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June 30, 2003

Huh?

Wow. I want to be a music reviewer. Then I can write nonsense like this review of Liz Phair's new album. I can really tell if the reviewer doesn't like the album or not. Some choice bits:

But you can't always get what you want. And if you try sometimes, you just might find you've made something that isn't a very good record. The music on Liz Phair is average, and the lyrics are, with a few slight gleams excepted, horrendous.

The thing is that Liz Phair is no Avril Lavigne. Phair has integrity and aesthetic subtlety, and she's so much better than Lavigne that when she fakes being fake, it sounds, well, fake.

Nevertheless, on 18th listen, you've got to concede that Liz Phair, while not a very good record, is not so much a very bad record as it is a record about which it's easy to say very bad things.

I'm not sure what the reviewer is trying to do. So the record is bad, but it's bad in a good way, because Liz Phair is such a genius? She's trying hard for a commercial hit, so she's playing the corporate music game, but she makes a bad album just to prove she's still an indie queen? Huh? If I have to listen to a pop record 18 times to decide that it's bad record that might have redeeming intellectual qualities, something is wrong. If I have to listen to math rock, or dense ambient music, 18 times to decide that I like it, that's ok, because it's probably not meant to universally loved on the first listen. But this is pop, indie or otherwise. It shouldn't have to grow on you.....

A Little Bit of Heaven

If you've never been to the little cafe behind Enrico's Biscotti in the Strip District, go there immediately and have lunch. Jen and I were turned on to this place over the winter by a couple of friends, and a week rarely passes when we don't have lunch there. Simple Italian fare -- pizzas, sandwiches, soups, greens -- but all the bread-based items are made in a brick wood-fired oven. Delicious. And the space is about a close to a real Italian cafe as you could probably get here in the 'burgh...long tables, an open kitchen, bottles of wine everywhere, and mismatched flatware. We're also anxious to go to one of their Friday night dinners. It's a set menu, based on what looks good in the markets that week, and it includes more food than most people could eat (generally it's 4 or 5 courses, plus dessert).

In other news...we're working our way through season 7 of the X-Files. I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed. Some of the storylines are a real stretch (which is pretty amazing, considering the subject matter of the series), and the plot lines tend to wander a bit too much. And I must admit this -- the whole Mulder/Scully foil thing is getting a bit old. Nearly episode includes the Mulder "aliens did it" vs. the Scully "it's about science" argument, and it is a bit trite. Granted, sometimes it works well with the particulars of the plot, but other times it just as if the writers put it in there because they had to.

Of course, this doesn't mean I'll stop watching them, or wait anxiously for the release of season 8. It's a bit like a crack addiction...I hate it will I'm doing it, but I just can't live without it....

June 26, 2003

RIAA

In case you haven't heard....

RIAA to sue file sharers.

This was to be expected. There was a lively and interesting discussion on Slashdot about it (for extra credit, find my enlightening posts). In case you don't, here's what I think....

The RIAA sucks. No questions asked. They bleed consumers dry (the prices of CDs in the chain record stores hasn't dropped much in recent years....in fact, many have gone up). They steal from their artists...well not quite stealing, but the bands get the smallest cut of the profits. And they are jerks, plain and simple. They've had the chance to use P2P as a new channel for distribution, but they've blown it. So what are we consumers to do?

First, let me say this. I still don't know how I feel about the copyrights on music. Part of me thinks there shouldn't be copyrights on music, but then I think, how are bands supposed to make any money? Most smaller bands don't make much money when they tour, so they have to rely on record sales just to stay above water. The same goes for smaller record labels. Without income from CDs, tapes, and albums, they can't sign artists and provide them with the resources to share their music. If only a small percentage of the population has to purchase a CD, everybody loses -- the band, the record label, and eventually, the fans.

Now, I've downloaded my fair share of music, but I've gotten to the point where I will only download freely available music -- that is, music that the record labels or bands have released for general consumption without payment. Of course, there still could be copyright violations if I in turn distributed that music, but I'm not, so I don't worry much about that. So I download a few songs from artist A, decided whether or not I like them, then purchase their CD. If I can buy the CD directly from the record label, I do, otherwise I head to a local music store (indepedently owned).

