[wiki.git] / MayBlog

== May 2007 ==

=== Fri, 25th ===

==== 60 Minutes ====

In this episode of the popular American show SixtyMinutes,
our founder NicholasNegroponte reveals a lot of details
about the humanitarian role of the OneLaptopPerChild project:

 http://bender.codewiz.org/wikidata/60_minutes_2007-05-20.avi

The part about us starts approximately at 1/3 of the show.

You may also find the last part interesting as it specifically
addresses the controversial problem of private medical centers
trying to save on assistance to homeless people.  Marco, you
should see it!


==== GreenishBitmaps ====

'''Warning''': This article is rated PG0xF00F, parents discretion *not* advised.

I've been struggling for the last few days on a the damn X server.

In the RedHat builds, we're still using a pre-release of 1.2,
labelled 1.1.99.  Now, we need to leverage some upstream work
for input rotation that is landing on the Xorg tree right now.

Backporting is not an option, and we want to stay up to date
anyway.  We'll soon be moving to Fedora 7 anyway.  But even
the just-released 1.3 that will be in Fedora 7 is not enough,
because it has been branched some time ago, we must work
from the tip of the git tree, which of course has become
very unstable recently.

I've been fighting all the week against all sort of bugs
and build problems and, believe me, it's a very energy
consuming exercise.

The funniest thing I'm still trying to track are
these GreenishBitmaps that nobody else except me
is seeing.

It's probably a miscompilation of some kind, but I've
long ago ran out of obvious and less obvious ideas to try
and I'm now far in the land of impossible things.

All this time I've been in contact with a few X
hackers on IRC, including the author of the AMD
driver, but even them couldn't come up with a
magical solution.


==== Chat Line ====

 Bernie, I'm Easy...

'''Bernie''': Hello Easy!!!  It's good to be chatting here in the blog!

I saw this two photo some row below...

 But all those OLPC at the roof, what doing?? Only for furnishing or for specific utility?? :)

'''Bernie''': Hehe... they're part  of the WirelessMesh, for testing
purposes.  An hispanic guy called Miguel (not the same of De Icaza)
sometimes fiddles with them.  He's lucky because he's very tall.
I'd need a ladder :-)

 The office is very beautiful and the Apple Cinema Display is really very big...

'''Bernie''': Yeah, that's the personal screen of my boss/team-leader ChrisBall.
It's 30". One day or another I'll bring here my 24" wide-screen from home.

 Do you have some new news about your new work??

'''Bernie''': Sorry for not updating the blog... I've been *extremely*
busy.  I will do it shortly...  Promised.

=== Sat, 19th ===

==== Trip to work ====

I still couldn't solve the problem of getting to work
quickly.  I can't afford to waste over 2 hours every
day like this.

By now, I've tried any possible solution:

 * Car: the office doesn't have a parking lot and there's
 no way to park within one mile from KendalSquare for less
 than $18/day.  Monthly fees start from $250.

 * Bus: I need to commute in Dudley and take line no. 1 to
 MassachusettsAvenue, then walk 15 minutes to KendalSquare.

 * Bus + subway combo: The red line would get me directly
 to KendalSquare, and there are several routes to get there,
 but all of them require commuting at least twice.  The
 monthly link pass costs $75.

 * Car + subway combo: there are some cheap parkings next
 to the terminal subway stations where you can leave your
 car for $5/day.  Unfortunately, to get there I must
 travel in the opposite direction.  And the whole thing
 will cost $75 + $5*30, about the same of the monthly
 parking fee.

 * Taxi: Costs $11-$14 * 2 every day, which makes the
 monthly parking cheap in comparison.
 
And even worse, the red line stops running at midnight
and bus no 1 at 1AM.  Which forces me to leave from
the office very early (for my standards).

If you want to play with the possibilities, I just
discovered that the transportation company has a very cool
web service that would have saved me a lot of time:

{{{
  http://www.mbta.com/rider_tools/trip_planner/default.asp
  From: 66 Maywood st., Roxbury MA
  To:  Kendall/mit Station, Cambridge
}}}

At the end of the day, the ultimate solution is moving
closer to the office or at least close to the red line.
Maybe I could afford to spend $600 for a room, but I
don't feel like moving right now.  I already have enough
things on my hands.

