7 Today I typed {{cvs up -dP}} to update Gnash from CVS.
8 And I got the prompt back in less than 1s.
10 "Something must be broken!", I thought! In fact, it's
11 blazingly fast because we're just 2ms away from Savannah:
14 PING cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69) 56(84) bytes of data.
15 64 bytes from cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69): icmp_seq=1 ttl=58 time=2.31 ms
16 64 bytes from cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69): icmp_seq=2 ttl=58 time=2.21 ms
17 64 bytes from cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69): icmp_seq=3 ttl=58 time=2.00 ms
20 And it's not even in MIT:
23 traceroute to cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
24 1 passport-9-16.media.mit.edu (18.85.46.1) 1.756 ms 1.695 ms 1.845 ms
25 2 amtgw.media.mit.edu (18.85.0.1) 2.230 ms 1.248 ms 1.150 ms
26 3 EXTERNAL-RTR-1-BACKBONE.MIT.EDU (18.168.0.18) 1.409 ms 1.435 ms 1.374 ms
27 4 EXTERNAL-RTR-2-BACKBONE.MIT.EDU (18.168.0.27) 1.391 ms 1.389 ms 1.426 ms
28 5 207.210.143.109 (207.210.143.109) 1.428 ms 1.505 ms 1.414 ms
29 6 207.210.143.138 (207.210.143.138) 12.756 ms 2.162 ms 1.998 ms
30 7 ge-2-1-0-000.ar1.qcy1.ma.gnaps.NET (199.232.44.142) 4.879 ms 2.592 ms 2.485 ms
31 8 cvs.savannah.gnu.org (199.232.41.69) 2.713 ms 7.476 ms 13.328 ms
34 Boston sure has a very fast WAN backbone!
39 Ciao Berni!!! Te tu sei un grande, qui dalla OTE ti si saluta con affetto!!!
41 Grazie ragazzi! Il sentimento e' reciproco! Uno di questi giorni
42 dovete proprio venire a bere una birra qua a Boston!
44 ==== More Graphics Headaches ====
46 Hehe, more graphics problems keep sprinkling: XorgGraphicsCorruption.
47 CosmicPenguin was kind enough to offload me of the graphics related bugs.
54 And if you really have too much time on your hands, try helping me out on some of
58 * http://dev.laptop.org/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&status=closed&owner=bernie&order=priority
61 ==== Weekly OLPC Reports ====
63 If you're interested in our progess at the OLPC lab, we
64 publish weekly executive summaries here:
66 http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/latest/news
68 This is the report that mentions me volunteering for
71 http://laptop.media.mit.edu/laptopnews.nsf/2e76a5a80bc36cbf85256cd700545fa5/6709ac0696003ee3852572e00083567f?OpenDocument
78 In this episode of the popular American show SixtyMinutes,
79 our founder NicholasNegroponte reveals a lot of details
80 about the humanitarian role of the OneLaptopPerChild project:
82 http://bender.codewiz.org/wikidata/60_minutes_2007-05-20.avi
84 The part about us starts approximately at 1/3 of the show.
86 You may also find the last part interesting as it specifically
87 addresses the controversial problem of private medical centers
88 trying to save on assistance to homeless people. Marco, you
92 ==== GreenishBitmaps ====
94 '''Warning''': This article is rated PG0xF00F, parents discretion *not* advised.
96 I've been struggling for the last few days on a the damn X server.
98 In the RedHat builds, we're still using a pre-release of 1.2,
99 labelled 1.1.99. Now, we need to leverage some upstream work
100 for input rotation that is landing on the Xorg tree right now.
102 Backporting is not an option, and we want to stay up to date
103 anyway. We'll soon be moving to Fedora 7 anyway. But even
104 the just-released 1.3 that will be in Fedora 7 is not enough,
105 because it has been branched some time ago, we must work
106 from the tip of the git tree, which of course has become
107 very unstable recently.
