I remember that someone had actually fixed the &-bug in planet.debian.org... I have more work for you: planet.debian.org is giving out wrong permalinks.

My blog's rss contains:

<channel>
[...]
<link>http://blog.drinsama.de/erich</link>
[...]
<item>
<guid isPermaLink="false">en/2005071904-scificharmeme</guid>
<link>http://blog.drinsama.de/erich/en/2005071904-scificharmeme</link>

So it first of all claims that this is not a permalink. Then it gives a correct link attribute, third, concat( //channel/link/text(), guid/text() ) gives the correct permalink.

Apparently planet.debian.org strips the URL it downloaded my blog from off the last component and appends the guid there to generate a permalink? WHY?

Apparently people are back from DebConf5, and don't have anything important left to do - they do memes again...

Well, here's my result:

Since DebConf5 (I envy all those who made it there), Debtags information is now included in the Packages files. This is great for testing out debtags integration, making things a lot easier. ;-)

We are now planning to move the web frontend and database, currently residing on a machine I administrate - hosting debian.vitavonni.de - to alioth.

This is great for multiple reasons: first of all, that machine is rather slow, will probably go offline end of the year and on Alioth, others can better work on the database and web interface, too.

Also this marks the progress of including this into the normal Debian infrastructure. I hope with the release of etch we'll have a package choosing mechanism superior of all others. ;-)

Thanks especially to Enrico and Thaddeus, who have spend way more time and work on Debtags this year alone than I have since the project was started...

We're still in the process of finding the optimal vocabulary, which prove a lot more difficult than expected. You can follow this process in our SVN repository.

P.S. No, this doesn't yet mean you can add "Tags:" to your debian/control files. I think the archive tools will reject that. Please use the debtags-edit tool or tagcolledit to submit them by mail, or use the Web package browser.

I booked my flights to canada this weekend. With a little searching I got some good deals - the best price I got at the travel agency was over 50% more.

I'm flying to Montréal on July 26, and I'm returning on August 5.

On August 4 I will be giving a talk in Montréal at the "Extreme Markup Languages" conference. This is a rather techy (so not pure scientific) conference on, guess, XML. I'll be talking about "Structure-preserving difference search for XML documents", which is a new approach for diff on XML and other semistructured documents. You can find my protoype on Alioth: SSDDiff.alioth.debian.org.

On July 26 I'll be going, probably by train, to Toronto, to visit a friend.

So if anyone would like to do some keysigning in Toronto or Montréal (and maybe some cities between there, like Kingston), send me a mail. ;-)

Netzbetreiber...

Ich staune jeden Tag mehr darüber, was sich die Netzbetreiber bei Handys alles leisten können. Deutlichere Abzocke, als das seit einiger Zeit O2 macht, gibt es echt nicht mehr.

Ja, ist nichts neues - ich bin nur gerade erst aus dem Ausland zurück. Und wunder mich über die eigenartigen SMS, dass mich jemand versucht hätte anzurufen, und dass dieser Service für mich kostenlos wäre (*Alarmglocken klingeln*). Also mal schnell kundig gemacht: O2 geht für mich ans Telefon. Und sagt dem Anrufer, dass ich gerade nicht erreichbar bin - und für diesen unerwünschten Service kassieren sie dann erstmal normale Gebühren vom Anrufer. U.u. ist das eine komplette Minute.

O2, ich kenne genug Leute, die eine Nummer nicht mehr anrufen, wenn sie mal in diese "Falle" getappt sind. So erhöht man wohl eher nicht langfristig den ARPU. Und macht sich auf alle Fälle ziemlich unbeliebt. Morgen rufe ich da jedenfalls mal an und lasse diese Belästigung abstellen.

Seit auch im Internet kaum noch Free-SMS dienste existieren, ist ausserdem mein SMS-Versand auf nahezu 0 zurückgegangen. Früher hab ich da dann noch öfter geantwortet, aber heutzutage... insbesondere ist es typischerweise billiger anzurufen...

Die anderen Netzbetreiber sind wohl kaum besser, und mein alter Viag-Vertrag ist für mich unschlagbar günstig - oftmals weniger als 1 Euro im Monat. Natürlich bekommt man diesen Vertrag schon länger nicht mehr...

... und Handyhersteller

Handyhersteller sind nicht besser. Ich nutze wieder mein altes Siemens C35, da das S35 das ich zwischenzeitlich verwendet habe inzwischen defekt ist. Das ist aber ok - die Handys haben ja schon 5 Jahre Betrieb auf dem Buckel.

