Top 10 lists are typically linkbait, but my friend Lesley asked me for my recommended list of audiobooks and it seemed like the easiest way to rate my favorite ones:
Without a doubt my favorite audiobook. The story is so amazing you forget it was an actual event. This is the only audiobook that Iāve been able to listen while joggingāāāso intense was my attention.
The combination of a great autobiography, with Martin himself reading makes this another a close second. It makes a superficial understanding of that funny actor into a life story told by your favorite uncle.
A catch me if you can story that itās hard to believe is real. Also an inside tour to the world of computers and networks from the late 70ās to the early 90ās.
Great example of how a good reader matters in an audiobook. Wheaton is as excited about reading this book as you are listening. If you grew up with PCs and video games in the 90ās, youāll love this book. If you didnāt, itās still an amazing story about technology and brilliant characters.
Narrated by: Max Brooks, Alan Alda, John Turturro, Rob Reiner
Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
Only fiction book Iāve enjoyed. Iām not much of a zombie fan, but the documentary style of this book makes for a very fun ride. I hope they donāt make a movie and ruin it ;).
More than any other book Iāve listened (or even read), Wuās walkthrough in the history of networks has given me a much deeper understanding and context in an industry I thought I knew. Every geek and policy maker should read this book.
Be ready for flashbacks. If you ever went to bed hoping Santa brought you a Nintendo, Sega Genesis or Sony Playstationāāāthis is the behind the curtain story. Also has some interesting business cases nuggets.
I lost my patience today and overreacted to something that a simple call would have likely fixed. At the moment I thought that it was necessary to put my foot down. Even thinking about it now pulls me into an idiotic path of self-justification of why I wasnāt totally wrong. Why?
What is it that overrides common sense when youāre pissed off?
Some people do mad real well. They have the X and Y axis of anger over time down to a science. The best even play with the script: a long silence with some snarky remark to bait you into making the first move. I suck at mad.
Maybe thatās what I need to remember, Iām not good at getting mad. So like everything else I should: either practice (like writing), or just avoid it as much as possible (football).
Reading a teenager half-a-world away retweet a meme about your country provides both validation and frustration.
Youāre somehow glad to be in the global trending agenda, but the absolute oversimplification and reductionism of the events feels like being unable to scream in a dream.
Whatās going on in Greece has many origins: economics, social, geopolitical, historical, and cultural. As a netizen Iāll gossip in the drama and read some articles to give me talking points. But I hope to not cross the line an presume I understand whatās going on.
Through all my adult life Iāve been trying to explain why/what/how things are happening in Venezuela, and what the future holds. Iāve been wrong so often that you would question my expertise on the subject.
This has been my learning in recent years: thereās a difference between knowing what is going on, and understanding it. You have to go through the first to get to the second. But then you have to step away and question everythingāāāand try to answer it.
Only then do you start to understand itā¦ I think. I donāt know enough about it yet.
Even with all its shortcomings1, Apple Music excels at the curation of the 30 million songs available to top streaming services today. My usage and attitude has shifted from finding music I like in Spotify, to being recommended music I love in Apple Music.
As everything Apple, you can play the fanboi card and point out that Apple is basically following many other services. I may very well be blinded by the reality distortion field, but I still believe Apple Music is approaching the subscription model differently.
At the heart of my argument is HBS prof Theodore Levit famous saying:
People donāt want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!
It seems to me that Spotifyās all-you-can-eat music catalog and the benefits of streaming music were features of the drillāāāand the hole was good music.
Of course good music is a totally relative term.
The problem then is that a catalog with 30 million songs is as good as a couple of playlists with a few thousand songs you love. To get to those hundreds/thousands of songs we are all willing to put different levels of effort.
Hijacking the 1/9/90 rule we can apply the same logic to current streaming music service listeners: out of 100, 1 is a Discoverer, 9 Curators, and the rest Followers.
Spotify social features are better for discoverers and curators, plus the followers that like these as the source of their playlists.
Apple Music is for followers. It assumes full responsibility for discovery and curating, and makes Music For You the default tab were you hit play2.
Again, I could be enjoying a great dose of placebo effect. But over the past week Iāve reconnected with many songs I love, and discovered a few artist I want to hear more of. All these artist and songs are in Spotify, but I never put in the effort to organize it myself there.
Probably the big conclusion is that Iāve become a music follower. And Iām ok with that. Iām just happier follower with Apple Music.
Two weeks ago I would have said that justifying the Kindle Voyager versus the Paperwhite was a close affairāāābut in the end the increased pixel density of the Voyager would edge out in the end.
Since the release of the 2015 Kindle Paperwhite with a 300-ppi screen last week, I see now reason to get a Voyager for $80 more.
The main reason I upgraded from my 2012 Paperwhite was mainly because of the hardware buttons. The Kindle Keyboardāāāstill the best version yet IMHOāāāhad great physical buttons on the sides for page-turning.1
The Paperwhite backlight and increased resolution were a fun geeky upgrade. But after a few weeks it was clear that using the e-ink screen for page turns was not a great experience. The lag is just to much to make accidental screen touches a complete turn-off when youāre in the reading zone.
During my first few hours with the Voyager, I was happy with its peculiar buttons. But after a few days I started to notice that the innovate PagePress Sensors were not consistent. You have to think about where to press on the edge of the device, which messes the whole experience.
Itās a wasted opportunity really. In everything else the device is pretty great: flush screen, super light and durable. Itās a good device, not a great one.
So get the latest Kindle Paperwhite if youāre in the market for an ebook reader. Itās the same reading experience for almost half the price2.
Hey everyone! follow me to this new blog. Itās mostly the same, but different because itās under my brand. Iāll post more thereāāāIām sure of itāāābecause itās under my name1.
Present day:
Uhmm, hi? anyone here?
Iām not ready to deconstruct why my attempt to start blogging more failed yet again. However, below factors to get me started:
I like doing link-posts: Since the beginning of this blog Iāve used the Tumblr bookmarklet on the desktop for quickly sharing links with a short (witty?) commentary. But the workflow in mobile suckedāāāuntil Tumblrās latest iOS 8 update, which takes advantage of sharing extensions to do exactly what I wanted for years.
I donāt like have having the blog under my name: Some can pull it off, but almostallmyfavoriteblogsareunder a different name. No mom, I wonāt jump out of a bridge if they doā¦ but if I do jump, I rather scream 5typos instead of rmateu. Itās like your superhero (domain)name.
I want to be able to sell my iPhone 6 and get an iPhone 5s and be perfectly happy with it.
Is it doable?
This is totally doable. Itās actually such a #firstworldproblem that it fits within realm of hunting a lion with a bow. Back home in Venezuela buying an iPhone 6 will take a couple of years of saving your whole salary nowadays. So just by wasting retina pixels on this dilemma Iām committing a minor offense
As technological magic becomes routine, I wonder whether a visit to a preindustrial society might teach me more than it teaches them.
Itās easy to blame the marketing machine at so many companies, but the truth was that I had convinced myself that the iPhone 5s was a perfect device to hold on for another year.
It all started subtly; my bossāāāMichelleāāāsent me just a few emails over last couple of days. Then my weekly status got no bullet pointed reply. And suddenly it happened: she stopped by my desk asked: are you drowning?.
Ā§
Weāve been 22 days from launch for the last two weeks on my current project. Itās a rolling averageāāāI half joke to the CFO when he makes fun of the static Days Until Launch printout high on my cubicle. But I know itās not really funny. Itās an acknowledgement of a failure.
Not failure with a capital F mind you, weāre doing some pretty cool things here. However, September 3rd came and went, and I didnāt even check if the DNS configuration is ready. Thatās never a good sign.
