X de Xavier

Preparativos para un Open Space

2011-09-05T19:20:00.007+01:00

Vuelvo del Visual Management Open Space 2011 más feliz que un anís. Aunque con un pero. El mismo pero con el que volví del Agile Open Space 2011: hay muchas conversaciones interesantes que no llego a mantener por no conocer a buena parte de los asistentes.

¡Y eso que montamos una divertida red social unplugged (Gamestorming: Lo-Tech Social Network)!

Me gustaría que a la próxima reunión a la que asista llegue sabiendo algo de los asistentes a los que no he visto antes en mi vida. Me gustaría encontrarme buscando caras de algunas personas a las que no conozco pero a las que sé que quiero conocer.

Una posibilidad son las listas de twitter con los asistentes, como las que amablemente confeccionó David Bonilla antes del AOS2010 y del AOS2011 (e.g. http://twitter.com/david_bonilla/aos2011). Son útiles y facilitan los preparativos... pero están llenas de avatares irreconocibles, de nombres crípticos, de gente muda -sin twits, ni bio, ni ciudad-, de gente verborreica...

Otra posibilidad que me gusta más es hacer que los asistentes tengan que rellenar un "positioning paper" para registrarse. Se trata de un cuestionario mínimo en el que los asistentes explican algo sobre ellos, sobre qué esperan aportar a la reunión y sobre qué esperan sacar de ella. Al parecer, se trata de algo bastante común. En el Agile Coach Camp Norway 2011, nos hicieron rellenar uno, y a mi resultó muy útil.

Como ventaja adicional, esto hace que el coste del registro sea mayor que un simple click, lo que hace más improbable que la gente se apunte demasiado a la ligera y deje a alguien más interesado sin plaza.

Are we unprofessional?

2011-04-12T21:08:00.004+01:00

From Uncle Bob's Clean Code, discussing the pressures that professionals get to deliver unacceptable quality:

What if you were a doctor and had a patient who demanded that you stop all the silly hand-washing in preparation for surgery because it was taking too much time? Clearly the patient is the boss; and yet the doctor should absolutely refuse to comply. Why? Because the doctor knows more than the patient about the risks of disease and infection. It would be unprofessional for the doctor to comply with the patient.

Ouch! What a great metaphor! It really hurts, but it is also a brilliant invitation to get vocal when one needs to get vocal.

Els ciclistes opinen

2011-03-26T12:32:00.006+01:00

El 2011 he agafat la bicicleta UN dia. I resulta que aquell dia, a un carril bici de la Diagonal, unes noies em fan una pregunta, unes fotos, i em demanen autorització per publicar-la al Barcelona Informació que l'ajuntament reparteix a totes les cases.

Jo no els vaig dir a aquelles noies tan amables que cada cop anés més amb bici, doncs fa uns anys que gairebé no hi vaig mai. Si que els vaig dir que em sembla que cada cop hi ha més carrils bici, tot i que el meu amic David i la seva Brompton blau cel ho neguin amb indignació.

De tota manera, no em sembla malament que l'ajuntament em faci quedar com un gran esportista.

Tú tienes cáncer y yo no

2010-11-11T12:38:00.003+01:00

Cada vez que te encuentres pensando o diciéndole a alguien "qué putada" o "qué mala suerte", acuérdate de los mineros de Chile. Supongo que los habrá que estarán diciendose "qué mala suerte haber tenido que pasar un montón de tiempo enterrado sin saber si me iba a salvar". Pero también los habrá que pensarán que han tenido una suerte enorme de ser rescatados y estar fuera. Está claro cuál de los dos grupos siente mayor bienestar, ¿no?

Indudablemente, te vendrá mil veces a la cabeza el "qué putada". ¡Claro, es que es una putada! ¡Tú tienes cáncer y yo no! Ni tampoco aquel, ni aquel otro, ni el de más allá... Pero cada vez que te recrees en un "qué putada", estarás generando un determinado tipo de adrenalina que hará que todavía te sientas más ansiedad y con más ganas de recrearte en el "qué putada".

Por eso, cada vez que te venga a la cabeza un "qué putada", has de construirte un discurso como el de los mineros contentos. ¿Qué mala suerte: tengo cáncer? ¡Qué suerte! ¡Me lo han detectado a tiempo y voy a salir de esta! ¿Qué mala suerte: me han encontrado otro bulto? ¡Qué suerte! ¡Ha estado a punto de pasarles por alto y luego habría sido todo más complicado! En muchísimos casos, hacer una lectura en clave de buena suerte es razonable.

Y eso no es engañarse. ¿Tú crees que alguien pensaría de un minero de Chile que se sienta afortunado que se está engañando? ¡Que no me vengan con tonterías de que un pesimista es un optimista bien informado! ¡Un minero de Chile que tenga un discurso de "qué mala suerte" es simplemente un amargado, no alguien que no se engaña a si mismo!

Si sabes hacerlo, si sabes acordarte de los mineros cada vez que estés con lo de "qué putada", si sabes construir un discurso de sentirte afortunada, te sentirás mejor, te curarás antes y recibirás de la gente miradas de admiración (¡qué entereza tiene esta chica!), bastante más gratificantes que las miradas de compasión. Si te dejas llevar por el camino del "qué putada", cada paso de tratamiento será una nueva putada; objetivamente, seguro de que no habrá ni uno que sea un plato de buen gusto. Pero si sabes construir un discurso de "qué suerte", cada paso será un avance en estar curada, un nuevo motivo para sentirse afortunada a pesar del engorro.

O sea que, por fin, después de tantos años, no me vengas más con qué-putadas, qué-mala-suertes y qué-temporaditas. A partir de ahora solo quiero buenas noticias.

Un abrazo.
-Xavier

Kids need to learn to make good choices

2010-11-09T00:04:00.006+01:00

You know, kids learn to make good choices not by following directions but by making choices

I liked this sentence so much that I wanted to find out more about its author, Alfie Kohn. After reading several reviews, good and bad, at Amazon, I ended up ordering Unconditional Parenting and making worse the backlog of books on my table.

While skimming over its intro, I liked a fragment by Barbara Coloso, on teenagers whose parents complain 'he was such a good kid, so well behaved, so well mannered, so well dressed. Now look at him!':

From the time he was young, he dressed the way you told him to dress; he acted the way you told him to act; he said the things you told him to say. He's been listening to somebody else tell him what to do... He hasn't changed. He is still listening to somebody else tell him what to do. The problem is, it isn't you anymore; its his peers.

La paciencia tiene un límite

2010-10-28T22:41:00.009+01:00

Al parecer, el catalán ya no puede ser el idioma preferente en el ayuntamiento de la capital de Cataluña.

Nos están echando. Y me sabe fatal.

Hábitos de estudio

2010-10-06T11:07:00.000+01:00

He encontrado un buen artículo (en el New York Times) que habla de hábitos de estudio y se carga algunas cosas que hemos dado por supuestas toda la vida.

Jóvenes lectores, préstenme su atención, por favor.

El repaso

Repasar a menudo. La empollada del día antes del examen, nos sirve (con suerte) para el examen, pero, el curso siguiente ¡ni recordaremos que lo hemos estudiado! Repasar más de una vez el mismo material, lo va asentando.
Al repasar, empezar preguntándonos lo que recordamos antes de ponernos a releer libros o apuntes. Conviene hacerse exámenes, o escribir un esquema con lo que recordamos del tema, porque, recuperar una información de nuestra cabeza hace que se vuelva más difícil de olvidar. Esto me daba muy buen resultado en la carrera, y ¡debería volver a practicarlo!

Alternar el lugar de estudio

A diferencia de las recomendaciones habituales, alternar el lugar de estudio y estudiar en lugares en los que hay una variedad de estímulos sensoriales (una ventana o ¡una mesa desordenada!), es más efectivo que estudiar siempre en el mismo sitio. Al parecer, los estímulos podrían "enriquecer" la información y provocar que la olvidemos más despacio.
¡OJO! No confundir "estimulos sensoriales" con estar en multitarea o tener encendido el messenger, el facebook y la tele: hay estudios que demuestran que el estar por más de una cosa a la vez nos hace menos efectivos.

Alternar el trabajo de distintas habilidades

Ejercitar distintas habilidades en una sola sesión de estudio mejora la retención. Por ejemplo,
- con un idioma, trabajar vocabulario, lectura y pronunciación en cada sesión de estudio.
- si en Historia del Arte estudiamos 12 pintores, aprenderemos a reconocer mejor sus obras, si las vamos viendo mezcladas que si vemos primero las de un pintor, luego las de otro, y otro...
Sea porque el cerebro está más contento por la ausencia de monotonía, sea porque le damos más herramientas para comparar y reconocer patrones, el aprendizaje es más duradero.

I have been reading

2010-10-05T10:22:00.005+01:00

I have not been posting in months, but I have been reading some books.

http://books.verg.es/index.html Notes on some of the books that I have been reading
http://notes.verg.es/index.html Notes on articles, presentations, tools...

I have also added some watercolor-painted stick-figure icons to http://els.verg.es/xavier, that has links to some of the different pieces of my digital identity.

OpenID

2010-05-18T08:05:00.003+01:00

I'm a happy new user of http://myopenid.com.

Registration was very simple
The OpenID urls you get are nice (yourchoice.myopenid.com)
It supports multiple personas, i.e. during the signon process, you can choose differents sets of personal information to share with the requesting site
You get a detailed account activity report

Out of laziness, I've been resisting for years to get a proper OpenID account. Sometimes I've been using the one provided with blogger.com; others, my Flickr photostream url. And then sometimes I've signed up to places using my google or twitter accounts. In fact, a site requesting access to my list of contacts during registration with my google account has been the trigger to take care of this.

