Only in Russia

Drunk Russian sleeps off knifing – A Russian man trying to sleep off a night of after-work drinking failed to notice a six inch (15 cm) knife in his back - until his wife woke him up.

Yuri Lyalin, 53, took a bus home, ate breakfast and apparently slept like a baby before his spouse noticed a handle sticking out of his back.

He was rushed to casualty but doctors found no vital organs damaged.

Amazing, isn’t it? ⌘ Read more

The day Santa died
Kim and I have always told Kent Santa exists. Almost every kid is told the same, and get presents delivered by the fat, white bearded guy each year. He gets all the credits, but kids are happy.

With Kent getting into first grade, he has been hearing things from his peers. Things like, “Santa doesn’t exist”, “Santa isn’t real”, so he began asking about it. About a month ago I told him his pee … ⌘ Read more

After Super Tuesday
Barack Obama’s Super Tuesday speech.

A rather lengthy, yet inspiring speech. This man has charisma, something I have not seeing on the rest. I like him. I think he would do a good President. ⌘ Read more

Don’t step in the lines
The child inside of us lives, I am a living proof. That, or I have some autistic tendencies. Or both. Having a child, I unintentionally behave like a child when I am with him but, also, when I am alone.

I have found myself avoiding to step on cracks on the floor, or on lines. When challenged with floors with multiple lines together, which are difficult or impossible to avoid, I either find and alternative route, or simply enlarge my pattern of what I consider lined space, like line … ⌘ Read more

Christmas is gone, or is it?
The long whole year wait, for many, comes to an end quite fast. It seems it takes a long time until Christmas arrives, but when it does, it goes away very quickly. “It’s not fair”, Kim says. Well, I am that type of crazy individual that sings Christmas Carols, listen to Christmas music and lives the “Christmas spirit” pretty much all year round. I have my ups and downs like everyone else, but I refuse to let Christmas be a one day celebration. Give it a try! ⌘ Read more

Programmers != Antisocials
BBC NEWS: Business: Bill Gates: The skills you need to succeed

A lot of people assume that creating software is purely a solitary activity where you sit in an office with the door closed all day and write lots of code.

This isn’t true at all.

Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with cu … ⌘ Read more

I had to have them
I found this weblog, via
Kottke, and in it, this post
I like: So long\
Flight of the Conchords. And I loved it. I had to have the list of
videos on that log here1, to show wife, to play them at a later time.
Simply awesome. And here they come (links go to Youtube):

• The most\
 beautiful girl in the room - “you could be a par … ⌘ Read more

Primary elections
It is my desire that the U.S. primary elections were available to everyone, to vote for anyone, regardless of the political part affiliation 1. In fact, I would not make a requirement to affiliate to a specific party at all.

Why? If I am registered, for example, democrat, but I see that the choices of the Democratic Party are not “presidential” material, then I would like to be able to vote (even at the primaries) for the best of the other party. Am I making any sense?

The u … ⌘ Read more

I hate school
When your, almost seven years old, son tells you he hates going to school you worry. It is not the first time that KM tells me he doesn’t like going to school. He goes to a private, Christian school, and his main complain has always being that he doesn’t like to memorize the weekly versicle. I have noticed that this “disliking” normally comes after a weekend, holiday, or similar ‘time off school’ occasion.

I have talked to him, trying to find out if there are other reasons, but haven’t … ⌘ Read more

Microsoft is a crying baby
What does Microsoft do when they don’t get it their way? They cry like babies, they snitch and they try to use their mu$cle to get things their way.

Microsoft Urges Review of Google-DoubleClick Deal – Microsoft, a veteran defendant of epic antitrust battles in the United States and Europe, is urging regulators to consider scuttling Google’s plan to buy DoubleClick, an online advertising company.

Microsoft contends that the $3.1 billion deal, announced on … ⌘ Read more

Vista, don’t like it? Too bad!
It seems that for those individuals who do not build their own machines –that is, assemble them– there will be no choice when it comes to pick their OS.

Windows XP to be phased out by year’s end despite customer demand – Computer makers have been told they’ll no longer be able to get Windows XP OEM by the end of this year, despite consumer resistance to Vista and its compatibility problems.
�� … ⌘ Read more

Wired News: Apple’s iPhone is Calling
Wired News: Apple’s iPhone is Calling

The most likely scenario, as Jupiter analyst Ian Fogg has pointed out, is that the iPhone will be a stand-alone device that will accept a standard SIM card. You’ll pop the SIM card out of your current cell phone and plug it into the iPhone. It’ll be just like buying an unlocked handset from Asia, except you’ll buy it at an Apple store instead o … ⌘ Read more

God is bad
“Papá, if you get close to a shark, what would he do to you?” –Kent asks one day. “Well –I replied–, if it is hungry he will most likely attack you, try to eat you. If not, he will be scared and swim away. Sharks are by nature afraid of humans and will only come close to them if they are very hungry.”

