computers

The slow death of sombragris

Posted on by Eduardo / 10 Comments

My trusty laptop sombragris is dying a slow death. That was pretty evident since a long, long time ago, but it wasn’t painful, at least until yesterday.

Yesterday evening, before going to bed, I booted the laptop and shortly after, fsck complained about a corrupt file system. More thorough checks showed {DriveReady SeekComplete} and {UnrecoverableError} errors. The errors were in the /opt/kde/lib directory. After hours of rebooting, checking, correcting, rebooting, the laptop finally could boot normally.

I tried to boot into X and KDE, and at least the graphical KDE environment could start normally. It was already too late, so I wasn’t able to check for the extent of data loss. Hopefully, none of the personal directories was affected.

I don’t even know what to do. It’s obvious that I have to replace the laptop Real Soon Now; but when? Right now I can’t afford even a simple purchase; we are on a shoestring budget. Yet, a well functioning computer is essential for my work. Please pray with me on the issue.

computers

See you later, Krokodile

Posted on by Eduardo / 2 Comments

The K Desktop Environment released yesterday KDE 3.4 beta 1, code named “Krokodile”. Slackware packages were ready right from the start, and I left my office machine overnight downloading them.

Today I installed the packages, and checked the beta out. The whole thing looks very stable, nice, and more polished. One thing I don’t care too much, however, is the new Kicker look. Now it looks awful, but then, it’s completely subjective. The other problem is that authentication support in SMTP was not compiled, so I was unable to use our church’s SMTP hosting account.

Otherwise than that, it really doesn’t even feel like a beta, but as top-quality release software. Kudos to the KDE developers!

blogs/General/Philosophy

Why I blog in English

Posted on by Eduardo / 12 Comments

Virginia asked me a very good question: Why do I blog in English? That’s actually a very good question, and the answer, while straightforward, is something that in my opinion merits something more than a simple comment reply.

I am (surprise) Hispanic in my culture; as for race you could probably say that, although if you really dig into my racial heritage you’ll find a lot of backgrounds, from Russian to American Indian and everything in between (big deal. Yeah, right). My mother tongue is Spanish, and I understand some Guaraní, which is the indigenous language of this part of the world. So, why do I blog in English? Why don’t just settle down and blog in Spanish? After all, the Spanish-speaking blogosphere is noticeably smaller; therefore, a Spanish-speaking blog has less ‘competition’ for the audience, right?

The first reason is personal. I blog in English because it gives me a great opportunity to practice and keep alive my knowledge of the language. Since it is not my mother tongue, practice is required; and, for a second language, reading is one thing, and writing is another. Thinking, writing and exercising my creative vision into another language is a great way to keep a language current.

The second reason is practical. Whether one likes it or not, English is the lingua franca of the Net (and of the world right now) and, sadly, the Spanish-speaking people is extremely under-represented in cyberspace. Thus, writing in English helps ensure that this writer’s ideas will be accessible to a great number and variety of people.

The third reason is hermeneutical. This is perhaps the most important reason of all.

I blog in English because I would like to be a bridge. I’m sick and tired of reading that the Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon cultures are different, diveregent and in opposition. My position is that the greater Hispanic cultural complex (and note that I do not refer myself to Latino culture in the U.S., which is a subset of the latter) is in fact another expression of Western civilization, so we share a lot more than the things that obviously keep us apart. I take strong exception to everyone who would classify us Hispanics as non-Westerners.

Of course you can find strange, non-Western dominant features in some Hispanic subcultures; but then, taking them as true representatives of our Hispanic world would be tantamount as taking Cockneys as being the measure of English culture, or Appalachians poor whites as the standard manifestation of American culture. It’s not entirely correct, right? Well, that’s how I feel sometimes when I see what people regard as true measures of Hispanic cultures. You can see Ricky Martin and Isabel Allende as manifestations of Hispanic culture; but remember that Borges, Xavier Zubiri and Berta Rojas are that and a lot more, too.

