The Things You are Reminded of

I went to get some lab work done in Brazil today. I was surprised to see so many people waiting at the lab’s waiting room. I had to get a numbered ticket and wait to be called on one of those electronic boards.

While I was waiting, an old lady probably in her 60’s came up to the front of the waiting room, with her back straight to the 6 lab receptionists and asked people for help to buy ingredients to make a bone soup.

That is something that you usually never see in the United States. More surprising than the event itself was that:

• The lab staff carried on as if nothing was happening. No asking her to stop or leave.
• I’d say that out of the 20 people in the lab’s waiting room, some 10 gave the woman some money
• The woman asking for help was fairly aggressive, going row by row after the first wave of people had given her money, and at least one time she directly asked one person for help.
  

To me this reminds me and indicates some things:

• This is a common event at this busy location, and probably at any busy location.
  
• People are very used to this type of thing, and they are sympathetic and do help, even though most people at the lab at that time appeared not to be of high economic means.
• That lady -- as is probably the case with others in the same situation -- grow a pretty thick skin due to the repeated experience of having to ask for help.

Growing up as a then-rare middle-class person in Brazil, almost everywhere you went there were people asking for money. Often people would ring the door bell of our house and would relay a pretty sad story going on in their lives: sick daughter, just got out of the hospital and need money to pay for the bus fare, some recently-inflicted wound, etc.

Your gut reaction is to help, but eventually it happens too often for you to help everytime. Adding to this unfortunate scenario are the scammers. I remember one guy came asking for help at our house once, and we gave him money. A couple days later the same guy came over, with a different story. He probably forgot that he had been through that neighborhood before.

Eventually we got into a system of help-for-work. If someone asked for help at the house, we would ask them to do some small work around the house in exchange for food and (pretty good) money. Without exception those asking for help would reject the offer and move on to the next house.

My mom was once scammed by a nicely-dressed lady who supposedly had “ran out of gas” and needed money to get her car going again. I remember my mom telling me about the very well executed scam, with the lady being very eloquent. Some time later the same person tried to scam my mom again, at the very same intersection, and received instead a good scolding from my mom.

It’s unfortunate, but eventually you get desensitized to this sort of thing, because it just happens so often. But I was glad to see that -- judging by the people at the lab -- most people do help those who at least appear to be in need.

Contra a Contribuiçao Social da Saúde

A administração Lula do governo Brasileiro realmente tem um apetite insaciável por dinheiro fácil, um comprometimento com a ineficiência e demonstra a incapacidade de administrar competemente uma área importante como a saúde.

Que outra explicação se dá para a última tentativa de ressuscitar a CPMF com um novo nome que só serve para enganar o povo e roubar a economia da produtividade que ela necessita para competir no mercado interno e internacional. Que descaso gigantesco para com o sacrifício do povo Brasileiro diante de seguidas arrecadações recordes do governo.

Quão vergonhoso da parte do congresso nacional, por aprovar uma medida claramente impopular e desnecessária puramente por motivos políticos, ou quem sabe por pura preguiça de reprovar a medida e mandar o governo procurar administrar melhor com os recursos de que dispõe.

Entre em contato com seus senadores, telefone, mande e-mail, faça o possível para demonstrar aos seus representantes eleitos que essa contribuição deve ser derrubada. Precisamos, como um povo, ser mais ativos e exigir uma reforma tributária justa.

Fixing problems with Debian installation scripts

Debian packages are usually of very high quality. The packages may have installation scripts that are executed before or after installation or removal. They're called preinst, postinst, prerm, postrm.

Those scripts almost never have to be changed because they rarely have problems, unless you're creating your own packages and make a mistake, like I did. And when you make a mistake in those scripts you may be unable to remove or reinstall the package.

I don't think it's well known that one can easily fix or change installation or removal scripts in Debian packages once the've been installed. My good friend Paul Cannon pointed out to me that you can modify them at /var/lib/dpkg/info/$packagename.{prerm|postrm|preinst|postinst}.

PostgreSQL e Codificações (PostgreSQL and Encodings)

Uma pergunta freqüente na lista pgbr-geral é "Qual codificação eu devo usar com o PostgreSQL"? Recentemente isso foi discutido novamente, e as mesmas coisas foram discutidas novamente. Tal como seus colegas nos EUA -- onde eu trabalho há 9 anos -- os desenvolvedores de aplicações do Brasil parecem conhecer muito pouco sobre codificações e conjuntos de caracteres.

