Jason Antman’s Blog

Recently I was doing some work on a few PHP scripts, and came by a rather annoying error while trying to commit to subversion:

svn: Commit failed (details follow):
svn: Working copy '/srv/www/htdocs/newcall/stats/generated' is missing or not locked

The problem was a directory, “generated”. This particular app makes use of libchart to draw simple charts in PHP. Libchart writes the charts to files, and therefore needs a directory writable by the Apache user. So, I created the generated/ directory for these output files, and chowned wwwrun:www. Now, apparently, the subversion svn add command doesn’t check ownership/writable permissions before adding a directory. So, it added generated/ to the main list of files, but couldn’t write the .svn directory and add a lock. IMHO, this is an error in the svn client.

I couldn’t find any solutions to the problem online. Essentially, I have an empty directory (or at least nothing useful in it) that got partially added to svn – it was added to the .svn/entries file in the parent directory, but never had its own .svn directory created.

The only solution that I found is to manually edit the .svn/entries file in the parent directory. WARNING: this isn’t for the faint of heart. Be sure you don’t screw anything up.

1. Open the .svn/entries file in the parent directory in a text editor (i.e. if the problem directory is stats/generated, edit stats/.svn/entries
2. Find the entry node with the correct “name” attribute for the directory in question. For stats/generated, in the stats/.svn/entries file, it should look like:

   <entry
      name="generated"
      kind="dir"
      schedule="add"/>

3. Make the entries file writable (chmod u+w entries)
4. Remove the entry from the file.
5. Set the entries file back to non-writable (chmod u-w entries)
6. Remove any save files if they were created (i.e. entries~ for emacs)
7. Remove the directory itself and re-create it, this time adding to svn before setting the ownership.
8. Commit. It should now work.

Tech HowTos subversion, svn, version control

In my daily reading of Tom Limoncelli’s blog, I happened by a post with a link to an article, “Geek behaviors present during conversations” by Phillip Guo. The article is quite interesting, and describes quite a few phenomena that can be noticed when conversing with a geek. One of the parts that immediately stuck out in my mind, though, was:

Using technical terms without checking for understanding

When geeks try to teach non-geeks about technical matters, they often
make heavy use of technical terminology because it’s the most concise
and accurate way to convey their thoughts. Unfortunately, many
non-geeks cannot understand such jargon and thus grow confused or
frustrated.

Non-geeks might perceive geeks as being snooty and elitist by talking to
them using cryptic ‘geek-speak’, but in fact, I suspect that their
intentions are more innocent: Geeks often don’t remember what it was
like not to have an understanding of technical concepts, especially
related to their area of expertise such as computers or electronic
gadgets. Thus, when communicating with non-geeks, they often throw
around technical terms without first tactfully checking to see whether
listeners know what these terms mean. In the geek’s mind, technical
jargon (e.g., router, dongle) and especially acronyms (e.g., DVI,
TCP/IP, SQL) sound as natural and colloquial as regular English
words. “How could anyone NOT know what these words mean?”

While I’m definitely guilty of throwing jargon into explanations when I’m at least half-conscious that the other party doesn’t understand it, I’d say that it’s usually (for me and many who I know) for a different reason. Or, more accurately, a combination of reasons that I’ll call “the expectation of effort” and “the Google effect”. Firstly, among most geeks (and definitely those of us in the open source world) there’s an expectation that people are interested, are curious, and will research something that they don’t know about when they hear it. The second part is what I call “the Google effect”; most of us geeks do most of our communication (especially about technical things) at a computer, whether via email, IM, forums, or chat. Therefore, there’s usually an expectation that if someone doesn’t understand a term, the answer is as easy as Ctrl+T and typing the term into Google.

I also must take exception to one other item in the article:

Favoring complexity and detail over simplicity in descriptions

When a geek is describing his latest pet project, he often tries to make
his descriptions sound complicated and detailed, in order to convey
the sophistication of his technical prowess.

I’ve described plenty of my projects to plenty of people, and yes, my descriptions are generally very detailed. But it’s not out of any desire to convey sophistication or prowess – my description may be the same whether I’m telling it to someone who can’t operate a computer or someone of much greater skill than my own. It’s simply the burning need to be accurate and complete. Put as simply and generally as possible, if I’m describing a project, I don’t want whoever I’m talking to to ask questions when I’m done describing it. It’s like documentation – if I were writing a man page, whoever reads it shouldn’t be left with major questions to ask when they finish.

