Thursday, August 27, 2009

Lies, damn lies and statistics

Disclaimer. I'm not an economist or a statician, and I don't have any governmental internal information. I'm only a spaniard.

I've just read a piece of news about Moody's considering Spanish outlook stable. Although I don't foresee a default's risk, I completely disagree. I think Spanish conditions are deteriorating very fast. I recommend reading this article on Moody's decision.

Anyway, I remembered reading that in recent months Government's income and expenses figures have been alarming. Usually, when I get contradicting information I tend to go to the original source. In this case I went to this official paper containing income and expenses. The report is in Spanish, and considers two methods for calculating data. One would be in terms of cash flow, and the other in terms of obligations. It shows data up to June 2009. I went to pages 22 and 23, and compared this year cash flow data with data from 2006 to 2008, so that I could figure out total non financial income and non financial expenses for this year.

Expenses seems to be rather predictable. For the past year month by month one can see similar expenses in terms of the total expenses amount for the whole year. This year seems odd, but I don't thing I'll miss if I write that total expenses for the whole year would be in the range of 180 billion euros (180,000 million euros).

However, when looking at incomes, one can see the problem. And the problem is that incomes figures have crashed. To the point that from April to June, income was 470 million euros, which is roughly 1/20th the amount in recent years for that period. I don't see it recovering in coming months, so I wouldn't expect more than 60 billion euros.

Subtracting expenses from incomes, I get a total deficit for the year of 120 billion euros. Which means that expenses are three times the incomes.

Hey. I wish I could spent 3 times what I earn.

Anyway, what's more shocking for me is that usually we don't get deficit as a part of expenses, but as a part of GDP. If I divide 120 billion by 1060 billion (total Spanish GDP), I get 11,3%. The usual prediction you can get it's in the range of 10%, so probably my figures are wrong (see disclaimer above).

But then I thought "What deficit would Spain have if incomes were 0?". 180 billion divided by 1060 billion. I get 17%.

Deficit as percentage of GDP has no value for me as a citizen. Because I cannot evaluate how good or bad is the figure.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

New Year's resolutions ... in August

I've been on holidays, and I've had some spare time to stop and think.

Last couple of months have been special. Some events have affected profoundly.

One of those events has been the death of a collegue. Antonio was a young man. At least young for me, since he was in his early 40's, only a few years older than me. Antonio was a nice guy. I remember him laughing a lot of times. Antonio was smart, talented, and on a technical level he always had a different perspective too. As it turns out, it wasn't enough for him.

The second event was reading this inspiring post about how easy is to let your life flow. While reading that article I felt like as I was looking at my life. I work better under presure. I want to point a couple of examples. One, while studying International Baccalaureate. I worked a lot, learnt a lot and enjoy a lot. I felt alive. The other was while preparing the competitive examination to become a Civil Servant. My two daughters were one year old. My wife took care of them while I managed to study (a lot) after work, concentrating in the preparation while in the same house there were two little girls playing (and screaming ;D). But when there's nothing challenging, life flows.

I have a wonderful family that gives me a reason to live. I love my wife. I love my daughters. I don't feel depressed.

But I feel that, most of the time, life flows and I'm carried rather walking. And I want to be walking. And I need new challenges.

The start of a new scholar year is a good time to plan them. They won't be huge challenges. But by writing them here I hope I can achieve them.

So here are they:
  • Books. I used to read a lot of books. I love reading. But I haven't been doing recently. Today I've received a list of essential novels and I've discovered I haven't read a lot of them. So I'm planning to read at least 20 books of that list I haven't read yet until August 2010. That doesn't look too much. But I want to set some number.

  • Blog. I like blogging, but I don't think I have too many interesting things to say. However, I want to practice my English. And I think this is an excellent way to do it. That's why I'm going to try to post once a week until August 2010.

  • Software developing. I like software developing, but in my current position I do a more managerial work. So I'm going to develop at home. The problem with this resolution is that it's not easy to quantify. Should I read new techniques?. I already do. Should I write X lines of code?. Oh c'mon. I'm not such a moron. So this resolution is to use three hours a week to develop something, probably some kind of web application to scratch a personal itch.

I'll try to post my progress on these challenges in Twitter. Although the blog posting is easier to check here.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Netbook Operating Systems

A few months ago I got a new Acer Aspire One A110. It's an Atom N270 with 512 MB RAM and 8GB SSD hard disk and 8.9'' screen. It came with a personalized version of a Linux distribution called Linpus Lite based in Fedora 8. Since the first day I've been testing several Netbook OS and I wanted to share my thoughts about it.
  • The original distribution, (as I've said) is a personalized version of Linpus Lite. It boots very fast, and works smoothly. However, it's locked, and configuration and installation of new software (or updating of existing) is daunting. Fortunately Acer put a repository with new packages, although it's still not enough.

  • The first OS I tested was Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It's a distribution based in Ubuntu 9.04. It has some interesting things, like a menu/desktop interface more usable in small screen netbooks than traditional Ubuntu or Linpus. It also had access to the full Ubuntu repository. However, it took twice or three times more time to boot than Linpus. And it seemed sluggish.

  • Following I tested Moblin. It boots very fast, and works pretty well. The first version I tested was a bit unpolished, but it's being updated pretty fast. However has two things that I personally don't like. The first one is that Moblin seems to encourage a particular way of working. For example it has a specific place for a specific twitter client. And the same for the browser. "What if I want another browser or if I don't use Twitter?". The second thing is that sometimes is difficult to close and application because top menu gets unfolded. To sum up it's very fast, but not designed for me.

  • I also tried to test Live Android OS. It worked pretty well on a VirtualBox under Windows 7. However I couldn't make it boot on my Acer, and it seems a known bug. Of course it's an early port to i386 architecture.

  • Next I tested Jolicloud. It's a new Operating System, and tested only under invitation. It seems based in Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and has two very interesting concepts. The first one is that in the installation process you have to select the model of the netbook. That seems to make a personalized version of the operating system perfectly adjusted to the model. The second interesting thing is a great catalog of applications some of them web applications, some of them client-only. The good thing is that for the user is indifferent. Besides those concepts, being based in Ubuntu Netbook Remix have the same problems than the original. Slow boot and slow operation. Also, the installed web applications seem based in Prism, and I don't feel comfortable clicking links there because it has to start a new browser.

  • Last I tested Xubuntu. Xubuntu works better than Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but boots slow. Also I installed the governor dock applet. If selected powersave, sometimes it went jerky. If selected ondemand battery disappeared. For the record Chrome with plugins is still unstable in Linux.

  • I also installed Windows XP in my brother-in-law's netbook, the same brand and model. It could run WXP, but again it seemed slow.

The bottom line is that I like Moblin for the speed, Ubuntu Netbook Remix for the software and look and feel, Jolicloud looks promising... but I'll keep using Linpus, while waiting to Google Chrome OS.
What I want? An operating system that ...
  • ... can boot and launch a browser very quick.

  • ...tries to save battery. Bonus point if I can remove an USB stick while suspended without crashing.

  • ... runs fast

  • ... apart from a browser, has already installed (or one-click away) Flash Plugin PDF viewer, and a media player. Bonus point for an Office suite.

Nothing too strange for a Netbook, I bet.