By default when attempting to create a relationship by way of Tools > Relationships… in OpenOffice you’ll get an error that relationships are not supported. However this is not true if you are using the InnoDB tables. In order to enable relations you need to add overrideSupportsIntegrityEnhancementFacility=true to your connection string. So where do I do that you ask? Simply append the option to the end of your Name of the MySQL database field preceded by a “?”. Just right click on the database name and choose Propeties to get there. Mine looks like this now…

test?overrideSupportsIntegrityEnhancementFacility=true

…with test being the database name.

This will work with both the Mysql Connector/J 3.1 and 5.0

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, has a short journal entry and also a video of his take on Net Neutrality.

He is just one of many people who support Net Neutrality. In my last entry on the subject I quoted Scott Cleland of NetCompetition.org, an opponent of network neutrality. He listed in his NPR article a couple supporters of Net Neutrality. Here I would like to link to a fuller list of supporters on both sides.

Net Neutrality supporters ..and even more.

Net Neutrality opponents ..and more.

You decide who has the more genuine (read non-money) interest in internet freedom.

You can see the Net Neutrality proponents answers to the opponents arguments here.

If you want to change the Firefox search engine from the keyboard here is what you do.

Ctrl + k --gets you to the search box
Ctrl + Up or Down --switches the search engine.

Now my life is complete.

Slashdot has and interesting post about Net Neutrality. It deals with one pro and one con article published by NPR. The con article is written by Scott Cleland of NETCompetition.org, a telecom-funded org. Astroturfing comes to mine. The pro article is from Craig Newmark, creator of craigslist.org.

The first question I ask myself before reading the article is, “who do I trust more?” Craig wins here. He has more than proven his integrity. Scott, as a paid mouth-piece of the telecom industry doesn’t get my trust.
In Cleland’s article he says quite a few things that are misleading and obviously intended to instill fear. Some examples…

They want Congress to pass a new law to ban that practice by regulating the price of broadband service and the way it’s sold.

See the last paragraph of this post as a comment to that.

First, net neutrality is really a misnomer. It’s really just special interest legislation, dressed up to sound less self-serving. Did you know Microsoft, Google and Yahoo are lobbying for net neutrality?

Um, and who finances your “cause” Mr. Cleland? The Net Neutrality proponents seem a little more eclectic than Clelend’s telecom-funded cause. The last sentence is easy to counter. I’ll try… Did you know AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc. are lobbying for net ‘competition’?

Now, net competition proponents, like me, believe that the best way to guard a free and open Internet is to maintain the free and open competition that exists today, not create a new government-monitored, socialized Internet.

So free and open are the terms for his cause and government-monitored and socialized are the terms for the the Net Neutrality folks. Has any one heard about AT&T allowing government-monitoring without even a court order? Oh, I think they are referring to another type of government-monitoring here.

Amazingly, the proponents of this radical change in policy don’t even have any real evidence of a problem, only unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems.

Actually, such unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems have led to much greater actions in the US. For example, a war. Of course, these unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems have proven to be wrong so it’s admittedly a a bad example. But what do we have from the telecom side to assure that these unsubstantiated assertions about hypothetical problems don’t become true? Only your campaign to make/keep these possibliities around.

And it would also mean less privacy for all Americans, as net neutrality would require more government monitoring and surveillance of Internet traffic.

Have I already mentioned that AT&T and friends allowed government-monitoring without even a court order? So how exactly would this reduce my privacy any more than your funders already have?

If they’re successful, they’ll get a special, low-government-set price for the bandwidth they use, while everyone else — consumers, businesses and government — will have to pay a competitive price for bandwidth.

Actually they already pay for their bandwidth. I know I pay for my server’s bandwidth. The price is currently quite low. I have never heard google complaining that there bandwidth cost is too costly. In fact, they consider the cost to power their data center more of a worry than bandwidth costs. What the content companies and a huge majority of content consumers don’t want is a toll gate as Craig mentions. I want to be able to choose what I want to see at a speed and quality not regulated by a middle-man.

I as a consumer pay the telecoms for my usage and the content providers pay for the bandwidth coming from their servers. As more users and content creators get online the telecoms make more money. The traffic demand per entity will also grow and this will require more infrastructure. This is exactly what both sides are already paying for now. If it’s not enough it’s only because the telecom shareholder’s demand for higher margins is to blame.

If you ask me, government regulation is better than the corporate regulation that Mr. Cleland supports. Governments by definition are there to govern. Corporations are there to make money for shareholders. Yes Google, Microsoft and Co. are also corporation but as I said before they are only a small part of the Net Neutrality supporters where as the Net ‘competition’ supports are by and large telecoms.

Give me an internet without toll booths.

I’ve been using Vim for the last couple years on and off. Over the last few months (since the Vim 7 release) I’ve been forcing myself to use it exclusively. To make working with Vim more intuitive for me, I’ve been trying to get my vimrc just right. Of course, this will probably be a never ending quest.

