Lofting Movement...

I really want to build a house.., but I want it to be just of seel and glass.., so I was searching the web and found this interesting article about the "lofting movement", it talks about how it began and became what it is today..

"....My first hint of a better, more efficient, way of housing came with the discovery of the Lofting Movement. In the 1970s the wave of urban decay that spread across the industrialized countries resulted in an interesting phenomenon. Artists, always compelled to live efficiently by virtue of an alternately feast-or-famine self-employment income, began to explore abandoned urban industrial/commercial structures in search of low cost live/work space within the urban cultural centers they have always tended to congregate in. Pooling their resources, groups of artists purchased some of these obsolete buildings and turned them into mini-communities, partitioning them into private residence spaces and shared studios and galleries. The novel environments these creative people made for themselves from these spartan structures attracted the attention of architectural and interior designers who came to appreciate the freedom of creative expression afforded by large simple clear-span spaces. Once publicized in the media, this concept went mainstream and became the basis of a kind of ad-hoc urban renewal driven by the needs of a new generation of young urban professionals migrating to the cities in response to a resurgence in corporate growth and white collar work opportunity. Thus was born the Lofting Movement and today we see the seemingly peculiar phenomenon of new industrial style buildings created specifically to serve as residential loft housing...."

Extracted from: http://radio.weblogs.com/0119080/stories/2003/02/08/gallerysimplicityAndPavili.html

invincible ????

I bought a new laptop a couple of weeks ago...., I was pretty happy with it and I have had used it for only 2 weeks... Then I invited my work pals to my house for a working session..., after finishing work we took a beer or two and I misplaced mine just to the right of my laptop..., then when I finished using my mouse I spilled it over the keyboard and the screen.., I was like in shock or something.., but after a couple of seconds.., I realized that nothing wrong happened to it, except the smell that it was going to have for a couple of weeks..., no big deal anyway.... AND, AND the spill proof keyboard that the computer comes bundled with helped to avoid a greater damage..., peace of mind !!
I worked flawlessly for a couple of days (maybe 3 or 4, can't remember though)..., and I remember that it was a Monday morning...., I was thirsty so I asked my sister to bring me a glass with water.., she did it and I did put it exactly in the same place where the beer was placed a couple of days ago...., I did the same movement and for my surprise I spilled not a few drops but the hole glass over it.., the computer turned off immediately and this time I was scared like hell, I didn't know what to do because the water came from the side and entered inside my thinkpad by every single side you can imagine.., it was full f water everywhere..., "This is the END" I thought.... In that very moment I loose all the hopes to get it back..., and what really bothered me that day is that I already had a warning a couple of days before.., I was really mad at me for doing that... I unplugged it, disassembled it and started to dry it with a hair dryer (just air, not hot air....) until no water remained on it.., then I tried to turn it on.., no luck at all !! I tried to start but a weird sound came in, so I turned it off....., I lost it !! I lost it !! that was the only thing that was in my head...., and what really kept me sad is that it was a brand new computer..., because honestly if it had like 1 year or 1 year and a half that would be like more acceptable, but NOOOO, it just had 2 weeks of use !!!!!!!! ARRRGHHHHHH !!!!
I dissasembled it again and placed a heather by its side for 2 hours.., then I tried again and no luck !! So I tried calling to lenovo without any kind of hope because I knew that that kind of accidents are not covered by the warranty.., they gave me an appointment in town, so I went, and the tech guy told me that there was maybe a chance of saving it..., some hope came to me. He asked me to call him the next day in the morning. Next morning I called and the guy told me that they dried it, they did everything they could and that the thinkpad wasn't turning on.., and that the replacement of the damaged part (mainborad) could cost like US 900..., I said to him never mind.., I prefer to buy a new one than just getting the replacement part..
However he asked me to call him again a couple of hours later... I was hopeless this time.., but for my surprise when I called him he told me that the mainboard didn't have any burned part, so maybe they could claim warranty for it.., also he told me that the board inside it had some fungus..., weird !! having in mind that it was a brand new computer..... He asked me to call a few hours later, which I did and he told me that the warranty manager approved the change of the mainboard as warranty !! I couldn't believe until today that I picked it up and now I'm writing this post from it.
So from now on.., I think that thinkpads are like Phoenix.., they just reborn from dust.
So far, I can say that my experience with Lenovo has been the best of the best.

The meaning of the word "Expert"

This is just a part of the definition:
"....Experts use better tools and care deeply about their craft. They aren't assembling bits on an assembly line, they are crafting a unique product to solve a unique problem. Experts are lazy, they work smarter rather than harder. Experts prefer the easiest solution that gets the job done. Experts aren't interested in creating complex solutions simply to have the complexity, that misguided egoism is the territory of more junior developers. They often get it right the first try and almost always on the second one...."

Extracted from: http://blog.revsys.com/2007/08/a-guide-to-hiri.html

Long time without posting...

I know.., it's been a long time since my last post..., reasons ?? A lot and none at the same time..., weird, isn't it ? ANyway.., today I read a very short article about meetings..., yes..., meetings..., some of us have a love/hate relationship with them...., and this are a few tips that the following page (http://www.behance.com/Featured/Articles/Tip-Measure-Meetings-With-Action/5593) suggests:

• Beware of "Posting Meetings." A meeting to “share updates” should actually be a voice-mail or an e-mail. Rule of thumb: if you leave a meeting without action steps, then questions to value of the meeting (especially if it is recurring).

• Abolish Monday Meetings. Gathering people for no other reason than "it’s Monday!" makes little-to-know sense, especially when trying to filter through the bloated post-weekend inbox. Automatic meetings end up becoming “posting” meetings.

• End With A Review of Actions Captured. At the end of a meeting, go around and review the action steps each person has captured. The exercise takes less than 30 seconds per person, and it almost always reveals a few action steps that were missed. The exercise also breeds a sense of accountability. If you state YOUR action steps in front of YOUR colleagues, then YOU are likely to follow through.

Never expect the expected..

It can sound weird, but my conclusion is to never expect the expected and the expected will happen, Murphy's law??? I guess it is ! Aren't we pica?