Two html lines have allowed me to use a vanity url (http://els.verg.es/xavier) and to avoid getting married to myopenid.com

Secretaries

2010-02-19T16:20:00.002+01:00

From The Attention Economy : Understanding the New Currency of Business:

Expect to see personal assistants whose primary job is to sift through information and eliminate unnecessary drains on high-powered knowledge workers' attention (perhaps we will call them "secretaries").

As far as I'm aware, we haven't reached that point yet, and most business still value more cost-cutting on support staff than having people waste their attention in business logistics. Does not look that diffused complexity is planning to go away any time soon.

Acelerador sensible y malos frenos

2010-02-07T21:35:00.006+01:00

He leído un artículo estupendo sobre cómo los adolescentes gestionan el riesgo: No Brakes! Risk and the adolescent brain. Lo resumo para mis amistades perezosas o poco amigas del inglés, pero recomiendo la lectura del original. Es más, recomiendo la subscripción a la sección de familia de Slate.

Thailand Drunk Driving by nathansnostalgia, on Flickr

Los adolescentes son como coches con un acelerador muy sensible y unos frenos de chichinabo. No es que sean incapaces de entender que una conducta es de riesgo, sino que, simplemente, esta puede parecerles la opción correcta. La presencia de otros adolescentes aumenta el atractivo de la conducta arriesgada; esto es así tanto si están jugando a un videojuego, en el que conducirán o matarán marcianos de manera más temeraria, como si se enfrentan a un "simplemente di no", a un "póntelo-pónselo" o a un volante o un manillar de verdad.

Los sermones familiares y las campañas de prevención parten de la base de que los adolescentes no entienden los riesgos y se hace necesario explicárselos; en la mayoría de los casos, los entienden perfectamente, y por ello sermones y campañas tienen un efecto mínimo.

Al parecer, ciertas dosis de riesgo son sanas. Sin embargo, los adolescentes que son grandes amantes del riesgo y no se matan por el camino, tienen probabilidades más elevadas que la media de un futuro feo y conflictivo. Y, oh sorpresa, también los adolescentes alérgicos al riesgo.

Afortunadamente, el amor al riesgo se cura con el tiempo. Se va incrementando desde los diez años, suele tener un pico hacia los 15 ó 16, y se estabiliza hacia los veinte. En la fase descendente, las conductas de riesgo suelen ser más individuales y menos de pandilla.

Además de cruzar los dedos y esperar a que lleguen enteros a los veinte, ¿pueden hacer algo los padres? El segundo artículo de la serie da algunos consejos.

Como ya sabían las abuelas de nuestras abuelas, ¡cuidado con las malas compañías!
Cuanto más tarden empiecen, mejor, y despistar no es mala idea ¡Vamos otra vez de compras!
Vigilancia/control. Si es posible, llegar a la adolescencia habiendo creado una atmósfera en la que padres e hijos se cuentan mútuamente qué hacen durante el día y con quién.
Valores convencionales. Hay menos conductas arriesgadas en aquellos chicos de familias en las que se valora el esfuerzo, el aprendizaje escolar, la figura del profesor, la lectura... y en las que se hacen cosas juntos a menudo.
Desarrollar alguna habilidad, especialmente si puede utilizarse durante la adolescencia y con otros compañeros: practicar un deporte, tocar un instrumento, tener un hobby...
Tener una buena relación. Los chicos que valoran bien la relación con sus padres tienen menor tendencia a las conductas de riesgo. Los hijos de padres demasiado permisivos o demasiado autoritarios tienen más probabilidades de caer en conductas antisociales.

Me gusta el penúltimo párrafo del artículo:

Los padres a menudo se sienten presionados por una resbaladiza lógica que les dice que "si dejo pasar esta, perderé el control y mi hijo se convertirá en un bárbaro", pero esto es lo contrario de lo que suele pasar.
Monta un batalla sobre cada pequeña cosa y perderás tanto las batallas como la gran guerra. Y la metáfora sobre perder batallas y ganar la guerra es poco acertada porque arranca poniéndote en contra de tu hijo.
Una metáfora mejor: diriges un barco hacia el objetivo de convertir a tu hijo en un adulto competente, bien ajustado y no aprovechón; ese objetivo requiere navegar haciendo bordos en zig-zag, aunque a veces parezca que nos alejamos de él.

¡Espero que la singladuras que me tocan no sean muy complicadas!

Carrots & Sticks? Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose

2009-11-30T23:58:00.004+01:00

Fun and surprising TED Talk by Dan Pink on Motivation.

Experiments show that extrinsic motivators (carrots and sticks) work great for simple/mechanical-like tasks, probably by providing a narrow focus. But... rewards make performance worse for creative/complex tasks!!!

It's a funny coincidence that today I picked up a free copy of the The Wall Street Journal and it had an article on executive bonuses. Huge expensive carrots that, according to the experiments above, lead to less ability to deal with complexity.

Using OLPC XO as an ebook reader for O’Reilly’s Safari Books Online

2009-11-25T12:11:00.004+01:00

My XO OLPC is not collecting dust any more after I suddenly realized that its reflective screen mode would allow me to read safaribooksonline.com while outside. Firefox is an option, but I went for Opera. While connected, I open in different tabs the sections that I'm going to read; I then read in handheld mode, with wifi turned off to have a longer batery life.

I updated my XO from how it came from the first edition of G1G1. The updated version is more friendly and privides a much longer battery life.
Installed the old OLPC build of Opera.
I tried to change (to no effect) the tiny tiny menu fonts (Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Fonts -> Interface Menu. Choose DejaVu serif, increase font to 16 and select bold for the weight. Setting the Interface menu font to anything greater than 16 causes menu text to become unreadable)
I remapped the game pad buttons (more on this later)
I went to http://www.safaribooksonline.com/interim/ that provides access to the mobile interface from non-mobile devices. Note the "interim" in the url: they did not allow this until recently, when a change from html to flash annoyed lots of customers; who knows for how long this will be available.

The arrow buttons in the game pad change whenever you change the screen orientation: up is always the one that points upwards. The playstation-like buttons do not change their function with the screen orientation.

Since all I want to do is read from already loaded tabs, these are the mappings that looked more comfortable for me. This other set would allow to use links and navigate.

Button	New value	Application/Browser
o (PageUp)	Zoom in,10	Browser Widget
x (PageDown)	Zoom out,10	Browser Widget
[] (Home)	Scroll down	Browser Widget
v (End)	Scroll up	Browser Widget
Up	Page up	Browser Widget
Down	Page down	Browser Widget
Left	Switch to previous page	Application
Right	Switch to next page	Application

To change the mappings, Tools -> Preferences -> Advanced Tab -> Shortcuts and edit the Keyboard setup named "Opera Standard for Unix"; you will be creating a modified version, and going back to the default one will be easy if needed. Search for them, and edit them with a double click, changing columns with the tab key. For the last two, you'll have to clear the search field, select the "Application" row and then click on "New..."

Changes

2009-11-13T16:10:00.007+01:00

Changes, changes, changes... Please, do not tell my mum about them, because she would be very upset with me!

Last July I took a two years leave from IBM. In a very smart move (in my opinion), IBM is paying me a third of my salary during a period that is forecasted to be of low business. I am allowed to work (and I need to!), but, obviously, I cannot work for IBM's competitors. They are investing this money to get a re-energized employee or, if the employee doesn't go back, to have him leave without having to lay him off, saving quite a bit of money.

I plan to take advantage of this by doing lots of learning and following some long time interests that I was performing on top of my formal role of at IBM: dealing/trying to make sense of organizations and teaching.

So what have I being doing during this months? Besides lots of reading and learning, Ganyet, Banzy and I toyed with the idea of working together in super-secret super-cool project, but, after a few weeks, I did not find a way to fit my skills into their needs; it is a pity, because world domination is in their road map.

When I left university, I should have made a project to become officially an engineer. I then joined IBM, and I was not disciplined enough to spend my free time finishing the project that I just started before joining. Almost 20 years later, I'm fixing that. And I'm very excited about it, because my project is about the software that should help to build a community around 1x1microcredit.org, a peer-to-peer micro-lending website that will offers people the possibility to lend money at low interest rates to poor people so that they can escape poverty, just like kiva.org. PHP aside, I feel very lucky for being able to work in a project that is technically cool and has an even cooler goal.

"because" vs "in order to"

2009-11-12T09:36:00.004+01:00

Charles Handy, in The Age Of Unreason
Continuous change is comfortable change. The past is then the guide to the future. An American friend, visiting Britain and Europe for the first time, wondered, "Why is it that over here whenever I ask the reason for anything, any institution or ceremony or set of rules, they always give me an historical answer, 'because'; whereas in my country we always want a functional answer, 'in order to'. Europeans, I suggested, look backward to the best of their history and change as little as they can; Americans look forward and want to change as much as they may.

I'll keep an eye opened to see what answers I give to myself, and what answers I hear from other people. Being an in-order-to person looks to me like a very nice goal.

Peter Drucker: from supervision to objectives

2009-11-09T23:40:00.005+01:00

Last post about the episode about Peter Drucker in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management.

Drucker later elaborated on the setting of objectives in Managing by Results and many have considered this to be his most important contribution to management thinking. He shifted the focus of management actions away from the inputs to the outputs. It was management by results rather than management by supervision.

(...) Management by Objectives can turn into management by targets and quotas, with workers spending more time chasing the numbers than doing the real work. (...) Drucker knew this. The measures had to measure what really mattered. What Drucker wanted was a workplace where workers were trusted to get on with the job without undue supervision, where they knew what was expected of them and were clear about how it would be measured and how they would be rewarded.

Peter Drucker on decentralization

2009-11-08T12:28:00.003+01:00

Yet another post about the third episode in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management.

