JulioBiason.Net

A few years ago (two or three), I saw Richard Stallman at FISL where he said that things like Webmail were bad ’cause you don’t have any control over the software it runs in the server. In a way, he is right: How do you have any control over your data if you don’t have any control over your software? How can you be sure that the server isn’t doing something nasty with your information since you have no way to request the source code?

Requesting the source code is one of your rights if you are using a GPL-licensed software. That way, you can be sure that the application is not sending your information to someone else or looking for things it shouldn’t. But the GPL says that distributed software should have its code available; in a web 2.0 world, nobody is distributing any software: it simply is there. Therefore, even if you run a GPL application, do lots of modifications, because you’re not distributing it, you don’t need to make your changes available to the world.

The thing that was bothering me, though, is related to some web apps/websites I used at some point. They had this pretty cool thing and I was wondering “Is that something I know, like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or whatever?” but, in the end, I couldn’t find anything that would say what they were using in the backend. And, just now, I was wondering how the GPL would apply to such websites.

Besides the GPL, there is another very useful license: The modified BSD license or simply “BSD”. The only rule the BSD license requires (compared to the “5 freedoms” GPL enforces) is that you can’t remove the copyright from the original authors. You may add your name, but the original copyright must appear somewhere. I wondered, then, if the GPL would have such requirement. I’m not a lawyer, but I think this does:

5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.
[...]
b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under this License and any conditions added under section 7. This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to “keep intact all notices”.

That, to me, sounds exactly like the BSD. So, if you’re using a GPL software in your webserver, you must point, somewhere, that the engine behind your powerful site is copyright the original authors.

Now you must ask yourself this: How many websites out there are using WordPress with a modified theme that completely removed the “Powered by WordPress”? Or sites that chose (not sure why) the GPL version of the jQuery and didn’t mention that anywhere?

I know I had some troubles with Apple and OS X since I got my MacBook Pro, but I think that, when someone does something right, you should say it.

So, in the end of 2007, I decided to give myself a MacBook Pro as Christmas gift. I had a computer, but the battery wasn’t that good, and the graphics weren’t that good, and the machine was a bit outdated… And I heard wonders about Apple hardware. So, why not? And, on 23rd of December of 2007, I became the owner of a 15″ MacBook Pro, the aluminum case.

Fast forward about 6 months after that. Apple announced the recall of such models due a problem with the NVidia chipsets. At the time, I did check the serial number and, as such, I had one of the laptops that could be affected by this problem. But, heck, everything was running fine, so I didn’t worry about that.

Fast forward again 7 months, January 2009, one year and about 1 month since I got the laptop. There I was, playing EVE online when something weird pops in the screen. It was some sort of blur, some lines drawing in the wrong place and the game locked. At first, I ignored it, ’cause the Mac version of EVE was kinda bad. Turn off computer, turn it on again and I’m back. I did some coding and decided to play WoW. A few minutes in the game and I get the same wrong drawing and the same locking, which is quite unusual for WoW. Turn of computer, turn on again, and I get a warning saying that I needed to turn of my computer to reboot. I gave the computer a few minutes, turn it on again, talk to some people on IRC and… blur and locking, and the same message after rebooting. But, even after waiting, it still didn’t come back. I kept getting the same wrong display and same warning. And I took pictures of the screen.

Time to use that recall Apple offered. One year after buying the MacBook, I lost the receipt, so I took the computer back to the shop I bought it, “My Mac” in Bondi Junction. I showed the problem, which weirdly worked fine for the first 2 minutes and told the guy that I knew about the NVidia problem and that the serial number was one of the affected one. As it needed some tests to verify that it was a NVidia problem and not something else, the guy asked for about a week. Well, sure, no problem with that.

I got a call about 4 days later. The guy said that, and I quote, “I plugged an external monitor and got the same drawing problem, so it’s a problem with the logical board.” The repair cost: $400 (or so I thought) and it would take another week. One day after that week, I called the shop. The guy told me that there was a change in the price and it would, actually, cost $1700, but because he gave me the price of $1400 before, it would make it for $1400 plus service. Ok, first I must say that I actually have problems hearing people over the phone and the guy had some thick Indian accent. That was too much and I said no. Unfortunately, I had to pay the service of $100.

