Blogging da' Bullshit

Bitcoin.

2013-04-14T22:20:00.000-05:00

I’ve spent some time today reading/researching about a topic that never called my attention until now... bitcoin.

And it is funny I didn’t dig on the subject as this blog lately has been filled with economics topics among other things. Someone pointed to me that my blog has been showing how my mind has evolved...

Nevertheless, (I’m not going to argue about me evolving because I haven’t) I wanted to share some ideas about this bitcoin thing.

Currently we are living some kind of “gold rush” as the bitcoins prices are climbing... as any other currency, it has it’s ups and down; but the interesting thing is what actually bitcoin is.

Bitcoin is a “virtual currency”.

Somewhere in 2009, a hacker with a Japanese name had the idea of a decentralized currency. Ironic, since the financial crisis and all. Anyways, instead of a central bank, bitcoins are issued by anyone and everyone with a personal computer that is willing to. It is mined by solving cryptographic problems related with the transactions that are broadcast between the users; enforcing chronological order, protecting the neutrality of the network and limiting the amount of bitcoins available.

This is a very good idea as bitcoins are in and on itself a hybrid between commodities and fiat currency. Some have invested heavily in these bitcoins for various reasons... (some articles point at them as a shel to hyperinflation) and the prices are of the chart. A bitcoin now worth 99 (last week it went over 250 US$) and something US dollars.

But the point of this post is NOT go ahead and build/buy a mining rig by any means.... some people have been building mining rigs since 2009 when it came out and with every bitcoin mined, the harvest algorithm increase it’s difficulty exponentially; so today only CPU power is not enough to get a couple of coins...

Powerful gaming GPU’s are been used nowdays to build mining rigs..

but wait... what about the power cost?

Powerful gaming GPU’s are power hungry; and at this point, i’m sure it doesn’t worth to setup a mining rig as the processing power might be just too high... even if each bitcoin worth 100 bucks.

Now... what is the real relevance of this bitcoin thing?

Well.. one is obvious. NO BANKS INVOLVED.

And this is why I think this bitcoin phenomena will become determinant in the future... and let me explain.

Before... as in long time a go, money was gold (or silver... depending of the case). Some blacksmith became bankers as they had big vaults to save their minerals and the whole thing is history...

Today, every single currency in the world is fiat... which means is not backed up by gold or any metal... in fact, money worth nothing... but the trust people put in them. The US dollar stays valuable as long as people want it.

Now.... even if it is virtually produced, the mining process is hard and time consuming... so you can’t create a stunning amount of bitcoins just because... it is, by design limited... (theorical limit is 21 millions as far as I know); but been a virtual good means you can have it on your smartphone... (or usb drive) and encrypt it etc. etc... so nobody has to know you have it with you...and the means to exchange it are available to everyone with fairly cheap equipment.... your bitcoin wallet may be in the cloud too... think about it

they can’t steel it... yet is as portable as a buck (or a credit card), and hence is not centralized, it is controlled by everyone and no one.

As it is limited, and decentralized, no government or bank can devaluate it by “printing it out of thin air” and the total amount will stay fixed once it reach it’s theorical limit.

This is a very interesting concept; and I’m sure something like this will replace fiat currency in the near future.... but it implies other thing if you think about it... (more to come on another post)

Why freewill sucks... (more raw ideas of my new book.. .currently ramblings)

2013-04-02T13:00:00.002-05:00

The whole idea of choice is bullshit.

I understand that this specific subject is.. .to put it on an educated perspective, problematic. After all, free will is kind off what resides behind religion etc.

At the end of communism, humanity as a whole conceived the idea that rights and choice where secure to everybody; and the promises of a better future where evident on the horizon.

… that was about 20 years ago... 1989 I think, it was when they demolished Berlin wall; the very act that demonstrated how communism failed and established the new era.

I mention this simply because if you think about it; ideologically capitalism is based on the idea of choice in every level of our life... not only in regards of consumption (as in what brand to pick on the supermarket), but in the perception of life as such.

Everyone can make it.

The “self made person” is the cornerstone of modern capitalism ideology. Today, everybody can be a celebrity or whatever... but what have changed is that before; by the time of my parents, you needed to have a special set of skills to become famous.

You became a celebrity by providing a benefit to the rest of the world...

… today, anybody can be famous just because is a moron who has a youtube channel.

Choice on itself creates a state of anxiety... physiologist have seen that overwhelming choices create the feeling of anxiety in many layers and many forms. (the "what do I really want?" question comes to mind)... and also, people are often on a state of “perpetual lethargy” in some kind of indecisiveness...

But we usually make choices based on what other people are choosing... funny!

Besides, there is a flaw on this “freedom of choice” ideology. It is just a fallacy.

It is true.. .(up to a certain point) that I control my life... hence I’m the master of my universe... but, (as everyone else) I believe in a god as well as god will. (see my point?)

