Category Archives: Thoughts

Homónimos y tocayos

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Daniel Jaramillo is my name. You will think that is not a very common name but it is. I went to elementary/middle/high school with another Daniel Jaramillo and one of my brother’s best friends is also Daniel Jaramillo. If you search on Google, there is a Daniel Jaramillo that passed out in 2005, there is one that works in real state and there is a professor working at the Universidad Nacional in Medellín.

It was also brought to my attention by my friend and Puma #2 fan Jerónimo (are you asking yourself who #1 is?) that there is a Pumas player also named Daniel Jaramillo.

Anyway, next time you look around be cautious because there could be a Daniel Jaramillo near you.

FIFA is peeing 2500 meters outside the toilet

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Blatter is an idiot
Joseph S. Blatter strikes again. AP Photo/Diether Endlicher

“Está meando fuera del tiesto”, is an expression in Spanish that means that someone is doing something stupid (like peeing outside the toilet!), and that is exactly what the world’s most important soccer organization is doing by issuing a new regulation that states that no international soccer match can be played over 2500 meters above sea level. This is huge because three country capitals of the adean region in southamerica have an altitude over 2500: La Paz (Bolivia), Quito (Ecuador) and Bogota (Colombia) so the rule means that these three cities will never host an international soccer match. The whole thing started because a brasilean team (Flamengo) had to play against a Bolivian team at an altitude of almost 4000 meters. I agree that 4000 is too high, and FIFA could do something about that. Maybe the maximum altitude should be 3500 meters. But 2500 seems ridiculous.

In 2003 a soccer player from Cameroon died in the soccer field because of the high temperature. That game was hosted in France! Shouldn’t FIFA also ban international soccer matches at extreme temperatures?

The FIFA argues that they performed a medical analysis to support their decision. If that medical report is true, then I suppose that no other sport should ever be played at that altitude, which means that no one should be allowed to parachute ever, or climb the Everest, or practice skiing at the Alps, or…

FIFA is retarded!

2500 words

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Can you write 2500 words a day?

El reto era escribir 2500 palabras. El motivo parte de una conversación con Lucia sobre una página que…. bueno entre la frase inicial y esto que escribo ahorita pasaron unos 30 minutos, pues antes de adentrarme a escribir 2500 palabras, preferí instalar en mi PowerBook una configuración de teclado llamada ‘US-International’ que acostumbro usar en las computadoras que tienen Windows instalado. Cabe aclarar que cuando me refiero a términos tecnológicos, me es mucho más fácil referirme a ellos en inglés que en español. Por ejemplo, lo primero que pensé en escribir fue ‘keyboard layout’ para luego tener que pensar como carajos lo decía en español. Tal ves ‘distribución de teclado’ en lugar de ‘configuración de teclado’ hubiera sido un término más acertado.

Retomando el comienzo de este escrito, repito que anoche mientras estaba en casa de Lucía trabajando con ella en nuestro proyecto conjunto que más tarde explicaré, me preguntó de la nada si me gustaba escribir mientras se dedicaba a coser las páginas de un par de libros que estaba haciendo. Yo pensé que la pregunta iba encaminada a que me iba a regalar uno de los libros y le dije que lo poco que yo escribo, lo hago en mi blog (lo siento pero bitácora suena terrible) y ella entonces me contó sobre una página en internet que realiza un tipo de maratón literario donde las personas que se inscriben, deben escribir 2500 palabras diarias y publicarlas en dicha página. Según Lucía, los contenidos podían hacerse públicos o privados, de manera que se podía escribir lo más inverosímil sin temor a hacer el ridículo. Según entendí 2500 palabras es la única exigencia. El texto no tiene que ser perfecto, ni siquiera tiene que ser interesante, no tiene que tener sentido, frases sueltas son válidas, incluso palabras sueltas que no hilen, ni rimen, ni tengan gracia. Obvio que escribir 2500 veces la palabra popó, o escribir el abecedario 100 veces (aproximando que el abecedario tiene 25 letras) carece de gracia, pero se supone que es válido.

Al final lo que la página busca es que las personas escriban, y le pierdan el miedo a escribir. No se cuantos días dura la prueba, no se realmente cuales son las reglas, y no tengo intenciones de inscribirme pues se me hace más sencillo crear yo mis propios escritos y hacer con ellos lo que se me de la regalada gana, pero me quedó la curiosidad de saber que tan fácil o difícil es escribir 2500 palabras al día.

