Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Featured music: Electric Day

Yes, the sidebar music player is finally back online. Sorry I was distracted by work lately, but now I'm back full on. I left you a very heterogeneous compilation of all kinds of electronic music (dance, trance, ambient, chillout, etc). Give me feedback if you like any track in particular, there's tons more where that came from.

And now you know: if you want to throw a rave party, I'm your man (?)

Enjoy


Monday, February 25, 2008

Felicitaciones Dr. Régis!



"A los nuevos amigos aussie-hablantes que conocí en Austrália. Estoy muy
agradecido a Agustín Zsogon, José Maria Barrero, Juan Pablo, Lucía Yañez, Luciana
Porfírio, Marga Garcia, Maria Alonso, Hernano Alonso (Nano) y Salva Herrero por todos
los momentos mágicos que tuvimos juntos alli. Gracias por todas las conversaciones,
apoyo, viajes, fiestas, wine tastings, cafés, cenas, bailes, acrobacias, buen humor, la lengua
española y gallega, películas, cines, woolis, helados, pubs, canciones, salsa, cultura, Tato,
campings, patatas (o papas) de limón, abrazos, besos, palabras, en fin por todos los
capítulos compartidos en el gran libro de la vida. Amigos para siempre!"

copiado de su tesis de doctorado, AGRADECIMENTOS

Thursday, February 21, 2008

the CIA and Fidel - by Daniel Paz

1968-1998: We have a plan for kicking Fidel out
2008: Our plan succeeded!!!






Tuesday, February 19, 2008

... y a las Barbas de la Revolución, le salían más canas cada día...



LA HABANA (AFP) — El líder cubano Fidel Castro renunció a la Presidencia tras 49 años en el poder, anunció él mismo en un mensaje publicado este martes en la prensa oficial, a cinco días de que el Parlamento defina la nueva cúpula del Gobierno.
Último líder histórico del comunismo, Castro, de 81 años, anunció su renuncia tras casi 19 meses de convalecer de una enfermedad de origen intestinal que lo llevó a ceder el mando del país con carácter provisional a su hermano Raúl, ministro de Defensa, de 76 años.
"No me despido de ustedes. Deseo sólo combatir como un soldado de las ideas. Seguiré escribiendo bajo el título 'Reflexiones del compañero Fidel'. Será un arma más del arsenal con la cual se podrá contar. Tal vez mi voz se escuche. Seré cuidadoso", manifestó.
Castro advirtió a los cubanos de que "el camino siempre será difícil y requerirá el esfuerzo inteligente de todos". "Desconfío de las sendas aparentemente fáciles de la apologética, o la autoflagelación como antítesis", añadió.
"Prepararse siempre para la peor de las variantes. Ser tan prudentes en el éxito como firmes en la adversidad es un principio que no puede olvidarse. El adversario a derrotar es sumamente fuerte, pero lo hemos mantenido a raya durante medio siglo", aseveró.
'Recordman' mundial como gobernante, Castro es el único líder al que conocen siete de cada diez cubanos, por lo que su enfermedad abrió enormes interrogantes sobre el futuro de la isla.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Cuba

From Reuters

Cuba to free 7 dissidents at Spain's request

By Rosa Tania Valdes

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will free seven of 59 dissidents imprisoned since 2003, a move that opponents of ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro said reflects a "climate of change" under his brother's rule.

(...)

The Spanish newspaper El Pais reported on its Web site that four of them will be sent to Spain with their families to receive medical treatment.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKMOL56882620080215

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Shark biscuit! Got Milk?



So beautiful!

There is a new predator in town



Sharks really are pussy cats!!!!

Australia said sorry mates

Yesterday, former prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, said sorry to the Indigenous people of this country, those that arrived to this lands more than 40000 year ago, and in the 20th century were mistreated. Australia said 'sorry mates' for the removal of aboriginal children from their families.
Some people may say that this is only about words or nice speeches, that in the practice nothing really happens, also that now the country will have to pay huge amounts of money in compensations. I see that this country and the majority of its population acknowledged that something wrong happened in the past. From my point of view that is the first step towards a wiser nation.

My question is: Will governments in Latin America and Spain/Portugal also apologize to Indigenous people in that continent?

To see the Aussie apology follow this link: http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/apology/

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Stirring the possum

1969 - Man walks on the moon
1971 - Man walks on the moon... again. Then, for a long time, nothing happened. Until tomorrow.

Because tomorrow Kevin Rudd is going to apologize to the Aboriginal Community for the State's wrongdoings in the 20th century.

The striking thing is, there's a wide range of opinions on this token in Australia. And when I say wide, I mean exactly that. Some say the Stolen Generations thing was no less than a genocide. Man, is that some claim. Some others say a couple of wacos hijacked Australian history and completely misrepresented it. Huge claim. And everything in between.

I'm confused. What are the cold, hard facts to take the heat off such hot claims?

