bokunenjin | Reading

A frustrating day. On the plus side, I did solve yesterday's problem with the duplicate __test identifier. It turned out I was calling the driver functions wrong and it was literally synthesizing a test module twice. I was able to fix that bug.

Once I fixed that, I got this horrible resolve error:

<intrinsic>:58:37: 58:41 error: found value name used as a type: def_fn({crate: 1, node: 160381}, impure_fn)
<intrinsic>:58         fn visit_estr_uniq(&self) -> bool;

The error refers to the code for intrinsics (primops, basically) that rustc injects everywhere. It's complaining that bool is a function but is being used like a type. But... bool is a type! A primitive one, at that. I'd expect this to happen if there was a function somewhere called bool (maybe), but there isn't.

This was when I was trying to use rustpkg to build a test module. So next I decided to just compile a regular main module. So then I got:

rust: task failed at 'ty_fn_ret() called on non-fn type: &ty_nil', /Users/tjc/rust2/src/librustc/middle/ty.rs:2822

as an ICE in trans.

Given that all of this just comes from changing search paths so rustpkg can find libstd and not treat it as a remote-package-to-download, I'm... flummoxed.

Also, rustc as a whole seemed to get a lot slower sometime in the past two days. As in, even running three builds in different workspaces, at the same time, resulted in a longer than usual wait for any one of them to complete. And I wasn't running out of physical RAM.

Because of that, I spent some time while waiting for compiles to finish nominating bugs. I sorted github issues by least-recently-commented-on. As a result, all the open issues have been touched sometime in the past 2 months, and there are now 142 nominated bugs. I... don't think we'll get through all of them in the triage meeting tomorrow.

tenlittlebullets posting in

dcmetro

One of my housemates is going to be moving out in June, and you know what tha~aaaaat means. Let the roommate search begin!

The House: Victorian duplex in Takoma Park. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, ten-minute walk from Takoma Metro station, directly across the street from a bus stop. $725/month + utilities. Has dishwasher, washer/dryer, front and back porches, gorgeous interior woodwork, driveway (share with 1 other car), resident-only street parking, gas stove, central A/C, double-pane windows, FiOS. In addition to bedrooms: living room, two(!) rooms we use as libraries, a well-equipped kitchen, a sun porch/dining room/pantry, and a large basement used for storage.

The Household: Affectionately dubbed the People’s Republic of Fandom. We’re a bunch of queer nerds. We possess All The Books, All The Comfy Couches, All The Tea, a flatscreen TV hooked up to a Netflix account, and enough miscellaneous vintage electronics in the basement to film a credible ’70s sci-fi movie. We are very used to juggling odd schedules and mismatched dietary restrictions. Anything you may have heard about us being able to procure contraband jelly babies and/or uranium is a complete and utter lie.

Interested parties please comment or contact enjolraic@gmail.com.

(Crossposts: Tumblr, my Dreamwidth, my LJ. Feel free to pass this along!)

jesse_the_k posting in

wiscon

Thanks to the Weather Underground, we see WisCon weather to be pleasant indeed:

Thursday
Overcast with a chance of rain in the morning, then partly cloudy. High of 64F. Breezy. Winds from the NNE at 15 to 20 mph with gusts to 30 mph. Chance of rain 20%.

Thursday Night
Clear. Low of 41F. Winds from the NE at 5 to 15 mph.

Friday
Clear. High of 66F. Winds less than 5 mph. Chance of rain 20%.

Friday Night
Partly cloudy with a chance of rain in the evening, then overcast. Low of 46F. Winds from the SSE at 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday
Overcast in the morning, then partly cloudy. High of 70F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday Night
Clear in the evening, then overcast. Low of 48F. Winds from the ESE at 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday
Partly cloudy with a chance of rain in the morning, then overcast with a chance of rain. High of 73F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Sunday Night
Overcast with a chance of rain. Low of 52F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Monday
Mostly cloudy. High of 73F. Winds from the SE at 10 to 15 mph.

