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Saturday, December 19, 2009

¿Dónde están los cineastas creativos de Puerto Rico?

Aprendan de URUGUAY ...




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dadPWhEhVk

http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzzlog-uruguay-to-hollywood.html

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2009/12/17/alvarez-youtube-hollywood-movie.html


Éste muchacho de Uruguay filmó un corto de 5 minutos (costo total = $300) de una invasión de robots y naves a Montevideo, y lo puso en YouTube.

En poco tiempo recibió una lluvia de ofertas de casas productoras, y firmó un contrato de $30 MILLONES con la compañía de Raimi, el productor de las películas de Spiderman en Joliguud.

¿Y en Puerto Rico, que hay gente con muchísima creatividad y con MUCHO más dinero que invertir, QUÉ SE PRODUCE? ¿Que se inventa? Lamentablemente la clase artística está metida en éste cajoncito ideológico y social del que no han podido salir luego de 30 años haciendo LOS MISMOS programas.

En Puerto Rico, ¿que se escribe? Los novelistas y cuentistas con los mismos temas de siempre. Que si el estatus. Que si el coloniaje. Que si los ricos vs los pobres. Ok, son temas reales, importantes, pero el universo de la creatividad es mucho más grande que eso. Hay temas universales que trascienden el 100x35.

Si en Uruguay pueden, ¿por qué en PR no?

El insularismo nos mata...

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Fortuñatrix ...


My name ... is NEO ...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Que Hacer Durante ...

Encontrado en el web ... found in the web ...

http://cinismoilustrado.blogspot.com/2009/09/que-hacer-en-caso-de.html

Friday, September 25, 2009

Chistes de Abogados / Lawyer Jokes

Wall Street's Running of Corporate Lawyers











Samson and his Lawyer




Origin of the word "Lawyer"




Closing Arguments





Mafia Lawyers





Litigious Calculus




Lawyer Crossing


Beginnings of the Legal Profession



Adam, Eve, and the Lawyer


Lawyer Image Improvement Conference ...






















Lawyer Appreciation Parade ...
















Lawyer Weddings...

Friday, September 18, 2009

Breaking Down the "Knowledge Silos"

Breaking Down the "Knowledge Silos" ...


(click on the image to see a LARGER version)


... unfortunately, this is based on a TRUE story ...

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Tropical Storm Erika / Tormenta Tropical Erika

Erika se desvió , ahora es una depresión tropical ...





553
WTNT21 KNHC 032037
TCMAT1
TROPICAL DEPRESSION ERIKA FORECAST/ADVISORY NUMBER 9
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL062009
2100 UTC THU SEP 03 2009

AT 5 PM AST...2100 UTC...ALL TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS ASSOCIATED WITH
ERIKA HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED.

INTERESTS IN NORTHERN CARIBBEAN SEA SHOULD CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE
PROGRESS OF ERIKA.

TROPICAL DEPRESSION CENTER LOCATED NEAR 16.7N 65.3W AT 03/2100Z
POSITION ACCURATE WITHIN 30 NM

PRESENT MOVEMENT TOWARD THE WEST OR 275 DEGREES AT 10 KT

ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE 1007 MB
MAX SUSTAINED WINDS 30 KT WITH GUSTS TO 40 KT.
12 FT SEAS..180NE 0SE 0SW 0NW.
WINDS AND SEAS VARY GREATLY IN EACH QUADRANT. RADII IN NAUTICAL
MILES ARE THE LARGEST RADII EXPECTED ANYWHERE IN THAT QUADRANT.

REPEAT...CENTER LOCATED NEAR 16.7N 65.3W AT 03/2100Z
AT 03/1800Z CENTER WAS LOCATED NEAR 16.6N 64.7W

FORECAST VALID 04/0600Z 17.2N 66.8W
MAX WIND 30 KT...GUSTS 40 KT.

FORECAST VALID 04/1800Z 18.1N 68.6W...REMNANT LOW
MAX WIND 25 KT...GUSTS 35 KT.

FORECAST VALID 05/0600Z 18.9N 70.3W...REMNANT LOW INLAND
MAX WIND 20 KT...GUSTS 25 KT.

FORECAST VALID 05/1800Z 19.5N 72.2W...DISSIPATING INLAND
MAX WIND 20 KT...GUSTS 25 KT.

