Python and XML at Techcamp Ireland

I've posted a wee description of what I'm going to cover in (gasp) 15 minutes at techcamp.

Lots of Pythonic and XML shaped goodness evident in the sessions.

Should be an interesting day.

A flick of the wrist but much more than a watch

Wow. This caught my eye this morning. A touch sensitive display embedded into the back of your hand. [via infosthetics]

Even I would have difficulty leaving that behind me as I rush out the door.

localhost, localhost! Wherefore art thou localhost?

Somewhere in the recent past - possibly while installing firestarter (but I'm not sure) - there was a puff of blue smoke logic and my localhost interface disappeared.

This manifested itself oddly. OpenOffice would hang for a long, long time on startup as if it was eventually timing out trying to connect to something.

I also noticed that CUPS printing had died. So, the standard nightmare unfolded. Were the two observable phenomena related or indepdent. Was there a causal connection between the Firestarter install any either/both of the two phenomena?

Short on time to make the correct, rigorous analysis of the problem, I did what you should never do. I changed two things at once :-)

Firstly, I added a firewall rule to allow CUPS traffic through. (Was that what was causing OpenOffice to palpitate on startup?). Secondly, I re-created localhost with ifconfig lo0 127.0.0.1.
Everything is working fine now except that I have to re-create lo0 whenever I reboot.

My guess is that OO was trying to connect to the printer and took a dim view of localhost not being there. Whether or not I actually need the firewall rule change as well or not, I don't know at this point.

I'm loath to just lob it into a boot script for fear of heaping bletcherous hack on top of ill-understood problem fix.

I have printed the Linux System Administrators Guide. I have boiled the kettle. I will figure this out.

ruby2shoes

Unless you have prior knowledge of it, everything your mind puts forth as a possible inference-from-the-name for the ruby2shoes application is wrong.

The original short poems

I've been asked what poems I had in mind of the short variety.

Ode to the Goldfish and Fleas.

Business Reporting and Application Consolidation

"Executive: I want a consolidated report covering A and B.

IT: But A and B are generated by two different computer systems.

Executive: Then go build one computer system that combines all the features of systems A and B so that I can get my consolidated report.

IT: But...

Executive: Just do it.

IT: Ok.

Behind this little exchange lies an assumption on the part of the executive that, in most cases, is not correct..."

...namely, that in order for information to appear on paper in a cohesive, consolidated form, the data sources must be consolidated at application level. That is the subject of
The same data in the same place which is this week's ITWorld article.