Kaeru's Online Journal

You can get a lot of what you need to do in Plone, simply using the built-in content management tools and web configuration options. This is why I like Plone, it empowers users who know more about the content, to organize and manage their own sites.

A case for example, in which a user would like to have a calendar of all events for their office, on a specific theme, with Plone does not require a technical person to accomplish.

For development, with Archgenxml combined with the content management features above, again, you don't really need much development skills to get what you need done (video).

As we FOSS developers know however, is that you need to develop the features that make it simple for users and that involves writing code, going through code from others and debugging.

Kagesenshi showed me how to debug with Zope debug shell. Unfortunately the shell is kinda painful with no auto completion or history. iPython is much nicer to use.

Luckily it's rather easy now using buildout

[ipzope]

# a IPython Shell for interactive use with zope running.
# you also need to put
# https://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/dotipython/trunk/ipy_profile_zope.py
# to your $HOME/.ipython directory for the following to work.

recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs =
                ipython
                ${instance1:eggs}
initialization =
                import sys, os
                os.environ["SOFTWARE_HOME"] = "${zope2:location}/lib/python"
                os.environ["INSTANCE_HOME"] = "${instance1:location}"
                sys.argv[1:1] = "-p zope".split()
extra-paths = ${zope2:location}/lib/python
scripts = ipython=ipzope

Follow the instructions in the comment, run buildout, and you've got yourself an ipzope script that will start up Zope debug with ipython shell with app bound to your Zope root instance already.

Thanks to the Seattle Plone Gathering for sharing the example. Lots of other useful buildout examples on that link too.

I've done some minor updates to my Happy Place. Main addition is a keyboard.

I'm still saving for an S90XS which will take a while. In the meantime, I want to start playing again, and luckily my sister picked up an upright, and had a spare DGX-305 she was not using anymore. It's only got 32-note polyphony, but has MIDI, an instrument bank, split and basic sequencer, but you can still have fun with it, as this dude on Youtube shows.

One shortcoming of Pulseaudio is that you can't monitor input. ie. you can't hear your voice or in this case the line-in input from the keyboard. For this you will need Jack. You'll need Jack also if you want to use MIDI sequencers and DAWs such as Ardour.

Jack can work with Pulseaudio, but it's not perfect, with Pulseaudio source/outputs going into Jack. The biggest problem usability wise for me, is that the volume control no longer shows the ALSA device controls. I have to go use some apps or the CLI alsamixer to change output from speakers to headphones for example. For now it works good enough, that I can play and listen to the keyboard, while still hearing all general system and application sounds. When I'm done and close Jack, I get all the standard Pulseaudio functionality again. I'll have a better writeup, later when I start sequencing and recording.

So now my workspace, is the little creative studio I've always wanted, and Monday morning is that much easier to wake up to.

In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning in argumentation. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor (e.g. appeal to emotion), or take advantage of social relationships between people (e.g. argument from authority). Fallacious arguments are often structured using rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical argument, making fallacies more difficult to diagnose. Also, the components of the fallacy may be spread out over separate arguments. -- Fallacy Wikipedia

It's not in my nature to argue, I prefer to just walk away in a silent fit. That being said you can't avoid it and often times you have to argue to make your point or call out a fallacious statement.

The problem in our current society is that with our TLDR (too long; didn't read) culture, all too often short nothings and fallacious arguments are taken as inarguable fact. These are then posted on a million tweets and then experts, lobbyists and politicians will stretch and build on it into authoritative articles and opinions.

Who has time to read background material on the points being made? You can however detect quickly if the short arguments are already wrong at some point.

I've made some fallacious statements here, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Rhetorical arguments are nothing new. Cavemen probably argued whether to hunt mammoths or seals, around a campfire.

"Seal plentiful, but small! Mammoth hunt I say. Ooga! Ooga!"

Since the time of the Greek philosophers, many a wise man (or woman) has broken down fallacies so that they can argue better, or make better judgements on what is being said.

I'll go through some common ones here,

Sweeping Generalization:

"I downloaded this open source accounting app I found on the Internet. You get no support with open source!"

Problem, lack of support for one open source application, does not mean it applies to all.

False Cause:

"You can't earn money with open source if everybody is allowed to copy my software freely.

There is no necessary cause and effect between being able to copy freely this dude's software and not being able to earn money with open source.

Appeal to Law:

"Malay rights are enshrined in the constitution, therefore I'm not making a racist statement, but supporting a view that is supported by our constitution."

"The police said, they were not being overly aggressive when raiding the house of a family, on a tip-off that one of their Linux PCs had technology that circumvented digital protection mechanisms. These people broke the law, they were criminals."

Where laws/regulations are used to support a moral position.

False analogy:

"The value of drugs are in the millions and it's the death penalty. Laws need to be stronger for piracy, because billions are lost by artists" - actually spoken by MPAA rep Malaysia!

Arguably the financial values are similar, but the crimes are very different. Joe Downloader and Joe Drug Dealer isn't a good analogy to put it politely.

Appeal to Novelty:

"If you upgrade your PC, it will be faster."

A fallacy all geeks should be aware off. Not every new trend or technology is better. Pentium 4, Vista and Ubuntu 9.10 are recent examples. Ditto with needing to "stay in touch" with friends and family via Facebook. Taking time to visit family and spend time with friends does wonders for staying in touch on a level beyond "status updates".

I'm not sure which this one falls under,

"Governments should not set standards via regulation, but allow the market to decide software standards."

This is actually also a fallacy, or maybe mulitiple fallacies. The problem here is that the government will set the standard regardless of regulation. If the public needs to communicate with the government through standards set by that software. If it's a closed standard, it won't even be a free market, but a government endorsed monopoly market. This is also another type of red herring often used by Microsoft/BSA. Using terms such as market, when market could mean many things. For example,

"Let the market decide."

If it's a monopoly market, that's basically saying, let us decide, but they're getting people to assume they mean a "free and open market".

Ad Hominem:

"You can't accept this Doctor's findings that there were strangulation marks on the neck. He smoked marjuana when he was a student."

Politicians love this one. A version of Red Herring arguments, where you attack the person's character, not the argument.

You need to be even more critical of people you think are saying things for what you believe are good cause. Human nature as it is, you tend to give people on your "side" a pass.

"Dionysius claimed that findings of a group of fisheries scientists have predicted that globally, in another 40 years, we run the risk of not having any seafood to eat if we continue to consume indiscriminately." - WWF Malaysia

False attribution - "findings of a group of fisheries scientists" Who?

Also a few faulty generalizations. Not having any seafood to eat in 40 years sounds like a global extinction level event within my lifetime if I consume indiscriminately? What is consuming indiscriminately? Later in the article http://www.thesundaily.com/article.cfm?id=47697 we find out that it's specific species of seafood (probably live/fresh). Entire small scale rural fishing industries could be wiped out if statements like this are not said more carefully and taken at face value.

WWF would have done better here to provide, a good clear statement such as,

"Stocks of large local fish and shrimps such as Ikan Merah, which Malaysians love to eat are dwindling fast according to Malaysian Fisheries department. These local delicacies may no longer be available within several years. We are publishing a guide, which will inform how consumers can help prevent this by being discriminate about the types of seafood they order or purchase."

The press can still create sensational and fallacious titles, such as,

"Fish Head Curry won't be available soon if we don't act now!"

OK could be better, I shouldn't quit my day job to be a journalist.

For a full list, see List of Fallacies on Wikipedia. Some of you may know a lot of it, without knowing the exact definition of the fallacy, but it's worth checking them out so you can be more critical and spot problems in arguments quicker before you accept or disagree with them.