Pablo Fernandez

Category: Personal

Personal stuff and others that are not technical, doesn’t have source code, etc.

  • I like big shops

    I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. And like most of the rest of the world, it’s a place full of small shops that is being invaded by huge chains from abroad. People complain about Walmart killing the neighborhood mini-market -almacen in spanish-. They said big shops are un-personal, hire the lowest wage people they can find and take all the money abroad.

    That might be true, but I always liked big shops, and while Christmas-shopping recently I was reminded why. I don’t normally consume mainstream products. If a shop is carrying 5 different products of one kind, let’s say, 5 different calculators, they are not likely to carry the one I want (an HP with reverse polish notation of course). How many calculators does a shop need to carry to start having the one I want? Probably 40 or so, because it doesn’t sell much. The big international chain that carries 70 is likely to have it.

    Now, one may imagine that there would be a small shop serving my niche, but there isn’t, because it’s not a very profitable niche. Every shop needs to carry the products that sell the most. Instead of having one shop with 70 calculators we have 14 shops, each with 5 calculators, exactly the same 5 models.

  • What's the most exciting project you worked on?

    Seth Godin writes:

    If someone asks you that, are you excited to tell them the answer?

    in his post What are you working on? saying that you should be excited, even if it’s just your weekend project. I’m not that demanding, but I open all my interviews asking the candidate: “What’s the most exciting project you ever worked on?”. It can be years ago, I understand that sometimes we get stuck in shitty projects, but if you never managed to work in an exciting project I really worried.

    How exciting? You should start talking, moving your hands around and forget you are in an interview. That exciting should be. Bonus points if I have to stop you because you just keep talking about the project and I have to do an interview.

  • Tron: Legacy: how it should have ended

    Did you watch Tron: Legacy? If not, stop reading now, this post has spoilers, go watch it, and then come back. I’ll wait.

    No, really, I’ll wait, I’m not going anywhere.

    Still here? Ok. Visually, Tron: Legacy is amazing. I’m not going to do an in-depth review, I’m just going to say how I think it should have ended.

    When Kevin, Sam and Quorra are fleeing, Tron and Clu should get close to their airplane, side by side, ready for the final blow. Clu’s airplane is on the left, next to Quorra, Tron’s airplane is on the right, next to Kevin. The end is near and Kevin mutters “Tron”. Tron then opens his helmet revealing a young Bruce Boxleitner that sais in his wonderful voice: “I’m Tron, I fight for the users”. Tron then does a barrel roll as his suit and airplane turn blue and crashes hard on Clu’s airplane.

    Maybe my ending is more Hollywoodish, but with it they could then make Tron: return to the grid.

  • Idea to help Hugh Laurie (House) with his leg

    I’ve heard or read that Hugh Laurie is having some problems in his leg by having to fake a gimp all the time by acting as House. I think I’ve got a solution, it’s not cheap but it’s cheaper than having the actor not being able to perform anymore:

    Build a set that is a mirror of the current sets down to the text in the doors, then have Hugh Laurie gimp with the other leg, film everything like than and then mirror the result, so that Hugh Laurie can balance out which side he’s straining.

    I bet that it would also be a very interesting acting challenge.

  • Never assume

    Picture by Horia Varlan

    I was studying impro with a great teacher, the lessons ended late at night and at that time I was still driving and had a car, so I would take everyone who wanted to go in the same direction as me after the lesson. It was lot of fun.

    One day, one of the women that rode in my car left a bottle. I mean a water bottle of those that you throw away to pollute the environment once you are done drinking the contents… or spilling it. I’ve found it on the car the next day.

    I decided to use it as a well intentioned joke and tell her that she forgot the bottle in my car. I was expecting her to just throw it away, but that isn’t what happened. Instead she hugged me and thanked me deeply about returning the bottle.

