To the lighthouse

To the lighthouse is another of the modernist novels where the plot is not important... however, while reading Wikipedia, trying to figure out why this novel was so famous, I found out an interesting point.

"In order to be able to understand thought, [Virginia] Woolf's diaries reveal, the author would spend considerable time listening to herself think, observing how and which words and emotions arose in her own mind in response to what she saw".


How interesting is that! I have always wondered... how can you think without a language? How do dogs or whales think?

Of Gods and Wars

(Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Atropos [the Fates]).

How many of you were disappointed when the Titans lost to the Gods in the great war of ancient Greek mythology? Well, I was one of the disappointed, and ever since I was 6 years old, I have been wishing things had been different!

(William Blake. Hecate or the Three Fates).

Well, apparently now, things can be different thanks to God of War 2! "God of War" is a reinterpretation of Greek myths for our times, and I think it is largely based on the movie Clash of the Titans (true, the movie might not be the best, but as a kid, I had no other Greek mythology movie to compare against, and thus, it became the standard). Both, God of War, and Clash of the Titans, have Perseus (and the same actor is in both!!) Medusa, Pegasus, the Fates, and yes, both even have a Kraken (and a suspiciously humanoid Kraken for all that matters).

(Sandro Botticelli, Venus and Mars --i.e. Aphrodite and Ares)

One can argue that there are some inaccuracies (how can Gaia help someone who keeps killing Cyclopes? and the Kraken is not a Greek myth!), it is important to remember that in Greek mythology, there were always several versions of the stories, and in that sense "God of War" actually follows the essence of Greek myths very faithfully!

(Sir Anthony van Dyck: Jupiter--i.e.,Zeus-- and Antiope)

For example, it is known that Zeus was not a fateful husband, in fact he had many offspring, by either tricking and seducing several women, or even, by raping them. Several of his sons (such as Heracles, or Perseus) turned out to be famous heroes. Now Kratos, the main character in God of War, appears to be the average Greek hero and tragic figure (although a bit more vengeful than the average hero). The Gods play with his destiny as most Gods play with humans in Greek mythology. However, I never saw coming the obvious: the father of Kratos is Zeus! This is just one of the big surprises of the storyline, and it makes perfect sense according to Greek myths.


(Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Saturn --i.e., Cronus-- Devouring One of his Children)


The other fact that makes perfect sense, according to the Greek myths, is that the son (Kratos) is going to try and depose his father (Zeus), in the fashion that has plagued Greek mythology from the beginning: Uranus was deposed by his son Cronus, and Cronus was deposed by his son Zeus. Now I am sure I read somewhere about a story of a prophesy that one of the sons of Zeus was going to depose him (when I read that prophesy I felt cheated, the Greeks myths never continued, and this prophesy never came to happen!). But now, this is the thing that has me really excited about God of War 3: the fact that finally the Titans are going to get the chance of fighting back against the Gods, and that I am going to see a detailed recreation of each God (hopefully) and Titan. Hopefully in the sequel, the Gods will appear much more often, and we get to see all of them in action :-).

(Joachim Wtewael. The Battle Between the Gods and the Titans.)

The mentality of researchers in security

Neil Koblitz published an interesting article on his views about the field of cryptography; in particular, of the differences he sees between the fields of provable security and mathematics. In it he argues that the word "provable" is over-hyped, and it gives a false sense of security. Although this might be true, the problem is that we need an intuitive way to separate formal approaches to security (provable security) from approaches based on heuristic security arguments. Of course, several cryptographers such as the ones named in Koblitz paper (Oded Goldreich, and Hugo Krawczyk) and others (Jonathan Katz, Luca Trevisan) have made rebuttals to this article.

The tone of Koblitz and the rebuttals by several cryptographers just prove the last sentences of his paper: "The 'spy vs. spy' mentality of constant competition and rivalry extends to the disciplinary culture of the field. This can be excessive --and childish at times-- but it also explains in part why it can be so much fun to do research in cryptography."