And if you think about it, you might dislike your job or whatever.. and suddenly take the decision of “blow it all”... you can’t unplug yourself of the system, and eventually realize that you may be aware of it all...

you are no longer a proletarian slave... but there you are... working longer hours; constantly consuming around yourself.

Now.. think about how this freewill affects the concept of equilibrium I described couple post back. We are constantly looking over the relieve of anxieties (no matter if we are aware of it) and in order to satisfy that very human chill you live your life on lethargic state promoting the imbalance.... and nothing goes through.

I’m definitely not a “normal user”

2013-03-25T15:22:00.000-05:00

Today I noticed something... out of the sudden my cellphone received about 150 whatsapp messages...

...odd

to make it short, this weekend I was checking the wife tablet that has a sim slot... and as I changed from cyanogenmod to samsung official rom on the i9100... the reinsert of the sim made the phone pick up APN’s for network access on his own..

Well... it did it wrong. Phone was going thru “wap” instead of the full internet access (which is another apn of course) It took me 10 minuntes to figure out.

Big Banks (a guest post fron John Gower)

2013-03-05T12:03:00.002-05:00

This is a guest post.
Apparently, bloggingda'bullshit is getting in the fancy trend of letting other people write for it. Nevertheless, the post seems quite adequate for some of the "bullshit" I've been shoving on this webpage...

At one time, the most popular television show in the United States featured a banker who would do anything to keep your account.

Fans of “The Beverly Hillbillies” (which is still in worldwide syndication and on cable’s TV Land) will fondly remember Milton Drysdale (played by actor Raymond Bailey), the head of the Commerce Bank of Beverly Hills, Ca.

Drysdale was obsessively focused on keeping accidental millionaire J.D. Clampett’s fortune on deposit at the Commerce Bank. So focused that he became a part of the Clampett family’s daily lives. Hilarity ensued.

Consider just some of Drysdale’s actions: he recreated a replica of the Clampett’s hill country log cabin in their backyard, complete with cawing rooster. He followed them back to their Ozark homeland and bought a local bank there just to maintain a controlling interest in their money. He took some rock salt in his rear end from Granny’s shotgun. He dressed up as a woman and an Indian chief.

The list goes on and on, through nine seasons of television in an era where you could have 36-episode seasons. The message was clear: Drysdale was a banker who cared. Maybe not for the best of reasons, but he really, truly, cared about the account.

Contrast that to today’s banks. Sure, they advertise that they care. You can’t go into a major bank branch and miss the wall posters offering great CD rates or auto loans to a rainbow assortment of smiling people. In well-funded media campaigns, they show us a parallel universe where bankers are eager to talk to you about lending money, helping your business grow, take time to get to know you personally and actually think about ways they can help you. Have a lollypop and a unicorn while we massage your feet, they suggest.

Of course, reality bites. The truth is a bitter pill, not a lollypop. Your bank features long lines, customer service straight outta New Dehli, and the death of a thousand pecks from fees, fees, fees. There is only the slightest nod to making sure your money stays on deposit.

Yet there’s no apparent customer stampede to credit unions, online banks and smaller community banks, despite calls from Occupy Wall Street on up the financial food chain.

Why? Glad you asked.

The big banks know they have a good friend called inertia. They know how difficult it is for you to handle the daunting administrative task of taking your banking somewhere else, re-doing your direct deposits (now required for social security) and automatic billing, and reordering checks and other tools of the trade.

So they keep right on offering costly basic services, low deposit yields, and behavior that generally lets you know that there’ll be a load of compromisin’ on the road to your financial horizon. Because the actual customer churn rate is relatively low, on the order of 15% to 20% even in the worst of financial times, according to several industry surveys.

The American Banker, one of the financial industry’s Bibles, reported two years ago that a Javelin Strategy and Research report on customer churn indicated that only 12% of customers actually switched their accounts. A survey by Adobe puts the annual banking churn at 15%, while a company called WhyData estimated the churn at 20%.

So even when a major campaign is initiated by a grassroots organization like Occupy Wall Street to promote switching your bank, it appears the 99% will just yawn and add it to the list of things to eventually get around to, right on the list next to worrying about global warming.

Of course, they will give the notion of switching banks lip service. Last year, an Ernst & Young survey indicated that 40% of bank customers are losing trust in the banking industry. The trend is strongest in Europe (surprise!), where unrelenting bad economic news has driven public confidence into the ground. The E&Y report concludes that the proportion of customers planning to change banks has grown by 70% since 2011, with high fees the biggest complaint, according to E&Y.

But actually switching? That, like the rising Co2 levels, appears to be just a lot of hot air.

“All banks are nice when you’ve got a lot of money in the bank,” says Peggy Dold, a music artist manager based in Westlake Village, California “But when you have income fluctuations, the true colors of the fabric and culture of the financial institution are very clear. Those who instill customer service in the culture are the ones I want to be with.”

