In exclusive! with Felipe Pérez Martí Lauretta p. 10
Avatar and other exotic cultures Christian Bogado Marsá p. 22
ENGLISH VERSION
Satelital navigation up to date Martín Goldin p. 24
VOL I N6
Software Libre in Quechua
editorial
FREE BABEL After a brief absence, I return
necessary to read a language "commer-
this is why they are being released into
to this journalistic place with the Latinux Magazine readers. I take the first part of the editorial of this issue, to address the question of the last number " War Technologies." In this issue, the editorial was written by Mariana Henriquez, our associate editor, making a heartfelt introduction and an excellent selection of thoughts about the war.
cially viable" to get updated information. This limitation has permitted access to information technology to be, still in this first decade of the century, essentially elitist. Additionally, it hinders the creation of new content and preservation of ancient knowledge and regional traditions. However, the possibility of having access to source code, is allowing the localization to different languages for operating systems, office tools and different types of applications.
non-traditional languages for their business, such as Galician.
Knowledge use to destroy or subdue a fellow man is definitely an undesirable evolution diversion. It is not justifiable to argue, invoking the "freedom 0": "the freedom to run the program, for any purpose," that we can use Free Software in the manufacturing and use of weapons of any kind. The "freedom 0" should not be interpreted as a rule in isolation but as part of all the four freedoms of free software. In reading the "freedom 2" expressing support your neighbor and the "freedom 3 'the benefit of the community, we must ask: How is helping others or benefiting the community the creation of weapons?. Perhaps the only answer is (which does not satisfy me), to protect us from those who have not evolved and want to dominate others through violence. Access to information, as in a tower of Babel, passes through the language barrier. It is
Now free technologies allow us to share knowledge in our own languages, in this Free Babel's tower. Ricardo Strusberg (Venezuela) strusberg@latinux.com
Regardless of their size, different communities that could not have access to information technologies in their own languages, can now interact with the software tools without the language barrier, thanks to open and free technology. Before the consolidation of free software, it was not possible (or at least it was rare) to have an operating system or office automation tool in a South American indigenous language, or a language like Czech or Catalan. Users of these languages should interact with the software tools in a language of wider dissemination and global trade. Thus we can download OpenOffice today in over thirty languages or Firefox on more than sixty languages. The Openoffice web page shows availability in languages such as Galician, Serbian and Vietnamese, and Mozilla locations such as Malay or Tamil. Additionally, the "pressure" that are creating the tools released as Free Software on the market, are causing privative tools such as Microsoft Office, to try not to lose more market,
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CONTENT
Editorial "Free Babel" Ricardo Strusberg
p. 1
"The law of man is the survival of the most technologically advanced" Manuel Morán
In touch "Diego Saravia" Lauretta L auretta
Fundación F undación Macuare Macuare Interview Interview Lauretta L auretta
""In Inn exclusive! excllussive! with with Felipe Felipe Pérez Pérez Martí" Martí" L auretta Lauretta
the strange world of manuelete
p. 4
sci-fi s ci-fi p.. 6 p
p.. 110 p 0
""Avatar Avatar aand nd other other exotic exotic ccultures" ulttures" Christian C hristian Bogado Bogado Marsá Marsá
Martín M artín Goldin Goldin
Diffusion D iffusion Zone Zone
Page Pá Página ágina
2 2
p.. 114 p 4
www w.latinuxmagazine.com www.latinuxmagazine.com
p. 10
p.. 2 p 22 2
Technology T echnology K Kiosk iosk ""Satelital Satelital navigation navigation uup p ttoo date" date"
""Computer Computer L Literacy iteracy uusing sing S Software oftware Libre L ibre in in native native language" language" Daniel D aniel Yucra Yucra
p. 18
p.. 2 p 24 4
CONTENT
Comicnology
Directory
p. 26
p. 27
Editor in Chief Ricardo Strusberg Associated Editor Mariana Henríquez Graphic Design & illustration Giancarlo Sebastiani Layout Mariana Henríquez Translation Martha Romero Administration Jacqueline Pérez de Strusberg
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LATINUX CLUSTER Sponsored by: Latinux Cluster The Cluster Latinux is an enterprises, educational institutions and consultants network specialized in solutions based in free technologies, including consulting and training for these solutions.At the same time, it focuses in consulting, support, maintenance, developing and enterprises solutions installation services based in free technology worldwide. Inside business opportunities opened from Latinux, one is to cover the no satisfied demand from organizations, companies and governments related to free software development and the chance to take advantage of products and services with a specific local success or in a whole conglomerate acting area.All Latinux participant enterprises are well established in their own working area and all have a long experience with free technology.
