It’s winter in Berlin. It’s cold and wet. There’s muddy snow. Using public transport during winter is not fun. It’s crowded and you have to wait on cold, windy stations. But today it was especially bad.
Returning from university I was waiting at the S-Bahn station Adlershof. First, a passengerless train was passing the station without stop. Some wagons had no light, and at least one door was disabled. Then it was announced that the train to Henningsdorf that was supposed to preceed my train was delayed and would actually suceed my train. In my naivety I didn’t perceive this as a bad sign.
My train arrived and I entered. Funnily the radio transmission from the station personnel to the train driver was relayed to the loudspeakers so I could hear: “Türen schließen” (Close doors) and “Abfahrt” (Depart). Two stations later (Schöneweide) the train waited a while. Another train was waiting on the opposite track, going roughly into the same direction as I, but then it drove off. Just when it had left the station we were told to get off the train, because the train couldn’t go on. A signal somewhere had stopped working. Great, couldn’t they have told us a minute earlier?
Well, I had to wait for the next train leaving from the opposite track. You know the train that was supposed to preceed mine? Well, it was the same train I had seen passing in the opposite direction earlier. Of course this was only a short train and is usually crowded at this time of day. Now it also had to carry the passengers of full-length train. It was crowded.
In the end I had to take a detour over Treptower Park, where I had to wait another 10 minutes for a train to go in my direction. Fun.
Today I discovered on Debian’s Package Tracking System that Ubuntu has patched my Netatalk package. The patch seems to be rather useful (start cnid_metad in init if the user requests it). I just wonder why it was never submitted directly to me. Isn’t it easier just to take the upstream message than to (re-)sync every time I release a new version?
Below are relevant comments from my old blog system:
Ubuntu mass-submits patches
by Sami Dalouche
Hi,
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that Ubuntu massively sends patches when a new version is released…
Canonical specifically request that work is sent upstream because it reduces the workload for their employees. Launchpad is meant to make this a straightforward process. I’m sure it wasn’t malicious, although you could always find out by asking directly.
– Chris
“Ubuntu” as an entity.
by Jeff Bailey
Sebastien,
Remember that “Ubuntu” isn’t an entity, it’s a project of people – some of whom work for Canonical.
Canonical employees (of which I am one) are expected to submit fixes that we do to packages back to Debian. Others who work on Ubuntu (community volunteers, people paid by companies other than Canonical) are requested to do so, but are not forced.
“netatalk” is in universe, which is a section of the distribution worked on pretty much entirely by community members.
I hope that helps! Feel free to email me if you have specific questions.
I was the last one to merge in the previous Ubuntu changes to your package. It (the patch) was already in Breezy courtesy of Ante Karamatic (ivoks), and I remerged it again to your last two versions of netatalk.
I was intending to inform you the soonest about this change, but my school (and non-Ubuntu) work has been my concern in the past few weeks, and, as I see that the PTS already has a link to Scott’s patch repository, I felt that I should leave it to you whether to merge in the changes or not, since it is your prerogative to do so, being netatalk’s maintainer.
Perhaps a better improvement for the PTS interacting with the Ubuntu archive would be automatic notification when Ubuntu changes are committed. I myself would like this, since I maintain/adopt some Debian packages myself, and it would be a great convenience for me if someone else looks at my package(s) in Ubuntu and makes changes without having to contact me first.
I hope that helps 🙂 If you have some questions, just look for me on freenode 🙂
Thanks to everybody who has responded. I am aware that Ubuntu consists of many maintainers, and not all are working for Canonical. I would really like some automatic system that forwards (new) Ubuntu patches to Debian maintainers. The integration of Scott’s repository into the PTS is a great first step. I just probably just check the PTS more often. 🙂
Normally, I don’t like blonde jokes, but this one is really good! Oh and: Happy New Year!
But the really funny thing about this is that I stumbled across it on Planet Debian, a computer-related RSS aggregator. And while following the links, I came across The Ferret’s blog. Ferret is a well-known employee of the Magic web site and store StarCityGames. Small world indeed.
Christoph Meise, a level 1 judge from Berlin, complained about the way I portrayed the judge situation in Berlin at the moment. According to him there are more judges that would be willing to judge if they were just asked by the TO.
Well, even if counting graciously, I count about 6 active judges, available for larger events, in Berlin. That’s not enough, especially since there is no guarantee that all these judges stay active. Also, there is no “judge community” in Berlin. My personal community, i.e. the other judges from Berlin that I talk to about judging consists of roughly 3 or 4 people. Ideally it would consist of all the people that judge regularily or are interested in working those larger events. Personally, I did not know about the desire of other judges to judge at events like PTQs.