109 I've been fighting all the week against all sort of bugs
110 and build problems and, believe me, it's a very energy
113 The funniest thing I'm still trying to track are
114 these GreenishBitmaps that nobody else except me
117 It's probably a miscompilation of some kind, but I've
118 long ago ran out of obvious and less obvious ideas to try
119 and I'm now far in the land of impossible things.
121 All this time I've been in contact with a few X
122 hackers on IRC, including the author of the AMD
123 driver, but even them couldn't come up with a
131 '''Bernie''': Hello Easy!!! It's good to be chatting here in the blog!
133 I saw this two photo some row below...
135 But all those OLPC at the roof, what doing?? Only for furnishing or for specific utility?? :)
137 '''Bernie''': Hehe... they're part of the WirelessMesh, for testing
138 purposes. An hispanic guy called Miguel (not the same of De Icaza)
139 sometimes fiddles with them. He's lucky because he's very tall.
140 I'd need a ladder :-)
142 The office is very beautiful and the Apple Cinema Display is really very big...
144 '''Bernie''': Yeah, that's the personal screen of my boss/team-leader ChrisBall.
145 It's 30". One day or another I'll bring here my 24" wide-screen from home.
147 Do you have some new news about your new work??
149 '''Bernie''': Sorry for not updating the blog... I've been *extremely*
150 busy. I will do it shortly... Promised.
154 ==== Trip to work ====
156 I still couldn't solve the problem of getting to work
157 quickly. I can't afford to waste over 2 hours every
160 By now, I've tried any possible solution:
162 * Car: the office doesn't have a parking lot and there's
163 no way to park within one mile from KendalSquare for less
164 than $18/day. Monthly fees start from $250.
166 * Bus: I need to commute in Dudley and take line no. 1 to
167 MassachusettsAvenue, then walk 15 minutes to KendalSquare.
169 * Bus + subway combo: The red line would get me directly
170 to KendalSquare, and there are several routes to get there,
171 but all of them require commuting at least twice. The
172 monthly link pass costs $75.
174 * Car + subway combo: there are some cheap parkings next
175 to the terminal subway stations where you can leave your
176 car for $5/day. Unfortunately, to get there I must
177 travel in the opposite direction. And the whole thing
178 will cost $75 + $5*30, about the same of the monthly
181 * Taxi: Costs $11-$14 * 2 every day, which makes the
182 monthly parking cheap in comparison.
184 And even worse, the red line stops running at midnight
185 and bus no 1 at 1AM. Which forces me to leave from
186 the office very early (for my standards).
188 If you want to play with the possibilities, I just
189 discovered that the transportation company has a very cool
190 web service that would have saved me a lot of time:
193 http://www.mbta.com/rider_tools/trip_planner/default.asp
194 From: 66 Maywood st., Roxbury MA
195 To: Kendall/mit Station, Cambridge
198 At the end of the day, the ultimate solution is moving
199 closer to the office or at least close to the red line.
200 Maybe I could afford to spend $600 for a room, but I
201 don't feel like moving right now. I already have enough
204 ''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''
206 ==== Awful Weather ====
208 Today it's raining lightly. Yesterday I took an extra shower
211 The WikiPedia was definitely right: weather in Boston can
212 change very rapidly. Must remember to buy a raincoat like
213 RichardStallman's and keep it in my backpack.
219 1. Get employed at OLPC
224 Just joking, but the truth is that I still need
225 to face a lot of new challenges now.
227 My next problem will be improving my communication skills.
228 After one month of full immersion, I can still barely
229 understand people talking quickly to each and I clearly
230 express myself using an inadequately poor vocabulary and
231 too slowly in some cases.
233 These things will improve over time, while my strong
234 Italian inflection is likely to remain forever. If
235 only I could find one, I'd attend to a course to
236 correct my diction now. Actors do them.
238 Another crucial problem I need to solve quickly is
239 getting a visa that allows me to work here permanently.
