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Saturday, January 9, 2010

Avatar Is More And Less Than It Seems

James Cameron's epic, "Dances with Smurfs," er "Pocahontas in Space," oh wait, "Avatar" is on its way to make astonishing amounts of money world-wide and domestically. Avatar as of this date has made 1.1 Billion in world-wide box office revenue. According to Box Office Mojo the figures are $393.8 million domestically and $781.8 foreign. This is serious cash. Why then, aren't studios desperate to sign James Cameron for another film? An "Avatar 2" or whatever he wanted to make? Jon Favreau with "Iron Man," Bryan Singer with "X-Men," and Christopher Nolan with "Batman Begins" all were quickly signed to sequels, with money thrown at them.

The reason for the "dog not barking in the night-time" is that Avatar is not expected to be that profitable, despite the gobs of money it is making at box-office. Part of the reason is the high cost, but the other is that the movie really is not poised to reap a home video and TV rights sales, where Hollywood makes most of its money. Avatar is however, important in that it points out how Hollywood can make a bit more money: by releasing movies in 3-D, getting marginally more money from box-office receipts, and re-issuing movies that already exist in 3-D.

First, the cost of Avatar is reported by the Financial Times as $430 million, for production and US marketing. This makes the movie one of the most expensive ever made. Foreign marketing, including likely assistance for foreign exhibitors, who are financially pressed, to install IMAX 3-D systems likely impacts quite a bit of the otherwise impressive foreign box office (do note, that Avatar has about a 2-1 ratio of foreign to domestic receipts, an interesting point itself). It is likely that the net result is a lesser amount than the 40-45% range assumed for foreign box office grosses, when either "give-backs" or assistance in installing IMAX 3-D systems are included. Avatar netted approximate $57.75 million to the studio opening week-end (studios keep about 75% of the opening week-end box office) and about $158 million thereafter domestically. Avatar probably did less than $312.7 million net to the studio from foreign receipts. That should still be somewhere south of $528.47 million, so why aren't studios lining up to throw money at Cameron? Likely, real receipts from foreign box office are far less than even 40% of the $781.8 million currently reported. And things are not looking up for home video sales.

The Daily Beast reports that Avatar is showing on 3,600 screens, with 2,200, or 61% of them, 3-D IMAX. The 3-D IMAX tickets are about 36-40% more expensive than the ordinary movie tickets. This means that while the movie is popular, it is not as popular as people might think. And sales of home video, and TV rights, are still a mass-popularity game.

Edward Jay Epstein, author of "the Big Picture" maintains that Hollywood makes about 18% of its profits from theater box office, and 82% from home video (both sales and rentals), and TV rights sales (foreign and domestic). These also have much lower marketing costs, as well. In many cases, Studios use the theatrical roll-out as merely an extended marketing campaign for the DVD and pay-per-view releases.

Well, what of Blu-Ray? After all, the format is far more expensive, with say, "the Hangover" listing at $35 for Blu-Ray and only $29 for DVD. That's 20% more. Shouldn't "Avatar" on Blu-Ray be a natural sale? Making lots of money? Video Business reports that Blu-Ray for 2009 accounted for only 10% of home video purchases. Obviously there is a recession on.

To really enjoy Blu-Ray, you obviously need to pay (at least 20%) more for the Blu-Ray disc. You then need a Blu-Ray player (which list from $200 and up, though they can be discounted), and then of course, a Hi-Def TV. Those can be pricey, still around $500 and up. Though again careful shopping can find discounts.

If consumer incomes were rising as they were in the late 1990's, this would not be a problem. Hollywood would ride a wave consumer purchases of new players and high definition TVs to even greater heights of profitability. But it is not the 1990's. It is not even George Bush's economy. December job losses rose to 85,000 with the official unemployment rate at 10%, and the Labor Dept. "U-6" underutilization (those unemployed not looking for work, or underemployed) at 17.4%. This is in line with lower consumer spending for the Holiday season, with consumers purchasing mostly items on sale not spending as in past, pre-Recessionary holidays.

The economy is bad, and likely only to get worse. New health-care legislation (ObamaCare), Cap and Trade, Amnesty, are all likely to add new regulations and taxes on top of employers, making adding employees a pipe dream. Expansion that does happen will happen overseas, with fewer taxes and regulations. Due to population growth, the economy needs to add 1.9 million jobs every year. Since the onset of the December 2007 recession, the private sector employment which peaked at 115.8 million, has declined to 108.5 million. A loss of 7.3 million jobs, or around 6%. Public sector employment fell less than 1%, basically unchanged, at 22.5 million jobs. Most states are in severe budget trouble, with tax receipts tanking in ways not seen since the Great Depression. States are seeing double-digit tax revenue declines, contradicting the Obama Administration predictions of 3% growth for the economy.

With no wage increases and job gains in sight, and the economy terribly vulnerable to shocks, from oil supply (WTI and Brent Crude are both as of this writing above OPEC's $70-80 price band by considerable margins) to China, there seems little prospect of consumers rushing out and spending money on Blu-Ray players, Hi-Def TVs, and Blu-Ray discs. [The Financial Times is now comparing China openly to Dubai, noting that Tianjin has a development with buildings modeled after each continent, and an indoor ski slope, just like Dubai. Shanghai is filled with apartments and condos that are empty — wealthy Chinese lacking other investment opportunities and facing no property tax buy and hold luxury apartments. The skyline of Shanghai's residential districts are dark at night with empty buildings. This indeed echoes Dubai.]

Video Business again:

U.S. consumer spending on DVD and Blu-ray Disc rentals business rose 4.1% to $6.5 billion in 2009, according to Rentrak Corp.’s Home Video Essentials, which collects point-of-sale data. During the year, kiosk revenue grew 94%, with the Redbox-dominated channel approaching $1 billion in revenue, more than enough to offset a 3.2% decline in the bricks-and-mortar and online sectors combined.
Consumer sales of DVD and Blu-ray, in comparison, fell 13.7% to $12.2 billion, Rentrak estimates.

Redbox, the story notes, grew 94% (admittedly, from not very much to start with) in revenue for 2009. Clearly, consumers like entertainment cheap and convenient.

Which brings us to a wider point. Consumers over the decades have consistently chosen convenience, and cheapness, over high-quality sensory entertainment. In the 1980's, first cheap cassette tapes and then CDs won out over higher-quality vinyl, and the music machine of choice was the Sony Walkman and its imitators, not the high-quality home stereo. This followed over with personal CD players, and finally the Ipod and other MP3 players. People preferred music in portable packages, even if it meant giving up an immersive experience and superior sound. That the convenient packages were also cheaper, the Ipod really taking off when various models could be had for less than $170, was a bonus.

According to the Financial Times, Hi-Def TVs are less than 12% of the global market. See the picture below:

[Click Image to Enlarge]

This seems overly optimistic to me, as so far, the price point for adoption of new gadgets seems to be around $150 or so total cost. Apple's tablet device, whenever it reaches down to that level, is likely to be far more significant (given its rumored video capabilities) than fantasies of 3-D Hi-Def TVs, and ESPN's planned investment in a 3-D sports network. Consumers just don't have the money to spend, beyond that level. Unless consumer electronics companies can get the basic technology down to a very low level (i.e. a TV that costs around $150 and can play Hi-Def 3-D content with a built-in-player or high speed connectivity), 3-D at home is far away. People don't have the money.

What is potentially far more lucrative, is the technology Disney has, with "Keychest" that would authorize content to be streamed to any device, mobile phone, Ipod Touch, computer, internet-connected TV, and the like, from a central stored server. There, the technology is on the back-end, with compression and robust data networks not pricey consumer electronics being the key to content. Again, note the economics: mass-oriented content for cheap (this material is likely to be viewed on the equivalent of a Sone Walkman or Ipod for video) devices at cheap prices is likely to be the rule. The story of high-quality content devices and storage, such as Video Laser Disc, Mini Discs, and the like has not been a happy one compared to cheap and "good enough."

Avatar's true meaning is likely to be, instead of a rash of movies in 3-D IMAX, a few select movies in 3-D that eke out a few more dollars in extended, 3-D showings, that are a small margin for studios to transition (if they can) to the Itunes/Ipod world of cheap content anywhere, any time. Either purchased for cheap or rented even cheaper. With the "winner" whoever can provide consistently a high quality and low price mass entertainment line-up. A 3-D version of say, "the Goods" with Jeremy Piven is not going to save the movie industry, which faces a long-term decline in tickets sold (though this year had a partial recovery) and very high costs, with a few hits subsidizing the many failures.

Screenwriter William Goldman once observed that "nobody knows anything" with respect to profitability. Yet the golden age moguls, Warner and Mayer and did know something. Their movies almost always made money. Avatar might just be the last hurrah for the old-line Malibu Marxists before cheap, fast, anywhere, anytime media overwhelms their business model. Because it doesn't look like consumers will be shelling out $1,000 anytime soon just to watch a bunch of blue cats crossed with stilts, re-enact Pocahontas.

A blu-ray drive for a pc can be bought for around 100$. The pc would need to be equipped with a cheap video card, probably around 50$, and a monitor capable of displaying 1900x1080, which is anywhere from 150-500+. I'm kinda surprised people even still buy high def TVs instead of simply using their computer monitors and hulu or similar websites.

Amateur Strategist said...

Appreciated analysis, but do you have any comments on the movie itself?

I saw it (against my will, I'm afraid), I was not impressed nor entertained.

Teresita said...

I used to stand in line for hours to watch the first show on the first day when Star Wars sequels came out (that first crowd is wild, it's a really different experience when you are surrounded by jubilant, appreciative fans). One guy at work said Avatar made Lord of the Rings look like the Teletubbies. I'm going to pass, because:

1. I have CGI burnout. Special effects which are mass-produced in a render farm of thousands of computers don't have the art and the charm of simple stop-motion work, like Ray Harryhausen in the Sinbad movies, or John Dykstra's model work in Star Wars, or Douglass Trumbull's optical tricks in Close Encounters.

2. It would be almost impossible to tell whether you were watching Avatar on DVD or a kid playing Avatar on X-Box.

3. The film is a liberal screed, Dances with Wolves in Space, a 3D powerpoint presentation of Obama's talking points that asks the audience to cheer the defeat of American troops.

4. Bad science. Unobtainium (standing in for oil) is a room-temperature superconductor that levitates in the presence of a magnetic field by being opaque to lines of force. Entire mountains of the stuff are floating in the air. But a magnetic field strong enough to levitate superconducting mountains is strong enough to stomp those steel US landing craft (used to attack the peaceful natives living in harmony with the climate) flat to the ground.

5. My girlfriend is working six days a week and the one day she has off she is not in the mood for the cinema ordeal of sticky seats, rude people, and endless pre-film commercials.

Anonymous said...

"I'm kinda surprised people even still buy high def TVs instead of simply using their computer monitors and hulu or similar websites."

Mil-Tech Bard said...