''Have you considered to put a bicycle in your combo? You may replace a 10 km walk with it and open up new combinations (and ways to get wet...) -- PiroPiro''

==== Awful Weather ====

Today it's raining lightly.  Yesterday I took an extra shower
in the evening :-(

The WikiPedia was definitely right: weather in Boston can
change very rapidly.  Must remember to buy a raincoat like
RichardStallman's and keep it in my backpack.


==== What Next? ====

{{{
1. Get employed at OLPC
2. ???
3. World domination!
}}}

Just joking, but the truth is that I still need
to face a lot of new challenges now.

My next problem will be improving my communication skills.
After one month of full immersion, I can still barely
understand people talking quickly to each and I clearly
express myself using an inadequately poor vocabulary and
too slowly in some cases.

These things will improve over time, while my strong
Italian inflection is likely to remain forever.  If
only I could find one, I'd attend to a course to
correct my diction now.  Actors do them.

Another crucial problem I need to solve quickly is
getting a visa that allows me to work here permanently.
There are many possibilities, but none guaranteed to
succeed.  For now, I'm not thinking about it: my
employer knows better than me and will help as much
as possible.

Last but not least, my job is not easy and requires a
good amount of commitment.  All my colleagues are extremely
smart and more experienced than I am.  So I need to work
twice as hard to keep up with them.

A very nice workplace and very interesting assignments helps.
And, most importantly, I know that what we're doing here is
going to have a huge impact on the world.

'''Andrea Grandi''': Your words give me no hopes for my future :(

'''Bernie''': Are you planning to come here?  Cool! :D

> All my colleagues are extremely smart and more experienced than I am

More than you? It's not a place for me then :D

'''Bernie''': It's worth trying even if you currently think you're
not up to the job.  It's a very valuable experience even if you
end up returning to your home country for some reason.

'''Rasky''': But can you get a perm visa even without an university
degree? I thought that was absolutely out of question... I knew that
people without a degree could just get some 1-year temp visa.


=== Thu, 17th ===

==== More Pics ====

Here are some more pics of MyOlpcDesk.

=== Wed, 16th ===

==== Office Space =====

Here are a few pictures of the OlpcOffice!

==== Hack Hack Hack ====

I've been assigned a problem with an invalid serial port baud
rate after resume from software suspend.

I started investigating the hard way, until ChrisBall pointed
me on IRC to talk with the KernelHacker DavidWoodhouse, who
obviously had a solution in a few seconds.  Unfortunately,
it didn't work as we expected and MitchBradley of OpenFirmware
joined the conversation to help.

Having all the subsystem gurus available to fix your bugs makes
things a lot easier...  Hehe, I think I like it ;-)

And so tomorrow I'll get back to work on a MandelBug with the Xorg's
driver for the AMD chipset.  When XVIDEO is enabled and you
rotate the display with XRANDR, sometimes the X server crashes,
sometimes it just hangs and sometimes it survives with a corrupted
display.  And the bad news is that gdb also hangs.

How will I fix this?  Easy: I'll go looking for the driver authors
first thing tomorrow and beg them to send me a fix :-)

By the way, lately I've been hanging regularly in #olpc on FreeNode.
My nick is _bernie.  Come over to see what's going on!


=== Mon, 14th ===

==== All Night Long ====

At 9PM, I'm still here and plan to stay as long as I can :-)

<please link to the song "All Night Long" here>


==== Buried In Work Already ====

'''WARNING''': Technical AbraCadabra ahead!

Today I met most of the team members and bothered a few of them,
starting from DanWilliams who helped me debug a problem with a
simple mesh networking scenario involving three laptops.

Today I've also been assigned some work from ChrisBall, who also
helped me out with many small things such as a dead battery,
accessing the serial console, etc.  I'm currently adding a
KernelDebugger command to display the ModelSpecificRegister's
of the AmdGeodeCpu.

But it seems like I will also refer to RedHat's ChrisBlizzard
to be assigned more work.  We talked about optimizing the
video driver for the AmdGeodeCpu, getting the resistive
tablet to work and maybe adding "tapping" support to the
capacitive touchpad.

As you know, I like it even more when I'm allowed to ramble
through a zillion different things like this!


==== Sneaky Preview ====

I'm writing this from within the OLPC headquarters.  I came today for
a second interview and to get a few tasks assigned to me :-)

I have no time to be more specific. Will tell you the details a little later.