This is the main reason I wanted to make this post. I have been recently discussing with several other people (even before I read this article) that the field of computer security had in general, a very competitive attitude. As someone who has been in security, machine learning, communications, and signal processing conferences, I have the impression that people attending security conferences are in general more aggressive than others. I think the attitude you find is of people trying to find gaps in other people's arguments to "break" schemes. This "in your face" attitude of breaking other people's work is not so noticeable in other fields. I have to admit though, that this attitude always keeps you on the edge, and you have to become a perfectionist in your results. This competitiveness is why "it can be so much fun to do research in cryptography" and security in general.

From Marguerite to Violetta to Satine

I just finished the Lady of the Camellias. This was supposedly the first novel my grandmother read, when she was about 13 or so. She told me that these kind of books were forbidden to teenagers, so she had to steal it from the bookcase of his father, and read it while hiding on a tree.

The book seems to have created a compelling type of love story set in Paris, between a courtesan and a naive young man. La Traviata and Moulin Rougue! follow the same storyline as the lady of the Camellias:

Setting:
Paris, sometime between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century:

1. A naive and idealistic young man meets beautiful and successful Parisian courtesan.
2. The naive young man falls in love with the courtesan and convinces her to love him.
3. Courtesan leaves all her riches and favors of wealthy people to be with the only person who can show her "true" love.
   
4. By external forces, the courtesan must lie to the young man and tell him she does not love him anymore. He must go away. She believes she has done this for his own good.
   
5. Young man is bitter and angry against the suffering courtesan. He believes she has left him because she missed her life of luxury.
   
6. Courtesan dies of tuberculosis. Young man finds out she has always loved him.

While on the topic of books again, I just wanted to mention two more: Anna Karenina has the most believable characters I have ever seen! I found the actions of each character very believable, I think I could have been anyone in the book, under the right circumstances!! I think Biogeek and the Gadfly should go through it! The book talk about two loves stories, one that grows into disaster and another one that is not even a love story!! I believe it was just a matter of convenience!! Of course, if you have a marriage that is convenient to both parties, then both will be happy, even if they do not know what love is. If you have one where both love each other madly, but is very inconvenient, it will be a very unhappy one. Of course this is my own interpretation... so it may not be right... some people might say that Kitty loved Vronsky, but not me!

I think even biogeek will like the book, for the animal characters like Frou-Frou (the most lovable horse) and Laska (a dog that even has some sentences in the book, dealing with the incompetence of her master for hunting).

Ok. one more book and that is it... what the hell is wrong with the ending of The Pearl!!! Grrr.

Room 101

I think 1984 is a book that will remain relevant for ages. It is a very insightful view of how people with power will manipulate information to control public perception. Of course things will not happen in such an obvious manner (as in 1984) but if you look closely at any administration, I am sure you will find in the subtleties, several of the techniques used by the ruling party of 1984, for example:

• Newspeak: The whole idea of Newspeak (the official language in Oceania) was to make thoughtcrime (the act of thinking something different from what the ruling party states) impossible. How were they trying to accomplish this? By creating a language in which no complex ideas could be formed; eliminating words every year. This is similar to Orwell's Animal Farm motto "Four legs good, two legs bad." An example in real life is the favorite phrase of several politicians: "It is a fight between good and evil." By reducing a complex scenario to a very simple argument, most people will not try to examine the situation further!
  
• Doublethink: The act of holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, fervently believing both. An example in real life occurred very recently. There are several public statements by the administration on how Al Qaeda keeps getting crippled over the years thanks to the continuous war on terror, yet, Chertoff just said that Al Qaeda is strong and planning a second attack. How do you combine both statements? By doublethink: the white house speaker just said that the announcement about the strength of AlQaeda just confirms what the president has been saying over the years.
  
• Ministry of Truth: The department in charge of the "news." It corrects the historical records so that everything that the party says becomes true. It changes history! Of course, history is difficult to really change, but in practice it only matters to say something didn't happen convincingly enough, and people will believe it. I am sure there are several examples everywhere of this in real life; but the most obvious is when public figures deny they ever stated one claim; like Cheney saying that he never said he knew where the weapons of mass destruction were, or that there was never an argument of the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, or the fact that the attorneys were fired because of performance, and not because they had a different political view.
  
