding it through the daily announcements of KickASS-AIM-0.0.0.3: yet another messenger clone that just started from the [LM]AIM code base and added different colors. (Okay, I made that up, but you get the idea.)

Be wary, however. If BSD becomes the trendy OS of the week, you'll get to watch the last 3 years of Linux history happen all over again. I wish it weren't so, but someone's development community is going to overrun once the lemmings (and the media) get tired of Linux. The next OS to get hit will either be BeOS or BSD, it's too soon to tell which.

Sent off my libao patch to Kenneth. Now we just have to see if he'll incorporate it into ogg123.

Not much else going on today. I'll probably do some history reading. The Vietnam War is really quite interesting. If computers and physics weren't so much fun, I think studying foreign policy would be neat. Well, maybe if it had math.

Yes, mathematical foreign policy would be cool. :)