“God is bad. Why would he make sharks, if they could hurt us?” –he asks again. “Sharks have a very little brain, they can’t make a difference from what’s right or wrong. They can’ … ⌘ Read more

Why?
While visiting South today I found, once again, this quote that I like so much:

The first question which you will ask and which I must try to answer is this, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is no use.’ We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron. We shall not find a single foot of earth that can be planted with crops to raise food. It’s no use. So, if you cannot understand that there … ⌘ Read more

Why e-mails are so easily missunderstood
Very interesting read and, in my case, it has proven to be as close to truth as it can be. Go read the whole thing, it is worth it.

Though e-mail is a powerful and convenient medium, researchers have identified three major problems. First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it diffic … ⌘ Read more

Chosen by God?
I have heard in several occasions, and read quite a few times, that President George W. Bush believes he was chosen (appointed) by God to be our President. God, supposedly, wants nothing but well being for us all, right? Then I would like to know what Mr. Bush is doing to end the killing, abuse and hunger (among other things) from places like Central, South America and Caribbean, Africa and great parts of Asia.

Some say God acts in mysterious ways. Boy, I am about to believe it! ⌘ Read more

Patching paper accepted for CBSE 2005
The paper “Efficient Upgrading in a Purely Functional Component
Deployment Model” has been accepted at CBSE 2005.
It describes how we can deploy updates to Nix packages
efficiently, even if “fundamental” packages like Glibc are
updated (which cause a rebuild of all dependent packages), by
deploying binary patches between components in the Nix store.
Includes tec … ⌘ Read more

Adsense presence
I few of you might have realized that I, finally, got approved on Goggle’s Adsense program. Two years ago I applied, with the hopes of becoming rich. I was very naïve and I was denied participation. Recently I applied again. I did it mainly for two reasons: I love Google. I can not deny I am in love with it. Everything that Google has offered so far is of my liking. Secondly, I wanted to offer my skimish audience related links to sites and/or products that could … ⌘ Read more

Beware!
There is a flu strain going around. I am not sure of how vast its geographic coverage will be, I just know I caught a drop –or a bucket– of it here in Orlando, Central Florida.

Now this sucker is not like any other. At least for me it isn’t. This one blocks your nose and lungs and converts you into a phlegm dispenser machine. It gives you pain in all your joins (joins, not loins!), head and eyes. It will take your appetite away, it will give you flatulence. It will not let you sleep and it will bother you w … ⌘ Read more

Sex is everything
For spammers –and others–, that is. Other than the trackback attack that a good group of people including me received recently, sex related spam seems to have doubled as the year increased by one. And all comes down to this: human beings are a bunch of sex driven machines. Take it or leave it. We all like it, enjoy it and are driven to it in a multifacete … ⌘ Read more

Taking a break
For the very first time I feel like taking a complete break from the weblogging world. I have gone away in the past, but it was never as permanent as I said it would be. Today, for once, I feel I can really do it. That is, break away for a longer time than the previous. Reasons? Just tired, just need more time with my growing kid and family in general.

Whatever reason is, I am taking a break. Will I be gone long? Will I come back tomorrow? Hard to tell. I am not that interesting of a read to start … ⌘ Read more

Sunday morning rants
As I previously wrote, I believe IE is no match to Firefox. I will tell everyone I know about its problems, I will show those to them if I can. I will praise the goods of Firefox, so everyone I know will enjoy web browsing as much as I am. But…

One thing is not using IE and another thing is not serving pages to those using it. That’s plain wrong. It is like going to a japanese restaurant and have sushi … ⌘ Read more

Joined the rest
As you can see, I have joined the rest of the thousands using the drop shadow, centered approach on their websites/weblogs. There are several things I am not sure yet. Different background colour? Should I make the top and bottom with shadow too, with a space at the top and bottom just like it was before? Should I use this opportunity and make the whole interface 800 wide instead of 640 pixels? Decisions, decisions.. What do you think? Also, can you recommend how to re-structure the side “column” … ⌘ Read more

The three of us
For one reason or another, we have very few pictures on which the three of us are present. Even today, went I tried to snap one I failed. Don’t get me wrong, photos we have, but none of them pleases us –Kim– to put online for the viewing audience (the very small one we have here).

