A mother, her baby and a dolphin

Years ago, I was visiting an oceanographic museum, with a huge vessel where you could watch fishes and dolphins. At some point, I approached the glass and positioned myself right in front of a dolphin, who came closer to me; we both watched each other, face to face, for a few seconds. I had the distinct feeling that there was an intelligent, conscious mind at the other side of the glass. I have very fond memories of that moment, and it reinformed my perception that there is a very fine line to make the difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence. After all, we are only evolved monkeys.

Yesterday I found, while browsing the net, this video; some people say it's fake: I don't know. All I know is that it is one of the most beautiful videos I have seen lately: a woman is giving birth while a dolphin is curiously moving around.

The nightmare of electronic authentication & signature

Although I don't consider myself any kind of genius, I also think I am not among the most stupid persons I have ever met. And therefore, sometimes I wonder how some systems designed to be universally utilized can be so extremely complicated to implement. This is particularly relevant if we analyze the systems deployed in order to allow the electronic authentication from electronic signatures installed in computers, so that you can access places requiring a strong personal identification.

When those systems were first implemented in Spanish institutions, I was among the first to try and use them. To call them a nightmare is a strong understatement, as pretty much anybody trying to use them had to repeat the obtention of the electronic certificate, and then the nightmare continued by finding countless problems, which prevented people from accessing in a simple way those institutions. If that was the case with people having received higher levels of education, and experienced in using computers, you can imagine what will happen to people with less experience and/or knowledge.

Anyway, after many efforts, I managed to get my personal certificate up and running, so that I can access all sites requiring it. But then you reach another milestone: it has been -thus far- impossible to me to use such certificate to sign in websites. Some specific actions at some institutions require you to actually sign with your electronic certificate. And, as in many other cases, they are optimized strictly for Windows users, while nobody has figured out how to do it in other platforms, such as Mac OS X. Usually, the discovery of that process is left out to the devices of hardcore Mac lovers, who by trial and mistake processes, are eventually able to learn how to do it.

Still, in the case of the electronic signature, in spite of such efforts and some very detailed instructions I could find in the net, I still have not found any way to effectively use the electronic signature system.

Beyond my frustration by this whole story, I am writing this because someone should realize, once and for all, that a system intended to become universal HAS TO BE SIMPLE TO USE (even if it is very complicated in its core), and you can't pretend the general public to spend endless hours running after a solution for this kind of questions.

In case someone found the solution, I would very grateful if you could post it. For the record, I am using Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) in a Core 2 Duo iMac, and have my certificates installed in Firefox 3.5.4; I also have installed the root certificate of the Spanish authority, FNMT, and updated the Java options (both in Mozilla and the Library Internet Plug-Ins of my computer).

GW Bush, the presidency of the USA and god

I have read this morning, in shock, the last statements from GW Bush in a "motivational seminar" (whatever it means), made recently. Among other pearls -any GW Bush speech is a neverending source of jewels-, he said this:

I don't see how you can be president without relying on the Almighty. Now when I was 21, I wouldn't have told you that, but at age 63, I can tell you that one of the most amazing surprises of the presidency was the fact that people's prayers affected me. I can't prove it to you. But I can tell you some days were great, some days not so great. But every day was joyous...

I have said this before, but everytime I see news on this guy, I can't avoid to remind it: the fact that GW Bush was once the president of the USA evidences that, literally, anybody can become president of the USA. Somebody should make changes in the political system of that country, to avoid it, because (in theory, at least) the main authority in any country is supposed to be someone with intelligence and talent enough to run the fate of that country. And I am not alone in thinking that this guy was far below the minimum standards to be the president of the most powerful country in the world.

Prince in Paris Match

The 22 october issue of the French magazine Paris Match includes an an article + interview with Prince, made during his recent stage in Paris, where he performed three shows, two at the Grand Palais, and one at La Cigale. It is not available online, so if you are interested, buy the magazine (it is rather easy to find also out of France, in shops dealing with international press).

