NYC LOCAL: Sunday 17 August 2003 Three Jewels Free Software Workshop: Tenth Birthday Observance for Debian and, by popular demand, Kenny Tilton's classic hands-on introduction to Common Lisp

[secretary]

Sunday 17 August 2003 there will be a Free Software Workshop at

Three Jewels Refuge and Free Internet Cafe
211 East 5th Street
east of Third Avenue
Island of the Manahattoes

Subway: Eighth Street stop on the N, R, sometimes W, lines; Astor Place on
the 6 line; Third Avenue on the crosstown L line; Lower East Side-Second
Avenue-Houston Street on the F, V lines

Note that some of these lines may not be running right this weekend.


The Fest will start at 3:00 pm and run until 9:00 pm.


Between 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm we will celebrate the Tenth Birthday of Debian.
All Debian users and developers are especially invited to join us and eat
glatt Debian foods!

For more about Debian:

http://www.debian.org
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/editorials/4959/1


At 7:00 pm Kenny Tilton will give the first part of a two part introduction
to Common Lisp.  This introduction is part of the New York City 2003 Lisp
Outreach.  Watch this space for announcements of Lisp events.

Below my signature, and below the blurb for Install Fests and Ian Murdock's
announcement of the Debian Project, please find Kenny's own detailed
description of his hands-on introduction to Common Lisp on Free *n*x.


This meeting is free and open to the public.

There are certain rules which will be strictly observed:

1. No meat eating inside the Refuge.

2. No personal abuse.

Every member of every free software org, tribe, drinking club, and family,
is invited, without prejudice, without fear, and without favor.

Newcomers are particularly invited.  Come down and join us, even if you are
just starting to learn about free software.


If you bring your computer and want help installing a free OS we will help.
Bring whatever CDs, DVDs, tapes, wax cylinders, quipus, memorable stanzas,
black cubes, etc. of your favorite operating systems and software.  See
below about management of stuff you bring with you.

Please read the appended standard blurb about Install Fests before you come
down, if you hope to get stuff installed.  Note that this Workshop does not
include a full Install Fest, but we will not refuse anyone who wants help
installing.


Jonas Arnaldo and Kevin Mark and Jay Sulzberger will be available to answer
any questions we may.  Kenny Tilton may or may not answer any question; G*
willing, he will show you Lisp.


In the next few weeks we will have these meetings:

1. Second part of Introduction to Common Lisp: Lisp and RoboCup,
http://www.lispnyc.org

2. Introduction to network security, special emphasis on time series
analysis and key management

3. How to buy parts and assemble a computer well suited to run a Free *n*x


We thank the Three Jewels, LXNY, and GNUbies for their generous help in
making this Fest possible, and we thank the Three Jewels for hosting this
Workshop, and Sunday Workshops to come, Sundays of Free Software in
New York City.

Jay Sulzberger <secretary@lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org


<blockquote
  what="standard Install Fest blurb">

Here is general information about Install Fests:

Hardware:  Bring the boxes on which you wish to run a Free OS.

Software:  Bring whatever distribution CDs, boot and rescue disks, boot
           managers, tiny distributions, manuals, and anything else you
           want.

Important: Everything done to/with any computer at any Install Fest,
           and in particular, at this Install Fest, is done at the
           specific request of the owner of the computer.  As with
           all human endeavor, there is some risk of catastrophe.
           Back up all your data, before coming to the Fest!  In addition,
           make a list of all hardware and media you bring to the Fest,
           and check that you have all your hardware and media when you
           leave the Fest.


Useful reading:
http://www.netcom.com/~casandra/mirror-of-luny-site/installfest/guidelines.html
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/linuxprep.html
http://www.luv.asn.au/if/preparation.php3

The LDP hardware HOW-TO:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/index.html

Linux pre-install checklist:
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Pre-Installation-Checklist/index.html

Linux post-install mini-checklist:
http://algolog.tripod.com/postlnx.htm
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/mini/Post-Installation-Checklist/index.html


http://www.lxny.org
http://www.gnubies.org
http://www.nylug.org
http://www.sixgirls.org
http://www.fsf.org
http://www.debian.org
http://www.multicians.org
http://www.gnu.org/projects/dotgnu
http://tinfoilhat.cultists.net
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux
http://www.linux.org
http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd
http://www.squeak.org
http://www.freebsd.org
http://www.netbsd.org
http://www.openbsd.org
http://www2.ics.hawaii.edu/~esb/prof/proj/hello
http://www.daemonnews.org
http://slashdot.org
http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems
http://www2.tunes.org/Review/OSes.html

</blockquote>


<blockquote
  what="announcement of the Debian Project">

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development
From: imurdock@shell.portal.com (Ian A Murdock)
Subject: New release under development; suggestions requested
Message-ID: <CBusDD.MIK@unix.portal.com>
Sender: news@unix.portal.com
Nntp-Posting-Host: jobe.unix.portal.com
Organization: Portal Communications Company -- 408/973-9111 (voice) 
408/973-8091 (data)
Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:05:37 GMT
Lines: 86



Fellow Linuxers,

This is just to announce the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release,
which I'm calling the Debian Linux Release.  This is a release that I have put
together basically from scratch; in other words, I didn't simply make some
changes to SLS and call it a new release.  I was inspired to put together this
release after running SLS and generally being dissatisfied with much of it,
and after much altering of SLS I decided that it would be easier to start
from scratch.  The base system is now virtually complete (though I'm still
looking around to make sure that I grabbed the most recent sources for
everything), and I'd like to get some feedback before I add the "fancy" stuff.

