Blog on The Music in Noise

Silvia Abril y el catolicismo español

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:00:00 +0100

Generalmente en esta bitácora no suelo escribir en castellano, ni tampoco acerca de asuntos de actualidad. Pero hoy hago excepción en ambos casos porque quiero hacer uso de los comentarios recientes de Silvia Abril en los Premios Goya para tratar unos asuntos que creo que es más profundo en la Iglesia española. En primer lugar sería el tema más local, siendo la reacción de muchos católicos españoles frente a estos comentarios; y en segundo lugar, quiero explorar lo que yo creo que está ocurriendo con la juventud española y su actitud hacia la Iglesia.

Liturgy of the Hours

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 17:00:00 +0100

Within Holy Mother Church there is a great treasury of devotions and prayers that we can use to grow in our closeness to Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most well-known and widely spread of these—at least in the West—is the Holy Rosary, which is prayed as a daily devotion by both laymen and clergy alike. But, as far as I know of, it is not a requirement for anyone, save perhaps some obscure religious order or personal vow. There is, however, a prayer that is more ancient and also required for clergy and religious, this being the Liturgy of the Hours, otherwise known as the Divine Office.

My Quest to Install Debian on my ASUS C201

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:01:00 +0200

This post is the backstory to the more technical post I’ve also published on how to install Debian on the ASUS C201 using the mainline kernel.

As you may have noticed from my post on installing ArchLinuxARM on my ASUS C201, I’ve already been able to install a Linux distribution—even using the mainline kernel—on my Chromebook. However, the issue I’ve found in recent years is that I don’t use my Chromebook nearly as often, as I’m mostly either at home—where I have my desktop—or at work. This meant that I would often go weeks, if not months without updating it; and as anyone who has ever run ArchLinux (ARM or not) knows, every time I had to update there were a ton of updates, and the more updates you have to do in one sitting, the more likely it is that something is going to break. And that’s basically what ended up happening, which, due to lack of time, meant that I had basically left the Chromebook as dead for about a year and an half. This was not because I was incapable of reinstalling ArchLinuxARM; that, in fact, would’ve been much easier. The problem was that I wanted to use a stable distribution with a slow update cycle that would allow me to leave the Chromebook unused for a month or two at a time without needing to spend the first ten minutes updating packages and then resolving issues that come along with those updates.

How to Install Debian Trixie with the Mainline Kernel on the Asus C201

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0200

Requirements

ASUS C201 Chromebook (might be a good idea to libreboot it if you haven’t already, as it’s fairly simple)
SD card for installation
Auxiliary computer for preparing SD card
A Wi-Fi dongle or other USB network connector to connect to the internet on the Chromebook.
If the auxiliary computer does not have the armhf architecture (like the Chromebook), you will also need an USB drive to have a temporary Linux installed.

Device Preparation

Preparing the SD Card

I will be assuming the SD card’s device name is /dev/sdb for this section. Remember to adapt these commands to the device name on your computer before running any of them.

The Rising Influence of Christianity in American Politics

Mon, 13 Oct 2025 13:00:00 +0200

Something I, and I think many other people as well, have been noticing is the increased use of Christian imagery and references in our public political discussions, debates, and speeches in the United States; something which although not completely foreign to the American tradition, has certainly fallen out of favor over the last few decades if not a little longer than that, due to an overall secularist tendency. This new tendency is also something much more pronounced on the American right rather than the left, for although we’ll get stray comments about a candidate or politician’s faith from a Democrat, it hardly goes beyond a vague declaration that they are “a person of faith;” whereas among the right we’ll often see direct quotes from Scripture and a renewed emphasis on the importance of religion in our politics. All of this is, as I would like to argue, very good news—unless you’re a secularist, in which case this is very very bad news.

An Ethical Critique of AI

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 16:00:00 +0200

For your average technological layman most digital technologies seem to pretty much be magic. Somehow a bunch of ones and zeros can be transformed into a movie which is streamed over cables and even thin-air until it reaches my tablet and is transformed to something actually recognizable on the screen. So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to Large Language Models (LLMs, a.k.a. AI) the usual amazement and mystification of technology reached new peaks as folks started speculating that perhaps this is truly the point where computers can pass the Turing Test, and the more enthusiastic among these would go further and say that perhaps even the machines could gain conciousness⁽¹⁾ if they have not already, all ultimately raising the question of whether we have reached the point of Singularity.⁽²⁾ In fact, we could say that the capabilities of LLMs are so amazing that even some of the CEOs of these companies are suggesting they either have or may soon truly achieve consciousness.^[1] However, if you were to ask these people how we can know that LLMs have reached this point the test provided is generally a very unsophisticated one: if it can ape human behavior, it must have an intellect at the same level as a human.

Switching to Hugo

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 17:00:00 +0200

Recently I’ve overhauled the entirety of the framework I was using for my website. I was getting tired of the constraints and limitations—and inefficiencies—of the script I had written to statically generate my website in PHP. So finally I decided to switch to a real static site generator: Hugo.

I’ve always looked at Hugo from a distance since every time I’ve tried it I’ve been daunted by the difficulty of learning its entire framework and what all these different components are (like “taxonomies” and “terms”). Honestly, I still don’t know what most of these are. But I’ve managed to get my website up in Hugo at last. This has come along with several (minor) changes to the structure and look—though most links should remain the same with the exception of the RSS feed and the now-removed Atom feed (sorry).

Is there Humor in Heaven?

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Probably around a year ago I was having a conversation with a friend of mine over a beer (as you do) and at some point we got to talking about humor and what is and is not acceptable, particularly as it pertains to why blasphemous humor is wrong. The conclusion we reached was that the object of humor must be something imperfect, but God and the sacred are perfect, thus they aren't a proper object for humor. Then, this having been said, and as tends to happen, it sounded about right to both of us and we moved on. But later, on my way home, and for months ever since I have thought about not only whether this is true, but also what the implications of it may be.

Medieval Society and the Tripartite Soul

Sat, 08 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In Plato's Republic he argues that the soul is composed of three parts: the logical, the spirited, and the appetitive. The logical (or rational) part is that which cares for and seeks the truth. The spirited that part by which we are impassioned by what we could (for the sake of simplicity) call emotions, such as anger or joy. The appetitive that which is concerned with matters of material appetite, such as food, sex, and other such pleasures. He also argues that these three parts, if the soul is to be well-ordered, ought to be placed in a hierarchy where the logical rules over the spirited and the appetitive, and the spirited is subject to the logical and commands the appetite.

Static Site Generation

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Over the course of the decade (maybe more) that this website has been around I've gone through a few different frameworks and infrastructure for it. Although usually this would be going back-and-forth between PHP and some static site generator. For a while I've used Saait,^[1] which was perfect for my goal of simplicity, but was not at all flexible enough for what I wanted. It seems to be intended for a website that contains a single page and then a bunch of blog posts (not my setup), and so for a while I had a somewhat jury-rigged setup.

Contextualizing Scripture

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Generally when reading the Holy Scriptures I like to read from a Bible that contains a lot of footnotes. In one of them (a large edition of the Jerusalem Bible in Spanish) four fifths of the first page of Genesis is actually filled with footnotes. For some I've met this is a hindrance for the reading of Scripture - a distraction - and to each their own, I guess. But for me it is a great aid for the reason that I want context.

A Defense of Churches as Sanctuaries

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A few days ago I was listening to NPR's Up First podcast when they began to talk about the new policies at ICE ever since Trump came into office.^[1] Now although it is perfectly legitimate for a country to deport foreigners who commit crimes within its borders, or even to be selective of what foreigners it lets in to begin with, what caught my attention regarding this episode was that “[i]mmigration enforcement will now be able to arrest migrants at sensitive locations like [...] churches.” Here we see how in spite of all the christian conservative façade of President Trump and the Republicans, in reality they continue to be nothing more than liberals. Sure, not the liberals of the last twenty years, but liberals nonetheless. Of course, it is possible that this form of liberalism is merely intuitive by this point (not directly willed or thought-out) since liberalism has been creeping into the depths of our culture for centuries now. Even so, it is important to remember why churches are to be considered sanctuaries where the Civil Authority has no jurisdiction.

On Separation of Church and State

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Among the liberals of our age, most especially in the American context, one can often hear the phrase thrown at conservatives “Separation of Church and State!” to which any integralist may give a shout of agreement only to then wonder why it is a liberal of all people who is exclaiming such a thing int he first place. Therefore it is only when the integralist has enquired the liberal as to what he means by such a phrase that we stare blankly at him and say as did Íñigo Montoya “You keep using that [phrase]. I do not think it means what you think it means.” For when the liberal explains what he means, he truly means secularism. So let us first consider the true meaning of this phrase and then go on to demonstrate how what the liberal truly means by it (secularism) actually contradicts the literal words of the phrase itself.

Introducing Menu-Helper

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For a long time now I've been trying to develop a program that would help to choose meals for the week, and I've finally made it.

The problem I tend to have in choosing meals for the week is that there are so many to choose from that I end up simply choosing the same things over and over again. This is fine when you're the only person eating (and you're a man), but when you're making meals for others it can get tiresome. So I wanted some system/database that I could consult that would easily give me recipes I could cook, but filtering them by what I need or want. It's because of this that I started working on Menu-Helper.

Introducing Pacundo

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This is a bit of shameless self-promotion, but I think that anyone running an ArchLinux machine will probably appreciate this.

As anyone who has run ArchLinux knows, there is a common phenomenon of upgrading your system and things breaking. If it's just some awkward behavior of some of the tools you can typically resolve it with ease, but there have been times for myself when, because I use Nvidia drivers, I cannot even get my graphical environment running and I have to revert the last upgrade. Most of the time, however, I've had to do this manually, since I did not know of any tool that does it, at least not the way I wanted, which is just an automatic undoing of the last pacman transaction.

Religion & Politics

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Religion & politics, aside from being the two topics you are never supposed to discuss in polite company, are also considered by modern standards to be two realms that should never mix. That is to say, your religion should never influence your politics and (to a lesser extent) vice versa. However this view does not seem to hold up neither in theory nor in practice except by adopting either a very limited and superficial understanding of religion or a position of a purely economic role for the State (and in this latter case, not even so).

A Review of La La Land

Tue, 06 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I watched the 2016 film "La La Land" with my wife, and it conjured some interesting conversation afterwards. I therefore thought it would make for a good blog post to talk about the movie.

Now generally I am not a musical kind of guy, but I must admit that this musical changed my mind. It is also possible that my aversion to musicals was more influenced by the cheesy teenage musicals I would watch as a kid with my family, such as "Camp Rock" or "High School Musical." Yet this one really engaged my intellect and I truly believe the music had an important role to play throughout the film. That being said, it is not the cinematic style of the film that I would like to discuss, since I am by no means an expert or even an amateur of the topic. Instead, I would like to talk about the ending and the lesson which I believe it gives. So if you are one of those people who cares about spoilers and has not watched the movie, you can stop right here; although I will say that I watched the movie knowing how it ended, and even so I was quite impressed and entertained.

In- and Out-Parameters

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

So at work I have to deal with a codebase that works with C and C++. In the part of the code that is C++ specifically I'll often find lots of reference parameters in functions. This is something great and good for objects, since passing lots of information by copy is extremely inefficient, but there is one thing that is extremely bothersome: not knowing which parameters are in-parameters and which are out-parameters.

Freedom and Camping

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Since I was a boy I've been a fan of the outdoors, and particularly of camping. Perhaps one of the most influential experiences of my life was when I worked with the Conservation Corps in 2014, where I spent a whole month primarily sleeping in a tent. What influenced my love of the outdoors might've been the days I would spend up at my grandfather's house, in Northern Minnesota, where although, for as long as I can remember, he had a nice house that was rather comfortable, but most of our time was actually spent outside: around the lake, amongst the trees. Some times, if there was a family reunion and all the bedrooms were used up, we'd sleep outside in a tent; something I always found to be rather exciting. Yet there's something else, something so particular to the outdoors, and later on camping specifically, that I loved so much: freedom.

Beginners Guide to Prayer

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Recently a good friend of mine who is taking an interest in Catholicism has asked me if I could write an article on how to pray. Normally this isn't the kind of subject I'd want to deal with on my blog, especially since there's probably millions of people who are better qualified than myself who have written better articles than anything I could come up with. Nonetheless, I felt the need to write this article, not only because it was a friend that asked me to, but also because he has found that many of the articles that exist on the matter are either too vague or too specific. E.g. a vague article may simply be several paragraphs of someone essentially saying that praying is having a conversation with God and growing in communion with Him, while a specific article will just tell you how to pray a specific devotion. Neither of these are truly helpful for someone who's just starting out. I remember when I first started praying it was hard for me to find anything useful on this matter as well. What beginners need is guidance on what prayer is, and to dive deeper into how we do it. All this being said, I am still but a layman, so take what I say with a grain of salt, and continue to expand your prayer life beyond this article. But I hope to give at least a cursory introduction that will be useful for beginners.

