Older blog entries for nymia (starting at number 412)

8 Jan 2002 (updated 8 Jan 2002 at 10:22 UTC) »
Volunteer Work

Decided to sacrifice some coding time to volunteer as an assistant instructor for a computer training class for low- income families. There was an article covering the training program. Basically, it's for people who want to get some basic computer skills.

It was really quite a humbling experience though. Without it, I will probably never know there are people who are eagerly waiting, looking for opportunities to get them started in computing. Unfortunately, there was no Linux software in sight. Maybe I should talk to the director and suggest the idea of having a Linux training as a secondary item later.

With my experience having exposed to filthy rich and low- income type of people. I'm glad I'm still sane enough to know the difference and appreciate both.

This is definitely in line with my philosophy. I will donate my time and effort in helping people help themselves. The work is actually very simple and that is to get them introduced into the world of computers, most probably, the Internet.

Linux For The Masses

With that in mind, I just wish those people who are involved in the development of Linux (the whole shebang) understand this simple thing: Make Linux Accessible To The Masses.

Here are some ideas:
  • Lose the elitist attitude.
  • Hide the CLI.
  • Provide GUIs to everything.
  • Standardize the user interface.
  • Use simple words to explain things.
  • Multi language support.
  • Make the GUI similar to the most popular out there.
Furthermore, here are some applications the masses will most likely want to immediately use after finishing the training program:
  • Internet Browser.
  • Email.
  • Wordprocessor with multi-language support.


Language

Had lots of fun trying to communicate in a different language. Had to listen accurately and think of words necessary to respond. Overall, I somehow managed to communicate decently though. One of them I will never forget were the words..."click doble veces en un segundo para abrir el program, como rapido." And "ponga el diskette en la makina."
6 Jan 2002 (updated 7 Jan 2002 at 08:43 UTC) »
PostgreSQL

Spent some free time playing with the grammar. Also tried to figure how to add xbase support as well. It may take some time to get it working though.

NewOS, MenuetOS

Also spent a little time playing with the code, trying to get the real/protected mode switch to work. It looks like the kernel I'm trying to make is going to be BIOS bound, which is probably not bad since all I want is to make it small as possible though.

Distribution

Finally got the pricing structure information and will proceed to figure the framework of the distribution channel, in case it takes off.

Roses

Asked some friends about information on how setup a small rose farm. The roses I have here seem to have survived under my care though. Next step is to increase the scale to a higher level and figure if it will work or not. The existing breeding/growing system have a high rate of mortality (75%), not sure exactly where is the problem. The instructions I got seem to have failed miserably. Think I'll have to get more information from a professional grower soon.

Product X

Got a go signal to start experimenting with the idea of pushing another non-traditional product. Thought of putting a 45 day lead to be a good number. From initial test, they seemed to have good potential. Guess I'll never know it until the 'real' tests are applied though.

Case #1

One example is an individual who spends approximately $1,000 a year on the product. Equivalent to 700 to 800 minutes worth of fun and enjoyment. That's because the product is a consumable and is also perishable. From there, an equation can be setup to approximate it. Definitely, numbers like these tend to tickle the people upstairs though, especially, when numbers are aggregated and assumptions are properly put into place.

2001

Time to write down my thoughts on the year 2001. That year was definitely something, I would probably consider that year to be my longest and worst year I ever had. The industry were I belong to, slowly collapsed. The first and second quarter was already showing signs of softening, the market started contracting and everybody around started worrying about their jobs and contracts. Some claimed it would over by september and by december things will turn out fine. Unfortunately, things turned out the other way.

2001 is definitely something I would consider a terrible year. If I learned anything, that would be to not place my entire career in one basket. Having two things (business or not) working at the same time might be right combination. As a person whom I met a couple of days ago told me that he was prepared when his employer handed the pink slip to him. He already had a backup business operating already. He knew from day one he would be getting the pink slip and from there he spent his free time working on getting contracts. He would work his second business until 2:00 AM. Believing someday he would be terminated.

I guess having a backup was smart thing to do, especially, when working in a capitalist system. You never know when things will get ugly.

2002

Been thinking about 2002. One of the things that's been rattling in my mind was the idea of a Linux breakout. Perhaps 2002 could the year when Linux finally steps-in takes a bite out of the competition. The images of Rocky II seems to vividly show up along with the great sounding trumpets.

