January 2007 Archives

MJ, in 3rd world countries, some things like technology, travelling or taking care of the environment are not a matter of choice, unfortunately. When some of the basic needs for humans to live are easily covered and people do not have to worry about, suchs as daily eating, it’s way more easy to develop a country and have people concerning about unimportant stuff. Even free software is a luxury matter on some countries! You know, human beings have an stupid custom acquired since they were born, most of them, and that’s the need for eating, how weaks!

I think you get my point.

Yours, an international traveller flying between the UK.

La semana pasada fue mucho muy pesada para mí. Entre la guardia, los proyectos que tengo en la chamba, Ulteo y otras cosas, he quedado exhausto. De cualquier forma, durante la semana estuve revisando algunas cosas de Planeta Linux, y entre ellas he tiránicamente decidido en vetar a una persona de Planeta Linux.

Desde luego, que puede no ser gran cosa este hecho ni para la persona del blog, ni para Planeta Linux, pero siento que los usuarios se deben una explicación. Generalmente no veto nada, no banneo a nadie (y soy más libertino de poner blogs de tecnología que enrriquezcan el sitio, aunque Milton y los lineamientos no estén muy de acuerdo :P), me gusta mucho la diversidad que existe en los planetas, pero simplemente me cansé de un sindicado en Planeta Linux Ecuador que lo único que hace es chingar a la gente. El blog es de un tipo egocéntrico, patán, troll, engreído, creído y que hizo derramar el vaso con la gota al poner una imagen de goatse tamaño familiar en su blog. Yo no me había dado cuenta hasta que Raquel me lo dijo, con expresión entre asco, disgusto y demás. La verdad es que yo no quiero este tipo de reacciones, en primer lugar de ella y que simplemente se entretiene un poco viendo los posts en Planeta Linux, y mucho menos quiero la misma reacción para los lectores del sitio.

Y sí, no me importa aplicar el fascismo tecnológico aquí, si alguno de los que tienen acceso para commit en el subversion de Planeta Linux, vuelve a habilitar el feed, perderá inmediatamente sus privilegios en el sistema.

I’ve been hired by the Ulteo project to work on packaging and releasing matters. I’m pretty excited ;-)

Here it’s a top-10 list of really important things, created by Médicos Sin Fronteras in Spanish. directhex, from #debian-offtopic (thanks!), provided a grammar/spelling check on my original English translation.

1. Central African Republic: Resurgence of the conflict. In 2006, its civilian population was a victim of violence again. During these months, confrontations have taken place between government troops and rebel groups. Civilians, suspected of supporting one or the other, have stuck in the biddle. Around 100,000 civilians have been forced to leave their homes. Several children, under 5 years old, have become ill of malaria, worms and serious respiratory infections.
2. Chechnya: Physical and psychologic scars. The consequences of a conflict that has lasted over 12 years so far are still present. Large numbers of Chechens that were displaced during the most serious phases of the crisis have already returned. However, the majority still lack housing and has to live in temporary shelters. Violence, kidnappings and abuses are still rampant. In the rural zones, medical infrastructure is almost nonexistent.
3. Sri Lanka: Civilians caught in the middle. Combat between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have intensified since the summer, causing displacements of tens of thousands of people. Other are still imprisoned and cannot flee.
4. Democratic Republic of Congo: Violence and permanent deficiencies. Deprivation and violence suffered by millons of Congolese is still happening unnoticed by the rest of the planet. Eastern Congo is a battleground for fights between several armed groups, included government forces that use force against civilian populace, leading to brutal living conditions.
5. Somalia: War and natural catastrophes. Even though its current situation has temporarily attraced media attention, the terrible living conditions of the Somali population are still largely forgotten. The country has one of the worst levels of sanitation in the world, and a quarter of the infant population dies before reaching 5 years old.
6. Colombia: Living with fear. Massacres, executions and fear are a daily life of thousands of Colombians. So far, almost three million have fled their homes because of a conflict marked by the drug trafficking that involves government forces, paramilitary groups and armed guerrillas.
7. Haiti: Extreme urban violence. The violence and insecurity is a daily breakfast in its capital city, Port-au-Prince, with confrontations between armed groups, the Haitian police and the UN Stabilization Mission on Haiti. Since December 2004, more than 3,000 people have been registered with bullet wounds, including more than a thousand women and children.
8. India: 25 years of conflict. Confrontations between Maoist insurgents, government forces and anti-Maoist military services have caused the displacement of 50,000 civilans in several areas of the country. The population still lives with fear and violence, with little or no access to sanitary conditions.
9. Tuberculosis: Obsolete and insufficient treatments. Against popular opinion in the West, tuberculosis is not an “obsolete problem”. Each year, it causes the deaths of two million people, around nine million people contract the disease, and new multiresistants variants are appearing.
10. Undernourishment: Thousands of avoidable deaths. Whilst in Spain the Ministry of Health tries to fight one of the major problems of the decade, obesity, millions of children die of hunger around the world and more than 60 million people show signs of acute undernourishment.