Adoration

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the Christian prayer life there is a richness of ways to pray, and generally we choose those devotions which help us to delve into the mysteries of our Faith and to deepen our relationship with God. However, even though there are a variety of particular devotions one may use (e.g. the Rosary, Liturgy of the Hours, the Angelus) the ways we must interact with God to grow in our faith are the same. Primarily, we traditionally understand there to be four cornerstones of prayer: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication (a.k.a. ACTS). All four of these are necessary for having a good prayer life, though we may effectuate them in different ways. Of these, perhaps the easiest and most commonly seen is supplication, as this is simply asking God for something; and God who is our heavenly Father wishes to give us all which we need, and which we ask for in the name of His Son for He loves us (John 16:23-27). As a consequence, thanksgiving is also a common trait in our prayer, albeit perhaps less frequent than it should be. Contrition is perhaps less common and more difficult, as it requires the humility of recognizing our faults before God in a solemn act of repentance; but even so many Christians know this to be a fundamental part of their prayer life. All this said, what is perhaps the most lacking element of prayer in most (Catholic) Christian groups I've attended is simply adoration: to adore God not because of what He does for us (as such is thanksgiving), nor because of His relationship with us, but simply because of who/what He is, because He is God and Lord of all creation.

Love and Desire

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

About a year and a half ago I wrote an article on the topic of love, and what distinguishes it from taste (i.e. loving from liking). ^[1] This article is similar, but instead of contrasting love with taste, we're going to be contrasting it with desire.

I once heard an expression in Spanish that went as follows: "Dios te ama como eres, pero no te quiere como eres." To roughly translate into English: "God loves you as you are, but He does not desire you as you are." The key verbs here in Spanish are amar and querer. The first verb refers to what I had described in previous article: a desire for goodness for the other person. The second, although often translated as "love" as well, truly refers to a "wanting" or a "desire".

A Critique of Functional Programming

Fri, 27 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I've been using Rust for a while now, particularly on my pet project, Indivisible,^[1] and one very key feature of Rust is that it's designed to be used primarily with the functional programming paradigm^[2] (as opposed to the imperative paradigm^[3]). I noticed this especially when I wanted to use a given library for parallelization in Rust, which was only available using this functional paradigm, therefore forcing me to adopt it. I've had a little exposure to this paradigm before, but I haven't had to use it extensively. After this I thought I would write about my experience on the matter.

C++ Optimizations Series

Fri, 27 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I've recently started working on a new series on my Odysee channel which aims to explain some very basic C/C++ code optimizations at an assembly level.^[1] I explore different keywords and good programming habits in C++ and explain why they can lead to more optimized code using the resulting assembly code. Basically, I compile the C++ code and then I disassemble it using a tool like objdump.

My main reason for making this series is that I find that many programmers don't actually know what they're doing when they program. They write code simply trying to get it done, but they're never disciplined in good programming habits in their language. This is a shame considering that many of these simple habits can greatly improve the efficiency of the output.

Account Proliferation

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

A tendency that has been greatly bothering me recently regarding modern systems - on the web, desktop applications, OSs or otherwise - is the increasing number of them that require new users to register an account for their usage. The most recent case was when I was trying to install Windows 10 in a virtual machine, and in order to finish the post-install configuration I had to log into or create a Microsoft account. There was no option to skip this step available on-screen. I tried using my student Microsoft account, but this was rejected... I don't know why. So ultimately, I got fed up and decided to ditch the whole thing.

Elevating our Intellectual Discussion

Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was recently having a conversation at a youth group, and one of the questions was on what sin we had a difficult time understanding as a sin. A few interesting ideas were brought up, such as suicide (due to lack of culpability often resulting from poor mental health) and private criticism. It was during this forum that I brought up my difficulty with the notion of intellectual property. As anyone who has even been skeptical of the common perception of intellectual property will know, the immediate reaction I got, the one I've heard over, and over, and over again, is "Somebody worked hard on it!"

VPNs and Internet Privacy

Mon, 22 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As of late I've been seeing a lot of renewed interest for internet privacy, particularly regarding certain social media platforms. This is, of course, not something new. This is a struggle that's been going on for years, as you can find even within my own blog post history there are several articles referring to the matter, and it's an issue older than my own posts. Yet what I find baffling is the method being proposed: the use of a VPN.

Trent Horn, Capitalism, and Socialism

Fri, 24 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Perhaps one of my favorite Catholic Apologists is Trent Horn. He does an amazing job at calmly and concisely explaining Catholic doctrines on Faith & Morals in a very rational manner. He has been fundamental in my formation as a Catholic, and I pray God will provide him with what he needs to continue his wonderful work.

All this being said, there is one area where I have a small discrepancy with Mr. Horn, which lies in his understanding and personal definitions for the terms Socialism and Capitalism. This is not because I disagree with his position - that no good Catholic can be a Socialist - but rather that, in misunderstanding and misrepresenting what Socialism is, we give way for confusion in what the Church actually teaches. So I'd like to make some clarifying statements on his definitions, basing myself on a segment from an interview he did on the channel Pints with Aquinas.^[1]

Literal Interpretations of Scripture

Sun, 12 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago, I was talking with a friend, and he brought up how a mutual friend of ours had suggested that it is possible that Moses, the Biblical character from the Old Testament, did not historically exist. Rather, that he is simply a literary character used to explain Israel's liberation from Egypt and settlement in the Holy Land. My friend asked me this to get my opinion on whether or not this is doctrinally acceptable. My answer, however, is not as simple as a "yes" or "no". Perhaps it is not, I have not investigated to see if the Church has any magisterial teaching on this matter, but I would like to take this opportunity to comment on interpreting Scripture in general as a historical text.

Linux Just Works

Tue, 07 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Recently, after having setup my MACCHIATObin as a desktop computer, I've decided to move most of my computing to that, and therefore my x86 laptop is going to be mostly unused. As such I decided to install something more low-maintenance on it since I don't want to have to fix or update it with any special frequency. As such ArchLinux (my favorite distribution) was out of the question, and I had to consider alternatives.

Installing ArchLinuxARM with UEFI on the MACCHIATObin

Tue, 31 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So I've decided to write this little guide because of how much I've suffered to get this to work, and how absolutely broken the MACCHIATObin documentation is. Actually, just their website in general is broken. Marvell, please get your act together with your website. It's not as if you're modifying it all that often, so stop breaking things.

With that out of the way, let's get to business.

Requirements

Aside from the MACCHIATObin itself (which I believe should be fairly obvious), you're also going to want the following:

The CMake ExternalProject Module

Sat, 28 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've started working on a C++ project that uses the CMake build system.^[1] The first thing I was in charge of doing was fixing the build, as one of the dependencies is the SeetaFace2 project.^[2] Originally you had to have the SeetaFace2 project in a directory adjacent to the SeetaRest project directory, and you would manually compile SeetaFace2. This, for obvious reasons, is not a good build setup. So my task was to integrate it directly into the build using CMake's ExternalProject module.^[3]

Taizé: Experience & Liturgy

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently spent a week in Taizé,^[1] an ecumenical Christian community in France. It's not the kind of prayer I'm used to, but nonetheless it was a good overall experience. I figured I may as well share what I had experienced - the good and the bad - as well as what I had managed to reverse engineer of the liturgy of their prayers, and some of what I had managed to learn from asking one of the brothers from the community.

Know Your Enemy: The Phone

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

With this title, I cannot help but think of and mention Rage Against the Machine's hit song, "Know Your Enemy."^[1] So I'll just drop that little gem.

Those who know me personally will also know that I'm pretty anti-technology for a software developer. The complete opposite of your typical technophile who was extremely excited about the Google Glass,^[2] and was among the first to buy it when it came out, just to regret doing so when ultimately it wasn't all people were expecting. And nothing I believe more accurately expresses this attitude of mine than my phone: a brick phone. What I want to express in this article is why we should view these technologies as our enemies in order to make sure that we control them, instead of them controlling us.

Git Main vs. Master Branch

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So a few weeks ago while trying to create a Git project I noticed that Git had asked me if I would like to set a new name in my configuration for the default Git branch, and it suggested the use of main (rather than the traditional master). I was a little surprised, but since it bothered me again later to set the configuration variable, I decided I would simply set it to master, which is what I'm used to, and works best with my shell aliases and whatnot. I also realized later when creating a project on GitLab that it too was suggesting to use main. I still hadn't looked up the exact reason for this sudden change, but I could already imagine. That's when I came across someone asking about the matter on StackOverflow^[1], which explains that GitHub (and probably Git and GitLab as well) are wanting to change the name of the default branch so as to "avoid any unnecessary references to slavery."^[2]

Comment on Traditionis Custodes

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I hadn't wanted to comment on this for a while, especially to see how it actually ended up playing out, but finally I believe it's time to bring up the elephant in the room.

It is probably to no one's surprise that I am fond of the Tridentine Mass. As such, I was well aware of what was coming with regards to Pope Francis' new motu proprio, "Traditionis Custodes" on the Traditional Latin Mass, and like many I was afraid of what it may entail. That being said, at least for now, the Tridentine Mass will continue to be celebrated in Seville the same as it has been since last November. For this I am very grateful for our new bishop for allowing us to continue the celebration of such a beautiful liturgy.

To Love Everyone Means Everyone

Tue, 20 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Currently I am on vacation back in the United States, visiting family. We live in Minnesota. In the city many people boast of being open, accepting, tolerant and loving. There are signs about love and social justice on every block, if not every house. One would think this should be a good sign, of a loving community that wants to welcome everyone; I even remember seeing one sign that said "Wherever you're from, we're glad you're our neighbor." But in Spanish we have a saying: dime de lo que presumes, y te diré lo que te falta (tell me that which you boast of and I will tell you what you lack).

The Beauty of the Sacrament of Confession

Tue, 13 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Some folks have mentioned to me before that they are amazed at my love for the Mass. Indeed, like for any Catholic, the Mass is a central element of my faith. For me, the Mass can truly be a bedrock of my daily life, holding everything together (if done well). And the Eucharist especially I hold quite dear. What could be greater than to receive our Lord truly and in such an intimate manner in Communion? What's more, I hold a personal belief, based on the Eucharistic Miracles, that we specifically receive His Sacred Heart in the Eucharist. In the Mass, at the communion rail, Christ gives us, through the priest, His Sacred Heart so that It may go down our esophagus and pass right next to our very own heart. I like to hold my hand to my chest, imagining that His Heart is beating next to mine, and that I am hearing His Heart beating as John would in the Last Supper. However, despite my love for the Mass, the Sacrament I hold most dearly is the Sacrament of Confession.

Why Income Inequality is not Directly Important

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Originally I had planned to make the title of this post "Why Income Inequality is not Important", but I realized that this could be misleading as to what I'm actually trying to express. Although I'm unsure that the title I have chosen will be much different.

When talking about economics in a country, income inequality seems to come up quite often, especially among those who are more left-leaning on economic issues. It's generally hard to argue the position that it is good for a country to have more income inequality - which is not to say there aren't people who may try to defend this position - and in fact it's quite normally described as being a bad thing, being representative of an unjust society. However, this is not the focus of this post. Instead, I'd like to focus on whether income inequality is a useful form of measuring the well-being of the people in a country.

The Extraordinary Form Revisited

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post on the Traditional Latin Mass^[1] much of my intention was apologetic, and fueled by an indignation at seeing how this form of celebrating the Divine Liturgy was (and still is) treated almost like a second-class celebration. It is true that many of those who assist can be very off-putting in their views, but this is no reason to dismiss such a beautiful and reverent celebration, much less treat it as inferior. However, unfortunately I got defensive and responded in kind, disparaging the Ordinary Form, resentful of the differences of how it is celebrated, and always tried finding (seemingly) objective reasons as to why the Ordinary Form was inferior, not realizing that what's important about the Mass, regardless of how it is celebrated, is that it brings people closer to Jesus Christ, and different people find this easier through different forms. And although I would like for the Extraordinary Form to be respected in this manner, I must be the first to respect the Ordinary Form in this manner.

Return to Reality

Sat, 15 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Abstractions are created by human beings and have no existence apart from the human mind. Thus, especially these days when moral relativism has attained the status of dogma, it is essential to restore a philosophy that is not centered on a subjective abstraction, but on objective reality. What is needed is personalism, a way of thinking based on the actuality of the human person created by God.
- Economic Personalism by Michael D. Greany and Dawn K. Brohawn, ch. 1

I've started to read the book "Economic Personalism" by Michael D. Greany and Dawn K. Brohawn, and will likely do a book review of it once I'm finished. But one topic that is brought up at the very beginning of the book in its section "Faith and Reason" is how we have come to adopt a sort of fideism, which is "the idea that truth is determined by what one believes, rather than what can be proved by reason or that is consistent with reason and thus conforms to the natural law."^[1] This may seem somewhat counter-intuitive, considering we live in an age of so many self-proclaimed skeptics, atheists, and agnostics, as well as so many others who claim to be "pro-science". How could it be, then, that such a skeptical and self-proclaimed scientific population could fall for the evident errors of fideism? The reason is precisely that we are not skeptical, but rather we are simply critical (of other people's positions).

The Idolatry of Technology

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Despite being a computer engineer (student), I am actually quite skeptical of technology and new technological innovations, especially the more complex and interdependent they become. My exposure to Primitivist literature has also contributed significantly to this skepticism, although I always try to be as pragmatic as possible. I say this so that the reader may know my personal biases on this matter prior to exposing the topic at hand.

A certain tendency that I believe is very frequent in the technologically developed world today is one of absolute reliance on complex technologies, and believing that any solution may have a technological - or what people will often (erroneously) call "scientific" - solution. That is to say, the belief that any problem can be solved with a new technological innovation, and any problems we currently face only exist because we have not yet (but will) find a technological solution for them.

