neuro.me.uk

Update 2009-12-13 17:54: updated Facebook group URL, charity total
Update 2009-12-13 21:49: original Facebook group is back!
Update 2009-12-14 08:00: It’s Monday! BUY IT NOW!
Update 2009-12-15 13:00: Keep buying! A one day push isn’t enough, it needs to be sustained throughout the week! We’re currently up 10% over X Factor Joe!
Update 2009-12-20 00:10: Well, if the iTunes top 10 is anything to go by, we’re home!

So it’s The X Factor finale tonight, not that I could really care much. I’ve only watched it when the regional auditions are on, which means I only watch it for the first four weeks or so, but they changed the format to have the auditions in front of an audience, Britain’s Got Talent-stylee. This didn’t sit well for me, so I ended up not watching at all; no great loss to my media consumption whatsoever.

Concurrent with all this X Factor bollocks, and the usual notion that the winner will go on to produce a single worthy of making enough sales to reach No. 1 of the charts for Christmas, there’s a concerted online effort by over 600,000 Facebook members to kibosh this trend — they’re urging people to buy Rage Against the Machine’s 1993 track “Killing in the Name” so that it’ll go to No. 1. You may have heard about this over the last couple of days. Simon Cowell thinks the campaign is “stupid”, “cynical” and will “spoil the party for these three” [the X Factor finalists]. I think it’s a fantastic idea, which pushes buying power back towards the consumers, and away from the moguls who insist on showering us with manufactured pop fluff. I’m not saying there’s no place for pop fluff, but perhaps The X Factor would be better placed to promote jobbing musicians with real talent, not just at singing other people’s compositions, but at actually writing, creating and performing their own, original and passionate music. Hearing another over-produced piece of pap churned out by a dozen songwriters and emitted by the next bland Z-list wannabe is not my idea of promoting musical talent in this country. Honestly, Leona Lewis aside, can anyone point me to the classic music that past winners are still putting out?

And bear in mind that this campaign wasn’t created by some noo-meeja Nathan Barley-style wankers, or some record company execs looking to make a quick buck at Simon Cowell’s expense (Rage are signed to Epic, who are owned by Sony BMG, who employ Cowell, so Sony only stand to benefit either way here); it was created by two people on Facebook — Tracy and Jon Morter — who had decided that enough was enough. At the moment, nearly three quarters of a million people agree. If you’re on Facebook, you should join in the fun.

Anyway, the campaign: it’s ridiculously simple. Put Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name” at Number One in the Christmas chart by buying it between this Monday (14th) and Saturday (19th). Some places are saying do it tomorrow (Sunday the 13th), but it’s unclear whether or not sales tomorrow will count towards the Christmas Top 40 data, so better safe than sorry — do it sometime between Monday and Saturday. And yes, downloads absolutely count. Even if you already own the single or the 1993 self-titled album, buy it again. It won’t cost much.

You can buy it from these music outlets:

• 7 Digital Media in MP3 format for 99p
• Amazon UK in MP3 format for 79p (see note below)
• HMV in MP3 format for 79p
• iTunes in AAC (M4A) format for 99p
• Napster (I’m not a subscriber, so I have no details)
• Play Digital in MP3 format for 70p
• Tesco Entertainment in MP3 format for 67p
• WE7 in MP3 format for £1.07p

… or just rock into a record store and see if they have any copies of the single! Note that some of these links link to the album; just buy the individual track. Also, there’s a 29p MP3 version on Amazon — do not buy this. Only sales over 40p qualify for chart eligibility.

Once you’ve done that, the Facebook group is encouraging those of us participating in this stunt to donate a little something to the charity Shelter, which works to improve the lives of homeless and badly housed people. If you’re a taxpayer, an additional 20% of whatever you donate will be added on. At time of writing, they’re over the £12,000 £16,000 mark. That’s just phenomenal.

So give what you can to Shelter (I donated a tenner), and spend less than a quid pissing off Simon Cowell. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.

I got a letter addressed to “The Occupier” from Virgin Media this morning. It’s the latest in many advertising missives that I’m convinced I’m only sent because someone has surveyed the street and spied my Sky minidish attached to my back wall.

So this one I got this morning has listed ten reasons to switch from Sky to Virgin Media. Each one of them pissed me off at their tactics, so I thought I’d go through them, like the pedantic, easily-pissed-off bastard that I am.