FORECAST VALID 06/1800Z...DISSIPATED

REQUEST FOR 3 HOURLY SHIP REPORTS WITHIN 300 MILES OF 16.7N 65.3W

NEXT ADVISORY AT 04/0300Z

$$
FORECASTER BRENNAN

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

NYT: Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls

Cadets Trade the Trenches for Firewalls

Michael Falco for The New York Times

Cyberwar games at West Point with Lt. Col. Robert Fanelli, left, Cadets Nathan Larsen, Mark Evinger, seated, and Marc Abbott.


Published: May 10, 2009

WEST POINT, N.Y. — The Army forces were under attack. Communications were down, and the chain of command was broken.


Cyberwar

Basic Training

Computers, indispensable in peace, are becoming ever more important in political conflicts and open warfare. This is the third article in a series on the growing use of computer power as a weapon.

Michael Falco for The New York Times

In war games at West Point last month, teams had to establish a secure computer network and protect it from cyberattacks.

Pacing a makeshift bunker whose entrance was camouflaged with netting, the young man in battle fatigues barked at his comrades: “They are flooding the e-mail server. Block it. I’ll take the heat for it.”

These are the war games at West Point, at least last month, when a team of cadets spent four days struggling around the clock to establish a computer network and keep it operating while hackers from the National Security Agency in Maryland tried to infiltrate it with methods that an enemy might use. The N.S.A. made the cadets’ task more difficult by planting viruses on some of the equipment, just as real-world hackers have done on millions of computers around the world.

The competition was a final exam of sorts for a senior elective class. The cadets, who were computer science and information technology majors, competed against teams from the Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine as well as the Naval Postgraduate School and the Air Force Institute of Technology. Each team was judged on how well it subdued the threats from the N.S.A.

The cyberwar games at West Point are just one example of a heightened awareness across the military that it must treat the threat of a computer attack as seriously as it does an attack carried out by a bomber or combat brigade. There is hardly an American military unit or headquarters that has not been ordered to analyze the risk of cyberattacks to its mission — and to train to counter them. If the hackers were to succeed, they could change information on the network and cripple Internet communications.

In the desert outside Las Vegas, in a series of inconspicuous trailers, some of the most highly motivated hackers in the United States spend their days and nights probing the military’s vast computer networks for weaknesses to exploit.

These hackers — many of whom got their start as teenagers devoted to computer screens in their basements — have access to the latest in attack software. Some of it was developed by cryptologists at the N.S.A., the nation’s largest intelligence agency, where most of the government’s talent for breaking and making computer codes resides.

The hackers have an official name — the 57th Information Aggressor Squadron — and a real home, Nellis Air Force Base.

The Army last year created its own destination for computer experts, the Network Warfare Battalion, where many of the cadets in the cyberwar games hope to be assigned. But even so, the ranks are still small.

The Defense Department today graduates only 80 students a year from its cyberwar schools, causing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to complain that the Pentagon is “desperately short of people who have capabilities in this area in all the services, and we have to address it.” Under current Pentagon budget proposals, the number of students cycled through the schools will be quadrupled in the next two years.

Part of the Pentagon’s effort to increase the military’s capabilities are the annual cyberwar games played at the nation’s military academies, including West Point, where young cadets in combat boots and buzz cuts talk megabytes instead of megatons on a campus dotted with statues of generals, historic armaments and old stone buildings.

While the Pentagon has embraced the need for offensive cyberwarfare, there were no offensive maneuvers in the games last month, said Col. Joe Adams, who teaches Information Assurance and stood at the head of the classroom during the April exercise.

Cadet Joshua Ewing said he and his fellow Blue Team members “learn all the techniques that a hacker would do, and we try to beat a hacker.”

These strategies are not just theoretical. Most of these cadets will soon be sent to Afghanistan to carry out such work, Cadet Ewing said.

When the military deploys in a combat zone or during a domestic emergency, establishing a secure Internet connection is an early priority. To keep things humming, the military’s experts must fend off the ordinary chaos of the Internet as well as attacks devised to disable the communications system, like flooding e-mail servers with so many junk messages that they collapse.

Underscoring how seriously the cadets were taking the April games, the sign above the darkened entranceway in Thayer Hall read “Information Warfare Live Fire Range” and the area was draped with camouflage netting.

