Solaris (film review)

Posted on 17/05/2012 by freelander

Dr. Snaut (Jüri Järvet) monologue in the space station’s library

“Science? Nonsense! In our situation, mediocrity and genius are equally useless. We have no interest in conquering any cosmos: we want to extend the Earth to the borders of cosmos. We don’t know what to do with other worlds. We don’t need other worlds: we need a mirror. We struggle for contact, but we’ll never find it. We’re in the foolish human predicament of striving for a goal that we fear, that we have no need for. Man needs man.”

Such goes one of the best pieces of speech in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (Russian production awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes Festival in 1972), a film adaptation loosely following Stanisław Lem’s science-fiction novel Solaris (Poland, 1961).

Though needlessly long and overly slow, this finely performed and unforgettable movie postulates the ultimate inadequacy of communication between human and alien species. Its brilliant dialogues and snaring musical theme, the strong personality of its characters and the excellent performance (Jüri Järvet, playing Dr. Snaut, deserves being highlighted) powerfully captured my attention to an almost hypnotizing degree; not only because of its excellent scenography, but mostly becaue of the rich food-for-thought provided.
Solaris is a philosophical essay on man’s anthropomorphic limitations; a meditative psychological drama proposing the futility of attempted communications with extraterrestrial life. The plot occurs mostly aboard a space station orbiting the far-distant planet Solaris, totally covered by an ocean which is a planet-encompassing, single organism. In examining this oceanic surface from the hovering research station, its scientists are being studied, in turn, by the sentient planet itself, which probes for the thoughts of the humans and has the ability to recreate their secret or guilty concerns in human-like material forms. After years of observation, the mission stalls after all the crew members have fallen to emotional crises; hence, a psychologist travels from Earth to learn and evaluate the situation, though only to encounter the same mysterious phenomenon as the other scientists aboard have.

To me, this is a must-see film; one of those many that, unfortunately, very seldom reach our Western countries’ screens because of the limited scope of film distribution oligopoly.

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Economical growth

Posted on 07/04/2012 by freelander

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Physically and mathematically, it is impossible to grow indefinitely in a finite system, such as planet Earth. Any subset of a finite system can only grow at the expense of the rest. The expression sustainable growth is a fallacy, and a contradiction in the terms. No economical model, none, comprising the idea of growth can be compatible with equality, solidarity, peace, social justice, resource preservation, respect for nature and life, freedom nor any other environmental or humanitarian durable ideal.
And this is not sociology, politics nor philosophy. This is thermodynamics.
Corollary: it’s about time to stop nonsense.
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Es física y matemáticamente imposible crecer de forma indefinida en un sistema finito y aislado. Y el planeta Tierra lo es. Cualquier subconjunto de tal sistema sólo puede crecer a costa de los otros elementos. La expresión “crecimiento sostenible” es una falacia y una contradicción en los términos. Ningún modelo económico o social, ninguno, que no pase por abandonar el objetivo del crecimiento puede ser compatible con la igualdad, la solidaridad, la paz, la justicia social, la conservación de los recursos, el respeto a la naturaleza o a la vida, la libertad u otro ideal alguno de semejante índole que pretenda ser perdurable.
Y esto no es sociología, política ni filosofía. Es termodinámica.
Corolario: ya va siendo hora de dejarnos de tonterías.
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The fire of my loins

