Today I turned 20 years old.
Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don’t forget your booties ’cause it’s cooooold out there today.
Remember that every February 2nd the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania celebrates this holiday where Phil, a groundhog, emerges from its burrow to forecast if the winter will soon end or it will continue for 6 more weeks.
This day has also become famous because of the movie starred by Bill Murray with the same name as the post’s title; Groundhog Day, which in my opinion is a must see.
So, if you want to know how much will the winter last, check Phil’s prediction in the Official Web Site of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club. You can even watch it live!
Groundhog Day 2008 | About GroundHog Day
Update: Phill said “As I look around me, a bright sky I see, and a shadow beside me.
Six more weeks of winter it will be!”. The Joy of Tech today’s comic and DailyCosas 2.0 also commented on this event.
I have recovered this section but I will modify it a little bit because I’m not such prolific writer that writes many articles by week. So, from this time on I will make a monthly review of the posts that I most liked in my feed reading. Obviously they still are available (with some more articles) in my starred items of Google Reader. Read More
… though it could be also titled “Why I want to be an engineer”. You’ll see.
With the last number of Biela, the School of Industrial Engineering magazine turned 25 years. Anyone who take a look at the inside might not understand a simple joke of the publication but every each word shows the feelings and hopes (and moans, and resignations…) of the Industrial Engineering students - the real ones - in an humorous way.
This number has been very special as much for the 25th birthday as for the homage to J. M. G. Ricart. And he deserved it. Besides being a bit male chauvinist, anticatalanist, some would even call him fascist… he was without question the very best professor in the UPV (not to mention some others that possibly could be reading this). All of his classes were totally full and he involved you even more with his tales.
And if we were talking about Biela and all the people related to it we can’t leave out Javier Malonda (aka GonzoTBA). If Biela is a very funny and critical magazine nowadays I can’t imagine how it was in his time. For those who this name rings a bell I will only tell them that he is the creator of Bilo and Nano, the characters of the Ecol comic strip (I don’t believe you are reading this and you don’t know them yet) and the writer of ESDLV. If I’m studying German and I’d like to apply for an Erasmus grant in Teutonic lands is mostly due to reading his adventures.
Anyway, I’m sure there are many other reasons for being an Engineer but undoubtedly I will try to follow the path of these people.
Eins, Zwei, Drei… Thanks
P.S: By the way, here you can download the last number of Biela.
Some time ago I claimed that there wasn’t an actual blogosphere here in Valencia. Not only I was absolutelly wrong but also since then I’ve discovered some interesting blogs that deal with Open Soure, Apple, design, podcasts and that geek stuff I like…
Besides that you know that I’m kind of addicted to know what people are doing in every moment. So I’m attending to the Pizza & Twitters (and followers and followers and twitters and followers and twitters and twitters…) that Twittche, the valencian Twitter community, will celebrate this friday night (25th).
Also on January 25th some students of the MIT will come to Valencia to know the city and participate in some events the UPV will celebrate as part of the MITUPV Exchange program. This will take place in the CPI with Adolfo Plasencia heading the expedition.
Of course I’ll be attending to both them although I will miss the MITUPV Exchange dinner so as I could be able to go to the Pizza & Twitters.
Finally I also have to say that the Valencia Mac Users Group will meet on 26th, however I’m sure I’m not going to this because…
a) I don’t own a mac (yet)
b) Remember I’m on exams?
Nevertheless the conferences will be about such interesting stuff like FLOOS, security and demostrations of new applications and features.
Luther Blisset from ThE FuCkInG sHiT.OrG sent me this meme which consits of answering this list of 10 questions making use of the titles of my favorite band’s songs.
Of course, it’ll be KannoN (although they already split up).
I send this meme to Alexliam, Grdloizaga (aka the cool boy, c’mon boy write something or draw, at least) and Andrés Milleiro.
