A little while ago, someone on Slashdot pointed me at the Sale of Goods Act in relation to purchased electronics. The act, for those unfamiliar with it, requires that goods be 'suitable for the purpose for which sold.' This is a fairly broad term, but it basically means that they must be able to do anything that the seller claims that they can do. Under this law, you have 6 years from the date of purchase to file a lawsuit if the item does not match the claims.

This was relevant to me because my MacBook Pro is now out of warranty and the battery is dying. Looking in the System Profiler, its full charge capacity was showing up as 1476mAh after 56 charges. When new, it was 5500mAh. These numbers don't mean anything by themselves, but Apple claims that their batteries retain 80% of their full charge capacity after 300 charge cycles. Claiming this means that a battery that does not retain 4400mAh after 300 charge cycles is not suitable for the purpose for which sold, and they are legally required to refund or replace it (irrespective of the time that has elapsed, although I can only sue them if they don't within 6 years of the time of sale).

I called their support line and was put through to an Indian woman, who explained that the warranty had expired. I quoted the relevant parts of law to her, and (after being kept on hold for a bit), was transferred to someone senior. He very quickly agreed to send out a replacement battery.

Interestingly, he did not ask that the original battery be sent out, nor that I provide a credit card number where I would be billed if the battery turned out not to be defective. I've had two batteries replaced in warranty, and this was standard procedure then, so apparently I get better service out of warranty. I don't have a great deal of use for a battery that only lasts about 35 minutes on a full charge, but I'll probably keep it as a spare.

As always, it pays to know the law. It's a shame that Apple, which claims to be a customer-focussed company, doesn't educate its support team about this though. Possibly the Indian call centre deals with people from everywhere English speaking, while the Irish one only deals with people in the UK and Ireland, so the people there are more familiar with British law, but if I had not quoted the relevant act then I would have been charged £99 for a battery, on top of the £1.50 it cost to call their support line for half an hour.

Some time around 2005, Slashdot ran an article about a new hosting company, MacMiniColo that was taking advantage of the new machines that Apple had just released to offer cheap hosting. I got in contact with them, and a little while later, I had a Mac Mini, sitting in a rack somewhere, running OpenBSD and acting as my dedicated server. A 1.42GHz G4 CPU, 512MB of RAM, and an 80GB disk was (and still is) more than adequate for my needs. The biggest load on it is eJabberd, and even that only used under 1% of the CPU.

I had really great service from these people. The hard drive failed a little under a year after I bought the Mini, and Apple refused to honour the warranty because they couldn't find the records of the sale (then, a few weeks later, they could, but by then it was out of the warranty period). MacMiniColo replaced the disk for me at their own expense.

After five years with them, however, I had a little look around and noticed that VPS hosting has gone down in price a lot. I've written a book on Xen, so I thought I might try a Xen-based VPS now that FreeBSD has Xen support.

GigaTux only claims to offer Linux, but I dropped them an email and they were happy to install FreeBSD for me. I still haven't tried the Xen-enabled kernel yet; they installed the stock x86-64 kernel in an HVM domain for me and performance has been fantastic.

I'm sharing a server with 64 other guests and in spite of that performance tends to be better than my ageing Mac Mini. I was getting 1000IOPS while untaring the ports tree, which is far more than the Mini's old 2.5" laptop drive could handle, and is amazing considering that it's going via the slow, QEMU-derived, emulated device, rather than the fast PV driver. I've been installing software from ports, so everything is compiled on the machine, and even that has been fast.

And my Mini? They found someone else who wants it, and offered me about a third of what I paid for it originally - not bad depreciation after five years of constant use. Shipping it back to the UK would have cost almost as much as buying one on eBay, so I sold it on. Hopefully someone else will get some good use out of it.

As an aside, I've been really impressed by how well OpenBSD works on Mac/PowerPC hardware. If you've got an old Mac Mini lying around, chuck OpenBSD on it and you've got a reasonable low-volume server. The newer ones, of course, are x86 hardware, so will run just about anything.

There are two reasons why I don't use GNU/Linux: One is GNU, the other is Linux. Of these, the larger reason is GNU, and specifically the glibc part. The most recent reinforcement of this is Ulrich Drepper's inability to read the C specification.

