At renault-ze.com you'll find some cool new concept vehicles by Renault. What makes them special is that they're Zero Emission vehicles that run entirely on battery power. In addition, Renault came up with an ingenious way of replacing used batteries which they've dubbed QuickDrop.
The four concept vehicles will supposedly be released in 2011. From what I've seen, the range will be between 100-160 km, depending on the vehicle. Compared to a 1000km+ range for today's modern diesels, it's definitely not the type of car you'd want to have for a weekend getaway and so the Chevy Volt concept is much more promising in that regard. According to GM, it should go into production in late 2010.
There is also the Honda FCX Clarity which is powered by hydrogen and the coolest thing is that it's currently being offered to select customers for $600/month in Southern California. The FCX Clarity can go more than 350 km before refueling...if you can find a hydrogen filling station. I'm sure the Governator is hard at work with the hydrogen station program in CA.
The Volt tops my favorite EV vehicle list for versatility as it offers the best of both worlds, but I wish it were coupled with an HDI powerplant on board.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
All I Have To Do Is Dream
My musical taste may be considered a bit baffling to some, as I can listen to The Everly Brothers - Dream Dream Dream as well as 2pac - Starin' Through My Rearview.
2pac was a legend, 'nuff said.
Now, the two aforementioned songs have one thing in common: they talk about dreams.
Dreams are something that we all have. Whether it's a new car, being famous, becoming a millionaire, or having a loving family - we all have things which we dream about. Today I'll talk about a dream I have, and whether the dream becomes reality depends on me of course, but the important thing is to dream and keep dreaming.
I mentioned earlier that I'd like to get into web design, and although I'm determined to hack it on my own, there's something that caught my attention while I was looking for art schools in Spain, namely the Marbella Design Academy. It's as perfect as I'd expect an art school to be, given what I've seen so far. They're offering a one-year Web Design Course.
The only problem is money (Why am I not surprised?). At 8500 € total, it definitely is a bit steep. Now that wouldn't actually be *too* bad as I can always get a loan, except for the fact that it's a full time course, meaning you're in school until 4 PM. So when am I supposed to work? After 4 and weekends I guess. Maybe I'll get a few web design gigs here and there by then if I work hard enough. Either way, that's where I'm bound. Given that Marbella is not too far from Málaga, it seems like the perfect spot.
All I have to do is dream, right?
2pac was a legend, 'nuff said.
Now, the two aforementioned songs have one thing in common: they talk about dreams.
Dreams are something that we all have. Whether it's a new car, being famous, becoming a millionaire, or having a loving family - we all have things which we dream about. Today I'll talk about a dream I have, and whether the dream becomes reality depends on me of course, but the important thing is to dream and keep dreaming.
I mentioned earlier that I'd like to get into web design, and although I'm determined to hack it on my own, there's something that caught my attention while I was looking for art schools in Spain, namely the Marbella Design Academy. It's as perfect as I'd expect an art school to be, given what I've seen so far. They're offering a one-year Web Design Course.
The only problem is money (Why am I not surprised?). At 8500 € total, it definitely is a bit steep. Now that wouldn't actually be *too* bad as I can always get a loan, except for the fact that it's a full time course, meaning you're in school until 4 PM. So when am I supposed to work? After 4 and weekends I guess. Maybe I'll get a few web design gigs here and there by then if I work hard enough. Either way, that's where I'm bound. Given that Marbella is not too far from Málaga, it seems like the perfect spot.
All I have to do is dream, right?
Monday, September 28, 2009
ALSA ALSA Read All About It!
ALSA - Advanced Linux Sound Architecture...NOT!
Back in the days, I used to love figuring out the meanings of abbreviations. Today, you can actually find out what something stands for right here.
So what is ALSA?
ALSA is as much a part of Spain as PKS is a part of Poland. Perhaps the buses are a bit better, and best of all you can sit right next do the bathroom and be subjected to involuntary anesthesia. Actually, you can get used to the smell, but I suppose that's kind of bad.
ALSA stands for Automóviles Luarca S.A. It was incorporated in 1923 and generally provides excellent service, but it kind of got lost in the age of high tech. It seems that they invested a lot of money into computer systems, but their own employees have not been trained to use them properly.
Anyway, if you ever happen to go to Spain I'd suggest you rent a car. We decided that it would be better to buy kmtriko (kilometrico) passes, which cost 99 EUR and allow you to travel around Spain as much as you please for a week. This, of course, turned out to be a terrible mistake as we ended up paying 198 EUR + 86,44 EUR. A bargain!
To make a long story short, the passes expired when they shouldn't have and no one wanted to help us resolve the problem, so we ended paying an extra 86,44 EUR for a pair of tickets from Sevilla to Alicante. I was livid, but the clerk managed to soothe my nerves by assuring us that we would get our money back once we reached Alicante -- since that's where we had purchased our kmtriko cards. In Alicante they said no way José and asked me to file a complaint. The last thing I did was call them, and the man on the phone reassured me that he would call me back. In fact, he said he'd do it within 5 hours. As you've probably predicted, that never happened.
