Jekyll2024-03-19T05:06:01+00:00https://luispuerto.net/Luis Puerto’s BlogDataScience | GIS | RemoteSensing | Coding | Research | EnvEngineeringLuis PuertoWe are moving to Zürich, Switzerland2020-04-07T05:30:00+00:002020-04-07T05:30:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/04/07/moving-to-zurich
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2020/Matterhorn-sunset-2016-(Unsplash).jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>In the following months we are going to move to Zürich :mountain_cableway:, Switzerland :switzerland::mountain_snow: for professional reasons. We are really happy and excited about this change. We’ve pondered about it for quite some time and we finally decided to go for it, since we thought that it was going to make a really positive impact on our family and professional lives. We love the area, Central Europe, and we love the culture, the food, the people and the landscapes. We’ve been around before, visiting the Alps and living in Vienna, Austria, and we had always a great experience.</p>
<p>On the other hand, we have mixed feelings about leaving Finland. We have been quite happy living in Finland the last —almost— 6 years of our lives and we are leaving behind an important part of our lives. We have friends and some of them are almost like family. Also Finland has given us a lot and it’s the place where our son was born. Even when we complain a lot about some things related to this country —specially sometimes related to <a href="https://twitter.com/lpuerto/status/1245733960698781696">the weather</a>— we are going to carry it in our heart forever.</p>
<p>Of course the change isn’t going to be free from challenges, threats and difficulties. First of all the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic"><em>coronamess</em></a> :mask: situation we all are more or less involved right now. Since we’ll need to be in Zürich for the beginning of July, we were thinking to expend some weeks in between visiting friends and family in Spain so they can meet and enjoy our son. You have to think that some of them, like in the case of my parents, haven’t met him in person yet<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup>. However, we don’t know when we are going to be able to leave Finland for several reasons.</p>
<ul>
<li>First: our son doesn’t have yet his Spanish passport which is probably going to be needed even to travel across Europe. We started the process of getting it as soon as we could, but not until the first of March we got all the paperwork done. Then, it got stuck somewhere in the bureaucratic process between Spain and Finland, or even perhaps it’s still in Spain pending to be printed.</li>
<li>Second: although we, as Spanish citizens, still have the right to enter in Spain —even when the borders are closed and our son doesn’t have his passport— we don’t really know if it’s worth to go to Spain to be locked down there or even perhaps be put in quarantine. At least for now, the situation in Finland is better and we still enjoy some degree of freedom.</li>
<li>Third: Switzerland has closed its borders to the World and unless you already have a work / residence permit, it’s pretty impossible to enter the country right now. The issuing of work permits is halted for now and they don’t know when is going to start again. We were also thinking to move some of our things before July so our arrival is going to be easier, but with all of these problems that operation is halted for now too.</li>
</ul>
<p>We know that this situation it’s going to eventually be sorted out and everyone is going to get back to their business after a couple of months. But, we all, for now, need to sit tight in our homes to try to curve the virus as soon as possible.</p>
<p>However, in our particular case, are still need to make plans, getting prepared for our next big adventure in the heart of the mountains in Central Europe and solve the problems we have head of us as a result of the moving from one country to another. Like organize the removal and import of our things from Finland to Switzerland, look for an apartment in Zürich, start to learn (Swiss) German :switzerland::de:, apply for day care for our son, figure out about health care —since it’s going to be the first time we are going to be in a private scheme— and a myriad of other stuff.</p>
<p>Anyhow, we are really happy about this opportunity and we hope to get the most from it. We are really happy that our son is going to have the opportunity to grow in an international environment in a multicultural country. And I’m specially happy to return to the mountains. :goat:</p>
<p>See you in Switzerland soon, either in the city or in the mountains. :mountain_snow::mountain_cableway::switzerland:</p>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>My parents are quite old, specially my father, and they don’t like to travel, specially my father. Finland in winter isn’t their cup of tea and I really think that in the case of my father could pose a threat for his health. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/04/07/moving-to-zurich/" rel="nofollow">We are moving to Zürich, Switzerland</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoIn the following months we are going to move to Zürich :mountain_cableway:, Switzerland :switzerland::mountain_snow: for professional reasons. We are really happy and excited about this change. We’ve pondered about it for quite some time and we finally decided to go for it, since we thought that it was going to make a really positive impact on our family and professional lives. We love the area, Central Europe, and we love the culture, the food, the people and the landscapes. We’ve been around before, visiting the Alps and living in Vienna, Austria, and we had always a great experience.Normalizing line endings on files for Git2020-01-04T06:00:00+00:002020-01-04T06:00:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/01/04/normalize-line-endings-files-git
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/git-logo-01.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>I had a repo that suffered an <em>unconventional fork</em>, in other works, someone decided copy it and work outside Git —or any other version control system :dizzy_face:. After that, the fork was set as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Subversion">Subversion</a> repo and store in a local server. To bring those changes back to the original repo, I had to set it up as a <em>non related</em> branch of the original repo, as I explain here, so I can proceed and merge it later.</p>
<p>In spite of that, and as if dealing with the changes to merge weren’t enough, line endings on the subversion version —sorry for the redundancy— of the repo were showing <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><0x0d></code> when I performed a <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">git diff</code> of the two branches. <a href="https://community.perforce.com/s/article/3096">Line endings</a> are handled in a different way on <em><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like">Unix-like</a></em> systems —like Linux or macOS— and on Windows systems. While Windows uses for line endings the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">CR/LF</code>, convention that is also know as ASCII <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">0x0d</code> or <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">\r</code> and a newline <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">\n</code> which ASCII is <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">0x0a</code>, <em>Unix-like</em> system uses just <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">LF</code>, also called <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">\n</code> or in ASCII <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">0x0a</code>.</p>
<p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/1552775/6888648">Some people</a> argue that Windows way is more correct, because it uses a <em>new line</em> and <em>carriage return</em>, while Unix it’s just new line, which could be just that, new line but not the carriage return to the left most part of the line and in consequence you’d end at the end of a new line, instead of the beginning. The reality is, in Unix they decided to have just one character, so they could save some space in memory —which has all the sense in the world in the old days— and that’s it. Since Git is a Unix developed app, if you have files with Widows line-endings and things haven’t been configured properly, you end up with a bunch of files with something like this:</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>-export(addconversionfactorandprice)<0x0d>
-export(adddot2logfile)<0x0d>
-export(addmissingmirrorflow)<0x0d>
-export(addpartnerflow)<0x0d>
-export(addregion)<0x0d>
-export(calculatediscrepancies)<0x0d>
-export(changecolumntype)<0x0d>
-export(changeflowmessage)<0x0d>
-export(checkdbcolumns)<0x0d>
-export(clean)<0x0d>
-export(clean2excel)<0x0d>
-export(cleancomext)<0x0d>
-export(cleancomextmonthly)<0x0d>
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<p>Nice… a lot of visual garbage around. And not even just visual garbage, but it also seems that <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">git diff</code> it’s piking those differences in lines endings as real differences between files. So all the files that have been edited seem to have all those lines endings on all the lines and Git is assuming that the whole file was changed.</p>
<h2 id="where-does-the-problem-come-from">Where does the problem come from?</h2>
<p>I really don’t know where the problem come front, exactly, but I can have a guess. Most probably the <em>version-control-less</em> fork was developed under Windows :scream: were changes to the line endings probably happened. However, that shouldn’t be a problem since it isn’t the first time I’m working on a repo that is used, and edited, on Windows and Unix-like systems and I never ever I have an issue like this. I guess that Git, on its normal operation on Windows, it’s configured to strip those extra characters from the files when they are added to Git database. So, I guess, the problem comes from the Subversion repo and its transformation to a Git repo with the <a href="https://git-scm.com/docs/git-svn"><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">git-svn</code></a> command. Probably Subversion doesn’t strip those characters off and I didn’t have the correct configuration on Git to deal with this case the line endings weren’t normalized.</p>
<h2 id="how-to-fix">How to fix?</h2>
<p>Just a simple tip, don’t use Windows :grimacing:, and the life of everyone would be much easier. Ok, I just kidding —or not— but since this is not possible let’s see if we can find a real solution.</p>
<h3 id="git-configuration">Git configuration</h3>