Currently it looks like this…


" set appearance
syn on
colorscheme torte
set vb " visual beep instead of audible beep
set nu

" search behavior
set incsearch


I’ve been googling and adding, googling and adding. I’ve tried to avoid the complicated stuff so far. The vim documentation is great but a little overwhelming at first. Jonathan McPherson has a nice series of articles that gives a really friendly intro to Vim.

I’m mostly doing python programming so if you have any tips please leave a comment.

I watched a report on TV this morning that showed the South Korean fans cleaning up their own mess after the match against France in Frankfurt. They actually bring there own bags and once the place starts emptying they get to work. That’s pretty impressive. Someone should tell them however that the city clean up services in Germany are darn good. For example, during CSD in Berlin the BSR comes directly behind the parade and everything is clean before the parade ends.

Last night Annika and I went to the Adidas Arena to watch the Italy vs. USA match. The Arena is made to look like the Olympiastadion in Berlin and holds about 10,000 people who can watch the action on 2 not-so-big screens. The Arena is located on the lawn between the Reichstag and the Kanzleramt and just a few blocks from the new main train station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof.) It was actually quite nice there. You get a more stadium-like feeling than at a normal viewing because the supporters play off of each other better and of course there was the “wave”.

We left just before 11pm. The area looks really impressive at night. Makes me feel homesick when I think about leaving Berlin next month. I’m of course American but I’ve lived here since 1999, met my wife here and this feels like home. I’m not sure if San Diego will feel like home but I’ll give it a try. Annika’s really looking forward to move anyway.

The new Berlin Hauptbahnhof is really going to change the city I think. It is aready impressive to look at and has turned an area that had been dead since I arrived into a quite pleasent place to hang out along the river while seeing the sights or preparing for a journey by train. In the next couple years a lot will change for the area just to the north of the station, I think. It will probably turn into a Fisherman’s Wharf type thing but I I guess every major city needs one of those.

Oh yeah, the match ended in a 1:1 draw. There were 3 red cards though.

Annika and I watched the match against Germany and Poland last night. We watched the match in the Kulturbrauerei’s court yard (3 EUR, no outside drinks allowed in.) The place was full and we had a nice place right in front of the big screen. The match was one of the most exciting matches I’ve every seen. It’s right up there with the 2005 Champions League final; not as amazing but just as exciting.

Unless you actually watched the match you’re probably wondering how a match with a single goal could be so exciting. Firstly, the match was against to neighboring countries that share an often complicated history. Second, two of Germany’s strikers were born in Poland and still speak Polish at home. Third, a loss by Poland meant that their tournament would be practically over and a win by Germany would almost guarantee advancing to the next round. Lastly and most importantly, the Germans had so many great chances to score that as the match went on the suspense built and built till finally the only goal of the match fell in injury time, sending the crowds that had gathered throughout Germany to just explode in euphoric celebration.

On the way home along Schönhauser Allee, the street and side walk was filled with people celebrating. I think that goal did a lot to make the atmosphere even better than it already is now. The World Cup is turning out to be really fun. I hope it continues to be so.

Ubuntu’s quite known for its {obscure adjective} {animal} release names. I though it might be interesting to see how the Ubuntu release cycle affected the {obscure adjective}s’ search volume. I turned to Google Trends and did a query for each of the {obscure adjective}s. The results were quite interesting.

Warty wasn’t even on the chart before the initial Ubuntu release and the Hoary release showed the first clear jump in queries. It looks like the Ubuntu’s popularity really took of with the release of the Breezy Badger release and the Dapper Drake (current) release will soon top Breezy. Edgy just crossed Hoary and I suspect it will increase dramaticaly once the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Paris is finished and the work for the next release (Edgy Eft) gets underway.

Ok, Germany winning it’s opener is old news but I haven’t blogged it yet. So I’ll ignore that.

Yesterday I went down to the Fan Mile, between the Brandenburg Gate and the Victory column, to watch the World Cup opener, Germany vs. Costa Rica. The weather was absolutely perfect which is a fortunate change from the last few weeks of cold (it snowed in the Allgäu) and rainy weather. Once the match started the atmosphere was really good. Everyone just stared up at the big screen until a goal fell, then threw there hands in the air, turned to there friends, jumped around and waved thier flags till it was time to start staring up at the screen once more. When the match was not being played there were unfortunately a group of drunken teenagers beside me who kept falling into everyone around them and spilling beer. Otherwise the people were quite alright.

What annoyed me the most about the Fan Mile is that it’s all basically a big commercial. Before and after the match and at the half, the sponsors are pretty much given the stage to do what they want. There was the Hyundai quiz show, Coca-Cola Heimspiel, MasterCard half time crowd quiz. Being someone who absolutely hates to be sold stuff, I found it ruined the whole atmosphere. But like I said earlier, once the match started everythog was really enjoyable.

I probably won’t be goin back there to watch another match, though. The atmosphere is much more cozy and intimate at the many cafe’s, open-air viewings or just the TV’s that are sitting outside for people to gather around. I did buy 2 tickets to the Adidas Arena for the Italy vs. USA match. The tickets were only 3 EUR a piece and I though it might be interesting to see what it’s like in there.

Well, the next 4 weeks I’ll probably watch way too much football and get way to little work done. Ahh, life is good!