After fighting with backups (check your backups, kids!), we've started getting the haus back online. Subversion repositories are back, read-only over HTTP at http://svn.codehaus.org/, the various distribution repos are back, such as http://dist.codehaus.org/. We did lose some commits in the SVN, and some deployments may be missing from dist. Now's the time to sanity-check.

We're continuing to work to get CVS, mail, and read/write access to Subversion back as soon as possible.

We truly appreciate all of the efforts to help, and your patience has been outstanding. We realize how painful downtime is.

Alas, it's been a bad month for opensource communities. SourceForge has had its share of problems lately, as did the ASF. And now, even the Codehaus is not immune. Our CVS/Subversion server is offline with an angry disk. We're trying to recover it, but preparing to restore from backups if need be. We have no ETA at the moment, but real-time updates will be available on irc.codehaus.org in the #codehaus channel.

We apologize to users who are left out in the cold, particularly those using maven with missing repos. I also hope no demos at JavaOne assumed we'd be online. Eh, what can you do? Plans for migrating the functionality of this machine to a shiny new box at Contegix are under way.

A funny-because-its-true photo on Tribe.net.

Shortly after the marriage of JBoss and RedHat, the JBossWorld conference will be happening in Las Vegas. Rebecca and I will be flying out there to hang out with Michael Neale and Mark Proctor of the Drools project. If you find yourself in Vegas around mid-June, look me up and we'll have a beer.

This weekend I acquired a new toy. Those of you who follow my Flickr might've noticed slightly less fuzzy photos streaming in. This is actually the first Windows machine I've purchased for myself. Previously I had tried a Zaurus, but it quickly became a paperweight, due to its size and lack of phone capabilities.

The Cingular 8125, though, has Bluetooth, wifi, GPRS/EDGE and voice talents, all in a package ultimately not much larger than the Nokia 6620 it replaces. Though, it's certainly no RAZR, and has quite a bit of heft to it. Being that I'm Gigantor-sized, it fits quite well in my pocket. The keyboard is quite usable for my big honkin' thumbs, even.

Along with the device, I signed up for Cingular's PDA plan, so I can use the GPRS/EDGE connection all willy-nilly unlimitedly. My Sunday was spent playing with Procmail recipes trying to filter and route the appropriate set of emails to the pocket machine.

Today marked the first day of grilling season up here in the Appalachians. For some reason, nothing is quite as satisfying as dousing some brickets with some volatile organic compounds and setting it all aflame. The forced relaxation that comes with waiting for the perfect coals is to be savored. I could probably make an analogy about not rushing software development, but really, I just like playing with fire.

(That's the official Codehaus grill, procured for the Codehaus Incendiary Summer Front-Porch Conference two years ago.)

No.

I'd realized that my last blog praising the guys at Contegix existed only on my now-nuked old Typo-powered blog. And these guys rock so much that I wanted to make sure I had some praise for them still existing on the interwebs. So, to reiterate, Contegix kicks ass. As a managed-hosting provider, there is nothing more I could ask for.

It's 3am, and you decide you want a web-stats package installed on your server? By 3:15am, it's completed. It's always business hours at Contegix, and I can't remember the last time any request too more than 15 minutes from my initial email to having it completed. I'm a customer 3-times-over with Contegix, between the Codehaus, Radar Networks, and my own personal machinations. One day I'll make it to St. Louis to have beers with Matthew, Craig, Joe, Tony and the other folks there who keep my servers alive and sane.

Seth Godin, the bald leader of the Purple Cow Group (now playing in Vegas three times nightly) has been talking about averages lately. First, the realization that half the people you may be marketing to are going to be below average. Of course, he means they'll be below the median. He later reminds us of outliers, such as including Bill Gates in any net worth survey.

I think we should also encourage people to not fear math.

Average (or arithmetic mean), as a statistic, is, well, below average. The median is a much better metric. Then you can go hog wild and calculate the standard deviation. Once you know that, you've got a much clearer picture of what your data represents. While a median is better than a mean (an average), knowing the variation between points gives you a feel for how (in)consistent your data is.

Bill Gates, Mother Theresa and a steel-worker walk into a pub...

Their average net worth is around $30 billion.

Their median net worth is likely $60,000.

A-ha, you think you're clever, using the median instead of the average.

Then you figure the standard deviation, give up making any assumptions about this group, and just have a beer with them instead.

Today, a friend of mine asked me write an endorsement for him on LinkedIn. I hadn't been to LinkedIn in a while, so surfed around for a tad, and noticed a new feature. LinkedIn lets you know the localities of your network. As you can see here, I've got links to the Pillippines, Korea, and, um, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Yes, that's Arkansas. Turns out that Wal-Mart is has the same influence (or more?) as some small countries.