I wanted to read Little Brother, Cory Doctorow new Young adult novel, so much that I ordered on the Kindle the day it came out, knowing full well that in a few days I could have gotten for free. I also bought the Mp3 Audio book, because I wanted to reinforce the case that buying audio books would be easy if they didn't have DRM. I'll probably buy a hard copy too.

The book is amazingly good, my biggest disappointment with it is that I doubt my 13 year kids will read. I'm sure they would enjoy it, I recommended it to them and to every teenager I know.

I believe is a life changing book, what I am trying to say is that if I was Robert Scoble I would have cried...

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
3. The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION
Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you

This morning, just before leaving for work, I noticed something amiss in my night table. Specifically, my iPod touch, it wasn't there. I assumed it had fallen or one of my kids had borrowed it. But we search for it and we couldn't find it. Convinced something was wrong, we asked our cleaning lady: "Who has been in the house in the last few days?", her answer surprised us: "Just Luis Fernando" I asked: "Who's that?" She said: "The person who fixes computers for you! You told me to let him in!" WHAT?!?!?!?!??!?

Yes, someone had call my house pretending it was me and announced that this person was going to come in to fix my computers and my internet. He walked around my house, but my cleaning lady was always near, except for a few seconds that he entered my room. My MacBook Air, my Kindle were there, but he only took my seldom used touch. Why? I don't know, maybe because it fit in his pocket.

He tried the same trick in several houses in my building a few days ago. Mine is the only where he succeeded. I didn't know about the other attempts, but he, or they, seemed to have targeted users of Intercable (A cable, internet, and phone company in Venezuela). A couple of weeks ago an Intercable installer was killed near my building, that's how they may have gotten the info.

I don't know what I can do. We've been lucky again, I won't even miss the touch. But I am terrified that our luck will run out before we are able to leave this country. That plan has been postponed for at least a year now...

Yuri Bezmenov Explains Soviet Strategy for Subversion of western Free Press

Massa wins Hamilton with an excellent three stop strategy to beat Raikkonen for Number two. Kovalainen far away. Alonso number 6. It is funny to read some Spaniards in twitter complaining F1 is boring without Alonso winning... Hey, if you are not a fan, you are not a fan!

I have already talked about Microsoft stupid position with respect to regions. They won't allow you to buy content from the Xbox 360 marketplace unless you live in the US. Yes, while Apple, through Apple TV or iTunes, only requires you to use an US based credit card, Microsoft goes the extra mile of making it hard for you to buy from them by checking your IP. Up to now, I was still able to get the free content. But today I was against astonished about Microsoft stupidity level. They won't allow me to check the new Gears of War 2 video through the Xbox 360. Yes, a game a will buy for sure, but I'm being prevented to watching the free ad, unless, of course, I do it through a computer! Really, how dumb can Microsoft be? How hard is it for anyone to realize this goes against their own business? Why does Microsoft goes the extra mile to prevent me from buying from Microsoft? Anyone that thinks that Microsoft has wised up is completely deluded. They will go down in a long painful death by a thousand cuts by stupidity...

I'm Italian now!

It's been almost two decades since I became interested in the Steampunk esthetic. I can't make crap with my hands, but I really like how these things look. This completely, uninformative artice in the New York Times, comes just a few days after finding this book at Amazon. I am waiting for the third show to drop, but I think Steampunk may be entering the main stream, unfortunately.

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.

What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground...

Crosby, Still, Nash & Young

The more you know, the harder it is to come! Smarter women have problems having orgasms. It seems they think too much...

Great race for Kimi and Massa, Hamilton did his job, but doesn't shine. I bet he misses Alonso. Kovalainen out on a huge crash, but he seems to be Ok, with only bruises in his legs and left elbow. But all that opaques the real story of the race, which is the improvement that Alonso has made on Renault's performance. It is clear that the car is better, because Piquet is doing better. His and Alonso's early exit from the race prevented us from seeing really how much. But it is clear that Renault is the fourth team. I bet it will keep improving. What an opportunity wasted for McLaren, they could have dominated F1 for a decade!

Jason Snell's, Macworld Chief Editor or something, shows again, why he has the single distinction of being responsible for my hatred of Macworld. He writes in a stupid article. His "argument"? that Apple makes money on the device, so they don't care that they lose the "extra" money from the carriers. Really, Jason? Really? Is Apple that dumb? Are you? Do you think we are? There is something in economics 101 or earlier called "Opportunity Cost" and a lot of people, including me, have pointed out that Apple is missing a huge opportunity by not selling an unlocked iPhone at a higher price. The unlockers would have a lot less incentive and customers would prefer to have an official, guaranteed, upgradeable iPhone. If an unlocked version could be sold for 600$, don't you think Apple shouldn't be so happy? To tell you the truth, I expect this little from you.

Michelangelo's David is back in Italy after touring 20 US Cities in the past 12 weeks.

Another great essay by Paul Graham.

That's my scooter, that I miss so much, because I am in Puerto Rico, eating good meals and enjoying the scenery, if you know what I mean. I named my scooter Trini in honor of the yellow Power Ranger, I think you can see the resemblance...

I knew that the government had suspended The Simpsons from appearing in non-adult times. I think Omar twittered about it. I didn't missed that part, I actually agreed that it is not a kids program and it is against what you should be teaching.