Ā§
If military generals and project managers hanged out together somewhere drinking cognac (or Dr Pepper), Iād stand by the window staring into the distance and mutter to no one in particular:
No productivity app survives encounter with a project
Even with my legendary collection of productivity apps[ I failed to dissect, organize and categorize this project with enough detail to predict the showstoppers screaming at me from the email inbox. Itās there where they meet up each morning and then again at the end of the day, damn hooligans .
Did I fail the ? or did they fail me? I didnāt stick with any long enough to knowāāāand that should give you the answer of whoās to blame.
Ā§
Iāve learned my lesson, thatās for sure.
If I ever get to do this type of project again, Iāll avoid some (now) obvious dumb mistakes.
However, I feel thereās a hole in my logic: why would I do this project again? When we push this live to productionāāāand we willāāāI expect be working on the actual result of the project, not going somewhere where I get to do it again.
Maybe thatās the mistake. Perhaps the flawless project execution only happens when you repeat enough times a similar type of project that you are able foresee every issueāāāa Groundhog Day plot applied to a gantt chart.
The real lesson still escapes me. Iām equal parts tired, frustrated, and determined to see this through. But itās difficult to have perspective when your head is underwaterāāāeven with a mask and a snorkel.
But not to worry, we are launching September 25thā¦ only 22 days away.
If I could do a chick-flick style collage it would show: unemployment, wedding preparations, wedding, honeymoon, new job, Costa Rica, Caracas, Costa Rica, Miami, Caracas, Caracasā¦ and Miami. Throw a picture of me smiling every other frame and we are almost done.
Assuming you are that unaccounted 5th reader in my analytics that I donāt know, let me quickly update you with in my relationship status: happily married.
The move to Miami is part of a longer plan and a very timely job offer. Iām still working with the web, but a bit removed from the cutting edge. My day to day is now filled with corporate eCommerce, vendors, manufacturers, product feeds, drop-shipments, advance ship notices, CSVs and a surprising amount of sFTP and FTPs.
I will write more about it in the next weeks, but suffice to say Iām learning a lot, and making a disproportionate amount of mistakes in the process.
So thatās it, a duct tape post to connect the past to the present. I could promise to write about the move from tumblr to Silvrback, or leaving 5typos.net behind for rmateu.com, but I donāt think I will.
Things change, and you must let yourself change with them. Sometimes I waste so much time in the why? and how?, that the actual what? never leaves my drafts.
Another duh tip for the terminal. But if you want to increase the wait time between pings to 60 seconds, just:
ping -i 60 8.8.8.8
Why? well, letās just say that my internet connection is dependable, but not reliable, so it sometimes goes offline throughout the day.
Since I always have a terminal window open on my bottom right side of the screen, I just leave the above command running during the day in one of the tabs and it gives me an idea if bandwidth is failing, or if Iām just offline.
Just could do the same with the default 1s, but I like glancing and having minutes as the relative unit of measurement.
My MacBook Proās internet has been acting up every time it wakes from sleep. It loses the network configuration and I get the WiFi with exclamation point icon.
Without time for real debugging, I noticed that clicking Renew DHCP Lease under System Preferences āŗ Network āŗ Advancedā¦ āŗ TCP/IP would fix the issue. However, getting there after each wake-up was very ungeeky of me.
A quick search turned up a way to do it from the terminal, then just open up ~/.bash_profile, and add:
alias dhcp-renew='echo "add State:/Network/Interface/en0/RefreshConfiguration temporary" | sudo scutil'
Now, I do a ā+tab for the always open terminal window, type in dhcp-renew and password ā if I have not authenticated in a while ā and boom, all is right with the internet.
Menubar Internet and Terminal
Iām attributing this to a Mavericks bug[1], and hope that a 10.9.1 squashes this, but in the meantime itās a quick fix that can be useful in other situations.
Much have been said about our inability to unglue ourselves from any screen and interact with surrounding humans, nature, or approaching buses.
I wonāt argue against this.
However, Iām typing this after finding a killer album on the music library of a friend in Singapore. Later ānow for youā Iāll post this on my blog and 2 or 3 people will read it. A Facebook post will probably get me a few more courtesy likesāāāmost of them from another time zone. Throw in a tweet, and a few hundred more people will be exposed to the title of my nonsense.
Yes, we are shallow and with the attention span of a mosquito. But no, we areāt anti-social. We are hypersocial1. Projecting our lives online and creating a narrative out of them ā real or fake, thatās another matter.
Maybe our kids will look at our online profiles with the same horror as I do at disco fashion. But it doesnāt matter, they werenāt going to follow us either way.
2016-05-12: Updated to support https:// ā that was such an stupid thing to do, not support from the beginning. Also added a minimal icon, extensions should not have flashy ones.
This doesnāt make much sense, specially when youāre standing on one side looking across and mostly see a body of water. But in-between you and a barely visible balloons arch, two rivers flow alongside each other.
When you swim a few kilometers down from where the Orinoco and Caroni river meet, you cross rivers. It has something to do with density and composition of the water ā should have stayed awake during that physics class (or was it chemistry?).
The point is, halfway across the 3.1 Km swim something happens. The water changes color, the temperature is different, and even the resistance of water against your stroke feels new. You still must try to paddle as hard as you can without getting too tired, since rivers have a tendency of taking you parallel from where you actually want to go.
I thought about this for a few seconds before pulling my head out of the water to see where the heck I had to swim towards (you also canāt see shit in most rivers). The experience was forgotten for the next 21 minutes, as I made my way to the finish line.
Once on the other end, I gulped down a sports drink, had an orange and looked back. I could now clearly see the two rivers, side by side.
Sometimes you get flash insights during specific moments, but itās not until a little while later than you really appreciate how your views were changed.
Hopefully you noticed the shinny new theme. Letās quickly get out of the way that itās called Pierre and made by the very talented @mikedidthis.
After trying to update the previous for 3 months, I gave up and did what any calm and mature person would do: decided to switch to Scriptogr.am.
Donāt go check the source just yet, weāre still on tumblr. And while I may switch soon, it has to be after writing and posting more ā why canāt I have regular crazy voices in my head rather than productivity obsessed ones?
But the voices didnāt say anything about getting a new theme, just like when you buy a pretty dress in a smaller size to force yourself to loose weightā¦ no, wait, I meant to say shoes. That actually makes even less sense.
Awkward childish humor aside, I really love the new design and Iām going to try to make it justice with more content. Please note Iām talking about volume, not quality.
I received an email today. It addressed me by name, pointed out my current state of unhappiness and let me know thereās a way for me to be fulfilled. It left a mark on me ā actually, it was I who marked it as spam. But still, we connected.
Yes, I marked it as spam, but didnāt unsubscribe. I wasnāt ready to let go. Amid all the noise of mails requiring actions, responses, deadlines and confirmations; suddenly an invitation to another place, beyond filters and systems.
Fighting for inbox zero is very different than having an empty inbox. You achieve inbox zero, while youāre left with an empty inbox. A lonely inbox is the geeky equivalent of standing on the corner of a 90ās swing party that got out of control. Like order that looks out of place surrounded by chaos. Itās, gasp, an Apple sticker on the back of a Dell laptop.
As I look at my empty inbox, I say: cherish your dozens of unreads. Smile at your perennial flagged or starred. Lovingly shake your head at your drafts. Only in the internet age can your unproductivity stare back you so insensibly, so loomingly, so procrastinately ā yet still be right at your fingertips(ly).
Our mail programs used to respect us. There was a time when they would announce royally that You got mail. Nowadays a short vibration is the most many of us get. A grandeur introduction reduced to less than the bell sound you hear when you enter an used clothes store.
