As part of my ongoing series ensuring the internet is the source of all answers, if you want to get SSL working for Psi on Ubuntu (or, indeed, Kubuntu), you need to install the qca-tls package. I found the answer fairly easily, but the hint was in Polish.

(Man of many talents, etc.)

So Google Talk is out, and the only reason that I care is that it involves Jabber. Which is a Good Thing(tm).

Google are using a recognised standard (namely XMPP), rather than doing a Microsoft and inventing their own standard. So that means that I don’t have to use their client (or wait for a Linux version), I can go ahead and use my existing client and use Google Talk and my jabber.org account at the same time. Oooh, warm fuzzy feeling – open standards are good.

The catch (for there is one, of course) is that google aren’t allowing messages from their server to any other server. Normally jabber servers can talk to one another, so that you can pick any server (or run your own!) without having to worry about which server your friends are using. Google have made themselves an island, cut off from the rest of the jabber network, and are talking about creating a federalised network of trust or some such nonsense. So they have basically leveraged XMPP (”hey, we hardly need bother writing a client”), whilst turning their backs on the idea behind open messaging. So I have my jabber contacts, and my Google Talk contacts, and never the twain shall intercommunicate. Shame.

Hopefully Google will smell the roses and open up s2s links, but I doubt they will.

(gravitystorm at gmail dot com (until I get bored of Google Talk), or prefarably andrewjrallan at jabber dot org )

I’ve been fairly annoyed to see that London Underground have removed all of the bins from the network over the last few weeks. For the first few years that I used the underground there were no bins around – and so I’ve left many fast food drink containers, stella cans and various other bits and pieces on top of chocolate machines in my time. Slowly but surely, bins were introduced: wall mounted lids, with clear plastic bin bags hanging beneath. A happy compromise between ’security’ and basic civil infrastructure. All hunky dory.

But now ’security’ is prevailing once more, and the bins have been removed. I hope they reconsider, and the fact that so the metal wall-mounted frames remain is a good sign. But it’s once more quite annoying to cart rubbish around the network – I used to nip off of trains to leave my orange peel behind; now I need to clutch it till I get outside.

At East Putney this morning, I was heartily cheered to see that someone had tied a supermarket bag to the empty frame, and there was a bin once more, full of coffee cups and such. I think if the people were to speak, we would say ‘we’d rather have the bins back, thank you’.

I’m back from Devon, and completely Kiss-Me-Kate‘d out. Once again, doing the same show over 13 times leaves me a bit exhasted – and this time I had slightly more to do than the three followspot cues during “The Grand Duke” in summer 2003. Trucks in, trucks out…

Although I’m completely knackered from all the work (including the annual epic last night, get-out, get home, unload and collapse routine for the final weekend), I feel a bit refreshed from getting away from work for a while. I’m trying to put more effort into making good use of my free time (and trying to focus on some things that I keep putting off). So we’ll see how long that lasts then, as usual.