Aqui Gorka

Let’s define a numerical system that uses irrational numbers to compress computer files.

Irrational numbers are the numbers that can not be represented as the exact fraction of two whole numbers. These numbers have infinite length after the decimal point and have no period (the decimal sequence is not repeated).

Computer files are millions of ones and zeros (binary representation), a.k.a., numbers of great lengths. Each file can be part of the sequence of an irrational number (actually we could imagine them as irrational numbers with a specific length). If we could find a shorter representation of the irrational number we could minimize the file size.

The problem is that irrational numbers do not follow any logic. Sometimes they’re generated by series (seriesof sums of integers or fractions, etc.) or sometimes are the result of a root. The problem lies in finding a logical relation to create short representations of each irrational number (or even mapevery irrational number to its corresponding short series or roots).
In each irrational number we can find all different combinations of numbers. What we’d look for is to find the irrational number that has the same sequence of numbers as the file to compress. Once we find the irrational number and its generating sequence we can generate the compressed file. This method works continuously, if we have already compressed a file, we can use the compressing process over again.

Cheers,
Gorka

1 = 1 is true.

1 = 2 is true, is false.

Numbers are simply a symbolic representation of something abstract. If we were to change that system we could accomplish ideas that would seem at first hand, ilogical.

What if this new system allowed non logical reasoning? We’d have to break the traditional paradigm to comprehend the new theorems (ex. within a system: 7 = 7, 7 = 3, 7 = 21, 1 = 1).

What sense would the new system make? Use small length numbers to represent long length numbers and that those could represent even longer numbers and so on. Why? Files in computers are millions of ceros and ones (binary representation), a.k.a. huge length numbers. If we could find a logical system that would allow us to generate huge length numbers from small ones (so that we could do this indefinitely) we could fit all the data and information we’d like into small memory drives. Instead of creating bigger drives we would simply need one personal memory unit with the capacity to store all the information a person generates (actually we could use the unit to store all the data created by the universe).

We’d have to define structures (such as logic now a days) so that one small number could represent many longer numbers (this because of a cardinality issue; there are less small numbers than there are long ones, hence we’d run out of small numbers and couldn’t really acquire all the long ones). We’d also need to define operations to define the long number that the small one would generate, this operations could generate different results even if applied under the same circumstances.

Cheers,
Gorka

The idea is to create a software program that is capable of writing every different combination of symbols (letters, numbers, white spaces and others) form any language. This software should write all the different length combinations of those symbols. This way the software will start out with a blank file and then continue with the first symbol (letter “a”) and so on until it has written each symbol once. Then it will pass on to writing files with two symbols and so on until it has written all the different length combinations.

The software has no end, it will always be able to write a bigger file. It can be stopped once it has reached some file size (once it has written a 7,000,000 symbols file) or when it fills up the hard disk (each file takes up disk space and we have not created infinte hard disks, but we can put an end to the software once the hard disk has occupied 95% of its space). For the experiment we’ll use a virtual infinite space (hypothetical) where the software can keep on writting without lack of space or resources.

Once the software has written a big number of files (technically speaking the program is creating files as we read on) we can start looking into the files. The first files won’t make any sense but eventually some might bring up words and phrases. Amongst all the files (every minute we have more files, we’d better hurry up or we’ll never finish…) we find millions that contain unreadable* combinations of symbols that are worthless to us. There are files (thousands of millions and each second there are more) that contain words, phrases and sentences in our language of choice. Amongst those we have an infinite amount with no gramatic or semantic coherence (we’ll discard them) and there is another infinite amount of files (every second there’s more and more) that contain correct gramatical and semantical syntax. Now we have all the stories, tales, novels, tutorials, instructions, recipes, symphonies, notes, poems, dreams, etc. ever to be written** in any given language by humanity***.