Why I didn’t replace the logical board, after all? Well, I’m a computer guy and, although I write software and know shit about hardware, I know that if your video card is broken, it doesn’t matter if you change the monitor. It simply doesn’t make sense. So, as any terminal disease a doctor gives to you, I decided to go for a second opinion: Apple itself.

I took the notebook a Saturday morning. I was kinda expecting that I could just drop it there and wait for their tests, as I did in the My Mac. But Apple, being not like others (”Thinking Different”, I think) said that I should book a Genius appointment before dropping it for repairs. So, without a choice, I booked on for the next Monday.

Monday, I explained the same thing I did before to the guy in the Genius Bar. He said it could be a memory problem and, thus, would try changing the memory. At this point, I kinda felt stupid: I was not using Apple official memory, I bought some 4Gbs after a few months. If it was the bad memory…

Anyway, the guy when in the back, and came back a few minutes later. He said that he replaced the memory, got the same problem, so it needed to replace the logical board but, because it was under the warranty (the NVidia warranty), they would replace it for free. The repairs would take 3 days. When I signed the paper confirming the repairs, there was a clause saying that it could occur a fee of $100 due service. Well, I payed $100 already for a service that would charge me $1700, paying $100 for a free new logical board seemed pretty cheaper.

One day after those 3 days I was in the city and decided to check the Apple store. The consegliere told me that, due some backlog, it would take some more time, maybe to the middle of the week. Well, no problem. Monday, 7 days after I took the laptop to repairs, I got a call from Apple saying that the service was complete. I rode all the way to the city to get it back and was greeted with a surprise that even the service was free because of the warranty.

So, there you have it. It doesn’t matter where you buy your Apple stuff but, if you need repairs, better look for the official Apple store.

Let me start this by saying that, although I like The Who, it’s not one of big bands in my playlist (as in “I’m don’t think I can be called a fan yet”.) But yes, I do enjoy a lot of their songs so, although not almost peeing in my pants like they were Def Leppard, I went to their gig in Sydney. That proved to be a smart move, after all.

The show started with Dallas Crane. The description of “alternative rock” sounds perfectly for them. I got a little bit late into their show and I thought “hey, they sound like a hard-rock Beatles”, only to get a completely different type of song next and then think “They sound like The Police”. Also, unfortunately for them, it seems the audio was bad equalized and drums and the second guitar had a louder volume than the rest — so you would hear the beat taking over everything else. Really bad.

Then we had Counting Crows. Now let me be honest and say that it took me 2 songs to remember that their greatest hit was Mr. Jones. Yeah, I lost contact with them since that song. But, for some reason, all the songs they played sounded most the same (you can blame me for thinking that — I’m far away from being a fan.)

Then, them. The Who. It’s hard to imagine that, at 64 and 65, Townshend and Daltrey can have so much energy — specially Daltrey, which didn’t stop a second. Even the few minutes he could rest, he would stay in the stage and do something, like spinning, running in circles or playing tambourines. That’s one thing that, to me, seems to show how much he was enjoying being there. Not that Townshend was out of stage all the time: He also performed incredible well, with new riffs and chords for some old songs and going into length in his solos.

The playlist order was kinda strange to me. Usually, artists play their most famous songs in the end, but they played the famous ones (Baba O’Reily, Who Are You, which appeared in TV series recently) right in the beginning, leaving some less known songs in the end.

Anyhow, one night I won’t forget too soon.

The Playlist:

• Can’t Explain
• The Seeker
• Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere
• Fragments Of Fragments (not sure)
• Who Are You
• Behind Blue Eyes
• The Relay
• Baba O’Reily
• Eminence Front
• 5:15
• Love Reign O’er Me
• My Generation (without the lisp)
• Cry If You Want
• Won’t Get Fooled Again

And the encore:

• The Kids Are Alright
• Substitute
• Pinball Wizard
• See Me, Feel Me
• Tea & Theatre

For a while, I’ve been ranting about the new “Star Trek” movie by J.J.Abrams and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. This morning I finally realized why it bothers me and why the line “OMG, boobies in Star Trek?” makes me giggle.

