Entries Tagged 'random' ↓

Skrymta is once again asking me difficult questions. This time his question is: what picture represents the nordic for you? He chickened out himself and ended up describing his mental picture of the nordic in words, so let’s see if I can manage to rise up to the challenge…

For me the Nordic is something cool, quiet, full of light, something made up of clean lines and primary colors, something extremely civilized and mostly decorated in light wood. As the song goes, Du gamla, Du fria, Du fjällhöga nord, Du tysta, Du glädjerika sköna!

And then there is the proverbial dark-red wooden house with white finishings. There is always a flagpole with a national flag nearby.

(Photo: House by *Kitto)

I was looking through my music, searching out those magic tracks that for some reason I didn’t liste to for a while, and I came across this little-known gem that I thought might appeal to some. These guys deserve some wider distribution, anyway.

The band’s name is Смысловые галлюцинации (Smislovie Galiutsinatsii), which translates to something like “hallucinations of meaning”. This track is Вечно молодой (Vechno Molodoi — Forever young), from their album “Album 3000″.

Three of their albums are freely available for download as MP3 on their official site (in Russian). The severely cyrillic-impaired can download directly Vechno Molodoi here (mp3, 2.3 MB). Those more adventurous (or those — gasp — able to read cyrillic) are welcome to explore their lists of audio downloads and video downloads themselves.

Great minds have purposes; others have wishes.
– Washington Irving

Skrymta challenges me to write a wishlist. With nothing less than 7 wishes.

Reading his nicely written list I feel inadequate (in short: patience, friends, sleep, debate, a new kitchen, tech that Just Works (TM) and a cool haircut). Sigh. Though I do have a cool haircut. But still.

Ok, so here goes. In no particular order.

• Invest more in my hobbies. And I don’t mean more money, no. I mean more time (and effort?). This means take more photos, read more, possibly blog more. (And maybe code more. Or maybe code less. Dunno.) And strive to do these things better, which hopefully will lead to more satisfaction (and fame and money, of course).
• More time. If only there were more hours in the day to invest in the above stuff. For example, it would be useful to not need sleep. Alternatively, a guaranteed lifespan of at least 3000 years might work (yes, my to-read pile is that big).
• Own my own company. Probably something related to the internet. Maybe a nice cafe with free wifi. Or both.
• An Eames lounge chair.
• Learn German. For all the obvious reasons. See above on having more time.
• Speak and write better English. See above on blogging more. Not forgetting my Spanish would be nice, too.
• Remember to recharge my cell phone. Given that this is the only phone I have, it would be really useful if it actually was on most of the time.

And now, the dreaded nomination moment. Because no blog meme is complete if you don’t inflict it on your favorite bloggers, I’d like to read wish lists from: RinzeWind, Su, Helga (see above on learning German) and dalr. Thanks in advance.

A list by Warren Ellis would be a wish come true, but I don’t think he is reading this. Oh well.

Following the success of the talks we gave last year, a bunch of Spanish Googlers (including myself) will be giving a new round of Tech Talks on Google technologies and culture, followed by Q&A sessions. These are the dates, times and locations:

Monday, November 12th, 12:30
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Salón de Actos
Planta Baja del Bloque I
Facultad de Informática
Campus de Montegancedo
28660, Boadilla del Monte
Madrid
(map)

Tuesday, November 13th, 12:00
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Salón de Actos
Facultad de Informática
Santesmases s/n
28040 Madrid
(map)

Wednesday, November 14th, 12:30
Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña
Aula Master, Edifici A3
Campus Nord
08034 Barcelona
(map)

Thursday, November 15th, 12:30
Universidad Politécnica de Valencia
Escuela Técnica Superior de Informática Aplicada
Camino de Vera s/n
46022 Valencia
(map)

Drop by and say hi!

Update: You can submit your CV online here. If you want to be considered for the interview round that will take place in Madrid in early December, please submit your resume before November 26th.

Via Boing Boing I find a post on the thoof.com blog where they discuss some interesting stats on their users’ behavior.

Particularly amusing bits:

It seems that Windows users are 20% more interested in stories about religion than Mac users.
[...]
Mac users are 6% more interested in intellectual property law, and 5% more interested in fitness.