Thoughts about....

The foreclosures in America and everywhere else

2009-05-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

PBS is the Public Broadcasting Service in America. I'm not really sure if it's a public television as the public televisions in Europe, and in the two countries in Europe I have lived, but it's certainly different that other televisions over there. Being outside the USA, I can only see the kind of television channels like ABC, CBS or CNN and of course the kind of programs they do (Lost, Friends, sports and programs like American Idol and the like), but thanks to the magic of Internet, RSS feeds and Miro, I discovered this program Bill Moyer's Journal, and it certainly gave me a new view or window to what the real America is, and unsurpringsingly has very little to do the kind of America you can see in the shows they export and more like the kind of things you can see in other countries in Europe and other places in the world.

I'm not sure how aware people would be of how the economic crisis is affecting the average american, but seeing this program and video is a sure way to open your eyes to the real economic crisis over there: Steve Meacham: Fighting Foreclosure. In this video they talk about foreclosures, foreclosures that are taking places in American due to the inability of people to pay those mortgages that in the way of sub-prime mortgages have caused the market's crash and economic crisis that has spread everywhere in the world and it's now affecting everyone more or less in the world. Besides talking of how people are losing their houses because they took mortgages they were not going to be able to repay to banks, they also talk about the community movements and their quite silent actions and effects over the whole issue.

Those community organisations are trying to keep people's houses and they are quite successful in doing so, and they do so by renegotiating the mortgages, which in the end not only avoid people being evicted but benefits banks in the long term, as if they keep those people's payments coming the first effect would be to have lower benefits but in the long term the interest they received from those mortgages would mean higher benefits in the future.

And you can see that the problem is being caused by banks trying to get out of the mess through the easiest way: foreclosure and selling the house, hence making an immediate profit. But selling those houses right now (with houses prices falling), could mean not getting the amount of money they originally lent, hence in their books they are losing money. And all that is because they don't have or they don't want to establish the infrastructure needed (an immediate cost) to renegotiate those mortgages, or establish some kind of housing department that temporarily would allow those people to become tenants, hence providing the banks with a lower income coming, but still in the long term, in most of the cases, bigger benefits (in the way of having the opportunity of selling that house at a higher price in the future or that tenant having the resources to repay the original mortgage in the future and in a better economic environment) than if they sell the houses in actual market.

Basically, their inability to adapt to the new market and their inability or unwillingness to explain their shareholders (or need to renegotiate with the financial regulators their situation) their need for either losses right now or lower benefits that would guarantee higher benefits in the future is what is making worse, not only the economic crisis but the social crisis that comes with it. It shows how much the psychology of the masses affects what are supposed to be mathematical and scientific events and it definitely shows you a different America than the one you are used to when watching TV.

More about foreclosures in America from the "Bill Moyer's Journal", "Senator Richard (Dick) Durbin"

Gaza, the Palestinians and the war, Part II

2009-04-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

And I am sure that that alternative has already been discussed and explains in part the dealings both Jordan and Egypt are having with Israel, they would be left to deal the situation. Even though Jordan might accept its part of the deal somehow (they already have to deal with the biggest number of war refugees in the world as they are home to displaced Palestinians from the crisis during the 40s, 50s and so on), I don't think Egypt is so thrilled with Hamas (we have to remember how the second in command in Al-Qaeda is Egyptian and the Muslim Brotherhood and all the problems they are having with them in Egypt “Facebook Intifada in Egypt”, not going to defend or attack the Egyptian government over that issue in here). Egypt might not accept the situation until Hamas disappears or at least offers no problem for them in which case I'm sure they would not only open the border with Gaza but also create some kind of economic agreement that gets them close to the end result: absorbing Gaza into Egypt. Saudi Arabia, most likely, would be providing help in the form of money for the reconstruction of both areas, and maybe that's the reason for a recent issue with the Lybian president. This video and report about the not very good relations between Hezbollah and the Egyptian government by LinkTv. shows how the Egyptian government is not only not willing to deal with Hamas but seems to be very, very annoyed by the way things have turned out in Gaza and Israel.

Of course all that is quite likely, not exactly a good result for Syria and Iran. Hamas is extremely close to Hezbollah who are allies of both Iran and Syria and Syria might not find that pleasing considering how they had to abandon or at least put on hold that very same type of economic and political agreements with Lebanon. And considering Syria's political rivalry with Jordan and Israel ("Since Olmert is an unpopular, lame duck president, he can launch this campaign with relatively little political constraints," Bhalla says. "He is essentially willing to be cast as the "bad guy' so the Palestinian security issue can be dealt with and so the successor regime in Israel can deal more effectively with other issues, such as the peace talks with Syria." Israel and Hamas: A War Primer) is a not very pleasing result for them in my opinion. They would lose a significant amount of influence in the area and Jordan would win a significant amount influence and territory, plus the usual perks in that kind of situation with money from both EU and USA to develop the areas, and so on.

So it seems that the situation is again with no close result as no-one seems to have or be in the situation to make a winning move. Hamas is never going to be able to face the Israeli army if they declare independence from Israel and they know it, they can of course continue their attacks and keeping the situation as now, but on their own they can do very little. The support from Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, and the fact that the rest of Arab states would not be able to deal in their own countries with a full military intervention by Israel (public opinion in those countries would demand action to protect Palestinians, making things unstable in those countries), is the only thing that gives some air to Hamas and allows them continue.

Photo courtesy of PPCC Antifa via Flickr

It's suddenly become very even and very unstable and uncomfortable for many people involved and I'm surprise they are not realising or at least no-one seems to talk too much about it, that Hamas is taking example of what the IRA and Sinn Feinn made Northern Ireland, not only that even Gerry Adams, Sinn Feinn's number one was visiting Gaza recently (Segment: Israeli foreign minister questioned on bribe case by IBA TV, Israel). They have been using the same tactics and winning more a more popular support as Sinn Feinn did during the 80s and 90s. No one seems to realise how absolutely poisonous the IRA and Sinn Feinn and their actions and ways have been from the political point of view and from the international point of view. And they are wrong if they believe they could help in the issue as the only interests they serve are their own interests. This time it's only taken them a couple of months to appear in a place they surely are messing in.

Or maybe that's the reason why Obama has appointed George Mitchell as special envoy to the area, but the pieces in the chessboard are definitely not placed the same way as in Northern Ireland regardless of what the Democrats believe or think of it. And letting Sinn Feinn to meddle in the issue it's a big, big mistake, regardless of what they believe.

Which means that things are quite likely to go on this way for some time with rocket attacks and no real advances for the Palestinian that unfortunately are going to be used as cannon fodder by everyone, including Hamas. The Israelis would continue having casualties but the real losers would be the Palestinians and nobody cares what happens of them and nobody is really going to help them. And I am really sorry for them because it seems they are going to continue dying and I can do nothing, nothing at all.

Some articles from Internet about this issue:

Gaza, the Palestinians and the war, Part I

2009-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

As always running late with the news, but never intended to be on time and time always gives you a better view of the forest. Distance, time distance is a great helper to understand things and analyse them.

The first thing is that I always had the impression the war on Gaza January had as one of its aims to strengthen Tzipi Livni in the February elections, to give the impression to the Israeli public that she was capable of military response to the almost daily rocket attacks from Gaza. And the reason it might have counted with the approval of so many people involved in the situation, from Americans to “moderate” Arab countries was basically because unlike the conservatives (Likud), mostly led by Netanyahu, she (Kadima and Labour politicians) were in favour of an exchange of land for peace. Basically the idea in my opinion was that it was a way of getting closer to the two states solution in the hands mostly of moderates in both camps, Kadima and Labour in the Israeli camp and Fatah from the West Bank.

Quite likely if Livni would have won the elections the most likely scenario would have been that regardless of Hamas opinion in Gaza, they would have started the process of the two states solution in the West Bank.

Of course, not having Livni got enough votes the two states solution, as many have said, was off the table. It's quite unlikely that the Palestinians would be getting close to an independent country with the new Israeli government. You just need to listen to the new Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman to know how difficult that might be.

On thing that I surprises me is the way people seems to either be avoiding talking of another issue, or maybe I am one of the few that has this opinion. I know it's a very sensitive issue to anyone that has any interest on it, but I don't think I'm so far away from the truth.

