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Colombia earthquake

Camilo — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:31:45 +0000

A Colombia earthquake in Quibdo, which means it was far enough from Bogota, yet enough for people to feel it.

Everything is political

Camilo — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 21:06:20 +0000

I am re-reading Anansi Boys, that delicious book by Neil Gaiman; the writer describes it as

If you have to classify it, it’s probably a magical-horror-thriller-ghost-romantic-comedy-family-epic, although that leaves out the detective bits and much of the food.

.
The whole story that can be retold as a contemporary political tale, or a cognitive science early myth, one that describes the moment in which stories shift from survival to creative, from procedural to transactional.

That book, though, had however a terrible fault, at least here in a Southern state: you don’t call black grown men “boys”, and since the protagonists are black, and the whole tale revolves around the story of Anansi, any reference to the book was almost forbidden. Was no cultural marketer there to tell Mr. Gaiman about the requirements and restrictions of a large market?

As Skunk Anansie would say, “everything is f***ing political”.

True or False?

Camilo — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 18:48:08 +0000

“Colombia is a dangerous country for Americans!”

FALSE.

USA is the dangerous country for Americans. Everything else is just hearsay.

Let’s look at the numbers, please, and then decide which is the worst, most dangerous country; for this, please tell me which country has the largest numbers:

Population per capita in jail? USA.
Deaths by gun? USA.
Imprisonment without recourse to lawyers? USA.
Torture? USA.
Drug addicts? USA
Number of casualties in illegal wars? USA
Worst financial fraud in history? USA
Biggest national debt? USA

The USA has the most draconian judicial system, some of the most egregious inequalitites consacrated by law, and the most predatory corporate entities in the planet. The USA consistently poisons its citizens, tortures uncountable others, has the lowest life expectancy of an OECD country, the hightest health costs, has the highest population living without insurance or underinsured.

Oh, and about the kidnappings? FALSE! Just check this:

In conclusion – you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than kidnapped as a tourist / foreigner in Colombia

Ah, the land of the free and home of the brave!

Koobface in Facebook

Camilo — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:37:15 +0000

Facebook, much maligned social site, is now target of trojans, specifically the Koobface.

But it was due to happen: Facebook as a social application is, by far, the most famous; its users are all connected through some degree of trust, and the constant use of social sites has eroded the security instincts that we all developed when we first opened our hotmail account. Now, how many users would even consider clicking on a link that came through email, even from a friend? Very few people – email like that gets trashed very fast. Not so in Facebook, it seems, so much so that this is making news. And at least now we know that fb has a security page, although too little, too late.

From the avertlabs page on the trojan we get that

This component listens on TCP port 9090 and proxies all HTTP traffic, in particular looking for traffic to Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Live.com for the purpose of hijacking search results. Search terms are directed to find-www.net. This enables ad hijacking and click fraud.

The tinyproxy thing was easy to find, but many other things come through that open
door. And that’s when the security nightmare beings.

Ironically, I just got a CSI invitation, and one of their selling poiints is social media and its implication sin security. What do you know!

Making the recession official

Camilo — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:47:59 +0000

The NBER officially tell us that we are now in a recession:

The committee identified December 2007 as the peak month, after determining that the subsequent decline in economic activity was large enough to qualify as a recession.

via the Big Picture

Camilo — Mon, 17 May 2004 09:46:12 +0000

Check the
Music Maker Relief Foundation, as shown by the csmonitor. I got ot get to see these people.

God and movies

Camilo — Tue, 09 Dec 2003 23:05:51 +0000

This could be as well Punxsutawney instead of Winston-Salem, but at least this town has a school of the arts.
Remember the movie directed by Ramis, where Bill Murray wakes up to the same lame February 2nd, never leaving that dreadful town and trapped forever in the hell that small American towns can be?
Of course that the movie is used as an explanation or allegory to religions. The subject of cycles of life, the redemption after sin, the purpose after a search and the self-forgiveness are all ideas found in all religions and myths.
Yet, at what point is this just an exercise in wishful thinking? Trying to find depth in a funny cult movie where only our desires, hopes and regrets force meaning out of a circular tale.
At least we have School of the Arts, I am telling you.

Camilo — Wed, 05 Nov 2003 11:55:49 +0000

U-blog / loic / Create a company: 2 – Find the best people and trust them

via Jean-Yves

Bloomsday

Ana — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 09:38:17 +0000

Yesterday, 16 June, was Bloomsday or the day that Joyceans dedicate to celebrate the peripathetic journey of Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of James Joyce’s master work Ulysses, which takes place on 16 June 1914. Most people will probably spend no more attention to this date than to any other, but in Seville, my hometown, the figure of the Irish genius is remembered year after year. Bloomsday is celebrated in many other places all around the world, mainly in Dublin, Joyce’s birth place as well as the location of Bloom’s advetures in the novel. However, Seville has kept this tradition for many years now, due to the fact that its university owns one of the most important groups of reasearch devoted to the Irish writer. The International James Joyce symposium was held in Seville in 1994, and there exists a James Joyce Spanish Association that gathers together once a year, everytime in a different city of Spain, celebrating conferences and activities dedicated to Joyce’s works.
Seville is known for its bullfights, its Feria de Abril, its Holy Week and its tourist attractions. More and more, Seville is being known for the celebration of Bloomsday, in part thanks to the efforts of Professor Garc�a Tortosa, who has devoted more than 20 years to the study of James Joyce and has published the last translation of Ulysses into Spanish.
The tradition, on this date, is to meet at Casa de la Provincia to read together our favorite passages of the novel. After that, we all move to an Irish pub, where we drink Guinness and eat kidneys, paying homage to Bloom’s breakfast in Episode 4, “Calypso.” This year, there was a novelty, having an open discussion on Joyce’s Ulysses before the readings. Unfortunately, there was someone who argued that some of Joyce’s passages were boring and made him sleepy and that his last work, Finnegans Wake, was a failure. As we usually say, Joyce chooses his readers. But one does not need to read Ulysses or Finnegans Wake to enjoy such a pleasureable time, on a day when many citizens of Seville feel attracted by this mysterious author, from whom we know every single bibliographical detail, but don’t know what his works mean sometimes.
“If he had smiled why would he have smiled?” (U, 17. 216).

Fictional billionaires

Camilo — Tue, 29 Apr 2003 02:17:59 +0000

Even though it may be a little self-referential, coming from Forbes , it seems to be specally true of these times:

If fiction can be regarded as a culture’s subconscious, then it’s clear that we are a nation obsessed with the very rich.

And then we have all our cultural icons based on the affluent ones, representing that American dream.
Of course, Lex Luthor is a almost as wealthy as Bruce Wayne, so it explains a lot!