Noticeable Cracks Along The Border

Thought about how the current economic experience have impacted the rich and the middle class. IMO, it looks the crack appeared during the time of 'downsizing' and was again impacted by the recent massive layoffs and escalation of troubled companies to the brink of bankruptcy. Now, it seems the crack is much noticeable such that more people are now having a negative opinion on how the rich corporate owners have treated the middle class workers.
3 Jan 2002 (updated 4 Jan 2002 at 08:27 UTC) »
Regional Distributor

Managed to talk to S&M Manager of a communications company and asked him if I could become one of their regional distributors for their new company. Fortunately, they were looking for someone to fill the position since they had problems with a former regional distributor having various anamolous transactions. Now, they wanted to see me and get an idea if I can get it done.

It's basically a high volume, low-margin per transaction business. Requiring high PR skills and no techie talk. If I get it, they will require me to setup a base here and recruit more people. Unfortunately, I told them I have no money to start with. They'll come back after the meeting and let me know what steps are needed to move it forward.

It's all about money. Money to get the brochures printed. Money for liteweight advertizing. And that's only a small part of it. A lot of it is business oriented, despite the fact that everything underneath it is a network of high tech devices. Those dang people will never know it's high technology that made it possible.

Recruiters

Been talking to a lot Bay Area recruiters lately. Got a lot of information from them, mostly bad news though. Maybe next week, I'll try again and see if I can get any contracts. Also called several firms in the Seattle area. Same thing.

PostgreSQL

Currently looking at the grammar, trying to figure out how new rules can be inserted. I had this idea of putting in xbase grammar support into it. It might look interesting in the end though.

Animae

While driving, so many things came across my feeble mind. I thought about why there are so many gods and why there is a consistently held belief about the soul. Interesting as to why many would take a leap-of-faith to justify the connections, while here, the soul is something left as something an effect of the gods'. Could the soul exist without the existence of a god?
"Those who raise questions about the God hypothesis and the soul hypothesis are by no means all atheists. An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed. A wide range of intermediate positions seems admissible, and considering the enormous emotional energies with which the subject is invested, a questioning, courageous and open mind seems to be the essential tool for narrowing the range of our collective ignorance on the subject of the existence of God." [1]
Humani Generis

With all these animum stuff going on, I stumbled into an interesting document, an encyc lical where a fatherly and guiding tone reminded me of something I should consider as a rule when doing research like these. IMO, tradition and culture must be respected and tolerated at any cost.
43. Let them strive with every force and effort to further the progress of the sciences which they teach; but let them also be careful not to transgress the limits which We have established for the protection of the truth of Catholic faith and doctrine. With regard to new questions, which modern culture and progress have brought to the foreground, let them engage in most careful research, but with the necessary prudence and caution; finally, let them not think, indulging in a false "irenism," that the dissident and the erring can happily be brought back to the bosom of the Church, if the whole truth found in the Church is not sincerely taught to all without corruption or diminution. [ 2 ]
2 Jan 2002 (updated 2 Jan 2002 at 11:16 UTC) »
Borrowed Laptop

Managed to borrow a laptop and finally got to enter a journal entry for today. Overall, things have been fun and enjoyable, with nothing happening one the computing front. Might get into it next week though.

Muchissimo Gracias

Spent the New Year here at the Bay Area, visiting the in- laws. Celebrated the New Year by having the Media Noche.

Id Animii

Stumbled into something interesting about the Latin word 'anima.' Will continue collecting information about the idea surrounding it.

Argentina

Been following the news about what is going on in Argentina. A lot can be learned from how it ended that way. It might serve as a warning sign for the third world. I would greatly appreciate if somebody here could point me to a discussion site where I could read opinions about it. Spanish and English is fine though, think the Argentine language is much better and more meaningful to read.

MSCS

Talked to my folks about the idea of taking the MSCS course this year. Got a negative on that one, might get support if I take Law though.

X Grammar Support

Thought of setting up a maintenance support shop for dead languages having 10 to 30 year-old legacy apps. Got the idea from a guy who got a contract about maintaining old code. The guy basically wrote a new compiler for the old code. It now runs on new hardware and a different OS. Cool.
27 Dec 2001 (updated 27 Dec 2001 at 20:32 UTC) »
Venite Adoremus Dominum

Been out for several days, mostly spent the days celebrating the season. Don't know exactly when I'll be able to start coding again, perhaps by Jan '02.

Domum Deum Videt, Oravit

This season is definitely something I must follow. It's already the tradition. Escuchemos los viejos voces.
PostgreSQL

Spent some time defining tables and sequences. Created a database for a application program we wrote back in 1993. This one is really interesting because it captures the requirements of a detergent company. It was originally written in xbase with some oracle tie-ins. Actually stumbled into the backup copy and wondered if it can be resurrrected under PostgreSQL, this time, it will run on a browser.
19 Dec 2001 (updated 19 Dec 2001 at 06:51 UTC) »
NewOS, MenuetOS

Spent some free time reading the NewOS VM code. Also played around tweaking the code, compiling to see how it would turn out. Looks OK so far.

Also spent some time reading MenuetOS code ( run32), figuring out the steps in getting the graphics mode up. Also looked at the other steps how sound, floppy, disk and mouse work.

Thought about the pros and cons of having to support both real and protective mode, thinking access to the BIOS might not be a bad idea. I suspect it would make the code fit in a 1.44MB floppy.

Latin [ 1 ]

It's been over five years now and I'm still struggling in Latin. WinLatin helped a lot, though it didn't allow me to become fluent yet. Guess I have to put more effort into it.

Guavac

Spent some time reading the parser code. Noticed the fine engineering that went into it. I admit the guavac team made a very good job coding it.
15 Dec 2001 (updated 15 Dec 2001 at 14:52 UTC) »
Dried-Up Well

Finally accepted the reality of having to let it go after trying many times. I guess it's the times. Better move on.

Demutualization

Got a letter from our 401K provider stating their intent to demutualize. Now, my worries have reached a new high after realizing my position will probably shift from stable to high risk. My bad, what is happening here? Is this a meltdown? What will happen to those who are bound for retirement? Hope they manage it well.

Practice Website

Been spending a lot of time building a simple website . Managed to create a site devoted specifically to a small community (OFWs) scattered all over. Might spin it off to a real interactive site if it turns out positive.

NewOS, MenuetOS

Spent some time figuring out VESO 2.0 in run32.asm, thinking it can be ported to the NewOS code. Might take some time to figure it out though.

Labor, Capital & CEOs

Been looking for and collecting information on why the hell a lot of laborers are still getting pink slips. Will definitely figure it out soon enough. Think Karl Marx and Adam Smith might have some ideas behind this phenomenon.
Corporate libertarians maintain that the market turns unrestrained greed into socially optimal outcomes. Smith would be outraged by those who attribute this idea to him. He was talking about small farmers and artisans trying to get the best price for their products to provide for themselves and their families. That is self-interest, not greed. Greed is a high-paid corporate executive firing 10,000 employees and then rewarding himself with a multimillion-dollar bonus for having saved the company so much money. Greed is what the economic system being constructed by the corporate libertarians encourages and rewards.
--Korten
Shocked

Got shocked after stumbling into this cartoon on Arabnews.

Reply

Hey mbp, that's an interesting link.
10 Dec 2001 (updated 11 Dec 2001 at 07:39 UTC) »
Crossing Over

Just wondering how John Edward could feel presence of souls. Currently collecting information about it. But some say his methods are quest ionable.

Made me wonder how society's gays and lesbians end up in the afterlife. Know what? it ends up all the same.
The message that did come through on all NDEs was the message of 'love'. [2]
Here's another article about crossing to the next.

But the real crossing over seems to happen everyday for people who want to change their lives.

Goto

Thought of implementing a feature that would allow control to jump from one procedure to another. Would that make sense? That would be an interesting experiment though.

Reply

I response to tk's. I write a lot of things, mostly to myself. Sometimes I post it and sometimes not. The one I'm writing is definitely for myself, it's only a paper about observations and comments based on those observations. Though the paper I'm writing may have some value, I personally think they don't have any value for the simple thing they're just collected from the Net, aggregated in simple paragraphs.

About the 'smashing' thing. I just found it on the Net and posted it there, thinking that the idea was closest to the one I was writing. If I had written it, it would be written in another way. Not like that, but since the idea was there, I had to take to save some typing effort. You were correct on your comments and I agree to it. The article was a bit radical and not mainstream, IMO. Some people will definitely get offended though.