Movies

Summer movies galore

Posted on by Eduardo / 8 Comments

Summer is here in full swing, and our VCR is, too :). We’ve been renting a lot of tapes with movies to watch. So far, I remember watching Troy, King Arthur, Spider Man 2, Hidalgo, and K-19: The Widowmaker.

Expect reviews of these in two or three weeks 😉

General

Welcome, HAC

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

I would like to introduce my readers to Amanda, a college sophomore with a philosophy major. Her blog posts look a lot like the quaestiones quotlibetales of old philosophers, in the sense that she tackles a difficult subject and discusses it with a good philosophical insight. Furthermore, this lady is not a dyed-in-the-wool liberal or feminist, but actually she has interesting viewpoints, like the one shown in her post about the free exercise of religion.

However, there are some problems. The first one is related to her age. She’s a college sophomore, and if you read the comments you can see that the average age of the commenters is just around that, but without the philosophical acumen of Amanda. Secondly, while a title like “Hot Abercrombie Chick” –H.A.C– is surely a traffic magnet (and the lady has the beauty be entitled to it), the traffic gotten this way is not precisely those of the Aquinases and Platos of the world.

Finally, her site could use a redesign. Now it looks too cluttered and the archives, while accesible via hand-typed permalinks, are not linked from the main page. I also don’t care for the auto-refresh, which is set to a very short interval.

Keep up the good work, Amanda.

faith

A hard time at my church

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

This week is hard for my church. A beloved and respected senior lady passed away after battling a long illness; and the 21-year old son of one of our missionaries shot himself in the mouth in what is most likely an attempt to take his own life. The young man must undertake facial reconstruction surgery and our missionary simply cannot afford the medical bill.

Our church is disturbed and distressed. Please pray for God’s help and counsel.

General

Happy New Year!

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

First post! (of the new year, of course.)

We spent a nice New Year’s Eve dinner at my in-laws’ largely enjoying the family. When the clock marked midnight, we hugged each other and exchanged wishes for a happy 2005. We came back home at 01.00, which is quite a change from what used to be just five years ago. I used then to party all night till dawn, as it is the custom here; now, at 01.00 I could barely keep from falling asleep where I was. The night and the next morning were scorching hot, with temperatures over 30 C (86 F) even at pre-dawn; almost unbearable, I might add.

We slept leisurely on Saturday morning, and I got off from bed at noon. Then we made it to my parents, where we had a small dinner. Dad looks reasonably good, and Mom was happy. She took my wife to her garden and showed some of the beautiful orchids that blossomed.

I’m still working on that typesetting project. I’m less than enthusiastic now; the people who assigned the work to me are constantly changing requirements and this is very frustrating. Now, my main contact has gone off on vacation, and the replacement is not conversant with the work, thus talking to him is practically a loss of time.

And, finally, it seems like I am going to rest at least a little. I took my two-month hiatus from Sunday School teaching (what a breeze, not having to wake up early on Sundays!) and hopefully, I’ll get my vacation in about ten days.

All in all, God was good and faithful to us on the previous year. May He keep guiding and protecting us under His wings.

faith

Now, Seriously…

Posted on by Eduardo / 4 Comments

I hope many had a good laugh out of yesterday’s post. But now we need to consider a more serious note on yesterday’s commemoration.

The Feast of the Holy Innocents or the Innocent Saints marks the slaughter of a whole generation by Herod (Matthew 2:13-23). This was a desperate measure brought up by the lust for power of a decadent tyrant, who did not hesitate to sacrifice innocent lives and bring grief to the whole nation if that enabled him to continue his lavish –and oppressing– lifestyle.

And, sadly, this sounds eerily familiar. Our society is also more than willing to sacrifice lives —innocent lives– on the altar of comfort. The postmodern ethos, bound to fail as its ultimate result is the desperation of the absurd, stresses the individual convenience as the litmust test for ethics. And this is especially evident in the blemish of abortion on demand.

We are killing every day countless innocent human lives. We might find good explanations and excuses for it, but it is still the taking of innocent, human, personal lives… images of God. We are worse than Herod, and we hardly realize that. And what shall we do when judgment strikes our land? To whom shall we cry for help?