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Diego Saravia is an industrial engineer, author of argentina's first distribution of GNU/Linux: Ututo (http://www.ututo.org), lecture on the freedom of knowledge and free software in almost all the provinces in Argentina and countries such as Brazil, Italy and Spain. Coauthor of the founding manifesto of Hipatia (http://www.hipatia.info), 2001, an international organization who promotes freedom of knowledge in general and in particular calls for the use and development of Free Software.
Lauretta: How did you start your incorporation into the world of software libre? Diego: We are talking about the year 82' probably. I worked editing documents with TeX, which is a very good word processor for mathematics. At that time I began to know what Software Libre was, the ability to share programs, modify the code freely and build communities of developers users prosumers.
promote freedom of individuals to share and improve the code. Other technical, instrumental, economic with the opendevelopment methodology -empowered by the four liberties - that exceeds the normal development models in proprietary software. And also an activist, poli-
Lauretta: What is Software Libre facing in 2010? Diego: I would not say that Software Libre is facing something rather are those linked to existing proprietary software, they will face software libre. This concept pervades the world by three aspects. One philosophical and ethical, to
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THE SOFTWARE´S FREEDOM
tician side, with the emergence of groups that promote their dissemination for ideological, not economic interests, as had happened so far with all software. I would say that Free Software is gradually taking some areas for assault . Lauretta: Now, Does Software Libre aim to a philosophy itself or refers more to a political project? Diego: Well, I think it is true about the "project" and "political activism" side, but there is an issue that is deep, structural, which is the advent of companies with information / knowledge on the Internet. There is a material that supports the philosophy of the software libre project and is the enabling of electronic means to share any digital work. This did not exist before the advent of the Internet and sharing was impossible, and now it is possible. The copyright laws, which are restricting the ability to share digital works arise because at that time they were the only way to finance the distribution of culture. The publishers claimed the chance to win money. It was very expensive, first to select the works (now google exists), then print and finally distribute them worldwide. And that had to be financed, that's is why the copyright law is invented ( and author's "rights" as opposed to the user or reader rights). The fact that every human being (or a good part of humanity) is able to share what they want with a really low marginal cost (often fixed) make real limits, material, economic disappear, for the free movement of digital works knowledge. For example, a group that sings a song, with very little money can record it at home and that night can publish it online. In this way they can be
heard in Asia, Latin America, everywhe-
the industrial revolution. Today everyo-
re. Today it is possible to share, and obviously philosophies appear to interpret
ne can have their own machines, get to
the phenomenon and ethics which install it as standard. Also groups that promote it. That is why movements to share music, share software and so on, appear. It is a technological revolution first, then economic, philosophycal, ethical, and political. Internet (driven with free software) marks the advent of the knowledge era and the end of the industrial age. Every era brings new contradictions, the knowledge era presents the contradiction of free knowledge vs. propiertary, as well as the industrial imposed the contradiction between state-produced goods (communism) vs. private (capitalist).
want. Second. An electronic system to coordinate production appears, without a central command. We are talking about working methods that take us away from Fordism. This century new technologies are enabling totally radical production systems.
work when they want at the speed they
-Lauretta (Venezuela) lauretta@latinuxmagazine.com
Lauretta: At this time, what part of the Free Software movement does catch your interest? Diego: At the moment I am interested in all the implications that has this model in other activities. Talk is starting about participatory manufacturing systems. Industrialization, production of real goods and services, not just virtual goods, also of material goods. Production processes facilitated by the interactivity of the Internet. We may share information and enable completely decentralized systems. We speak of huge factories, such as exporters of bicycles in China. These manufacturing processes have several qualities: First. The capital is owned by the workers themselves therefore do not see the concept of exploitation. For example, a capitalist who opens a factory, so people go to work and he took ownership of that wealth. That was the model of
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Fundaciรณn Macuare Interview Interview
Lauretta: How did the Native Stories initiative start? Ernesto: While doing my job as the Border Cultures series editor in Macuare Productions, I found Blender, and inmediately I was amazed with the capabilities of this free software. Like any learner of Blender, I wanted to make a short film, I started a personal project which is still in development. About two years ago we had a meeting in Macuare to propose new projects and I didn't waste the chance to propose a 3D series made with Blender. I wanted to make a fiction series with magical and fantastic elements, and sin-
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me the series direction and has supported me with the production.
