Gnus Tip: Show unread articles in Summary Buffer

The simplest way to show a mix of read and unread messages in your Summary Buffer is to add the following to the Group Parameters.

((display . 100))

You can change that number which tells Gnus to display the last 100 articles to any number that you want.  And while you're at it, you might as well read the other customisation options to Group Parameters.

Org-mode 7.6 released

From the org-mode mailing lists, a new release of org-mode can be downloaded here or here.

Key new features include OpenDocument support, new keybindings, babel and lilypond support apart from bug fixes.

If you use git, you may have to do a git pull to get the latest.

 

The End of Patents?

In a article titled In a Bill, Wall Street Shows Its Clout, the NYT outlined a bill which is winding its way through the US Congress for approval that outlines a fantastic opt-out-if-i-don't-feel-like-paying by Financial firms.

Now, the issue is not the about the firms themselves but the language in the bill.

Some quotes

The provision even allows “retroactive reviews of approved business method patents, allowing the financial services industry to challenge patents that have already been found valid both at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office and in Federal Court,”

 ...

It covers patents for “a financial product or service” as well as “corresponding apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service.”

Basically, it allows firms to challenge and invalidate patents and processes that were already approved by Courts and the Patent Office. 

How and why on earth would anyone file for patents then, if this gets through?  Imagine, slogging on a very clever solution and that gets usurped by a version of the Greater Common Good theory (albeit for some vested interest).  That a patent allows an inventor a limited monopoly to make money is one key incentive...take away that, what's in it for him?


Please don't say, let them go the trade secret route where it can be reverse engineered in a matter of months.

And of course, there is the massive damage to Patent Firms, companies that have amassed portfolios of patents; their business model is in tatters.  Lots of companies make money by simply licensing patents and they'd no longer have a revenue stream from their patents.

It really would be the end of patents.

Calfw - A calendar framework for Emacs

From the org-mode mailing lists, here's an interesting view of the same agenda/calendar of org-mode similar to what you see in Google Calendar developed by SAKURAI Masashi.

This is not part of the org-mode development tree and you'd have to download the package from the github repository.   It might be a good idea to try it and give your feedback on the thread here.

A better London Underground Map?

From the Economist Daily Chart (Which I strongly suggest, you subscribe to the RSS feed), it appears someone has gone to the trouble of designing a geographically accurate map of the London Underground.

If you've been to London and used the Tube, the standard map is itself a nice informative chart, worthy of a Tufte mention, I'd say.  Anything that goes to improve on that, gets my vote.  While I don't claim to have any special knowledge of London Tube stations, the fact that some stations are closer to each other above ground than what is on the standard map would save you that bit of aggravation exactly when you need to rush or are late to some meeting. 

Of course, if you're used to the standard map, this might take some getting used to but if you've never been there and it's your first time, might as well try the new one.   Obviously, you're getting to miss the long running track and repair changes information that is published along with the standard map.   But as the designer suggests, take both with you.

2011 CWE/SANS Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Errors

Through lwn.net, the top 25 dangerous software Errors can be found here.  Makes for some nice or frightening reading depending upon your point of view. It is a bit weird that

Buffer Copy without Checking Size of Input ('Classic Buffer Overflow')

is still there and at an astounding 3rd place.  I was under the impression that the new C/C++ standards would have done and fixed that at the compiler level or something of that sort. Again, assuming the bulk of these errors were in C/C++.

Makes me think that the OpenBSD folks were in the right to fix things by changing the insecure libraries so that this kind of error cannot be triggered at all.

And oh, I do like this one too

Use of Hard-coded Credentials

even mentioning espionage implications and Stuxnet.

Go on, read the full list here.

A simpler search: Emacs Occur

The Emacs manual has a section devoted to search and replacement exploring a multitude of options to search and replace text.  You should at least be familiar with
`C-s'
     Incremental search forward (`isearch-forward').
`C-r'
     Incremental search backward (`isearch-backward').
Anything a bit more complicated than that, you need to dive into the manual.

And if you really do read the section end to end, you'd see the last part on Other Repeating Search.

And you'll find another simple search M-x occur. Call it, supply the search string and that's it.  It provides all the matches in another buffer, each line clickable to take you to the specific line  in the source file or buffer where the match was made.  It is also mapped to M-x list-matching-lines.  And if you want to search multiple buffers, there's M-x multi-occur and M-x multi-occur-in-matching-buffers, the latter that takes a regular expression for file names.

And if you do want a bit of context to the matches, supply a prefix argument and it will show contextual lines to the matches; i.e C-u 2 M-x occur searchtext RET will show 2 lines of context with every match. 

That's it. M-x occur is for the occasions where you can't be arsed to find the 100% correct regex and no one's watching you hacker FAIL.

And you should really read the complete section on Search and Replace.  It's well worth your time.

Emacs 24.1 heading into Pretest

A bit late to post this but it appears Emacs 24.1 feature freeze and pretesting is going to start.

Well, almost, if you look at the entire mail thread; for a release in 2012, if all goes well.

If you don't want to wait that long, you can still get the weekly builds from here.

Emacs world domination...will have to wait

So, on a whim, I decide to look up google trends for emacs search volume.




This is not looking good. It's time to organise and spread the gnus otherwise we might go out with a mew...err...whimper.

Data Security will probably never work till....

data loss is the same as physical property loss.  Since that's never going to happen, data security in the IT field will probably be a fool's errand.

Let me explain.  First this post is a good rant on security issues and how management perceives it.

If someone steals your iphone or laptop, that loss is completely tangible.  You had it then you lost it; something which you paid lots of money to get.  There is an incentive and an object that you know that belonged to you that got stolen that makes you want to safeguard it.  Compare this to a database breach;  The same data is still there except that someone else too, unauthorised, has a copy.  In fact, there is nothing like someone got punched, got a gun pulled at his face,blood,screams,physical assault with the object forced from their hands.  One random day, someone reports that there was unauthorised access and the data has probably been copied over.

That's all.

You expect people to swoon over data loss, some electronic stuff which to most people is fungible? 

I'm convinced that this is the primary reason why no one cares or will care.  It's just not the same as physical property loss(Of course the impact of the data loss is large;not denying that).   I think Nicholos Negroponte explained this well in his book 'Being Digital'.  Something along the lines of "what's original and what's a copy in the digital realm when one bit is the same as the other bit?"  and the values attached to them compared to physical originals and copies.  How does one even know that a file has been copied a million times?

All the worst case scenarios and security checks will probably never impact management till some cracker figures out a way to steal the data centre, lock, stock and barrel. :-)

Being Digital