One group had to retrieve crucial information from a partly erased hard drive. One common method of hiding text, said Cadet Sean Storey, is to embed it in digital photographs; he had managed to find secret documents hidden this way. He was seeking a password needed to read encrypted e-mail he had located on the hard drive.

Other cadets worked in tandem, as if plugging a leaky dam, to keep the entire system working as the N.S.A. hackers attacked the engine that runs a crucial database as well as the e-mail server.

They shouted out various Internet addresses to inspect — and usually block — after getting clearance from referees. And there was that awkward moment when the cadet in charge, Salvatore Messina, had to act without clearance because the attack was so severe he couldn’t even send an e-mail message.

The cadets in this room do get their share of ribbing. But one cadet, Derek Taylor, said today’s soldiers recognize that technological expertise can be as vital as brute force in saving lives. West Point takes the competition seriously. The cadets who helped install and secure the operating system spent a week setting it up. The dean gives a pep talk; professors bring food.

Brian McCord, part of the team that installed the operating system, said he was chosen because his senior project was deeply reliant on Linux. The West Point team used this open-source operating system, freely available on the Internet, instead of relying on proprietary products from big-name companies like Microsoft or Sun Microsystems.

“It seems weird for the Army with its large contracts to be using Linux, but it’s very cheap and very customizable,” Cadet McCord said. It is also much easier to secure because “you can tweak it for everything you need” and there are not as many known ways to attack it, he said.

West Point emerged victorious in the games last month. That means the academy, which has won five of the last nine competitions, can keep the Director’s Cup trophy, which is displayed near a German Enigma encoding machine from World War II. Cracking the Enigma code helped the Allies win the war, and the machine is a stark reminder of the pivotal role of technology in warfare.

Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.


This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:


Correction: May 13, 2009


An article on Monday about military training to counter computer attacks misstated part of the name of one institution that fielded a team in a competition to establish and protect a computer network against cyberattacks. It is the Naval Postgraduate School, not the Naval Postgraduate Academy.


NYT: Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/us/31cyber.html?_r=1&em=&pagewanted=all

May 31, 2009
Cyberwar

Contractors Vie for Plum Work, Hacking for U.S.

MELBOURNE, Fla. — The government’s urgent push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts.

The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of “hacker soldiers” within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.

Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.

The companies have been moving quickly to lock up the relatively small number of experts with the training and creativity to block the attacks and design countermeasures. They have been buying smaller firms, financing academic research and running advertisements for “cyberninjas” at a time when other industries are shedding workers.

The changes are manifesting themselves in highly classified laboratories, where computer geeks in their 20s like to joke that they are hackers with security clearances.

At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.

The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.

Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.

“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here.

Mr. Chase, who wears his hair in a ponytail, and Terry Gillette, a 53-year-old former rocket engineer, ran SI Government Solutions before selling the company to Raytheon last year as the boom in the military’s cyberoperations accelerated.

The operation — tucked into several unmarked buildings behind an insurance office and a dentist’s office — is doing some of the most cutting-edge work, both in identifying weaknesses in Pentagon networks and in creating weapons for potential attacks.

Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals $10 billion each year, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect it to rise rapidly.

The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.

Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.

Though even the existence of research on cyberweapons was once highly classified, the Air Force plans this year to award the first publicly announced contract for developing tools to break into enemy computers. The companies are also teaming up to build a National Cyber Range, a model of the Internet for testing advanced techniques.

Military experts said Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which have long been major players in the Pentagon’s security efforts, are leading the push into offensive cyberwarfare, along with the Raytheon unit. This involves finding vulnerabilities in other countries’ computer systems and developing software tools to exploit them, either to steal sensitive information or disable the networks.

Mr. Chase and Mr. Gillette said the Raytheon unit, which has about 100 employees, grew out of a company they started with friends at Florida Institute of Technology that concentrated on helping software makers find flaws in their own products. Over the last several years, their focus shifted to the military and intelligence agencies, which wanted to use their analytic tools to detect vulnerabilities and intrusions previously unnoticed.

Like other contractors, the Raytheon teams set up “honey pots,” the equivalent of sting operations, to lure hackers into digital cul-de-sacs that mimic Pentagon Web sites. They then capture the attackers’ codes and create defenses for them.