Miscellaneous Geek Stuff geek, interaction, jargon, social

Interesting Links for Tuesday, January 26^th 2010

• Jan. 25, 1979: Robot Kills Human
• Lawyers Challenge $54,000 P2P Fine As Unconstitutional
• Verizon Terminating Copyright Infringers’ Internet Access
• Linux performance: is Linux becoming just too slow and bloated?
• Mr. Edison’s Kindle: Fifteen amazing gadget ideas that were way, way ahead of their time (though, I must say, the author of this blog is really looking at things from a modern-day perspective, and his commentary seems to miss how truly brilliant these ideas were at the time)
• EFF: Blogging ACTA Across the Globe: CIPPIC’s David Fewer on What ACTA Means for Canadian Citizens
• Clarifying SourceForge.net’s denial of site access for certain persons in accordance with US law
• EFF: Clinton on Internet Freedom, and Principled Stands

And, most importantly… Report: Linux Gains Ground, Windows Stumbles. Apparently, according to Net Applications, Linux’s market share rose from 1 to 1.02 percent in December 2009, a small but hopeful increase. Windows marketshare fell from 92.52% to 92.21%.

Like any statistic, there are always multiple sources. The W3Counter.com reports are a bit brighter for Linux:

If this is accurate, it shows Linux with a sifnigicant 1-month gain in marketshare. Also notable is that in December, Android showed up for the first time, at 0.08%. In all reasonabless, that can be added to the Linux row.

Also of interest are W3Counter’s browser stats:

Also worth noting on the Browser front is that IE8’s market share rose from 21.21% (November) to 22.43% (December) while Firefox 3.5’s share jumped from 20.49% in November to 22.18% in December, a very significant stride for the brand new Firefox version. While IE8 has been out considerably longer than Firefox 3.5, they’re already almost tied in market share (and if another jump like that happens, Firefox 3.5 will be in the lead next month).

Interesting Links and Resources

Being a volunteer EMT, and at times an outdoorsy-type person, I occasionally get emails from friends about disaster-related topics. Especially in the post-9/11 days. Recently, I got an email asking me if I’d seen the Department of Homeland Security’s disaster preparedness site, ready.gov. I’d heard a bit about it, but hadn’t really looked around. The site’s main premise is to educate people about how to prepare for a disaster – “get a kit”, “make a plan”, “be informed”.

The site’s own About page states that it is “designed to educate and empower Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies including natural and man-made disasters. The goal of the campaign is to get the public involved and ultimately to increase the level of basic preparedness across the nation.”

The first step on the site, “Get a Kit”, includes a list of supplies to have on hand as a basic disaster kit. The introduction to the page reads:

You may need to survive on your own after an emergency. This means having your own food, water, and other supplies in sufficient quantity to last for at least three days. Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster, but they cannot reach everyone immediately. You could get help in hours, or it might take days. In addition, basic services such as electricity, gas, water, sewage treatment, and telephones may be cut off for days, or even a week or longer.

.

I will admit, I assumed this would be geared more towards urbanites, not those of us in the suburbs or rural America (the latter generally being more accustomed to self-sufficiency), so I adjusted my expectations accordingly. At first glance, it seems to include most of the things that the EMT in me would want it to:

• Food and water
• First aid kit
• Wrench or pliers to turn off gas line
• Prescription medications
• Bleach (as a disinfectant and for water purification)
• Fire extinguisher
• Matches

However, I found a number of things obviously missing. Sure, some are minor – matches but no mention of fuel, bleach but not even coffee filters to remove particulate matter from water. I also find it comical that so many years after the Cold War “Duck and Cover” approach to nuclear safety, the government is now telling people to Shelter-In-Place in the event of a biological attack – by covering their doors and windows with plastic sheeting!

But by far the most egregious omission from the list – something learned by man at least 5,000 years ago, and taught to every Boy Scout – is the simplest tool: a knife. Yup, that’s right, the Disaster Kit list doesn’t include any variety of cutting implement. I don’t know if whoever wrote up the list is just scared of getting sued when little Bobby finds the knife and kills himself, or whether they’re really that stupid. But I, for one, never leave my house without some variety of the oldest real tool devised by man, and can’t imagine anyone thrown into any sort of “survival” situation without at least a rudimentary way to cut, scrape, pry, etc. I’d say that if I were without utilities or organized public safety for “at least three days”, I’d sure want to be able to make simple repairs, fashion simple tools, or perhaps cut something.

On another (albeit less important) note, there are still many, many Americans, not just in rural areas, who have a fireplace or wood stove. What about a few days’ worth of wood?

EMS, Non-Technical Commentary disaster, EMS, government, preparedness