>Public sector employment fell
>less than 1%, basically
>unchanged, at 22.5 million jobs.
>Most states are in severe
>budget trouble, with tax
>receipts tanking in ways not
>seen since the Great
>Depression. States are
>seeing double-digit tax
>revenue declines,
>contradicting the Obama
>Administration predictions of
>3% growth for the economy.

The Obama Administration's economic and social welfare policies have caused a small business and big capital strike like FDR had in the late 1930's.

This is causing a tubing of state and local tax revenues so large that 2010 will see really massive lay offs in local and state governments and particularly education.

Massive lay offs that will be on-going in Nov 2010.

Hell_Is_Like_Newark said...

Someone gave my wife a pirated copy of Avatar. She wants to watch it tonight. I have no idea what quality it is. No matter.. I can't watch movies in 3D anyway (you need to be able to see out of both eyes, which I can't).

I think I will approach this movie like watching the "Day After Tomorrow". With enough scotch it becomes a comedy.

Whiskey said...

I hated the movie. Terrible. Typical Cameron simplistic liberal screed. Also a base libel on the US Marines, presented as monstrous murderers.

Hungry -- Most people lack your skills. They wouldn't even think of it. I know educated, professional guys who have a hard time rebooting computers.

TGGP said...

Avatar is not expected to be that profitable
I googled avatar film profits and found nothing suggesting that. Instead I found this. Investors appear quite happy with their investment, though on the other hand you wouldn't expect them to say something like "Boy was I an idiot for wasting all that money!".

Cameron has also confirmed that there will be a sequel. Earlier he was hedging that based on whether the first film was a success.

I have no plans to see it. Watching bad movies just encourages them to make more.

Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech said...

The only real difference between a tv and a computer monitor now is the size of the screen. And a tuner, but since most people use cable or satellite the tuner is redundant and useless. If you want to have multiple people watch a movie, a computer monitor isn't going to cut it (at least if they want to be comfortable).

Otherwise there isn't a whole lot of a difference except for what the tv/monitor is connected to. For that you can get a HTPC so you can get hulu and the like. They day will come when people start giving up cable/sat tv for the internet just like many people have given up land line phones for cell phones.

Whiskey said...

TGGP -- a random comment to some guy is not the same as a signed deal. I would expect that if AVATAR 2 were a signed deal that FOX would be trumpeting it.

I mean, look at Stone vs. Cameron. Oliver Stone is a reputed coke-head and 100% difficult guy whose movies always never make money. Yet he keeps getting work. Cameron sits around for ten years not working (that's not getting PAID).

Whats up with that? The only thing I can conclude is that most of Hollywood believes he's likely to get them fired, and has no crony network to mitigate that risk. Heck one of the Wachowski brothers had the sex change operation and looks like a freak, a melted wax face. THEY got "Speed Racer" the movie.

Anonymous said...

I have no desire to watch Avatar.

The point of my post though is your William Goldman quote. There is a certain irony in that quote because Goldman knew what men wanted (which fits in nicely with your last article).

- Breeze

Anonymous said...

Who needs Blu-Ray with $100 USB bridge media players? They've been flying under the radar all year. The quality of 700 MB movie files is surprisingly good on HD TV's and most movies and TV shows are readily available on the interwebz if you know where to look.

Tarl said...

Also a base libel on the US Marines, presented as monstrous murderers.

Is there a scene where the Marines decide to take off and nuke the whole site from orbit, destroying a clearly important species? =)

Talk in the NYT today about China being a bubble about to burst:

TGGP said...

I think James Cameron's deal is that after Titanic he got full of himself and decided to goof around underwater. He's certainly not hurting for cash. His net worth is $150 million. The same site lists Oliver Stone at just $50 million. What was the last bomb Cameron made that got someone fired?

FilmoFilia claims "there is no doubt that 20th Century Fox would want to proceed with a second installment." It's just an opinion, but so is yours. Can you provide dates on how soon after release there were sequels announced for Batman, Iron Man & X-Men? Of course those were already existing franchises.

stratomunchkin said...

he very basic problem of this movie is that it totally disregards its own premise once they get to Pandora. Given the state of Earth, unobtanium (and yes, that is the mineral's name) is the savior of the human race. Among other things, it lets us get off the wrecked planet. And maybe make it less of a wreck. Fixing your power transmission and waste issues probably helps life on Earth. But the big one is that it plausibly let’s the human race leave by enabling FTL coms and effective .7c space travel. And energy-free superconductors are of course highly desirable on the spacecraft because it cuts your heat sink requirements dramatically and cuts your power requirements for running the ship. And you don’t get into the loop of having to cool the superconductor to save energy... yes, I'm a nerd.

In the scriptment, it’s also clear that Pandora is not the only resource exploitation area for a resource-starved Earth. RDA operates elsewhere and they would need .7c starships for those resources as well.

So "unobtanium" helps the energy situation on Earth, enables easier far-solar and extra-solar resource exploitation, and enables a chance for humans on a large scale to escape Earth if they find something that is either habitable or can be made that way.

The story should have been over a lot more than greed and I suspect that Cameron did realize that at one point or another in the 10 years of working on this. It’s probably not in there because it exceeded his storytelling grasp to still make Jake “right” in those circumstances.

The reason I say ignoring this angle is poor is because it lets you make some fantastic “bad” guys. Instead of a greedy corporation, you now have wide-eyed true believer crusaders. Doesn’t have to be all of them on planet, but it would be considerably more jarring to have a couple characters leaning this way. Some implicit reluctance given the stark situation – maybe they like the Na’vi – but absolute Knight Templar brutality and ruthlessness to get the job done because humanity is at stake.

It also would screw up the strawmanning by giving the audience competing rooting interests. Good book sci-fi would tend to do just this. Authors like Sophie’s choice situations like “two worlds enter, one world leaves.” To wit:

Humans: “We need to rip your planet apart to save our species.”

Na’vi: “The deposit is under our sacred tree, the flying mountains are sacred, and we’re not too thrilled about this whole ‘remove 20% of Pandora’s mass and ship it to your solar system’ long term plan either.”

Humans: “You’r right, that would probably be the end of your biosphere. We’re sorry for your loss.”

Na’vi: “….this is bad.”

Of course, this would make Jake’s choice to associate with the natives more asinine than it is and we can’t have the other side actually having a point. It would still be a much more interesting plot and require characters to make much more difficult choices.

Add to this the whole stupid Vietnam and 9/11 analogies plus the “noble savage” clichee (why Hollywood still clings to that one I just cannot fathom) and even from the POV of someone who is not an American (me) you get a movie that is preachy, anti-civilizational propaganda about living in harmony with nature made by people who have the luxury not having to do just that.

It’s also really bad and inconsequential story-telling if you think about it for more than a second. Just imagine what the Na’vi did just did:

How does eradicating a mining colony make it less likely that you’ll be burned down to the bedrock in the long run? Your stuff is still valuable, you’ve proven you’re unwilling to negotiate, and you’ve demonstrated you’re a threat on the ground... Hey, wow, the atmosphere’s on fire, and what’s that big rock…?!

Anonymous said...

Excellent post, munchkin.

As for watching movies on your PC screen, in my world (the real world), that's not gonna happen.

Anonymous said...

I already watch movies and tv on my pc if I want to watch it. No ads, its free and I've never been someone to get caught up on screen resolution.

- Breeze

Anonymous said...

"What is potentially far more lucrative, is the technology Disney has, with "Keychest" that would authorize content to be streamed to any device, mobile phone, Ipod Touch, computer, internet-connected TV, and the like, from a central stored server."

But what is even easier is to copyright-infringe the movie, watch it on your computer, decide it should be called "Dances With Smurfs" instead of "Avatar," and then post a snarky blog entry about it.

Like you say, consumers like convenience. Copyright infringement is awfully convenient.

"Dances with Smurfs" is going to be cracking me up all day. Heheh. "Dances with Smurfs," good one.

Sauropod said...

"Shanghai is filled with apartments and condos that are empty"

Business Week just ran a story about a city built by the Chinese from the ground up in the middle of nowhere. Lots of big new buildings, but nobody lives there. It's a ghost town.

I'm starting to think China may turn out to be a Potemkin village on a massive scale.

India's growth, on the other hand, seems like the real thing and should continue ... if they can avoid getting into a nuclear exchange with Pakistan.

"In the 1980's, first cheap cassette tapes and then CDs won out over higher-quality vinyl"

I take your point about consumers wanting convenience, but disagree that vinyl LPs offered higher quality than CDs. I was an early adopter of CDs, and from the start I thought they provided far better sound than vinyl. No more scratches, clicks, and pops. Plus, they were searchable and hard to damage.

Regarding Avatar, the film is obviously a big hit, even if its staggering costs mean that it will not be as profitable, on a percentage basis, as some other movies. And Cameron surely isn't hurting for opportunities. He's already announced that his next film will be an epic about Hiroshima. (Sadly, I predict a hit piece on America that ignores the military necessity of dropping the bomb, and also ignores the horrendous atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese.)

Mark Wright said...

I think the film is definitely a silly "Dances with Smurfs" ode to "noble savages," but all the claims that it's offensive to the military are way off base. Jake makes it extremely clear in his first scene on-planet that the troops on the alien planet are all Blackwater-esque Private Military Contractors who are there to exert force on behalf of a corporation.

Last time I checked, no one from Blackwater was a current member of the US Military. Nor do I think that mercenary killers for hire deserve the respect that active duty members of the military do. Even if everyone in Blackwater is a -former- member of the service, I still don't think that they deserve the respect of those who are serving their country. While I honor the duty they performed in uniform, the second you take off that uniform and start shooting people for profit, you instantly lose any claim to the moral high ground.


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Results tagged ‘ Family Field Day ’

Looking to Bounce Back

Saturday, June 21, 2014
Today’s News
This Afternoon’s Game
White Sox vs. Twins at Target Field, Minneapolis (1:10 p.m., CT, WGN). Starters: RHP Andre Rienzo (4-4, 5.67) for the Sox, RHP Kevin Correia (3-8, 5.29) for Minny.
Sox Starting Lineup: Eaton CF, Beckham 2B, Gillaspie 3B, Abreu 1B, Dunn DH, Ramirez SS, Viciedo RF, De Aza LF, Nieto C.
Plays of the Day
Gordon Beckham (No. 6) and Jose Abreu (21) each hit solo homers in the top of the first inning and the Sox tied the game at 4-4 in the ninth before giving up the game-winner on a walkoff hit in the bottom half of the frame in the tough 5-4 loss…we scored the two ninth-inning runs on a Paul Konerko pinch-hit single after Dayan Viciedo had tripled and a double by Adam Eaton, which scored Moises Sierra who was running for Paulie…Hector Noesi went seven innings, giving up four runs, six hits and two walks while striking out four.
Big Advantage
The Sox have 23 multi-homer games, ranking fourth in the American League. We are 18-5 in those efforts.