So, what can we do about the current situation? flame- confirmed my suggestion that if there is no active level 3 judge in your area to build an active community, the lower levels must take matters in their own hands and Andy Heckt called the theme of the judge program for 2006 “Building a Community”. Well it seams the goal is clear, even if the road there is still shrouded in mist (at least to me). I think I will begin by founding a local judge mailing list and possibly a web page and see where the road leads to. But first, I will enjoy Christmas. It’s not 2006 yet, after all.
I would really appreciate thoughts from other people about this!
A few days ago, Amigo Spiel + Freizeit announced in their newsletter that they will pass Magic Operated Play (OP) on to Wizards of the Coast, starting 2006. They will continue to distribute Magic in Germany and Austria though.
I am a bit sad to see them go. I think they did their job fairly well and I hope that WotC will be able to keep up or even improve on that standard. I also liked to work with the Amigo people at several events, like Grand Prixs, German Nationals, or PTQs. They are really nice people and I certainly had a good time. They did also show interest in the concerns of TOs and judges and the things that were going on in Germany’s Magic scene.
I also fear that the German Bundesliga, an institution where Magic teams play each other in a league system may be discontinued. But I think we need to wait and see what will happen.
PTQ winners Michael Diezel (left) from Leipzig and Fabian Barth (right) from Berlin
Saturday we had a Pro Tour Qualifier for Pro Tour Honolulu in Berlin. The Extended event took place at the FUNtainment Game Center as usual. Our staff consisted of scorekeeper Huy (L2), Falko (paluschke) from Greifswald (L2), Crille (L2), and myself (also L2 – can you spot a pattern there?). Peter, the store manager, was acting TO.
The event was largely successful, though exhausting. We had a total of 121 players. Crille had to judge a 30 person Yu-Gi-Oh tournament as well, so we were a bit light on judges. Currently we have a (slight) judge problem in Berlin. We have a few active level 2 judges, but basically no “junior” or learning judges. This leads to a judge shortage at important events like this PTQ. It also doesn’t give us judges the opportunity to play at these events, since we have to work at every one of them. This situation is partly due to the fact that we have no active level 3 judges, so there is no one that actively looks for new judges and interests them in judging. This is a problem that I am looking to address in the future. If we have no active level 3 judges, I guess we level 2s must see to do this job. Well, I would appreciate hints on how to build a local judge community and how to go looking for appropriate candidates.
But back to the tournament. In one situation I messed up. A player had played Ghastly Demise on a “big” creature with only two cards in the library. In response the opponent has sacrificed Scrabbling Claws to remove a card in that players graveyard and drawn a card as well. I misread Ghastly Demise and therefore ruled that all actions up to the announcement of the Demise had to be reversed. This was not a problem since the drawn card was the only card in that player’s hand, so it could be shuffled back into the library. Only when I was about to leave the table, I noticed that the play was indeed legal, so I ordered the players to redo the actions they had done: Put Demise and Claws in the graveyard, let the Claws player draw a card again. The Claws player was visibly (and audibly) upset, since the newly drawn was obviously worse than the old one. Could I have handled this better (except not making the initial mistake, of course)?
We also had two DQ situations: In one case Falko called me over. One player had started to draw three cards off of Cephalid Coliseum without Threshold. (Seems to be en-vogue, eh? Hey, when Pros can do that, why not us?) That player had taken the first card in his right hand, but had not combined the card with his other hand cards yet, when his opponent stopped him. Well, a standard case of Looking at Extra Cards and a Warning, it seems. Only problem is: Falko asked him: “Did you see the card you was about to draw?” The player replied: “No”, while the opponent claimed he had seen the card. A bit later the opponent conceded that he might have seen that it was a blue card. The question was: Did he lie to a judge?
In the end I decided that this was not DQ-worthy. The player claimed that he understood the question “Did you see the card?” to mean whether he knew what card he had just picked up. I don’t think that just knowing the color of the card fulfills that. Also, a DQ in this case would have been very heavy handed, especially since it did not matter at all, whether he had seen the card or not. The Looking at Extra Cards penalty would have been issued whether he had or not. In the end Falko gave him a Warning for Looking at Extra Cards and another one, because of his unclear communication with the judge.