So people want to know how to stick it to the RIAA. First, learn what record labels and artists are members (you'd be surprised who you find that list). Then boycott those folks. I know it's hard, but don't download their music, don't buy their music, don't go to their shows. Simply downloading their music via P2P doesn't directly hurt the RIAA because they have a legal recourse against you. But when you buy other music, that does hurt them, because your purchases help the overall sales of music, but don't put a cent into the hands of RIAA. Use your power as a consumer to hurt the RIAA legally.

June 25, 2003

It's Official

Third Driver Rules Announced

The FIA has approved the new third driver rules for WRC factory teams. Simply put, a factory team can only two drivers who have place third or better in any rally from the previous season. That means Carlos Sainz, Harri Rovanpera, and Gilles Panizzi would be released from their teams at the end of the season. The factory teams will have a very different look next season.....

WRC News

An interesting bit of news from the world of rallying.....

PSA duels for Seb Loeb. PSA is the group that owns both Peugeot and Citroen. Peugeot is looking to possibly add Loeb should the new driver's rules be added for next season (the new rule would prohibit a team from having three drivers who have each taken a top three finish in a WRC round). Peugeot currently has four, but Richard Burns has begun talks with other teams, and Gilles Panizzi is clamoring for a full season next year. Harri Rovanpera would also like to compete for a full season.

Loeb and Gronholm would make a strong pairing, with each capable of winning just about any rally on the circuit. Setting Rovanpera and Panizzi free could mean a coup for teams like Hyundai and Skoda, as they could keep their current lineups (since none of the drivers have scored a top three lately) but still add a proven winner.

Welcome to Europe

The NFL's Chicago Bears are now officially sponsored by Bank One. Yes, that's right....Bears football is "brought to you by Bank One." Many people will decry this is commercialization of yet another pastime (as if football isn't commercialized as is), but take a look at the football (soccer) clubs in Europe.

These club teams are the heart and soul of professional soccer. And every team has corporate logos plastered to their jerseys. That's how Real Madrid can afford to pay Manchester United tens of millions of dollars for the services of David Beckham. That isn't Beckham's salary...that's just how much Real Madrid paid to get Beckham.

Of course, the NFL doesn't quite work that way, so additional corporate sponsorship could just mean bigger and bigger salaries for players. But it could also mean a more level playing field among the teams....now anyone can find a corporate sponsor and have access to millions more dollars, meaning the team can afford better players. Time will tell how it all works out...

June 24, 2003

Java, Linux, and OS X

I read an interesting series of threads on Slashdot over the last few days. First.....

Red Hat plans open source Java. At first I thought *oh, kewl*. A complete implementation of the JVM and JDK that is entirely open source _and_ endorsed by Sun (the Blackdown project already has an open source JVM, but it ain't endorsed by Sun). Then I saw they planned to completely rewrite the JVM. Huh? That's progress? Re-inventing the wheel? What?

A lot of open source folks only put up with Sun because they aren't Microsoft. The Java API (and the JVM implementation released by Sun) isn't open source. It is what Sun calls Community Source...meaning that there is a review board consisting of many people from the industry to oversee and steer Java development at Sun, but the source isn't "open", and Sun doesn't appreciate it when you tinker with JVM without their permission (see Microsoft). I'm beginning to realize this is the downside of being an open source/free software zealot -- you become so focused on the license of the software, and how it is developed, you lose sight of why you're developing software in the first place. The Sun license isn't very restrictive...anyone can download it and use it. Sure, it isn't the GPL, but it's plenty good for 99% of the development population. Why spend time and money rewriting the JVM? I just don't get it.

Next interesting bit....a discussion on the if/when Linux will overtake OS X. The thread was quite interesting (and humorous). The general trend on Slashdot is that 80% of the folks that post to a discussion don't read the linked article (or even the item description at the head of the thread). So a lot of the posts said *of course Linux will overtake OS X...it's just a better server.* Well, duh. Apple didn't introduce OS X to overtake Linux on the server (though it could, really).