For those not familiar with the C specification, all identifiers that start with an underscore are reserved for the implementation (see section 17.4.3.1.2). You should never use them in your own code, because your compiler is completely free to do whatever it wants with them. By convention, single underscores are used for global non-standard libc extensions and double underscores are used for compiler builtins.

You can find a number of these in existing compiler. Microsoft exposes SEH with keywords like __try. GCC provides __asm for inline assembly, ICC uses __cpuid for accessing the CPUID instruction, and so on. Clang added __block as a type specifier for their variables that are copied to the heap for use by blocks (closures).

Unfortunately, it turns out that the glibc headers use __block as a parameter name. There are several things wrong with this. One is that they use double underscores at all. By convention, these are reserved for the compiler, while single underscores are reserved for the libc. The second is that they used underscores at all in a parameter. Parameter names are not in the global scope, so they can be anything to prevent name clashes.

The result of this is that, if you use glibc, you can't also use blocks. This is a shame, because we (Etoile) were shipping a working blocks implementation six months before Apple. Well, working on *BSD and Solaris (and probably Windows, QNX and Symbian with PIPS, but not tested there). This problem means that it doesn't work on GNU/Linux.

No problem for me. I only use platforms with libc implementations written by people who can read specs. It may be a problem for some of you, if you use a broken platform with a libc maintained by someone who'd rather salvage his ego than fix a problem, and if it is then I'm sorry for you. My suggestion is that you remember that there are other options.

I saw recently that FreeBSD 8 was in BETA state. I ran 7-CURRENT for a while, because it had features I wanted to test (improvements to the OSS implementation mainly), so I thought I'd give it a try.

This time, rather than doing my usual source install, I tried a binary upgrade using freebsd-update. What a disaster. While the source upgrade procedure uses mergemaster to update configuration files, letting you just keep the new version of files you haven't modified, freebsd-update makes you merge them all by hand where there is a conflict. This wouldn't be a problem, except that all of the config files have a version line at the top, which conflicts between the two versions.

Inevitably, when manually handling the merge for a few dozen files, I missed an important bit so my first boot failed with an error complaining about the diff lines still being in the file. I fixed that, and rebooted.

My next boot failed because one of the startup scripts had replaced an if statement with a case. Unfortunately, this hadn't shown up as a conflict, so it had just taken the start of the case statement and the end of the if, giving nonsense. Fortunately, I was able to find the correct version in CVS and copy it out.

Next boot, my network interfaces weren't working. Actually, this was a problem I'd found earlier. When you update FreeBSD, you update the kernel, reboot, then update the userland (the new kernel is guaranteed to support the old userland, but the converse is not true). The em driver for Intel GigE cards complained that they both had invalid MAC addresses. Not a huge problem; it's a VM so I could just change the kind of virtual network card it was providing to the machine, but checking the bugs database I discovered that it's giving the same error for people with ThinkPads that actually do have this kind of hardware built in. Great.

Finally, my system decided to fail to boot with the error:

mounting /etc/fstab failed, startup aborted

Strange, I thought, I wonder which disk is failing to mount. A quick check in single-user mode showed that everything in fstab had mounted correctly. I eventually tracked this down to a bug in /etc/rc.d/mountcritlocal. This is not present in CVS, so it's probably introduced by the merge process. The value of $? (the exit value from the last command) is stored in $err, another command is run, and then there is supposed to be a switch statement branching on $err, which instead is branching on $?.

I've run betas, release candidates, and even the development branch of FreeBSD before, but 8-BETA2 is the first time I've ever had a FreeBSD install that feels like a beta. The merging done by freebsd-update seems completely broken; it prompted me for things it could have trivially done automatically, but failed to prompt me when it broke random system files. My system is now working again, but it's irritating to have to spend this much effort on an update.

Does anyone remember Frontier, a space trading game from the '90s? No, not that one, but a much lesser-known top-down game that only ran on Windows NT. It was released back in '95 and I found it a couple of years later when I was running NT 4 on my PC.

The game was incredibly addictive, but it was unfinished. The version I had was 0.5, and Altavista (this was a few years before Google) was unable to find a newer version. The gameplay owed a lot to games like Nethack. You started off in one solar system and then got to the next through a jump gate (analogous to descending to the next dungeon level). Over time, you'd upgrade your ship, with better shields and weapons, and progress further. Being a 0.5 release, there were a few things missing. The lack of sound was a shame, but the real killer was that there was no save system. You could play for an hour, then get hit by a stray nuclear warhead and have to start from the beginning. A game with so much potential, but it never went anywhere...