The rocket attacks from Gaza are caused by several things, the blockade of Gaza was almost a siege but with no troops that were going to take over the territory:

Why the Gaza War Between Israel and Hamas Broke Out Now

“And while Israel can kill lots of terrorists and destroy lots of weaponry, there's always more where they came from. The only way Israel can unilaterally impose a long-term cessation of the rocketing is by massively, indefinitely reoccupying Gaza, home to 1.5 million desperate, hostile Palestinians. Israel tried that route for 38 years before pulling its soldiers and settlers out of Gaza in 2005. Few Israelis are ready for a reprise.”

Smoke rises after an Israel air strike in Gaza Strip December 28, 2008. Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second successive day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas, Photo courtesy of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi via Flickr

It was really a slow death for the Palestinians first and Hamas second. It was also a way by Hamas of avoiding that exact goal I have talked about above: the two state solution but under Fatah control and obviously excluding Hamas. They had to force the situation somehow to avoid Fatah getting even close to that and hence getting a victory in the eyes of many people, including the Palestinian in Gaza, so any new attack was a way of turning Israeli public against that deal and making Kadima and Livni, look weak in their eyes.

Anyone observing the situation realises that the attacks are actually very unsuccessful in their targets, they rarely caused huge damage in the Israeli side, or at least the kind of damage you should expect from either an army or terrorist group. They are not even frequent enough to consider them anything close to war or a war attack. Coming from the Basque Country and having followed both the political situation in both Northern Ireland and the Basque Country and the development of terrorism in both places I would say that they are closer to the kind of attacks by the terrorist group ETA than the kind of attacks the IRA was involved. They are not massive even though the level of casualties maybe higher than in ETA's attacks, but definitely not the kind of success in the level of casualties the IRA caused during most of its activity. Surprisingly, in the issue of weapons they are closer to the IRA than to ETA, and that considering how poor they are Gaza. Weapons and of that kind are not cheap precisely.

In any case, what it looks clear to me is that they are not going to stop those attacks, so long as Fatah is the one most likely to be negotiating with Israel, as they will be the ones having the political victory in the eyes of everyone. So long as they are not in the negotiating table, chances of them changing course is none. I don't believe that if offered to be in the negotiating table with a certain level of control they wouldn't accept if there is an exchange of land and political independence by Israel. In that case they wouldn't have an excuse not to accept, the IRA and Sinn Feinn in that situation accepted an end of violence in exchange for political power (and money, lest we forget), and they seem to be very, very aware of that. And as the Sinn Feinn, and unlike the many political incarnations of ETA, they have the support of the people of Gaza.

Was it a mistake to allow them to participate in elections? No, because the level of corruption within Fatah and consequences that had for the people in Gaza was sooner or later to caused a rift somehow. It was impossible to keep the situation that way. Unfortunately the situation in those territories had developed for so long so badly that it was almost going back to feudalism in the area and people getting protection for war lords against whatever it happened. Of course those war lords want a bigger share of the pie which means corruption and hence where we are.

Considering how things have developed it's going to be impossible to ignore Hamas, even though I have no doubt they are using the people of Gaza as human shields and for their own political purposes and they want to be in the table. As things stand not only they want to be in the negotiating table but they are going to ask for land and independence from Israel and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they actually put their eyes towards the West Bank and try to extend their influence there too.

Masked Palestinian militants from Islamic Jihad place homemade rockets before later firing them into Israel on the outskirts of Gaza City. Photo courtesy of Amir Farshad Ebrahimi via Flickr

As things stand Israel has only two alternatives: either keep dealing with the on and off rocket attacks from Gaza and having to deal with the casualties and the effect those casualties have on the public or negotiate with the Palestinians. And continuing dealing with the on and off rocket attacks is not going to guarantee them anything as there is no reason to believe that those attacks cannot get worse in some way or another.

They could of course take a long term approach and realise that neither Gaza nor the West Back are viable, economically talking, and the population growth in there is already too much for both areas. In the long term outside Israel, they are going to be absorbed by Jordan and Egypt, either from the economy point of view, the political or both. They could endure the attacks and casualties, deal with discrimination of Palestinians within Israel, offering them a real alternative within Israel with real rights and protections and deal with the government corruption in the West Bank and within Fatah. But considering the problems of corruption they have themselves and the fact they had not attempted something like that before it seems unlikely if not impossible

Ubuntu, Linux and my own experience with them, Part III

2009-03-24T15:48:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Have I mentioned that I'm a mule?

Before continuing with the story something about myself. I'm Spanish, all my family are from the North of Spain, the very North the mountains in the very North (Cordillera Cantabrica) and Galicia. 50% of my genes are from Galicia, the other 50% are from Castilla, to be more specific from Burgos (even though I was born and grow in The Basque Country). That tiny, tiny thing about Burgos might be the reason for being a mule, because as everyone that is aware of it, knows people from Burgos are really, really weird. I would say, and many people say, there are some kind of weird radiations over there. Two people from Burgos: El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar) and before him a Count Fernan Gonzalez (he is the one that separated Castilla from Leon and gave strength to that part of my country so that they later became the strongest kingdom and the reason we speak Spanish and not Portuguese or Galizian in Spain and in reality the only successful separatist movement in my country, even though we later came back, and yes he seemed to be from Burgos). So with that kind of genetic background no wonder I'm a mule.

Why I'm talking about being a mule and explaining all this? Because I'm typing this in a beautiful dual boot system with Windows and Ubuntu 32 bit. In fact Ubuntu has become during the last month my main system. I'm typing this in Ubuntu and pretty much made most of the move from Windows, I need more stuff like knowing how to do real automatic back ups (which has been the only reason I haven't gone insane during this ordeal) I haven't dared to install some updates to the graphics card until my back ups are up to the last second. I need some polishing in that area. I have dare to play with the terminal and I'm trying to learn how to compile programs from source. So no I'm not groupie, and "a big, sad failure" Google, and I have proved it.

The technical issues as they might be of use to others and might save someone from insanity:

It's true the ATI drivers are open source but some cards are weird and for some reason (and sorry I don't have the technical knowledge for this) are not properly detected during the installation hence you don't get the screen to work and just see exactly what I said, a black screen. The answer to my problem seems not to be in Google and quite likely not in Internet as a question so specific (as far as I know no-one has had this very specific problem). So as I don't understand very well what I did, but I do understand that all the story can give some kind of hints to help with this problem and other problems, I will tell it as it was.

So reading more, I have read a lot about Ubuntu during the last two months, and checking what others have done with different ATI cards I read this in the OpenSuSe forums, It did not solved my problems but it gave me the idea to play with some of the settings before attempting installation. It also provided information about how to repair the Master Boot Record:

“Boot with the XP installation CD.
when prompted, press R to repair a Windows XP installation.
If repairing a host with multiple operating systems, select the appropriate one (XP) from the menu. If you have only one operating system, enter 1 to select it.
Enter the administrator password if prompted.
to fix the MBR, use the following command: fixmbr
type y and ENTER to fix the MBR.
type exit to leave the recovery console and reboot
windows xp should now be working”

The idea about playing with the installation settings, I think I got it from this post, where they start talking about playing with VESA settings and so on. Reading even more I found this article in the Ubuntu Documentation. More playing around and after adjusting the settings I finally got into a text mode installation. I finally succeeded installing UbuntuStudio.

Unfortunately for me I'm a newbie and things were harder for me with that installation, so I decided to go to the basics until I could learn more and go for “plain” Ubuntu. This time reading more I got better settings as the ones in this article, the best option to get the installation CD to recognize my graphics card was adding “vga=771” to the F6 options in the first screen, as explained in the article. Adding that option to the installation options menu gave me, not the text mode installation but the graphic mode installation. What that option does is "forcing" a set of drivers in the installation software. So, yes there are drivers in the Ubuntu software for the ATI graphics cards, but for some reason it has problems recognising those cards so no graphics work (black screen then). So it doesn't automatically detect the graphics card, but the software is there and works with that simple "fix".

So when I was about to declare defeat, in a last development and quite by chance and by reading even more and trying to guess and imagine alternatives, I found a way to successfully installing Ubuntu without a hitch.

Not to bad for a newbie. ;)

My beautiful Ubuntu computer with a beautiful wallpaper from gnome-look.org

Since them, at the end of February, I've been the proud owner of an Ubuntu system. I have found out that in fact the hardest part was the installation mode, and whenever I needed extra help, Saint Google was answering this time and fairly quickly. So that's the reason of two months of silence, almost three. I'm still trying to find my way around, but I'm starting to feel so confident that I will be trying my hand at compiling apps in the not so far away future. It's really pretty and I'm pretty impressed with Ubuntu overall. I must say that considering how young both Linux and Ubuntu are (Linux is half the age of Windows) it's very much at the same level of Windows. Of course the worst part has been the installation process and age and experience show in that area. Windows has had access to much more systems and hence could test them and know whether the software works in advance and how plus your system already has been tested to work with Windows. Linux and Ubuntu rarely comes pre-installed in computers and have had fewer systems to test, hence my problems and quite likely the problems of many people daring to try Linux and/or Ubuntu.

