Liopic – Page 32

Translateless prepositions

This morning I was thinking about prepositions. In Spanish there is a closed list, a short list, of prepositions. There are 20 of them (and in fact 2 of them are archaic), so it’s a small number, and you usually have to learn them by heart at school. While trying to wake up, my mind was playing on this issue, and I just found a literacy idea: use every preposition aiming “to you”, like a romantic poem. It was something like this (in Spanish):

…

“Preposiciones contigo”

Me gustaría ir a ti, estar ante ti, dormir bajo ti,
soñar con ti, jugar contra ti, saber de ti,
partir desde ti, vivir durante ti, pensar en ti,
colarme entre ti, correr hacia ti, hasta ti,
luchar para ti, por ti, actuar según ti,
enfadarme sin ti, volar sobre ti, e ir tras ti.

…

The problem arises if you want to make something similar in English, because there are a lot of different prepositions, so this “game of words” it’s not possible. You can’t learn it by heart at school, can you? This long list caused me some headaches in the past, 2 years ago, while I was researching on information retrieval using syntactic analyzers. We had to categorize them (time prepositions, position prepositions, an so on) to process the information in a better way. But when we thought we have the complete list, a new preposition arrived to our system and it was always a surprise: there are lots of them! 🙂

Anyway I may write something in English, developing the previous idea, but in another way. It can be interesting (at least to practise the correct use of prepositions). Hmmm, I have to think about it.

My Go rank in a button!

Yesterday I was at the Chinese Restaurant where all Go players meet every weekend. I played some interesting games with Edu (1 kyu) and César (4 dan). But the most interesting thing happened when Joan arrived. He, who is one of the most active members of the Gofme Go Club, asked me about my Go rank. “I’m 6 kyu, stepping to 5 kyu”, I replied. And suddenly he showed me a nice button with my rank written on it!
Next he showed us a collection of buttons he made, with ranks from 20 kyu to 5 dan. And, of course, everybody asked him for one. He said they were worth 50cent, but when I tried to pay him, he added “it’s free for you”. Why? “Because it’s one of your photos from our last tournament”, he said. It’s true!! Great!!

I usually publish all my photos with a Creative Commons license. So people can use my photos freely. And it’s the first time I’ve noticed somebody use one of my photos… to make a nice button. I’m so happy!!

A bad day

Yesterday was one of those days where it’s better to not wake up. Maybe the whole week was bad!

At the office the bosses were complaining about everything (from timetable to holidays to our time to have lunch) . They are making a lot of changes, and it seems this company is not going to have a nice and friendly ambience anymore. They are growing and maybe they want to be more productive, but it’s a wrong idea to tell the workers to work hard and more hours (and of course to make them angry). It’s not the way to obtain the best from the workers.

At home the washing machine pass away. Yesterday the main cilinder went out of axis and a big oil stain appeared on the ground. So I have to look for another one.

I’m fed up this week. I want to stop the train and jump out on to the grass. Where is the stop-handle?

Metaphysics on programming

One of those things which sometimes made me crazy while programming are quotes (single ‘ and double ” quotes). Let me explain…

Most of the modern programming languages include a way to manage strings, normally it’s surrounding them with quotes (for example, in PHP: $response=”Hi there!”). The question arrives when you want to add a quote as a part of the string… because every language has its own way (and it’s a little problem if you usually program in different languages). For example, in PHP this is correct: “\”“, but this doesn’t work: ‘\”‘ (instead, you must directly use ‘“‘), and it’s not exactly the same in Javascript. Next, the real problem happens when the user of your program starts to write lots of quotes as part of the input… you have to be really careful, programming some filters.

I imagine a string looking at itself, thinking “is this quote a part of myself or my end?” ;-), like the mirror in the clever drawing made by Jesús (he is a really fantastic artist, you should take a look at his new drawings). What happens when the limit of something is a part of itself? What happens when you see your limit is a part of yourself? Then you can change it, openning it!