Tell that to Mr. Drysdale.

John Gower, NerdWallet

Some pics to be considered as wallpapers

2013-02-27T22:38:00.002-05:00

As many should know at this moment, I'm into photography and also, I'm a avid kde user... so why not contribute to the kde project in a way that will matter?

I may know about programming etc, but I'm not a programmer.... so I'm creating this post as a show off for these 2 images in order to be considered

This one was taking in bonaire...

And this one is some beach in aruba... don't remember the exact name; but it wasn't palm beach.

About Equilibrium... (raw ideas of my new book.. .currently ramblings)

2012-11-02T12:02:00.000-05:00

-->

As life goes on, I’ve been dealing lately with several task on my queue.. however, I’ve manage to get 15 pages on my “book”... and here is the main idea.

The book tentative name is “The imperative of globalization and the ideal of universalism”... and one idea is around the title of this post. Equilibrium

If you think about it, nature always looks for equilibrium. Every system, specially when seen at global scale, is after all, a living prof of Newtons law...

forces at equilibrium.

But we, humans, deny it existence as it is imperative that current status quo prevails at any cost.

Capitalism and Communism at the same time.

On the biosphere, which is in simple words, the “layer” of our planet that sustain life; the current bigest animal is the whale.

And the biggest whale feed of krill... the smallest sea animal (mind that bacteria are not animals or plants according to taxonomy); ironic.

This interdependency on what we know as biosphere is critical to understand my point, If I where a whale.. I'll pretty much want krill to prosper so I could ensure my future source of food. Now, let’s take that same idea and extrapolate it to our global economy...

does the whale (banks) at the moment are looking for your survival?

Funny enough it is that 2008 crisis is not the fist time US government (and by default, the rest of the world as the US dollar is the current global currency where all governments save their reserves) bail out the banks. I’ve learn this is the third time!

And as soon as the US government bail out the banks; by definition they become “public property” as the US government, using USA state resources (aka people’s money) is the current owner of the whole financial paradigm... I don’t know you, but that sounds like banks are not “private entities” anymore..

in other words, those are state owned enterprises... that is textbook communism (socially owned means of production)

It is fairly spread that bankers, insurance companies and others financial community related CEO’s pay themselves big bonuses checks AFTER the bailout... and that the Federal Reserve did gave them more money than what they report...

bottom line is: when they make money... no problem.. big checks for CEO's.

When they lose money... uncle Sam goes all in (using our money) to bail them out,...

... and we still get the axe; and our children’s children (or maybe grand grand children) will pay the bill.

I’ll leave it like that because I’ll spoil the book... But you are seeing here clearly that they can't claim to be a capitalist world when socially owned means of production are on the table; but the benefits of those means of production won't reach everyone but the CEO's and the others on the elite.

but when they make a mistake, before they start filling their respective bankruptcy paperwork... they call Uncle Sam

About the "brightness" of our future..

2012-08-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

Murphy: Anything bad that can happen will happen. Plan accordingly!

Somewhere around this time, by last year, I was informed that I needed to look for a topic to elaborate in order to get my Masters program diploma. They specified that the purpose of the paper to present was not only to fulfill the partial requirements of the graduation work, but must be related to your dayjob as they where interested in you doing something meaningful for your organization.

…. yeah right.

I work for the Panamanian government... more specifically, the Ministry of Health. Surrounded by doctors, who mainly think they are at the pinnacle of the human intelligence... I simply didn’t want to do ANYTHING related.

To make it short.. I ended doing this!

The idea:

Economist have claimed for years that the dynamics of the global economy are ruled by the “business cycles”.

As an engineer, not an economist, I got the idea, however...

Every time you hear about an economic statement... no matter where and who is coming from, it will bring something that by definition, is nothing more than a simple exponential function. Everything in the world and their mother are promoting economic growth. The system is not able to survive without it. Some economist will tell you that, in order to maintain our current level of live, we must grow at 4% at least.

I spent a good deal of time reading and finding out why is it that every government economic goal is aggressive expansion... but once that concept is understood, the big picture of our bright future does not look bright at all.

And of course I’ve god flame on this topic... mainly because every time someone get brave enough to announce to the world the forthcoming scarcity on a specific resource... there is a possible replacement as we (humans) are smart enough to find a solution for the scarcity problem.

Well... in this case, i’m not predicting anything; just saying that global GDP is money... and as it has no intrinsic value, the standard measurement is a floating point. You won’t argue with me that the 69 something trillion dollars of the global GDP doesn’t reflect the aggressive harvest of resources and energy consumption to mention some. The question is how much?

My argument:

Have you hear about the mathematic of chaos?