Personally, I love OS X. I've got an old iMac at home (thanks Dave) and I like using it. All the little things are easy to do (pull photos off my digital camera? No problem. Pull video from my digital video camera? No problem. Write Python scripts? No problem.) The interface is beautiful. Now, if you run KDE with Liquid, the Linux UI looks a lot better, but Liquid doesn't work too well with RedHat. In fact, my only complaint about the Mac? My CD-RW doesn't work. I know, it's partially my fault for not doing my homework, but I just plugged it into my Linux boxen, and it just worked, no driver needed. If OS X is built on BSD, shouldn't it work there too? But that's really a minor pain, and like I said, it's partially my fault.

With the new G5s, Apple does have the chance to chip into the workstation market, though I think that might be a very very slow migration. For companies running Unix workstations (Suns and SGIs), the G5 could make a lot of sense, especially since you can run MS Office in OS X, eliminating the need for a Windoze machine for administrative tasks. It might be a bit harder to chip into the Linux workstation market, due to cost (you can buy a cheap refurbished Dell and throw a Linux distro on it for under $700), but I'd love to be on a G5 right now instead of a PC running RedHat.....

In other news.....

I've become slightly obsessed with purchasing a Vespa.....

June 22, 2003

Cyprus Day 3 -- Solberg Wins

Petter Solberg has won his second WRC event, beating Peugeot's Harri Rovanpera by over a minute. There was never really any suspense on the final day, with Petter driving comfortably, and Rovanpera given team orders to bring his 206 home in one piece to score points in the maker's championship. Seb Loeb took third, only 2 seconds behind Rovanpera, followed by the other Citroens of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz. Sainz missed a golden opportunity to take the lead the driver's championship with Richard Burns retiring on day 2, but it wasn't to be -- Sainz trails Burns by a single point. Ford's youngest gun, Mikko Hirvonen took sixth. Also, I made a mistake yesterday saying Hyundai's Armin Schwarz was out....he wasn't, and he took seventh.

This changes the landscape of the driver's championship a bit. After Burns and Sainz, Gronholm is third, and Solberg is now only a point behind in fourth. Markko Martin and Seb Loeb are just behind Solberg. The next string of rallies will be quite interesting and very competitive. With the tarmac events coming up, expect Loeb and Gilles Panizzi to move the front, but both Gronholm and Solberg have proven in the past they can be competitive on the sealed surface events as well.

June 21, 2003

Cyprus Day 2

What a day it was. Cyprus is living up to its billing as the toughest rally on this year's circuit. Here's a quick rundown on who didn't make it through the day:

* Marcus Gronholm: propshaft. He ran on stage with front wheel drive only, then lost all power.
* Richard Burns: transmission. More issues with the gearbox. Not a good sign.
* Markko Martin: engine.
* Francois Duval: engine. Both Fords died nearly simultaneously.
* Tommi Makinen: more on this later.

Petter Solberg currently leads Harri Rovanpera by 25 seconds. Seb Loeb is almost 3 minutes behind Rovanpera in third, followed by Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz. This is Solberg's rally to win or lose. Rovanpera has had some problems with his 206 already, but he's managed to hang on so far, but the durability of the car will be in question given what's happened to Burns and Gronholm. Solberg should be able to drive cautiously tomorrow (like he said he was doing today) so I expect that he'll take first, but who knows what will happen.

More on Tommi.....Makinen was looking good at the beginning of the day, taking SS5 and putting himself in contention. Then he smashed his rear wheel on SS6, and took nearly 20 minutes to get the car going again. He finished the stage, but made it to the start of SS7 too late, though he continued to run. In fact, he did more than run. Tommi proved he was still quite a driver by taking three more stage wins before being informed that he was disqualified for his time violation between SS6 and SS7. This is again quite a frustrating year for Makinen. He's proven that he's still a force, but loads of bad luck have kept him off the podium (besides his second place in Sweden).

Speaking of bad luck...Hyundai will not finish a car again. Both Loix and Schwarz have retired, and Skoda will have his points streak broken as Auriol and Gardemeister are both out. Expect good things from the debut of the new Fabia in Germany though.

Citroen is having a good rally, despite only having a shot at putting on driver on the podium. All three cars look good to finish the event. This will give them enough points (regardless of what Rovanpera does) to take the lead in the maker's championship. Quite an achievement for a team running its first full WRC season.