By the way, most programmers do the laziest focus: to not allow the user to introduce quotes. But I think it’s the wrong solution, because it’s not a solution at all, but a patch. The professional way to do this is to implement a real solution, so the user can do what he/she wants. You are the person who has to spend time thinking, and not the opposite. This is the reason of this post: I spent the whole day trying to solve this problem in the most elegant form, in a AJAX-powered CMS I’m working on.

Update: At Sunday night I got it. Now I have an “edit in place” system with support of quotes marks, with an easy plus elegant code 🙂

Five things I should be doing instead of writing this post

Finish the AEGo (Spanish Go Association) website. I’m working on a new website with an easy CMS made with AJAX. I’m researching new ways to manage the content, focusing on the idea “if you want to change something, just touch it”. It’s really difficult to combine the maximum “user needs = site objectives” with the rule “clean programming”.
Play music. Maybe I need to buy a guitar. I miss playing it. Or maybe I should play my keyboard, it could be enough. I have lots of ideas, and my fingers are waiting.
Do some housework. I have to clean the corridor and my room. Also I want to “build” a new shelf for one of my music machines.
Not think about the future. These days are changing my world, my thoughts, my future. But I should (simply) let the things happens.
Fall in love. Scratch my thick front and look at your eyes with a never-seen intensity. I’ll work hard to make you feel like you are on top of the world. Sigh in every one of your nerves.

This post is over. So I must select one…

The best and the worst of summer

Summer is now here! Barcelona is raising the temperature up to 30ºC.

The worst part is that it’s too hot. The weather changes suddenly from a comfortable spring temperature to a sticky and sweaty ambient. Your body needs to get used to this heat, and this means at least one week feeling sick and having problems to sleep. For me that week was this one, and some days ago I felt I was burning my pillow with my head, and it was impossible to sleep on this hot iron that my bed was. But now I got over this, and I can start to enjoy the summer.
The best thing in summer, here in Spain, are (as you can guess) tomatoes!! (IMO). They turn red, with an intense taste. In the market next to my home there is a shop were two olds sell the best tomatoes you can find in Barcelona. They are very fond of everybody, always giving me some fruit when I buy tomatoes. Also another nice thing from this shop is that they give you an empty bag and you can select by yourself the vegetables and fruit you want. The last time I was there I got a small bag and the old woman suggested to me to get a bigger one, but I said “I’m alone at home”, and she said “it’s better to be alone than to be with bad company”. Next she started to tell me about a couple who usually went to buy together, but one day only the guy came, and told her his girlfriend tricked him with another guy. It was nice to listen to the way this old woman told the story. Finally I got some tomatoes, potatoes, cherries and one lemon only for 80cent! It’s a different shop indeed. These olds remind me of my grandfather, years ago, when he used to arrive home with a lot of tomatoes from his small house in the countryside. Lots of tasty tomatoes!! Summer starts, again… enjoy it!

Engineer in the kitchen

My father usually says “an engineer is a person who solves problems with ingenious ideas”. Both words, engineer and ingenious, have the same latin root: ingenium. Both persons, him and I, are engineers. So I must agree with him!

Last Saturday I was in the “Spanish Women’s Go Championships”. Obviously I didn’t play. But I was called to be the official chef of the event. I created a menu for six persons, and the same morning we went to the supermarket to buy the food, but unfortunatelly I didn’t find all of what I needed (I wanted to cook macaroni with pesto). So I had to invent an alternative… finally the menu was: (1st) macaroni with spicy tomato sauce; (2nd) brochettes with chicken, red pepper and small (cherry) tomatoes; (3rd) fruit salad with bananas and oranges. It tasted good, specially the brochettes, and they congratulated me for the lunch. They enjoyed my creations. Someone said “luckily you came to cook for us!” (because the organizer doesn’t cook). I enjoy cooking… it’s like creating something from nothing, as when I’m programming. To build ideas.