Our civilization, our society, ourselves, are in dire need of repentance. May the Lord grant us just that, and spare us.

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.

General

I had enough.

Posted on by Eduardo / 7 Comments

I finally had enough. Yesterday I tried to do a trivial sort of a list that is part of a larger LaTeX document. Well, it turned out that I can’t unless I pipe the list (and only the list) to sort, or I fire up a full-blown spreadsheet like Gnumeric or KSpread and re-type the whole list.

This is frustrating, disturbing, and innecessary. How did I got myself into messes such as this one? Well, I had to recognize that most of these annoyances are directly tied to my choice of operating systems; and thus, I made a decision. I had enough.

Tomorrow, as soon as I can find a free slot in my office, I’m going to repartition my hard disk. After a thorough backup, I’ll try Windows XP SP 2 as my only operating system on this machine.

I’m tired of the fiddling. I need something that just works.

Continue reading →

General

Merry Christmas!

Posted on by Eduardo / 1 Comment

This is a short post just to wish everyone of you a very happy Christmas.

We spent Christmas night with my parents. When midnight arrive, everyone at the house greeted each other amidst the sound of crackers, and we received a boatload of presents.

This morning we went to our in-laws’ to have the morning Christmas dinner. I saw Don Victorio –my father in law– much better, and everyone was happy in general.

I wish every single one of my readers the happiness, peace, joy and comfort of Christmas, and especially, the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Joy and Peace of the world.

General

Just too tired…

Posted on by Eduardo / 1 Comment

… to blog anything. However, some things must be noted:

Tim had some rough times with the otherwise excellent Fantastico software. I am sorry to learn that the previous post of mine led to this situation. However, it looks like everything is back to normal.

In other news, it seems that notorious cyberbully SCO is in big trouble. My thought: about time!

I’ll try to post something more substatial in the morning. Until then, God bless you!

blogs/faith

Introducing Michael

Posted on by Eduardo / 1 Comment

Today I saw on my comments the name of Michael Finegan. Michael is a fifteen-year old high-school student from Illinois whose utmost purpose in life is strictly modeled on Question 1 of the Westminster Catechism. Great, isn’t it?

But this is not what blew me away. I checked his blog out of curiosity, and sat there, dumbfounded, reading and appreciating Michael’s insightful posts on the Christian life.

It is refreshing, and a blessing, to see a teen expressing in such a forceful and impressive style his utmost desire to obey and serve our Lord. I urge you to go check his blog, and be amazed.

Welcome, Michael. Have a great stay in my blogroll.

faith

What kind of apologist are you?

Posted on by Eduardo / 6 Comments

Interesting…

What kind of apologist are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Evidentialist. You are an evidentialist! Apologetics primarily consists in showing the good reasons one has to believe the claims of Christianity. You consistently confound unbelievers with your knowledge of history, science, and Bayesian computation that you learned from John Warwick Montgomery, Gary Habermas, and Richard Swinburne.

Evidentialist
80%

Classical Apologist
77%

Reformed/Presuppositional Apologist
63%

Fideist
33%

Atheist
0%

(Thanks to Vaughn for the tip).

faith/General

Paraguayan traditions: Christmas is coming…

Posted on by Eduardo / 3 Comments

manger scene with mbocaya flowerYesterday, when I came home after work I saw that my wife, together with one of my sisters-in-law, put up a beautiful pesebre, or manger scene, in a corner of our living room. Near the sofa was a neatly decorated (but obviously artificial) Christmas tree. On the porch there were some Christmas lights turned on, and there was a wreath on the front porch.

The manger scene included the traditional figures of a nativity scene, and is prepared according to our traditions. You have to put the manger scene on a “hill”, that is, boxes covered with painted manila paper and maybe with glued sand, too. You would put Mary, baby Jesus and Joseph at the manger, together with the ox and the donkey; outside, the Magi, shepherds, and a lot of farmers and peasants. On top, the Star of Bethlehem and the angel singing the Gloria in excelsis. As background, a bush known as ka’avove’i serves as decoration. Some families like to put Christmas tree decorations on the bushes, too.