Anyway, I've been trying to get around to filing an official complaint and today I went to ALSA's website to do it. Upon clicking on the submit button, a matrix-like stream of JavaScript code lunged at me, clearly letting me know that complaints are not welcome.
And then, eureka!
Apparently, in the EU we have something called the ECC and no it's not the European Central Bank but the European Consumer Centre. I believe it's actually called ECC-net. It deals with cross-border complaints within the European Union. They have a nice website where you can download an interactive PDF form which allows you to submit your complaint and even add all the relevant attachments. Within an hour of submitting the report, I received a phone call from a really nice lady who asked me to send copies of the receipts. The whole process has so far been very professional and it's nice to know that after coming back home it's possible to resolve some consumer-related issues that one may have had in other (EU) countries. Not sure about how effective it's going to be, but I'm glad there's someone out there who came up with the whole idea.
Here's a link to the website of the Polish office: ECK
Back in the days, I used to love figuring out the meanings of abbreviations. Today, you can actually find out what something stands for right here.
So what is ALSA?
ALSA is as much a part of Spain as PKS is a part of Poland. Perhaps the buses are a bit better, and best of all you can sit right next do the bathroom and be subjected to involuntary anesthesia. Actually, you can get used to the smell, but I suppose that's kind of bad.
ALSA stands for Automóviles Luarca S.A. It was incorporated in 1923 and generally provides excellent service, but it kind of got lost in the age of high tech. It seems that they invested a lot of money into computer systems, but their own employees have not been trained to use them properly.
Anyway, if you ever happen to go to Spain I'd suggest you rent a car. We decided that it would be better to buy kmtriko (kilometrico) passes, which cost 99 EUR and allow you to travel around Spain as much as you please for a week. This, of course, turned out to be a terrible mistake as we ended up paying 198 EUR + 86,44 EUR. A bargain!
To make a long story short, the passes expired when they shouldn't have and no one wanted to help us resolve the problem, so we ended paying an extra 86,44 EUR for a pair of tickets from Sevilla to Alicante. I was livid, but the clerk managed to soothe my nerves by assuring us that we would get our money back once we reached Alicante -- since that's where we had purchased our kmtriko cards. In Alicante they said no way José and asked me to file a complaint. The last thing I did was call them, and the man on the phone reassured me that he would call me back. In fact, he said he'd do it within 5 hours. As you've probably predicted, that never happened.
Anyway, I've been trying to get around to filing an official complaint and today I went to ALSA's website to do it. Upon clicking on the submit button, a matrix-like stream of JavaScript code lunged at me, clearly letting me know that complaints are not welcome.
And then, eureka!
Apparently, in the EU we have something called the ECC and no it's not the European Central Bank but the European Consumer Centre. I believe it's actually called ECC-net. It deals with cross-border complaints within the European Union. They have a nice website where you can download an interactive PDF form which allows you to submit your complaint and even add all the relevant attachments. Within an hour of submitting the report, I received a phone call from a really nice lady who asked me to send copies of the receipts. The whole process has so far been very professional and it's nice to know that after coming back home it's possible to resolve some consumer-related issues that one may have had in other (EU) countries. Not sure about how effective it's going to be, but I'm glad there's someone out there who came up with the whole idea.
Here's a link to the website of the Polish office: ECK
How Wacky and Geeky is Alcoholism?
Alrighty then...what the hell does the domain name have to do with being wacky and geeky?
Not much in fact. My original intention was to write about what it means to live in a dysfunctional family. In my case, alcoholism was the dysfunction.
Forunately, I've moved on, thanks to ACoA Meetings and after about ten years of living in a comatose-like state - I'm back to my true self. The first meeting was an unforgettable experience where something just clicked and I simply cannot describe the state of serenity that suddenly took over. Anyway, I don't want to get into it too much as now I've got a life to live. I still go to the ACoA meeting once a week, and in addition to that my girlfriend and I try to go to church at least once a week. I use this time to feed the soul, and to me it is as necessary as taking a shower everyday.
Anyway, I will probably get around to changing the name of the domain. I even have a cool domain registered and I'll try to use it for my blog.
If I could say one last thing though: If you or anyone you know has been raised in a dysfunctional family, this may have had some bad consequences. Read more here. There is help available and there are people who are willing to help.
Not much in fact. My original intention was to write about what it means to live in a dysfunctional family. In my case, alcoholism was the dysfunction.
Forunately, I've moved on, thanks to ACoA Meetings and after about ten years of living in a comatose-like state - I'm back to my true self. The first meeting was an unforgettable experience where something just clicked and I simply cannot describe the state of serenity that suddenly took over. Anyway, I don't want to get into it too much as now I've got a life to live. I still go to the ACoA meeting once a week, and in addition to that my girlfriend and I try to go to church at least once a week. I use this time to feed the soul, and to me it is as necessary as taking a shower everyday.
Anyway, I will probably get around to changing the name of the domain. I even have a cool domain registered and I'll try to use it for my blog.