Among the files we can find some really interesting texts: 

- A tutorial to win the lottery.
- A list of all the lottery winning numbers (quite easier to win if you know which number to play).
- An almanac of sport events (does anyone remember “Back to the future”).
- A text to make an atomic bomb.
- A text to survive an atomic explosion.
- Tutorials about telepathy, dark arts, magic, etc.
- Instructrions to fly.
- A text that tells the story of humanity as it really happened.
- Texts that tell the life story of every human that has or will live.
- This blog post.
- A text with the story of ourselves reading texts and how we change the future as we read through them.
- A text to stop time.
- A text that if read the reader dies.
- A text to bring back the dead.
- A text of someone who’s watching us as we read all this and knows exactly what we are thinking before we do but as we read it.
- A text of what you are thinking before you think it and that changes what you think before you realize it while you are reading and thinking (say what???).

The posibilities are endless, because the software never stops there is no limit.

Cheers,
Gorka

* A second software would help filter the unreadable files.

** Technically the files were “written” by the program but we’ll consider them as not formally published with the assumption that someone might do it in the future.

*** Without going into detail or science fiction, in the future there could be some non-human raze to create literature.

Yesterday a friend was telling me: “If you ever run for president, I’ll vote for you”. That’s the second time someone has said something like that. I have two votes (the first friend’s vote wouldn’t count for he is not mexican; I have the second friend’s vote and mine’s).

The idea behind this post is not to daydream about becoming president, but if I ever do run for it, what would my project be:

1.- Assist the creation of mexican owned companies. There is far too many paperwork and too many payments to be done (you need at least 15 thousand pesos to start). You need a bank account to recieve payments and banks do not really give a rat’s ass about you or believe in your venture or company, they simply won’t make it easy for you.

2.- Once mexican business are created help them get established. By no means I want the government to do everything for you but give you the support needed to stand up to corporations that can easily take you out of business.

3.- Assit foreign investment without SELLING THE COUNTRY. It is outrageous what’s going on in the riviera maya (all the luxury hotels owned by foreigners, with foreign management and low leveled mexican workers). Some people’ll say “there are some mexican owned hotels as well”, sure! One of the most gigantic hotels belongs to a jerk who spent 4 years in jail for the fobaproa fraud (and once he got out he got himself a caribbean hotel, what do you think of that?).  And then management is run by people brought from outside Mexico which means a big deal of tourism generated wealth ends up out of Mexico (yet we still have tourism as one of the main sources of income). Don’t the mexican workers look pretty all dressed up in their uniforms ready to go to work in such hotels, ready to recieve orders from foreigners (it disgusts me)? Oceanview properties are being sold (it is ilegal to sell beach properties in Mexico, they’re federal property, but they give out permissions for private use) to foreigners for a few pesos!

4.- Promote youth participation. Young people feel alienated from the national plan. All that creativity wasted or even slaved in corporations not doing anything for themselves nor the country. Find new ways to get in touch with that sector, create a bond that enables idea exchange. Once that is accomplished promote new projects that stimulate creativity and culture. Young people now a days waste each and every weekend doing alcohol and others, there should be activities for them to do instead but for that they need to get involved with the national plan.

5.- Promote cultural projects. It is a shame how tv shows more and more advertisements (for crap consumption) and less quality content (how many of you can recite ads by heart). News broadcasters are concerned with finding news that sell rather than doing qualituy journalism (there are a few exceptions but they never get prime time, that time is awarded for “the news that gather attention”). There are projects with good publicity (Fórum Universal de las Culturas) that promote dialogue but they cover too many things, there should be more specialized projects with better diffusion. Promote every aspect of cultural expresion: do not leave theater, literature, arquitecture, etc out. I write this from a small town where the only contact with the outside world is through movies, tv or the Internet, cultural projects should be created everywhere in the country not only in Distrito Federal.

6.- Promote national identity. We are good at complaining about what we dislike, which is great, but it is only the first step. There should be high standards for everyone to achieve and mantain. A nationalism that raises everyone’s spirit and makes people participate and help those who don’t and just sit back complaining. 