...or so I though. Over the weekend, some random googling turned up the author's web site and it turns out that he has recycled a lot of the ideas into a brand new game: Transcendence. This has a improved graphics, sound, and working savegames (nicely integrated into the game so they aren't a crutch). The story line is much expanded on Frontier (which was basically 'you are in space. Have fun') and the universe is much richer. Things I liked in the original, like the randomly-generated solar systems, the black market and the different possible gameplay styles are all still there, but now there is a rich backdrop and the player can choose to help the military, fight pirates, provide comet-grown food for expensive restaurants, or any combination.

There's one down side: It's still Windows-only, and I don't have a Windows machine anymore. Fortunately, it runs very well in WINE. I've playing it on the Mac in the free version of CrossOver Games that was released last year.

Oh, and if anyone's interested, you can still download Frontier 0.5. It does have one advantage over the newer game; the AI didn't have any sensible friendly-fire logic, so you could easily destroy (and loot) friendly space stations by getting one of the ships defending it to fire while docked. This was easy to do: just get the pirates to chase you there and when their stray shots hit the station all of the docked ships will launch firing. This works really well for the black market outpost, which is protected by very powerful ships and is full of fun technology to steal.

For a while now I have been maintaining a Google Calendar that keeps track of various FOSS release schedules. The currently monitored projects are:

• KDE
• Gnome
• Firefox
• Ubuntu
• openSUSE
• Fedora

Other projects that I don't follow as closely or don't have well-defined dates (End of November isn't specific enough, OpenOffice) may occasionally be added if I check (KOffice & OpenOffice have a few entries ATM). I update the calendar on the first Saturday of the month.

If there are other projects with a good schedule page that you would like to see tracked on this calendar, let me know.

So, a while back, I got my hands on a Wavemate Jupiter II. Vintage 1975, wire-wrap cardcage construction in a 4u rackmount case. Unfortunately, I am now moving, and don't have the space or time to hang onto this rather charming object.

I feel really bad throwing away a computer older than I am, so I'm looking for a good home for it. System includes the Jupiter II, the external dual 8 inch floppy drive, and a whole bunch of system schematics and documentation. Both pieces of hardware power up; but only one of the power supplies is good(the power supplies are interchangeable). It is heavy and probably a bit fragile, so local(Boston, MA area) pickup would be best.

If you are interested, leave a comment. If you know anybody who might be interested, have them leave a comment. If you aren't local; but are just that interested, we might be able to work some sort of shipping out, though it isn't my preference(a "no Nigerian princes who need my help to get US 20 Million out of the country" rule is naturally in effect).

It's been more than 30 years since I took a stats course. Any recommendations for a good, not overly dumbed-down intro stats book that uses R?

After enacting the most comprehensive legislation to date, regarding the controversial cow menace in Haryana, India, it is being reported that the one year milestone can claim more than 20,000 cows have been successfully removed from the streets. The legislation required a yearly registration of all animals within municipal limits, proof of diseaselessness, heavy fines for violators, and selling off of all captured animals, that were neither branded nor tokened, to the highest bidder.

In this part of the world, opinions regarding cows are complex and diverse. Positive viewpoints include seeing the cow as a symbol of motherhood and as a giver of life. In rural areas cows provide milk, pull carts, and even their dung can be put to use as a slow-burning cooking fuel. Negative viewpoints include traffic jams, scavenging through refuse and defecating everywhere, producing greenhouse gases like methane, and giving diseased milk (tuberculosis causes 300,000 deaths a year in India).

A new diet is being introduced, to cattle in Britain, that has been developed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of their digestive process. The specific gas being reduced is Methane, which has over 20 times the heat trapping effect of carbon dioxide. Farmers participating in the trial have also reported a 15% higher milk yield.

Globally, livestock are the largest human related source of methane, producing about 80 million metric tons annually, 28% of total. Comparatively, wetlands are the largest natural related source of methane, producing about 144 million metric tons annually, 76% of total. Humans also emit methane as part of their digestive process, but the amount isn't notable. (Statistics derived from EPA.gov)

Over-the-air analog TV is free to be received, and is considered an appropriate method to disseminate news and entertainment to prisoners in order to keep them informed of current events, to keep peace within a very stressful and often violent environment, and to reward and encourage civilized behavior for the day when they are reintegrated into society.