Besides the rave comments on Prince shows, and the nice pictures, I was surprised (or rather, I was not surprised, to say the truth) to find somme specific comments from him. Particularly, he stated that, currently, there is no interesting new music, and that he is the best guitar player.

I wonder when Prince will get out of the purple world and forget about superstardom; breath some fresh air, walk around with no heels, listen to other people (even those enabled to say "NO, Sir"), and realize that the center of the universe is not purple.

A long haired article on time, maturity and Prince is turning in my head for a while; and in spite of the small audience it will have (people don't have more than 1 minute per story lately), I think it will eventually find its way and be published here.

The Zeitgeist Movement

You have heard about Zeitgeist before in this blog. Today I am posting a long video summarizing the Zeitgeist Movement, as I think some of you would also be interested.

As someone said once, but in a wholly different meaning,

May U live to see the dawn

One year without Buba

One year ago, Buba left us. I want to remind him today.

I wrote earlier about Buba; since he left us, it happened often to me that some specific noises, at home, made me believe he was around, silently walking at the other room, or lying on the floor, waiting for us to wake up. I look often at a hole we made in a door, only for him to walk out to the patio, even when the door was closed. I miss the evening walks in the old part of Córdoba, with Buba happily running next to me, while I was listening to Prince on my iPod. I miss his crazy runs when you threw an orange to him, in the streets. I miss Buba a lot.

Some people suggested us to get another dog, now that our kids are still small and could enjoy the interaction with him. We have discarded that idea thus far: Buba was too close, and I have the feeling you can not replace him. You can replace a car, but I think you can't replace a dog. If another one came one day, it would feel weird, and I think it would still hurt.

So for the time being, I prefer to remember the happy days of Buba, when I made plenty of friends in the evening walks to the park, and when we made big scandals at home in crazy prosecutions of Buba running after me, in our old house. They say nobody truly dies, as long as somebody remembers him.

We do remember Buba, indeed.

The top 25 censored news in 2009

Yesterday night, while watching the news in the Spanish TVE 2 channel, I heard about this, and thought it would be very interesting to have a look.

The site www.projectcensored.org publishes every year a list of the top 25 censored news, and this is the list for 2009:

#1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
# 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
# 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
# 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
# 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
# 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
# 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
# 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
#9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
# 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
# 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
# 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
# 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
# 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
# 15 Worldwide Slavery
# 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
# 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
# 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
# 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
# 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
# 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
# 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
# 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
# 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
# 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

For full details about each story, please go to the original link, it is well worth to have a quiet look. We believe that internet means free information everywhere; lists like this evidence it is clearly not the case.

Fairy tales in the world of photography

This might sound a bit weird, but it is the way it is:

Imagine there was a reference website with hyperdetailed reviews on cameras.
Imagine that site grew and became big enough to attract loads of readers.
imagine that an online enterprise selling all kinds of entertainment products (including cameras) decided to buy that site.
Imagine that the main camera maker worldwide decided to feed that site with exclusive information about their products well in advance to all other media related to photography.
After all that, imagine that the reference website, owned by the online seller, and using exclusive information from the main camera maker, pretended to continue working as if nothing had happened.

In case somebody is wondering, then let me spill the beans: The reference website is DPReview. The online seller is Amazon. And the camera maker is Canon.

Now, let me ask a few questions, after taking into account the above information:
Can DPReview pretend to post reviews of products in full independence & objectivity?
Can you believe there is no bias in their reviews?
Will their reviews treat objectively products from Canon?
Furthermore, will their reviews treat other camera brands under the same "light" they use for Canon?
Can customers believe their findings as purely technical analysis on competitor brands, or maybe they are doing a kind of semiadvertising?
What is a credibility of a review site under these circumstances?
Is it strange that DPReview didn't find any problem in the autofocus system of the Canon flagship EOS 1-D Mark III, which were however detected by other reviewers?
If they had found those problems, would they have published them?
Or maybe they need to think twice before posting adverse results on the flagship product from Canon, because maybe this could affect the economic relationship between Canon and Amazon?