7.-There is one big country, one big territory, professionials are required everywhere in México. It is easy to believe that the good jobs belong to those living in Distrito Federal, but there are 31 states that need hard working dedicated professionals. It is not easy but there needs to be long term planning. Forget the idea of easy money, there should be hard work so that together we can have a great nation project, not merely a sum of individual projects. The president should act as leader of that plan, but this belongs to everyone and we must all participate and cooperate.

This is just a start, there is a lot missing but one major thing to do is make the project available for everyone and make people understand, participate and live it.

Cheers,
Gorka

There are some companies that offer banners with the weather forecast. To tell you the truth I don’t really like their templates and I definitely dislike the huge title with the company’s name at the top.

Here’s how it goes: the thing is learning how they bring the weather data into your site, so that you can take the data and use your own design.

They use a javascript to embed a  Flash movie.
Once you get the swf movie, SoThink decompiler lets us read its code.
There is a function that loads the data with a call to a server side script.
Once the parameters are understood the script can be summoned from any browser.
The variables printed out make sense. It includes city name, country, date, temperature, wind speed and distance and even the number of the image to be shown depending on the conditions (the order of the images has to be taken from the decompiled swf).

I create my own swf, load the data and done. Weather forecast with my own design. 

Simple hack that allows webmasters to include a forecast in their site.

Cheers,
Gorka

* I’d rather not tell which company this hack is for so that nothing is changed, you can ask for it via email.

You can use Google as a dictionary. Simply adding “define:” to your search term will bring up its definition.

This becomes very helpful when you need a word’s definition, sinonyms or even the correct way to spell it.

Cheers,
Gorka

Web sites in Flash are visually attractive but they don’t comply with search engines. This has deprecated Flash for the development community. Truth be told, developers have not truly realized Flash’s real potential. The fact that it doesn’t work with search engines doesn’t mean it should be dismissed for there’s a lot of Web applications where Flash can come in very handy.

Flash’s capable of reloading information in an asynchronus way (without reloading the whole page) which can be very practical for Email systems, games, or Web sites that do not require a search engine to index its content (content manager systems). It can also mantain direct conections with a server so that any user with a Flash client can be updated with changes (in a chat or instant messaging software or a game any time someone comes in, sends a message or moves everyone connected or viewing the page recieve information about the events).

Amongst other things Flash can communicate with technologies that mantain an MVC and SOA framework. It can resolve Webservices developed in any other platform. Thus, it becomes extemely useful, you could develop applications with a strong graphic interface and a backend system running on any given technology (C++, LISP up to Java). Imagine rendering a virtual world in a technology as C++ and simply transfering the data to Flash (without no further need of procedures, hence no extra use of computer resources). It would even be suitable for Web.

How could we use Flash for a Web site that needs high security measures if we all know swf files can be decompiled? If your application arquitecture is well designed then there’s nothing to worry about. SWF files, although not opensource, can be decompiled and read freely, which is nothing different to HTML (anyone can look at a Web page’s source code). If there is no security risk from using business logic in Flash, then the whole system is secure.
*Note - this takes for granted an MVC (Model-View-Controller) framework where Flash is used for the View part of the proyect.

Now for the main issue against Flash: Why is it search engines read the View part of proyects with layout design already applied to it? Shouldn’t search engines be reading raw unformatted data? If search engines had access to this data there wouldn’t be any issues around the different methods and objects regarding its display (AJAX would be useful for search engines as well; Javascript could be used to write complete webpages; Flash could be considered for Web developing again.), besides, this is another way to separate data from format in systems. There are some obvious drawbacks to this method, anyone could send fake raw data and then display any amount of thrash. To tell you the truth, this already happens, but if the method is accepted gradually, search engines could read the data and HTML to look for differences and desicion taking.

It is a broad subject open for discussion, but don’t leave Flash technology out because of what you hear out there, for there are a lot of advantages you weren’t aware of.

Cheers,
Gorka

I watched Blood Diamond last night and I had to take a second after it finished to remove the bullet and blood taste lingering in my mouth. It is one of those movies that reminds you there’s a price to be paid for all the modern “conveniences” we have.