The Nature of the State

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A while back when I had done a post on political parties and an alternative model for a Republican Democracy, I had briefly mentioned the importance of the nature of the State, in other words, the raison d'être of the State: why does it exist? The reason why this is an important question to ask is that, if the State is not serving its natural purpose then it is failing as an entity; and if it is not only failing, but doing so intentionally, then it is ipso facto illegitimate, as it is intentionally contradicting its own purpose of existence. In such a case where a State is illegitimate, it is important to note that this does not (necessarily) mean that any State would be, and therefore we should resort to anarchy; rather it is a call to establish a new model for the State that better enables for it to fulfill its natural purpose.

New Media Usage

Tue, 20 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Anyone that knows me personally - or maybe I've mentioned this in a previous post - knows that I'm generally a technology skeptic. I'm highly skeptical of new technologies, and I'm very conscious about the negative effects they seem to have on our lives. This is so to the extent that I do not use a smart-phone and I refuse to make use of social-media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. In the case of Facebook specifically, I used to have one, and when I got rid of it (initially for privacy reasons) I had discovered how much of an absolute time suck it was for me. But this even goes into other means of communication, like how I often prefer e-mail over other means of instant communication, or this very website which is absolutely spartan in its design and maintenance.

First Impression of Rust

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I'd like to make it clear first that I by no means have extensive experience with the Rust programming language, nor will I be diving into the more technical aspects of Rust as a language. This is simply my first impressions as someone who is largely a fan of C/C++.

Now, this being said, I have lately been porting one of my favorite projects, Indivisible^[1] to the Rust programming language. I started this journey when a good friend of mine sent me a link to a video about Rust which had challenged a few things I had thought erroneously about the language in practical terms. My main critiques of Rust prior to seeing this video were that it uses garbage collection, that it is incompatible with C/C++ and therefore would never kick off, and that it doesn't allow you to use pointers (because of garbage collection). What I had found was that all these are completely wrong, especially this last one since the Rust compiler won't stop bothering me about memory references. The fact of the matter is that Rust's memory management is basically like using smart pointers in C++, but with a compiler that makes sure you're using them appropriately (and is really annoying about it). And as for compatibility with C/C++, it was made to be compatible.

Los Siete Dolores Y Gozos De San José

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Este texto lo he sacado de mi Misal Completo Latino-Español. Son siete meditaciones sobre la vida de San José.

Dice Santa Teresa: «No me acuerdo de haberle pedido cosa que la haya dejado de hacer. Es cosa que espanta las grandes mercedes que me ha hecho Dios por medio de este Santo, los peligros de que me ha librado, así de cuerpo como de alma. Que a otros Santos parece les dió el Señor gracia para socorrer en una necesidad, mas este glorioso Santo tengo experimentado que socorre en todas y que quiere el Señor darnos a entender que así como le fué sujeto en la tierra, así en el cielo hará cuanto le pida.»

Editors, Compilers, and Build Systems

Sun, 04 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Firstly, a very blessed Easter Sunday to all! I would've liked to write an Easter Sunday post, but I do not have a topic planned. Alas, it'll have to wait for another year.

Now let's get into the topic of this post: Editors, compilers, and build systems. It somewhat bothers me that many university students are unaware of this distinction. They have a vague idea, but are unable to pin it down. This is primarily because professors make a point of using IDEs from the start. As such, some have come to believe that you require a special program (e.g. Eclipse for Java) in order to write code for a given language. This limits them severely in their software development, since they restrict themselves to the tools which the IDE provides them with. Instead, especially in a university where it's supposed that one learns the foundational knowledge and concepts of a given field, it would make more sense to teach students these concepts as separate tools first, before allowing them to use these all-in-one IDE solutions.

Book Review: 'The Lamb's Supper' by Scott Hahn

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

This is the first book review I'm doing, so don't expect very much, and it's on the book The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth by Dr. Scott Hahn, where Dr. Hahn explains how the Book of Revelations (a.k.a. the Book of the Apocalypse) can be interpreted as a description of the Divine Liturgy (i.e. the Holy Mass).

The Book of the Apocalypse has had many, many, many different interpretations over the centuries; perhaps the most common being either a futurist depiction of events to come in the End Days, or an extremely metaphorical description of the razing of Jerusalem. And Dr. Hahn does not discard that these may be accurate interpretations, for as we should all know, Sacred Scripture can be layered with meanings. He does, however, propose the interpretation that this Book is a description of the Divine Liturgy that we celebrate every time we go to Holy Mass.

Political Puritanism

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Much of today's political discourse, regardless of faction, is focused on presenting one's own faction as being pure and impeccable, while presenting any other as either innocently cooperating with evil, or directly malicious. That is to say, all atrocities committed by the faction we favor must be either justified or denied, while all atrocities committed by opposing factions must be emphasized, exaggerated, or even fabricated.

If this behaviour is viewed with (a lot of) charity, it could be viewed that the denial of the evils our factions commit is because we recognize that it is evil, and the emphasis on the evils of the other factions is precisely to show the dangers of those ideas. But the problem with this kind of strategy is that absolutely every faction, even the ones we believe to be the most benign, is riddled with a history of atrocities and evils. Even our modern-day Liberal Democracies, which we put on a pedestal as the most humane of systems of governance was only able to come about through violent revolution, mass executions, and persecution of the Church. Even today we see its violence in the form of the killing of children in the womb and of the elderly or sickly (i.e. abortion and euthanasia).

Culture as a Common Good

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

As anyone who is familiar with my works (and their licenses) would know, I am very much a supporter of what's known as Free Culture^[1] and Free Software^[2]. Although for the rest of this article I will be referring to both culture and software simply as "Culture", since for the purpose of this article I see no point in distinguishing between the two. I later found that the reason for this - which I only understood intuitively - is that Culture is what we may call a Common Good. Yet, at the same time I found this difficult to reconcile with a recognition of Intellectual Property, to the extent that for many years I simply rejected it. Yet I believe that this truly is not contradictory, and in light of Church teaching regarding the Universal Destination of Goods, we can fully understand how they function together and use it to reinforce the case for Free Culture.

How to Behave at the Mass

Fri, 19 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I have attained a Roman Missal so as to better follow the Traditional Latin Mass. In its introduction it contains different sections on the Catholic Faith and how to live it. One of these sections describes the proper etiquette one should observe while at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. I thought it was interesting, so I figured I would translate it (from Spanish) in the hopes that it may be useful for anyone who is looking to understand what reverence should be shown to our Lord while in His presence. Enjoy.

The End of the Music Stores

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I was discovering some music from Scott Stapp's solo career, in particular his song "Mary's Crying"^[1], and I've been searching for a place where I could purchase his music. Unfortunately, this is not so easy nowadays. I do not have an Amazon account, nor Google Play, nor Apple iTunes, and I wish to keep it that way. What I've been searching for is a platform where I can purchase music without creating an account, and receiving the actual audio files - ideally in a lossless format like FLAC. The only platform I've found that meets this condition would be Bandcamp^[2], but this platform mostly has indie artists.

An Analogy for Purgatory

Fri, 12 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Purgatory is perhaps one of the most misunderstood Catholic doctrine. So much so that even many Catholics have difficulty understanding it. Protestants will err in saying that it's a sort of waiting room before a soul enters Heaven, and Eastern Orthodox will err in saying that Catholics believe it's a light version of Hell. Both of these, however, miss the target, despite the true meaning being in the name itself: purging or purification.

The Importance of Mortification

Thu, 11 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

"The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes."
- Catechism of the Catholic Church § 2015

Perhaps one of the most undervalued of Christian practices today is that of Mortification. This is the voluntary endurance of discomfort, inconvenience, or privation of certain goods (e.g. fasting) so as to die to the temptations of the flesh and, with a stronger will, be able to better accept God's Grace and reject the devil's temptations to sin.

Be Less Internet Dependent

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I was studying for an exam. Normally I do this by downloading the material to my computer (typically PDF documents) so I can have access to it locally. I could most definitely simply view it in the university's web platform, but I've always found it more comfortable to have copies of these files on my computer. It was at this point that my brother wished to restart the router, saying he was having problems with the internet connection, which he needed to study for his own classes. In my case, I had not noticed any problems with the internet in the slightest, nor any disruption to my work flow. The reason is simple: I didn't need the internet for my work - or at least I needed it less. Once I had downloaded the PDF documents, they were on my computer and I could access them at any moment in time without reliance on a proper internet connection.

Five Technological Principles to Live By

Thu, 21 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

A problem that presents itself with our use of modern technologies and how we develop them is how extremely inefficient it ends up being. Often times the technological solutions we choose to solve a given problem are overly complex and rigid, requiring us to be wasteful. As a result of this demand for poorly designed technologies, suppliers provide exactly what we ask for, and as such engineers develop technologies that promote this inefficient use.

Dumping "Summer" Album

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I've decided to remove the "Summer" album which I had been working on from my website. The audios and pages have been removed.

"Summer" was an album I had been working on truly since 2014 or so. It was going to be a conceptual album about my favorite season of the year: summer. Of course, I kept getting delayed in releasing anything, and kept wanting to make changes, and so it was never released (officially).

What is Love?

Sat, 12 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I don't normally like making pop culture references, but with this topic I find it too tempting. Ironically, however, the famous song by Haddaway "What is Love?" doesn't actually answer the question, but is simply a very catchy song - no surprise there.

Love is something that we talk about a great deal today. It's a word especially present in social movements which try to promote tolerance & acceptance of certain behaviours or persons. And indeed, as Christians we are called to love the Lord our God, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.^[1] But what does it truly mean to love somebody?

Sin & Hell

Sat, 05 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In an age dominated by Moral Relativism and Free Examination of Conscience, it is common for us to avoid the topics of Sin and Hell, or even to deny them, adopting instead the heresy of Universalism - i.e. that everyone's soul will share in the Beatific Vision which is Heaven. However, this is not the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church^[1], nor is it remotely scriptural.

"Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it."
- Gospel According to St. Matthew 7:13-14

For those in communion with the Church, in other denominations, or even other creeds, it may be said that this comes from a place of charity, if attempting to comfort others who are still very much enslaved to their sins, or from an earnest desire to love God, which they currently cannot fully realize due to being enslaved to their sins. This is not, of course, an excuse for the error incurred, but rather something we should keep in mind. Although perhaps the greatest effect this has is on those who are irreligious, or who were religious but then scandalized by this truth.

Reverence for Authority

Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Some time ago I was at the bar with some of my friends, and the topic came up about signs of reverence during the Mass, in particular kneeling in order to receive Communion, and the importance of receiving Communion on the tongue (as opposed to on the hand). It was at this point that I explained my usual bit about both the facilitation of sacrilege to the Holiest of Sacraments when Communion in the hand is made common-place, but also the possible scandal that can occur for an observer who may be doubting the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I suspect, however, that my explanations did little good and were not too convincing. Not because there was any flaw in my reasoning, nor because my friend was incapable of understanding it, but because I had completely missed what he was truly asking: why is reverence to authority - in particular the highest authority which is Jesus Christ - so important? In particular, he had asked about physical reverence. I will go over this here, although I hope to have the chance to bring it up to him as well sometime in the near future.

Christ Was Not a Revolutionary

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

"Jesus was a revolutionary", "Jesus Christ's revolutionary message", "the Christian revolution." These are phrases we've probably all heard before in reference to Jesus Christ and His teachings. Most notably, the equivocation of Jesus Christ with any kind of revolutionary spirit tends to come from those who wish to change some fundamental Church Teaching, and by framing our Lord as a revolutionary, it makes it appear that such changes are "what Christ would've done", or indeed possible in the first place. Yet, this makes little to no sense, neither biblically nor philosophically.

New Onion Address

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So it would appear that the time on my previous VPS ended much earlier than expected, which is why my website's been down for a while. As such, I wasn't able to recover my files for the previous onion address. So I've had to create a new one, which apparently now they're much much longer. But since I don't expect people to be memorizing the onion address itself, it's not that big a deal.

New Website Setup

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

So the date on this post may be wrong by the time you're reading it, mostly because I'm not sure when I'm gonna be done setting up the server, but I hope it's today. However, you probably will have noticed (if you visit my website somewhat regularly) that a lot has changed. It's the migration I was talking about a few posts ago.

To start, let me explain the change in framework: something I've been thinking about lately is the vulnerability of my blog posts, which before were stored in a database file on my VPS. If for any reason I were to lose that data, I'd lose all the blog posts. I was also frustrated with the complicated way of posting new articles that I had setup: I'd write the post in an HTML file on my computer, and then I'd login to my hand-made dashboard on my website, to post it there with all the relevant fields. It seemed like a lot of double work that could be easily simplified.

Do Away with Parties

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In light of the most recent elections and the chaos and tension that accompanies it, I think it may be important to talk about the way the democratic system works and one of its key flaws, both in the United States and in other places (like my home country of Spain). I realize that this is entering into politics, something that I generally haven't done for quite some time, but I believe that this is sufficiently neutral of a topic and answering to something that people from both sides can see some benefit from.

New Site Migration

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I'm giving a head's up that my site is going to undergo a massive migration (relatively) soon. I'm going to be changing servers, and I would like to take advantage of the situation to also change the base technology I'm using for my website.

For quite some time I've been using PHP, which has provided me with quite a bit of stability. But I've started to notice how much of a hassle it is, and how vulnerable some of the information that is not on my home computer is (e.g. my blog posts). It's also always been somewhat of a mess. I feel like I'm using a cannon to kill a fly. So in my quest to minimize the complexity of the technologies I use as much as possible, I've decided to switch to using a static site generator.

