handyfloss

I have to say I am very fond of trying different Destop Environments and Window Managers, always looking for the “perfect” one.

So far I have given long trial periods to both KDE and GNOME, with KDE as a clear winner for me. Mind you, my impressions are back from some months (years?) ago, because at some point in time I decided I didn’t want so much bloat all around, and decided to dump KDE for a lighter DE.

After trying Fluxbox, Blackbox, WindowMaker, IceWM, Enlightenment and Xfce, I settled for the latter. It is not my intention to make any fair review of all the lot, mostly because I don’t even remember why I dumped them.

What I can say is why I am so happy with Xfce: it’s light, but looks good, has most of the configuration options I want, configurable shortcuts, good window manager, pretty menus if you want them, and it’s very modular so you can start whatever service or panel or conky widget, or adesklet, or just not do it. And a killer feature, for me: the iconbox. Sounds like a stupid little thing, but it is very handy, and looks quite good.

Now, this same feature is present in Enlightenment, so no wonder why I have given it some tries occasionally, even though I always come back to Xfce. The last such try was today, and I was just this close to switch to it, but I didn’t because of a couple of details. In the end, it’s small details that make the whole difference. First, not being able to properly resize de iconbox is a drawback. You can resize it, but if you use system icons for the minimized windows, they just don’t change size. Second, only the minimized windows appear in Enlightenment’s iconbox. Maybe one can change it, but for the life of me, I have not been able to find out how. With Xfce, it’s a breeze to make all icons, or just the minimized ones, appear in the iconbox. However, I have to admit that Enlightenment’s iconbox looks cooler :^) Third, alt-tabbing (after setting the shortcut, because it wasn’t default) only switches non-minimized windows. How lame is that! I want my good old all-window switching from Xfce!

There are also other details, like the stupid bar on the top side of the screen… the use of which I am still looking for (and how to get rid of it), and the fact that when selecting a theme, it affects both the “desktop” (menus, panels, fonts) and the “window manager” (window decorations, borders). With Xfce you can differentiate both! Sounds like another shallow rant, but actually some themes have better fonts for menus, but rather ugly window decorations, and vice versa, which makes it more difficult to find a good theme, because it has to have everything OK at the same time.

Fair is fair, and I have to admit that Enlightenment has also some nifty things, like the cool effects when minimizing, maximizing and creating windows, the fact that you can make the iconbox 100% transparent, being able to remove/change the window decorations… but they just don’t cut it.

I might come up with more tries and comments in the future. For now, I’ll just keep my beloved Xfce, at least until the incredibly long due Enligtenment 17 comes out, which could level the field.

Today the power supply has failed again, so here goes the updated list of blackouts I have been able to compile, with comments if any:

1. 2005-Dec-13
2. 2005-Dec-21
3. 2006-May-26 (The card-based automated access to the Faculty broke down)
4. 2006-Jun-04
5. 2006-Jun-08
6. 2006-Jun-13
7. 2006-Jun-16

Summary: 7 blackouts in 184 days, or 26.3 dpb (days per blackout).

First post in the series: here

What do pharmaceutical, commercial software, film and discographic companies have in common? Well, among other things, fear to piracy. The three of them make products that are first generated at a high cost, but are afterwards trivially replicated. Actually, patents are designed with this into mind. From the Wikipedia entry for patent, one of the four main reasons for patents would be that:

[…] in many industries (especially those with high fixed costs and low marginal costs and low reverse engineering costs – pharmaceuticals and computer software being the two prototyical examples), once an invention exists and has been tested, the cost of actually turning it into a product is typically six times or more the R&D cost. Unless there is some way to prevent copies from competing at the marginal cost of production, companies will not make that productization investment.

Recently I discussed with a friend the recurrent subject of fair use of copyrighted material, and the applicability of the term “piracy” for downloading music and movies from the Internet. We stumbled upon a thorny double moral problem, because my friend would not see any moral or legal problem in downloading copyrighted material from the Internet, while at the same time a patent breach (he actually holds some drug patents) would outrage him!

