Mac OSX includes the popular unix tool cvs for source version control, which is useful for keeping versions of your software (or even writing) project. I have used rcs many years ago and was comfortable with a command line approach, so I decided to try cvs on my Mac. Here’s what I know so far about cvs. (Updates may follow later.)
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I have finally found a decent looking blog client for Mac OS X and Movable Type.
Will test it for two weeks and see what happens.
Ecto can be downloaded here.
(Seventh in the series, “Becoming a Father“)
One question a lot of people ask us is, “Have you thought about names for your baby?”
The answer is yes, as far as a nickname is concerned. In my very first email to friends announcing wife’s pregnancy, I started writing about this UFO - unidentified floating object - in my wife’s belly, and the name stuck. Since then when wife and I talk to each other about the baby, we refer to “UFO this” and “UFO that”. (Instead of the usual “U-F-O”, we pronounce it as “you-ful”.)
Since we won’t find out UFO’s sex until it is born, we’d like to have prepared a list of proper names for both cases when UFO touches down on planet earth. Things however, are slow-going in this department.
Folks, naming a baby is hard. First we don’t want to pick a name where UFO’s classmates will be making fun of UFO for the rest of his/her life (e.g. Bertha, Dick, etc.). Second, one day UFO might win the Nobel Prize; so to sound good on BBC, its name must not be something plainjane or jack, yet not too dead serious either (e.g. Isaac, Sirus are out). Last of all, in my family any of our naming choices must make it through the censors (i.e. the baby’s grandparents).
If the task isn’t difficult enough already, in a globalized world today, it becomes impossible: we have a Korean acquaintance called “Yu Hong-Nam” and he always gets laughed at in Thailand because his name sounds exactly like “I am in the toilet” in Thai. I also know a tall Japanese girl living in Japan who is crazy about Brazilian dancing and calls herself “Valeria”, no doubt, to feel more Brazilian herself; nothing unusual except if she makes it down to Brazil one day she might get puzzled looks: Valeria seems to be a popular name for transvestites there.
  Valeria: “Hi, I am Valeria from Japan.”
  Brazilian Stranger: “And I thought..er…those were real! *Giggles*”
(Disclaimer: this has been an approximate translation of a probable exchange between Valeria and any sane Brazilian and is not meant to embarrass anyone, with the possible exception of Valeria.)
We also get mail from people saying things like, “Naming your baby is the fun part, isn’t it?” And right away we know that either they are the ones that name their babies “Maximilian” or “Glaedwine”, or they have never had a baby before.
So my strategy now, in addition to avoiding the pitfalls mentioned above, is to make my own list of names and take it to the hospital when UFO is born. Then while looking at UFO’s face I will go down the list one by one to see which name UFO resembles the most. “Do you look like Aaron? No. Do you look like Abby? No. Do you look like Abigail…”
My ultimate fear, however, is the answer of the question “Do you look like UFO?” will be a resounding “Yes” since the name has been ingrained in our minds for many months already.
But thankfully, that’s what censors are for.
Here is a good article by a J.D. Lasica on how too much copyright - as lobbied by media moguls in the US at Congress - can limit and suppress the creativity of the people.
“The Killing Fields” Copyright Law and its Challengers [Mindjack]
American Airlines Admit Disclosure of Passenger Data
[New York Times, Registration Required.]
JetBlue, Northwest and now American: these are the carriers that have given out passenger data to the TSA. (Could United be next to admit such a thing?)
What is at stake here? Your home/business address, phone numbers, flights that you took with any of those carriers may now be in the hands of the government. (Hopefully they withheld your credit card numbers.)
Some people may not think it’s a big deal and they should be reminded how the TSA is testing it. According to the NY Times article, to identify “high risk passengers”, TSA’s system “will check things like credit reports and compare passenger names with those on government watch lists.” Forget to pay a $5 dollar credit card bill and you might not be allowed to get on your flight the next time you fly. Not only that, the airline worker at the counter may even know - through credit reports linked to the system - that your unpaid credit card purchase was for a steamy rated-R video rental the worker disapproves of personally. So the worker might go on to reason: “My oh my, this schmool is a pervert too! I am definitely not letting him (or her) on the plane.”
Maybe I am imagining a tad too much with the example above, but if we don’t assert our rights and let companies and government run amok, the situation described above could become reality before you know it.
