Gunnar Wolf - Nice grey life - page 22

Basically everybody who knows me is aware that, basically for the last two years, I have been writing a book on Operating Systems for use in my class — and, of course, in any similar class. Well, long story short, as of today: What’s that in my car trunk? Lets have a closer look. Finally, Facultad de Ingeniería finished printing the book! So… Well, some minor data points: The book is (and has been for some time already!) available online as a free download. If you want to derive from it or enhance future editions in any way, just clone...

A couple of months ago, I was invited to give the starting course for the Masters degree in Free Software in the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar university. UASB is a multinational university, with campuses in (at least) Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia and Colombia; I was doubtful at first regarding the seriousness of this proposal and the viability of the program, but time made my doubts disappear. Bolivia is going through an interesting process, as they have one of the strongest worded government mandates for migration to free software for the public administration in the next couple of years; this migration has...

I know very little about hardware. I think I have a good understanding on many aspects of what happens inside a computer, but my knowledge is clearly firmer on what happens once an operating system is already running. And even then, my understanding of the lower parts of reality is shaky at most — At least according to my self-evaluation, of course, comparing to people I’m honored to call “my peers”. During the last ~18 months, my knowledge of this part of reality, while still far from complete, has increased quite a bit — Maybe mostly showing that I’m basically...

Today I feel more special than I have ever felt. Or… Well, or something like that. Thing is, there is no clear adjective for this — But I successfully finished my Specialization degree! Yes, believe it or not, today I can formally say I am Specialist in Informatic Security and Information Technologies (Especialista en Seguridad Informática y Tecnologías de la Información), as awarded by the Higher School of Electric and Mechanic Engineering (Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica) of the National Polytechnical Institute (Instituto Politécnico Nacional). In Mexico and most Latin American countries, degrees are usually incorporated to your...

The discussion regarding the legality and convenience of Uber, Cabify and similar taxi-by-app services has come to Mexico City — Over the last few days, I’ve seen newspapers talk about taxi drivers demonstrating against said companies, early attempts at regulating their service, and so on. I hold the view that every member of a society should live by its accepted rules (i.e. laws) — and if they hold the laws as incorrect, unfair or wrong, they should strive to get the laws to change. Yes, it’s a hard thing to do, most often filled with resistence, but it’s the only...

I love having guests give my classes :) This time, we had Felipe Esquivel, a good friend who had been once before invited by me to the Faculty, about two years ago. And it was due time to invite him again! Yes, this is the same Felipe I recently blogged about — To give my blog some credibility, you can refer to Felipe’s entry in IMDb and, of course, to the Indiegogo campaign page for Natura. Felipe knows his way around the different aspects of animation. For this class (2015-04-15), he explained how traditional ray-tracing techniques work, and showed clear...