• The names of state offices: Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Love, Ministry of Peace... all of them sound very good in words. Just like the "Patriot Act."
  

I wonder if Stephen Colbert took his idea of thinking with the gut from 1984:

"Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc." The shortest rendering that one could make of this in Oldspeak would be: 'Those whose ideas were formed before the Revolution cannot have a full emotional understanding of the principles of English Socialism.' ... To grasp the full meaning of the Newspeak sentence quoted above, one would have to have a clear idea of what is meant by Ingsoc. And in addition, only a person thoroughly grounded in Ingsoc could appreciate the full force of the word bellyfeel, which implied a blind, enthusiastic
acceptance difficult to imagine today;

You just need to feel it from the gut!

I am sure every ruling party in the world uses up to some extent these techniques, but it is good when you are able to see them through a world like 1984 :-) Highly recommended!

Affirmative Action with an Epilogue on Freedom of Speech

Affirmative Action is one of these ideas that is perfect in theory, but is difficult to implement in practice. It is clear that past discrimination, oppression and stereotypes have created uneven living conditions among people of different race, ethnicity, gender etc. In a "perfect world," however, the laws should enable all people to have equal opportunity to realize their goals (and to have equal opportunity to find out what the possible "goals" are in the first place) without regard to race or gender and even economic status -however economic status doesn't seem to be relevant to the way affirmative action is implemented-.

The goal of Affirmative Action is to eliminate present effects of past discrimination. This is a noble goal and a self-evident truth: no one can question that this should not be something we should strive for. Its relation to equal opportunity lies in the fact that people with equal abilities should have equal opportunities, and people who did not get the same opportunities should be evaluated with that in mind.

As far as I have been able to investigate, this seemed to have been the original objective of affirmative action (as given in Executive Order 11246, banning discrimination and requiring affirmative action so that individuals have equal opportunity for employment).

There are, however, at least three other justifications for giving preferential treatment (besides the justification of evaluating people's abilities under the opportunities they've had): (1) The concept of reparations: the idea that the US never apologized nor repaired the effects of slavery. (2) Diversity as a means to improve working and learning environments. (3) Creating role models: this is particularly true in academia, where students need mentors they can identify with and confide in (this is essential for the students in figuring out which goals they can pursue; for example, without a student learning that graduate school can be sponsored by the school, the student might not even consider higher education thinking is too expensive).

The result of affirmative action (as intended by Executive Order 11246, issued in 1964 by President Johnson; an expanded version of Jon F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925) is that federal employers have to take "positive actions" towards correcting previous discrimination. These positive actions are usually implemented by giving preferential treatment to members of underrepresented minorities in school applications and employment opportunities.

These preferential treatment has been attacked by critics, claiming that affirmative action is just another way of discrimination. I can understand this criticism, but it is important to remember that the problem is in the implementation of affirmative action, and not on the idea (or the goal) of affirmative action. The problem lies in the fact that some people abuse the system; there are stories of people who have lived a privileged live and yet make use of affirmative action rules to gain advantage over other equally qualified individuals; for example, members of a majority which claim to have "minority background." Similarly, sometimes it is difficult to judge which of two applicants needs more help: an applicant of a minority group whose both parents are Ph.Ds, or an applicant of a majority group with a story of economic problems and hard living conditions.

Nevertheless, if critics manage to ban affirmative action (such as the passing of California's proposition 209) the original problem will still remain: the effects of past discrimination will continue. I think the most constructive approach is to suggest alternative implementations for affirmative action before removing current practices. An idea for example, is to try to enforce a more egalitarian public school system; for example, by giving higher salaries to teachers in schools in poor neighborhoods (to motivate qualified teachers to teach in these schools as opposed to selecting only the "best" schools), or to enforce high quality public schools in neighborhoods where minorities live.

