20 08/23
21:34

Contribution to kdenlive

Two years ago I contributed to the free video editor kdenlive with a series of icons for advanced trimming tools.

https://invent.kde.org/frameworks/breeze-icons/-/merge_requests/108

15 01/15
10:59

Freedom in your computer and in the net

Richard Stallman’s talk at the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg, Germany on 29 December 2014.

Freedom in your computer and in the net.

For freedom in your own computer, the software must be free. For freedom on the internet, we must organize against surveillance, censorship, SaaSS and the war against sharing.

01 01/15
13:14

Free software 30 years

| Categories: digital media, software libre

Let’s start the 2015 with free software!
Comencemos el 2015 con software libre!

Video by the FSF.

03 11/14
10:57

Data visualization at Sigradi 2014

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Design of a tool for the visualisation of historical data
Ricardo Cedeño Montaña

Building: Facultad de Arquitectura – Universidad de la República
Room: Salón B2
Date: 14 Nov 2014. 15:00 – 15:20
Last modified: 03 Nov 2014

SIGRADI 2014 programme here (PDF)

ABSTRACT

In the sciences the combination of different types of analysis, textual and visual, contributes to the legibility of the results of the research. Techniques such as data visualization and information graphics have a long history in the natural and social sciences. Recently, researchers in the humanities have got interested in producing visualizations to synthesize facts and trends. The purpose is to create novel observations and analysis of historical and cultural data. This paper presents the use of programming and markup languages to design a custom and open tool for the creation of one particular type of historical data visualization: chronologies.

KEYWORDS: Data visualization, chronology, XML, processing.

PD: The processing sketch is available here: http://bit.ly/1pifGi1

31 08/11
19:39

Pure Data convention 2011

Three weeks ago I attended the 4th Pure Data (PD) convention.  This time it was organised in Weimar and Berlin. The convention lasted one week and included conferences, workshops, concerts, and installations. The frame for the convention was Weimar, which has a name in art history: Goethe, Schiller, Bach, and the Bauhaus were there.

The conferences were technical oriented. The topics included the implementations, the developing of tools for PD, extensions to PD, and sound projects using PD. The workshops happened in the afternoon and there were for beginners and for experienced users. I took part in the beginners workshop, especially in the visual ones as GEM for beginners, GLSL, and Understanding the PD Data Structures. The concerts were scheduled in the evening; they were amusing, exciting, and inspiring. Although I enjoyed most of them I got impressed by the works of Chikasi Miyama, Hsin-jen Wang, Jinyao Lin, Oscar Martin (Noish), Cyrille Henry and Nicolas Montgermont, Dan Wilcox, and Onyx Ashanti. From my point of view, these were the most aesthetically refined works. They depict too a wide range of expressions to be found in contemporary digital/electronic art. An impression of each concert could be got at the convention website. Finally, from the installations I would like to highlight Tafel by Alexandre Castonguay, Cymatic Imprints by Donna Legault, and Concerto para Lanhouse by Giuliano Obici. They all graciously combined machinic poetry and ingeniousness which made me wonder if I weren’t in a Gibsonian reality.

A small bite of what happened in Weimar could be listen to below.

Chikashi Miyama.Black Box. Record of a live performance in the 4th PD Convention 2011. Weimar, Germany. Duration: 7:17
[audio:http://www.pktweb.com/drnn1076/sound_works/black_box_(Chikashi Miyama)_PDcon_weimar_2011.mp3]

11 09/10
05:08

Open Art Open Design

Today the production and distribution tools for media have to be free and open. Free and open software have brought a new perception towards these tools. Steadily, we leave pyramidal and individual forms of ownership and production in media to openly share materials, ideas, and procedures in social surfaces without centres. To embrace collaborative forms of production is a breakthrough in media (art, design, and production). Free software allows collective knowledge and aesthetic to surface. These expressions have been largely, neglected by close and feudal tools because they are thought as poor quality. We’ve been conveniently convinced that only the industrial and formal knowledge in media production is proper. This idea has pervaded the media arts and the designs as they remain mainly focused on spectacle and effects.