Monday Night
Overcast with a chance of a thunderstorm. Low of 55F. Winds from the SE at 5 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

The Concourse Hotel is between two lakes, so breezy (but not Lake Michigan-level breezy).

Hotel weather can be hot, cold, dry, humid, windy and stuffy.

rachel_swirsky posting in

wiscon

An urgent family problem has forced my husband and I to cancel our plans to attend Wiscon 37 at the last minute.

We have a governor's suite room booked from Thursday to Sunday which we would like to transfer to someone else.

We can help subsidize the transfer somewhat since at this point we'd rather the cancellation fees go toward helping someone enjoy their con rather than going straight to the hotel coffers.

We were able to transfer the room. I hope everyone has a wonderful Wiscon and we wish we could be there.

sparkymonster posting in

wiscon

~~Is anyone staying over Monday night who would like to split a Concourse hotel room? I have an extra bed in my room that night.~~

Sorted out thank you

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by Annalee

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/22/wednesday-geek-woman-mary-anne-mohanraj-author-editor-and-blogging-pioneer/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7677

Photo by Alberto Yáñez.

Mary Anne Mohanraj started one of the Internet’s first blogs, back in the wild days of 1995 when we still called them “Online Journals,” and everyone had to do all their html by hand.

She founded the award-winning speculative fiction magazine Strange Horizons, and the Speculative Literature Foundation, which promotes literary quality in speculative fiction. She has made a lot of her own short fiction available for free on her website.

She’s also a co-founder of the Carl Brandon Society, which works to “increase the racial and ethnic diversity in the production of and audience for speculative fiction.” Her essays about race in fandom have had a substantial impact on my own understanding of racial privilege. For folks looking for a solid introduction to these issues, I strongly recommend her two guest-posts on John Scalzi’s Whatever on race in SFF fandom: Mary Anne Mohanraj Gets You Up to Speed, Part I and Part II.

Mohanraj has an essay in Queers Dig Time Lords, which is coming out on June 4th. Her latest book, illustrated Science Fiction Erotica The Stars Change, is currently available for pre-order. It’ll be released on October 1st.

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/22/wednesday-geek-woman-mary-anne-mohanraj-author-editor-and-blogging-pioneer/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7677

tim

Still working on #5681, external crate inference. I resolved one of the remaining problems, which was how to not try to download-and-build std in directives like extern mod std; (where std is obviously already installed). But now, much to my dismay, I'm seeing some strange rustc behavior:

<core-macros>:1:0: 1:0 error: duplicate definition of type `__test`
<core-macros>:1 pub mod macros {
                ^
<core-macros>:1:0: 1:0 note: first definition of type __test here:
<core-macros>:1 pub mod macros {

This is only when compiling a file with a #[test] in it. What's weird is I haven't changed anything affecting how I interface with rustc. I'm not sure where the duplicate definitions of __test (the name that gets used for the automatically-created test module) are coming from, nor do I have any clear idea how to debug this.

Otherwise, today was bug triage and cleaning up warnings and stuff, in the moments when rustpkg was recompiling (of which there were many, since the compiler seems to have gotten quite a bit slower over the long weekend).

Better luck tomorrow, maybe...

dweiums posting in

wiscon

Due to a mix-up, there is a reservation at the original price of $111 per night at the Madison. I just asked Sarah, the reservations manager to hold it for tonight in case some one wants it. I must give her the answer tomorrow morning (Wednesday) at 8:00am.

Email me immediately at dweiums@gmail.com
Diane Williams

I'm on east coast time, but I stay up late. I have also notified Jennie about the room.

Reservation Number 295143
Guest Name Diane Williams
Adults 2
Arrival Date Thursday, May 23, 2013
Departure Date Monday, May 27, 2013
Nightly Rate $111.00 from May 23 - May 26

I'm not sure, but I believe it is a two bed room.

Current Mood: anxious

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by Mary

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/21/open-thread-feed-the-open-thread-monster/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7688

We haven’t had an open thread in a looooong time, partly due to workload. That is: there are two steps (1) find something cute or fun (2) post open thread. Increasingly rarely do the two experiences coincide for us!