Posted on 05/04/2012 by freelander

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Anonymous reader: would you stop by  and make me company for just a little while? Look: I can’t help hearing a voice inside me, that is talking to her all the time, pushing its way through my thoughts to make itself spoken. It’s a calm, tempered voice that wants to appease my mind without troubling others’; but it’s also a stubborn one, and I’m afraid I won’t fully achieve any inner peace until I get rid of it. Would you please bo so kind? Just listen by me to what this voice has to say. Who knows?, maybe some day you can tell her…
Oh, she! It is so long since we last talked! In a sense, we didn’t talked again ever since the distant time when we first met and, drinking wine in her balcony, said to each other, in just one evening, everything two souls must know for the love to start shining. That was it. But even though, often since then, our voices didn’t understand each other, our minds always kept that surprising connection. During our love, it was not through the speech, but the silence, how we got the best of ourselves. I like to believe that, hadn’t I wronged her, we could have spent our whole lives together in silence, and be happy. But I did. Early in our relationship I hurt her; not one, but several times; and those wrongs took away many of her feelings for me were, stole my credit from her heart, and indebted me with her forever. Forever.
For having turned her my back one day in some old town, upon the swarthy cobblestones, and had her helplessly weeping on the wharf steps, I am in debt. For purposely having left her behind where she couldn’t reach me, thus ruining all her blessed, innocent joy of a beautiful sunny day, I am in debt. For having made her feel lost, alone and defenseless among the crowd, utterly sorrow, disconsolate, such fateful day in such foreign town, I am in debt. The recollection of those moments shrinks my heart, makes me despise myself and fills me with sadness and remorse. It is no excuse that she was partially responsible for my behaviour, because love is supposed to do much better than what I did. Perhaps I aimed the right goals, but I chose the wrong ways. So, for all those misdeeds of mine, would you reader, whenever you find her, please tell her that I am sorry? And, yet, even if she forgives me, I won‘t ever forgive myself. Though I have atoned my sins with the severest penalty, to lose her, I’ll always feel in debt with her.
I was so lost! I became overemotional and obsessed, though… how could I not be? Have you ever truly idolized a person? I blindly stolled her! Simply, I was overwhelmed and wrecked by a passion that was too strong! My dear own Lolita… Oh!, how was she, you’d like to know? Let me tell you and drag you along to another dimension of our species…
There was that freshness and naïveté about her. There was that shocking sexual discordance between incontinence and chastity; that almost bewildering blend of childish innocence and unrestrained lechery. There was that sleeping, little young pervert, that subtle but persistent incite to lust which promised to any beholder a world of scrumptious pleasures. I was enthralled! Whenever I contemplated her features or got lost in the azur of her eyes; whenever I made love to her or saw her voluptuously naked, I beheld all the comeliness that I could desire in life embodied in a single being, and forever more I knew, with shocking certitude, that she was the One. How couldn’t I have regarded her with deaf devotion?

And there was also that hypnotizing natural originality about her demeanour, that appealing lack of inhibitions about her habits, that sparkling spontaneity which would burst in laughter and gaiety; there was that modest talent, that restrained intelligence and that captivating uncontrollable fantasy; there was that poignant helplessness in her tribulations, that touching empathy for sorrow, that primitive sensitivity for beauty, that keen intuition which so well read my mind… And all those wonders ended up subjugating my dozing heart and completely enslaving me to her. I was spellbound with her mermaid chants about horny moods!, and the sole idea of enjoying every minute of the day with her, every square inch of her skin, every fold of her flesh, every instant of her mind, every one of her smiles and words, this idea was so strong, so appealing and exciting, that I was terrified at the thought of yielding her, of losing her. She was my discovery, but I knew that her dangerous charms would make the same impression on others, and that she would soon become coveted, because if there is an exceptional and unprecedented human being, that is her! Was I going to be the only man with eyes onto his face?, the only one with a perception for what is authentic, beauty, outstanding and unimaginable? Of course not. I feared that some natural promiscuous impulses in her, an understandable drive for meeting new people or having new lovers and experiences, would be stronger than her infirm love for me. I was scared! I became jealous. Demolished by my passion for her and misguided by my blind love, I started demanding rationality and coherence from her, but… were rationality and coherence what kindled such a maddening fervor in me? Certainly not…
Well, do you really need to hear the end, anonymous reader? You can easily imagine it. Please, spare me to remember.
Oh!, of course I’m still far from ceasing to love her. Time ago I openly bestowed all my love onto her, allegedly and without restrictions, and I haven’t withdrawn it so far. I still adore her with the core of my loins; I’m still lost without her, and sorrowful; I still wake up in the morning with her name on my lips, and fall asleep at night with her image on my eyelids. But, though the bonfire of passion may never again burn within me with the same ardor, I hope to someday arise anew to life from the old ashes.
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Get rid of Acrobat's upgrade notification popup

