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long time no see May 17, 2009

Posted by winden in demoscene, in real life, metablog.
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It has been now more than half a year since I last wrote, it’s funny to look back and see how sooo many things happened realise that time flies… so I think I’ll make a quick recap.

Christmas vacations:

Nice to have a few days of work from the comfort of the family couch, and the crazy glances when going for drinks at the Alameda at 3am with a t-shirt while everyone else was trying to avoid freezing with their jackets. The only negative point would be that I had to work during 1st Jan so I could not part all night long…

New android phone:

A nice treat for Christmas. At first it could not stay up for one complete day without going out of battery, but the new code version has improved a lot on that, and the photo application with the automatic GPS is really handy.

New blog:

I started the code for a new blog which I plan to host on my own domain, mainly motivated by now wanting to be held hostage anymore by pre-packaged systems. It’s not ready yet, but it will come for sure. At the very least I already have the code handy to slurp the contents off this blog, which is a plus.

Malaga offsite:

I had a quick 2 day trip to Malaga with my work team mates, we had lots of fun going around the city with Leunam and Niani hosting us around. Amonst the highlights of the trip were meeting Alex’s sister and the good time at the beach when both James and Kuba could not resist taking an small siesta :)

Breakpoint:

Contributed to the brokepoint sponsoring and took a good visit there… it was already almost two years since I last went to a big party, and was sorely missing it… It was nice meeting HAM, IQ, BP and all the others… for bonus points, I got to chat for a while Tron/Sanity^TRSI^Artwork of Interference fame  :)

Travel to California:

This time only for two weeks… too short trip, I think next time I’ll spend at least 1 month or so. The return was specially killer, I got so jetlagged I decided to take a few days off to cool down, which also helped plan future developments. While there I did my obligatory visits to San Francisco for drinks with Ryan/CTL, the Zeitgeist beer garden and new for this ocasion the Google San Francisco office. As improvements for next time, I think I’ll take a room at the city instead of Mountain View and also stay at least 1 month.

Social networking:

I’ve spent a bit of time tunning my Reader subscriptions and using it more and more to share links and comments. Also got back to using twitter to quickly broadcast stuff to the friends… back when I started using it almost no one nearby did so it was a bit of wasted time… now it had better value since more nearby people are already using it now…

Chromium for Linux and Mac:

The Linux and Mac versions have become stable enough that I can start to use them as primary browsers, the linux one at my work desktop and the mac one for my home laptop.

Some funky stuff is still happening: the mac version can’t load flash yet, which is good since it avoids unwelcome flashing stuff all over the screen but also means I have to copy-paste to firefox to watch youtube videos :/

Summary:

Lots of good things happened… and while I may post more frequently from now on, it is not a given… as they say on financial advertising: past performance should not be taken as guarantees of coming performance.

An interesting presentation on improving productivity October 27, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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I was seeing a few days ago this presentation about improving team productivity, and have but to wonder about the limiting of hours worked per day. To quote the presentation (bolds are mine): “Ford chewed on this problem for 12 years and run dozens of experiments.  As a result of Ford’s experiments,he and his fellow industrialists lobbied Congress to pass 40 hour a week labor laws.  Not because he was nice. Because he wanted to make the most money possible. We like to think of a 40 hour work week as a ‘liberal policy’ when in fact it was hard headed capitalism at it’s finest.

I guess this is worth translating: Como resultados de los experimentos de Ford, el congreso hizo leyes para tener 40 horas a la semana de trabajo. No por querer ser bueno con los trabajadores, sino porque asi ganaba más dinero. Capitalismo llevado al máximo.

Disconnected from home? Listen to your music! September 10, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life, Linklog.
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One of the things I’ve felt missing since being an ex-patria is a lack of my own language. It is true that there is many people from all over the country, and of course I keep chatting daily with many people from home, but I still lack the immediate warm of a quick good laugh or word play in andalusian :)

It may be for this reason, then, that lately I’ve listened quite a bit more than usual to Chambao. While not the overall best sellers nor the best known, the group managed to ride the flamenco-fusion fashion quite well and gave us quite a few memorable songs.

I found out quite a few videos and even an official chambao video channel, so let me link to a few of my prefered songs like the famous ahí estas tú or pokito a poko (concert in wroclaw^poland?!?).

Just like they say…

Volveré a encontrarme con vosotros
Volveré a sonreír en la mañana
Volveré con lágrima en los ojo
Mirar al cielo y dar las gracias

ps. kudos para chambao por decidir apostar por la tecnología y permitir los videos en lugar de bloquearlos :)

Como sentirse más cerca de España cuando estas fuera September 6, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life, Linklog.
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Me encuentro por el youtube unos videos del vaya semanita, y vaya si me ha gustado, ese humor puntiagudo y esas frases 100% made in spain, un ejemplo rápido:

anchon: pero maite! dios nos dijo que no cogieramos el fruto del arbol de guernica!

maite: PRINGAO! tu te haces llamar vasco? a que no hay HUEVOS de comerte la manzana?

anchon: que no? a ver trae paca y que no coja carrerilla a ver si voy a inventar la sidra!