Things I have learnt from the experience:

Google might not solve your problems, and if Google can't you are on your own.
If Google doesn't have the answer, that doesn't mean the answer is not in Internet.
Microsoft has tons of experience with computers, and less troubles when installing software on them
Linux and Ubuntu are developing at the speed of light considering how little resources and experience they have.
I need to learn more about Windows, it would be really stupid not to do it. XP was a terrific operating system and really they might be more conservative and so on, but they have ironed so much the software that even kids can use computers
Again Linux is developing at the speed of light and catching up with Microsoft, no wonder Microsoft fears Linux and not Apple.
I have learnt a lot about Linux and the installation process, but I need to learn much, much more.
When something doesn't go as expected get away from the computer, seriously you would do some serious damage in that madness.

I am a freaking mule, a month and three re-installations prove it. Fear me LOL

So details about my system so that others could be saved from the madness and problems I had. I have a laptop Compaq V5100 with 2 GB of Ram and an ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M IGP graphics card and if you have the same troubles as me installing Ubuntu or any other Linux distro I would change the options of the installation menu and in the first screen press F6 and add the following line to the options: "vga=771". It might save your sanity and help you to get an installation without problems at all. And yes your problem is with the graphics card. I hope this helps someone.

Ubuntu, Linux and my own experience with them, Part II

2009-03-22T15:46:00.000-07:00

Image by jcraveiro via Flickr

Have I said that I have read a lot about this issue (yes I got a little obsessed with this) and being the mule I am I continue hitting the keyboard: “Google, Google lama sabachthani?” No answer to my problems and only explanations for my “big, sad failure”. I don't want to hear I have failed and why, I want answers to my problems.

New attempt in the now obsession to have any distro. If I couldn't install Ubuntu I would try other distros and have a dual boot windows-Linux system. So I downloaded CrunchBang Linux. I kinda manage to get the Live CD working this time, but the resolution was blown out so much,I was again unable to install as I couldn't see most of the things in the screen. New attempt try to play with old Live CDs and remembered that I had OpenSuSe 10.1 in dual boot with windows two years ago. So I tried that, and yes SuSe managed to recognize the graphics card somehow. OpenSuSe and Ubuntu work differently and everything I had read was Ubuntu so there it went more of my 10Gb monthly bandwidth (yes I know I want to cry every time I think about it), in downloading the OpenSuSe 11 ISO file.

Have I mentioned something about screwing your system and needing re-installation?. More of this in a minute. So there I went after by now two Windows re-installations (no data lost as I was fully backed-up). Burnt the ISO attempted installation and yes I had a graphic installation environment. Did the partitions, checked everything was right and started the process. Unfortunately during the process something happened (maybe the freaking graphics card, maybe the software spirits needed prayers, maybe Google was trying to secretly keeping me as a “big, sad failure”) God only knows the process stopped in the middle of creating the grub menu and having already started to make the changes to the Master Boot Record Table. So no OpenSuSe in my computer and an unbootable Windows system.

At this point I realised that I was screwing Windows and at least in two occasions I could have fixed the problems with the installation CD if I had known the right stuff. Of course I didn't know the right stuff, so there it went the third Windows re-installation in less that two weeks. And yes Google continued telling me that I was a “big, sad failure”.

By now I was ready to declare myself defeated, also I knew that I needed to learn more about Windows and more reading about Windows was now in the menu. Went for the third Windows re-installation, downloaded the security updates, got the anti-virus, got Windows firewall down, Comodo firewall up, installed again VirtualBox and I was about to declare to the world I had been defeated. I realised that I was only going to be able to have Ubuntu as a virtual guest in my system and started to play with the virtual system.

Also started to write my declaration of surrender. Yes I was defeated, yes I was mad, yes I could not understand what was going on, yes I had looked for help, and yes no answers were coming from either the community or Google. I was in the darkest night, in a corner with no option but to either buy a new system or stay with Windows. In my head I was crying and angry, no help or answers had been found, not even some answer of the kind “I'm sorry and understand your pain, but we don't know what is wrong” in forums. And yes Google had abandoned me, “Google, Google lama sabachthani?”.

All this was taking place in the netbook (Windows XP3) I had Windows Live Writer, and I was working in my “Declaration of Surrender”. Yes, I was angry but I tried in my pain to stay rational and not hit back at Linux, but I was pretty mad. The post was written and finished just to check a couple of things and sent it to the blog.

I felt ignorant, and a big, sad failure. Three re-installations of Windows in the course of two weeks have left me without any feelings of trying again. I would continue reading about Ubuntu and Linux, there was an immediate need to learn more about Windows. I felt like girl that was in love with this rocker, poet, wild guy and was trying to go for the wild guy (Ubuntu and Linux) instead of going for the conservative, normal, boring guy (Windows) that every time I made a mistake, was ready to take me back, no questions asked. I felt like a groupie, even though Windows and Microsoft were always so understanding and never asked anything just gave me the updates. They were always so nice and understanding, and they always took me back. But I am not a groupie, silly girl and I'm not a big, sad failure. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

Ubuntu, linux and my own experience with them Part I

2009-03-20T15:42:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

So I sent the computer for a check up and RAM upgrade. Being Ireland they said the magic words "two weeks", they always say that, and when you have been in Ireland long enough you know that two weeks might be or might be not. It's like "mañana" in Spain. In the North of Spain it usually means "mañana", but not so long ago "mañana" was a way of telling you "I don't know when".

Coming back to my story they told me "two weeks", so I waited, and I will include here that the check up was supposed to be arranged by appointment and take no longer than 1 or 2 days if no problems where found, that is supposed to be the story in the UK. But in Ireland, there are no appointments and no it does not take 1 or 2 days, it's two weeks if no problems are found and I won't go into other details of the kind of service you can get in Ireland and other issues so as to no scare people having to do this stuff here. Just trust me when I say that if you have a computer is easier if you learn how to fix everything in it than to pay for someone to do it.

All the above meant that I was without the computer for most of January and only had the little netbook, a Samsung NC10 (awesome battery life, I love it) that was supposed to be used for ebooks and other multimedia. Things that I learnt in January with the netbook are that I hate web surfing in netbooks and that you should not expect them to do heavy work in them. Even a 10 inches screen is too small for me and I decided not to install anything unnecessary in the netbook. I went for some Portable Applications and no Adobe Air or any Adobe Air applications and the like. Portable Applications are not only terrific in a USB thumb-drive but terrific for netbooks. The only apps I decided to install in the netbook are Firefox (of course), Foxit, Miro and FeedDemon plus some reasonable apps for security purposes No Script, Lavasoft, Spywareblaster, and the anti-virus and firewall. Also went for a couple of apps that might help you with the netbook like Alcohol 52% for CD (there is no CD-drive so if you want to import some stuff from other computers and don't want to do much playing around Alcohol will play those CDs with out any problem). Definitely in love with the netbook, it's really light I can handle it with just one hand, perfect for reading ebooks at nights with no battery problems or for real portability because of the battery life (8 hours and you might manage more if you play with the screen brightness).

Of course I was not really doing anything in Internet. So as soon as I got the laptop back (and it wasn't 2 weeks, it ended up being 3 and no there were no problems in the computer, they do whatever they like in the computer and then you get the computer, check things and found out, that your RAM upgrade was not done as requested and you need to go back to the shop again. Result one more week without laptop) I started prepare the system so I could install Ubuntu. The idea was to install UbuntuStudio 8.10 and I already had the ISO in the external. I decided to go for a USB installation instead of installing from a CD, with UnetBootin. That was the first problem, my laptop bios does not seem to support booting from a USB, I had to change plans and burn the ISO to a DVD.

And know the "fun" part begins, I tried booting from the CD got the first two screens, I choose the language, etc. click to start the process and I got a black screen, and I never thought black could be such a terrible colour, and even though I could hear some beeps, I couldn't see anything at all in my screen. Several attempts rendered nothing but black screens after the first booting screen. And for the first and only time in my life Google failed me. I couldn't find a proper answer or anything. The usual instructions didn't work, trying a different ISO, trying the 32bit ISO, trying the alternative text-mode "plain" Ubuntu desktop ISO, burning the ISO and checking it's been burned at the slowest speed, and trying CrunchBang Linux. Nothing worked and no help at hand, there was no answer for why I couldn't install and got a black screen and nothing else.