And since most of the world’s computers run on the Windows or the Linux systems, their work has also provided a growing window into how to attack foreign networks in any cyberwar.

“It takes a nonconformist to excel at what we do,” said Mr. Gillette, a tanned surfing aficionado who looks like a 1950s hipster in his T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves.

The company, which would allow interviews with other employees only on the condition that their last names not be used because of security concerns, hired one of its top young workers, Dustin, after he won two major hacking contests and dropped out of college. “I always approach it like a game, and it’s been fun,” said Dustin, now 22.

Another engineer, known as Jolly, joined Raytheon in April after earning a master’s degree in computer security at DePaul University in Chicago. “You think defense contractors, and you think bureaucracy, and not necessarily a lot of interesting and challenging projects,” he said.

The Pentagon’s interest in cyberwarfare has reached “religious intensity,” said Daniel T. Kuehl, a military historian at the National Defense University. And the changes carry through to soldiers being trained to defend and attack computer and wireless networks out on the battlefield.

That shift can be seen in the remaking of organizations like the Association of Old Crows, a professional group that includes contractors and military personnel.

The Old Crows have deep roots in what has long been known as electronic warfare — the use of radar and radio technologies for jamming and deception.

But the financing for electronic warfare had slowed recently, prompting the Old Crows to set up a broader information-operations branch last year and establish a new trade journal to focus on cyberwarfare.

The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group’s Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military.

A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.

Mr. Harding estimates that there are now 3,000 to 5,000 information operations specialists in the military and 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers involved in general computer operations. Adding specialists in electronic warfare, deception and other areas could bring the total number of information operations personnel to as many as 88,700, he said.



Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Apple Invierte $1 BILLÓN en North Carolina

Éste es el tipo de inversión que Puerto Rico debería estar intentando atraer, en lugar de seguir insistiendo con el modelo económico basado en la manufactura que está obsoleto desde hace más de dos décadas.

Pero con
la infraestructura de la Isla cayéndose en cantos, el servicio de electricidad carísimo y malo, y con la pobre calidad de vida, ¿quién invierte $1 billón en poner un data center en la Isla?



http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200907071249DOWJONESDJONLINE000466_FORTUNE5.htm



Apple Wins North Carolina Tax Break For $1 Billion Data Center



A North Carolina county and town have agreed to give Apple Inc. (AAPL) tax incentives worth $46 million over the next decade if the consumer tech giant builds a data center in the area.

The decision Monday helps spur Apple's plans to expand its network of data centers, which are warehouse-sized buildings that house vast numbers of giant computers known as servers. Data centers are usually used to manage the flow of Internet traffic. In Apple's case, the Maiden data center could be used to bolster its iTunes music store business.

"We're looking forward to building a new data in North Carolina," an Apple spokesman said.

Apple has already agreed to invest $1 billion in the structure in Maiden, which is about 30 miles northwest of Charlotte, according to the agreement. If Apple invests an additional $1 billion into the data center, the county and town will provide another $20.7 million in incentives over another 10-year period.

"There is no commitment beyond the billion dollars," said Scott Millar, president of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp.

Apple shares are up 1.7% to $136.25.

-By Ben Charny; Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-8230; ben.charny@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
07-07-09 1249ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

To challenge Google, Microsoft might want to think Apple

To challenge Google, Microsoft might want to think Apple

The announcement of Google's Chrome OS plan puts an exclamation point on the challenge faced by Microsoft, but actually doesn't really change the core threat to Microsoft.

In short, Google is aiming to render desktop software irrelevant. To thwart them, Microsoft needs Windows to do things that a browser can't--or do the same things significantly better.

Interestingly, if Microsoft wants some tips on how to do this, it might want to look toward Apple. Essentially, this has been Apple's challenge all along: make the Mac experience enough better than a generic PC that it is worth the added cost.

The Mac's resurgence came when it had a strong OS--Mac OS X--combined with iLife applications that really nailed the experience for the tasks that people wanted to do on their computer at the time.

If Microsoft wants a blueprint on how to make the PC worth paying for, it might want to take a page from Apple's playbook.