1000% recomendable :)

Restaurante japones Maru Ichi June 15, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life, japanese.
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El otro día de vuelta del curro, me pare a comer en uno de los n-mil restaurantes asiáticos de la calle castro. En verdad este es de los pocos que es de comida japonesa, dado que la mayoría de los bares de la zona son indios, chinos o coreanos…

Mini-review:

  • +1 chicas guapas atendiendo, nunca está de más ;)
  • +2 comida excelente
  • +1 tienen comida para llevar
  • +1 precio: $16 (recordemos el restaurante aya de 36€ == $55)
  • -1 el huevo duro con los palillos es un poco complicado

sitio: maru ichi en mountain view

fotos: winden en el maru ichi de mountain view

Update domingo 15:

  • Ayer volví a cenar allí, y ahora si me explico pq en la entrada decía “espere aquí hasta que le den una mesa”… Sábado a las 6 y media y el restaurante estaba lleno hasta la bola! Fue curioso cenar de mientras en el tele tenían puesto un programa de la tele japonesa acerca del fútbol de japón…
  • Corregido el nombre a Maru Ichi

Mini-review of the week June 2, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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So, having already been for 1 week at Silicon Valley… how is this place?

  • weather: Nice, sunny, malaga-like “fresquito” but not “joder que frio copón!”
  • food, part 1: enjoy the overwhelming amount of asian restaurants
  • food, part 2: chinese restaurants have the infamous fortune cookies with random messages inside
  • places, part 0: Typical highschool-teen-film-like neighbourhoods: wide streets, trees, houses with lawns and garages
  • places, part 1: Enjoy the beer garden at zeitgeist on valencia street
  • places, part 2: Marvel at the computer history museum, full of classic toys to marvel at!
  • places, part 3: Free wifi while waiting for the bus shuttles at the Mountain View caltrain station
  • people, part 1: Some random names encountered so far: Alicia, Vijay, Crystal, Fernando, Molly, Owen or Erika
  • people, part 2: At some parts of the place, you are going to find a quite high density of not-so-random Dubliners
  • people, part 3: Amongst the biggest differences to Europe, here you can and will find girls driving taxis
  • drink, part 1: All bars will ask you for some age identification to check for 21+ age
  • drink, part 2: there is no guiness here :( …
  • drink, part 3: … but there are bars with sangria! :)

BTW, don’t forget take advantage of your +16 spanish ability:

  • spanish tip 1: you can buy “picos” at the big supermarkets, just smile and ask any spanish-speaking 50s-looking mama
  • spanish tip 2: many cooks here are from spanish-speaking families, take advantage and ask for treats

Jet Lag, que es y como evitarlo May 27, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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El Jet Lag es cuando vas de viaje muy lejos y estas con el horario tó cambiao. Entonces cuando es de dia tienes un sueño del copón, y luego a mitad de la noche te despiertas y no puedes dormir.

Hay formas de evitarlo, pero parecen mas una lección de masoquismo que otra cosa:

  • Dormir bien antes de empezar su viaje: Vale, parece razonable excepto que siempre hay que arreglar la maleta a última hora.
  • Evita las bebidas alcohólicas y la cafeína: Esta frase no me queda clara. No beber ni café ni cerveza… no lo entiendo.
  • Beber mucho agua: La tónica lleva agua, no?
  • Intentar dormir durante el viaje: El que hizo la lista se ve que no viaja en clase turista.
  • Comer fruta y verduras frescas en vez de la comida del avión: Esta lista debe ser vieja, seguro que hoy día te meten el pakete por intentar traficar con fruta fresca.
  • Llevar ropa cómoda: Hala, todos en shandal.
  • Intentar pasear por el avión: Esto debe ir con lo de beber mucha agua, por aquello de ir a mear 15 veces durante el viaje.
  • Usar gafas de sol: En Irlanda no hay de eso, tendría que hacer otro viaje antes para poder comprarlas!

Lo dicho, esta lista de trucos tiene menos usabilidad que el mando a distancia de un DVD.

Telefono nuevo March 13, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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Interrumpo mi silencio blogil para anuncia en primerísima exclusiva que, 2 meses después, ya tengo móvil con número de Irlanda. Después de haber intentado flashear de mil formas a mi querido z610i, he acabado por encargar un móvil nuevo… así que ahora tengo por un 6300 (quedará algún otro europeo por tener un Nokia??).

De momento no lo he bicheado mucho… he probado el cutre juego de la serpiente en 3d y tb trae una especie de juego de fútbol en el que los jugadores corren ellos solos (???). Todo esto en 3d y en 4 frames…

Lo que me ha llamado la atención es que trae una especie de player de flash… se podrán poner demos de flash en el chisme?

Lo que más me jode del cambio de móvil es que no me mola nada eso de los móviles sin tapa, así que no reniego que en algún momento conseguiré rapiñar la flash correcta con la que liberar el móvil.

Si le he visto una cosa que no tenia el Sony, que es la opción de ver las imágenes que tengas guardadas con zoom y es que manda webs… ya hace casi un año que tengo el móvil y aún no me explico como no pusieron una opción tan básica!

ps1. no seáis mal pensados, esta vez el cambio de telefono no implica cambio de trabajo :P

ps2. el número nuevo… paso de dejarlo en el blog a palo seco… mandarme un mail y os lo envío!

Personalizando la mesa de la oficina January 17, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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Hoy me he llevado el pechán a la oficina… en cuanto coja un poco el ritmo me llevaré algun cachivache más, se me ocurre… no se…. que tal unas pegatas ascii? ;)

Personalizando el apartamento January 16, 2008

Posted by winden in in real life.
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Me gusta la idea de personalizar el apartamento, pero dado que voy a estar como mucho un mes tampoco quiero darle muchas vueltas. Lo que si voy a tunear mañana mismo es mi mesa de la oficina… me he traido un pechán! :)

tunning de mi mesa en la antigua oficina

Hoy ya he visto mi sitio con mis chismes y he podido tomarme mi primera “cervecita después del trabajo” ;)