Much reading and going through Google and I reached the conclusion that the problem was quite likely related to my graphics card, an integrated one into the motherboard ATI Radeon Mobility X200. It appears that ATI cards are not really Linux friendly. Reading even more I found out that ATI had made the drivers code open source, so it was really surprising the fact that they were not included in the Ubuntu software or you had so much trouble with them that you couldn't install Ubuntu in those computers. I was pretty pissed off and pretty discouraged, as I had been reading as much as I could in advance so that I wasn't a huge dummy newbie when I had Ubuntu on my laptop. And no Google was not providing answers this time. It was only providing explanations for my failure (and I hated that part).

As I was in real need of reinstalling Windows, I reinstalled Windows and continued reading explanations about my "big, sad failure". Things didn't help as I was trying to understand what was going wrong and knowing that I had already tried to create a virtual Ubuntu system before successfully, I tried again to install Ubuntu 32 bit with VirtualBox and succeeded. So I was confused as to why I could get the graphics working with VirtualBox and couldn't get Ubuntu to install directly in my system. Being the freaking mule I have always been, and not accepting a "big, sad, huge failure" as an answer every time I tried to get an answer in Google (shame on you on that one) I continue reading.

Photo courtesy of rianvanu via flickr

One of the reasons for the first Windows re-installation, was because reading about the graphics card issue I got the impression that some times reverting the driver to a previous version might help Ubuntu to recognise the graphics card and hence get to see something so that you can proceed with the install. As any case I was in need of reinstalling Windows and before sending the computer for check-up I had backed up everything and prepared for the worst either there or when installing Ubuntu, I tried reinstalling Windows getting the old driver and with a pretty clean system attempted again. No result was the answer. And the answer from Saint Google was an explanation for my big, sad failure.

Working with the virtual machine I tried to understand what was going on, why I could get Ubuntu to work in a virtual machine, what it was that VirtualBox makes that helps Ubuntu to recognise some drivers and get a text-mode installation. Doing all that I managed to get my system so confused that I lost network connection and not knowing how to recover it, I proceed with the second Windows re-installation I will summarize the lessons learnt from this experience at the end of this article.

This time I didn't update my system, no security updates, nothing just plain windows, anti-virus, firewall, and VirtualBox. Read more, looked for an answer, felt stupid and a big, sad failure. Got mad with the system tried everything possible, got even madder and in doing all that stuff I managed to corrupt Windows. This time it wasn't something "small" like loosing your network capabilities and Internet connection, it was a big, corrupted system, with in my opinion, no absolute way of repairing it. One thing I learnt is if you are mad, get away from the computer. Stop typing things, back off for your own sanity and for the health of your system. Truly trust me, get some coffee, watch some TV, anything, whatever but stay away from the computer or else you will end up as myself with a fully corrupted system.

Fortunately the issues were just software, and I was fully backed up and had all the disks for easy reinstalling. So that was my second re-installation in less than two weeks.

_______________________________________________________________________

The myth of "El Dorado"

2009-03-18T05:00:00.001-07:00

I was seeing this slide show with photographs taken by the NASA Earth Observatory in CNN, and just suddenly understood the myth of "El Dorado". The Amazon river looks different rivers of gold flowing, I am pretty sure this effect could be seen if you are on a high place like one of the many trees that surround the river and quite likely it was this the beginning of the legend and the myth.

Other people seem to believe that the origin of the myth might be related to this peculiar type of soil in the Amazon's basin.

FT.com / Weekend / Reportage - Black is the new green
In Brazil’s Amazon basin, farmers have long sought out a special form of fertiliser – a locally sourced compost-like substance prized for its amazing qualities of reviving poor or exhausted soils. They buy it in sacks or dig it out of the earth from patches that are sometimes as much as 6ft deep. Spread on fields, it retains its fertile qualities for long periods. They call it the terra preta do indio – literally, “the dark earth of the Indians”. Dense, rich and loamy, this earth forms a stark contrast with the thin, poor soils of the region. (It seems a paradox, but rainforest soils have low fertility. This is why farmers who cut down the forest for agriculture have to keep on felling – after a few years of cropping, yields collapse and they have to move on.) Patches of terra preta extend for many hectares in some places but until recently, no one really knew what the mysterious dark earth was. Some guessed it was volcanic, or the sediment of old lakes, or the residue of some...

As well known as they were the properties of the "terra preta" in the area and there were documentaries in Spanish talking about the issue, the article above was the first time I read about this issue in English. And I was surprised considering the problems chemical fertilizers have caused in some farming areas. In Japan they depleted some soils so much they could not grow anything else in them. And this soil mixed with those barren soils seems to turn them productive again, almost like magic.

Whatever it was the origen of the myth, sunlight over the Amazon river or the very productive and weird "terra preta", it doesn't stop having some kind of magic in it, even nowadays. And the photograph is simply amazing.

the stock market and the psychology of investing in it

2009-01-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Facebook friend and all-around good guy Felix Salmon makes a great point about the market for, say, running shoes differs from the market for financial assets. He writes:

There's also a strong feedback loop here. In normal markets, the more that prices fall, the more people want to buy. In financial markets, during a time of crisis, the more that prices fall, the more people want to sell.

Stock Prices and One Factor Causing Bubbles

This comes from a blog and newsletter I have started to recently received and read. In reality the entry is old, from December 2008, but it’s still a very valid explanation.

What they don’t explain in the entry is why people’s behaviour is so different in both markets. And the reason for the different behaviour is very simple: you are a customer and at one end of the economy in the case of a sale, and you are an “owner” and hence at the other and opposite end of the economic market, in the financial markets case.

And the most surprising thing is how “rational” one of the behaviours is, and how irrational people’s behaviour is in a financial market.

When people invest in the financial markets they are attracted by money, by the increase in value of that product they have bought. But in reality when you invest in the financial markets, you are not becoming a customer but an owner and hence your reference of how good an investment is, it’s not whether you shares increase in value but whether the financial statements in a company indicate that the financial assets (and what in reality backs the value of your shares) are increasing. You are not at the end of the product cycle (as a customer is) but in the middle of it and what it actually shows the value of your investment is not an increase in the value of shares (plain speculation and hence subjected to market bubbles) but whether your company is making profits and increasing market share or product value, the amount of dividends that company and how regularly it pays them to shareholders, etc. If your follow the last rules, in the long term if you have chosen the right company after a few years dividend will pay the value of your original investment in the shares, and from them onwards all dividends will become pure profit without the need of the markets going North or South for you to make a profit.

As simple as this sounds, the majority of people do not understand such a basic concept, and worst of all, they get blinded by the indexes how much the Dow Jones is going up or down (in a crisis situation) thinking that THAT is what it really makes a sound and secure investment a good one.

When it becomes to money, managing money, most people could be “irrational” and hence get carried away by panic and make a bad situation worse.

Why the last statement? Well, if you for instance have follow the basic rules and invested in companies well managed, who have products that are going to continue selling more or less, depending on the economic situation, for instance Coca-Cola or an electricity company, Hewlett-Packard, etc, you know that you are going to continue receiving dividends, lower or higher, and in a few years your investment would become pure profit (just considering the dividends you receive from the company). So not only would you save in fees from your brokerage company, as you don’t really need to make so many changes in your investment, but you would not need to worry that much as in the long term solid companies always increase in value and your investment is guarantee per se.

All that above might sound familiar to anyone interested in markets, like I don’t know, the kind of strategy follow by Warren Buffet, “The Oracle of Omaha”. He never invests money he’s going to need in a short period of time, so he can afford to wait until companies and dividends recover, understands the very basic difference between an owner and a customer, doesn’t get carried away by big profits very soon, etc. And regardless of how much money he’s made and how on average and in medium and long term his returns are quite high and competing, very easily, with returns from very well managed investment companies, people still get blinded by indexes, markets rising, high returns, incredible schemes, and so forth. And worst of all by panic, which is your worst advisor.

You’re never going to make a loss (or profit) in markets until the moment you sell. So if you have invested in company A, that might suffer by the economic situation, Coca-Cola for instance, and you didn’t use loans to buy the shares, or use them as a collateral for a risky investment and right now needing to become cash, your best strategy right now is to sit tight and wait, and above all NOT selling your shares at a lower price you bought them. In 1 or 2 years the most likely scenario would be your shares having recovered and you getting again your dividends or higher dividend, and you won’t have incurred in losses because of panic selling. But people in those moments are irrational and instead of looking to the financial situation of the company they look at indexes, that in reality don’t show the real situation in most companies.