(Credit: Apple)

This is an area where Windows has been languishing in recent years. Although most people wouldn't want to give up their favorite desktop applications (Windows or Mac), the Web has been gaining ground. Even areas that were once squarely in the desktop's domain--such as photo editing, productivity software, and personal finance--are making their way onto the Web. What Windows really needs is a new generation of killer apps.

Microsoft also has to do something that Apple doesn't--aim for the masses. Part of Apple's success story has been about choosing its battles and accepting that it can't win everywhere. The Windows model depends on ubiquity, so it needs answers with nearly universal appeal.

One area where Microsoft has been investing is around the area of doing the same things better. Its focus on touch screens in Windows 7 is an example of this. Although multitouch is likely to remain a niche in the short term, it shows the power that a desktop interface can have.

Microsoft also needs to minimize the downsides associated with Windows. On that score, Microsoft has made significant strides with Windows 7. The operating system boots quicker and behaves better than its predecessor.

On the Office side, Microsoft needs to create software that is enough better than Google's that companies want to pay for it.

Next week, Microsoft is expected to talk more about Office 2010, the next version of Office, which is due out next year. Microsoft is taking a two-pronged approach.

First, it is taking Google Apps head-on with lightweight browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that can run on Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer.

It will offer them to consumers via its Windows Live service--a service that today is free--and businesses will also be able to give the browser-based apps to their workers.

But Microsoft is also doing more on the desktop, adding in the kinds of features it hopes will make the Office suite worth paying for.

The path for Microsoft is clear. The big question, though, is whether Google will be able to be "good enough."

Microsoft has some time, but not a ton. Google's operating system won't even arrive on PCs until the second half of next year. Plus, for now, Windows has the advantage of legacy application support--i.e., businesses and consumers want to run their existing programs. But to stay in front for years to come, it will have to do better than that. It needs to figure out--and quick--the next set of tasks users want to do with their computer and how to make those tasks demonstrably better on a PC.

The company also has another option as well. It can work on Windows' successor. It could be that it needs a lightweight browser-based OS of its own.

Indeed, the thinking beyond its Gazelle research project is that the browser needs to be more like an operating system. In that case, the browser doesn't actually take on the operating system's complete role, but rather relies on Windows. However, Microsoft has other operating system work under way as well, including its top-secret Midori project.

My guess is Microsoft will take both approaches, but hold off on the latter unless and until it needs to. That's pretty much what Microsoft has done with Office vis-a-vis Google Apps. It was only after large business customers started threatening to go to Google Apps that Microsoft conceded that it needed to offer full-on browser apps.

During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina.

XKCD : Overstimulation

This is one of the reasons why I normally hate parties ...

http://xkcd.com/602/



About the new Star Trek film :-)


About the new Star Trek film ...

The new Trek movie was fun, but basically a typical Hollywood all-action, no-brains-required movie.

Ok, I'll start by saying that I won't complain about violations of Trek canon. This is a reboot, regardless of what the writers have said.

I can reluctantly accept incredible coincidences such as Kirk's pod landing close to where Spock was. I am even willing to accept (with various levels of disgust) the movie's use of artistic license to ignore reality just to make scenes "look cool". For instance:

* building the Enterprise on Earth (in the US Midwest?!) rather than in orbit, just to get a cool shot of Kirk racing his bike next to it
* a supernova that can "threaten to destroy the galaxy" (Spock said that) and can also apparently travel faster than light ... just a McGuffin to create a plot
* kid Kirk jumped out of a car moving at high speed. Not only he survived without a scratch, he was also able to STOP right at the edge of the cliff. Where did his momentum go? Oh, right, again, the scene looks cool.
* the nonsensical design of the "mining" ship, imitating B5's Shadows... just to make it look "evil" and "mean"
* Vulcans teaching their kids using HUMAN calculus and chemistry notations in the display screens ...
* both Kirk and Spock boarded Nero's ship, leaving the Enterprise effectively without a formally-appointed commanding officer... because it's cool to have the two main characters FIGHTING the bad guys hand-to-hand in the climatic scene rather than SITTING in the Apple-store-like bridge.
* Sulu's BS that the "magnetic field" from Saturn's rings would keep Nero from detecting the Enterprise (the RINGS of Saturn have NO magnetic field)... just to get a cool shot of the Enterprise next to Saturn.


It's a lot harder to accept crass stupidity, lack of internal logic, plot holes you can drive a mining starship through, or facts / decisions / actions that make absolutely no sense.