ce childhood, the fiction books that I liked most were the indigenous legends adapted for children, for this reason I thought that the body of fantastic stories richer than we could drink, which would allow us to keep the representation as a Venezuelan, were these legends. Thereafter, Macuare assigned
Lauretta: Who supports this project? Ernesto: The main support we are receiving is from the Social Responsibility Fund - Conatel, who are financing the production of twelve 3D animated micros. Also, many people have given us their feedback, comments and moral support in various ways, which we appreciate greatly, including friends with extensive experience in Blender such as Claudio Adaur and Pablo Vรกzquez, from Argentina, and Daniel Salazar,
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A MOVEMENT OF AUDIOVISUAL EXPRESSION IN VENEZUELA WITH BLENDER
from Costa Rica. Lauretta: What values are found in the projection of Native Stories? Ernesto: Native Stories is an opportunity to express ourselves and know ourselves better as a country or Latin American region. Many Venezuelans have indigenous ancestry and do not know or do not assume it. It seems important to know which are our roots to understand why we are as we are today. Moreover, we want independent producers nationally to recognize the capabilities and value of the Blender use as audiovisual production software. This
is the reason Native Stories will be released under the Creative Commons license, so others can use and learn from our implementation accessing freely the project sources. Lauretta: What kind of stories are you going to capture in these 3D videos, realistic stories, sensitive stories , a mixture of reality with science fiction, naturalists? Ernesto: We want that contact and human relationship with nature could be appreciated. We are deeply inspired by the vision of the origin of the world that pose the Yukpa, Warao and Yanomami
indigenous groups. From their point of view stories have many specific elements of our ethnicity, but because the audience we wish to direct the shorts films are children from our today society, we've adapted them to make it easier to understand and enjoy the series. Lauretta: What kind of finishes do you intend to develop for the characters and environments, I mean, are they going to be extremely realistic in movements, coatings, facial expressions? Ernesto: We are developing the aesthetics proposal of Balbi Canas, our Art Di-
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rector. He has done a very admirable
scene and in Spain there were se--
work in character development trying
veral
to provide them with a unique look that is best described by pictures than by words. Then the artists who work with us: Melissa Cifuentes, David Rodriguez, Javier Pedraja, Luis Gonzalez and José Vidal have contributed their talents to give shape and complete images and animations. We are hoping that the 3D looks as if it were painted by hand, a great challenge we are facing with various techniques and we believe in the result. The animation we are using is a realistic animation, we are not advocating for an animation that feels like a caricature, but as real people. Another objective is to transport the viewer to each ethnicity own environments, the Yukpa in the Perijá Sierra, the Warao in the Delta Amacuro and the Yanomamis in the Amazon. Lauretta: What is your opinion of companies like Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and others?. Ernesto: Pixar Studios took the first steps in 3D animation and did a great job from which has developed an industry and a great trade. With Blender we have the opportunity to address the 3D production from other perspectives, more responsive to our needs of expression in Venezuela and Latin America.
filmss n that have come to our cinemas. In general, Europe has many exam-ples of animation to admire andd government-funded
better yet with Blender. Lauretta: Why Blender? Ernesto: Free Software, opens the doors of technologies that have traditionally been very difficult to reach for people who want to learn but can not afford to purchase proprietary software licenses. Blender is a tool that allows anyone who wishes, to en-ter the world of 3D graphics soo either by curiosity. Also, Blenderr is immensely powerful and goess very far in what you can do withh n it, plus this is a program that is in constant growth and has a commu-nity that greatly facilitates lear-ning and its use. In conclusion,, There are many and varied rea-sons for using Blender. Check the full article in www.lati-nuxmagazine.com Fundación Macuare - Macuaree Producciones http://www.macuare.org/ Ernesto del Valle
Lauretta: What countries are in the forefront of this type of artistic medium? Ernesto: The more developed industry is in the United States. This is most production studios are. However, there are many 3D productions worldwide and many excellent efforts. The Japanese have an important role in the global
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Lauretta (Venezuela) lauretta@latinuxmagazine.com
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F Fe el liip pe eP Pé ér re ez zM Ma ar rt tíí Exclusive !