Cool Article.

JuanE sent me yesterday this article, I found it quite cool and interesting.

Many of our problems come from within our own minds. They aren’t caused by events, bad luck, or other people. We cause them through our own poor mental habits. Here are 10 habits you should set aside right away to free yourself from the many problems each one will be causing you.

Stop jumping to conclusions. There are two common ways this habit increases people’s difficulties. First, they assume that they know what is going to happen, so they stop paying attention and act on their assumption instead. Human beings are lousy fortune-tellers. Most of what they assume is wrong. That makes the action wrong too. The second aspect of this habit is playing the mind-reader and assuming you know why people do what they do or what they’re thinking. Wrong again, big time. More relationships are destroyed by this particular kind of stupidity than by any other.

Don’t dramatize. Lots of people inflate small setbacks into life-threatening catastrophes and react accordingly. This habit makes mountains out of molehills and gives people anxieties that either don’t exist or are so insignificant they aren’t worth worrying about anyway. Why do they do it? Who knows? Maybe to make themselves feel and seem more important. Whatever the reason, it’s silly as well as destructive.

Don’t invent rules. A huge proportion of those “oughts” and “shoulds” that you carry around are most likely needless. All that they do for you is make you feel nervous or guilty. What’s the point? When you use these imaginary rules on yourself, you clog your mind with petty restrictions and childish orders. And when you try to impose them on others, you make yourself into a bully, a boring nag, or a self-righteous bigot.

Avoid stereotyping or labeling people or situations. The words you use can trip you up. Negative and critical language produces the same flavor of thinking. Forcing things into pre-set categories hides their real meaning and limits your thinking to no purpose. See what’s there. Don’t label. You’ll be surprised at what you find.

Quit being a perfectionist. Life isn’t all or nothing, black or white. Many times, good enough means exactly what it says. Search for the perfect job and you’ll likely never find it. Meanwhile, all the others will look worse than they are. Try for the perfect relationship and you’ll probably spend your life alone. Perfectionism is a mental sickness that will destroy all your pleasure and send you in search of what can never be attained.

Don’t over-generalize. One or two setbacks are not a sign of permanent failure. The odd triumph doesn’t turn you into a genius. A single event—good or bad—or even two or three don’t always point to a lasting trend. Usually things are just what they are, nothing more.

Don’t take things so personally. Most people, even your friends and colleagues, aren’t talking about you, thinking about you, or concerned with you at all for 99% of the time. The majority of folk in your organization or neighborhood have probably never heard of you and don’t especially want to. The ups and downs of life, the warmth and coldness of others, aren’t personal at all. Pretending that they are will only make you more miserable than is needed.

Don’t assume your emotions are tustworthy. How you feel isn’t always a good indicator of how things are. Just because you feel it, that doesn’t make it true. Sometimes that emotion comes from nothing more profound than being tired, hungry, annoyed, or about to get a head-cold. The future won’t change because you feel bad—nor because you feel great. Feelings may be true, but they aren’t the truth.

Don’t let life get you down. Keep practicing being optimistic. If you expect bad things in your life and work, you’ll always find them. A negative mind-set is like looking at the world through distorting, grimy lenses. You spot every blemish and overlook or discount everything else. It’s amazing what isn’t there until you start to look for it. Of course, if you decide to look for signs of positive things, you’ll find those too.

Don’t hang on to the past. This is my most important suggestion of all: let go and move on. Most of the anger, frustration, misery, and despair in this world come from people clinging to past hurts and problems. The more you turn them over in your mind, the worse you’ll feel and the bigger they’ll look. Don’t try to fight misery. Let go and move on. Do that and you’ve removed just about all its power to hurt you.

Extracted from: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/10-virtually-instant-ways-to-improve-your-life.html

Long time...

Long time without posting...... So much things have happened..., moved to a new house outside the city..., a place that by the way I like just so much.., the weather is like Bogota (15 to 20 degrees all the time) and that moving was taking almost all of my free time.., packing, getting rid of things that I'm not using any longer, organizing, and packing, packing, packing and packing...
Settling down takes some time....., I even have boxes without unpacking...
Getting used to the weather has also been a challenge, but now it's under control.
Also other aspects of my private life have had very big changes..., not easy to overcome all of them though..., but I did them for the best and my last intention was to hurt anybody but me.
I'm kind of speechless today...., so I'm not writting anymore.

Quieres un Margarito ?

Hey Burro, el video esta una caja completa, de donde lo sacaste?

Wrong email?

I googled my email today and found this entry.., and I'm quite sure that I didn't write even if I was drunk or something because there are words that I don't even know.

"...ah ya no mas argentinuchos todos son unos prepotentes, arrogantes, creìdos, chilangos, nacos, y sus novias, esposas, hijas, etc., son unas garnachas, osea tienen cerebro de guacamole, huelen a ajo y parecen una cebolla, ya dèjense de creerse los meros machos porque no son ni faldita, maradona su ìdolo es un drogadicto y un homosexual, al igual que el 99 por ciento de ustedes. si otro mexicano quiere unirseme a esta lucha, que me escriba a esteban8A@gmail.com y les damos a estos robacanecas lo que se merecen, chilangos!!!......."

test

<span xmlns:t="http://tapestry.apache.org/schema/tapestry_5_0_0.xsd"><t:select t:id="monthSelect" t:value="month" t:model="monthsModel" t:validate="required" onChange="Dodo.Utils.fixDayList('${clientId}');"/> <t:select t:id="daySelect" t:value="day" t:model="daysModel" t:validate="required"/> <t:select t:id="yearSelect" t:value="year" t:model="yearsModel" t:validate="required" onChange="Dodo.Utils.fixDayList('${clientId}');"/></span>

New Template

Finally google allowed me to migrate my blog to their new version.

Sleep Adjustment - Gain 10 days per year

10 days extra per year, and if you live for 70 years that gets translated into 700 extra days, does it sounds interesting?
I was reading the web and found this interesting article (http://www.dumblittleman.com/2007/05/sleep-adjustment-gain-10-days-per-year.html)...., I agree in the 20 mins power nap and with the lying in bed is not sleeping...