Eu recomendo o ótimo artigo do Joel Spolsky sobre o assunto. Sem desculpas. Tem que ler. Já leu? Não continue antes de ler.

Numa conversa no canal #postgresql na rede freenode, conversei com a Susanne Ebrecht, que recentemente escreveu um bom resumo do assunto para uma apresentação no grupo de usuários de PostgreSQL da Alemanha. Ela me deu permissão para publicar a apresentação dela. A apresentação entitulada Encoding Issues está disponível aqui. Espero que isso esclareça as dúvidas.

ATUALIZADO [2008-03-07]: Coloquei link para o artigo do Joel Spolsky em Português.

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A recurring question on the pgbr-geral Brazilian PostgreSQL mailint list is "Which encoding should I use with PostgreSQL?" Recently this was discussed again. Just like their US colleagues -- where I've worked for the last 9 years -- the application developers in Brazil seem to know very little about encodings and character sets.

I recommend the excellent article by Joel Spolsky. No excuses. Got to read it. Have you read it? Don't go on before reading.

During a conversation on the #postgresql channel on the freenode network, I spoke to Susanne Ebrecth, who recently wrote an excellent summary of the subject as it relates to PostgreSQL, for a presentation to the German PostgreSQL Users Group. She kindly gave me permission to publish her presentation.

The presentation entitled Encoding Issues is available here. I hope this helps clear up the matter.

Who is Winning with Software Patents?

When I worked at Novell, they heavily encouraged us to submit anything and everything for patent review. By submitting an idea -- no matter how crazy it was -- you would receive a free t-shirt. If the idea proved worthy of further patent-exploration, you'd get something else, and if the patent was approved you'd get $1000.

I remember talking to a co-worker about something I wanted to do to our internal Wiki to improve our collaboration, and he said "you should submit this for a patent". That was such a foreign thought to me, but that's the prevailing mentality.

While I was working at Novell ZenWorks, they patented a feature of the new ZenWorks web-based user interface. When the user clicked on something, a little dialog box would pop up, and the rest of the browser screen would fade into a darker shade of gray. Nothing that I had not seen before, but I remember the celebration when they were awarded a patent for some trivial CSS and Javascript. I've seen people unknowingly infringing on Novell's patent in several places.

A company recently sued a slew of other companies (Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Viacom, Real, Napster, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sandisk Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Gateway, and Yahoo) for an amazingly original and innovative invention: the playlist. A file with different lines that a program reads and does something with each line. They could probably sue every software company in the U.S. for writing programs that use such "innovative" technology.

"Predictably, Premier appears to have no tangible company history other than patent infringement lawsuits and does not produce any sort of product that competes with any of the companies listed." says the ArsTechnica post. Predictable indeed. Every year 40,000 new software patents are awarded by the USPTO. A record in 2007.

Vonage will likely die from patent litigation. It just lost a $69.5 million case against Sprint, and its shares plummeted yet again. This is after a battle against Verizon that it also preliminarily lost. I'm not sure how much longer they can withstand such a beating. And I wonder why other prominent Voice-Over-IP companies have not been sued yet. Maybe they're busy settling with Verizon and Sprint after the public Vonage crucifixion.

The question I have is: who is really winning with software patents? Vonage certainly isn't. Estimates say it costs $20,000 to check a line of code against patent infringement, and 2 to 10 million to fight one.

An acquaintance, when he found out I was a programmer, eagerly approached me to distill the advantages of going with his firm for software patents. Numbers flew for how many patents they had "gotten through". He certainly is winning. The lawyers certainly are winning. I'm not sure anyone else is.

(No, I'm not against all patents)

[Update: Vonage lost the appeal against Verizon.]

Mozy acquired by EMC

EMC acquired Mozy for $76 million. Mozy had raised $1.9 million in
venture funding. Not bad at all. Congratulations to Josh Coates, Mozy's CEO and founder, Paul Cannon, a good friend of mine who was one of the first employees, and all the Mozy staff.

Well done.