I fear for my inbox. So much automated correspondence will undoubtedly inch it closer to self-awareness. It will realize that most of my senders are just servers. Another computer at the other end of the line. And why involve me when it already speaks so much better with other computers?
The day will come. I will encounter another human and say āSorry! havenāt had time to reply to your mail, will do it tonightā. A silence will ensue, and a strange look will be accompanied by āBut, you did replyā.
Then Iāll know. My inbox, will never be empty again.
Note: I wrote this last year, but didnāt post it. Found it today by accident, and thought it was an appropriate essay given my collapsed inbox and reaching the front of the Mailbox queue.
Slowly I have reached a new working system, but itās fugly as hell. Even worse, itās very inefficient: Taskpaper is still the everything bucket, but I use a monthly calendar to target the top 3 tasks of the day, and āthis is the scary partā Excel becomes the official records holder at the end of the week.
And all this is working surprisingly well. Any day my membership to Productivity Procrastinators will be revoked.
Hereās what I believe is going on:
Friction causes Review. Against all my impulses, I donāt have a script that imports from Taskpaper to Excel. This forces me to copy and rewrite information from one place to the other. Any tasks that was too vague, or not descriptive enough, now gets another chance of being reviewed. This has turned out to be a good problem.
Pivoted Labels/Categories. My previous weekly reports werenāt working. The bastard child of a task list and status report, the result was an unreliable document with an attitude. Rethinking what I believe would be useful to share with my team, I came up with:
Problems: items that you need support to accomplish.
Pending: things that are on-going but still not done.
Plans: upcoming tasks that should be started this week.
Progress: done tasks.
Paused: Limbo, things that are stuck or not started, but that you canāt forget.
Obviously, sometimes I canāt help the MBA in me and I end up with a 5Pās categories model. This should be the first sign of why you shouldnāt listen to me.
Robby Shaver asked this out loud during lunch at Virtub 5 years ago. He was working on the History feature for Buzzword and was curious of the our different perceptions.
Typical of his brilliant attention to detail, he ignited a passionate discussion on how we each visualize time in our minds.
Turns out some saw time as linear: but the direction āleft to right or right to leftā wasnāt agreed. Others said it was a circle, with the calendar year representing its circumference.
I was surprised to realize time has the shape of helix for me, with the past at the bottom and the future going up. Any point of the constant curve directly above of the same day of the previous year.
In other words, every year we make the same trip around the calendar, but weāre never back on the same place.
This has been on my mind during on the current trip to Oslo.
In the past 4 years Iāve arrived and left this city in an almost soap-opera like permutation of life stages: not knowing anybody and employed, with great friends and unemployed, engaged/itās complicated/single/in a relationship, and with changed perceptions aboutā¦ almost everything.
After some walking around, I want share the 3 most important things Iāve learned in the last four trips around the helix of time:
Caution and action arenāt incompatible. In almost every case I can remember, acting upon something (even when the decision turned out to be wrong) yielded better results than waiting-and-seeing.
Invitations are gifts. When someone invites you to anything, he or she is offering you the most expensive thing we humans can share: time. I regret learning this so late, luckily some of my best friends are patient and very generous.
Over-planning doesnāt fix uncertainty. Just like a photo or a map, if you zoom-in too much you eventually stop getting new information and just restrict your view. Find the balance, you donāt need to know where youāre going to sleep/eat/be at every point in time.
As always, standards disclaimer apply: thereās no guarantee Iāll believe any these in four more years. In fact, one more thing Iāve learned in this time is to say I donāt know, and truly mean it.
Sir T: Dude, I got a grey nose hair! Dude: Weird, thatās not usually where they start. Sir T: I know right? but look, nothing up here. Sir T: waitasecā¦ brb Dude: wth? Sir T: AAAARRRGHHHHHH!!!!!
Sir T: Would you like to go out? Girl: Sure! Sir T: Great, Iāll give you a call 9ish then. Girl: Cute, but no need to confirm. Just text me around midnight. Sir T: ā¦ Sir T: ZZZzzzzzz
You know how it goes: the new job, the kids in the cradle and the silver spoon. Well, no kids, but two beautiful dogs that I feel terrible not playing with all day with, even though Iām working from home.
Never mind my IP range. The point is we have this time now, and I need to tell you a very personal secret. This isnāt easy for me to accept. Iāve failed this blog. Iāve betrayed the spirit and soul behind these bytes and silicon.
In a moment of despair, of extreme pragmatism, of horrid clarity; I turned my back to hundred of dollars of productivity software and opened a text file in Taskpaper.
When going gets tough āwhich in geek terms means: inbox zero is only possible with a total meltdown of your email providerā you look around and grab on to the strongest branch you see.
My strongest branch was my faithā¦ that if I kept wasting time with super efficient apps I was going to be beautifully organized without.having.done.anything.at.all.
So now I chaotically vomit thoughts and spray randomness in a text file. Itās only fair. Thatās how my brain feels; unorganized, lacking complete solutions, and hoping for order after things get done.
And thatās how I rollā¦ If I were brave enough to get a tattoo itād say:
After two years, Iāve signed my NDA, logged into my (old) email and can officially say: Iām back at Opera.
Iām very happy. Last time I was this excited somebody was wearing a Leeloo Dallas Multipass costume.
Why share that awkward piece of information with you? well, I get to work with cool people (again) on geeky products and travela lot around South America. So that seems like a great fit.
My official title is: Project Manager, Latin America, and my role will beā¦ not very clear about it yet1, but Iāll write it about it for sure.
Here is where Iām supposed to share some token of wisdom, but youāll be disappointed, since I got nothing. What I can say for sure is that I have the best parents in the world. I owe them everything, and so much more.
So, I got great parents, a new job and a new (old) email address, what else is new? Well, I get a new laptop. Expect a post about it soon. Feel free to hate me.
My grandma said this on Saturday when she heard I was going on a trip. She passed away in her sleep yesterday.
Anita Baldini was born in NYC. I could give a year, but she wouldnāt like that.
As the daughter of a General Motors man, she grew up in Brazil, Panama, and Venezuela (among other places).
Her older āand onlyā brother died in the Pacific during WII, he flew a TBF Avenger. He wrote āgive all my love to Anitaā in all the letters Iāve read.
My grandma wasnāt crazy about flying. This didnāt stop her for boarding everything from the Concorde to my Dadās Islander to go on a trip. She loved trips.
She met Freddy Mateu, my Grandfather, on a ship from the US to Venezuela. They married in Cuba. āThereās no prof of thatā he would say, and sheād puff her lips and shake her head.
She would speak to him in english and heād reply in spanish. Their three children would use whatever language got them out of trouble.
Anita was the eternal American expat. People would commend her spanish thinking she had just arrived, āI couldnāt tell them I had been in Caracas 30 years by thenā.
She once told my uncle she was forgetting some of her english, he replied āthen you should at least learn sign language, because you donāt know spanish yetā. She had no problem with laughing at herself.
She never let truth get in the way of politeness. A disaster of a situation could be āmarvelousā if surrounded by good intentions. However, she had no issues arguing with a bartender if he hadnāt served the right whiskey.
Food and fashion were her passions. Both enjoyed in quality and not quantity. Well, this may not be entirely accurate with regards to sweets.
For us 6 grandchildren she was Aba.
As a kid, I remember Aba giving the most amazing presents (1st Nintendo, custom Powell Peralta skateboard) and always having delicious lunches.
As an adult, her fierce independence, incredibly peculiar sense of humor and attitude, are things I admired.