En este momento tengo la impresión de que la tarea no es tan fácil. Llevo aproximadamente media hora escribiendo y hasta aquí calculo que llevo menos de 500 palabras, lo cual significa que para cumplir la meta debo seguir escribiendo durante otras dos horas. Es definitivo que no tengo el tiempo para hacer esto todos los días si tenemos en cuenta que prefiero invertir mi tiempo viendo series como Heroes, Studio 60 y Lost, cocinando, chateando con mis amigos, leyendo o investigando alguna curiosidad tecnológica. Hago entonces un paréntesis ahora para comprobar el número de palabras escritas. (Nótese que mi intensión era hacer el conteo cuando comencé este párrafo, pero al verlo con detalle sentí que ni loco iba a tener 500 palabras, que tenía que seguir escribiendo un poco más y cambié el texto a ‘menos de 500 palabras’ para no hacer el ridículo. Pero ya no postergo más el conteo, así que aquí va:

561!

Caramba! no pensé que realmente hubieran 500 palabras en el texto. Al copiar el texto a Word cupo en poco más que una página, así que 500 palabras ocupan aproximadamente una página. Es claro que no tengo el tiempo para escribir 5 páginas diarias.

Ahora acabo de comenzar el ejercicio de releer el texto y ajustarlo un poco así que las 561 palabras iniciales seguramente cambiarán un poco.

Y luego de releer el texto y hacer unos cuantos ajustes, me di cuenta que nunca expliqué cual era el proyecto que estaba haciendo con Lucía. Estamos haciendo un software que calcula las dimensiones necesarias de material para construir una caja de cartón, comúnmente usadas para preservar libros.

Finalmente y luego de leer el texto completo he decidido publicarlo en mi blog, no sin antes investigar la página del concurso para anexarla como referencia por si alguien se anima a escribir.

PD: Comments to this post need to be 500+ word long!

References:
Short Story Challenge 2007
National Novel Writting Month

5 years living in Austin

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I moved to Austin 5 years ago (Nov. 3rd 2001) and started working for National Instruments on Nov 12th. Back then I had a short-term (5 years) and a long-term (20+ years) plan: the short-term plan was to get my masters at UT and to save a good amount of money to start my own business in Colombia. The long term plan was a backup in case I decided to stay in Austin, I still wanted to go back to Colombia eventually and retire over there.

I have to admit that I have done nothing towards obtaining my masters. To be honest I don’t want to go to school right now, but I reconsider this in the future. About the money I’ve done ok, and I think buying a house was a great way of forcing myself to save more money. Also after 5 years here, I really like Austin. I’ve got used to the life style, I made great friends and I like my job a lot, so I don’t have a strong reason for going back to Colombia. Besides I can always go for vacations to see my family and friends, which is something I want to do every year. But this doesn’t mean I’m going to stay in Austin for good. The truth is that I no longer have a plan. I still dream about going back to Colombia one day, buy a small ‘finca’ and work as a professor at a University in Colombia. But only time will tell what I’ll end up doing with my life.

Anyway… happy 5 years in Austin anniversary to me!

World Cup 2006 – Jogo Feio

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Another World Cup is over and that only means that we have four boring years ahead!

Today the Italians won their 4th World Cup 24 years after they won their last one back in 1982. I must say that the Italian team was very compact and well organized in defense. They played very good as a team and they had their top match against Germany. I think Germany, Argentina and Spain were better teams but Italy had other elements playing in their favor like the referees always favoring them and the luck of playing weak teams in the finals (Australia and Ukrania).

If the Brazilians are the masters of the ‘Jogo Bonito’, Italians are the masters of the ‘Jogo Feio’. It is sad that they use so many cheap tricks when they have enough talent to win games fair and square. Today in the final Materazzi used his big mouth to insult Zinedine Zidane and the french lost its cool and attacked the Italian with his head like a bull. None of the four referees saw the incident and the Italian goal keeper Buffon asked the 4th referee to check a video replay of the situation. Then the 4th referee explained the incident to the main referee Horacio Elizondo and he pulled a red card on Zidane. FIFA has never allowed the use of video replays during soccer matches to make decisions, so I think it is terrible that they allowed this rule to be changed on the fly on the most important game of the World Cup. Shame on FIFA! I think it was horrible what Zidane did, but since none of the referees saw the incident nothing should have happened.

