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109 Clifton Place
109 Clifton Place
Posted On Fri, April 10, 2015 By Dana Schulz In
Posted On Fri, April 10, 2015 By Dana Schulz In
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So; assume that you have some new hardware that works for the most part, but you have some problems with your built-in sound card. The problem has been fixed upstream, but if you start using that particular upstream kernel only, you will lose Ubuntu kernel security updates. In some cases, bug fixes will come to Ubuntu kernels too – after some time – but in other cases these fixes won't, for a variety of reasons.
You want to run a standard Ubuntu kernel, except for your sound driver (or some other driver), which you want to be something different. This actually happens quite often when our team enables hardware that isn't yet on the market, and therefore lack full support in already released kernels.
To the rescue comes DKMS (short for Dynamic kernel module support), which installs the source of the actual driver on the machine, and, whenever the Ubuntu kernel is upgraded, automatically recompiles the driver to fit the new kernel. The compiled modules are installed into the right directory for them to be used at next boot. We've used this tool for several years, and found it to be incredibly useful.
Launchpad automation
Launchpad got a feature called recipes, which combines one or more bzr branches and automatically makes a source package whenever one of the source packages change. The source package is then uploaded to a ppa, which builds a binary package from the source package.
What is then the result of all this well-oiled machinery? That every day, you have the latest sound driver which is ready for you to install and use to see if it fixes your sound issues – and because it's packaged as a normal Debian package, uninstallation is easy in case it does not work. We have had this up and running for the Intel HDA driver for several years now, and it's been useful for both Canonical and the Ubuntu community.
That's the birds-eye overview. In practice, things are a bit more complicated. Get ready for the mandatory boxes-and-arrows picture:
Preparing for import
Our main source is the master branch of sound.git, maintained by Takashi Iwai. However, Launchpad does not yet support git in recipe builds, therefore, a machine somewhere in the cloud runs a preparation script. This script checks the git branch for updates every hour and if there is one, starts with filtering out the "sound" directory (this is a simple optimization, because kernel trees are huge). The result is added to a bzr branch.
Actually this cloud machine does one more thing, but it's more of a bonus: it runs some hda-emu based testing. Hda-emu is a tool for emulating an HD-audio codec, and takes alsa-info as input. So, we contributed a lot of alsa-infos from machines Canonical enable to the upstream hda-emu repository, along with some scripts to run some emulation tests on all of them. So, in case something breaks, we get an early warning, before the code reaches more people. The most common case for the test to break however is not an actual bug, but that the hda-emu tool needs updating to handle changes in the kernel driver. Therefore, the script is not stopped when this happens, it just puts a warning message in the bzr commit log.
The cloud machine runs a bzr server, which Launchpad then checks a few times per day for updates, and imports changes into a Launchpad hosted mirror branch.
Making a DKMS package
As our launchpad recipe detects that the bzr branch has changed, it re-runs the recipe. The recipe is quite simple – it only copies files from different branches into some directory, creates a source package out of the result, and uploads that package to a PPA. That's where we combine the upstream source with our DKMS configuration. There is some scripting involved to e g figure out the names of the built kernel modules – if you're making your own DKMS package, it will probably be easier to write that file by hand.
Unfortunately, compiling a new driver on an older kernel can be challenging, when the driver starts relying on features only present in the new kernel. Therefore, we regularly need to manually add patches to the new driver to make it compile on the older kernel.
Launchpad build
This part is just like any other build on a Launchpad PPA – it takes a source package and builds a binary package. This is where the backport patches actually get applied to the source. Please note that even though this is a binary package, what's inside the package is not compiled binaries, it's the source code for the driver. This is because the final compilation occurs on the end user machine.
(A funny quirk: when DKMS is invoked, it creates a .deb file by itself, but for some reason Launchpad wouldn't accept this .deb file. I never really figured out why, but instead worked around it by manually unpacking DKMS's .deb, then repacking it again using low-level dpkg-gencontrol and dpkg-deb tools.)
The binary package is then published in the PPA, downloaded/copied by the end user to his/her machine, and installed just like any other Debian package.
On the end user machine
The final step; where the driver source is combined with a standard Ubuntu kernel, is done on the end user's machine. DKMS itself installs triggers on the end user machine that will be called every time a new kernel is installed, upgraded or removed.
On installation of a new kernel, DKMS will verify that the relevant kernel header package is also installed, then use these headers to recompile all installed DKMS binary packages against the new kernel. The resulting files are copied into /lib/modules/<kernel>/updates/dkms. On installation of a new DKMS binary package, the default is to recompile the new package against the latest kernel and the currently running kernel.
DKMS also runs depmod to ensure the kernel will pick up the newly compiled modules.
Final remarks
There are some caveats which might be worth mentioning.
First, if you combine the regular Ubuntu kernel (with security updates) with a DKMS driver, you will get security updates for the entire kernel except that specific driver, so in theory, you could be left with a security issue if the vulnerability is in the specific driver you use DKMS for. However, in practice the vast majority of security bugs are userspace facing code, rather than deep down in hardware specific drivers.