In short a financial crisis becomes a general markets and affects companies that are sound and should barely suffer during a financial recession. Just a look to share value of Coca-Cola since 2000. It’s a more or less solid company, which regularly pays dividends. If you take a look at the information of Coca-Cola in Google Finance you will notice the price has been going up and down more or less following the trend in the markets, but if you look at people in the street and the company finances you will notice that share price doesn’t exactly relate to the company finances and if you take a look to the ratios, a very good one would be P/E ratio, it has a 17.58 much higher than the average in the industry but it means that it takes 17.58 years recover your investment in that company as an average considering just the company finances (dividends and other things a shareholder receives). So if you sell your shares after that period your income from that sale is pure profit regardless of the markets. Of course it’s taken you 17.58 years to be in that situation, but still you shouldn’t have been affected by markets crisis, indexes going North or South and so forth.

Now the question is the following, why so many people are selling and hence driving the value of non-financial companies down? It’s pure panic and speculation, and has no rational basis. As a side note Warren Buffet has been buying and has been buying shares in some financial companies (Goldman Sachs, for instance, Warren Buffett stake in Goldman Sachs earns $783 million return). It means that the panic had driven the price of that company so low, that even though they had problems, the finances were sufficiently sound to be a very interesting company to invest on. When everyone else was selling in panic, he looked at the company finances, saw they were OK, he waited for the company to make the offer (he’s Warren Buffet he makes everyone wait) and bought, immediately making a profit, because of the leverage his name has in the markets.

Photo courtesy of Jamais Cascio via Flickr

What you can learn of all this,it’s that economic crises have a cup of REAL economic crises, and a cup of panic selling that make things worse not only for the sector affected but for everyone else. And in that margin in the bottom is were REAL money can be made, and it’s not speculation it’s sound analysis. Of course you need to be in situation of entering the markets in that moment, but still.

More articles about the crises and the cascading effect (and psychology of the crisis):

new Year’s resolutions Part II

2009-01-11T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

This is intended as a hopefully helpful, but somewhat lighthearted look at ancient philosophical beliefs that would make five fine New Year's resolutions for today. They are meant as a counter to typical New Year's resolutions, like these:

Stoic New Year's Resolutions - Five Stoic Mottoes As Resolutions For New Years

And the above extract and link is about New Year’s resolutions with philosophy and history in mind for people that want to add more pizzazz to their New Year’s resolutions.

I, on the contrary, prefers to continue hibernating until climate improves or I feel more courageous to face certain “issues”. It’s either usually in Spring or Summer or when there’s a due date that forces you to act, IMMEDIATELY.

Good luck to everyone still keeping New Year’s resolutions.

The best tip ever to keep Your new year’s resolutions

2009-01-10T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

This is going to be short but full of substance. Today more than a week after the beginning of the year I can say that I have not broken even one tiny New Year’s resolution and the prospects of me breaking one are 0.

How’s that? Very simple, if you don’t want to break your New Year’s resolution don’t make them. If you don’t make New Year’s resolution pushed by the tradition that “you should renew your life with the New Year”, you will never break them. All studies about the breaking of New Year’s resolution talk about one day in January (the third Monday on January) which is the most miserable one, because by then most people have broken all the resolutions or most of them and still there are 11 months to the end of the year PLUS winter, plus this year the economic recession or the amount of debt after Christmas that suddenly becomes VERY visible.

First thing just making New Year’s resolutions because everyone else is making them, it’s the most stupid thing. If you want to change something in your life do it, but do it the moment you feel is the right moment for your to change things in your life, the moment you feel stronger to do that. There’s nothing magical that is going to make you stick to them during the beginning of the year, and honestly not everyone feels like changing things in the middle of winter or in the middle of the economic recession, or in the middle of other issues.

Change things and make resolutions to change habits or whatever you don’t want to stay the way it is in your life, the moment you feel stronger and more encouraged to do that, not when everyone else is doing it or feels like doing it. And not doing that with everyone else, it takes the heat of those small infractions that in New Year’s resolution style, would be unforgiving plus you’re not in competition with anyone else but just yourself.

And of course we will avoid the tragic most depressing day of the year

Oil and the Iraqi war

2009-01-08T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

I have several videos downloaded via Miro from LinkTv about their Intelligence Report program, and that’s only to explain why I talk about something that was supposedly relevant several months ago. The thing is that I haven’t watched until now (a day only has 24 hours which means that anything I can download I might not watch it immediately)

About the oil issue and the war in Iraq and this video from LinkTv “McCain’s Good Oil, Bad Oil”. It’s been repeated over and over again the issue of oil as the main motivation for the Iraqi war, not the war against terrorism and Al Qaeda, and one thing I have been thinking since the war started is that the big winner with the fall of Saddam Hussein, the ones that have really got a benefit from his fall is Israel.

I will explain my thought, one thing that Saddam was doing was financing not Al Qaeda but financing Palestinian terrorists and worst suicide bombers inside Israel, and it was a well know fact before the war and before 9/11 that Saddam Hussein was providing not only the money and financial support to Palestinian terrorists but also a haven to them. Several articles about the issue can be found doing an easy Google search ( “Palestinian terrorist” +“Saddam Hussein”), and what they detail is how Saddam was financing the Palestinians but not with the aim of helping them in their problems with Israel but was offering, what is a significant amount of money even nowadays, a grant of up to 25,000 $ to Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel. You don’t really need to be a genius to realise that with the kind of economic situation in either the West Bank or the Gaza strip, that was an extremely appealing option for many young men over there. It’s cruel the way they were being used but the truth is that since the Iraqi war started there has barely been any suicide bombers. Moreover the ones that have attempted that were foreigners, most likely enticed by the whole marketing involved in the Al Qaeda movement.

And I say all this because there has been a huge debate with oil being the real issue behind the war, but if you take a look to the oil prices trends in this long but very detail article about oil prices, you can easily see how the price of oil reached a low level of roughly 13$ per barrel in 1999, and even though it was recovering after a production cut afterwards, it never really reached the 30$ point before the beginning of the war. I know that inflation should be taken into account and that the value would be higher if inflation effect is considered. But the truth is that it’s been over 140$ a couple of months ago and the economy was having problems with those prices but could still cope with that. What it proved to be worse and the reason for the economic problems was not oil prices, but the financial crisis.

Photo courtesy of Madjag, via Flickr

What I’m thinking is that it is true that Saddam was financing terrorism (although it has turned out that not Al Qaeda, and it was rather likely that there was no connection with Al Qaeda before the war) and it never proved in the UN that indeed it had eliminated the weapons of mass destruction it had been accused of having. I also know that the latest UN inspections had reasonable doubts regarding the argument of Iraq having the weapons of mass destruction. There were sufficient doubts to actually have stopped the war and considered more inspections to fully know what was going on.

But at the end of the day it looks to me as if the biggest motive for the war was not oil or Al Qaeda or weapons of mass destruction, but the political instability in the area, the real terrorism that Saddam was financing in Israel via Palestine (with absolutely no care for the Palestinians but only thinking in his own issues with Israel and his political ambitions about controlling the area, lest not forget about the Kuwait invasion in 1990) and trying to end what it was not finished in 1991. During the whole war even Iraqi people seemed to have forgotten the political repression over there and the systematic torture and killing of Shia and Kurd people. How in the 90’s they raised against Saddam and were gassed, detained, tortured and killed by Saddam forces. And no air exclusion area (the only thing the Clinton administration did about the issue) protected them from Saddam forces and repression.

Photo courtesy of lakerae via Flickr

So going back to the oil issue and American oil problems if I look to the oil prices trend and the economy issues the only thing that has helped to raise oil prices has been the war in Iraq (it certainly has reduced oil output, and benefited other oil producers in competition with Iraqi oil). It looks to me a pretty weak argument against the Americans as the oil issue was no issue in 2001, and the Iraqi war has only benefited Israel, reducing its terrorism problem, and other oil producer countries in competition with Iraqi oil. America has definitely not got any benefit from it and I don’t think they were going to get major economic benefit from the new output. In reality if they would have been able to increase output in the case of a quick war (the original idea about the war the Bush administration had) oil prices would have continued dropping and other oil producer countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, etc would have seen its oil revenue drop in line.