It reminds me of the (probably) best day I’ve had as an engineer. I was in a train, heading towards Barcelona. In front of me, on the opposite side of the table, a small girl was sitting. She was maybe 7 or 8 years old. She was travelling with her young parents. A man from the train company gave us one earphones box per person, and I folded it. Suddenly the child gave me her small box and I joint with mine, using the boxes’ lips. She was surprised and smiled. So I started to use these 2 boxes to build different things, without saying anything. And every figure I made was a surprise for the girl. Later I got 4 boxes and started to build more complicated things. It was incredible, because there are a lot of different things you can build with only some small boxes (it’s like maths, where you start with the addition and create more complicated operations like exponentiation). We spent two hours playing! She told me “build a dog!” and I made it, without opening my mouth. Her parents were so amused and surprised! Finally the man started to speak with me and he said: “you are an engineer, aren’t you?”. I felt proud 🙂

Nothing to say

nothing I want to write every day, but it’s difficult to find interesting issues. I have lots of ideas, but almost all of them seem worthless. Why write or say something which is not adding new information to the reader? Here there are some of my non-adding-information thoughts:

Dogs are for the countryside
Barcelona is full of dogs, I really can’t believe it. How can these dogs live, with only one (or less) walk per day? Things get worse if I speak about my neighbour, who uses the terrace (the shared terrace for the whole building) to walk his dogs; and, of course, we are always complaining about it, because the dogs piss (and do other things) there. I think dogs need to run, to feel free, as they are animals… and cities are not made for dogs. I feel the dogs in cities are like in a jail. But maybe the same reason can be argued regarding humans (which are also a kind of animal).

Is Catalonia becoming a nation?
What is a nation? Catalonian governers used 2 years to try to define, as aseptic as they could, the word “nation”. They wrote a new statute (a paper which describes the relation between Spanish and Catalonian government powers). Today is the referendum, and all catalonians are called to decide whether it’s a good statute or not. This morning I was reading the BBC News and its reference about the referendum was surprisingly innacurate (in my opinion). It’s not easy to speak about Catalonia, as to speak about the Basque Country, Northern Ireland, Palestine, etc. In fact it’s really difficult to have a clear opinion. In this case the most complicated thing is all about the meaning of “nation”. Outside of Catalonia almost all of the people understand it with one meaning, but here there are lots of diferent subtle interpretations.

SPAM disturbs me
I really hate when I’m “receiving 5 mails” and when they all arrive they go directly to the junk folder. It’s like you are hopping to read some news from your friends worldwide and suddenly you get nothing. Now we have some environment laws to sue pollution makers… but what about this pollution on the Internet?

Magnolia flowers in my street
These last weeks the magnolia trees in my street are flowering. White flowers which say it’s the beginning of summer. Also they say one year ago my cousin was here visiting me. They suggests to me that time is moving. However, they are wonderfull. I should take some photos.

Ouch! All of these thoughts are adding information. Maybe I’m too critical with my own ideas 😉

How many words?

Yesterday I thought about this question: “how many english words do I have in my mind?” . How vast is my English vocabulary?

So I have had an idea: to program a small script in PHP which counts words from my English posts here.

At the moment, with only 14 entries, the statistics are:
· 3234 total words.
· 1094 different words.

Top 5:
the (177)
to (97)
a (96)
i (83) [it’s actually “I” lowercased]
and (71)

I’m happy because “nice” it’s not even in the top 50. My teacher is always complaining about the excessive use of this world 😉

Travel non-stop

What happens when you start to live in different cities? You actually realized you can’t stop… you can’t stay in one city although you feel it’s the best city to live in. You start to discover the world, and you feel if you stop too long in one city you are losing time. This is an idea I was thinking today in a cloudy way, but a German girl (a friend of my flat mate) said it in this easy manner. You can’t stop! Your friends from your hometown still remain, but you are discovering the world… it’s like a way to improve your own life. Your old friends buy a car, a house, and you have nothing, but more experience and an more open mind. I prefer the latter.

Sometimes I think of Barcelona. It’s a really pretty city to live in, I enjoy it. But if I’m staying here for a long time, it seems I’m missing the rest of the world. Some months ago I had a thought about living in every interesting European city for 2 years. It was a good idea, to spend my best years discovering the world. Maybe it’s time to change, maybe I must go away… but I’m sure I’ll come back. Barcelona is really special. So it’s difficult to say “bye”. I enjoy living here, with it’s funny people, with the magic fountain near home, with it’s magic mood. But it’s a question of evolution… and the world is waiting for me!