"On Dumb Little Man I have mentioned (several times) that I am generally awake each morning at 4AM. While that time may seem inconceivable to most of you, the simple idea of at least waking up earlier in general should be easy to swallow.

From 4-6 AM, I simply get a ton of things done. In fact, I'd argue that I get more done from 4-6 AM than I do from 8-Noon. No matter what I decide to do, it's uninterrupted simply because no one else is awake and functioning. It's purely a time for knocking out tasks (work or home related), reading, project work, planning, etc. It's great.

My life was not always this way, I used to be the guy that stayed up late and woke up with barely enough time to shower before work. So, how did I change that? It's actually pretty simple, I installed a regimen that I have now followed for years. On average, I believe that I have given myself an extra 5 hours per week or (do the math) an extra 10.8 days per year to get stuff done.

Lying in bed is not sleeping: 10:00 PM was my previous bedtime. Frankly, I chose that time because that's when my parents went to bed when I was a kid. I had no real reason for it. What I found was that I would watch the news and then end up lying in bed for an hour pondering and stressing.

In my belief, the key to extending your days is to lie down when you simply cannot ponder any longer. If you are drifting off at the computer, while reading, or watching TV, it's time to get to bed. Your bedtime should and will vary from night to night. Let your body tell you when to sleep as opposed to the following the 8-hour rule. Really, how good is that rule if you a laying in bed awake for an hour?

Rise and Shine: No matter what time you to go to bed - you're alarm should go off each morning at the same time, 7 days per week. When I started this self-programming, I chose 4AM and today, regardless of the time I hit the rack, I am up at 4AM without an alarm. I have gone to bed at 2:30 AM on occasion and still gotten up automatically at 4:00 feeling good.

Sleepy at Noon?: We've all heard the some countries encourage lunchtime naps. Well, me too. For lunch, I eat a sandwich and when possible (and only when I feel tired, this is not daily) I take a power nap that lasts all of 20 minutes. Instead of sitting at my desk for lunch, I will hop in the car and head to a forest preserve, behind a strip mall, etc. I eat, and then turn the radio down for a quick nap (set your cell phone alarm). I wake up totally refreshed. It's actually kind of eerie because the energy I have after this little midday nap easily trumps the energy I had in the morning.
These 3 simple things have created a self-adjusting alarm clock inside my body. Since I wake up at the exact same time each day, my body knows how to adjust. In the evening, it will (through drifting off) tell me to go to bed earlier if in fact I am tired. On the flip side, if my body has the energy, I can write on this site or do whatever until 1AM if I want. This is essentially due to a hormone release that happens internally. I am programmed to be drowsy when I need to be and productive when I don't.

Think about what you could do with this added 5 hours per week. I am not implying that you have to be up at 4AM, but if in fact you find yourself "trying" to fall asleep or watching TV for hours at night, this may be something for you to try."

Pessimism ???

This year the Colombian peso "COP" has been gaining value against the dollar, but in every magazine and newspaper that you read inside the country it says something like: "The dollar went down to $2.000 pesos for example, or the dollar went down $20 pesos..." and I can continue writing and writing things like that..
We all know that this phenomena is good for certain industries and disastrous for another's. For example, I'm being affected because of the revaluation of the peso, anyways.., my question and my post is about this: Why the concept is being written as something bad instead of something good?? A headline like this would definitively help:
"The peso won $20 pesos", or "The peso beaten the dollar in $34 pesos" should be used instead... even if it's not as good for some industries as for another's.
The conclusion here is that a positive writing produces a positive thinking inside us, while a negative writing produces of course a negative thinking.

Business Idea.

I've been offering some of the paintings that my mom does in the city, not too much luck.. So this idea came to my mind.., create a page called something like artistasindependientes.com, where independent or part time artists could post their arts and paintings, then people could log into the site and browse them.., having of course the chance to buy them...

PVD again..

Can't believe it.., Paul Van Dyk again in medellin!!

My favorite tool.

Today I was replying to some post that a guy did on codeproject.com asking for a tool that could allow him to model and understand a huge piece of somebody's else code.
So I suggested him to use my favorite tool, the one that I use on a daily basis: Cmaps !

This was my reply:
"...Most of the times I use a tool called "cmaps" (Conceptual maps) and let me tell you that I've tried a lot of knowledge modeling tools, but this one is terrific. Most of the times before facing a coding session I create myself a road map to clarify and polish my ideas about what I'm going to do. And not only for coding, when I'm reading a book I also use it to keep track and get a better understanding of what I've read... I also have used it for when I'm reading somebody's else code and it does a pretty good work. i highly recommend it to you.

You can get a copy from here: http://cmap.ihmc.us/

Just picture this: The tool was sponsored and is sponsored by the US navy for the single reason that they needed a tool that allowed them to teach faster to the soldiers in the aircraft carriers. (Having one single soldier for a year in one of this ships costs a LOT of money).
The tool allowed them to teach a 10% faster !! Just imagine that you could have a soldier 11 months instead of 12, and that each month per soldier is US 1,000, and imagine you have 1,000 soldiers, how much money did they save ?? Interesting !!!....."

Anyways..., this tool works in the same way the neurons work inside the body !

Doodling...

If there's something that I recommend is doodling...
Do
Our
Ophera
Ddue
Long
Itinerary
Never
Goes

Makes no sense though..jajajjaja

Ideas is what I have !!

That's my conclusion....

Nevado del Ruiz..

Last week we traveled to Manizales, and there we went to "El Nevado del Ruiz" which is a volcano. Getting to the snow was a big challenge having in mind that it was at 5104 meters above sea level. You could barely walk 1 minute without feeling your hearth beat going at 167 bpm, but it was definitively worth it. Eduardo and Velez got sick of the height (Puking and headache included in the pack).

After getting to the 4400 mts again we headed to a region called "El Cisne", a place that's located at 10 kms from the "Nevado del Ruiz" and at 4138 mts. The landscape going there was just incredible.., it was like being in another world.., the rocks were red, dust everywhere.., it was a complete desert (but a cold, very cold one).