I understand Israel interest in the fall of Saddam. Anyone could understand the issues of terrorism in a country and why you act on that. I also understand how desperate someone needs to be to chose suicide in exchange of money for your family (the Palestinian side). I can’t understand how someone can be so cruel and have no soul or heart to use them as weapons in exchange of money. It’s horrendous the way Palestinians have been treated and continue to be treated by both Israel and other Arab countries.

But the oil issue, looks to me very weak and benefiting not America but other oil producers. Anyone realises that wars in oil producing countries have as an effect the increase of oil prices and the collateral benefit for other “peaceful” producers and Saddam Hussein was such an easy target and the Americans were so going to fall for that after 9/11.

More articles on the net about this issue

the mumbai terrorist attacks, "the war on terror" and international terrorism

2008-12-06T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image by betta design via Flickr

One of the things I have read after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai (India), is that somehow those attacks where in some way attacks directed to America. The argument for that thought was that they have coincided with the Thanksgiving period in America and not having any other news because of the holidays in America they would appear in all the media outlets and became the only news Americans would watch in TV and read in other media.

I was surprised that someone would consider something so self-centred and I was surprised because not being American it never occurred to me something like that. For that argument to be true everyone in the world should be aware of the holidays and traditions in America and the importance attached to them and the way the media, the American media, behaves.

I'm not American, I have never lived in America, and I'm starting to learn about America, its traditions, its history and everything related to American society only in recent times through information in Internet. But being Spanish and living nowadays in Ireland, offers me the opportunity to compare different cultures and societies in Western countries and helps me to know about the level of awareness people from other countries can have about traditions in other Western countries. All this what it allows me is to know one thing: only if an American or someone with a significant contact during the years with America, has planned or have influence in the making, planning or organising of those attacks the argument that started this entry in the blog could be true.

Anyone that has lived in another country for a significant amount of time (and I'm not talking about tourism) learns that societies and rules in each society differ more or less from one country to another, depending on how different and related those societies are. And that it takes a significant amount of time to learn and understand things like a native in that place. What I mean in plain English is the following: for anyone outside America Thanksgiving has no meaning AT ALL and we don't know how the American media behaves during holidays periods in America. And when we talk about not just people in Western countries but people in such a different cultures and societies like the Arab or Muslim world and India the "no meaning at all" is "NO MEANING AT ALL".

For the average American whose only contact with other cultures is the neighbour next door who has been assimilated into American culture, it look like the know about other cultures and are multicultural, but when someone has been assimilated into your own culture you are not talking about Chinese people or Muslim or Indian and so on, you are talking about Americans that differ just slightly from the rest in American. Like in Spain people from the South of my country differ from people the North, but basically we are all Spaniards, and we are closer and more like other Spaniards than to other French or Moroccan people.

So what it looks to me is that American have developed a victim psychology at some stage (I guess after 9/11) and they feel they are being attacked when the attack has no relation with them and it only affects other country. My advice for anyone in America thinking that way is: "The world is more than America and you are not the centre of the world". Forget that selfish thought, the attacks were in India and the Indian people were the most affected.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images via Daylife

Having said all the above, it is true that they were selecting foreigners in India. And what that proves is the following: if they wanted to attack Americans and British mainly, it's because, even if the attacks were planned with an international point of view, they can't proceed with those attacks in Western countries. That means one thing: they can't carry out those attacks in America or Britain and it seems that considering there have been attacks in both America and Britain (9/11 and 7/7), new attacks in both countries are not feasible. So everything that has been done to protect citizens from those countries in those countries, seems to have been more or less successful. It appears that in someway the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq might increased the security in both America and Britain. And obviously provides valid arguments in the defence of both two wars.

Going back to the argument that you need to know the American media and traditions in America to understand the meaning of that holiday and plan terrorist attacks, to do something like you either need to be American or live in America or have a significant amount of contact with America. And again from my experience, if no American was involved in the planning (lacking the ability to carry out those attacks, would mean not living over there now), what I do realise is that you need to both speak the language (English) and have lived in American and know about traditions. What I mean is that to have such a knowledge you need to know American society and that takes a lot of time, and it does really take a significant amount of time (I've been living in Ireland 10 years and only recently I have started to understand Irish behaviour, it took me 1 or 2 years to speak English, understanding the culture does not necessarily go with speaking the language).

It means that considering how long this international terrorism situation has been going on (the first attacks to the Twin Towers were in the early 90's), we are talking about someone that spoke English at least in the 80's and knew about America and American society more or less in the 80's. Considering that Internet and media so international is a very recent phenomenon, it really reduces the number of people. We are left with a more than likely Westerner and Anglo-Saxon, if we add terrorist links to the equation, in the 80's, the number of possible suspects (I'm following a hypothesis here) is very, very reduced. And what it worries me is that nobody seems to be considering this line of thought and they are following very stupid hypothesis, that in my opinion are going to lead to no result at all.

Photo courtesy of Getty Images via Daylife

And I have developed the hypothesis above, just because although it's unlikely the attacks were aimed to anyone else but mainly India, something is true: if the American media notices one event in the globe, because of how global the world has became, the echo effect amplifies. It means once the American media starts broadcasting and informing about something it will echo and echo the event around the globe reaching everywhere and becoming more and more important. It looks to me that the more likely explanation to choosing one date over another had the aim of echoing the event and making it global, more than being aimed to America. And of course creating more instability at a global level.

My guess: someone will offer itself to help with the situation in some other way than the ways already study and used. And I know that by the articles added below the find points suspiciously one way (Britain), but my guess is that that isn't entirely true.

Of course this is only a hypothesis and my opinion.

the economic crisis, social networks and business models

2008-12-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Recently I have been thinking about business models in Social Networks. It has been mainly due to reading articles like this one Revenue Crisis: Here Come The Pro Accounts, shared by Louis Gray in FriendFeed. It happened that I had also been thinking for a while in a business model for Twitter after reading this discussion on the Help Twitter find a Revenue model from ReadWriteWeb. Twitter situation is very similar to the situation of many startups in the social media sector, they are all trying to find revenue streams from their main business activity.

The case of Twitter and all microblogging platforms (another post will cover the case of Pownce and similars), is simply that even though they have been created in main Internet and the primary form for accessing them is a computer, because of the way they are created they are more suitable as social networks and microblogging services that can be accessed from a mobile phone.

Nowadays it is more and more easy to get a mobile phone with a more or less reasonable access to Internet and they are ideal for keeping you connected to all that world you access from your computer when you are on the go.

What it truly surprises me is that in the discussion in FriendFeed about Twitter's Revenue model there were the usual suggestions, ads and pro-accounts. But I have to yet find anyone realising that those business are the ideal buyout for any mobile phone company as they will immediately increase their revenues due to the increase of use of internet connection in the new smart phones and sms sent to Twitter. They are ideal for the mobile phone user that wants to still have access to social networks but cannot either focus in the same way as in a computer or don't have the same amount of bandwidth to make use of, or simply wants to be selective with what kind of links following without downloading a huge page.

Photo courtesy of premasagar

If no company buys Twitter with that intention it's definitively a good idea for Twitter to do a bit of research amongst its users and see whether now or in the future the idea of accessing the service via a smartphone is appealing for them. And even if it's not right now something they would consider, they should really consider starting contacts with mobile phone companies and enable more access via mobile phone so that their revenue model could be based in the sector they are much better prepared and they can be competitive. If the service becomes more mobile phone friendly and with the integration of FriendFeed and all the feeds that come with it, they are in a situation to generate a significant increase of revenue for any mobile phone company. Easing that access could make them easier to be able to negotiate a slice of the revenue of each sms or access to the site from mobile phone, as it happens with many other types of sms and business nowadays on mobile phones.

The other thing they should study, in my opinion, is the business sector and the interoperability they offer with certain web based applications that are becoming more and more used by business. This article is a bit outdated right now, Twitter With Your Favorite Productivity Web Apps, but working on more of this type of interoperability would open a door to the SaaS sector and to more stable revenue and get them closer to businesses like Socialcast (Socialcast: Gritty Yammer Alternative). This kind of microblogging services would be perfect for companies that need to know what some of their employees are doing but without the obstruction of either sending a sms or making a phone to enquire. This way they could provide information about what they are doing in a microblog, a third person in need of them could check whether they are available or what they are doing and proceed or not with a phone call or any other form of contact in more detail. (And here a new idea: developing the microblog format in audio form, so that instead of 140 characters each entry is small audio, from taxi drivers to doctors on call, many people and businesses would be very interested in something like this).

