LodgeNet Censoring python.org?

So, here I am at this hotel, using their network to browse the web as one does, and I suddenly see this web graphic notifying me that my network access has been blocked for ten minutes because "[the] server has detected questionable traffic originating from this computer".

At first I was concerned that perhaps I had unwittingly picked up some virus or other malware, so I made a call to the "support" team to see if they could tell me what was wrong with the traffic. Of course, I might as well not have bothered, since they couldn't tell me anything about why this might have happened without me being "naughty" in some undefined way. After ten minutes the service came back on again, only to be lost once more as soon as I retried a web access. So it seemed to me there was something extremely significant about the URL I was trying to access, which was actually the documentation for the PIL ImageDraw module.

A further support call elicited the information that the help desk couldn't do a bloody thing about anything, had no idea why the content was being blocked, and weren't interested in helping to change whatever bizarre piece of policy was responsible. Several times they mentioned that "the server will cut you off if you are downloading, there's nothing we can do about that", leaving me somewhat perplexed about what they thought the Internet was for, but of course I assured them that I had only been "browsing," which is apparently different.

It would have remained a curiosity had I not then received the same response when I tried to visit the Python programming language home page. Now suddenly the position is different, as I am the chairman and an officer of an organization whose web site is being subjected to censorship. So I have sent the customer service department at LodgeNet the following snotty letter. We'll see whether I get any response, but I am not holding my breath.

Sirs:

As a resident at the Town and Country Resort Hotel on San Diego, California, I have been a consumer of your company's service. Several times I have had my service blocked, seeing the attached graphic.

Calls to your customer service department elicited no useful information as to how I could stop this unwarranted blocking of my service, and the staff involved, while sympathetic, were completely unable to help (and indeed appeared to know nothing at all about the policy responsible for this). The only suggestion they could make was that "downloading" would cause the service to be blocked: hardly helpful, since I was merely browsing the web and handling email.

My fourth call to your support desk was put on hold and then unilaterally terminated. This is completely unacceptable.

Experimentation demonstrated that your service blocker appeared to come into play when the certain URLs (among others: my patience was limited) were accessed. I would emphasize that my use of bandwidth was *not* excessive; the previous evening I had transferred a couple of PowerPoint and PDF files, but no malicious content of any kind was involved.

http://www.pythonware.com/library/pil/handbook/imagedraw.htm (documentation for a graphics package)

http://python.org/ (the home page for the Python programming language).

This last site is of particular concern to me as I am the Chairman and a Director of the Python Software Foundation, the organization responsible for the site.

I would like to know why you are censoring our web site, and what you propose to do to make sure that its content is available to all who wish to access it.

Sincerely
Steve Holden
Chairman, Python Software Foundation

Don't Use Python 3.0? Really?

It's difficult to say "don't use Python 3.0" without being rude to the developers, as the code seems to be of very high quality. Now that Python 3.0 is almost here (release candidate 2 is a week old as I write) we should encourage people to use it, but only under well-defined circumstances. Here is some text I put together for inclusion in the release notes, to give people guidance about when and why it is and isn't appropriate to use 3.0. I would welcome further ideas to refine this text.

Readers should note that this release has significant backwards incompatibilities with the 2.X series, both at the language level and also in the C APIs available to extension module authors. These have been introduced by design, with the goal of improving the language in the long term, but this situation has implications for production use.

Furthermore it is likely that there will be a considerable delay before some authors of Python packages and extension modules start to provide 3.0-compatible releases. There are significant hurdles to be overcome in migrating extension modules from Python 2 to Python 3.

For these reasons you are NOT recommended to rely on Python 3.0 as your main production Python implementation until you know that all supporting code is available in compatible forms. While every care has been taken in the production of the Python 3.0 release, and the release team feels that the system is of a quality comparable with the recently-released Python 2.6, the latter system is currently the recommended version for production use.

I hope that clarifies things, but I would welcome further ideas to refine this text and make it more helpful. One of the primary reasons for using 3.0 is to get a migration strategy ready. But 3.0 is undoubtedly not for everyone, at least not just yet.

Phrase From Nearest Book

Well, here's a turn-up. I spotted this meme on Grig Georghiu's blog.

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

As luck would have it I am on a trip to San Diego and the only book I have with me is Rapture for the Geeks by Richard Dooling. [Disclaimer: Richard was kind enough to send me this book in return for a programming favor I did him some time ago]. By the most amazing coincidence, when I examine the bookmark I placed to make a telephone call I see I am currently reading page 56! Here's the fifth sentence:

If he is gay, man needs man; otherwise, man needs woman.

This doesn't actually represent the compelling nature of Dooling's prose particularly well. For that I like the next two sentences rather better:

Not photos or Web clips or blog entries or text messages or e-mails or even video clips taken of or sent by woman. Man needs woman in the flesh, in meatspace, where he-meat meets she-meat to beget meatlets.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what others come up with.

United.com Broken

So I have this trip coming up to San Diego, and I fly tomorrow. I get this friendly little Web-2.0 e-mail from United. It comes from an address in a subdomain of p0.com, telling me that United are using Yesmail, and it includes a link for me to follow to "view my complete itinerary". They even have it link to a server in the p0.com domain so my browser doesn't think this is a phishing attack. The only problem comes when I click on the link, and repeatedly see 

Connection Interrupted

The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.

The network link was interrupted while negotiating a connection. Please try again.

"Not to worry", I think to myself, "I'm a United frequent flyer (God help me), so I can just log in to my Mileage Plus account and check my itinerary there". Of course this wouldn't have been much of a post if that had worked, but good old United didn't let me down. Every attempt to log in gives me

Redirect Loop

Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.

The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.

Attempts to retry just bring up the same message again. Wonderful. Let's hope the people who run the web site have nothing to do with keeping the 'planes flying.

[PS: Fortunately this appeared to be a transient condition. The site now responds normally.]

Final "Introduction to Python" of 2008

As the year draws to a close Holden Web is pleased to remind readers that its final public "Introduction to Python" class of this year will be held from December 9-11 at our education center close to Washington, DC.

There are several hotels conveniently located within walking distance, and we provide breakfast snacks and lunch each day.

Purchase places on-line by credit card or using PayPal.

Thanks to all students who have already attended this class. We look forward to meeting you again as our range of course offerings increases.

For Would-Be Python Users

If you are new to Python, or know someone else who is, you (or they) could do a lot worse that visit Richard Dooling's Seven Minutes to Hello World web page. It explains about the easiest way to get Python up and running on your Windows XP computer.

I am pretty sure it will run for Vista too, the only reservation I have being the need to run the installer as an administrator if you want to install Python for all users. Since most Vista systems are single-user machines anyway, this isn't likely to be a big issue.

World Plone Day? Communicate, Dammit!

So just now, somewhat after midday Eastern Time, I discover that today is World Plone Day.

Forgive me for saying so, but as Python Software Foundation chairman I should have expected to hear about this event a little in advance. I would even have welcomed the opportunity to lend PSF resources towards publicizing it, seeing as how Plone is one of Python's showcase applications. Alas apparently nobody thought to try and use the PSF as a channel. So I hope World Plone Day goes well this year, and that it doesn't pass everybody else by as it did me.

For the record, the PSF runs its own blog, whose articles are well-syndicated on the web, and we are also usually happy to put Python-related events as front-page news on the python.org web site.

If you are running some newsworthy event, mail the webmasters (if you aren't savvy enough to work out the correct email address, webmaster at python dot org should get you there) to avail yourselves of the opportunity! However can we achieve world domination if we continually hide Python's light under a bushel?