Like an aussie cockatoo


This is the pre-valentines post

Be like a cockatoo, kiss your mate and enjoy life.


Monday, February 11, 2008

"Primero que el valor faltó la vida"

Do you know the Capitán Alatriste? I love it.



«Durante casi dos años serví con el capitán Alatriste en las galeras de Nápoles. Por eso hablaré ahora de escaramuzas, corsarios, abordajes, matanzas y saqueos. Así conocerán vuestras mercedes el modo en que el nombre de mi patria era respetado, temido y odiado también en los mares de Levante. Contaré que el diablo no tiene color, ni nación, ni bandera; y cómo, para crear el infierno en el mar o en la tierra, no eran menester más que un español y el filo de una espada. En eso, como en casi todo, mejor nos habría ido haciendo lo que otros, más atentos a la prosperidad que a la reputación, abriéndonos al mundo que habíamos descubierto y ensanchado, en vez de enrocarnos en las sotanas de los confesores reales, los privilegios de sangre, la poca afición al trabajo, la cruz y la espada, mientras se nos pudrían la inteligencia, la patria y el alma. Pero nadie nos permitió elegir. Al menos, para pasmo de la Historia, supimos cobrárselo caro al mundo, acuchillándolo hasta que no quedamos uno en pie. Dirán vuestras mercedes que ése es magro consuelo, y tienen razón. Pero nos limitábamos a hacer nuestro oficio sin entender de gobiernos, filosofías ni teologías. Pardiez. Éramos soldados.»

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

People for the Ethical treatment of Vines (PETV)


So to all you plant pathologists out there, you might notice that this little baby has been hit pretty hard with Downy Mildew. The poor thing will lose all its leaves before its fruit ripens. Notice that the weeds and poor canopy management has probably exacerbated the infection.
Woo~woo = UVAS MORTEN

Soccer simplicity vs Cricket sophistication ?

Ad astra per aspera

Last Friday night I had the opportunity to see a Cricket game (Australia Vs India). It was a short game (it finished the same day) and as it happens with non-British-colony descendants, ignorant in the Cricket field of knowledge, I had to ask a lot of questions to understand the game. Fortunately, my friends had enough patience to explain me the rules and after some time I could follow what was happening in the oval. Of course this sport in not simple, but I wouldn’t say it is “sophisticated” as I read in an article written by ‘A--stín’ and La Chounie’s friend. After reading that article I found that the comparison between soccer and cricket is meaningless. Following that idea I could say that English is the simplest language, maybe because someone with two or less years of training is able to read an article (for instance this one about soccer/cricket and other sports) understand it, think about his/her position and write ~500 words about it (with expectable grammar errors, of course). I’m sure that learning any other language would required many years of training before reaching that level of communication. So, one conclusion we could make would be that the most ‘sophisticated’ sport in the world is played by those that weren’t able to develop the most ‘sophisticated’ language. Stupid asseveration!

Analysing soccer’s popularity and its simplicity, and comparing it with the intricate cricket (and its poor popularity around the world*) we could say that cricket is for smart people and soccer for less-smart ones (?). Then, we could correlate the behaviour of soccer players (plus the others watching the game in the stadium) and the behaviour of cricket players and their outstanding, noble, royal and (sorry again) sophisticated figure and followers, with the simplicity/complexity of such games. And the outcome would be that soccer (simple) Vs violence (a random variable) have a R2=0.99, while cricket (complex) Vs the same variable would have a poor matching. Thus, social behaviour could be easily explained through sports and their rules (?). Sorry mates, but it doesn’t convince me.

So far, I’ve been two (and something else) years in Oz, and cricket is still looking to me very boring, where sometimes a team of chubby guys expose all their misery. As well as in soccer they insult their rivals and love to be popular and appear in TV advertisements and like any other rich sport-person they love to show all what they have (same as in soccer and others). Perhaps there is a big difference in all this attitudes, soccer players show themselves –in the field- as they are (they will offend you loudly, even knowing the consequences) and cricket players would do the same, but hiding their head underground (like emus). I don’t want to offend cricket lovers with this post, I just want to defend soccer from that article I read, and foreshadow that we can find human misery in all sports, articles, blogs and cultures.


The title of this post is especially dedicated to the soccer lovers of this galaxy!


* Quantifying soccer and cricket popularity, a non-random selected indicator as number of google results typing a) "cricket blogs", b)"soccer blogs" and c) "football blogs" showed that: a) 461 000, b) 6 260 000 and c) 12 000 000

Friday, February 1, 2008

A receptor that mediates the post-mating switch in Drosophila reproductive behaviour

It can be veeeeeeery dangerous!

"Females that lack the sex peptide receptor (SPR, also known as CG16752), either entirely or only in the nervous system, fail to respond to SP and continue to show virgin behaviours even after mating"

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7174/abs/nature06483.html