Second, on every Ubuntu kernel released there is a potential risk for breakage, e g, if the DKMS driver calls a function in the kernel and that function changes its signature, then the DKMS driver will fail to compile and install on the new kernel. Or even worse, the function changes behavior without changing signature, so that the DKMS driver will compile just fine, but break in some way when the driver runs. All I can say about that is that, to my knowledge, if this can happen then it happens very rarely – I've never seen it cause any problems in practice.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
A careful physical exam is needed to make sure the nervous system is
working normally and to discover clues about the cause of a person's headaches.
Results of the exam can help determine whether further testing is needed.
During the physical exam, the doctor will:
When the doctor checks your nervous system, he or she will:
During the physical exam, the doctor may decide to examine other
parts of your body to look for possible causes of the headaches. The doctor may
also ask about other health problems if he or she thinks your headaches are
related to another medical condition.
If you are having a headache during the exam, the doctor may notice
things that often occur with a specific type of headache:
Any abnormal results in the physical exam may suggest a possible
medical cause of headaches. Abnormal results may include:
ByHealthwise StaffPrimary Medical ReviewerAnne C. Poinier, MD - Internal MedicineSpecialist Medical ReviewerColin Chalk, MD, CM, FRCPC - Neurology
Current as ofOctober 14, 2016
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Anne C. Poinier, MD - Internal Medicine & Colin Chalk, MD, CM, FRCPC - Neurology
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Last modified on: 8 September 2017


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Holland and its People/Chapter XVI
Groningen is, perhaps, of all the provinces of the Low Countries the one which the hand of man has most wonderfully transformed.
In the sixteenth century a great part of this province was still uninhabited. It was a country of sinister aspect, covered with brambles, stagnant pools, tempestuous lakes, and constantly inundated by the sea. In it there were packs of wolves and innumerable swarms of aquatic birds, and no voice was heard save that of frogs and deer. Three centuries of patient and courageous labor, often given up in despair and again renewed with obstinate determination, and carried on through every kind of difficulty and peril, have transformed that savage and dangerous region into a most fertile country, intersected by canals, dotted with towns and factories, where agriculture flourishes, commerce and labor go hand in hand, and a population of wealthy and well-instructed people swarms. Groningen, which in the last century was still a poor province, which paid to the State one-half less than Friesland and twelve times less than Holland properly so called, is now, taking into consideration its size, one of the richest provinces in the kingdom, and produces itself alone four-tenths of the oats, barley, and colza which are gathered in the Low Countries.
The most flourishing part of Groningen is in the north, and to such a degree does it flourish that it needs to be seen to be appreciated. Even I, who have been over it, cannot describe it better than by adding to my own observations, and those which I gathered from the natives, the descriptions which are given by the French agriculturist, Count de Courcy, who, however, made but a hasty survey of the country, and the Belgian Delaveleye, the author of a fine work upon the rural economy of the Netherlands, which I have already had occasion to cite.
The houses of the peasants are extraordinarily large, and have in general two storeys and many windows ornamented with handsome curtains. Between the street and the house there is a garden planted with exotic trees and covered with flowering shrubs; and beside the garden an orchard full of fruit-trees and various sorts of vegetables. Behind the house rises an enormous edifice which covers, under its lofty roof the stables, the cow-house, the hay-loft, and a great empty space which might contain the harvest of a hundred hectares.* In this great barn are to be found every kind of agricultural implement from England and America, many of them improved and perfected by the peasants: long files of cows, great black horses, and a marvellous cleanliness everywhere. The interior of the houses might rival any gentleman's house. There is furniture of American woods, pictures, carpets, a pianoforte, a library, political journals, the monthly reviews, the most recent works on agriculture, and not unfrequently the last number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes." Although fond of ease and luxury, these peasants have preserved the simple manners of their forefathers. The greater part of them, possessors of half a million of francs, a little less, or a great deal more, do not disdain to put their hands to the plough and direct in person the labors of the field. Some of them send one of their sons to the university, no small sacrifice, when it is considered that each student costs his parents about four thousand francs a year; but the majority disdain, as inferior to their own condition, the professions of doctor, lawyer, or teacher, and prefer to keep their sons at home. There is no class of the population which ranks above the peasants. Among them are chosen almost all the members of the different elective bodies, even to the deputies to the States-General. The labors of agriculture do not prevent them from taking an active part in political life and in the administration of public affairs. Not only do they follow the progress of the art of agriculture, but also the movements of modern thought. At Haven, near the city of Groningen, they maintain at their own cost an excellent school of agriculture, presided over by an illustrious professor and having fifty students. Even the smaller villages have museums of natural history and botanic gardens, founded and kept up at the common cost of a few hundreds of peasants. Even the women on market days go to visit the museums of the University of Groningen, and stay a long time, asking and obtaining information. Some of the men occasionally make a journey into Belgium or to England. The greater part of them are much interested in theological questions, and many belong to the sect of Mennonites, the Quakers of Holland.