The other DQ situation was in the top 8. We had given out all booster prices before the cut to top 8 was made (according to standing after swiss rounds) and had asked all top 8 players whether they wanted to drop before top 8. Of course, everybody wanted to play for the flights and invitations to Honolulu. This was a 2-slot qualifier, meaning that the finals would not be played out and the winners of the semifinals would get the flight and invitation.
Three quarterfinals were already over, while the fourth one was taking its time. A crowd was gathered around that match. Standing in that crowd were the two opponents of an upcoming semifinals match. Asks player A: “So, do you really want to go to Honolulu?” ― “Yes.” ― “You know, I still have this half of the amateur display I won.” This conversation took place inmidst the crowd with a judge standing right beside them. Of course I started a DQ investigation.
After talking with all people involved, I did not find conclusive evidence that the player had not meant it as a joke as he claimed. It was a very, very close call. I asked several people involved. The opponent claimed this had been a serious offer, while other people claimed they thought this was a joke. What swayed me in the end that there really was no chance that this could be abused in any way. Had this conversation gone any further, it would have been a clear DQ. Had the players left the premises, it would have been a clear DQ. Anything.
Nevertheless I made it abundantly clear to everybody that this was a very close call and that this was a really stupid joke. I will not tolerate such a “joke” a second time. In the end I gave the player a Game Loss for Procedural Error ― Severe, because his (mis-)behaviour caused a DQ investigation that had a severe impact on the timely ending of the tournament.
A bit embarrassing was the fact that we lost the deck list of one of the players in the top 8. So instead of handing both player the deck lists of the opponent, I asked them just to hand over their decks so they could look it over. We found the missing deck list the next day. It was at the last register (XYZ) in our deck list folder. The player’s name was Barth though. I have no idea why it ended up where it did.
My own “Mr. DQ” card
Sunday was a Two Headed Giant in-store event that I judged alone, although later Huy came by and helped me a bit. We had 18 teams, which also was quite a good turnout. It seems 2HG is fun and I certainly look forward to future events.
Of course the most embarrassing moment of that tournament was when the prizes were given out. Peter, our TO and store manager, had the great idea to “produce” a special series of cards that will be given out to the winners of current events. They feature employees of the store or judges that regularily work there. On Saturday the card of the former store owner, Theo Buskase, was given out. Today it was my card’s turn. Well, I guess, they meant well …
To give a bit of background: For some reason my events are always the most … let’s call it exciting. When other people, especially Huy, are head judging, things are going really smooth, people are nice, and everything is fine. When I head judge, the cheaters, the stallers, and the unsporting people seem to come out of their holes. Well, I only disqualified two people in my judging career (and took part in the disqualification of a third), but for some reason I am now “Mr. DQ”. A questionable honor, indeed …
At next week’s marathon event we will hand out Crille’s card though and eventually it will be Peter’s and Huy’s turn. But I had a hand in the creation of their cards, so they will get the honor back 😉
Several applications need to know about user activity. This includes screen savers, RSI prevention tools like Workrave, and IM programs (for automatic away message). Currently each program has to implement activity tracking itself. This means that there is no unified configuration, but also that programs like movie players have to resort to hacks to prevent screen savers from activating. It’s also not possible for users to trigger a generic “away” event that causes the screen to be locked, the IM program to set the away status etc. pp.
A unified system would have the following requirements:
There needs to be an idle time, after which screensavers could active. for example.
There needs to an away time, after which the user is considered to be AFK. This could trigger screen locking, and IM status changes.
Programs must have the ability to signal user activity, so that screen savers won’t activate while watching a movie.
Programs must have the ability to temporarily shut the activity listening off. This is needed by xlock-like programs, where the program itself is the only authority to reenable user activity.
The Proposal
A central daemon (yay, another daemon!) communicates with other program via d-bus. This daemon listens for user activity, i.e. mouse movement and key presses. Basically there are four user states:
busy
The user is currently using the computer.
lazy
The user hasn’t used the computer for a set amount of time.
away
The user is away from the keyboard.
locked
Like “away”, only that wakeup events are ignored until the
mode is manually changed.
In general the possible mode changes are busy → lazy, busy → away, busy → locked, lazy → busy, lazy → away, lazy → locked, away → busy, away → locked, and locked → busy.
The following messages are sent by the daemon:
idle
This specifies are reason for the status change as parameter,
for example “timeout:600”, meaning that there was no user activity
for 600 seconds. This message may be repeated with reason “repeat”.
away
This message is sent when the user is away. It also includes
the reason, for example “timeout:1200” or “userrequest”. It may
also be repeated.
busy
This message is sent when the user returns to work. It has
an optional reason parameter, and may be repeated.
