Thursday, April 24, 2014

An Hypothetical Situation with A New Monetary System - A Big Epic BitCoin Fail


The idea of a decentralized monetary system could bring fear and disdain into the heart of the most conservative economist and statisticians. Hypothetically speaking centralizing a decentralized series of systems, is almost a an idea that is bring from science fiction. Ideally speaking, the centralized institutions are in the need of a reform in order to improve the system that'd placed millions into misery.

To analyze the tip of the iceberg is that if the world fully systematized and digitize money, will bring a catastrophe; as, every single storage system can be violated one way or the other; leaving the world into an economical chaos. Speaking on a psychological and sociological aspect, getting rid off the money and leaving people with plastic or Google Wallet will induce individuals, not to say that is not happening right now because is a fact. If there is going to be a collapse in the world with towards the economic system, it will be in a systematic attack to the different segments of the population who can not self-control. On a crazy science fiction world, if humanity is going to be "controlled" what a better way to do it through psychological means.?

In a worse case scenario, almost under a fascist idea; a not so brave new world could be done. The idea of exerting a monopoly, where the wealth is controlled through a big psychological experiment as well the world economies aren't far-fetched. People are subjugated to their emotions, and they can be impulsive, on a sales point of view, the example of Black Friday or Boxing Day around the world, where people go into a frenzy and they will go and buy everything they consider cheap.

Now, thinking that if different retails start accepting unregulated money it won't be a big issue itself, the point on this dichotomy goes that there is laundry money roaming around, but the part that can be a problem lays on the appropriation of the assets. A well skilled Trojan could create a money laundry scheme where the funds from different inversions will be send to one corporation; yet, this scenario seems the most innocent one.

The most cruel one and probably one that can happen easily, it is as hypothetically a company as Google with such control in communications, who also has an application as Google Wallet as the application is interconnected to the bank information of the customers. Google itself could easily drain billions of accounts and bring the world to an economical collapse, just by overriding the protocols of the different banks.

Virtual money is not a proper solution, it will be a fail, much as BitCoin has turned to be on the last 9 years, as there hasn't been a proper grow on the company due the lack of trust of investors; yet, due on every crisis, just as it happens a new system as well powers could be bring from the ashes, albeit it seems to be cyclical every other centuries between the same countries of the East and West. 

Thursday, April 17, 2014

La Playa de Los Pobres - La Puta del Casino Pierino Gallo

La Playa de Los Pobres - La Puta del Casino Pierino Gallo
Por: Gustavo Calvo
Los grandes rascacielos de marfil se izaban en el medio de una península imposible; no había brisa aunque la playa estuviera a tres metros de distancia. En el medio del vecindario, había una plaza comercial que rimaba con gallo.
La plaza en si parecía una estructura imposible, parte del segundo piso sobresalía, y en medio del segundo piso había una plazoleta. En si la plaza era famosa por el casino Pierino Gallo, al igual que era uno de los puntos de encuentro de las putas de Bocagrande, no solo de las damas de la noche pero también de las distinguidas señoras de la sociedad que iban a conseguir un amorío en manos de algún cachaco, gringo ó barranquillero.
Su figura era diminuta, morena y con unos ojos que parecía una gata en celo. Vestía un traje elegante, y joyas que sus múltiples amantes le habían comprado en las diferentes joyerías; no era una dama de sociedad, vivía en La Castellana, pero vivía mejor que muchas personas que pagaban por la exclusividad del poco mar que podían ver desde las ventanas de los baños, y mirando a la izquierda para no ver a los vecinos encueras y en pelotas que estaban en los pisos 37 y 40.
El nombre de esa dama era Yurleidis Pájaro, ó Yurla como la conocían en el sector; siempre se sentaba en la tercera banca a la izquierda de la fuente, para esperar por los clientes que conocía. A las doce de la noche siempre cruzaba la calle para ir al único Presto que cerraba pasada las dos de la mañana para comer algo; si por alguna razón no podía, se iba con algún cliente a comer en el restaurante El Muelle, que quedaba al lado del edificio El Mirador.
La idea de tener sexo en la playa la aterraba, y en ocasiones si podía, lograba convencer con quien se estuviera acostando de llevarla alguno de los hoteles del área para que la evitaran ver a simple vista.
Siempre esperaba a su cliente favorito alrededor de la una de la mañana, ese hombre gordo, corroncho como una cabra que llegó a ser alcalde de Cartagena apunta de compra y venta de votos debido a los abanicos que repartió a diestra y siniestra.
Le daba asco, pero nunca se lo decía; por cariño le llamaba ratón, que tenía similitud con su apellido. Pero cada vez que le besaba el cuello y manoseaba los pezones, ella lo único que pensaba era "solo por el dinero, y nada más, el día que este viejo hijeputa se muera, me lo quitó de encima."
Nunca se lo quitó de encima porque ese viejo vivirá mas allá de cuando ella se retirara del negocio, pero siempre disfruto todos los regalos. Ella siempre recordaba con alegría esos días, mientras veía por la ventana de la habitación que su familia le había conseguido en el marchito Nuevo Hospital Bocagrande; siempre le encantaba poder ver la playa, y recordar aquellos tiempos de decadencia en los que alguna vez fue la reina de la noche.
Sentía como el vaivén de las olas la arrastraba hasta lo más profundo del océano. El beso de la muerte de sus células alrededor de sus senos sentía que le llegaba al corazón de manera apresurada y en su último aliento, le agarro la mano al nieto que la acompañaba y le sonrió.

