Coder, Gamer, Runner, Husband.
Madrid was nice. I’ve met a lot of friendly people, co-workers and random passersby alike, taxi drivers and dancers (more on that later), and made some observation which lead me to believe our attempts at saving the climate are futile.
In short: from what I observed over the course of three days, along with what I’ve seen during our days on Teneriffe, Spain’s collective consciousness doesn’t seem to give a damn about energy conservation.
Don’t get me wrong, please. Germany is far from being perfect and totally awesome in that regard, but most people are trying by now. Also the government tries to get people to conserve energy, to recycle, to re-use things. Hell, I remember the recycling ads from my childhood, so apparently the effort is made for a good number of years by now.
But Spain… man, this was nuts. One-off styrofoam cups everywhere. Two or three plastic cups at the watercooler, at once, which are thrown away after one go. (I mean, why wouldn’t you, there are many more available.) I was hard pressed to find four (4!) ceramic cups in the entire office, and used one of those then. (Seriously, I am not recycling my pants off for years, just to start using styrofoam cups again while being away.) People leaving their cars running while they were waiting for someone on the street, for 10 minutes, 15 minutes… Incredible. (Apparently fuel doesn’t isn’t expensive enough yet.) And so on.
Then I talked to a colleague from France who told me that they started a “let’s all recycle!” campaign last year or so. Last year. Which means that until last year, the concept seemed foreign to them.
There were more little things I’ve noticed, and which made me raise my eyebrows every now and then. Now, I am not a tree hugger, and I don’t think I am the awesomest dude around when it comes to energy conservation and reducing waste (thusly reducing CO2 production). But if you’re a concerned citizen human, which at this point everyone should be, I think, then you can’t look at shit like this and help but twitch.
In the end it is a governmental fault. See, here in Germany the political caste has adopted CO2 reduction as an urgent issue, and sometimes, they even act accordingly. But even if they don’t, they usually present it as burning issue, and hearing it over and over again, many people have adjusted or are at least starting to. Somehow the system works, even if it could work better, but we’re getting there… I hope. None of us is without sin, so there.
But apparently a lot of European states seem to hope the problem seems to go away by itself. Which I find highly disturbing, and which makes me think we’re all doomed.
Swinging big. Yahoo! Pipes is live! Go play around with it. It’s really good stuff with almost limitless possibilities. I didn’t work on it personally, and I’m speaking from an end-user perspective. Jeremy Zawodny, Tim O’Reilly and Ed Ho (one of the Pipes developers) described the product in detail earlier today already, so go read. And play. Have fun! Awesome job, esteemed colleagues.
And now the weather. Quote of the day [via Beryl]:
You know it’s cold out when teenagers actually wear coats.
Chair folding. Interesting video. I see real practical use for a product like this. Not for everyday, of course, but every now and then…
Sociality. I am aware that this is not a valid word, but then again, this is not really a valid page either. Hey, I had to put it somewhere…
getYear(). getYear. No, not that year! is a funny list of bad Javascript getYear() practices. Stuff like that is both awful and funny:
var year=RightNow.getYear(); if (year==106){year="2006";}
Chocolate Covered SQL. This particular entry at The Daily WTF is hilarious. Even tho it’s unbelievable wrong, the screenshot of this one Google Accounts captcha page is hilarious.
Nerds! You know you’re a nerd when you read a spam email with the subject “Do You SUFFER from CVS?” (in this case the acronym stands for “computer vision syndrome”—whatever that may be), and the first thing that comes to your mind is “Yes, Subversion is so much better”.
Snow. The winter has finally arrived. About time.
Parenting. Mr. Pilgrim on raising little humans:
Parenting is also like that Star Trek episode where they’re acting as anthropologists, watching a civilization evolve at like 100 times normal speed. (Isn’t there a Star Trek episode like that? Well there should be, damn it, I’m trying to tell a story here.) You wake up one morning and say, “Oh my God, Jim, they’re using tools! Next week they’ll be building spaceships!”
Roof status. Still there, unharmed. No storm-related damage at all. Apparently my sister wasn’t quite as lucky—her cellar/basement is a swimming pool now. Oiy.
News reader market shares. TechCrunch asks How big is Google Reader?, and while the chart in that post looks interesting, it doesn’t say much without Google Reader telling the Feedburner bot how many subscribers are there for any given feed.
Uncle Carlo. My baby sister is working on developing two little humans in her womb. Soon, I’ll be an “uncle”. The jury’s still out on whether I should feel proud (current notion) or old. Congratulations, Claudia & Tino.
Windy. Outside a storm is brewing that is assumed to end all life in Germany. Everywhere. We’re all going to die! Is Jesus coming back, bringing his lawyers? No idea. I just hope we’ll still have a roof in the morning.
New keyboard. Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, excellent even on a Mac, thanks to the surprisingly flexible IntelliType software. I love Apple hardware, but the glaring lack of an ergonomic keyboard is nothing short of a shame.