1. We’ve got all your favourite Sky channels including Sky1, Sky News and Sky Sports News. Yes, and Sky Sports and Sky Movies too.*

But I have those channels already (excepting the Sports and Movies packs, because I cancelled those along with Setanta after I lost my job to save me money). Sky also have Sky1, Sky Movies and more in HD. You don’t. You also charge more for Sky Movies (Sky charge a fixed £16/mo for all the channels, regardless of what other tiers you’ve signed up to; Virgin charge between £19.50/mo and £30/mo dependent on which TV tier you’re on).

2. Only V+HD can let you record two channels while watching a third (Sky+HD can’t).

But various Freeview+ and Freesat+ PVRs can.

3. Only Virgin TV gives you access to a huge, ever-changing library of over 500 movies and thousands of great TV shows, documentaries and music videos stored to watch whenever you want (Sky’s equivalent doesn’t even come close).

Yes, Sky don’t have a “pull VOD” system, where you can watch video on demand by having it streamed to your set top box whenever you like. They have a “push VOD” system, where they send select movies and shows to your PVR’s hard drive, but you have no real choice in what you get. However, Sky does have a VOD website (currently called Sky Player), where you can stream or download hundreds of movies on a pay-per-view/own basis, or for free when you subscribe to Sky Movies. It’s not equivalent to Virgin’s Replay, but it’s a stopgap until Sky complete developing their broadband-based VOD next year.

4. Only Virgin TV lets you watch BBC iPlayer, ITV Net Player and 4oD right there on your telly.

No, I’ve been doing this without Virgin for quite some time. Again with the “only” thing. Yes, Sky don’t have VOD yet, but my laptop has it. As does the Mac mini plugged into my TV. However, the actual necessity of watching anything on ITV Player is very much debatable.

5. And only our TV comes down a state-of-the-art fibre optic cable, not through a dish or aerial. So when the weather’s bad, your picture won’t be.

6. The same fibre optic cable brings you fast, future proof Virgin Broadband at up to 50Mb, that’s the UK’s fastest. (Broadband from BT, Sky or one of the others comes down copper telephone wire, which means your speed gets slower the further you live from the phone exchange).

Two ‘reasons’ talking about fibre optic cable. Bloody hell. Are Virgin still droning on about fibre optic cable? Let’s clear something up. Virgin insinuate they deliver all their services to your home via fibre optic cable. They don’t. Well, not really. Virgin deliver services over a hybrid fibre-coaxial network, using a national fibre network to “headends” in each regional area, just as BT use a national fibre network to interconnect telephone exchanges. “Headends” are akin to exchanges: they slurp in content, phone calls and Internet access using satellite feeds, fibre optic links and network connections, then spit all that out along fibre trunks to cabinets in each Virgin-covered street. From there, coaxial cable (aka copper wire) transfers the signals back and forth from each house to the cabinet.

ADSL, on the other hand, which is the primary thing Virgin are attacking with this component of their campaign, is delivered over fibre optic links — just like Virgin — to BT’s telephone exchanges, and from there to your home using pairs of copper wire. This will slowly be replaced by BT with fibre optic cabling to cabinets in the streets, and on occasion, to your home.

So yes, Virgin use fibre optic cable further up the chain than anyone else at this consumer level of Internet service provision does. But it doesn’t really make it all that “better”. It’s as prone to congestion (aka contention) as ADSL is. They really need to find another way to market this, because leaning on the fibre optic angle just ain’t the truth.

However, at least their “UK’s fastest” line is mainly true: only BT’s “Fibre to the Cabinet” trials could be faster; no UK DSL provider offers more than 24Mbps on a single line at the moment. But is 50Mbps really that important?

7. Servicing and repairs are free all the time you’re a customer.† (Sky charges you £65 for a call-out the minute you’re out of warranty.)

Yeah, but Virgin subscribers don’t own their receiving equipment, they merely lease it from Virgin. Once you’re no longer a customer, none of that equipment will work, and they’ll want it back. Meanwhile, Sky customers own their receivers from the get-go, and once out of their subscriptions, they can still receive all Free-to-Air and most Free-to-View channels, including at least one in HD.

8. Delivering TV, broadband and phone down the same fibre optic cable is better value and keeps everything in one simple bill. Our prices for TV, broadband and calls start at just £14 a month when you switch to a Virgin phone line for £11 a month.