Murió sola, imaginando familiares que nunca tuvo. Ahí quedo tendida en la cama con una sonrisa, de pronto Dios le concedió una ilusión para dejarla ir al mas allá de manera pacífica, un perdón de último minuto a una vida de decadencia. Una suave brisa venía de su habitación, y una figura compuesta por el viento salió caminando por encima de las olas, solo para ver la gracia eterna. 

Monday, April 14, 2014

Would you vaccinate your dog.? The Strange Paradoxes of the Anti-Vaccine Movement

As someone who was born and raised in a third world country, I always saw survival at every expense possible as well growing up in a family where my maternal grandfather was a physician, I always valued science above anything else in the help of the survival of humanity.

When I heard for the first time about the anti-vaccine movement, was in the mouth of Jenny McCarthy. I found it fascinating because I never seen even now, a person who has been known for her stupidities to have such a public weight. Maybe, maybe, that is one of the many problems with America, we are letting celebrities and luminaires to have more weight than the actual scientific community.

As I was in Colombia, I never heard anyone saying that vaccines are the problem; but, if he we are going to talk about a natural cleanse where the parents are going to be responsible of the genocide of an entire generation by letting their children die on diseases that are controllable and can be eradicated. It is true that everyone is entitled to believe into what they want, but there should be also some common sense because slowly we are turning into a parallel of the Late Middle Ages.

One paradox it seems it can not die it is the "autism is linked with mercury in the vaccines". If it was truth at least two generations of humanity would be autistic as the claims of the quackery says but there is one way to analyze the fails on their reasoning and that is with logical fallacies.
A man and a woman had a child, the child was born healthy but his parents after listening to Andrew Wakefield, a so-called doctor and a man of science, that vaccines turn children autistic. Sometime later, they heard on FOX News and CNN an actress talking about how vaccines turned her son autistic. So they decide to not vaccinate their child, even he wasn't in the risk of having problems with his immune system.
Sometime later, the couple adopted a dog; as they did with their child, they opted to not vaccinate the dog at all, because they were fearful the dog was going to die because of the vaccines; as the puppy grew older, the couple slowly decided to take the dog for his first walk.
As the couple, the child and the dog were walking on the park, a rabid raccoon appeared and attacked the dog; as the couple didn't vaccinated their pup against the rabies, the puppy grew up sick and at a certain point attacked the husband and the young child.
The woman tried to seek help four weeks later, but as they child wasn't vaccinated in a fear that he will turned autistic, the father of the child survived but the child died a couple of days later as he was interned in the hospital; only because his parents feared something that could saved his life; and the dog had to be put down to confirm the diagnosis.
Tragedies can be avoided, but there are always people who profit on the ignorance of people. Vaccines save life, and the stupidity of the anti-vaccine movement proliferated in the country with the biggest pharmaceutical monopoly in the world; if you go to third world countries, you are not going to hear the same idiotic and moronic speech that Jenny McCarthy keeps babbling about it, because people are aware of the dangers to die of diphtheria, "yellow fever" and a few other diseases that can be controlled and eradicated.

The focus of this Twenty First Century problem has its roots on the media, because mass communications are giving more weight to pseudo-science as an absolute truth. Just go the supermarket and you will see Mehmet Oz (Which he shouldn't be called a doctor, even if he is an Harvard graduate) on 10 different covers promoting weight loss and a few other strange things about metabolism.