After some hard core driving (having in mind that almost all the time was a huuuuge hill to the right of the road, and that there was a turn called "La curva del putas" (Guess why..)) we arrove to "El Cisne" and popped up our tents. Sleeping there was hard !! I couldn't get warm at all, in fact nobody could...

The next day, we woke pretty early and headed up (walking) to a place called "La laguna Verde", the name comes from the fact that the lagoon has a huge amount of azufre (highly toxic).

When we got there we had to wait like 30 mins to be able to see the lagoon because there was just soo much fog.

After a cold night and a couple of amazing walks we went to thermal waters and got a very nice time there...

33 rules to Boost your productivity

I read this and found it very interesting.

1. Nuke it! The most efficient way to get through a task is to delete it. If it doesn’t need to be done, get it off your to do list.
2. Daily goals. Without a clear focus, it’s too easy to succumb to distractions. Set targets for each day in advance. Decide what you’ll do; then do it.
3. Worst first. To defeat procrastination learn to tackle your most unpleasant task first thing in the morning instead of delaying it until later in the day. This small victory will set the tone for a very productive day.
4. Peak times. Identify your peak cycles of productivity, and schedule your most important tasks for those times. Work on minor tasks during your non-peak times.
5. No-comm zones. Allocate uninterruptible blocks of time for solo work where you must concentrate. Schedule light, interruptible tasks for your open-comm periods and more challenging projects for your no-comm periods.
6. Mini-milestones. When you begin a task, identify the target you must reach before you can stop working. For example, when working on a book, you could decide not to get up until you’ve written at least 1000 words. Hit your target no matter what.
7. Timeboxing. Give yourself a fixed time period, like 30 minutes, to make a dent in a task. Don’t worry about how far you get. Just put in the time. See Timeboxing for more.
8. Batching. Batch similar tasks like phone calls or errands into a single chunk, and knock them off in a single session.
9. Early bird. Get up early in the morning, like at 5am, and go straight to work on your most important task. You can often get more done before 8am than most people do in a day.
10. Cone of silence. Take a laptop with no network or WiFi access, and go to a place where you can work flat out without distractions, such as a library, park, coffee house, or your own backyard. Leave your comm gadgets behind.
11. Tempo. Deliberately pick up the pace, and try to move a little faster than usual. Speak faster. Walk faster. Type faster. Read faster. Go home sooner.
12. Relaxify. Reduce stress by cultivating a relaxing, clutter-free workspace. See 10 Ways to Relaxify Your Workspace.
13. Agendas. Provide clear written agendas to meeting participants in advance. This greatly improves meeting focus and efficiency. You can use it for phone calls too.
14. Pareto. The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t overengineer the non-critical 80%.
15. Ready-fire-aim. Bust procrastination by taking action immediately after setting a goal, even if the action isn’t perfectly planned. You can always adjust course along the way.
16. Minuteman. Once you have the information you need to make a decision, start a timer and give yourself just 60 seconds to make the actual decision. Take a whole minute to vacillate and second-guess yourself all you want, but come out the other end with a clear choice. Once your decision is made, take some kind of action to set it in motion.
17. Deadline. Set a deadline for task completion, and use it as a focal point to stay on track.
18. Promise. Tell others of your commitments, since they’ll help hold you accountable.
19. Punctuality. Whatever it takes, show up on time. Arrive early.
20. Gap reading. Use reading to fill in those odd periods like waiting for an appointment, standing in line, or while the coffee is brewing. If you’re a male, you can even read an article while shaving (preferably with an electric razor). That’s 365 articles a year.
21. Resonance. Visualize your goal as already accomplished. Put yourself into a state of actually being there. Make it real in your mind, and you’ll soon see it in your reality.
22. Glittering prizes. Give yourself frequent rewards for achievement. See a movie, book a professional massage, or spend a day at an amusement park.
23. Quad 2. Separate the truly important tasks from the merely urgent. Allocate blocks of time to work on the critical Quadrant 2 tasks, those which are important but rarely urgent, such as physical exercise, writing a book, and finding a relationship partner.
24. Continuum. At the end of your workday, identify the first task you’ll work on the next day, and set out the materials in advance. The next day begin working on that task immediately.
25. Slice and dice. Break complex projects into smaller, well-defined tasks. Focus on completing just one of those tasks.
26. Single-handling. Once you begin a task, stick with it until it’s 100% complete. Don’t switch tasks in the middle. When distractions come up, jot them down to be dealt with later.
27. Randomize. Pick a totally random piece of a larger project, and complete it. Pay one random bill. Make one phone call. Write page 42 of your book.
28. Insanely bad. Defeat perfectionism by completing your task in an intentionally terrible fashion, knowing you need never share the results with anyone. Write a blog post about the taste of salt, design a hideously dysfunctional web site, or create a business plan that guarantees a first-year bankruptcy. With a truly horrendous first draft, there’s nowhere to go but up.
29. 30 days. Identify a new habit you’d like to form, and commit to sticking with it for just 30 days. A temporary commitment is much easier to keep than a permanent one. See 30 Days to Success for details.
30. Delegate. Convince someone else to do it for you.
31. Cross-pollination. Sign up for martial arts, start a blog, or join an improv group. You’ll often encounter ideas in one field that can boost your performance in another.
32. Intuition. Go with your gut instinct. It’s probably right.
33. Optimization. Identify the processes you use most often, and write them down step-by-step. Refactor them on paper for greater efficiency. Then implement and test your improved processes. Sometimes we just can’t see what’s right in front of us until we examine it under a microscope.

Extracted from http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/05/33-rules-to-boost-your-productivity/

Mountainbiking..

Last weekend did with poveda mountainbinking. We started from Oviedo, then went throughout Envigado until "La Catedral" which is the place where Pablo Escobar built his famous jail (Getting up there was hard, everything was a hill and I wasn't in the best shape plus that it was raining), now you can't see anything of it, except a new house that was built above it (Honestly, I wouldn't have built in that zone..., kind of bad energy though).



The zone up there is now a Natural Area, so it was kind of funny to find a goat in the main gate as a pet.
She was looking into our stuff trying to get something to eat, we gave her some banana but she didn't like it at all.

