Saturday, April 15, 2023

Kids are so confidant in their understanding of the world. It's lovely and eye opening to see how their world get nuances. And then they throw you a naive surprise when you least expect it. :)

They are the age where each have their (ideal) city. (I guess I'm also at that age.) They talk about how in their city they speak X language or multiple languages. Or how public transportation operates there (a mixture of trains and taxis). They no longer believe ATMs give free money. And save money for their toys…

And then during snack time I was telling K how they shouldn't have chocolate because they already had a Popsicle at their spring break camp when it occurred to me to ask the kids if they know how these things are made. With all the confidence in the world one of them starts:

- Easy, you get 12 blue berries—
- No, 10!
- Yes, maybe 10
- You put them in the blender, you add water
- And you press the button
- Yes, you press the button maybe for 60 seconds. And you put it in the plastic bag.
- And you put it in the fridge, they were cold

They were so convinced that each flashy colour was caused by a different blended fruit. Meanwhile K was so annoyed with the camp XD

It's so amazing to think how they are so ready to explain the world. Today they were asking me how is it that light (as in electromagnetism) can pass through their bodies to close the garage. I can't imagine how they will perceive the world in a 6 months. 🤞We get a platypus next season.

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Wednesday, May 12, 2021

 They were calm but I could hear them “Papa, help us. Papa, help us.” I slowly walk towards the sound and ask them “what happened?”
 

–We locked ourselves into our room.
–Ah ok, so what did you learn?
–Nothing.
–Ok, so maybe you could learn to not put the lock without knowing how to unlock it.
–No.
–Ok, are you sure it wouldn’t be good if you weren’t locked?
–Open the door Papa.
–Ok, why not.


😆 Ten minutes later and I hear them, “should we lock ourselves again?”

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Friday, September 19, 2014

Hoy oficialmente mi abuelita se fue.

No recuerdo cuando entró en mi vida, pero siempre estuvo ahí junto a mis padres en ese lugar que reservamos para los que lo saben todo mientras crecemos. El recuerdo de mi abuelita como Dulzura, Paciencia, Entrega a su familia, siempre estará ahí. No está en mí contar su historia pero tuvo una vida muy muy triste, si no es que la peor que conozco de primera mano. Y sin embargo, ella era amor.

Por eso creo en la humanidad. Si ella, viviendo lo que vivió, pudo salir adelante, todos podemos. Soy tan afortunado por haberla tenido en mi vida a tan temprana edad.

Ya era grande y cada cumpleaños era una pesadilla para mi madre. Yo no quería que hubiera pastel, no me gustaba ni el pastel ni el helado de pequeño. «¿Cómo vas a tener una fiesta sin pastel? Piensa en tus invitados», decía mi madre. «Pues es mi cumpleaños y si quieren estar conmigo… ellos ya saben, cada año es igual», replicaba. Y ahí en el fondo estaba mi abuelita, buena intermediaria. Yo sentía que me defendía y llegábamos al acuerdo de que hubiera, pero que yo no necesitaba comer esa cosa. No sé cuántas veces pasó. Mi abuelita se lleva el título de convencerme de que era buena idea probar el helado. Probablemente estoy inventando la escena pero así la recuerdo. Estábamos en el supermercado, como frecuentemente lo estábamos y me compró unas lombrices de goma. Las adoraba. Y creo que me dijo algo como '¿sabes qué sabe más rico con lombrices?'. Caí preso de la curiosidad. ¿Había algo que hiciera que las lombrices supieran aún mejor? Sí, el helado de chocolate con lombrices de goma.

Había una vez 2 abuelas, como el día y la noche. Una cálida y sin un peso encima que ahorraba sus centavitos para venir a visitarme los veranos. Y una estricta, distante, con familia acomodada. No debiera extrañar que en navidad yo siempre quisiera estar con mi abuelita aún si los reyes magos visitaran Tlalpan y no tanto la vecindad. Cuando mi padre casi muere fue con ella que nos quedamos.

Con la llegada de mi hermano y mis primos las cosas cambiaron en cuanto a tiempo, pero nunca en calidad. Había amor para todos.

Recuerdo sus guisos que todos disfrutamos. Recuerdo cuando me enseño a jugar Domino de pareja.

Y aquí debería terminar mi historia, pues la enfermedad, la vejez y la muerte pretenden entrar a mi relato.

Recuerdo con risa cuando se cansó de cocinar y tiraba mangos al agua para darle sabor. Recuerdo a mi tío y a mi abuelita 'peleando' de todo, especialmente de quién hacía más trampa en el domino.

Pero lo que más recuerdo es el recuerdo que mi abuelita me repetía cada que la veía cuando la demencia senil ya estaba tocando la puerta.