What I missed was the program that had substituted it. Baywatch Hawaii, yes, that's the kind of education we want our children to have.

Note. The picture has nothing to do with the post it says: Danger. Dear Visitor, please, for your safety, do not climb the little hill in front.

The second talk of El Nacional's World Technology Forum was Nicholas Negroponte. I was kind of disappointed with his talk on several fronts

The first part of the talk was boring, old fashioned, and slow. He put like powerpoint text slides up... Why? After that, it got better, but he still said several things I disagree with. He said that education is the most important thing for solving important country problems, but I don't believe that. The eastern european countries have high levels of education, but their progress after the fall of the Iron Wall does not correspond to that. I think we have it backwards, progress produces education, culture, and science, not the other way around. He also said something that infuriated me. He said he didn't understand Pi, that it was too abstract. That attitude towards mathematics from an educated person sounds terribly bad to my ears, but then, adding insult to injury, he said you didn't need Pi to make a program that draws a circle in the computer screen... What? The final blow was that he describe an iterative process of writing that program, through approximations and iteration.. that is exactly what Pi is! Finally, he claimed that the OLPC was directly responsible for the Asus eee PC and similar machines from HP. I like the OLPC project, but I think, first, that it is overreaching to make that claim and, second, those machines show weaknesses with the OLPC machine and particularly with the get one, give one program.

This is a true story, it happened in Caracas in March 2008. The names (name really) have been changed to protect the innocent ones. Unfortunately, we do not know the name of the guilty one.

Ana was running very late. She had gone to a job interview and had told his current boss that she was at a doctor appointment. The guy was an asshole and Ana knew if she didn't get back to her office within the next fifteen minutes she would be fired, and she still didn't have another job. Against all her instincts and customs she decided to get a Moto Taxi

A Moto Taxi is just a Motorbike, normally a scooter, used as a Cab or taxi. In a city completely set in permanent traffic gridlock, bikes that serpentine between stopped vehicles are the only way to get from A to B in a reasonable amount of time.

Ana didn't have a choice, she needed to be there, there was only one Moto Taxi in the street. She ask for the price, agreed without haggling, resist the urge to puke as she put the lice infested helmet, and hop on the bike.

The first part of the ride was scary, Ana saw her knees millimeters away from car parts. She saw red lights being past as vehicles with right of way honk their horns. She heard her driver chats with other riders around the city, most of them doing one job or another.

But suddenly, without any palpable reason, her Moto Taxi stopped in the middle of traffic, just beside a Toyota Yaris. Ana's driver pull out a huge gun, and demanded the Yaris driver give him her watch, jewelry, cellphone, and other valuables. He turn to Ana and told her: "Don't worry, you'll get there on time, this will only take a minute." The Yaris driver tried to negotiate keeping some things of sentimental value and such. The Moto Taxi driver threatened her and hit her with his gun. Put his hand inside the Yaris and took whatever he could and rode on.

As they arrived, Ana was trembling as she took the money from her purse She gave him a tip, a large one, hoping that he wouldn't rob her also. The guy took the money, smile at Ana, thanked her, and left. Ana went up to her office, not even worried about what her boss might say...

During his talk Kevin Mitnick mentioned his Business Card, yes, the one that transforms into a lock picking set. I didn't think I could get one, because, of course, everybody swamp him at the end

But i came out with a neat trick, I took my own card and yelled Kevin! I'll trade you!, he laughed and came to me to give me a card and he got mine! So double success! Here is the famous card:

Yesterday I went to El Nacional's World Technology Forum. The first talk was by Kevin Mitnick and it was a hoot. He talk pretty much on topics of his The Art of Deception book. But it was entertaining and clear and he did live demonstration of several exploits that were very neat. We were sitting very far away, but it turns out that we were VIP because we registered very early for the talk. So we end up in front. Some pictures of Kevin:

Great race for Ferrari and, specially, for Massa. Hamilton shows with this race and the end of last year that a big part of his success was due to Alonso preparing the car. As soon as Alonso got angry, Hamilton performance went progressively down. In this race he show he's lacking as a pilot. Not so much for a bad start and a stupid crash, those can happen to anyone, but because he was unable to regain positions in the slowest part of the field, which he rejoined in 18th place and finish the race at 13th. Massa showed confidence. I was expecting this race to be a mess with the sand and the lack of traction control, but it seems that the pilots are learning and they played it safe. I find it astonishing that McLaren blew last year. They could have been champions last year with Alonso and this one with any of the two. Instead, they are fighting second place with BMW. As a matter of fact, BMW is leading the constructor champion right now, while Ferrari is an ascending second.

"I like how you act so humble and unassuming." I said, "When you have a PhD, tons of money, and luck with the opposite sex, is really easy." And that... was the end of that.

I've been outside. It's overrrated.

Traditionally Outside receives extremely high ratings by those who like to see others play it, and these people are in many cases comfortably ensconced Inside themselves. Outside was released many years ago, it was in fact the first massively multiplayer game, and yet it has always managed to avoid the double-edged Retro tag. In its favor, continual user updates have kept Outside current; there are always new things to see and do Outside. Participants are permitted, to some extent, to modify their own areas of Outside, which is a large part of the fun of the game. However it seems that in the end one is modifying Outside largely for the sake of it, and having done it, there is a distinct feeling of "now what?"

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This is the Venezuelan sales pitch for my mobile software. Mobile Payments done right!