<p>First of all, you have to <a href="https://www.git-scm.com/book/en/v2/Customizing-Git-Git-Configuration#_code_core_autocrlf_code">configure Git</a> accordingly, just in case.</p>
<div class="language-shell highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
2
3
4
5
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre><span class="c"># for Windows</span>
git config <span class="nt">--global</span> core.autocrlf <span class="nb">true</span>
<span class="c"># for Linux & macOS</span>
git config <span class="nt">--global</span> core.autocrlf input
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<p>You can also establish configuration <a href="https://help.github.com/en/github/using-git/configuring-git-to-handle-line-endings#per-repository-settings">at repo</a> level with the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">.gitattributes</code> file with</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>* text=auto
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<h3 id="transform-current-files">Transform current files</h3>
<p>However, the above configuration will only prevent new files from having those line endings. How can you transform the previous files? You just can follow <a href="https://help.github.com/en/github/using-git/configuring-git-to-handle-line-endings">GitHub tutorial</a> about it.</p>
<ol>
<li>You just first save your changes, in case you had any:</li>
</ol>
<div class="language-shell highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
2
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>git add <span class="nb">.</span> <span class="nt">-u</span>
git commit <span class="nt">-m</span> <span class="s2">"Saving files before refreshing line endings"</span>
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<ol start="2">
<li>Use Git to renormalize everything in your repo</li>
</ol>
<div class="language-shell highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>git add <span class="nt">--renormalize</span> <span class="nb">.</span>
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<ol start="3">
<li>Now you can see the renormailized files and commit them.</li>
</ol>
<div class="language-shell highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
2
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>git status
git commit <span class="nt">-m</span> <span class="s2">"Normalize all the line endings"</span>
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<p>Please be sure you are normalizing the correct branch. I had a lot of trouble because I thought I was normalizing the offending branch —I was not— and even after the normalization I was still seeing the line-endings garbage.</p>
<p>You can also check this post on <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/15646791/6888648">stack over flow</a> if you want to know more.</p>
<h3 id="dos2unix--unix2dos">dos2unix & unix2dos</h3>
<p>If you don’t want to use Git for this task, you can always rely in <a href="https://www.lifewire.com/dos2unix-linux-command-4091910"><code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">dos2unix</code> and on <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">unix2dos</code></a> commands on terminal. If you don’t have them, you can easily install with <a href="http://brew.sh">brew</a>.</p>
<div class="language-shell highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code><table class="rouge-table"><tbody><tr><td class="rouge-gutter gl"><pre class="lineno">1
</pre></td><td class="rouge-code"><pre>brew <span class="nb">install </span>dos2unix
</pre></td></tr></tbody></table></code></pre></div></div>
<p>and if you are in Linux, use whatever method is used in your distro.</p>
<p>However, be careful using this apps because perhaps you <em>transform</em> something that you aren’t supposed to. Like for example, binaries. I did it and I had to restore them because I left then useless.</p>
<h2 id="bottom-line">Bottom line</h2>
<p>Guys, seriously, use Git, or subversion, or whatever version control you like to version your work and make it easy to others —and to yourself— to figure out what was going on your work and on your code. I really don’t understand why this is not a common practice when people is teaching / learning to program in whatever language. It’s one of the things that make your work look like a pro.</p>
<p>Also be mindful about the system / OS you are using and how it works. Not everyone is using the same OS and we need to make things work cross-platform.</p>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/01/04/normalize-line-endings-files-git/" rel="nofollow">Normalizing line endings on files for Git</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoI had a repo that suffered an unconventional fork, in other works, someone decided copy it and work outside Git —or any other version control system :dizzy_face:. After that, the fork was set as a Subversion repo and store in a local server. To bring those changes back to the original repo, I had to set it up as a non related branch of the original repo, as I explain here, so I can proceed and merge it later.Forest Products Tradeflow at European Forest Institute2020-01-01T06:00:00+00:002020-01-01T06:00:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/01/01/efi
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/EFI.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>There is something I haven’t written about yet, mainly because I’ve been a <a href="/blog/2019/12/20/parenthood/">little bit busy</a>. Since mid-September I’ve been working at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Forest_Institute">European Forest Institute, EFI</a> on a task related to the <a href="https://www.efi.int/knowledge/databases/fptf">Forest Products Trade Flow Database</a>, a project that the EFI has been working on since almost EFI foundation in 1995.</p>
<p>The main aim of the database is to track the trade of forest products around the World, and produce meaningful reports for the general public and of course the experts. To achieve that, it extracts and clean trade flows from the <a href="https://comtrade.un.org">UN Comtrade</a> database that contains data on trade since the ~80s.</p>
<p>UN Comtrade is a great resource that been helping to understand global trade, even more in the nowadays globalized world, and probably it has been an essential tool for developing trade policy internationally and locally. However, since it relies on the self reporting of the involved trading countries, sometimes the data isn’t totally reliable and it has to be checked and cleaned. Here, is were the work of EFI comes into place, developing a tool to clean and serve the part related to forest products.</p>
<p>EFI has developed a collection of scrips —basically a package— in R to download, clean and produce reports about the flows, on which —at lest on my opinion— the previous developers have done a really outstanding job. Yet, the project hasn’t been under active development for a while and some parts of the code need to be updated and some others need to be debugged. So I have had some fun with the code and I’ll probably have a little bit more in the near future.</p>
<p>The first part of my work, was mainly trying to understand how the process of cleaning and downloading was taking place. The downloading part doesn’t have a lot of mystery —it juts the use of an API— but it can be challenging —and it is— when we are talking about this volume of data. The cleaning has more complication, and in some cases it take a lot of guessing, comparing and extrapolation. This doesn’t make the final product less accurate, but absolutely the opposite. You have to think, that in some cases, some of the entries are completely missing<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> missing and in others are totally wrong, so all the processes that take place are aiming not only to complete the database but to make it more accurate. You can read more about it in the <a href="https://www.efi.int/knowledge/databases/fptf">database site</a>.</p>
<p>I hope to write a little bit more in the future about the project because it’s really interesting. All related to data is interesting, even more if it’s forest data.</p>
<p>Soon, more to come!</p>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>Each flow of data has a mirror one. Since each country reports it own data, some countries report the import and others report the export flow. There is when the madness happens. Different countries, different people, different value, different way of reporting, different measurements,… <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2020/01/01/efi/" rel="nofollow">Forest Products Tradeflow at European Forest Institute</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoThere is something I haven’t written about yet, mainly because I’ve been a little bit busy. Since mid-September I’ve been working at the European Forest Institute, EFI on a task related to the Forest Products Trade Flow Database, a project that the EFI has been working on since almost EFI foundation in 1995.Happy New Year 120202019-12-30T06:00:00+00:002019-12-30T06:00:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/30/happy-new-year-12020
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/12020.jpeg" alt="" /></p>
<p>We’re again in that time of the year when we’ve spun once more around the Sun and therefore…</p>
<p class="xx-large">I want to wish you all a…</p>
<p class="text-center gigantic"><strong>Happy New Year <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czgOWmtGVGs"><span style="color: #ff0000;">1</span>2020</a></strong></p>
<figure class="">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/12020-Calendar.jpg" title="The 12020 Human Era Calendar from Kurzgesagt. Source: Kurzgesagt
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/12020-Calendar.jpg" alt="The 12020 Human Era Calendar" />
</a>
<figcaption>
The 12020 Human Era Calendar from <a href="https://kurzgesagt.org/">Kurzgesagt</a>. Source: <a href="https://kurzgesagt.org/">Kurzgesagt</a>
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>This last year has been quite special. First of all, because it was full of really interesting trips. First to Vienna, Austria :austria: for two months and then we visit again <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvallis,_Oregon">Corvallis</a>, OR, USA :us: on the summer where we came across old friends and made new unforgettable ones.</p>
<p>However, the most important trip of all was a really personal one that changed our civil status from being married to being parents. While we were on Austria, we found out that we were pregnant and the countdown for a new and exciting adventure started. This countdown ended last <a href="/blog/2019/12/20/parenthood/">December 5</a>, when our son <a href="https://jr.luispuerto.net">Luis Puerto Díaz (Junior)</a><sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> was <a href="https://jr.luispuerto.net/2019/12/05/hello-world/">born</a> in Joensuu, Finland :finland:.</p>