So I’m setting up a system so that you can feed the open thread monster: if you see something that hits most of (1) women-centric (or not-men-centric) (2) fluffy, fun, silly, cute or beautiful (3) geeky (4) feminist, or at least not anti-feminist, tag it “gffun” on Pinboard or Delicious and when someone here wants to open thread, they’ll have some ideas to start with. Seen anything in the last week or two? Since it’s been a while, you’re also welcome to post it in comments here.

Feed the monster!

by JD Hancock

This is itself an open thread for comments on any subject fitting our policy!

About open threads: open threads are for comments on any subject at all, including past posts, things we haven’t posted on, what you’ve been thinking or doing, etc as long as it follows our comment policy. We’re always looking for fluffy, fun, silly, cute or beautiful open thread starters, please post links to Pinboard or Delicious with the “gffun” tag.

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/21/open-thread-feed-the-open-thread-monster/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7688

tim

I found the following on a sticky note (an electronic one, that is) that I wrote while without wifi on a trip on the Coast Starlight sometime in the past year or so:

"This is like going to the frozen food section while stoned, but paying double for it." -- someone in the cafe car

announcement: "We're turning inland and the reason for that is to get away from some of these more unstable sand dunes." Actually, I thought the reason we were turning inland is because that's where the tracks are.

In Salinas, someone put a bunch of tires on the tracks, which "compromised" the main brake lines so the train had to sit in Salinas for a while while they fixed it. You know what I say to that? Fuck Salinas.

whump posting in

wiscon

The room has been picked up. Thank you!

Because of a family emergency, cynthia1960 and I cannot attend WisCon this year. We have a room in the Governors' Club reserved in my name for Thursday evening through Wednesday morning. If you have been looking for a Governors' Club room, please contact me through whump@dreamwidth.org to arrange a transfer.

ihuntsnarks posting in

wiscon

The Con could still use some extra hands, so if you just want good karma, or desperately need a collectable WisCon mug read this: http://wisconnews.blogspot.com/2013/05/volunteer-needs-at-wiscon-37.html

puzzlement posting in

incrementum

V is experimentally working his way towards having good arguments for things he wants. For example, he knows that things often have a reason, but his grasp on what is a convincing reason for his point of view is very sketchy.

Tonight:

Me: "V! Stop jumping on that chair."

V: "Yeah but! I was trying to!"

Me: "Yes, I realise."

V: [confounded silence]

He also has moved beyond "well I said yes!" for example to realising there's something special about me saying yes to things, and now commands "Mama, you need to say YES."

tim

This isn't Rust-related, but I wanted to report that I spent much of this evening developing a revised version of my Ionmonkey patch to implement generator syntax changes for Harmony, and finally submitted the patch for review, after a 9-month break since the last time I worked on this.

I want to emphasize that I only worked on the syntax changes and haven't touched any related semantics changes at all. Why did it take so long? Well, mostly because I spent most of the time not working on it. When faced with urgent work on Rust (inside my comfort zone) or JavaScript work (outside my comfort zone), it's pretty obvious what I'll pick! But also, it's just hard to work on a compiler for a language that I don't know (JavaScript) that's also implemented in a language I don't know well (C++).

Anyway, for the first time in 9 months I can actually relax and wait for a review, instead of feeling like I should work on this the next time I have a free moment and enough energy for work! I'll enjoy the feeling while it lasts.

jesse_the_k posting in

wiscon

Join me in the Concourse pool (third floor) at 8:30am on Friday and Sunday.

It's pretty short for laps, but there's plenty of room for movement which feels great! No gravity! No falling! No sweating!

I've got a water-walking, -running and -stretching routine I'm happy to share.