He explained, for the first time, how and why decentralization worked. He calculated that 95 per cent of all decisions in General motors at that time were taken by the divisions, leaving only the really big ones for the centre. Drucker was keen on decentralization because of its impact on what he called Human Effort, the motivation it provided to people to work and to learn. Decentralization created small pools where people felt that their contribution mattered. Those small pools also meant that there was space for young executives to make mistakes without threatening the future of the company. They were, he said, farms for growing talent.

Peter Drucker was there before

2009-11-07T09:42:00.003+01:00

The third episode in The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, is about Peter Drucker. Now it's a nice time to learn a bit more about him, because right now Drucker's Centenial Week is happening: http://www.drucker100.com/, and some life webcasts will be on during this weekend.

I suddenly realized that Keynes and all the brilliant economic students there were interested in the behaviour of commodities, while I was interested in the behaviour of people.

Charles Handy and Potfolio Lifes

2009-11-04T11:25:00.003+01:00

What interested me was not the downsizing or the re-engineering itself, but the consequences for our individual working lives. Organizations, it seemed to me, would increasingly dispense with our services in our mid-lives as they concentrated on fewer and younger people in their cores, with only a few wise heads to keep the show on track. The rest of us would have to develop what I called 'portfolio' lives, a mix of different bits and pieces of work, some for money, some for fun, some for free.

That quote was from Charles Handy, in the second episode of his Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, hardly about management, but about society.

The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management

2009-11-03T15:50:00.004+01:00

From BBC's Learning English, The Handy Guide to the Gurus of Management, an old (2002?) and delightful audio series.

Do not miss it.

It is written and narrated by Charles Handy. Listening to Handy's voice is a pleasure. And it does not matter if you don't care about businesses or management: most of it is about society and some of the changes in our world during the last half century.

Each episode is less than 15 minutes long, and has a full transcript.

Analyze your traffic without you

2009-11-03T10:59:00.005+01:00

Even when you have like a dozen visits a day, checking google analytics now and then is nice (hey! a vsitor from Belize!). However, it is nice to be able to tell what traffic comes from yourself and what comes from your two readers (if any). A bookmarklet can help you to enable a filter that will allow analytics to remove you from its stats, or even to track your own usage of your site.

Update: bookmarklet magic moved from the defunct googlepages to amazon s3 to http://code.verg.es/sharebookmarklet.html

El autor sin abuela y la teoría de la organización

2009-10-30T00:10:00.007+01:00

La portada de la PDA gigante era un mal augurio. Si no fuera porque el material de la asignatura Organización y administración de empresas II, que curso en la UOC, está basado en gran parte en este libro, la PDA platillo volante habría sido suficiente para dejar el libro en la estantería de la biblioteca.

Pero, ¿qué importa una portada? Se trata de los contenido, y parezco estar en buenas manos. Al menos, el autor, Eduardo Bueno Campos, no tiene la menor duda de ello; de los prólogos de la primera y segunda edición extraigo las siguientes muestas

la aparición, en 1976, de la primera edición de mi obra clásica

esta década transcurrida ha provocado que mi cosecha intelectual y mi patrimonio científico se haya incrementado de forma destacada, con un buen número de artículos en revistas nacionales e internacionales de impacto científico, así como nuevos libros...

Pero leo y leo y, ¡ay! , no puedo compartir el entusiasmo del autor por el mismo autor. Y, básicamente, todo se reduce a que soy incapaz de relacionar mi percepción sobre las organizaciones con las que convivo o he convivido con la mayoría de cosas de las que me habla el libro. Capítulos enteros sin entender de dónde venía el texto (¿descripción de la realidad? ¿prescripción para mejores organizaciones? ¿alguna escuela de pensamiento reconocida? ¿el propio autor? ¿palabra revelada?).

Otro libro sobre teoría de la organización describe muy bien porque me interesa la teoría de la organización y por qué me decepciona no disfrutar leyendo o discutiendo sobre ella:

all forms of collective activity - politics, the family, as well as work - are about organizations in some way. Which also means - and it is a major failing of most books to ignore this - that to study organizations involves thinking about philosophy, politics, ethics and much more. And behind or beyond these abstractions are the lived experiences of people not just working together, but joking, arguing, critizing, fighting, deciding, lusting, despairing, creating, resisting, fearing, hoping or, in short, organizing. I don't find it easy to imagine a world without organizations, but I also don't find it easy to recognize that world in the mainstream books about organizations

He disfrutado de este segundo libro como de una novela, aunque a menudo he estado en desacuerdo con el autor Chris Grey. Otro día, más sobre el estupendo A Very Short Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Organizations.

Comprant llibres

2009-10-23T19:00:00.002+01:00

M'he convertit en un entusiasta de The Book Depository. Normalment hi comprava els llibres via amazon.fr; acostumaven a sortir-me una mica més barats que comprant-los a Amazon mateix. Ara els compro directament, amb enviament gratuït, i encara em surt una mica més barat.

amazon.com, però, segueix sent insustituible a l'hora de buscar opinions. I sempre intento començar llegint algunes de les opinions amb menys estrelles. Entre altres motius, per què em convé més que em convencin de no comprar un llibre que de fer-ho.

Bonuses

2009-10-07T07:19:00.009+01:00

Henry Mintzberg:

Executive compensation has become a polite form of thievery, or, if you prefer, legal corruption. Executives get paid extra when the stock price goes up (bonus) and when it goes down (golden parachute); they get paid extra for staying in their job (retention bonus (...)), and for just doing their job (a bonus for signing a merger (...)).

As for the argument that if you don’t pay the bonuses, you don’t get the right person, I counter that if you do pay the bonuses, you get the wrong person. You get someone who is willing to single him or herself out from everyone else, at the expense of teamwork (...). The CEO, like everyone else in the company, has a job to do and should be paid for doing it. (...)

For the sake of sustainable enterprise: Executive bonuses should be eliminated. Period.

From http://www.mintzberg.org/pdf/execbonus.pdf

Once things have happened once

2009-10-05T09:22:00.006+01:00

Charles Frankel, in High on Foggy Bottom; an Outsider's Inside View of the Government

Once things have happened, no matter how accidentally, they will be regarded as manifestations of an unchangeable Higher Reason. For every argument inside government that some jerry-built bureaucratic arrangement should be changed, there are usually twenty arguments to show that it rest's on God's own Logic, an that tampering with it will bring down the heavens.

Likely to be a valid statement also for individuals

Com és el dia a dia dels investigadors?

2009-10-01T22:22:00.002+01:00

http://www.prbb.org/openday

Has extret mai ADN d’un kiwi? Saps com Darwin va desenvolupar la seva teoria de l'evolució? Vols crear el teu propi fòssil? I... per a què serveix, en definitiva, la ciència?

Ara és la teva! Després de l'èxit de l'any passat la segona Jornada de Portes Obertes del PRBB et permetrà de nou respondre aquestes i altres preguntes, fer de científic per un dia passejant pels laboratoris i fent experiments reals.

Si mai us heu preguntat què s'hi fa dins d'aquest edifici de les fustetes que hi ha davant del mar, aquesta és la vostra oportunitat per esbrinar-ho.

Apropeu-vos-hi amb tota la família el proper dissabte 3 d'octubre. Hi haurà activitats per a petits i grans!

Gràcies per l'avís, Maik!

Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

2009-09-16T06:27:00.002+01:00

Sacha Chua rocks, as usual

Smarter Work: Why Social Networks Matter

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

La teva responsabilitat

2009-09-11T16:30:00.005+01:00

M'ha agradat el discurs de Barak Obama de principi de curs. M'agrada que hi hagi un discurs presidencial de principi de curs!

Això vol dir que -ai!- els meus pobres fill hauran de patir-ne una adaptació Vergés.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

My tablet PC says hi

2009-09-10T22:02:00.004+01:00

One of the joys of not being an Apple fanboy is that you can already be the user of a tablet PC. In case you are not aware of it, tablets are cool, comfortable and in a similar price range than any laptop.

In june I got an hp tx2000 at http://mcs-n.com and paid €712 for it. I took advantage of Plan Avanza's interest free credits.

It's small and easy to carry around; reading on it with its screen folded, either on the coach or in the bus, is very comfortable. Unfortunatelly, battery life is not that great; I'm hopping to extend it a bit by taking the time to undervolt its cpu.

It came preloaded with lots of crapware (dear HP, haven't you considered that maybe all this bloatware makes your hardware look bad and underperformant?). I wiped it and did a clean installation of Vista 64bits (make that two or three clean installations... damn activation!) Update: Before doing a clean install on a tablet pc, you may want to save some calibration data (something that I failed to do)

I went for 64 bits because I was hoping that the OS would be taking advantage of the 4GB of RAM that are available (it won't happen with Vista 32 bits; it may happen in Vista 64 bits; I don't know if it happens in my laptop)
I went for Vista Ultimate because I found a good deal for students http://daelgolpe.es/ and I thought that I may end up needing its support for different language packs. Yes, this school year I'm a student.
I don't recall how I got out of the activation nightmare. The great Activation Backup and Restore and Microsoft alternate media allowed me to go from bloated Vista Home 32 to fresh installation to Vista Home 64. I then, don't ask me how, was able to use the Ultimate upgrade license key.

Run!

2009-06-11T14:50:00.003+01:00

cc'ing the world about something that a dear friend of mine should consider. From the New York Times: Exercise Found Effective Against Depression

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center tested exercise against the drug Zoloft and found the ability of either -- or a combination of the two -- to reduce or eliminate symptoms were about the same. But they found exercise seemed to do a better job of keeping symptoms from coming back after the depression lifted.