<p>Anyhow…</p>
<p class="xx-large">I recommend you to be grateful<sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup> for what you have… because it’s the best antidote to dissatisfaction, and I’m sure you’ll get more things to be grateful next year.</p>
<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com //-->
<div class="responsive-video-container">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WPPPFqsECz0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<p class="xx-large">And remember you that you’re not alone.</p>
<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com //-->
<div class="responsive-video-container">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/n3Xv_g3g-mA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<p class="xx-large">Although we are hundreds of kilometers away, we’ll be always together and in this time and age we’re just a click way. Literally, you can always call<sup id="fnref:3" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> —or email— me to catch up!</p>
<p>I also like to the remember to you, and specially to all the Nordics :sweden::denmark::finland::iceland::norway::iceland: and in particularly the Finns :finland::finland::finland::finland:, that to be independent doesn’t have to mean to be alone or lonely. Humans —no mater the nationality—<sup id="fnref:4" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote" rel="footnote">4</a></sup> are social animals that need to be with other humans. Of course, we also need our small space for solitude —think of it as the moment for recharge— but in the end you need socialization. If you don’t have both things, your health, physical and mental, will deteriorate for sure.</p>
<p>Finally, I would like to encourage you watch this video, which I would consider a <a href="/blog/2019/12/23/christmas-tale/">Weird Christmas Tale</a>, but I also consider really suitable for a New Years Eve, since rebirth is one of it’s themes. Could be a better time of the year for rebirth than New Year? Anyhow, and as any good story, it has multiple interpretations that you need to distill.</p>
<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com //-->
<div class="responsive-video-container">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/h6fcK_fRYaI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<p>And in the end… please remember the…</p>
<p class="text-center xx-large"><em>chRismas Regresion model</em></p>
<p><img src="https://imgur.com/SITRETA.gif" alt="" /></p>
<p class="text-center xx-large"><strong>And That You Get</strong> <br />
<strong><em>“More Bonus Points If You Help To Build A Galactic Human Empire”.</em></strong></p>
<iframe src="//gifs.com/embed/bonus-points-W7gXZQ?muted=false" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" width="100%" height="450em" style="-webkit-backface-visibility: hidden;-webkit-transform: scale(1);"></iframe>
<figure class="">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/12020-Calendar-interior.jpeg" title="The 12020 Human Era Calendar from Kurzgesagt. Source: Kurzgesagt
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/12020-Calendar-interior.jpeg" alt="The 12020 Human Era Calendar" />
</a>
<figcaption>
The 12020 Human Era Calendar from <a href="https://kurzgesagt.org/">Kurzgesagt</a>. Source: <a href="https://kurzgesagt.org/">Kurzgesagt</a>
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<hr />
<p class="xx-large" style="margin-top:1em"><strong>PS/ As the previous year, Olalla has made our review of the <span style="color: #ff0000;">1</span>2019 year:</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/O+L-2019-in-review-EN.jpeg" title="12019 in review
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/O+L-2019-in-review-EN.jpeg" alt="" />
</a>
<figcaption>
<span style="color: #ff0000;">1</span>2019 in review
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>Or as some people is starting to call him “Luisito”. In Spanish the Junior title is in general not used, but some people use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=Diminutive">diminutives</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_(grammar)">superlatives</a>, which Spanish allow to be made with nouns. “Luisito” is the diminutive of Luis. I was “Luisito” until I grow up and became Luis or “Luisón” (superlative). Also, sometimes family and specially friends nickname you in some ways when you are in school or high school. Some nicknames stick more than others. My hometown friends still call me by several different nicknames :blush:, which I like, but only when it comes from them because denotes a familiarity formed in a specific stage of my life. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote">
<p>We’re extremely grateful for our Christmas present this year!!!!! <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:3" role="doc-endnote">
<p>Facetime, Skype or WhatsApp are very useful tools that people usually don’t take advantage of. I have to admit that I hate WhatsApp as a message system, specially related to groups and voice messages, but instead of send me a voice message or just a text, let’s arrange some time together and just see each other faces and/or hear each other voices in real time, which any of those app allows. And please use more the email :e-mail:, I love emails, but I hate “just texts”. <a href="#fnref:3" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
<li id="fn:4" role="doc-endnote">
<p>And I not going to even mention the raze because it’s just a <em>bollocks concept</em> that has been proven to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_%28human_classification%29">false</a>. So please, stop thinking you are special for have been born in some place or because you have some skin or hair color. You’re just an human. <a href="#fnref:4" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/30/happy-new-year-12020/" rel="nofollow">Happy New Year 12020</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoWe’re again in that time of the year when we’ve spun once more around the Sun and therefore…A Weird Christmas Tale2019-12-23T12:50:11+00:002019-12-24T22:53:42+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/23/christmas-tale
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/the-egg.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>This year Kurzgesagt really surprised to all of us making one of their videos not about their usual thematic —science, technology, even politics or philosophy in some cases— but instead they decided to make the animated version of a quite well know short story from the writer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir">Andy Weird</a> —the author of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(Weir_novel)">The Martian</a>“— titled “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Egg_(2009_short_story)">The Egg</a>”.</p>
<p>The story is incredible wonderful. First because it’s shot and then it’s good. You know that in Spanish there is a saying that could be translated like “<em>What’s good, when brief, is twice as good</em>”. The story in its short duration —barely eight minutes— touches incredible amount of themes. From the death, to the rebirth and the reincarnation, our relations with others and how we behave towards them, the purpose of life, god, knowledge and so and so forth. And in the end, as any really good story, it’s open the interpretation form the viewer.</p>
<p>From the first time I saw it, I really thought it could be a really good Christmas tale to wish people <strong>Happy Holidays!!!</strong>, with some atheistic touches. Specially in the context of the recent <a href="/blog/2019/12/20/parenthood/">changes</a> we suffered in our family.</p>
<p>Anyhow, and since it’s really difficult for me to describe the story without reveal its content, it’s much better if you just watch it. I hope you like it and it becomes for you some good for thought.</p>
<!-- Courtesy of embedresponsively.com //-->
<div class="responsive-video-container">
<iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/h6fcK_fRYaI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</div>
<p>Anyhow…</p>
<p class="gigantic text-center red"><strong>Happy Holidays!!!!</strong> <br />
:christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree::christmas_tree:</p>
<p>By the way… Happy Holidays from R too!</p>
<p><img src="https://imgur.com/SITRETA.gif" alt="" /></p>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/23/christmas-tale/" rel="nofollow">A Weird Christmas Tale</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoThis year Kurzgesagt really surprised to all of us making one of their videos not about their usual thematic —science, technology, even politics or philosophy in some cases— but instead they decided to make the animated version of a quite well know short story from the writer Andy Weird —the author of “The Martian“— titled “The Egg”.Parenthood2019-12-20T21:55:40+00:002019-12-20T21:55:40+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/20/parenthood
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/junior-feet.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>As some of you already know, on Dec 5 at 22.00 EET I upgraded my civil status and I became a father. Olalla delivered beautiful baby boy at the North Karelia Hospital in Joensuu, that has been named after his two granddads and me, so he is Luis Puerto Díaz. Luis the IV, Luis Puerto the III and Junior, and Luis Puerto Díaz is his full name, that’s unique. Most of the people is starting to call him Junior. He was 3.8 kg and 51 cm long, really healthy and without any mayor problem at the moment of birth. So let’s keep the fingers crossed :crossed_fingers: and hope that he continues that path for the rest of this existence.</p>
<p>Pregnancy was quite an adventure, full of trips around half of Europe and the world, where we had a lot of fun. It ended up with a two Spaniards :es: having a Spanish baby in the middle of the winter in a <em>remote</em> area in the North of Europe :european_union:, more specifically in Finland :finland:. Anyhow, we know that we should buckle up for what is seems its going to be the adventure of our lives for the rest of it.</p>
<p>Although, we have a little bit of lack of sleep, and the mother ended with some scratches after the labor, we are really happy to have him with us and become a family of three. These are going to be the first Christmas that we are going to spend as a family, and we are going to spend them in Finland, since we aren’t ready to travel. This is a little bit sad because we are not going to be able to introduce to him some of his more closest relatives, but we hope to put remedy to that soon in the following months. Even some of them have already visited and others are planning to come to visit soon.</p>