Do or Die

Former ACE star outfielder Ro Coleman and his Vanderbilt teammates face the University of Texas again this afternoon in the College World Series in Omaha. The winner advances to the best-of-three CWS finals.
With apologies to Texans John Danks and Adam Dunn, Go Vandy!
Today is Both White Sox Charities’ Family Field Day and Garage Sale
Quote of the Day
We all know that Chris Sale is one of the premier pitchers in MLB. It’s also nice to know he’s humble and a team player as he addresses the comparisons he gets to Dodgers’ ace Clayton Kershaw (via Scott Merkin,
“It’s stuff for my parents, my grandmother, my friends to talk about. Being in here, you know some of these guys pretty well being around for a while, and this would not be a good locker room for someone to be arrogant or self-promoting if you will.
“There’s a lot of guys in here that keep you humble and make sure your head is screwed on straight. We talk to each other especially about pitching and baseball, but I wouldn’t say that I’m by any means calling the shots or steering the car.”
Tomorrow’s Schedule
White Sox vs. Twins at Target Field (1:10 p.m., CT, CSN) in the finale of the four-game series. Starters: LHP Danks (6-5, 3.97) for the Sox, RHP Phil Hughes (7-3, 3.09) for Minnesota.
Photo of the Day
Jose continues his assault on MLB pitchers. Despite his 15-day stint on the disabled list, he ranks third among all major leaguers in homers and is tied for seventh with his 54 RBI. Here’s a further analysis on Abreu’s past, present and future by

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Adopted guidelines

The text of each of the 8 guidelines adopted by the COP can be downloaded from the links below:

Policy options and recommendations adopted by the COP

At the sixth session (13–18 October 2014), the COP adopted a set of policy options and recommendations on economically sustainable alternatives to tobacco growing (in relation to Articles 17 and 18 of the WHO FCTC), which can be downloaded from the link below:

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Saturday, December 19, 2009

A good message for the men

From Dan Galvin's Thought For The Day mailing list:

If I ask my husband what he wants for the holidays,
he will say "nothing" and mean it.
If he asks me, I will say "nothing" as well.
And God help him if he believes me.

-Elizabeth Bernstein
The Wall Street Journal 12/15/2009

Technorati tags: gifts, Elizabeth Bernstein, Dan Galvin

1 comment:

Luke said...

[smile] I know the first part is absolutely true. And I'm guessing the second part is right on as well.


text:
Lanes will be closed for repairs on I-20/59 July 8th

I-20/59 Pothole

[lin_video src=×9&auto_next=1&auto_start=0&div_id=videoplayer-1373259514&height=480&page_count=5&pf_id=9624&show_title=1&va_id=4131037&width=640&windows=2 service=syndicaster width=640 height=480 div_id=videoplayer-1373259514 type=script]

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT)– Commuters on I-20/59 will experience delays Monday night as ALDOT closes down lanes for repairs.

Work will begin around 7:00 p.m. to patch a hole that opened up last week.

A temporary plate will be removed and loose concrete cut away.

Workers will pour fresh concrete to reinforce the patch.

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The CHICKEN User's Manual

Stylized picture of a chicken

This is the manual for Chicken Scheme, version 4.8.0

Getting started
What is CHICKEN and how do I use it?
Basic mode of operation
Compiling Scheme files.
Using the compiler
Explains how to use CHICKEN to compile programs and execute them Gps tracking orang.
Using the interpreter
Invocation and usage of csi, the CHICKEN interpreter Aksesoris mobil.
Supported language
The language implemented by CHICKEN (deviations from the standard and extensions) Cotton bud.
Interface to external functions and variables
Accessing C and C++ code and data Vertical blind depok.
Packaging and installing extension libraries Gps tracker mobil.
Deploying programs developed with CHICKEN.
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Building software for a different architecture.
Data representation
How Scheme data is internally represented.
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Eclipse DemoCamps November 2013/Berlin

Eclipse DemoCamp New.jpg What is an Eclipse DemoCamp?

Fraunhofer FOKUS
Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31, 10589 Berlin
LatLong: 52.5259087, 13.3142924

Date and Time

December 2nd, 2013

Lars Martin, SMB GmbH
Tom Ritter, Fraunhofer FOKUS

Tweet about the Eclipse DemoCamp: #eclipse #democamp #berlin

This Eclipse DemoCamp will be sponsored by SMB GmbH, Fraunhofer FOKUS and the Eclipse Foundation.

Smb.png       Fokus logo en.gif Eclipse.png

  • SMB has been an independent IT consulting firm since 1998. We are devoted to providing high-quality RCP and OSGi software development, consulting and training to mid-sized organizations. Additionally we develop independent products and tools based on the Eclipse Rich Client Platform.
  • The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems FOKUS is researching and developing demand-orientated solutions for partners in industry, research and public administration.
  • Eclipse Foundation is a not-for-profit, member supported corporation that hosts the open-source Eclipse Projects.

If you or your company would like to sponsor the venue, please get in touch with Lars or Tom.

17:30 Registration

18.00 Welcome and Introduction ; Tom Ritter, Fraunhofer FOKUS

18.10 Traceino - The Traceability Framework ; Marcus Engelhardt, Fraunhofer FOKUS

18.30 Beyond the box: How we built a JavaScript IDE with Xtext ; Jens von Pilgrim, NumberFourAG

18.50 Advanced language testing with XPECT ; Joerg Reichert, itemis AG

19.10 - 19.30 Break

19.30 OMG DD - Modeled Graphical Notations ; Max Bureck, Fraunhofer FOKUS

19.50 Java 8 support in eclipse JDT ; Matthias Köster (binaere bauten gmbh)

20.10 RCP application with embedded Groovy scripting ; Akos Kitta

If you would like to present at this event, please add your name below. Please send us your presentation/proposal via eclipseday@fokus.fraunhofer.de. Should we receive more submissions than we can fit into the schedule, we will select the ones that we think are most interesting to the audience.

  • Marcus Engelhardt (Fraunhofer FOKUS): Traceino - The Traceability Framework

This demo will present Traceino. Traceino is an EMF based tracebility tool for model driven development. In a unique way Traceino allows the definition and utilization of type safe structured traces without losing the important generic characteristics necessary for analysis like impact analysis and coverage analysis. Another aspect of Traceino is its independence of tools.

  • Jens von Pilgrim (NumberFourAG, Berlin): Beyond the box: How we built a JavaScript IDE with Xtext.

This talk was already presented at eclipsecon Europe 2013. I will sketch out how we customized Xtext to achieve things which will not work out of the box. The eclipsecon talk was rather detailed and designed for an audience quite familiar with Xtext. The democamp presentation will rather focus on showing how to get to these solutions by example, demonstrating also non-Xtext related techniques, in order to make the talk attractive also for non-Xtext-experts.

This talk I will present how you can directly execute your language files as JUnit tests. Instead having test logic and test data in different places XPECT enables you to put your expectations where they have to apply. In presentation you will learn how to write tests for the different aspects of your language and language tooling on some real world examples. See also this introduction as an appetizer.

In this presentation, you will get an overview over OMG Diagram Definition and use cases how for the usage of the standardized meta model. We will dive into the EMF version of the meta model and give a quick demo of an exemplary interpreter for the graphical part of the meta model.

This demo will demonstrate the most important changes scheduled for Java 8 by using the eclipse JDT preview for Java 8. I don't have a lot of slides, but we instead will make a live and interactive demo ;-) Since I'm not an eclipse/JDT committer, this demo will focus on the users point of view.

  • Akos Kitta (B2i Healthcare): RCP application with embedded Groovy scripting

This demo will present how Groovy scripting feature can be embedded into an RCP application. With the Groovy scripting feature one could reach the application specific APIs and perform e.g. report generation, search execution or even database content modification. For this presentation I would rather show how it works in practice with a simple RCP instead of showing slides.

If you added your demo to the list above, please add a short abstract to this list so people know what you will be talking about:

Who Is Attending

If you plan on attending please add your name and company to the list below.

If you're not able to come, please withdraw your registration.
We reserve the right to charge 10 Euros administrative fee, if you don't show up without having cancelled beforehand. Thanks for understanding.

  1. Lars Martin, SMB GmbH
  2. Tom Ritter, Fraunhofer FOKUS
  3. Werner Keil, Creative Arts & Technologies
  4. Filiz Ludewig, Fraunhofer FOKUS
  5. Matthias Köster, binaere bauten gmbh
  6. Ralph Mueller, Eclipse Foundation
  7. Jens von Pilgrim, NumberFour AG
  8. Stephan Druskat FSU Jena
  9. Akos Kitta, B2i Healthcare
  10. Helko Glathe Carmeq GmbH
  11. Alexander Börner Carmeq GmbH
  12. Christian Thöns, Bundesinstitut für Risikobewertung
  13. Christian Hecht Carmeq GmbH
  14. Friedemann Treblin Carmeq GmbH
  15. Joe Martin, NumberFour AG
  16. Andy Scherzinger, msg systems AG
  17. Jörg Reichert, itemis AG
  18. Zoltan Sepsy, Areus
  19. Gabor Nagy, B2i Healthcare
  20. Ingo Mohr, Condat AG
  21. Jakub Siberski, NumberFour AG
  22. Joachim Bleidiessel, Funkwerk AG


text:
GoodRelations for Restaurants

Restaurants can use GoodRelations to publish opening hours, payment options, and daily menu cards, which will be accessible for search engines, and mobile and desktop applications alike. The menu cards will be automatically accessible in up to 50 languages by this approach. Imagine if you could direct visitors demanding an international menu card directly to their smartphones.

alt GoodRelation for Restaurants
by Martin Hepp


text:
Abstinence-only sex education

From Iron Chariots Wiki
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For more information, see the Wikipedia article:

Abstinence-only sex education is a form of instruction children that the best way to manage sexual relations is total abstinence. Far from being effective, there is significant evidence that it is counter productive, teenage pregnancies more frequent and increases sexually transmitted diseases.

"In fact what’s getting taught is this: condoms fail constantly, sex is deeply dangerous and shameful, and “the girl you want is the girl who says ‘no’”. [1]"

Many abstinence-only sex education courses are run as faith-based initiatives.

Religious agenda

Main Article: Christian attitudes to sexuality

Some denominations have a very negative view of sexuality. Together with related views on contraception and abortion, much of the teaching of Christianity on sex and reproduction causes significant social problems.

To quote Sam Harris's book A letter to a Christian Nation:

"The problem is that Christians are not principally concerned about teen pregnancy and the spread of disease. That is, they are not worried about the suffering caused by sex; they are worried about sex. As if the fact needed further corroboration, Reginal Finger, an Evangelical member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, recently announced that he would consider opposing an HIV vaccine—thereby condemning millions of men and women to die unnecessarily from AIDS each year—because such a vaccine would encourage premarital sex by making it less risky. This is one of many points on which makes religious beliefs become genuinely lethal."

