Još uvek sam na SBB-ovim prepaid flat paketima, i nakon ovoga što je danas bilo definitivno moram da pređem na postpaid sistem plaćanja (pošto mi se sigurno ne prelazi na Telekom).

Uglavnom se potrefi da zadnji dan trajanja paketa odem i uplatim sledeći paket. Danas nisam mogao da obavim to u toku dana, pa sam predveče zvao korisnički servis da proverim do kada rade. Ljubazna Nikoleta me je obavestila da korisnički centar u Kralja Petra danas radi do 18h. Pretpostavljam da je zbog protesta. I mnogo je glupo ako su zbog toga skratili radno vreme. Kako je tad već prošlo 18h pitao sam da li je moguće na neki drugi način rešiti problem, pošto mi je potreban Internet. Dobio sam odgovor da korisnički centar u Ustaničkoj danas radi do 20h. Kako je lepo od njh što su se potrudili da neki drugi korisnički centar radi puno radno vreme. Možda ipak misle o svojim korisnicima?

Pošto su roditelji išli do grada, onda su oni svratili do Ustaničke 65. Negde posle 20h sam pogledao da li ima novi uplaćen paket i začudio se kad sam video da nema. Zvao sam ih na mobilni i saznao da je i taj centar radio do 18h. Oh, sreće i radosti…

Pošto pre nisam zapazio obaveštenje o skraćenom radnom vremenu ni na sajtu, ni na forumu SBB-a, otišao sam još jednom da vidim da ga nisam nekako prevideo. I zaista ga nema. Zovem opet korisničku podršku, da vidim da li bi mogli da mi učine i da produže paket za jedno veče, pošto već nije bilo obaveštenja i delimično su krivi što danas nisam mogao da uplatim. Na to dobijam odgovor od Marka (ako se tako zvao) da je bilo obaveštenje. Na moje pitanje gde, dobijam odgovor … “Na vratima.” Samo tako, hladno, najnormalnije. Kao da ne živimo u 21. veku, kao da nemaju sajt i forum… Na vratima?! Da li treba svaki dan da idem redom od jednog do drugog uplatnog mesta da bih video obaveštenje? Što nisu mogli na neki pristupačniji način da distribuiraju to? I tako, na još jedno pitanje da li je moguće produžiti Internet za jedan dan, dobijam odgovor da mogu ujutru da uplatim ako hoću…

Eh, Srbijo… Da sam u nekoj razvijenijoj zemlji… prvo se ne bih cimao do korisničkog centra da uplatim. Drugo, bilo bi malo verovatno da zbog protesta skrate radno vreme. Čak i da skrate, verujem da bi bilo obaveštenje na nekom logičnijem mestu, poput njihovog sajta (ili im ta napredna tehnologija služi da reklamiraju “uživajte uz 50 kanala, i Internetu brzine čak 2Mbps od 350 din!”… uz “sitne uslove”). I postoje primeri gde firme izlaze u susret korisnicima i prave ovakve ustupke da bi korisnik bio zadovoljan. Ali ne u Srbiji. Malo ko će to ovde da uradi.

I šta sad mogu da uradim? Ništa, sem da probam da izrazim svoje nezadovoljstvo na ovaj način… I da se nadam da će se situacija ovde nekad promeniti.

I have been thinking what would the world be like if things were closed like proprietary instant messaging protocols (for example, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, AIM and similar). Here we go…

• If borders were like closed IMs, you wouldn’t be able to cross them.
• If e-mail was like closed IMs, you wouldn’t be able to send it outside your network.
• If roads were like closed IMs, you wouldn’t be able to drive your car on every road.

On the other side, Jabber is open and extensible. That means that you don’t need to be on the same network as your friends in order to IM with them. So, why aren’t people using it? I believe most of them haven’t heard of it at all. And some of them have, but not all of their friends are willing to switch. Wouldn’t it be great if you had to manage only one IM account, instead of 3 or 4? Especially if you’re not using an IM program which supports multiple accounts – in that case you have to run as much programs as you have accounts, just to be able to communicate with all of your friends. What a waste of CPU power and memory.

Have something to add? Feel free to…

Well, I finished the assembler project for school. It was fun writing it and breaking the assembler into separate parts, for each specific task. I have also learned a lot about the way assembler works.

It is a basic assembler for 8086 processor with 2-byte words, and 1 byte long addressable unit.

It isn’t full with instructions, but it covers the basics. There are four segments: dat, txt, bss and stack. dat and txt, as data and code segments, are represented in the object file. There is the directive DW which is used to reserve a word, END for marking the end of the input. Seven instructions are available:

• mov dst, src
• add dst, src
• push src
• pop dst
• int src
• jz src
• jmp src

Eight registers are accessible: AX, BX, CX, DX, SI, DI, BP, SP. There are four addressing modes: immediate, direct, register direct and register indirect with displacement. The coded instruction is one word long, if both operands are addressed with register direct addressing, or two words long, if one of the operands is addressed in some other mode.

So far, the assembler is case-insensitive, but I think I’ll reprogram it, so it is case-sensitive for user-defined symbols. That would be nice .

Since I don’t think I should publicly post the project code for now (there are still other people writing it), I’m gonna post a simple assembler program and the output. The program is not doing anything meaningful. It is just presenting the assembler possibilities.

