Exposición de artesanías

Recientemente fui a una exposición de artesanías. No es mucho pero quería mostrar algunas cosas:Alebrijes, que en Mexicano quiere decir un montón de monstruos feos. Dos cosas me soprenden, una es la fértil imaginación que creo este ecosystema de criaturas mágicas. La segunda es, que tienen demasiado color, simplemente no son de mi gusto pero sin son algo interesantes.

Llamas. Que rayos están haciendo aquí? Las llamas no son de México o si?


Koopas. O bueno eso fue lo que pensé, instintivamente, que quieren Mario Bros. fue mi infancia!

Es todo, las imágenes tienen muy poca calidad. También había collares de caballitos de mar disecados y chapulines adobados pero ya no les tome fotos.

Crouching Trigger Hidden Warrant Void?

Aparentemente hay pocas posibilidades de recuperar o cambiar este control de Acteck (click in the picture) que se me rompió a los dos meses de uso.

Tiene una excelente textura antiderrape pese a sus colores chillones a lo s que finalmente le agarre cariño (lo bautise spiderman).

Sin embargo los botones 6 y 8 (R1 y R2 en un Dualshock) se terminaron venciendo por el uso, dado que no cumplio ni con el año de garantia pensaba devolverlo a la tienda.

El personal de PCenlinea fue muy amable y me prometieron hacer llegar la queja a acteck, sin embargo no me dieron esperanzas de que acteck me escuchara.

Este es el segundo control que les compro, el otro es tambien un acteck, un AGJ-3200 compatible con xbox.

Voy a usarlo más seguido para ver si se descompone tan rapido como el anterior aunque este es un poco más solido.

My color is... wait...

Very often...

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

...quizzes are all wrong. I don't think any of the available answers really applied to me, nor I think they are consistent, but there you go.

DreamPie

DreamPie, check it out it is as good as they put it. It is the best python shell ever and I'm intent on using it for all my local python tinkering.

But... if only it worked over ssh! These days I spend 99% of the time working remotely meaning I can't use this gem. Also, locally it still doesn't beat ipython's "sh" profile, so for the time being, I'll be using ipython as my main shell as usual but for local stuff I completely recommend it over anything including the incredible ipython and that is hard to accomplish.

Stupid, useful web apps

Sometimes I'm amazed by the fact that there are some web applications for very simple stuff one would assume one can do without, and this time I'm gonna post about two of them.

The firt one is this the naked alarm clock. I'm not sure what's so naked about it, it's just a simple, yet highly configurable alarm clock for when you don't have a timer at hand.

The second one is more surprising Metronome Online is exactly what reads on the tin. So if you are trying to play some instrument or, in my case a game, then that's the perfect tool to keep your rhythm. I'm honestly surprised, now I have a metronome whenever I have a net connection.

The game I was playing was "The Company of myself" an excellent flash game I recommend to all of you. Only one level actually required timing enough for me to seek a metronome, but when you get that level you'll have just the tool for the work.

the bisigi project

I haven't feel like updating recently but I though I'd post about what desktop themes I'm currently using. So I decided to install all the themes and give each of them a try for about a week. And post about them.

Except I forgot about posting so, here's everything in one post.

The bisigi project is a set of free, high quality gnome themes. Visit the themes page
to see some gorgeous thumbnails.

And well this is my experience with them so far...

Airlines

This one is one of the best in the bisigi project. The most exciting part about the theme is that all buttons are rounded, that really changes the feeling of the theme, it's one I'd use again.

aquadreams

A Mac-ish theme, like aqua, but green.

Tropical

A gray theme with a solid feel, a dark bars and green highlights.

balanzan

This theme just screams "ubuntu" in general and "koala" in particular, it has a very similar feeling to the original koala themes but doens't beat neither humanity nor dust sand. So it's not a very good impression at all, nice wallpaper tho.

Exotic

This is just like tropical but with orange highlights, at this point I'm starting to get bored.

Ellanna

And this one is just like aquadreams but pink, I do have to mention the attention to detail, look at the ladybugs in the icon theme.
Isn't that cute? But it's just not for me.

sunrise

Another theme that screams "ubuntu", another nice wallpaper, another too much orange theme. The engine has a nice murrina feel about it, it definitively is murrina based but subdued. I may use this one again but with different colors.

I haven't tried Wild-Shine long enough but it is basically Tropical with yellow highlights. Well I'll post more once I get tired of Wild Shine.

Adult ADHD Test

Yggdrasil Linux

Recently I changed my hostname, that is, the host name of my desktop machine for something shorter.

I have been using 'yggdrasil' as a hostname for 4 years, I got it from the universal computer in Ah Megami-sama, so I googled to see if anyone else was using or refering to their linux box as yggdrasil, it turns out it is a popular name for a linux machine, so much that there is a distribution named just like that, Yggdrasil Linux, small world indeed.

Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science

Let me add myself to the multitude of people who found this enlightening:

"Object/Relational Mapping is the Vietnam of Computer Science. It represents a quagmire which starts well, gets more complicated as time passes, and before long entraps its users in a commitment that has no clear demarcation point, no clear win conditions, and no clear exit strategy." -- Ted Neward

Software Developer Personality Type

Did this one and got this:

Given the choice, The Pragmatist appreciates clear, comprehensive objectives and strategies. However, The Pragmatists accepts that this is not always possible and will accept uncertainty where necessary. The Pragmatist likes to work things out in advance, but only when this planning is legitimate - not just a convenient fiction for the sole purpose of satisfying a manager or sticking to a method.

In a software development project, The Pragmatist expects to make the big decisions up front, but is content to work out the details while writing the code. He or she views methods, models and frameworks as tools to be used as long as they help and abandoned when they cease to be useful. The Pragmatist will say “don’t fix what’s not broken,” but only as long as it’s really not broken! The Pragmatist understands where the project is not only by referring to the plan, but also by considering the project’s goals and feedback from stakeholders (e.g., users, marketing).

The Pragmatist may experience conflict with team members who either 1) want to stick with plans or methods even if they don’t seem to be working, or 2) prefer to jump straight into coding without any planning at all.

Quick template update

Ok I made a quick template update, specifically I removed the atheist bus banner because it felt kinda old, and the sense about science petition because I don't have readers from the UK and the Video Games Live button because I'm never going to get there. I also changed the ubuntu button for an official one hosted at ubuntu.com and switched to the small version of the ubuntu counter.

Getting ready to post some more later...

[SOLVED] Compiz window title bars missing.

Yes, orange, got any problems?

Another post I should have made ages ago, a week and a half to be precise. I upgraded to the new Ubuntu 9.10 and I haaaappy, lot's of new software in the repos and a lot of shiny polish and also the first time I actually feel like sticking with the default theme for once!

How ever I ran into an issues with compiz, either I could not enable it at all or the window decorations ( that's the name of the title bars for you). In order to solve this I had to change a setting in compiz and that means installing Compiz Settings Manager. Just go to the Ubuntu Software Center and install it if you haven't installed it yet.

Now open it and look for "Window Decorations"







There change the command to "compiz --replace"







That solved my problems. Good luck!

New Monitor

I'm not overcompensating for anything, I swear!

I should have posted this a week ago but here it is, this is my new monitor.

Nice isn't it? I've always wanted an LCD monitor and finally got one and a big one to boot!

The weird thing about this monitor is that it is changing the way I use the desktop, which in a way is good. On one hand some applications with a lot of panels that used to be a pain to use now are really easy to use! For instance Filezilla is finally usable with all panels rolled out.

The only way to file! (transfering... protocoling...)

On the other hand I find myself using unmaximized windows most of the time.

Gee thanks and it only took you 4 years...

The only thing I kind of lament is that most of my huge wallpaper collection no longer matches my desktop. Any way I was meaning to delete most of them, except the lame ones I made, here are two of my first wallpapers that didn't involve MS Paint, actually I'm just showing off the GIMP in wide screen.

andnothingofvaluewaslost

But I guess now I'm going to start appreciating widescreen walls. A less obvious problem is that I can't hang key-chains on my monitor anymore, nor I can put any plushies on top of it either, which means that I'm storing away some of my toys. For instance, these guys used to hang in the first row, you are out.

Not cool brother, not cool at all

And only one of these is gonna make it.

From right to left, Burro the eevee, Pietrr the giraffe and Kirby the kirby.

Kuro Mokona rules supreme however, I can't dump him or he will tell Yuuko!

Also, bring more sake!

Wait was this a guy or a girl? Actually the official answer is "no".

directhex deleted my comments

I had two long running discussions with Microsoft apologist directhex, one about whether mono should be used for new applications and one about whether the BSD license is really more free than the GPL.

We agreed in some terms and disagreed in others but I respected his honesty, I really though he was being honest and seriously wanted to discuss the matters. Then he deleted my comments.

Way to loose my respect directhex, and yes I respected you even tough I thought you suffered a heavy case of double standarism. Now I know exactly what kind of person you are.

Atheist clubs, where?

Where? Chicago Illinois, USA! Sam Harris reports that the Cardinal Francis George reports that Atheist clubs are appearing in high schools.

The spin is that they call us fundamentalist, evangelical and intolerant. Cool! We managed to turn fundamentalist and evangelical into bad words, a few decades ago they'll be proud of calling themselves fundamentalist or evangelicals.

What we are not is intolerant, we are not putting religious messages in your money, we are not forcing you to pledge "under god" nor are we forcing your kids to pray at what ever you think we worship. We just ask for equal treatment and we ask you to get your religion out of the science classroom.

Miguel de Icaza, Microsoft Apologist

You know I read a lot and I mean a lot on MS corruption and the hypocrisy of Microsoft apologists. And I'm not only reading one side, I try to listen to them, resisting the pain, and it's simply clear they are out there just to spread disinformation in a concerted attempt to prop Microsoft and divert attention from the Free Software movement and if they can diss RMS in they process you can bet they'll try.

