User Tomektore created a very interesting web app to measure how open mided a specific last.fm user is. His Open Mind Index is calculated from the number of different tags the music that a user listens to has. I checked it out and my results are quite obvious: if I listen to Arabic electronica, Japanese punk, Finnish melodic rock, Mexican indie and some other stuff in between it's kind of obvious that I'm more or less open minded.
The sun has set
As you may have seen, the high latitude of the place where we live causes quite dramatic sunsets. Here is one of them.
The Planetary Society
One of the passions of my youth was space. I still own a telescope that is occasionally used, and recently renewed my membership in the Planetary Society. Founded by Carl Sagan, it is an organisation that tries to impulse space knowledge and exploration, with members in 125 countries around the world.
They are the guys behind different projects such as Seti at home, Red Rover, Red Rover and S.O.S. Save our Science. With them my name, together with that of the other members of the society at the time, landed on Mars with the Mars Pathfinder, and they have continued their activities for over 25 years.
As troubled as our world is, and as unrealistic as it may sound, I believe that the kickstart of a new age of exploration is what humanity needs. Just by watching the news every day, I guess we're not that many who think that.
Libro recomendado: El regreso del idiota
Como alguna vez he comentado, me considero liberal tanto en lo económico como en lo social. Hace diez años, leí un libro que en mi adolescencia influyó en gran manera en mi pensamiento político y social: El manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano. Aunque no comulgo con el uso de este adjetivo (des)calificativo, en muchas de sus ideas no pude dejar de estar de acuerdo.
Una década después, en vista del clima político y social reinante en América Latina, los autores sacaron una segunda parte, El regreso del idiota (muy bien comentado aquí). Aunque no me parecen algunas cosas que expresan, en general son detalles mínimos en comparación con la importancia de sus ideas centrales: simplemente que si nuestros países quieren progresar tiene que haber tanto libertades económicas como libertades políticas. El "socialismo bolivariano del siglo XXI", por dar un ejemplo, tiene mucho de socialismo y poco de siglo veintiuno, especialmente si tenemos en cuenta que incluso las economías de los países ¿socialistas? están creciendo justo ahora que han adoptado políticas de libre mercado.
Somos pobres, la culpa no es de ellos. Hasta que nos demos cuenta de eso y veamos hacia Chile, Corea o incluso China (económica, mas no políticamente), y no hacia Cuba o Camerún seguiremos en las mismas. Y que conste que yo también me considero un miembro más de la izquierda vegetariana, de esa que en el país en el que puedo votar prácticamente brilla por su ausencia.
Una cosa es que el sistema económico mal llamado neoliberal no funcione en nuestros países porque de liberal tiene muy poco (simplemente se cambiaron monopolios estatales por monopolios privados, pero no se creó ni por aproximación un mercado libre con reglas claras, ni siquiera a nivel interno) y otra muy distinta que la aplicación de recetas que colapsaron a la Unión Soviética y de las que los chinos están huyendo tenga un resultado distinto en nuestros países. Si queremos dejar de sentir que nuestra historia va en círculos en lugar de líneas ascendentes tenemos que actuar a conciencia.
Recommended book: The Undercover Economist
After reading Freakonomics some time ago, I had decided it was time to read another book on economics for the layman (yes, I've encountered economics courses during my studies, but was thinking about something that my wife, who has not often come across such issues, could also read). Therefore, I picked up this book by Tim Harford, one of my favourite FT columnists. His blog, linked above, is also a blast.
I thoroughly enjoyed the book myself, and I would definitely suggest anybody with a little bit of curiosity to pick it up. The chapter on underdeveloped countries, in my opinion, should be read by pretty much everybody who cares about these issues, especially those of us who are from or live in one of those places.
La vida del inmigrante
Un amigo me mandó este artículo. Me quedo con el párrafo referenciado abajo:
"Tengo la impresión de que cualquier ser humano que, por necesidad o elección, se va de su tierra en la edad madura para vivir en otro sitio ajeno, perdiendo sus códigos, su acento, sus amigos del alma, su familia y sus libros y discos de adolescencia, se convierte en otra persona a la fuerza. Y esa otra persona no es ya de ninguna parte. Pero tiene un pariente cercano en cualquier inmigrante, tiene historias comunes con todos los que se han ido. Yo tengo más temas en común con un senegalés que llegó a España en patera que con un francés que vive en París. Somos muchísimos los que estamos en otra parte, los que ya no tenemos en el bolsillo la llave de la casa de nuestros padres. Los inmigrantes somos un país sin bandera y sin himno, pero nos reconocemos por la calle y sabemos cuánto nos cuesta cada día no olvidar de dónde vinimos, de dónde somos."
Sauna
One of the best things about Finland is sauna. The word itself, as many a Finn will point out, is the only one in their language that has been adopted internationally (beats "bastu" in my book). There is a certain etiquette to be followed while in sauna, and it is indeed an integral part of the culture, to the point where the most serious discussions and the closest relationships (no sean malpensados, canijos) will take place there.
The language also has certain words that have their origins in sauna. For example, löyly means steam, but the kind of steam that comes from throwing water at the sauna stove. Furthermore, in line with unfortunate recent events, verilöyly, composed of the words "sauna steam" and "blood", gives a very grisly picture to the listener and accordingly means massacre. Saunakalja is used for beer drunk in sauna and they even have a saying that "Jos ei sauna, viina ja terva auta, niin tauti on kuolemaksi", or "If sauna, alcohol and tar don't help, then the disease is deadly".
Now you know: in order to understand Finnish culture one has to experience and feel sauna.
Language differences
Shouldn't take you this far. The gist of the story is that the distributor of a Mexican horror film in Spain wants to dub it to "Spanish from Spain", regardless of whether the plot takes place in Mexico. You don't see Brits dubbing American movies or vice versa, do you? Subtitles, maybe, but it shows how unprepared and unwilling Spaniards are to listening other usages of the same language, regardless of whether they have a much larger number of speakers than those in Spain. Don't even get me started on their foreign language proficency (or lack thereof).
Absolutely ridiculous.
Tragedy in Tuusula
You might have heard the news of the tragedy in Tuusula, where a high school student decided to copy Columbine, resulting in 8 dead (in English here and here, in Finnish here and in Spanish here).
Pekka-Eric Auvinen joins Petri Gerdt in the infamous list of Finnish teenagers who have caused these kind of mass killings. I'm still in shock.
I just love Berlin
Berlin and Brussels are probably the most underrated cities in Europe. Both have a great art scene, good and cheap food, friendly people, lots of variety and foreigners and to top it all, great beer.