240 There are many possibilities, but none guaranteed to
241 succeed. For now, I'm not thinking about it: my
242 employer knows better than me and will help as much
245 Last but not least, my job is not easy and requires a
246 good amount of commitment. All my colleagues are extremely
247 smart and more experienced than I am. So I need to work
248 twice as hard to keep up with them.
250 A very nice workplace and very interesting assignments helps.
251 And, most importantly, I know that what we're doing here is
252 going to have a huge impact on the world.
254 '''Andrea Grandi''': Your words give me no hopes for my future :(
256 '''Bernie''': Are you planning to come here? Cool! :D
258 > All my colleagues are extremely smart and more experienced than I am
260 More than you? It's not a place for me then :D
262 '''Bernie''': It's worth trying even if you currently think you're
263 not up to the job. It's a very valuable experience even if you
264 end up returning to your home country for some reason.
266 '''Rasky''': But can you get a perm visa even without an university
267 degree? I thought that was absolutely out of question... I knew that
268 people without a degree could just get some 1-year temp visa.
275 Here are some more pics of MyOlpcDesk.
279 ==== Office Space =====
281 Here are a few pictures of the OlpcOffice!
283 ==== Hack Hack Hack ====
285 I've been assigned a problem with an invalid serial port baud
286 rate after resume from software suspend.
288 I started investigating the hard way, until ChrisBall pointed
289 me on IRC to talk with the KernelHacker DavidWoodhouse, who
290 obviously had a solution in a few seconds. Unfortunately,
291 it didn't work as we expected and MitchBradley of OpenFirmware
292 joined the conversation to help.
294 Having all the subsystem gurus available to fix your bugs makes
295 things a lot easier... Hehe, I think I like it ;-)
297 And so tomorrow I'll get back to work on a MandelBug with the Xorg's
298 driver for the AMD chipset. When XVIDEO is enabled and you
299 rotate the display with XRANDR, sometimes the X server crashes,
300 sometimes it just hangs and sometimes it survives with a corrupted
301 display. And the bad news is that gdb also hangs.
303 How will I fix this? Easy: I'll go looking for the driver authors
304 first thing tomorrow and beg them to send me a fix :-)
306 By the way, lately I've been hanging regularly in #olpc on FreeNode.
307 My nick is _bernie. Come over to see what's going on!
312 ==== All Night Long ====
314 At 9PM, I'm still here and plan to stay as long as I can :-)
316 <please link to the song "All Night Long" here>
319 ==== Buried In Work Already ====
321 '''WARNING''': Technical AbraCadabra ahead!
323 Today I met most of the team members and bothered a few of them,
324 starting from DanWilliams who helped me debug a problem with a
325 simple mesh networking scenario involving three laptops.
327 Today I've also been assigned some work from ChrisBall, who also
328 helped me out with many small things such as a dead battery,
329 accessing the serial console, etc. I'm currently adding a
330 KernelDebugger command to display the ModelSpecificRegister's
333 But it seems like I will also refer to RedHat's ChrisBlizzard
334 to be assigned more work. We talked about optimizing the
335 video driver for the AmdGeodeCpu, getting the resistive
336 tablet to work and maybe adding "tapping" support to the
339 As you know, I like it even more when I'm allowed to ramble
340 through a zillion different things like this!
343 ==== Sneaky Preview ====
345 I'm writing this from within the OLPC headquarters. I came today for
346 a second interview and to get a few tasks assigned to me :-)
348 I have no time to be more specific. Will tell you the details a little later.
353 '''TODO''': will tell you later
357 '''TODO''': will tell you later
360 >MUM< creepy mummy virus it's taking control here.... :-) WRITE SOON OR IT/SHE WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING!
361 ==== Quite a Trip ====
363 Today I'm leaving the safe and familiar BostonCity to boldly go where I've
366 The current plan is to drive south to ProvidenceCity, BrdigeportCity, NewYorkCity,
367 PhiladelphiaCity, BaltimoreCity and, finally, WashingtonCity. Maybe I'll even
368 push myself down in FloridaState to go see the SpaceShuttle!