And if you have issues with some of the words in the title, come to the panel on

Taking Our Slurs Back
Saturday 10:30 − 11:45pm
Assembly
The panel for fatties, crips, sluts, bitches, whores, crazies, old farts, queers, and more. Who is reclaiming language and how? How can we address intergenerational conflicts about reclamatory language? What about tensions when it comes to who is 'allowed' to use it?

geekfeminism_feed

Posted by yatima

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/18/book-club-coding-freedom-part-i-histories/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7666

(Sorry this is so late! Life kept happening, and then the blog went down :)

Since this is a book that deserves and rewards attention, and since we all seem to be reading it slowly as a result, let’s just discuss it one section at a time. From the introduction:

Free software hackers culturally concretize a number of liberal themes and sensibilities— for example, through their competitive mutual aid, avid free speech principles, and implementation of meritocracy along with their frequent challenge to intellectual property provisions.

(I’ll get to that “meritocracy” bit in good time.) One of the great points Biella makes early on is that hacking, while recognizably part of the liberal tradition, uses liberal techniques to critique liberalism itself. This restless contrarianism showed up earliest around IP, of course:

The expansion of intellectual property law, as noted by some authors, is part and parcel of a broader neoliberal trend to privatize what was once public or under the state’s aegis, such as health provision, water delivery,
and military services. “Neoliberalism is in the “first instance,” writes David Harvey (2005, 2), “a theory of political economic practices that proposes human well- being can be best advanced by liberating entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong property rights, free markets, and free trade.” As such, free software hackers not only reveal a long- standing tension within liberal legal rights but also offer a targeted critique of the neoliberal drive to make property out of almost anything, including software.

Oh, the 1990s. On the one hand you had a set of corporatist states seeking to exercise ever-more-restrictive controls around, for example, the precious, precious image of Mickey Mouse and music of Metallica; on the other hand you had a ragtag crew of approximately-libertarian hackers still simmering over the injustices handed down in the Unix wars. In between you had every other imaginable nuance of position. Shenanigans, naturally, ensued, and both Biella and I were on hand for the fun. I met her at various Bay Area Linux User Group and EFF events while she was conducting fieldwork in San Francisco around the turn of the millennium.

Those were glory days. The brilliance of Richard Stallman’s GPL was just beginning to make itself apparent. The GPL has radically transformed both the culture and the economics of software in ways that will continue to play out for the foreseeable future. Biella justly celebrates the terrific humor of hackers and hacking – I don’t think I really understood software, or my life partner, until I first looked into the Jargon file – and the GPL is one of hacking culture’s best and subtlest and most effective jokes.

Stallman approached the law much like a hacker treats technology: as a system that by virtue of being systemic and logical, is hackable. In other words, he relied on the hacker technical tactic of clever reuse to imaginatively hack the law by creating the GNU GPL, a near inversion of copyright law… By grafting his license on top of an already- existing system, Stallman dramatically increased the chances that the GPL would be legally binding. It is an instance of an ironic response to a system of powerful constraint, and one directed with unmistakable (and creative) intention— and whose irony is emphasized by its common descriptor, copyleft, signaling its relationship to the very artifact, copyright, that it seeks to displace.

What the GPL and the Jargon file share with the code itself is the ways in which they resemble literature – celebrating and codifying a culture – and the ways in which they resemble law – functioning as the constitutions of public spaces of the mind. (I think of the Unixes as a kind of Colossal Caves, only somehow more real.) And this, ultimately, is why we talk about coding freedom, and why the freedom part matters. Software systems are at once frontiers, meeting places and societies.

In the words of one programmer who helped me (a novice user) fix a problem on my Linux machine, “Unix is not a thing, it is an adventure.”

That’s the way I see Debian: alive.

This book is reminding me how much I love it here, but it’s also refreshingly blunt about hacker culture’s failings:

Along with the awkwardness I experienced during the first few weeks of fieldwork, I was usually one of the only females present during hacker gatherings, and as a result felt even more out of place.

That said, the answer is right there staring us in the face. Just as hacker culture uses liberal techniques to reform liberal techniques, geek feminists can and do hack hacker culture.