First, let’s take a look at the list of main Star Trek characters in the series:

• The Original Series: James T. Kirk, Spock, Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Montgomery Scott, Hikaru Sulu, Pavel Checkov, Uhura (and let’s throw Christopher Pike just for the sake of it.)
• The Next Generation: Jean-Luc Picard, William Riker, Geordi La Forge, Worf, Beverly Crusher, Wesley Crusher, Deanna Troi, Data.
• Deep Space Nine: Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys, Odo, Julian Bashir, Jadzia Dax, Quark, Miles O’Brien, Jake Sisko, Worf (yes, again), Ezi Dax.
• Voyager: Kathryn Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, B’Elanna Torres, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, The Doctor, Neelix, Kes, Seven of Nine
• Enterprise: Jonathan Archer, T’Pol, Charles Tucker III, Malcolm Reed, Hoshi Sato, Travis Mayweather, Phlox.

  Go on. Go clicky-clicky and try to find the two that doesn’t fit. I’ll wait.

  Did you spot the two?

  Ok, the answer is: Wesley Crusher and Jake Sisko (although I made it hard for you to noticed why Jake doesn’t belong there.) They are the only teenagers in the whole list of series that were main characters (there we some kids in “Voyager”, but they would appear in only one or two episodes.) All the others look like they are in the late twentys or early thirties (with a few exceptions that look more like they are getting into their fourtys.) And that also includes non-human, ageless forms, like Odo, Data and the Doctor, and the ones with longer lifes, like the Vulcans. Even the youngest crew of all series, the Voyager (they were going into final training before going officially into service when they were transported to the Delta Quadrant) looks like they were in the later twentys.

  And that’s why the new Star Trek bothers me. All the actors (with the exception of McCoy) look like they are in their early twentys and in full operational status already. Even in the original series, when the Enterprise goes into its official mission of “explore strange, new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations”, Kirk looks like he’s in the late thirties. And now you have a Kirk that looks like he just out of puberty.

  Yes, there were boobs in the TOS. But they belonged to mature females, not some out of puberty, hormone full chick.

  To me, it looks like the tone of Star Trek changed from “When you get out of your studies and do some real life training, you may be a member of the most important ship of the human race” to “jump into the most important ship of the human race! All you need to do is be able to talk!”. Sign of the times, maybe, when you’re supposed to finish college and be a full experienced whatever-they-call-you-in-the-field. But, still, Star Trek looks a little bit tainted with an “easy way to get there” view.

  But, then again, I’m an old trekkie (although I never remember if the proper way is trekker or trekkie…)

• I should stop reading Planet Bazaar or I’ll soon switch to it. #
• By the way, Mitter network layer redesign proposal: http://code.google.com/p/mitter/wiki/NetworkRedesignProposal #
• Some writers ruined Star Trek, but J.J.Abrams wants us to forget it ever existed: http://ping.fm/k6gzN #
• (or, at least, makes us wish we never really saw that.) #

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• @ferhr I went just because I never did and I’d have an excuse to leave home. And, honestly, I’ll never do it again. #
• @ferhr And it’s “Wowcrack”, not “Warcrack”. #

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• Heroes S03e08 #
• House S05e07 #
• Nerd night! #
• Nerd night was meh. Too many nerd losers and too few real nerds. #
• @ferhr: Midnight release of “Wrath of the Lich King” #

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• It’s “Ambassador Taladan” for you now. #

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• @gakman: Erm… No. But I’ll do it anyway. Movie + WotLK. #

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• I read “Enio Morricone” in the news and now I want to watch “The Untouchables” again. *sigh* #
• I’m thinking about nerding out Thursday night and wait for WotLK in front of EB in Westfield midnight. Who’s with me? #

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