(...) 8 percent of exercisers saw symptoms come back, compared with 38 percent of those taking drugs and 31 percent getting both.

The studies do not prove exercise relieves depression, in part because the exercisers worked out in a group, so group dynamics may have played a role

Para votantes cuidadosos

2009-06-03T19:46:00.002+01:00

Lista de los diputados en el Parlamento Europeo, con su actividad parlamentaria, lista de presencia, declaración de intereses económicos... Aunque sería más divertido si fuera como el envidiable TheyWorkForYou.com.

Energy

2009-06-02T13:19:00.002+01:00

One can view the constant interaction with people in terms of energy.

How do you tend to feel after dealing with a given person? More energized? Drained?
How do you think other people feel after interacting with you?

This idea can go far beyond fluffy self-helpy introspection. By asking this sort of questions in an organization, one can map enthusiasm and get a good indication of where energy is high, and creativity and innovation likely to occur.

Driving Results Through Social Networks: How Top Organizations Leverage Networks for Performance and Growth talks about enthusiasm networks.

Nothing gets done here without someone somewhere getting enthused about an idea and then enthusing others.

And, without stopping talking about business, we can get back into self-helpy stuff... The book identifies some behaviours that are perceived as generating positive energy:

Do you do what you say are going to do and address tough issues with integrity?
Do you see realistic possibilities in conversations and avoid focusing too early or heavily on potential obstacles?
Are you mentally and physically engaged in meetings and conversations?
Are you flexible in your thinking and do you use your expertise appropriately?
When you disagree, do you focus on the issue at hand rather than on the individual?

Sellos

2009-05-29T05:33:00.002+01:00

En Correos puedes convertir tus imagenes

en sellos

Cada sello, equivalente a los que valen treintaypoco y sirven para cartas nacionales, sale por un euro. ¡Pero hace una ilusión!

En tusello.es

Robinson Crusoe

2009-05-17T16:36:00.002+01:00

ROBINSON CRUSOE. Una novela en imágenes inspirada en la obra de Daniel Defoe de Ajubel. Estupendo.

De la colección Libros para niños de la editorial valenciana Media Vaca. Como para gastarse una pequeña fortuna.

Historia aburridísima de un SMS, un pesao y la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos

2009-03-16T16:24:00.003+01:00

El 11 de febrero Telefónica me envía un SMS

Publi: Llama al xxxxx de Telefonica para lo que necesites; telefonos, direcciones, taxis, trafico, el tiempo, como llegar,... Fin publi SMS 900502020

¿Saben mi móvil? Maniático de la privacidad, decido ponerme en contacto con la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos a través de su web:

He recibido de Telefónica un SMS de publicidad en mi teléfono móvil. Nunca he sido cliente de Telefónica con ese número. La única relación que ese número ha tenido con ellos es que una vez lo di como teléfono de contacto para una avería en mi línea fija.
¿Es esto legal? Gracias.

Un mes después, recibo del Jefe del Área de Atención al Ciudadano la respuesta que transcribo a continuación y que no me parece especialmente útil para decidir cuáles han de ser mis siguientes pasos. Eso si, el Jefe de Área me saluda atentamente, lo que le agradezco. Game over.

En relación a su consulta se le informa de lo siguiente:

La legislación vigente en materia de protección de datos (Ley Orgánica 15/1999), reconoce una serie de derechos a los ciudadanos, como son el derecho de acceso, rectificación y cancelación de sus datos personales. El ejercicio de los mismos es personalísimo, y debe, por tanto, ser ejercido directamente por los interesados ante cada uno de los responsables/titulares de los ficheros automatizados, (salvo en el caso de menores de edad o incapacitados o salvo poder expreso y por escrito del titular de los datos y fotocopia de los dos DNI) lo que significa que el titular de los datos puede dirigirse a cada una de las empresas u organismos públicos, de los que sabe o presume que tienen sus datos, solicitando información sobre qué datos tienen y cómo los han obtenido (derecho de acceso), la rectificación de los mismos, la cancelación de los datos en sus ficheros (derecho de cancelación) o la oposición a que traten sus datos para un uso o fin determinado (derecho de oposición). En este caso, deberá dirigirse directamente al responsable del fichero en donde se encuentren sus datos personales, utilizando cualquier medio que permita acreditar el envío y la recogida de su solicitud, para el ejercicio de sus derechos, acompañando copia de su D.N.I. e indicando el fichero o ficheros a consultar.

La Agencia Española de Protección de Datos no dispone de los datos de los ciudadanos.

Si en el plazo de un mes para el derecho de acceso (y diez días hábiles en el resto de los derechos) desde la recepción de la solicitud en la sede del responsable del fichero, ésta no ha sido atendida adecuadamente, podrá dirigirse a la Agencia con copia de la solicitud cursada y de la contestación recibida (si existiera), para que ésta Agencia, a su vez, se dirija a la empresa designada con el objetivo de hacer efectivo el ejercicio de sus derechos.

El derecho de acceso no puede ejercitarse a intervalos inferiores a 12 meses, salvo que exista un interés legitimo al efecto (articulo 15.3 de la LOPD).

Elles salten, però no ho anirem a veure

2009-02-14T23:16:00.003+01:00

Abans anàvem a veure els partits de bàsquet femení de l'UB Barça: ho passàvem bé, l'ambient era molt agradable i familiar, i els nens veien que les noies tenen un paper més interessant que donar saltironets amb faldilla curta mente els nois juguen. Ens agradava, però l'Universitari va desaparèixer.

Avui hem anat per primer cop a veure l'Olesa. El partit era divertit, i l'àmbient bó... fins que la gent s'ha enfadat amb l'arbitre. Cridòria, insults. La C. ha volgut marxar quan això ha començat. I a en G. també li ha estat bé.

Dotze euros menys i una activitat que ja no repetirem. Una pena.

Brick walls

2009-02-08T22:19:00.003+01:00

But remember, the brick walls are there for a reason.
The brick walls are not there to keep us out.
The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.
Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough.
They're there to stop the other people.

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture - Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams (video transcript pdf)

Could someone please clone that man?

2009-01-28T18:55:00.003+01:00

sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants

in the face of doubt, openness prevails

Lots and lots of organizations, both corporations and public administrations, could learn from these quotes. Taken from a memo by Barack Obama for the heads of executive departments and agencies. I bet that my honeymoon phase will be over sooner or later... but, in the meanwhile, would you dear lucky Americans mind cloning several hundred POTUS and sending them all over the place?

Yay for transparency!

Mapa del Mar de Dudas

2009-01-21T16:04:00.002+01:00

Mapa del Mar de Dudas, originally uploaded by -Xv.

Este es uno de los 287 mapas que el Almirante Salomon Dudas dibujó intentando describir la cambiante geografía del mar que lleva su nombre.

De Wikipedia:

El Mar de Dudas fue descubierto por Sir Salomon Dudas durante su última expedición. Su ubicación exacta permanece deconocida, puesto que el cuaderno de bitácora de Dudas sólo contenía interminables ensayos sobre cuál era el mejor tipo de letra para detallar con claridad la ruta. Se tiene muy poca información sobre la última expedición de Dudas y su final. La única documentación disponible son los 287 mapas, el inútil cuaderno de bitácora y el diario personal del segundo de a bordo.

Después de ocho semanas explorando la zona, Dudas decidió volver a puerto. Dos días después, cambió de opinión y cambio ciento ochenta grados el rumbo, para hacerlo de nuevo tres veces más. Harta de este rumbo errático, la tripulación de Dudas se amotinó y le abandonó en un bote cerca de los Islas de Buridán. Mientras el HMS Zigzag se alejaba en un viaje de cuyo trágico final se desconocen los detalles, la tripulación pudo observar como Dudas remaba alternativamente hacia la Isla Norte y la Isla Sur, cayendo exhausto antes de alcanzar ninguna de las dos.

Change

2009-01-20T07:20:00.002+01:00

(via Phil Whitehouse's twitter stream)

Advertència

2009-01-19T18:02:00.003+01:00

Per un motiu o altre, la meva filla està plorant com una boja al meu costat mentre jo l'intento consolar. Entenc que això pugui trencar-li el cor i vulgui ajudar, però, si us plau, si vostè no disposa d'habilitats extraordinàries (com ara volar o treure's pilotes de ping pong del nas) no cal que s'acosti i ens interrompi.
És altament improbable que un "no ploris, maca" d'un desconegut tingui cap altre efecte que una mirada assassina per part meva, que espero em sabrà disculpar.
Agraint-li la seva bona intenció i les ganes d'ajudar,
-Xavier

A button to make it simpler to paste notes: urls

2009-01-19T17:30:00.006+01:00

I often paste links to Lotus Notes documents (mostly mail messages) in my tiddlywikis. Creating a toolbar button that puts the notes: url in a field makes it simpler. Unfortunately, LotusScript does not provide a way to access the clipboard, so you have to manually select the text and copy it there.
Create a new toolbar button and paste this code inside:


dn := @Subset(@DbName; 1);
linkType:= "Document";
nsfPath := @WebDbName;
qualifiedHost := @If(@Length(dn) = 0; ""; @DbLookup("":""; dn:"names.nsf"; "($ServersLookup)"; dn; "SMTPFullHostDomain"));
dbUrl := "Notes://"  + qualifiedHost+ "/" + nsfPath;
viewUrl := dbUrl +  "/";
docUrl := viewUrl + "/" + @Text(@DocumentUniqueID);
docTitle := @If(@IsAvailable(Subject);Subject;@IsAvailable(Title);Title;@IsAvailable(FullName);FullName;@Name([CN];@Author));
clipboardTxt := "[[" + docTitle + "|" + docUrl + "]]";
@Prompt([OkCancelEdit]; "TiddlyWiki link"; "Copy the text below to the clipboard."; clipboardTxt)

I posted this long ago in my intranet blog, and looks that can also be useful outside. The code was adapted from something that Jonathan Feinberg, of Wordle fame, wrote for a then young and great Dogear, a bookmarking service that ended up being one of the key components of Lotus Connections.