Felipe Pérez Martí, is an economist graduated from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, PhD in Economics and Master of Arts in Economics, both degrees obtained at the University of Chicago. He has been professor at the IESA (Instituto de Estudios Superiores), was Minister of Planning and Development in the early years of the administration of the V Republic, is currently a visiting professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and fortunately today in Latinux Magazine we have a little of his time to bring you the thoughts and ideas Marti has for 2010.
Lauretta: In your article "A world state with solidarity, to regulate global coexistence," you mention: In relation to the solidarity economy, are examples showing that the future can be very different to the present, and that is the case of the Free Software Movement. I want to know your stance toward the Software Libre philosophy and what do you think is going to hold for this model in the coming years. Felipe: "I think this model is very important for the future, not only in software but in terms of technology and the economy. Most goods produced today have a technological content of 90% or more. Even a simple cow has a lot of technology inside, even a grain of corn, has what we might call the first invention of genetic engineering dating from times of the Maya, and this is just in the case of the corn. The technology is in the goods, including goods that apparently have not technology, such as agricultural lines, which in fact have a fairly high technological content. The
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technology has a feature that is knowledge as a public good, that is, from the point of view of its nature and from the standpoint of ownership, but a public good in economics, is a good that, let's say, if you produce it and someone consumes it, it does not eliminate it, the knowledge, information and technology are public property and their use thereof is not extinguished. Einstein had to invent a single formula of relativity, so that that information was produced once and yet all of us have used it many times until today. The important thing is that if I share a good as this with the rest of the world without privatizing it, then we in return would receive twelve billion or more in assets, this is a highly efficient economy, a explosively efficient economy of abundance. If we generalize the Software Libre model in which one produces the idea and shares it with others without charge and in turn the others produce new ideas and share them with you, you would be producing an idea in exchange for billions of ideas, I un-
derstand that Debian, Ubuntu, among others, if you calculate their cost in man-hours, it will come about $ 45 billion, and these are just downloaded from Internet, is free for you, and if you start to think about it you might not even get to contribute anything or perhaps you would do it but a very small way, in any case if you generalize that way of producing and distributing goods throughout the economy, this will be an economy of abundance. This model is somehow a different basis for the economy, which relies on sharing, on altruism, is to think I do things because they can benefit another, I share because I am in solidarity with others, I feel good when others feel good. In short the idea is that a economy based on solidarity, altruism, is a much more efficient economy that the economy based on selfishness and scarcity, this is an economy of love and wealth, as opposed to the economy of fear and scarcity, where you have to rely on what is within my reach in order to hoard it to fell safe, this can be interpreted as a way of appropriating things to protect yourself, in the economy of abundance one shares and is not concerned at this action, others automatically do the same and indeed this confirms that you had no reason to be afraid, what you do you do for love and pleasure, because you like to, this is to me the basic of the hacker philosophy, the hacker solves a problem because he loves to sol-
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ve interesting problems, the work phi-
and selfish components. As for the sel-
ne does what they want, what they like,
losophy must be you work because
fish component I've written about it, this is the concept of signals in the wor-
they are supportive and do what is ne-
you like to, not because you want to be protected due to fear, the happiness of your work is rewarded by the happiness of others, then you're automatically assured. People now have the ability to produce information in solidarity and in a more efficient way than with traditional models, Twitter is and example of this. I can tell you, I am quite certain that it will mean a new way of organizing the economy, on societal matters, even with tremendous political impact.�
king state, a model that is based on Spence's theory, which is based into distinguish people who are most able of which is not by signals, signals that are also expensive. This model can be transferred to the Software Libre model perfectly, you can interpret that developers give a free program to demonstrate and ensure that they are good at what they do, this allows them to sell their labor, resulting in a costly signal because you are financing this
Lauretta: Software Libre is really a model based on altruism and solidarity. Where do the political interests stand? Felipe: "In realityy tthe he model of Free Software as we know w it it today has a little of both bo oth components, com mponents, the altruistic
with you time in order to differentiate yourself in the labor market, which is why it is so important the Software Libre Movement, the most important thing here is to know who made the program, masterminding is a delicadel te issue in the Software Libre L movement, movem ment, this way everyoever