Delaveleye relates that having seen on the road which connects the two flourishing villages of Usquert and Uythuysen four large factories, he asked the innkeeper to whom they belonged, and was answered that they belonged to some Mennonites, adding, "They are well-to-do people; each of them must be worth six hundred francs apiece." "I have heard," went on Delaveleye, "that there are no poor among that sect. Is that true as regards this district?" "No," answered the host; "that is, to be just, yes; because the only poor man there was died a few days ago, and now there is none." The severity of manners, the love of labor, and reciprocal charity banish poverty from those small religious communities where all know, watch over, and help each other. Groningen, in fact, is like a species of republic governed by a class of educated peasants; a new and virgin country, where no patrician castle rears its head above the roofs of the tillers of the soil; a province where the produce of the land remains in the hands of the cultivators, where wealth and labor always go hand in hand, and idleness and opulence are for ever divided.
The description would not be complete if I failed to speak of a certain right peculiar to the Groningen peasantry and called beklem-regt, which is considered as the principal cause of the extraordinary prosperity of the province.
The beklem-regt is the right to occupy a farm with the payment of an annual rent, which the proprietor can never augment. This right passes to the heirs collateral as well as direct, and the holder may transmit it by will, may sell it, rent it, raise a mortgage upon it even, without the consent of the proprietor of the land. Every time, however, that this right passes from one hand to another, whether by inheritance or sale, the proprietor receives one or two years' rent. The farm-buildings belong, in general, to the possessor of the beklem-regt, who, when his right is in any way annulled, may exact the price of the materials. The possessor of the beklem-reqt pays all taxes, cannot change the form of the property, nor in any way diminish its value. The beklem-regt is indivisible. One person only can possess it, and consequently one only of the heirs can inherit it. However, by paying the sum stipulated in case of the passage of the beklem-regt from one hand to another, the husband may inscribe his wife, or the wife her husband, and then the consort inherits a part of the right. When the possessor is ruined, or does not pay his annual rent, the beklem-regt is not at once annulled. The creditors can cause it to be sold, but the purchaser must first of all pay all outstanding debts to the proprietor.
The origin of this custom is obscure. It appears to have begun in Groningen, in the middle ages, on the convent farms. The land at that time being of small value, the monks easily granted to the cultivators the possession of a certain portion of their lands, with the condition that a certain annual sum should be paid, and another sum at every decease. This contract assured to the convent a fixed rent, and exempted the monks from the charge of farms which in general produced nothing. The example of the convents was followed by the large landowners, and by the civil corporations. They reserved to themselves the right to dismiss the tenant at the end of every ten years but they did not use their right, because if they did so, they would have had to pay the value of the buildings put up on their land, and they would not easily have found another tenant. During the troubles of the sixteenth century, the beklem-regt became, in fact, hereditary, or, at least, many authorities declared it to be such. Jurisprudence and custom decided the various points that were subjects for disagreement; a clearer formula was declared and generally accepted, and from that time the beklem-regt maintained its position by the side of the civil code, always respected, and gradually diffused over the whole of the province of Groningen.
The advantages derived by agriculture from this kind of contract are easily understood. By virtue of the beklem-regt the farmers have a continuous and very strong interest in making every possible effort to increase the produce of their land. Secure, as they are, of the sole enjoyment of all the ameliorations which they may introduce into the cultivation, of not having, like ordinary tenants, to pay a rent which grows higher and higher in proportion as they succeed in increasing the fertility of the land. They undertake the boldest enterprises, introduce innovations, and carry out the costliest experiments. The legitimate recompense of labor is the entire and certain profit that accrues from that labor. Therefore the beklem-regt is a powerful stimulus to work, study, and perfection.
Thus a strange custom, inherited from the middle ages, has created a class of farmers, who enjoy all the benefits of property, excepting that the net product is not all reserved for them, which would, indeed, divert them from their task. Instead of tenants continually in trepidation lest they should lose the land, adverse to any costly innovation, subject to a superior, and always interested in concealing the prosperity of their condition, there is in Groningen a population of free and self-respected citizens, simple in their habits, but eager for instruction, of which they comprehend all the advantages, and are interested in propagating it in every way: a class of peasants who practise agriculture, not blindly and as if it were to be contemned, but as a noble occupation which demands the exercise of the highest faculties of the intelligence, and procures for those who follow it fortune, social importance, and public respect; peasants who are economical in the present, prodigal for the future, disposed for any kind of sacrifice that will fertilize their land, enlarge their houses, buy them better tools and a better race of ,animals; a rural population, in short, who are content with their condition, because their fate depends only upon their own prudence and activity.