Change we must

2009-01-14T17:32:00.003+01:00

Professionally, I'm always advocating for change and innovation.
Politically, I never vote for the party that is ruling in a given administration.

Then, why oh why do I get so annoyed when I'm unable to shop the exact same model of running shorts that I bough five years ago? Or was it ten years ago?

Update:
Luis, in a comment to my original post, tries to make me feel better and invites me to put the blame on the usual suspects: politicians, executives and managers.

I started to feel better until, what started as a joke became an interesting lesson for myself: am I not showing the exact same attitude that I often and loudly complain about? The we-have-always-done-things-like-this-here automatic response? The who-cares-if-the-alternative is-better mindset? Check Ferran Rodena's Eliminating Waste: Lessons From The Trenches for an example of this attitude from a group that does not belong to the usual suspects

I was offered some more technologically advanced shorts and I did not even consider its possible advantages! I must remember this the next time that I want to push some change!

Teachers and teachers

2009-01-08T12:04:00.003+01:00

From an article in The New Yorker by Malcom Gladwell (via Bil Sherrin's intranet blog):

Eric Hanushek, an economist at Stanford, estimates that the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year.

It's a good article, focused on how hard is to predict new hires performance in some fields.

Unfortunately, I don't think this kind of metrics are obtained in the education system in my country. In fact, several teacher unions here consider teaching evaluation as something to oppose as it promotes competition over collaboration. Yep. Feedback? Who needs it?

2009 User's guide. First draft

2009-01-05T08:41:00.003+01:00

2009 User's guide. First draft, originally uploaded by -Xv.

A first draft of my 2009 resolutions/guidelines. Inspired by Sacha Chua.

make eyes shine, awe, patience, focus, simplify
start early, meditation, run, food, quit
play, listen, notes, realistic drawing, hack

Dows simplifica

2009-01-03T16:10:00.004+01:00

Vem anar a petar a Dows, a la secció de video-jocs. Sorpresa molt agradable. Ple de jocs per fer-hi un tast.
Algunes idees simplísimes però molt pràctiques: no et donen una targeta de client (millor per a tu i la teva engreixada cartera, i millor per a ells) i et guarden els tickets i les garanties (no cal conservar aquests paperets de tinta tèrmica que s'han tornat blancs quan els vas a mirar després de tres mesos).
Estava jo tan encantat quan, a la tele, veig una anunci d'un joc que havia comprat amb un preu recomanat inferior al que jo havia pagat. Ahir els vaig enviar un correu electrònic explicant-ho, i, aquets matí,

Sr. Vergés,
Com a responsable del centre de la secció de videojocs, sento el malentés que hi ha hagut amb aquest joc. Fins fa ben poc, el PVP recomanat de l’article que vosté va adquirir era 39,90 €, i malauradament el fabricant no ens va comunicar la baixada de preu dels articles a 29,90€, d’aquí l’error.
El convido a que es passi per la botiga per a que li retornem la diferencia, amb el nostre “preu mínim garantit”, i aprofito per saludarlo atentament,

Que durin!

2009

2008-12-31T08:10:00.002+01:00

2009, originally uploaded by -Xv.

Enjoy!

Patience

2008-12-28T01:13:00.003+01:00

Memo to self:

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

Lao-Tzu (Tao Te Ching)

Nope. The mud has not settled. Have to wait.

Hipòtesi confirmada

2008-12-21T18:11:00.003+01:00

M'he passat anys convençut de que hi uns pocs bons amics de fa mil anys, amb els que hi ha poquíssim contacte, als que podria recórrer en qualsevol moment. I sentir-me còmode explicant coses que no explicaria gairebé a ningú. I sentir-me alleujat en explicar-ho.

Avui he tingut moltes ganes de confirmar aquesta hipòtesi amb una d'aquestes perles que vaig conèixer fa més de vint-i-cinc anys. I m'he sentit còmode i alleujat. Estic content.

No son cosas

2008-12-18T01:59:00.004+01:00

Siguiendo con mi ánimo sermoneante...

No es una lavadora. No es ni un perro ni un hamster. Ya no es un bebé. Pero no es nada raro encontrarme a alguien por ahí que describe los defectos y virtudes de su hijo a otra persona como si el niño no estuviera ahí.
¿Te has imaginado alguna vez que como te sentirías si te lo hicieran a ti?
¡Yuju! ¡Respeto!

En los zapatos de los niños

2008-12-16T08:33:00.003+01:00

Un gracioso y buen ejemplo de la poca capacidad que solemos tener los adultos de ponernos en los zapatos de los niños. Del suplemento es de La Vanguardia:

"¿Cómo te sentirías si tu pareja trajera a otra persona a vivir en casa y te dijera que no te preocupes, que quiere mucho a esa persona y la tienes que tratar muy bien pero que eso no quiere decir que a ti te vaya a querer menos?"
Los psicólogos recurren a esta reflexión para hacer entender a los padres que los celos y la rivalidad entre hermanos son una reacción natural, tan normal que lo que se considera extraño es que un niño no sienta celos.

Y, ya que estamos de sermón, un recordatorio de servicio público: son pequeños, no idiotas.

Pushing agility from the business side?

2008-12-10T23:21:00.003+01:00

Pushing agility from the business side?, originally uploaded by -Xv.

A possible scenario:

1. IT happy with status-quo: Big Design Up Front and Waterfall.
2. Stakeholders accept non-agility as a fact of life.
3.Tell stakeholders that they are entitled to learn, to defer
decisions until the have more info, to change their opinion. That some
of their competitors use those right to their advantage.
4. Stakeholders will push agility upon IT

Just in case it helps Ferran Rodenas to get some idea to break the status-quo

Some notes about troubleshooting

2008-12-09T16:11:00.002+01:00

From Why Programs Fails: A Guide to Systematic Debugging:

Some terminology: from defects to failures

The programmer creates a defect.
The defect causes an infection (the program state differs from what the programmer intended)
The infection propagates
The infection causes a failure (an externally observable error in the program state).

Debugging can be decomposed into seven steps:

Track the problem in the database
Reproduce the failure
Automate and simplify the test case
Find possible infection origins
Focus on the most likely origins:
Known infections
Causes in state, code, and input
Anomalies
Code smells
Isolate the infection chain
Correct the defect

Note the TRAFFIC mnemonic.

Opinion ON:

That's nice theory. Unfortunately, the complexity of IT has teached us that computers are non-deterministic beasts. The first thing that we do in case of a problem is restart the system, hope that the problem will go away, and be able to keep doing our job. And it often works.

But we, software developers and support technicians, need to un-learn our hide the symptoms urge. If we suspect that there is some defect in the code (and trust this old software developer, you can be confindent that it very likely that there is one), our goal should always be to find the defect, instead of changing things so that the defect is not executed or the infection does not end up causing a failure. Leaving that defect unfixed is very likely to cause pain in a future situation. À la programming by coincidence.

Some advice

avoid corrective actions before the issue is understood. Before the failing code is identified, you should only use temporary corrective actions to help you frame the problem. I'm guilty of having neglected this rule lots of times, and requested customers to just upgrade the code to see if the issue goes away.
when possible, use tools that minimize the infection propagation (that, crash as soon as possible). On Windows, I was recently introduced to pageheap and I'm in love with. More on it another day.
defects come from source code: give support technicians access and knowledge to read the source code. Support people and developers should change seats quite often.

Present and in awe

2008-12-07T23:40:00.007+01:00

From Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (p100):

Try walking around with a child who's going, "Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!" And the child points and you look, and see, and start going "Wow! Look at huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at that scary dark cloud!" I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world - present an in awe.

Some times, like when my kids were very young, or when I'm experiencing some special scenery, this view of the world comes naturally. Others, I'm smart enough to remember to put the inner child in control.

I've spent the last few weeks walking in the street as if I were the Little Red Riding Hood on synthetic recreational drugs (smile boing-boing-boing smile), and I realized that it had lots to do with the inner child getting in control without asking for permission. This reminded me about Lamott's quote, and, in turn, to remind myself to keep letting the inner child handle the driving wheel.

Macacos

2008-12-03T09:45:00.000+01:00

Ayer envié esto, en relación a mi actuación como enlace con el equipo de soporte de un producto del que no sé casi nada, en la que últimamente me limito a esperar órdenes de gente que está en una zona horaria equivocada:

Entiendo que el problema está en un punto en el que yo aporto poco más que un macaco al teclado

Si hay suerte, hoy le pasaré los trastos a un chimpancé y podré dedicarme a cosas más interesantes. Deberé enseñarle a Pobre Chimpancé algunas cosas que he aprendido cuando he sido yo el que daba soporte:

que hay que ser paciente y no irritarse cuando te preguntan por séptima vez la misma cosa: no es nada personal.
que entre lo que digan los logs y lo que digas tú, soporte no dudará en creer lo que dicen los logs. Y te preguntarán una octava vez.

¡Oh, queridos ex-clientes! ¡Estos días he comprendido a qué torturas os he sometido durante tantos años!

Resum executiu

2008-12-02T21:37:00.004+01:00

Extractes d'un intercanvi de notes sms-iques entre la meva bona amiga O. i jo, durant i després d'un tercer grau:

Xavier:

M., del 71 (...) Amb un punt de chiflada que em mola molt. Seguiremos informando.

Xavier:

>Seguiremos informando.
M'ha plantat.
Dos mesos molt divers. Una pena. Joder, que en sou de complicades!