After a short rest we continue biking, and this time we started to go down the mountain using as road what is widely know in Colombia as a "horseshoe road" or "camino de herradura". It was full of mud everywhere, we could hardly bike on it... After a couple of hours descending from 2,147 meters we arose the 1,500 meters in Caldas (pretty far away from medellin considering that we were tired, hungry and wanting to get home). My ass was in pain after that kind of muddy down hill.

After another rest, we started heading towards Medellin. Considering that we were in Caldas our shortest path would include passing by "La Estrella" followed by "Sabaneta" then "Envigado" and finally "El Poblado" to get to our beloved destination.

The funny thing is that when we were arriving (1 km remaining aprox) poveda's bike got a deflated tire !! We were so tired that we decided to walk instead of changing it...., after a hundred of meters we found a gas station were we replaced the tire and filled it with air.., then we continued our journey.., and finally we were able to say: "Home...., Sweet home...".

New music

I got this new remix of "Guns N' Roses" called "Bossa N' Roses", if you ever had the chance to listen to "Bossa N' Stones" you'll like this one..

Finally...

After blogger went from beta to a stable version I've been trying and trying for months to upgrade my account with no success. Finally..., today, I was able to move them..., now my blogs are stable !

Quote of the Day

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Ernest Hemingway

Crystal waters..

Last week I went to San Andres, a Colombian Island and I was completely amazed by the ocean there.. When I saw it colors the only think that came to my mind was that I wanted to get into the water and do some snorkeling on it...., have you ever seen The Beach movie ? If so, that's how it looks...







The sand of the beach also had a pretty nice color.., it's not like the conventional sand that you find in the coasts...., it's the kind that you only find on islands.. This one was melt with broken coral, something that gave it a very particular look and feel.

Brendan came with me to the trip, we had a pretty cool time there.

Google hoaxes

".....Google has often adopted a light-hearted approach in a variety of circumstances. The most popular instances of Google Humor are the April Fool Jokes. Google has had a tradition of perpetrating April Fool's Day hoaxes....." Extracted from wikipedia.

So google made 2 hoaxes this month:

Gmail Paper
At about 10:00 PM Pacific time (where Google has its headquarters) the day before April 1, 2007, Google changed the login page for Gmail to announce a new service called Gmail Paper. The service offered to allow users of Google's free webmail service to add e-mails to a "Paper Archive," which Google would print (on "96% post-consumer organic soybean sputum") and mail via traditional post. The service would be free, supported by bold, red advertisements printed on the back of the printed messages. Image attachments would also be printed on high-quality glossy paper and be postmarked with their message, though MP3 and WAV files would not be printed. The page detailing more information about the service features photographs of Ian Spiro and Carrie Kemper, current employees of Google. Also featured are Product Marketing Managers of Gmail Anna-Christina Douglas, and Kevin Systrom.




Google TiSP
Google TiSP was a fictitious free broadband service supposedly released by Google. This service would make use of a standard toilet and sewage lines to provide free Internet connectivity at a speed of 8 Mbps (or up to 32 Mbps with a paid plan). A user drops a weighted end of a long, Google-supplied fiber-optic cable in their toilet and flushes it. Around 60 minutes later, the end would be recovered and connected to the Internet by a "Plumbing Hardware Dispatcher (PHD)." The user then connects their end to a Google-supplied wireless router and run the Google-supplied installation media on a Windows XP or Vista computer ("Mac and Linux support coming soon"). Alternatively, a user could request a professional installation, where Google would deploy nanobots through the plumbing to complete the process. The free service would be supported by "discreet DNA sequencing" of "personal bodily output" to display online ads that relate to culinary preferences and personal health.

(Information extracted from wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google's_hoaxes).

Jajajaja, thats funny, so I sent the jokes to a couple of friends and those where their answers:
Juanma
[16:35] Esteban 8A: esa gente de google esta como tesa, mira esto
[16:35] Esteban 8A: http://www.google.com/tisp/
[16:35] Robert: pa ver
[16:36] Esteban 8A: y este otro producto esta tambien muy sobrado
[16:36] Esteban 8A: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/more.html
[16:36] Robert: ushhh
[16:36] Robert: estan bien heavys
[16:36] Esteban 8A: si o q!!
[16:36] Robert: regalando banda inalanbrica banda ancha
[16:36] Robert: q tal
[16:37] Esteban 8A: increible o q !
[16:37] Robert: pero fijo debe ser unicamente US + Canada
[16:37] Robert: de eso tan bueno no llega a Col

Robert
[16:35] Esteban 8A: eo, esa gente de google cada dia me descresta mas
[16:35] Esteban 8A: http://www.google.com/tisp/
[16:35] JuanMa: a ver home lacra
[16:36] Esteban 8A: y este otro producto esta tambien muy sobrado
[16:36] Esteban 8A: http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/more.html
[16:36] JuanMa: aay marica como asi
[16:36] JuanMa: estan dando internet gratis?
[16:37] Esteban 8A: increible !
[16:37] JuanMa: ush !!
[16:37] JuanMa: y en donde es?
[16:37] Esteban 8A: en la usa !
[16:37] Esteban 8A: :(
[16:38] JuanMa: no pero es increible a lo bien
[16:38] JuanMa: quedo perplejo
[16:38] JuanMa: y que velocidad daran?
[16:38] Esteban 8A: 8mbps
[16:38] JuanMa: omg
[16:38] JuanMa: ush!
[16:41] Esteban 8A: viste el del papel ?
[16:41] JuanMa: estoy mirando como es la instalacion

Poveda
[16:46] Esteban 8A: Viste los nuevos servicios de Google?
[16:46] Andres Poveda: Si home, pero no los entendi.
[16:46] Esteban 8A: Pues guevon, internet gratis, y el otro te envia tus correos impresos gratis.
[16:46] Andres Poveda: ah si?
[16:46] Andres Poveda: Q calidad
[16:46] Andres Poveda: Esa gente casi no tiene plata


The final conclusion is, you don't really know what to Expect or not expect from google this days.

Quote of the day..