Justifications for the alleged legality and morality of p2p sharing of copyrighted material abound. You can find out about them in the Justification section of the copyright infrigement entry of the Wikipedia and in the Legal controversy section of the p2p entry of the same source.

Influential bloggers also post in defense of the p2p interchange, and I will mention three Spanish ones: Enrique Dans (e.g. 9-Jun-2006, 3-Jun-2006, 1-Jun-2006), David Bravo (12-Jun-2006, 25-May-2006, 10-Apr-2006), Nacho Escolar (4-Jun-2006, 29-MAy-2006, 22-May-2006, 10-Jun-2004).

Now, one of the main mottos (to which I actually agree), is that the technology has made difussion of culture so easy, that the audiovisual industry has to change its business model, because the present one is obsolete and tyranical with the user, appart from no longer enforceable by the stablishment. Something similar happens to the commercial software industry: the rise of the much more efficient and legally, morally and practically sound, free software (the FLOSS that gives its name to this blog), makes it ridiculous to mantain the 80s and 90s proprietary software model.

However, although criticism to present market models make some of us turn to media licensed under Creative Commons (mainly music), and software licensed under the GPL and other free licenses (like the Debian GNU/Linux operating system or the web browser Firefox), some others feel that downloading copies of commercial of software (Windows, Photoshop, AutoCAD, ChemOffice…), or copyrighted material (music and movies) from p2p networks is somehow OK.

Much could be said about the morality and/or legality of this practice, but, for the sake of the argument, let’s accept it’s legal and moral. Let’s accept that sharing any audiovisual material through a p2p network is fair use, and that any attempt from the lobbies that control these materials to stop it are not only condemned to fail, but also injust.

OK, I can accept that, but… why not apply this to the pharmaceuticals?. What is the difference? A pharmaceutical company makes a big effort to discover new drugs, and then market them if approved by the corresponding autorities. The exclusive marketing of a drug, or a fair compensation when marketed by third parties, is ensured through patents. A patent, according to the Wikipedia, represents:

[…] the exclusive rights granted by a state to a person for a fixed period of time in exchange for the regulated, public disclosure of certain details of a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance) (known as an invention) which is new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable.

The exclusive right granted to a patentee is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing the claimed invention. The rights given to the patentee do not include the right to make, use, or sell the invention themselves. The patentee may have to comply with other laws and regulations to make use of the claimed invention.

This is very interesting. The researcher (the musician), comes up with a new drug (a new song), and wants to get a just reward for her effort. She patents the drug (puts the song under copyright), which gives here a negative right to ban any other person from even producing the drug (performing the song) without her prior approval.

Usually the researcher (musician) is not directly able to market her invention (distribute her music), and so conveniently hands it down to someone who can, e.g. a pharmaceutical company (a discographic company). They are the ones who make the effort to put it in the market, passing the due approvals (bribing the due radio stations for advertising).

Now, when someone else wants to make use of the publicly available instructions (the publicly available p2p network) to produce the drug (to download, listen and/or perform the song) herself, the patent holder (copyright owner) has the right to prevent her from doing so. The pharmaceutical company (the discographic company) can even choose not to market the drug (the song) at all, if it is not economically advantageous for them. The patent (copyright) allows them to do so.

Now, the parallelism is absolute, and hence I can’t see the difference between the following examples:

a) A kid likes a music group, but can not afford, or does not want to pay for, their CD, so resorts to eMule to download it. Now, no-one can prosecute her, because it is legal.

b) There are thousands in Africa dying of a disease that is not mortal in the first world, because there is a (patented) drug that can cure it. Unfortunately, the Africans of this example, can’t afford the price the pharmaceuticals charge… so tough luck. Now, the Red Cross, or even an African individual, downloads the “recipe” for the drug from the Internet, and starts producing it and giving it away for free. Is it prosecutable?

What is the difference between a) and b)? If the drug could be put online, and downloaded as a piece of music or video, would it be any different? How come the latest Hollywood blockbuster, or MTV hit, are of public interest and hence should be publicly and freely available, regardless of the wishes of the lobbies behind its production, and the drugs that can potentially save millions are not?