<p>We’re going to try to continue sharing our adventures with him and for that reason we have created a small site for that purpose <a href="https://jr.luispuerto.net">https://jr.luispuerto.net</a>. We’ll try to update it often.</p>
<p>See you around.</p>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/20/parenthood/" rel="nofollow">Parenthood</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoAs some of you already know, on Dec 5 at 22.00 EET I upgraded my civil status and I became a father. Olalla delivered beautiful baby boy at the North Karelia Hospital in Joensuu, that has been named after his two granddads and me, so he is Luis Puerto Díaz. Luis the IV, Luis Puerto the III and Junior, and Luis Puerto Díaz is his full name, that’s unique. Most of the people is starting to call him Junior. He was 3.8 kg and 51 cm long, really healthy and without any mayor problem at the moment of birth. So let’s keep the fingers crossed :crossed_fingers: and hope that he continues that path for the rest of this existence.The last stretch of the year2019-12-03T14:48:19+00:002019-12-03T14:48:19+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/03/the-last-stretch-of-the-year
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/road-sign.jpg" alt="" /></p>
<p>I wanted to apologize, first to myself and then to you because I have this place a <em>little bit abandoned</em>, but it’s because a really good reason.</p>
<p>This year has been really full of thrilling surprises and trips and I, in my selfishness, I’ve been trying to get the most of all those experiences in first person, which make me pause from my blogging since the end of February. More than seven months ago.</p>
<p>I don’t want to tell too much about this year now because it’s still a little bit of it —just one month— and is probably worth more to prepare a summary post of the year closer to the end of December with all the events that happened.</p>
<p>I just want you to know that I’ll try to blog as much as possible in this last stretch since a lot it happening and I have a lot to tell.</p>
<p>See you around!</p>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/12/03/the-last-stretch-of-the-year/" rel="nofollow">The last stretch of the year</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoI wanted to apologize, first to myself and then to you because I have this place a little bit abandoned, but it’s because a really good reason.No message, no connection in LinkedIn2019-02-21T21:25:00+00:002019-02-21T21:25:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/21/no-message-no-connection-in-linkedin
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/linkedin-logo-header.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>I think this is something that almost anyone with a LinkedIn account has suffered or happened to them… an invitation to connect that comes out of the blue from someone you don’t know. No message, or just the standard message, no explanation, nothing… just an invitation in your LinkedIn inbox from someone, usually with a happy face —maybe a fake one— that perhaps is in a similar field as yours —or not— and they live close to you —or they don’t. <strong>I hate it</strong>, because I need to figure out who this person is and what they want.</p>
<p>What are they? Are they bots? Are they mining personal information? Are they just people that can figure out how social interactions should work? Did they click in my profile by mistake? What is going on here? A really don’t understand :confused:.</p>
<figure class="align-right">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/lion-funny.jpg" title="Simply no words
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/lion-funny.jpg" alt="a funny lion" />
</a>
<figcaption>
Simply no words
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>Ok… after a brief search on internet about the topic, now I understand… They are <a href="http://greenbuzzagency.com/what-is-a-lion-on-linkedin-2/">LIONs</a><sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> —<em>LinkedIn Open Networkers</em>— in other words they are people which only goal is to grow their LinkedIn’s network —to huge numbers— so it’s easier for them to connect to other people <strong>really</strong> interesting for them in the future and appear in more people’s searches. LinkedIn only allow you to connect to other people when you are up to 3 degrees of separation from that person and the same for searchers, you only show up when you are up to 3 degrees of separation away. So when you have a huge network you have more probability to be at 3 or less degrees of separation those contact you really want to connect with. You can find longest explanation <a href="https://topdogsocialmedia.com/why-i-dont-connect-with-lions-on-linkedin/">here</a> and <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-do-you-receive-random-LinkedIn-invitations">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Don’t get me wrong. I’m nothing special</strong>, just a professional looking for opportunities and someone who is, of course, really glad to meet and connect with other people. I think LinkedIn could be a great place to do it. The problem is that you just don’t poke, or connect, people randomly without knowing anything about them, without telling them why do you want to know more about them and/or telling a little bit about you. If you sent me a message —in or <a href="/contact">out LinkedIn</a>— telling me why you want to connect with me —just a line, or a couple if you want— then I will be more than happy to connect with you. On the condition that you have a real and meaningful reason you want to connect. If you send me a standard message or you tell me that you <em>just want to connect</em>, it has the same effect as it you tell me nothing.</p>
<p>Can you imagine that you are in a bar, a conference or just in the street and you decide to give your business card to random people and passersby? With no reason at all? Telling to all of them the same artificial phrase without trying to learn anything about them. Would you take their card? Would you keep it? No I guess no, because it doesn’t have any sense unless you are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_billboard">human billboard</a> and giving handouts to everyone without any filter, which most probably will end up in the garbage. Aren’t you a seasoned professional that you really want to stand out other the rest? Don’t you really want to look professional?</p>
<figure class="align-left">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/LinkedIn-connection-note.png" title="C’mon guys!!!! The option to “add a note” to that connection request is just there
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/LinkedIn-connection-note.png" alt="LinkedIn connect with add a note button" />
</a>
<figcaption>
C’mon guys!!!! The option to “add a note” to that connection request is just there
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, just imagine for a second. You are in the same bar, conference or just in the street (in some event or something) and someone approach you, introduce himself, tell you that knows you from XYZ, and they would love to know more about your work and they hand you their card. I’m sure your perspective changes a lot about that person and you are provably going to remember them.</p>
<figure class="align-right" style="width: 40%">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/LInkedIn-recomendations.png" title="This is the problem, the LinkedIn recommendations panel
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/LInkedIn-recomendations.png" alt="LinkedIn recommendations" />
</a>
<figcaption>
This is the problem, the LinkedIn recommendations panel
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>The problem seems to be related to the <em>Recommended for you</em> panel on <em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/mynetwork/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_people%3BI1%2BtgQBtQf%2BCV%2BK1F7uGrA%3D%3D">My Network</a></em> section. If you click on one of those <em>connect</em> buttons, it seems that a direct invitation to connect is sent to that profile, without asking you if you want to add a note —yes please! I’m wondering now if this <em>isn’t a bug, but a feature</em>. In other words, does Microsoft want you to have as much connections as possible? What for?</p>
<p>I don’t care what are the current LinkedIn dynamics, or if they have changed since <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/14/business/dealbook/microsoft-to-buy-linkedin-for-26-2-billion.html">Microsoft has bought it</a>. In my opinion it’s plainly wrong to send invitations to connect with people you don’t know out of the blue and without any message. Instead of just clicking on that connect button in <em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/mynetwork/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_people%3BI1%2BtgQBtQf%2BCV%2BK1F7uGrA%3D%3D">My Network</a></em> section, you can check the LinkedIn’s profile of the person is suggested to you and in their profile you can click on connect —if you consider the person is worth to connect with— and add a note to your invitation to connect —YAY! :thumbsup:. Even if I know you beforehand, in real life or just because we’ve been exchanging emails —or whatever— you should add a note to refresh my memory or send a message outside of LinkedIn. Memories fail! :thinking:</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-reasons-accept-every-random-linkedin-invitation-john-buckley/">this guy states</a>, if you don’t add a message to your invitation you are showing:</p>
<ol>
<li>That you are <strong>indistinguishable</strong> of all the other invitations.</li>
<li>You are <strong>disingenuous</strong>, that I’m going to include you in my network just because you send me an invitation.</li>
<li>You lack of <strong>creativity</strong> and you are <strong>lazy</strong> since you decided not to even check my profile —and contact me from there, either in LinkedIn using a note to your invitation or using my contact info— and if you have done so, you decided explicitly not to write a note :thumbsdown:. </li>
</ol>
<p>The problem is worsen by LinkedIn, since you can’t ask to someone that is asking you to connect with exactly why they want to connect with you, since that is a <em>premium</em> :money_mouth_face: feature to send messages to people outside your network. So people don’t want to pay, which is normal with that <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/comm/premium/products?family=jss&trk=pre_hub_b_upgrade">prices</a>, and just try to connect with others in the free tier. Perhaps LinkedIn should allow to at least reply to those invitations with a message asking for more info.</p>