Sustaining an ever-expanding system that trends to infinity, on a finite environment is a recipe for chaos. I think that you’ll agree that economy of the world looks fucked up from every possible viewing angle.

Because chaos mathematics, we understand that we are not living on a “predictable world” any longer...

Economist insist that, because we can’t regulate and control the economy as we think we could, our only salvation is obeying the market and going for growth... anything else will lead to economic chaos and collapse...

didn’t it collapsed already?

… and the sad but true part of this is that it keep on growing.

The importance of what you don’t know

2012-08-10T10:47:00.001-05:00

As I’ve finished my Master course (waiting for the diploma until December) I found myself with some free time; so I ended doing some random reading all around the internet.

Eventually, as my topics of interest have spread wider, I started to look for randomness and Murphy law texts, looking for statements for a possible, yet not probable book I’ll write as I’ve been told to place some of the odds ramblings on paper.

I ended with Nassim Taleb topics... Black Swan events.

I’ve just started reading the book; however, I have to say this thing has started to make me have flashbacks,

Back on college (electrical engineering program) one of my dear professors, Martin Issac Donderis (RIP) was trying to make us think out of the box and have a deeper understanding of stuff. I’ll never forget his following statement (translated from Spanish so may not make much sense and sound funny):

I am awarethat I know;

I am aware that you don’t know.

You have no idea that you don’t know... even if you think you know.

at the end of this course, you’ll be fully aware that you don’t know and at least you’ll be able to see that nobody knows shit.

Funny enough, this guy was a Civil engineer and he were teaching us statics... go figure!

Anyway, randomness, uncertainty and Murphy have always called my attention; and the funny thing is that there is somehow no documentation that gather enough knowledge about all tree.... specially on a practical matter (think about uncertainty on project management for example).

This “Black Swan” thing is interesting because as far as I’m understanding, Taleb point is that “whatever you don’t know” is in fact far more relevant of what you do know. We learned (engineers, scientist etc.) about the “central limit theorem” where the mean of a sufficiently large number of independent random variables, each with finite mean and variance, will be normally distributed....

… and since it works (think about quality control procedures) we have been conditioned to ignore the long tail of the gaussian curve and focus on the mean and standard deviation... the apex.

Theoretical Physicist have change the concept of causality with quantum mechanics some years ago; and there has been enough debate about how these dynamics doesn’t explain our world until recently with M theory, which stick with the wild randomness of quantum mechanics on all levels of existence (M theory defines 11 dimensions for reality). So, the structured world where the cause-effect that the “common homo sapiens” claim to understand is just a small little piece of a much more complicated reality where randomness and uncertainty define alternate universes and endless possibilities and chaotic dynamics.

The problem of uncertainty:

I’ve learn thru my education that the human mind have a structured procedure to learn and deal with knowledge and conclusions. Let’s ilustrate that with an example:

All germans are black

All black are ugly...

conclusion: all germans are ugly.

This is the basic formal structure of our thinking. The premises I’m using as initial statements are, by any standard absurd. However, what if you know nothing about ugliness or germans¿?

It is the knowledge or the judgment elements that make us able to determine that it is just bullshit; however, the conclusion is correct. In other words, if you where dumb enough to believe that all germans are black you’ll end “knowing” that all germans are ugly.

The evolution of the human mind have follow a path of not appreciating introspective thinking; and also, not questioning everything.

On a biological level, thinking need huge energy resources and is in fact, time consuming. We as a species started to think on an eyelash in terms of evolutionary time, and back on those days, I am sure we used our brain on subjects too peripheral to matter; like avoiding to be eaten.

Evidence shows that we do much less thinking than we believe we do; except of course, when we think about it.

So we have learn to focus our thinking resources on a very narrow field of what matter to us; and every time we found a problem that seem impossible to understand, we attribute it to god will and lived happy with that dumb ass explanation.

Fine Tune KDE for Netbooks

2012-08-01T17:28:00.001-05:00

Upated to KDE Software Compilation 4.9
As usual with KDE and Slackware, the dedicated army of one person (AlienBob) provided the packages to perform the upgrade... so I did took advantage of work bandwidth and download immediately.

I have to say that personally, I feel disappointed as with every update I did since kde 4.5 I’ve feel performance boost on my asus 1005ha (the old atom n270 based netbook). However, it may be because I’ve configured kde to be lighting fast on this little machine... or maybe it is just that the hardware lacks the power to feel the improvement.

Nevertheless, I thought I might blog about it and point out the “performance tweaks” as there is aparently none for kde as many windows 7 “fine tune for netbook”.

Fine Tune KDE 4.x.x on Netbooks

KDE comes with a netbook interface that I hate. I mean , it’s functional and has been tailored to the usage patterns associated with these little devices; plus the search and launch feature is kinda cool; but I hate it...