June 20, 2003

Cyprus Day 1

A short day to start to the Cyprus rally, though two stages were over 38km in length, making it a rough day in the intense heat. Peugeot has shown speed early, with Harri Rovanpera leading the rally til the last stage (when Marcus Gronholm snatched the lead) and Gilles Panizzi, in the privateer 206, holding 2nd til the last stage as well (he currently sits in 4th). Subaru was looking to have a great rally, with Tommi Makinen and Petter Solberg both in the top five, but then disaster struck on SS4, and Tommi ran into steering problems, causing him to loose stacks of time on the leaders. Solberg ran well however, and sits in 3rd, only 10 seconds behind Gronholm. Given what Petter's strategy was to be (relax on day one and just survive, then put his foot down on days two and three) you've got to think he'll be competing for the top step on the podium.

Seb Loeb is holding down 5th place at the moment, 40 seconds off the pace. The rest of the top ten drops off quite a bit, with Markko Martin, Carlos Sainz, Colin McRae, and Richard Burns all over a minute behind the leaders. Burns probably has the best shot at gaining ground tomorrow, as he played the role of road sweeper running first today. The rest of the lot just has to hope that the leaders run into trouble....

June 19, 2003

Sleep!!

Woo hoo! Seb slept for about 7.5 hours last night. Amazing. It was quite nice to get that much at one time.

In other news...the cloth diaper thing has been quite an adventure. Lots of frustration and stress, as you really can't let him sit in a wet diaper for very long. At least the covers we bought aren't leaking at all.

June 18, 2003

The Longest Season

If you're a sports fan, this time of year really sorta stinks. The NHL and NBA playoffs are finished, leaving us with just Major League Baseball. Sure, if you live in NYC or Boston, it might be an exciting thing to look forward to, but here in Pittsburgh it means having only depressing news about the Pirates on a regular basis. Blech. Fortunately, the WRC calendar is quite full at this time of year (rallies only a few weeks apart), and it's only a few more weeks til the Tour de France, so that will fill the sports pages (at least on obscure websites) for a month or so.

So, with that in mind, here's my expert (*cough cough*) analysis for this weekend's Cyprus Rally....

This will be Markko Martin's rally to win. Despite what the Ford team is saying (that they don't expect a good result), don't believe the hype. Martin may not like the Cyprus rally (it is terribly slow and technical -- on most of the stages the cars won't even see 5th gear), but he can become a contender in the driver's championship with a good result here. Francois Duval has got be pretty desperate for a good result -- heck, he'd be happy to actually drive on Sunday -- but his problems have been an issue of car reliability more than driving ability.

Citroen is expecting a good result this weekend. Carlos Sainz should climb further into the thick of the driver's championship, as he excels in Cyprus. Coln McRae should also be gunning for a good result, especially after watching his chances in Greece all but disappear with a 50 second service penalty. Seb Loeb has dropped off the radar with a string of retirements, but you can't discount the Frenchman's ability. The Xsara has proven itself to be a reliable car so far this year, so expect to see at least on the boys on the podium come Sunday.

Petter Solberg will also be gunning for his second WRC win. Expect Petter to follow the recipe he used in Greece -- get through the first day, then put the hammer down. He should have given Martin a run for his money in Greece, but driveshaft issues and a run-in with Colin McRae kept him in third place. Tommi Makinen hasn't really found his form as of late, and he said he wasn't happy with his setup in Greece. Despite his problems, he still finished in the top ten, so if Tommi can get the kinks worked out, he should do well, and score some points for Subaru.

Ahh...Peugeot. After looking unbeatable earlier in the season, suddenly Marcus Gronholm looks human again. Marcus needs to score this weekend, though he's not a big fan of this rally. If the team engineers haven't worked out the little problems with the 206, it could be another early exit. Richard Burns is looking to extend his championship lead with a good result here, though he's got to keep his eyes on Carlos Sainz. Burns' 206 has been reliable, though he had gearbox problems throughout Greece, so he should at least see the finish line on Sunday. Harri Rovanpera also needs a good result this weekend. He's had a horrible run of luck this season, and with the potential new drivers' rules for next season, he could be out at Peugeot. Though Gilles Panizzi won't be in a factory car this weekend, he made news this week by saying he will contest every rally next season in a full factory car -- whether it's a 206 or something else. Panizzi has proven he can run on the loose surfaces, so Peugeot will be forced to make a hard decision over the winter about whether or not keep the tarmac ace.