O.:

La generació dels 70 va abusar massa de les drogues i han quedat tots molt perjudicats.
Carpe diem.

:-)

La petita lluita entre lamentar-me pel cucurutxo que no m'he cruspit i sentir-me afortunat d'haver-ne fet un tastet l'està guanyant l'opció intel·ligent.

Exhibición impúdica

2008-11-30T22:56:00.005+01:00

Esta semana me han dado varias pastillas de Egolín en forma de cosas agradables sobre mi que alguien le ha dicho a otra persona. Y, con toda la inmodestia, las transcribo

Tu padre mola. Se lo ha dicho a G. un compañero de cole, supongo que sorprendido de que un adulto recuerde que tiene piernas y las use para hacer carreras por el parque.
Xavier's assistance on this issue was most appreciated, en relación a una actuación de bombero en un cliente.
Xavier a fait un excellent travail en décrivant les étapes du project (...) Xavier est un excellent professionnel.

Y como, a pesar de un buen principio, no ha sido una semana brillante en todos los frentes, ¡no me ha ido mal enterarme!

Actualización: aunque esta me la han dicho directamente, también ha sido una deliciosa pastilla de Egolín: Una de las primeras personas a las que acudo cuando tengo problemas de código y me quedo bloqueado. Y una de las más desinteresadas y resolutivas. Gracias.

Tweets my friends like

2008-11-25T13:57:00.007+01:00

Twitter lets you mark as favorites the tweets you like. Some people doesn't care about this, but others do add stars to tweets that are fun, enlightening, or both. I wanted to be aware of what my twitter friends mark as favorite, and after no obvious google hit, Yahoo! Pipes came again to the rescue.

The pipe creates a feed with the tweets that some one's contacts have marked as a favorite. Keep in mind that it only works for the up to 36 contacts that are shown in a user's page, since I did not want to get into the authentication issues required to get a full list of contacts. If you want, you can add additional users, that don't need to be your contacts.

Customize it with your accounts and grab it at http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/friendsfavs.

Credits: Microformat-scrapping the page is the only way I that found to get access to a list of contacts without authentication. I used Duane Cato's Microformats contacts extractor as a starting point, and just copied how he uses http://microformatique.com/optimus/ to grab the info that twitter kindly puts in hCards.

PAPItastimumoadeuunpato

2008-11-21T23:32:00.001+01:00

La C. ha fet el millor ús del Dymo que s'ha fet mai!

ABCs of z/OS System Programming

2008-11-19T12:06:00.004+01:00

One of the side effects of my recent research has been to learn that the famous ABCs of System Programming redbooks have been updated and have gone from 5 volumes to... 11!!

I've been browsing Volume 6: Security on z/OS, RACF, and LDAP. Kerberos and PKI. Cryptography and EIM. and it has been quite useful (though, in fact, it did not point me where I needed to go). Not all the volumes have been published as today. The pages for all the volumes list them all.

Certificate-based logon to zOS

2008-11-19T10:56:00.003+01:00

DCAS (zOS Communications Server's Digital Certificate Access Server) has come to my rescue. From the docs:

The DCAS can be used by providers of logon and single sign-on services where access to z/OS-based applications is needed. The DCAS is a TCP/IP server that enables clients to connect over the network and obtain a passticket and z/OS user ID from RACF.

Clients that connect to DCAS must use the SSL protocol (DCAS supports SSL Version 3). Client authentication is performed.

Clients can request a user ID and passticket for an application. The client sends an x.509 certificate. DCAS converts the x.509 certificate to a valid user ID, which is returned. The x.509 certificate must have been mapped to a valid user ID in RACF

It's the second time in a few months that DCAS is the solution to the problem that I'm working on; unfortunately, I had forgotten about the first time, so it has taken my a while to get rescued. Not a complete waste of time: if learned a few things about PKI and RACF.

The first time it was about a service to generate passtickets (strings that can be used as passwords for a short while). Despite my recommendation, the customer's choice was to not use DCAS and code it from scratch; go figure.

Now it is about authenticating to RACF from a application that uses a smartcard reader. I'm looking forward to code the smartcard-based RACF logon, since working with smartcards has been in my wish list for very long.

And since google and DCAS don't seem to be big friends, I'm posting this.

Kyrgyzstan existe

2008-11-17T05:37:00.007+01:00

Intercambio de mails con un amigo al que he visto sólo una noche en los últimos 15 años. Está en viaje de negocios:

Pue si hijo si, no hay nada mas triste que en Kyrgyzstan y con jet lag...

Kyrgyzstan??!! Kirguistán, Kirguizistán o República Kirguisa??!! De la wikipedia, algunos datos no especialmente relevantes:

5 millones de habitantes
la "Suiza de Asia central", no por el chocolate, los bancos o los relojes, sino por no tener mar y porque un 80% de su territorio es montañoso
aunque ilegal, aun se practica el rapto de novias. En un principio, en un país donde eran habituales los matrimonios pactados, el novio procedía a un rapto consesuado con la novia con la que quería casarse si no podía pagar el precio del mismo o la familia de ella se oponía a la boda. Por otra parte, algunos de estos raptos ya no son consensuados, sino que se tratan de raptos reales.
un amor de clima: el lago Issyk-Kul (el segundo lago de montaña más grande del mundo, tras el Titicaca) tiene gran amplitud térmica, con un mes frío, enero, con medias inferiores a -25ºC, y un mes cálido, julio, con medias superiores a los 45ºC.

Si su bandera no es la más chula del mundo, seguro que está en la final. Los cuarenta rayos de sol representan las cuarenta tribus que se unieron para luchar contra Genghis Khan. La parte central es lo que se ve dentro de una yurta cuando sale el sol.
Y, diga lo que diga el pobre Jose, en flickr he visto cosas que me hacen tenerle envidia.

Jurta - Kyrgyzstan, originally uploaded by zsoolt.

Som àngels!

2008-11-15T10:22:00.004+01:00

Visca el majara que ha enganxat unes ales de cartulina a la parada d'autobús i ens ha fet riure abans d'anar a l'escola!

Aprendre

2008-11-11T13:13:00.002+01:00

Aquest matí he plorat de content i li he enviat això al meu fill

Estimat G,

avui he trobat una cosa que vaig escriure fa uns anys, després de llegir una carta teva al Papà Noel. Potser tu ho recordes, però jo no ho recordava, i m'ha encantat trobar-ho. Explica-li a la mamà que segur que també li agradarà.

Després de la teva llista de joguines deies una cosa semblant a,

però el millor regal seria que em contestesis a aquestes preguntes
Tens ajudants? [s][n]
Quants? [_][_][_][_][_]
Dones els regals als nens d'aqui i els d'Australia al mateix temps?

Voler aprendre és el que ens fa llestos. Que mai et marxin aquestes ganes de saber més!

Got no desk :-(

2008-11-08T07:30:00.002+01:00

Got no desk :-(, originally uploaded by -Xv.

My very own ibm desk is gone... No place to hang C's drawings, to keep my pencils (I really just care about the one that was a present from C.), the books I'm reading... I'll also miss sitting by my former team mates after so many years...

But I really cannot complain: I'm working very often from home now, so it makes little business sense to have a dedicated empty desk at the office.

Passion for the craft

2008-10-09T06:12:00.002+01:00

Denilson Nastacio's unsolicited advice to executive teams:

promote a passion for the craft rather than demanding a passion for the business. That is empowerment over chastisement. People who understand their craft are more likely to be enthusiastic about it, when people discover they can learn something new and become good at it, they are inspired; with any luck, even passionate.

When people are enthusiastic about what they do, and that boundless enthusiasm is backed by technique rather than unchecked madness, customers tend to love it too. And when that feeling of elation comes out of succeeding at a task or beating a competitor, chalk one up to a job well planed and well done, not for passion for the business.

Graphic from Creating Passionate Users

My own unsolicited advice? Read Denilson's full post, keep in mind his story about that goalkeeper's career, and enjoy being passionate (about something you can understand and can take away with you wherever you go).

Mmmm, I'm now scheduling a meeting with myself to review my latest career decisions. (Hi, M-the-sweet-hurricane! My being green with envy about your passion and focus on working on a radical career change also have lots to do with this meeting :-)

DRAE restful

2008-10-07T21:23:00.005+01:00

Esto es http://rae.es/chulo ! Y es que, la URI es lo suyo.

sprintf_s() is not snprintf()

2008-09-27T22:12:00.003+01:00

You are compiling some legacy code with Microsoft Visual Studio. You get a warning telling you
warning C4996: 'sprintf': This function or variable may be unsafe. Consider using sprintf_s instead.
Of course! So you just change that dangerous sprintf() for a sprintf_s(). The IDE tells you about an additional buffer size parameter, so you may wrongly end up thinking that you are getting the equivalent to Unix's snprintf() or the old MSV _snprintf().

Nope. If you read the docs, you'll learn that sprintf_s() is not truncating the string, but instead invoking the run-time invalid parameter handler, and usually terminating the program. Far better than letting a buffer overflow happen, but maybe not what you were expecting.

La mujer del viajero en el tiempo

2008-09-27T21:36:00.003+01:00

Sábado pegado al sillón por culpa de La mujer del viajero en el tiempo. de Audrey Niffenegger. No creo que esta haya sido la última vez que lo leo.

Happy Stop Software Patents Day!

2008-09-24T14:12:00.004+01:00

The problems with software patents go far beyond those trivial patents that get linked from time to time.

Usual disclaimer (stolen from Read This Blog!) applies here specially: IBM has its opinions and plans; I have mine. Any resemblance between the two is coincidental

Links are cool. Links are bad.

2008-09-14T21:47:00.003+01:00

Some days I spend way too much time in my computer...