In academia for example, I think diversity is the key word to advocate, since diversity clearly improves the quality of education. One of the main reasons I wanted to study in the US was to experience a different culture and knowing that several graduate students were also international was a big incentive. I wanted to learn other cultures, other customs, other traditions; to hear an "insider" view of things we were only told in books in Colombia. Some people argue that diversity is only necessary in fields such as Law, or political science, but I tend to disagree. Even in engineering, the views of different people contribute to a greater understanding of our profession. As a Colombian I understand the social responsibility of engineering in a country with a clear lack of solid technical infrastructure. I pride myself of having convinced other graduate students that previously criticized the importance of initiatives like the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), telemedicine, or the need for Wireless Internet in rural environments. My arguments have been the product of my life experiences (unique by definition) and have complemented views of other people without those life experiences. (Although as a graduate student (and now a postdoc) I might not have the experience and confidence to create proposals like the OLPC, my goal is to strive for them. Hopefully as a faculty member I will one day have the academic freedom, the confidence, and the vision to start one (or more) of these programs targeted to benefit communities in the need for "equal opportunities.")

Diversity in this sense would, however, open a new can of worms since preferential treatment has never (and I assume will never) be considered for non-US citizens or residents (in fact, US citizens and residents expect preferential treatment over immigrants -this is true in any country). In a recent talk with a PI of a project, she mentioned how the only critique that NSF had about her project was the fact that most of the graduate students doing the work were international students, and therefore she needed to get more US students.

To end on a similarly difficult debate, I will now show an example of the problem between freedom of speech and speech aggression (I just made this term up, for a lack of a better word). I was reading the recent news of all the problems that the knighthood of Salman Rushdie has created, and I found out a somewhat similar problem that recently occurred in Colombia. In 2005, SoHo a magazine from Colombia was sued (por delitos de agravio a símbolos religiosos, injuria y calumnia) after recreating The Last Supper with a nude model in the role of Jesus and twelve left-wing intellectuals as the apostles (the picture to the left). One judge first agreed with the prosecution and started a process against SoHo. Later on, another judge stopped the process on the claims of freedom of speech. I think they made the right choice, although I can certainly understand why some people will get offended when the most sacred thing they believe in is mocked in such a provocative way (provocative is a double meaning... get it, get it? :-) )

My invitation to the consulate

So, as you might be aware, I got an email this weekend from the consul of Colombia in San Francisco; he was inviting me to the consulate because Francisco Santos (the Vice President of Colombia) was going to give a talk on Monday at 6 pm.

So after some thinking, I decided to go, I thought I would meet some other Colombians and have some contacts.

The Vice President gave a talk about how things have improved under the current administration: the economy has been growing at large rates, the institutions have been made stronger (supporting the campaign motto of "Giving the people back the confidence for their institutions"), and how the crime rates have lowered: less kidnappings, less killings. He acknowledges there are still a lot of things to do; they claim that open economies grow faster than closed economies, and so, this is the reason that they are trying to get the new open commerce treaty with the US (el tratado de libre comercio). He was saying how other countries like Peru and Guatemala were already in the treaty, and if we didn't fight for it, Colombia was going to be left behind. He kept saying that Colombian economy had improved a lot in the last years, and that it was now very similar to the Chilean model of an economy. He cited Chile's model several times, and I found this comparison a bit risky and controversial, since Chile's economy started to grow after the military coup: the turn from a left government, to a completely right-winged government with human right abuses.

This is a dangerous comparison given the current claims of Colombia's right-winged government and the current "parapolitica" accusations. Francisco Santos has been a controversial figure of late, because he has been recently accused by paramilitary members, of having tried to enlist their support to fight guerrillas.
I thought everyone would ask him about this issue, but curiously enough, no one did... maybe they didn't want to start a polemic debate (like me for example, I lack the self-confidence to do this kind of things).

They did asked about the use of pesticides to attack cocaine plantations, and its effects on nature. He said that the effect of "glifosato" to nature was minimum, and in fact coca growers were using malicious pesticides to claim that the damage to nature was actually done by the government. He also said that there was no other way to do this; reminding people that when they tried to do a clearing of a coca plantation by hand, the guerrilla killed several people, and recently they bombed a bus with 13 police officers when they were trying to give protection to the workers.