Caminando ella y yo en el bosque de Chapultepec
- Abuelita, abuelita, tú que lo sabes todo. ¿Cómo se llama esta planta?
Y mi abuelita pensando 'ay esta criatura me hace cada pregunta y yo que no sé nada'
- Se llama 'Diente de león'

Abuelita, tú para mí siempre supiste lo importante. Te amo.

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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

It's funny how this blog keeps becoming a dream journal. The important stuff is either too private or maybe with age I'm more concerned about who might discover it. On the other hand, dreams are quite private, right?
Anyways… I had a dream two days ago. I dreamt that fb was testing a new phone app. Shared dream technology, using my phone as interface. They were doing secret experiments to discover if that could be the next best thing to top Hangouts. Unfortunately they didn't anticipated that people don't behave in dreams like in real life. Even if you don't know you are sleeping, you simply don't have access to certain areas of your brain. So it was not a pleasant surprise to chat with your friends. You think the internet allows us to be jerks, wait until you see how people treat people in dreams.
Also, there was this small problem of nightmares roaming free of their sleepers, and that guy that sublimated frustration by killing strangers. Good news is that you just wake up if you die in that experiment. I remember knowing that I was in a dream, but that it was quite different than usual with my lucid dreams. FB had setup a small pretty village for the experiment. I never dream about villages, hehe.
I remember feeling good knowing that Karina was not in danger as she doesn't have an smartphone. I remember trying to outsmart the killer. Usually in my lucid dreams I can summon powers/magic. Something was preventing me from controlling my dream. So I couldn't hide, I needed to discover what was going on and tell the people about this dark project. I noticed policemen appearing, obviously fb guys. Who uses those colors? hehe.
FB was trying to capture the killer, people were tweeting about their strange dreams. They wanted to cover it all. I was this close to finding out how they managed to maintain a shared coherance when they turned it off. I remember waking up in my room. And then I knew I was still dreaming, hehe. Stupid nested dreams. I was in a lucid dream now.
It always amazes me the kind of dreams my subconscious can spin. The way we play. I need to point out that before going to sleep I was complaining. The previous dream had been quite dry. Only math. I don't rest when I dream only math. I can see my subconscious saying, 'ah so you think I'm loosing my touch?'. =) I love me, there I say it. Happy?

ps. I know it was just a dream, because david was there, he's in qatar, it's not night over there while I sleep :p

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Thursday, February 09, 2012

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not defending the guy nor condemning him. It's just an interesting question that I want to answer.
What are the three books that marked your life?
I'm the kind to be stumbled by the question. It will take me a while. Too many to choose and I'm bad with names (languages in general, I blame my lack of musical sense).
Anyways my answer is Sandman, Answer to Job, and Guns, Germs and Steal. (Thanks oxford comma.) They changed the way see life in different ways; all of them represent a facet of myself. Sandman is my young/alternative self. Answer to Job made me Bright. No, I don't remember the author, I think it's Jung. I'm not googling it to be as real to life as possible. GGS changed how I see history, society and is the kind of change I would like to make in the world.
I'm not gonna do a huge/deep analysis, but I had to find the answer, at least once. I wonder what will be my answer in some years…

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Here's how I would do a Dominion AI.

I would have 3 subsystems, Priorities, Economics and Tactics. Priorities would be in charge of bookkeeping, judging in which phase we are and breaking ties between the other two. Economics would be thinking in the long term how to get as much Victory Points as possible. Tactics on the other hand would be about the now and how to have the advantage in the short term.

Tactics only cares about what I have in my hand, the table and what little we know about the other's hand.

Economics is analyzing the probabilities of the deck, should we start buying? If I add this card the expected money per hand is incremented?

Priorities is the head-heart of all. It assigns the weight to its two arms. It has two read the available cards and decide if it will be an attack heavy. It should also be able to say, screw this strategy, it's not working, come up with something else.

Economics should be an ensemble of strategies ruled by the weighted perceptron algorithm. Tactics should do alpha beta prunning. Priorities should use adaboost.

Why those algorithms? I'm still learning but seem to be the best options in my limited repertoire. The "boost" to Economics by Priorities of removing the weak and reseting the counters should be studied with more detail.

ETA: 4 months :S And it might be weak against the expansions as I have never played with those cards.

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Being in this country is different. The novelty has wear off, but things aren't normal. Today I smiled when I saw a cop giving candies to random kids in a store. Not an image I'm used to. Cops inside a store? Where I come from, they are not allowed. Private security guards do the job. If they have to call the cops, then something serious is happening. Second, giving candies? Salesmen would be doing that. Third, asking the parents if he could do it? Salesmen wouldn't do that. On the other side of the border, it's parents responsibility to watch over their kids.

I won't judge which scenario is best. That's not my point. Little things keep reminding me I'm not from here.

Do I want to be from here? That's a question not yet to be answered, but definitely in the air.