Pablo Fernandez

Tag: rant

  • The need for a common language

    This is just one small example of why we need a international common language.

    In 1975, the World Health Organization refused:

    • U$S 148,200 for a better public health service in Bangladesh
    • U$S 83,000 to fight leprosy in Burma
    • U$S 26,000 for basic hygiene in Dominican Republic
    • U$S 0.50 per patient to cure trachoma, which has millions of victims and can cause blindness
    • and many other requests

    Meanwhile, it accepted Chinese and Arabic as working languages increasing the expenses in in translations by U$S 5,000,000, every year. (more…)

  • Typing Esperanto in Ubuntu (or any other X)

    I’ve got tired of not being able to easily type in Esperanto in Linux. There are some articles out there explaining it how and the are always convoluted and I’ve never seen one that gets to the point of typing “ŭ”, the always try very hard to get “ĝ”.

    There’s an Esperanto layout in Ubuntu and I suppose other X Window Systems as well, but there are two things I don’t like about it. One is having to find out where the keys are, I could re-label them, but then I would only be able to type in Esperanto (which might be educational but not what I want, at least for now). I also don’t like the fact that it is Qwerty, not Dvorak. And even if it was Dvorak, one should make the statistics about Esperanto to make a proper Esperanto Dvorak-style keyboard. (more…)

  • Sound in space

    I wonder when we will start to see DVDs of space tv-shows, like Babylon 5 and Star Trek, where you can pick to watch them with no sounds on space. I’m really pissed off at the sounds of the Voyager on the presentation, they don’t even add to the scene, it only makes a beautiful presentation feel childish (stupid and ugly).

  • Pylons or Django?

    I am trying to decide whether to use Pylons or Django. Both are frameworks for building Python web applications, but with opposing philosophies.

    Django tries to be everything. It comes with its own ORM, its own template engine, its own everything. That gives you a nice developing experience because everything fits together and because very nice applications can be built on top of all those components, like the admin tool, which is amazing. (more…)

  • Linux is not an operating system

    For the purpose of writing this article I’m going to use the following definition of “operating system”. There are other definitions and I’m not claiming this is the right one. An operating system is a unit of software that you can install in a computer and will let you use the computer, thought a set of utilities or program in one way or another. (more…)

  • woman in white shirt showing frustration

    The problem with Lisp

    I’m not really going to talk about the problem with Lisp, but only a problem. And I’m not really going to talk about Lisp, but Common Lisp. So this post should be called “A problem with Common Lisp”, but the current title is more catchy, isn’t it?

    You are still with me? nice. Because I believe I have something important to say. A problem with Common Lisp is that you can’t make programs with it. That may have been another nice catchy title: “You can’t make programs with Lisp”. (more…)