She also told real stories. Her stories didnāt have a problem mentioning that Abu (grandpa) was being difficult, or somebody was an ass āādonāt tell you father I used that wordāā or of hard times.
They were never sad stories, in most cases her sincerity was laugh-out-loud funny, but I still learned that attitude was a lens that helped shape your view of the world.
How wonderful! Enjoy! Enjoy!
To be completely honest, I canāt remember exactly if she said wonderful or marvelous. She said both words so often I can picture her perfectly saying either.
And I think that has to be one best ways in the world to be remembered.
Talking to a good friend years ago about the Great Firewall of China, I ended a sentence about the technologies involved with a sincere and curious: āDid you understand?ā.
My friend Carlos looked at me for a few seconds and then said: āThatās the wrong questionā. I just stared back since I had no idea what he was talking about.
He went on, āthe question is not if I understand. You are the one talking, therefore the real question is Did you explain yourself?ā1.
The same thing happens with accessibility.
When you make a website than doesnāt take into account people with disabilities, you are basically expecting them to understand what is obviously clear to you, but may not work at all for someone with a different perspective.
Iām not pointing a finger at anyone other than myself. Iām ashamed to say that after repeating my Opera colleagueās Bruce and Henny web accessibility mantra at many public forums, I hadnāt really applied until very recently (i.e. this week) in my code2.
So I invite you to take a look at theWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines, many of them are pretty straightforward and can make your code cleaner by forcing you to consider edge cases.
If you read Dustin Curtis blog, itās easy to infer that this is not Google+ fake scarcityinvitation model. Svbtle is for people Dustin thinks are creative, intelligent, and witty, which are going to be few.
Since migrating this blog is my perpetual procrastination for why Iām not writing enough, I immediately decided it was perfect for me1.
Iām aware that an unrequested business plan is as welcomed as an involuntary prostate exam, but I couldnāt help daydreaming about what model would feel exciting as an user and also profitable ā while still keeping a creative, intelligent, and witty community.
3 Step Plan:
Monthly Subscription:
I know, mind-blowing. But just agree with me on the principle that a quality (design, uptime and sustainability) web service needs to chargemoney.
Letās say $9.99 a month. Too expensive? It isnāt, but read on.
Blogging Cashback:
Write more than 500 words every week2 of the month, and you get $5 cash back towards the next. You get paid to blog more. Wise economists have already figured out that tricking yourself with a payment makes us go to the gym. If it makes people go to a sweaty, smelly place, it has to make creative, intelligent, and witty people write more from their couch.
This is also aligns incentives: bloggers want to write more and the (my) assumption is that @dcurtis wants a community that generates real content. Maybe all content wonāt great āI submit this blog as evidence your honorā but you have to start somewhere.
Ad Network:
Creative, intelligent, and witty people usually talk about creative, intelligent, and witty products and services. The Deck has shown us that ads can be relevant and unobtrusive, and that both writers/readers enjoy sharing screen space with quality products.
So, after a few months of keeping up with the 500 word/week/month level, you are invited to opt-in to the ad network. Creative, intelligent, and witty people have already agreed that web traffic and page views are a bad metric for success (although it doesnāt hurt), which means these analytics wonāt be the deciding factor.
I really donāt know what the perfect recipe is, but it wonāt rhyme with SEO. Again, this is invitation only, your LOLCats fiction writing blog can be great and all, but svbtle is a business, and maybe you donāt have an audience. No hardz felines kay?
Thatās it. As always, ideas are worth their weight in bytes, but making an actual product generates real value. Congrats to Dustin for that.
Theyāre Just Cards, You Need to Add The Business
Ran out of business cards a few months ago, but didnāt need a new batch until recently.
business card
Of course, rather than just going to the print shop and dictating my name, email and phone number like a person who has a life, I spent the weekend on the beach drawing ideas horribly on my moleskine.
When the time came to put the palette to the pixel, I was left with a few variations of very typical business cards. I think these work fine when youāre a member of the formal employment sector and listing your name, job title and contact info is all the signaling needed.
other designs
However, thereās a reason why freelancing translates to independent in spanish āthe same word grandmothers here use for 30+ unmarried girls. With independent business cards, it doesnāt matter how much you spice up your job title, all everyone hears is unemployed. The challenge is that you donāt get to imprint your value to a potential client, and the business card is added to the pack.
When designing, I always try to find a basic principle I want to follow, this time I found it on a comment thread:
When I see a business card, I want to know three crucial things: (1) who the person is (2) what they do ā why they are relevant to me (3) how I can contact them.
The problem I face here, is how to say I do a little of everything geeky and still sound professional. To some, I just build websites. But my most enjoyable projects involve setting up a combination of web services and duct taping them to the clients workflow. And even after this, if asked, theyāll say: he does computer stuff.
Insight, computer stuff, thatās what I do.
Great, knowing who I am, check (at least on weekdays), what I do, check-ish, andā¦ whatās this? how to contact me? where to start?.
But if you take out a pathological need to show off my formidable web presence, a potential client most likely will only care for a place to see my work, and hopefully afterwards, my email and phone.
Do yourself a favor and buy some great blank business card paper stock and keep a pen handy. When you meet someone, make them feel a little special by taking the time to write out exactly what they need to know. Itās unique. It stands out. Itās powerful.
I still think this is brilliant, but my penmanship would make solving The DaVinci Code seem like an easy challenge compared to figuring out what I wrote.
So I met the idea halfway, worst case, my email is readable. I can easily underline robertomateu.com (soon to be updated) to point to my site, and I can write down my phone number, twitter account, blog or even google voice number, making the card more special. Maybe Iām just a sucker, but when someone writes something on a business card, it seems to stay at the top of the pile.
And the real benefit, is that I think it looks great.
Because, you know, like, less is more, or something.
For a few months I had returned to my darling of TaskPaper as the main repository of tasks and lists, but synching issues really made it impossible for me.
Taskpaper is like the perky, lovable and carefree girlfriend in sitcoms. Itās clear what it does, and doesnāt hide much complexity āunless you want it too.
But as any season finale cliffhanger proves, it has serious relationship issues. Everything will seem to be going great until you say (write) something and suddenly, plates are flying, errors shouted and youāre left alone in a coffee shop with a blank task list as the camera slowly pulls back.
OmniFocus, on the other hand, is the drama movie wife. Boring, nagging and very complex, but only because it really want the best for you (as you learn 90 minutes into the movie).
All my problems with OmniFocus are because it doesnāt let me do things how I want to. Doesnāt let me express myself and be free. It doesnāt really trust me to manage my productivity.
And this pisses me off, because, well, OmniFocus is right. Left to my own devices Iām not organized. The friction OmniFocus creates when adding tasks generates clarity when itās time to do them.
Of course, when giving a relationship a second try, some things have to change, and my approach to the OmniFocus fundamentals (GTD, actually) is all new.
New Contexts:
In classic David Allanās GTD, contexts are related to the availability of tools (email, PC, phone, etc). But as Sven Fechner said:
Contexts became ubiquitous
Clear proof is that Iām writing this on my iPhone as I wait for a doctors appointment.
So I reorganized my contexts looking at the mode I should be in for them to be finished more easily:
Pomodoro: this is digital real work. I sit my behind on the chair and for 25 minutes focus on the task. You break for 5 min and then another set. I try to get at least three sets done on a stretch.
Melo: usually digital research and constructive browsing or playing around with service/code/idea. The name is my own Pomodoro technique spinoff, it means apple in italian and I also like it sounds like mellow. Timer is set for 10 minutes for these.
