Gunnar Wolf - Nice grey life - page 127

Finally, temperatures are back to sanity, and the air is no longer a mass of dust. For us Mexicans (well, for us central-Mexicans), spring is the hot, dry season. In spring, we usually reach up to 30°C… Not too much for many people, but hellish for me. Summer is much more palatable, having decently sunny days, cloudy evenings and a nice shower as it gets dark. Even if it is a bit harder for a cyclist to take the streets, I think this is my favorite season. This year, we had several (and early!) false starts. I have come to...

It is time for stupid, empty politicians slogans once again in my dear country. And, as always, while we had lively, controversial presidential elections three years ago (and I won’t rant this time on why so many Mexicans still believe the current president can only be called a de facto president), the mid-term elections… Fail to get any attention and cause only bored reactions. I am writing today mostly because I stumbled upon Francisco’s post on why the Mexican Ecologist Green Party (PVEM) campaign does not impress him. As many, many other people with strong political opinions I know, I...

…Just going out of almost two weeks of reclusion due to the porcine^W human^W atypical^W new-and-yet-unnamed AH1N1 influenza. The streets are still mostly deserted, but at least we are allowed back into our workplaces. Comments 2009-05-06 14:26:00 Otro logo Mi muy querido, tu logo no me parece muy kosher, creo que me quedo con mi adaptación: Atte. Nadezhda 2009-05-10 14:24:00 Rafael Bucio haha, bonitos logos

We have had a quite strange couple of days… Everything was smooth as usual on Thursday. As I posted here, I cycled to Iztacala to give a talk and back, and basically had a good time. We had heard news some days earlier on the radio that the usual seasonal flu was still present by mid-April, while usually it disappeared by early March… But nothing more. But Friday morning, as I listened to my usual news program, Aristegui repeated over and over that the Health ministry had ordered (in a press conference at 23:00 the previous day) schools of all...

I was invited to talk about Free Software at yesterday’s FLISOL. Yesterday? Aren’t FLISOLs organized on Saturday? Well, not this one, for various reasons which I won’t quote here. And no, I am not a supporter of the installfests idea, but I went gladly to talk about what is Free Software all about - The philosophy behind Free Software. Besides, the talk was at FES Iztacala, where I worked for four happy years, 1999-2003. I have not been often to Iztacala since 2003 (probably I have visited only three or four times), partly because of the distance (~25Km from home...

I was contacted today via private e-mail by Rafal Czlonka, as the hackergotchi I use (at least) in Planet Debian is wrongly rendreed by his WebKit-based web browser, Arora. So, in order to get more people to notice the bug if it exists: This is my hackergotchi (copied from Planet Debian, so I can update it and this post still shows a valid one): And this is the sample he sent me on how it is rendered by Arora - Pay no attention to the horizontal lines (those are taken from the background where it is rendered): So, is the...

The speakers (and an extra biologist-turned-out-to-be-designer) at FLISOL 2009 at FES Iztacala. Right to left: Yannier, Manuel, Valentín, Marcos, Gunnar, Alejandro

I usually use this blog to post about stuff I have written or that is somehow related to my work / professional life. This time, however, I’ll just use it to share with you a short text my father published in the column he writes in the La Unión de Morelos newspaper, Academia de Ciencias de Morelos: La Ciencia, desde Morelos para el mundo. My father has lived for over 20 years in Cuernavaca, la Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera (the city of the eternal Springtime), ~80Km south of Mexico City. Cuernavaca was for long years known mostly as a...

Umh, is today the quote your neighbour day? No? Thought so… Still, for the second time in a couple of minutes, I’m quoting/translating here. This time, I’m quoting a short text posted by fellow Mexican Debian guy Rodrigo Gallardo: Deceptions (hmm… Not in the let you down sense, but in the deceiving sense. Sometimes it is hard to translate a single word without twisting it around). My translation is far from perfect - Read it in Spanish, you will enjoy it more. Rodrigo says: Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they...

Tiene más de diez años que dí el brinco y migré a Linux - Ya no sólo como mi entorno primario, sino como el único sistema operativo que tengo instalado en cualquiera de mis computadoras. En 1997, obviamente, hacer esto no estaba exento de problemas o retos. Yo soy del grupo de usuarios que decidieron migrar en primer término por razones ideológicas, a partir de la convicción de que el Software Libre es superior moralmente a cualquier sistema propietario, como Windows o MacOS. Claro, ya desde hace diez años -e incluso para los más convencidos- era muy importante el argumento...