cessary, in this model if someone is not good at one thing, he or she are going to be for another, there is work complementarity". Lauretta: Briefly tell us how was the case for the inclusion of Software Libre in the Venezuelan government. Felipe: "From the beginning I brought Ricardo Strusberg , as technology consultant in 2002, we had a secret group called "COSMOS", a group that was trying to promote Software Libre in the Government. Fortunately at my entry into Government I was appointed Chairman of the Committee on the transformation of the state, then from there I formed the committee. One of the channels we used was the "National Forum", a sort of twitter for the time, I answered e-mails and all journalists took this as a source of information, this was fully transparent and public. From here was that we decided to adopt a principle of software libre inside the Government: "So much software libre as possible, proprietary software when it is essential�, for example the basic tools needed to be all Software Libre and the private tools non-existent in Linux were essential because they had to be incorporated. From this there was a decree of the ministry in which we established that principle and proposed the establishment of a law and a decree of Software Libre, so that the work we did was the precursor of the 3390 decree, but problems ensued with great regret and issues with other members of the government. As this happened we had opposition from the government, vested interests amoung other issues. The truth was that we had
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the momentum but we stayed very little
that their needs are met in all areas. As
sun is for everyone, the sun is indeed a
in the government, just a year, unfortu-
it will be affected by the pollution of ri-
nately already taking the initial project. However, with regard to the 3390 decree approved, I think it was released quite wrong, wrong in many ways. A contrary view was generated by using the tools of software libre, even within the government, because people weren't previously convinced about the use of this tool, it was imposed "to the letter" (required), similarly software libre proper set of tools for the end user weren't created, the user was ignorant in this area and had to spend a lot of resources to manage the companies from the Software Libre movement, encouraging the SMEs with this technology in order to
vers or the air, the user will be concer-
public good in that sense, there is rain for all, and so on. The road we should
ned about his/her products not harming him/her or others. Today companies wanting to be most successful are beginning to worry about what their customers want, are incorporating the feedback from customers to company policies because it is the same customer who comes to determining the direction that corporate policies and governments have. So if they are involved directly, they will also want to see protected their ecological security.
take is to seek what fullfill us as individuals, be happy and thus make other people happy, this way of looking at issues is very spiritual and this has to do with finding what you really are, inside you, pretending or wanting to own the world and make it yours, that is, privatize it, is rather to be who you are and give it to the world, because when you are happy you contribute more".
Lauretta: As they say, you need to be in others' shoes of the to open your
"So much Software Libre as possible, proprietary software when it is essential” focus on providing easy to use tools for end users. There were people in government who were looking for personal power, prestige and therefore were not really prepared to carry out this philosophy. " Lauretta: How do you view the topic:" Electronic scrap or junk technology?”? Do you think the software and hardware libre have a different proposal that actually helps the environment? Felipe: "It does help, look at the Software Libre movement, the star is the end user, if this agency is forging a new type of society, community, politics, is an entity that will be concerned
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eyes to the world and its realities. In the course of your life you have lived deeply a religious life, the study of economics, has been in the government of a country ... what moral or humanitarian message we can leave to the future of a “Libre” society (alluding to Software Libre). Felipe: "Well here you have touched upon an interesting topic, more toward the spiritual side of all this, the spiritual theme is very connected with love”, is very close to the basement of the spiritual activity, religions tend to see God as a loving God and suggests that love is the solution to all problems, then this way of looking at things has a lot of spirituality, is to think that everyone will be provided, God is for everyone, the
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Lauretta (Venezuela) lauretta@latinuxmagazine.com
zona de difusi贸n
Computer Literacy using Software Libre in native language The Runasimipi.org project, founded with the purpose of spreading the use and development of Software Libre in Quechua in the year 2006 and later becomes involved in the translation of other native languages as the Aymara, additionally is an articulator of the Intercultural Bilingual Computer Literacy. This initiative was born in the city of Abancay by Amos Batto (USA) and Daniel Yucra (Somoslibres.org of Peru), both broadcast and call the creation of this community site with the intention of translating major Software Libre projects. This community of developers users and activists seeks to preserve the Quechua language combining it with software libre technology over the Internet, it also integrates students, teachers, linguists, historians and computer experts compromised to translate and create a space for discussion about the Quechua language. II. The need for Software Libre in Quechua and other native languages Why Software Libre in Quechua? Lack of Software Libre translations into indigenous languages. Lack of software with a bilingual interface that displays 2 languages at once. Speakers of indigenous languages are only literate in Spanish, they learn to read in their native language and need to consult Spanish to verify the meaning. Bilingual Interface allows the use of neologisms in the translation. Runasimi = Language of the People = Quechua = Quichua Runasimipi = In Quechua = In the language of the People Objectives - To develop translations of Software Libre tools for indigenous languages ( P谩gina PAGE
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Quechua and Aymara), to promote the use and development of bilingual literacy. - To create a computer dictionary with words and technical terms for Informatics in Quechua. Vision Translate relevant projects of software libre (OpenOffice, Mozilla, Free Software, TumiX GNU / Linux, KDE, GNOME ...). Promote the use and development of Free Software in Computer Literacy in isolated and backward communities. III. Projects translated The group has developed the translation of projects
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SOFTWARE LIBRE IN QUECHUA
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zona de difusión
and initiatives 100% free which work
Formation of neologisms, that didn't
with GPL licenses, some of them are:
exist in Quechua.