<p>I know that sending a message, check the profile or research a little bit sometimes is a lot of effort, but I really think it’s worth it. I have this web, where you can find my <a href="/contact">contact information</a> and contact me in several different ways. I also have my contact information in my LinkedIn profile. There is no excuse to send me a message telling me who you are and why are you interested in me.</p>
<p class="text-center xx-large"><strong>NO MORE RANDOM INVITATIONS, please!</strong></p>
<div class="footnotes" role="doc-endnotes">
<ol>
<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>To be honest, and after giving it a thought, I don’t think they are even that, because I bet an arm that most of them don’t know what a LION is. I didn’t know until I wrote this piece and I doubt most people in LinkedIn know about that. They just connect because they know they are going to get something on the long run or just because LinkedIn is suggesting them to do so. They just click in connect under your profile. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/21/no-message-no-connection-in-linkedin/" rel="nofollow">No message, no connection in LinkedIn</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoI think this is something that almost anyone with a LinkedIn account has suffered or happened to them… an invitation to connect that comes out of the blue from someone you don’t know. No message, or just the standard message, no explanation, nothing… just an invitation in your LinkedIn inbox from someone, usually with a happy face —maybe a fake one— that perhaps is in a similar field as yours —or not— and they live close to you —or they don’t. I hate it, because I need to figure out who this person is and what they want.Discovering Hypothes.is2019-02-10T13:15:00+00:002019-02-10T13:15:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/10/discovering-hypothesis
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2019/HypothesisBannerGoogleForms.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>I just discovered <a href="https://hypothes.is/">Hypothes.is</a> which is a service to annotate and highlight articles, posts, pdfs or whatever text you want and find all over the web and in any site. In their own words:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Hypothesis Project is a new effort to implement an old idea: A conversation layer over the entire web that works everywhere, without needing implementation by any underlying site.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>All their tools are open source and free, and they can be checked <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/developers/">here</a>, which make the services even more attractive to me. They’re also a <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/about/">non-profict</a> organization, if you are wondering if there any comercial interest in the tools they’re developing. In addition, they provide <a href="https://outline.com">outline.com</a>, which is similar to hypothes.is but transforming the article in a readable version without all the clutter websites usually have.</p>
<p>You can start using them right away, <a href="https://hypothes.is/signup">creating yourself an account in hypothes.is</a> and firing up either hypothesi.is or outline in any web you want using the lightweight <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/start/">bookmarklets</a> to share your annotations and highlights with others. You can find a outline bookmarklet below. Please note… when you are highlighting and annotating in outline, you are just annotating there. Your comments aren’t going to be share in the main article.</p>
<figure class="align-left" style="max-width: 50%">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/HypotheisisHighlight.png" title="hypothes.is highlighting and annotation tool
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/HypotheisisHighlight.png" alt="hypothes.is highlighting and annotation tool" />
</a>
<figcaption>
hypothes.is highlighting and annotation tool
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>The tool is really easy to use, you just click in the bookmarklet and small buttons in the side pops up. Then, you just select text and a pop up will ask you if you want to highlight or annotate. You can also view the comments, notes and highlights from others users of the tool, which is even more interesting, and you can also comment in those annotation and reply to other annotations. Finally, it seems that it’s possible to create groups, so you can share your notes with others privately or publicly.</p>
<p>As you can see in the image below, outline do exactly the same, but in a clean interface that helps you to read the article without distractions.</p>
<figure class="align-center">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2019/HypothesisOutline.png" title="outline interface with hypothes.is highlights
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2019/HypothesisOutline.png" alt="outline interface with hypothes.is highlights" />
</a>
<figcaption>
outline interface with hypothes.is highlights
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<p>Web developers can also <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/help/embedding-hypothesis-in-websites-and-platforms/">implement this tool in their webs</a>, so when users select text the annotation and highlight tool pops up in a really <a href="https://medium.com">medium-like way</a> without the need to trigger it using the bookmarklet. I was thinking to implement it in my site, and I even was toying with it in a branch, but I finally decided to leave you the option of using it or not through the bookmarklet. Mainly for two reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li>First of all. <strong>You choose</strong>. I don’t want to impose anything into any one.</li>
<li>Second of all. I think the implementation is <em>too intrusive</em> to have it all the time there. You can implement it in two ways, classic or clean.
<ul>
<li>The classic way makes the sidebar always present through its buttons and somehow interfered with the design of the site. Mostly on mobile.</li>
<li>The clean way doesn’t show you anything until you select text, but them you are missing some features such us: marks of where the annotations are, or the ability to turn the annotations on and off. This wouldn’t bee a problem if users can bring all the features triggering the bookmarklet, but it doesn’t work like that.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>Perhaps in the future I will integrate it in someway if they improve how it blend with webs or if they for example develop something to transform the notes into comments.</p>
<p>I really like the idea of being able to have a layer of notes and highlights all across the web. It’s a great idea. I hope that the idea evolved in a sort of organization like the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia Foundation</a> and it becomes a standard all across the web. I really think it’s a great tool to share information with others, ever more if it’s related to <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/research/">research and science</a> or <a href="https://web.hypothes.is/education/">education</a>. I encourage you to use the tool and share your notes with others.</p>
<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/10/discovering-hypothesis/" rel="nofollow">Discovering Hypothes.is</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoI just discovered Hypothes.is which is a service to annotate and highlight articles, posts, pdfs or whatever text you want and find all over the web and in any site. In their own words:What have I been doing these last years?2019-02-03T19:30:00+00:002019-02-03T19:30:00+00:00https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/03/what-Ive-been-doing-these-last-years
<p><img src="https://luispuerto.net/assets/images/blog/2018/existential-nihilism-header.jpeg" alt="" /></p>
<p class="notice--danger"><strong>Warning!</strong> This is a very long post and it’s probably boring for your. <u>Read it at your <b>own risk</b>!</u></p>
<p>Since some people has asked me this question once in a while, I thought it was going to be a good idea to write a <em>small</em><sup id="fnref:0" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:0" class="footnote" rel="footnote">1</a></sup> post about <em>what I’ve been doing these last years since I left Spain</em>. I think I’m going to give it the shape of an <em>informal resume / curriculum</em> where I’m going to talk, superficially, about each of the things I’ve been doing.</p>
<p>First of all, I really want do differentiate between quality and quantity time. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quality_time">Quality time</a> for me has, more or less, the meaning everyone gives to it on the English language.</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Quality time</strong> (<strong>QT</strong>) is an informal reference to time spent with close family, partners or friends that is in some way important, special, productive or profitable. It is time that is set aside for paying full and undivided attention to the person or matter at hand. It may also refer to time spent <strong>performing some favorite activity</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I would add that, for me, it isn’t only that but also time that I spend on myself… doing whatever I enjoy and I think it’s going to be positive for me, even if it’s in the long run. They are also those kind of activities that are really difficult to quantify, but they stand out for their quality.</p>
<p>On the other hand, in my opinion there is the quantity time concept, of which I couldn’t find a formal definition, but I would define as all that other time that you can usually quantify —hours, days, weeks, months or years— doing something specific. Working, <del>learning</del> getting a diploma<sup id="fnref:1" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote" rel="footnote">2</a></sup>, volunteering… This is usually the kind of things that people put in their curriculums because they can be undoubtedly quantified —they can be weighted— so other people usually can take them into account —and measure you in some way.</p>
<p class="text-center gigantic"><strong>Quality vs. Quantity</strong></p>
<p>Now, the important question. What do you prefer to have? Quality or quantity in your life? It’s pretty clear that if you could, you would like to have both. However, you can’t always have both.</p>
<p>You also have to understand that since I learned about <strong><em>Optimistic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism">Nihilism</a></em></strong><sup id="fnref:2" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote" rel="footnote">3</a></sup> <em>philosophy</em>, I think this is the correct way to understand the universe. However, as they say in the video <em>please they it with a grain of salt <del>we</del> I don’t know any more about human existence that you do</em></p>