=== Sun, 13th ===

 '''TODO''': will tell you later

=== Sat, 12th ===

 '''TODO''': will tell you later

=== Fri, 11th ===
  >MUM<  creepy mummy virus it's taking control here.... :-) WRITE SOON OR IT/SHE WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!
==== Quite a Trip ====

Today I'm leaving the safe and familiar BostonCity to boldly go where I've
never been before.

The current plan is to drive south to ProvidenceCity, BrdigeportCity, NewYorkCity,
PhiladelphiaCity, BaltimoreCity and, finally, WashingtonCity.  Maybe I'll even
push myself down in FloridaState to go see the SpaceShuttle!

I could use a GPS.  I've seen a few TomTom's, but $299 seems way too
much to me for a talking map.  Maybe I'll buy a traditional map for
$10.

Ah, and I will sleep frugally, of course.  Hostels and motels when I find
them.  So, over the next few days I'll be lucky if I have intermittent
Internet access and, consequently, I won't probably be able to sync the
BrainDump.


=== Thu, 10th ===

 '''Babbo''': Ma fino ad oggi con quali danari hai vissuto dato che sei partito con 10€ liquidi?

 '''Bernie''': Ho prelevato i soldi dall'ATM... con il bancomat delle poste!  E vedo dai movimenti
 sul conto che hanno applicato un buon cambio e nessuna penale strana.

==== Car Rental ====

Today I finally rent a car.  It's a SaturnIon, a brand and model I never heard
of before.

http://www.edmunds.com/media/seo/500/2006.saturn.ion.jpg

I felt very comfortable driving all over Europe: Italy, Swiss, Spain, France,
Germany, Belgium, and even Greece...  But, for some reason, I was quite afraid
of driving a car here in the States. 

Maybe it's because the road signs are somewhat different and there are a few
subtly different rules, such as turning right on red, not parking in front
of hydrants, etc.  Most probably, it's because I've seen way too many movies
where people get stopped by police and thrown in jail quite easily!

Well, so far everything went very well.  I mean, except for parking.  Parking
in downtown is easy if you're willing to pay $10-12 for a few hours.
It's a big pain in the ass otherwise...  The best way I've found so far
is to park near a minor T station and then get the T to downtown :-(

And, of course, the car has AutomaticTransmission, which I managed to learn
quickly: the trouble comes when you switch the other way around ;-)

Ok, today I've driven all around Boston just to get used to it.  Tomorrow
I'll probably dare getting on the highway to see around.


==== Business Visa? ====

Today I've re-read detailed information on the
available US visa options:

 http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1262.html

Looks like a ''B-1'' Business Visa would do.  To get one,
I should go to a US ambassy, and ambassys are usually
located abroad.  Instead of returning to Italy, maybe
I could get an appointment in MontrealCity, which is
near to the border and also an interesting place to see.


=== Wed, 9th ===

==== Zip Car ====

Yesterday I applied for this great service: http://www.zipcar.com/ .
Isn't it a good idea?  Costs less than renting a car and is almost
as versatile.

<rasky> http://www.carsharingfirenze.it/ :)

Today I walked to their offices to give them my documents
and get the magnetic card.  They said they will enable it
first thing tomorrow *if* the "insurance risk declaration"
I got from Italy suffices.


==== Simple shopping ====

Consumers must be very simple minded here.  First, most
shop names are simply dumb: '''Pay Less''', '''Save-A-Lot''',
'''Big Deal''', and so on.

''Sounds very '''meno tasse per tutti''' to me... -- PiroPiro''

Second, they try to subtle deceptions such as: "take 2 for $24.xx",
and, next to it: "take 3 for $21.xx", Which of course is
impossible.  It's a trap!  The little figures placed
exactly where you would expect to see the cents, are
indeed a small notice: ''EACH''.

Today I bought a dozen of razor blades ($1.50), a
bottle of shampoo ($1.50) and shower gel ($1.50).
But I spent $12 for adjusting the two pair of
trousers I had bought a few days ago in the mall!
$12 ''EACH'', I mean.


==== Bad Neighborhood ====

Walking home alone in the night, I may encounter some ''bad'' guys:

http://bender.codewiz.org/wikidata/text/FunWithWeapons.jpg

Better be careful :-)


=== Tue, 8th ===

==== Veni, Vidi, ???? ====

This morning I shown up at OneLaptopPerChild's headquarters.  It's again next to KendallSquare,
in OneCambridgeCenter.

JimGettys was very kind: he took me to LegalSeaFood for lunch, repaired my ExOh's keyboard (two
keys were dead) and introduced me to the team members.