Counter arguments

Ineffective and counter productive in reducing teen pregnancy

While there is inherently nothing wrong with encouraging teens to abstain from having sex, teaching abstinence alone is not a effective method to prevent or decrease teen pregnancy or the spread of STDs. Rather, the opposite seems to be more accurate. For instance, children who are taught abstinence alone are less likely to use contraceptives when they do have sex, as many of them inevitably will. One study found that teen “virginity pledges” postpone intercourse for eighteen months on average—while, in the meantime, these virgin teens were more likely than their peers to engage in oral and anal sex.

Education and support are more effective at reducing teen pregnancy than stigma and repression. [2]

Failure of disease prevention

The most common sexually transmitted disease in the United States is human papillomavirus (HPV), which infects over half the American population and causes nearly five thousand women to die each year from cervical cancer. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that more the two hundred thousand die worldwide. In response, a safe and effective vaccine for HPV has been made. The vaccine produced 100 percent immunity in the six thousand women who received it as part of a clinical trial. And yet, Christian conservatives in our government have resisted a vaccination program on the grounds that HPV is a valuable impediment to premarital sex. These pious men and women want to preserve cervical cancer as an incentive toward abstinence, even if it sacrifices the lives of thousands of women each year.

"Many conservatives worry that giving our daughters the vaccine undermines abstinence teaching. They feel it could encourage promiscuity by disinhibiting them from having sex. Lots of teens aren't having sex, they say, so why indicate we think they will by giving them the vaccine? [3]"

Impossible goal

Sex is a natural part of human life and is unavoidable, if you want your child to grow up shielded from sex then move to another planet. Children will grow up and decide to have sex, but the important thing is that they know the risks and how to prevent them.

Separation of church and state

Many of these programmes are run as faith-based initiatives and often involves the teachers prosthelytizing to the students. Given this occurs in tax funded schools, it is a violation of the separation of church and state.

In the United States

Abstinence-only sex education in the U.S. has been increasing funds directed towards abstinence education since 1996. To qualify for funding, programs must meet the "A-H" criteria. Much debate has occurred since on the ethics and efficiency of abstinence-only sex education. When abstinence programs failed to reduce the teenage birthrate, the Bush administration instructed the US Centers for Disease Control to stop gathering data, and also forced them to shelve a project identifying those sex education programs which worked, after they found that none of the successful ones were "abstinence-only". A majority of abstinence-only sex education have been discovered to teach serious inaccurate information.

Statistics show that American teenagers have as much sex as teenagers in the rest of the developed world, but American girls are four to five times more likely to become pregnant, to have a baby, or to get an abortion. The rate of HIV and other STD's are much more higher among young Americans. The rate of gonorrhea among American teens is seventy times higher than it is among teens in France and in the Netherlands. 30 percent of our sex-education programs teach abstinence only (at a cost of more than $200 million a year) surely has something to do with this.

  1. [1]
  2. [2]
  3. [3]

v · d Religion and society
Politics and law   Code of Hammurabi · Blasphemy laws · Separation of church and state · Theocracy · Gay marriage · Territorial claims
Social issues   Abortion · Adultery · Child abuse · Contraception · Fornication · Halloween · Homosexuality · Masturbation · Misogyny · Pornography · Proselytizing · Ritual slaughter · Right to die · Religious clothing · Religious test · School prayer
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text:
XS Conf 08 AUG 07 Meeting

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2008-08-07 22:00 (US ET)

Time: Thursday 10PM US is 7:45AM Nepal, and Friday 2PM in NZ (compare times)

The main location will be irc.freenode.net #olpc-meeting -- I would also recommend having Gobby installed, as we may try to use that.

If we're really few and people have skype we can try that too.

  • Martin's skype id is martin_langhoff

General development

  • xs-0.4 progress and goals - target date: 25th Aug 2008
  • xs-0.5 goals - target date: end of sept
  • New install vs upgrades
  • USB disk
    • Desirable usage scenarios... ("plug a hd with a special signature to backup user data?")
    • Tailing logs...
  • Fedora 9 upgrade - blockers and work to do
  • Getting Moodle & webapps on XS
  • How do we identify teachers?
  • Disaster Recovery -- RAID or not to RAID?
  • Challenges in deployments (Peru, Rwanda)
    • Many requests for VoIP, IM from teachers
    • If teachers don't have use for XS, it won't be taken care of according to our experience in Nepal Berrybw 11:22, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Nepal team

  • Customized Nepali version of Moodle
  • Mail server using Squirrel Mail
  • Setting up a local version of Nepal's E-Library on the XS, a copy of Nepal's current E-Library http://pustakalaya.olenepal.org which uses the open-source fedora-commons repository software.
  • Connecting schools through ejabberd