Kein einziges der neuen Handys, die ich mir bisher angeschaut habe, ist aber irgendwie akzeptabel. Menüs müssen anscheinend unbenutzbar sein und völlig unübersichtlich - und alle strotzen nur mit unnützen Sachen wie:

• Kameras (= unnötiges gewicht und größe)
• riesen Farbdisplays (für was? unnötig teuer, groß, schwer)
• "MP3-Player" (da nehm ich lieber einen echten...)
• "Spiele" (haha. toll. als ich 5 war hätt ich das vielleicht gespielt)
• UMTS (datenübertragung ist zu teuer, welcher mehrwert bleibt?)
• GPRS, WAP, Browser (dito)
• Terminkalender (rofl)
• Photo-Editor (WTF?)

Sprich: es gibt einfach keine interessanten Modelle auf dem Markt - und schon gar nicht welche, für die ich bereit wäre, 300 Euro zu zahlen, obwohl ich mir das leicht leisten könnte.

Kunden ...

Anscheinend gibt es aber genug Kunden, die bereit sind bei diesen Absurditäten mitzumachen. Die wahnsinnige Preise für Logos zahlen (mein Handy gehn niemand anderen was an - was brauch ich ein Logo?). Die ernsthaft versuchen die Funktionen wie Digitalkameras mit Bildbearbeitungsfunktiönchen zu nutzen...

Ich staune immer wieder, wie man damit Geld verdienen kann - einzige Antwort: fast alle Deutschen^WEuropäer^W Menschen sind struntzdumm.

... und ihre Lösungen

Eine der einfachsten Lösungen, die ich auch schon erwogen habe: einen Vertrag mit Handy abschließen, das "preiswerteste" Handy dabei nehmen, nur um es anschließend auf eBay zu verkaufen. Typischerweise bekommt man so mehr als genug Geld, um sich ein akzeptables Handy zu holen, und auch noch genug Geld für die 2 Jahre Grundgebühr zu behalten... Handy for free.

Network operators ...

I wonder each day a little bit more what mobile network operators can do without their users being really annoyed. A more obvious rip-off than O2 is doing right now is hardly possible.

Yes, it's nothing new - but I'm just back from abroad. And I wondered about the peculiar SMS I get, that someone tried to call me and that this service is free of costs for me (which caused my alarm bells to ring even more). Thus I researched a litte: O2 is answering my phone when I'm not reachable. And they tell the caller that I'm not reachable. Then they send me an SMS when I return. For this unasked for "service" they bill the caller up to a minute in fees. (In germany, its usually free of charge if you don't reach the person you are calling. Except for special service numbers, the caller always pays all the costs.)

Dear O2, I know many people who will no longer call a person who does not disable this "service" of yours. On the long run, this probably is a bad idea in trying to raise the ARPU. And you definitely become unpopular by carrying out such ripoff stunts. Tomorrow I'm going to call the service to have this nuisance disabled. And people call me again.

Since there are almost no Free-SMS services left in the internet, my usage of SMS as dropped to an all-time low. I rarely ever send or recieve a SMS. I used to reply to a SMS, but nowadays I rarely get one anyway. Also, it's cheaper to call than to send an SMS. I talk more than 160 characters in 30 seconds, and a call is interactive, too...

Other network operators are unlikely to be better. And my ancient Viag contract is unbeatable cheap for me - often less than 1 Euro per Month. Needless to say, you can't get these contracts any more for years now.

... and mobile phone manufacturers

Manufacturers are not better at all. I'm using my old Siemens C35 again, since the S35 I used to use broke. Which is okay, after 5 years of use.

None of the newer mobile phones I've had a look at is somewhat acceptable - their menus are so chaotic you don't find anything, and are unuseable. And the are all packed with useless stuff such as:

• Cameras (= useless weight and size)
• big color screens (what for? raising the price, size, weight?)
• "MP3-Players" (I use a real thing)
• "Games" (yeah, if I were 5 or so, I might have played that crap)
• UMTS (data plans are way to expensive, so what benefit is left?)
• GPRS, WAP, Browsers (same)
• appointment calendar (lol)
• Photo editor (wtf?)

A mobile which is just small and light, and that you can use for calling is apparently not yet on the market. I don't even need a *single* ringtone, neither a polyphone one for several Euros. Vibration alarm is just fine... ;-)

To make it short: no acceptable phone for sale, so I don't buy. And for sure I won't spend a couple hundred Euros for these, even though I could afford it.

Customers ...

Apparently there are enough customers who are willing to go with for these absurdities. That pay insane prices for logos (my mobile is private and of noones business - why would I need a logo). That really try to use a cameraphone or even their "editing" functions...

I'm amazed by how you can eary money by that - only solution: almost all Germans^WEuropeans^W humans are just plain stupid.

... and solutions

One of the easiest solutions, which I also considered: get a contract with a phone with a good price, just to sell the phone on ebay. Usually you can get enough money for that "sponsored" phone to buy an older "reasonable" one, and pay for the 24 months you subscribed to the service. That's mobile-for-free then. Which is an okay deal, isn't it?