Pope Francis on 'Same-Sex Civil Unions'

Fri, 23 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recently there has been a scandal within the Church over footage found in the recent documentary "Francesco" on Pope Francis. News outlets everywhere have been exclaiming how this footage shows Pope Francis approving of same-sex civil unions. ^[1][2][3] However, it would seem that none of these journalists or newspapers have bothered to look up the actual footage, put it into the context of what the Pope is talking about, and understand the true meaning of what the Church teaches on this issue, which is exactly what Pope Francis is trying to express.

Modernism

Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

"The Catholic Church never suits the particular mood of any age, because it was made for all ages. A Catholic knows that if the Church married the mood of any age in which it lived, it would be a widow in the next age. The mark of the true Church is that it will never get on well with the passing moods of the world."
- Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

Today, this quote, a critique of Modernism, is probably more applicable than ever. Both within the Church and in secular society we're used to hearing the retort "get with the times." A retort usually encountered whenever a traditional view is defended, all the more if it is currently unpopular.

Less Forums, More Mailing Lists

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I did a post on e-mail and why I think it's a superior means of communication. A middle ground between snail mail and annoying instant communication. And along the same lines of my previous post on RSS feeds, I think we should make a return to mailing lists as a replacement for web forums.

So in case my reader does not know what a mailing list is, let me briefly explain. The way a mailing list works is that you subscribe (via e-mail or web interface) to a given mailing list. Once you do this, you can send e-mails to a given e-mail address and it will be forwarded to everyone who is subscribed to the mailing list. In other words, it's a way of broadcasting messages sent to a single address to everyone subscribed to the broadcast.

RSS: Decentralized Subscriptions

Tue, 06 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

For years I've had an RSS feed for my blog, but I truly haven't used RSS myself for my own subscriptions until quite recently. But since watching the Luke Smith video on the matter^[1] I've decided to give it a try, and it has definitely been worth it.

For those who are not aware, RSS is a standardized and universal way of managing subscriptions that has been around since 1999 (although the concept is older). The idea is that every site or subscription would have an XML file that could be pulled by an RSS client, which would contain all (recent) posts. The client would then show this data to the user, pointing out the new/unread posts. In other words, basic subscription stuff.

Be Radical

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." - Revelations 3:16

Generally I get along with any kind of person. But this isn't to say that some kind of people don't frustrate me, as someone who enjoys discussing topics such as politics, religion, sciences, etc. However, it isn't the person that disagrees with me that frustrates me, but rather the person that holds inconsistent opinions, and doesn't follow their own logic to its ultimate consequences. And there are these kinds of people on all sides of any argument - including my own.

The Authentic

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I had read an article by The Art of Manliness on why we shouldn't be authentic, but rather artificial. ^[1] The logic was that being authentic drives us towards commodity and effeminacy, seeking only what we find pleasure in instead of what is difficult which will truly make us better men. And the advice given is truly positive. But I believe there's more to being authentic than what meets the eye. Just that it has been hidden under the layers of subjectivity, vague language, and secular thought.

Why Non-Techies Should Use Free Software

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Freedom 0: to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
Freedom 1: to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish.
Freedom 2: to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
Freedom 3: to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

These are the four freedoms that a program must legally provide in order for it to be considered Free Software. Often times, when trying to convince non-techies of the advantages of Free Software, these freedoms seem very abstract and, to be honest, useless to them. They may see the advantages of freedom 0, but freedoms 1-3 all seem to either be for programmers or something they would just never use, and don't need others to have the ability to use. However, those of us who are familiarized with Free Software know that even non-programmers can benefit greatly from using Free Software, or (what's the same) avoiding proprietary software. And for this, I like to use a little anecdote of when I first started to advocate for Free Software, when I wasn't even an avid programmer.

Why the Traditional Latin Mass

Sat, 18 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The most beautiful and reverent form I have seen of practicing the Liturgy in the Latin Rite has without a doubt been the Traditional Latin Mass (a.k.a. Tridentine Mass, Gregorian Mass, or Extraordinary Form). It's a form that has caught my interest since knowing of its existence. A form that characterizes a truly Catholic Mass, which is the heart of the Church.

Unfortunately, it would seem that this form has been substantially undervalued since the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council and implementation of the Novus Ordo Mass, despite the significant importance it has to the Catholic identity. Many simply brush it off as something that is antiquated. But the Tridentine Mass still has much to show us, and is still essential to the Catholic identity. As such, I offer a few points as to why it should be preserved and promoted.

Install ArchARM on the eMMC of the ASUS C201

Fri, 19 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

As I had mentioned in a previous post about ARM boards, I have recently acquired an ASUS C201P chromebook which I have started to use more on a daily basis. The advantages of this laptop is that it can be run with completely free/libre software, firmware, and drivers - although you will need a wifi adapter to avoid the proprietary wifi card, which is kind of crap anyways. You can find the information on how to libreboot it here (I had a hard time finding this, so you're welcome). It's actually quite a simple process, and unlike other laptops where you require all kinds of hardware flashes to install libreboot, on this the only hardware manipulation you need is to take out a screw... literally.

The Advantages of E-Mail

Fri, 08 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I'm not sure if I've touched upon this subject before, but e-mail is perhaps my favorite means of communication, especially for in-depth discussions. Despite the surge in modern instant-messaging, and the continued reliability of snail-mail, I find e-mail to be the perfect middle-ground that suites my needs.

To start, comparing e-mail to snail-mail, we see that e-mail is... well, faster and more flexible. Sure, it's not nearly as personal as a hand-written letter, but it's nearly instant and much more appropriate for anything technology related - which seems to be most of what I or any other person does nowadays, mostly by sending links. What's more, it's also cheaper since you probably already have an internet connection - otherwise I'd wonder how you're reading this post.

Technological Slave Mentality

Mon, 27 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In light of the COVID-19 crisis and the rising trend of digital technological solutions to our social confinement efforts, I thought I would take the opportunity to go over the issue of what I call technological slave mentality. More than once my peers have referred to me as the anti-computer computer engineer, because whenever I have the choice I always opt for the most primitive solution; I have a brick phone, I detest smart devices, I prefer to write using pen & paper, I prefer to read paper books, I try to avoid cloud services, etc. But this is not so much out of a hatred for computers or digital technologies - otherwise why would I be writing this article from a computer to a website, or why would I study computer engineering? - but rather that I do not want to be a slave to my computer, and instead want my computer to be subservient to me.

ARM Boards and User Control

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In the past I've mentioned both ARM and even the ARM-based laptop currently in development, the MNT Reform. Since they do not use any kind of microcode for system instructions, it is a very appealing alternative to x86 architectures (be it Intel or AMD). No more malware running in the background possibly reading your memory and sending it off to Intel/AMD headquarters. What's more, these boards tend to be cheaper and consume less energy than x86.

Tradition

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In recent times it would seem that, led by the principles of the Enlightenment, society has decided mostly to leave behind Tradition as a means of obtaining Truth. With the tools of reason and empirical evidence, primarily the scientific method, we've become naïve in thinking that with these tools alone, man can discover absolute and complete Truth. This has fostered a mentality of rejection to Tradition, perceiving it as something archaic that no longer applies to this modern world where men have the ability to discover this truth on their own. But I believe this dismissal of Tradition is misplaced, and has even led us down a dangerous path of egoism and pride which may have devastating consequences for humanity.

The Lesson We Could Learn, But Won't

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

With the current spread of the COVID-19 virus, we're currently seeing the consequences of our highly interconnected global society. What started out as a small outbreak in a province of China became a global epidemic in a matter of a few months.Currently, as is rational, the global focus is on treating the infected and finding a cure. However, the time will come when this crisis blows over and we will ask ourselves: how do we prevent this from happening again? Unfortunately, I fear that rather than trying to find a way to prevent similar incidents from occurring, we will simply attempt to find ways to mitigate future casualties. Because the one thing we must change in order to prevent future events like this would require a change in our way of life that would inconvenience us greatly; and if there is one thing our modern man cannot stand, it is to be inconvenienced. We must scale down our society from global, down to national, regional, and especially local. In effect, we must practice the principle of Subsidiarity.

An Atheist Explains the Problem of Evil

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

The problem of evil is perhaps one of the most common arguments against the existence of God, and it holds much weight especially for those who have experienced some kind of hardship in their life. How can an Omnibenevolent God permit evil to exist? The faithful will typically retort with arguments of how God gave us free will, and how we live in a fallen world. These arguments are valid, but they don't get to the heart of the dilemma, which is the other person's inability to see how God can create more good from the evils he permits to exist.

Modesty

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I'm unsure about most people, but throughout my life when I've heard the word "modesty" being used, it has typically been in reference to vestment and how much skin one is exposing. In other words, an immodest vestment would be one that emphasizes the sexual or indecent attributes of the person (typically a woman) while a modest vestment would be one that respects the sacred nature of these and attempts to pull attention away from these. And although this is most certainly a form of modesty, it is a very limited understanding of it.

New Category and Content

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Normally, aside from snide remarks here and there, I've refrained from posting content on religion here in my blog. I've had a category on politics before, which I had removed to keep some of my less popular opinions away from my public website. However, upon my conversion to Catholicism I've been questioning whether or not to publish content on religion. It's a topic that I am passionate about, but not one that I would necessarily like to publish due to certain controversial positions that may spell trouble for future employment; being the same issue I have with hosting a politics category. It is not that I am unwilling to defend those positions of the Church, but rather that I'd rather not look for trouble with something as fundamental as my livelihood. Instead, I will do such through other means which are not directly related to my person.

Recipe: Pollo Picantito

Mon, 13 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This dish, literally meaning spicy chicken, is not Spanish in origin. In fact, it's probably Latin American. The ingredients are simple and (depending on where you live) cheap.

Ingredients:

Rice (arroz)
Chicken breast (pechuga de pollo)
Green pepper (pimiento verde)
Onion (cebolla)
Garlic (ajo)
Pureed tomato (tomate triturado)
Jalapeño
Olive oil (aceite de oliva)
Salt (sal)

Steps:

Start boiling the rice while you do all the rest
Chop up the onion and peppers.
Add some oil to the pan and begin to sauté the onions and peppers until golden.
Cut the chicken breast into chunks and throw them in the pan.
Cut the garlic and throw it in the pan.
When the chicken and vegetables are golden add the jalapeño and keep heating for about 30 seconds.
Add the tomato and let is simmer all simmer until the rice is done.

When the food is done, you can serve by adding rice to your plate and then adding some sauce on top.

dwm & sxhkd

Mon, 23 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So in my last post about Suckless I mentioned something about creating a patches page for my mods to dwm. Well, this is no longer necessary. The reason I made this was because I wanted to be able to have more key-binds to run certain applications, not just interact with the window manager. It was somewhat difficult to implement this in a modular way that each patch added different key-binds (e.g. one patch for cmus commands, another for brightness, etc.). Luckily I found a video where they mentioned a universal key-bind program called sxhkd ("Simple X Hot-Key Daemon"). This automatically made my life infinitely better, since now all I needed was a separate config file for just that one application that would handle all my key-binds.

Moving Away from CMake

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I've used CMake for quite some time, and I must admit that it's a very comprehensible build system. This is, in fact, what originally made it an attractive option to me, since UNIX Makefiles are somewhat cryptic to read and write. However, as of lately, I've been moving away from CMake, especially for smaller projects that don't have many source files or complex dependencies. There are a few reasons for this.

Recipe: Potato Stir-Fry

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Living independently in an apartment, I've learned to make quite a few meals out of cheap ingredients and leftovers. This was a meal that I would make to get through a lot of potatoes that I'd have lying around.

The tools you'll need are a large pot (to boil the potatoes in), and a wok or large pan.

Ingredients:

Potatoes
Onion
Green Peppers
Garlic
Pureed Tomatoes or Soy Sauce
Paprika
Oregano
Salt

Steps:

Gentoo and How It's Useful

Mon, 02 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

So, for maybe several months now I've been running Gentoo as my main distribution, keeping a dual-boot with ArchLinux. This was mostly because I wanted to start using more suckless software, and for that I needed to use a system where the packages are compiled so that patches can easily be applied. After considering a few options I decided to simply go with Gentoo.

Now, in case you're not familiar with Gentoo, it's a distribution that uses a package manager called emerge along with a management system called portage that is similar to the ports that some BSD distributions have. Under this system, all packages are compiled (save for some alternative binary packages ending in *-bin), and you have to manually configure and compile software like the Linux kernel. This has come with pros and cons.

What Makes Spanish Awesome

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

If you've ever had to learn Spanish for class (especially in the US) you're probably utterly confused as to why there would be anything useful in Spanish that a language like English could adopt. Especially because you are now going over the memories of all those wretched verb conjugations, gendered nouns, adjective conjugations, etc. But I'm not going to be going over those, and instead I'm going to be focusing on two elements of Spanish that are amazing and you probably didn't learn too much about them in your classes.