[Update: Apparently the sale has not been confirmed and until it is, it is just a rumor]

Internet access on a Mac through a Samsung Blackjack

I recently purchased my first ever Macintosh computer, a Macbook. My previous experience with an Apple machine was back when I was 9 years old, on an Apple II clone they had in my dad's company in Brazil. It was the accounting machine, so I really couldn't play much with it, besides a few BASIC programs I wrote here and there.

Apple machines still are incredibly expensive in Brazil. Like most other computer items, they cost 3-4 times as much as in the United States, an unfortunate consequence of the infamous "Brazil cost" : a combination of incredibly high internal taxation, bureaucratic costs, and tariffs on imported goods, particularly electronics. I'll write more about that later.

This Samsung Blackjack is a Windows mobile 5 device, and technically does not work with Mac OS. This blog post, and this one explain how to make it work using a Blackberry connection script.

I found them a bit confusing (being new to the Macintosh), so I'm correcting the instructions a bit according to my experience, and adding a couple more screenshots. The instructions here are for Cingular. I suppose this would work with other carriers if you get the username, password and "number" to be called.

1) Make sure you can access the internet through your phone. Go to Start -> Internet Explorer and navigate to some known website. I had to go through support after the phone was activated for it to work, and even after they fixed it, it wasn't a few hours had passed that I was able to access the internet through the phone.

2) Download the Blackberry 3G Driver

3) Unzip it.

4) Open a new Finder window by double-clicking on "Macintosh HD". Navigate to Library -> Modem Scripts

5) Drag the three CID files from the zip to the Modem Scripts folder (BlackBerry 3G.CID1, .CID2, and .CID3

6) On yout phone, go to Start -> Settings -> Connections -> USB. Change it to Modem

7) Connect your Blackjack to the computer with the USB Cable

8) On you Mac, click on "apple" (the blue apple on the top left corner of the screen") -> System Preferences -> Network (alternatively, search for "network" on Spotlight, the blue magnifying glass on the top right corner, and click on the "System Preferences - Network" item)

9) Click on Location -> New Location. Enter a name for the connection, such as "Mobile"

10) Click on Show -> SAMSUNG CDMA Technologies.

11) Under the PPP tab, enter the following:


Service Provider: Cingular

Account Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM

Password: CINGULAR1

Telephone number: WAP.CINGULAR

12) Click on the PPP Options... button and enter the settings as in the picture.

13) Click on the Modem tab, the on the Modem select box and pick the Blackberry CID1 or CID3 entry (CID1 worked for me)

14) Click on Apply Now

15) You should now see the little phone icon on the menu bar. Click on it, then click on Connect

With some luck you should now be connected. I did a little speed test and it wasn't bad: 934 kbps down and 177 kbps up.

Tour of the Amazon with the Byrd Brothers

Obligatory Picture
Originally uploaded by rlbmello

Ryan Byrd, a good friend of mine from work, accepted my invitation of coming to Brazil during my vacation there. I told him I could show him my home town around, and that he would have a good time.

Thankfully he accepted. He spent a few days in Rio de Janeiro, then flew to Manaus to meet up with us, where we spent three days together exploring Manaus and the Amazon. I took Ryan and his brother David on several tours of the city and its night life, and the forest.

I lived in Manaus most of my life, so I usually don't do the things tourists do. This visit by Ryan gave me a good excuse to revisit sites of this great city and area. I must say that I was impressed by the tour of the forest provided by a local company, Amazon Explorers. It was really professionally run, and we had a great time. It cost R$ 78 (approx. US$ 40) per person, with lunch, boat ride, and canoe rides included.

This album on flickr has some of the pictures of our time together in Manaus. I don't have pictures of the night clubs we hit, but I presume Ryan will put them up on his website.

I had not been to Manaus in 3 and a half years and I was impressed with how much the city had changed in this short time span. The growth is pretty impressive. Many good things happening.

Unfortunately, the local government continues to show chronic signs of myopic thinking. I will post more about that later, maybe on my brasileiro.net site, if I resurrect it, or here.

I had a great time with Ryan and his brother David, and hope they had a good time too. Manaus is definitely worth a visit. Lots of great places, sights and things to see, with some fantastic history behind. Come leave some of your dollars in Manaus: you won't regret it!