Knowledge has to run free across the very media. People have to remember how to collaborate if we are to change our world. But digital media are meant to fragment and to be used by mere machine bureaucrats in a state of frenzy consumption. Artists and designers! WE have the duty to denounce and expose this. WE need to defranchise the production of images, narratives, experiences, and objects. WE have to believe it is possible to overcome to supremacy of the bureaucrat system with single ideas and single tasks. WE ought to appropriate these tools before they appropriate us. WE need to fight the self-referential trend of the open media, if WE are to see the variety of the possible. WE need to open art and design and a first step to free art and design.

17 06/10
20:32

Libre y en control

Tags: | Categories: software libre

Software libre significa que usted controla lo que su computadora hace. Software NO libre significa que alguien mas controla eso, y hasta cierto nivel lo controla a usted. Richard M. Stallman

El uso y difusión de software libre no es un asunto de dinero, sino de ética.

05 06/10
15:23

software libre

Tags: , , , , | Categories: software libre

Traducción por ricardo cedeño montaña al Español de la definición de software libre dada por Free Software Foundation (FSF).

El software libre se refiere a la libertad de los usuarios para correr, copiar, distribuir, cambiar y mejorar un programa. De forma más precisa, esto significa que los usuarios de programas tienen cuatro libertades esenciales.

  1. Libertad para ejecutar el programa para cualquier propósito (libertad cero).
  2. Libertad para estudiar como funciona el programa y cambiarlo para que haga lo que usted desea que haga (libertad uno). Tener acceso al código fuente del programa es condición para esto.
  3. Libertad para redistribuir copias del programa y así ayudar al vecino. (libertad dos).
  4. Libertad para distribuir copias, a otros, de la versión modificada del programa (libertad 3). Haciendo esto usted puede dar oportunidad a una comunidad entera para beneficiarse de los cambios. Tener acceso al código fuente del programa es condición para esto.

Richard Stallman. 1985

11 11/09
22:55

I’m using Linux

Hi,
since two months I’m using a linux distribution in my hp pavillion ze5300, it is OpenSUSE 11.1.

drnn_rebellion
I tried several years ago with Lycoris, but it didn’t work out. Now I have a dual system computer with OpenSUSE in one partition as default OS and Microsoft Windows in another partition while I do a complete transition. The installation took 30 minutes and it was easier and simpler as I initially thought.

Right now, I’m using most of the times Linux. My activities include, surf in and communicate via internet (firefox, skype); process documents, spreadsheets, and presentations (openoffice); work with pictures, photos, and images (gimp); download photos from my digital camera; write sketches in processing; listen to music and watch movies (vlc); and finally to keep update my blog (wordpress), and my gallery of pictures. It might be most of my time in front of my computer.

I work as designer and I’ve to acknowledge that some applications are behind the mainstream and standards imposed by firms as for instance Adobe, nevertheless with a little bit of time, patience and creativity to teak; I’ve discover that I can produce pieces of a good quality in software like: InkScape or Scribus.

So far I’ve had some annoyances with my wireless card and some video projectors, but my machine is quite old and I guess the newer the distro the easier to find adequate drivers and firmware for Linux distributions.

The curve of learning for somebody with no experience in configuring an OS is low (two weeks to one month) as many things work automatically, for instance on-line updates through YaST or software installation. If this is not enough, I’ve found in forums a large community of people always ready to help :). The system is very very stable and reliable. Before I had very few problems, including some annoying viruses, with Windows XP.

I went into Linux because of my conviction about the freedom we have to have in choosing, changing and distributing digital objects under the GNU/GPL and Creative Commons licences, we cannot continue being segmented and restricted by software companies without having access to the source codes of what actually builds our digital environment and without the freedom to share these digital objects. OpenSUSE is distributed under the GNU licence.



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