As I said elsewhere, the situation is so clear that is scaring.

Pedro J, uncovered

Jose Diaz Herrera, a Spanish journalist who has written several books on politics, has just released a new book entitled "Pedro J. al desnudo", edited by Foca/Akal, and focused on the controversial figure of Pedro J. Ramirez, director of Spanish newspaper El Mundo. According to reports, this book devoils in great detail the hidden stories behind the bold profile of Ramirez, someone who has played a powerful role in Spanish politics, in a strange mixture of big media figure and influential politics personality. While I smell this book does not intend to play objectively, I think it will be extremely interesting for those who want to know the actual profile of Ramirez, someone who pretends to be an example of morality, but whose story stubbornly demonstrates that he is far from being such example.

More ugly stories about flu & economic interests

A video recently sent to me by a friend pointed to this story, and I found later a webpage devoted to inform in detail about it.
Certainly worth to have a look:

http://www.theflucase.com/

The fall of Microsoft

There are deep changes sometimes that start happening when nobody is actually noticing, possibly because of their magnitude. A recent example was the economical crisis, which was dismissed at the begining by many supposed experts, only to admit in a few months they were completely wrong.

The case of Microsoft is another example, and it is happening right now. The size of the company, and the huge amount of customers, confers it a tremendous inertia, and thus its fall won't be fully perceived in a longtime. But make no mistake: it is already happening. Just make a look at their last years, and particularly at the last weeks, and all signs are there.

The big picture is evidenced by the rise of alternate companies in their main businesses, namely operating systems (with Mac OS X being the preferred system by most reviewers, and Vista such a catastrophe that Windows 7 was hurried up at full speed to make a quick replacement to avoid further deleterious effects from Vista), net browsers (Firefox is growing everywhere and the reputation of Explorer is on par with that of Vista), search engines (Microsoft made flop after flop in face to the success of Google), and on and on and on...

But lately, even tiny details are showing up everywhere:

A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Pink, the much hyped alternative from Microsoft to develop a credible competitor to the iPhone, was simply abandoned, in full mess, with reports explaining about a complete disorder in the team, which were working in full independende from the efforts to develop another update to Windows Mobile (in itself, one of the biggest flops evers of the company).

Then we learned about the loss of data to lots of customers of the phone company T-Mobile, caused by the failure of a number of servers maintained by Sidekick, a branch of Microsoft. Apparently they were doing some updating in the software, but did not take any protection measures such as keeping a backup of data, just in case. This mistake is so childish that it is almost impossible to believe it was done by a company like Microsoft. But according to reports, that's exactly what happened. However, recent reports from Sidekick announced they managed to recover almost all data.

Finally, the icing on the cake was the recent story published by The New York Times on Steve Ballmer and Microsoft, which was bloodily refered by the hilarious Fake Steve blog in a must-read article entitled "Why the borg's copycat business no longer works".

In spite of their multibillion dollars business, you don't have to be too talented to detect all this information is pointing out to a severely failed company, one completely unfocused at this time, one with leaders unable to detect problems, let alone solve them; one who considers that its size is enough to succeed always. Unfortunately for them, it is no longer the case.

Contradictions and responsabilities in Spanish conservative party

Further on the recent stories of corruption in the Popular Party in Spain, related to the Gürthel scandal, the last days I am really astonished at the lack of coherence in the leaders of that party. The big news story, this week in Spain, was the firing (or demission, depending on who you ask, or where you read) of Ricardo Costa, general secretary of the party in Valencia, which I discussed recently here.

Now, yesterday, the national leader of this party, Mariano Rajoy, gave a press conference to explain the situation. His explanations for Costa's firing was this: a high leader in any party has stronger responsabilities than a standard militant, and therefore, even if in this case no legal responsabilities have been drawn yet on Costa, he was asked to retire from such position due to such stronger responsabilities. Costa had a strong relationship with people directly affected by this scandal, and therefore he has to retire from the leadership in the party.