They also asked about the legalization of drugs, and he said that it was difficult for several reasons: 1) it difficult to calculate the real effects of such a measure, 2) public health problems would increase 3) Internationally there has been a constant move to decrease consumption of cocaine.

They also asked about the political scenery in the US, about incentives to bring Colombians back from the US, about his visit to Schwarzenegger (oh wow, I am so good! I managed to spell Schwarzenegger correctly... just now I checked via Google and I had spelled it wright [Update: unfortunately I don't seem to know how to spell "right," right] ! I am becoming so Californian :-P) ... anyways

Then people just mixed and started talking to each other. I tried to talk to some people but I couldn't really speak to anyone there... I am not sure if it was me, but it reminded me of my old days in Los Andes, and me trying to mix with people in Industrial Engineering... although some of them were really nice, some other were very arrogant... and somehow I think several people invited were arrogant. Well, at least the ones I tried to talk to... except maybe for one nice guy who was trying to start his own website... he said it was like "mercadolibre.com" but their focus was on helping merchants exchange goods between countries: e.g., between Colombia and Venezuela.

Anyways, I left early since I didn't feel comfortable (how unusual). But well, at least it gave me the excuse to write a blog entry :-P

Paprika

Another anime film to watch! :-) Can't wait! By the same director of Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Tokyo Godfathers!

Pink Dolphin

The Pink Dolphins (or Inia geoffrensis) are one of the most unique animals to live in the Amazon river.

Similar to other species living in Colombia, like the Jaguar or the Condor, they have a very imposing aspect and are thus the subject of innumerable legends and
fables.

Hermelinda for example tells here, the well known legend that pink dolphins try to bewitch young girls into falling in love with them. She says how her sister kept bathing in the Amazon and then during the nights, a man with a hat came to visit her. Hermelinda's father followed the man and saw how he dived into the river (implying that he shape shifted into a dolphin). They had get out of the community to prevent the dolphin from making her fall in love with him.

It seems one of the best places to watch these dolphins is Lake Tarapoto, two hours away from Leticia between June and October.

This must have been the most surprising news I have read in a while:

"A team of American and Irish researchers have confirmed that some female sharks can reproduce without having sex, the first time that scientists have found the unusual capacity in such an ancient vertebrate species."

Unfortunately the baby shark was killed by a sting ray just after his/her birth :-(

It is amazing that there are still so many things that we do not know about nature.

It has been a while since I have been a firm believer that there are no "unnatural" things, but rather that there are still a lot of things that we do now know how to explain. In the past people used myths and legends, now we have science. But science is our reasoning based on available evidence, and its conclusions are only hypothesis in general, such as the assumption that all sharks reproduce through sex. They are our best guess until you find a counterexample, like this one :-)

read more | digg story

Yesterday I had the chance to play with the "XO laptop", the laptop designed by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization. They apparently are giving developing units if they have reasonable belief that the person requesting it is going to develop software for the platform, and it seems one of the graduate students here in Berkeley is trying to get a job in the OLPC foundation, so they gave him a unit and he showed it to us.

The machine is extremely cute and well looking. It is supposed to stand harsh conditions as rain, spilling of liquids, rough treatment and it even has a crank to charge its battery. It has a Linux operating system with a completely new intuitive interface. It comes with several education programs, wireless card, the ability to create ad hoc (mesh) networks, camera, word processor, usb ports etc, and is therefore extremely complete for a $175 dollar product. Furthermore it has important technological features that should discourage people from stealing them, such as activation codes and licenses that need to be renewed every month.

To build an economic computer to be used by developing nations makes a lot of sense to me. I was always frustrated to see how new desktops now a days have settled at around the $400 dollar mark and their price never seems to go down, even if the technology is cheaper. The problem is that computer makers keep including new features every year with the hopes that the consumer will pay the same price every year. However I always kept wondering, that for a lot of poor people it would make a lot of difference if they could buy a cheaper machine, even without these extra features, since at the basic level you only need email, web, and a world processor. Nothing more. And I am sure you could make a desktop and sell it new with those features for less than $100 dollars (I guess without an operating system, or at least with Linux).
Critics of the OLPC laptop say that that developing countries first need to give water and food for people before thinking of anything else. But I find these accusations very obtuse. The laptop is meant to provide opportunities for kids who already have the most essential needs covered, but who cannot afford to have access to a computer.

