Back to Santiago

I'm back in Santiago of Chile, back to the noise, the smog, the heat. Today is my girlsfriend birthday so I bought a cake, call some friends and celebrate. It was funny, we eat a delicious cake and we chat a lot and we laugh a lot.

It was a very good start. Now I'm listening the Club de la Comedia while writing this article. Club de la Comedia is a stand-up comedy show that's very funny and popular at Chile.

I can't wait to return to Concepcion. But I'm going to Laja at new year and next I'm going to camping with my girlfriend and another friends. It's my first summer without vacations, but I don't mind because I'm learning a lot of things.

It's summer in Chile

It's summer in Chile and it's hot. I am very happy because my allergic condition begins to dissapear. Now that I live in the capital city of Chile, I'm trying to adapt to the hot climate. At Christmas I came to my parents house at Concepcion City, that is at south of Chile. I like it because is more cool climate. But I had to come back because I have to work. But It doesn't matter because I love my job. But I love my life more too so I'm gonna return there at new year.

Google Swirl

I was very funny experimenting with this Google Lab Webapp. Google Swirl can help you find relationships between images about a topic.  You can find some interesting relationships, e.g. looking for Chilean Map you can find the Chilean Education System Structure and so on...

I still try to find new things. I was seeing this with another website, but as always, Google makes things simple.

Christmas

It's very hard to me to be in Christmas. I miss the days when I was a child and innocently wait for my Santa's Gift. Now, I only wait if there's not conflicts in my family. I have a lovely family, they're very united and like to do parties. But when I want to go to another place, conflicts appear.

My mother has empty nest syndrome plus symptoms of menopause, so anything can makes her cry and she feels lonely all time. That makes me feel guilty about the thing I wanna do alone. I love my mother and my family. But I am crossing the line that differentiates a men of a child. I'm building my own family, now it's a little familiy (only two), but is a family.

I would like to see my parents happy again, that they don't worry too much about me. I hope that this christmas will be very funny and enjoyable.

What matters now. Free E-book from Seth Godin and a lot of thinkers

Watch Seth Godin's blog for get a link to watch that book. A lot of thoughs from very good thinkers.

What matters now - Seth Godin

Dynamic environment

I like my current job.Sometimes is a bit disordered, but it's very dynamic, always I must to do something and always I have problems to solve.

I wouldn't like to work in a very safe work, I think that people makes old because they do always the same thing, zero motivation, zero challenge at all and zero chance to take their own choices. When the work is like that, people only think at money, and they don't see the opportunities.

Always try to look for dynamic work with an dynamic environment that because you will grow a lot in professional terms.

In-house vs Outsourcing development

I'd made a LinkedIn discussion about what's better.  Now I work in a project with in-house development, but I had experienced what's to be in a project with its development outsourced.

First of all, I don't think that one of them is bad. It depends of what are we gonna do and how the software is critical for business. Critical software has to be built in-house, only for the reason that it has business issues that the company wouldn't like that others know about it. Very known software, with very known requeriments, and not critical, is better to outsource because you have to redirect the brains to more critical and important issues. Another way to outsource is when you need to explore a new technology and you need control of the budget (usually in-house R+D never stops eating it).

Sometimes there may be politics or strategic reasons to do in-house when outsourcing may be more appropiated. That is when, you want to create a team of developers that would be part of the company and  will be developing the critical software in the future. The opposite is true, a public organization may outsource only to make grow some little companies, like startups.

Thinking in my country, I think that Chile needs more in-house development, we need to learn a lot. I think that if we want to be in digital revolution we have to develop more internal than external and create a very powerful knowlegdement base.

Shit!! I have to vote again

Piñera didn't pass the 50% + 1 vote required for win the elections at first round. So we'll have a second round, and I'll have to vote on summer. Then, I should make an effort and go to vote.

Thinking of a project

I want to do a project. I don't know what kind of project, but I would like to do something by my own.

I have some ideas, by example, a Web Based IDE, a Framework of something, some kind of killer app. But I need some boost.