Posted on 17/03/2012 by freelander

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Are you tired of the annoying “update acrobat” Acrobat icon popping up in your screen’s lower right corner every time you switch your computer on, or access any pdf document?

For getting rid of it, you can go to the heart of the problem and get rid of it once and for all… until you need it. The “updater” is a small application called AdobeARM.exe which is sitting in the folder: c:Program FilesCommon FilesAdobeARM1.0 (or whatever your version number is). You only need to go there, spot the application and chage its name (for example to AdobeARM.backup) This way, it will not distract you again with its popups and, when you want to upgrade Acrobat reader, you can just rename the file back to its original name.

Hope someone finds this helpful.

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Fix for Macbook white screen of death. Shame on Apple!

Posted on 18/12/2011 by freelander

If one day, on booting your Macbook (likely, after doing some serious modification to your hdd or filesystems), you hear the startup chime but you get an empty white screen showing no activity at all, which stays there forever, then you’ve come across the dreaded white screen of death.

In order to fix it, first you can try the (sufficiently explained somewhere else) recommendations of the sort: insert the System Install medium, reset the SMC, reset the PRAM, hold down the Option, C or N keys, boot off the network, etc. But if nothing of that works, don’t panic! Don’t pay much attention to posts out there saying that your hard drive/motherboard is “fried”, nor take yet your machine to the Apple service for getting stolen once again. There are many chances that nothhing is wrong with your hardware. Follow the steps I explain here and, instead of a very expensive repair bill, you’ll probably only spend (depending on your model) $12 on a Phillips #00 screwdriver, plus maybe $14 on a Torx T5.

Now, before you proceed to the fix, I think it’s good you read this brief explanation about how a Macbook boots, so you know what’s going on.

The sequence is more or less like this: the EFI firmware tries to boot either off the hard drive or off another bootable medium (a CD/DVD unit, an install USB stick, the network, etc), if previously so set via OS-X’s Startup Manager. Now, let’s consider the two cases, starting from the second: when the firmware is NOT set to boot off the hard drive, it looks, as instructed, for the alternative boot medium that it was told; but if it doesn’t find it (or the medium isn’t bootable), then it will automatically revert to booting off the hard drive. However, when the firmware is set to boot off the hdd (which is the default) and this drive isn’t bootable (for whatever reason) then it WILL NOT automatically try to find any other alternative boot media, so it doesn’t boot at all, thus presenting to you the white screen of death. This is the stupid logic for which you’ve paid a fortune, instead of buying a cheaper and bullet-proof PC.

Now, how can you work around this problem? Here comes my “copyrighted” fix. It’s quite simple:

Step #1. With the help of the screwdrivers that I mentioned above, remove your Macbook’s back cover and unattach the hard drive from the motherboard (in iFixit you have a great tutorial on how to do it. Don’t be afraid. It’s extemely easy, and even fun. I’m sure you can do it). Having NO hard drive at all is the only way to force the system firmware to automatically look for alternative boot media. So, now

Step #2. simply make available such medium (USB, DVD, network…) and, voilá!, after one minute or so, you’ll take a deep sigh because when you see the little spinning icon, and the laptop will boot. Congratulations: you’ve done the most difficult part; the rest is easy:

Step #3. Once your laptop booted, it’s essential that you go to the Utilities menu, open the Startup Manager and set the computer to, next time, boot off anything except the hard drive, or you’ll be in the same SHITuation upon next boot! Next,

Step #4. attach again the hard drive to the motherboard and reboot. It should boot as instructed, presenting no white screen. Now go again to Utilities menu and, using the Disk Utility, repair or (in the worst case) format your hard drive, as needed.