Skoda has scored on every rally this year -- again a testament to Didier Auriol's contributions to the team. This will be last event for the oafish Octavia, as the new Fabia will debut next month in Germany. Will the Octavia's extreme reliability is an asset in Cyprus, it's lack of dexterity is a detriment. Even so, expect Auriol and Gardimeister to score points again this weekend.

Poor poor Hyundai. Running on the cheap this year, no time or money to test, and only 3 points in the manufacturer's race. These guys need to score some points, soon. Both Freddy Loix and Armin Scharwz have the ability to do well, it's just a matter of the WRC Accent actually finishing the event.

My choices:
1. Petter Solberg
2. Carlos Sainz
3. Markko Martin
4. Richard Burns
5. Colin McRae

June 16, 2003

Hrm

I don't what I think about this.....Liz Phair releasing an album on Capitol Records. Sorta disappointing that the indie queen is selling her soul to the man. But...I was already disappointed to see that Matador was a member of the RIAA, so I guess her jump to the big leagues isn't quite as shocking....

Father's Day

Had my very first father's day yesterday. Didn't get a gift from Seb, but lots of people went out their way to wish me a happy's father's day. Crazy.

Seb is continuing to become more like a little person everyday. He's smiling quite a bit now, and on Saturday he even managed to flip himself over on the bed. Very cool.

There are some photos on the home page and Seb's page. There's also archives on the anklebiter page, and I'm working on getting archives on the front page as well.

June 13, 2003

Fuzzy Login

There's an article on Salon today about how if any of the Supreme Court justices retire in the next 18 months (a definite possibility) that GW Bush should do the _ethical_ thing and not appoint replacements. Huh?

The author's rationale is simple -- if Bush does appoint a new justice, he is tilting the court in favor of Republicans. Well, duh. Why wouldn't a liberal president do the same thing? This is precisely why I hate politics, and by extension, politicians -- when you're not in power, you're always on the ethical high road. And when you are in power, you can do no wrong.

The arguments put forth in the article aren't anything more than liberal FUD (and this isn't an attack on liberals....a conservative would write the same article if a liberal president was leaving office in 18 months). This argument is particularly fuzzy:

In short, a Bush appointment to the Supreme Court would not be unconstitutional, but it would be fundamentally undemocratic, which -- and I suspect the pre-election Republicans would agree -- is even worse.

Huh? Isn't the entire Supreme Court nomination process undemocratic? The people have no say in who is nominated. None. Sure, we vote for the people who have the power to nominate a justice, even that power is held only by the groups powerful (and rich enough) to sway a politician's opinions. The whole idea that a justice is a justice for life is undemocratic. "Pot, hi. This is kettle. I think you're black."

June 11, 2003

Run Away

More Middle East Violence

Yessirree, there will be peace in the Middle East in no time. Let me ask the question again: why are we trying to get in the middle of this conflict? And this isn't a conservative/liberal thing -- this is a power thing. Clinton was in the middle of it too, trying to forge his _legacy_, and now Dubya is doing the same thing. There is not a solution to this problem -- or at least one that the US can find.

June 10, 2003

News and Notes

More violence in the West Bank. Good to see that this new push for peace is working. Why is the US involved here? This is a long-standing feud between two groups for a piece of land that both believe is God-given. The average American (and American politician) can't even wrap their head around how complicated this conflict is. There will be violence in the region until the end of time, regardless of what the Israeli and Palestinian leaders do or say. Why are we wasting our time? And why are we enraging even more terrorists by being involved?

From the Wow I am Old Department:
'V' is back. I remember this show. It was twenty (20!!!!) years ago. How sad....

