Android on freerunner

Today I installed android on the freerunner. It is very straightforward thanks to the work of the guys at http://code.google.com/p/android-on-freerunner/. It is just a matter of copying the code to the SD and then just starting the machine. After doing so, I installed the eclipse plugin for developing android apps. It works surprisingly smoothly and I could run the tests and even some small apps of mine. We also tested phonegap with a friend. He tested it in symbian/nokia5800 and I tested it in android/freerunner. We were expecting a lot from the API, but in the end, it didn't run quite as good as expected: unresponsive buttons and some problems with the accelerometer. I think it may be due to the emphasis in Iphone that the developers have put to it. It still looks good as a library, we're gonna study the code to see why it didn't work. I also found that the freerunner discharges (even when plugged in to the usb) when it is connected to the WiFi (an android/freerunner bug?). Then I started to think about android and the hundreds of companies that are about to use it in their phones and I can't but worry about the possibility of the Java license infringement claim made by Oracle. If they succeed in their claim, that could mean bankruptcy for many companies. Anyways, after this exercise I consider QT and Android as very good development environments for mobiles. Nokia should not abandon Symbian and QT because they complete the landscape in mobile-development and give us good choices and tools.

Magnetic monopoles

Divergence is a vector operator that tells you the amount of vector field net flux coming in or out a given point. Maxwell laws describe the behavior of electromagnetic waves. When you're told that the divergence of magnetic field is zero(One of Maxwell's laws, the first one in the picture below), that implies that you cannot find in space a magnetic monopole, that is, a source of just one polarity magnetic field. When I was studying at the University, someone wrote on the blackboard:

"The good God said:

.... and then light was made" . . .

It had a lot of sense, for those laws were believed to hold true according to experience and according to the electromagnetic theory. However, in 1931, Dirac had already devised magnetic monopoles could exist. Moreover, he had already given a different form to equations 1 and 3 in the presence of magnetic monopoles, and it is exactly the same as their electric field counterparts( equations 1 and 3, but with electric field instead of magnetic field ).

These new equations are very good to the eye for their symmetry. According with nowadays evidence, Dirac was right. Apparently God had a lot more in his mind, and nature has a lot of surprises waiting to be found.

Sobre la falta de propósito

La tragedia de la falta de propósito nos golpea inmarcesible, como queriéndose llevar los despojos de nuestro espíritu. Expectante aguarda sigilosa y luego asalta en el camino llenándolo de dudas, carcomiendo nuestra mente y destruyendo nuestra determinación y fuerza. Pero la vida en ese mismo camino nos da sorpresas y nos muestra que hay esperanza. A veces somos ciegos y no las notamos, pero ahi están y solamente hace falta un poco de imaginación y persistencia para encontrarlas.