If it is cloudy, follow it in real time on your computer with http://www.stellarium.org/ ;)

You will need to get the source and compile the following packages yourself from freetype's download page and cairo's releases page:

• freetype-2.3.5
• pixman-0.10.0
• cairo-1.6.4

with the usual

./configure && make && sudo make install

You might have to install make with the following before you can compile cairo:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Freetype needs special attention to enable LCD sub-pixel rendering because of these patent issues. So uncomment define FT_CONFIG_OPTION_SUBPIXEL_RENDERING in devel/ftoption.h to enable it.

It is not really necessary to recompile freetype, I just included it to play around with it - and the new cairo is just so that firefox will compile. You can delete the new libraries (by default in /usr/local/lib) after firefox is compiled with system cairo. Then everything should be back to using the default font settings as set in the gutsy preferences. Or so I am guessing, works for me ;)

Now to compile Firefox:
Create a ~/.mozconfig file as described here.
This is mine:

. $topsrcdir/browser/config/mozconfig
mk_add_options MOZ_OBJDIR=@TOPSRCDIR@/ff-opt
ac_add_options --disable-tests
ac_add_options --enable-optimize
ac_add_options --enable-libxul
ac_add_options --enable-system-cairo 

Make sure you have all the build prerequisites. I had to install the following packages:

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libdbus-glib-1-dev
sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev
sudo apt-get install libxt-dev

If you have everything, start compiling with this command

make -f client.mk build

After some time, build a tarball as recommended with:

cd ff-opt
make package

You will find your new firefox package in the dist/ directory. Unpack somewhere and enjoy ;)

Before shot with Mozilla cairo:

After shot with system cairo:

More info here: Total Eclipse of the Moon, 21 February 2008

Brian Herlihy, SEACOM president, said that the idea behind the cable is to offer international bandwidth at a lower price but to increase usage to ensure profits.

In a move seldom experienced in the local telecoms arena, SEACOM revealed their wholesale pricing structure and strategy to the media.

The company will have a four tiered bandwidth pricing approach where bandwidth prices for larger products, in this case STM-64, STM-16 and STM-4 connections, are sold at reduced rates to the standard STM-1 connection.

Their price for an STM-1 connection however sets a roof for the resale of bandwidth by larger bulk-bandwidth buyers thereby ensuring that smaller players receive a competitive rate.

The price for an STM-64 connection, supplying 9.6 Gbps of bandwidth, is $ 1 663 875 or R 267-00 per Mbps per month. The price per Mbps per month for a STM-1 (155 Mbps) service is R 673-00 while a STM-4 (600 Mbps) connection costs R 575-00 and a STM-16 (2.5 Gbps) service will cost R 435-00.

or in other words:

As I understand it, this means the cost for an always on 128 KB/s connection will cost between R267 and R673 per month, but we still don't know the contention ratio, so I can't speculate too much.

Certainly good news though, but I'll wait to see the actual cost to the end consumer before I start jumping for joy. Only the bigger ISP's will be able to afford STM-64, although, considering the current cost of bandwidth, STM-1 will be far less than the current offerings anyway.

At least we have a specific date and pricing this time. Hopefully change is more imminent now than the imminent change promised by DoC in the past...

But it is difficult to read. Well, I suppose it's not a simple subject, and his meticulous exploration of every detail is necessary. And that is partly what I like about his books as well. It's not just some easy to read feel good book, that provides you with feel good catch phrases on a plate. You reason with the author, exploring and following his train of thought from beginning to end.

Unfortunately this is why many people will not read this book. Even though it provides much more than just a rehash of new age values (like the recent The Secret) it is not as accessible. You have to dig a little.

The quodlibet plugin is just a quick hack of the gajim plugin, the python class is easy to use anywhere...

I wonder how old I'll be in my memories the next time it snows in Joburg...

Jippeee! I didn't believe it when I first heard about it, but now I'm happy ;)
9 August at oppikoppi and 11 August in Cape Town. Would have liked to go to oppikoppi...

1. Sit down at a well lit table and sit up straight.
2. Take a hard cover book with big easy to read print. preferably not a novel -- some kind of no-brainer non fiction works best.
3. Take your finger or a pen and underline the words as you read them. Get used to pacing with your finger for a few minutes.
4. Now speed up. Simply move your finger FASTER THAN YOU CAN SOUND OUT THE WORDS. You probably will not be able to understand what you read. In fact, if you think you can comprehend what you are reading, speed up till you simply see a blur of words that you recognize. If you are having problems and keeps sounding out the words compulsively -- hum a tune. This disables your brain's capacity for verbalizing words.
5. Aim your eyes above the line of text you are reading, as if you were trying to read "between the lines". This makes it easy to focus your attention on GROUPS of words rather than your eye stopping on individual words, which slows you down. At first you are not aiming to understand; you are trying to train your brain to accept that it can see and know what phrases of words mean simply by looking at them.
6. Practice this exercise for no more than 15 minutes at a sittting, no more than one sitting per day, usually after your morning wake-up ritual when you are at your prime. If you practice for more than 15 minutes, you will exhaust the overworked neurons that are trying to adapt to a new skill, and will have to wait for 2 to 3 days and restart. If you try to push too hard or too fast, your brain hardware will resist you.
7. After 8 or so sessions, your brain will start to abandon trying to comprehend what you read as "sounds" and instead will visually grab words and process them in parallel, instead of one at a time. Typical reading speeds at this point in time are around 800 to 1500 words per minute.
8. The ultimate key to speed reading is realizing that your brain is learning to process words with the process of seeing them in groups, then processing their meaning. We are taught to read by seeing words, sounding them out, and then using our spoken speech hardware to comprehend what we read. The brain doesn't need this slow speech step.
9. After a number of sessions in which you are comfortable with this technique, get rid of the finger and use a small brown index card with three black semicircular dots along one edge on it. The black dots tell you where to position your eyes as you read across the page. Take this card, and drag it down the page, scanning each line 123 123 123 123 with your eyes fixating either on the dots or above the text lines. With your finger out of the way, you can pick up some serious speed. As with before, don't expect perfect comprehension right away.
10. Lose the card. Get in the habit of just scanning with your eyes. (If I'm tired, sometimes I still pull out the card. It's a great crutch.)

There are more techniques for speed than just these. I used to crank along at 30K WPM. This 10 step plan is good for about 3K WPM or sometimes a little more. The fantastic rates come from learning to scan in text essentially out of order, grabbing entire paragraphs as your eyes pop around them almost at random.

Practice Practice Practice.

As you read, try to ask questions to yourself about what is going on, or who the material is suitable for, or something to allow you to "correlate" it. If you are not reading with need or potential purpose in mind, your brain won't remember it. In fact, your brain will not even process it. It will just see words flying by. The purpose of studying for an exam just doesn't cut it. You have to try to imagine using the material in the real world, or sifting it for "junk" or planning something to do with it, and considering what effect what you are reading will have on your plan or your needs. In short, your brain will slowly get in the habit of "asking questions" at lightning speeds. It won't even bother to sound these questions out or formulate them -- just instantly come up with them and compare them relative to the material being read.

You will remember what you read relative to the questions you thought up as you read the material.

Some people try to speed read novels. Forget it. It really doesn't work so well. They become lifeless, because you have to read for "this did happen and this did etc." Speed-read novels often lose that sense of life. If you have an exam in a Lit class, then speed reading is for you. Just expect the novel to be a little less "alive" than it might otherwise be when you otherwise read slowly and can feel the emotions that were conveyed in the words.