That’s all! SHAME on Apple for neither fixing their firmware nor offering this solution it in their support webpage, but, instead, joyfully getting your money twice: first when selling their crap, second when fixing it.

Notice: I am the “discoverer” of this fix, and I’ve published it here for Apple’s shame and for your benefit. If I’ve spared you one week anguish and/or a $500 bill at the nearest Apple workshop, you might like to show your gratefulness by inviting me a beer. Simply donate here what you’d pay for a beer in your favourite bar. Cheap and nice, huh? 😉

(One last word: due to the excessive amount of comments to this thread, no newer can be posted. I believe that most doubts or questions have already being posted and replied. Please read carefully throughout the comments, because your answer is probably there.)

Posted in Binary world | Tagged , | 41 Comments

Fighting obesity?

Posted on 25/09/2011 by freelander

[:en]I’ve been six hours packing at home, struggling with my stuff to make the suitcase comply with the airlines’ weight allowance: 20 kg. You can’t easily do with less than 20 kg of luggage for a one month holiday, and it’s time-consuming to select the most necessary things, all the essentials and nothing but the essentials, and still leave some margin for the gifts you’ll bring back home.
Now I’m waiting at the boarding gate, and I see this massive guy, probably no less than 120 kg fat, sitting in front of me. And I think: that man has paid for his ticket the I paid! Now, how fair is that? Airlines are only too ready (and happy!) to charge you a forfeit if your luggage exceeds the limit in just one kilo, but then they don’t penalize that colossus, even though he’s worth much more than me and my suitcase together. Actually I could carry two more pieces of luggage and still I’d be lighter than him, with the added advantage, in my favour, that in case of an emergency my baggage could be thrown overboard to drop ballast, whereas a person couldn’t. So, to be fair, I should be entitled to 50 full extra kg of staff, then offered a discount for ‘disposability’.
That’s why I believe that governments don’t really want to fight obesity. Politicians talk and talk about healthy eating and responsible feeding our kids, but that’s only drivel: if they truly wanted to end with obesity, it would be as simple as passing a bill to allow–or even force airlines to tariff per kilo of total weight; say, for instance, passenger plus baggage limit: 100 kg; anything above that, pays forfait. Then you’d see a sensible percentage of obese people start exercising and eating healthier: if only they had to pay extra in the airplanes!
But of course governments won’t do that, even if only because the food industry is so powerful and gluttons keep the market wheel spinning round, injecting money into the system with all the food they buy, which creates jobs and makes companies richer and more powerful. Monsanto probably loves fat people, and of course governments love Monsanto, needless to say why. So, unlike me, obese can’t be spared. I’m almost worthless for the system, perfectly expendable. But them? They’re the fuel of these greedy economies.
Meanwhile, here I am, sparing clothes for a 20 kg allowance. How fair is that?[:]

Posted in Opinion | 2 Comments

Shame on Spain

Posted on 24/08/2011 by freelander

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With the help of media, grudge and nescience can grow really powerful. And now, in Spain, they’re achieving their goal: presently, the main national and international news about the Pope’s visit to Madrid is not the event itself, nor Benedict XVI himself, but the protests against.
 

Demonstrations against papal visit to Madrid


 
Indeed, hordes of misinformed unoccupieds or opinionated progresists, alleged atheists or presumed egalitarians, and a fistful of sciolists, have come to complain about the Spanish government’s favoritism towards Catholics and the Pope (with respect to other religions and visitors), and about the expenses that, in spite of the crisis, the privileges granted to the «piligrims» (subsidized transport, food and shelter) mean for the country. By giving a special treatment to this visit and their followers, the government -they say- is discriminating against another religions (Spain being «officially» a secular country), events or personages, while at the same time incurring in costs that will not pay off.
But is this true?
Certainly, one of the articles in our Constitution says that «no creed will be official», but then it goes on: «the religious beliefs of Spanish society will be taken into account by authorities, and the consequent cooperation with Catholic Church and the rest of creeds will be kept». However, these crusaders of our democracy (who probably get married by church and then baptise their children, both things under some feeble excuse) seem to only be aware of the first part of that article, but not the second: they either ignore it, or think that the explicit mention to Catholicism is a mere ornament, like an example in a textbook. They clutch the «we’re a secular country» idea, stick to it as if it was a life ring, and forget (or chose to obliterate) an essential part of our history, disregarding by the way the fact that a good portion of Spain’s revenues comes thanks to Christendom (though this is surely more arguable).
 

Some criticism device smart puns


 
Another thing that these complaining philistines forget is the undisguised hostility that our governing socialist party -in special Zapatero, that unfortunate and shameful prime minister- has opposed to the Catholic Church during the long eight years of his two terms (hopefully close to expire). How can anyone, having some wits and a little awareness, believe that this country is favoring anything that comes from the Vatican? Not at all; the political crew ruling Spain these days can’t care less about the Pope and the pilgrims; but, having had the -possibly- worst economical management since our democracy, they do care about one thing now: money! And this brings us to the perhaps most important side of this controversy: is the visit of Benedict XVI going to mean an economical burden to our nation?
Definitely not. Though there are -as usual- many different flavours of the estimate expenses (quantifiable or not) concerning this visit, from 50 to 100 million euros, we only need to use the most fundamental maths to realize that, even under the worst of scenarios, more than one million pilgrims bring to Spain considerably more money than than those expenses. The volunteers (organizers) have free shelter and transport, but: the salaries of the transport workers has to be paid all the same, and without the Pope’s visit those tourists wouldn’t come; so, there is no money loss on this side. On the other hand, the sheltered offered to these volunteers is poor: they sleep on the floor; no money loss here either. They’re also subsidized food, but that’s basically what they paid for when volunteering (yes, they had to pay a fee). Therefore, no much expenses on the part of the Administration here either… And let’s be honest: everything in this capitalistic world is about money. If the visit of the Pope would not mean business, it would not take place.
 

Placards shown by some demonstrators.


 
So, let’s not be hypocrites: these demonstrations and criticisms are not about favoritism, nor about laicism, nor about money: they are about resentment, animosity and even hatred; and those who dissent and disapprove — those who protest against the expenses and against the simplicity of the believers, those are the benighted and narrow-minded; those are the real bigots in this society.
Shame on Spain.
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En esta España nuestra parece que siempre ha de haber alguien salvando a alguien. Durante siglos, se adjudicaron esta función la iglesia católica y sus fieles: devotos laicos y aplicados religiosos se han afanado durante décadas sin fin, aquí y allende los mares, por convertirnos a la fe o regresarnos a ella, siempre para guardarnos de las trampas del Maligno, alejarnos del pecado y salvarnos de la condenación eterna, amén.

Pero en estos albores del siglo veintiuno corren malos tiempos para los evangelios: la ciencia ha acorralado a la fe -si bien en menor medida de lo que se piensa- y, dejándonos desamparados frente al absurdo, le ha abierto de par en par las puertas al consumismo, ese nuevo opio que los tahúres de la mercadotecnia se han apresurado a explotar. Cuando ya no podemos creer en Dios, ni en la otra vida, tenemos que buscarle un nuevo sentido a esta.
Sin embargo, curiosamente, no nos hemos quedado huérfanos de salvadores; nuestro quijotesco carácter siempre empuja a algunos al histrionismo. Y ahora, proliferando como lo hacen, ante la presencia de un herbicida que elimine las especies dominantes, las plantas que han estado sometidas por ellas, ha venido a aparecer en nuestra sociedad una iluminada casta de salvadores: son los ociosos descreídos y los filisteos, los resentidos y los envidiosos, los que se dicen ateos y se erigen en paladines de la igualdad (sin saber que sólo aclaman al igualitarismo), en cruzados de una dudosa Constitución y una paupérrima democracia, quienes ahora han venido a salvarnos… ¡de la Fe!
 