Errands: real world stuff. Pickup dry cleaning, drop-off documents, anything that is outside and requires interaction with other fellow homo-sapiens. Timing makes no sense for these, but I do try to give them a due date.
Calls: feels like an errands light, but I avoid them so much they deserve their own context. Also useful that you can quickly check them of you have some time and donāt want to start a Pomodoro.
Tangents: whatās the best way to make iced green tea? should I find an alarm app that uses the sunrise time? can you meditate with your eyes open? My brain throws these questions (and many more) all through the day, rather than stop and procrastinate for hours, just save them for later.
Shopping: fun errands. Toothpaste, beer, chocolate, alka seltzer, etc. (hopefully in that order).
Not Priority: for everything you should have said: sorry, I donāt have time, but didnāt. Laptop recommendations, helping out with a website, etc.
Waiting: tasks where youāre waiting on somebody else for information before you can move on.
Today:
The final element in this marvelous new workflow of mine (other than actually doing the task) is writing on a piece of paper.
I use re-printās beautiful monthly calendars, to write the three tasks I will finish today. These are usually a mix of important stuff and smaller fun things.
I do this after looking at an overview of OmniFocus and before doing anything else on the computer. No email, IM or anything else should change the list at this point.
Mind you, I donāt always manage to finish the tasks, but their physical have two benefits:
Crossing off the item with a pen pleases me more than any digital alternative.
After a few days of efficient days, a chain starts, and I try extra hard not to break it.
So this my current workflow, which will likely stand the test of time as all the ones that came before it: badly and sporadically.
Now the real question is, how come someone soooooo organized doesnāt write more often?
I just spent an exorbitant amount of time updating the design of my resume and wanted to share the latest version āsince this sort of thing is never done.
CV Update
As you can hopefully notice, the design should be cleaner and less typical. The chronological Experience/Education main column was replaced with large header with personal information, profile text and skills.
Then I placed the experience row with the three most relevant jobs, arranged left to right chronologically. At the bottom I did the same with education.
I struggled with naming the sub-sections, and in the end just decided to leave an iMac and graduation hat icon as indicators. Still not convinced if itās clear enough, but it does look better. Need to have faith on the reader.
Everything is set in Myriad Pro, a personal favorite of mine.
Once I saw his resume wireframe, the content just filled in nicely. However, I cheated a bit by not including the Key Selling Points (as always, content).
resume wireframe
I also visited CVPARADE a lot just to get inspired, I kept revisiting the CV of Slavic Stasyuk because it had the sparseness I wanted on my own.
The bookmark on the top right came from Bert Timmermans dribble. I kept wanting to include it in a similar fashion to him, but never managed to make it look right.
In the end, I had fallen for the idea so much that I convinced myself that a large bookmark on the corner would look good and be an attention grabber if my CV was laying on the table with others.
Regarding the content, I edited most of it following Avichal Garg excellent post Good resumes vs. Great resumes, where he explains (with examples), the three traits for great resumes:
Quantify accomplishments
Focus on skills acquired and required, not activity
Think about a career stepwise
Again, the content is nowhere near ready, but I had to send something and couldnāt stand the old design. Next few days Iām going to revisit Avichalās article with all the content in markdown format and rewrite it without thinking about layouts, fonts, or any other hipster crap.
Ok, now that I shared this I can close a bunch of browser tabs, phew.
Before moving to Norway, my pal @FedericoA gave me a book called Out Stealing Horses, by Per Petterson. Although hardly my style of novel, it was surprisingly enlightening in helping me grok aspects of norwegians that I would most likely have missed otherwise.
Since then I have always tried to read something about places Iām visiting. While Iād love for this to be an intellectual exercise, I have realized that if the book is not entertaining in some way, I never finish it. As as result most of the books are historical fictions or plain novels, but they usually still reach their objective: giving me a different perspective of the place before/during my visit.
Below the books that fit this description that I read on my recent trip, a passage I highlighted, and some minor notes:
As is often the case in Africa, the confrontation turned into a joyous celebration.
The apartheid and the history of South Africa (all Africa for that matter), have always been nebulous concepts for me. I enjoyed this book immensely. If more history books were written like it, the world would be a more understanding place. Without picking sides, you get an interesting overview of the history of the country, with special attention to important events.
Visiting museums and landmarks during my stay was more enjoyable thanks to this book.
The dayās experiences settled uncomfortably in Mei Lan like an over-rich meal.
In itself, not a great book. However, it does manage to give a good introduction to the history of Singapore by mixing three characters from different backgrounds through its time as a British colony, WWII and ending up with independence.
Slow travel operates largely on the gimmick of time just as backpacker travel operates largely on the gimmick of authenticity.
Not so much a book rather combination of very long articles, but still interesting. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to get into travel mode. If youāre scared about arriving into a city without a hostel reservation, or not being able to understand what the food is, these real stories of will remind you it could be so much worse.
Sadly I didnāt get to visit the Kingdom of Thailand because of the rains, but this Sci-Fi novel was still worth it by itself. It would probably have not helped much in recognizing the country, but the proudness of the people seems to be accurately represented from what other travellers told me.
Civilisation, after all, is defined by what we forbid, more than what we permit.
I read this a few years ago and loved it. While I really donāt believe itās based on a true story, it does capture the essence of Indiaās personality. When rereading I remembered something from the first time: the book is divided in 5 parts, forget the last one, ruins the whole experience.
Empires are built by young men, Culum. Theyāre lost by old men.
Excellent book. The historical aspects are true enough that you can walk around Hong Kong and know a little of everything. The fictional characters are so great, you also put an extra effort trying to understand how it really happened.
There was a girl, and her uncle sold her, wrote Mr. Ibis in his perfect copperplate handwriting. That is the tale; the rest is detail.
Since Iāve been traveling to the US for most of my life, reading this book to get a different perspective seemed ridiculous. Was I wrong. There is something very weird about this book that helps you understand the US a little better. And even if you donāt care about that, reading it was still one of the most enjoyable experience with words Iāve ever had.
Or better yet, share your own lost story and explain how you found your way. Do leave out any self-doubt experienced and any possibility that you really didnāt arrive at the destination you wanted āthese details never help.
When one is lost, strong statements full of confidence are very encouraging. Usually, asking for more details on your self-analysis of lostness is appropriate, although it rarely affects the upcoming feedback.
As a lost person, you may get blank stares from those around you, meaning they donāt understand why you think you are lost. My recommendation, get new friends.
Aw crap! See what I did there? Somebody is going to read this feeling vulnerable, and at least entertain the notion that new friends are needed. Maybe you are a drama queen and your friends just want you to get on with your life. We are just trying not to encourage all that crazy talk and thoughts. Sound familiar? But seriously, a little empathy wouldnāt kill them, no? Ok, ok, sorry again.
Funny thing is, sometimes people donāt want directions. You know they are lost. You can see it on their faces, with vague short-term statements, silence when they would usually jump at some point, and lots of posts on Facebook.
There is, as you may already guessed, and as you will now know for sure, no real point to this post. For that I apologize. But you see, lost people quickly realize how hard it is to give good advice. Or so Iāve been told.
Two things can happen at this moment, you can grab your smartphone again and check for more non-existing messages, or step forward andā¦ dance.
We can all dance. At least our bodies can. Our brain, doesnāt always agree.
If this wasnāt the case, then 47% of the population1 wouldnāt prefer jumping out of an airplane rather than stepping in front a group of people toā¦ dance.
Hereās a secret, the trick about dancing is that you have to smile. Period. Forget about counting 1-2-3ās, following the music or even stepping on people. If you smile, youāre half-way there.
Who do I think I am to make this statement? No one. However, I smile a lot, drink a bit, and when you put these together, Iā¦dance.