As long as the possessor of the beklem-regt cultivates the land himself, the hereditary tenancy produces only good effects. These good effects cease, however, from the moment when he, availing himself of his power to underlet, cedes, to another his rights for a given sum, with which he continues to pay the proprietor or landlord. In this case all the inconveniences of the system at once make themselves felt, with the difference that here the farmer has to maintain two idlers instead of one. Subletting was formerly very rare, for the produce of cultivation was barely sufficient to maintain the family of the tenant when he farmed the land himself. But since the increase in prices of all kinds of food, and, above all, since the opening of trade with England, the profits are very considerable, because the possessor of the beklem-regt can find a second tenant disposed to pay him a higher rent than that which he pays to his landlord: and as the custom of subletting extends more and more, the consequences cannot fail to be injurious.
Meantime, when the future conditions of the human race are considered, it is generally desired that two things should be brought about: first, a growing increase in production: secondly, a division of property according to the principles of justice. Now one fact that justice demands is this: that the laborer should enjoy the fruits of his labor, and their progress. It is then consolatory to see upon the distant shores of the North Sea an antique custom which answers in some sort to this economic ideal, and which gives to a whole province an extraordinary and equally apportioned prosperity.
One capital objection, among others, has been made to these opinions of Delaveleye. It is questioned whether the extraordinary prosperity of Groningen is really due to the beklem-reqt, or to the exceptional fertility of the soil. Delaveleye rejects this doubt, saying that the extraordinary prosperity and the perfection of cultivation exist in the stormy zone of Groningen, which is anything rather than fertile: but are not found in any other part, except in a very inferior degree in Friesland, where the soil is of the same quality. If, then, hereditary tenancy has not produced in other countries the same consequences as in Groningen, it is because it has been differently practised, as in some provinces of Italy, where the condotto di fivello, which is very nearly a beklem-regt, hampers the liberty of the farmer with the obligation to pay every year to the landlord a certain quantity of produce of a kind settled upon beforehand.
All Dutch economists conclude and are agreed in recognising the excellent effects of this custom, affirming that to the beklem-regt Groningen owes all her wealth, and in the agricultural meetings which discuss the question the desire is expressed that the same kind of contract shall be adopted in the other provinces.
Pursuing my excursion across the country, I reached the shore of the North Sea, near the mouth of the Gulf of Dollart. This gulf was not in existence prior to the thirteenth century. The river Ems emptied itself directly into the sea, and Groningen was joined to Hanover. The sea destroyed the wild region that extended between the two provinces, and formed the gulf which, since the sixteenth century, has been growing smaller by reason of the deposits of mud and slime which accumulate along its banks. Already numerous dykes, built one before the other, testify to the conquest of the land over the sea, and new ones are continually being constructed, gradually increasing the agricultural dominion of Groningen, and beautiful fields of barley and colza flourish where, a few years ago, the waves roared in their fury and destroyed the boats of the fishermen. It is a fine thing to see, from the tops of the dykes which defend those coasts, how the sea and the land meet, mingle, and are transformed. At the foot of the dykes extends a muddy marsh already in great part covered with grass and small green weeds: a little beyond this a small bit of peat rescued and turned into soil; still beyond, marshes and wet mud which gradually becomes thick and turbid water; and beyond again, sand-banks, some of which rise so as to form dunes and little islets. On one of these islets, called Rottum, there lived some years ago a family who lived by catching seals; and strange stories are told about the other islands, in which figure mysterious hermits, apparitions, and monsters. The pools of turbid water which lie at the foot of the dykes are called wadden, or polders in a state of formation, and are land covered with water at high tide and rising gradually higher and higher as the currents of the river Ems and the Zuyder Zee go on depositing new strata of clay. At low water the cattle ford them; at some points boats can pass; and immense flocks of sea-birds frequent them in search of the shellfish left by the receding tide. In less than a hundred years birds, boats, pools and arms of the sea will have vanished; the islets will be dunes that defend the coasts, and agriculture will have called forth from the virgin soil a luxuriant and beneficent vegetation. Thus on that side Holland advances victoriously upon the sea, avenging old injuries with the iron of the plough and the blade of the scythe.
With all this, however, I should have formed no conception of the richness of the country, if I had not had the chance of seeing the market of Groningen.
But before speaking of the market, I must mention the city itself.
Groningen - so called, according to some, from Trojan Grunio, and founded, according to others, one hundred and fifty years before the Christian era, around a Roman fortress which Tacitus calls Corbulonis monumentum (all which assertions have been affirmed and denied for centuries and remain undecided to this day) - is the most considerable of the cities of North Holland for size and commerce, but perhaps the least curious to a stranger. It is situated on a river called Hunse, at the junction of three great canals which connect it with several other commercial towns; is surrounded by high bastions constructed in 1698 by Coehorn, the Dutch Vauban; and has a port, which although distant several miles from the mouth of the Ems, can receive the largest merchant ships.