Patches and Suckless

Fri, 25 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I was searching for a new terminal and browser to use on Gentoo that wouldn't take ages to compile and didn't have a million dependencies. Along the way, I was recommended to take a look at Suckless. If you're not familiar with Suckless, it's a collection of software (or a development group, doesn't really matter) that aims to develop based on the traditional UNIX mentality, primarily the slogan "Keep It Simple Stupid" (or KISS). You may be asking, "Well, doesn't GNU already do this?". In certain regards, yes, but in others (especially simplicity), no. Although we definitely have all four freedoms with regards to a program like GNU IceCat or GNOME, in order to modify these programs to suit your needs you'd have to spend days (or maybe even weeks) sifting through source-code until you found the segment that pertains to exactly what you wanted to modify, and then you'd have to figure out how to change it to work how you want it to within their very complex codebase. In the end, most of us just give up and put up with what we've got (this has happened to me on various occasions). But putting up with mediocrity isn't the spirit of free software, the spirit is that it's my software and should work as I want it to. This is why, with Suckless software, their programs aim to be as minimal and tiny as possible, with easy build scripts (just a Makefile, really), and simple code. This is so to such an extent that for many of their programs configuration is done before compiling to avoid parsers (if you've ever programmed a parser, these things can be a lot of code and get complex very quickly), instead you use patches and modifications to a condig.def.h file. One may find this tedious at first, because recompiling a program to change configuration is objectively more tedious than a settings menu, but it's worth noting that you're not always changing your settings. Typically, you setup your environment once, maybe over the course of a week, and then never change it again, or at least not for a few years. So why have a program constantly read a configuration file from your computer that has been the same for the past 3 years? When it's hard coded, there's no need for that.

Recent Website Unavailability

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I had not noticed this until someone thankfully brought it up to me last Friday, that my website was down. After looking into it, it turns out that the VPS provider was having issues with a server migration they were doing. They seem to have fixed their problem now, so we're back to business-as-usual.

How to Split Tech Monopolies

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently we've begun to question the amount of power that large tech companies have over our lives through our data, especially as these companies begin to monopolize the market. Because of this, the solution that is provided by our legal system is to split these companies. The problem is, these companies are often multi-purposed and sell many extremely different products, and many of these products, even if the company were to split, would still hold a monopoly over the market. This is the case of the Skype video conferencing tool or the Google search engine. Even if you were to split a company such as Google based on its products, you would still have market monopolies. Even worse, how do you split something like Facebook which functions precisely because all your friends, family, and acquaintances use it? If you were to split Facebook, people would simply concentrate on the platform that had most of their contacts on it, which would recreate the initial problem. Simply splitting a company may have worked back when they just sold a specific non-social product or service, like repairs, retail, etc. However, with tech companies, especially those that rely on social networks, need a special kind of split that allows consumers to continue to interact with one another independently of which of the new companies they have their account with.

Why You Should Learn Esperanto

Mon, 02 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Esperanto is an artificial language, created by Dr. Zamenhof in the late 19th century. Its objective: become the lingua franca, a language that would bridge different cultures of the world, an international second language. This is often referred to in Esperanto as the fina venko ("final victory"). Needless to say, Esperanto is far from achieving this goal, and probably never will. The closest we may ever see is Esperanto being implemented as a European regional language, but even this idea is far-fetched.

Build Libraries, Not Apps

Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In the world of UNIX computing, we love having the freedom to interact with a bit of software using a variety of different interfaces, the most common being Graphical User Interface (GUI), Text User Interface (TUI, think of any curses-like interface), and Command-Line Interface (CLI). The idea was always that you could use any of these alternative interfaces (not all of them officially-supported, but all of them worked) and get the same work done, in an environment that the user found most comfortable. Heck, often times you could integrate one application into another that you were more comfortable using. However, since Linux has gone somewhat mainstream, I've found that many newer applications (especially those based on web technologies such as electron) have strayed from this mentality. They first create an application, which has a bloated UI, and then (if they get around to it) they write up a very limited API, almost as an after-thought. This is the case for applications such as Wire and Telegram.

The Honorable Sacrifice of One's Soul

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Almost every developed civilization has seen killing as unethical, especially when killing someone within one's own tribe. This is for the obvious reason that killing members of your own community harms your community's chances of survival since you have one less member and (in the case of fertile or young community members) harms your community's future (especially if the victim is a woman). However, there have always been times when this rule has been ignored even within the community, primarily as a way of removing undesirables who live only to cause the community harm via the death penalty.

Recipe: Mojopicón

Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Mojopicón is a Spanish spicy sauce recipe. It goes extremely well with meats, fish, on sandwiches (including burgers and hot dogs), but is mostly used as a dip (really good with french fries). It's extremely simple to make, and quite cheap as well, although it has quite the variety of spices.

To make mojopicón you will require a blender, preferably a hand-held blender.

Ingredients:

1 cup of olive oil (aceite de oliva)
1/8 cups of vinegar (vinagre)
1/2 cups of water (agua)
A pinch of cilantro
2 small spoons of cumin (comino)
1/2 small spoons of black pepper (pimienta)
1 small spoon of paprika (pimentón)
1 small spoon of shredded bread (pan rallado)
5 teeth of garlic (ajo)
3 spicy peppers (guindillas)
1/2 small spoons of salt (sal)
2 small spoons of oregano

Once the ingredients are ready, all you have to do is blend them all together.

The Cancer Which Is Pre-Installed Applications

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever bought a new phone and seen that half its storage is already used up by apps you never wanted? Have you ever gotten a new computer and seen that the OS itself occupies 20-30GiB because it comes with a bunch of utilities and features you didn't ask for? If you run almost any UNIX, Linux, or BSD distribution your answer is "no". However, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about, and it's one of the reasons you don't use Google, Microsoft, or Apple products. In my case, I personally don't have this problem, but my grandparents do.

Vegetarianism

Thu, 20 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Vegetarianism (in its various forms) has become quite popular today, and each vegetarian has adopted this way of life for various reasons (as well as to various degrees of implementation). The reason for becoming a vegetarian is, I believe, important in analyzing and judging the moral sanctity and the effectiveness of becoming a vegetarian. Of the various reasons to become vegetarian, I'll be analyzing three: health, morality, and environment.

In this post I will use the term vegetarianism to encompass veganism, since it is truly vegetarianism driven to its ultimate conclusion. Not all that I say may relate to a specific kind of vegetarianism, so I ask that you (the reader) interpret my reasoning and see if it applies. I do not have the time (nor the energy) to go over every different kind of vegetarianism, so I must work in general terms.

MNT Reform Adopts i.MX8

Mon, 17 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

For a while now I've been following the progress of the world of ARM computing, especially relating to personal computing. One of the projects I've been following is the MNT Reform (which I mentioned in my last post on ARM). The Reform is a modular laptop with open-source casing that can easily be 3D printed for replacement. In its original model it used the i.MX6QP, which had 4 cores with a frequency of 1.2GHz and the Vivante GC3000 GPU, which had up to OpenGL ES 3.1. However, in May for the re-introduction of the Reform they announced they would be upgrading the chip from the i.MX6 to the i.MX8. This has quite a few benefits to it, most importantly being the introduction of Vulkan support with i.MX8's integrated GPU (which uses free drivers). This means a lot more power for the ARM laptop, and shows how ARM can push into the realm of personal computing.

Colloquial Measurement Systems

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In the US there seems to be strong sentiments going both ways on whether or not to use the Universal Metric System (e.g. meters, grams, litres, etc.). It's worth noting that the US Government has already switched to using the Universal Metric System and that the currently existing Imperial System is actually defined by the Universal System. However, I don't think it's appropriate to say that Americans should replace the Imperial System with the Universal System, at least not completely.

More Settings, Less Locale

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I speak and use American English for all my computing because it's the English I grew up with (plus, it's typically the most complete language for any software package). Therefore, my locale is almost always set to en_US. This is fine for the most part (especially since most of my applications are quite minimal and configurable), but recently I've installed GNOME Calendar to start scheduling my week and found that the week starts on Sunday in GNOME Calendar. Now, although I was born in the USA, I've spent many years in Spain and have become accustomed to the week starting on Monday (which makes sense since we call Saturday and Sunday the "weekend" and not the "weekends"). So I went into the settings (which are very lacking) and did not find any setting to have the week start on Monday instead of Sunday. When I looked this up it turns out GNOME Calendar chooses which day the week starts on based on your locale, so I'd have to either change my locale to en_GB (therefore changing my language settings everywhere on my system to British English, and using the British Pound as the default currency) or put up with the Sunday first week format.

PyBitmessage Sucks

Sun, 16 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've removed my Bitmessage address from the contact page of my website, and there's a reason for this. I'd like to start by saying that my complaints here are directed at PyBitmessage (the official Bitmessage client), not Bitmessage itself as a technology.

If you run any Linux distro that isn't using running software from 5 years ago (*cough* Debian Stable *cough*) and you use PyBitmessage you should already know what I'm going to be ranting about (or if not, you'll learn why your PyBitmessage has had problems working recently). The issue at heart is that PyBitmessage refuses to update their dependencies. The client uses Python 2 and Qt4. The issue with this is that the support for both these technologies is being dropped or has already been dropped (Python 2.7, Qt4 is mentioned in the article). This means there will be no bug fixes, and (more importantly) no security updates! The stated reason by a PyBitmessage developer is that "Windows XP is still a supported platform for PyBitmessage. However Windows XP (and Vista) is missing from Qt5's Supported Platforms ...".

Blog Break Is Over

Thu, 13 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I haven't posted on my blog for quite a while, but there's a reason for this. As you may have noticed, the paths for my website have changed (again), this is because I've changed the underlying framework for my website to make it more manageable (instead of a jury rig). In doing so, I haven't gotten the functionality to post blog articles to work until now.

Now that everything's finally setup, I have quite a few topics that I'd like to write articles about, so you can look forward to that.

New Cooking Category

Thu, 13 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

I love food, it's one of the most important things in my life. However, not all food is the same, and some are better than others. What's more, food, or more specifically cooking, carries with it a much more important element than just sustenance and pleasuring our taste-buds: it is the expression of our cultures and values throughout thousands of years. The diets that we have developed in older civilizations (e.g. the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, South-East Asia, etc.) are optimized throughout millennia to adjust to our specific climates, ecosystems, and ways of life. Therefore, it is very painful to watch as we lose we lose our traditional cooking as it becomes professionalized, where instead of having home-cooked meals, we'll eat at a restaurant or buy ready-made foods.

Productivity and Quality of Life

Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

A common core ideal of our modern societies has become productivity, being able to produce more in less time. We value a person being a productive member of society, we prefer technologies that allow us to produce more with less work. Although this is not necessarily a bad ideal, without other more human values to guide it we end up with our current state, where we produce for the sake of producing rather than to make our lives easier.

ARM, the Future of Free Software

Sat, 12 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

The ARM CPU architecture, although quite old (first introduced in 1985) has only recently started to pick up steam, currently competing in the CPU market with Intel and AMD. Its primary advantage is its low power usage and low up-front cost compared to the other two, and therefore it has a lot of potential for embedded devices. Hence why currently the primary markets where you can find ARM booming are mobile and embedded CPUs. However, the line started to blur with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi, where techies and classrooms began to actively develop on the Raspberry Pi's ARM CPU. It continued to expand as potential was seen to use ARM in small netbooks (more commonly referred to as Chromebooks) to achieve similar gains as had been achieved in mobile, and since mobile was already using ARM, there would be little friction in putting a mobile-like OS on a netbook and allowing users to install mobile applications. Perhaps most interestingly, ARM has started to enter the realm of supercomputing, which catches the eye considering how ARM's CPU frequency hasn't been very fast up until recently.

Getting More Women in Technology

Sat, 08 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I've gone over before in my post about the Google memo, on how our current way of encouraging women to take STEM courses is failing. Here, rather than focusing on the Google memo itself, I'd like to suggest how this issue can be fixed.

Firstly, it's very obvious by the statistics that computer science specifically is what's having problems attracting women, despite all the efforts that have been made in the last decade to encourage more women to enter the field of computer science, it seems to either have a negative effect or no effect at all (since statistically speaking, based on those numbers, you could not say it's been working). So what has been our strategy so far in this field? Well, most of it has taken the form of your typical market strategies (i.e. subsidizing tuition costs for women taking certain fields, giving tax breaks to companies to hire more women, etc.). Fact of the matter is, women still don't like tech, and it seems that less and less of them do since around the mid-80s.

'Summer' Update

Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Over the course of this summer I've been working a lot on the album 'Summer', primarily on the song "Linda's Open Doors". Currently I believe I've made a final draft of the song. Currently I have three more songs that I can finish before the end of the summer, of which two of them only require for me to record the vocals, and one of them requires vocals and a synthesizer. After this I'll only be missing 4 other songs (so half the album will be ready). I am currently considering releasing in the summer of 2019.

Blog Upgrade

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've decided to change how my blog works to make it easier to manage. Now I'm using databases to store my posts. Using a database has provided me more versatility than simple PHP files, which is what I used before. This has also drastically diminished the amount of files necessary for my blog as well as certain redundancies that were annoying me.

With this I've been able to add other stuff, like a post description, as well as not having to choose between categories and a unified RSS feed. This also means that it'll be very easy to add new things, since the DB automates a lot of things for me, and I'd only have to edit a few files instead of all my posts like I would have before.

Hosting My Own Git

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently put up my own git hosting instance on the VPS at git.themusicinnoise.net. Essentially, I'm getting tired that I have repos in 3 different places, so I finally decided to bring them all into one, and with that to kill another bird with the same stone: getting rid of the need for me to navigate web UIs. Something that annoyed me with GitLab, Github, NotABug, and alike, is that they make use of web interfaces for tasks like pull requests, creating repos, issue trackers, etc. when most of these can be done with the same tool: a mailing list. I've already gone over this before in my post on patch files. What's more, now to create new repos I can just use a script I have made.

