mvalente.eu/mv.* Heavy Mental Stuff

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Firefox Bounty Followup II
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 07 23:40:21 GMT

To all we contributed to aditional diagnosis of the
problem my heartfelt thanks.

We have now confirmed our initial suspicion (see my
first post) that the problem was most probably related
to character encodings and not to some server side
configuration problems. This has been confirmed thanks
to Nelson Bolyard:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=245609#c20

Unfortunately although we have the diagnostic, we
do not have a solution. I mean, sure its relatively easy
for the state agencies involved to go and reissue the
certificates with matching encodings. But I must say that
it pains me to see the standards (RFC3280 and RFC4630)
implemented in a reasonable way (comparing strings as
they should be; keep in mind that both RFCs state MAY
and SHOULD, there’s no MUST) in other browsers and FF
displaying a wrongful message just because of the lack
of some string conversion code.

So, until it is obvious that no solution is
forthcoming and that we might as well reissue the
certificates, the bounty still stands for anyone that
submits the feature/bug/whatever to Bugzilla and comes
up with the code/patch to back it up.

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Chilling Out
Date: Sun, 08 Jul 07 15:39:21 GMT

One of the things that I used to enjoy was watching
MTV’s Chillout Zone at dawn, on Sundays, after playing
or hacking away until the wee hours.

http://www.mtv.tv/mtv.tv/dynamo/shells/shows.jhtml?article=30095522

Since the local cable TV operator switched to digital,
together with the launch of MTV Portugal, I’ve had no such
luck. Fortunately there’s an unofficial site with the
playlists, so I can get up to date on “music to listen
while working”.

http://www.mtv-chilloutzone.com/playlistarchive.htm

And its useful not only to know which CDs to buy or
which MP3s to download, its also useful to find some
amazing videos.

Case in point: Hexstatic, besides having awesome tunes,
also have some awesome videos that should not be missed
by any heavy mental 21st century MTV born game playing
Kraftwerk loving dude:

Hexstatic – Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhN7oBNMFN4

Hexstatic – Pulse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0T4Z0kfVpY

Hexstatic – Vector
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0QErnqxEk4

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Blog Maintenance
Date: Sun, 04 Jul 07 00:01:21 GMT

Some blog maintenance done. May messages were
moved to the 2007 archive (so as to shorten the
browser based and RSS based list) and the order
of both was reversed to “blog” order (most recent
on top) at the request of several families.

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Kiss Unmasked
Date: Sat, 07 Jul 07 22:01:21 GMT

My favorite band of all time: Kiss.

When they came to Lisbon, back in 1983, I was
pissed off that of all countries they had to
choose Portugal to take the makeup off, right after
having filled up the Maracana still with makeup on.

Some years later I had the chance to see them in
the Reunion tour, when they reunited and put the
makeup back on, at the Monster of Rock festival in
Donington.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsters_of_Rock#1996

So that took away some of the grief I had for the
1983 show and I now look back on these images with
fondness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccoPDcdTpNc

Yours truly, aged 15, is actually part of the
video, so try and spot the wally…

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mvale…@ruido-visual.pt (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Que Futuro para as Democracias
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 07 20:23:21 GMT

Achei interessante o tema do mes do PlanetGeek.

No entanto nao me parece que a citacao que faco seja
muito do agrado geral dos envolvidos e da opiniao
vigente. E que o autor e “desagradavel” e nao e
considerado “politicamente correcto”. Mas, como dizia
Socrates (ou Platao?), la porque e um louco que grita
“o Sol amanha volta a nascer” isso nao faz da afirmacao
uma mentira.

Segue a citacao. Quanto ao autor, adivinhem.

“Um dos grandes erros do seculo XIX foi considerar que o
parlamentarismo ingles, a democracia inglesa, constituiam
um regime capaz de se adaptar a todos os povos. Eis aqui
o resultado: a democracia parlamentar conduziu por toda a
parte a instabilidade e a desordem, ou entao trannsformou-se
numa especie de dominacao absoluta dos partidos sobre a
verdadeira Nacao.

Desde logo [provocaram] o funcionamento irregular dos
poderes politicos – um pouco causa e um pouco efeito de
todas as outras desordens. Independentemente do valor dos
homens e da rectidao das suas intencoes, os partidos, as
faccoes e os grupos politicos supunham ser, por *direito*,
os representantes das democracia; e exerciam de facto a
soberania nacional, mas simultaneamente conspirando.

A Presidencia da Republica nao tinha forca nem estabilidade.
O Parlamento oferecia constantemente o espectaculo do
desacordo, do tumulto, da incapacidade legislativa ou do
obstrucionismo, e escandalizava o Pais com o seu
procedimento e a inferior qualidade do seu trabalho.
Aos Ministerios faltava coesao; nao podiam governar, mesmo
que alguns governantes desejassem faze-lo. A administracao
publica, incluindo a das autarquias, em vez de representar
a unidade e a accao progressiva do Estado, era pelo
contrario simbolo vivo da falta de colaboracao geral, da
irregularidade, da desorganizacao que gerava, ate nos
melhores espiritos, o cepticismo, a indiferenca e o
pessimismo

Em geral, as democracias nao fizeram pelo povo aquilo
que regimes nao democraticos teriam podido fazer, e nao
e verdade que os regimes qualificados de liberais tenham
realmente salvaguardado as liberdades publicas.

Somos antidemocratas porque a nossa democracia, que
aparentemente se apoiava no povo e pretendia representa-lo,
chegou ao ponto de nao se lembrar do povo a nao ser no
momento das eleicoes.”

– autor portugues, 1936

— MV