The streets and squares are large, the canals as wide as those of Amsterdam, the houses taller than in almost any other Dutch city, the shops worthy of Paris, the cleanliness worthy of Broek: with nothing peculiar in form, color, or general aspect. Arriving there from Leuwarde you feel as if you were a hundred miles nearer home, and in the atmosphere of Germany or France. The sole peculiarity of Groningen are certain houses covered with a greyish tint all encrusted with small bits of glass, which, when the sun shines upon them, burn with a strange radiance, looking as if the walls were set with pearls and silver beads. There is a fine town hall, built during the French domination, a market-place which is said to be the largest in Holland, and a vast church, anciently dedicated to Saint Martin, which presents various noteworthy features of the different phases of the Gothic, and has a very tall steeple composed of five diminishing stories, so that it seems to be made up of five steeples, each one smaller than the lower one, and placed one atop of the other.
Groningen has a university, for which reason it is honored by its neighbor cities with the name of the Athens of the North. This university, established in a new and vast building, has but a small number of students, since the peasants, the only rich men in the province, seldom send their sons to it, and the wealthy gentlemen of Friesland are educated at Leyden. It is, however, a university well worthy of standing with the other two. There is a fine anatomical cabinet, and a museum of natural history, containing many precious objects. The programme of studies differs little from that of the other two universities; there is a difference, however, in the direction, which, in consequence of the neighborhood of Hanover, is subject to the influences of German literature and science, and presents a religious character entirely its own. The theologians of Groningen, says Alphonso Esquiroz, in his "Studio sulle Università Ollandese," form, in the intellectual movement of the Low Countries, a school apart, which originated, towards 1833, in the very bosom of the most orthodox of cities Utrecht. A professor of Utrecht, M. van Heusde, sought to open a new horizon to religious belief; M. Hofstede de Goot, of the University of Groningen, participated in his ideas, and joined him; and in that way was formed the nucleus of a theological society, resident in the latter city, who, rebellious against synodal protestantism, and formally denying all human authority in matters of religion, are seeking to initiate a type of Christianity peculiar to the Netherlands, of which it would be difficult to give a clear idea, for the reason that those who profess it, and propagate it in their writings, are themselves very obscure in their exposition. In all this heterodoxy, observes Esquiroz, - which can, without serious danger, be introduced into the country, because, in the midst of the agitation of religious ideas, the customs, forms, and traditions of the ancient faith remain immutable - there is a grave and delicate point upon which the orthodox are always trying to trip up their adversary, and never succeeding - the divinity of Jesus Christ. Upon this point the thought of the heterodox is involved in a cloud. For them, Jesus Christ is the most perfect type of humanity, the messenger of God, the image of God. But is he God in person? They put this question aside with every sort of scholastic subtlety. Some, for example, proclaim their belief in his divinity, but not in his deity - an answer so obscure as to be almost equivalent to a negation. For which reasons the doctrine of Dutch heterodoxy may be called a sentimental deism, more or less bound to the poetical side of Christianity. The ardor of religious questions, however, is decreasing every year. The students of the University of Groningen are more interested in literature and science, towards which ends they form societies for readings and study in common, above all of practical science, which predilection is one of the most marked characteristics of the Frieslanders, with whom those of Groningen have many features of resemblance and numerous ties of relationship. The students of Groningen are more quiet and more studious than those of Leyden, who, as far as it is possible to be wild in Holland, have the reputation of being wild.
Besides the glory of the university, which dates from 1614, Groningen, has that of having given birth to several men illustrious in the arts and sciences, about whom it is pleasant to hear Messer Ludovico Guicciardini dilate in his vivid and forcible style. He appears to have had a peculiar affection for the place. First of all he places Ridolpho Agricola, "to whom, among other authors, Erasmus in his writings gives immense praise, saying that on that side of the mountains among men of literary gifts there is none greater nor more complete than he, and that there is no honest discipline, wherein be, with any artisan you will, may not contend: among Greeks and Latins the best of all; in poetry another Virgil, in oratory another Politian; most eloquent, a philosopher, a musician, and writer of many excellent works, with many other rare graces and felicities to him attributed." He goes on to speak of "Vesellius, called Basil, excellent philosopher, of so much doctrine, virtue, and science in every faculty, as appears in an infinite number of his works, written and given to the press, and who is likewise called the light of the world." And he continues that for fear of not being able to worthily praise this Vesellius and this Agricola, who are "the two stars of Groeninghen," he prefers to be silent, "and leave the page white for anyone who shall know better than he how to exalt their names and their country." Finally he cites the name of "another great man, a citizen he also of the same land, called Rinierius Predinius, most worthy author of divers books written with consummate honor and laudation." Besides these may be named the famous orientalist Albert Schultens, the Baron Ruperda, Abraham Frommins, and others.
In the costume and aspect of the people there is, for a stranger, little difference from those of Friesland. Only the helmets of the women are different. At LeuWarde the greater part of them are of silver; at Groningen they are all of gold, and in the exact form of a helmet, covering the whole head; but there are fewer to he seen. Ladies, it is understood, do not wear them any more; the richer peasant women have also left them off, in order to be more like ladies; and now it is only the servant-maids who can boast themselves legitimate descendants of those armed virgins, who, according to the ancient Germanic mythology, presided over battles.