This all seems somehow coherent. But then, the direct consequence is this: the president of the Popular Party in Valencia, Francisco Camps, has a higher position in the leadership than Costa; and his personal relationships with people directly affected by this scandal were much closer than Costa's. So, in any coherent reasoning, it seems to me that the outcome is evident: having a higher position, and being closer to people involved in the scandal, Camps has stronger reasons to be removed from the leadership than Costa. But for some reason, he remains as president of the Valencia branch of the party, and he received all the support from Rajoy yesterday.

You don't have to be too smart to detect double standards in this case.

First scandal on economic interests around flu noise

I was shocked today (although somehow I expected this) when reading the current edition of the scientific journal Science. It contains an article describing the history of a major expert on flu in Holland, who has been making all kind of rounds in media, pushing over and over fears against flu. And (again, unsurprisingly) it has been recently disclosed that he has strong interests in companies producing vaccines against flu.

Why, oh why am I not surprised a single bit??

The original article is here:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5951/350-b

Prince storming Paris this week

It would be pointless to show links to reviews, pictures or videos, as they are all over the web (much to the disgust of someone, who once more threatened with lawsuits some sites to remove pictures taken during some of the gigs). So I just wanted to state that Prince took over Paris starting last Sunday, and that the reviews are raving, particularly when commenting on the gig at La Cigale on Monday: not only were there many unexpected songs, but also Prince was in an excellent mood, according to reports, and he gave an extremely long performance with five encores if I recall correct.

Today he will appear at a Canal + broadcast playing live, and there are rumours of an aftershow. Some people also hints that the much rumoured residency in Paris could eventually be announced during this appearance. So stay tuned for much louder purple noise in the coming weeks.

The ridiculous situation in the Popular Party in Spain regarding the Gürthel scandal

Yesterday was a truly hilarious day if you are, like me, interested in politics. After months hearing all kinds of rumblings on the Gürthel scandal (a network of enterprises receiving contracts from governments linked to this party upon huge payments from the network), yesterday we expected news: the firing of the local general secretary of the party in Valencia. Yet the local branch of the PP decided to play strange games, and late at night, I really had to laugh, since the covers of today's newspapers were saying all kinds of contradictory things: going from the immediate firing of Ricardo Costa, to statements that he would continue in the same position. Eventually, it seems that the national authorities in the PP threatened to directly fire Costa from the party if he did not leave his position as general secretary, and the branch in Valencia bended: he left his roles, although he continues being part of the party.

Someone in the PP should take notice and realize this kind of surrealist situations are really bad for any party, and more so if they pretend to be taken seriously as alternative to the PSOE for the next government in spain.

The vanishing prestige of Nobel prizes

I read this morning that Obama was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. And I can't avoid to think this is pure nonsense: even if I have a rather positive opinion on Obama, the truth is that he has done very little to deserve such a prize, and in particular I am rather critical on his lack of activity regarding the crisis in Afghanistan.

In much the same way, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to an almost completely unknown Romanian writer, Herta Müller, whose merits seem quite far from the world class that are supposed to be necessary to receive such award.

One wonders if the members of the Swedish Academy enabled to choose these prizes are getting overenthusiastic, or if simply political pressures are pushing them to select people without real accomplishments. Whatever the case, in my opinion the prestige of Nobel Prizes is in the way to vanish, if they continue along the same pathway.

Carpe diem 2009: pictures of Frigiliana (Málaga)

A few more pictures from the last summer; this time, they were taken in Frigiliana de la Sierra, a really wonderful village located in the mountains of the South of Málaga.