They left me with the usual Hollywood formula: "don't call us, we'll call you".
But in this particular case, I felt they were sincere :-)

I hope to be soon a member of the OLPC core team!


=== Mon, 7th ===

==== Alea Iacta Est ====

As promised...  Yes, indeed.  Everybody please cross their fingers.

Babbo:Pregherò perchè tu possa ottenere quello che cerchi.

Camy:  Mannaggia a voi due ( Bernie e Alberto ) siete cosi..."teneri". Come ho già detto tante volte a Bernie, è fortunato ad avere un babbo cosi! Lo so, lo so che non c'entra nulla con lo stile di questo blog, ma io sono cosi, impulsiva e Bernie lo sa e mi perdonerà.
A dire il vero anch'io sto in ansia per lui :-) speriamo bene...

Bernie: Via, non fatemi venire il magone voi due :-)

=== Sun, 6th ===

==== International Dinner ====

FedericoLucifredi and his wife Irena were so kind to invite me at their place for a
fine dinner with appetizers, SirloinSteak (see pic below), several side
dishes and... Even a PinotNoir!

http://www.fairburysteaks.com/images/bci-sirloin-round-bone.gif

There were also Mauro -- Federico's colleague at Ximian -- and Irena's
friend who's a physics professor from Providence and could speak perfect
French and, surprisingly, even Italian!

What can I say?  I think I got a pound or two that night, but it was
worth it! :-)


=== Sat, 5th ===

==== Cinema ====

There's a cinema in building 26 @ EmAiTee, and it's cheap.
I'm going tonight.

==== Cursious? ====

If you're curious, my room rent is $500 per month.  Utilities,
 forniture and DSL Internet access are included.

It's not cheap, but it's also not too expensive for Boston.
They told me that only Manhattan is more expensive here on
the east coast.

==== CurriculumVitae ====

...is almost ready.  A friend told me that I'd better have
also a synthetic resume of 1-2 pages for the impatient.
I think he's right.

Well, I said I'd be finished by last Monday, but then I
managed to slip past my own deadline visiting NewYorkCity,
moving in my current room and in other frivolous ways.

Now I have no excuses: the time has come.  Next Monday I
''will'' write my proposal.  Seriously.

=== Fri, 4th ===

==== Exchange Rates ====

Looks like I'd better convert all my money to dollars *now*:

 http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/EUR/graph30.html

What do you think about it?

Babbo:penso che $ continuerà a svalutare. Perderai soldi.

==== StataCenter ====

I forgot to tell you about the kewlest building in EmAiTee:

 http://www.eecs.mit.edu/images/big-stata12.jpg

See also: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/stata-link.html

==== Fast night ====

After a long time, I finally get to (ab)use MIT's wi-fi and
barf my short-term brain buffer into my BrainDump.

Tonight we went to an Irish pub next to Kendall, where I got
to know a few more Ximian employees.   I got rumors that
the famous kernel hacker RobertLove would be there, so after
a while I turned to the guy next to me and asked: "Is
RobertLove really going to come?".  And he replied: "Speaking."

Another guy told me: "Hi, I'm BAHB". "Pardon?".  "BAHB!".
"What???".  Federico promptly helped me out: "Ha detto che si
chiama BOB :-)"

The beer was good.  I discovered that a BlueMoon is the
nearest approximation of a WeisseBeer I can find here,
and I'm not at all displeased by its taste.

==== Slow day ====

My landlord has recently switched DSL provider and Internet
doesn't work any more: the sync light on the modem flashes.
It seems that crappy ISPs are a common disease in the States
as well.

Yesterday, he called for service and, finally, they told him
they would send a tech today from 8AM to 18PM.  They refused
to be more specific.  And so I've agreed to wait here to let
the guy in... I care about it for myself too!

==== Weight ====

By the way, today I'm exactly 150 pounds (use GoogleCalculator
to get it to SI units).

150 pounds = 68.0388555 kilograms

=== Thu, 3rd ===

==== Roxbury ====

They told me Roxbury is quite an infamous suburb of Boston.
And my first impression confirms that: shops are uglier,
parks and streets are somewhat dirtier (but not as much as
in NewYorkCity!) and, most importantly, some of the neighbors
look creepy.  Especially in the night, streets are crowded by
people with criminal faces and many homeless.