With regard to manners and customs, I had some precious notes from a personage of Groningen, which I think are not to be found in any book of travels. There the customs which relate to the lives of girls and married women are entirely different from ours. Among us (in Italy), a girl who marries comes out of a state of subjection, almost of imprisonment, to enter one of perfect liberty, where she finds herself suddenly surrounded by the consideration, homage, and admiration of those who had formerly neglected her. In Groningen, on the contrary, liberty and gallantry are privileges of the girls, and the married women live surrounded and hemmed in by a hundred precautions and watchful eyes, and are treated with cold respect, almost neglect. The young men devote themselves to girls only, and a great deal of liberty is conceded to them. A young fellow who visits in a family, even if he is not an intimate friend, offers to accompany the daughters, or one daughter, to concert or theatre, at night, in a carriage, alone, and father and mother make no opposition: and if anyone did, he would pass for a fool or an ill-bred person, and would be blamed and laughed at. A young couple may be engaged for years; and during the whole time they are seen together every day, taking long walks, remaining alone together in the house, and in the evening, before separating standing by the half-hour in the door with no one near them. Girls of fifteen years of age, daughters of the first families, traverse the city from one end of it to the other, going to and coming from school, even towards evening, alone, and, should they stop and speak with anyone, nobody pays any attention. On the contrary, if a married woman assumes the smallest liberty of action, there is no end to the comment she excites; but that happens so seldom that it may almost be said never to happen at all. "Our young men," said my informant, "are not at all dangerous. They can be gallant with girls, because the girls are timid, and their timidity encourages them; but with ladies they are too shy. Within my memory there have been but two notorious cases of conjugal infidelity in this city." And he told me about them. "So it is, my dear Sir," he added, putting his hand upon my knee, "that here we make no conquests, except in agriculture, and he who wishes to make them, in another field, must first go before a notary and make his attestation that his intentions are to fight the good fight according to law, and with an honest purpose for peace in the end." Arguing, wrongly, from my silence, that this state of things was not to my taste, he added: "Such is our way of life; tedious if you will, but wholesome. You drink the cup of life all at once, we take it slowly and in small mouthfuls. You, perhaps, enjoy more, but we are more constantly content." "God bless you!" said I. "God convert you!" he replied.
But let us come to the market, which was the last spectacle of life that I saw in Holland.
Early in the morning I took a turn about the city to see the peasants come in. Every hour arrived a train which brought a crowd of them; by every country road there came brightly-painted wagons, drawn by five black horses, and bringing majestic married couples; by every canal arrived boats with sails, full of produce; in a few hours the city was full of noise and people. The peasants, male, are all dressed in cloth almost black, with a woollen cravat, gloves, and watch-chain, and carry a large leathern portfolio, a cigar in the mouth, and a countenance of serene contentment. The peasant women are beflowered, bejewelled, beribboned, like the Madonna of the Spanish churches. The business of the market over, they invade the shops and restaurants, not as our peasants do, who look timidly about them with an air of asking leave to enter, but with the look and bearing of persons who know themselves to be welcome. In the restaurants the tables are speedily covered with bottles of claret and Rhine wine; in the shops the clerks hasten to take down their merchandize. The women are received like princesses, and they spend, indeed, in a princely manner. Incidents occur which I have heard described by eyewitnesses. A merchant dealing with one of the ladies of the city, names the price of a silk dress. "Too dear," answers the lady. "I take it," says a peasant woman standing by, and she does so. Another peasant is buying a pianoforte. The dealer shows her one which cost one thousand francs. "Have you none dearer?" says she, "all my friends have pianofortes at a thousand francs." Husband and wife are passing a printseller's window, and see an oil-painting in a gilt frame displayed therein. They stop, and discover in it some vague resemblance to their own house and garden. The wife says "Let us buy it." The husband answers "'Let us buy it." They enter the shop, count out there and then three hundred florins, and carry off the picture.
When they have completed their purchases, they visit the museums, enter the cafés and read the journals, or take a turn about the city, casting compassionate glances at all that population of shopkeepers, clerks, professors, officials, proprietors, who in other countries are envied by those who till the ground, but here are regarded by them in the light of poor people. A stranger to the real condition of things might believe, at sight of this spectacle, that he had arrived in a country where some great social revolution had taken place, and that the newly enriched had come into the city to triumph over the despoiled citizens. But the finest sight is in the evening when they go back to their villages and their factories. Then all the country roads are covered with those curious wagons all driven at top speed, trying to outstrip one another, even the women urging on the horses, and the victorious ones cracking their whips in sign of triumph. The air resounds with song and laughter, until at last the festive tumult is lost in the endless green of the fields together with the last red rays of sunset.


text:
Data out early Wednesday showed that core capital-goods orders dropped in February for the fourth time in six months, a worrying sign that U.S. businesses aren't aggressively investing.