The manger scene is usually surrounded by summer fruits, such as pineapples, watermelons, melons, grapes, and others; but most especially, the one item that must be present at all costs is the flower of the mbocaya palm tree, known to Paraguayans simply as “coconut tree” (Acrocomia totai Mart.; image of grown tree). This flower has a pungent and fragrant smell that is indelibly associated in my mind to Christmas.

The photo at the upper left corner (courtesy from the ABC Color newspaper) depicts a manger scene with the mbocaya flower prominently displayed. Be advised that this manger scene is not representative of traditional practice. I’ll try to locate better pictures as soon as possible.

So, when I came home yesterday, I was greeted by the sweet smell of the mbocaya flower, while my smiling wife took me by hand to see the manger scene. It was beautiful, simple, and in good taste; a reminder that Christ is honored as Lord of our house. For all that I thank Him with a grateful heart.

General

At last!

Posted on by Eduardo / 1 Comment

I just handed our photocopier boy a printed (in inkjet, no less) copy of the 450-page (letter size) manual I’ve been typesetting. I feel exhilaration and relief at the finishing of the project. The copier will make three bound copies for review and proof-read, and after that the book, with the help of pdfTeX, will go to the printing press. Oh well… now I can get my life back 😉

I still feel sad about the turn of events at my church. However, yesterday Rev JM called me on the phone and we talked a bit. He was friendly, and I was too; but I still need to talk to him about what happened on Nov 24. I will demand neither apology nor reparation, but I have to do this in order to get rid of this grudge against him.

I think we will put the traditional Christmas decorations at home this weekend. I really look forward to that, after all this strenuous work.

General

A Nice Sunday

Posted on by Eduardo / 3 Comments

This Sunday is so far going well. I had Sunday School at church with a fairly large attendance and good interest of the audience. Since last Sunday, we are studying the “watchwords of the Reformation”: sola Scriptura, sola fides, sola gratia, solus Christus, and soli Deo gloria. Please pray that the classes are well understood and, more so, that people could change their lives according to the principles of the Reformation.

The air is definitely scorching; something around 35 °C (that’s something between 90s and 100s F for you Americans) with roughly 80–90% humidity. My wife is preparing, as customary on Sunday, a delicious meal. After eating and before dessert, we will read Scripture; then we will have a little dessert, and then, off to the Sunday nap 🙂

I’m drinking tereré (a cold drink made with the Paraguayan herb Yerba Mate) and in my cooler there’s more ice than water. And I am somewhat like a pop star: lots of fans here… (no, no air conditioner, thanks).

If you were here, I would have you for a small chat while offering my ice-cold Tereré, and invite you to come over for our little Sunday dinner. But since you’re all far away, this will have to suffice.

Outside, the sun is blazing, with a little North breeze added for special effect. The dogs are sleeping lying in the soil.

Sometimes I think we don’t realize how enormously blessed we are. Thank you, Lord, for your gifts, large and small.

faith

My tradition on the bench

Posted on by Eduardo / 7 Comments

Today I realized something that looks frightening, to say the least.

I realized that my convictions do not match, and never did, those of the faith tradition I grew into as an Evangelical; and I really should have no business staying there. My church-polity views are mostly Continental Reformed, my theology is dyed-in-the-wool Calvinistic, my philosophy is mostly Thomist with some analytical slant here and there, and my views of worship and tradition are mostly Anglican. I don’t see a place for Southern Baptist convictions there.

Yes. I confess, in case you didn’t realize it before: I am a high-church Reformed Evangelical Christian, and always was so. And the zeal of my convictions is fueled by the blatant breaches of those standards that I see in my church.