Sky’s package of TV, broadband and phone starts at £17/mo (+ phone line for £11/mo). Virgin undercut this by offering an entry level, no-cost TV package (called ‘M’ as in Medium) which mirrors a list of channels freely available on Sky, Freesat and Freeview. If you want channels like Sky1, G.O.L.D., Hallmark, etc, on Virgin, you need to shell out at least £5.50/mo for the M+ package, bumping the comparable package price to £19.50. Oops.

9. We’re so confident you’ll love it, we’ll give you your money back if you don’t. Everything is covered by our 28 day guarantee.

Or I could just not change anything at all and keep my money in my pocket.

10. Your street’s already connected to our fibre optic network so it’s easy to get switched on.

Well, woop de doo … but I’ve had a Sky dish attached to my house for over 8 years. What’s your point?

Job done? Great, just call …

Pass.

I have a cheap dedicated server running Ubuntu Linux — the 8.04 LTS “Hardy Heron” release — with Kimsufi, the budget arm of French hosting company OVH. All their Linux servers (and FreeBSD servers too, I think) are provisioned with their own custom, static kernel. This, they say, makes it “secure”. It also makes it a pain in the ass to use, since you lose kernel module functionality. So I went through this scary, but straightforward process to put the standard Ubuntu kernel back. Note that I did this procedure on their entry level C-05G server, and your mileage may vary dependent on which server you lease from them, and what hardware specification you have (and ergo what kernel drivers you’ll need). Stuff you should type below is in bold type.

First, let’s check what kernel we’re running:

neuro@hera:~$ uname -a
Linux hera 2.6.27.10-grsec-xxxx-grs-ipv4-64 #6 SMP Fri Aug 14 10:29:05 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Yup, some scary, weird kernel that OVH have compiled and installed themselves — although to be fair, they do provide kernel configs to compile a different variant yourself, but I wanted to use the stock Ubuntu 64-bit kernel.

So after doing sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade to make sure everything else is up to date, let’s install the GRUB boot loader, and the stock Ubuntu Server kernel image.

neuro@hera:~$ sudo apt-get install linux-server grub
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
linux-image-2.6.24-24-server linux-image-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
Suggested packages:
grub-doc mdadm linux-doc-2.6.24 linux-source-2.6.24
The following NEW packages will be installed
grub linux-image-2.6.24-24-server linux-image-server linux-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 24.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 111MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get: 1 ftp://mir1.ovh.net hardy-updates/main grub 0.97-29ubuntu21.1 [871kB]
Get: 2 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-image-2.6.24-24-server 2.6.24-24.59 [17.8MB]
Get: 3 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server 2.6.24-24.39 [5671kB]
Get: 4 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main linux-image-server 2.6.24.24.26 [26.6kB]
Get: 5 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/restricted linux-server 2.6.24.24.26 [26.6kB]
Fetched 24.4MB in 2s (9414kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server.
(Reading database ... 38251 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (from .../linux-image-2.6.24-24-server_2.6.24-24.59_amd64.deb) ...
Done.
Selecting previously deselected package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server.
Unpacking linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (from .../linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server_2.6.24-24.39_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package grub.
Unpacking grub (from .../grub_0.97-29ubuntu21.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-image-server.
Unpacking linux-image-server (from .../linux-image-server_2.6.24.24.26_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package linux-server.
Unpacking linux-server (from .../linux-server_2.6.24.24.26_amd64.deb) ...
Setting up linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.59) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server
Running postinst hook script /sbin/update-grub.
Searching for GRUB installation directory ...
No GRUB directory found. To create a template run 'mkdir /boot/grub' first. To install grub, install it manually or try the 'grub-install' command. ### Warning, grub-install is used to change your MBR. ###

User postinst hook script [/sbin/update-grub] exited with value 1
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server:
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server depends on linux-image-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up grub (0.97-29ubuntu21.1) ...

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-image-server:
linux-image-server depends on linux-image-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-image-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
linux-image-server depends on linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server; however:
Package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-server:
linux-server depends on linux-image-server (= 2.6.24.24.26); however:
Package linux-image-server is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing linux-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
linux-image-2.6.24-24-server
linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server
linux-image-server
linux-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

OK, that didn’t look so good, but it’s all right. Now, we’ll fix the problem that GRUB was complaining about, then complete the install.

neuro@hera:~$ sudo mkdir /boot/grub
neuro@hera:~$ sudo apt-get install grub
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
grub is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up linux-image-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.59) ...
Running depmod.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server
Running postinst hook script /sbin/update-grub.
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... Generating /boot/grub/default file and setting the default boot entry to 0
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ...