But some prison officials are struggling with how to pay for the upgrade, brought on by the mandatory digital TV conversion, and others face additional legal hurdles that ban upgrades, because it was assumed there would always be free analog broadcasts available. Read more about - Why U.S. prisons want their digital television.

With the rising wave of abductions, as seen earlier on Slashdot's Idle section (our offtopic humor/meme/viral video/pictures section), Mexicans have marched (Saturday video) down Mexico City's main street to bring attention to just how serious they consider this issue, and to call upon President Felipe Calderon to carry out promises to crack down on crime.

Notable facts:

• For those able to afford $4000 USD, with an annual $2200 USD fee, they can have a microchip injected into their body, for use with an external 'panic button' device, that will alert authorities of their location via satellite.
• Between January and June of this year, Mexico has reported 194 kidnappings compared to 172 in Colombia, and 169 in Brazil, which for this time frame makes Mexico the new world leader in kidnappings.
• This protest was sparked in part because of a recent abduction of a 14 year old boy, Fernando Marti. Kidnapped on June 4th, by men dressed in Federal Agency of Investigations uniforms, and after negotiations of a ransom thought to be around $2 million, he was killed.

McCain and Biden have both been around a long time, and are known factors, and thus boring. So after watching too many speeches that were so vague that either side could have read them, I decided a Q&A between Obama and Palin could be very interesting.

Obama: What did you think of my acceptance speech, where I spoke of my vision for America based on my "belief that I am my brother's keeper"? (1)
Palin: I can't say that appeals to me, thinking of Americans living in 2 by 3 meter shacks, and living off only a dollar a day.

Palin: You are only 40 something, and the Junior Senator of Illinois, do you really think you have the experience to be President?
Obama: You too are only 40 something, and the Governor of Alaska, but do you really think a woman should even be considered for vice-president? (2)

Obama: I heard you're a NRA member, could you show me how to load a gun? Just kidding, I don't believe in the 2cd Amendment.
Palin: I read your voting record, could you tell me how you could possibly support infanticide? Just kidding, I couldn't even consider feticide. (3)

(1) Yes, Obama actually used that metaphor in his nomination acceptance speech, August 28th 2008.
(2) Obama didn't even have the courtesy to vet Hillary Clinton as a possible vice-president, ouch.
(3) Palin's 5th child, in the womb, was diagnosed with Downs Syndrome, but she kept him anyway.

I noticed a while ago that my spam filter was 100% accurate on all plain-text emails. Spammers are now forced to use obfuscation techniques like embedded images and HTML. It seems to me that this provides an easy way of totally eliminating spam:

1. Bounce anything that is not from a whitelisted sender and contains an non-plain-text MIME section.
2. Auto-whitelist anyone I send a mail to.

This means that anyone I email is free to send me whatever they want. Anyone can still contact me, but they are restricted to sending me plain text for the first email, until I reply to them.

Of course, spammers could start sending out messages saying 'I tried to send you some spam but your filter blocked it, please email me.' These will be caught in grey-traps for 8 hours, and by the end of the 8 hours there's a very good chance that the email will have been caught and the sender added to an RBL.

I'll probably try implementing this when I have time, but if anyone has time before me then please do and let me know how well it works.

While some may consider defending the integrity of our democratic vote to be a racist act, that label hasn't discouraged one 67 year old grandmother from speaking out and making a difference. Jane Balogh, in the Federal Way, Washington area, single-handedly began a campaign of letter writing and phone calls to elected officials, in order to bring attention to just how easy voter fraud has become.

As a result of her efforts, officials were able to identify and foil a single case of a dog registered to vote. An Australian shepherd-terrier mix to be exact, that had signed all required forms with his own paw print, and had gotten an absentee-ballot to mail in. To ensure that no good deed goes unpunished, grandma was charged $240 for court costs, sentenced to 10 hours of community-service, and at the courts urging, pay an attorney $1000 to represent her.

The article fails to mention if the dog was registered Democrat or Republican, so for those of you that require that information to determine if this voter fraud situation, was ethical or not, I'm sorry.