If there is going to be a change, even a little one on the perceptions of the public health system as well the private one has to come from the media that is aimed at a middle class public, that is influenced by the pop culture. It sounds a little bit difficult but not impossible because we don't want some old diseases to rise again, even if they can be gone as easy when you vaccinate your dog.  

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

An Idiosyncratic Sociological Approach in the Stupidity of Handling Snakes in the Name of the Lord

Jamie Coots, Dead.
In the last 50,000 years since modern humans faced the soils of the planet; we are still a ritualistic, fearful species who can be dominated by fake promises of salvation and conquest of an evil that is not there, but rather that is more inherent of the egotistical human nature that keeps looking for the divine while it should focus more on the natural beauties of the cosmos.

But, in Middlesboro, KY the idea where dominating a primitive animal to the power of the prayer, is just ridicule to think about it. It's illogical unless the pastors know some snake handling as well lizard behaviors. Ritualism is just a bizarre concept when people analyze that their behaviors have no sense; at the end, any of the behaviors showed by humanity expose any sense; it's a negative but yet there is a point between common sense and being absorbed by your passions and lose your rationalism (if you were born with any.)

On February 15 of 2014 at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name when former main pastor Jamie Coots was holding a service and he was bitten by a rattlesnake, refusing medical assisting because of his beliefs based on the Bible; where on Mark 16: 17-18 "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

What if the verse was regarded about any possible medical assistance, and not saying no.? Not being dumb enough, to say no to any assistance, because any miraculous healing is almost as real as Dorothy finding her back from Oz. How can people be so self-centered to not realize any danger.?  What to do all these irrational behaviors in the name of their God.?

It is almost impossible to find a concrete answer that doesn't borderline into fanaticism, where there are no promises of science but promises of faith; faith were more than an adjective, a word that becomes attached to the essence of the being because it's correlated within promises of salvation and contracts if you are an adherent you will be safe from the demons that surround your beliefs.

A tragedy as the one showed in The Full Gospel Tabernacle could be easily prevented, if the pastor would let the medical attention in; if maybe the divergent Pentecostal Holiness Movement died on the revivalist time on the 50's; if maybe people realize that in order to live to their beliefs, they don't need to risk their lives then maybe that tragedy as well as several others could be prevented.

The scenario, according to Cody Coots, Jamie Coots son; was that the church was having some financial withdraw due the lack of members, as he said - There wasn't too much energy in the services, and relatively snake-handling.- As well his father doing a series of ritual prayers and fasting in order to prepare for the revival services. But, Jamie Coots wasn't strange to tragedy as he was attacked in the past, surviving minor injuries but loosing the end of a finger on his right hand after being bitten by a rattlesnake circa 1998.

But the fatal blow send his father into a anaphylaxis shock that his family, friends and parishioners didn't recognize or didn't took in consideration based on their faith, even if the Middlesboro Hospital was less than a block away from Coots's house; the case gets complicated as one of the Coots's friends Cody Wynn blocked the paramedics way from entering the house. It could be interpreted as involuntary manslaughter as well Jamie Coots wife Linda signed the forms declining medical treatment.

The case ends in a strange note as Cody Coots heard the voice of God saying that his father was gone; as well Jamie Coots funeral where his son, spend the night on the cemetery handling snakes; could the divine signs and the reckless behavior could just mere signs of mania and hypomania to a psychotic disorder that is passed down within the XX chromosome.? Because it doesn't matter if you are a true believer as there is no absolute truth except that you are a human being no different from anyone else.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Carmen Carrera, Where Beauty Goes Beyond Any Binary System

Carmen
Gender does not exist in terms of beauty, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and yet beauty does not exist, is something that is not tangible, something that on a popular level magazines define, but yet the ideal of beauty on a pop level is far away from reality itself.

As far as contemporary pop culture can mention, magazines as Vogue, Glamour or Fashion can give a final outlook on what it is and what is out.- It is kind of a crude description, almost childish, but it also plays the game on how people will analyze other realities beyond theirs.

It's almost impossible to think how these kind of magazines, that sustain themselves on the body of their works and not the essence, can place the LGTBQ realities into a mainstream, specially towards topics such as gender identity, sexuality as well more positive image that reflect the different realities of femininity.