But… on the other hand: this church loved and loves me; they gladly helped me receive a first-class Seminary education in the States (something astronomical in scope for a Third World church); they accepted me with Christ-like acceptance; and even as of today, the church enjoys and appreciate my ministry and my help. I see people being blessed because God blesses them through some of this useless servant. They are my employer; they are in so many ways the ideal environment to work in an office. But more so, they are my family.

So, what am I to do?

General

A song for Advent

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

Since we are starting the season of Advent, I thought appropriate to put parts of Redemption Song (from Bob Marley, heard in the cover of Moodswings):

Excerpts from Redemption Song

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time

How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the book

But my hand was made strong
By the power of the Almighty
We fought in this generation triumphantly

Won’t you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs, redemption songs, redemption songs

And this is my prayer for redemption:

Yes, come Lord Jesus, and deliver us with the power of your might. Make us strong with your strength, so that we might seek to bring justice, peace, and salvation to our troubled world. Yea, come Lord Jesus, avenge your prophets who were slain by the evil sword and deliver us!

General

Swamped, again

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

I am swamped again in a deluge of LaTeX code. That is, I am typesetting a fairly large and convoluted book using LaTeX as my typesetting platform. This effectively prevents me from participating more actively in the life of the blogosphere. And I do not mean precisely “posting”; I mean reading the excellent blogs I blogrolled, and participating in a lot of insightful discussions (such as Exultate Justi ponderings on race, or Tim‘s musings on Spanish-English hybridation). I’m having withdrawal symptoms, but must… keep… typesetting… more…

faith

A Baptist Town Hall Meeting

Posted on by Eduardo / 4 Comments

Yesterday evening we had Town Hall Meeting in our church. Everything was going smoothly, when all of a sudden Rev. JM wanted to be designated on the spot as the main church pastor. He was obviously trying to force the issue. I counseled caution, saying that this needed some prayerful consideration, even while I was sympathetic to the Rev’s desire. For saying this I was vilified, accused of being a heretic, of engaging in political maneuvering, and of having some dark motivations, all of this while he was pointing his finger at me. To put the icing in the cake, he resigned on the spot. Witness hysteria. Ladies crying, people concerned… and yes, Rev. JM got his designation as the main church pastor with the vote of 30 or so people.

I feel sick for my church. Today I took the day off, so I am blogging from home using dialup.

On a completely different side, Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans! Please pass some turkey down here…

General

Scott’s Interview slashdotted! Well, sorta…

Posted on by Eduardo / 2 Comments

Tim kindly put online my interview with noted KDE hacker (and friend) Scott Wheeler on KDE Multimedia. In the interview, Scott discusses present and future of KDE Multimedia. His answers are always insightful, so if you are interested in the present state of the Free Software Desktop, go and read it.

I’ve submitted links to the interview to Slashdot and the KDE Dot. Slashdot linked to the interview in the Developers section, and The Dot picked the interview as well.

As a bonus, Slashdot editor timothy send me a kind email explaining some shortcomings in my submission, and offered a great piece of advice on how to increase the odds of see a submission accepted in Slashdot. Thanks and kudos to both Timothies! 😀

blogs/computers/faith

A suggestion: YABCB

Posted on by Eduardo / 6 Comments

I would like to suggest Yet Another Big, Christian Blogroll — YABCB ™

When I began to blog, I felt in many ways like an outcast. One of the reasons for entertaining this silly thought was the fact that I am both a Christian and a GNU/Linux user. You may find bloggers (and people) of these two varieties with little difficulty, but finding people who are both… well, that would be quite interesting.

And, in true 1 Kings 19:18 epiphanic-like fashion, I didn’t realize that there were so many of us. I’m humbled and honored to have fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord who also happen to like their free OS. I think this is extremely important, because GNU/Linux and the Free Software movement is, in my opinion, the best way to use computers in a Christian spirit.

My intention was to blogroll every single Christian GNU/Linux blogger… but now I realize that it is a very difficult task for a single person. Therefore I have an idea: let’s start an Alliance of Christian Users of Free Software and make a blogroll of this. In this way, we can keep track of everyone, and we would benefit from the sharing of our interests. It would be something very similar to what CS-FSLUG is for email.

