Older blog entries for jvic (starting at number 22)

Back from CONISLI

I just for back from CONISLI 2005. The event could've been a little bit more organized, but it was nice, it was fun definitely.

It was also my first time in São Paulo. What can i say? What a messy huge town, if you wanna know. Everything's too big, too distant, and too gray. But it was cool anyway.

Oh!, oh!, i bought an Elliott Smith album!! Yaaay. It's just impossible to find anything by Elliott here in Salvador; so i couldn't waste the opportunity of buying it in Sampa. Also bought 2 albums by the Teenage Fanclub. Now, i just don't want to talk about how much it costed $$$ me... (ouch)

Let's talk about Free Java

I've got an invitation to give a talk about Free Java in a uni here, and i was taking a look at the slides i presented at the beginning of this year, at the II Festival -- it's great to literally see how Classpath improved since then.

Gimp X Drawing shapes

(Please don't take this as trolling!)

So, today i was making some quick images for a presentation, when i decided i wanted to draw some circles in one of them. As the nice Gimp user i am, i thought "ok, that's a job for Inkscape...", and then i suddenly realise there's no Inkscape installed on that machine. "Hm, let me download it... hmmm... nopes, no internet connection".

"So, Gimp's all i got. I know Gimp can make circles. But how is it? I remember it's something with the selection tool... hmmmm...", i take some chances filling a selection and all that, but i just can't remember what goes next... and then i just gave up, made some ugly circles with a pen.

The point of that story is: i used to turn my back on the people who complained "hey, Gimp doesn't have a shape drawing tool!", replying that "That's Inkscape's job", and sending them a link to the Gimp tutorial... but... ermm... really, why, oh why can't Gimp have a basic shape drawing tool?

I'm not talking about full drawing support (that's for Inkscape), but just some tool which will automatically do the "select-fill-shrink-cut" steps so the user don't need to memorize it. That'd be very handy.

PS: I don't know if i'll file a bug about that because i know probably 2,000 people already did that, so...

28 Aug 2005 (updated 28 Aug 2005 at 01:44 UTC) »
Big Media in Brazil (Part II), and sad news for FOSS

Found this excelent article about the big media in Brazil; a must-read for anyone that cares.

I had previously expressed my feelings about the big media in Brazil, specifically concerning Free Software, and the Veja magazine.

But now that we're going through this huge political crisis, the subject has been on my mind like it never had. I hate conspiracy theories, but there hasn't been a day ever since the crisis started that i haven't wondered if this isn't a "big media game" to break down our current government.

They won't admit it, but fact is, the big media hates our president (Lula), and that article just goes to show they'd do everything to take him out.

The article is an analysis of how the Veja magazine (one of biggest here) treats social movements (Free Software anyone?), often with lies, made-up facts, even racism; and how they quickly change subjects to suit their political visions. If there's bad news about their "enemies", they'll bash it till the end. If there's bad news about their allies, they talk about sex, life, nature -- any smalltalk to "distract" the mass of readers from the problem.

The article also shows how the media in Brazil is extremely monopolized. In other words, you're always seeing the same opinions about a subject because all those magazines and newspapers you read, they all belong to the same few companies. They control what you see. Muppets.

And there's much more, read that article.

-------------------------

Sergio Amadeu leaves the government

Talking about the crisis and Veja, now it's official: Sérgio Amadeu has left the government. A very sad happening for FOSS in Brazil.

After the crisis begun, changes in the government made the FOSS campaign fragile. Up to the point Sergio Amadeu felt there was no point anymore in trying to go further with this cause in this government, i believe.

Oh, what does that have to do with Veja? Well, one of the main anti-FOSS guy in the government is the new minister Hélio Costa. Talk about FOSS and he'll say "no" and do all he can (and he has the power) to stop it. But what does that have to do with Veja? Guess what... the guy used to work for Veja! Small world, indeed. Now, enough of conspiracy...

Los Hermanos does it again

I've just got the new Los Hermanos album, "4". Now there is no doubt, they really are the best rock/indie band in the world currently (in my not so humble opinion).