For instance:

1. Spock was able to shoot a droplet of red matter NEXT to a SUPERNOVA, and the red matter created a black hole able to consume a supernova... Ok, then why did Nero have to DRILL a hole into Vulcan (or Earth) in order to consume them with a black hole? Why didn't he just shoot or beam a canister of red matter NEXT to the planet and create the black hole right there?

2. how come a MINING ship has torpedoes and weaponry capable of destroying whole fleets of military starships and entire planets? Just saying the mining ship was from 129 years in the future is not enough. I'm pretty sure most 21st century non-military ships would not be able to destroy a fleet of late 19th century ironclad battleships.

3. What the hell did Nero and his romulans do during the 25 YEARS they WAITED for Spock's ship to arrive? How did they get fuel, supplies, spare parts? Are Romulan mining ships equipped to operate with absolutely no support for 25 years?

4. According to the movie, Vulcan had SIX BILLION inhabitants. The platform was defended by a grand total of TWO romulan miners with hand weapons, who sucked so badly that they were defeated by TWO badly-armed HUMAN KIDS (Kirk lost his handgun in the first few seconds of the fight, Sulu had a sword). How come the Vulcans were unwilling / unable send ANYONE to the platform? Why didn't the Vulcans send a SINGLE spacecraft, aircraft, remote-controlled drone, missile, soldier, policeman, boy scout, kamikaze, or volunteer citizen to the platform? How come NO ONE from Vulcan tried to take out a badly defended platform about to destroy their whole world?!? Did BILLIONS of Vulcans just hide in caves while allowing a handful of Romulans to commit genocide? Maybe they deserved to be wiped out ...

5. Ranks in this movie are a horrible mess: How can Starfleet possibly promote Kirk, a CADET who has not even graduated from the Academy yet, to FULL CAPTAIN and on top of that give him command of not just a capital ship but of Starfleet's FLAGSHIP, after just ONE successful mission? No military organization can function like that. Pike field promoted Kirk to First Officer, which is a position, NOT a rank. If Pike had given Kirk a field commission to the rank of Commander, then Starfleet's decision to promote him to Captain would be a bit more credible.

6. Pike sends THREE guys (why ONLY three? Does the Enterprise have only 3 space-jump suits?) to take out the mining platform in Vulcan, but only gives explosives charges to ONE of them. NOT really bright. Of course, the guy with the charges is the one that gets toasted. He was a red shirt, after all.

7. Since Scotty can indeed beam someone -or something- into a ship light years away AND flying at warp, then he can also beam photon torpedoes (or one of the warp core thingies they jettisoned at the end) INTO Nero's ship and destroy it from light years away. Why risk a boarding party? Oh, right, they had to go and save Pike, because for some reason they thought he was still alive. Also, if this type of transporter technology is possible in the future (old Spock's time), then WHY have STARSHIPS at all? Why not just beam people and things from one world to another instantly, and build mid-way relay stations along the way?

8. Why was Nero's ship able to TRAVEL through a black hole UNHARMED the first time around, but got DESTROYED by a similar black hole at the end of the movie?

9. when Nero realized he had arrived over 100 years in the PAST, why didn't he just go to ROMULUS, WARN THEM about the supernova with plenty of time; give them his ship, Spock's ship, the red matter, and all their future technology and weaponry; and all the information and intelligence he had about future events? That way he would PREVENT Romulus' destruction HIMSELF, and also help Romulus become the predominant superpower in the Galaxy. Then, if he still wanted to destroy Vulcan or Earth or the Klingons, instead of a single mining ship he would have available whole Romulan fleets equipped with futuristic weapons and even dozens of mining ships/planet killers.

It's really hard to take seriously a main villian who is so immensely stupid. I kept thinking "Shinzon" from the horrendous Star Trek Nemesis...


The best way to enjoy this type of movie is to focus on the action & the cool special effects, and leave your brain at home.
:-)

Favorite Books !

15 in 15 minutes

Don't take too long to think about this... What are fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you? First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends (or more), including me because I'm interested in seeing what books you choose...

1. Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters - Matt Ridley
2. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark - Carl Sagan
3. The Mote in God's Eye - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
4. Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
5. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
6. Beyond Fear - Bruce Schneier
7. Foundation series - Isaac Asimov
8. Focault's Pendulum / El Péndulo de Focault - Umberto Eco
9. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami
10. Malevil - Robert Merle
11. Hyperion - Dan Simmons
12. Ender series - Orson Scott Card
13. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - Douglas Adams
14. Flashforward - Robert Sawyer
15. Guns, Germs, and Steel : The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond

* Yeah, I know, I included a few *series* instead of the individual books. Yeah, I know that's kind of cheating. Sue me.

* And I'm going to cheat again: I'll add 10 more to the list :-)

16. Ringworld - Larry Niven
17. Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Spiegelman
18. The End of Eternity - Isaac Asimov
19. Night Watch series - Sergei Lukyanenko
20. The Accidental Time Machine - Joe Haldeman
21. The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card
22. Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present - Cory Doctorow
23. The Two Faces of Tomorrow - James Hogan
24. Footfall - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
25. Red Storm Rising - Tom Clancy

Obama y Honduras


Obama y Honduras


La constitución de Honduras (http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Honduras/hond82.html) dice lo siguiente:


ARTICULO 239.- El ciudadano que haya desempeñado la titularidad del Poder Ejecutivo no podrá ser Presidente o Designado. El que quebrante esta disposición o proponga su reforma, así como aquellos que lo apoyen directa o indirectamente, cesarán de inmediato en el desempeño de sus respectivos cargos, y quedarán inhabilitados por diez años para el ejercicio de toda función pública.


En otras palabras: ell ciudadano que ya haya sido Presidente NO PUEDE volver a ser Presidente. Punto. Y el que intente cambiar eso, que se atenga. Zelaya por sus pantaletas empujó un proceso para cambiar éste Artículo, que está ahí precisamente para impedir los "presidentes vitalicios" como sus amigos Hugo Chávez y Fidel Castro. Al empujar ese proceso, Zelaya violó éste artículo de la Constitución de su país, y por lo tanto está sujeto a lo que el artículo dispone : (1) inmediatamente deja de ser presidente; (2) no puede volver a aspirar a la presidencia hasta dentro de 10 años.

El Congreso de Honduras votó unánimemente para hacer cumplir la Constitución. El Tribunal Supremo también. Ok, entonces alguien me puede explicar ¿POR QUÉ DEMONIOS Su Santidad Barack Obama y Darth Hillary insisten en que ésto fue un "golpe de estado"? En todo caso el que intentó pasarse por el trasero la Constitución para perpetuarse en el poder fue Zelaya.

¿O es que acaso Obama también piensa eliminar los term limits de la Constitución de USA?



Ground Zero : Nuke Your City and Learn !


http://safecastle.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-post.html

Éste blog tiene un maplet que permite simular los efectos de una explosión nuclear en el punto del mapa que usted escoja. El maplet permite seleccionar entre varios tipos de armas atómicas.

Si alguna vez se ha preguntado cuál sería el daño termal causado por, digamos, una bomba de 1.4 megatones sobre, digamos, PONCE, pues aquí podrá verlo.

¡¡¡ Que se diviertan !!!

Monday, May 4, 2009

Hora de Enterrar el Pasado ...

Hora de Enterrar el Pasado ...

Haz click sobre el dibujo para verlo más GRANDE
Click on the drawing to see a LARGER version



Friday, May 1, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

LAS MEJORES APLICACIONES *GRATIS*
PARA EL IPHONE


El aparatito éste es un fenómeno. Claro, no es perfecto, tiene sus limitaciones. Pero la cantidad y variedad de software disponible para el iPhone es, en mi opinión, su mayor atractivo.

Ésta es la lista de mis aplicaciones GRATIS favoritas :

1. The Weather Channel : va muuucho más allá de la aplicación de Temperatura que trae el teléfono. Te permite ver las condiciones del tiempo por hora, por las próximas 36 hrs, los próximos 10 días, alertas de clima severo (tormentas, neblina, viento fuerte, etc.), puedes ver videos del Weather Channel para el área donde vives, etc. Hasta puedes ver mapas con información superpuesta (dónde está lloviendo o nevando, etc). Tremenda herramienta para viajes largos durante el invierno.

