Gunnar Wolf - Nice grey life - page 47

In yet another episode where we push for the population to be aware of the perils that electronic voting represents, Octavio Ruiz (@tacvbo) and me were invited to (briefly) talk about the topic in W Radio, one of the largest radio networks in Mexico. The interview was short-ish, but we managed to get several points accross. And, of course, one of the best ways to do so is via a radio show with tens of thousands of listeners. So, we were quite happy to be there! Here is the audio of the segment we presented in Fernanda Tapia’s radio show...

So, today an endurance test can be declared as finished. In early 2008, for the first time, I paid for a cellular phone (as my previous ones were all 100% subsidized by the operator in a fixed plan). I got a Nokia N95. And, although at the beginnning I was quite thrilled with my smartphone (when such things were still a novelty), it didn’t take much to me to start dumbing it down to what is really useful to me: A phone with a GPS. And the GPS only because it is the only toy I want in such a...

Oh, the joys of the Internet. A Mexican and an Argentinian listening to a Spanish cantaor singing Mexican music for an Argentinian audience, remembering a Costa Rican woman. What? Regina and me are finally back home in Mexico, after a month (me) and six weeks (her) of vacations in Argentina. And this week, in the city of Cosquín (Córdoba, Argentina), they celebrate most important Argentinian folkloric festival. The Cosquín Festival can be followed live on the TV Pública website. Right now, while I finish writing a short article and Regina fights her way to learn some of the GNOME 3...

Doing my regular news scan, I stumbled across this: Hacker reveals in Rio how he rigged an election (in Portuguese; you can try the Google-translated version). Why am I reposting this? Because, even after the reported studies by Diego Aranha and the information disclosure exploited by Sergio Freitas, Brazil is still portrayed as the biggest example on how electronic voting can be 100% secure and tamper-proof. Well, in this case, Rangel (his full name ahs not yet been disclosed), a 19 year old hacker, not only demonstrated how elections could be rigged, but admitted on doing so together with a...

I started using LastFM probably around 6 years ago, and loved its offering. I discovered a huge amount of music I would have never found otherwise. Then, some time later, it changed its terms of use, and those of us not in some selected countries lost the ability to stream them for free. Bummer. About one year ago, I decided to purchase a subscription. After all, getting to know new music is always good — And listening to recommendations for friends with interesting music tastes is fun as well! Of my last music purchases, both in CD and as MP3...

In Desierto de los Leones, with (obviously!) Regina, October 2012.

Six cats mish-mashed together as a single furry body? Must be that winter is coming!

For many years, I have aspired being a university teacher. I remember asking at different universities as early as ten years ago — But I didn’t have the needed papers. And yes, I have been a “Licenciado en Ingeniería en Software” for one year already. Anyway, I won’t go into the details on why I didn’t do this earlier on. But this time, I did get my act together in time, and by mid October, I contacted Juan Carreón, an enthusiastic teacher I met a long time ago as he helped a lot for the formation and cohesion of the...

I was invited to give this talk at the Cultural and Artistic Interchange Festival (FINCA) at the National School for Plastic Arts (ENAP) at UNAM. In this talk I try to present to plastic artists and graphical designers, through my experience with free software, how permissive licensing models are permeating all cultural expressions, and how they can (and why should they!) get on this and be a part of it, rather than looking at it with distrust. Attachments Fuentes de la presentación (emacs-org) (3372 KB) Presentación que utilicé (PDF) (4028 KB)

Throughout the years, since the Internet was opened for commercial use in the mid-1990s (and gave way for the bulk of the population to start using the network, leading to the massification towards the end of the decade) the notion that the cyberspace is a bold new free space, without rules or regulations, ruled for some time. In those years it was common to refer to the Internet as to a «Wild West» where anybody could do whatever they pleased. Little by little, that apparent lack of laws started to change, be it as laws usually applied to other scopes...