Ashamed of Berlusconi

I have been looking from the distance the story of Berlusconi in Italy for a longtime. How a person of his pedigree could regain the power in Italy escapes completely my understanding. How Italians can vote someone like him for the presidence of his country is completely impossible for me to understand. The spectacle of Berlusconi, who manages to combine into his personality all the worst cliches of Italy, is truly awful.

Italy is a country for which I have a soft spot, for many reasons; it is quite similar to Spain in many respects, and the only time I went there, I truly felt like at home. The nice vibe of people, their beautiful language, and their impressing story, at the very heart of our civilization, do not deserve to see Berlusconi at the top of the government.

Now, the recent news indicating that he will no longer be protected by laws designed on purpose to keep it safe from judgements, it is a good sign. Maybe there is hope after all, and maybe Berlusconi will be eventually subjected to the corresponding measures, if his pending accounts with the justice continue going on. Hopefully, in a not so distant future, Italy, and people loving Italy like me, will see someone with enough dignity to hold proudly the power in such a distinguished country.

Strangely, a few hours after writing the above comments, I found in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo an article openly suggesting that there is an operation to put Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, current president of Ferrari and one of the main businessmen in Italy, as president of Italy. Apparently, he is the leader of a new political discussion forum called Italia Futura. I don't know if this holds truth, but on first look he might seem a good alternative, with a strong reputation, to Berlusconi.

Is Prince planning a residency in Paris?

All signs sign to point out that Prince's plans for Paris are going on: first the release of Lotus flow3r by Because Music ONLY in France, then rumours of all kinds during and before summer, then the cancelled appearance at Canal + at the begining of September, and then, finally, this week he appears at different fashion parades, being showcased in most media.

Now we have the announced gigs for Sunday (Grand Palais) and for Monday (La Cigale), rumours of a press conference on Monday, the recent leaks of his DVD from Montreux in youtube... all this activity can not be a random series of events.

My bet: the official release of the Montreux DVD is around the corner, and Prince plans to make a long residence in Paris, just like he did in Las Vegas in 2006 or in London in 2007. Obviously the complete information (dates, venues, bands...) are unknown (and maybe even not set up yet), but hopefully we could get more (full?) details on Monday.

Time will tell if I am right or wrong. In the mean time, you have the famous Montreux videos at youtube to have some fun.

The disgusting experience of crossing the US border

Yesterday, I found highlighted in Daringfireball an article that could have been written by me, as it mirrors some reflections I have done to myself many times, since my last trip to the USA: the extremely disgusting experience of crossing the US border when you have to make a trip there for whatever reasons (in my case, for work). I don't know if it was caused by the September 11 events, or if there is some kind of paranoia going on deeply in the minds of security heads in the US. All I can say is that, since that last trip, if there are forthcomings work meetings in the USA, I consider it very carefully before deciding to go, because frankly, the very thinking of going again through such experience is very very discouraging.

The original article is entitled "Closed borders, closed economy, closing opportunities", and you can read it here.

Human Development Report 2009 and the list of best quality of life countries

I just found references in newspapers to the Human Development Report 2009, which is an interesting document to check when you are engaged in discussions on, for instance, if humanity is actualy moving forward as a whole (as opposite to a part of humanity moving forward at the expense of the rest of the humanity, which seems often to be the case).

Anyway, there are tons of data there, and you can have a look for yourself, since the pdf is available here.

Now, in the notes of interest, I was particularly attracted by the list of countries with Very High Human Development. Please have a look at this snapshot:



I was quite shocked to see Spain over a few other major European clountries, such as Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom. The concept of human development, or quality of life, is quite a tricky concept to measure, since actual quality of life does depend on things that are impossible to measure. But still this was a positive surprise to me, and I guess also to other Spanish. In Spain we have a long tradition of underrating our own virtues, and international statistics like this help to put things in perspective and realize about both the good and bad sides of any country.

The billion dollar gram

I found today this graphic, and I think it is truly enlightening to understand a few fundamental questions on our world. Seeing is believing, and looking at some of these figures, one feels ashamed.

The illustration was posted here: