Rhonda's Blog

Musical Countries Meme

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:38:00 CEST

The instructions are pretty simple: Go to your last.fm profile and look up the countries for all 50 listed "Top Artists Overall". Here is the distribution of the bands I listen to:

de: 19
uk: 11
us: 11
se: 2
at: 1
au: 1
be: 1
fr: 1
ie: 1
it: 1
mx: 1

Found through Mosquitokillah

pgadmin3 for experimental

Thu, 22 May 2008 10:56:00 CEST

One of the things why I was on the tracks for getting src:wxwidgets2.8 into the pool was to be able to get a recent pgadmin3, too. The one we currently have in testing/unstable isn't even anymore able to cope with our default postgresql-8.3 version.

Now that wxwidgets2.8 is in experimental for a while I tried to suggest a pgadmin3 upload to experimental. Unfortunately the package maintainer seems to be quite busy these days, thus I prepared an NMU for it, planing to upload it into the pool at the start of next week. All involved parties received mails about it—that also includes the bug reporters of the bugs it would fix. For your convenience, if you are interested, you can find the package in the meantime on my private server: http://rhonda.deb.at/debian/pgadmin3/—feel free to give it a test and send feedback along.

Love is...

Wed, 21 May 2008 14:46:00 CEST

Love is For Sharing
Share your Fun, your Joy, your Heart
Best Moments in Life

Love is Not to Share
Don't share Birthday Dinner's Bills
Not Forgetable

Love is About Talks
Talk a Lot, 'bout Everything
Talks will Hook You Up

Love is Not to Talk
Don't Overstate when in Rage
It will Hurt you Both

Love is For Spending
Spend Much Time with Each Other
It's just Natural

Love is Not to Spend
Hobbies are Fun, but Beware:
Not on Holidays

Love is For Writing
Take the Time and Write It Down
Love Letters are Fun

Love is a Black Out
No Idea how to Praise Them
Not Able To Write

Love is For Thinking
Do Not Forget the Good Things
In Times of Troubles

Love is Not to Think
Just be Yourself Where You Go
Let It Drive Itself

Deja Vu?

Fri, 02 May 2008 11:18:00 CEST

Sometimes strange things happen. This tuesday I had been to a simply great concert again: Grossstadtgeflüster. They were wearing nice white jumpsuits with finger-color handprints on them, the playlist was mostly really great, good mix of their first and from the great new album. But what was the most interesting part is that they announced another concert on the following tuesday. I just dropped to the floor because well, yet another of those "coincidences", because well, next tuesday is my birthday. Again. Deja Vu, anyone?

On wednesday I had been to the next concert: Mono & Nikitaman. I never have seen the WUK that crowded, the hall was totally packed, people were even standing through the doors into the pre-hall. And even though they are rooted in Reggae it was in no way slow or soft. Greatly carrying along, hard to keep ones feet still.

Only drawback when having two great concerts in two subsequent nights: Your neck and back starts to hurt and requests its toll. *ouch*

Baby is Leaving

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:34:00 CEST

Just to not confuse readers from Planet Debian, the mentioned baby is not Miriam Ruiz. Sorry. :)

baby is leaving
flying over the big sea
heading for some place

I wish her good luck
and that she will come back soon
to my open arms

P.S.: Tiny bits changed after some nagging from baby. ;)

On freedom

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:32:00 CEST

One of the freedoms I value is the freedom to choose what you spend your time on and who you spend it with. And while I believe that people in key roles in Debian still have those freedoms (hey, 2.1(1), don't you know), reality these days even confirms that. So long, and thanks for the fish.

Pregnant Husband

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:37:00 CEST

It's a bit strange. Still. Writing this personal part of my blog, opening some of my most inner thoughts to the wild public. Though, so wild it doesn't seem to be. To be honest I can't remember having received any bad feedback on my personal stuff, only positive, supportive ones. (Or, there was one. Though, it wasn't related to the core of the personal section but someone thinking it would be "cool" to misinterpret some statement therein and try to hurt me with it. It only made me laugh at them, trying to "use" it as an argument.)
No bad feedback might be related to that I don't have comments enabled because I don't want to have a moderation system that would make it look like I filter out bad comments but I also don't want to open it up to SPAM. And people who propably usual leave scathing comments don't consider it convenient to address me directly, via any IM system, including emails.

Anyway, opening in that way has quite some benefits: For a start, it helps me myself to keep track of things that happened. Secondly, it hopefully helps others that are in similar situations to see that they aren't alone out there and that one can survive with not hiding it. But last but not least some people address me and provide me with interesting links on the topic.

I think they shouldn't be just hidden in my personal mailbox so I am going to offer them to a broader audience here. I won't show the names of who sent them along, I'm not sure if they would like being connected to the topic. But they can be assured of my blessing for offering them to me.