Nevertheless, I use my system with full desktop workspace; and, as expected, it runs faster than windows... XP or win7. The only time I cry for more processing power is when I have to compile something... or when I run a slackbuild (wich in essence is the same thing); which is pretty much what it is... after all, this machines were not designed for heavy computing task.

Anyways, a netbook have enough processing power to run KDE on full desktop workspace... at least on top of Slackware; however, here are some of my “tweaks” to smooth things.

Drivers

As this is slackware and the netbook use integrated intel graphics... no need to do anything here; however, that might not be your case. Look for the better drivers that suits you.
Set your Graphical effects: Low display resolution and Low CPU.

I know it has to do with the shaders... but have not idea what it does; in fact, I can’t sense any difference on graphics with the different settings; but some little performance boost comes along with it.

Open System Settings and click on "Application Appearance"
Under Style, go to the "fine tuning tab" and set Low display resolution and Low CPU"

Configure your Desktop Effects

Some will say to disable desktop effects... I don’t agree. Desktop effects are something to brag about; specially when using a 300 bucks netbook. I myself use “Desktop Cube Animation” and some other fancy ones; however, desktop effects use GPU

To open the configuration pane, open "Desktop Effects" from system settings

General Tab
All Effects Tab

Advanced Tab

Here, I recommend to set scale method to "Crisp" for best results. The visual difference between these options is really negligible.

Unchecking the “OpenGL 2 shaders” will give you some speed boost while booting. This netbook videocard is able to run OpenGL shaders 2 but I found that unchecking thisone helps a bit, specially when sistem is loading up.

Note: Changing Compositing type to "Xrender" uses the CPU instead of the GPU for effects, although many effects will get disabled this is a very good idea on old graphic cards that are not supposed to be doing compositing; so not recommended as it will stress your little CPU.

Speed up KDE start

In "System Settings" under "system administration" launch the "Startup and Shutdown" settings and enter the service manager section. Disable the services that you don’t need, like"BlueDevil" as I don’t have bluetooth on this netbook.
Remove unwanted animation

Some of the oxigen animations are just not significant to the user experience.

Press "Alt + F2" and type "oxygen-settings"

Under the "Animations" tab disable the unwanted animations.
Disable unwanted krunner plugins

krunner is a powerful tool; However not everybody uses all the features that it offers. Disabling the plugins that you don’t use will free up some resources; for example, I use pidgin, then there is no need for Kopete contacts.

Press "Alt + F2" and press the wrench on the left side. Disable all the plugins that you do not need.

As you could see for yourself, a lot of these “performance tweaks” are products of my guess and trial-error process. The truth is that my asus 1005ha is very capable of running KDE. (it marks 2.2 on the user index or something on win7); however, after all a netbook, resources are limited. Wasting processing power on fancy effects and pluggins that are laying there makes no sense and disabling them will improve not only performance but battery life as well.

Finally a skype update for linux platforms

2012-06-21T22:20:00.000-05:00

One of my pals tweeted about that "finally" they gave some care to linux community by releasing skype version 4.

As it is well established here, I'm a slackware user, which essentially means I don't give a rat ass on the latest software... but skype had like 2 years (or more) without any improvement for the linux crowd.
As usual, no slackware packages available so i tested the slackbuild script available here, changed the version number and ran the upgradepkg utility...

quick and sweet.... it worked. (it had to because, as far as i know, skype does not release code but a binary package that is repackage by the script)

Anyways, besides the eye candy, I see nothing new... in fact, it annoys me that they put a "recent" column on the left of every chat window... but i finally got it off by disabling the default view on the options -> chat ;D

Official announcement on skype blog.

Calligra vs Libreoffice

2012-04-26T15:41:00.001-05:00

As I've updated to kde 4.8.2 my slackware based netbook, I've noticed the Calligra packages and didn't actually installed it until now that Pat V. has included kde 4.8.2 on slackware current.

so what the hell... i installed it and test it.

Of course, before anything I did whatever anybody will do when does not know something... i google calligra vs libreoffice.

Aparently Calligra shares code with kde and ofcourse is based on qt etc... Some people have been arguing that libreoffice has over 5million lines of code vs less than 1 million code lines for calligra etc... As libreoffice is a very good product I had to put my hands on calligra and see what the fuzz is all about.

I have to report that the performance of this thing is quite good... specially compared to libreoffice that takes some time to load.
I've been dealing with over 1Mb .docx files and have no complains but the user interface that is... odd
I haven't been able to test any big and fancy odf or any rtf file to see on real basis what was going on with open formats... however, for someone like me (who actually uses kde on a netbook) is nice to use more efficiently the processing power.
Spread sheet is working sweet...
Calligra stage (powerpoint) opens big ass picture loaded file.

I have no idea what will happen in the future and I won't be trying to predict it. Calligra now is looking for developers and libreoffice has a huge community behind it's develop so we will see... however, from an end user stand point its a promising suite.

