I am not holding my breath for Tizen either, there is a definitive leitmotif here that yet another change of name cannot but accentuate (HTML5 is all good and well, but there is heck lot more to creating a usable platform for a single device category, never mind multiple categories at once, and MeeGo did not get even near). I suspect the success of Tizen will largely come down to what Intel’s partners can bring to the table, but the very fact none of them want to give it a go alone leaves me feeling skeptical — I would not be at all surprised if we get Episode 4, or, more likely, the final curtain, within 18 months.

It all started with Moblin,  a great project with big aspirations, radical vision and huge potential to redefine the computing experience for the current decade. Though our aspirations were not to come to fruition, I take great pride in being part of that seminal effort, and, by extension, I take pride in the technologies our work inspired (notably the Gnome Shell). When Intel abandoned Moblin for MeeGo, it was only a question of time when Me Go too, for from the very start MeeGo failed to inspire me, to capture my imagination and to feed my dreams.

What it comes down to: my idealistic A-type soul values adventure over status quo, challenge over safe harbour, freedom over process. As my fellow travellers will know, there comes a point when one can no longer ignore the soul.

What’s next? A good question,  but one I am in no great hurry to answer. More than anything at this point I need time to think free of corporate constraints and the expressive limits of a slide deck presentation, I need a space to start dreaming again of something other than dreaming again.

Adventure is never without a price; mine means leaving behind some truly great folk I have grown to know, trust and respect immensely over the last five and half years. My one consolation is that FOSS being what it is, I am not really going anywhere, and neither are they; it’s just an email address that became defunct.

P.S. I have tried to make sure that the defunct email will not disrupt the world-changing mailing list out there, but if I have forgotten about some low traffic list where nothing ever happens … I guess no real harm done

(Makes the Ubuntu decision to switch Unity to Compiz somewhat amusing, I think … o’ yea of little faith.)

• If you are ever considering creating a parentless dialogue, go and ask someone to slap you hard in the face; then review your decision,
• If you still feel like creating a parentless dialogue, go back and ask the person to stop pulling their punches (they either have a crush on you, or would benefit from a subscription to a gym),
• If you still feel like creating a parentless dialogue, consider working on the kernel, device drivers, or some such (that too can be a valid contribution to humanity, you know).

Non-transient dialogue means that the semantic scope of your dialogue is the whole system, rather than your application; this is virtually never appropriate!

Add modality into the mix, and it becomes positively volatile; by marking a dialogue modal, you are saying to the window manager that the user is not allowed to interact with anything in the semantic scope the dialogue belongs to until that dialogue goes away. So, there is only one application developer in the whole world who has a legitimate reason to create a dialogue that is both non-transient and modal; that guy is working on the POTUS nuclear missile launch app. Therefore, the next time you are considering creating a system-modal dialogue, ask yourself this question: AM I THE GUY? (BTW, if the answer is yes, please, please, make sure that the ‘Yes’ button does not have the default focus! Not even the window manager can save us on this one.)

Actually, I blame Gtk+ for my neurosis. gtk_dialog_new() should take a parent parameter, and, together with its mutations, should abort if that parameter is NULL (just after instigating a hate mail campaign against the author — I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! I know all about git blame).

For the one legitimate case above, there should be a special API:

gtk_dialog_new_without_parent_RSI_is_the_least_of_your_worries_my_friend__if_you_see this_function_in_the_wild_without_a_convincing_comment_why_it_is_used_act_NOW the_future_of_the_human_race_depends_on_you().

Here, after all the years of bottling this up, I finally said it. And I did not hit anyone. Or break anything. My therapist will be SOO pleased this week.

Dear Dave,

This is a difficult question indeed; I must admit I have certain partiality for the £ but these days I should perhaps prefer the €, even if € < £ (€ > £ , banish the thought, $ = £ God help us all). I could _ not _ possibly live without %, since I have to borrow at least some of the $, £ & €. My day job relies on the |, and no day job ~ no £. But you can have the \, I could not care less about that one,

Yours truly,

So what is so great about it ? It rides incredibly well! I suspect that the secret of the Heckler is that the Santa Cruz guys got the geometry of the bike spot on; if you build it up with a 140mm fork as they recommend (in my case a coil Pike 454), the center of gravity is bang on over the bottom bracket. This has a number of significant consequences:

• Incredible lateral stability: although the Heckler has a naturally bigger turning circle than my old bike, its lateral stability makes it possible to push it lot faster through bends, neither the front nor the back wheel has a tendency to just let go.

• Great forward stability: the Heckler does not have a propensity to hurl me over the bars (I am discovering that I can get away with sitting down on bits that I previously had to push well behind the saddle).

• The front wheel sticks to the ground even on fairly steep ground, making it very good at climbing.

• The front and back suspension work in sync and harmony with each other, the bike just floats over uneven ground.

• The bike tends to naturally hold position in mid air.

In addition to the geometry, there is the design of the suspension. I have to confess that what originally drew me to the single-pivot was its mechanical simplicity; the six bearings and two bushes on the classic quad link suspension of my previous bike were not getting on that well with the perpetual Scottish muck; replacing that with only two bearings made perfect pragmatic sense. However, having ridden around 100 or so miles on the Heckler, I have become a true believer in single pivot as an Idea.

When the relative position of the pivot, the bottom bracket and the wheel is got right, the tension of the chain works against the dreaded pedal bob. The Santa Cruz boys got this worked out to perfection, and the bike suffers from very minimal bob. On the quad link, I worked out that locking the rear shock on a climb allowed me to shift by two gears; on the Heckler, this makes no discernible difference. In fact the harder one pedals, the stiffer the bike becomes, i.e., when climbing the geometry is not changing into an aggressive downhill one when you need it least, and when the ground is soft and slippery, the rear positively digs in. The only advantage of the quad link over the single pivot I have to concede is that unlike the single pivot, quad link suspension is much less effected by braking, but then, braking on a mountain bike is a bad habit anyway .

Californian tat ? Aye, but what tat that is!