Styx

Orwell, 1984

2009-01-17T10:25:00.001-08:00

“In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an airplane they had to make four.”

Movies to Watch

2008-10-09T16:51:00.000-07:00

It happens to me frequently that I get interested in a movie based on some comments or previews, but then I forget to watch it when it finally releases! Well, after discovering a couple of interesting movies today I will try to not to lose track of them.First, Saluda al Diablo de mi parte is a Colombian movie by the same director of Al Final Del Espectro:The second movie is the latest work of

Turning Political

2008-09-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

I recently found an interesting video: I think this video describes in an insightful way the differences between the two parties. I think we need to place ourselves in other people's shoes, their frame of mind and stop being so self-righteous.However, by this same definition, it is liberals who tend to be less self-righteous than conservatives; and nothing could exemplify this issue better than

Navigator RIP

2008-02-24T17:09:00.000-08:00

I have been a user of Netscape Navigator for more than a decade. While I have used Firefox or Safari once in a while, I always came back to Netscape because of the nostalgia. Lately, however, my Netscape browser keeps reminding me that I need to change to Firefox or Flock because there are not going to be any more security updates for Navigator. More precisely, AOL is ending development and

To the lighthouse

2007-10-18T19:16:00.000-07:00

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

Of Gods and Wars

2007-10-01T19:48:00.001-07:00

(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! "

The mentality of researchers in security

2007-09-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

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

From Marguerite to Violetta to Satine

2007-09-28T17:11:00.000-07:00

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

Room 101

2007-06-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

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

Affirmative Action with an Epilogue on Freedom of Speech

2007-06-19T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

My invitation to the consulate

2007-06-12T21:11:00.001-07:00

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

Paprika

2007-05-29T19:21:00.001-07:00

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

Pink Dolphin

2007-05-25T09:31:00.000-07:00

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 andfables.Hermelinda for example tells here, the well known legend that pink dolphins try to bewitch young girls into falling in love with

2007-05-23T08:34:00.001-07:00

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

2007-04-28T10:57:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-24T22:06:00.000-07:00

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 =

2007-04-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race

2007-04-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-19T08:52:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-07T22:52:00.000-07:00

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™

2007-04-07T11:36:00.001-07:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

2007-04-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

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

Recordando a Jaime Garzon

2007-03-31T16:19:00.001-07:00

2007-03-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-23T21:35:00.000-07:00

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 flamingFrom storm and southHe comes, pale vampire,Mouth to my mouth.

2006-12-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2006: 1. truthiness (noun) 1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006) I never thought of it, but it is indeed a

jerome murat

2006-12-06T09:52:00.000-08:00

Dailymotion blogged videojerome muratVideo sent by segalierI know da wife posted this on her blog, but it is so remarkable that I think it doesn't hurt advertising it again!

2006-11-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

This week the Daily Show with Jon Stewart had one of the best runs in a long time. I love this show, although Jerry Seinfield recently called it the most intelligent show on TV, and I was a bit skeptical (In particular remembering our Colombian show Zoociedad, which started much earlier than the daily show). However this week I think it definitively earned this distinction. Here are some

2006-10-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

I just finished "Life of Pi", a very nice an interesting book. It is a reminder of the power of symbolism and metaphors as a reflection of our human condition. This is what makes mythology so interesting and intriguing. Having said that I have some complaints about this book.Don't read the following if you haven't read the book! As I will spoil the ending:First, it is sometimes a little bit

2006-10-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

2006-10-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

I found today this software The Atlas of world history. It lets you see European/Asian and North African history from 3000BC to 1000AD. I don't know why did they stopped at 1000, it would have been nice to have the maps at least until around 1800. The software also has an old feel to it. Like an MS-DOS program, but still I think it is worth the download and the exploration.We can see here that

2006-10-18T18:41:00.001-07:00

I finally arrived to Berkeley, and due to popular demand (I know my fans want to keep up with my activities) I am upgrading my impersonal blog with some pictures of my adventures.I arrived and I ended up living a couple of days with Ming, an old friend from Maryland, while I searched for housing. I also visited Sylvia, who lives in San Jose, (the heart of Silicon Valley, where Sylvia is learning