Seb

It's really amazing how quickly the boy develops. Just over the weekend, he became a little more aware of what was happening around him. He was looking at things with conviction -- actually taking in what he was looking at. He also started to *talk* a bit....coos and grunts and whatnot. Then yesterday he became even more aware of what was going on. First, he smiled at Jen (and not just your run-of-the-mill infant gas smile). Then, last night, while we were eating dinner on the living room floor, he just laid on his back, cooing to himself, reaching out for a little toy that made noise when he touched it. It's been really amazing watching him learn and absorb things. Such a little sponge....

June 09, 2003

Rally Wrap-Up

Markko Martin won the Acropolis rally, taking his first-ever WRC win. Carlos Sainz managed to keep Petter Solberg at bay to take second. Solberg held second place for most of the day, but some transmission problems and a little run-in with Colin McRae kept him from scoring 2 more points. Richard Burns did a fine job climbing into 4th place, after a terrible first two days. Tommi Makinen, despite never feeling quite comfortable with the settings in his Impreza, took fifth.

That leaves Burns on top of the driver's championship standings, with Sainz sliding ahead of Marcus Gronholm in second. Burns is trying to repeat his championship run in 2000, where he only won a single rally, but still took the championship.

In other news....sorry about the lack of new Seb pictures on the site. We've got some on the camera -- it's just a matter of getting them up on the site....

June 07, 2003

Acropolis Day 2

More interesting news on day 2 of the Acropolic Rally. Petter Solberg stormed out of the gate and looked to the man to challenge Markko Martin. He got quite close, til he had driveshaft issues later in the morning, and dropped over a minute. Martin saw his chance and took it, storming to three stage wins and putting close to a minute between himself and Carlos Sainz. Harri Rovanpera started the day only 4 seconds off Martin's lead, but that soon became almost 3 minutes by the end of the day thanks to gearbox issues with his Peugot (the same fate suffered by teammate Richard Burns). Colin McRae sits in fourth, with Tommi Makinen fifth, Rovanpera sixth, and Richard Burins seventh.

Martin has his work cut out for him, as he basically just has to survive tomorrow's new, rough stages, but he's got to be a bit nervous, as the latest version of the Focus WRC hasn't been the most dependable car this season. Solberg has the ability to overtake Sainz for second -- he and Marcus Gronholm are quite possibly the only drivers on the circuit able to make up large chunks of time. Expect to see Martin and Sainz drive steadily to reach the end in one piece, while Solberg and Burns (who's fighting to get as many points on Gronholm in the driver's championship) should really put their feet down to make up time and places.

Peugeot suddenly looks very vulnerable. After being incredibly fast last year, and incredibly durable (after several seasons of many retirements), the 206 looks mortal again. Burns will be contesting the stages tomorrow without the benefit of 2nd gear -- thanks to his and Rovanpera's gearbox problems, the Peugeot engineers have exhausted their parts supply. Burns has had a good run of luck with his 206, never finishing less than fourth this year, but Gronholm and Rovanpera haven't been as lucky -- Gronholm has 3 wins and 2 retirements in five rallies, and Rovanpera has seen multiple podium finishes crushed by accidents and car problems. Ironically, tarmac specialist Gilles Panizzi has been running well in a customer-spec 206 -- he's currently holding 8th place. He's driving himself right off the Peugeot roster for next season if the new team rules are accepted by the FIA (teams can only have 2 drivers nominated for points who have previously won rallies. Right now, every Peugeot driver has a rally win to his credit).

So far, this rally has made me really appreciate how tough professional rallying is. I just read a print article about Michael Schumacher and life on the Formula 1 circuit. While those cars are quite impressive, they drive on pretty tarmac tracks in generally good weather. WRC cars during rallies like the Acropolis, Cyprus and Turkey run on roads that would leave all cars save Hummers and Range Rovers nothing more than a pile of metal. There are two service stops during most days, and engineers have 20 minutes to beat the cars into shape again (that includes switching entire gearboxes, suspensions, etc). And the rough roads aren't just for the gravel rallies. Watch footage of Monte Carlo, Spain, or Corsica. Especially Monte Carlo -- stages include going from sunny dry tarmac to snow storms and back again on roads that would be absolutely terrifying to drive at 5kph, let alone 100....anyway, just my thoughts on why rallying beats the pants off any other type of auto racing....