Problem is, I don’t have the time for that enterprise, and I doubt I have all the technical acumen for it. So, if any of my fellow Christian GNU/Linux (or Free Software) users are there, what do you think of it?

blogs/computers/faith

Gospelcom issue: Solved!

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

I left office last Friday with my complaint about spam generated by a site hosted by Gospelcom. A few minutes later I realized I forgot something, so I had to get online from home via dialup. While I was downloading the relevant files, I checked out the post and lo and behold! there was an answer by jtr and immediately after, an answer by GospelCom abuse apologizing for the incident.

I really appreciate GospelCom’s responsiveness and responsibility. If only all companies would behave like that when it comes to dealing with spammers…

Thanks, jtr! Thanks, GospelCom!

Meanwhile, I left the original complaint untouched. In the myriad tiny errors that you might notice you might be able to get my anger at the whole situation. I was frustrated, to say the least. After that, I went home, saw these wonderful comments, enjoyed the weekend, and today I got back to the office (I was on leave yesterday).

Meanwhile, Christian spam remains a problem.

computers/faith

GospelCom, please take notice!

Posted on by Eduardo / 4 Comments

Some stupid moron thought that sending spam would be an effective method Christian marketing. The moron posted these email addresses for consultation:

elarrosa@transmundial.org
uruguay@transmundial.org
elarrosa@transmundial.org
rtmu@adinet.com.uy

The website www.transmundial.org is hosted at GospelCom.net. I think it is a shame that someone as reputable as GospelCom has to be associate with this scum.

Here are the full headers for your entertainment…

Received: by boss.supernet.com.py from localhost
    (router,slmail V5.1); Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:49:45 -0400 
    for 
Received: from supernet.com.py [200.81.64.135]
 by boss.supernet.com.py [200.81.64.132]  (SLmail 5.1.0.4420) with ESMTP
 id 85A9A8B73A4611D9BD9D000B6A0A7A7D
 for ; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:49:44 -0400
Return-Path: 
Received: from mx2.mail.gcii.net [204.253.132.207] by supernet.com.py ; Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:46:15 -0400
Resent-Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:46:15 -0400
Resent-From: 
X-Originating-IP: 204.253.132.207
X-Auth-User: elarrosa@transmundial.org
Received: (qmail 9500 invoked from network); 19 Nov 2004 17:12:10 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO piii550) (elarrosa@transmundial.org@[200.125.30.76])
          (envelope-sender )
          by mx2.mail.gcii.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP
          for ; 19 Nov 2004 17:12:10 -0000
From: "Esteban D. Larrosa" 
To: "Radio Trans Mundial Uruguay" 
Subject: Fruta: Sana y Fresca
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 13:53:34 -0300
Message-ID: 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/related;
  boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0038_01C4CE3F.296AC0A0"
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0)
Importance: Normal
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1441
X-SLUIDL: 78A6F9A6-3A4611D9-BD9D000B-6A0A7A7D
Status: R
X-Status: NC
X-KMail-EncryptionState:  
X-KMail-SignatureState:  
X-KMail-MDN-Sent:  

tipart/alternative;
 boundary="----=_NextPart_001_0039_01C4CE3F.296C4740"

------=_NextPart_001_0039_01C4CE3F.296C4740
Content-Type: text/plain;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Si piensa que esta información es beneficiosa para un amigo suyo, envíenos
su dirección electrónica y le remitiremos una copia de esta carta
informativa.
Si no desea recibir más estos mensajes, solo responda con un mensaje en
blanco y el asunto: borrar de la lista. Disculpe las molestias causadas.
Bajo decreto S1618 titulo 3ro. Aprobado por el 105 congreso de
estandarización de normativas internacionales este E-mail no podrá ser
considerado SPAM mientras incluya una forma de ser removido

Por informes:
Sitio web: www.transmundial.org 
e-mail: uruguay@transmundial.org 
telefax: (598) 2 - 400 2694

certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.794 / Virus Database: 538 - Release Date: 10/11/2004

------=_NextPart_001_0039_01C4CE3F.296C4740
Content-Type: text/html;
 charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

< !DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
(html xmlns:v=3D"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" =

(and the fun keeps and keeps going on…)

computers/faith

Please pray for Patrick

Posted on by Eduardo / 1 Comment

This post from KDE hacker Fred Emmott says it all. Patrick Volkerding, the one and only man behind the marvelous Slackware Linux distribution, is battling a rare infectious disease.

