Liopic – Page 33

Orange’s triumph

Orange thinking! Looking at some photos of me in Zürich, I realized that I love my orange T-shirt. Moreover I also enjoy wearing my orange sweater. But the most interesting discovery I made was that the walls of my bedroom are (dark) orange too. Hold on!, also my favourite towel is orange.

So I looked for some information in internet about this colour. It’s sunny, full of live, happy, warm; it suggests creativity, determination, success, etc. And it’s the colour of the orange fruit, typical from Valencian country (where I am from). Therefore it must be my (new) favourite colour!

Should I change this blog according to my favourite colour? Maybe I have to.

This is the “bad” thing about talking too much with graphic designers 😉

Biological cleaning

A month ago I drunk the last tea from my old teapot. I neglected it in a corner of the kitchen, with some water and green tea leaves. I thought the cheap iron that it was made of was too old, and the teas didn’t taste good.

Today I thought of giving it a second opportunity. What a surprise!! The inside of the teapot was full of mould. It seems that some bacteria had grown with the help of the water and the leaves. But when I threw the leaves I discovered the bottom was totally clean. These bacteria had eaten all the dirt, so (as you can see in the photo) the iron at the bottom is now totally new.

Maybe I should recover these bacteria from the trash, and feed them. I’m sure they’ll help me with the dishes 😉

Tactics & Strategy in life

“Tactics is doing the things right.
Strategy is doing the right thing”

Next weekend I’m going to participate in the “Gofme Handicap Go Tournament“. It’s probably the funniest Go tournament in Spain (but also “Go in the Street”, held in Barcelona in August, it’s another winner). Because it’s a handicap tournament, the chances of winning all games are a reality. In fact last year I finished in third position (they gave me 50eur to burn on books), with only one defeat. This time I’m going, again, with the idea of winning the tournament. “Scare my opponents and not be scared by them” is my main strategy. But maybe it’s not a polite (or honorable) idea…

Sometime ago one of the stronger players here in Barcelona told us some words about the honorable way to play. “You should not play to win the game, but only to play as good as you can… it’s like life, where you don’t play to win… you only play life in the best manner you can/feel”, he taught us. Interesting idea. To play putting your best into every move. It’s not too easy in a Go game, and it’s really difficult in real life. Is life like a game? It’s really difficult to move in some complicated situations (like trying to love a girl, or trying to get a job), but I think it’s a good idea. To play as good as you can. And, with every new move, use the previous moves in the most profitable way.

And ENJOY! Because it’s only… only… (like) a game.

Programming while I’m in the sky

In my last flight I discovered something with my laptop. It was the first time I used it inside the plane. Normally I prefer to sleep (or try to). But in this case I was trying to program some ideas (specifically a CMS using AJAX), and suddenly I discovered my usual text editor didn’t fit all my needs without a mouse. Normally I use a modern editor to implement web pages, Notepad++, but without a mouse it’s not so comfortable. Then I remembered an “old friend”, Vim.

Text editors Let me introduce Vim. Some decades ago, in the old Unix times, somebody created a clever text editor called Vi. Later, in 1991, another person improved it, so Vim (Vi improved) was born. It was a weird editor for the newcomers, but really effective for the experts. I used it at the university, but later I forgot it, because it was a text IDE, without the new and modern options it should have (windows system, mouse use, friendly interface and such things). However some weeks ago I read they are still improving it, and I installed it in my laptop (for curiosity). And it was amazing, because I discovered it fits perfectly for my needs when I’m programming in a plane, only with the keyboard of my laptop. So I’m learning, again, all about it. Programming with Vim in a plane! I’m sure the inventor never dreamed about it, three decades ago!

:wq

Teaching Go, everywhere

Some days ago I found at Flickr a funny photo made by one of my work-mates. As you can guess, I help my colleagues a lot with programming issues… but also I teach them “other stuff” 🙂

When I started to work in this company, one an a half years ago, someone asked me about my hobbies and I commented something about Go, my favourite game. Some days later I brought a magnetic board, and we started to play after showing them the rules. Every worker of the office started to learn!! Some of them really loved the game. This picture shows one of those moments, queueing to play. And it was incredible that the bosses didn’t complain about it (but they looked at me with weird eyes). Maybe I was too proselyte (in the sense of converting people into Go players), hehe. Some weeks later I bought 3 boards for the office, and we moved it from the office-room to our kitchen (to hide the playing from the clients & visitors).

Today only 2 colleagues remain playing, but it’s fine. I feel proud of them 🙂

The music is here again!

Finally it’s at home!!

Last January I brought my keyboard to the technical service, due to a small problem with the data-wheel. I can also program it with the numeric keyboard it has, but it’s quicker to use the data-wheel as the input device. They said it’d be repaired in 2 or 3 weeks.