First link I like to hand out is an article from advocate.com about a pregnant husband. Yes, this was no typo and the reason why I haven't posted it right the next day because I received that link on March 31st. I can just wish all the best to Thomas, Nancy and their yet unborn girl. Looking forward to see baby photos. :)

The second article I got sent lately is When Girls Will Be Boys. It is about the transition story of Ray and acceptance problems. Pretty long but definitely worth reading.

Again, thanks to the people who offered me the links to the articles, I truly appreciate them—and I hope some of the people reading my blog will too, or at least that it might change their perception and opinion on "such people".

Die Welle

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:49:00 CEST

"Die Welle" is yet another modern adoption of the old experiment Ron Jones did back in 1967 to his school class about showing them that something like the Third Reich is still possible nowadays. One of the pupils sums the first impression up pretty well, "Not again, I can't hear it anymore", but the further it comes to the end of the movie the more oppressing the situation gets. Definitely worth seeing, even if you can't hear it anymore.

APT::Acquire::Translation "none";

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:24:00 CEST

Quite a lot people are unhappy with how the package descriptions are translated. Different teams handle it differently, but the approach the German "team" chose is quite unfriendly from a quality point of view: The webinterface for it doesn't require any authentication at all, leading technically to anonymous translations all over the place. The so-called "review" process consists of the same not-existing authentication, leading to a situation where unknown people can put in whatever they like and have other (or potentially the same) unknown people acknowledge that.

The language team has actively chosen that way because it was said that bad translations simply won't happen and that the review (three people opening the page and clicking onto a button) will not let that happen. Well, it happened. And is happening all over the place. Things like "Gedultsspiel" and "Murmelirrsinn" are pretty tough and almost hiding translations from "counting pipe" to "Zählrohr" and "villages" to "Orte" (and no, those aren't the only examples that accumulated over the last months). As this all happens anonymously one can't even get a message to the people submitting (extremely) low quality translations, helping them to improve their skills so they won't do the same mistake in future translations; meaning things are hard to improve.

I am usual an advocate of translating stuff, did put a lot of effort into that area—but the total lack of quality in not only a small and tiny bit here but a much broader area is why I suggest to everyone (at least from a German language point of view): Put APT::Acquire::Translation "none"; into your /etc/apt/apt.conf file and don't get annoyed by them. When quantity is the only thing that counts people wanting to have quality are simply ignored with their mails on the lists.

Wegen Renovierung Offen

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:18:00 CEST

It's rare that one does something for themself, and entertainment has happen. Yesterday I had been to a cabaret and did take my other half with me. With the thought, it doesn't always have to be Resetarits, Gunkl or Dorfer I chose "Wegen Renovierung offen" ("Opened due to renovation") from and with Gery Seidl–being the child of a master-builder and having done my A-levels at a high school for structural engineering it wouldn't had been a better fit thematic wise.

The role of the construction supervisor Roman Schweißer is catching right from the start, and that's not only for insiders but also for people who generally have no connection to this business branch; a human like everyone else: The internal conflict between what his boss tells him and what his heart tells him, different approaches to get that done, and at the same time trying to also work on his shaken relationship isn't easy—but for sure it's extremely entertaining and worth seeing. My other half didn't regret it to got convinced by me.

Dates are still a lot left, partly sold out, partly though also from other projects to which I'm looking forward to. It's rare that a still young performer is not only just able to catch up with oldsters but also to perform with them on stage.

My Efforts in Debian

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 01:00:00 CEST

... are still there, even if I don't blog about every single bit all the time. Most of the packages I care about are in good state, I even did jump on board of irssi co-maintaining and got its bugcount down a fair bit (though I won't rest at this stage, there are still some to go) and did jump onboard of the pkg-games Team.

... which brings me to wesnoth. For quite a while I am tracking the stable releases (1.2.x) of wesnoth in unstable while the development releases (1.3.x) are followed in experimental. With the upcoming stable release 1.4 this though will change. The development branch is feature frozen and thus will be (propably) compatible with the next stable release, and furthermore the current stable release isn't expected to receive any further update. My plan is thus to upload the next development release directly to unstable. If you want to give it some additional testing before that happens pull the package from experimental now and give your feedback, thanks.

Furthermore I am also tracking some packages for backports.org. I usually do the packaging of it almost synchronous to its upload into unstable although it is only allowed onto backports.org when it entered testing. For the timegap in between you can usually find it on my website repository. Directories that aren't empty there have some upload to backports pending and you can feel free to test the packages and send me feedback on them. Currently this includes bacula, slony1 and postgresql-8.3.

One last note, finally it happened: apache1 isn't anymore. There were two packages left in testing until recently which got their removal requests adjusted. Thanks to everyone involved in keeping track of this and helping cleaning up the archive.

Happy Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 02:02:00 CEST

...or similar for those who enjoy the hopefully silence part of the year. May you have someone to cuddle you to sleep... and also wake up again with. ;)

Strange ...

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 15:13:00 CEST

Haven't written anything for way too long, I tried to put something down again last week, and this is what I came up with. It's not influenced by anything special, it's not as well as I usual prefer, but still, I thought I should share.

life is strange
it starts off without knowledge
in the end you die

love is strange
it starts off with bad heartaches
in the end - alone

things are strange
still we try to survive it
go on day by day

In the mirror...