Some longer-term data makes the case more plainly. Using flow of funds data from the Federal Reserve, David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff pointed out that this is the first cycle where not for one single quarter has the U.S. business sector allowed its ratio of capex-to-cash flow to rise above 100%.
(The chart produced here is slightly different than what Rosenberg uses but makes the same point.)
"In other words," Rosenberg writes, "not once have nonfinancial companies put more into the real economy than they have collected in internally-generated net revenues."
He says this lack of investment is showing up in the weak productivity data, which at some point will trigger a squeeze in profit margins. It's for this reason that BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is asking companies to focus less on dividend payouts and stock buybacks and more on thinking long-term and investing in their business, Rosenberg says. See story about Fink here.
-- Steve Goldstein
Follow Steve on Twitter @mktwgoldstein.
Follow Capitol Report @capitolreport.
More news from MarketWatch:
Business investment soft again in February
White House paints rosy productivity picture but it's all in the timeframe


text:
Hello everyone, it has been more than an year and a half since I blogged. Ever since I started working on Google Summer of Code 2009 for Melange project I haven't really had any time to make blog posts. I would like to do but the time has been very restrictive to me since then, with most of my time devoted to FOSSEE, Melange among other things.
1. Got my COMMIT ACCESS to my most beloved project(Melange).
I have rare feeling that I am always second time lucky. And this time it seems like even Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope wants to prove that :)
Title: Implementation of Task-based GHOP-like work flow.
I somehow made up my mind finally to contact Melange folks about GSoC 2009. I made the first move on March 28th, 2009. By this time, I had read the project ideas on Melange's wiki. I had also decided to implement GHOP related task-based work flow feature for Melange. I had done some background work too, before I approached Melange folks for the first time.
Title: Shallow clones
In this post, I will talk about my experience with Mercurial and the proposal I submitted. When I was browsing through the list of organizations from GSoC 2008 website I just noticed Mercurial was a mentoring organization too. I knew about Mercurial well. Mercurial is a Distributed Revision Control System, written in Python. As I was a fan of Distributed Revision Control system and of course a follower of Python, I was anyways about to switch to Mercurial. Also being fed up with writing C/C++ code for some time I had also made up my mind to select a Python project for this Summer of Code. So I thought Mercurial was a good choice.
Title: Restructuring of existing Serialization format and improvisation of APIs
Continuing from the previous post about how Google Summer of Code started for me...
Shallow Clone: A Shallow Clone is a clone that contains only nodes which are descendants of a single node, called its root or root node.
It has been a long time since I wrote. I have become very irregular these days. Hope I get some time to make blog posts again. Thanks to Google Summer of Code 2009, I wish to make a post for each and every milestone I reach this summer, at least because I can read them back as logs whenever I want to recollect my GSoC experience.
I was very curious about KDE 4.2 since this was the first release cycle in which I had started working with KDE team. And today I installed KDE 4.2 after its release from the Kubuntu-experimental repos. I am seriously over excited this morning to see the way KDE 4.2 is working.
This will be one more unsigned long long story in my list of long stories here. Please bare with me. I hope you enjoy reading it, or at least know why I have titled this post so.
This is totally my personal opinion and you are free to comment the way you want.
This is my first post related to Python. For those who did not know what Python is, stop guessing here, its neither the Snake nor the BBC Comedy Series. Its the Coolest Programming Language I have come across till now, whose name is inspired by Monty Python skit which I just mentioned above. I will try to post about any interesting things I stumble upon as I learn more and more about this really awesome language which makes the lives of developers unbelievably easy. Most of my posts, at least the ones in the near future will be targeted to those who have absolutely no idea about Python or those who know about it but thinking whether its worth learning it or avoiding it for some reason (any such reason according to me becomes meaningless once you learn Python, at least it happened so to me. I still feel how foolish I was all these days avoiding to learn Python just because I did not want to copy my other friends who were learning it, height of stupidity I would say. I still feel I would have been much more foolish if I had not started learning it now at least). If you are thinking why I am not targeting those who already know it, its simple because what I write here in the near future will be mostly known to those who know the basics of Python. But if you know Python well and if you are still interested to read my posts, you are welcome, Thanks a lot for your interests. But Warning to such people: These posts are mostly to convince those who don't know Python to learn it and make their life better. Period to the intro ;-)
The major goal of my Summer of Code project, as I have said many times earlier is to make the procps tools run out of the box on Hurd. From a few days back I was looking at procps code to patch it run properly on Hurd. Though the number of places where the patches had to be done was not many, but I did not know much about Debian packaging, I was just wondering how to do. It was then my mentor antrik and Samuel Thibault (more about him later) asked me to ask Michael Banck(azeem) who is a Debian guy. I asked him and he was very kind enough to patiently explain me what to do for tools in procps that conflict with Hurd tools, what to do for tools that don't work on Hurd and such things. He answered almost all my silly questions patiently. He was also kind enough to add my account to Debian Hurd list on alioth.debian.net so that I myself could submit patches directly. I did all the work as suggested by him. Later there were some build issues due to most common build failures reason on Hurd, the PATH_MAX problem.