Anyway, I have this feeling that neither Italy, nor France deserved to win this World Cup. I think Germany should have won it. But again, Italy beated Germany fair and square, so I guess they did deserve it at the end.

Update [07/10/06 - 11:52 a.m.]

FIFA is now claiming that video replay was never used to pull the red card on Zidane. I hope this is true.

See the story on BBC News.

World Cup 2006 – Before semi finals

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The World Cup 2006 is almost over with only four games left.

It’s going to be an all-european teams semi final which proves again that European countries are very strong when they host the World Cup. Only Brazil has been able to win a WC in Europe when they did back in Sweden 1958.

The semi finals are:

Germany vs Italy
The only favorite left. Being the host country can play in your favor or against you. The referees are always going to be localists, but playing at home has the extra preassure that your crowd expects you to win. Germany has won all their games easily except the game with Argentina. In that game the Germans looked nervous and didn’t play the great soccer they have shown in the other matches.

Italy had to play in one of the most difficult groups in first round and they have not lost a single game so far. They have been helped a lot from the referees, specially in the games with Ghana, USA and Australia. The Italian defense and goalkeeper are very strong and has only allowed one goal (scored by one of their defenders) and their strickers have done their part scoring.

If Germany plays as nervous and conservative as with Argentina, this game could end up with a tie (0-0, 1-1) or with one team winning 1-0. If the game goes to penalty kicks, we are going to see two of the worlds best goalkeepers Buffon and Lehman.

France vs Portugal
France had one of the easiest groups of the WC but they played horrible, and made it to the second round in second place after Switzerland. But then it was like the French team turned on the ‘Jogo Bonito’ switch and they played perfect games against Spain and Brasil, two teams that we all thought were favorites to win the WC. Zidane showed his best soccer against the Brazilians and proved the world that he still has lots of soccer to give.

Portugal had to play against two very physical teams: Netherlands and England, and they won both games with lots of guts. You can tell the Portuguese have fun on the field and I think it is because of their coach Scolari. I think Portugal has a much younger team than France, although they do have a man with lots of experience like Figo.

Figo vs Zidane, Ronaldo vs Henry…

World Cup 2006 – First round summary

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Group A

Germany had a very solid first round winning all three games. Ecuador, after having great performances against Poland and Costa Rica played a regular game against Germany.

Group B

England finished at the top of its group but they didn’t looked unbeatable after the game with Sweden. Sweden improved some from its first game and it’s going to be a tough rival for the Germans.

Group C

Argentina and Netherlands had very solid performances. They both have great chances of winning their respective 2nd round games. Ivory Coast was unlucky to be in this group. I think they could have made it in another group.

Group D

This group that seemed really easy for Mexico and Portugal, showed that neither Angola nor Iran were weak teams. Mexico was chosen by FIFA as the top seed of this group, but clearly Portugal was much superior. Both teams have it very difficult in 2nd round against Argentina and Netherlands.

Group E

This was the most exiting group on the first round. The Czech Republic started with a solid performance and stabilshed themselves as favorites to win the World Cup. But they couldn’t beat either Ghana nor Italy and now they are out of the competition. Ghana on the other hand surprised everyone passing to the next round. They are going to be the only African team left in the competition. Italy made it to the next round but I don’t like their style.

Group F

Brasil had a slow start beating Croatia 1-0 but they picked up the pace against Australia and Japan winning 2-0 and 4-1 respectively. They have a very difficult game against Ghana in second round. Australia had good games and made it to the second round for the first time in their history. The last game against Croatia was very even but Croatia is out because they couldn’t beat the weakest team in the group Japan.

Group G

France made it to the second round and had a good game against Togo, but the french squad most likely will loose against Spain. Switzerland was very solid and gave good performances. Now they will be facing Ukraine and this game can go either way.
Group H

Spain has a great team full of young talent. I mentioned them as strong candidates to win the World Cup and I think they still are. Ukraine which was big dissapointment after the first match with Spain, was able to recover but against the two other teams in the group (Saudia Arabia and Tunisia) which are not strong teams. They could make it to quarter finals if they beat Switzerland but I don’t think they will go any further.