For me, that’s a non sequitur.

Yesterday I watched the Argentinian movie Tiempo de valientes, and I have to say it is a superb movie.

Like many Argentinian movies, it tells the story of everyday people whose life goes through tough times, but at the same time the story is full of humour. No wonder it is like that, since the Argentinian real life is much like that, with a brittle economy since the corralito in 2002, but with humorous and optimistic citizens, nontheless.

The movie Tiempo de valientes, however, is not a tragic comedy, but an action comedy. The main characters are a policeman in need of psychologycal aid, and the psychologist who assists him. As the movie moves on, the latter becomes more and more involved in the professional affairs of the former, with interesting results. It portrays the Argentinian society also in the fact that the economic problems make corruption abound, specially within the police, but still some honest people save the day with their good practices.

Highly recommendable movie. Go ahead and enjoy it!

Today the power supply failed twice within a couple of minutes, and it just fed me up. I don’t know if our supplying company (Iberdrola) was the culprit or not. Most likely it was, as it has definitely been in the past.

I am presently a member of Prof. J.M. Ugalde‘s research group, in the Chemistry Faculty of the Donostia Campus of the UPV-EHU (University of the Basque Country), and thus the reader must realize that the blackouts I’ll enumerate have affected several Faculties in the University Campus, as well as the Donostia Internatinal Physics Center (DIPC), a first-class research center located nearby. The latter has suffered plenty computer problems (hard disks, power supplies and motherboards breaking down) due to the numerous blackouts. Needless to say, so has our Computational Chemistry group.

I would like to highlight the facts that:

• The blackouts are innacceptably frequent. We live, allegedly, in the first world.
• Each blackout, each interrupted computer activity, each fried down computer… represents a kick in the groin for the research activities. The irresponsible ways of Iberdrola are effectively handicapping the progress in the Basque Country. Yes, as simple as that.

Without further ado, here goes the list of blackouts I have been able to compile, with comments if any:

1. 2005-Dec-13
2. 2005-Dec-21
3. 2006-May-26 (The card-based automated access to the Faculty broke down)
4. 2006-Jun-04
5. 2006-Jun-08
6. 2006-Jun-13

Summary: 6 blackouts in 181 days, or 30.2 dpb (days per blackout). How much is acceptable? 100 dpb, maybe? 365 dpb (one a year)? Certainly one a month is not.

OK, I wanted to watch Jet Li’s Fearless (Sin miedo), but I was late for it, so I dumped it for What the bleep do we know!? (¿¡Y tú qué sabes!?). In my defense, I’ll say that the other options where X-Men III and Crash, which I had already watched and commented here.

Everything was odd from the start. First off, the ticket clerk made me repeat the title of the movie. I thought that he hadn’t understood it the first time I’d said it, but retrospectively I wonder whether his “Sorry, what movie?” wasn’t an exclamation of disbelief.

I then entered the theater room, just to find out that I was the only one there. Once the movie started, a young couple came in too, making a grand total of 3 people.

If you want a short comment of the movie, here you are: For God’s sake, never ever watch it!

The long story: the movie is a blend of a fiction story and some documentary-like interviews and voice-over comments. It comprises three stages: in the first one, a pseudo-scientific discussion of Quantum Physics is given, strongly focused in the state superposition theory (that there are infinite “realities” happening at the same time, and we see a “sum” of all of them. The view of the movie is that we see “one” of them), and the effect of the observer in the observed (Is reality there when we don’t look?). They take it to stupid limits, like implying that we create the reality (and can therefore twist it at our will), because the reality doesn’t exist independently from the observer. I am finishing a Ph.D. in Quantum Chemistry myself, and trust me: the quantum theory doesn’t say that.

The second part of the movie is devoted to explaining the molecular chemistry behind the feelings and the way the brain works. This part was quite interesting, and, from what I know as a Bc.S. chemist, mainly correct (Disclaimer: I am not a biologist).