I'll like to point out that I DON'T LIKE the end user interface of calligra.. is odd. Maybe i'm too used to libreoffice and microsoft office suites but at the moment, calligra is weird with the tools on the right side... I'll report the progress on this thing and if there is a way to change or custimize it.

Cheers

weput's photostream

2012-04-14T10:01:00.001-05:00

weput's photostream on Flickr.

Updating/upgrading my netbook

2012-03-06T10:25:00.000-05:00

as you know, I run slackware on my asus 1005ha... and since slackware is what it is...i pretty much do not spend time upgrading or patching anything... stable release install.. configure and that’s it... however something have called my attention with the new release of kde 4.8.0

While running win7 or winxp, this little machine is able to do 8 hours of usable battery life thanks to asus superhybrid engine (a proprietary under-clocking management system) ... on linux... I barely do 4 and half hours.... that pissed me off as I know it is related to configuration etc.

Back on the day I bought this machine I tried (as in miserably failed) to match battery life on slackware; however, there is a point where you really don’t care. 4 hours is good enough if compared with several other machines around + the fact that I run kde with full eye candy... who in fact consume resources.

Kde 4.8.0 is supposed to have a better adaptive power management... so I went to the upgrade... compiled packages like an idiot for a couple of hours and then BAM... alienbob (a known slackware contributor) made some slackbuilds... and the packages for slackware-current... so eventually I ended up updating the whole thing as the new kernel 3.2 series features called my attention.

I haven’t done any benchmark or anything alike but according to kde battery monitor, usable computing time has been up to 6 hours and something... and kde4.8.0 is fast. I’ve read somewhere that it may be as fast as xfce.... however, on the netbook is not really noticeable the speed boost it feels very responsive!

Time to make a backup and a clean install of slackware-current + new kde 4.8.0 apparently...

The future of computer devices

2012-01-14T16:24:00.001-05:00

Couple of years ago, the world entered on a devastating financial crisis.. I’ve blog about it as well as many others…

Interestingly enough, by that time asus “invented” the netbook… a cropped version of a laptop with sucky capabilities that were “just enough” to do basic computing task… That was the only sector of the computing industry that actually grows within the financial crisis…. That was the deciding fact of why Microsoft had to extend support for windows XP... THE NETBOOK

By the same time, people started to demand more functionality on their smartphones… up to the point that we no longer understand where it stops been a smartphone (or a tablet for the sake of my point) and start to become a computer. Virtually everything that could be done on one device is doable on the other… Before that, the software companies (you know which ones) make bloated os with fancy eye candy that require more processing power to make you throw away your hardware in order to update to current version of something that wasn’t well design to begin with…

Anyhow, I’ve ran on a website that promotes a $25 bucks computer… Raspberry pi, designed to be a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming.

This 25 dollars machine is running quake 3 on full hd resolution (1080p) with 4x anti-aliasing… tap that!

This is just another prove of what professor Lambraño told me back on college… the computer that put the man on the moon was an 8bit computer… as powerful as a 5 bucks casio calculator… ARM platform is very different from x86 ibm pc; however, you are getting the idea. This little machine is capable, its size, combined with small heat output and power demands, means that it will be able to be shoved in all sorts of tight spots…

About the panamanian "Metro Bus" failure

2012-01-13T21:25:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about if I should blog this down or not; however, somehow I’m bored at a Systems and logistics lecture given by a respectable professor from Louisville... so I’m saying ...what the hell!

Panamanian public transportation sucks. I don't use it as I have a car.. however, thousands of people day in and day out had to ride buses that wasn't secure, had no insurance etc etc... in a vial network that has developed wildly with apparently no planning at all.

Martinelli's government made the change... “diablos rojos” are becoming history as I write down these words.... people are riding new and modern urban buses... however... the system still not functional by several factors.

Anyhow, the idea behind this post is to point out a simple, yet important condition I've seen (from the outside) of why the “metro bus” system is miserably failing.

Old “diablos rojos” are “school buses” which capacity is between 48 to 77 passengers depending on the bus model... however, the buses were usually modified indistinguishably and would accommodate 80 passengers (all “seated).

Metro buses are Marco Polo Gran Viale with a similar capacity, however, because “diablos rojos” charged 25 cents per ride and the new “metrobuses” charge around a buck... people is reluctant to go standing... The users are demanding seats.
This basically means that their capacity has been cropped to something around 30 passengers (manufacturer claims 25 seats)

One of the routes that has been completely taken over by the new system is the one from “Don Bosco”... which had over 200 “diablos rojos” at service... Today, there are around 110 “metrobuses” servicing this route. Assuming that the total capacity of each unit is in use... we are still short on the amount of buses... so guess what. THE SYSTEM DOES NOT WORK.

Some has reported that they could stay waiting for a “metrobus” as long as 45 minutes... and when it comes in... it is already full (no seats available).