(07:55:31 AM) martin_xsa: so the agenda xs-0.4 and xs-0.5
(07:55:38 AM) martin_xsa: ah, yes. XS meeting :-)
(07:55:51 AM) kimquirk: ah... i thought that was monday afternoons
(07:56:17 AM) kimquirk: m_stone: did you talk to joe tonight?
(07:56:24 AM) martin_xsa: this is with the Nepal team :-) - monday's more internal (so far)
(07:56:35 AM) kimquirk: martin_xsa: thanks. I'll be quiet.
(07:56:46 AM) martin_xsa: you're more than welcome to be here :-)
(07:56:59 AM) kimquirk: :-)
(07:57:02 AM) Nubae: so we should probably try and stick to the agenda rightÇ?
(07:57:14 AM) martin_xsa: agenda and otherdetails at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XS_Conf_08_AUG_07_Meeting
(07:57:25 AM) Nubae: martin_xsa: how do u wanna do this? q and a?
(07:57:42 AM) martin_xsa: yes. I don't want to drag it too long. So I'll be quick in my update
(07:58:25 AM) martin_xsa: Douglas and I are working towards 2 releases: .4 - target 25th Aug and .5 target end of sept
(07:59:06 AM) martin_xsa: the .4 release will be the recommended partner for 8.2.0 on the laptop, so we are working to address any interop bugs
(07:59:09 AM) martin_xsa: that has priority,
(07:59:56 AM) martin_xsa: I was planning to do .4 at end of aug, but Kim's asked that we aim for the 25th so that it fits with the XO testing schedule
(08:00:02 AM) martin_xsa: for xo-8.2.0
(08:01:15 AM) martin_xsa: What we do have in .4 is the rigging to auto-install things and perform actions when USB drives are connected
(08:01:21 AM) Nubae: okin terms of xo testing... we have still be unable to register the xos via ejabberd without sugar-control-panel
(08:01:47 AM) Nubae: and we've tried both nepalee builds and non-nepali builds
(08:02:26 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, from what you mentioned earlier in the list, there was something misconfigured in the builds or in the XS itself. Happy to help debug later.
(08:02:46 AM) Nubae: ok, fine
(08:03:37 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: We will plan on using 0.4 and 8.2.0 when we refresh the the XO's and XS at our pilots in November
(08:03:46 AM) martin_xsa: So one of my open questions is: what behaviours do we want to trigger when a USB key is inserted? It will always be triggered by special scripts.
(08:04:19 AM) Nubae: well normally a file browser would be openned+
(08:04:29 AM) Nubae: but Ï guess thats moot on the xo :-)
(08:04:33 AM) martin_xsa: So if ppl come up with good ideas to bounce on the list for "things to do when a usb disk is inserted"
(08:04:44 AM) martin_xsa: the XS is headless - I am thinking along the lines of...
(08:05:04 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: a nice ncurses gui w/ like 3 choices
(08:05:05 AM) martin_xsa: "if the right trigger file is in place, backup all userdata to the disk" (assuming a large drive)
(08:05:21 AM) BryanWB: update library, update sw, backup data
(08:05:25 AM) Nubae: oh we're talking xs not xo
(08:05:52 AM) martin_xsa: maybe we make an activity to run on the XO to prep the disks with the magic trigger files :-)
(08:06:25 AM) martin_xsa: And then you can use the USB disk on any XS.
(08:07:09 AM) martin_xsa: there will be a webbased UI so that you can monitor progress (showing the log)
(08:07:33 AM) Nubae: ok, so you're creating your own gui?
(08:07:51 AM) martin_xsa: it'll be a small additional page in moodle :-)
(08:08:00 AM) martin_xsa: [i'm so lazy]
(08:08:13 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, you mention that you are planning on using 8.2.0 + xs-0.4, which takes me to the next point...
(08:08:14 AM) Nubae: oh cool, anything integrated in moodle is wonderful
(08:08:53 AM) martin_xsa: doing updates on the XS right now is _broken_. You guys know it first hand, and I've been reproducing the problem here. Horrible
(08:09:09 AM) martin_xsa: So I'm putting a lot of work on cleaning up the mess that the xs-config package creates.
(08:09:39 AM) martin_xsa: So that's something I want in 0.4: that you can update and get a reasonably sane /etc
(08:10:08 AM) martin_xsa: I've already fixed all the domain_config scripts quite a bit
(08:10:11 AM) BryanWB: great
(08:10:44 AM) BryanWB: I don't see monitoring in v0.4
(08:10:45 AM) Nubae: ok right.... how will this affect those admins wanting to edit /etc files directly
(08:10:47 AM) martin_xsa: it might need a manual step to help the cleanup, I'm trying to avoid it.
(08:11:01 AM) Nubae: ie... not relearning a new configuration structure
(08:11:34 AM) BryanWB: we plan to use logwatch to keep us updated on problems on the XS's
(08:11:53 AM) BryanWB: Also, maybe cacti or other RRDtool to monitor the servers
(08:12:14 AM) BryanWB: more so we can tell how they are being used. May not use cacti for a larger deployment
(08:13:30 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, I'm changing towards having files that you can edit sanely. It may be that you have to edit a template file that gets automatically filtered.
(08:13:30 AM) martin_xsa: so you have to edit /etc/named-xs.conf.in (note the .in) which gets transformed into /etc/named-xs.conf
(08:13:30 AM) martin_xsa: I'll write doco when it's all done, explaining how it all works :-)
(08:13:41 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, no monitoring yet. I want to add sysstat/sar, but do remember that you guys have only a few XSs at hand,and with connectivity.
(08:14:05 AM) martin_xsa: for that kind of infrastructure, I have Peru's problem space in my mind
(08:14:22 AM) martin_xsa: which rules out cacti, bb and similar :-(
(08:14:30 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: understand, our solution may not work for Peru
(08:14:44 AM) martin_xsa: however, log shipping and running logwatch on a central server for those might work.
(08:15:16 AM) Nubae: I thought we would use nagios
(08:15:16 AM) BryanWB: we all definitely need some usage benchmarks for the XS
(08:15:19 AM) martin_xsa: [though I would not send emails out of logwatch! - imagine the storm of several thousand servers emailing you]
(08:15:59 AM) BryanWB: sure, but we need it for at least a few to see what kind of problems come up
(08:16:50 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, nagios - and most others - are for a serverroom and for a server:sysadmin ratio of <60. they don't really fit us
(08:17:46 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, yes - monitoring & reporting is in my mind, but we'll have to be smart here, the mainstream tools aren't useful for us, unfortunately.
(08:18:05 AM) martin_xsa: be smart and possibly build bits of the solution :-/
(08:18:34 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: what I am trying to say is that we will likely use off the shelf tools while waiting for the more scalable solution that you are working on
(08:18:34 AM) martin_xsa: for small pilots you can use anything you want, it'll never conflict w what we'll do with XS
(08:18:35 AM) martin_xsa: :-)
(08:18:46 AM) martin_xsa: yep, no prob!
(08:19:10 AM) BryanWB: we need a monitoring solution right now b/c we currently have no idea how the schools are using the XS
(08:19:21 AM) Nubae: about moodle... the single sign on thing should work with email too
(08:19:25 AM) martin_xsa: sounds good to me! I'm also interested in that.
(08:19:43 AM) BryanWB: what's the timeline for 0.9?
(08:20:23 AM) martin_xsa: early '09? If I can crank 1 release per month, we'll get there.
(08:20:49 AM) BryanWB: so we will tentatively think about using that for when the Nepali school year starts in April '09
(08:20:54 AM) Nubae: will the XS become its own distribution
(08:21:02 AM) dirakx [n=rafael@] entered the room.
(08:21:09 AM) martin_xsa: Yep - april is comfortable :-)
(08:21:11 AM) Nubae: kinda like edubuntu or debian edu
(08:21:23 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, yes, it's a Fedora spin already
(08:21:34 AM) Nubae: k
(08:21:41 AM) BryanWB: what's the strategy for disaster recovery?
(08:21:43 AM) martin_xsa: (Debian calls them derivatives, Fedora calls them spins)
(08:21:59 AM) martin_xsa: hang on, we're skipping ahead! :-)
(08:22:04 AM) BryanWB: sorry
(08:22:18 AM) martin_xsa: One major thing we need to do for xs0.5 or xs0.6 is to make the leap to F9
(08:22:41 AM) Nubae: oh, yeah sounds exciting :-)
(08:22:56 AM) martin_xsa: This is important for large deploymetns like Peru, where having current & security-patched sw is important
(08:22:58 AM) Nubae: although migration to debian would be nicer
(08:23:16 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, I wish too :-/ but that's a separate battle
(08:23:48 AM) martin_xsa: The main blocker to F9 is xs-config - which is getting a forced cleanup due to the bugs I mentioned
(08:24:27 AM) Nubae: so from what ive understood on the mailing list, there will never be a visual gui for the XS server?
(08:24:50 AM) martin_xsa: and the network scripts - also contained in xs-config - which do all the setup if which NIC is what, routing, firewalling etc
(08:25:03 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, correct, XS is a headless machine.
(08:25:06 AM) dbagnall: Nubae: not even a text-ui, necessarily
(08:26:12 AM) martin_xsa: administration (if ever needed) is via ssh and/or serial -- we are working to make it an embedded-style system that needs no admin
(08:26:35 AM) BryanWB: but for updating the XS from USB will be done via a web gui, correct?
(08:26:37 AM) martin_xsa: but may need work to setup install-time configuration via a kickstart file
(08:26:43 AM) Nubae: im thinking here from the teachers perspective
(08:26:54 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, I don't think so.
(08:27:09 AM) dbagnall: It will speak to you through beeps
(08:27:35 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, for teachers and educational staff the UI is moodle. We'll remove most of moodle admin options, and add a few that have to do with XS options.
(08:28:11 AM) martin_xsa: Anyway - on the F9 track, Jerry is helping quite a bit, and we might have some builds to test in the coming weeks.
(08:28:31 AM) Nubae: welll as long as they have a way of maintaining the system no problem
(08:28:55 AM) Nubae: I was just envisioning people in remote locations without admin experience trying to get their systems working
(08:28:58 AM) martin_xsa: If we can get sth going for xs-0.5, I'll be very happy. Unlikely though.
(08:29:08 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, think of infrastructures of 5K servers.
(08:29:46 AM) dbagnall: it is not perhaps a matter of whether they can get them working, so much as whether they can get them broken
(08:29:47 AM) martin_xsa: you have sysadmins preparing a kickstart file to preconfigure the servers, installing them all in the warehouse, and shipping them with a technician to the schools
(08:29:57 AM) martin_xsa: no configuration happens in the school
(08:31:16 AM) martin_xsa: that is the scenarios I am building the XS for :-) -- in pilots with good sysadmin talent (like you guys) you can figure things out - you'd get by with a plain ubuntu server too :-)
(08:32:33 AM) martin_xsa: ... we're trying to make the XS work for both scenarios
(08:32:45 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: On the XO, our teachers can and do use the test-all feature in the firmware
(08:32:53 AM) BryanWB: it is invaluable
(08:33:00 AM) martin_xsa: that's excellent
(08:33:14 AM) BryanWB: their English is limited but they can distinguish b/w OK and Fail
(08:33:30 AM) BryanWB: I think a similar mechanism for the XS would be very useful
(08:33:38 AM) Nubae: indeed
(08:33:45 AM) martin_xsa: the web ui will have some tools - a view of the logs, for example...
(08:34:19 AM) martin_xsa: it shows msgs when the USB sticks get pluigged and if any content is found and installed...
(08:34:22 AM) Nubae: then if we talked to them over skype or whatever we could solve at least 50% of our issues without having to drive to somre remote village in the middle of nowhere
(08:35:04 AM) dbagnall: right
(08:35:50 AM) BryanWB: the teachers are mechanically competent, and I expect most schools worldwide will have someone who can fix the mechanical aspect of the machine
(08:36:10 AM) Nubae: a linux machine
(08:36:32 AM) Nubae: based on a distro that works entirely differently than anything else :-) ?
(08:36:40 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, not sure what mech failures you are thinking of, but I tend to agree.
(08:37:23 AM) martin_xsa: last I was in Peru, a school had a non-booting XS due to bad contacts of the memory bank in its slot
(08:37:30 AM) BryanWB: it would be nice to have a test-all for the XS that tells teacher whether RAM, hard drive, or something else
(08:37:48 AM) BryanWB: they are savvy enough to swap out the hardware
(08:37:57 AM) Nubae: it could send that via email on a monthly basis maybe
(08:38:05 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, nice but goes to the building our own HW - like with the XO. Can't do for now :-(
(08:38:27 AM) BryanWB: understand, would require custom hardware and bios, damn
(08:38:43 AM) martin_xsa: some things are possible - SMART stats for instance
(08:39:04 AM) BryanWB: We do need an easy way for them to restore the XS operating software but not overwrite the data
(08:39:06 AM) Nubae: but not for everything.... quota, net access, net filters, log files, squid, intrussion attempts
(08:39:48 AM) martin_xsa: We'll see if the move to pungi helps in that regard.
(08:40:00 AM) martin_xsa: anaconda has a "repair OS mode"
(08:40:25 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: that will be useful for benchmarking but not a widespread deployment. we can't take in that much info for our full deployment next year
(08:40:44 AM) Nubae: ah... abotu moodle... and maybe this should be discussed further down the line
(08:40:48 AM) martin_xsa: let's get back to agenda :-)
(08:41:03 AM) Nubae: we've looked at a way to take stuff from a repo like door
(08:41:12 AM) martin_xsa: and fast-forward ahead so we can get to your items
(08:41:16 AM) martin_xsa: give me a minute
(08:41:19 AM) Nubae: but after looking at door, it seem pretty lacking
(08:41:46 AM) Nubae: ok, sorry ill shut up for now :-)
(08:41:59 AM) martin_xsa: Another change coming soon in .4 or .5 is that the images will be standard installer images rather than
(08:42:03 AM) martin_xsa: livecds
(08:42:38 AM) martin_xsa: which means you can install/ update/ repair a system more readily, and you can drive it from a kickstart file like a normal fedora/redhat installer
(08:43:06 AM) martin_xsa: and it makes life easier _building_ the CDs
(08:43:40 AM) martin_xsa: I am tring to see if we can get the automagic auth going with a patch to Browse and some tricks on the XS side
(08:43:40 AM) BryanWB: nice, so we can build our own cd's w/ Nepal's library content, Peru could build their own cd's w/ their own content
(08:44:02 AM) martin_xsa: yep - can be un the image, or ina post-inst script that downloads & installs it
(08:44:26 AM) martin_xsa: once we get moodle in place, we need to find a way to spot teachers.
(08:44:34 AM) Nubae: there are many tools that can do this
(08:44:56 AM) Nubae: spotting teachers by name
(08:44:59 AM) martin_xsa: probably the first XO to register will be 'magic' and be a teacher
(08:45:03 AM) Nubae: is that not an option
(08:45:16 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: they will often have same name as students
(08:45:52 AM) martin_xsa: the XS is headless, has just been switched on in a new school, and... which laptop gets teacher privileges?
(08:46:32 AM) Nubae: we define the teachers in the XS
(08:46:34 AM) martin_xsa: My initial trick will be "first to register". I'm sure we'll come up with better techniques later :-)
(08:46:48 AM) martin_xsa: who's "we" - there's no technicians in the school!
(08:46:53 AM) BryanWB: We're thinking we have a designated work w/ Moodle and it's config options. this person can designate which registered users are teachers.