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MBRqu0YOH14" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<blockquote>
<p class="large">If this is our one shot at life, there is no reason not to <strong>have fun and live as happy as possible</strong>. Bonus points if you make the life of <strong>other people</strong> better. More bonus points if you help build a <strong>Galactic Human Empire</strong>.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="">
<span>
<a href="/assets/images/blog/2018/existential-nihilism.jpeg" title="It is like riding the bicycle of life, knowing that the road ends at an inevitable lethal fall, knowing that riding it on has no fundamental reason but you ride on, you ride on the road to enjoy the journey, to look around you and just feel like you’re the product of million of years of complexity, it’s like looking at the trees around you and saying, “Holy shit, I love this. This is freaking awesome.” Source: Quora
">
<img src="/assets/images/blog/2018/existential-nihilism.jpeg" alt="Existential Nihilism" />
</a>
<figcaption>
<em>It is like riding the bicycle of life, knowing that the road ends at an inevitable lethal fall, knowing that riding it on has no fundamental reason but you ride on, you ride on the road to enjoy the journey, to look around you and just feel like you’re the product of million of years of complexity, it’s like looking at the trees around you and saying, “Holy shit, I love this. This is freaking awesome.”</em> Source: <a href="https://qr.ae/TUtwbA">Quora</a>
</figcaption>
</span>
</figure>
<h2 id="quality-time">Quality Time</h2>
<h3 id="enjoying-my-life">Enjoying my life</h3>
<p>This is first and foremost important thing I’ve been doing, <strong>enjoying my life</strong>, and I think <strong>you should too!</strong> We are clearly here to enjoy our life, not to suffer. I’ve been doing all the things I explain in this post —and some others— and I’ve been enjoying them. No regrets. Perhaps some of the things haven’t been as productive, as good, or didn’t turn out as expected, however, in the end, all of them, have been positive because they’ve been part of this trip that is life, and I’ve learned from them.</p>
<h3 id="discovering--developing-myself">Discovering & developing myself</h3>
<p>Some things I’ve been doing have been really positive for my personal development, I’ve been discovering part of myself that I didn’t know till now and I’ve been even discovering parts of my personality that I didn’t know I have. All of these, help me to be a better person, better professional and be more productive.</p>
<h4 id="learning">Learning</h4>
<p>Part of that discovery and personal development are related to learning. Learning new skills, and learning that you can learn new skills. We are natural learners, but for some reason some people decide that they don’t want to learn anymore. They end up stuck in life.</p>
<h5 id="improving-my-english">Improving my English</h5>
<p>All this time I’ve been improving my English since I’ve been living in an international environment and I’ve tried to travel as much I could —and still try. I’ve been living for almost 5 years in Finland, where almost all the time in my daily life I have to use English for communicating with others. Before coming to Finland I was living 6 months in Sweden where the same happened. During the period we’ve been living in Finland we moved for 5 month to the west coast of the United States where my English had an incredible boost. I tried to speak with people as much as possible —without weird anyone out— and one my fondest memories is talking and discussing with our landlord and housemate for really long hours about the most diverse topics: politics, life, science, philosophy, Europe, America, forestry, ecology, life…</p>
<h5 id="learning-other-languages">Learning other languages</h5>
<p>Since I live in Finland, I’ve been learning Finnish and I am able to speak a little bit. Not enough to maintain a normal and regular conversation for sure, but it has serve me well in a variety of situations when I’ve needed it. Learning Finnish, has been a really <em>interesting experience</em>. It’s in different language family, so you usually have to start from scratch since you aren’t going to have any reference or resemblance with your mother tongue —unless you are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages">Estonian, Hungarian or part of the small Fino-Ugric family</a>. In my particular case, my mother tongue is Spanish and pronunciation of Finnish isn’t a <em>pain in the tongue</em>, more the other way around, but grammar is totally different and really difficult. Besides of what painful has been learn the little Finnish I speak, it’s been a really change of perspective on thinking. Languages are a way of thinking and Finnish is a really particular one, usually really concise.</p>
<p>I also leaned a little bit of Swedish while I lived in Sweden —which was much easier than Finnish— but I’ve almost forgotten all of it. I liked Swedish because it’s a really nice language to listen, really rhythmic and even sometimes, funny.</p>
<h5 id="coding--computer-skills">Coding & computer skills</h5>
<p>All these years I’ve been improving my computer stills a lot. I’ve been introducing to coding, and now I’m able to code in R, and I’m beginning to code in other languages as Rubi, CSS, HTML or Liquid. Proof of that is this website that I’ve little by little changing from the original template to what you see it now to adjust to my necessities. I’ve even add new functionalities.</p>
<p>I’ve been also learn to use Git, and I use it almost everyday to keep track of my work. Also, I’ve increase incredible the use of the shell and the command line, where I’ve also write scripts from time to time when I need them, either to analyze LiDAR data using Fusion —or any other software— or to fulfill my necessities in macOS or Linux.</p>
<p>I’ve been learning about Linux too, since I have a couple of Raspberry Pis which I use for different tasks at home, like have a VPN server, or NAS, audio server, VPN router… or whatever it comes to my mind.</p>
<h4 id="reading">Reading</h4>
<p>Reading is another way of learning about stuff, but usually in a more relaxing way —usually when you are close to go to bed. In the last years I’ve been able to reconcile with reading and I’ve been able to increase the number of books I’ve been reading little by little. Internet it’s great, but in my opinion sometimes, or most of the times, lacks the substance that books usually have. Returning to reading has improved my ability to concentrate, which was eroded by internet. In the last year, I as able to read read 7 books, but I’ve started the year strong and in the last month I read two.</p>
<p>I’ve been increasing my readings and I plan to increase even more since little by little I find the internet more boring everyday. Perhaps, I’m getting old, or perhaps is it has lost its nobility. Don’t get me wrong, I still spend a lot of time reading on the internet and it’s still my primary source of fresh information. Nevertheless, I started to despise <a href="/archive/tags/facebook/">Facebook</a> —and all its ecosystem— and most of the other <em>social networks</em>. I still use <a href="https://twitter.com">Twitter</a> quite a lot, and I’m a <a href="https://www.reddit.com">Reddit</a> fan, but they lack features to create a really meaningful communication of ideas and it’s difficult to create quality content those platforms.</p>
<h5 id="the-fifth-discipline">The Fifth Discipline</h5>
<p>One of books I read these last years is “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline">The Fifth Discipline</a>”, an all-time classic of organizational management, and in some regards much more, since it can lead to a different view of the world. I discovered The Fifth Discipline thanks to the CEO of the last organization I was working in Spain. I really think it’s a great book and of course an interesting way to see organizations and humans interactions.</p>
<p>I begun to feel interest for management, organizational science and productivity also while I was in Spain. There I learned that you can have all the resources of the world to create or do whatever you want, but if you haven’t assembled a good and effective team, you aren’t going to succeed. Teams are made or people, not computers, office furniture, buildings, gadgets, or factories. Most managers doesn’t understand that people are the basic building blocks of their organization, so people is to what you have to play attention to. <strong>Humans aren’t a resource, but an investment</strong>, that in the end will really pay off. Senge really understand this and explain it much better than me in his books.</p>
<p>But, what is The Fifth Discipline? <strong>System Thinking</strong>, the ability of seeing the world in a systemic way. It integrated the other four: <strong>Personal mastery, Mental Models, Building a Shared Vision and Team Learning</strong>. I don’t have the time here to explain any of them, and I really don’t think it’s the place. If you want to know more, I really recommend to read any of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Senge#Publications">Senge’s books</a>.</p>
<h3 id="enjoying-my-life-with-the-person-i-love">Enjoying my life with the person I love</h3>
<p>This perhaps is going to sound corny, naïve, innocent or even foolish. I don’t know, but it’s what it’s. My partner and I met each other more than 15 years ago in a lost corner of the middle-south of Spain. For 10 years we maintain an on-distance relationship. It was a great relationship, with its good and bad things, but it was on distance. When I decided to move to Sweden, it was also because I wanted to start a new life with her, living under the same root. We got lucky and she got her dream position as a researcher in Finland and we decided to move here. I somehow wanted to enjoy and take back part of the time we were apart in Spain and try to share as much time as I could with her. We’ve been partners for life and I hope we will continue this way till the end of our lives. I’ve been really happy to be able to share all this time with her and travel together to the far side of the world. What an adventure!</p>
<h3 id="traveling-and-discovering-the-world">Traveling and discovering the World</h3>
<p>One of the things I’ve been also doing a lot is, traveling. No, I haven’t been doing tourism. I don’t like that, I don’t want to collect places on an album. I really want to have experiences and try to know the places I go as much as I can. Explore the terrain. I’ve been really blessed that I’ve been able to do it during these years.</p>
<h4 id="the-nordics">The Nordics</h4>