June 06, 2003

Acropolis Update

SS8 was cancelled due to a combination of spectator and dust issues. Even bigger news, Marcus Gronholm retired about 6km from the service park (on a road section after SS8) due to a fuel pump problem. This leaves the top three (Martin, Rovanpera, and Solberg) within 30 seconds of one another. Tomorrow should be an exciting day. This also give Richard Burns new life -- if he can climb into the points tomorrow, he can distance himself from Gronholm in the championship standings.

Acropolis

The 2003 Acropolis Rally started this morning, and it's been quite competitive so far. Markko Martin has a slight lead over Peugeot's Harri Rovanperra going into the day's last stage, with Marcus Gronholm not far behind. Peugeot has never won this event, so their hopes are high that one of these guys can take the top step. Subaru's Petter Solberg and Tommi Makinen have been consist all day, currently holding 4th and 6th. Solberg has been charging later in the day, taking the win on SS6. He's only 24 seconds behind Martin, so he is very much in the hunt.

Unless Marcus Gronholm retires, Richard Burns should see his championship lead disappear, as he is sitting in 10th, the result of gearbox problems before the day's second service. Colin McRae is also pondering what might have been, as he received a 50 second penalty for arriving late to the start of SS2, thanks to engine problems. Without that penalty, he'd be sitting in third, 6 seconds off Martin's pace. The final stage of the day is a superspecial stage, so don't expect the leaderboard to change much. Tomorrow looks to be an exciting day of racing!

By the way...

I STILL HATE MAVEN!!!!

June 05, 2003

The Long Slow Death of Apache

Meh!

Two steps forward, four steps back. I'm still (day number 4, maybe, I've lost count) trying to get a Turbine/Torque web application up and running with the Maven build tool. Here's a short list of some of the difficulties I'm facing....

Torque (an OM layer for the database) has the capability to generate Java classes based on an XML schema of your database. It can also generate the sql scripts to run to actually generate the tables defined in your schema file. NIfty, eh? Well, yesterday, I managed to convince Maven to actually generate the sql scripts, run them in the database, and generate the Java class files. Fantastic, I thought. I'm almost home. Now, let's just do this:

# maven java:compile

and I'll actually have a deployable web app. Right? Wrong! The compiler spit out about one hundred messages, ranging from syntax errors within the generated code to missing libraries. The missing libraries errors were especially nice because:

1. The plugin used by Maven is built around Torque 3.1
2. The current production release of Torque is 3.0.1 (released THIS MORNING)

Nice. Attempt #1 to fix this problem: get a copy of the latest Torque source from CVS, build it, and it should work right? Wrong!

Attempt #2: Get the earlier version of the Maven/Torque plugin (3.0). Wrong again!

Well, I walked away from that yesterday. Today, I thought I'd try again. So I typed:

# maven torque:main

And Maven says:

Goal "torque:main" does not exist in this project.

SWEET!!!!

I nuked the Maven installation, re-installed....same problem. Right now, I hate Maven. I wish it would curl up and die a slow, painful death.

So what is the problem here? Well, many of the Apache Jakarta projects share developers, especially the Turbine/Torque/Maven projects. These guys started to develop Maven (which is currently at version 1.0beta9) and began to use it to build the other projects. They liked Maven better than Ant (the standard Java build tool -- also an Apache project) so they decided that the newer releases of the other projects would also require Maven to build instead of Ant. While it sounds nice as a concept, the implementation just doesn't work. The problems start with the Torque version issue I outlined above. Since the developers, who are working on Torque 3.1, are using Maven, they thought the latest release version should include the plugin for Torque 3.1. Well, fellas, no one else is using Torque 3.1. So we're sorta screwed.

Another problem...documentation. Now, most open source projects suffer from horrific documentation, but these projects suffer even more. To really get things working, you generally have to find kludges, and each person has their own set of kludges that work. Unfortunately, only one person writes a HOWTO, and it only includes their kludges. Some of these work for me, others don't. At point, I received a response to a question I posted to the Maven mailing list that said sorry I can't help you, but my system just works. It's almost like it comes down to luck. That sounds like a great way to run a software project -- maybe we'll get lucky today and our build system will work as advertised.