Could not find /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Would you like /boot/grub/menu.lst generated for you? (y/N) y
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-24-server
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done

Setting up linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-24-server (2.6.24-24.39) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-24-server

Setting up linux-image-server (2.6.24.24.26) ...
Setting up linux-server (2.6.24.24.26) ...

And that’s that part fixed! Now we just need to configure GRUB to point in the right direction, and install it to the MBR (Master Boot Record).

neuro@hera:~$ sudo grub-install --recheck --root-directory=/ /dev/sda
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Installing GRUB to /dev/sda as (hd0)...
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map //boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
neuro@hera:~$ sudo grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]
grub> root (hd0,0)
root (hd0,0)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage2
find /boot/grub/stage2
(hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.
grub> quit
quit

… and now both kernel and bootloader are installed. Time for the scary part. From another machine, ping the server (if you’re running Windows, and pinging from the command prompt, use ping -t instead of just ping to continuously ping rather than just try 5 times; press Ctrl+C to cancel the ping at any time). Now that we’re monitoring whether the server is up or not, we can reboot it to use the new kernel …

neuro@hera:~$ sudo shutdown -r -f now

Broadcast message from neuro@hera
(/dev/pts/1) at 10:14 ...

The system is going down for reboot NOW!
neuro@hera:~$ logout
Connection to hera closed.

You should see the server stop responding to pings, then a minute or so later, start responding again.

If it doesn’t respond after a few minutes, don’t panic, use the Netboot mode to reboot your server, using a network-boot kernel. Once there, you can simply do sudo lilo -v which will re-install the original LILO bootloader, using the OVH-installed kernel, or stick with the netboot kernel if you like.

However, if the server does start responding to pings again (and it should), you can now ssh back in and check things out …

$ ssh hera
Linux hera 2.6.24-24-server #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 16:51:43 UTC 2009 x86_64

The programs included with the Ubuntu system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by
applicable law.

To access official Ubuntu documentation, please visit:

http://help.ubuntu.com/

Last login: Sun Sep 20 06:43:01 2009
neuro@hera:~$ uname -a
Linux hera 2.6.24-24-server #1 SMP Tue Aug 18 16:51:43 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Woo hoo. A standard Ubuntu kernel, that can take kernel modules, and be updated regularly using apt-get, aptitude, etc. Of course, you can mix this up using other packaged kernels, such as the -rt real time kernel, or the -xen kernel to use Xen virtual machines. Go nuts, because at least now you can use your server as Shuttleworth and co intended!

Note: this procedure worked perfectly for me, but as mentioned at the start, YMMV: I can’t be held responsible if it all goes tango uniform, and Bad Things Happen. Proceed at your own risk, and good luck!

For the last couple of years, I’ve fallen more and more back in love with Macs. One of their foibles is that Apple have decided the standard British English, or UK, keyboard layout should not match that of every other computer manufacturer on the planet. Various characters are just in the wrong place, such as quotation marks, backslash, hash mark (or pound, for my American friends), tilde, and so on. In Tiger and Leopard, I used Phil Gyford’s awesome instructions and the associated .rsrc file as to how to sort this defect out, at least in software.

So now Snow Leopard is out, and it’s fab and lovely and nippy and dices and slices and so on. An immediate downside (apart from having to manually upgrade Xcode to 3.2, and reinstall MacPorts from .dmg to make that bit work again) is that the trusty icle .rsrc doesn’t work any more. Well, it works, but it doesn’t stick; OS X keeps switching back to standard British English, which means when I try to type out quotes, it comes out with at signs. This is ungood.

However, the Internet to the rescue! Some kind soul has posted new keyboard layouts for OS X to correctly map the British English key layout. Just download and extract the zip file linked to from that page, copy the files from inside the zip to either /Library/Keyboard Layouts off the root of your hard disk, or ~/Library/Keyboard Layouts in your home directory, then log out and log back in again. Go to System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources, then tick British (PC105). If things don’t seem consistently correct, try British (PC105 alt).

Bosh, sorted, and I can touch type again!

Update 2010-02-13: apparently this works on Dell Mini netbooks too, so Hackintosh people can get the benefit as well. Bonus!