The Farm

Sun, 18 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Maybe half a year ago a friend and I were talking about owning one's own labour as well as working less, and we were trying to figure out the way to work less and live more while at the same time own more of one's own labour. This is when we came upon the idea of The Farm. Essentially, the idea is to accumulate currency and eliminate debts until we are able to create our own self-sustaining farm, in which we provide as many of our resources as possible, and those we cannot provide ourselves through agriculture or otherwise, we would obtain them through trade in which we obtain the objects of trade through our own labour which we own (instead of working for someone else, we would work for ourselves). This friend is Brigham Keys. Recently he has created a page where we will accumulate knowledge necessary to create this farm. If you are interested then bookmark the page, if you have knowledge to contribute then send an e-mail to Brigham or contact me through the information provided on my contact page.

I Hate Licensing, but I'm Glad It's There

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Coming from someone who uses the GPL constantly this seems kind of strange or even contradictory, but I do actually dislike licensing. It's part of that self-serving bureaucratic system of intellectual property that simply drives me nuts.

In general, with a lot of my works, I really couldn't care less about attribution. I see it as something more of a way of showing gratitude, and that often it can be a hassle (hence why it's a symbol of gratitude). However, what I really do care about is people distributing all derivatives under a free license, since that is what allows the code or art to grow and mature, as well as being simple courtesy (you benefited from code or art that was made public, you should allow others to benefit from the same freedoms you had). This is why I am also glad that licensing exists (otherwise I wouldn't be able to use the GPL in the first place).

Ideas for Improv II

Sat, 13 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

As of lately I've been delving deeper into what is the psychedelic rock genre, looking for inspirations, and I've come across a subgenre called stoner rock. I've mostly been listening to bands such as Half Gramme of Soma, Samsara Blues Experiment, and Wet Cactus. Because of this I've been playing around a lot with fuzz pedals and effects with it in guitarix, but I feel as though to me the genre of stoner rock is something more improvised that just lets me go with the flow.

Waterfox

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

For any of you that have been using Firefox for quite some time now with your abundance of addons, you've probably noticed that most of them are no longer compatible with the newest Firefox 57 (Quantum). This is because Firefox has changed their addon system.

For me this was a big issue, considering that a couple of my favourite addons were not available with the new Firefox version and the developers had no intentions of updating them (these being Random Agent Spoofer and VimFX). So at first I did what most people did and tried to find alternative addons, unfortunately none of them seemed to fit. For Random Agent Spoofer there wasn't any addon that would change profiles at random intervals, and with the VimFX alternatives there weren't any that quite fit (which is quite important considering how essential that addon is for my web navigation).

My Recent Dislike for OOP Languages

Wed, 20 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I have found myself disliking OOPLs , and I'd like to explain my reasoning for this. I'd also like to note that this may not necessarily apply to all OOPLs or uses of them, but it does apply to those which I am familiar with (primarily C++ and Java).

At my university the teachers use a lot of C++, in the Fundamentals of Programming class (teaching the absolute basics, like variables, loops, conditionals, data types, structures, etc.) they used C++ even though the features they were using were just as easily available on C. Then in the OOP class I had the next term they continued to use C++, this year it's used for my Data Structures class and next term I'll be using Java for the Artificial Intelligence course. OOPLs seem to be extremely popular, at least at my university. However, because of this and having to work with them a lot in a stricter project environment (versus my experience with solo projects or small cooperative projects), and with it I've come to see some reasons for disliking them.

From Firefox to Palemoon

Fri, 17 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I'll keep this brief and to the point.

Recently Firefox 57 (Quantum) was released, and with it most of my favorite addons became incompatible. Because of this I have left Firefox in favor of Palemoon (a more stable project that doesn't care so much about appealing to masses). Palemoon is a Firefox fork which focuses on performance, its UI is very similar to the old Firefox UI, so it's rather familiar. Most of my older addons also work with it, either on their own (such as uBlock Origin) or with the help of Moon Tester Tool, which installs addons regardless of the target application version specified. It also has a nice dark theme for the browser as well as a community with many people who have switched from Firefox to Palemoon.

User-Friendliness and Modern Tech

Wed, 08 Nov 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have to admit that I'm probably not the best example of what is considered user-friendly (since I use i3 with terminals everywhere, CLI versions of a bunch of applications, etc.), however I do know what is considered user-friendly, primarily because I am a techie in a family of a lot of non-techie people (basically I'm my family's tech support). From this I've found that a lot of the things that we believe are user-friendly are actually just new and popular but nobody actually knows how to use them (hence they tend to be misused and people get frustrated when things go wrong).

Disagreement without Hate, Disagreement with Respect

Sun, 15 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I believe that in recent years the situations we've seen politically have gotten worse, people have become polarized, they are shifting towards extreme actions which do nothing but to worsen the situation. More and more I am finding that any form of political disagreement is automatically considered a reason to loathe a person, and therefore disregard them and all that they say. What's more, I believe that it is because we are not seeing each other as people, but rather as a compilation of ideas that this occurs (a rather platonic way of viewing things), when in reality if I change my opinions, my ideas, or anything about myself, I am still the same person, and therefore am I more than the ideas that I have, rather I am a compilation of the actions I have taken in the past leading up to this point in time. I may change my behaviour and no longer agree with my past actions, but I am still that person.

Full Disk Encryption with GRUB2

Sat, 14 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A long time ago I figured out that GRUB2 has the capability of decrypting a LUKS encrypted partition therefore allowing for the `/boot' partition to be encrypted, however I haven't had the time to test it out until today. After that I decided it'd be a good idea to write a blog entry on how I did it, to help others and to serve as a reference for myself next time I want to do an install.

Software Used in Summer

Fri, 13 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As someone who moves around a lot, I dislike having to bring lots of equipment with me, this includes amplifiers, keyboards, etc. Therefore, what I prefer to do is the run software that simulates these. I have used software ZynAddSubFX and LMMS in previous albums, but I've also experimented before with tools that I'm using for the new album, Summer.

One of my primary tools with this album is Guitarix, a virtual guitar amplifier with many effects. In this sense, I find Guitarix to be a lot more useful than an actual amplifier, since it already comes with many effects that otherwise I'd have to get individual pedals for each new effect. What's more, since it works with JACK I'm able to plug in different sound inputs (including synthesizers) as well as choosing where to send the output of the program. I manage this through the QjackCtl, which makes plugging the different inputs/outputs very simple. In order to plug in the guitar I use a special cable that has a jack pin on one end and a USB connector on the other (no need for microphones with background noise).

Restructuring the Blog

Tue, 10 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently restructured my blog so that there are now multiple sections dedicated to different topics. I have done this because I believe that my blog is too random all on its own (all in one big clump). Now there are different categories dedicated to different broad topics, each one has an RSS feed of its own. This (of course) is gonna break a lot of links, but with my website it's best just to remember the domain name and then find things from there. This is a personal website, so I feel no obligation to keep any kinds of backwards compatibility.

Slow and Happy

Sun, 10 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For someone like me, one of the most damaging aspects of the society we live in is the constant stress and anxiety we feel throughout our lives, how we rarely have the time to reflect, to stop and think for a while, or simply to do nothing (yes, I mean nothing). I believe there are multiple reasons for this kind of behaviour and stress, multiple reasons why we are extremely over our heads with no time for ourselves or those around us, and as one can read online, there are many that agree with me.

Why MacOS Sucks

Mon, 04 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As promised, a criticism of Apple MacOS (or whatever people are calling it nowadays), of course, this will mostly be mixed in with issues I have with Apple itself, and some of them may sound familiar (because they're the same as with Windows). I'd also like to note that I haven't seen or used a Mac computer for personal use for maybe 7 years, so the information I provide may be antiquated, or I may be leaving stuff out that they came up with recently (or simply I forgot because of how bad it was). So let's jump into this!

The Google Memo

Sun, 13 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Normally I dislike hopping onto bandwagons for this blog, but this is about a field that I am very involved in: the technology field. Recently a Google employee sent out an internal memo that later was published for the whole world to see (you can read the full memo here). This memo spawn much controversy, and so I wanted to see the memo itself.

Firstly I would like to bring up that the firing of this man is something that I consider completely unacceptable. People should not be fired for their personal opinions so long as they recognize that they are in a work environment and while at work only do so within the context of work (as this man has done). Otherwise we resort to the same kind of witch hunt that there was against Communists, Socialists, and Anarchists in the 50s.

Why Windows Sucks

Sun, 09 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you who use GNU/Linux or BSD (or basically any other UNIX-like system) this post will come as no surprise to you, but I still felt the urge to make it anyways. I currently do not run Microsoft Windows anymore, but I still have to use under certain circumstances for classes and such as well as constantly hearing from friends (who run Windows as their main OS for some stupid reason) and news articles about the newest stupid thing they've added to annoy their users. So, let's get started on the bashing of the dead horse. (Why? Because it's fun.)

Technology Literacy

Thu, 22 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It's quite annoying to hear, as it is for most techies, whenever people say that millennials are the 'technology' or 'digital' generation. Let's begin pointing out why this is wrong. When I ask a millennial to write a plain text file and they open a word processor, that's technological illiteracy; when I am told by a millennial that their internet was going slow so they upgraded their RAM, that's technological illiteracy; when a millennial doesn't understand that VLC can't play an iMovie project file (they copied the iMovie project file from a Mac computer to a Windows computer), that's complete technological stupidity. If you would like more information on why millennials are technological know-nothings you can visit this blog post which does an excellent job at explaining the issue. In reality, millennials are just as computer literate as our parents were television literate (ie. I know how to press the buttons to make it go on and off, but the day one minor thing doesn't work in exactly the same way I freak out myself and have to call in tech support).

Humour

Wed, 21 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In many countries in the West xenophobia has been rising, yet I have not seen this kind of behaviour in Andalusia. This made me wonder why it was that in Andalusia people weren't as affected as in (for example) the rest of Europe or the USA. Of course, the only thing I can really compare to is the Mid-West in the USA, since that's the only other place I've lived. However, with this I've noticed one key difference between the two: in Andalusia humour is not limited while in the Mid-West humour must bend to what is considered 'socially acceptable'.

Summer Album

Mon, 29 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Ever since before Ice in the Fall I've been working on an album called Summer. It's been a long time and I haven't really put much effort into making the album, sadly. However, I have recently begun to formulate it more, revise some of the lyrics and notes, along with the songs I had planned for the album to begin with (since the summer of 2013).

This album has taken me quite some time, and I've released two other albums since then, but this is mostly due to the complexity and work I have been trying to put into it. Unlike my first two albums, I wanted this one to be multi-track and less experimental. However, unlike Dreaming in Bytes, it is not simply me making up some interesting melodies in a digital audio studio program. This added complexity is what's been making it take quite a bit of time.

The Beauty of Silence

Sun, 14 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

One thing I've always loved and come to appreciate more and more is the wonderful nothingness which is silence. It allows for people to be calm, where one can think clearly, be at peace with one's self and not be interrupted by one's surroundings. It truly is something beautiful.

However, sadly, there are few in this world who truly value silence. What's more, it seems that every time there is silence people consider it 'awkward', and try to fill it in either with conversation (which is not bad) or noise (which is horrifyingly repulsive compared to the sweetness of silence), typically from an electronic device such as a television, radio, mobile device, or other. To these people I ask: what is wrong with silence? Are you that afraid of 'loneliness'? After all, silence does make us feel more alone. Or perhaps is it that you feel that for some reason emptiness demands to be filled? In which case, why is it that you feel this need to fill the gap?

Your Computer, Your Computing

Sat, 13 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

It pains me to see how often we end up 'just dealing' with our computer software being restrictive, how we say we dislike how a certain software functions and yet we just roll over and take the hit. Many of us are used to this kind of mentality, however, in the Free Software community a little less because we're granted choices, yet even there we find ourselves faced with software that does something we dislike, but we refuse to migrate simply because it would be 'inconvenient'.

From Parabola to Arch

Fri, 12 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently switched from Parabola to Arch. First of all, I would like to mention that this is not because I want to use any non-free software in the Arch repos or install non-free firmware and drivers for some pieces of hardware I may have (I am still using Linux-libre on Arch), but rather for other reasons that I would like to explain.

Firstly, the number one reason I am leaving Parabola is that the distro gets in my way too often. Mostly with its policy that anything that 'promotes non-free software' is non-free. I am an adult who knows every well what non-free software is, I can easily not install something that I see is non-free (namely for `pacaur', which would be so useful if only it were available on Parabola). This kind of blocking of any software that 'promotes non-free software' is useful for distros such as Trisquel, which are aimed at people who could hardly be described as tech-savvy, since these kinds of people do not necessarily know how to distinguish between free and non-free software (it's simply not something that's part of their daily lives). However, for experienced hackers like myself, this just gets in our way of quickly getting access to tools we want to use. It's nice when our OS doesn't constantly get in our way for these kinds of things. This is, in fact, the exact reason why I use Free Software to begin with and why I like GNU/Linux. I used to use Mac many many years ago, however I had almost no ability to make the computer do what I wanted it to, Apple products constantly worked against me and whatever I wanted to do with them, and I dislike that I am feeling this again with a GNU/Linux distro. Therefore, I would suggest that if you're an experienced hacker and get stressed when your OS gets in the way, don't use a free distro, they're aimed for newbs who are new to the idea of Free Software, not you.