So I'm thinking that so long as they don't continue developing the idea and try to find suitable business model (and the ideas above in my opinion are the best in their case) their chances of survival are very long and they would suffer the same fate as any other fashion, they would disappear.

WinAmp and video

2008-12-03T12:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Because I have spent the whole evening fighting with this issue and bookmarks are not going to be this time as effective if I need to do this in the future, I thought a good idea could be to write this in the blog.

Ok the problem: Having installed WinAmp in the computer, and being amazed by the library capabilities I found myself unable to play Mp4 formats. I only got the audio but no video and I got to play other formats like .flv and .wav. I downloaded the program because of the library options (which are terrific by the way) and even though .flv files are millions of time better played by VLC, either I can't find or get the library features of WinAmp in there or it doesn't have such a feature. Anyway it keeps being the best program to avoid yourself the search and installation of codecs.

The solution.

The best answer was in the WinAmp forums, but you really need to go through several threads and searches to get everything working nicely.

So first things first. First visit this thread in the forum "Most Requested Features/Plugins", it talks about WinAmp not having the ability to play .mp4 and suggests a quick fix in the Preferences>Plugins>Input> and so on. That in my case didn't work so I needed to go down the long road, and that meant to install ffdshow and Gabest's MP4 Splitter. In that thread they provide a link to another thread with more details instructions about how to install ffdshow and the MP4 Splitter in this other thread How do I correctly install ffdshow?. The instructions in this thread are important because at least in my case I didn't know which one was the right ffdshow version to download (SSE) when I read about the links in the first thread, and yes I downloaded the wrong version and installed the supposedly wrong version the first time.

So basically what you need to do is going to this page and download Download Ffdshow MPEG-4 click in the link and in the next page download the SSE version, as they say in one of the threads, it's usually the 5th or 6th link (mirror). Then go to this other page in the same website and download the MP4 Splitter Download MP4 Splitter 1.0.0.4, in my case the third link.

Once the downloads have finished, I started installing first the Splitter following the instructions in this page How do I correctly install ffdshow?

Extract MP4Slitter.ax from the MP4Splitter_20070918.zip file
(eg. right click the zip, and select "Extract All")
and extract it to "C:\Windows\System32"
(assuming that's where your Windows OS and System Folder are....)
Then go to Start -> Run
Type: regsvr32 mp4splitter.ax
Click OK
You will get a confirmation that the Splitter has been successfully registered.

Then with the instructions from the same page I installed ffdshow,

Open the zip file and run the exe installer file inside to install ffdshow.(you can optionally extract the exe installer file first to any folder of your choice, and run it from there, if you wish - or just run it from inside the zip).
Let it install to the default "C:\Program Files\ffdshow" folder.
Follow the onscreen guide/instructions (basically, just keep clicking Next)
On one of the ffdshow setup screens it asks you which video & audio formats you want ffdshow to handle.
For Video: Make sure H.263, H.264/AVC, Other MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, are all checkmarked, plus any others of your choice.
For Audio: Make sure AAC is checkmarked, plus any others of your choice.
When done, open WinAmp.
Go to: WinAmp -> Prefs (Ctrl+P) -> Plugins -> Input:
Nullsoft MPEG-4 Audio Decoder (in_mp4.dll) -> config:
Remove MP4 from the Extension List, so it just leaves M4A there.
Nullsoft DirectShow Decoder (in_dshow.dll) -> config:
Add MP4 & M4V to the Extension List, so it now looks something like:
MPEG;MPG;M2V;AVI;MP4;M4V

Photo courtesy of Sevi95

Unfortunately that allowed me to play mp4 in WinAmp this time, but at twice the speed and that meant all video formats playing at twice the speed they should play.

The answer to my new headache was again in the WinAmp Forums speed changes. I try the first and second options to see whether that did the trick, and it didn't. So I went with the third option which meant going to a new thread (hence the need to write this all down just in case I need to do it again ). In this thread, Music problem when typing on keyboard, they weren't exactly talking about video playback but the first option of checking that the correct audio card was selected did the trick. Indeed the sound card was not the right one, changing to my audio card following the first option did the trick and I got MP4 playback in WinAmp with the right video speed.

Try the following DirectSound Output tweaks:
Winamp -> Prefs (Ctrl+P) -> Plugins -> Output -> DirectSound -> config:
Device tab:
-Make sure your sound card is selected as Device (c/o drop-down menu)
-Checkmark "enable hardware acceleration"

If I just bookmark the different threads and different links needed for the whole issue for future use it's going to be difficult to follow with all the information so fragmented. So hopefully this post will do the trick and I won't have to do all this jumping from one thread to another.

the American elections and Obama's new government

2008-11-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

I know it's already late, but as it's still relevant and I have just found out about this now, just a post about Obama's new government.

To be honest I really don't have an opinion about Obama, as there is very little he has done in politics. He's not in favour of the Iraq war, which in itself doesn't really help you to have an opinion about him. There is nothing wrong with that. Apart from that the only thing I can say about him considering what I have read about him, is that indeed he has no experience that could be considered relevant for the job he's going to be doing during the next four years. And I realise that on its own that doesn't mean that he cannot do a great job. So it's really difficult right now to have an opinion about him, either good or bad.

Unlike Obama the people he is choosing for other jobs in government, do have a "past" and yes you can have an opinion about them (as a little joke or explanation about my use of "past" this way, in Spain we have quite a lot of talk about the wife of the heir to throne being a woman with a "past", so it's kind of a joke as well).

So just a post about Biden.

JORDAN, 22JUN03 - Joseph R. Biden, Senator from Delaware (Democrat), USA, captured during the interactive session 'Europe's Role in the Middle East' at the 'Extraordinary Annual Meeting 2003' of the World Economic Forum in Jordan, June 22, 2003. Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) swiss-image.ch/Photo by Andy Mettler

I have already talk about him, in Digg, it was a comment in this Digg thread: Digg-Georgia shot civilian targets, accused of Ossetia war crimes. I never really liked the fact that the candidate for Vicepresident in the elections went to Georgia even before the Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, travelled there. It really gave me a really a bad impression as it clearly showed that Biden had a very personal interest in whole issue, Georgian president thanks Biden for support. Honestly talking I don't really know how he can explain his trip over there, as far as I know he wasn't the Secretary of State and at the time they hadn't won the elections, so it looked like meddling in other countries affairs and meddling in his own country affairs. And it does worry me as it seems that Georgia was not the victim, as it's been trying to portray itself after the defeat. Georgia accused of targeting civilians

So I'm not exactly sure of his motives for the trip to Georgia considering that later there had been unsettling news like the statement from an army chief in the exile now, that said how Georgia had been planning the whole invasion in advance, Saakashvili "planned S. Ossetia invasion": ex-minister. So there are many reasons to distrust Saakashvili and any his statements about the war. The other reason I do not trust him, and makes me more uneasy with Biden, is the fact that the media seems to have forgotten or is not aware of the fact that Saakashvili "has won two reasonably free elections, but he has also displayed some autocratic tendencies: He sent riot police to crush an opposition protest in Tbilisi last November and shuttered an opposition television station." ('We Are All Georgians'? Not So Fast) and other news about the concerns the opposition in Georgia had about the whole affair (Georgian opposition promises tough questions). But the most important thing for me is the trip to Georgia by Biden in August before even the American government had sent any kind of significant representation over there, and considering he had nothing to do there as an American politician.

The reason I'm writing about Biden, it's because I have just found out that the man did not only got carried away in a speech and said that about "FDR appearing in TV talking to the people about the 1929 crash" . That statement, as funny as it is as it's clearly a slip of tongue, is not the first slip of the tongue he had and he made another one during the debates the vice-presidential candidates had, that is really more worrying and makes you reconsider how much experience the man has about international politics (the main reason Obama supposedly chose him as running mate in the elections). During the debate Biden clearly mistook Hezbollah with Syria, and showed some autocratic tendencies that clearly contrast with the democratic values and insistence of George Bush with developing democracies and encouraging democratic elections in other countries.

Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk (I took the transcript from Sarah Palin's VP acceptance speech at last night's Republican convention (top) and compared it to the VP acceptance transcript given by Joe Biden from the Democratic convention (bottom) using wordle.). Click on image to see the image in Flickr

During the debate Biden said:

"This is what foreign-policy expert, Senator Biden had to say when talking about Lebanon, "When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it. Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."
What Palin could have said was," Excuse my naiveté Senator...but Hezbollah has always been a legitimate part of the Lebanese government, they have several representatives in it. Also, it was the Syrians who were kicked out of Lebanon not Hezbollah!" But she didn't. She had forgotten to bring her "Middle East 101" manual."