- Abiword in Quechua - Bilingual Abiword (Spanish / Quechua) - Abiword in Aymara - Spell Checker for OpenOffice in Quechua. - Dokeos in Quechua
PHP files were translated directly to the PO format (php2po ) from the translate toolkit. Poswap was used too replace English for Spanish. It was translated from Spanish to Quechua Cusquenian nian (Irma) from poedit. Finally, Poswap and d po2php were used with the files translated anslated into PHP format. The 1.8.6 Version (June, 1st), includes Dokeos in Cusquenian an Quechua.
IV. Tools Used To process these translations, the following tools were needed: - Poedit (qu, es, en) - php2po (PHP a PO) php2po (PHP a PO) - poswap (en,es) V. Dokeos in Quechua Dokeos is an e-learning tool, currently used by more than 1 million users, among whom are Quechua of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Argentina, they are potential users of this tool now in version Cusquenian Quechua through the work of Irma Alvarez of Runasimipi.org. On the Translation: Approximately 02 months full time More than 30,000 words in Quechua, 5,000 sets of words Actors: Irma Alvarez Ccosco, technical assistance Amos Batto It was used more time than with other languages (5 to 10 times longer)
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VI. For more information mation If you want to contribute, ontribute, you can register at the runasimipi.org discussion imipi.org dis scussion list, at the following URL: followin ng U RL: http://mail.somoslibres.org/mailman/list res.org//mailm man/list info/runasimi_somoslibres.org slibres.o org orr to o participate, collaborate ate and d ddisseminate issseminate the project you can contact Amos Amos Batto Batto (amosbatto@yahoo.com) com) or or Daniel Daniel Yucra (danielyucra@gmail.com), a@gmaiil.com), the the Project co-founders. Daniel Yucra (Perú) danielyucra@gmail.com com
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The strange world of manuelete
"THE LA LAW OF MAN IS THE SURV RVIVAL OF THE MOST TECHNOLOGICA C LLY L ADV DVANCED" This morning I woke up ... How wrong was I? .. Well, I woke up from one of those dreams where you want it to be more, but at the same want it to end but is not time yet, because could be it is going to get better later ... Finally, I got to thinking, after brushing my teeth and wash my face with plenty of water in the face ... cold water, mind you, and after washing my hands like 10 minutes, I simply through: Who did go farther? It is a very open question, so after a process of hours and days of madness, I ended up thinking in Latin America, then in Pre-Hispanic cultures, to finally convince myself of the Incas, and how they REALLY got far in life. Taking in account all the architecture, medical advances, beliefs, deities, and agriculture, what is truly a highlight from the Inca culture is definitely its suspension bridges. Our friends the Incas, were people of short stature, but with an intelligence that exceeds that of many today. It said small people are shallower governed by a rule in the form of "L" and should be something meaning that the more small you are then you have a bigger and more powerful "intelligence". This is a very important attribute in all societies, ancient and current, and is very well known that a man with superior intelligence is more likely to pick up girls, as girls are the ones that move the world
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with their TWO very big reasons, their shopping habits and their babies, then men of high intelligence will always be those who govern the world then. "Intelligence" is not measured in centimeters, otherwise, think about how could this be ... XD Even when our Incas friends had no iron chains like in the Himalayas, they had tenacity, guts and an intelligence incredibly large, very different from those that the Europeans had in medieval times, because the Incas lifted bridges of more than 160 feet long above canyons and creepy ravines. Unlike the Europeans who only managed to reach 95 feet, with many more men and material. How strange! How did they do it? With strings and wood, the rocks were just lifting structures in cities, and to build better irrigation canals and best land in their already quite famous "terraces". But while the architects and builders were asking themselves how to reach higher, explorers and food gatherers only wondered how they could reach the other side of that mountain without having to walk around five days. ! And very cleverly they got the solution! To be honest , the technique is easy, you only need absurd amounts of time, and many people ... in case you don't have neither one or the other, refrain from trying. (* 1)
