Like a drug

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

I naïvely thought that I wasn’t so reliant on the “we have shun our don’t be evil motto” organization (hint G00gle).

How fool I was. I didn’t even have the phone number of my wife saved into my own CardDav address book.

She phoned me to ask about my sprained ankle and my phone didn’t even recognised her call.

The tittle of this piece maybe excessive. I suspect that many proprietary services are similar. Until a few days ago I shunned the golden prison of Apple. Google is no better. Android may be Free Software but being released with a non persistent license it is only instrumental to give Google more power.

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Not only WhatsApp is proprietary software but it doesn’t even like to run on a pure Android release which I have to remind you is Free Software.

Sadly its freedom is not persistent so it can be turned and it is too often turned into proprietary.

Telegram happily runs on many terminals at the same time. You can move your SIM from a phone to another and it doesn’t have anything to quarry about. WhatsApp instead insists on having one and one only terminal to control. And it keep losing data unless you backup it on a proprietary service (aka Google Drive) and no, it doesn’t allow you to download it. Unless you “voluntary” choose to lock yourself into the golden and sweet prison of proprietary services.

It took me years to acknowledge it: Google’s walled garden is the same as Apple’s: a golden and comfortable prison.

Escaping those prisons is not easy neither fast.

I will escape. I will be free.

Sticking to FairPhone Open is one of the required steps. It shows how pervasive, sweet yet subtle are the shackles of the great G which by the way has shunned its choice not to be evil some years ago.

I’ve been mainly using Free as in freedom software since 1997. Now the time has come to really stick to freedom even in mobile.

Until my Puri.sm Librem5 will come. Then things will get serious.

Oltraggioso

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

Sono cliente TIM da quasi vent’anni, da quando la mia fidanzata mi regalò una SIM per chiamarci a basso costo.

Sono alla fine approdato all’attuale fornitura da ben 5Gb/mese con 200 minuti, alla “modica” cifra di 10€/mese.

Sono arrivato alla conclusione che essere un cliente fedele è una scemenza di questi tempi perché sei considerato solamnete una vacac da mungere.

Alla stessa cifra, oggi, la stessa TIM dà 50 GB e minuti illimitati. Ma solo se arrivi da un operatore virtuale (tranne Kena, ovviamente, son sempre loro!).

Anzichè premiare chi letteralmente da decenni continua a dar loro danari in cambio di servizi, con formule del tipo “se rimani più di x anni, bonus di y” continuano il giochetto di rubarsi i clienti.

Francamente, mi sfugge il senso di tutto ciò.

RelaX – relational algebra calculator

Posted on by Paolo Redaelli

RelaX – relational algebra calculator

The relational algebra calculator helps you learn relational algebra (RelAlg) by executing it.

If you want to learn SQL you take a database system and try some queries.
But if you want to learn relational algebra what do you use? Pen and paper?

The relational algebra calculator helps you learn relational algebra (RelAlg) by executing it.

Well, that’s a REALLY fine piece of software. Sadly there’s no license…