This post is about Redes (which is Spanish for Nets) a wide audience science tv program. A Redes fan has a blog about this TV programme, Redes Eduard Punset - TVE2. If you don’t happen to be able to read Spanish, then you might not be interested in this

Posted by Boriel as Science at 9.42 pm

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I’ve just read in The Guardian an interesting article about a new concept car being developed by Ford and MIT.

This new car will be a two-passenger, designed with latest materials and its most interesting characteristic is it will be shared by everyone: You take one, and leave it once you reach the place you want to go. It resembles me a rented mini-car.

Among its most remarkable features are:

• It will be a small (two-passenger) and compact car.
• Electrical: Implies less acustic and more ecological (less pollution gasses).
• No engine. It will have engines whithin the wheels, called wheel robos, that will allow you to move in any direction, instead.
• No safe belt. The sit will came equipped with a kind of backbone with a tentacles that will catch the passenger in case of accident (in a similar way to an airbag, but from your back).
• The color, seat and panels layout will be customizable by the user para personalizarlo a to have a personalized car. That information might be saved in the card so, once inserted in a new car, it will be already customized and configured.

Another strinking idea is that cars will be stackable (see picture) like supermarket carts, so they will take little space when parked. Those parking places will be everywhere, so you will have one near the place to go (like today’s bus stations).
Otra idea muy interesante es que el coche será apilables, como los carritos de los supermercados, de manera que ocuparán poco espacio. Estos aparcamientos estarán disponibles por doquier, de forma que siempre tengas uno cerca del lugar a donde vayas.

Posted by Boriel as Interesting, News at 11.06 pm

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I had been looking for a way to call a function using XML-RPC in Python with the xmlrpclib class. The problem was I wanted to call it from within an organization behind an HTTP proxy, and the python object (ServerProxy) didn’t allow it by default.

Nevertheless, if we look closer to the class constructor:

class ServerProxy( uri[, transport[, encoding[, verbose[, allow_none]]]])

we realize it’s possible to define an optional Transport object. And that was the solution, as I found explined in this (Japanese) page: XML-RPC over the proxy server. I don’t speak a word of Japanese, simply I undesrtood the code.

It defines a derivated transport class:

import xmlrpclib

class ProxiedTransport(xmlrpclib.Transport):
  # Put here an identification string for your application
  user_agent = 'hogehoge'  

  def set_proxy(self, proxy):
    self.proxy = proxy

  def make_connection(self, host):
    self.realhost = host
    import httplib
    return httplib.HTTP(self.proxy)

  def send_request(self, connection, handler, request_body):
    connection.putrequest("POST", 'http://%s%s' % (self.realhost, handler))

  def send_host(self, connection, host):
    connection.putheader('Host', self.realhost)

  def __init__(self, proxy):
   self.proxy = proxy

And now it’s possible to do XML-RPC over a proxy:

# Creates the XML-RPC server connection
server = xmlrpclib.ServerProxy('http://xmlrpc-c.sourceforge.net/api/sample.php',
  transport = ProxiedTransport('proxy.server:3128')

# Lists remote server exported methods
for method in server.system.listMethods():
  print method, server.system.methodHelp(method)

Posted by Boriel as Computer Science, Programming at 10.23 pm

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I’ve recently read in Barrapunto (Spanish version of Slashdot) that a big image compositon of Orion Nebula taken by Hubble space telescope has been published. The image is really beautiful.

You can have a glance here, but I encourage you to go to the original site, since there’s much more interesting material there.

Posted by Boriel as Astronomy, Science at 2.26 pm

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I don’t say Happy ’cause it’s each one’s business. Now, for some it’s time to take stock of the past year. I myself prefer to make this evaluation every day. Don’t say “it’s been a good year”, but “it’s been a good day”.

If I were to look back to this past year, I’ll conclude it’s been positive to me. There’s been changes I never planned and, looking back -a thing I shouldn’t but still do-, have helped me a lot in my life.

But it’s just an ilusion created by a number in a calendar. Every day something starts and something ends. Every day someone is born and someone dies. Waiting for the new year to take stock of the past one and planning new goals that later will fall into the oblivion ’till the next christmas is a waste of your precious time.

If you want a sentence to sum up the past year: ‘Carpe Diem‘ (Take the chance everytime)
If you want a goal for the new year: ‘Carpe Diem‘.

And if you want me to wish you something, ‘May this year be better than the past one‘. But not better during this year. May be better right now.

Posted by Boriel as Sin categoría at 12.18 pm

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