The flight of an albatross

April 23, 2007

The golden age, 25 years after

Filed under: Free Software, On the road — 曹 tsao @ 9:43 pm

Thanks to Berto, I got aware today is the 25th anniversary of launching of the ZX Spectrum. The age of 8 bits home computers marked us a generation of computer enthusiasts. Snif, snif :’-)

I still have my Spectrum 48+ with rigid keys, the machine in which I began to program. Some years later I intercepted a classic model unit with rubber keys, like the units we had in my school (we had 16k and 48k units, those machines incited to hack :-) ).

The new at slashdot.

Updated, april, 25th: Another interesting post at The Register.

Only for very, very geeks

Filed under: Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 7:09 pm

Xmonad, a window manager written entirely in Haskell :-) Via OSNews.

On the air, on the School

Filed under: Caminos my dear, Free Software, Portiño on my mind — 曹 tsao @ 7:01 pm

The days after DUDESconf I still had some work related with GPUL. On Monday, Emilio and me went to Radio Intereconomía to an interview about free software at the radio show “El Oasis”. Emilio was a bit nervous but it finally it was easier than he thought. He even tried to sign the visitors book with his digital fingerprint (but he forgot the ticket at home) :-D

And on Tuesday I gave an speech in my Civil Engineers School.It was a rare situation, it was my first speech in my School. I was invited by Engineers Without Borders-Galicia. I tried to transmit the hacker spirit in the history and applied to the software, art and knowledgement. I talked about the runnning project that Emilio and me have in the Portiño to build a server-thin clients system for the child with old computers. I wish they eat the red pill :-)

The last waltz

Filed under: Free Software, On the road — 曹 tsao @ 6:43 pm

The DUDES conference ended a week ago, and I still have no time to write about this until now. It was an exhausting experience (but we have a lot of fun).

The differences with the Guademy were clear: the DUDES would be a brainstorming about the Debian project, in general, and the Spanish section in particular.

Requirements to one of the gratest geeks gathering I ever saw were clear: good Internet connection, a working room, a rest room, and feed to charge batteries (people’s batteries). We had everything during the Guademy, but we must do some adjustments.

The first problem we had was the net. The f*ck*ng net service of the UDC needs more than 10 days to activate the net sockets (yes, you read ok, 10 days, 240 hours). On Thursday, while we were trying to make easier the arrival for Ana (Guerrero), Quique, Clint and René (Celso came by car from Pamplona =-)) I was desesperated because they only promised they would try to activate the connections on Friday. President Emilio was not worried: In the worst situation, we have very long wires. (more…)

April 10, 2007

Thinkpad AC adapter repair

Filed under: Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 1:08 am

Same weeks ago the AC adapter of my Thinkpad (R51, buyed in 2004) began to fail. In the beginning was a simple, annyoning failure that was solved moving the adapter. But as it usually happens, the real collapse came when I need desperately to use my laptop.

I go the first ideas to repair the adapter from a message by David Ross in the Thinkpad mailing list at MIT. You can read in the thread what I suspected some time before: this was a problem of bad design of the adapter, maybe deliberately, in order to force you to buy a new adapter. The wire breaks always in the joint with the adapter, and when you try to open it to replace the wire, you find no screw: the case is hardly glued.

So I decided to take photos of the repairment and I hanged them in my gallery. I was lucky and I began to open with a screwdriver on the perfect point to not damage the circuits. Then I went on opening with a dull knife. I marked the points and movements on the photos.

I cutt of the damaged wire and replaced it. I welded against the piece of wire that was directly welded to the circuit board (I left this piece of wire to avoid welding directly in the board). Finally I read in HardLimit forums the epoxy glue I use (Ceys Araldit) insulates at least 25000 V :-) so I used it to ensure the two wires don’t make contact again. Then I glued the case again with epoxy too.

The adapter runs perfectly again. I hope my advice and photos can help somebody with the same problem.
autopsy of a wire
Of course I performed an autopsy on the damaged wire. I found the central wire broke its wrapper and made contact with the external wire, that was partially broken because fatigue too. I was lucky the shortcircuit didn’t damage the laptop.

April 9, 2007

Running: DUDESconf

Filed under: Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 10:40 am

Without time to enjoy of the sucess of the Guademy, the next weekend we will celebrate the DUDES conference (Dudes in an Unofficial DEbconf in Spain) in the Faculty of Computer Science. The event was a little conspiration ;-) of Debian GNU/Linux developers that talk frequently in the #dudes channel at OFTC. This IRC channel was founded mainly by DDs and GPUL people.