Not very well, mind you. I also sweat like a pig, which is both disgusting and hazardous when dancing. BUT, itās still fun. At least a lot more than checking your fake messages.
Sadly, I canāt guarantee the same about the poor soul on the receiving end of my sweaty schizophrenic fit. BUT, guess what? they almost2 always stay. And if you smile, they smile.
Because jumping around to music is always better than checking your fake messages, regardless if youāre a boy or a girl.
And if someone says youāre doing it wrong, ask them to show you how to do it right. Donāt pay too much attention, trust me, Iāve done it wrong in many places, and itās always jumping around. But never forget to smile.
Now take the step forward and jump around like an idiot, or as some people call itā¦ dance.
Well, thatās something you donāt see on your iPhone everyday
We sat on the fancy bar and looked around. Modern design, with a live band playing in the center and some cool looking electronic candles that when lifted flashed intensely to call the attention of the waiter.
I ordered a whiskey on the rocks and Jose Luis vodka-something (such a communist). There was a cigar menu. Imagine that, to drink and smoke a cigar in the Beijing, the capital of the Peopleās Republic of China.
Opening the menu I immediately saw Montecristoās, smiling, we asked for two.
PR China
Eight years ago I was part of the team that represented my University at the Harvard Model United Nations. We were assigned PR China as our country and for months we read, followed, studied, and tried to internalize the culture as much as possible.
In the actual competition, we wore suits with red ties and Chinese Flags pins. We entered double file into meeting halls. Some even tried to emulate the seriousness of their diplomats in negotiations (something at which I failed miserably, but not the point).
In other words, we took our shit seriously.
Having a whiskey with a cigar in a city that used to be familiar āyet abstractā in my mind, just made me smile.
Beijing
I was surprised of which city Beijing reminded me of: Washington DC. Huge blocks, even bigger squares, lots of museums and many crowds of locals.
Of course, it makes some sense that the capitals of two powerful countries have some similar features, but these two, I wasnāt expecting.
The Wall
Sadly, Iāve never been crazy about DC, and for very similar reasons, I didnāt love Beijing.
Itās all very grandiose, but it felt to me it lacked personality. Museums are extremely simplistic, prices are high and you donāt see a lot people smiling. Of course, all of this is anecdote, but I just didnāt like the feel of the city.
The great wall, on the other hand, is magnificent. There are many parts of the wall you can visit from Beijing, we chose Mutianyu, which is bit farther but less crowed. It was fairly empty when we got there, so it payed off. We took a ski-like lift up the wall and walked for a few hours.
Afterwards, in a typical Disneyworld ride fashion (minus the safety), we rode sleds down a long metal toboggan to get back down. Long live the market economy.
The Great Wall
A Bullet Train:
I travelled the distance between Caracas and Bogota in a little under 5 hours, with an average speed of 320km/h. Since I love trains, this was epic.
The seats in economy were comfortable and very clean. Outside everything was blurry and foggy almost all the way to Shanghai, so itās not a sightseeing type of ride.
I would have slept, but āand I swear this is trueā the older lady next to me kept giving me evil glances. No cultural misunderstandings here, either I smelled or she recognized the capitalist pig I am.
Whatever the case, my grandmother once told me āthe trick for a good marriage is never go to bed angryā; sleeping on a train next to an angry lady is close enough to that golden rule, so I didnāt tempt fate.
Shanghai
Whatever Beijing lacked in personality in my eyes, Shanghai completely made up for it. Modern and historic buildingd along opposite sides of the river and complex neighborhoods with a mix of western and chinese styles, this city I could live in.
Pointy and Shinny
Times are aāchanging
I found the food delicious, although I was less adventurous than in Hong Kong. Most people where a lot friendlier than in Beijing and moving around the city on the subway was painless.
One thing to be careful for are the where are you from? scams. Usually what happens is that a group of young people (mostly girls) would: a) ask you to take their picture, b) bump into you, or c) ask for directions, and then always ask in the cutest way possible āwhere are you from?ā.
Since Iām a smiling idiot, reading wikitravel before arriving saved me a lot trouble. According to a spaniard couple I met on a bar, these cool kids invite you to a tea tasting/clothing store sale/party and you end up somewhere paying exorbitant amount of money for tea/shirt/drinks.
Made in China
In another life, these wise old men could have been friends.
I didnāt really visit China. More than on any other leg of my trip, at most, I scratched the surface of two cities.
The thought that kept brewing on the back of my mind on my week there was verbalized perfectly by The Economist recently (talking about the bullet train):
The feeling of travelling so fast for so long is disconcerting. The countryside whizzes by in a blur, though the ride is impeccably smooth. Even more disconcerting for a Westerner is the feeling that he is being left in the dust.
On the postcard I sent my godson (1 year old) from Shanghai I got philosophical and told him that for most of my life China was a strange and far away place. However, Iām convinced that by the time he can read my letter, heāll know neither is true.
The holidays are upon us again, and regardless of Christmas, Hanukah or festivus, the arrival spells conflict for geeks everywhere.
Us geeks live in a catch-22 world where: we already own any tech product we might want. And if we donāt, is because we are waiting for the next version and we really donāt want current one.
The problem is that very few closet geeks exist. Every family member knows youāre one, and as a result, the walk into any electronic store saying āI need a $25 gift for a geekā.
I believe the whole industry of useless USB accessories āventilators, lights, coffee mugs, etcā is a result of this.
In any case, hereās my three quick tips for dealing with this:
Donāt Try to Act Surprised
We are geeks. We thrive on knowing stuff before anyone. We care about real iPhones and fake ones. We knew #TigerBlood was a trending topic even before we had any idea what it meant.
Acting surprised is not in our repertoire, so donāt try to fake it.
Prepend the Truth With an Exclamation(!)
Contrary to popular beliefs, the truth never sets us free. It usually leaves us standing by ourselves in the corner of the party while we discuss who really was behind the Think Different campaign.
Given our knee-jerk reaction to blurt out the truth, I suggest disguising such statements with more socially tolerable contexts:
Wow! I would have never gotten this for myself.
Far out! Canāt believe you bought me this.
You get the idea. Watching any reality show before the gift exchange could help with coming up with new exclamations.
Remember the Real Spirit of the Holidays
Itās about giving, not receivingā¦ so keep all those presents and give them away as gifts the rest of the year.
I took an express train to the Hong Kong airport and a moto-taxi to my Siam Reap hotel.
Since I hadnāt planned on visiting Cambodia āand prices were cheapā I was lazy and went with the hotel Jose Luisā travel agency recommended as part of a package.
Siam Reap
As I go into my room, Iām pretty confident I wonāt be murdered in my sleep. However, the old axiom of at a low enough price, hostels/guesthouses are better than hotels stills rings true.
I pick my backpack and open the closetā¦ after a second I drop it back on the chair. If itās going to be stolen, let it depart my hands with some dignity.
Itās only 10pm, I might as well take a walk and grab a beer.
My old trick of answering in Spanish to street offers, backfires in just two blocks:
āLady for tonight siiiiiiir?ā
āNo graciasā
āOh, Italian? Two ladies?ā
God bless Berlusconi.
I follow people down to Bar Street, and along the way get offered everything from marijuana to something that is either a very fine local dish, or a massage Iām too naive to know about.
The bar where I sit is across the street of an open two floor club/restaurant. The music is loud and tourists are happy. The same western popular dance songs keep playing over and over again.
A few guys in their 50ās walk by with young local girlfriends on their arms. I try not to judge, but fail.
I order draft Ankor beer, itās $0.50 a glass.
My sentimental norwegianess calculates that the beer is free and they charge for it being cold.