During cons, participants make crucial decisions that may alter the character and future course of the developer project. For example, at Debconf4, the few women attending, spearheaded by the efforts of Erinn Clark, used the time and energy afforded by an in- person meeting to initiate and organize Debian Women Project, a Web site portal and IRC mailing list to encourage female participation by visibly demonstrating the presence of women in the largely male project. Following the conference, one of the female Debian developers, Amaya Rodrigo, posted a bug report calling for a Debian Women’s mailing list, explaining the rationale in the following way:

From: Amaya Rodrigo Sastre <amaya@debian.org>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: Please create debian- women mailing list
Date: Tue, 01 Jun 2004 22:12:30 +0200
Package:lists.debian.org
Severity: normal

Out of a Debconf4 workshop the need has arisen for a mailing list oriented to debating and coordinating the different ways to get a larger female userbase. Thanks for your time :- ).

Given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow, right? I’m trying to feel my way towards an evidence-based geek feminism, in which my ideas and practices are continually tested and assessed for usefulness or otherwise. Maybe the trick is to be woman enough to cull my ideas when they are bad?

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/05/18/book-club-coding-freedom-part-i-histories/

http://geekfeminism.org/?p=7666

darth_snarky posting in

wiscon

A Momentary Taste of WisCon, the con's official daily newsletter (available in dead tree and PDF), is looking for submissions! Do you have an event you'd like to promote? An announcement that needs a wider audience? Want to share your thoughts on that really great panel or reading or party you attended? It's all welcome at the newsletter. Email your submissions to newsletter37@wiscon.info.

The deadline for Friday's newsletter is 6pm Wednesday. During the con, the deadline is 6pm each day for the following day's newsletter. Please note that due to space limitations, we ask that you keep your submissions relatively brief.

pleia2

For each Ubuntu release I spend a little time finding a toy or other representation of the codename animal to use at booths, Ubuntu Hours and other events. I wrote about Quetzals and Pangolins here and you may have seen Raring here.

When the salamander came up I was confident that a toy would be easy to find, and indeed they were! Even better, I found that the World Wildlife Fund offers a $50 Hellbender Salamander Adoption Kit that ships with 2 plush salamanders! Mine arrived yesterday, I’ll be keeping one to use at our events and will find a way to give away the other (perhaps as part of the Ubuntu Women contest we’re planning? Or at some LoCo event?).

Event decoration + helping to save the actual animal, hooray!

Oh, and it is a release late, but while I was in Mérida, Mexico we stopped in to Miniaturas where I picked up some adorable quetzal earrings:

I think I’ll wear them to our San Francisco Ubuntu Hour on June 12th, and bring along the salamander!

Originally published at pleia2's blog. You can comment here or there.

jinian posting in

wiscon

Packing for Wiscon this weekend? Don't forget to bring goodies for the clothing swap! We take your fun, geek-friendly, and beautiful items and distribute them to the Wiscon community. Anyone and everyone can try on clothes and take them away, no need to contribute. Please bring donations to Capitol/Wisconsin during Gathering setup if possible (10:00 to 1:00) -- during the Gathering is also okay.

We also need volunteers! Clothing swap staff get first pick of the donations, and, if that's not enough incentive for you, perhaps the warm glow of bringing people together with the perfect outfit will do it. Volunteers are still needed for the mellower setup phase and during the Gathering itself. Of course, we'll spell you if you want to go get your hair braided or your cards read. Please send email to jinian@ to volunteer.

mark posting in

dw_maintenance

(For some California local definition of 'morning'!)

About 30 minutes ago one of our databases (sb-db03) locked up and stopped serving traffic. This was an active database, so the site quickly stopped when it could no longer serve requests. Alas.

I have failed us over to a backup database and now everything should be working again.

I'm not sure yet what happened to db03, but am currently investigating and will update this post if I come up with a root cause for the problem. Edit: It's back up and doesn't have any visible problems. Disks are fine, data's intact, etc. The graphs and logs show nothing. We'll have to keep an eye on it and see if it manifests further issues.

Sorry for the trouble, please let me know if you still see any problems!