I spent a considerable amount of time of my childhood growing up in Villeta, a small town in Colombia. Villeta had water and food, and even electricity for most of the time. However there is also a wide population of children who I suspect will not be able to afford access to computers. Even if they finish high school and go to a place with computers (work or university), by the time they first see them, they will feel alienated from the technology. Other "kids" are going to have much more experience with the technology, and the less fortunate kids won't be able to compete with them. Learning about computers I guess is similar to learning a language. The smaller you are, the more time and curiosity that you have for exploring the possibilities of the computers.

My point is that governemnts will be able to choose a balanced investment agenda based on their needs, and I think the OLPC laptop fills a much needed gap in access to technology and innovation for educating competent professionals.

Kids are still going to learn how to multiply (the laptop is not going to replace this). And no, just because when you were a kid you had to write reports by hand and with access only to your personal encyclopedia doesn't mean that kids now a days should have to do the same things. It will be putting them at a disadvantage and the idea is to level up the playing field so they are as competitive as they can be with the rest of the world. I applaud the effort by Nicholas Negroponte. The idea that this foundation originated as a way to help less fortunate nations, and it came from the U.S., gives me hope to see that several people in the U.S. can be extremely selfless and make a big change and impact in the world.

On other news, it is interesting that Bill Gates once denigrated the machine as not being a "decent computer." I guess he likes humanitarian efforts only when they praise his ego:-P Anyways, recently Negroponte mentioned that the machine will be able to run Windows. This coincides with Microsoft announcing a cheap $3 dollar Windows edition for governments who subsidise computers for kids. Putting two and two together it is clear that Microsoft will be trying to convince governments to install Windows in the XO laptops. From a Microsoft corporate point of view it makes perfect sense to deploy a cheap Windows OS to run in XO laptops, thereby preventing as much as they can, a new generation of users from learning Linux and open source software, by driving users back to the Windows comfort level (if everyone around me uses Windows, why should I learn something else?) and creating a new generation of consumers.

In the ideal case I wouldn't complain about this. After all the more options we have, the better. I only hope that the final decision on which operating system is going to be used in education will depend on the user and not on the local government or other controlling agency, since these can be bribed or "enticed" with the appropriate incentives to impose one technology over another... the same way Microsoft "motivates" computer makers not to sell barebone computers without an operating system, or similarly, not to sell computers with competing software.

To end on a lighter note, I noticed one of the diggs of Biogeek: The World's Cleanest Cities. Calgary has the top spot! They mention something about the EIU rankings, but I was only able to find this.

I am not sure if these facts are true (I have learned not to trust random websites with facts... sometimes not even Wikipedia), but they seem intruiguing, and funny:

16. In ancient Rome, when a man testified in court he would swear on his testicles.

A better incentive for not to swear in vain?

21. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history: Spades = David ; Clubs = Alexander the Great ; Hearts = Charlemagne ; Diamonds = Caesar

Jew, Greek, Frank and Roman. But Caesar was never a king!

29. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day.

I always suspected that one... I can believe this one being true :-P

32. Chocolate can kill dogs; it directly affects their heart and nervous system.

If this is true, it is a miracle Layka has lived so long!

41. The Three Wise Monkeys have names: Mizaru (See no evil), Mikazaru (Hear no evil), and Mazaru (Speak no evil).

Always count on the japanese for ZEN moments

53. Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That’s more than sharks.

we should start the War on Coconuts!

64. IBM’s motto is “Think”. Apple later made their motto “Think different”.

lol.

69. The Olympic was the sister ship of the Titanic, and she provided twenty-five years of service.

Didn't they dare God to sink the Olympic?

76. During his entire life, Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting, “Red Vineyard at Arles”.

I guess true artists follow their dreams even in the toughest circumstances.

82. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Really?

125. There is actually no danger in swimming right after you eat, though it may feel uncomfortable.

Argh, I don't know who to believe anymore!

133. On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building.

Err... why? Isn't the Queen of England enough! Jeez, they have serious identity problems.

147. “101 Dalmatians” and “Peter Pan” are the only Disney animations in which both of a character’s parents are present and don’t die during the movie.

Good, or else I probably wouldn't have liked Bambi

156. A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.

What is life?

170. Los Angeles’ full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula”. It can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.

Hispanics always prefer longer names... that is why we have two last names :-)

225. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

:-(

244. The Toltecs (a 7th century tribe) used wooden swords so they wouldn’t kill their enemies.

Very thoughtful warriors.

254. People say “bless you” when you sneeze because your heart stops for a millisecond.

Now that explains it.

284. Most household dust is made of dead skin cells.

!!

Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race

It is funny to compare the style of writing of Douglas Adams just after finishing the Ulysses. This is from "So long and thanks for all the fish":

And the reasons for this are obvious. Editing, selection, the need to balance that which is interesting with that which is relevant and cut out all the tedious happenstance.

Like this for instance. "Arthur Dent went to bed. He went up the stairs, all fifteen of them, opened the door, went into his room, took off his shoes and socks and then all the rest of his clothes one by one and left them in a neatly crumpled heap on the floor. He put on his pyjamas, the blue ones with the stripe. He washed his face and hands, cleaned his teeth, went to the lavatory, realized that he had once again got this all in the wrong order, had to wash his hands again and went to bed. He read for fifteen minutes, spending the first ten minutes of that trying to work out where in the book he had got to the previous night, then he turned out the light and within a minute or so more was asleep.

...

It's guff. It doesn't advance the action. It makes for nice fat books such as the American market thrives on, but it doesn't actually get you anywhere. You don't, in short, want to know.

Finally! After what appears to be an eternity I finished the Ulysses by James Joyce. I think it is definitively one book to read with an expert at hand, so they can help you make the most out of the book. I am not sure why is this book so important, or influential, or revolutionary. It is a very detailed description of people's habits, customs desires. A little detailed sometimes with explicit masturbation scenes, or even the smelling of nails with fungus... I guess a lot of "normal" things that usually never appear in novels.... or maybe they do now a days, but I am sure that at the beginning of the 20th century it was still very tabu (this booked was banned from the U.S. for a long time, because it was argued to be immoral).

I thought I was getting prepared for tackling the Ulysses by tackling first the Odyssey by Homer. The Odyssey was a really fun novel, but I still think that Telemachus made up the story of Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) because he was going to loose his kingdom (and his life!) to the suitors... so he went out and found the first man he could convince to be the King of Ithaca and then this man just pretended to be Odysseus and take over Ithaca (and Penelope as well). By the way, Argos, the dog that "allegedly" recognizes Odysseus is how old??? Odysseus supposedly left and waged war for 10 years with Troy, and then another 10 years missing... that would make the dog 20 years at least! This kind of reminds me of Mathusalen.... either in the past the earth revolved around the sun much faster than 365.25 days or they had another way of counting years!!!


But I digress. The point is that Ulysses doesn't follow very closely Odysseus. At the beginning there are some hints... Stephen calls the woman that sells the milk a goddess (so I assume she is cleared eye Athena), but other than these random links, there is nothing really parallelizing the Odyssey. I might as well write a book about one of my days in Bogotá and throw in random links to the Aeneid and call it the Aeneis :-)

Anyways, Ulysses is an extremely complicated book to read. Here is just an excerpt of some wacky places (this belongs to a chapter that appears to resemble a play and apparently at this point Bloom is phantasising... he is in a brothel... if that helps ).

THE NYMPH (Covers her face with her hand.) What have I not seen in that chamber? What must my eyes look down on?

BLOOM (Apologetically.) I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea, long ago.

THE NYMPH (Bends her head.) Worse! Worse!

BLOOM (Reflects precautiously.) That antiquated commode. It wasn't her weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle.

(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)

THE WATERFALL

Poulaphouca Poulaphouca
Poulaphouca Poulaphouca.