370 I could use a GPS. I've seen a few TomTom's, but $299 seems way too
371 much to me for a talking map. Maybe I'll buy a traditional map for
374 Ah, and I will sleep frugally, of course. Hostels and motels when I find
375 them. So, over the next few days I'll be lucky if I have intermittent
376 Internet access and, consequently, I won't probably be able to sync the
382 '''Babbo''': Ma fino ad oggi con quali danari hai vissuto dato che sei partito con 10€ liquidi?
384 '''Bernie''': Ho prelevato i soldi dall'ATM... con il bancomat delle poste! E vedo dai movimenti
385 sul conto che hanno applicato un buon cambio e nessuna penale strana.
389 Today I finally rent a car. It's a SaturnIon, a brand and model I never heard
392 http://www.edmunds.com/media/seo/500/2006.saturn.ion.jpg
394 I felt very comfortable driving all over Europe: Italy, Swiss, Spain, France,
395 Germany, Belgium, and even Greece... But, for some reason, I was quite afraid
396 of driving a car here in the States.
398 Maybe it's because the road signs are somewhat different and there are a few
399 subtly different rules, such as turning right on red, not parking in front
400 of hydrants, etc. Most probably, it's because I've seen way too many movies
401 where people get stopped by police and thrown in jail quite easily!
403 Well, so far everything went very well. I mean, except for parking. Parking
404 in downtown is easy if you're willing to pay $10-12 for a few hours.
405 It's a big pain in the ass otherwise... The best way I've found so far
406 is to park near a minor T station and then get the T to downtown :-(
408 And, of course, the car has AutomaticTransmission, which I managed to learn
409 quickly: the trouble comes when you switch the other way around ;-)
411 Ok, today I've driven all around Boston just to get used to it. Tomorrow
412 I'll probably dare getting on the highway to see around.
415 ==== Business Visa? ====
417 Today I've re-read detailed information on the
418 available US visa options:
420 http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1262.html
422 Looks like a ''B-1'' Business Visa would do. To get one,
423 I should go to a US ambassy, and ambassys are usually
424 located abroad. Instead of returning to Italy, maybe
425 I could get an appointment in MontrealCity, which is
426 near to the border and also an interesting place to see.
433 Yesterday I applied for this great service: http://www.zipcar.com/ .
434 Isn't it a good idea? Costs less than renting a car and is almost
437 <rasky> http://www.carsharingfirenze.it/ :)
439 Today I walked to their offices to give them my documents
440 and get the magnetic card. They said they will enable it
441 first thing tomorrow *if* the "insurance risk declaration"
442 I got from Italy suffices.
445 ==== Simple shopping ====
447 Consumers must be very simple minded here. First, most
448 shop names are simply dumb: '''Pay Less''', '''Save-A-Lot''',
449 '''Big Deal''', and so on.
451 ''Sounds very '''meno tasse per tutti''' to me... -- PiroPiro''
453 Second, they try to subtle deceptions such as: "take 2 for $24.xx",
454 and, next to it: "take 3 for $21.xx", Which of course is
455 impossible. It's a trap! The little figures placed
456 exactly where you would expect to see the cents, are
457 indeed a small notice: ''EACH''.
459 Today I bought a dozen of razor blades ($1.50), a
460 bottle of shampoo ($1.50) and shower gel ($1.50).
461 But I spent $12 for adjusting the two pair of
462 trousers I had bought a few days ago in the mall!
463 $12 ''EACH'', I mean.
466 ==== Bad Neighborhood ====
468 Walking home alone in the night, I may encounter some ''bad'' guys:
470 http://bender.codewiz.org/wikidata/text/FunWithWeapons.jpg
472 Better be careful :-)
477 ==== Veni, Vidi, ???? ====
479 This morning I shown up at OneLaptopPerChild's headquarters. It's again next to KendallSquare,
480 in OneCambridgeCenter.