Last summer my Creative Zen player died while I was trying to disassemble it. To be honest I have to tell you that I was very happy with the Creative player and my opinion about it couldn’t be better. So, this disappointed me a bit. However I also put my eye on the incoming new generation of iPods last year when the time to buy a new player came this Christmas.
If I was about to spend a considerable part of my income in a portable media player I wanted not to regret when some time had passed. This way I decided to buy an iPod, since the current alternatives of Creative doesn’t measure up to the Apple players, although I didn’t know which one I would finally choose.
As you already know I finally bought an iPod Touch.
I didn’t use to pack the Creative Zen with tons of music; I preferred to keep my music collection in the computer and change the songs on the go. So, capacity wasn’t an issue for me. Furthermore I took into account some other considerations as the Internet browser through the wi-fi connection or the touch screen.
Another things that made me hesitate about buying it or not was the fact that I preferred an smartphone better than carrying separate gadgets. However patience is not one of my strongest virtues so I wouldn’t wait the iPhone 3G nor would buy an iPhone via ebay (with all the risks it involve).
Comparing the specs of the iPhone and any other mobile phone in the market, the iPhone looks a little outdated. In addition, I’m renewing my mobile phone in short time for free, so if one day I finally own the Apple mobile phone it would be in the future when a newer version appears.
Once I got the iPod Touch I wanted to jailbreak it so that I could enjoy the most possibilities of such device. It was an extremely-easy process that I completed following this perfectly explained guide the guys of Touchdev had written.
With a jailbroken iPod Touch it was the time to download and test apps. Many of them didn’t pass the selection but I found some of them very useful, even essential (although I didn’t install all):
Some people can’t live without music and have their player always on and their headphones in their ears everytime. However I don’t do a very-hard usage of the player, and it completely fulfills all my needs. Certainly I spend most of the time surfing the Internet or watching videos, so the battery runs out after a couple of hours. However with the wi-fi turned off and only listening to music it lasts the whole day. On the other hand it charges up very quickly.
Another disappointing aspect is the fact that after some use it gets full of fingerprints and you must clean it with the provided polishing cloth.
Video player, Internet browser, Photo Gallery, PDA… and it can even play mp3! I totally recommend this gadget. Despite the screen size for surfing and the short battery I couldn’t have done a better buy.
Of course, one of the reviews that moved me to buy the iPod Touch was the Microsiervos review which explains it everything much better than me and probably will also convince you.
Anyone who knows me a bit would also know that I like to change the design of A Penguin in my fridge as much as writing here. So, if you are reading this from your feed reader come here and take a look. Since I’m very meticulous with the blog design I’ve awaited a little bit to make the announcement but I think it’s all done and it’s worth. Thanks to anyone has bear with helped me with the layout, the colors, the fonts… all the CSS stuff indeed.
I’ve done it again, I must admit.
I don’t like to take these such big hiatus at blogging, however circumstances kept me away from the Wordpress dashboard. At least this time I still read you and I’ m not as unblogged as other times I was. Having reached this point I think I should make a life update.
Remember the Rentrée post? All crap. I think I haven’t fulfilled any of the resolutions except the coke zero one, having me addicted even more to caffeine than I was before. I know it sounds ashaming for me but that’s reality. For some time now I’m less motivated than ever to take on any challenge, even finish my degree. However I want to finish it some day. Everything is going downhill but I want this to change. I know you’ve already heard of that before but that’s how I feel now.
Anyway, during December I still attended to classes at the university, and took a job to be able to afford some expenses in the Christmas time. Now I have some money and no time to study but I think I’ve learned the lesson. I must give up some habits the next year and put my act together. I will try to carry out this and keep the blog updated.
That’s all. So, I must leave now because some books are waiting me in the library.
No pasa nada, podéis bajar lo que queráis del eMule. Pero no lo vendáis.
Jorge Martín, Jefe del Grupo de Seguridad Lógica de la Brigada de Investigación Tecnológica de la Comisaría General de Policía Judicial durante su ponencia en el Congreso de Webmasters.