    Obviously I was surprised about her reaction, so she explained:

    Whenever I travel, I buy local bottles of water and I keep them, I collect them. This one you’ve returned it’s from Chile, see, it’s not a brand you can get here.

    What I assumed was garbage was actually something very valuable for her. I’m so glad that I didn’t act on my assumption and I was able to return the collection item. The moral of the story is: never assume.

  • Obsolete email addresses (a feature request)

    This is a feature I wish my programs I’m using to read email had. Sometimes, some people change email address. It happens, to some more than to others. When that happens I don’t change the email address for that person in my contact list. I add the new address.

    The reasons is that I still want to maintain an association between all those emails I’ve sent and I received from that person and the contact details for that person. The idea is that when I ask my software for all emails from “John Smith”, even if John Smith changed addresses 15 times, it should still be able to find the old ones.

    The problem is that sooner or later I send an email to that person using the obsolete email address. I really wish the software would allow me to mark addresses as obsolete or historic so that the information is not lost but I never use them again.

  • My first contribution to Rails

    https://rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets/4809

    Looking forward to many others.

  • Thanks for your contribution to the NetBeans 6.9

    When I write software, bug reports and feature requests are a blessing. It shows me that people is using it and want more. Silence is death. It’s nice to see an software project show appreciation for bug reports and I’m honestly impressed:

    Dear NetBeans User,

    In the past you have taken the time to report issues that you encountered while using NetBeans software. A new version (NetBeans 6.9) has just been released,and we’d like to inform you that the following issue(s) you reported have been addressed in the new release:

    181509 Dot paths not available when adding new platform in Ruby Platform Manager
    181766 Gem directories picked wrongly
    181844 Search for RVM installations

    Please visit the netbeans.org website to download NetBeans 6.9 and to learn more about the new release.

    We appreciate your contribution to our efforts to make NetBeans software and features better for all users. And as always, we look forward to feedback from you about ways we can continue to improve.Thank you.

    The NetBeans Team

  • iPad, the good and the bad

    I consider the iPad a very negative force. Apple is taking the close system of iPhone and moving it up to tablets. What’s the next move? Desktops? That’s very scary! Imagine a world where Steve Jobs is the final word on which programs people can and can’t run. If that happens, the dark ages of computers will have started, and who knows how long they’ll last.

    Now there’s a very good side effect to the iPad. People is starting to spend a lot of time on non-Windows computers. No, this is not a rant against Microsoft.

    There was a time when we had many operating systems and people use to choose. Different machines came with different operating systems. Then Microsoft dominated the market and there was one and only one operating system. For a time there was even only one browser. That hinders innovation.

    Microsoft Windows obviously failed on phones and tablets. Apple, first with the iPhone and now with the iPad, opened those markets. Now people is talking about how great WebOS (Palm’s operating system) would be on a tablet (made by HP). Nobody would have though of a non-Windows tablet if Apple haven’t done it before. Also Android tablets are coming. Microsoft is rebooting its phone efforts, without Windows this time; and maybe they’ll reboot their tablet efforts too. At any rate Microsoft won’t dominate that market and certainly not Windows.

    The only company capable of dominating phones and tablets is Apple; and they are not set to dominate it. Apple makes one and only one product, with no variations. If you want something different (a USB port, a memory card reader, a camera, porn, a cheaper product, whatever) you go to a competitor. Apple makes a lot of money by making the luxury products, not by selling it to everybody.

    I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch a very competitive market where four players are so will be constantly innovating trying to win users over.

  • Relentlessly resourceful

    Paul Graham says that startup founders should be relentlessly resourceful. Well, the other day I needed a charger for my Sony PRS505, which was so empty that the USB plug wouldn’t charge it.

    We went through a big box of charges and none matched the voltage of the ebook reader. Well, there was one that matched it, but I needed a car to plug it in.

    In the box there was also a 12V charger. I grew up with McGyver, so a couple of wires and some tape latter I got it charging.

    Relentlessly resourceful!