Please note that this release is not yet completed and may not be for several
more weeks; however, I thought I'd post now to perhaps draw a few people out
of the woodwork.  Specifically, I'm looking for:

        1) someone who will eventually be willing to allow me to upload the
                release to their anonymous ftp-site.  Please contact me.
                Be warned that it will be rather large :)

        2) comments, suggestions, advice, etc. from the Linux community.  This
                is your chance to suggest specific packages, series, or
                anything you'd like to see part of the final release.

Don't assume that because a package is in SLS that it will necessarily be
included in the Debian release!  Things like ls and cat are a given, but if
there's anything that's in SLS that you couldn't live without please let me
know!

I'd also like suggestions for specific features for the release.  For example,
a friend of mine here suggested that undesired packages should be selected
BEFORE the installation procedure begins so the installer doesn't have to
babysit the installation.  Suggestions along that line are also welcomed.

What will make this release better than SLS?  This:

        1) Debian will be sleeker and slimmer.  No more multiple binaries and
                manpages.
        2) Debian will contain the most up-to-date of everything.  The system
                will be easy to keep up-to-date with a 'upgrading' script in
                the base system which will allow complete integration of
                upgrade packages.
        3) Debian will contain a installation procedure that doesn't need to
                be babysat; simply install the basedisk, copy the distribution
                disks to the harddrive, answer some question about what
                packages you want or don't want installed, and let the machine
                install the release while you do more interesting things.
        4) Debian will contain a system setup procedure that will attempt to
                setup and configure everything from fstab to Xconfig.
        5) Debian will contain a menu system that WORKS... menu-driven
                package installation and upgrading utility, menu-driven
                system setup, menu-driven help system, and menu-driven
                system administration.
        6) Debian will make Linux easier for users who don't have access to the
                Internet.  Currently, users are stuck with whatever comes with
                SLS.  Non-Internet users will have the option of receiving
                periodic upgrade packages to apply to their system.  They will
                also have the option of selecting from a huge library of
                additional packages that will not be included in the base
                system.  This library will contain packages like the S3
                X-server, nethack and Seyon; basically packages that you and I
                can ftp but non-netters cannot access.
        7) Debian will be extensively documented (more than just a few
                READMEs).
        8) As I put together Debian, I am keeping a meticulous record of
                where I got everything.  This will allow the end-user to
                not only know where to get the source, but whether or not
                the most recent version is a part of Debian.  This record
                will help to keep the Debian release as up-to-date as possible. 
        9) Lots more, but I'll detail later...

Anyway, I'll provide more specifics in a week or so after I receive enough
replies.

Please, all replies by mail.  I'll post a followup.  If you wish to discuss
this in the newsgroup, please don't turn it into a flamewar. :)

Until later,

Ian
--
Ian Murdock                             Internet: imurdock@shell.portal.com
The Linux Warehouse

Please mail me for more information on the status of the Debian Linux Release.

</blockquote>


<blockquote
  what="Kenny Tilton's announcement of his talk"
  edits="only some header lines removed">

Message-ID: <3F3BA331.50602@nyc.rr.com>
From: Kenny Tilton <ktilton@nyc.rr.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: ANNC; kennyspeak (on Lisp & RoboCup) this Sun (Aug 17), East Village, 
NYC
Lines: 57
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 14:53:38 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2003 10:53:38 EDT


A couple of weeks ago I dropped by a weekly gathering of Free 
softwarians down in the east Village of NYC and Jay kindly shoved a 
keyboard into my mitts and said "show them Lisp". I somehow ended up 
talking about, on the one hand, using declarations to get lean-mean 
compilation, and on the other, about the glory of macros. That range in 
abstraction coinciding neatly with the range of my skill at each.

This Sunday, August 17th at 7PM marks my triumphant return (read "chance 
for atonement") to that same occasional home of the Free (deets below), 
armed this time with reading glasses and at least a few hours experience 
on the cmucl platform under my belt. Possibly even some working RoboCup 
code, the delightful soccer simulation which will be fought out at 
ILC2003: http://www.international-lisp-conference.org/

This second "Over the Shoulder" Talk will continue my answer to the 
fat-pitch question asked last time, viz., Why Lisp? The focus will be 
the interactive quality of Lisp development, and thus will be getting 
down and dirty with things like Lisp-aware editors (Emacs or Hemlock) 
and the cmucl debugger (with the instructor in accordance with tradition 
just one step ahead of the audience).

The context will be live work on my MIT-licensed Lisp RoboCells platform 
for aspiring virtual footballers, which (if the r/c platform happens to 
be working at that time) we will also have great fun programming. 
(turned loose in the server environment for autonomous play, the players 
tend to do the darndest things.)

If my r/c platform is not behaving, we /really/ focus on the debugger 
and editor and the nature of interactive development. <g>

Along the way expect to hear a lot also about macros, closures, 
introspection, CLOS, and (duh) Cells (yes, Virginia, there is a silver 
bullet). And anything else about which observers want to ask.

See ya there. (here:)

The Three Jewels is at

211 East 5th Street
east of Third Avenue
on the Island of the Manahattoes

subway stops: Eighth Street on the N, R, and sometimes W, lines, and 
Astor Place
on the 6 line


-- 

  kenny tilton
  clinisys, inc
  http://www.tilton-technology.com/
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
"Career highlights? I had two. I got an intentional walk from
Sandy Koufax and I got out of a rundown against the Mets."
                                                  -- Bob Uecker

</blockquote>