One month later I called them, and they said they were waiting for the piece from the supplier. They said they will call me, but it didn’t happen.

One month later, they told me the same problem. They said, again, they will call me, but it didn’t happen.

Two weeks ago the boss of the service said their supplier hadn’t the piece, so they can try with a similar piece, but probably they can not repair my toy. They said they will call me, but …

Last week I got angry, and I phoned them. The receptionist said: “I’m sorry but the boss isn’t here now, we’ll call you”. “No, wait, it’s not necessary because I want to go this evening or tomorrow to pick it up, because you can’t repair it”, I added. She got surprised and said: “wait a moment”. Seems she spoke with somebody and after that she said to me: “I asked one of our experts, and it seems there is a way to repair it, I’ll call you later with more information”. And she called !!

Today I went to pick it up, repaired. It cost me 73 euro. And 5 months… this is the way Spanish people works… they only take you into consideration if you get angry and put lot of pressure on them. As always, Spain is different!

To fly and drop thoughts

Plane Take a plane once a month; this was my idea sometime ago. I’m not sure, but it seems I need a small trip every month.

Inside the plane the time stops (my mobile is my watch and it must be disconected), and my ears get closed. I look down at earth and I imagine a god letting brown paint bubbles fall down. On some places, it seems there are lots of leaves laying on the floor. Smooth shapes. All is small, like it doesn’t really matter. My throat gets dry. It’s like being nowhere for some minutes. I try to sleep, but it’s not always easy. I feel a strange mood. Like to be flying and at the same time being down to earth…

Yeah, this is the goal: let my imagination fly, and be down to earth, such a mixture of desires and realities, looking for the best way to join both.

Zürich, 1st city of the world

When I arrived at Zürich I was expecting an interesting city, because several times I read in some newspapers that it is the 1st city in life quality. The city was nice, but it didn’t surprise me. I didn’t know why they say it is the best city in the world.

I came back to Barcelona, and suddenly I realized it. Barcelona has lots of problems with the urban trains, there are too many people walking fast, lots of cars and noise… it’s not like that in Zürich! No stress, no traffic problems. That city had no special thing, but the key of the issue is that it hasn’t any problems. In fact it seems a small town from the countryside. I felt it this way, like a calm place. A mix between the best stuff of the cities (big companies, theaters, university) and the best things of the towns (calm ambience, feels secure, next to nature). Maybe the big cities should be smaller, like Zürich, with only a population of 360,000. Why are cities so stressfull? They could be different, like Zürich.

Trip to Zürich

Last weekend I visited Zürich, and I was staying at my friend Ana’s house. A lot of things happened to me, but the most relevant was about “my english”. Everyone says my english is fluent enough, but I felt in Zürich it is not. So I have the determination to improve it as hard as I can. That’s the reason I’m not going to write more Spanish here.

Zürich is a small jewel of a city. It has some strange things, like these fast changing traffic lights, or the unstable weather, but it’s not a problem for me, and I started loving it. The city itself is small enough to cross it walking: on the third day I felt all the streets in the center were too familiar to me. There are a lot of churches, and a big lake where you can swim (but not on these cold and rainy days). Because it’s Switzerland you can see clocks everywhere, so you don’t really need to wear one. I enjoyed all those details, looking with eyes of a curious child.

The photos!

In my stay there I had the honour to visit Google’s office and talk with some engineers there, it was really interesting! But the best part of my stay was to meet up with Ana in the “Real World” (we usually only meet in internet). We spend the whole time talking about lots of things, from technology to philosophy. She is nice and clever, so it was interesting to share ideas, while we were walking around the city. And I was glad to play some Go games with the feeling of real stones in our fingers, with a real board, with the sound of the stones hitting the wood. Such a nice feeling! A smile comes to me remembering her, trying to kick those “rats with wings” (pigeon), “such a young girl” 🙂 The real world is full of details and she can not be compared to her reflexion in internet. So, I can only say one thing: see you, soooooon. Onegaishimashu!

Internet es el punto de apoyo

Pensaba, mientras iba en autobús, tratando de abrir mis ojos sonámbulos…

Hoy es imposible cambiar el mundo.

Sin embargo, es muy fácil cambiar algo en Internet.
Bueno, relativamente fácil.
E internet está cambiando el mundo.
¿”Cambiar” será una operación con propiedad asociativa?

“Dame un punto de apoyo, y moveré el mundo” – Arquímedes
¡Internet es el punto de apoyo!

— In English it sounds even more interesting —

Today it’s imposible to change the world.
However, it’s really easy to change something in Internet.
Relativelly easy.
And Internet is changing our world.
So… eureka!

“Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the world.” – Archimedes (287 BC – 212 BC) Engineer

Internet is the place to stand!