free variable

I’ve been a longtime subversion user but have been switching some projects over to git lately. One major disadvantage that svn presented for my dissertation work arose because I was often interested in extending someone else’s code (like jikesrvm or soot): I’d want version control on my changes (and the opportunity to make branches, etc.), but I’d also want an easy way to track changes to the official project. Subversion does not, by itself, provide an easy way to do this.

Git makes it pretty easy to track changes to a repository that you don’t control while providing version control for local modifications and easy branching and merging. However, importing a large repository from svn can a really long time (almost a whole day for a medium-sized repository), and some svn servers (sourceforge in particular) are a bit flaky, which can lead to local repository corruption.

If you’re interested in having a local git mirror of a subversion repository, and the remote repository supports rsync, then it will be much faster to mirror the repository locally (via rsync) and then convert your local svn repository to a git repository. Then you have a local git repository, and you can just rsync and git svn fetch when it’s time to update from the original repository.

Here’s a quick snippet to show how it’s done for JikesRVM.

On another note, I couldn’t be more pleased with the GitHub hosting service! I’ve posted some code snippets on “gist,” their version-controlled pastebin. I am also using github to house some more substantial code — although the only public repository there right now is my LaTeX template for Wisconsin dissertations. Hopefully, I will be able to share more code in the future.

While I typically find undergrads-in-the-aggregate distasteful, sometimes a brief glimmer of pure delight shines through. Case in point: I just saw a young man in Iowa City wearing a shirt with the slogan “Guns don’t kill people. Greenway kills people.”

Sesame Street, circa 2008: dominated by a whiny scene-stealing muppet who constantly refers to himself in the third person, Snuffleupagus has not been a figment of Big Bird’s imagination for over 20 years, Andrea Bocelli has guest-starred, etc.

Sesame Street, circa 1972: this:

At least they’re producing it in HD now, I guess.

(Click for the whole picture.)

You aren’t just required to indicate that you accept the ESPN.com Terms of Use; rather, you’re required to indicate that you have read and agree with all seventeen sections of the ESPN.com Terms of Use. It’s like they’re telling me that I shouldn’t even consider moving the scroll bar before clicking “Submit.”

I’m wondering why the clocks in Unit 2 of the CS building at Wisconsin use the MICR font. Are there that many check-processing machines from the mid-1960s that need to be able to tell what time it is in the department? Is the clock face printed in magnetic ink? Was it too expensive to license a slightly less inappropriate face, like Comic Sans or Papyrus? Should they have gone with OCR-A, instead, to allow a readily-available fancy clock option?

When you consider that these clocks were probably approved by a committee — and that there are almost certainly laws and regulations governing the appearance of clocks in state buildings — their bizarre design is even more baffling.

What I saw on television last night was thrilling, well-produced, and inspirational — and it left me eager to see more. I truly have something to be excited about this fall!

Of course, I refer to televised football (real college players and soon-to-be-unemployed pro players), and to our introduction to the first season of AMC’s Mad Men on DVD. (Friends of this site know well that your humble scribe has far better things to do than see a tedious political infomercial full of the same whorish rhetoric we’ve heard for this entire interminable election season.)

Mad Men is great so far in almost every way that matters. I noticed, though, that the closing credits rubbed me the wrong way. I elected not to point out the details to Andrea (since I fear she is quite weary of this specific branch of my nerddom), but then I noticed this article in my RSS reader this morning. Yeah, what he said.

Football season is blissfully close — and, with it, the only time of the year that I actually watch television. As always, I feel compelled to revisit the perennial question: have those NHTSA advertisements really cut back on the number of people driving around in vehicles shoulder-full of booze?

I’d appreciate any hard data on this question.

I’m not sure what the UW Parking Office was trying to accomplish with the signage on this meter:

This morning, a number of gadget sites drew attention to leaked specs for Canon’s rumored 50D DSLR. While I love my 40D, I can now disclose that I have been testing a prerelease copy of the 50D, and it is a remarkable camera. The most interesting new feature is support for extreme low-light photography, including an ISO 12,800 mode. Combined with the new 15.1 MP sensor, this can produce some truly astonishing images. While I’m unwilling to post these to flickr (I don’t want to be caught by an EXIF search), I’m happy to share some example pictures using this feature on this site:

First up, a picture of the night sky from outside of my house. Here’s a macro photograph of an ancient Roman coin (I post-processed this one a little). Finally, here’s an adorable one of Thomas.

I think that this new high-sensitivity mode will really mark the beginning of a creative revolution. Great work, Canon!