THE COSMONAUTS

So here it is, the best video of the volcano, by Sean Stiegemeier. It’s the only one that truly captures the beauty and fierceness of Eyjafjallajökull at the same time. In his words…

So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.

Here is the video, (best in fullscreen mode)

Sean declared that he’d come back to Iceland to do some more shooting if he had a sponsor. We commented on his vimeo page suggesting him to open a Kickstarter project page to get the funding. Raise your hand if you’d donate a few bucks to fund his project.

I’d suggest that you go to the Vimeo page and watch it full screen.

Some outside the US also feel the hope:

I will be in San Francisco (USA) during the next week (from Sept 30 to Oct 5). It’s neither my first nor my second visit but I am always open to any suggestion on where to go or what to do after work. Besides, if anybody feels like having a cup of coffee, send me an email at javier@programavostok.com

A must read if you are somehow thinking about location independent living (in any of its flavours): 24 Things We Wish We’d Known Before Becoming Location Independent

Yahoo totally screwed it up when it requested people to have a Yahoo ID account to be a Flickr user. It’s like you need 3 different identities to be able to post some pictures: your previous one, the yahoo one, and then the flickr one, all of them with its email accounts, user passwords and all that.

Totally wrong.

But today I found something unbelievable:

In order to complete registration, you must provide a valid credit card and billing adress to indicate you are over 18.

Way beyond stupidity.

Some are extracted from the talks I attended while some others come from my personal-internal reboot:

1. There is a world out there, go reach it.
2. Your shit is someone else’s food (metaphorically speaking, ok?).
3. Own no more than 5 things you use, or else things will use you instead.
4. Leave your shit behind, it will serve others and make you more free.
5. If you reinterpret space and use it in non-conventional ways you are on advantage.
6. Courage is one of the most important things in life.
7. You can design your own life.
8. Do-ers are better than thinkers (in case you had to chose).
9. Conferences on a far away city are great for putting thoughts in order.
10. Web2.love is still the only strategic approach that makes sense when creating things.

I would love to see some more of these shared by other atendees. Please, let me know if you happen to post yours.

As some of you know, I’ve spent the past days at Reboot10. Now I can confirm what people usually say about it: there is something special at reboot that empowers you and insipires for new things.

I made a few decisions while here in CPH. First one is going back to posting in English. I feel sorry for those who prefer Spanish. I know the blog may lose a bit of freshness (if it ever had that) but hey, the world is huge and ther are so many amazing people out there who I couldn’t reach otherwise.

Personal stuff may come in Spanish sometimes, so don’t expect too much consistency. As chaotic as life, I guess.

in English…

Look for beauty, it’s the only way of protest wich makes sense in this revolting world.

Ramón Trecet

in Spanish…

Buscad la belleza, es la única forma de protesta que merece la pena en este asqueroso mundo.

Ramón Trecet

Very interesting impressions from Alberto Knapp after his attendance to FOWA.

He starts with a strong statement:

It was more about the past of web applications than the future.

Alberto Knapp

Anyone here attended FOWA and got the same impression?

There is one thing I quite don’t get, though. When he says

Nice concept: a 2 pizzas team (6-8 people; well, 4-5 if from The Cocktail … actually in our case it would be a 2 six-pack team)

Does he mean that the guys at The Cocktail eat more pizza than average? Or does he mean that 4-5 people from The Cocktail can do the same work as an average 6-8 team. Alberto, I demand a clarification.

This April I will go into a very special mission. I will train five young professionals in the arts and crafts of interaction and digital product design. My goal is to give them all I know, slowly and with care. My goal is to bring them all I wished when I started: someone experienced who guided me and helped me evolve as a professional.

When Aristotile was shown a book for the first time he said that the book would be the end of learning. As he said, if the student couldn’t discuss with the teacher then learning wouldn’t be possible.

He was probably exaggerating but not completely wrong.

We will have sessions each friday evening. Three hours every week for five months, plus mentoring during the week and on summer vacation. All this just for five students (the good thing about 5+1 is that we can have our sessions almost anywhere: on our room, inside a cafeteria, walking at the park, on museums…). All the details on the course are here, in Spanish (use google translate if you can’t help reading it).

The course was made public a week ago and most of the seats are already taken. I am happy with how it’s been received. I will let you know the names of the five students in a few weeks.