These are the Debian-Hurd binaries for the packages procps and htop. If you want to try them on the procfs I have been writing as a part of Google Summer of Code 2008, the source code of procfs is available in the git repository. The git clone url is git://github.com/madhusudancs/procfs.git
It has been a long time since I blogged. Unfortunately Semester End Exams played a spoiler initially due to which I lost the touch of blogging. Immediately after the exams since my Summer of Code project's progress was quite slow and not upto the mark schedules became quite hectic. With one more week to go things have been more hectic, but still I thought I should share this one with everyone. This also serves as a log of what happened to me today for myself.
This is a rough roadmap to complete the project
For those of you eagerly waiting to track my progress in Google Summer of Code, 2008 and have asked me to blog here by writing about my experiences during Google Summer of Code, my progress etc. I am sorry I am not able to do it at multiple places at the moment. DAMN VTU, I am not able to manage time. I will try to blog as soon as I find time. I have been making note of what all should be written, and will do it in separate blog articles, as it would have been, if I had blogged regularly.
Being a Great fan of Google, because of its support to Free and Open Source Software I have always keenly and closely watched its progress and growth. To be very frank, I am always jealous of its growth and money it has. I always want a share in it, no matter how. It maybe part of its shares, reward, gift or whatever from Google(if so I expect really a large amount as the reward involved) or if this is not possible, I am ready to share its money in the negative too. You did not get what I am trying to say? It means I somehow want their money, may be I am even ready to sue them for some reason to have a share in their money.
FLASHBACK: REWIND to June 2007.
It was Saturday night about 2:30 AM here, rather Friday night, 21HRS UTC. Hurd GSoC meeting was going on as usual(It starts from 19 HRS UTC every friday night). Sandeep.C.S, or what I call him as Sandy affectionately, one of my very very (very)* close friends(I cannot the number of verys, so I have used a regular expression with *) pinged me to check my inbox and see his mail. I was busy answering the queries that were being shot on me by my mentor about the progress during the week and plans for next week. I somehow made sometime and opened the mail he had sent. There was a great surprise waiting for me.
This contains unofficial .deb binaries of parted package I just ported to hurd-i386. The GNU Hurd debian packages available here are just binary packages and I will be updating the source debian packages if they are required.
Ubuntu HAS KEPT ITS PROMISE. IT HAS REALLY BROUGHT TO US THE LATEST AND THE GREATEST SOFTWARE FROM FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE WORLD WITH HARDY HERON.
Suppose you have an Internet connection where you have a particular time in the day when downloads are not counted or it is unlimited. This is especially true in case of BSNL 500 plan users. The following article explains the procedure of scheduling your ubuntu system to reset the connection so that your ISP calculates the usage within the successive resets as downloaded completely within the unlimited hours.
Every year Google finds an innovative way, or plans an innovative trap to fool all its users. Its all done in the positive spirit to keep their customers happy and I think no one feels bad about it.
In 2006 I don't remember the exact details of how they fooled us. In one of the blurred scenes of my memory this exists. They had said that they had bought an internet communication channel with maximum capacity to date. So they are giving high speed internet to all their trusted users free of cost. I think they had even mentioned the speeds. They had said that their goal was to ensure that such high speeds internet is available in toilets too and they will make sure that such a thing happens. Ha Ha Ha. On April 2nd everyone came to know that this was an April Fool prank played by Google ;-)
In 2007 as soon I opened GMAIL login page on April 1st, there was a new feature introduction which explained what the new feature was. It said Google is giving free printouts of the mail to all the GMAIL users. It also said even shipping will be free of cost. It also said it will be couriered through their official courier service providers(probably FedEx I don't remember). I was so very happy. Infact I wanted few of my important mails printed. When Google said it was free of cost I started digging out the mails in my whole inbox of around 1000 mails to get them printed. I had burnt the midnight oil to select 4-5 important mails I wanted to be in printed form. But I got up on April 2nd only to know that it was an April Fool prank. I felt so irritated, I cursed Google the whole day, but as time passed I felt it should all be taken lightly and they are doing this to keep their users happy. So again started loving Google! Actually all this had happened because I never remembered that April 1st was April 1st(i.e Fools Day).
But this time I decided that I should take some revenge. Planned few things. But none of them worked out. So I thought atleast this time I should not fall a prey to their prank. So started preparing from March 30th night. Thought of all possibilities. But to my surprise and most unfortunately my guesses are no where close to their innovative idea. They say that they are making this feature called "GMAIL custom time" available. It says this feature allows us to travel in back in time in terms of emails. Amazing feature. I wish this not be an April Fool prank and really the feature I wanted badly. But most unfortunately it is a prank. But atleast I haven't fallen as a prey to this prank. Fortunate. But one amazing thing is that, this is not shown on any of my friend's GMAIL login page. Its shown only on my GMAIL login page. Here are the screenshots.