If I could say one last thing though: If you or anyone you know has been raised in a dysfunctional family, this may have had some bad consequences. Read more here. There is help available and there are people who are willing to help.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Web 2 point what?
WinCIM, CompuServe's Application
For those of you who have never heard of CompuServe, it was an Internet service similar to AOL or Prodigy and it was pretty pricey. The thing about it though is that I found it to be perfectly organized.
The Internet today kind of pisses me off. PHP forums have taken over, everything has gone web, but the truth of the matter is that everything got really damn complicated...and that's it.
Here's a cool article:CompuServe, Prodigy et al.: What Web 2.0 can learn from Online 1.0
I believe that things used to be better in a way, at least communication-wise. It's kind of like comparing Linux and OS X. You have a myriad of different Linux distributions which all try to somehow differentiate themselves from the competition, and therefore everything is more complicated, although the upside is that there's more creativity - I think. And then you have OS X - one system, a certain set of hardware and basically it just works. I have completely nothing against the development of complicated systems and other complicated stuff, I just miss CompuServe.
The forums on CompuServe were invaluable, and I even remember having some kind of an application which would go online, upload and download forum messages and e-mail, and then log off. That way, I'd save my parents a bit of cash since access was expensive. But back to the forums, not only were they perfectly organized, but you were able to find forums on almost every topic out there. And, as an added bonus, these forums also had a separate file section with drivers, or whatever else you were looking for. It was simple, and I liked it.
Now there are PHP forums with RSS feeds, Twitter, 50 ways to access your e-mail, and I currently have about 7 IM accounts. Can you say information overload? Think about it, how much time do you actually spend to organize everything?
It's kind of like with the cell phone chargers, why have a different plug for each brand? We need more industry standards. Ever since I got rid of CompuServe, I've never again come across forums organized as well as those had been. Newsgroups are a far cry.
Back in the CompuServe days, the Internet was an add-on. A sort of plug-in so to speak. It was a chaotic ghetto of the online world for me, which was quite safe before the population boom :P
And what the hell is Web 2.0 anyway? And what is Twitter? Are IM status messages not enough? E-mails surely weren't enough, and text messages sent from our cellphones aren't enough either. So now it's time to synchronize Twitter, IM, send an e-mail to those who don't have the previous two, and a text message to those who don't have access to the previous three. I seriously think it's getting a little too intense and may actually badly hinder productivity. All these new tools are redundantly connecting people.
Or...maybe, just maybe, time moves faster now and I'm just getting old. For my parents, even CompuServe was complicated. Maybe I now need a multi-core brain to process all this crap.
Just my two cents.
Here's another nice article about CompuServe for those who might be remotely interested:
CompuServe Classic: So Long, Old Friend
Saturday, September 26, 2009
The Beginning of the End or The End of the Beginning?
Every journey begins with a single step. Oh c'mon, can you get any more cliché than that?
Well, perhaps so, but who cares?
I'm going to take you on a journey, and please...no, really, please...allow me to take myself on this wicked trip as well. Make some room for me! It will be an excursion that may take you deep into my soul, my mind, but most importantly it will take you to Málaga, Spain (Geek remark: note the accent mark, I learned to do it on my Mac) by next September, assuming that everything goes well. And yes, I know that assumption is the mother of all fuckups.
The building on the left can be found right smack in the center of the city I currently reside in, which is Warsaw, Poland. If I were in charge, which obviously I am not, I'd repaint it or demolish it. This lackluster edifice needs to go. Send it to the moon for all I care.
Okay, enough ranting. I actually like Warsaw, and I think this might be a great place to live in a couple of years when real estate prices go down (mark my words, they will go down) and wages go up. Until then, I'm off to another place where wages are relatively low, but then again so are real estate prices. I apologize for the devastating consequences this comparison may have on Warsaw's image, but I have to somehow make myself feel even better about moving, right?
Anyway, the move to España is not the only thing that I'm changing in my life. I also plan to become a professor of nuclear physics at the University of Málaga. Okay, that was a blatant lie. But what is it exactly that I am going to do? Like seriously seriously?
Before I let you in on the good news, I also need to give a little bit of boring background info regarding my employment. For the last five or six years of my life, I've been teaching English. Therefore, if you happen to find spelling or grammatical errors in my writing, do let somebody know about it, just not me. The problem with teaching English is that you get to a certain point where you don't really develop anymore. It's an extremely rewarding profession, if I may call it that, but there's a certain threshold that stops you from moving further.
Now I've always been a geek on the inside, many girls would probably agree that the same is true on the outside, but I completely and entirely disagree. This inner geek has remained hidden throughout my teaching days, but for years I've heard the little geek inside of me calling:
while (true)
{
System.out.print("Let me out!");
}
Well, it's time to set him free. I've decided that I'm going to get back to doing IT stuff and since I plan to work at home on the patio of my hacienda somewhere in the area of Costa Brava, I thought that becoming a Freelance Web Developer would make most perfect sense. So, we're going to try to cast two objects - Warsaw and English Teacher and change them to Málaga and Freelance Web Developer. I love this geekyness.
More to come very soon, stay tuned...
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