I have no idea of how the system was designed and the specifics of why it is not working... however, just by observing the amount of people going on the buses each day I ride from home to work and viceversa I could easily say that the amount of units should be doubled to match the service that old diablos rojos provided.

and yes... I'm glad I own a car!

I just got into photography...

2011-12-24T15:39:00.002-05:00

Well.. that's not necessary true.
Back on the 80´s, my father owned a pentax system... As every hobby my father had (excluding firearms) eventually it was passed on to me as he got "bored".

back on those days, there was no autofocus; so everything was 100% manual... In other words I have some old and forgotten experience taking pictures with a SLR...

anyways, I just got into the canon system as someone offered me a mint condition EOS 20d with a kit lens...

this is some of what i've done with it so far..

Superpopulation

2011-11-16T01:20:00.001-05:00

As you may know already, I won a scholarship for my masters degree.... so about a year from now i'm supposed to be defending my thesis... then i've been collecting data and taking notes on some "not technical" stuff yet interested enough to make me sniff around.

superpopulation is one of them..

is the world already overpopulated or we have space for more people?

As the demand and supply for resources and money increases over time, it is common to get annoyed by the ones who fail to keep on their 5 senses... however, I've been thinking about it, and i have some interesting conclusions regarding this... at least from a strileckly engineering standpoint.

I'll need to run some numbers in order to say something properly, but i think we are on the verge of overpopulation.

We have seen some effects of the weather changes related to global warming... food production may not be enough as entire harvest get lost by flood, hurricanes etc.
The "open market" demand and supply does not incentive food production as there are more profitable activities, which have to do with the
Cost of energy. as food production requires energy and processing and packaging does need some more...

the list go on and may go on for ever... however, these are weak arguments to such a problem, if the problem ever exist to begin with.

Centos 6 has a bug

2011-10-31T10:02:00.001-05:00

as usual these days, I wanted to take advantages of a bunch of old USB drives that I have around, taking into consideration that pretty much everything could be installed from a usb drive..

I booted the server from the USB Drive everything normal but...
.. anaconda installer (centOS) is not able to locate the packages or image to install...

The new blogger

2011-10-06T12:00:00.000-05:00

As my time is compromised by the offline activities I have (like having an actual live) it has been long time since I've been writing something... specially for this website.

anyhow, today I though it would be nice to check on the comments and stuff... and found out there is a new blogger interface.
It looks pretty neat and clean... too much for my own taste to be honest.

The entire user interface has been changed dramatically; the color scheme, placement, and navigation is unrecognizable if compared to the previous version...
Several key Google services have been integrated more deeply into Blogger, including automatic Analytics data for blog content. This is very nice!
Post settings.. location ¿? seriously¿?

this is simply different; and even if I don't like it, i think it is very nice. Maybe it will be integrated with google+ somehow,.... who knows.

Why i don't use Gnome

2011-08-05T01:24:00.001-05:00

ok.

time to blog..

I had some time without updating this blog or anything. Aparently i'm to bussy to do such things...

anyways, i'm currently on forced vacations. My daugther got chicken pops so i decided to take a week off and take care of her (She is 4 years old)

meanwhile, i've been updating my new business website amont some others stuff that people usually do when are at home with nothing on deadline (Cleaning the kitchen, fixing some appliances etc)

so, tonite i was chatting with a friend about the new fancy Gnome3. I checked some youtube videos and honestly i seemed fancy and quirky but that's it... i left it like that.

Today the subject came up to surface again as he pointed me out that the pinguin man (Linus Torvalds) and some others HATE Gnome3. I've read what “the man” had to say and if whatever he said is true... Gnome3 sucks.

source [read the story on this link]

I'm a kde user... since i moved to slackware who knows when I never used gnome again and that's the way I roll.. but why exactly I don't use gnome?

Well... Patrick Volderking (slackware dude) dumped gnome from slackware because he had too much trouble debugging and stuff... [source]

and the other big reason... Gconf.

Gconf is, and i quote, “an atempt to recreate MS windows registry system in linux”
See here for more on that problem :-

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/200...good-idea.html

Slackware distro doesn't come with it (well.. it is on the /extras) and since i don't use chrome or chromiun, i don't need it.

Why glee is so popular

2011-06-25T19:55:00.001-05:00

So much “propaganda” about it... too many friends telling me it rocks... I saw it; didn't like it and that was it... until tonight.

I was having some quality time with the wife, suddenly we ended watching “The glee project”. They are looking for other member of the band... bla bl abla.. then I suddenly got the point..

why does it works?

Simple... the world is filled up with freaks.

Everybody and their mother, by the time they were on high school had the issue of been popular, been noticed etc etc.... it is part of life.
As the individual is developing it's own identity... suddenly he/she realizes is different... then the freak show begins.