CONMEBOL VS CONCACAF

In the 2002 World Cup teams from CONCACAF had a great performance while teams from CONMEBOL were a dissapointment.

Mexico finished at the top of its group and lost in second round against the USA. The USA made it to quarter finals but lost against Germany. Costa Rica didn’t made it to second round but they finished in third possition in the group with the same number of points (4) as Turkey lossing the second place because of goal difference.

As far as CONMEBOL goes Uruguay, Argentina and Ecuador failed to advance to the second round and Paraguay lost against Germany in second round. Brazil obviously was the great exception and won the World Cup. Here are the numbers of that WC. I even remove Brazil to show how bad CONMEBOL did if Brazil wasn’t part of it.
CONCACAF: P:12 W:3 D:4 L:6 Pts:34 (1.50 points per game)

CONMEBOL: P:20 W:10 D:4 L:6 Pts:18 (1.70 ppg)

CONMEBOL*: P:13 W:3 D:4 L:6 Pts:13 (1.00 ppg)

* Without Brazil

I was really dissapointed that Colombia didn’t make it to the 2006 World Cup and I thought that it was unfair that CONCACAF had 3.5 places for its associated nations in the WC and CONMEBOL only had 4.5. I think CONMEBOL should have at least 50% more places than CONCACAF for all its World Cup history (9 World Cup championships).
Not only that but the 4th best team from CONCACAF (Trinidad & Tobago) had to play for the half place against the 5th best country in Asia (Baharein), while the 5th best country from CONMEBOL (Uruguay) had to play against the best team in Oceania (Australia).

But everytime I brought the subject with my Mexican friends for the past 4 years, they would remind me of how bad CONMEBOL did in the 2002 World Cup and how well CONCACAF is doing. They would argue that the 2 WCs Uruguay won in 1930 and 1950 mean nothing today. They would say that Mexico and the USA have been in the FIFA top 10 ranking for the last few years.

But today is payback time. Let me introduce you the 2006 World Cup comparisson between CONCACAF and CONMEBOL after the first round is over:

CONCACAF: P:12 W:1 D:3 L:8 Pts:6 (0.50 points per game)

CONMEBOL: P:12 W:8 D:1 L:3 Pts:25 (2.08 ppg)

I hope the FIFA follows the same logic to decide the number of places for the 2010 World Cup and takes a place from CONCACAF (2.5) and gives it to CONMEBOL (5.5).

Dedicated with love to all my Mexican friends.

World Cup 2006 – Now that we’ve seen all the teams…

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This is how I would classify the different teams

Candidates to win the WC: Brazil, Spain, Czech Republic and Germany.

Brazil obviously is everyone’s favorite, although they didn’t have a great game against Croatia. Spain smashed Ukraine and has a very strong team, with very young players on the attack. The Czechs are not a surprise: they’ve been playing really well in the past few years and they are ranked #2 by the FIFA. Germany is a candidate because they are playing home. I think that under different conditions, Germany wouldn’t be a favorite.

Teams that will make it to quarter finals: England, Argentina, Netherlands and Italy.

Everyone knows these are four very strong teams but none had a spectacular first game. But if they improve for the next matches, they are definitely candidates to win the WC.

Teams that will have a very good WC: Ecuador, México, Cote d’Ivoire and Australia

If there is going to be a surprising team this year, it has to come out of this list. These are four very solid and great teams, but not as good as to win the WC.

Big disappointments: Ukraine, Paraguay, USA, France, Sweden

I had a lot of expectations about Ukraine. They were the first European team to qualify to the WC and they didn’t lose a single match during qualifying. And they have Shevchenko one of the best soccer players in the world. However they looked terrible against Spain. They have an easy group with Saudi Arabia and Tunes, so they might recover and make it to the next round.

With Sweden I also had high expectations, especially because of their strong attack with Larson and Ibrahimovic, but they couldn’t win the game against Trinidad & Tobago. I do recognize that T&T played an amazing game but I though that Sweden will be beating them easily.

Finally USA, Paraguay and France played a terrible first game. I don’t think USA has a chance to advance to the next round since they are in one of the toughest groups. Paraguay doesn’t seem to have strong team. They played horrible against England. I think France on the other hand can put it together and make it to the next round, since their group is not too difficult.