There is an interesting dossier at Futura Sciences (fr) with photos about the construction of Millau bridge in Normandia. This is the highest cable-stayed, deck launched bridge of the world today, the works finished in 2004. The design is by French civil engineer Michel Virlogeux (not by architect Norman Foster as the press usually writes). You also can read an article global numbers in Structurae.de and some about the launching method with graphics at Enerpac Hydraulic Systems’ web page.
Via Dark Roaster Blend.
February 27, 2007
Building Millau
February 24, 2007
Inner battle of blobs and NDAs
Some weeks ago, Greg Kroah-Hartmann pushed an offer to manufacturers to write free drivers of their devices for Linux. He offers them “Linux compliance” for the necessary information to write the driver. The fire began at once when Greg mentioned the possibility of agreement with some kinds of NDAs (Non-Disclosure Acts).
I think some pragmatism is not bad in the free sofware world. But I understand accepting any kind of NDA can help to work Linux on the X device properly today, but it doesn’t solves the problem of making work on the X device V2 in the future. It minimizes the pressure on the manufacturers to open the specifications of the devices and, as Theo de Raat explained unpleasantly, these agreements not only doesn’t help to the other free operating systems, they also harm them.
As steel manufacturers must provide their beams specifications to allow to the civil engineer build properly with them, network, printer and more devices manufacturers must provide their own products specifications to allow to programmers make work properly.
At this point, we must remember the free software movement began because a NDA that doesn’t allow RMS fix a bug in a printer driver.
You can read the FAQ of the initiative and most interesting messages of the openbsd-misc list thread in KernelTrap.
Les Misérables (hackers of Cuba)
Via Arcadi Espada’s blog(es), I heard about the story of five Cuban university students that used their School servers to create chat rooms, and sell stolen identities and passwords to access to the Internet. They were filmed in a meeting, then they were suspended four or five years.
This case shows again the censorship in Cuba. The authorities said they are thinking in hardening penalties up to 5 years of prison for illegal access to Internet. Times they must change in the island 
February 12, 2007
Have a sunny day :-)
From the campaign “I Love Sun Microsystems”, I read in OSNews a new advance in the Belenix Project: with the 0.5.1 version they have released a DVD too. This DVD includes the recently released by Sun Java products and lots of documentation for developers and sysadmins.
If you don’t know about Belenix, it’s one of most advanced distribution (liveCD, installable) derived from the Sun’s OpenSolaris initiative
February 10, 2007
Polos dereitos humáns: Portugal, por favor, di NON ó aborto
Abstract: this weekend Portuguese citizens will decide if their laws allow to abort. On the contrary that discussions about abortion, this is not a question about religion or feelings. This is an scientific question, a human rights question, and a social question that avoid to think about how the society presses women to take desesperate measures.
Este fin de semana en Portugal celebrarase un referendum no que decidirán se a lei permitirá o aborto, dentro duns prazos e unhas condicions legais. Supoño que se intenta tomar unha medida legal semellante á que se tomou hai anos aquí en España (entón o PSOE nin se molestou en preguntar ó pobo). O principal argumento de (maioritariamente) a esquerda portuguesa, gobernante, é que pretenden evita-los abortos que se producen ilegalmente en malas condicións sanitarias, ou o “turismo do aborto” a este lado da fronteira.
Para min estas razóns non abondan, e evitan unha das cuestións principais: as imposicións sociais, inxustas, non desaparecerán coa despenalización do aborto. A presión social, económica, familiar, que sofre unha nai cun fillo fora de tempo é causa de moitas traxedias ó longo de toda a historia. En España despenalizamo-lo aborto (dentro de tres supostos, pero a efectos prácticos o aborto é libre), co que se evitan, certamente, os problemas que pretenden (presuntamente) solucionar en Portugal. Pero non arranxan o problema principal, que é que unha nai que si quere ter e coidar ó seu fillo, non podería facelo se non ten cartos abondo para pór unha barreira entre ela e os esprobos que pode sufrir. Ó final, a dictadura dos cartos acaba gañando.
Para os gobernos resulta máis barato atallar así o problema. Aínda non vin na nosa democracia un so gobierno que promova axudas para as nais desfavorecidas, eso parece quedar da man dalgunhas ONGs. Para a sociedade, é más “limpo”, no senso máis hitleriano da palabra, eliminar cualqueira síntoma de “anormalidade” no sistemático movemento das nosas vidas hipotecadas á casa, ó coche, ó piso. Un embarazo nunha filla adolescente, ou un niño con síndrome de Down son consideradas situacións atípicas que rompen coa “normalidade” das nosas vidas de teleserie.
A segunda cuestión, máis importante, también se evita no debate. Vense moitos debates na televisión, pero eu aínda non vin ningunho onde o debate se realice coa ciencia na mano. Hai que mirar ó que se destrúe no aborto, e entón decidir.
Esta é a imaxe dunha ecografía 3D realizada a un feto de 12 semás. Está sacada deste artículo da BBC sobre a nova técnica de monitorización que permite observar mellor o comportamiento do “suxeito”. O pé da foto:” Con doce semanas xa salta, ríe e patea ainda que a nai non poida sentilo”
Outra fotografía, dun embrión de 10 semanas, sacada dun documento, obxetivo dende tódolos puntos de vista, do Departamento de Saúde do estado de Minnesota. O documento completo pódese ver nesta páxina web ou descargarse nun archivo pdf.
Con tódolos elementos da discusión na man, espero que os portugueses tomen a decisión adecuada. Polo dereito á vida. A tódalas vidas.
Updated Feb.12: The results 
Spanish government agrees with Morocco dictatorship 200 million in weapons
This week Spain signed an agreement with Morocco to send 200 million euro in weapons.
I suppose they will use the armored vehicles, patrol ships and more, to show more efficiently to the inmigrants and Sahara people Morocco Kingdom’s personal concept of human rights. Spanish government showed it with the processing of inmigrants in Canarias Islands and the agreements with Mauritania dictatorship and another African countries to build a wall in the sea.