Un hábil fotógrafo ha logrado reunir en una instantánea a varios manifestantes adultos.


 
Estos son los nuevos mesías. Bien los hemos visto con ocasión de la visita a Madrid del Papa Benedicto XVI, protestando y manifestándose, tras la tísica disculpa de un gasto desmesurado o una discriminación frente a otros credos, contra una mayoría aún religiosa y católica. Ahí estaban estos salvadores en plena función, elevando sus gritos y alzando sus pancartas hacia todos aquellos que aún tiene la bendita fortuna de poder creer en Algo.
 

¿Se trataba de derogar la ley del aborto?


 
Pero esta atolondrada oposición no buscaba, en realidad, salvaguardar nuestra economía en crisis, ya que sólo un necio puede pensar que el balance económico de la visita papal vaya a ser negativo para el país; ni buscaba tampoco defender (dando la espalda a la verdadera realidad de nuestra sociedad) el supuesto -y muy controvertido- laicismo oficial español, ya que estos mismos títeres que se manifiestan contra la acogida gubernamental para Benedicto XVI no se habrían atrevido a levantar una voz, a proferir un susurro, si el visitante hubiera sido el caudillo de cualquier otra religión; antes al contrario, habrían sido los primeros en declararse a favor y, de paso, colgarse las medallas de la tolerancia y de la pluralidad.
 

O cómo confundir la velocidad con el tocino.


 
No, nada de esto. Se ha tratado de algo mucho más tragicómico; mucho más carpetovetónico: estas protestas, reflejo de nuestra patria ignorancia, de nuestra secular intransigencia, en realidad no buscaban nada grande ni elevado, nada noble, sino que han brotado al son y al Sol del Madrid estival, abonadas por una varia casuística: muchos, para dar salida al resentimiento incubado durante generaciones; otros, por la envidia que siente el agnóstico del creyente; muchos, para desahogar frustraciones personales; quién, para alcanzar el dudoso crédito de «haber luchado contra el sistema», pero sin discriminar objetivos; no pocos, para amenizar el caluroso ocio de las noches veraniegas, o por simple esnobismo; algunos, por último, porque cualquier excusa les vale para reivindicar su homosexualidad o enseñarnos las tetas. En cualquier caso, la mayoría de estos confundidos progresistas, de estos eruditos a la violeta, se han cultivado en el caldo de la desinformación, el dogmatismo o el rencor.
 

¡Quién fuera bicicleta!


 
Pero son ellos, estos nuevos mesías que quieren salvarnos del catolicismo, los verdaderos intolerantes de esta incorregible España nuestra.
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How to login as root in Xfce

Posted on 21/05/2011 by freelander

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Log in as root in the Xfce environment is disabled by default. When I tried to google how to change this behaviour, I got lots of results, but useless, because though dozens of people had posted that same question in dozens of forums, they all got the same kind of reply: “Log in as root in graphics mode is dangerous. You shouldn’t do it, and certainly I won’t tell you how to.” Bullshit. That’s a hypocritical reply, as coming from someone who refuse to help others under the weak grounds that “it’s dangerous”. I can’t help thinking that those “gurus” are simply enjoying their power at knowing something they don’t want to share.
Fortunately, I was lucky to find out the answer by myself. Here’s how you can do it (I’m talking about the Linux Mint Xfce and the gdm3 session manager):
Open a terminal and, as root, edit the file /etc/pam.d/gdm3. Comment out the line that says: “auth required pam_succeed_if.so user != root quiet success”.
There you are! That simple. Now you can log in as root in an Xfce session. 
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