INCA'S TECHNOLOGY Preparation: You take dry straw, fray it, then with three trickles you make a little braid, and when they begin to run out you put more until your first braid is more or less twice the length of the bridge you want to build, well, if you finished with the first, now you are still missing two more... … … "Ready?" Well, let me tell you that if you already have the first three braids now you have to braid them, and make two more like the last one and weave them again until the final result is a rope, a little longer than the bridge that you want to build and as thick as a forearm, incredible strong. The problem is that you only had made one .... and you need at least four to start laying the boards, and tie them to make handrails, but despite this amount of work the end result is a light bridge withstanding the passage of several people over fatal falls with fast winds, because, what were you thinking, that there is not breeze blowing in the mountain?. What's really interesting about all these ropes, is how sane people come to the conclusion that it was a good idea to con-
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tinue to build things this way. And this is how we got to today's bridges, which in fact are still using systems of ropes, the big difference is that the strings today are made of metal wires and no from straw. Well, big guys, I say bye hoping I took you all a little more out of the shadows and toward the side of the perpetual light of knowledge and the crazy things of this life, because knowledge and the crazy issues of life, make your intelligence grow up. See you in the next issue with more intelligence and useful and useless technological advances from this, our unique and beautiful planet Earth. Manuel Morรกn (Venezuela) fullthrottle.moran@gmail.com
IMPORTANT (*1) It has been determined that trying to construct strings with the technique demonstrated here without complying with the 2 basic premises can be harmful to your health. Studies have shown that nails' cancer, marriage, death, and similar diseases may be side effects of not heeding these warnings. Big Manuelete
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The law of man is the survival of the most technologically advanced
A v atar and other exotic cultures When the white man first came to lands further away from the civilized world, he found that its inhabitants were strange and had incomprehensible ways. Almost always less technologically advanced he easily found ways to dominate them through steel and gunpowder. Some of these "discovered" men ran the misfortune not to be considered human and thus are extinct for genocide. The native Tasmanian men were hunted for sport until their disappearance. Faced with this tragedy, repeated hundreds of times throughout our history, it becomes necessary to ask how tolerant of differences we are.
Science fiction development emerged as perhaps the first account of the explorers of exotic lands. It became a prolific genre, the fictional version of these stories brought such important works as Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Treasure Island, most of the literature of Rudyard Kipling and countless others. For the metropolis, what happened in the colonies was the subject of wonder, awe and fear. The "Oriental-ism" and the fascination for the exotic may well have been driven to the writing of stories even more daring, describing impossible places such as "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" or "the center of the earth." Certainly, both genders, the literature of the exotic and science fiction, share a key element: the amazing aspect. In science fiction, the formula used to generate it is by speculation about what is scientifically possible and how to explain the implications in a convincing manner. Only those things that are convincing are capable of producing
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wonder. Hence, not all aliens stories are stories of science fiction, since not all the aliens are too amazing or too convincing. The recent blockbuster, Avatar, differs little from the traditional story with exotic landscapes, in the jungles of god-knows-what British protectorate, with people so different from us as men that may have been in Tasmania. No as much. Pandora is a place that could well be an unexplored land somewhere in the Earth. The atmosphere is the only unearthly aspect it has, but this is even shared with some very high places of the earth. The natives of shift, Na'vi, are more familiar with the Western culture that most of the more remote tribes. Its habits respect greatly the traditional bourgeois society values and its language is so human that it is difficult to artificially make the story as a " convincing speculation" so is needed to do a lot more "suspension of disbelief" to believe the unbelievable in agreement with the plot. Another film makes a deal similar to the language, while achieving a much higher degree of strangeness conflict
HOW TOLERANTS ARE WE?