The third part was a presentation of the conclusions “based on” the “scientific evidence” presented in the first two sections, which mainly consisted on some New Age sect ideas (go to “Beliefs” in the preceding link), chiefly the belief that consciousness creates the reality, a diffuse idea of God (instead of its denial), spirituality above all, and ad hoc inclusion of scientific theories into that spirituality.

I find it sad to make such a max-mix of science and pseudo-science to justify funny ideas dope smokers come up with, but… that’s New Age for you.

Pues sí, tras el de Sabina el domingo pasado, he ido (ayer) a un segundo concierto en apenas seis días, pues tocaba El Canto del Loco en el Velódromo de Anoeta (Donosti).

Dani, el cantante

Esta vez era de un estilo de música más comercial y “juvenil” que Sabina… Y lo de juvenil va en serio, porque yo doblaba en edad (literalmente) al 90% de los asistentes. O mejor dicho, LAS asistentes, porque había más niñas que en el patio de un colegio femenino.

No puedo por menos que resaltar estas y otras diferencias entre ambos conciertos, porque eran realmente llamativas. Este concierto, por ejemplo, ha sido bastante más multitudinario, y el escenario lo han colocado en un extremo corto del óvalo del velódromo, mientras que Sabina lo puso en un lado largo (dejando menos sitio para la gente).

También es cierto que, con todo lo viejo y cascado que está Sabina, se pegó dos horas y cuarto pasadas cantando, mientras estos apenas llegaron a hora y tres cuartos, ¡con todo los jóvenes y llenos de energía que se supone deben ser! Y, a mí al menos, se me hizo más corto aquel concierto que este… o sea que igual me estoy haciendo viejo.

Otra diferencia es que para la iluminación del concierto de anoche tuvieron que volver a abrir la central nuclear José Cabrera, y me han dicho que se consumieron un par de toneladas de U-235… ¡o más! Si no se ha visto una mezcla de Star Wars y el episodio de Pokemon que provocaba epilepsia, no puede uno hacerse a la idea de la cantidad e intensidad de luces, colores y destellos. Durante un rato creí ver un elefante rosa… y de hecho quizá lo había.

El concierto en sí estuvo muy bien, con ritmos muy pop y mucha pose de niño malo, pero con la música pegadiza y fácil de escuchar que buscamos cuando escuchamos al El Canto del Loco, añadido a la frescura de la actuación en vivo. Yo me lo pasé muy bien, por mucho que no sean mis ídolos.

Yesterday I watched X-Men III: The Last Stand (X-Men III: La decisión final). It delivers what is expected: good action and a poor script, although the plot itself (“what happens”) is not that bad.

I have always thought that the most captivating idea of the X-Men series is the struggle of people that is “different” to fit in the society, and not to be segregated and prosecuted. This movie takes the idea a step further, because a mutant appears that puts fear into other mutants (much as mutants scare regular human beings), which, to me, should make them think on where the injust segregation ends and safety enforcemente begins… Thorny issue, now I think of it.

All in all, a good action movie, but don’t expect Macbeth.

Pos eso, que el domingo tuve el placer de asistir al concierto que dio Joaquín Sabina en el velódromo de Anoeta (Donostia).

El tío se cascó dos horas y cuarto de canciones, con las pausas justas para soltar algunos versos, presentar a sus compañeros de escenario, dejar cantar sendas canciones a Pancho Varona (muy sexy con su mono de butanero), y a Olga (Google me dice que se apellida Román), y recoger un tanga que le tiraron desde el público.

A mí el tiempo se me pasó volando, para cuando nos quisimos dar cuenta ya habían pasado 2h y se despedía. Luego salió otra vez e hizo un cuarto de hora de bises, para, según sus propias palabras, “no hacer el teatro de salir y volver varias veces, y directamente aburriros de una vez”. La verdad es que se nos quedó corto, sobre todo porque se dejó un montón de canciones en el tintero (“Pongamos que hablo de Madrid”, “Ruido”, “Eva tomando el sol”, “Por el boulevar de los sueños rotos”, “Oiga doctor”, “Medias negras”…). Tiene tantas canciones que esto era inevitable, a menos que el concierto durara 10 horas.

En resumen: un concierto cojonudo.