Otto Reich says Uncle Sam will use its whip at LatAm once again!

US: Election results augur new policy toward Latin America – Americas Forum
http://www.hacer.org/latam/?p=6000

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"The November 2nd midterm elections that swept Republicans into power in the House of Representatives will bring in a more firm policy towards Latin America’s budding autocrats, Ambassador Otto Reich, former Assistant Secretary of State, recently told Americas Forum."
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Oh yea, Otto Reich...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Reich

Otto Reich´s legacy of white propaganda
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-11-04/otto-reich-white-propaganda.html

Covert Propaganda: the Otto Reich File
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB40/

FC

Nestor Kirchner died. Uno menos. Este no jode mas.

 ̶A̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶,̶ ̶p̶l̶u̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶a̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶e̶b̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶I̶M̶F̶.̶ ̶A̶r̶g̶e̶n̶t̶i̶n̶a̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶e̶n̶ ̶e̶n̶j̶o̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶i̶g̶h̶ ̶g̶r̶o̶w̶t̶h̶ ̶r̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶u̶n̶e̶m̶p̶l̶o̶y̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶c̶e̶.̶

̶

̶O̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶e̶i̶g̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶y̶ ̶l̶e̶v̶e̶l̶,̶ ̶K̶i̶r̶c̶h̶n̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶s̶s̶e̶n̶t̶i̶a̶l̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶g̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶g̶r̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶U̶N̶A̶S̶U̶R̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶u̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶t̶h̶ ̶A̶m̶e̶r̶i̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶r̶i̶e̶s̶.̶ ̶

̶

̶S̶o̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶N̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶ ̶K̶i̶r̶c̶h̶n̶e̶r̶.̶

̶

̶T̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶c̶r̶e̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶"̶E̶n̶c̶u̶e̶n̶t̶r̶o̶"̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶ ̶e̶d̶u̶c̶a̶t̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶T̶V̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶n̶n̶e̶l̶.̶

̶

̶T̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶i̶g̶g̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶g̶r̶a̶m̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶r̶e̶c̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶a̶r̶g̶e̶n̶t̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶.̶

̶

̶T̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶b̶o̶o̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶e̶d̶u̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶s̶c̶i̶e̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶e̶c̶h̶n̶o̶l̶o̶g̶y̶ ̶b̶u̶d̶g̶e̶t̶s̶.̶

̶

̶T̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶S̶A̶N̶E̶ ̶f̶i̶s̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶i̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶D̶U̶A̶L̶ ̶S̶U̶R̶P̶L̶U̶S̶E̶S̶ ̶(̶f̶i̶s̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶r̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶p̶l̶u̶s̶e̶s̶)̶.̶

̶

̶T̶h̶a̶n̶k̶s̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶f̶a̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶t̶i̶c̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶s̶a̶n̶e̶ ̶p̶u̶b̶l̶i̶c̶ ̶p̶o̶l̶i̶c̶i̶e̶s̶.̶

Fué el líder de una de las bandas más creativas a la hora de asolar el erario público. Este no jode más. 

FC

Forget VNC, TurboVNC, TightVNC, UltraVNC, RealVNC... the good one is Tiger, TigerVNC

It seems like it was only yesterday that a team of very creative people at a joint research facility in Cambridge, UK -operated at the time by Italian firm Olivetti and US database giant Oracle (talk about strange bedfellows)- created "Virtual Network Computing" or VNC for short.

Then, over the years, the concept of a free software implementation of a "remote desktop" began to catch on (once upon a time people would buy propietary products to do this sort of thing, like "PC Anywhere" or IBM Desktop on Call, Win2You, etc, just to name a few).

Well, the problem with VNC was that while the underlying RFB protocol was very strong, some bean counter *ssholes at AT&T who first bought the reserach labs later decided they´d rather use the money more wisely and proceeded to shut down the ORL research labs in Cambridge. The Guardian lamented it here.