A couple of days ago I took one photo that I decided to put online, because I like they way KM eyes look and because it represents the priority level in our family: kid goes first, then us.

What’s the “pr … ⌘ Read more

Drawing a blank
I am drawing a blank trying to decided the new layout of this site. I have no problems with the previous one, but as I am running a new engine here I would like the layout to be new as well. I spent a significant amount of time yesterday trying to come up with something and all went to waste.

Perhaps I am procastinating until I see Wordpress 1.2 out, and have all links to be cruft free. Right now the paging, whether on c … ⌘ Read more

I am not alone
Looks like I am not the only one making the move. Judging by the length of the trackback list on “Mena’s Corner”, a whole lot of people is moving away from Movable Type. Since the news has bee Slashdotted, the WP server is overloaded by, not only switchers, but /. visitors. I am sure they will survive. Now ready for the weekend!

Note

Even [Mark Pilgrim](http://diveintomar … ⌘ Read more

Gmail invitations for sale
It was just a matter of time until this happened: Google webmail invitations are being sold like crazy on eBay. Some people are even buying one invitation knowing that eventually Google will give two (it has been happening on every new account), so they can resell more. Amazing!

This site looks like crap under Mozilla on Linux, which bothers me a lot. I think I will move things around here soon to accommodate what it might become my desktop OS. I am also tired of looking for … ⌘ Read more

Drove a lot, saw places
Today (actually, yesterday) Kim and I went over to Tampa. We drove a lot around and I am surprised of the fact that, even though it is the first time I drive around Tampa, we did not get lost, we did not drive more than normal to find the place(s) we were looking for, we did not get stuck in traffic.

I have to say that I found some of the parts of Tampa pretty abandoned. I do not mean the whole city is like that, but certain places had an almost dead (or completely dead) lawn, some … ⌘ Read more

Just suppose
Suppose you have a friend, a friend like the whole meaning of the word friend “somebody who has a close personal relationship of mutual affection and trust with you.” It is the person you talk to when happy or when sad, when calm or stressed, when tired or rested. That person is your very good friend.

Now suppose that person wants a job that you think it is not appropriated. It is a job that might require more maturity than what you think your friend has. You do not think your friend is ready for i … ⌘ Read more

Philosophical confussion
I do not like unsolicited pop-up windows. I like even less unsolicited browser resizing. Missuse of web cookies blows and should be illegal. Junk and spam emails are a disease (well, not for me, since I use TMDA on my John Companies server and I get zero spam) that is getting out of hand. Porno and the sex industry for sure are a profitable business; most of the spam today adver … ⌘ Read more

Happy New Year 2004!
As we get closer to changing years —in some parts of the world it is already 2004— I feel like going over the things that happened to us (the Collantes’ family) during 2003. I may not have enough to write about to make this a serious entry, but here I go.

This year we are leaving behind brought very few things, but some made a deep impact in our lives at this point. To start with, we turned out one year older (duh!) and, hence, gained on experience (yeah, right!). We reached our 5th … ⌘ Read more

Money for your hobby?
I have seeing an increasing amount of weblogs that are, either running Google AdSense to make money or asking for donations. Does that works? I mean, does Google AdSense can be enough for someone to actually make a living out if it? And, on a related token, would the amount of “donations” add up enough to pay the rent? I am curious.

On politics. I am a republican although I am not sure if I will vote like so on the next Presidenti … ⌘ Read more

Like a Phoenix
Just like a Phoenix, this is a rebirth from my own ashes. I wanted to change things around here, perhaps change the way I write. Finally, I have decided to come back on a more informal way. Like it was in the beginning, when I decided that blogging could be a fun thing to do.

How informal will it be? Well, as informal as life itself — at least, mine —. I will write things that happen to me, my family, my friends and fellow human beings in general. I will not hold back just because I may think m … ⌘ Read more

One year older
Well, I thought it will never come. We — adults —, sometimes pursuing our dreams of Peterpan… we think we’ll never age. Slowly our skin becomes saggy and wrinkled; we can not see as sharp as before, hence we wear glasses; our hair turn white (for the lucky ones) and falls down (for those unlucky, like me). The rhythm of live goes at a different beat then. You start getting tired easily, things that previously attracted you do not longer do. Ah… you have, inevitably, aged.

Yes, I just turn … ⌘ Read more

A thought
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to really step outside yourself and view yourself as a stranger would?

…What do you think that would be like? And how accurate do you think it is?