I guess not everything around is a top ten contest on popularity of who’s the hottest, who’s the prettiest, who has the longest penis or the biggest breasts, or whose farts smell better, geek, eh?

From The New York Times:

CARACAS, Venezuela, Jan. 10 — President Hugo Chávez was sworn in to a new six-year term at a ceremony here on Wednesday in which he described Jesus as “the greatest socialist in history” and pledged to speed Venezuela’s metamorphosis into a Socialist country. “Fatherland! Socialism or death, I swear it!” Mr. Chávez yelled as he was sworn in and given the presidential sash and a golden key to the tomb where the remains of Simón Bolívar, the South American liberator, are interred.

/me cheers :)

I’ve also started to look for the best plan to reach Edinburgh next June.

I don’t think I’ll fly directly from Mexico City, since I want to visit Paris (in spite of my previous and only experience with CDG back in 2005 :-P) and then visit a nice friend in Bilbao. Then I could fly from there to Edinburgh or some place nearby with a cheap flights airline.
Quick searches throw an estimate of 1’150 USD for the trip MEX-JFK-CDG-JFK-MEX on Delta. Fortunately, I’ve started saving already, so I don’t get pressure on money once DebConf gets closer. I still don’t know anyway if this could be the best way to travel.

I’ve been suggested, also, to travel from Cancún to Madrid through Air Europe, with the cost of ~515 €, which is way more cheap than to fly to Paris, but I should also pay for the transportation from Mexico City to Cancún and from Madrid to Paris, if I really want to visit it, which I do.

Anyway, the cheapest flight I could get directly to Edinburgh is ~1300 USD: MEX-ATL-EDI-ATL-MEX, with Delta too.

Any suggestion on the matter is welcome and appreciated.

El 2007 ha empezado. Lluvia de ideas a ésto:

• Yo no olvido al Año Viejo, porque me ha dejado cosas muy buenas.
• El viernes por la mañana, Raquel, Janeth y yo salimos de la ciudad con rumbo a San Cristóbal de las Casas, donde nos proponíamos pasar las fiestas de fin de año. Terminamos dando el rol por Tuxtla Gutiérrez, San Cristóbal, las cascadas de Agua Azul, Villahermosa, Minatitlán y algunos otros lugares.
• La carretera que conecta San Cristóbal de las Casas con Palenque es otro pinche pedo. Hágase ud. hombre y maneje esa carretera, entre los Altos de Chiapas y la Selva Negra.
• Las fotos del viaje están aquí.
• Planeta Linux Perú ya está por fin arreglado, disculpen las molestias que mi ausencia (y también por falta de tiempo), les ocasionó.
• Algunos de los viajes que tengo planeados ya para este año incluyen Acapulco, Coachella y Edimburgo. Me gustaría también ir al cono sur y visitar Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay y Paraguay. A ver si hay lana.
• Gracias a xiam por su comentario hacia mi persona en su último post.
• Ya quiero volver a la escuela.
• A ver si se hace una oferta para un trabajo extra que no vendría nada mal ;-)
• Se viene un concurso para Planeta Linux, estén al pendiente :)
• Abajo y a la izquierda, está el corazón.

Creo que es todo por el momento, cambio y fuera.