Over the years, people started making VNC stronger, faster, and forks of the original VNC started to appear: TightVNC, TurboVNC, UltraVNC, and finally... RealVNC.

So, fast forward to 2010... What of all flavours of VNC to use?.

My answer: none of the above.

My choice is TigerVNC.

TigerVNC is a fork of RealVNC, incorporating many of the improvements from TightVNC and better security (which on RealVNC are features in the paid/commercial version only).

See:
http://tigervnc.org

Windows and linux builds are available at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/tigervnc/files/

From the site: “TigerVNC is an advanced VNC implementation. It is based on the fourth generation of VNC. TigerVNC also includes features from the TightVNC and TurboVNC projects.

This includes accelerated JPEG compression. TigerVNC supports the latest X.Org X server.”

Hope this helps...
FC

Calacanis pants on fire

"Liar, liar, pants on fire!"
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/11/facebook-calacanis-is-lying/

It seems "serial entrepreneur" or "Netscape.com portal destroyer" as I´d call him, is in trouble again.

FC

ICANN´s Tina Dam was a big deal

ICANN´s Tina Dam, whom I had never seen before, was on CNN last Friday discussing the news story of native language domain names for Middle East languages.... and surprisingly, she said it´s "really hard to explain" why the new availability of URLs in Arabic is "such a big deal" (CNN anchor´s question) for Middle East people...

D´oh!.

Couldn´t she make the point that the current system of typing in western characters for URLs would be akin to us westerners having to type URLs and domain names in Kanji or some other foreign character set?.

Double D´oh!.

Like the saying goes... sometimes common sense is the least common of all.

FC
PS: Tina Dam is a hottie.

Still, maybe she wasn´t well prepared for such hard-hitting questions. ;)

Stephen Hawking says there are aliens, but we shouldn't talk to them...

Reading the Aussie news wires comes this story about Stephen Hawking saying he surely believes there are Aliens, but that we shuldn't talk to them, as they're likely armed and dangerous. Well, not exactly his words...

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/aliens-exist-but-they-may-be-dangerous-hawking-20100426-tm53.html

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"Aliens may exist but mankind should avoid contact with them as the consequences could be devastating, British scientist Stephen Hawking warned on Sunday."

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," the astrophysicist said in a new television series, according to British media reports."

/////////////////////////////////



What can I say...





FC

Bad news, Iceland, and Bjork

Local right wing paper LA NACION has this headline

"Iceland: from Miracle to cursed"

"Three years ago the country was the world´s most developed; now it´s engulfed by economic crisis and natural disasters"

http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1254753&origen=NLExt



My condolences to the people of Iceland who had embraced the "limited governmet" dogma.

Now, imagine with all these news the mood of Bjork nowadays...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYyyqIZTvYY



FC

Gavin Clarke is an utter moron, once again

[I wrote the following to The Rogister's Gavin Clarke, the anti-Sun, anti-Java pundit always too happy to write something to smear Sun, or now, trying to muddy the Java landscape a bit more]

"In many ways, IBM succeeded. Eclipse became a more widespread and grass-rootsy movement than the top-down, closed-shop style of the JCP that alienated technology creatives. In pure market share, Eclipse become the preferred open-source IDE for Java developers."

You´re an utter moron, I´m convinced now. WTF does JCP, an enhancement-request process, has to do with Eclipse, which is an IDE?.

Sun has its own ide, Netbeans, and in any case, it´s as succesful -if not more- than Eclipse, why? Because it´s cross platform, it's written in Java itself, and it includes everything developers need, unlike Eclipse which needs commercial "plug-ins" for many things.

FC

It was about time Hollywood recognized JJ Campanella´s work

This is the JJ Campanella the World+Dog now knows...

It was about time that Hollywood recognized Juan José Campanella´s outstanding work which won many awards both locally and internationally over the years.