Well....it's a little later now. I've actually gotten a bit closer to resolving the issues, but I'm battling a classpath issue I thought I had solved yesterday concerning our database driver. What a mess. We're giving this til the end of week, and if we can't get it up and running, we're moving back to Ant.

June 04, 2003

New Toys

I've always been a KDE man. I've never really used GNOME, unless I absolutely had to (as some apps don't port easy across desktops, due to the different engines used by the desktops -- QT for KDE, and the GTK for GNOME). But then I read this interview yesterday with one of the Ximian developers about the latest release of their desktop, built on top of GNOME. Very pretty stuff.

What's been bugging me about KDE 3.1 ever since I started using OS X a bit at home is the lack of a coherent style. If I import a theme, _most_ applications will apply that theme, but others won't. I know that's sorta nit-picky for a guy who uses Slackware at home, but if I wanted a crappy looking desktop, I'd cut down my CPU overhead and just use a basic window manager and call it done. The reason I use a desktop environment is cos I want it to be pretty. And I want everything to look pretty. RedHat has tried to address this, with their BlueCurve theme, which does a decent job of applying the theme to all applications. But the new Ximian desktop could be a big step forward. It'll be a slight pain to get everything tweaked the way I'd like, but it could be worth it.....

Odd News Bit

From local news.....
Rock singer guilty in naked walk around hotel

June 03, 2003

Learning Experiences

Quite a busy day at work. We went from pretty casually doing design work for the next iteration of the product, to madly rushing to ramp up to do development work. Yeesh. Just a bried overview of today's fun:

* Finish design work on the application's search engine.
* Setup a new instance of the application framework (Turbine).
* Set up CVS.
* Set up the build environment for the application. We're trying to migrate away from Ant and toward Maven. Maven has some really nice features, and a very large plugin selection, but it's still not even at version 1.0, so documentation is pretty sparse, and often incorrect.

More fun is expected for tomorrow, when I have to begin coding the search engine, while still continuing the above tasks.....

Everybody's All Wet

Had a bit of poopy day yesterday...an old consulting project reared its ugly head, and I've had to say no, sorry, I can't help you right now. There aren't enough hours in my day. I was feeling pretty crummy, but something pretty amazing happened. We had dinner with the in-laws, then went home. I was tired, but it's my job (though I don't look at it that way) to give Seb his bath. We've been able to actually give him real baths now (instead of sponge baths) since his imbellical cord stump fell off, so I filled the tub, got his bath stuff, and Jen handed him to me. Just being able to spend 10 minutes with him, bathing him, made me forget about all the crap that had happened. It was quite nice. It also helps, by the way, that he sorta likes his bath.....

Rode my bike to work this morning too, in the driving rain. It was quite nice, actually. It was just cool enough that I wasn't freezing, but I also wasn't sweating buckets under my jacket. While it isn't as pleasant as riding on a nice, sunny day, a nice wet ride is still enjoyable, in its own sick, twisted way.

June 01, 2003

Java This

So...here's a lively discussion about the preview release of Java 1.5 (Tiger). There are many new features, some interesting and useful, and others that some may call syntaxtic sugar. I found the whole discussion interesting because Java is fast becoming M$ bastard brother. Many in the open source community are leary of the langauge, because it is still controlled by Sun, and therefore is a Bad Thing^TM. Personally, I think it is a great language for server-side programming--powerful and safe (no icky pointers), and with the introduction of the SWT, it has the potential to move onto the desktop. But so many people think that we should all be programming in Schema, Smalltalk or Eiffel. I'd love to do that, but I'm not in academia, and employers looking specifically for those languages are few and far between. Java is a fine compromise...still very object-oriented, but with enough (some would say too many) libraries to make it attractive to business.

In other news...

I've been listening to more pop lately...a quick rundown of what's been playing:

* Pedro the Lion, especially It's Hard to Find a Friend. Not David Bazan's most coherent album thematically, it's still full of wonderful, truthful songs.
* Bedhead -- Transaction De Novo. Lepidoptera is my favorite song, ever. Seb really digs it too.
* Death Cab for Cutie -- Various. Really good pop music.
* The Promise Ring -- Various.
* Versus -- Various.