I honestly don’t know how I would view myself. Probably as someone who is shy, afraid, and introverted. I guess I come off as those on a first impression, but it could not be farther from the truth. I am so different to those I know and trust than I am to those that I meet for the first time. I wonder if I can, … ⌘ Read more

Back to the routinely life
Another weekend has gone by, way faster than I expected. Being a husband, a father and a head of the household have it’s tradeoffs, although it is not that bad, after all. The things I do not like about it? For starters, white hair. A lot, all over my head. There is also the missing hair, quite more concerning than the first. There is also the fat on the abdominal part, the pain on the joins and neck and the morning’s dragon breath. Yes, it has it’s tradeoffs.

Everythi … ⌘ Read more

A short and tiresome weekend
This has been a short weekend and I am tired. I wish I could talk about the great things I did, but it was mainly staying home, going to mom-in-law house and being with baby (and wife), of course.

I can tell I am growing old at a fast pace. You see, we are all moving towards elderly, that’s nothing new, but it does normally happens slow, or doesn’t it? Well, if that is the case –that is, it happens slow–, I do not know what failed on me. It seems like the years w … ⌘ Read more

Definitely, humans are born violent
War topics are prime news. From the time we wake up to the hour we go to sleep, war news are the focus of people’s attention. We are a violent race, it is not a stereotype: humans are born violent.

My son is barely two years old. He hasn’t seen violent television programs, our home is a stable one, no fights, no yelling. Still, when he is around his little cousin, and more often that we would like, he constantly hits her. They play along, like pals, but … ⌘ Read more

Thanks to the Slammer, Slammed
Yes, just like a lot of people around, we got “slammed at work.” There were several hundred of machines on Campus, I presumed, but the five we got compromised are the one’s that bothered me the most.

Out of the five, two were servers, our servers, my servers. A brand new SQL server, just a week old, more or less, was missing the hot fix. Another older one, under the control of somebody else, but still within my College was missing it too. It could have been wors … ⌘ Read more

Nuclear Blackmail, North Korean Style
Looks like the only thing a poor country, or a country in deep economical problems, has to do to turn things around and get all major powers striving to come up with a solution —which in the case I am talking about is recognition, non-aggression treaty and, most important of all, economical aid— is to publicly say it is going to build a nuclear bomb or that is in the process to do it. That is the case of North Korea, of course.

All major countries ar … ⌘ Read more

How to better protect Kent Martin?
Today was a sad day. I had good times, but my kid felt and badly bruised his lips and that shattered any happy moment I had. I feel like my hands are tied up, because I can not be with him 100% of the time to protect him. I know that even thought I could be with him all the time, I would not be able to protect him against everything. It just hurts me a lot to see him hurting. I wish I could trade and be the one bruised.

I feel tired, so I shall go to sleep. Pe … ⌘ Read more

Kind of quiet lately, I know
I have been quite quiet lately, I know. I have been going to sleep early and, when not, thinking and working on other site, which is not finished yet, by the way. I have been reading a bit too, something I used to do more and had neglected.

I am buying a Tablet PC soon (like tomorrow or so). It will be my first laptop in 9 years. I will let you know my first impressions as soon as I have it on my hands.

Going to sleep now. I hope to have more interesting things to wr … ⌘ Read more

Good bye October, hello November!
Today was a long day. I went to the dentist in the morning, with no little stress. Even though I has been going to the dentist since I was 5 years old, when I grew older I also grew a fear of them, I do not know why. Got to the dentist at 10:30 AM and, between x-rays and “impressions” (they put like a mold on your mouth to create a replica of your tooth in plastic), explanations and work (a crown), I ended up staying for almost 3 hours. I do have to admit that it … ⌘ Read more

It is that time of the year: Halloween
Well, you goblins, witches, bats, ghosts… Frankenstein lovers, here it comes your day, once again. Of course, I do not look at Halloween as such, it is just another day, like the others, with the subtle difference that is the day where kids go around, having fun, asking for sweet little treats, dressed up as the unimaginable.

Considering I never knew what Halloween was until I came to America and, hence, I did not experience the fun that it can bring … ⌘ Read more

Bad things come at once
Today wasn’t a good day. If it weren’t enough that the weekend wasn’t good, there comes Monday with, yet another, bit of spice. To start, this morning my car started rattling and shacking like it was possessed by a voodoo spirit. Took it to the mechanic and, to make the long story short, I will be $500 short by tomorrow noon. Then I get to work and, on top of having a few little things to finish, I get an email from one of my sisters telling me about problems with m … ⌘ Read more