(08:47:12 AM) dbagnall: Nubae: its just out of the box, no chance to set things
(08:47:36 AM) martin_xsa: :-) you guys can do it in Nepal but how do I handle it in Peru?
(08:47:39 AM) Nubae: i thought the way to register the moodle users would be that the xs reads the mac address
(08:47:52 AM) Nubae: and then ties that to login details for future autologin
(08:48:10 AM) Nubae: define the mac address to a particular teacher and that works
(08:48:11 AM) BryanWB: we identify the designated teacher during training and then give that teacher extra training on moodle, such as giving certain users teacher access
(08:48:31 AM) BryanWB: There will have to be training for the teachers how to use Moodle whichever country
(08:48:45 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, we cannit use MAC addresses because it may be mediated (switch/bridge). Instead we'll use ssh keys generated by the XO - that's transmittedwhen the user "registers"
(08:49:03 AM) Nubae: ok, then that
(08:49:09 AM) Nubae: same thing applies though
(08:49:16 AM) martin_xsa: so that keeps track of identity -
(08:49:18 AM) BryanWB: what happens when we reflash the XO after it crashes?
(08:49:35 AM) Nubae: we reset the identity
(08:49:38 AM) BryanWB: or some other software related problem?
(08:49:51 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, the teacher can alias the 2 identities via a UI in moodle (it's in my TODO list)
(08:49:56 AM) martin_xsa: but...
(08:50:09 AM) martin_xsa: how do we spot the teacher in the crowd for starters? ;-)
(08:50:31 AM) BryanWB: let's not be too smart about this. Spotting the teachers is a human-mediated task
(08:50:40 AM) Nubae: define them in a seperate web ui
(08:51:01 AM) Nubae: maybe the backup restore one or something
(08:51:01 AM) BryanWB: The best way is to have one the teachers designate other teachers in Moodle as teachers.
(08:51:02 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, if you are thinking a special URL, that might work
(08:51:25 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, yes - one first teacher can bless other teachers. Thing is getting that 'first teacher'.
(08:51:39 AM) BryanWB: We get that first teacher during training
(08:51:48 AM) martin_xsa: a special "secret" url might work, first-to-register is another possiblity
(08:51:53 AM) dbagnall: it's a race one way or the other
(08:52:17 AM) Nubae: think a secret url is the best way
(08:52:28 AM) BryanWB: Designate specific XO's as belonging to teachers and record their SSH Keys ahead of time and put in the XS
(08:53:04 AM) dbagnall: we won't know the SSH keys ahead of time
(08:53:25 AM) martin_xsa: they are generated when you give the XO your name...
(08:53:55 AM) martin_xsa: we'll get started with magic URL (configurable for each region/country) and first-to-register schemes
(08:54:19 AM) BryanWB: Name the XO ahead of time, no one will be offended
(08:54:23 AM) martin_xsa: and if you come up with a grand scheme, post to the list :-)
(08:54:24 AM) homunq left the room (quit: Remote closed the connection).
(08:54:38 AM) homunq [n=chema@] entered the room.
(08:54:53 AM) martin_xsa: a magic 'signed pass' in a usb key that they can upload is one scheme that I tought of, but the magic pass can be copied...
(08:54:54 AM) BryanWB: The in-country deployment team would name it, record ssh key and put it into the XS
(08:55:41 AM) Nubae: another thing could be a password protected web page that explains the registratio procedure
(08:56:01 AM) Nubae: a web page outside the network i mean
(08:56:19 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, password protect is same as secret url...
(08:56:32 AM) Nubae: hehe yeah k :-)
(08:56:45 AM) BryanWB: Someone will have to show the teachers how to use Moodle. If know one knows how to use it, they won't use moodle even if Moodle automatically detects them as teachers.
(08:56:47 AM) Nubae: but thought u meant secret url on local network
(08:57:11 AM) BryanWB: If massive deployments can't train the teachers on Moodle, then the teachers won't use it anyways
(08:57:30 AM) martin_xsa: Agreed.
(08:57:41 AM) martin_xsa: So the secret trick is taught along with it.,
(08:57:54 AM) BryanWB: sure
(08:57:59 AM) Nubae: ok next...
(08:58:07 AM) Nubae: :-)
(08:58:31 AM) martin_xsa: next - I'll say: I don't mind if ppl work on VOIP stuff, but I won't pay much attention to it at the moment
(08:58:42 AM) martin_xsa: at least not until we have the webapps under control.
(08:58:47 AM) BryanWB: agreed, I don't want to work on it. too much work
(08:58:49 AM) Nubae: well, in Nepal it wont work...
(08:59:04 AM) Nubae: actually... this is a very sore topic here...
(08:59:17 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, hint why? I thought you wanted it...?
(08:59:26 AM) Nubae: the way theyve set up the network
(08:59:44 AM) Nubae: here in Nepal is that all ips are private
(08:59:47 AM) Nubae: inside nepal
(08:59:50 AM) martin_xsa: hmmm, most network setups won't be voip friendly
(08:59:55 AM) BryanWB: agreed
(09:00:16 AM) BryanWB: but we at least want to make them e-mail friendly and ejabberd friendly
(09:00:30 AM) Nubae: I think this type of network structure totally blows and will never work
(09:00:35 AM) BryanWB: that way we can easily communicate w/ the teachers by e-mail and chat
(09:00:40 AM) dbagnall: Nepal is one big rfc1918 ?
(09:00:45 AM) Nubae: right
(09:00:53 AM) martin_xsa: everyone behind nat?
(09:01:03 AM) Nubae: yes, and throguh 1
(09:01:07 AM) Nubae: yes one router
(09:01:24 AM) martin_xsa: I think most networks for olpc deployments will be like that :-/
(09:02:12 AM) martin_xsa: I'm interested in how ejabberd can be setup in a topology that works across that.
(09:02:21 AM) martin_xsa: if you manage to get it going :-)
(09:02:41 AM) martin_xsa: [btw, I'm done with my part of it, nepal team, take over]
(09:03:52 AM) Nubae: ok... most of my stuff is about moodle
(09:05:24 AM) Nubae: my questions are concerning authentication mostly
(09:05:36 AM) martin_xsa: ask away :-)
(09:05:42 AM) Nubae: first, when will u do the authentication stuff...
(09:05:49 AM) martin_xsa: when I can!
(09:05:49 AM) Nubae: so i dont do work for no reason
(09:05:51 AM) martin_xsa: :-)
(09:06:02 AM) martin_xsa: probably in the next 2~3 weeks
(09:06:28 AM) martin_xsa: have to get 0.4 out, and a few other bits and bobs --
(09:06:43 AM) martin_xsa: but there are a few tricky things with your setup - from what I gather
(09:06:55 AM) Nubae: right... I understand that answer, so then maybe I should wait to see what u come up with
(09:07:09 AM) Nubae: if u need any help, I can try to do that too
(09:07:13 AM) martin_xsa: for example - the automagic auth stuff I am planning is very unlikely to play nicely with auth/sqm
(09:07:28 AM) BryanWB: sqm  squirrelmaiL?
(09:07:44 AM) martin_xsa: because auth/sqm really wants a password, because the IMAP server behind it needs a paswword
(09:08:14 AM) martin_xsa: sqm = Squirrelmail auth/sqm is the squirrelmain SSO authentication plugin I wrote for moodle many moons ago
(09:08:16 AM) Nubae: right.... but doesnt moodle need a pass too?
(09:08:50 AM) martin_xsa: If you write an auth plugin for moodle, and in it you tell moodle it's all ok, it will believe you.
(09:09:07 AM) martin_xsa: trusty old moodle
(09:09:37 AM) martin_xsa: sqm can't do the same, because it has to satisfy the IMAP server's request for a pw
(09:09:38 AM) Nubae: i dont think well be the only setup with sqm and moodle
(09:09:57 AM) BryanWB: really need it to communicate w/ teachers
(09:09:58 AM) Nubae: might be worth putting some time into this
(09:10:25 AM) Nubae: or will gmail be used (I heard that somewhere)
(09:10:26 AM) BryanWB: also, the Dept of Ed. really wants the teachers to have e-mail so they can use to communicate w/ them
(09:10:38 AM) BryanWB: pls, pls no gmail
(09:10:50 AM) martin_xsa: I can understand. In Uy the ceibal team has recommended yahoo or gmail.
(09:11:07 AM) BryanWB: they have great cheap bandwidth, our bandwidth is expensive
(09:11:10 AM) martin_xsa: gmail is evil?
(09:11:12 AM) martin_xsa: ah, ok.
(09:11:22 AM) Nubae: it is to bryan
(09:11:26 AM) Nubae: :-)
(09:11:31 AM) martin_xsa: so, it's not in my immediate plan, but here's a cheat sheet on how we could do it
(09:12:02 AM) martin_xsa: If you assume you are using automagic auth XO-to-XS, then the user never sees any password
(09:12:16 AM) martin_xsa: 1 - set a random pw in moodle
(09:12:19 AM) Nubae: right
(09:12:33 AM) Nubae: yeah thats what i was thinking
(09:12:41 AM) martin_xsa: 2 - get the MTA to read its "valid user accts" directly from a view of Moodle's DB
(09:13:23 AM) martin_xsa: that view is possibly a "who's a teacher" view, and shows all the fields that the MTA needs, including crypted password :-)
(09:13:32 AM) Nubae: ok, so is that the method that will be used?
(09:13:45 AM) martin_xsa: 3 - ah, forgot: neep a plaintext copy of the passwd around :-/
(09:14:00 AM) Nubae: right... and allows the teachers to change things like naughty names
(09:14:20 AM) Nubae: and stuff like that
(09:14:36 AM) martin_xsa: 4 - give the auth/sqm plugin the password we have in plaintext
(09:14:54 AM) martin_xsa: 5 - sqm passes the pw to the IMAP server, and it's all good
(09:15:06 AM) Nubae: from a text file?
(09:15:22 AM) martin_xsa: it's a harebrained scheme - can sqm read directly from Maildirs without choking?
(09:15:47 AM) Nubae: yes, y not
(09:15:48 AM) martin_xsa: if it can, then get rid of courier-imap
(09:16:19 AM) Nubae: u're given the optio to read fom maildir or /var/mail
(09:16:32 AM) martin_xsa: and hack SQM to read and trust moodle's cookie - removed the "fake password" dance
(09:17:21 AM) Nubae: well, and this is qutie funny actually... courier is not even in the yum repos anytmore
(09:17:24 AM) martin_xsa: ok, then configure postfix to treat the domain as a virt domain, and get all the email delivered to a /var/webmail/ dir owned by apache
(09:17:28 AM) Nubae: only dovecot is
(09:17:44 AM) martin_xsa: that's weird. courier is good for imap
(09:18:05 AM) Nubae: dovecot works quite well too... im using it right now for our xs
(09:18:13 AM) Nubae: hasnt had any probs so far
(09:18:39 AM) Nubae: but i installed it cause courier wasnt in the repos
(09:18:47 AM) Nubae: maybe this is a fedora 7 thing?
(09:18:51 AM) martin_xsa: btw, if you are using postfix, we'll prob switch to postfix on the XS at some point. keep your eyes open for conflicts...
(09:19:14 AM) Nubae: well, this is the other thing we need to talk about...
(09:19:31 AM) Nubae: really... we should be trying to work together as much as possible
(09:19:58 AM) Nubae: instead of me doing a whole set of config files... it would make more sense that u structure them and I follow them
(09:20:17 AM) Nubae: and try to take some work of your hands if at all possible
(09:20:28 AM) martin_xsa: sounds good, I don't necesarily have the time when you need a particular one :-/
(09:20:47 AM) Nubae: structured config outline u mean
(09:20:50 AM) Nubae: ?
(09:21:03 AM) martin_xsa: yes - takes quite a bit of thought and study sometimes :-)
(09:21:19 AM) martin_xsa: but we can do things better perhaps if you post to the list with what you're planning/needing to change
(09:21:20 AM) Nubae: ok... well why dont we do like this... I create it the way i believe it should be, and then u can check it and change what u dont like
(09:21:26 AM) Nubae: should save some time
(09:21:49 AM) martin_xsa: if you post about what you're about to do, and perhaps a diff showing the changes, it's a good start.
(09:22:07 AM) martin_xsa: we can discuss alternatives and needs
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(09:22:56 AM) martin_xsa: a good trick is to have template files or conf.d directories that then we search/replace and concatenate to create the resulting conffile
(09:23:09 AM) martin_xsa: some services do support conf.d schemes, and that's helpful
(09:23:44 AM) martin_xsa: so for apache, we can just talk about new files we want to drop in /etc/httpd/conf.d/
(09:24:33 AM) Nubae: ok... i guess what it comes down to is that right now u are swamped and cant really take time to review the stuff im attempting
(09:24:40 AM) Nubae: which i totally understand
(09:25:09 AM) Nubae: ok about moodle...
(09:25:20 AM) martin_xsa: a bit, but I also don't want to be a bottleneck to what you do, so I am fleshing out the strategies we are using here
(09:25:27 AM) Nubae: there is a plugin called door.... do u know it?
(09:25:45 AM) martin_xsa: that's why I mention conf.d schemes and templating the config files.
(09:26:06 AM) martin_xsa: no, I haven't seen the door plugin, don't think it's official.
(09:26:30 AM) Nubae: ok... well what it does is create repositorires of moodle material
(09:26:54 AM) martin_xsa: i like that concept :-)
(09:26:59 AM) Nubae: so that you can plug in a moodle object(pretty much any kind of media) into the courses
(09:27:09 AM) martin_xsa: cool
(09:27:15 AM) BryanWB: alright, are we ready to to talkk about the repository :)
(09:27:17 AM) Nubae: you can create both local repos and remote repos that already exist
(09:27:27 AM) Nubae: but....
(09:27:33 AM) Nubae: there is always a but...
(09:27:44 AM) Nubae: the remote repos are all closed...
(09:27:55 AM) Nubae: ie... we dont have access to them
(09:28:02 AM) martin_xsa: once I have moodle auth going, repos for moodle are right next in my list
(09:28:06 AM) Nubae: however if we appproach them from olpc, maybe they will?
(09:28:26 AM) martin_xsa: ugh, so the content is not available.
(09:28:41 AM) Nubae: it would be great to have a whole bunch of material to use straight off the bat
(09:28:45 AM) BryanWB: alright guys, I have an unorthodox opinion here.
(09:28:57 AM) Nubae: well... its here: switch
(09:29:03 AM) martin_xsa: if the repo scheme is good (if the tool is good) we can start using it for XS deployments, and writing importers from other repos
(09:29:08 AM) BryanWB: Fedora-Commons + Fez is an ugly monster but . . .
(09:30:21 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, done quite a bit with that pair :-) -- I'll line up help to write a "FC-F" exporter that gets us things in a usable format without running FC-F
(09:30:34 AM) BryanWB: It's something that we have to work a lot on here in Nepal and will be working on.  It will make less work for us in Nepal to use fedora-commons for both our main online E-Library site and the XS.
(09:30:48 AM) martin_xsa: OTOH, if you mean just being a _client_ to FC-F, I don't mind.
(09:31:12 AM) BryanWB: Nope, I mean running FC-F on the XS. hear me out
(09:31:35 AM) martin_xsa: Ok. In _your_ XS :-) not mine
(09:32:05 AM) Nubae: http://door.sourceforge.net/
(09:32:15 AM) BryanWB: We will have to put a lot of work into making FC-F a nice packaged install and work together w/ Moodle.  Want to present the teachers w/ a consistent interface for accessing the library
(09:32:22 AM) martin_xsa: those 2 blow our memory and cpu budget
(09:32:58 AM) BryanWB: I agree that FC-F shouldn't be part of the standard XS but 6 months from now we may have something other groups will find useful
(09:33:55 AM) martin_xsa: no prob! I might tap on your FC-F expertise to test out an exporter... ;-)
(09:36:27 AM) martin_xsa: still here?
(09:36:57 AM) martin_xsa: Nepal team?
(09:37:02 AM) BryanWB: sorry we were chatting
(09:37:22 AM) BryanWB: we will be putting all of our moodle courses online and searchable thru FC-F
(09:37:23 AM) martin_xsa: cool
(09:37:26 AM) Nubae: about fez vs fcommons
(09:37:30 AM) Nubae: sorry door
(09:37:52 AM) BryanWB: This is essential in order to get more public support for OLPC and more content from the govt and other content-providers
(09:37:55 AM) Nubae: so... that means more reinventing the wheel, but its a good wheel this time
(09:38:13 AM) Nubae: we definetly need a content repo
(09:38:25 AM) Nubae: its essential from a teacher perspective
(09:39:03 AM) martin_xsa: i completely agree with getting goodcontent.
