Blogs

30 hours after the earthquake, I confirmed my parents, siblings and son are all well. Also Fabiola's family in Chile are OK; we have been able to contact most of our friends and they are also fine.

More information in Manzana Mecánica (in Spanish).

The Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) is one of the top venues in computer science. In this year's edition SODA'10, there is a paper by Flavio Chierichetti, Silvio Lattanzi and Alessandro Panconesi: "Rumour Spreading and Graph Conductance".

In the paper, there is a very interesting footnote in the front page:

For the role of the Italian Ministry of University and Research please see the Unacknowledgements.

This is what you find at the end of the paper (emphasis added):

Unacknowledgements: This work is ostensibly supported by the the Italian Ministry of University and Research under the FIRB program, project RBIN047MH9-000. The Ministry however has not paid its dues and it is not known whether it will ever do.

I hope the Ministry will pay now!

The Murder of Sophie Lancaster was a murder case in the United Kingdom in 2007. The victim was brutally attacked along with her boyfriend, Robert Maltby, while walking through Stubbylee Park in Lancashire. As a result of her severe head injuries she went into a coma, never regained consciousness, and later died.

The attack was provoked by the couple wearing gothic fashion and being members of the goth subculture. The Sophie Lancaster Foundation was established to create respect and understanding of subculture in our communities. Produced by creative agency Propaganda, in association with iconic British band, Portishead, the short film Dark Angel is a beautifully haunting rendition of Sophies story.

More information: Sophie Lancaster Foundation.

Are you married and you don't have kids? Then you've probably heard many of these ... and now you can play Child-Free Bingo!

See also: Happily Child-Free.

El ex-obispo de ciudad de México y cardenal Javier Lozano, indicó que los homosexuales "nunca entrarán al reino de los cielos" y que la homosexualidad es "un insulto a Dios".

Un vocero del vaticano, Federico Lombardi, se apresuró a declarar en un e-mail que esto no representa la posición oficial de la Iglesia Católica, que es que "la práctica de actos homosexuales es pecaminosa, pero la homosexualidad no lo es".

Aurelio Mancuso, el presidente de la asociación de derechos homosexuales Arcigay le contestó al cardenal lo siguiente:

«Si è vero, le donne, gli e le omosessuali, le/gli trans consapevoli e liberi non entreranno mai nel vostro Regno dei Cieli, che è un luogo oscuro e ingiusto, cui può accedere solamente chi condivide le vostre farneticazioni e volontà di dominio sui corpi e sulle idee di milioni di persone libere e determinate a sconfiggere tutti i pregiudizi di cui siete millenari portatori.»

«Sí, es verdad, las mujeres, ellas y los homosexuales, a sabiendas y libremente no entraran jamás en vuestro Reino de los Cielos, que es un lugar oscuro e injusto, al cual puede acceder solamente el que comparte vuestros delirios y voluntad de dominio sobre los cuerpos y las ideas de millones de personas libres y determinadas a derrotar todos los prejuicios de los cuales sois milenarios portadores.»