2006-09-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

This is a nice way of expressing the view of all this movies and books against totalitarian regimes, and also explains why care must be taken before applying Game Theory to the analysis of a set of "rational" decision makers! Interesting that this writing came before Huxley or Nash!Why, in the first place, when in all these thousands of years has there been a time when man has acted only from his

2006-08-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Sobre Héroes y Tumbas es definitivamente una de las novelas más confusas que he leído, y en especial la parte de Informe Sobre Ciegos. La frase clave para entender la novela parece ser esta:Porque en un relámpago tuve la revelación: ¡era Ella! Aquel universo de Ciegos resultaba ser un instrumento para satisfacer nuestra pasión y, finalmente, para ejecutar su venganza.¿Para ejecutar la venganza

2006-08-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

Blade Runner You scored 95% Replicantness! Excellent! You probably even know who Mary is and how many replicants are there.(If you do, please tell me :) This test tracked 1 variable. How the score compared to the other people's: Higher than 99% on Replicantness Link: The Blade Runner trivia Test

2006-08-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

cuando empezamos a aprender este difícil oficio de vivir ya tenemos que morirnosSobre Heroes y Tumbas-Ernesto Sábato

New Atari 2600 Game Released

2006-07-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

The game, called "A-VCS-Tec Challenge", fits into 8K, graphics, sound and all. It is being released as a limited-edition cartridge for 2600 enthusiasts who still have working consoles.read more | digg story

On the Zidane Materazzi incident

2006-07-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

I am by no way supporting the action that Zidane had on this world cup, however I didn't like at all a recent comment by Materazzi on the case:" I am ignorant, I don't even know what an Islamic terrorist is; my only terrorist is her,"Does Materazzi think he is smarter than everyone else? Does he think with the way things are going in the politics of today, people would actually believe he doesn't

2006-07-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

Descended from the apes! My dear, let us hope that it is not true, but if it is, let us pray it will not become generally known.Attributed to the Wife of the Bishop of Worcester, after the first news of Darwin's Theory

2006-07-04T08:54:00.000-07:00

"A New Theory of Biology" was the title of the paper which Mustapha Mond had just finished reading. He sat for some time, meditatively frowning, then picked up his pen and wrote across the title-page: "The author's mathematical treatment of the conception of purpose is novel and highly ingenious, but heretical and, so far as the present social order is concerned, dangerous and

2006-06-30T07:56:00.000-07:00

Stories, specially at the end of this article are very impressive, how can welive without half of our brain!http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060703fa_factThis reminds me of this comic book I am reading called "Epileptic" in which theauthor narrates the story of his family as they tried to help his older brotherwho kept having seizures... I remember one of the options was to do this

2006-06-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

An old woman in Candide (by Voltaire), is relating her own life and her sufferings:I have been a hundred times upon the point of killing myself, but still I was fond of life. This ridiculous weakness is, perhaps, one of the dangerous principles implanted in our nature. For what can be more absurd than to persist in carrying a burden of which we wish to be eased? To detest, and yet to strive to

2006-04-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

A very nice collection of videos from Colombia:HereThe first is a video of the escopetarra.More information at Kevin Sites.

2006-04-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

I have always been interested in religious beliefs because they all try to address probably the most important questions of our lives, such as what is the purpose of life? Or how can we live a happy life?However, all of them rely on certain dogmas that are unquestionable and thus unsatisfying to some people (me included). So how can I reconcile an interest in religions without accepting the

2006-04-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

Moby Dick was written in 1851, and it is interesting to see the parallels of the talks now and then in the United States related to immigration reform and energy concerns. It is remarkable how they are still the same. For Example, in Moby Dick, Herman Melville writes:As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the

2006-04-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

For example, one of the U.S. Army's major command centers decided to throw out all of their computers, according to Spafford, because they were so infiltrated with security breaches that they couldn't be fixed. "They spent thirty million tax dollars to get new computers," Spafford said. "It allegedly took three weeks until they were all compromised again."

2006-04-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Moby Dick was indeed a book beloved of one of the Starbucks founders. He proposed naming the company Pequod, after the ship. "Pee-quod" was nixed by his partners, and they cast about for a name with some local flavor (local to Seattle, Washington). They came upon the name Starbo, from an old mining camp on Mt. Rainier, and liked it. Then the Moby Dick fan drew a phonetic connection between "

2006-04-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

...the process of becoming an effective World of Warcraft guild master amounts to a total-immersion course in leadership."I used to worry about not having what I needed to get a job done," he says. "Now I think of it like a quest; by being willing to improvise, I can usually find the people and resources I need to accomplish the task."The day may not be far off when companies receive résumés that

2006-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

But what is worship? thought I. Do you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth- pagans and all included- can possibly be jealous of an insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?- to do the will of God? that is worship. And what is the will of God?- to do to my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me- that is the will of God. Now,

2006-01-28T15:04:00.000-08:00

An accurate description of the Gad (from The Brother's Karamazov): "In active love? There's another question and such a question! You see, I so love humanity that- would you believe it?- I often dream of forsaking all that I have, leaving Lise, and becoming a sister of mercy. I close my eyes and think and dream, and at that moment I feel full of strength to

2005-04-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

it is interesting how in the Histories of Herodotus there was this tale of a family that was going to be executed by order of Darius. So Darius asked the woman who from all her family would she save... and after a while she said that her brother. Darius thought it was weird, because he thought her husband or children would be more dear to her than her brother, but then she explained that God

2005-04-20T14:57:00.000-07:00

I thinksuffering should make you less sensitive/reactive to worldevents because you know 'this is life' and you cannot plan it.Hopefully it will also empower you to empathise with peoplewho suffer, at a deeper level and if you are really a 'good'person, do something that help those sufferings that can berelieved. Yes, I totally agree. I remember that a while ago I recalled to G. Nietzche's

2005-04-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I ended up studying in my university. Rad. called around 10pm wondering if she should call, which apparently she did, but she left a message. Then I went home and I ended up watching this movie "What dreams may come", it is a Robin Williams movie, where he is married to a woman and they have two kids who are killed in a car accident. The wife starts feeling guilty because the kids

2005-04-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today I went to panda express to have lunch, since I went to McKeldin library to get a book I had placed on hold. One of the books was supposed to be on hold until april the third, so I went early this morning april fourth, hoping it would still be here, but it wasn't :( , I asked the lady if they wake up very early to take out the books that weren't picked up, and she said that they usually

2003-09-23T21:23:00.000-07:00

EL TIEMPO.COM - Cultura -> Concierto de Marta Senn y las ballenas del Pacífico colombiano este fin de semana en Zipaquirá

2003-08-22T05:16:00.000-07:00

Bueno, me toco seguir buscando, ya que soy un afiebrado a todo tipo de mitologias, y la mitologia judeo-cristiano-musulmana es bien interesante: Hoy estoy perezoso para traducir, ademas que como nadie lee estos blogs, mas bien voy a hacer copy-paste; Sobre los Angeles: "The seven holy angels are Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, and Zadkiel. Michael and Gabriel are mentioned

2003-08-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

Hoy solo quiero colocar (bloggear?) un sitio al cual referirme en el futuro. Tanatos (Thanatos) el hermano gemelo de Hypnos (Padre de Morfeo, el dador de formas, notar la diferencia entre el dios del sueño "sleep" y el dios de los sueños "dreams") es la personificacion de la muerte en la antigua Grecia. Estigia (Styx) es la diosa griega de uno de los rios del mundo de Hades. Casada con Pallas,

2003-08-02T11:07:00.000-07:00

Bueno, vamos a ver cuanto tiempo duro consistente con los blogs. Hoy estoy escribiendo mi segundo blog consecutivo. Debe ser Agosto. Hoy sali a conocer Nancy, la ciudad donde estoy viviendo en Francia. Despues de todo no es tan mala como la pintan. Es agradable caminar por el centro, pasar por la cathédrale, subir a la Place de Stanislas, el rey Polaco. Este es el centro que aparece en todas las

2003-08-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

hale soma cetowr ast? xos migozarad? Nuestra Geografia de hoy: Acheron, the river of woe, Y bueno he estado ultimamente bastante activo en los blogs de otras personas, asi que para dejar de molestarlos voy a actualizar mi blog. Basicamente el blog de hoy señoras y señores, es una pequeña recopilacion de citas sacadas de quien sabe donde para algun proposito ya olvidado. En resumidas cuentas "