482 JimGettys was very kind: he took me to LegalSeaFood for lunch, repaired my ExOh's keyboard (two
483 keys were dead) and introduced me to the team members.
485 They left me with the usual Hollywood formula: "don't call us, we'll call you".
486 But in this particular case, I felt they were sincere :-)
488 I hope to be soon a member of the OLPC core team!
493 ==== Alea Iacta Est ====
495 As promised... Yes, indeed. Everybody please cross their fingers.
497 Babbo:Pregherò perchè tu possa ottenere quello che cerchi.
499 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.
500 A dire il vero anch'io sto in ansia per lui :-) speriamo bene...
502 Bernie: Via, non fatemi venire il magone voi due :-)
506 ==== International Dinner ====
508 FedericoLucifredi and his wife Irena were so kind to invite me at their place for a
509 fine dinner with appetizers, SirloinSteak (see pic below), several side
510 dishes and... Even a PinotNoir!
512 http://www.fairburysteaks.com/images/bci-sirloin-round-bone.gif
514 There were also Mauro -- Federico's colleague at Ximian -- and Irena's
515 friend who's a physics professor from Providence and could speak perfect
516 French and, surprisingly, even Italian!
518 What can I say? I think I got a pound or two that night, but it was
526 There's a cinema in building 26 @ EmAiTee, and it's cheap.
531 If you're curious, my room rent is $500 per month. Utilities,
532 forniture and DSL Internet access are included.
534 It's not cheap, but it's also not too expensive for Boston.
535 They told me that only Manhattan is more expensive here on
538 ==== CurriculumVitae ====
540 ...is almost ready. A friend told me that I'd better have
541 also a synthetic resume of 1-2 pages for the impatient.
544 Well, I said I'd be finished by last Monday, but then I
545 managed to slip past my own deadline visiting NewYorkCity,
546 moving in my current room and in other frivolous ways.
548 Now I have no excuses: the time has come. Next Monday I
549 ''will'' write my proposal. Seriously.
553 ==== Exchange Rates ====
555 Looks like I'd better convert all my money to dollars *now*:
557 http://www.x-rates.com/d/USD/EUR/graph30.html
559 What do you think about it?
561 Babbo:penso che $ continuerà a svalutare. Perderai soldi.
563 ==== StataCenter ====
565 I forgot to tell you about the kewlest building in EmAiTee:
567 http://www.eecs.mit.edu/images/big-stata12.jpg
569 See also: http://www.eecs.mit.edu/stata-link.html
573 After a long time, I finally get to (ab)use MIT's wi-fi and
574 barf my short-term brain buffer into my BrainDump.
576 Tonight we went to an Irish pub next to Kendall, where I got
577 to know a few more Ximian employees. I got rumors that
578 the famous kernel hacker RobertLove would be there, so after
579 a while I turned to the guy next to me and asked: "Is
580 RobertLove really going to come?". And he replied: "Speaking."
582 Another guy told me: "Hi, I'm BAHB". "Pardon?". "BAHB!".
583 "What???". Federico promptly helped me out: "Ha detto che si
586 The beer was good. I discovered that a BlueMoon is the
587 nearest approximation of a WeisseBeer I can find here,
588 and I'm not at all displeased by its taste.
592 My landlord has recently switched DSL provider and Internet
593 doesn't work any more: the sync light on the modem flashes.
594 It seems that crappy ISPs are a common disease in the States
597 Yesterday, he called for service and, finally, they told him
598 they would send a tech today from 8AM to 18PM. They refused
599 to be more specific. And so I've agreed to wait here to let
600 the guy in... I care about it for myself too!
604 By the way, today I'm exactly 150 pounds (use GoogleCalculator
605 to get it to SI units).