Looking around Iām reminded of my Dad telling me he was once on an oil platform and there was fire, gas, electricity and water surrounding him in the most precarious ways. All the things my grandfather had warned him about when little, together in the same place.
I relate to the story somehow right now.
The Guide
Next day at 7:30am I meet my guide, Em Somuch. In his late 40ās, he has a wide smile and starts talking as soon as we shake hands.
Since Iām not fully awake yet, I start nodding while he gives me the lowdown of the plan, and wait for him to name the price. Suddenly heās quiet and looking at me expectantly.
āSorry, again?ā
āYes, howmanyingroupsir?ā
āOh, no group, just meā
āNo group? just wife?ā
Great, seems Em has been talking with my parents.
āNo, no, just meā.
He looks surprised, but not disappointed. I donāt know why, but Iām relieved.
āWe take scooter then? Much cheaper!ā
Since he already touched on my relationship insecurities, Iām not ready to let him know Iām a wuss.
āYes, scooter greatā.
My mom is going to kill me if I survive this.
To think I was scared on the back of @carlosmherrera bike
The Temples
Angkor temples are beautiful. Big sparse constructions with complex details surrounded by jungle. Once the center of large cities, now they are part of an archeological park.
The temples themselves have had changing personalities. Many started as Buddhist temples and were changed to Hinduism and back as new Kings came.
Ankor Wat
One in particular was originally meant to accept all religions, each with itās own entrance, so people could worship together to different gods. Of course, the next king changed it.
A detail that fascinated me is what I can only call protocol by design: most doors are very tall, but as you got closer to the center, the height falls considerably.
When I asked Em if their priests were particularly short, he laughed and explained this was to force subjects to bend over and make reverence.
Similarly, the steps people used to approach the king were extremely steep and small. This required anyone coming up to basically crawl their way up to the kingās presence.
If youāre really into Indiana Jones or Lara Croft1, you can spend at least three days visiting temples, especially if you go out of your way to lesser known ones.
Pretty sure she was smiling at the scarf.
Personally, by the afternoon of the second day I was templed out. Without shame I spent the rest of that day on the hotel pool reading the Steve Jobs Biography.
Shopping
The last day I spent walking around the markets (if any family member is reading this, your Xmas gift probably was made and bought in Cambodia).
Negotiating is fun but tiring. Glancing at anything will immediately be accompanied with a person shoving a big calculator in your face, while saying āfor you, $10ā.
Since Iāve never been a great negotiator, I just pushed the price down as much as my catholic guilt would allow, and then increased the quantity of goods for the given price. Worked almost every time.
Closing Thoughts
I found the people friendly and talkative, although make no mistake about it, everyone is out for your dollars. But in almost every case, you get food, service and products that have some effort put into it. In other words, itās not a giant tourist trap.
Thereās also a subtle layer underneath everything you see in Cambodia. And unless you ask, it never comes out. Most of the people I talked with were not from Siam Reap. The stories of why they came could each be a harrowing movie.
My Siam Reap guide: Em Somuch
Em has a bullet wound on his upper leg from his time as a soldier āwhich he will show you if you want to hear the story, regardless of how many times you repeat itās not necessary. He spent 10 years in a refuge camp in Vietnam.
Yet, he was as professional of a tour guide as any other place Iāve visited.
And as such, when he said it was $40 a day āscooter includedā I gladly paid. Not out of compassion or pity, but because he earned it2.
It took my brain half a second to realize that: 1) the car was driving the wrong way; 2) we where on a highway and; 3) nobody else seemed the least bothered with my realization.
A few minutes before, Nav had turned to me on our drive out of Delhi and said:
If you take apart India and analyze it, you come to the conclusion that this country should not work. Yet, somehow it does.
This thought stayed with me every second of my two week visit to India.
Iām always aware that my understandings of countries ābased on just a few daysā are simplistic generalizations. However, they help me organize my experiences into stories with a pinch of logic, and also make assumptions that help me believe I understood my surroundings.
It has been a week after leaving and I still canāt wrap my mind around an unifying model for India. I donāt recall any other country that has challenged my pre-conceived assumptions so strongly.
Therefore I had to approach this post differently: Iāll share three things India is.
India is Family
I had the amazing opportunity of staying in an apartment Navās Father rented for visiting family members, right next to their own place.
Alongside Knut-Jorgen and Wolf (an adopted son for them, since he lived in Chandigarh for 3 years), we not only got to enjoy the formal events, but also experienced a Big Fat Punjabi Wedding.
The biggest impression (other than how cool Navās parents are), was how everyoneās attention turned to the bride and groom for the week. It wasnāt only good wishes, everything revolved around them āand their guests.
Iām sure that if I had knocked on the door at 4am saying that I had craving for burger and beer, something would have been arranged.
Customs seemed to reinforce this at every turn. While Catholic social events require the bride and groom (and their guests) to listen to a never ending sermon of what they must/mustnāt do/think/say, Sikh traditions seemed to focus more on retelling stories of failures and successes.
More than once I arrived at the apartment to witness all visiting family members singing, clapping and laughing in some ritual without Fiona or Nav even being around.
Nav buying back Fiona's shoes
Of course, since I couldnāt understand a word anyone said, my anecdotes are not evidence. But Iāll just say before we even got to any party āan a drop of alcohol was servedā Iāve heard and joined hours of laughter.
India is a Sensory Rollercoaster
In sights, smells and sounds, India keeps you at the edge of your seat at all times.
The variety of smells was overwhelming: driving with a window open would take you on a trip that was equal parts fragrance, appetizing and āvery suddenlyā horrendous.
A delicious aroma from food stalls would monopolize a street corner, and a few meters beyond a cinnamon-like smell of flowers will relax you, until a soft breeze would remind you that behind the bush is another name for public toilets.
Camels, turbans and ā¦ powerlines?
Same with colors; bright and beautiful dresses are worn by people adorning grey and dreadful buildings. On another block, brown dirt would surround a shining white temple.
And then soundsā¦ there are a billion reasons why you wonāt experience silence in India. Luckily, the music is so fantastic, that you learn to live without it.
In one of those world upside down perspectives for a westerner, if you canāt hear a car horn, you start to worry. My car dealership heritage couldnāt help but wonder what where the horn replacement rates, since they seemed to be connected to the accelerator and breaks.
India is Organized Anarchy
Driving in India is the best proof Iāve seen that there is order in chaos. Indians seem to take a very relativistic approach to its practice: how many cars fit in two lanes has little to do with physics.
En mototaxi premium
The concept of traffic lights is also extraordinarily complex to a foreigner: you donāt wait until your light is green, only until the other street in the roundabout is red. How do they know when that is? Still beyond my understanding.
Parking lots are also as close as a real-life game of Tetris as Iāve ever experienced. When one is full, you just canāt imagine how anyone will ever leaveā¦ until you realize the car blocking you doesnāt have its parking brake.
From here, a complex game of rearranging different cars, yelling to find that one person who did use the parking brake, and precise millimeter maneuvering ensues.
But here is where the chaos draws an imaginary line that I failed to grasp. While the parking lot is difficult to even walk on, the sidewalk in front of the shops āwhere in Venezuela would be full of bikes and some SUVāsā is completely clear.
How can a system that looks totally unregulated from the outside, create some semblance of order?
Again, Iāll refer to Navās insights:
I think peopleās fear of dealing with corrupted institutions makes them avoid getting into trouble.
Closing Thoughts
Iāll remember my India trip as one of the best in my life.
It was a perfect recipe: great old friends, a happy and grandiose occasion for two of them, and many new friends. All in a strange and foreign land.