Looking to create some moral conscience, the movie shows how people get killed in Africa because of an ongoing war for diamonds and a government that doesn´t want to regain control. It ends up with an idiotic phrase that read: “Do not buy conflict diamonds” (the whole plot showed how mayor jewel stores mix conflict diamonds with regular ones, the phrase should’ve been “Do not buy diamonds”).

With a firm belief of never buying diamonds I started considering how a passive society  actually contributes to these situations. Not only with diamonds, but what about oil, ivory and corruption? The worst thing is  we simply sit back at home telling ourselves “Mexico’s one of those exploited countries” “What are we supposed to do?”, “That’s the way things are”.

I say: no! I say: Stop it!

It is our duty as a society, as citizens, as individuals to fight to stop this things from happening. I am not saying we should take arms and go to Africa or the Congress but instead we should at least say something!

What’s left for us when this comfortable life transforms us into consumist animals? When we view world issues as something happening in a distant land and people who do not behave like it are viewed as paranoid schizophrenic, what’s left? I know brilliant people who believe they should use all their potential to stand out so that when they’re set and comfortable they can forget about everything. I’ll lay it out straight, life is not for those who wnat to watch it pass by, it is for those who want to take part in it.

I am sorry if our generation misses the revolutionary wars, our deaths won’t be triggered by honor, it is our responsability to recreate a world where we recieve freedoms but forget obligations. Let’s do it one step at a time: let’s not stay quiet, let’s not be the passive accomplice, and little by little start to rebuild a place where we want to participate and innovate.

Cheers,
Gorka

If you spend your time reading news, blogs, emails, forums, etc. and you keep changing from page to page remembering usernames, passwords and urls, why not give a try to a Startpage?

A Startpage is a simple Web page that works as yor computer desktop. With straight access to all your desired web sites (once you configure them) you can organize them according to your needs and convenience. You could have access to news and emails at the same time while minimizing other nonused items.

There you go:
Google
Netvibes
PageFlakes

Interesting and practical.

Cheers,
Gorka

Last weekend (June 23rd and 24th) Playa del Carmen’s 2nd Beach Tournament took place. 16 teams (15 different countries and a locals team representing deplaya.com.mx) participated in a very interesting competition.

These were the results: 

Group A
Mexico 0 - 1 Israel
Cuba 3 - 4 USA
Mexico 0 - 0 Cuba
Israel 8 - 0 USA
Mexico 8 - 0 USA
Israel 2 - 0 Cuba

Group B
Argentina 1 - 0 Uruguay
Chile 0 - 2 deplaya
Argentina 4 - 0 Chile
Uruguay 1 - 2 deplaya
Argentina 1 - 1 deplaya
Uruguay 2 - 4 Chile

Group C
Italy 3 - 0 Germany
England 2 - 0 Holland
Italy 3 - 3 England
Germany 0 - 0 Holland
Italy 3 - 0 Holland
Germany 2 - 5 England

Group D
Spain 5 - 0 France
Canada 0 - 4  Switzerland
Spain 5 - 2 Canada
France 1 - 6 Switzerland
Spain 2 - 2 Switzerland
France 4 - 2 Canada

Quarter Finals:
Israel 2 - 3 Spain (penalty kicks 0-0)
Argentina 2 - 1 England
Italia 3 - 1 deplaya (penalty kicks 2-2)
Switzerland 2 - 1 Mexico

Semifinals:
Argentina 2 - 0 Spain
Italy 0 - 1 Switzerland

Third vs. Forth:
Italy 0 - 2 Spain

Final Game:
Argentina 3 - 0 Suiza

Final Standings:
1.- Argentina
2.- Switzerland
3.- Spain

Scoring Champion.- Carlos ‘el Chico’ Díaz (Switzerland) 10 goals.

Thank you very much and congratulations to everyone that participated. 

Cheers,
Gorka