2013/01/09

LINUX-THERAPY

Quite often we hear about new techniques to relieve stress. As in specific environments you shpould avoid saying that you go to the football on Sunday afternoons to yell "bloody bastard" to the referee and it's not "cool" and "trendy" enough saying you go out with your grandfather to the field to pick mushrooms, have appeared in gyms and "spas" chocolate therapy sessions, wine or flamenco-therapy, for example.

Ricardo Miguel Casilla, whose aunt teaches yoga, reiki and trascendental meditation classes, has thought to kill two birds (angry or not) with a stone: make people send to /dev/null their stress and at the same time contributing to the expansion of free software. Then, titled "Linuxterapia" there is a course open to any retired person affiliate to the Center of Day Activity for The Elders that, through the compilación of the Linux kernel hearing in the background traditional Tibetan chants, assures the complete relaxation of the participants.

Ricardo Miguel, wearing a saffron robe, receives us in a room lit by a salt lamp where we perceived the subtle aroma of incense and hear him giving us details of his technique: "When you make the first 'tar' from the source code you have downloaded, if you take good control of inhalation and exhalation, you note the pace  of your heart slows and your brain begins to emit beta waves. Then you do "make" and see how the command line shows what you are doing and the feeling of entering nirvana grips you to the point that some veteran programmer begins to levitate while pronouncing the sacred mantra 'Om' "

2013/01/07

GNU-LINUX: THE OPERA

The next November 19 it will be held in Helsinki the world premiere of "Gnu-Linux: The Opera," which, as its name suggests, is a musical composition in which an action is dramatized. (If any reader knows as little as we do of these issues, we suggest him to visit the following wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opera)

In this case the action dramatizes the birth of the Linux operating system in the same city by his countryman Linus Torvalds. Another informal definition of "opera" is "musical form in which the tenor (the principal male singer, usually) wants to bring to his bed the soprano (not a U.S. mafia family, but the main female singer) but the baritone wants to prevent it". This scheme gives an idea about the problems lyricists and arrangers have faced, who have had to include an ethereal appearance by Lady Ada Lovelace  at the end of the work to satisfy the desire for leadership of the star of the company. Regarding  male performers, tenor voices have been reserved for Linus Torvalds and Richard Stallman while, this time following the classical scheme of baritone voices assigned to evil and / or powerful characters,  Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Steve Jobs will fill the auditorium with deep voices able to scare everyone.


In order to satisfy the huge number of linux users who happen to be also ballet lovers it's also been included a beautiful scene where two dozens of dancing penguins surround a gnu (apparently to satisfy Stallman supporters) while the chords of an orchestral version of the famous free software song sound. It had to be included, no matter what, and here it is: