«Terra Incognita», a la venta en Amazon.com

Mi libro Terra Incognita (1997) ya se vende en Amazon.com.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002ADC3ZU/sr=8-11/qid=1243405490/ref=olp_produ...

Minimum Profit 5.1.2 released

A new version of the Minimum Profit text editor has been released. It includes the following features:

• The grep action can now be recursive.
• New syntax color for special documentation blocks.
• Fix searching into empty selected blocks (this was bug #1269).
• New action section_list, that shows a list of sections in the current document to jump to. Sections are usually function definitions and special marks in programming languages.
• New action seek_misspelled, to search the next misspelled word. It has been assigned to keycode f5.
• New action ignore_last_misspell, to add the last misspelled word found by seek_misspelled to a whitelist so it won't be found again.
• New action seek_repeated_word, to search for words starting or ending with the same number of letters up to a maximum distance. It's controlled by the new configuration directives mp.config.rw_num_chars and mp.config.rw_max_dist. It has been assigned to keycode f6 (this keycode was previously assigned to join_paragraph, which has no keybinding now).
• The action open_templates_file has been fixed.
• Several GTK interface updates by fellow developer Sebastian Vöcking.
• New command line option -d, to change the working directory.
• Several fixes to the win32 driver; word wrapping, combobox drop-down sizes, underlined text.
• Avoid hanging if the external ispell program is broken.
• The dump() function now dumps its argument as MPSL code.

Semana de monstruos

Igual que hice en enero y febrero con Las Tijeras del Viajero (1996), hoy queda inaugurada la semana monstruosa: desde hoy hasta el sábado publicaré diariamente un minirelato del libro Las Tijeras del Viajero. Monstruos (1997).

Basta con suscribirse al siguiente RSS:

http://triptico.com/?t=RSS;tag=las%20tijeras%20del%20viajero.%20monstruos

Gruta version 2.2.0 released

Version 2.2.0 of the Gruta CMS, codenamed "Osmannoro", has been released. This release needs Artemus version 4.1.2. The following changes were made:

• Story rendering is cached, resulting in faster page loading.
• An existing story can be copied to another topic from the story edition form.
• The template stories_by_date has changed the order of their output values; now they are topic_id, id and date.
• The RSS template now accepts an optional CGI argument tag, to get feeds on stories by tag.
• Multiple sources are no longer supported; it never really worked well, made the code cumbersome and had no real advantage after all. The cgi caller needs not to be changed, as the sources argument is still supported (only the first one is used, though), but the scalar source is preferred now.
• The file format in the FS source has changed; the .META extension has been changed to .M, and .TAGS to .T. Also, new files appear in the stories directory with the .A and .B extensions, holding the rendered abstract and story body, respectively. The transition is made automatically on the first run, no manual operation is needed.
• New argument hard_top_ten_limit to Gruta::Source::FS, to set the maximum number of stories to be tested when generating the top read stories index (previously hardcoded to 100).
• New argument min_size_for_gzip to Gruta::CGI, to set the minimum size for the output body to be Gzip compressed (previously hardcoded to 10000).
• If a story pointed by a story:// pseudo-url has a publication date in the future, only the title is shown (i.e., it's not clickable).
• The Mbox source is officially deprecated.
• Static URLs are also generated for the CSS, RSS and SITEMAP pages. The following mod_rewrite rule must be added to the ones suggested in the previous version:

 RewriteRule ^/style\.css$     /?t=CSS              [PT]

Artemus 4.1.2 released

Version 4.1.2 of the Artemus template toolkit has been released. The following changes were made:

• New template function sort.
• New template function reverse.
• Templates can be loaded from external sources by using the new loader_func argument to new().
• The Perl module Artemus is now an alias for the Artemus4 module, as a way to smooth the future transition to version 5. No changes need to be done.

Nueva edición impresa de «Terra Incognita»

La segunda edición en papel de mi libro Terra Incognita (1997) está lista para comprarla en la tienda Lulu.com.

El texto incluye algunas correcciones de fallos tipográficos y estilo. Pero lo más interesante es la nueva presentación y diseño hecho por Marisa Ortega, gran profesional que además es mi hermana.

Una vez más, se demuestra que el aspecto es fundamental y lo que antes parecía un panfleto sin el menor interés ahora parece un libro de verdad.

Traducción: Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 3: sonido con pérdida

Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 3: sonido con pérdida, por Mark Pilgrim.