Down here we knew him well, but not wearing a tuxedo, but more resembling something like this:

Yes, El Secreto de sus Ojos won the Best Foreign Film award at the Oscars tonight.

My hat´s off to Campanella, and the beautiful Sole Villamil.


It´s rarely mentioned in the foreign press that Campanella also stars one of the best educational programmes on the public TV (government-run) Educational TV channel Encuentro, created in 2007.

The TV program where Campanella shines as one of the hosts is dubbed "Invisible Environments (of Science and Technology)" (Entornos Invisibles de la Ciencia y la Tecnología) and explains how physics and basic technology works (from the electric grid , to Newton´s laws to.. you-name-it) with a large dose of humour thrown in the mix.

http://www.encuentro.gov.ar/Event.aspx?Id=263

It airs on Encuentro as mentioned, which is available on all cable systems for free, and soon free over the air too, thanks to TDT...

Sorry, you´ll have to learn Spanish first. :)
FC

Google continues ignoring SeaMonkey and firefox derivatives...

Google has recently started informing users of Firefox 2.x that their browser will soon stop being supported for its web sites and web apps.

And they recommend other browsers that people can upgrade to:

IE 7.0, Safari, Firefox 3.6, and Opera...

Well, ¿Where is SeaMonkey?. SeaMonkey is based on the same Firefox 3.5+ engine, so why not mention it?. In fact, Firefox IS the son of the Mozilla.org browser suite, formerly known as just "Mozilla" and then renamed to SeaMonkey.

In fact, Google should stop sniffing for Firefox versions and instead check out GECKO RENDERING ENGINE versions. Plus, they should mention and point towards SeaMonkey, too.

All Mozilla-based browsers use the same rendering engine, and it's good programming practice not to check for browser version but actually checking Gecko in the user-agent string sent by the browser to the web server, as suggested by Mozilla.org itself.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Browser_Detection_and_Cross_Browser_Support

IDEA: Hey Google, why don't you guys suggest people using an unsupported or soon-unsupported gecko engine to upgrade to "a newer Mozilla.org based browser" and point towards http://www.mozilla.org/projects/#applications , which includes not only Firefox but also SeaMonkey?.

FC

Every software program should include a reinstall script

It is my belief that every software program should include a "Re-install" script. Something that we can run from the command line and have all configuration values set up as new, without actually downloading and running the installer package again.

This allows moving apps from one system to another effortlessly, and recovering from a backup much easier than having to run a dozen installers and click a dozen times for each. Yes, I'm a command-line junkie.

IBM, back when it was a software firm with a clue, had the very bright idea to include a "rebuild.cmd" command line util with its IBM Works productivity suite included with OS/2 Warp 3.0 onwards.

Hence, the "reinstall.cmd Software Movement" is born, today, to replicate that kind of functionality as widely as possible for popular applications. Target systems are Windows mostly, but could also include OS/2 and Linux for closed source apps that might benefit from it.

I´ve created a redirector at [http://bit.ly/reinstall] that leads to this post, which will be updated to include new reinstall script developments.

My first target? Sun's Virtualbox. Find my re-install script here
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vbox-users/files/

I will release every one I code under a GPL license (they're just command line scripts anyway).

FC

GUI Design: will Egyptian Hyerogliphics replace CUA text menus?

I am excited to join Mike Magee´s latest tech site, "Tech Eye" (www.techeye.net) as a regular writer, in addition to my ocassional INQUIRER piece.

Here´s my first article ... inspired by Google Chrome´s "Monkey Wrench" icon and the total disappearance of CUA menus.



Is this the future of GUI design, and are CUA menu standards going down the tubes, fast?. Should we despair?


And what´s with Google ignoring CUA on one app, but implementing CUA menus in Google Docs?. Guess that people ARE used to CUA style menus after all, huh?.


Feel free to read the article, and have your say in the comments section...
http://www.techeye.net/software/software-gui-design-going-to-hell-in-a-basket

FC