You know I'm not the type who's easily scared off by a bunch
of zombies, but I'll feel much better when I'll drive a car.

==== Moving In ====

I've finally settled in my room.  There's no need to describe the house
in detail, as it's the most typical colonial design: two floors plus
basement, front and back yards, sliding windows, wooden floors
everywhere.  You've come to know them very well from the movies.

Today I went to the mall to gather the essentials: a blankets,
a pillow case and some bath towels.  The bed is comfortable and
I was quite tired already, therefore I fell asleep early in the
evening and kept on until 8 AM.

'''WARNING: TIME WARP OCCURRED'''

-----

'''WARNING: TIME WARP IMMINENT'''

=== Fri, 4th ===

Alberto: Attento a convertire € in $ perchè € si sta apprezzando,e quindi $ svalutando rispetto a €.

Belle le foto scovate da Massimo. Have a good stay in Btn.

Massimo: Bernie, you taught me: http://www.google.com/search?q=100+USD+in+EUR 


Massimo: Since Bernie could not give us any picture, I had to use flickr: here they are!

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bernardo+innocenti

Piro: what in the heaven is RMS doing dressed like a camp tent? :D

=== Wed, 2nd ===

==== BankOfAmerica ====

I went to BankOfAmerica and opened a bank account.  I went there wearing a yellow T-shirt
and a weary pair of jeans.  In the beginning, they referred me to a young guy who quickly
tried to offer me a student's saving account.  When I queried for interest rates, credit
cards, and dollar/euro conversion rates, they finally realized that I was going to move
a bit of money.

When I've shown them my balance, they immediately switched me to a very polite girl who
took all the time to explain me everything in detail until after their closing time and
recommended me to open *3* different accounts to get a rate of 4.80% with no fees!
I totally hate when people judge you by your wealth, dressing, or other stupid status
symbols, but maybe a bank is the only exception where it makes sense to do so.

Banking appears to be far, far simpler here.  I already feel like I know
everything while in Italy I still can't read most of the paperwork I get from
my banks.

Batt: Or maybe american bankers are so skilled that you are happy while, in truth, they have stolen your money forever :-P

Massimo: Yahr yahr! He didn't realize they already got 4.80% of his balance from his pocket with a magician move! Yahr yahr! Anyway... 4-5% rate is not absurd in the US. It has always been almost like this as far as I can remember (maybe sometimes it was even 6-7%). It's useful for someone (like bernie), but tragic for someone who does not have any money and to buy a house with those mortgages it's almost impossible. Still, the US has got a very low rate in comparison with other extra-european countries.

=== Tue, 1st ===

==== Good News, Everyone! ====

'''After a long struggling, I've finally found a room!'''

And I'll be moving in *today*!  But I'm writing on Thursday the 3rd, actually (aren't you thinking fourth-dimentionally yet?).

The room is nice and comes with some forniture, including a desk.  It's on the second floor
of a house where the landlord lives with her wife and a very friendly puppy.I like it
that way: all those houses shared by students I've seen so far tend to become unmaintained
and dirty quite quickly, while this one is a real house with a fully operational kitchen,
bathroom and even a clean back garden!

My landlord is Armenian, but have been living here in Boston for a long time.  My first
impression is he's a very nice person, honest and easy going.  I haven't met his wife yet --
she'll be back on Sunday.

I'm afraid the house is a bit far away from MIT, in southern Boston.  But that won't
be a problem as soon as I buy a car.  There may even be a chance to rent or buy the
car readily from my landlord's son.

I don't know the address yet.  I should, but I forgot the sheet on the table when I went there.  And I can't call my landlord either because I've stolen his cell phone by mistake also.  Yeah, I reckon I mustn't  a good impression, actually  :-)


'''Camy''': the landlord lives with '''his''' wife

==== Do You Speak English? ====

Some of you will be pissed off by this change, but I'm starting to make
some international friends here and none of them could read Italian.

Writing in English is also what I need to improve my writing skills.
For the few of you who barely know English, some more reading surely won't hurt!
If you're real lazy,
[[http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbender.codewiz.org%2Fwiki%2FMayBlog&langpair=en%7Cit=en Google Translator]]
is your friend.

As always, I'd very much appreciate being told about any mistake I make.

''Massimo: ok, let's start with those horrible contractions my poor eyes had to read: '''Won't''' and '''I'd'''. Hey Bernie! You already went back home from NYC. Ain't gonna play with ya 'nymore!''