Patch Files

Tue, 02 May 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Something that really annoys me about most repository hosts nowadays is that all of them are highly dependent on using pull-requests to contribute code, when originally all VCSs had (and still have) ways to contribute via patches (that and the `patch' command) which can be sent via e-mail. Now, I understand that having these changes more accessible to the public would be useful, and mailing lists aren't always best. However, why not simply use the same infrastructure of an issue tracker and apply it to uploading patch files? They would be organized just like pull-requests are, and would essentially be the same thing as a pull-request... except directly with a patch file instead of having to go through such a long process just to contribute to a repository.

Judgement

Thu, 20 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Too often have I heard people say that someone is "Judgemental", someone saying "Don't judge!", asking a friend "Would you judge me?". These are all extremely stupid phrases. Judgement is something extremely normal, it's not only human, but something that all animals do, and most importantly it is something that is completely necessary.

Judgement is something we need, something we do every day. When you say you like a particular dish or not you are judging the dish, when you choose between two alternate products at a supermarket you are judging them. Even if you use a random number generator to decide which to pick you made the judgement to use the random number generator and what numbers each of the products would be. However, one may believe that this does not apply when talking about people, that we cannot judge other people, however this is also wrong. Should we not judge murderers? Should we not judge thieves? We must no doubt judge these people, and we should also be able to judge one another.

A Library Copyleft License Combination

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I came across the Sleepycat License, which I believed to be a copyleft Free Software license that only requires any projects using the Sleepycat licensed software to disclose source code (not necessarily forcing any particular license on the user). I thought that this would be a great license for a library, since unlike the (A)GPL it doesn't force the developer using my library to use the same license (many people who like permissive licenses prefer to be able to choose their own license for their project), but at the same time whoever uses my library must at least disclose their source code (freedom #1... kinda). So I thought that with some slight modifications (since the license is also extremely specific to the BerkleyDB software) that the Sleepycat License would be a great license for libraries (better than GPL or LGPL). So after a very long discussion on the LibrePlanet-Discuss mailing list I figured out that the Sleepycat License wasn't exactly what I thought it was.

The Unused Potential of Bitmessage

Sat, 08 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

For quite some time now I've been using Bitmessage, an e-mail replacement that was made to protect user privacy based on the Bitcoin model. After using Bitmessage for quite some time I have come to see the many benefits it has compared to e-mail, namely in regards to privacy and ease-of-use.

To begin with, Bitmessage has no e-mail service provider, you don't need to register an account with a third-party just to get a Bitmessage address, and all the information is stored on your computer. This means that it is highly accessible to anyone who has the application. This also means that information can't be stolen from a central source (eg. GMail/Yahoo/OutLook/etc. servers) but rather they would have to have direct access to the machine in which you store your messages (which is hopefully protected by disk encryption).

Reasons Not To Use the GPL

Sat, 25 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

NOTE: I am explicitly referring to the GNU General Public License version 2 and 3 when I say GPL, it is not referring to other licenses such as the Lesser General Public License or the Affero General Public License.

If you are actively involved in the Free Software movement you are probably well aware of how the web is a treacherous place where non-free programs are constantly installed on your computer without permission by default. The most obvious of these is the JavaScript trap, however similar issues arise with, for example, plugins such as Java web applets. However, measures can be taken against these and are actively improving, such as LibreJS, which stops non-free non-trivial JavaScript files from running, one can also disable JavaScript and plugins on their browser to avoid downloading the malicious content.

Change of Heart on HTTPS

Sun, 05 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A while back I wrote a blog post on HTTPS and how it is not necessary for all websites, however I have recently had a change of heart on the issue. Back when I wrote about it I did not think a step further which would have lead me to see the importance of HTTPS even for a static site like mine. You'll notice that you are connecting to this website via HTTPS currently, for all HTTP requests are redirected to the HTTPS. What's more, there is also a .onion address for my site so that you may connect to it without even leaving The Onion Router network (uk7ewohr7xpjuaca.onion).

Encrypted Backup Drive

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

In my previous post I demonstrated how to setup LVM on LUKS with Parabola GNU/Linux-libre. However, what good is an encrypted hard drive if your backups are completely vulnerable? So here's a small guide on setting up a LUKS partition on your backup device.

In reality it's basically the same as setting up LUKS for Parabola, but I'm not going to make you read all that just to get a LUKS partition setup on your external hard drive. Please note that I'll be referring to the external device as `/dev/sdb', if it's different for you use your device's path!

Parabola with LVM on LUKS

Mon, 20 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As of recently I have reinstalled Parabola with a LUKS encrypted partition containing both swap and root (I do not have a separate home partition). I found this to be a long and painful process, but I learned quite a bit from doing it. My current setup is as follows:

Device Mount Type File System
/dev/sda1 /boot Linux ext4
/dev/sda2 - Linux LVM LUKS

LVol Mount File System
lvolroot / ext4
lvolswap - swap

This configuration does leave `/boot' vulnerable, however I do not have anything particularly important there (if you do you may want to look up how to use LVM on LUKS with `/boot' in an encrypted partition, I believe the ArchWiki has an page on this). I will continue to show you how to setup your configuration so that you can have a similar config (such as adding a `/home' partition or otherwise).

Developers as an Audience

Mon, 30 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Often times us programmers are told that something we are creating is too complex, too techie, or too advanced for the average person and therefore it is our responsibility to make our programs easier to use for other people. This makes sense in certain circumstances where we are actually trying to make things for the average user, however this does not always need to be the case. Why must we always make our programs available to the average user? This limits our ability to create great functionality because we're too focused on UX (and, in some horrifying cases, sacrifice functionality in the name of UX). To me this is an issue, as programmers we do not always have to develop for an end user, especially if we are trying to create something that we think most other developers would find useful or cool/fascinating.

Esperanto

Thu, 26 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I started learning Esperanto, the universal second-language. It's a constructed language made with the purpose of being used as a second-language by everyone so that everyone could talk to each other while no one country having the advantage of it being their native language. Because of this the language is very simple to learn, the grammar is extremely simple and, most of all, consistent and logical.

After having played with it a little I already find it quite easy to formulate sentences with it, although this is mostly due to it being very similar to romance languages. However the grammatical rules still remain simple and easy to use (such as the lack of person, gender, formality (in Japanese), and number in verb conjugation, which makes conjugation very easy to memorize).

The Onion Router

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

As many may have noticed, unfortunately TOR has been presented by the media as solely a tool for illicit activities that most of us consider to be extremely alarming (ie child pornography, hit-men, counterfeit bills, etc.), when those of us who have used TOR (or do use it regularly) know that the TOR project itself has nothing to do with these activities, and more importantly that it can be used for our own privacy just as it can for those of the criminals. However, because of this association that has been pounded into their heads by the media (where every time it comes up it's because some illicit activity is being done through it) they are often afraid to even use it for navigating the clearnet (used when referring to websites in the clear that we are all used to, like this one) fearing that somehow that will involve them in illicit activities, despite this not being the case at all.

Parabola GNU/Linux-libre

Fri, 13 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I have made a switch to Parabola GNU/Linux-Libre, one the free GNU/Linux distributions (the others use the standard Linux kernel which has non-free blobs for drivers, as well as distributing non-free firmware). I made the switch after receiving a WiFi adapter that respects freedom, since the only component of my laptop that required non-free drivers and firmware was my wireless card. The reason I chose Parabola of all the free distros is because Parabola has the most up-to-date packages (unlike, for example, Trisquel which is based on the Ubuntu LTS, or gNewSense which is based on Debian Stable).

Getting Esperanto Diacritics on GNU/Linux

Sat, 07 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've decided to start learning Esperanto alongside Japanese. I have my reasons for liking Esperanto, but this post is mostly on how to get the Esperanto diacritics (namely ĉ, ŝ, ĥ, ĵ, ǔ, and ĝ) on your keyboard for GNU/Linux. There are multiple ways of doing this, the ibus system has some Esperanto IMEs (like the x-system and h-system), but I've found those to be extremely annoying while typing (just try to use them, if you're used to typing using a Japanese IME for hiragana and katakana then this will annoy you). So instead I decided to use a method I used to use back in the day for getting Spanish tildes, dieresis, and the 'ñ' characters: Xmodmap. Basically I mapped a key I barely used (like the right `alt' and `shift' keys) to tilde and 'ñ'.

Merry Grav-Mass!

Sun, 25 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Merry Grav-Mass!

Today is the day that Isaac Newton, the man who discovered the laws of motion as well as having invented Calculus, was born. Many things that today we take for granted would not have been possible without his discoveries, and therefore deserves a day of recognition.

I believe that it is important to celebrate Grav-Mass in every household, as it raises children with a familiarity of science and mathematics, and perhaps even an interest in them. It is very important that children grow to understand what science is, what it means. In the media we often see science represented in the form of 'cool experiments', however this is not true. Science is not about making water turn to ice upon impact, or roasting marshmallows using electrical currents, or mixing baking soda with vinegar in a paper volcano, it's asking why those things happen. Everyone knew that gravity existed before Newton, obviously we were all attracted to the ground, however Newton, being the scientist he was, asked why it is so, what patterns it has, etc. Those questions are what science is about, not the 'cool experiments'.

Books

Sat, 24 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Nowadays we are very used to being pounded with the ever more popular idea that books are sacred and that anything digital is somehow impure (even if it's the same material but on a screen). This is something that has bothered me very much, especially as someone who does not read many physical books, but does read a lot of material online. And I'd like to point out that this belief is completely unfounded, and that, at least from what I see, the digital reading is being much more beneficial to society than the physical books.

We i3 Now

Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

So, in a previous post I spoke about how I use GNOME as my DE, and I explained that it's mostly because I didn't want to have to got through the hassle of setting up a more minimal WM to make it usable. Well, recently a friend helped me to setup a new WM, so from now on I'll be using i3, the tiled WM. I've found that this WM makes my life much easier than GNOME did, mostly because in this WM I can easily open terminals via `MOD+Enter' and I barely ever have to use the mouse. In fact, because I don't have to move around windows (which could be done with the keyboard in GNOME, but it took forever) I rarely use the mouse at all, that and I've configured everything to use the Vim key bindings (that is, instead of `jkl;', which are default, I use `hjkl').

My Preference for C

Mon, 19 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Of all the programming languages my favorite in general is C. I'm fine with using other languages, but C is by far my favorite. The reason for this is that C is much closer to assembly than other languages which try to abstract it away from the developer. When programming in C you can see how the code would look in assembly just by looking at it, and it makes it easier to do performance improvements since you know what the code will look like more-or-less in assembly (with `-O0', of course). This makes it much easier for me to visualize how the computer is going to be managing the system's resources with my code and how it's going to run it, giving me much more control (something that I typically am attracted to in a programming language or in computing in general). Then there's also how the code in C is still low-level and is compiled to a binary, being much more efficient than an interpreted language. It is also quite basic, having a fewer variety of syntax which helps to make finding 'the best solution' much easier (unlike in C++ where there are 200 different ways to implement the same thing).

Why I Use CLI

Mon, 05 Dec 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For those of you who don't know, CLI means Command-Line Interface. I'm a huge fan of using CLI over their GUI (Graphical User Interface) alternatives, to the extent that typically the only non-terminal windows I have open is simply one: my browser (IceCat). I would not like to switch my browser to CLI for various reasons, but everything else is. Everything else (e-mail, IRC, music, password manager, etc.) is all in the terminal. I do this for multiple reasons.

Non-Free Firmware

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

One of the largest struggles in the Free Software movement is that against non-free firmware. This is because firmware tends to be very difficult to replace, often completely tied to the hardware of the computer. Yet my opinion on the extension of freedom into this field is very iffy because of how firmware, by definition, is almost impossible to modify. Therefore the question is should we be as concerned about freedoms 1-3 with firmware? I would argue that freedom 0 is always important as it is what allows the user to use the program for whatever purpose, and therefore firmware is no more special in this regard.

The Importance of Libre Games

Mon, 28 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Games form a very important part of our lives, even if it's not necessarily computer games you do play some sort of games (although I would guess that most who read my blog would play some sort of computer game, mobile games included since mobiles are a type of computer). Games give us a way of spending some time that we have to kill, either alone or together with others. This means that freedom in gaming is extremely important.

For Tabs

Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It's time for me to get involved in one of the most polar debates among programmers, even more polar and controversial than Vim vs. Emacs, which is tabs vs. spaces. In the Vim vs. Emacs debate many programmers tend to get left out and don't care because they('re noobs and) use GUI editors. While in the tabs vs. spaces debate, unless you only program in Assembly (and even then) or some obscure language that doesn't use indentation (or you just don't use indentation), you have used either one for your indentation and can most likely know what the conversation is about.

Studying for My C++ Exam

Tue, 15 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Today (in an hour and a half of me writing this) I have a practice exam on C++ programming. However, while all other students are studying loops, conditionals, array,s, and structures, I (obviously) am not. Instead I found a magnificent website containing a bunch of obscure C++ features that I plan on using in the exam (at least those I can use for a class that hasn't even studied functions yet, much less pointers). One of the ones I'm most fond of (and that I did not think about before reading this page) is how an array is simply a pointer to a direction in memory (on the stack or the heap) where variables are stored. This is obvious once you think about it, but it has implications. This means that the array variable is holding the memory address to these variables, so this can no be used to create obscure syntax. Especially since the square brackets actually just do a sum to calculate the address and then point to that address, that is, `myArray[3]' is the same as `3[myArray]'. And what's more, remember how arrays are just pointing to different locations in memory (kind of like all variables, really)? Well, this means that you can just as easily do `*(myArray + 3)' and it will do the same exact thing. If anything this last one is more explanatory of what is actually going on, seeing that it's pointing to a memory address where the variable is located and it is put in a much more explicit manner.