simply by adding class conflict: District 9. A general problem when adding interspecies communication is always the language. To be really convincing, many facts have to be assumed: for example, that communication happens through sounds articulation and the sounds are perceptible to the human ear, that what human beings share – the language ability as a product of the way in which we structure our thoughts - are universal throughout the galaxy, and, indeed, these are only a few conditions from a long list of them. Following these basic problems, the construction of the alien language always fails to look too much like human languages. The croaking and "clicks" does not automatically convert a language into unearthly. In fact, many languages, including ours, use "squeaky" sounds similar to those considered "exotic", though not in a symbolic representation. Avatar avoids written language difficulties converting it in an oral culture, with customs taken from the collective imagination about what an African tribe should be. Of course, James Cameron's intention was never to create a strange atmosphere. James Cameron managed to convert one of the most complete representation of an alien being in a communist threat. In Aliens, second part of the
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saga about a totally foreign creature, the aliens can be observed almost entirely. Its frightening charm disappears when they stop being a force of nature to become an ugly "oddity". But with Avatar the intention is to speak about the Earth. In accordance with alternative political movements, the Omaticaya are the heroes of eco-terrorism, in a time of frustration at the destruction of natural resources by commercial conglomerates. An epic of alien lands with a moralistic message. It only becomes science fiction in the last second of film, when the living Pandora Internet -Only novel and amazing element, speculatively convincing – is not longer a religious belief to become a fact in the eyes of the moviegoers, with the incarnation of Jake Sully. Incidentally, this is an idea shared with other accounts of the genre, like the seaconsciousness of Solaris. If the universe has many galaxies as we believe, extraterrestrial life must be highly probable, if only by the amount of times an experiment similar to what happened with our planet might occur. The variety of species, their stran-
ge behavior and the infinite combinations and possibilities in the evolutionary path should give us the idea that life on other planets can be so strange so it can be unrecognizable as such. And supposing that life could has a culture, the great human achievement, cultural diversity, our species different and rich customs, should serve as a testament to how short was the view of most of our speculation related to extraterrestrial life. To prove us as truly tolerant, we must move away from our own conventions and understand that there are cultures so different that people are unable to consider them human. Christian Bogado (Venezuela) <inverso@gmail.com>
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technology Kiosk
Satelital navigation up to date Many of our distant forefathers knew exactly where they were standing or where they were heading only by looking at the sky. "Reading the stars" to determine our position according to the position of the stars has left a clear and undeniable legacy that reaches to our modern Global Positioning Systems (GPS) (1), Today, our little GPS
devices search the skies for us, reaching human made satelites and exchange data with them to give us an exact location on our coordinates. This, adding high detailed maps with roads and points of interests in every city and every country of the world, gives us endless ways to relate with our environment regardless that we know our surroundings or not. Right now we can see these toys in many of the vehicles that drive trough our streets (specially rentals), in every plane and ship that navigate the
GPS SYSTEMS, IT`S EVOLUTION world, in many of the lasts generations cellphones and of course in almost every military equipment, included long range misiles. Everyday they are used as a antitheft security measure, in some places are used to locate cattle and some equipments use these networks to get the exact hour with utmost precision. Having the GPS network and the old soviet`s similar version (called GLONASS)(2)(acronyms from very long russian words) still in service, the European Union (with some other countries) are creating an additional
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network called Galileo (3), that brings hope about getting and even better precision than the actual systems. Other similar systems are now in different stages of development by different countries, some with global reach and some only for regional use.
More info in the links provided below (4). Soon we will bring you more updates on the subject and a few toys related to geolocation or satellite positioning. For now I say goodbye from this subsidiary of the Technology Kiosk in Caracas, (10°26′ N 66°51′ O).
Martín Goldín (Venezuela) martingoldin@gmail.com
MORE INFO: (1): http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sistema_de_posicionamiento_global (2): (English & Russian) http://www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru/ (3): http://ec.europa.eu/transport/galileo/index_en.htm (4): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Other_systems
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Try the first effective practices in natural medicine, do not treat yourself... Recommended by the society of ancient civilizations in the world. Stay healthy. Pรกgina Page
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