2. Stanza : lector de eBooks. Permite hacer búsquedas por el texto, múltiples bookmarks, cambiar el tipo y tamaño de letra, leer con el iPhone horizontal o vertical, y varias funciones más. Puedes ver documentos en múltiples formatos: PDF, DOC, TXT, etc. La única limitación es que necesitas una conexión wireless para mover archivos de la PC al iPhone, según el autor del programa Apple no les permite usar iTunes. En cuando a funcionalidad los lectores de eBooks de mi Palm y iPaq son mejores, pero éste brega y la calidad de imagen es superior.

3. GPS Tracker : te permite saber tu posición con bastante exactitud, y además tu altitud, velocidad, y dirección.

4. QuickVoice : tu grabadora de audio personal. Para cuando se te ocurre alguna idea y no tienes en que apuntarla. La principal limitación es que no puedes exportar lo que grabas como WAVs o MP3s, algo que mi Palm viejita hace fácilmente.

5. Shazam : puedes identificar cualquier canción (grabación comercial, no música en vivo) con sólo un sample de par de segundos. Te dice el artista, disco, la discografía del artista, te deja comprarla en iTunes si esta disponible; en algunos casos te da la letra, reviews del disco, y videos de YouTube de la canción.

6. SnapTell : el mismo concepto de Shazam, pero para libros, DVDs, CDs: le tomas una foto a cualquiera de éstos y te da un montón de info: artículo de Wikipedia relacionado, dónde comprarlo en eBay o Barnes & Noble, reviews, etc.

7. WiFinder : si necesitas pegarte de una red inalámbrica WiFi, éste programita es la solución. Hace un scan del área y te da una lista de todas las redes WiFi, si está abierta o protegida, la fuerza de la señal, el # de canales, el tipo de encryption/authentication que usa, el MAC address ... el uso que le puedan dar a toda esa info lo dejo a tu fértil imaginación :-)

8. Facebook : en caso de que no gastes suficiente tiempo en FBk en la PC, éste programita te permite usar gran parte de las funciones de FBk desde el iPhone, con un interfaz más eficiente que el que sale cuando entras a FBk por Safari.

9. Units : bien útil, permite convertir unidades de todo tipo. Tambien incluye tasas de cambio de moneda, actualizadas diariamente por el Banco Central Europeo. Muy útil cuando estás de viaje fuera de USA.

10. Translator : puedes traducir palabras de sobre 30 idiomas (!)

11. Fring : te permite conectarte a tus cuentas de Windows Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, etc. , combinaar todos tus contactos en una sola lista, y chatear desde el iPhone. Si tienes el iPhone original (no el 3G) también puedes usar la red SKYPE para hacer llamadas por VoIP

12. i.TV : puedes ver la guía de TV de tu área (incluyendo cable, FiOS y satélite), buscar programas, y si tienes TiVO puedes programarlo desde el iPhone para grabarlos. Puedes buscar el día/hora y canal en que dan cualquier programa, y en muchos casos una sinopsis del programa y clips del episodio. Puedes ver qué películas están dando en los cines de tu área, las tandas, reviews y trailers. También te deja buscar las películas o programas de TV que quieres en Netflix.

13. Tuner : bien útil para afinar guitarras y otros 6 instrumentos de cuerda

14. GO : hay muchos juegos gratis para el iPhone, pero GO es mi favorito. Es un juego de estrategia milenario muy popular en Asia, con reglas mucho más simples que las del ajedrez pero con estrategias mucho más complejas.

15. Lightsaber : Para terminar, éste es un 'guilty pleasure'. Puedes convertir tu iPhone en un sable de luz (como los de Star Wars) ... bueno, ni tanto, pero al menos hace el aguaje. Cuando mueves el iPhone, hace los sonidos propios de un sable. A mi hijo de 5 años le fascina ... ;-P

*iRinger : Éste lo pongo aparte porque no es una aplicación que corre en el iPhone, sino en la PC. Lo puedes bajar de www.iringer.net y te permite crear ring tones para tu iPhone de cualquier MP3 que tengas en la PC. Con éste ya no tienes que volver a pagar por ringtones (!!!)

Bueno, esos son mis 15* favoritos. A ver, uds que tienen iPhones / iPhod Touch, compartan por aquí su lista de programas favoritos, gratis o no.

Saludos,

- RS -