Drawn with Animatee in my lovely Nintendo DS.

My bank's money and my identity

2008-09-01T20:58:00.003+01:00

Hilarious and insightful radio sketch (2 minutes) by Mitchell and Webb on identity theft

via Bruce Schneier's Crypto-Gram

Verbose business cards

2008-08-09T00:37:00.003+01:00

Learned from Kellypuffs that linkedin users can get 50 free MOO cards. Enter Jonathan Feinberg's Wordle (and a bit of javascript).

Gmail will automatically invite some contacts

2008-08-05T17:16:00.003+01:00

Gmail will automatically invite some contacts

If there are other Gmail users whom you frequently email, you'll be able to chat and see each other online without having to send an invitation.

This wasn't the default setting some time ago, now it is, and I think it shouldn't be. To make it worse, disabling this behaviour is not reliable. My privacy is not happy.

Falta chico con experiencia

2008-08-03T15:23:00.003+01:00

Uno ya se va acostumbrando a que el papel del programador no se valore mucho, incluso por gente que se supone mejor informada, pero esta perla me ha hecho reir:

Falta chico con experiencia en programación PHP, AJAX, MySql, sistemas, etc. También precisamos un diseñador gráfico manejando bien Photoshop y Flash. Interesados enviar CV con datos completos, teléfono de contacto y horario para llamar. Si cumples el perfil puedes tener una entrevista de inmediato.

Keep hopes up (textual street art)

2008-08-02T23:02:00.000+01:00

More brilliant street art enjoyed today while sitting at home...

An artist called TRUE replaced some NYC subway security signs with some of his own with less mundane advice: Riding with despair prohibitrd, Have fun, Do not hurt people, Do not accept defeat, Strive to be happy, Do not hold grudges
- The stickers scanned: http://www.candychang.com/2008/04/04/riding-with-despair-prohibited/
- A recreation of one of the stickers: http://glass.typepad.com/journal/2007/06/making_happy.html
- A nice TED Talk by Stefan Sagmeister that mentions this an other interesting projects: Yes, design can make you happy
Ji Lee's Bubble Project: 50,000 bubble stickers have been printed. They have been continually placed on top of ads on the streets of New York. They are left blank, inviting passersby to fill them in. I photograph and archive the results. This project instantly transforms the intrusive and dull corporate monologues into a public dialogue. Our public spaces are returned back to the public.
The project is also mentioned in Sagmeister's talk, and watching/reading some of the pictures in the project's site is well worth.
Sidewalk Psychiatry, by Candy Chang

The Loch Ness Monster in NYC

2008-08-02T20:59:00.004+01:00

Some brilliant street art by Joshua Allen Harris made emerge some months ago an inflatable Nessy in the streets of New York City.

MSNBC video of the sighting. (37 seconds)
New York Magazine video with more inflatable sculptures and an interview with the author. (2 and half minutes)

Another reason to want a DS...

2008-07-10T23:12:00.004+01:00

...and another reason why Sacha Chua rocks: How to sketch with the Nintendo DS

| View | Upload your own

And while you are at slideshare, check Sacha's Web2.0@work: In Pursuit Of Passion:

| View | Upload your own

I liked the "Cynicism (...) directly affects the bottom line" quote from Dov Seidman's How. And, for that matter, falling into cynicism also makes work suck.

How many shinning eyes around me?

2008-07-06T19:49:00.005+01:00

I had read raving reviews about Benjamin Zander's talks. Now I get why...

Jornades de Programari Lliure

2008-06-30T23:26:00.006+01:00

Dimecres comencen les VII Jornades de Programari Lliure. Programa al Google Calendar.

Si m'ho puc apanyar, vull anar a

Dijous 12:30 - 13:00.
Aprenentatge de la Programació al Citilab: Squeak i Scratch
Divendres 13:00-14:00.
eyeOS : Portant el Sistema Operatiu a la Xarxa
Divendres 15:30-16:30.
Eines de virtualització lliures per a sistemes GNU/Linux
Divendres 16:30-19:00.
Taller d’Arduinos (open-hardware)

M'ho pugui apanyar o no, dissabte aniré a la Jornada de Python (de 10:00 a 14:00), doncs he dit que faria una xerrada sobre Sugar, l'interface d'usuari del XO o OLPC o $100 Laptop

SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona polls

2008-06-11T20:07:00.002+01:00

Baby steps towards having a hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere: SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona... two polls:

The BallmerBot

2008-06-05T11:01:00.003+01:00

Segway+Ballmer=The BallmerBot

Ok, not a segway but a uBot-5 from The Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at UMass, Amherst.

Picture by Simon Bisson

Video: BallmerBot

SuperHappyDevHouseBarcelona? Why not?

2008-06-01T02:27:00.002+01:00

SuperHappyDevHouse is a non-exclusive event intended for creative and curious people interested in technology. We're about knowledge sharing, technology exploration, and ad-hoc collaboration. Come to have fun, build things, learn things, and meet new people. It's called hacker culture, and we're here to encourage it.

I've been wanting to attend to something similar to SuperHappyDevHouse since I first heard about it years ago, thanks to an intranet post by Tessa Lau telling how much she enjoyed one.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a handfull of people in Barcelona interested in a hackathon event that combines serious and not-so-serious productivity with a fun and exciting party atmosphere. Summer nights are nice, and probably there are higher chances to find available venues. Mmm...

Next actions:

get first reactions from fellow hackers (and hopefully draft co-organizers)
explore some venue candidates. I don't have high hopes of finding one that allows a dusk-dawn event (the format of the first editions), but a shorter/earlier hackaton would also be cool.

Milers de blocs a les escoles

2008-05-29T07:15:00.003+01:00

Via janquim, aprenc que a http://blocs.xtec.cat/ hi ha més de 11.000 blocs d'escoles, d'accéss lliure i privat. La meva escola en té un!

Why are we able to answer emails on sunday...

2008-05-22T00:35:00.004+01:00

...but unable to go to the movies on Monday afternoons?

Why can't we take the kids to wok if we can take work home?

Those are very good questions asked by Ricardo Semler in his The Seven-Day Weekend.

Why most organizations grow fat

2008-05-20T07:50:00.004+01:00

"Piled Higher and Deeper" by Jorge Cham
www.phdcomics.com

Notes to self (voice to gmail)

2008-05-19T22:18:00.002+01:00

I often use my phone as a voice recorder to keep track of things that I don't want to forget while on the go. It has proven to be more reliable than my unreadable hand written notes. As an additional bonus, my kids love the idea and they often want to have their say in the recording, so processing the voice notes is often more fun than just listening to my odd ideas.

However, the phone's interface to listen to them is quite crappy, and checking if I have some unprocessed note has not become part of my habits. They really belong in my mail inbox, so I now have setup things to send them to my gmail account (after an unsuccessful attempt of using ShoZu, that's already gone from my phone).

Teaching my Sony Ericsson k610i to contact gmail has not been obvious, since the net seems to be full of uninformed advice about this. As correctly reported here, the problem is that the phone is missing a root certificate required by to verify smpt.gmail.com. To fix it,

Download a zip with a bunch of root certificates from http://www.thawte.com/roots/ (no need to answer to the form that you get there)
Extract the missing certificate, thawte-roots.zip\Thawte Primary Root CA\Thawte_Primary_Root_CA.cer
Send it to the phone using bluetooth, so that the phone recognizes it and prompts you to install it.

I only use the native email interface to be able to quickly send files from the phone, since http://www.google.com/mobile/mail feels more convenient.

I also had to upgrade RealPlayer to be able to listen the AMR format used by the phone. And fix the wrong .3gp extension associated to mime type audio/amr in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MIME\Database\Content Type\audio/AMR

Children are viruses

2008-05-15T11:18:00.003+01:00

I'd love to run without anti-virus and anti-spyware, but children (especially teenagers) are incredibly adept at filling any PC with trojans and viruses in a matter of minutes. They even know how to bypass most internet filter software. I sometimes think children are viruses!

Seen on a comment on a Coding Horror post about the performance hit of antivirus software (what we really need is Anti-Anti-Virus software to keep us safe from the ongoing Anti-Virus software pandemic).

Ory Segal (an IBMer after watchfire's acquisition) also "celebrates" 20 years of anti-virus software.

Back in the U.S.S.R.

2008-05-01T19:39:00.003+01:00

East Germany may no longer exist, but now we have companies featuring central planning by Troikas, mission statements crafted by apparatchiks, quinquennial planning, no right to choose leaders in companies, no democracy in the workplace, a clear distinction between intelligentsia and peasants (top CEOs make 512 times the median salary and enjoy company 'dachas', jets and limos), and 'state' monitoring (time clocks, dress codes, drug-screening, 'employee assistance' plans, e-mail monitoring, smoking and personal conduct rules, as family-life audits). [1]

This is not a quote from a labor union leader, an anti-globalization essay or a witty comedian. It's from a proponent of democracy and transparency in the workplace that happens to be a business owner putting his money where his unconventional mouth is [2]: Ricardo Semler, in The Seven-Day Weekend [3].

I loved this book, even if its writing style is not that great. Its main point is showing how Semco, Semler's company is run. When Semler and Clovis Bojikian started changing the traditional command and control ways,

"We wanted to demonstrate that the workplace could be a place of satisfaction, not of suffering. Work should be a pleasure, not an obligation. But this wasn’t just some humanitarian thesis. We believed that people working with pleasure could be much more productive.”

To Semler, it's not about values: it's about competitive advantage.

Hurry up and read his book, or take a peek into The Semco Way by reading a 1989 article by Semler in the Harvard Business Review or a 2006 article about him in Strategy+Business. I'm sure that it will give you lots of food for thought.