If you care about protecting your privacy, select the companies you deal with carefully, whether they are airlines or free web mail. No company is fail-safe, but at least you can start by digging up a company’s privacy policies and see what they promise. And you should be able to tell when a company wants to take away all your privacy rights. Needless to say, avoid those companies like the plague. (While we are on the topic, Goggle Gmail is definitely one service to avoid if they don’t change their proposed privacy policy. Click here [eff.org's overview on Gmail] and here [J. Gilmore's take on Gmail's privacy policy draft] to see why.)
UPDATE: Reported by Wired News on what sort of data was shared with the TSA by AA: “The passenger records, which cover an unspecified week in June 2002, included credit card numbers, frequent-flier numbers, phone numbers, addresses, meal preferences and health data provided at the time of purchase, according to American Airlines spokeswoman Stacey Frantz.”
About a year ago - around the time when Sadaam’s statue was being dismantled - some of my friends were arguing that invading Iraq to get rid of Sadaam was the right way to go.
I wonder if they still feel the same today.
A year later Sadaam’s gone, but American and coalition soldiers are still dying everyday, killed mostly by Iraqis who don’t want them there. The U.S. labels these Iraqis “insurgents”.
Many of these “insurgents” hated Sadaam probably as much as Bush did, but why are they turning against the U.S. now?
The answer I believe is that no one can define “freedom” for Iraqis except the Iraqis themselves.
In other words, the U.S. and its coalition may have liberated Iraqis from Sadaam, but have the Iraqis have found their freedom as they see it? From what we can see happening in Iraq, the answer can only be no. Granted, some Iraqis may have appreciated U.S. intervention, but then we know there are many people there who don’t and they are making it known.
I believe freedom must be fought by those who desire it, in their own homeland. It is not a prize that can be bestowed upon the people of Iraq by the U.S. or anyone else for that matter. If the Iraqis wanted badly enough to free themselves from Sadaam, they would have done so themselves, no matter the cost.
Besides, among Iraqis themselves the concept of freedom and democracy I suspect would be vary from person to person. This is something best left to the people of Iraq to figure it out. How can the U.S. just walk in and try to offer a one-size-fit-all solution?
And so the “insurgency” grows worse day by day. The U.S. and its coalition allies will probably stay on to try to mop up the situation, at the cost of taxpayers and unfortunately, human lives: Americans, Iraqis and of other nationalities. Was it worth all this trouble?
I believe Lenine (Brazilian, birthdate unknown) is one of the few talented and creative musicians spearheading, for the lack of a better term, a new “progressive pop” movement in Brazilian music today. Born and raised in the Brazilian northeastern state of Pernambuco famous for its deserts, Lenine sings and plays the guitar with an equally arid style that is enhanced by his keen sense of rhythm. A trademark Lenine song usually begins with a catchy guitar and/or vocal riff punctuated by sudden starts and stops to hook you into his beat. Then once the percussion kicks in fully and he starts singing, you are sold. Clearly, the man knows how to groove. And apparently, Lenine is quite a poet with his lyrics too, according to my Brazilian friends.
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Paulinho Nogueira (Brazilian, born Oct. 8 1929, died Aug. 2 2003) was a guitarist and composer, and became famous during the bossa nova boom during the 1960s. But based on the recordings I have of him I would consider Nogueira a more MPB/classical guitar instrumentalist than just a typical bossa nova musician.
I first discovered his music in March 2003 when I was snooping around in a São Paulo CD shop. The shop owner had sheepishly agreed to let me listen to a few seconds of music from Nogueira’s album over the store’s loudspeakers (any longer would probably drive away the younger customers shopping for Axe or Pop there.) But a few seconds was all I needed to make up my mind to buy the CD: it was exactly the kind of soft yet precise guitar-playing that I have been looking for: Nogueira’s guitar is nothing as cutting and piercing as the great Baden Powell, but much more dimensional than the popular Toquinho.
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Henrique Cazes (Brazilian, born Feb 2. 1959) is primarily a choro artist that plays guitar and cavaquinho but seems to be more at home with the smaller instrument.
Albums:
Relendo Waldir Azevedo (1997/Som Livre) - Cazes plays cavaquinho in this solid album of the choro tradition with both rapid tempo and slow tunes, all of them composed by the late Waldir Azevedo, a well-known choro composer and cavaquinista. I find the slower numbers (e.g. “Pedacinhos do Céu”, “Mágoas de cavaquinho”, “Você, carinho e amor”) more inspired thanks to tighter, cleaner arrangments and excellent bass performance. However, the presence of an electric keyboard (?) in several numbers is unfortunate. Recommended.