607 150 pounds = 68.0388555 kilograms
613 They told me Roxbury is quite an infamous suburb of Boston.
614 And my first impression confirms that: shops are uglier,
615 parks and streets are somewhat dirtier (but not as much as
616 in NewYorkCity!) and, most importantly, some of the neighbors
617 look creepy. Especially in the night, streets are crowded by
618 people with criminal faces and many homeless.
620 You know I'm not the type who's easily scared off by a bunch
621 of zombies, but I'll feel much better when I'll drive a car.
625 I've finally settled in my room. There's no need to describe the house
626 in detail, as it's the most typical colonial design: two floors plus
627 basement, front and back yards, sliding windows, wooden floors
628 everywhere. You've come to know them very well from the movies.
630 Today I went to the mall to gather the essentials: a blankets,
631 a pillow case and some bath towels. The bed is comfortable and
632 I was quite tired already, therefore I fell asleep early in the
633 evening and kept on until 8 AM.
635 '''WARNING: TIME WARP OCCURRED'''
639 '''WARNING: TIME WARP IMMINENT'''
643 Alberto: Attento a convertire € in $ perchè € si sta apprezzando,e quindi $ svalutando rispetto a €.
645 Belle le foto scovate da Massimo. Have a good stay in Btn.
647 Massimo: Bernie, you taught me: http://www.google.com/search?q=100+USD+in+EUR
650 Massimo: Since Bernie could not give us any picture, I had to use flickr: here they are!
652 http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bernardo+innocenti
654 Piro: what in the heaven is RMS doing dressed like a camp tent? :D
658 ==== BankOfAmerica ====
660 I went to BankOfAmerica and opened a bank account. I went there wearing a yellow T-shirt
661 and a weary pair of jeans. In the beginning, they referred me to a young guy who quickly
662 tried to offer me a student's saving account. When I queried for interest rates, credit
663 cards, and dollar/euro conversion rates, they finally realized that I was going to move
666 When I've shown them my balance, they immediately switched me to a very polite girl who
667 took all the time to explain me everything in detail until after their closing time and
668 recommended me to open *3* different accounts to get a rate of 4.80% with no fees!
669 I totally hate when people judge you by your wealth, dressing, or other stupid status
670 symbols, but maybe a bank is the only exception where it makes sense to do so.
672 Banking appears to be far, far simpler here. I already feel like I know
673 everything while in Italy I still can't read most of the paperwork I get from
676 Batt: Or maybe american bankers are so skilled that you are happy while, in truth, they have stolen your money forever :-P
678 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.
682 ==== Good News, Everyone! ====
684 '''After a long struggling, I've finally found a room!'''
686 And I'll be moving in *today*! But I'm writing on Thursday the 3rd, actually (aren't you thinking fourth-dimentionally yet?).
688 The room is nice and comes with some forniture, including a desk. It's on the second floor
689 of a house where the landlord lives with her wife and a very friendly puppy.I like it
690 that way: all those houses shared by students I've seen so far tend to become unmaintained
691 and dirty quite quickly, while this one is a real house with a fully operational kitchen,
692 bathroom and even a clean back garden!
694 My landlord is Armenian, but have been living here in Boston for a long time. My first
695 impression is he's a very nice person, honest and easy going. I haven't met his wife yet --
696 she'll be back on Sunday.
698 I'm afraid the house is a bit far away from MIT, in southern Boston. But that won't
699 be a problem as soon as I buy a car. There may even be a chance to rent or buy the
700 car readily from my landlord's son.
702 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 :-)
705 '''Camy''': the landlord lives with '''his''' wife
707 ==== Do You Speak English? ====
709 Some of you will be pissed off by this change, but I'm starting to make
710 some international friends here and none of them could read Italian.
712 Writing in English is also what I need to improve my writing skills.
713 For the few of you who barely know English, some more reading surely won't hurt!
715 [[http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fbender.codewiz.org%2Fwiki%2FMayBlog&langpair=en%7Cit=en Google Translator]]
718 As always, I'd very much appreciate being told about any mistake I make.
720 ''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!''