THE YEWS (Mingling their boughs.) Listen. Whisper. She is right, our sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous summer days.

JOHN WYSE NOLAN (In the background, in Irish National For ester's uniform, doffs his plumed hat.) Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, trees of Ireland!

THE YEWS (Murmuring.) Who came to Poulaphouca with the high school excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade?

--See what I mean?
WTH is Poulaphouca for example? Some Googling states that:

Poulaphouca (Poll an Phúca in Irish, "The Devil's Hole") is a small village in County Wicklow, Ireland. It is primarily known for its hydroelectric generating station and artificial lake.
So fine, as they say in the book, I guess Poulaphouca is just a waterfall, or something. But what is the point of a waterfall speaking?
Another weird scene follows:

(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)

SHAKESPEARE (In dignified ventriloquy.) 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks the vacant mind. (To Bloom.) Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest invisible. Gaze. (He crows with a black capon's laugh.) Iagogo! How my Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymomun. Iagogogo!

It takes some Googling to find out this really weird association:

The personage addressed by Shakespeare in the mirror is presumably Iago from Othello, if the "facial paralysis" has caused Shakespeare to stammer. oldfellow means father. In the "Scylla and Charybdis" episode, either Stephen or the narrator or the implied author in an interior monologue refers to Simon Dedalus as "old fellow"


Bottom line: I need someone to explain me what is going on in this novel! Help!

Based on the success of my previous post, I decided to procrastinate a little bit more and find WHAT I AM NOT LIKE, i.e. try to find the total opposite of what they were asking... that kind of defines me as well :-)

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

So there is a market for digital products without DRM protection! Apple and EMI just announced that they will offer DRM-free songs through the iTunes store. This is a very good step in my opinion, not only Apple shows that it is not trying to be an obtrusive monopoly (i.e., users are no longer bound to have an ipod to play songs bought through iTunes... they can now play it on any computer, or portable mp3 player--I always feared that if Apple had the same power as Microsoft, they would be even a worst monopoly, but this shows there is actually hope by not trying to monopolize everything) but it is also a very good step for the digital industry in general. DRM protected goods are the main problem for achieving interoperability. Not only for music, but in the future for downloaded movies, TV programs, and games. Users want to play the goods that they own wherever they want and on any device they want. I hope this experiment succeeds, and people buy music at the premium price as opposed to illegally downloading it from other sources.

Recordando a Jaime Garzon

Okami reminds me of the movies by Miyazaki. It is havily based on Japanese folklore and mythology. In order to enjoy this game it appears necessary to understand better its cultural background and myths.

The main character is "Amaterasu, the powerful sun goddess of Japan, is the most well-known deity of Japanese mythology. Her feuding with her uncontrollable brother Susanoo, however, is equally infamous and appears in several tales."

For example, part of the story is based on the the Hakkenden "The Legend of the Dog Warriors". During a part of the game, Amaterasu must seek out the eight canine warriors, who are portrayed as the embodiment of the eight virtues of Confucianism: "Jin Gi Rei Chi Chuu Shin Kou Tei."

• kō (孝) - filial piety; devotion
• gi (義) - duty and obligation, but it can also be translated as righteousness
• chū (忠) - loyalty
• shin (信) - faith
• tei (悌) - brotherhood; brotherly affection
• jin (仁) - sympathy and benevolence, but note that, according to Confucianism, "jin" is also the greatest and most perfect virtue of all. It should come as no surprise that the bearer of this bead also happens to be the most powerful warrior of the eight.
• chi (知) - wisdom
• rei (礼) - courtesy, but this can also be translated as proper form, i.e. an extensive knowledge and proper observation of tradition and manners

I will try to post more about the legends behind this story in the future, for the moment I am still struggling on how to extract the flash videos you can see if you click on the circled icon from this site: (since the old site seems to have been disabled).

The Ulysses is probably one of the most difficult books I've seen, however this caught my attention and like a catchy song, I haven't been able to remove it from my head... and this was about 2 months ago!

On swift sail flaming
From storm and south
He comes, pale vampire,
Mouth to my mouth.