<p>As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been living in Sweden and now I live in Finland, but I’ve in all the other Nordic Countries, but Iceland. When we moved to Finland and we knew that it was going to be permanent so we decided to move my old Volkswagen Golf from Spain to our place in Finland. We decided not to take any ferry and we crossed Denmark, Sweden from South to North and Finland from North to South till where we live.</p>
<p>Besides, we’ve been traveling all around the Nordics for business or leisure. We been in Lapland and in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cape_(Norway)">North Cape</a> as well as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lofoten">Lofototen</a> islands and the North part of Norway, where we’ve been camping. We’ve camped also in <a href="https://www.nationalparks.fi/urhokekkonennp">Urho Kekonen</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalparks.fi/kolinp">Koli</a> and <a href="http://www.nationalparks.fi/patvinsuonp">Patvinsuo</a> National Parks. And of course, we’ve hiked all around North Karelia and visited other parts of Finland. I even has witnessed a moose hunting on a weekend trip to the North of Finland.</p>
<h4 id="europe">Europe</h4>
<p>As I mentioned previously, at some point we decided to move the my old Volkswagen Golf from Spain to Finland, so we drove all across Europe. It was a really wonderful —and tiring trip— in which we crossed, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and part of the <a href="#the-nordics">Nordics</a> and watched Europe pass by our windows.</p>
<p>I’ve been also Visiting Vienna and Zurich lately, two cities that I really love. I really love Center Europe, its architecture and of course its people.</p>
<h4 id="usa">USA</h4>
<p>In 2017 we lived for five months in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Northwest">Pacific Northwest of the USA</a>. More specifically in the city of Corvallis. For us was a wonderful experience that allowed us to discover the USA, specially the West part. For me it wasn’t the first time in the USA, since I was <em>living</em> for a month in NYC in 2008 although you can argue that NYC isn’t exactly the USA.</p>
<p>Returning to Corvallis, we have the opportunity to discover America, or at least that part of America. We lived in a nice wooden old house close to the center of the city and had really interesting housemates, landlord and neighbors. Our neighborhood was like taken from one of those American movies of the 80s. Houses with lawns and streets full of trees.</p>
<p>We also bought a car and cruise America a little bit in our spare time. We visited several National and State parks, where we enjoyed the American wilderness, and drove the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Coast">Oregon Coast</a> up and down several times. Just to mention some of the places we were… <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Dunes_National_Recreation_Area">Florence Dunes</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redwood_National_and_State_Parks">Redwoods National Park</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crater_Lake">Crater Lake National Park</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Falls_State_Park">Silver Falls State Park</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_Pass">McKenzie Pass</a>… and of course we went East to visit <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arches_National_Park">Archers</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_National_Park">Rocky Mountain</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Teton_National_Park">Grand Teton</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_National_Park">Yellowstone</a> National Parks. We saw past by our window the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Oregon">Eastern Oregon</a> with its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Desert_(Oregon)">High Desert</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Geography">Utah desert</a>, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming">Wyoming</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming_Basin_shrub_steppe">shrub steppe</a> and we crossed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountains">Rocky Montains</a>. Crossing the Rocky Mountains was specially adventurous since we did it partly at night<sup id="fnref:4" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:4" class="footnote" rel="footnote">4</a></sup>. I will never forget the shadow of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River">Colorado river</a> gorge agains the night ski while we rolled up the highway with the long semis overpassing us and the opposite lanes almost <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_70_in_Colorado#Colorado_River">overlay one over the other</a>.</p>
<h3 id="coming-across-of-interesting-people">Coming across of interesting people</h3>
<p>Not everything while traveling has been just being mesmerized by wonderful landscapes, of course. I been doing something even more important, meeting people along the way. Some of them wonderful and some of them less wonderful. With some of them I had a long relation, and with others I just exchange few words. With some of them I still keep contact, and some of them are just memories. Some of them were natives, some of them were fellow travelers.</p>
<p>Meeting people is what makes traveling fun. Without people, places would be just empty and people is what make places wonderful or horrible. Talking with people is what make you see things differently and what really tell you the story of the place. From our trip to the USA we keep pretty fond memories of people, who usually were pretty social, and we are still in contact with most of the ones we interacted in our daily lives.</p>
<h2 id="quantity-time">Quantity time</h2>
<h3 id="learning-finnish">Learning Finnish</h3>
<p>When I first arrived to Finland I started to attend to the Finnish <em>Intensive</em> courses the unemployment office provided as a way to learn the language and the culture. I was attending to those courses for a total of one year and a half during the first 3 years. Each course was around 500 hours during five or six months and they included <em>language internships</em> in a Finnish company or organization.</p>
<p>I have to say that I actually did learn Finnish —A 2.1 level— but not all the Finnish I wanted or I would like to have learned for the amount of time and effort in invested. However, there was a bright part on it, I meet people, I knew about their lives, the reasons why they ended up here, and and share quite interesting experiences with all of them.</p>
<p>Would I repeat those courses? no! but I have to say that the experience was worth it.</p>
<h3 id="master">Master</h3>
<p>Since Autumn 2013 I’ve been enrolled in the <a href="https://www.igeon.eu">iGEON</a> online Master of Science and I was coursing it normally until I arrived to Finland. Then, I started with the Finnish courses that absorbed most of the time, my energy and my morale. Little by little I left it aside… because I wanted to do other things, like learning on my own, doing an internship to get some hands-on-knowledge, traveling or just enjoy some time with my loved ones and taking care of them. In other words, I got stuck for a while and my progress halted.</p>
<p>However, I’m resuming it right now again and I plan to <strong>finish it on 2020</strong> or earlier if I can.</p>
<h3 id="learning-on-my-own">Learning on my own</h3>
<p>I’m a really curious person and I like learning as a way to improve myself. During these years I’ve been learning and improving mostly about computers and programing, but also about other things. For example, how to bake <a href="/archive/tags/bread">bread</a> and pizza as it should be.</p>
<p>In the computer science department I’ve been mostly improving my skills scripting in environments like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_shell">Unix shell</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cmd.exe">Windows Batch</a>. I also learned how to program in R and some statistics on my own, and I continue doing it and wanting to improve my coding. I’ve learned how to use <a href="https://git-scm.com/">Git</a> and I learned how to create static websites with <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a>, using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML">HTML</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_Style_Sheets">CSS</a> & <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sass_(stylesheet_language)">Sass</a>, <a href="https://shopify.github.io/liquid/">Liquid templating</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_integration">Continuous Integration</a> and some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(programming_language)">Ruby</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript">JavaScript</a>.. I’ve been also toying with Raspberries and using them as a home servers for <a href="https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download-server/">R Studio server</a>, <a href="https://www.openvpn.net">VPN server</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software)">NAS</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextcloud">cloud storage</a>, <a href="http://luispuerto.net/blog/2018/01/18/convert-you-pi-in-an-airplay-receiver/">wireless audio streaming</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi-hole">ad blocker</a>, internet speed logger and many others.</p>
<h3 id="internships">Internships</h3>
<p>I’ve done a total of four internships, three of them related to my Finnish language courses and the last one was just a 6 month internship sponsored by the employment office.</p>
<h4 id="metsäkeskus">Metsäkeskus</h4>
<p>On the internship of my first Finnish language course I decided to go to <a href="https://www.metsakeskus.fi/">Metsäkeskus</a> so I could learn about Finnish forest and practice some Finnish at the same time.</p>
<p>The experience was really positive and I keep really fond memories of the people working there that I was able to interact with my little Finnish. I was lucky and my internship supervisor spoke English, as well as the director of the office, so we could workout something productive.</p>
<p>I visit the field a couple of times with my supervisor and other people from the office and I could witness on first hand how Finnish forest was managed. I also learned how the GIS of Metsäkeskus worked, how it was totally interrelated with the forest inventory in real time and how the customers could access to the data to take decisions about their own Forest.</p>
<p>Part of my duties there were create a online map with the information from the Metsäkeskus’ forest inventory data, which was all in Finnish and I have to translate and understand on my own. I processed and analyzed all the data and lately we published it on the Metsäkeskus site, where it was for a while.</p>