In the end it wasn't working so they flip floped and now pretend to be a bastion of idealism (sure...) with a new fake open source foundation/corporation.

I'm not making this up, Miguel himself comments that Microsoft actually founded two organizations with the same name, one comercial, one non-profit, both Microsoft Staffed.

Really I can't gather enough energy to recap all I read so I'll just link to this excelent article which condensates the whole matter in a couple pages of text: On Mono, Miguel, Stallman and Fusion with Microsoft

Class Constructor Decorator

While Python is already very terse there are still some repetition that can be worked out. I'm going to talk about class constructors here. Many a class init method is little else but adding the init parameters as instance attributes, I have written a constructor that takes care of that, this preliminary version dumps everything as public attributes in the instance. IFF I need more customization, I'll write the full implementation I was meaning yesterday:

constructor.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
@author rgz
A decorator for converting the constructor arguments into instance attributes automatically.
"""
import decorator
import inspect
@decorator.decorator
def constructor(init, *args, **kwargs):
"""Converts the constructor arguments into instance attributes automatically"""
names, args_name, kwargs_name, defaults = inspect.getargspec(init)
assert len(names) > 0, "Methods should have at least 1 argument!"
for i, name in enumerate(names):
    if i:
        setattr(self, name, args[i])
    else:
        self = args[i]
if args_name:
    setattr(self, args_name, args[i + 1:])
if kwargs_name:
    setattr(self, kwargs_name, kwargs)
init(*args, **kwargs)
__all__ = ['constructor']
if __name__ == '__main__':
class Spam(object):
    @constructor
    def __init__(
            self,
            positional_argument_1,
            positional_argument_2,
            default_argument = 'default value',
            *variable_arguments,
            **keyword_arguments
        ):
        self.variable_arguments = list(self.variable_arguments) # Attributes already set
spam = Spam(
    'first argument',
    'second argument',
    'non default value',
    'first variable value',
    'second variable value',
    keyword_argument_1 = 'first keyword value',
    keyword_argument_2 = 'second keyword value',
)
assert spam.positional_argument_1 == 'first argument'
assert spam.positional_argument_2 == 'second argument'
assert spam.default_argument == 'non default value'
assert type(spam.variable_arguments) is list
assert spam.variable_arguments[0] == 'first variable value'
assert spam.variable_arguments[1] == 'second variable value'
assert spam.keyword_arguments['keyword_argument_1'] == 'first keyword value'
assert spam.keyword_arguments['keyword_argument_2'] == 'second keyword value'

Update: I posted this on reddit because I wanted to know if someone needed something like that but apparently I must have done something really bad, I've been modded -1 and have received no comments.

Misc stuff and Programmers day.

Today is programmers day! In Russia. Anyway I have not been commenting for a long time so I'm trying to get into it again.

Do you guys remember when I said I spend to much time reading atheist blogs? Well I find now I find myself watching to much atheist channels in youtube, the upside is that I watch them more for the humor than actual debating. Debating creationists is seems more and more with each day.

In the same spirit it feels like I'm always feeding the trolls in slashdot because the posts that deserve to be replied the most are almost always made by irrational people.

One interesting post I wanted to share: Interpolation surprise

And finally let's celebrate the apology from the British government to Alan Turing! This is just great really.

Keep libel laws out of science

Ok this is bad, a scientist, Singh, criticizes the The British Chiropractic Association because they insist they can cure ear infections among many other bogus claims. Those were his words

In the world of science when somebody criticizes the proper response is to show your research. Not for the BCA, they sued him for libel, the most ridiculous part is that right now the Singh is losing because the judge decided that when Singh sayd bogus claims he meant they are knowingly fraudulent, and Singh can't posibliy know that.

Yes that's right the BCA best defense against criticism is that you can't prove you are knowingly fraudulent.

And you kown what it means? It means I'm adding another button to my blog.

There. See ya later!

ObjectMap

I like how Python ensures no library messes with my built-ins. The fact that neither I can monkey patch built-ins is however a pain, interestingly while built-ins can't be extended they can be decorated/overriden, and lo I present unto you, ObjectMap.

class ObjectMap(object):
  def __init__(self):
      """Did you look what I did there?"""
      self.map = map
  def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
      """The original map call"""
      return self.map(*args, **kwargs)
  def __getattr__(self, name):
      """map.name(sequence, args) == [item.name(args) for item in sequence]
      Here is the fun part"""
      def fn(seq, *args, **kwargs):
          return self.map(lambda item: getattr(item, name)(*args, **kwargs) , seq )
      return fn
map = ObjectMap():
words = "red green blue".split()
WORDS1 = map(lambda word: word.upper(), words)
WORDS2 = [word.upper() for word in words]
WORDS3 = map.upper(words)
assert WORDS1 == WORDS2 == WORDS3

Needless to say, this shouldn't be used in production code (so use it copiously).