The drama on Glee explode the “different” kind and give them a reason of been appreciated... and that... is basically the chase of life.

The sad news for you is that, it doesn't really matter how wonderful, important, different or great you are... even if you where Jesus born 2000 years a go... you are just another bastard among the 6 thousand million people who walks tru the planned earth.

Since the homo sapiens sapiens existence there has been a freak boy who is trying to get laid, a girl who is miserable because is ignored by the guy she likes and the moron who have a high IQ to understand that all that shit is irrelevant because at the end WE ALL ARE DIFERENT and there is nothing you can do about it...

but kudos... they are making tons of cash by exploiting your lack of self awareness.

Slackware 13.37 is out

2011-04-27T20:27:00.002-05:00

today slackware team proudly released official version 13.37...

I'm downloading ATM
if you are, do it thru torrent and keep seeding.!

3 objects comming to earth.

2011-04-13T12:00:00.001-05:00

I HAVE to write about this.

Regardless of all the Bullshit around the internet (specially youtube) where people are uploading videos full of crap with the end of the world; as usual I did my research and, as usual with this topics you are not able to know what is real, what is speculation and what is people filling up the internet with useless crap.

SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial intelligence) Astrophysicist named Craig Kasnov announced he had discovered large objects out in deep space (around Pluto’s orbit). He and others scientist from SETI projects estimates that at the rate these objects are moving they will be arriving earth vicinity by mid December 2012.... ummm

the fact that some objects where found does not surprised me... but the date...
According to Mayan calendar, the return of Quetzalcoatl,when the long count ends (by December 21 of 2012), has raised the flag... media (specially the History channel) has been filling up with crap our brain about the end of the world and shit like that.

I've seen websites that claims that Mr. Craig Kasnov doesn't exist. He is not listed on any SETI directory... I googled him finding a bunch of websites with the same information I'm giving away here... but acording to this link, the idea of SETI@home was originated from a conversation between Craig Kasnov (our guy) and David Gedye, which somehow demonstrate this guys exist.

suspiciously enough, some other websites says that SETI@home program has been shut down...

Anyhow; the story says 3 objects, and the bigger one is around 240 km wide. .. but wait...
There is a number of solar system bodies which has been discovered out beyond Neptune, known as the “Kuiper belt” which consist of millions of objects of 1 to 100 km in diameter... (this is why finding the objects didn't surprised me at all); besides there is a 10th planet discovered in 2005 which is... more interesting. In 2005, Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology announced the discovery of a new planet, bigger than Pluto (temporary named 2003 UB313).

Back to topic...

Do NOT believe blindly anything... (specially if it is coming form the internet)
Do NOT discard any idea... no matter how blunt and stupid it sounds... know the facts and take your conclusions.
There is indeed a cover up... if you choose to believe it, then you are welcome to wait for Santa Claus on Christmas.

There is enough information around (specially on TV) about the FACTS that we are not alone in the universe; and if these 3 objects are really 3 mother-ships, this is NOT the first time we (humans) interact with alien civilizations. The Ancient Aliens series (History Channel) has enough circumstantial evidence that made me think what they had been saying is true... specially Pumapunku ruins which was supposed to be build by a human civilization that had no writing...
Follow this link to Skymap, load in the coordinates and see for yourself:

Coordinates

19 25 12 -89 46 03 - the first large object
16 19 35 -88 43 10 - a cylindrical object
02 26 39 -89 43 13 - the object as a circle

Viva la LibreOffice

2011-04-07T15:57:00.000-05:00

As I fucked up my kde couple of days back, I was prepared to do the “windows thing” reformat and reinstall... and so I did with my home desktop who runs Slackware64...and for my surprise, no more OpenOffice.org as the slackbuild is not currently maintained and taking in consideration that installing OpenOffice.org by compiling from source is a pain in the arse....

"Oracle's imposition of fees for some OpenOffice capabilities caused some of the venerable open source office suite's creators to head out on their own and create LibreOffice as a truly free OSS tool.”

LibreOffice is already on stable state and truth to be told... I see no difference yet on Libre or Open; but the fact that The Document Foundation where created is the big deal here... I'm 100% sure that it will do to Office suite what Mozilla Foundation made for browsers.

Fresh install of my desktop

2011-04-06T10:14:00.000-05:00

Last night i had the great idea of upgrading kernel and other components of my desktop running slackware 64 with alienBOB Multilib Conversion customized to my needs/likes for dunno how long...

somehow the ATI driver got fucked up... and at the end I just did the windows solution (format and reinstall) because i was too tired to deal with the issue... (in the middle X loaded fine but kde4 didn't in i tought.. Fuck it)

100% fresh slackware13 x86_64 is running with all security patches at home...but after all... dunno if I shall update to current (slackware 13.37) or stay on a stable.. release...

decisions,decisions,decisions