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:11:00 CEST

One says the eyes are the mirror of the soul. I made this experience back in easter for the first time. I was over at my brother's place for easter celebration when I got up in the morning, went into the bath and looked into the mirror for morning toilet. I washed my face like always with cold water to refresh myself, and when I removed my hands... I was sure I was looking into a female face. It quite a lot bewildered me; it was the first time this happened. And I wasn't even properly shaved...
An experience like this is something special I guess, and it happened more and more often in the meantime. I guess this is one more proof that what I feel is the right thing.

... even though still some others seem to be immensly ammused by it. When I went to the ceilidh at the debconf in EDI I received some pretty nasty responses to my outfit, which I didn't expect within a project about Freedom and Openness. Though, I give the people the doubt of not knowing what they have done. It's too much in human nature to joke about things they don't understand, not knowingly insulting others. I'd like to dedicate this fine tune from Garbage to them: Bleed Like Me. If you listen closely to the lyrics you might be able to find out why...

There has also been a genderfuck night in the club next to the night venue which on the other hand was pretty nice. It was attended by quite some people from Debian, some expectedly, some to my happy surprise. Thank you again guys, for making this evening to something special. I hope you keep it in as nice remembrance as me.

My former SO drew a while ago a pretty nice picture about me. I didn't ask for it, or did hint it, which makes me even more happier about it. Thank you Babsi, really. :) I switched my hackergotchi on Planet Debian to it just in case.

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I stumbled upon it in the Venus Envy comic I got notified about earlier this year, you might want to check its contribution, but beware, it might as disturb you as it does to me. I'm thankful that Erin dis survive it, because she gives so much strength with her comic to me and possibly also others...

Bourne Ultimatum

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 23:30:00 CEST

Today I have been to the "Bourne Ultimatum". I bought myself the first and second part on DVD just recently to remind myself of what was going on, I even planed to watch it with some dear friends but all I received were meaningless promises, and before it stops screening I went on my own—just to stumble upon an old friend in the cinema who was going to watch the movie himself with his brother. Anyway, I was really looking forward to this part, given that I really enjoyed the former two parts—and I wasn't disappointed at all. It is a really worthy final part of this trilogy. Julia Stiles had a bit bigger part in this one which was an added enjoyable addition, and the scenes in Madrid were really quite thrilling. All thumbs up!

Wir Sind Helden, Grossstadtgefluester - 2nd part

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:30:00 CEST

Next round of catching up. Two more concerts I had been to since Texta. First of them was Wir sind Helden. They played again in the Gasometer, but the entrance wasn't as bad as I am used to at that location. The accoustic in the hall still hasn't really improved, though. But aside from the location the concert was truly worth it. The support band Polarkreis 18 was unknown to me but are worth keeping an eye on, and if you don't know them neither they pretty much reminded me of Radiohead. Wir sind Helden themself did rock the hall totally, it was true fun seing how the band themself enjoyed the concert, played with the fans, and when they sang Bist Du nicht müde nach so vielen Stunden ("Aren't you tired after so many hours") as encore my shouting of "NOOO!!" got Judith offtracks and laughing. ;)

Last week at Halloween Grossstadtgeflüster had been to the B72 again. What can I say, I just love the band. I was though pretty impressed that they remembered me—hell, Jen even remebered my name Rhonda D'Vine without me mentioning it... It helps that they aren't that famous yet and thus one can just approach them frankly without much fear of annoying them or being pushed off by some security guy. It's sad though that they sill haven't got any record label since they were last here and that their fanpage has been closed for the second time. I am thinking about helping to fight the latter problem at least, it's pretty useless to buy domains (gsgf-fans.de, gsgf-fanpage.de) and then return them after a short while, making it mostly unusable again. :/

1408, Chuck & Larry, Lissi

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 10:33:00 CEST

Some people say, write it right ahead or you won't write it at all. I fear the latter, thus I'm trying to catch up with things that happend in the last months. Not that I didn't mention some aspects, but I haven't written about some others and want to keep them at least for myself in good rememberance.

There were some movies I went to, and some of them I totally enjoyed. First thing was "1408"—a horror shocker with John Cusack, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not a big fan of splatter horror, and this wasn't, it's a pretty nice done psycho shocker. If you still have the chance and like the genre, go and watch it. :)

Then there was "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" which I watched even twice, with both my best friends. One would expect it being more cliche, more shallow—but it isn't. It really astonished me a fair bit how well it tackles the topic, and as an additional benefit the soundtrack of the movie is yet another must-have.

Which brings me to "Lissi und der wilde Kaiser". Don't. Just... don't. This one is cliche, this one is shallow. Some small jokes, weakly connected to some story... Bully, you did way better before.

Alright, first round of catching up, more to come. After all I'm syndicated on some Free Software related planets, and people might be interested in what's getting done in those parts, too. Not that I would do things in secret...