(09:39:17 AM) BryanWB: since we have to put so much work in to FC-F for http://pustakalaya.olenepal.org   want to see how can minimize level of effort to make same content accessible on XS
(09:39:34 AM) Nubae: and do u agree fedora commons is the way to go?
(09:39:40 AM) martin_xsa: on the repo side, the existing sw is very disappointing. I've worked with eprints, fez/fc, and a few others and don't ahve a single good word to say of them :-/
(09:40:26 AM) martin_xsa: I think Moodle is on its way to get a FC/Fez client, so it can read and fetch data from it.
(09:40:29 AM) martin_xsa: so it can use it freely.
(09:40:36 AM) BryanWB: they are a nightmare but FC-F does work reliably and powerfully once set up
(09:40:52 AM) Nubae: well... guess we can wait or help make it a reality
(09:42:00 AM) martin_xsa: From the POV of the XS, it _will_ have a repo, and a means to share between schools. It won't be FC, it's more likely to be something simple.
(09:43:00 AM) martin_xsa: I haven't looked at doors at all. If I find something that fits I'll use it, otherwise, I'll get it done. I've prototyped a bit around repositories for moodle a while ago.
(09:43:27 AM) martin_xsa: the resulting repo has to have the same properties that a debian apt or yum repo have.
(09:43:32 AM) BryanWB: sure. Right now want to try FC-F. If we fail, may use a simpler search interface to representational repo like what you're talking about
(09:44:11 AM) martin_xsa: Sure. From a moodle POV, the plan is to have a single UI for many repo backends - one being FC-F, other being the one I describe...
(09:44:22 AM) ***martin_xsa nods
(09:45:20 AM) BryanWB: The E-Library is really important for Nepal because there are almost no libraries, there are like 5 in Kathmandu and that's it for the whole country
(09:45:47 AM) BryanWB: for that reason we will put more effort into it than other countries might
(09:46:48 AM) martin_xsa: completely respectable. I also don't want to say that FC-F is bad. It's not a good fit for the XS.
(09:47:11 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: do you know of any way to use FC as a repo for Moodle? Wasn't there a guy at Catalyst that did work on this?
(09:48:44 AM) martin_xsa: yes - Jun Yamog & Jonathan Harker, both catalyst people. their work was not taken upstream because martind (moodle lead) was not convinced of the api we were proposing
(09:49:10 AM) Nubae: in terms of java, are there any plans for this working on the xos?
(09:49:27 AM) martin_xsa: I met with martind 2 months ago, and he explained the new api for repositories... and it looks like he's turned around to agree with us :-)
(09:49:30 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: you mean to support hot potatoes in Moodle?
(09:49:37 AM) martin_xsa: but it'll take time for things to fall into place.
(09:50:04 AM) BryanWB: when do u think their work will go upstream?
(09:50:07 AM) Nubae: hot pot needs javascript
(09:50:07 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, not that I know of. memory footprint is a killer. but ask in the devel list.
(09:50:40 AM) BryanWB: and otherwise can I get a copy of their work?
(09:51:01 AM) Nubae: what is your opinion of using shorewall as the firewall for the XS?
(09:51:02 AM) martin_xsa: wrt to FC-F in moodle, I'm not sure. I'll drop them an email.
(09:51:10 AM) _sj_: hmm, are jun/jonathan still working on this -- do they need help pushing that upstream?
(09:51:11 AM) Nubae: is there any reason for not using it?
(09:51:42 AM) _sj_: that sounds like something we could get a couple [other] folks interested in helping in the short term
(09:51:47 AM) _sj_: with sig. impact
(09:51:55 AM) martin_xsa: hi _sj_! they are on other projects now, that window of opp is stale :-/ but there's enough interest in FC-F that sth will happen
(09:52:09 AM) BryanWB: _sj_: hey buddy!
(09:52:11 AM) _sj_: ok, so would it be useful to find people to help with packaging?
(09:52:12 AM) _sj_: bryan!
(09:52:23 AM) _sj_: hello :)  awesome meeting, btw.
(09:52:43 AM) martin_xsa: shorewall: I think we can look at how it fits - if it does :-) with what we want.
(09:52:53 AM) martin_xsa: who do you want to protect against?
(09:53:02 AM) Nubae: the cool thing it does is nice traffic shaping
(09:53:04 AM) martin_xsa: LAN? WAN?
(09:53:08 AM) Nubae: in an easily configurable manner
(09:53:17 AM) Nubae: u can do both
(09:53:25 AM) Nubae: but for me it would be wan
(09:53:34 AM) martin_xsa: hmm. traffic shaping on the LAN side is something we're not sure about.
(09:54:05 AM) Nubae: u mean because normally it happens on a higher level of the network?
(09:54:18 AM) _sj_: martin_xsa> BryanWB, done quite a bit with that pair :-) -- I'll line up help to write a "FC-F" exporter that gets us things in a usable format without running FC-F
(09:54:22 AM) _sj_: <martin_xsa> I think Moodle is on its way to get a FC/Fez client, so it can read and fetch data from it.
(09:55:01 AM) _sj_: re: having a single ui that can have fc-f or other as a backend... that's something a bunch of people could get behind
(09:55:36 AM) martin_xsa: _sj_, and I'm happy to help with that. martinD has already agreed with a workable API (after 2 years of not-quite-agreeing)
(09:55:45 AM) BryanWB: _sj_: if someone could put the work into a single UI for FC-F + Moodle that would be great. We don't have the resources for that at the moment
(09:55:59 AM) _sj_: martin: worth talking this up to potential moodlelicious interns...
(09:56:08 AM) _sj_: maybe tarun once he's done with his blog :)
(09:56:08 AM) martin_xsa: shorewall: no -- the thing is that the moment we do support mesh, and if you are meshing, traffic shaping punishes nodes that mesh
(09:56:52 AM) martin_xsa: that route on behalf of other nodes
(09:56:56 AM) _sj_: feels like a good intern project; I'll talk it up w/ devs for the next few weeks
(09:57:05 AM) Nubae: the thing with shorewall is that it works great with many interfaces.... isnt there a way to make some rules that  take aevantage of the mesh
(09:57:18 AM) martin_xsa: _sj_, go for it, I'll be happy to provide guidance...
(09:57:34 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: does FC have too much cpu and memory reqs or is more Fez? FC seems quite reliable, even though it's java while fez is the headache
(09:57:36 AM) _sj_: is there a link to current / past work?
(09:57:47 AM) smithbone_ left the room (quit: "Konversation terminated!").
(09:57:49 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, needs exploration, cant say yay or nay without quite a bit of research --
(09:57:52 AM) Nubae: i wont ask any more about it now, promise :-)
(09:58:07 AM) BryanWB: can we talk about ejabberd now? and then disaster recovery?
(09:58:24 AM) Nubae: some more moodle stuff, can we talk about that first
(09:58:40 AM) BryanWB: go ahead
(09:58:43 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, the work FC can do for the XS is the job of a trivial database. No reason to keep that big beast around.
(09:59:21 AM) martin_xsa: ok. I'll have to wrap up soon, so let's rip!
(09:59:25 AM) Nubae: there is a gradebook for moodle that works like a excel style document
(09:59:39 AM) Nubae: so teachers can grade real fast....
(10:00:02 AM) Nubae: that should really be default...
(10:00:25 AM) Nubae: also... do u know if there is a roll calling module for moodle
(10:00:27 AM) martin_xsa: feel free to set it so :-)
(10:00:50 AM) martin_xsa: roll call: think there might be one. see the contrib modules database
(10:00:53 AM) Nubae: so teachers can take attendane through it
(10:01:13 AM) Nubae: i looked, couldnt fin anythun¡ng
(10:01:22 AM) m_stone: 'night folks.
(10:01:23 AM) martin_xsa: "attendance"
(10:01:29 AM) BryanWB: m_stone: later
(10:01:40 AM) martin_xsa: http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=moodle+attendance+module&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a
(10:01:41 AM) Nubae: heh right
(10:01:45 AM) martin_xsa: m_stone, have a good night
(10:02:06 AM) martin_xsa: http://docs.moodle.org/en/Attendance
(10:02:16 AM) Nubae: night mstone
(10:02:24 AM) Nubae: i was probably looking for roll calll
(10:02:37 AM) martin_xsa: ah, vaguaries of the english lang...
(10:02:44 AM) Nubae: ah.... and one last thing
(10:02:50 AM) Nubae: this relates to jolongo
(10:03:08 AM) Nubae: turns out they wanna move their stuff to gears
(10:03:21 AM) Nubae: after some convincing :-)
(10:03:28 AM) Nubae: and your rep.
(10:03:47 AM) martin_xsa: wohoo! excellent!
(10:03:55 AM) Nubae: so they wanna help on the coding part of it
(10:04:20 AM) martin_xsa: are they active in moodle.org? I want to put a msg there with a draft plan, and what things are afoot
(10:04:21 AM) Nubae: unfortunately... the school wll not allow them to open their source
(10:04:33 AM) Nubae: yes they are
(10:04:38 AM) martin_xsa: but as I'm not actively coding on any of those bits, I don't want to open my mouth...
(10:04:44 AM) martin_xsa: ahh?
(10:05:33 AM) Nubae: the reason they gave is that the uni is trying to stop cheating
(10:05:38 AM) martin_xsa: licensing problems are a bit of a bummer. think it's something that can be changed?
(10:05:52 AM) Nubae: and if they open the source code, they coudl get help
(10:05:56 AM) Nubae: :-)
(10:06:03 AM) Nubae: however, in november they can open it
(10:06:05 AM) BryanWB: can i bring up disaster recovery now?
(10:06:08 AM) martin_xsa: hah! there goes the "write a posix kernel" assignment !
(10:06:33 AM) martin_xsa: this november? that's not too far away. might be workable :-)
(10:06:36 AM) BryanWB: we are thinking that RAID 1 is not the answer for disaster reconvery
(10:06:40 AM) Nubae: yup
(10:06:42 AM) martin_xsa: I'm a disaster in recovery
(10:06:50 AM) Nubae: so we wait till november for that then
(10:07:09 AM) BryanWB: because RAID 1 on linux often doesn't work w/ a lot commidity hardware BIOSes
(10:07:20 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, if we can get early peeks at the code, and specially if we aren't coding ahead of them.
(10:07:40 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, softraid is good...
(10:07:50 AM) Nubae: i think even early peeks are out of the question
(10:07:59 AM) martin_xsa: and doesn't have such problems
(10:08:24 AM) BryanWB: u mean mdadm?
(10:08:28 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, in any case, the question is: is anyone working seriously on it before Nov?
(10:08:43 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: I thought you said you have issues w/ softraid?
(10:08:57 AM) martin_xsa: mdadm and friends. it's tricky when you install a new kernel+initrd to remember to do it correctly, but otherwise, rock solid
(10:09:00 AM) Nubae: ive now got the gears rpms but other than that, no
(10:09:30 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, pushing to get them in F9?
(10:09:32 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: so you don't have an objection to softraid? I must have been confused
(10:10:07 AM) BryanWB: ahh, Nubae doesn't like hardware raid but does like software raid was confused.
(10:10:23 AM) BryanWB: Nubae: We'll plan on softraid 1 for Nov. then?
(10:10:31 AM) martin_xsa: softraid has a minor perf impact, but in modern hw it's not significant. For HW RAID, yes, not all chipsets are linux-friendly :-/
(10:11:00 AM) martin_xsa: softraid should be good. With our move to anaconda installs, it'll be easier to get softraid setup at install time I think.
(10:11:05 AM) BryanWB: on to ejabberd then?
(10:11:12 AM) martin_xsa: go go go\
(10:11:22 AM) BryanWB: how stable is it? We haven't really tested it for stability
(10:11:33 AM) BryanWB: total PITA to install
(10:13:20 AM) martin_xsa: 200% PITA to install. We'll try to make it easier :-)
(10:13:34 AM) martin_xsa: Once it's running, it seems to not fall over (erlang has good fame in that regard)
(10:13:36 AM) martin_xsa: however
(10:13:51 AM) martin_xsa: it scales badly WRT memory user per user, so schools with 100s of students could get in trouble
(10:14:02 AM) martin_xsa: what's the max ## of users you have?
(10:14:31 AM) BryanWB: hmm, right now 60 but next year may have around 100-120 at certain schools
(10:14:49 AM) Nubae: actually we updated the olpc repos and it broke it
(10:15:35 AM) martin_xsa: Ok. It'll be interesting to see how much RAM it takes for the 60 users. I'm not sure of the actual mem usage, but Wad and others have told me that it's a problem.
(10:15:50 AM) martin_xsa: How much RAM have you got in place?
(10:16:01 AM) BryanWB: We have 2 GB in place
(10:16:39 AM) BryanWB: Hmm, there wouldn't be a compiled version of ejabberd would there? that uses HiPE instead of BEAM?
(10:17:23 AM) martin_xsa: 2GB will keep you good.
(10:17:36 AM) BryanWB: 2 GB enough w/ 100 users and ejabberd?
(10:17:44 AM) Nubae: well, with ram the more the merrier
(10:17:46 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, I don't know. We are using a patched / customised ejabberd.
(10:18:11 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, I don't know numbers but I think 2GB will be ok for ejabberd + pg + apache/php + moodle
(10:18:24 AM) BryanWB: we'll have to test that here
(10:18:28 AM) martin_xsa: [those are the memory piggies we have / will have ]
(10:18:31 AM) BryanWB: anyone know anything about interconnecting ejabberd nodes?
(10:18:45 AM) martin_xsa: I don't - but keen to learn from you guys :-)
(10:19:09 AM) BryanWB: u can learn from our many, many mistakes
(10:19:24 AM) martin_xsa: people on devel@ might know but I'm not sure who would.
(10:19:55 AM) BryanWB: damn, the would be REALLY great to interconnect schools and teachers thru ejabberd
(10:19:56 AM) Nubae: well interconnecting nodes seem quite possible, but have a feeling u need fqdns
(10:20:46 AM) martin_xsa: can we move those explorations to the list?
(10:20:57 AM) dirakx: hello everyone so will be the next XS release version sent to serverdevel mail list ? (sorry to get in..)
(10:21:05 AM) martin_xsa: (and close any remaining burning questions... ;-) )
(10:21:26 AM) martin_xsa: dirakx, we're wrapping up :-)
(10:21:36 AM) martin_xsa: but expect a 0.4 release 25th of Aug
(10:21:39 AM) Nubae: right, i have no more questions
(10:21:40 AM) BryanWB: I don't have any more questions.
(10:21:45 AM) dirakx: martin_xsa: ah ok..;)
(10:21:51 AM) BryanWB: thanks to everyone for their time and patience :)
(10:22:08 AM) martin_xsa: dirakx, lots more details in the log of this meeting if you want the blow-by-blow...
(10:22:16 AM) Nubae: martin_xsa: I know u have way way way more knowledge and experince than me, but if u need help in aything
(10:22:18 AM) martin_xsa: thanks a lot to everyone for being here!
(10:22:24 AM) dirakx: martin_xsa: cool..
(10:22:27 AM) Nubae: some way to make your life easier, please ask
(10:22:28 AM) dirakx: thx
(10:22:31 AM) BryanWB: martin_xsa: I have been logging this and will post it to the wiki page
(10:22:48 AM) BryanWB: r we done?
(10:22:48 AM) BryanWB: r we done?
(10:22:54 AM) martin_xsa: Nubae, the main help for me is to understand the reasons behind what youare doing, and for those things that you can do in ways compatible to the larger XS plans...
(10:23:21 AM) martin_xsa: if you can afford a bit extra time to do them in ways that can be used by the XS... bingo!
(10:23:37 AM) martin_xsa: BryanWB, *fantastic* hope the morning's good and sunny over there!
(10:23:43 AM) Nubae: ok think i understand that, but can u be specific?
(10:24:07 AM) Nubae: well we can continue via email
(10:24:13 AM) wenmi [i=caa4b9c2@gateway/web/ajax/mibbit.com/x-cb7eeea81415e0ad] entered the room.
(10:24:42 AM) martin_xsa: say - the moodle-sqm scheme we are talking about will be more work, but if you can nail it with good code plus well thought out config for all the parts involved (including postfix) then we can package it for the XS
(10:24:55 AM) martin_xsa: and then every school can have emails for their teachers :-)
(10:25:22 AM) Nubae: right ok, i should be able to do that
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User talk:Michele