I'm installing the tools first, I never care if they're not the correct tools. I want to take a road and see what happens. I think that real life is something like that. You only take ways, and try to get to some place, but along the way you can find more interesting things.

I don't like meetings...

Remember that I've mentioned communication at last post?.

Well, I keep my idea that communication is very good. But I don't like when there're meetings for everything. I think that in most cases there are other alternatives, go to the office or make a call to the interested, use Instant Messaging, use e-Mail, send a doc and tell it the put his reviews in it, etc.

I believe that meetings are initial and the last resort. Initial when you're starting a project and need to get ideas for it. And last when the project is running, I think that is good when there's a problem very hard to solve and involves many people. But it's very counterproductive when the meeting is for simple problems that are more easy to solve if the tasks are well asigned to specific people. Is like the classic joke: How many ... does it take to change a lightbulb?. You can find a lot of this kind of joke here.

Searching from a picture for this post, I found a link from eHow about How To Survive a Boring Meeting, so if you think that meetings are boring too, follow this link. Thanks eHow for the picture.

Talk, talk, talk

Hey Geek, communications it's not only about TCP/IP Stack nor the OSI Model nor the ACM Magazine. Communications exist in real life.

Yes. You need to speak with another a people, and a lot. Forget meetings, they are boring, I'm talking about face to face talking with all people.

And Sorry to be aggresive at start. But I needed to call your attention. If you think that's not the way to do it. You're right. Calling genuine attention is more elaborated than that. You need to have a lot of patience, be empathic and very friendly. You need to win the another people confidence, and you can do that by talking, expressing and communicating.

So. Don't forget it, being and seeming, Isn't enough only to be good, you have to look good and others must realize about your habilities. How do you that?. Communicating!!!.

Sundays are elections in Chile

Sunday is election day in Chile. And It's the first time that I vote.

It was a ver dirty election. All candidates disqualifying each other. Frei, Arrate with the only objetive that is 'to win the rightys', they hadn't a government plan, still want to do the same thing. Marco has a government plan, but is lack of foundation, and I wouldn't like a president who doesn't know how to talk. Piñera hasn't improved his speech, says the same thing that four years before when has beaten by Michelle Bachelet. But he's the more solid between the four candidates.

I write in english because I want to correct somethings that are invented from concertationist to the foreigners:

• The time has changed. Pinochet died, and the rightys doesn't want to be associated with him.
  
• Lefties in practices are capitalists plus some social benefits to the poor people, but they aren't the lefties of 70s.
• I think that Chile lacks of an identity on terms of politics. It seems that cold war hadn't ended here.
• And yes. Crime is becoming a serious issue in Chile. It's not too strong enough, but If the government doesn't do anything, It could be.
  

Well, that's my thoughts. I'm not affiliated to any party. And I wan't to be affiliated too. It's my sincere opinion from a Chilean person.

Quietly active

To be productive, you need to be active, but doesn't mean that you have to put Nitrous Oxide on your feets. It's better that doing thing slowly but always doing well than doing faster and making mistakes repeatedly.

You need to be like a snail. The snail is slow, but doesn't stop moving. You can see it at a place, wait for a reazonable time and you will see it at a very different place. It's more useful to do little, but continuously well done work than try to do extremely faster and lose a lot of time fixing mistakes.

I know that I'm slow, so I'm trying this perspective. You can impress yourself when the job is done.

Getting photos from Wikimedia Commons

Do you want photos for your site/blog?. Wikimedia Foundation, the responsibles for the great Wikipedia, has Wikimedia Commons what is a wiki that catalogs media licensed with Creative Commons. That may help you find photos, videos or another media and you don't have to worry about copyright issues.

Wikimedia Foundation,has another interestings projects: Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiversity and others. I encourage to check out those projects and support them.

Anger Management

I have some Anger Management problems that I must correct soon or I' m gonna get fired. It's very hard, but I want to learn how to manage it.

I'm a very passionate person about my things, my ideas, my thoughts and my feelings. And that's very good, but sometimes I'm overstepping the mark, and that's not good for people who have to work with me.

So. That's a mea culpa. I will be calmer and more patient.