Regarding the seed, I think writing logically is a way of planting seeds. In my case, I write to see if I'm logically correct and post it somewhere in the Net. Good ideas grow given the right situation. Existence of an idea about Linux in the Third World is enough to be called a just cause. Resulting in the realization of something, maybe a Linux-like implementation of an internet enabled device. To begin it, a cause must exist.

Some comments on tk's article. By removing the ideal, man is basically left with nothing but his environment and a set of instincts. Where does reasoning fit in? Does that mean instincts are capable of reasoning?

Ideals cannot be separated from man for the simple reason it is part of man, inherent. Though some men can successfully hide and train men to behave based on instincts, that doesn't mean an ideal is eliminated forever. Men may act based on instincts, but the urge to reason out and form complex structures in his mind will always be there. Ideals, whether we like it or not, play a large role in the formation of structures. It provides man how mental structures become physical. Though instincts provide that as well, however, ideals provide more.

Regarding RMS and ideals, to me, it seems more likely RMS has placed emphasis on ideals and the environment, completely ignoring the instinct of gathering food to provide for self-sustenance. IMO, that is another example of imbalance that only certain persons can adhere to, completely losing a large part of being human, capable of living, thinking and surviving in a given environment. A pseudo altruism replaced what used to be a way of earning a living, as a result of the 'free' cause.

RMS, being the uncompromising one in the FSF cause, IMO, is only promoting a trust system based on source code. While RMS would like to see a world filled with GPL'd software where code is free, he is, in another way, rejecting some parts of the trust system based on money which most of us (working in proprietary code) heavily depend on.

It may look anti-FSF, actually, I just don't agree on the one aspect of clear cut separation of GPL'd and proprietary code.
9 Dec 2001 (updated 10 Dec 2001 at 00:44 UTC) »
Linux In The Third World

Been looking for information to justify the presence of an internet enabled device for farmers in the agricultural sector. After spending two hours, I finally stumbled into it.
There is now a project with Rapa Lopa, Al Alegre and others on providing e-mail and internet access to small farmers in different parts of the country. A major purpose of this effort is for them to know market prices around the country. This way they are not completely dependent on price quotes from middle men. They can counter with price quotes from the markets in the cities. Who needs this information? Corn growers Bukidnon and Cotabato need to know before they sell to middle men. Cut-flower growers in Cagayan de Oro and Davao need to know the market demand in Manila and Cebu. Fishermen in Pagadian and General Santos need to know market demand for tuna or shrimp in Manila restaurants. [1]
This could be ticket in connecting the smallest farmer to the ultimate buyer, eliminating the middleman. I think this framework will work in third world countries. It could be the answer to the never ending saga of price manipulation.

Only the cheapest solution will work in this kind of environment. No small farmer can afford spending $200 for an XP box. It's very clear how the next couple of years will be about the growth and expansion of Linux in these types of regions.

Now, if only Linux can be dumbed down, things could turn out much quicker, IMO.
E-Commerce thus accelerates the social disruptions that have already been going on. If the industrial revolution created massive flows from countryside to cities, changed feudal relationships to worker-capitalist relationships, brought about communist revolutions, etc. what might be the shape of a future created by e-commerce? An acceleration of a process which has already been going on:
C Compiler

Currently working on the C grammar, figuring out how the parse tree will finally look like. I might use one struct with tons of union within it. Think it's much easier to put all of them there. The ADT will probably easier to maintain that way though.

Reply

In response to tk's entry , tk raised very good question of which I have no answers. There are a lot more things to consider too complex for any individual to solve. I don't know, actually, I'll just continue looking for more information until I create a good paper supporting the idea.

Those questions tk raised will be answered, not today, not tomorrow, but it will eventually get answered. These farmers will see how these devices will work for them, not against them.

One thing is for sure though, it will take years, maybe centuries to make it all happen. But it must start now, seeds must be planted, like a mustard seed planted in a fertile soil, so to speak.
It is time we stopped making excuses for the backward and fetishizing the stagnant. We need to help these people. If that means smashing a few cultures which are little more than 20th century, Southern Hemisphere versions of Vikings, so be it. How we smash them is the subject of another column. [1]

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