<h4 id="uef">UEF</h4>
<p>From my second language course onwards, I decided carry on my internships at <a href="https://www.uef.fi/">University of Eastern of Finland</a>, where I could learn about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar">LiDAR</a> and how to process it. I had some contact with LiDAR before but I never ever processed it that intensively.</p>
<p>I download and analyzed the LiDAR data of the whole Finland using Windows Batch Scripts and the <a href="https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/fusion/launch/fusionbkg.htm">Fusion</a> software from the US Forest Service. Then, I storage and manage the outcome in a geodatabases and it could be accessed much faster than in its raw format. I also analyze LiDAR data using R and the <a href="https://github.com/Jean-Romain/lidR">LidR</a> package, using parallelization processing, to yield biomass estimation form the LiDAR data.</p>
<h5 id="researching">Researching</h5>
<p>One of the outcomes of the internships at the UEF was a scientific publication in the iForest journal that I actively helped to write and soon will be published since it’s been already accepted. During the writing process I learned how to read and write science and how hard is researching and learn to do it.</p>
<p>Researching is a career that I’ve been toying with a little bit. I am very excited about the possibility of continue doing research and to further developed research related activities. I’ve been always curious about science and technology and I think I have a rational and analytical mind that could server me well in in scientific activities. However, I have a too much respect for science and I don’t like the stiffness of academia, but I don’t think both things could be a problem.</p>
<h3 id="coaching">Coaching</h3>
<p>During these last years I’ve been also “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching">coaching</a>” other people. When I say coaching I mean mainly giving advice —when I’ve been asked for it— professional or personal one. Please, don’t think that I’m that arrogant and condescending to think my advice is better than anyone else’s that I’ve been giving it “freely” all around to everyone. I usually don’t mind anyone business, but mine. Howeer, when I see my close ones troubled I usually ask what is going on and if I think can share some kind of wisdom or experience I have that can help, there I go.</p>
<p>My working experience has served me well in this field since I worked in high stressful environments that allowed me realize of the importance of the team and that learn how to manage people in your team it will really make the difference. This made me really interested in the <a href="#the-fifth-discipline">topic</a> and I’ve tried to learn as much as I could. I’m proud to say that I still keep a really good relation with all my previous team-mates, that were over, under or lateral to me, and that some of them became friends later on. Some of them told me they felt that I wasn’t there to command but to help them to fulfill their job, which I tried to do as much I could.</p>
<p>On this matter, I tried to support my wife as much as I possible in her endeavor of get a PhD and more than once, specially towards the end, I gave her a <em>pep talk</em><sup id="fnref:3" role="doc-noteref"><a href="#fn:3" class="footnote" rel="footnote">5</a></sup> to <em>boost</em> her up as much as possible.</p>
<h3 id="volunteering">Volunteering</h3>
<p>I feel that the idea and purpose of volunteering is quite different between Europe and America, mainly North America, or at less that is my perspective being Spanish and living in Finland. I feel that almost every North American has volunteering in something at some point of their live, while in Europe is something more rare, or that at least is more related to political activism —like conservationism, ecology, or something similar— than to general volunteering. Almost none of the people is close to me and live in Spain has volunteering to anything at any given point of their lives. I guess that it’s related to what is socially expected and to the different perspective about the State and what is its role.</p>
<p>Anyhow, I’ve been doing some volunteering during these last years, but probably not as much for the North American standards.</p>
<h4 id="cultural-integration-volunteering">Cultural integration volunteering</h4>
<p>During the first years we lived in Joensuu a friend of us created a small group of people —sort of a club or association— to help to develop a little bit the cultural life of Joensuu. We meet regularly in one of the rooms of the regional museum and developed some activities together like art expositions, international food activities or photo sessions with locals and internationals to try to tell a little bit their stories. We also developed some cultural activities for refugees and their children, like an exposition of the children’s drawings about war, so we could create some awareness about what was going on in Syria.</p>
<h4 id="teaching-to-code">Teaching to code</h4>
<p>My wife and I organized an activity to teach code to kids on fifth grade on the <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/WGSAoPUJJty">CEIP José Calvo Sotelo</a> in Madrid inside of the <a href="https://hourofcode.com/us/learn">Hour of Code</a> initiative. It was really interesting to see how kids were really interesting in computers, beyond playing computer games, and how they can think out of the box to solve problems in different ways. It was a really boost in creativity.</p>
<h4 id="carousel">Carousel</h4>
<p>It’s funny how to you can end up in the most interesting places sometimes just by pure chance. While we were living in the US I ended up helping to restore an old <a href="http://albanycarousel.com">carousel</a> in a town close to the one we were living and it was one of the most positive experiences in my life.</p>
<p>Before we traveled to the US West Coast, we were looking for a place to live and we ended up contacted by a nice couple because they perhaps had some place for us to stay. It didn’t workout —because their place was too far away of the center of our activities and we didn’t planned to have a car— but we ended up befriending. They offered us a lot of support and help during all our stay there and they are one of the best people we came across in our lives. It’s funny because the main reason they contacted us is because we were living in Finland. She has a Finnish ancestry and they were curios about Finland.</p>
<p>Anyhow, he was volunteering restoring this old <a href="http://albanycarousel.com">carousel</a> and they asked me if I wanted to go with him. Right away. I came across a really nice bunch of old school people that were carrying out a really complex engineering project, just for fun! I couldn’t ask for more. It was great to help them to install the floor, review the mechanics, install the animals, or just to put some bulbs in the carrousel. However, the best was to be in contact with them and know a little bit of their stories. They were living in the surroundings all their lives and they were part of the 50s and 60s generation that witnessed America’s splendor. They were really kind to me and, even when I arrived in the last stages of the project, they didn’t hesitate to put my name with theirs hidden in one the beans of the carrousel, like any other member of the team. I even appear in a PBS documentary about the restoration and in some photos in the local newspaper about the topic. I think I was exotic.</p>
<h2 id="entanglement">Entanglement</h2>
<p>Of course I don’t have my life that extremely compartmentalized. All of these things and much more have been and are entangle… mixed together as in any other life. Lives are organic and usually their parts can’t be put in different boxes because they end up dying. Of course you can dissect lives, like any other system, to understand them better, but they are a whole and they need to be understood that way. Looking at just parts doesn’t make sense.</p>
<blockquote>
<p class="x-large"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline">When you split an elephant in two, you do not have two small elephants which you can take care of…</a></p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="is-all-of-these-just-bullit">Is all of these just bull**it?</h2>
<p>Perhaps… or perhaps not. What it’s true is we are usually much more of that we manage to show to the rest of the people, for good or bad. I wanted to be a little bit more transparent and show that although curriculums could be good tools, but most times they left out of the picture a lot of what a person is. That is problematic. Anyway, no tool is perfect and even this post is just <em>part of the story</em>.</p>
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<p>Both of us know that this post isn’t going to be small. <a href="#fnref:0" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:1" role="doc-endnote">
<p>I don’t think that getting a diploma —going to the university to get some degree of formal education— fully equated to <strong>learning</strong> and gather knowledge. I know a lot of people that has several diplomas, even PhDs but they barely know anything. <a href="#fnref:1" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:2" role="doc-endnote">
<p>It’s pretty clear Optimistic Nihilism isn’t a real philosophical term but a casual lingo. But perhaps you can learn a little bit more about the term in this <a href="https://qr.ae/TUtwbA">answer in Quora</a>. <a href="#fnref:2" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:4" role="doc-endnote">
<p>The original idea was to camp by the Colorado close to to Arches National Park, but it was too hot. <a href="#fnref:4" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
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<li id="fn:3" role="doc-endnote">
<p>A pep talk is: <em>Informal</em> A speech of exhortation, as to a team or staff, meant to instill enthusiasm or bolster morale. <a href="https://www.wordnik.com/words/pep%20talk">Source</a>. But could be also <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Pep%20Talk">this</a>. <a href="#fnref:3" class="reversefootnote" role="doc-backlink">↩</a></p>
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<p><a href="https://luispuerto.net/blog/2019/02/03/what-Ive-been-doing-these-last-years/" rel="nofollow">What have I been doing these last years?</a> was originally published on Luis Puerto’s Blog.</p>
Luis PuertoSince some people has asked me this once in a while, I think it's going to be a good idea to write a small0 post about what I've been doing these last years since I left Spain. I think I'm going to give it the shape of an informal resume / curriculum where I'm going to talk, superficially, about each of the things I've been doing.