The message he left to the Internet community is here.

Patrick is a really nice guy —and a public benefactor, given the fact that he makes Slackware available for free download over the Internet. His main effort, Slackware, is an excellent product, and I really hate to learn that he is suffering. I don’t have a clue about his spiritual condition; but please pray for his health. Slackware has been and is being a blessing to me and many others; now, please, pray that his creator is spared from evil.

computers

Please Don’t Crash On Me

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

I am in the process of typesetting a fairly large book using LaTeX. It usually is a straightforward task, and often it even poses interesting challenges. The best part of it is that LaTeX is a workhorse of a typesetting engine, and together with TeX it would chew enormous chunks of text without even giving a hiccup. The stability of the whole system was impressive.

Or so I thought…

Last Friday I emailed home the LaTeX code I was working on. At the time the work was about 20% of the final book, and used only three floats, although a significant number of packages were loaded.

I began to work on it at home, using the code I emailed myself from office. I generated each now and then some PDFs, while continuing my typesetting.

Suddenly, I noticed that I’m not seeing my PDF file. Moreover, it seemed that pdfLaTeX was stuck near the end of the document, inactive, producing no output, and eating ~95% of CPU.

Oh my… I couldn’t do anything save for killing the process. Trying to compile the source with a different engine, such as latex or pslatex didn’t do anything. Each of them was stuck eating way too much CPU at precisely the same point.

I hunted the probable cause of the problem, and it looked like a certain float located near the end of the document was the culprit. I commented it out (for LaTeX, the percentile sign, % is the comment marker) and voilá! the document compiled like a charm. I was dumbfounded to say the least.

Perhaps a filesystem problem? I did fsck three times with badblocks and optimize directories, and nothing came out. Phew, this was not the cause, thankfully.

At that moment it was near midnight and I was so sleepy I couldn’t think with clarity. So, I hit the sheets and slept soundly till Saturday… noon… *blushes* ;). Then I woke up, and after getting up to speed, booted the laptop, decommented the suspect code, and lo and behold, the PDF came out like business as usual.

I’m still amazed and dumbfounded, and at a loss for an answer. The most probable explanation was that the laptop’s refrigeration system couldn’t cool either the CPU or some other component, and the instability was because of the overheating. Any other explanation…?

blogs

A great cloud of blogs

Posted on by Eduardo / 0 Comment

Well, my blogroll keeps increasing. I am blessed to be in the company of great people, and once again I feel as elated as perhaps Elijah felt when he learned of the seven thousand mentioned in 1 Kings 19:18. Thus, allow me to introduce you some of these bright people.

First of all I would like to introduce Kris, a lady always distinguished by her insightful writing and her breadth of reading. Her blog Writing to understand always has good material.

And now, more members of the GNU/Linux cabal 😉 :

  • I’ve always meant to include j-t in my blogroll. He is a VERY capable Debian GNU/Linux user, which is another way of saying he’s a total guru. And he is a gracious brother; I’ve been acquainted with him since long ago in the ChristianSource FS-LUG. He blogs at My Thoughts, Exactly.
  • Paul at PaulTastic Musings is a great guy with a terriffic site. Right now he’s engaged on a debate with a Roman Catholic over the nature of the canon. And by the way, he happens to be a GNU/Linux and (*smells heresy here*) GNOME user…
  • Confessing Evangelical is a Lutheran from Britain. He’s using Libranet and blogs about Linux in Sad Penguin. Hope his penguin can get better soon…

I encourage you to visit and enjoy these fine blogs.