Grutatxt 2.0.15 released

Version 2.0.15 of the Grutatxt text conversion package has been released. The following changes were made:

• New parameter url-label-max to the HTML driver to set a maximum size for URLs.
• New script pod2grutatxt, to convert Perl documentation in POD format to Grutatxt.
• The pre mode is really verbatim, so bold / italic markup is not processed.

Traducción de Linux Weekly News: Btrfs apunta a su inclusión

LWN: Btrfs apunta a su inclusión, por Jonathan Corbet.

Las Tijeras del Viajero, una al día

Desde hoy hasta mediados de febrero de 2009, y sin ninguna razón en especial, he decidido publicar cada día uno de los relatos o poemas de mi libro Las Tijeras del Viajero (1996).

La forma más cómoda de leerlos es mediante un lector RSS. Están por todas partes: Mozilla Firefox, Google Reader ó KDE Akregator. Tan sólo hay que usar el siguiente URL:

http://triptico.com/?t=RSS;tag=las%20tijeras%20del%20viajero

Traducción: Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 1: contenedores

Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 1: contenedores, por Mark Pilgrim.

Traducción: Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 2: vídeo con pérdida

Una amistosa introdución a la codificación de vídeo, parte 2: vídeo con pérdida, por Mark Pilgrim.

Traducción de Linux Weekly News: Btrfs, ¿incorporarlo al núcleo principal?

LWN: Btrfs, ¿incorporarlo al núcleo principal?, por Jake Edge.

Nuevo artículo: sobre el algoritmo Diffie-Hellman

He escrito el siguiente artículo: El algoritmo Diffie-Hellman, una breve descripción del mecanismo en el que se basa el cifrado de clave pública.

Minimum Profit package in Debian has been orphaned

It seems that Minimum Profit has been orphaned in Debian due to its maintainer (Roberto Suarez Soto) being missing in action:

http://bugs.debian.org/508228

MP's package (called mped there) was certainly very abandoned and outdated.

So, if you are a Debian developer and have any interest in having the best text editor in the universe working in the best Linux distribution of the world, please adopt it.

Noticias del mundo de las sombras: Obviedades

El otro día un cirujano pediátrico, en un examen de rutina, observó algo extraño en el cerebro de un recién nacido. Echó mano de bisturí y resultó ser un pie:

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/health/18297954/detail.html

Escarbando más, no sólo encontró el pie, sino lo que parecían ser los intestinos, una mano, un muslo y otro pie de alguien más. Parece ser que esto es otro caso de siameses parásitos o de «fetus in fetu».

En estos momentos de congoja uno suele ampararse en la obviedad, como en el comentario «this is completely abnormal» del doctor, o en el también obvio pero no por ello menos cierto «This is our baby» de la madre.

No obstante, hay cosas que pueden parecer obvias, pero no lo deben ser tanto, como es la reacción de esta mastuerza de Lake Forest (EEUU) que, habiendo quedado atrapada con su coche en un paso a nivel sin barreras del tren y viendo a éste acercarse, no se bajó del mismo, sino que llamó al teléfono de emergencias pidiendo auxilio, consuelo o ambas cosas.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28278606

El final es presumible; el tren la pilló y lamentablemente ha muerto a la edad de 68 años. La noticia no explica cómo esa mujer ha podido sobrevivir tanto tiempo.

Y, de nuevo, otra noticia nos hace ver que no todo debe ser tan obvio como parece: Brian May, guitarrista de Queen, afirma que él «No sabía de Freddie Mercury era gay»:

http://www.europapress.es/gente/noticia-brian-may-guitarrista-queen-no-sabia-fre...

Al menos, sí reconoce que había «algo sospechoso».

Y la última noticia de esta entrega: unos arqueólogos han encontrado, en una tumba china que fue sellada hace 400 años, un reloj suizo de hace 100. Atención a la foto: no se menciona el hecho de que el reloj de pulsera es minúsculo:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/76140/Tomb-raiders-baffled-by-Swiss-watch-fo...

De nuevo refugiándose en lo obvio, uno de ellos nos deja la siguiente perla:

"Watches weren't around in the Ming dynasty and Switzerland as a country didn't even exist then"

Es un mundo extraño.

Estas noticias han sido patrocinadas por el verdadero significado de la letra "O" en Roger O. Thornill.

Anteriormente

• Noticias del mundo de las sombras: Hans Reiser arrestado

Gruta 2.1.0 released

Version 2.1.0 of the Gruta CMS, codenamed "Calenzano", has been released. Gruta Release Notes.

Reuploaded Space Plumber Win32 install binary

The Space Plumber win32 install package was somehow corrupted and has been rebuilt again.