"....Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success..."
-Christopher Lasch

Quote of the day..

Yes Picasso, I agree with you...
"..Action is the foundational key to all success...."
-Pablo Picasso

Piedras Blancas

This weekend I went with naty, caro and Poveda to do some camping in "Piedras Blancas" natural reserve.
The landscape was awesome, also the time we spent there. There was anything but rain though.., however it made the experience quite different.
Below some pics..

A nice picture of the landscape. In the end you can see a lot of fog inside the

trees.

Spending a quality time at night...., always a good deal....

A message of my first cache !

This is an automated message from Geocaching
You are receiving this email because you are the owner of this listing.Location:

Colombiadogracer couldn't find Tairona (Traditional Cache) at 3/17/2007Log Date:

3/17/2007
Well, I thought I could nab my first FTF ever with this cache, but not so. I climbed up to the top of the rocks overlooking the perfect Arricefes beach, and with a squad of 4 peeps checked every rock crack there was to find on the northern (sea facing) spur of rocks.
The GPS wasn't much help, with a 100 ft error ring.

We found what would have been good spots, but nothing there. While we were up there, we were nearly getting wet from water spashing up; so my best guess is that the sea washed this one away before it was ever discovered by another soul. Still worth the view to get up on those rocks - though we were warned that climbing up on those rocks is OFF LIMITS in Parque Tairona and if you are caught doing it you can get thrown out of the park. Anyway, I might advise other to just let this one go...

Don't want to forget about this..

I'm posting this because I found this sentence so clever that I don't want to forget it:
"...As long as there is an industry with a lack of knowledge and ignorance about prices and performance of products, there will exist a profit zone for portals of this kind...."

Amazed !

Normally when you have 2 computers you just use 2 keyboards and 2 mouses, or if you have a switch you can use one keyboard and one mouse.
I have 2 computers on my desk and it's just so confusing sometimes to use one keyboard for one thing and the other one for something else...
Today I found a little application that is called "Synergy" (You can get it from here: http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/).
I'm speechless with it.., once installed and configured I just use one mouse and one keyboard and when I move my mouse to the border of the right it jumps to the other monitor (not impressive yet if you're used to work with dual view) which is the other computer..... A great tool for productivity....

This is the product description:
"Redirecting the mouse and keyboard is as simple as moving the mouse off the edge of your screen. Synergy also merges the clipboards of all the systems into one, allowing cut-and-paste between systems. Furthermore, it synchronizes screen savers so they all start and stop together and, if screen locking is enabled, only one screen requires a password to unlock them all.”
"Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s)."

Camping weekend.

Last weekend I went to "El Penol" with the crew, it's about 1 hour and a half away from the city and there's a nice dam. We went very late to bed though.., but had a wonderful time there..

Finally an image that descrbies this feeling..

Have you ever heard the term: "I feel like if I have butterflies in my stomach?"
Well, I guess this picture is worth more than 1000 words.

Bilderberg Club

Yesterday I finished reading this book, it talks about the globalization and the new world order, what's behind it, who's behind it, consequences that it will bring in the future and how to stop it.

It also shows wars, conflicts between contries and world circumstances from a very different perspective which in my opinion makes a lot of sense and made me realize that maybe the world is not what I think it is, that it is not ruled by the kind of people that I think it's being ruled... However, I'm not going any deeper into this rabbit hole, but if you want to, and beleiveme it's worth it, read the book.

How to get things done.

Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead-a sort of indomitable obsessive dedication and the realization that there is no end or limit to this because life is simply an ever-growing process, an ever-renewing process.

Creative pic

5 Simple Ways to Make the Most of Your Intelligence

".....Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate.
Here are 5 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter.

1. Minimize Television Watching - This is a hard sell. People love vegetating in front of the television, myself included more often than I’d like. The problem is watching television doesn’t use your mental capacity OR allow it to recharge. It’s like having the energy sapped out of a muscle without the health benefits of exercise.
Don’t you feel drained after a couple hours of TV? Your eyes are sore and tired from being focused on the light box for so long. You don’t even have the energy to read a book.
When you feel like relaxing, try reading a book instead. If you’re too tired, listen to some music. When you’re with your friends or family, leave the tube off and have a conversation. All of these things use your mind more than television and allow you to relax.

2. Exercise - I used to think that I’d learn more by not exercising and using the time to read a book instead. But I realized that time spent exercising always leads to greater learning because it improves productivity during the time afterwards. Using your body clears your head and creates a wave of energy. Afterwards, you feel invigorated and can concentrate more easily.

3. Read Challenging Books - Many people like to read popular suspense fiction, but generally these books aren’t mentally stimulating. If you want improve your thinking and writing ability you should read books that make you focus. Reading a classic novel can change your view of the world and will make you think in more precise, elegant English. Don’t be afraid to look up a word if you don’t know it, and don’t be afraid of dense passages. Take your time, re-read when necessary, and you’ll soon grow accustomed to the author’s style.
Once you get used to reading challenging books, I think you’ll find that you aren’t tempted to go back to page-turners. The challenge of learning new ideas is far more exciting than any tacky suspense-thriller.

4. Early to Bed, Early to Rise - Nothing makes it harder to concentrate than sleep deprivation. You’ll be most rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don’t sleep more than 8 hours. If you stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you’ll wake up lethargic and have trouble focusing. In my experience the early morning hours are the most tranquil and productive. Waking up early gives you more productive hours and maximizes your mental acuity all day.
If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but a short nap will refresh you.

5. Take Time to Reflect - Often our lives get so hectic that we become overwhelmed without even realizing it. It becomes difficult to concentrate because nagging thoughts keep interrupting. Spending some time alone in reflection gives you a chance organize your thoughts and prioritize your responsibilities. Afterwards, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important and what isn’t. The unimportant stuff won’t bother you anymore and your mind will feel less encumbered.
I’m not saying you need to sit on the floor cross-legged and chant ‘ommm’. Anything that allows a bit of prolonged solitude will do. One of my personal favorites is taking a solitary walk. Someone famous said, “All the best ideas occur while walking.” I think he was on to something. Experiment to find the activity that works best for you......"


