memisc
package for R:
One of the aims of this package is to make life easier for useRs who deal with survey data sets. It provides an infrastructure for the management of survey data including value labels, definable missing values, recoding of variables, production of code books, and import of (subsets of) SPSS and Stata files. Further, it provides functionality to produce tables and data frames of arbitrary descriptive statistics and (almost) publication-ready tables of regression model estimates. Also some convenience tools for graphics, programming, and simulation are provided. [emphasis added]
How did I miss this package before? It makes analyzing NES data—heck, any data with value labels and missing values—in R an almost sane thing to do.
]]>reportbug
project on Alioth, Sandro Tosi and Y Giridhar Appaji Nag, who seem to be enthusiastic about working through the big backlog of bug reports and wishlist requests associated with the package. Since my Debian-related interests are largely elsewhere these days, mostly focused on R stuff that has a more tangible relationship with my research (and by extension my future job mobility and/or tenurability) and a few other infrastructural things in Debian (primarily LSB support and printing), I think this is a good development overall. But still, when you’ve been hacking away at something for almost nine years it’s hard not to develop a bit of a sentimental attachment to it. I still plan to be doing some hacking away at reportbug
, but hopefully the new blood can take the lead in terms of day-to-day maintenance while I work on some of the desperately-needed code refactoring issues with the software.]]>In any event, congratulations to all the new Debian developers—and I’ll avoid pondering for too long why one person’s appointment to an unrelated group would suddenly break the logjam of developer application approvals.
]]>debtorrent
, a BitTorrent-based package distribution system for Debian packages, for the past few days, and while it’s been a bit rough around the edges it has worked quite well so far. Cameron has just made a new release which promises better performance all-around; I haven’t had a real opportunity to test the performance yet here, except I can say that apt-get update
is markedly faster in this release.]]>I also learned that you can combine your favorite RSS and Atom feeds with pictures of cats, although just why you'd want to do this is beyond my comprehension.
]]>reportbug
issues that made it into the release (primarily in the Unicode and memory use areas), but I don’t know whether or not a fix for those will be allowed in to the first point release.
But it is a time for rejoicing nonetheless, especially when paired with the election of our new Debian Project Leader for the next year, Sam Hocevar, in a pretty darn close election—Sam was preferred to Steve McIntyre, my top preference, by just eight net ballots.
]]>[ 3 ] Choice 1: Wouter Verhelst
[ 3 ] Choice 2: Aigars Mahinovs
[ 3 ] Choice 3: Gustavo Franco
[ 3 ] Choice 4: Sam Hocevar
[ 1 ] Choice 5: Steve McIntyre
[ 3 ] Choice 6: Raphaël Hertzog
[ 2 ] Choice 7: Anthony Towns
[ 3 ] Choice 8: Simon Richter
[ 4 ] Choice 9: None Of The Above
For the uninitiated, Debian uses the Schulze method of vote counting (a Condorcet method) to decide its elections based on ranked ballots cast by Debian developers. In English, my preference order was McIntyre > Towns [the incumbent DPL] > (any other candidate) > (nobody).
Thankfully, another candidate withdrew from the election, saving me from having to cast a ballot ranking nobody ahead of a candidate for the second consecutive year.
]]>Meanwhile, I’ve started fiddling with the urwid library and have made startlingly rapid progress constructing a UI with it, even though I am still getting the hang of the widget system… some widgets just refuse to go inside other widgets in ways that are not completely obvious to me, leading to strange runtime exceptions that are hard to debug. In any event, before it hits the mirrors, there’s more stuff to be done—most notably, the bug tracking system query interface (I haven’t even started tackling that yet) and figuring out how to suspend the urwid session to launch an editor that may want to use the console. On the latter point, I may go back to running each dialog as a separate session, which would also give me the console log back.
]]>My sense is that the spirit of the Debian Free Software Guidelines is most consistent with the interpretation embodied in Amendment A—I seriously doubt the Free Software Foundation will go after people who distribute GFDL-licensed documents on DRMed media and the “transparent formats” issue is probably a non-issue in practice, judging from the distinct lack of interest by the FSF in going after people who violate the GPL’s “you must make source available for three years” rule, but the invariant sections rule is clearly non-free and cannot be ignored.
Unfortunately (or, fortunately, depending on your perspective) this means Debian users will not have access to most of the documentation that uses invariant sections—primarily those documents distributed by the FSF themselves. On the upside, it will at least spare our users from having reams of Richard Stallman’s political rants foisted upon them and their hard drives in exchange for the privilege of having the Emacs manual available.
So, anyway, here’s how I voted, since it will be public at the close of the vote anyway: 2143—or, in other words, Amendment A [GFDL allowed if invariant sections not used] > Original Resolution [GFDL not allowed at all] > Further Discussion > Amendment B [anything GFDL'd goes].
Next up: the elections for Debian Project Leader, featuring a smorgasbord of seven candidates.
]]>I am not an idiot; this should not be so hard to figure out. I like R, but it is actively user-hostile (even with Rcmdr and other packages loaded), and until it ceases to be such I will not foist it on my students.
]]>My co-author and Quantian’s developer, Dirk Eddelbuettel, has the current version of the piece up at his website, for the morbidly curious. The article probably will appear in the Fall 2005 issue, whenever that emerges.
]]>lsbinstall
when I uploaded LSB 3.0–1 for Debian to sid last month. Grrr…]]>NOTE: This program is not a reliable contraceptive method. It does neither help to prevent sexual transmision diseases like AIDS. It is just an electronic means of keeping track of some of your medical data and extract some statistical conclusions from them. You cannot consider this program as a substitute for your gynecologist in any way. [emphasis mine]
I think if you’re the sort of person who would confuse a computer program with the Pill, a condom, or a gynecologist, the disclaimer really isn’t going to help you very much.
]]>Meanwhile, those of you who can’t remember whether or not Godfather actor Abe Vigoda is still alive may find this extension helpful (þ: Ryan at the DPS). Quick Note seems more useful, though.
]]>Do these things as root:
/etc/postfix/main.cf
:
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options =
relayhost = smtpauth.earthlink.net
/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
as follows:
smtpauth.earthlink.net username@earthlink.net:password
/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
&& chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
./etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
.Voilà, all your outgoing email is now sent via smtpauth.earthlink.net
.
Does anybody find libertarian Linux-users sexy?
Heidi Bond responds that at least the Linux-using part may increase perceived sexiness, but also adds that ”[t]here are plenty of people who run Linux who I wouldn’t date.”
Undoubtably this is a pressing question for our time—not to mention our blog. Presumably Brock’s wife finds him sexy, although I don’t know that Brock would consider himself a libertarian; if pressed to judge, I’d say Brock is tall and handsome, and thus probably considered “sexy” by women, but neither of those attributes derive from his politics or his choice of operating system.
Robert runs Mac OS X, as does Heidi Bond’s boyfriend, which may count as “Linux usage” for sufficiently vague definitions of “Linux” (i.e. operating systems that use a lot of GNU software and use a kernel patterned after that of the Unix operating system). I have no idea whether Robert is sexy, since I’ve never met him and don’t generally judge the sexiness of other guys (not that there’s anything wrong with that), my assessment of Brock notwithstanding.
Nobody has called me sexy lately, but for the most part I haven’t gone to great lengths to advertise either my libertarianness or my Linux usage in the “real world”; there may be individuals who think I’m sexy, but they haven’t told me that or otherwise indicated they think I’m sexy in an unambiguous manner—defined in my world as “not made blatantly obvious,” so I could be oblivious to such matters.
So, Mr. Baude’s question is now in order. Let the debate commence.
]]>