Beauty magazines, they never offer a small or big dose of reality, they perpetuate the stereotype that women come in only one package, that they are there to look pretty, and not do anything else; yet, the paradigm of beauty could be broken, towards the different perceptions on what woman are. Beauty can be such a shallow word, yet quite complex. It can go toward intellectuality and empowerment; it can be the whole meaning of individual existence; just making a person beautiful, by the way the person is.

There is something else, beyond 0's and 1's, there are 2's, 3's and more numbers in the coordinate; there are different systems that are part of the same wavelength and reality planes. Beauty is just a mere word, beauty goes on attitude and with the essence of human being; yet, the conditioning we have as a specie that we are set on binary; at least on terms of westernized culture.

Probably we tend to mix the concepts of sexual identity, gender, and sexual orientation among with the social roles, that people expect to be. Identity syncretism could be a solution to help expand the definition of gender and identity, as well social roles. There could be non conformity towards social roles, but yet the idea of medium class people seeking understanding in a concept of Ardhanarishvara were a being is composed by two, and there is some form of adoration because the being is essentially a representation of the core of existence.

The beauty of humanity can go beyond an organ, chromosomes, gamets, social roles; beyond the binary system we have as humans; but, yet as humanity we define ourselves with the number two, while other species gender is just a mere word and sometimes it doesn't even exists. Such as the clown fish or the New Mexico whiptail. 

Sunday, February 2, 2014

When Tampa Bay Times Fails Badly

As is known with this Era of Information, almost every person has a smartphone or a device that is capable to connect into public WI-FI if they don't have any data plan.

On the edition of February, 2nd of 2014, the Tampa Bay Times published a note toward after a student who faked an attack and file a fake police report created a Twitter panic. It's difficult to argue if the "reporter" who "worked" on the news actually went to the school to do his work; or, even a follow up to the situation because the Times reported the news as if it happened no longer than two days ago, when in reality happened on January 24th.

Now, with what was said on the previous paragraph, the story developed in less than a day, and the Times quoting only one source and not even placing any images or graphic towards the Twitter panic, but with a little research of any post at the Twitter Statistics of the last 10 days, no one placed a single Tweet. The school is not strange to these kind of scenarios as on 2012 there was some distress when an homemade acid bomb activated.

2012 Twits 
The problem with these kind of local news is that sometimes they go unnoticed, and much of the updates are towards electronic means; but yet, if there is some journalistic integrity around the bay area not only with the Times but with any news station, just to go outside and pick up the information on a proper way, instead of sitting on the computer and copy-paste everything else.

Towards the so called Twitter panic.? Take a look at this because there are none toward that issue with the exception of the news station that reported.


Flappy Bird: An Infatuation With an Aviary Digital Trend

Flappy Bird, The Descend of Madness
There is one point where you can realize, society as we know, if we don't get a momentary reward in the moment then we will lose our focus on any thing that we are doing; or, as one obscure communicational theory says - If the blog entry has more than 500 words the user will lost completely interest in less than 3 minutes -, is almost the same at the moment of writing an article on a newspaper.

Instant gratification has become part of who we are as a modern society that we have all the answers within around our thumbs, and games have to focus on that level. With the creation of Angry Birds on 2099, the world suddenly experience an infatuation with puzzle like/ side scrolling games, that have easy to characters to remember; but a certain amount of difficulty that players don't expect because of the tablets and phones capacities.

The game itself has a easy dynamic, where the player can catch really easy how to play it; as the player has only to tap the bird to fly up or down in order to go through a series of pipes in order to get the maximum score. Sounds easier to describe than to play but yet is almost impossible to go beyond certain score. It's almost as trying to break the record on Pac-Man only to find out that after level 256 there is nothing but only a bug.

The game itself taking all those frustrating aspects, offers a nice view on how an indie product generated world wide attention because of the difficulty, as well the frustration. It's almost a juxtaposition of feelings on a game can be a popular because it doesn't even offer a smooth game play, it's just a simple idea that can pull the worse out of anyone.

It's not difficult to agree with Jennifer Whiteshade of Amongtech.com that the game could surpass Candy Crush Saga because of the addictiveness level that Flappy Bird offers.

The creator Dong Nguyen of DotGear Studios has been experience some popularity as well some financial comfort, as it has reported by venturebeat.com would receive around US$600 mill from Zynga in order to acquire the rights of the game; but yet fame hasn't gone to Nguyen as when he speak to the gamers the only thing he can reply is "the game was to make you laugh," albeit that could be just a sadistic remark.