Avoiding YouTube Non-Free JavaScript

Thu, 27 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

First I would like to mention that there are free alternatives to publishing media (even videos) such as the Up1 service (which currently is currently down on its main page, but you can access another instance of it at share.riseup.net), unsee.cc, and GoblinRefuge (a MediaGoblin instance that allows up to 1GB size uploads). Therefore if you're going to publish media try using one of those first (GoblinRefuge is the closest thing to YouTube in terms of how public the media is).

Why I Use CC-BY-ND

Sat, 08 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If you look at my essays in the writings section of my website you'll notice that they're licensed under a CC-BY-ND license, which is not a free culture license. Seeing that I fully support free culture I feel the need to explain why I use NoDerivatives on my essays specifically.

First I would like to point out that although these works are licensed as NoDerivatives, you still have the right to distribute and even to quote my essays as long as you attribute my original work properly and do not modify/manipulate the text or section of the text that you use. Therefore the only right that is lacking is the right to modify my works and distribute those modifications.

Adobe Flash Needs to Die

Thu, 06 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It's slow, it's inefficient, it's buggy, it has memory leaks, it no longer supports GNU/Linux, and it's proprietary. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Adobe Flash.

One of the few great decisions Apple has ever made was when the decided to get rid of Adobe Flash on the iPad, and thanks to that and a number of other factors (such as the heavenly arrival of HTML5, CSS3, and modern JavaScript frameworks) Adobe Flash has been losing influence on the web to the point that it's getting harder and harder to see it anywhere, especially since you can now program anything in JavaScript and it will be faster, more efficient, and integrated with the browser (unlike Adobe Flash which requires a plugin). This is true to the extent that not so long ago I uninstalled the Flash plugin from my computer and mostly everything works just as it did before.

Educational Software

Fri, 30 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This last week I've been taking my university classes and we've started taking practice classes as well, where we apply the theory we've learned. In my programming class it's programming in C++ (they use Code::Blocks with the MinGW compiler), which is nice (I was expecting them to be using Visual Studio, so it's a nice surprise). However, for my math class we're using Mathematica. Although I can get it for free by checking out the installation disc at the library and get a license through my student e-mail, it's still an ethical issue for an advocate of Free Software. I've been searching all over for a good alternative to Mathematica that is Free Software, and although I've found some wonderful alternatives (such as SAGE and Mathics), none of them are able to view/edit Mathematica Notebook files (which is surprising considering it's plain text).

The HTTPS Hype

Fri, 02 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I've seen a lot of hype around everyone wanting to use HTTPS for absolutely everything, which is very understandable for sites like social networks and especially for financing websites. However, it's gotten to the point where people want an HTTPS website for no reason, for example, this site having an HTTPS protocol would serve no purpose. HTTPS only encrypts your connection to a server, but that's only useful if personal information or logins/passwords are involved. This website gives neither personalized pages nor requires any logins/passwords, therefore any reason to add HTTPS support to my website that I have seen makes no sense.

What Is Lacking in Education?

Thu, 25 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

This is a question that is asked quite a lot, and although I don't have a definitive answer, I do have a few things that I believe to be very important that are being disregarded when it comes to the education of a student. Some of them are already being implemented by some school systems (in some cases it's only at certain schools), but I am not completely sure as to whether they are actually doing what I am going to expose here and if those results can be comparable statistically with those of a normal school. Either way, here are some things that I believe need to be improved. Also, in this list are things that are both common and specific, and they are based on my experiences with the American and Spanish educational system, therefore I will divide this into common issues, Spanish issues, and American issues.

My Loathing of Apple

Sat, 20 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I hate Apple, and I've had many bad experiences with them. Aside from how they are spying on you being part of PRISM, in general they are impossible with anyone who wants to use their products in combination with anyone else's. Let me explain my experiences that I have had with Apple.

For the first 15 years of my life I was an Apple user, using iPods, iPads, iMacs, and iStuff in general. I was exposed to stuff like GNU/Linux at school (because the Spanish school system actually uses ethical software, sadly only because they can't afford proprietary stuff, but whatever), especially with Debian GNU/Linux because that's what my dad ran for work, but I still used mostly Apple products. However, at 15 I got my first personal laptop, which was a Dell Inspiron something or another, all I remember is it was a 32-bit with 1GB of RAM, so obviously I installed GNU/Linux on it, specifically Debian GNU/Linux (at the time I had stable since my dad was the one helping me to install it). So I had my own computer, but my music player was still an iPod... Why was this a problem? Because iPods didn't want to sync with anything that wasn't iTunes. I had to do something like using my family's Apple Mac (non-free software) to turn off the journaling on that thing and then every now and then I had to do it again because the iPod noticed!!! Unlike some other music players where I can drag and drop my files.

Tox

Wed, 17 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It's sad that out of all the types of software out there the one that is developed the least or given the least importance in terms of its freedom respecting alternatives is precisely the ones that we care about the most, applications such as our video/voice chat. This is not to say that there aren't such alternatives, seeing that this post is about precisely one of those alternatives, but it is sad that they don't have the popularity that software such as Firefox or GNU/Linux have. Therefore I would like to talk about Tox. There are other alternatives such as Ring, but I personally prefer Tox and have actually used it for video chatting (qTox, that is). Ring seems to have many features and is more organized, but I've had many issues with it so I'm not going to necessarily talk about them, just be aware that they're another freedom respecting alternative.

Strict Compilers

Sat, 13 Aug 2016 00:00:00 +0000

For almost a year now I've been working on the DMUX project along with some other people. The leader of the project, Brigham Keys, since the beginning has put in place a strict compiler in order to assure the highest code quality for us to work on avoiding bugs since step one. This means the compiler bitches about everything. Any small issue that there might be this compiler will whine to you. However, I have come to see this as a superior way of writing code, by doing this we are avoiding having to deal with many bugs (along with avoiding heap allocation whenever possible it avoid us having any major problems) and I would greatly encourage people to use strict compilers in order to avoid these things, much more if you're working in a group and especially if you're teaching people how to program.

My First Superficial Impressions of FreeBSD

Sun, 31 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I have recently decided to run FreeBSD inside of a VM to try it out (because why not?). Of course, the first thing I was wondering when I got it installed was "Where's the GUI?". I didn't necessarily panic since I know how to deal with the command-line, and BSD seems to also use Bash (or some other Unix shell). So after getting a GUI installed I continued to check out FreeBSD (I wanted to try out BSD because I wanted to try compiling the DMUX project on a BSD system). I noticed that apparently FreeBSD had done an extremely basic install, only installing the bare necessities, which in my book is a pretty big plus (something I'm going to start doing with Debian from now on with their net installs).

My Favorite Vim Plugins

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I've already made post about my favorite Firefox addons, so this one is dedicated to my favorite editor, Vim. Most people's first encounter with Vim is always a bad one (even mine), but once I got used to it's weird key bindings and commands I got used to it and now I quite enjoy it, especially with all of its plugins available that are very easy to install with a plugin called Vundle, which can be used to install all the other plugins by simply providing a link to their git repository (since most of these plugins tend to be on GitHub). So here it goes.

New Website Design

Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

As you can see I've changed up the site quite a bit. Now we're back to running on PHP (no longer using Jekyll). I enjoy this theme much more as it reflects my interests (I put all that I can in the terminal, I'm writing this very post in the terminal using the Vim editor) and it also stands against the picture pretty websites that you see nowadays. You will not see anything on this site that is not pure text, it may be underlined, bold, or a hyperlink, but it will be text, like in a terminal (not the Enlightenment terminal, though, that thing's really weird). Of course, the source to my website is still available on Github and it's all up to date.

My Favorite Firefox Addons

Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I use Firefox on a regular basis as my default browser, and something that I really enjoy about it is the vast number of addons (especially for developers) which can be hard to find anywhere else. These addons range from privacy guards, to custom CSS themes across all websites, to other fun little addons that just make my life easier. So here goes a small list of my favorites.

Expire history by days: This one took me a while to find. Basically, I want my history to be auto-deleted, but I don't want it all deleted (which is why I didn't just use private browsing mode). This is because I use my browser history often to look up things I did previously. So what this addon does is to delete history after a certain amount of days. Firefox by default already deletes your history after a certain amount of pages, but that's too unreliable for me, I'd rather know the number of days.

Why I Am a GPL Advocate

Tue, 05 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I am very much a GPL advocate, and the more I get into programming the more I favour the GPL licenses. I have many reasons for this, some of them applying to myself personally, but others that are applicable at a larger scale as to how it benefits software creation in general. However, I will start out with how I came to use Free Software and why I ended up with the mentality towards software licenses I have today.

Game/Website/App Creators

Mon, 04 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

A topic that I am very disturbed about are Game/Website creators. These programs are what I consider is helping to destroy the technology industry. Not only is this causing for more people to be able to create mediocre apps (games, websites, or otherwise) and therefore lowering programming salaries and the chances real programmers have of obtaining a job, but it also promotes bad code leading to bloated projects.

The first aspect is that these 'creators' are destroying the industry for real programmers (not people who think they're programmers because some mobile app creator helped them make a stupid clock app that they put on their phone). This is because it is allowing more people who have no respect for the field to enter and create bad apps. More people entering the field means less work for real programmers and the little work that may be found will be for lower wages (something that for now the programmer master race has been able to avoid because of the few people who want to get involved in programming due to its intense logic and, in some cases, mathematics).

Why I Hate the Web

Mon, 06 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I would first like to point out a couple things before starting my rant, first of which is that I am talking about the web, not the internet. To simplify this distinction for the non-techies who might be reading this, the web is what you see in your browser (like this web page, unless you're RMS and you read this by downloading the HTML), while the internet is any sort of connection between two or more machines (including the web). Second is that there are parts I like about the web or more so being a user of the web, but what I'm focusing on here is mostly having to do with why I hate web development, not so much the web in and of itself.

Resources for Learning x86_64 Assembly

Sun, 05 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

I guess this will be a post of mine that will actually be useful for something...

So lately, if you've seen my Github you can see that I've been learning some x86 assembly, specifically x86-64 (you know, because I run a 64-bit version of the Linux kernel). But I found that there aren't many people interested in x86-64 (which isn't saying much considering I'm talking about Assembly, much less x86-64 Assembly), but I was able to find some information, get some help, and a nice digital book that teaches you x86 Assembly (not x86-64, please keep that in mind).

The New Era of Script Kiddies

Thu, 26 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

The world of technology has little by little been taken over by the web, which (in my opinion) isn't necessarily a bad thing. What I don't like is that the main languages in the web are scripting languages that allow bad practices and, to some extent, encourage them. It wouldn't be so bad (at least for me) if this were limited to JavaScript on the client-side. My issue is that scripting has advanced even to the servers. Sure, you can use JSP, which is nice because it's a compiled language and it's more or less strict as to its mentality and paradigm, but Java isn't that popular in the web, what's popular are languages such as Python, Ruby, and JavaScript (because someone thought it was a good idea to put JS on the server).

Small Talk

Wed, 25 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

In my post about the television I mentioned very briefly the issue of 'small talk'. First, I would like to make it clear that I am not talking about SmallTalk language, but rather the social phenomenon where two or more people begin a conversation on some of the most pointless and dull topics ever. It's always a topic that for the most part everyone can agree with and is therefore a pointless conversation. It's always about the weather, who won the latest sports event, what popular events are coming up, and (if you're Spanish) the most recent corruption scandal. Never any analysis, never any discussion, and most of all there should never be disagreement! Because for some reason disagreeing on something with someone else is 'a bad thing'. I disagree with people all the time, these people mostly being my friends! So how are you going to tell me that disagreeing with someone on something will make a relationship between two people go downhill? I'd rather discuss and disagree with someone on an in-depth topic than constantly agree with someone that it's a rainy day outside and that the forecast is looking better for next week.

The Television is Cancer

Mon, 23 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

If there is one thing that I have noticed in both the U.S. and Spain which annoys me the most, it's the addiction there is to the television. Of course, by television I am not only referring to the physical TV unit but also when watching TV programmes (or YouTube series for that matter) on an electronic device such as the TV, phone, laptop, or whatever you can watch endless hours of meaningless content on. It has reached the point that the television basically controls most peoples' lives. People will change their daily routine just to watch a series, something that I find extremely excessive. People let the TV series control their lives and let it determine when they eat, when they sleep, what activities they do, it's basically like a job... except you get nothing out of it except for a temporary numbness that distracts you from your real-life problems (huh, sounds like an addiction, doesn't it?).

Ethical Giving

Thu, 19 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I came across this link on 'ethical giving' by the FSF. This is a rather good gift guide for those of us who are advocates for Free Software, as it gives a basic guide to those we love who may be a little less knowledgable in terms of technology.

I believe that it does a very good job at covering various types of devices from routers, to laptops, to 3D printers, and so on. The site is also very simple and easy to understand for our less techy loved ones, and has an amazing feature for when you look at the 'buy' section of each category the non-free option has the 'avoid' button, which has the great functionality of not being functional, helping the visitor, as thick-headed as they may be, avoid buying the non-free option.

Hello, World!

Wed, 18 May 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Welcome to my blog. In the most recent update of my website I decided to create a blog along with all my other content. I hope to keep this blog less personal and more oriented towards technology, but we will see how things play out.

All my normal content will still be available on the website, I'm just adding a blog to the list.