I’ve been playing about with OS X on a Dell Mini 9 netbook. A major hassle is that it only has 8GB of on-board disk space (albeit on a lovely silent SSD). I bought a 16GB Class 4 SDHC card to use for my home directory, but it turns out OS X only automatically mounts external drives — such as USB drives, Firewire drives and memory cards — after you’ve logged in, which is too late for the OS to find your home directory, so you don’t get all your normal desktop customisations: preferences, dock icons, wallpaper, etc. However, after some magic googling, I found the solution:

sudo cat << EOM > /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/autodiskmount.plist
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>AutomountDisksWithoutUserLogin</key><true/>
</dict>
</plist>
EOM

Reboot. Sorted.

(With apologies to Monty Python)

Four well-dressed men sitting together at a LUG meeting, surrounding a laptop running Ubuntu 9.04.

First Yorkshireman (1Y): Ahh … Very passable, this, very passable.

Second Yorkshireman (2Y): Nothing like a good install of Ubuntu Jaunty, eh Gessiah?

Third Yorkshireman (3Y): You’re right there, Obediah.

Fourth Yorkshireman (4Y): Who’d a thought fifteen years ago we’d all be sittin’ here recordin’ a podcast usin’ Jokosher on Ubuntu?

1Y: Aye. In them days, we’d a’ been glad to have Slackware installed on t’hard disk.

2Y: A beta of Slackware.

3Y: Without network card or CD-ROM drive.

4Y: Or a hard disk!

1Y: In a filthy Packard Bell.

3Y: We never used to have Packard Bell. We used to have to use RM Nimbuses.

2Y: The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of a Sinclair QL.

4Y: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.

1Y: Aye. Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, “Money doesn’t buy you operatin’ systems.”

3Y: ‘E was right. I was happier then and I had nothin’. We used to use Yggdrasil Linux on an old Compaq with half of case missin’.

2Y: Case? You were lucky to have a case! We used to have motherboards and components scattered about floor for ’servers, all hundred and twenty-six of ‘em, no cable ties. Half the things were un-updated; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of being DDoSed!

4Y: You were lucky to have updates! *We* used to have to hand-patch kernels every week!

1Y: Ohhhh we used to dream of hand-patching kernels! Woulda been a weight lifted to us. We used to infiltrate remote systems to snoop on the kernel to see what’d been changed the night before to reverse engineer t’changes back on our own kernels. Patches!? Hmph.

3Y: Well when I say “patch” it was a hard copy of a diff printed on continuous paper with the green lines on it, but it were a patch to us.

2Y: We stopped gettin’ our hard copies; we had to fly to Finland and get Linus to transcribe bloody diffs onto notebooks!

4Y: You were lucky to have notebooks! There were a hundred and sixty of us passing code changes across Europe by t’game of Chinese Whispers.

1Y: By phone?

4Y: Aye.

1Y: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a telephone exchange intercepting phone calls on the off-chance we’d catch your Chinese Whispers. We’d scratch the diffs onto nearby bits of copper wire, swallow ‘em and spend fourteen hours on bog trying to get em back again when we got home. Then our Dad would thrash us t’sleep with his copy of BYTE!

2Y: Luxury. We use to have to swim t’Finland at three o’clock in the morning, sneak up to Torvalds’ house, spy on him until he typed in the bits we thought he was changing, scribble them down on newspaper and post them and ourselves back by DHL, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken Tulip network card, if we were lucky!

4Y: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up at twelve o’clock at night, figure out t’diffs by mental projection, lick t’diffs onto EEPROMs for 1,166 Swatch Internet beats, debug the compiler with a slide rule, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with unsheathed Cat 5.

3Y: Right. I had to steal kernel diffs from you bastards, invent time machine, go back in time, give diffs to Torvalds to implement as the first version of the code instead of the twentieth, go forward in time, and find all the diffs already implemented in the kernel I got with Slackware, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing the Free Software Song.

1Y: But you try and tell the young people today that … and they won’t believe ya’.

ALL: Nope, nope …

I was flicking through the iTunes Store this morning and noticed something odd … some words in reviews and track titles had asterisks in them as though they were swear words (e.g. ‘b*ll*cks’). But they didn’t appear to be swear words. iTunes uses allmusic for the bulk of their album and single reviews, so luckily it’s possible to go back and ‘decode’ some of these words. They include: “porno”, “teen”, “cream”, “sexy”, “hot”. Strangely, variants like “sex”, “creamy”, “teenage” aren’t being censored. This seems to be a blanket effect on iTunes — Katy Perry’s current single “Hot ‘n’ Cold” is listed on the UK iTunes Store main page under ‘Top Songs’ as “H*t ‘n’ Cold’.