Input:

PUBLIC p1,p2,p3,p4
EXTERN e1,e2,e3,e4
SEGMENT txt
p1: mov cx, 13
p2: add ax, 0x12
p4: jmp [bp]*
labela: jmp p1
add cx, p3
jz e3
add [si]*, ax
dw *
dw p1
add ax, [si]*
jz labela
jmp e4
p3: int e1
int p4
jmp labela
mov cx, bx
SEGMENT dat
dw ?
dw *
SEGMENT bss
dw ?
dw ?
SEGMENT stack
END

And here’s the object file:

LINK
4 8 14
# Segments
.txt	0	58	RWP
.dat	58	4	RWP
.bss	62	4	RW
.stack	66	32	RW
# Symbols
e3	0	0	U
e4	0	0	U
e1	0	0	U
e2	0	0	U
p4	8	1	D
p3	44	1	D
p2	4	1	D
p1	0	1	D
# Relocations
000A	1	1	A1
000E	1	1	A1
0012	1	1	A1
0016	1	3	RS1
001A	1	1	A1
001C	1	1	A1
001E	1	1	A1
0022	1	1	A1
0026	1	1	R1
002A	1	4	AS1
002E	1	1	AS1
0032	1	1	A1
0036	1	1	A1
003C	2	2	A1
# Data
19 00 00 0d 28 00 00 12 70 78 00 08 70 00 00 00 29 00 00 2c 60 00 00 00 2e 40 00 18
00 1c 00 00 28 70 00 20 60 00 00 0c 70 00 00 00 50 00 00 00 50 00 00 08 70 00 00 0c 19 44
00 00 00 00 00 3C

And here is the same program, with some errors…

labela1: SEGMENT txt
labela2: PUBLIC p1,p2,p3,p4
EXTERN e1,e2,e3,e4
p1: mov 0x13, 13
p2: add ax, 0x12
p2: jmp [ax]*
labela: jmp p1
add cx, p3
dw *
dw p1
add [ax]*, [bx]*
e1: int p2
SEGMENT dat
mov cx, bx
dw ?
SEGMENT dat
dw *
SEGMENT bss
dw *
dw ?
SEGMENT stack
dw *
SEGMENT nekiTamoSegment
END

…and the errors list that is presented to the user…

ERROR line 1: SEGMENT directive can not be labeled
ERROR line 2: PUBLIC directive can not be labeled
ERROR line 2: PUBLIC not called at the beginning
ERROR line 3: EXTERN not called at the beginning
ERROR line 4: Destination can not be addressed with immediate addresssing.
ERROR line 4: Uncompatible address modes - dst: immediate, src: immediate
ERROR line 6: Symbol p2 has multiple definition
WARNING line 9: DW found in TXT segment, make sure you wrapped it with "JMP yourLabelX" and "yourLabelX: ...", so it doesn't get executed.
WARNING line 10: DW found in TXT segment, make sure you wrapped it with "JMP yourLabelX" and "yourLabelX: ...", so it doesn't get executed.
ERROR line 11: Uncompatible address modes - dst: register indirect with displacement, src: register indirect with displacement
ERROR line 12: Extern symbol e1 can not be defined
ERROR line 14: MOV must be called in TXT segment
ERROR line 16: Segment dat exists
ERROR line 19: Data can not be initialized in BSS segment
ERROR line 22: DW must be called in TXT, BSS or DAT segment
ERROR line 23: Bad segment - nekiTamoSegment
Errors were encountered. Assembling is not completed.

Well, I suppose that is it for now. Maybe we’re gonna have to make a linker for the second homework. That would be nice.

The thing I love about math is its abstract nature. For example, let’s take a look at the Dirac’s delta function. It’s the function that has the value zero, everywhere except at x=0, where it has infinitely large value. And it has a property that its total integral (area beneath the function) is 1. So, to think a bit about it, it an infinitesimally thin peak, which has infinite height. And the area beneath it is 1. Something like … Ain’t that amazing ?

And on the opposite, less abstract side, … Or to put it in a more descriptive way …

Mind-expanding …

I’m a regular on Serbian’s Ubuntu LoCo forum. Today I stumbled upon one post that got me into thinking “Are we a bit hypocritical?”. Here’s what happened…

There is one guy who messed up his system a bit with Windows and Linux installations and removals. He wanted to have both operating systems on his computer and he asked for a solution. Another guy tried to help him. The problematic part of his message was the comment “If you need help with removing Linux because you want to stay on that other OS, you’re not gonna find it here.” But why?

We, the FOSS community (or Ubuntu community in this particular case), are supposed to fight for freedom. In my opinion, that includes the freedom of choice, to let the user use whatever he or she wants. Including that other OS, which may have a lot of restrictions.

Sure, it wouldn’t be wise to just say “Remove Linux”. I’m not for that in the first place. But if there was no fix, why wouldn’t we help someone to switch back? That is what freedom of choice is all about, right? Someone might say that by not helping others to switch back to that other OS, we will make them adapt to Linux. Someone might say that it’s against its principles to help someone switch back to that other OS. But, if the only fix is the switch back, wouldn’t it be helpful to explain how to switch back.

What is my way of fight for freedom? Education. I think that is the best way to do that. Show people what freedom gives. The rest will follow.

Well, I just received this from a friend… Totally true.

Too bad it’s not Monday, it would be a nice cliche…

Last night I went to bed around 5am. I was planning to get up at noon, but that isn’t going quite well. Some car alarm turned on and woke me up at 6am. I slept somehow for the next two hours, but then I got up. I think it turned off now (finally!). I hadn’t thought that there is someone who could leave their car alarm on for almost three hours, even if it’s broken…

So… You know it’s Tuesday when the car alarm wakes you up…

Good morning.