Extracted from http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-simple-ways-to-make-the-most-of-your-intelligence/

The Simpler, the complex it gets !

Yesterday I came to the conclussion that the simpler an interface is, the complex it gets underneath it's face.
"...Simplicity (In the user side) and complexity (In the development side) grow in the same direction when designing an interface....."
-Esteban 8A.

Humane Interface

Yesterday I finished reading a book called "The Humane Interface" written by Jef Raskin. As a fan that I'm in designing interfaces, I have to say that this book was great, it gave me lots of good insights, theory that I didn't know about UI design, and something awesome about this book is that it doesn't talk only about technical stuff, instead it goes up until the human psycology, ergonomics and cognetics.
I took note of everything I found interesting. I have to put them in electronic format and then I will upload them here, so if you are interested in UI design they can give you good insights as the book did with me, however I highly recommend the reading of the book.

Today also started a new book called "The Bilderberg Club", it talks about the conspiration in government, politics and economics around the world.., can't tell too much about it right now, but I'll be posting some insights later on.

What Is Intelligence, Anyway?Isaac Asimov

"What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)
All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.
Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"
Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."
And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there. "

Extracted from http://www.haverford.edu/writingprogram/Asimov.html

Habit

I am your constant companion;
I am your greatest helper or your heaviest burden.
I will push you onward or drag you down to failure.
I am at your command.

Half of the tasks that you do you might just as well Turn over to me and I will do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed; you must merely be firm with me.
Show me exactly how you want something done.
After a few lessons, I will do it automatically.

I am the servant of all great people and the regret of all failures as well.
Those who are great, I have made great.
Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine but I will work with all its precision Plus the intelligence of a person.
Now you may run me for profit or you may run me for ruin.
It makes no difference to me.
Take me, train me, be firm with me and I will lay the world at your feet.
Be easy with me and I will destroy you.

I am called Habit!

-Author Unknown

Sooo real..

Sometimes dreams can be so real that they can even scare you... Yesterday night I had one of those.. I ask myself once in a while if dreams are maybe another world in another frequency.., something that we can't see, but we can feel and live inside it when we fall asleep.... I wonder what would happens if person "A" dreams with person "B" and person "B" dreams with person "A".., is there any chance for them to get connected in their dreams ??

Sometimes I wake up, and my eyes hurt (I guess is the REM (Rapid eye movement), this phase occurs when we dream)..., probably because I'm a dreamer.., and luckly most of the times I do remember what I dream about.

Throwing cargo...

I remeber one time when I wrote something about throwing cargo from a very slow boat..., then, after a while of dumping and dumping it became a fast one..., it was sad though to throw all of that into the sea a forget about it..., but in the other hand it allowed the boat to reach it destination... That's how my life is this days..., I'm throwing cargo out of it.., cargo that I don´t need and I d0n't want any more.., and I feel good about it.., sometimes I feel Nostalgia, but it's all right.. And as always: No pain, no gain!!

Jo jo jo...

I was organizing my old pictures and found this one..., pretty funny though... 

Business Idea

A couple of months ago I came with this idea of building a gym where the energy that you spent on the machines could be gathered, and in that way the gym would pay you instead of you paying them. I decided to google it though and found pretty interesting stuff..

Information extracted from: http://www.whynot.net/ideas/134

"Always thought generators could be put on all the exercise equipment(ie weight machines)....all that energy working out creates a lot of potential energy that gets lost as kinetic energy(I think....). For example, a weight machine could be pushing a generator instead of dead weight, or simply have a turbine that runs when the weights are let down...people still get their workout and we use a little less electricity. Anyone gifted in electronics know if this is economically feasible?"

"An Olympic-class athlete on a pedal bike can produce 350 watts. If he pedals for 3 hours, he will produce 1 Kilowatt-hour. Out here, a Kilowatt-hour from the electric company costs $0.07. So having a gym of say 40 Olympians all pedalling at top efficiency for a full hour would yeild a revenue stream of (40)(0.35)(0.07)= $0.98 . Less than 1 buck per hour. A solar cell array on the roof would be a much better deal."

"Well. The only difference would be hydrogen fuel cells would be involved. You can have these huge gyms where fitness freaks would transfer energy on treadmills and the like which would transfer power to fuel cell banks. These banks would allow transfer energy for other use. The best part is that you would get a discount on your gym membership depending on how much power you transfer to the fuel cell bank."

"I think this idea is fantastic. Although considering the economics mentioned above, building a system to do all of this would be expensive and have no real return for gym.
My exercise bike now at least powers itself, you pedal to make it light up."

"Following up on the comment SVE, Oct 10 2003, the numbers sound small, but scale them up into monthly or yearly savings. He estimated 350 W/bike. Assume one bike investment by a gym. But let's say the utilization/day is 8 hours (this is a busy gym) so 8 hours * 30 days = 240 hours/month of usage. To calculate the monthly savings at ~$0.07/KWhr, do this: Cost/month/bike = (0.07 $/KWhr) * (240hours/month) * (0.350 KW/bike) = $5.88/month/bike. Generating $71/year/bike in electricity could justify the additional capital expense required for such a bike. I'm taking a wild guess that the extra cost over a traditional exercise bike might be $200 so this could have a return in a few years. And of course, we're all not Olympians, so cut the yearly savings in half to normalize us all!."

Jajajaj, and this was pretty funny but interesting if you want to loose weight:
"Props to Barry. There is a device you can purchase now for the average office worker. It creates an break between the power on your monitor, and to work, or use your computer monitor you must keep pedaling. It has variable speed adjustment too so you dont have to pedal like an olympian to get work done, but you still are excersising to generate some electricity for your monitor."

HOW TO: Move To New York City Sane And Not Broke

I found this interesting article at: http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/howto/how-to-move-to-new-york-city-sane-and-not-broke-226540.php and found that it doesn't applies only to New York, instead it applies to almost any city (most of the times outside your home country) that you decide to move to.