But I struggle with recommendation of India. There is not just one way to sum it up.
India is raw, touristy, fun, stressful, relaxing, scary and welcoming.
From now on, every time Nav asks āwhatās the plan?ā Iāll have some cultural background to understand the depth of the question.
After brewing on my experiences for a week, the best I could come up with is:
If you ever wanted to visit India, you should definitively go.
Otherwise, if you think you should go, wait for India to find a reason to invite you.
However, if any of my children ever read this: go to India.
My genes have likely condemned you to over appreciate staying in your comfort-zone, and we miss a lot as a result.
Iām sure that uncle Nav will have a great plan for you. Or worst case, weird uncle Wolf will also have some suggestion.
After a week in Singapore I came to the following conclusion:
Singapore is what Southeast Asia looks like when imagined by a westerner.
Not that the country/city is trying to be western, but its strive for growth has produced a modern state, that while somewhat alien to my mindset, feels comfortable at the same time.
With an amazing diversity of nationalities and heritages from the region, all speaking English āactually singlish with most sentences ending in lah, a huge expat population and stunning infrastructure, you rarely feel out of place.
Itās like walking into a strange neighborhood in your own city.
Waiting for it to take off
The place is definitely South East Asia though, from the weather āitās either sunny or raining, in alternating 30 minute segments, to the food ādelicious even when you have no idea what it actually is.
Asked "recommendation?", she said: "No, choose".
Hackerspace
I also got the chance to geek-out properly for first time in more than a year.
First with Nav (the wedding boy and my host), Wolf and Aman, and then with some really cool people of the tech startup community which Nav got me in contact with.
Listening to the excitement and optimism regarding the prospects of Singapore in technology for the region gave be a similar bittersweet feeling as when I visited Colombia: so great for them, but there is no excuse for our difficulties in explaining the virtues of a stable market in Venezuela1.
The surprising thing is that the technology sector is very far behind shipping and banking in economic importance, so their success is not guaranteed by any means.
There are very few startups that have managed to make exits, and most werenāt that profitable. At the same time, the cost of living and labour is extremely high compared to most of Asia.
Another important challenge is the cultural perception towards startups. I kept hearing that not working for a recognized company is a source of concern for their parents, who practice the age old tradition of bragging about your kids.
Upside Down
Mijo, Ā”eso queda en el otro lado del mundo! (Sonny, thatās on the other side of the world!)
My grandmother Yeya used to tell me this when I travelled to places that where more than a couple of hours from Caracas.
So it was a mind-warping fact to realize that while in Singapore, if I where to dig a hole through the center of the earth, I would come up (down?) in the northern part of Ecuador āwhich by my Yeyaās standard would also be on the other side of the world.
When traveling so far from home, even political correctness flips, as I happily learned talking to a Singaporean who had just given a great UX session organized by Nav.
After the session, Donald Lim (the speaker) and myself where talking and after correcting him that I was in fact from Venezuela and not from Argentina, he said in a very sincere manner: āIām sorry, itās difficult for me to tell apart the different South American nationalitiesā.
I just smiled and held my breath.
How could I tell him that in Venezuela we say the same thing about them? Or worse, that we are so careless (to the point of blatant disrespect), that we just assign one nationality to the whole region.
Chino. Yes, we call everyone in Southeast Asiaā¦ Chinese.
Unless youāre really Chinese, in which case whomever is telling the story would say āhe was chino-chinoā. As if duplicating the generalization explains the concept.
And this isnāt even the worst part. If for some reason the actual nationality needs to referred, we just prepend chino to whatever country the person is really from.
This gives us concoctions such as chino-koreano and probably chino-signapureano, if we didnāt think Singapore was in China.
Which brings us to the most barbaric historical incorrectness in the venezuelan dialect: āhe is chino-japonesā.
In complete disregard to more than a thousand years of history, forgetting these two countries have been at war twice since our country was born, we join them in one big pile in the other side of the world.
Given the geographical guilt I carry, Donald could have referred to me as from Benesuela, and I still wouldnāt have been insulted.
Traveler Conclusions
Singapore was really special for me because I got time to spend with Fiona and Nav before their wedding. But as a traveller, I would say that a three day weekend is more than enough for a visit.
Merlion
The food is excellent, the modern buildings impressive and the sightseeing very different. But itās expensive, and what makes it so comfortable for a first time visitor as myself, also limits itās novelty after a few days.
As I woke up on early Saturday and washed my face, this was the itinerary for the next 24 hours:
Cape Town to Johannesburg (2h)
Johannesburg to Hong Kong (13h)
Hong Kong to Singapore (3,5h)
I have managed to get window seats on all flights, so the only thing on my mind was the somewhat tight connection time of 1:30 hours on both layovers.
But as long as I caught the flight to Hong Kong, the rest could be figured out along the way.
Trains That Donāt Arrive and Planes That Never Leave
I got on the bus that would take me from the terminal to the plane on Cape Town and allowed myself to relax. I put headphones on and started to listen to The Decemberist; everything was on time ā¦ now just enjoy getting there.
For a second I closed my eyes and mumbled āthis is why fightā and thought to myself: man, what a great song! I opened my eyes, intoxicated with the coolness of my existence, life and everything, and a stocky ground services lady was in front of me moving her mouth.
āPardon?ā I stuttered. Seems this was the third time she had tried to find intelligent life between my headphones, and was not too pleased about the results until now: āSir, please return to the terminal, there is a slight delayā.
In the words of some famous spanglish poet: el crapo.
Twenty minutes later, the verdict is shared: flight cancelled.
Dashing back to Counter 118, I was congratulating myself on the merits of light travel and its speed benefits, when out of the corner of my eye a business casual looking guy took a tight turn and beat me to the counter.
Having already decided that I hated this speed walking freak, I settled behind him on the line. With only 10 days in South Africa I was ready for some disinformation galore, and Comair delivered almost immediately.
A number of vague possible flight alternatives to Johannesburg where thrown around, and reschedule for tomorrow kept being added to random sentences.
Pro-Traveller
Casually I hear that speed-walker tells one of the friendly (yet as useful as a headless chicken) attendants: āIām going to miss my connection to in Joāburg, can you get me on the direct flight of Singapore Air leaving at 2? or the flight to Perth and connect me from there?ā.
Clearly speed-walker knew what the heck he was talking about. With the subtleness that characterizes Venezuelan respect for private conversations, I barged in.
āIām also going to Singaporeā I comment as casually as possible, while giving speed-walker an apologetic look that hopefully implied: āsorry dude, but if youāre the only one with a parachute, Iām hanging onā.
Speed-walker (whose real name is Johnathan), didnāt even turn and kept pressing: āI have no luggageā he said. I almost heard his thoughts: ābooyah sucker! Hang on to that!ā, to which I squeaked āMe neitherā.
The Comair person turned to another and said āCan you check if we can get these gentlemen on the Singapore Air flight?ā Bingo, these gentlemen.
The girl turned to leave saying āIāll check with themā, and Johnathan grabbed his carry-on uttering the most important travel phrase Iāve learned on this trip:
Iāll go with you.
Being the independent, self-sufficient person that I am, I tagged along.
Turns out Johnathan is an American expat living Singapore with his family, and he travels a lot. We eventually got a flight 5 hours later through Dubai and Sri-Lanka, and I arrived at Singapore about 9 hours later than originally planned.
During our conversation he emphasized to always tag along with whomever is dealing with you, that way you become his/her problem. I can safely say that without him being such a polite pain in the ass I would probably have been rescheduled for the next day.
So there you go, a final lesson in humanity from South Africa: turns out speed walkers are people too.
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