Author: Sasha
New blog theme: improved svbtle
No Movember for me in 2011
Inspired in part by +Adrian Hempel’s impassioned post on Google+, I sent the following email to my fellow workmates:
In earlier years, I have taken part and been a strong supporter of Movember. With the chairman of beyondblue (one of Movember’s main charities), Jeff Kennett, now actively working against the stated goals of the initiative he purports to lead, I believe that Movember should follow its own aims and stop supporting an initiative that does more for bigotry than men’s health.
I sent the following message to Movember at the start of this week. As our company is planning on supporting Movember this year, I would encourage everyone to at least read more on these topics before pledging your support. I would note that Movember has thus far not commented so far on Kennett’s outlandish statements.
Hello,
While Movember continues to support beyondblue with Jeff Kennett at the helm, I will no longer take part in the event.
I firmly believe that Mr Kennett is using his position as Chairman to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) on the subject of depression and mental health, as well as reinterpreting scientific reports to fit the goals of his preferred lobby groups.
I draw your attention to the following:
- An article by Kennett (in which he emphasises his role as chairman of beyondblue) [http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/children-need
-mum-and-dad-for-best-mental-health/story-e6frfhqf ] which misrepresents the report [http://sydney.edu.au/law/news/docs_pdfs_images/20-1226132579875 11/Sep/FKS-ResearchReport-Summary.pdf ] it refers to (which has nothing to say about the gender of parents), as well as failing to disclose that the report was commissioned by the Australian Christian Lobby [http://australianchristianlobby.org.au/2011/09/new‑report-for-kids-sake-released-in-canberra-this‑w ], which is actively campaigning [http://australianchristianlobby.org.au/featured‑ceek/ ampaigns/ ] against same-sex marriage.- In 2008, a beyondblue-commissioned study [http://www.beyondblue.org.au/index.aspx?link_id=6
.717&tmp=FileDownload&fid=1041 ] found a very high correlation between problem gambling and depression.
As well as being Chairman of beyondblue, Mr Kennett is the President of Hawthorn Football Club, and Chairman of Amtek, a supplier of gaming machines. [http://www.celebrityspeakers.com.au/political-speakers/jeff-kennett/ ]
A few weeks ago, Mr Kennett was reported criticising the Australian government’s proposed policy of mandatory pre-commitment for players of high-intensity gaming machines, claiming that it would cut the club’s gaming revenue by 40% and “threaten the viability of some clubs, and threaten the survival of the code”. [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/jeff-kennett-warns-clubs-code-at-risk/story-fn59ni ]ix-1226146309133 In the event that Kennett stands down from his position or Movember should choose another charity in beyondblue’s stead, I would happily reconsider my decision. Kennett’s bigotry and misrepresentation of scientific truths offend me as an Australian male, a Hawthorn supporter and a scientist.
I cannot support any organisation that endorses views of this nature.
-Sasha
Happy CSS Naked Day 2011!
The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words. It’s time to show off your <body>.Think before you style!
Lightweight email delivery for an Ubuntu server
Nobody really wants to deal with email delivery beyond relaying it off to a remote host these days. I mean, c’mon! It’s 2011, not 2001! Even the more configurable MTAs like Exim and Postfix are overkill when you just want a system to be able to send email out.
That’s why these days, I just install mailx and sSMTP.
sudo apt-get install bsd-mailx ssmtp
You’ll need to configure sSMTP with at least the hostname of the remote server to relay outgoing mail to, but otherwise that’s it. Simple.
Using the D‑Link DWA-125 with Ubuntu 10.04
Caveat
This method has only been tested under Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), but should work for any previous version of Ubuntu. Additionally, the driver compile instructions referenced should work for any modern Linux distribution (2.6+ kernel). YMMV.
Overview
The default driver for the D‑Link DWA-125 wireless 150 USB adapter currently available as part of the Ubuntu Linux distribution has errors. This article offers a method for fixing this issue.
Requirements
You will need a default Ubuntu install (ideally), a D‑Link DWA-125 wireless USB adapter and access to an account on the machine in question that has superuser capabilities.
Method
Firstly, plug the device into a USB port and identify it using the following command:
lsusb | grep D-Link
This should return the following text as output:
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 07d1:3c0d D-Link System
If the USB device ID is 07d1:3c0d, then continue to the next step. If not, then the device is not the D‑Link we are looking for and is out of scope.
The issue can be confirmed by checking the system output using one of the following commands:
grep rt2 /var/log/messages
which should return something like this:rt2800usb 1-6:1.0: firmware: requesting rt2870.bin
; ordmesg | grep rt2
which should return something similar to the above output.
The next step is to grab the most current Linux driver from D‑Link, compile it and install it. The GNU make program is needed for this step, but it should already be installed as part of a base Ubuntu installation. Run the following commands to download the current driver source, extract it, compile it and finally install it for use:
wget --quiet ftp://www.dlinkla.com/pub/drivers/DWA-125/*LINUX*DWA-125*.tar.gz --directory-prefix=/tmp ; tar -xzf /tmp/*LINUX*DWA-125*.tar.gz ; cd /tmp/*RT3070*Linux* ; make && sudo make install ; echo "blacklist rt2800usb" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
If the commands above complete successfully, the new driver has been installed and the incorrect driver has been prevented from automatically loading. Restart the computer and the device will be available for use.
Happy CSS Naked Day for 2010
What happened to the design?
To learn more about why styles are disabled on this website visit the Annual CSS Naked Day website for more information.
A PHP APC module packaging caveat
For anyone trying to build the PHP APC module, beware. The version available as a Gzip’d TAR archive is missing a key file, so pull the tagged release out of the PHP repos instead.
Save yourself the wasted 20 minutes I spent debugging the issue!
Resizing an ext3 LVM2 volume
- Shut the machine down
- Boot off a live CD or rescue disk
- Skip mounting your existing volumes
- Run
lvm vgchange -a y
- Ensure that the volume group and logical volumes are visible
- Run
e2fsck -f VOLUME
to ensure the existing data on the volume is intact and the file system is sane - Run
resize2fs -p VOLUME SIZE[M|G]
to resize the file system on the volume to the intended size - Run
lvm lvreduce -L VOLUME
to resize the logical volume to the preferred size - Run
resize2fs VOLUME
again to fill up the logical volume
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