This seems to me to be really odd behaviour. They’ve done the same thing to some common swear words, but to censor “cream”? And it’s inconsistent to boot. Look at the review for Tenacious D’s eponymous album. The tracks “Fuck Her Gently” and “Cock Pushups” are censored with asterisks, but the title “Sex Supreme” in the review is not. The Roots’ track “Pussy Galore” has its title censored, but not the name of the band Pussy Galore.

And it’s not even like people at Apple don’t swear.

As someone said on IRC this morning: “the FSF appear to have come up with the perfect plan for how to look like a bunch of annoying, smart-arse tossers“. Has the Free Software Foundation gone nuts?

Update 13:30: I don’t seem to be alone on this: popey, mgdm, ZDNet, Slashdot.

I’ve been saying for a while that the more zealous methods used by proponents of Free software have been somewhat over-the-top, and do more to detract from the FOSS public image than to build upon it in a constructive way. Now they’ve taken a sip from the poisoned Kool-Aid. The FSF, via it’s Defective by Design campaign, is advocating that people block-book sessions at an Apple Store’s Genius Bar, a sort of drop-in and bookable repair and support centre. “Having lots of slots booked will get Apple’s attention and ensure that the Geniuses have done their homework”, says the ‘Apple Challenge’ page, posted by FSF employee Matt Lee. The rationale apparently is that Apple is now the enemy, since Vista is doing more damage to itself than anyone else can from outside Microsoft, and the first target are the Apple Store’s Genius Bars.

Update 13:35: Just noticed this on IRC …
[13:33]<mgdm> popey: you mean mattl actually uses a Mac?
[13:33] <popey> he does
[13:33] <mgdm> IRONY OVERLOAD *head asplodes*

My employer purchased both AppleCare and ProCare for my MBP, which has come in extremely handy when the ‘O’ key snapped off (keyboard replaced overnight), my battery failed to hold a charge (replaced immediately upon attending pre-booked Genius Bar session) and my motherboard GPU failed (motherboard replaced in 90 minutes). Now imagine any of the following scenarios: you’re unsure how to use your newly purchased Macbook; you’re trying to connect a camera to your Mac to transfer photos to iPhoto and print them to send to relatives in a frame; your machine has failed in some way and urgently needs repaired, as you use it for your business. You try to book a session at the Genius Bar to resolve any of these issues, and … it’s fully booked. For days. Wow, they must be busy.

Well, no, it’s actually a bunch of uber-asshole Free software zealots thinking they’re “special”, attempting to monopolise a consumer resource in an attempt to “educate” or “catch out” Apple Store employees, some of whom may have used Macs for years, others may have had a crash course in Apple products so that they know as much as they can about the stuff they sell, but little else. Why harass these people? It’s like having a constant stream of people going up to the counter at McDonald’s and espousing the benefits of a low-carb, high-fibre diet to the person who can do the least about it. Genius Bar employees may know all about FOSS, but critically it’s not their job to promote it. It’s not a “product” to be “sold”, but a philosophy to be shared.

A plea to the FSF: stop harassing Apple staff, and stop alienating the very people you’re trying to “save”. There are better, more ethical, more agreeable methods to promote FOSS. What you’re doing is none of those things. In the meantime, you’ve virtually guaranteed I will never promote, condone, contribute or donate to any FSF body, project or campaign. I’ve had a “Warning, DRM” defectivebydesign.org sticker on my Macbook Pro for a while now, mainly for comedic value. It’s gone now. I no longer want to be seen to be promoting these idiots in any way. As much as I love the thought of Free and Open Source Software being used everywhere and anywhere, this is just not the way to be going about it.

Google Earth has had 3D building views for a while, but I didn’t realise how good the quality of the newer photorealistic buildings were until I decided to recreate one of my favourite skyline shots using Google Earth. At the thumbnail level, it’s hard to tell which is which. Gobsmackingly impressive stuff.

I dropped my dinky Dell Latitude X300 a couple of weeks ago. The whole thing just locked up hard, and wouldn’t recover from a reboot. I ended up claiming for it on my home insurance. The insurance folks got back to me and said it was unrepairable, and they’ve offered me £400 in vouchers for Currys or PC World to spend to get a replacement. Urgh.

I mean, this is the laptop that has survived bus trips, car trips, flights to England, Wales, France, the US. It even survived having a full pint of beer poured over it. Gah.

So long, little buddy. Schniff.