Minimum Profit 5.1.1 released

A new version of Minimum Profit has been released. It fixes some important bugs and adds some minor features:

• Internationalization works in all platforms (including KDE4, were it was faulty, and win32, where it was non-existent since the 3.x series).
• The status line format string can also include the %w token to show the number of words in the current document or selection (can be slow).
• Search and replace is now limited to the selected block, if any.

mp_doccer 1.2.2 released

Version 1.2.2 of mp_doccer has been released. Changes are:

• New Grutatxt output format.
• New command line option, --abstract, to set the abstract for the generated document.

Artemus 4.1.1 released

A new version of the Artemus template toolkit has been released, featuring the following:

• New template function case.
• New template function env, to get values from the environment.
• New template function size, to return the number of elements in a colon-separated list.
• New template function seq, to generate a sequence between two numbers as a colon-separated list.
• Improved debugging information.

Ann Hell on the net (II)

Sometimes I find surprising material regarding Ann Hell lurking in the net. For example, I found this torrent. It's a registration-required one (never heard of this kind of torrents before), and it seems to be just Ann Hell - Music for Horror Movies (CD, 1998). But, looking inside it, I found the following track list:

  1. (3:40) Nightmare Of Assymmetry
  2. (3:45) The Man Who Slaughtered Baby Jane
  3. (3:48) Whispering Walls
  4. (4:11) Never Trust A Scarecrow
  5. (3:31) Crushed And Smashed
  6. (1:29) Mr. Pumpkins Revenge
  7. (5:05) The Survival Guide
  8. (1:58) You're Different And That's Bad
  9. (2:30) Ghouls Like Us
  10. (2:23) Bag Of Heads
  11. (2:16) Epilogue (Death Of The Ebony Clock)

So it's not just a cut & paste of the previous CD, but includes three 'bonus' tracks: Ghouls Like Us, Bag of Heads and Epilogue (Death of the Ebony Clock), with their (correct) length, from Ann Hell - The Mask (CD, 2000). Someone took the time to expand the original content with other, related, tracks. I find this amazing.

Unrelated to this, I found the following link: Ann Hell : Música per ambientar partides de Cthulhu, in a web in catalan. Someone found Ann Hell's compilation Ann Hell - The Ambient Collection (CD, 2006) suitable to play Call of Cthulhu games, surely without knowing that the author behind that music is also the author of several illustrations of Cthulhu and friends in The Cthulhu Gallery. The world is an Ouroboros.

Also regarding The Ambient Collection, someone called Sh@dow said, in http://www.archive.org

"I say it's "true ambiance", because the melodies take your inner mind to several locations. Most 'ambient' works dedicate themselves to one attitude or state of mind... one 'being', if you will. Ann Hell - The Ambient Collection (2006) takes your inner being to many different levels, which I find very refreshing! This is definitely one to experience!"

Thanks, Sh@dow, whoever you are.

Previously

• Ann Hell on the Net

Major site redesign

Triptico.com has been moved from static pages to an instance of the Gruta web content management system.

This means optimal search, page tagging and much more. Enjoy!

Music for Horror Movies by Ann Hell, purchaseable again

A special 2008 edition of the CD Music for Horror Movies by Ann Hell has been made available for purchase, this time from here. This release doesn't include A Forest, but as a bonus it has three previously unreleased remixes for Whispering Walls, one by guest artist Dr. Gore 2000. Buy it, it's a great experience for a few bucks!

Dispersoul news: 2008-01-16

Dispersoul 1 [january 2007] can now be purchased from lulu.com.

Dispersoul news: 2007-06-19

Dispersoul's track He Visto el Final de Todo (Extended Cut) has been featured in Uwe Hermann's podcast. Great music there; take a tour on it.

Dispersoul news: 2007-06-15

A cover image for Dispersoul 1 [january 2007] have been added, featuring a photo by Uwe Hermann:

An Ann Hell's theme in the new Dispersoul album

A remix of Ann Hell's Harbour appears in the new Dispersoul album. It can be downloaded for free; see Dispersoul releases.

Dispersoul news: 2007-04-07

Great news! Finally, Dispersoul 1 [january 2007] has been released. Download it right now!

Dispersoul news: 2007-03-08

A special 5.1 mix (suitable for home cinema audio systems and such) by Dispersoul of Bodydyon's Waiting for Tomorrow has been released:

http://www.archive.org/details/bodydyon_waiting_for_tomorrow_5.1_remix

Enjoy!