This album once again goes a new, bold, unexpected, direction. It opens with the song "Dois Barcos", which is definitely their most elaborated song ever. A work of art. Every instrument, every note, sounds like it was very carefully thought and put in its place... everything in its right place. The lyrics uses a trick of writing senteces in a "backward" fashion (like our national anthem does), which just makes it sound even more complex and interesting. Just put on your headphones and listen to this song, it'll make you shiver.

You'll get some latin music in "Paquetá", and rough 70's in "Os Pássaros" -- amazing songs by Amarante! The hit "O Vento" will make you feel like dancing on your own all night along, sticking in your head for days, even though the song doesn't even have a chorus. (By the way, is it just me or there is a little bit of Legião Urbana in this song?)

What else? There's a beautiful bossa nova in "Sapato Novo", great indie rock in "Condicional", melancholy in "Pois É"... yes, this album has it all. Great great music folks!

BTW, i went to their concert last weekend. Was great except for the fact my cell phone got robbed... anyways.

Totally Gridbag

Yup, doing some GridBag code can be so much fun. Thank god we've got JGoodies, and now Matisse.

More about Spanish

Folha Online disagrees with the about-to-be-approved decision of giving Spanish a higher priority than English in brazilian schools. According to them, this is just silly "Che Guevarism". I had just written something about it a while ago.

They say this is a mistake because english is the "universal language", it's the language used in all business negotiations, artistic discussions, etc. I can't say i disagree with that, but the author completely forgets the reality about our schools and english teaching in our schools, which i talked about in my previous post. You may say "you should then fix that problem in our schools"; and i'd say: yeah, maybe in 50 years we can change our school system.

He also mentions that spanish is so close to portuguese, it's almost useless learning it. In my previous post i expressed the opinion that that's actually a good thing, not a bad one; and, i'd like to add i wholeheartedly disagree the 2 languages are that close. His opinion is that you can read anything in spanish just knowing portuguese. Yeah. You may read 2 or 3 sentences in some outdoor or something, now, try reading something uselful, like a book in spanish and see how far you go.

And to finish this post, i needless to express how i think we should embrace our latin culture and get closer to our latin american fellows (call it Che Guevarism or anything you want, i don't care), something Brazil has always failed in doing it. (PS: Why is it that the big media here is always, always, so pro-americanization of everything? Geesh).

Sshhhhhhh!

So the new Harry Potter book has leaked in Canada and they've got a court injunction barring buyers of the book from disclosing the plot. WTF?? Is such a thing possible by law? I mean, the buyers didn't sign any contract when they bought it, right?

It's not that i'm saying what the bookstore did is right... but... it is a "funny" situation, to say the least.

8 Jul 2005 (updated 8 Jul 2005 at 16:49 UTC) »
Hola, hermanos!

I've just read a news that it's about to be approved a law that will make Spanish classes obligatory in every brazilian school. About time!

The funny thing is, i was actually talking about this very subject just last week with my girlfriend. I was telling her i feel like i need to learn spanish (haven't started taking classes yet), and how odd it is that we don't learn spanish at school. I mean, just look around. We're completely surrounded by spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, i feel ashamed i don't know spanish.

There's also another reason why i believe we should have spanish classes at school. And that is: english classes simply don't work at our schools, IMHO. If you wanna learn english, you better take private classes, at english courses. At school you'll just learn how to say "hello", "good morning", which ain't gonna be useful for nobody, really.

But why doesn't it work? I think it's mainly for 3 reasons:

  • English is way too different from our native-language (portuguese), and that itself is a huge barrier for many students;
  • Our school classes are too crowded, which makes it a mess for teaching english (too many uninterested students won't let the interested ones learn anything), which gets even worse because of the 1st point;
  • Sometimes the teacher isn't good enough (specially at public schools).

I don't know about point 3, but i definitely think points 1 and 2 would be a lot different were it spanish classes instead of english ones.

Now, i don't mean to say we shouldn't learn english; but i'd rather have our students speaking well portuguese and spanish, than speaking portuguese and barely speaking english.

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