[1] Soviet/Corpororate parallels quote: It's a funny coincidence that I read this during International Workers' Day
[2] Unconventional mouth quote: by Geoffrey Colvin in a Fortune article
[3] Even if Semler is a best selling author, I never heard about him until I recently read a post by Jon Lister. Thanks so much, Jon!

A simple way to manage Firefox privileges

2008-04-15T21:46:00.006+01:00

If you are familiar with the 'enhanced abilities' Firefox security prompt, and you ever clicked on the 'Remember this decision' check box

you may want to check http://firefoxprivileges.tiddlyspot.com.

When this prompt appears as a result of loading a file from your hard drive, you may not be aware of the exact meaning of the 'Remember this decision' check box. While you probably mean "I trust this file and I don't want you to annoy me anymore", Firefox understands "I trust every html file loaded from the hard drive". This broad trust is not a good idea from the security point of view.

This tool allows to easily cancel that effects of "remember this", and tell Firefox that you only trust some specific files (per-file permissions). Before hacking it, I used to have to mess with the user.js file, much less convenient.

The tool is implemented as a TiddlyWiki plugin. If you are not familiar with TiddlyWikis (super cool wikis in a single file), this is a good chance to get to know them.

Edit:
Some strings to make this post googleable for the right people:
UniversalXPConnect UniversalBrowserRead UniversalBrowserWrite UniversalFileRead CapabilityPreferencesAccess UniversalPreferencesRead UniversalPreferencesWrite
netscape.security.PrivilegeManager.enablePrivilege signed.applets.codebase_principal_support

In YouTube times...

2008-04-03T09:41:00.002+01:00

...I don't want to have to download (and install!?) your video. And I don't want to have to find out what is the missing codec that I need to view it. And if you have been nice/smart enough to create a transcript of your video, don't make it only accessible from the huge installer.

Breathing, forgetting about the wasted time in my Introduction to Visual Web Developer 2008 Express Edition video fiasco, and going back to work...

Do Take Notes

2008-03-11T10:16:00.004+01:00

Manuel Blum:

Finite Automata can add but not multiply.
Turing Machines can compute any computable function.
Turing machines are incredibly more powerful than Finite Automata.
Yet the only difference between a FA and a TM is that the TM, unlike the FA, has paper and pencil.
Think about it.
It tells you something about the power of writing.
Without writing, you are reduced to a finite automaton.
With writing you have the extraordinary power of a Turing machine.

via David Singer's Read This Blog!

Debugging Emergency Kit

2008-03-04T23:37:00.005+01:00

The image above is the hand-out of the last talk I gave. Rubber ducks have long been known as one of the most effective debugging devices [1].

Very often, while debugging, you *know* that you are almost there. The problem is that, before you notice, the morning has gone by with you being "almost there". If you don't really get there after a couple of quick and dirty iterations and want to avoid wasting a morning "almost there", it is very useful to make explicit the steps that everyone takes while debugging: enter your notebook and the scientific method (quoting from Andreas Zeller's Why Programs Fail: A Guide to Systematic Debugging)

Observe a failure
Invent a hypothesis consistent with the observations
Use the hypothesis to make predictions
Test the hypothesis by experiments and further observations
- If the experiment satisfies the predictions, refine the hypothesis
- If the experiment does not satisfy the hypothesis, create an alternate hypothesis
Repeat steps 3 and 4 until the hypothesis can no longer be refined

Keeping a written track of the steps is the key here. The advice is quite obvious, but we often forget about obvious things that work very well [2].

[1] This is not the only surprising ability of rubber ducks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck#Oceanography
[2] I'm writing this post after a most ineffective "almost there" afternoon

Innovation, productivity, learning

2008-02-24T15:35:00.003+01:00

The concept of innovation means very different things to different people. It may be useful to set some common ground by summarizing some of the definitions and research findings in the classical book Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett M. Rogers.

An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual. It matters little, so far as human behavior is concerned, whether or not an idea is "objectively" new as measured by the lapse of time since its first use or discovery. The perceived newness of the idea for the individual determines his or her reaction to it. If an idea seems new to the individual, it is an innovation.

It should not be assumed that the diffusion and adoption of all innovations are necessarily desirable. Some harmful and uneconomical innovations are not desirable for either an individual or a social system. Further, the same innovation may be desirable for one adopter in one situation but undesirable for other potential adopter whose situation differs.

Five characteristics of an innovation, as perceived by individuals, are specially important in explaining its rate of adoption:

Relative advantge (the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes. It may be measured in economic terms, but social prestige, convenience and satisfaction are also important factors).
Compatibility (the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent with the existing values, past experiences and needs of potential adopters).
Complexity (the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use).
Trialability (the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a limited basis).
Observability (the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others).

The innovation-decission process consists of a series of choices and actions over time through which an individual or social system evaluates a new idea an decides whether or not to incorporate the innovation into ongoing practice. During this process, different information-seeking and information-processing activities take place This process can be conceptualized in five steps:

Knowledge occurs when an individual is exposed to an innovation's existence and gains understanding of how it functions.
Persuasion occurs when an individual forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude towards the innovation.
Decision takes place when an individual engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation.
Implementation occurs when an individual puts a new idea into use.
Comfirmation takes place when an individual seek reinforcement of an innovation-decision already made, but he may reverse this previous decision.

The previous summary contains some points that are relevant to any organization that wants to achieve higher productivity through innovation:

innovation is not necesarilly good. The choice of a new technology because of its coolness or the implemenation of a redundant bureaucratic control are samples of the kind of innovation that an organization does not want. In the rest of this post, I'll use the term innovation only to refer to those new ideas that can lead to higher productivity, either directly (e.g. automating manual tasks) or indirectly (e.g. better organizational climate).
perceived newness is a key component in the definition of innovation, although often overlooked: your obvious working pattern may be my innovation. We must understand that innovations that can lead to higher productivity are very diverse: from the latest Rational tool or a break through idea from a Research Lab, to a 30 year old programming principle or some simple recipe to manage effectively the email in-box. While few important innovations may lead to radical productivity improvements, we must not neglect the cumulative effect of dozens of smaller innovations that can lead to small increments in productivity.
adoption of a new idea requires time and effort. Expecting the adoption of innovations without allocating time for the innovation-decision process is closer to wishful thinking than to a viable strategy.

Beyond the buzzword, innovation is about learning, setting the learning targets in those technologies, ideas and practices that can lead to a productivity improvement, and actively looking for opportunities to apply this learning and find new learning targets.

(This is a post from feb 2005 in my IBM internal blog; its leaving the firewall because I like it and it is relevant for an exchange I'm having with a non IBMer)

Más envidia

2008-02-15T00:25:00.002+01:00

Kelly me hace mirar un vídeo (1:39) en el que el candidato McCain habla mientras alguien canta sus mismas palabras, con una producción brillante. Hilarante. Me entusiasma.

Veo que es una parodia sobre un vídeo (4:30) de una canción basada en un discurso de Obama. Me entusiasma.

Veo el vídeo (13:09) del discurso de Obama. No sé si en castellano me resultaría empalagoso y ridículo. Me entusiasma.

Sospecho que volveré a sentirme decepcionado después de una de esas raras victorias electorales en las que, emocinado, empiezo convencido de hay una gran persona capaz de grandes cosas. Pero, durante unos meses, disfrutaré viendo que alguna campaña electoral no es la habitual pugna entre lo malo y lo peor.

dreamer, coder, hacker

2008-01-20T23:22:00.000+01:00

Diagram by Paul Downey (of the Web Is Agreement fame), based on (I think) an idea by Y!'s Spo0nman/Pankaj

Humans

2008-01-20T21:56:00.000+01:00

In case that your computer addiction have made you forget how humans look like, you could use three minutes watching people from 1 to 100 years of age, in a lovely video made by Lenka Clayton and James Price (via Kellypuffs).

If that hasn't been an overexposure to human looks, the humancalendar.com is and the humanclock.com are also very cool (and the later is a nice TV-Wii-powered screensaver).

Envidia

2008-01-09T23:13:00.000+01:00

De candidatos que dicen cosas como esta:

Ha llegado el momento de un presidente (...) que no sólo os diga lo que queréis oír, sino lo que tenéis que saber.

De seguimiento parlamentario independiente e imparcial : sobre TheyWorkForYou.com. Y de discusiones civilizadas sobre la actividad parlamentaria.

¡Bah! La envidia no es buena: volvamos al ra-ra-ra local...

Calendaris!

2007-12-31T19:47:00.000+01:00

El Compact Calendar de David Seah és ben mono, i sembla molt pràctic; és un excel per imprimir. Hi ha adaptacions, amb els dilluns on toquen i les festes d'aqui, en Excel i en Open Office.

Aqui altres calendaris ben macos, però amb aquestes extranyes semanes de cap de setmana partit.

Tanta il·lusió que em fan els calendaris, i tan nerviós que em posen.

Tag-decorated feeds

2007-12-30T14:03:00.000+01:00

Tags should be a good cue to tell us if a blog post should be read or skipped. I find puzzling that most (all?) feed readers just ignore tags. Surprisingly enough, I could not find any feed decorator.

Yahoo! Pipes to the rescue: after some copy'n'paste, a pipe that decorates feeds appending to every post title its categories (for atom and rss 2 feeds), and also adds the tags to the top of the post: http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/tagsintitle

This one does the same, but also adds the results from Yahoo! Term Extraction to the top of the post. I just cooked it, so I am not really sure if the list of terms is a useful addition: http://pipes.yahoo.com/xverges/tagsandtermextraction

Annoying side effects: the feed name, url and description become those of the pipe, so a bit of manual work is required after subscribing to a feed. I hope they fix it...