129 posts tagged with "in-English"

No we can't. We can't vote Obama. Not this side of the Atlantic. I like his approach. For what little I know, he seems a good candidate, and I would probably vote for him. If I could. I like politics, and I acknowledge the importance of American politics at a planetary scale. But to recite campaign slogans as if they were true is naïve. It is naïve in our own country, with our own politicians; but it is even more naïve when we are just a passive audience buying a distant show. Besides, they don't care that much about us anyway. You don't wave flags because you know nationalities are coincidences, there is no pride in toponyms but geography and history. You don't repeat toothpaste slogans because advertising slogans are void. Why then repeat slogans of political parties? You know they are designed by the same people who write slogans for toothpaste, and for very similar purposes. Believe in ideas, believe in policies, believe even in politicians. I understand the excitement in Europe about Obama, but I think it's a bit exaggerated. For three reasons. First, we can't vote in November. Second, even if Obama wins there will be far less change in the USA than we would like to see. Third, blogging for Obama in Europe has an impact that is almost nil in the USA (remember how Europe voted for Kerry four years ago but its ballot sank somewhere in the Atlantic half-way to Washington).

English: throughout this week this blog will be highly unreliable due to planned engineering works. I'm migrating the domain tripu.info along with this web site and all *@tripu.info e-mail addresses to a new server. Expect funny things to happen. Apologies in advance if that puts bogus entries in your RSS or if I miss any message from you during the process.

Español: durante los próximos días voy a migrar esta bitácora y mis direcciones de correo tipo *@tripu.info a un nuevo servidor. Yo me voy a liar y tu agregador de RSS a lo peor también. Y puede que pierda algunos emilios durante el proceso. Pido disculpas de antemano.

…found out there.

“Say ‘What’ Again” by Jarratt Moody. A brilliant reinterpretation of one of “Pulp Fiction”'s most memorable scenes:

The other day, as my train slowly entered the station and arrived to the platform, I noticed something falling to the floor when somebody got up to leave the train. The mature woman sitting behind me had dropped something accidentally. Or so I thought. It was a book. I stooped to pick it up for her — trying to read its title at the same time, of course. It was “On Beauty”, by Zadie Smith. I already knew that book because it received very good critics and won some important prize, and had been since heavily promoted here in England. I had been seeing it in the hands of commuters lately. I handed the book back to the lady expecting the preceptive “oh thank you very much” plus broad smile that I so much appreciate since I arrived to this country. Instead of that, the woman made me a gesture of subtle negation and stammered out something that I didn't understand. Suddenly it dawned on me: this lovely lady is a bookcrosser in disguise! I was happy with the possibility of rescuing a book from the wild for the second time in my life. But I saw no sticker of Bookcrossing on its cover. Why? Then the woman, noticing my confusion, looked at me again in guiltiness and confessed in a whisper: “I can't stand it. I don't like it. Do you want it?” Sure. Her guilty confession kept me laughing at intervals for the rest of that day. She was no bookcrosser. She was a bookdropper. Cool. Next time you realise that you actually loathe a book that you began to read just because all your friends were loving it, don't suffer. Instead, perform a sophisticated act of generous bookdropping in some crowded place. (Just make sure before that nobody is close enough as to offer it back to you). That might save yourself hundreds of boring pages and quite a few pathetic attempts to highbrow comments among your mates. And it's a smart, environmentally friendly move which Al Gore himself would be proud campaigning for. I wonder how many books are bought (and maybe read) just because of ads and trends. I myself have put it now in my queue, but after some other more important books. By the way, bookdropping.com is already registered, but bookdropping.info remains available…

I've got a friend who is a software engineer too, but who has never worked with Linux or Unix. Now he wants to start learning something about it, so he asked me about good sources for beginners. My friend is a Java programmer with some work experience, so when I say “beginners” I just mean “newbies to Linux”, not “computer illiterates” or “programming dummies”. What he wants to learn (or rather what I believe would be best for him to learn) are the basics about Linux installation, configuration and administration, command line rudiments and tools, typical open source programming languages and environments and general development methodology. There must be some good general introductory-but-not-too-basic books, documents, tutorials and web sites out there. It's just that the ones I can think of (which I may have used in the past myself) are either in Spanish (which he can't read), a bit too old or centred on very specific aspects. Can you recommend any good source? What was your first book about Linux? Any classic must for beginners? He prefers books to web sites.

This morning on the train I wrote down from memory the 104 syllables of the hiragana alphabet without any mistake for the first time, including all modified and compound syllables and pronunciation exceptions. I find it very gratifying to be able to read and write all those alien symbols. (Even if the most complex sentence that I'm able to build for the moment goes like “is that Takahashi's apple?”). Next target: the same 104 sounds in katakana. Many apologies for such a “so what?” post, but I was so happy this morning.

This evening I saw Philip Howard sharing out leaflets at Oxford Circus Station, and decided to ask him for a picture. He said “why not?” and immediately started a private one-to-one preaching session. I was setting up my camera. What a privilege! He asked me whether I love Jesus (“of course”) and advised me to avoid sins like greed and envy. He told me not to have sex before marriage. To that I replied “I try”, and I'm glad that my answer was ambiguous enough as to keep him happy while being also true under my own interpretation of the words. Which may be a tad different from his.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful
but the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

It doesn't show signs of stopping
and I've bought some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight
how I'll hate going out in the storm!
But if you'll really hold me tight
all the way home I'll be warm

The fire is slowly dying
and, my dear, we're still goodbying
But as long as you love me so
let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!”

— Sammy Cahn

If Escher had made a music video he would have made this one.

After posting two days ago that letter sent to Metro by a (male) reader I feel morally compelled to post the equally slick reply of a (female) reader published today:

“I'm not surprised that the female voice on [that reader]'s sat-nav sent him the wrong way (Metro, Wed). She was obviously so shocked that a man was actually asking for directions.”