The daemon understands the following messages:
activity-ping
This is sent by some applications, like movie viewers every
few seconds to signal that the user is busy, although there is
no user activity.
gone-away
This is sent by applications when the user explicitly toggles
the away status, for example by selecting “lock screen” from the
system menu.
locked
Similar to gone-away, only that auto-wakeup is disabled. The only
entity to reenable listing to events is the sender of the locked
message. Therefore a detail string must be passed. This is used by
xlock-like applications to prevent applications from changing the
“away” status, just because someone moved the mouse.
unlocked
The corresponding unlock signal to the locked message. Must use
the same detail string.
Use Cases
Screen Saver
When the screen saver receives the away signal, it
turns on the screen saving (if it’s not already running). If it
receives the busy signal, it turns of the screen saver. It ignores
the other signals.
Away Button
When a user uses a potential away button in the system menu,
the menu sends the “gone-away” message to the daemon.
Screen Lock
When a user uses the “Lock Screen” button in the system
menu, the menu sends the “locked” signal to the daemon. It starts
the screen saver and listens to user input. When the correct
password has been entered, it sends the “unlocked” signal and
ends the screen saver mode.
Screen Saver with Locking
When the screen saver receives the away signal, it starts
screen saving, and sends the “locked” signal to the daemon. When
there is user input and the correct password is entered, it sends
the “unlocked” signal.
Instant Messengers
When the IM program receives the “away” signal, it turns
on the auto-responser and possibly the away method. The
auto-responder message may be modified according to the reason
detail parameter. When the IM program receives the busy signal,
it turns auto-responding and away status off.
To Do
The current proposal does not address RSI prevention programs like Workrave.
Security implications of the locked mode.
The disparity in screen saver responsibilities between normal screen saver activation and xlock activation.
I’ve finally managed to implement comments for my blog. I’m still playing around with the code and especially the layout, but I think it’s an important step forward. The future will probably bring a few more features, like:
Mark Pilgrim posted a great article about the problems of many committee standardization processes. Microformats use a different approach: Design for the common case first, think about corner cases only later.
We had another Ravnica: City of Guilds prerelease at the FUNtainment Game Center (formely Magic Center). It was a whooping success with a total of 47 participants, much more than I had anticipated for this third prerelease.
This was the content of four Ravnica: Stadt der Gilden boosters
The store was full, since there was a large YuGiOh tournament going on at the same time (“Pharaoh Tour”) with about 150 participants. A Vs event had to be canceled due to a lack of participants. Scheduling such an event as competition to a large YuGiOh and Magic event seems like a poor choice on the part of UDE. But at least some of the Vs players decided to play in the Ravnica prerelease instead, so that we had a few late entrants.
Since the place we usually used for posting pairing was used by the YuGiOh tournament, I had to resort to creativity: A Yugi standup figure was used for the rest of the tournament as pairings holder, despite the protests of an unnamed UDE employee. (“As an official UDE representative, I have to tell you that Yugi is a really cool guy.”)
Due to time problems, caused by the high number of players, the late entrants, and the YuGiOh event going on in parallel, I decided to leave out the deck swap. One of the players, who opened a foil Birds of Paradise was overenjoyed, since he had feared that he’d have to give it away.
Prerelease judges, from left: Christopher Eucken (L1), Cristian Hoof (L2, Scorekeeper), Sebastian Rittau (L2, Head Judge)
One of the side drafts had an interesting problem: Four boosters contained a total of more than 40 rare cards. In most of the boosters the common slots contained rares. We replaced the boosters with boosters from the price pool, and let the players draft from the opened rares at the end of the draft.
Unfortunately I had to leave after three rounds, but I left Cristian Hoof (L2, scorekeeper) and Christopher Eucken (L1) behind, and I’m sure that the tournament was in good hands.
Finally, here is a photo that probably neither Wizards nor Upperdeck would endorse: some of the judges that frequently work at the FUNtainment Game Center in Berlin:
Upper row, from left: Christopher Eucken (L1), Sebastian Rittau (L2), a YuGiOh judge whose name eludes me, Cristian Hoof (L2), Peter Feller (Game Center manager), lower from, from left: Ali (another YuGiOh judge), Soul (a UDE judge)
Hi,
I’m not 100% sure, but I think that Ubuntu massively sends patches when a new version is released…
Any confirmation ?