Revision as of 18:10, 11 June 2008 by Cjl (Talk | contribs)
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welcome to the OLPC wiki

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--Sj leave me a message 03:07, 13 January 2008 (EST)

I applied the GoogleTrans-de template to this page. Feel free to use it on any other lang-de pages you may need to create. Cjl 14:10, 11 June 2008 (EDT)

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Talk:2011-07-03 -38 144

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Congratulations! --ilpadre 09:02, 3 July 2011 (EDT)

Awesome! I don't see why this would only be semi-successful. You have successfully proven that there was no more obstacle between you and the geohash *and* you have been reasonably close. -- relet 09:40, 3 July 2011 (EDT)

Swimming geohash FTW! Did you go underwater at the hash? -- [[user:thepiguy]] 12:09, 3 July 2011 (EDT)

Congratulations! I have tried camera bags similar to this one, they work pretty well to a depth of 5 meters (max) and you can take photos in the water (and probably you could also put your GPS in it and still read it). --Paintedhell 07:34, 4 July 2011 (EDT)

Good work! I had a look at that one and wrote it off :) Felix Dance 00:53, 5 July 2011 (EDT)

Crikey, your lucky you didn't get eaten by a shark! Good stuff mate. JimmyNZ 16:12, 7 July 2011 (EDT)