"You pay $1650 a month rent for an apartment. What do you eat? I am barely getting by with $425.00 a month for a house. I understand it is New York but I have always wondered how New Yorkers manage to eat after paying huge rents each month. I have never been to NY so I cant say much but I have been told that New York doesn't pay that much more than other cities do. Do you have to have 50 roommates in a one bedroom apt to make it or what?

How does one move to New York and survive? "

Here's how...

First, ask yourself...

DO I REALLY NEED TO MOVE TO NEW YORK? Answering no to this is the easiest way to avoid the inevitable hassle and heartache of. New York City is a glittering emerald slut, full of potential and promise, but it can also be a total bitch. Nightlife is down ever since they enacted that cabaret law. The city's conduits of power are increasingly rusty and incestuous. Parts of the city are becoming, or already are, Disney versions of themselves, like the Lower East Side and Times Square, respectively. There's lots of other great cities in the world. The Bay Area has nicer weather. Philadelphia has dirt cheap rents. Even so, New York is awesome and is still the capital of the world for many a human endeavor. Let's move!

TAP PERSONAL CONTACTS. The easiest way to move to NYC is to have a friend, or a friend of a friend, who will let you crash in their apartment until you get your shit together. Be cool and offer to help out with rent as much as you can. If you're broke, maybe offer to clean up the apartment really nice all the time.

SCOPE OUT THE RENTAL MARKET. Determine where you would like to live and how much you can pay. Personal finance gurus recommend spending no more than 25% of your expected salary on rent. Realistically, you may have to spend up to 50%. But if you lock yourself into a high rent so you can live in "the cool spot" you may end up spending all your time inside your stupid little apartment cause you can never afford to go out. Think smaller and cheaper.

On this note, Brooklyn is a nice, cheaper-than-Manhattan place. Fort Greene and Carrol Gardens are good spots to look at in Brooklyn. Rents are relatively affordable, amenities are there, it's not too far from Manhattan, and they're fairly safe. Living near but not next to housing projects is a sure way to get more apartment for your money.

If you must live in Manhattan, Upper Upper West Side (past the 100's) has become affordable. There's places to be found on the more easternly points of the Lower East Side.

Cruise Craiglist for the going rates in your desired area(s) for 2+ roomies. Hone in what rent you think you're going to be paying each month. This number will rule your life.

SAVE Five times your expected monthly rent. To move into a lease, you will probably have to put up two month's rent + security deposit (usually another month's rent). There may even be a broker's fee, which is at least another month's rent. You will need the rest of the money to feed yourself and not feel like a loser. Stuff it in a high-yield online savings account, like HSBC or INGDirect.

DUMP YOUR JUNK. You probably don't need about 90% off what you own. Hold a yard sale. Donate. Digitize everything you don't need a real-world copy of. Put stuff in local storage. Throw it away. Whatever you do, just get rid of it. A good goal is reducing your belongings to an essential wardrobe, books, and your "tools of the trade." For most people this means a computer. For you it may be a welding torch. Shipping costs. Space in NYC is at a premium. Less stuff means less stuff you don't have room for.

LINE UP JOB PROSPECTS. Send out feelers and resumes before you arrive. Tap those personal connections. Let people know you're coming. If you went to college, call up the alumni office and see if they can hook you up with former students in New York. Monster.com has never done anything for us. Craigslist has. Don't get discouraged if people don't initially seem that interested in you. Tons of people say they're going to move to New York but never do, so NYC veterans learn to take a policy of, "I'll see it when I see it." That's okay, just start cranking the wheel on getting a cash flow going as early as possible.

MOVE. Go Greyhound. Fly coach. Drive yourself. U-Hauls and the like can be expensive over long distances, so its cheaper to ship your stuff freight with a trucking company like ROADWAY and then get to NYC by other means. If you've already reduced everything to two pieces of luggage, bonus.

Once you're here...

DO MASLOW. Take care of your pyramid of needs, working from the bottom up. If you have a choice between doing something at the top of this pyramid, versus something at the bottom, do the thing at the bottom. Not taking care of your needs at the bottom will thwart your attempts to do the ones at the top.

At the same time, maybe you will have to eat only one box of pasta a day so you can afford to go out for social drinks. That's fine, just don't make it a habit, or you may end up begging for quarters in Union Square.

GET A JOB. Even if it sucks. You need to make money just to tread water. Our first job was as a bike messenger. In winter. Saner folk go the temping route. Atrium is a fantastic temping agency. Tell them Ben Popken sent you. If you refer people to them who stay on for a few months, you get a small finder's fee.

LEARN TO ENJOY SOLITUDE. It's easy to feel lonely in a city of a gazillion people. That's because you are alone and no one wants to talk to you. Be prepared to have no new friends for at least a year. Be prepared for people who say, "Oh, we'll totally hang out once you're here," and then stand you up even after you set a date. Everyone's got crazy schedules here so "hang out with the new guy" may rank pretty low. Be glad people do this, so you can scratch 'em off your list before they have time to really disappoint you.

BECOME AWESOME. Whatever your deal is, be it your job or your hobby, get really good at it. You will have lots of free time to work on this because you have no friends. Socializing is often centered around people who have "your thing" in common, so it helps to be dedicated and skilled in it. This is for both personal satisfaction, and that other people will take you seriously if you're taking your thing seriously.

TUNNEL. Use the resources of your current crappy job to get you your next, better job. With the money from bike messengering, we bought clothes that made us look presentable for the temp agency. Between directing phone calls at the temp job, we blasted out hundreds of resumes that eventually landed us a job at an online marketing firm. While at the online marketing firm, we started an advertising blog on the company's behalf that ended up getting us a job with Gawker. Now we're tunneling towards building a six-month emergency cushion and doing more personal creative projects.

DON'T MOVE BACK. A lot of people quit New York less than a year after moving. That's a personal choice, but if you're trying to be in New York, obviously leaving it is not a viable solution. If things get so hard you want to move back, ask for help from family and friends. Evaluate the choices you're making, the things you're buying, and see where you can cut back. Realize you're not going to get that super-star job right off the bat (see: BECOME AWESOME). Stiffen that upper lip. Or cry. Whatever you need to do, just don't move back. Life is hard. Welcome to it.

— BEN POPKEN