I hope this hackmeeting will be a chance to get new developers for the Debian project, and, to meet with new friends and, of course, to celebrate the releasing of Etch :-)

I bought a lot of Red Bull cans for the next week…

April 8, 2007

Etch released!!!

Filed under: Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 1:44 pm

21 months after the former release codenamed “Sarge”, the Debian project has announced the releasing of Debian 4.0 “Etch”.

This week will be wonderful… :-)

The thin, non-return line

Filed under: Rage against the world — 曹 tsao @ 10:38 am

I have a lot of fun with House, MD series. Even with this season that it’s becoming a bit monotonous. Even when sometimes it has the same annoying attitude of another series about hospitals: they take the left-wing views about the life :-P

In one of the latest episodes (3×13, I think), House is in front of a girl that suffered rape and got pregnant. House tries to persuade her to abort. The speech is a bit disjointed, he finally says something like “some people think about three month terms, or so. But the reality is that we must draw a line and the most clear point is the birth”.

Some weeks ago I read the bizarre story (Predicar en el desierto, ES) about an Italian pregnant woman. Doctors detected malformation in her fetus (22 weeks), she decided to abort. Doctors performed the therapeutic ¿? abortion. When they extracted the fetus they discovered two things: the first, the fetus wasn’t malformed, the second, he was still alive.

The same doctors that tried to kill him began to take care of him. Absurd. Same hours later, he died because cardiac difficulties (Il Corriere della sera, IT) derived of his premature birth.

So the line is not so clear. I think.

Me divierto bastante con House. Incluso cuando esta temporada esta empezando a ser un poco monótona. Incluso cuando a veces aparecen las misma molesta actitud de otras series de hospitales: posturas izquierdistas sobre el derecho a la vida.

En uno de los últimos episodios emitidos (creo que el 3×13) House está frente a una chica que ha sufrido una violación y se ha quedado embarazada. House intenta persuadirla de que aborte. La conversación es un tanto inconexa, el finalmente le dice algo así como que “alguna gente pone plazos de tres meses o así. Pero la realidad es que nosotros debemos trazar una línea y el punto más claro es el momento del nacimiento”

Hace algunas semanas leí la extraña historia (Predicar en el desierto, ES) sobre una mujer italiana embarazada. Los médicos le detectaron una malformación al feto (22 semanas), así que ella decide abortar. Los doctores realizaron el aborto terapéutico ¿? Cuando extrajeron el feto, ellos descubrieron dos cosas: la primera, que el feto no sufría la malformación; la segunda, que estaba todavía vivo.

Los mismos médicos que trataron antes de matarlo, empezaron a cuidarlo. Absurdo. Algunas horas más tarde, moría a causa de complicaciones cardio-circulatorias (Il Corriere della sera, IT) derivadas de su nacimiento prematuro.

Así que, la línea no está tan clara. Digo yo.

Quality of life

Filed under: Rage against the world — 曹 tsao @ 2:32 am

That’s the expression that I usual hear in the mouth of a doctor in front of an ancient that has NOT asked for leave him/her to dead. It’s a softer expression than “your life is shit. Die and leave us alone!”

Do you remember Logan’s Run?

More on this. Do you remember Nazism?

April 5, 2007

Mourning of fortraners

Filed under: Caminos my dear, Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 9:13 pm

It happened two weeks ago, but I couldn’t pass without write about the death of John W. Backus, the team leader of developers of the Fortran language at the 50’s, developer of the Backus-Naur Form, and Turing Award winner in 1977.

Although young computer scientists usually think, Fortran is not dead. This is the most ancient programming language still active, and, even with the little chaos of new standards (90, 95, 2003), it will be used for the next decades by scientists and engineers :-)

Via Slashdot and OS News.

April 2, 2007

And I use WindowMaker…

Filed under: Free Software — 曹 tsao @ 1:41 am

A week after, I’ll write about the Guademy that GPUL celebrated in the Faculty of Computer Science(FIC) of UDC. I still wonder how in near four months Bille, Chema and Millán organized maybe the best event ever in our free software group. We had the reference of the CTSL’05, but this hackmeeting was planned as a more informal one.
Guademy planning board
Well, that’s I live those days: on thursday I still was ill because a bronchus problem that began three weeks before. But I must get up to prepare the cameras to record the speeches. That would be my main work through the weekend. I went to FIC in the afternoon, and I spent all the evening ensuring I wouldn’t delete on any record of the documentary I began to film last year about the history of GPUL. That evening arrived the young Rafa Fernandez from KDE and Carlos Garnacho and Esteban Sánchez (Steve-o) from Gnome. Meanwhile, outside of 0.00 office, the anual wild ‘San Pepe’ party. We were worry because the hackmeeting zone was dirty with trash and beer…
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