This is part of the transcript of Mosaic's video for October, 3rd. He clearly confused Syrian troops leaving Lebanon with Hezbollah, who are a political party in Lebanon and have won representatives in elections over there. And that is more difficult to explain as a slip of the tongue, or irrelevant mistake. Moreover during that debate he continued talking about the need to avoid democratic elections in some places that really make you reconsidered his supposedly democratic values.

"democratically held elections are a bad thing, especially if the party the United States does not approve of wins. Biden said, "He (Bush) insisted on elections on the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, "Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them." What happened? Hamas won."
There was a confusing moment when Biden twice repeated that "we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country." The fact of the matter is, nearly $88 billion were spent on Afghanistan since 9/11 according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. He also neglected to mention that unlike in Iraq, the EU and NATO countries have pitched in both militarily and in reconstruction efforts."

If you put everything together, Saakashvili autocratic tendencies, with Biden's ones plus his lack of knowledge about very basic things about the politics in the Middle East (that are extremely relevant for Americans right), plus again his lack of knowledge about the real economic cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (see above transcript or visit the website to watch the program) it really makes you wonder about the new administration foreign policies considering that Biden is supposed to be the man that will be shaping that very important area for Americans and for everyone else in the world. Obama chose that man for his Foreign affairs knowledge and experience, and he seems quite confused about things plus shows very autocratic tendencies and quite some disregard for democratic values at least in other countries, which is a very surprising contrast with George Bush permanent insistence of spreading democratic values, elections and religious tolerance in America and everywhere else.

Honestly talking I'm not sure what the Americans have voted, and I really believe they don't know exactly what they have voted. It seems to me that the media have been promoting the Democratic party, and not given a real view of the candidates and the consequences of choosing one or the other. But the thing that worries more are the consequences. I can only hope that Obama is more competent than his Vice-president and we are not seeing the seeds of another war in Georgia like the one in Iraq.

The civil rights movement and the elections In USA

2008-11-12T04:00:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

One of the reasons I try to separate certain things in Internet is because not seeing me or knowing me in person makes very easy to get the wrong idea not only about me as person (with a significant amount of things I'm interested on) but the kind of ideas I support and defend.

The reason I explain this is to give some insight to why I separate so much certain areas of my life.

Recently I read in a blog I follow, and that has nothing to do with politics, the ideas and opinions of an afro-American woman regarding the elections and the outcome of the elections in America. She was born in America with the Jim Crow laws that segregate black people and kept them separated in public places from white people. Of course she has voted Obama in this election and she was remembering a moment in her childhood when she tried once to drink from a "White Only" fountain and her mother terrified took her away from the fountain. Also how her mother kept a "pee" jar in her bag for her brother just in case there was a need for it and no place allowed for them to use. She was talking about how for many people nowadays the Civil Rights Movement was history but how for her it was her own lifetime, she had lived through all that.

Photo courtesy of Image Editor

And as much as I'm feel sorry for her about it and think it's terrible and something like that should never happen to anyone in the world, the first thing that came to my mind was realising how absolutely painful it had been for her and continued to be in the present. And I have no doubt for everyone that went through that was painful and continues to be a painful memory. I also realised that the reason she was voting for Obama, was not whether he was qualified or had the experience for the job (in fact the most complicated job in America and the one where you can most easily make mistakes and sometimes horrible mistakes), but the fact that he was a black man (or biracial depending who talks). And I cannot help but think that that is the most stupid and erroneous reason to vote for anyone.

The kind of impression I get from people so enthusiastic with Obama is that voting him somehow was going to fix the mistakes made in the past regarding the rights of certain sectors of American society. And as far as I know having already dealt with that in the past and knowing that technically nowadays there is no discrimination and there are already instruments in place to deal with any kind of abuse in America, what it creates is the feeling or the sense that the past has never been left in the past and that indeed it continues going on regardless of everything done.

What I am trying to explain is the perception I'm starting to get from American society, as much more fragmented and unstable than it looks to anyone there and to anyone outside. There are significant gaps between different groups over there, and I'm not sure whether they realise how absolutely unstable that makes everything there and how it encourages the ghetto feeling not only for Afro-Americans but for any other group in society.

As painful as those memories were and I'm sure still are for that woman and I assume for anyone that lived through those events, there needs to be a line drawn that helps people to move over from all that and get on with their lives. Permanently remembering things like that and using that as an explanation to make a decision is extremely damaging. And it's extremely damaging and affects in a very negative way because once there has been a way of dealing with that and done everything that could possibly repair the damage, going through that over and over again in reality becomes a way of causing damage to the other part and continue causing damage forever, and without way of dealing with that for the other part.

Photo courtesy of jetheriot

And when that happens is when extremists and other kind of fundamentalists start to gain support, because the other part needs to defend itself somehow. It happened in Germany after the I World War, they were punished so hard and without a way to stand up again that it was the ideal ground for the ideas of Hitler and the Nazis to develop and take control of the government over there. And it's a similar situation in Israel between the Israelis and the Palestinians, it appears that many Israelis consider themselves entitle to everything because of what happened during the II World War to them in Europe. And it was horrendous what happened and nobody can seriously justify or deny what happened to them. But as horrible as it was it certainly can't justify what the Palestinians are suffering and of course it can't justify the suicide bombers and the attacks to the Israelis either. In reality the abuses of the Israelis are indeed feeding some fundamentalists and giving them the opportunity to get support inside the occupied territories and outside.

I'm not saying that something like could happen in American society, but it wouldn't be a surprise considering how the blame game continues to be used to justify things in a moment when technically there are ways to deal with it and nothing can justify that blame game.

In any case, what it's clear is that more than likely the average republican voter seems to be radicalising. And even though the democrats have reasons to be happy, they have won the elections it justifies all celebrations now and it's understandable up to a certain point. But it's a cause of concern for anyone with some interest in American society as whatever happens in America it sooner or later affects the rest of the world. I'm not the only thinking on that, the day before the elections Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times "The Republican Rump", an opinion article about the elections and the issues of radicalism within the Republican party. He never speculated much more than talking about the radicalism amongst the republicans left in congress and senate and amongst their voters.

Unfortunately I'm not sure whether he didn't want to remember or simply didn't want to continue further into the issue. But it was that very same radicalism the one that caused and was the culprit of the Oklahoma bombings on April 19th, 1995 during the first Clinton term as president. It was not so long ago that there was a terrorist attack in America and it was perpetrated by an American. It might be the reason for "gracious" McCain accepting defeat and congratulating Obama, and the very same reason for Bush to quickly move on and try not to stir more things. The Republican party might be very aware of that radicalism and its dangers, an awareness that I'm not sure the democrats have.

Regardless of radicalisms, the truth is there are big divisions in American society and continuing the civil rights talk and justifying actions on something that is already in the past and should be kept in the past, is going to cause nothing but damage and make bigger those divisions instead of really fixing something or making that better future that Obama's voters want and talk about.

Introduction to the blog

2008-11-01T05:00:00.000-07:00

This blog is created because there are things interesting for Spanish and Spanish speaking people and things interesting for English and English speaking people, that I'm interested and want to talk about.

I'm not going to change my other blog language or write in both languages in just one blog. So I'll write in English here and in Spanish in "Thoughts, thought, thoughts". More than likely all my blogs will have in common the font used (Lucida Sans Unicode at this stage) and the odd design by myself (like in this case the background, it's not part of the blog's template).

So there will not be repeated posts, and at the moment the third blog stays separated along with other stuff.

Suggestions and constructive criticism are always welcome.

Thoughts about....

The foreclosures in America and everywhere else

Gaza, the Palestinians and the war, Part II

Gaza, the Palestinians and the war, Part I

Ubuntu, Linux and my own experience with them, Part III

Ubuntu, Linux and my own experience with them, Part II

Ubuntu, linux and my own experience with them Part I

The myth of "El Dorado"

FT.com / Weekend / Reportage - Black is the new green

the stock market and the psychology of investing in it

Related articles by Zemanta

new Year’s resolutions Part II

The best tip ever to keep Your new year’s resolutions

Oil and the Iraqi war

the mumbai terrorist attacks, "the war on terror" and international terrorism

Related articles by Zemanta

the economic crisis, social networks and business models

Related articles by Zemanta

WinAmp and video

the American elections and Obama's new government

The civil rights movement and the elections In USA

Introduction to the blog