Lateral Opinion

Sorry, spanish only post. But you can listen to the song here

Si tuviera 5 blogs y la energía para postear en todos, el cuarto sería "analizando demasiado la letra de canciones". En homenaje a ese blog que nunca va a existir, este sería el primer post: Paisano de Hurlingham, de Divididos (probablemente mi banda favorita).

Primero, la letra completa:

Al parecer hay un cierto consenso (entre las tres personas a quienes les pregunté), de que esta canción es la descripción de un viaje en tren.

Las letras de Divididos no se caracterizan por ser interpretables linealmente, De hecho, sospecho que la mayoría son simplemente una serie de palabras una después de la otra porque "suenan bien juntas".

El primer verso "Paisano de Hurlingham" es el título mismo de la canción, y, supongo, el protagonista de esta mínima odisea suburbana. "poda neblina" es interesante. No encuentro (gracias google) ninguna referencia a esa frase fuera de esta canción. Es posible que nadie jamás haya dicho "poda neblina" hasta que Mollo cantó esa estrofa.

Para que se hagan una idea de lo raro que es eso, hay dos referencias independientes a "navaja desierta", que son dos palabras al azar sacadas del diccionario. ¿Entonces, qué es "poda neblina"? Bueno, si es muy temprano, hay neblina, y el paisano la atraviesa, la corta, la poda. Así que, tirando de los pelos (que lo vamos a hacer bastante), podemos suponer que nos ubica temporalmente en una madrugada neblinosa.

Más obvio es "moneda o botón". Habla de hacer trampa, de pasar un botón donde debería haber una moneda. No se puede hacer eso con el cajero, ni con un vendedor, pero sí se puede en la limosna del "ciego bilingüe".

"paso morales" es obvia. Es la calle Paso Morales, en Villa Tesei. De hecho esa calle corta la vía del tren que viene de Chacarita, lo que confirma que hablamos de un viaje por las vías.

Es difícil justificar "sin la opalina". De hecho, no lo voy a intentar. "de Retiro a Pilar / busca el chancho al chabón" es tal vez la línea más obvia: es un guarda de tren que busca a un pasajero que no paga, y lo persigue desde Retiro a Pilar. El problema con esa obviedad es que:

1. El tren que hace Retiro/Pilar no pasa por Hurlingham
2. El tren que corta Paso Morales sale de Chacarita (y sí pasa por Hurlingham).

¿Es tal vez que "De Chacarita a Hurlingham" es imposible desde un punto de vista de métrica? Sería comprensible si así fuera.

"Sapo explota en San Martín / los domingos a las diez" es oscura. Además de que ninguna de las líneas de ferrocarril mencionadas pasa por San Martín. ¡Pero el recorrido Retiro/Pilar es de la línea San Martín! Si bien no logramos esclarecer qué sapo explota, porqué ni dónde, sí sabemos el cuándo. Esto fortalece la hipótesis de que el paisano por algún motivo está yendo a Pilar.

También es sanmartiniana la referencia al "sable recto en la estación", por contraposición al famoso sable corvo del General. Que nunca jamás tuvo el grado de Mayor (ascendió de capitán a general), lo que complica encasillar "berretín de mayor".

"Canilla en el andén / gotea noticias / te grita el titular / mentiras sin picar" es directa. Un canillita, un canilla, es un vendedor de diarios. Las canillas gotean, los canillitas gotean noticias. Gritan los titulares (aunque creo que ningún canillita grita los títulos desde 1947 o algo así). Mentiras sin picar, porque el papel no está picado, todavía, porque es un diario de hoy.

Y llegamos a la estrofa final, "Abejas con ombu / viajando en el panal / va la timba en el furgón." Me resisto a dar una interpretación, mas allá de que las abejas en el panal van apretadas, y que ombú es una marca de papel para armar cigarrillos, que seguramente la gente de la banda ha usado en abundancia para drogarse, un ingrediente que sospecho importante en la escritura de sus letras.

¿Qué conclusión podemos sacar de este análisis? Bueno, yo, personalmente, preferiría no entender lo que dicen, que Divididos fuera una banda de rock eslovaco, y poder sentir la patada en la frente que es esta canción sin tratar de entender qué carajo es "sapo explota en san martín". Pero eso es un problema mío.

I am very distracted when I walk down the street. Or rather, I am paying a lot of attention, but it's spread over a whole lot of different things.

Her name is Faith Popcorn. Seen on Mar del Plata.

My favourite, since I am a compulsive reader, is reading street signs. There is always something off about signs in a foreign country. They are either about things other countries don't care about, or are written in a completely different style.

Fixed hair braiding prices in Bahamas

And sometimes you run into things you just have never seen before. Those things can be found anywhere, and can be anything, since ... well, you have never seen them before.

And now, a hydrant wearing a sweater in Budapest.

It doesn't have to be something really strange, it may just be something you have not seen before by chance.

Street sweepers get OCD too. Seen on San Isidro.

Or maybe you just figure something out right there and then.

So that's why sugar cubes are better. Seen in Budapest.

Or ... you don't know what to say.

Seen at Tigre. I have no idea.

Or things you don't have where you come from.

Blimp! Seen in London.

Or they are just so polite to ask.

Or you don't understand at first.

How did that kid get there?

And then you do.

It's a trick fountain! Seen in Budapest.

Or maybe it's something you see every day, out of context.

A typical argentinian milanesa sandwich. Bought on the street in Budapest.

A DIA% supermarket, like the one near my home. In Istanbul.

And sometimes it's something you never suspected even existed, or how it could exist.

This is a chapter in a turkish book. It takes place at my wedding.

Or out of context.

Seen around the corner of my house.

Or alien.

Hotel towel, seen in Orlando, Florida.

Or

Yes, I did get a haircut. Seen in London.

Or

Seen in Junín.

Or

Ferry in Istanbul

Or

True TV Remote seen in a hotel in Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires, in 2004.

This, except for that TV remote, is just a small sample of what I have seen in the last 12 months. These have been a really cool 12 months.

Yes, that's my son drinking mate out of Donald Duck's skull. Caption?

An alfajor is, in theory, a simple thing. It's a dessert sandwich. The argentinian alfajor is usually filled with dulce de leche, which means you just can't screw it up. Even a bad alfajor is going to be good.

Yes, there are some regional alfajores filled with other stuff. Don't pay any attention to those impostors. They are hipsters wearing fake glasses they don't need. What you want is dulce de leche.

But the filling is only half of a sandwich, and a third of an alfajor. There is also the things that surround, hold and contain the notoriously sticky dulce: cookies. Some variants have tried to improve on the cookie by either going soft (cake!) or hard (Milka Mousse), but the real deal is a soft-ish cookie, not too soft (so the alfajor doesn't desintegrate) and not too hard (so it doesn't feel like eating a hockey puck).

There is an impossible tradeoff, between dulce de leche and the cookie. Too much cookie, you are eating cookies. Too much dulce de leche, you may as well get a spoon and eat out of the jar (try it sometime). You want to balance, but the alfajor is walking food, it has to be edible by a 6-year old schoolkid while climbing a tree, it has to be solid enough, and not fall apart, and not cover him on melted frosting. The child has to be able to pass inspection of his hands after cleaning with just the wrapper and his own mouth.

The alfajor santafesino has adopted a minimax strategy, maximizing the amount of dulce de leche per amount of cookie, by using extra-thin "cookies" that are more like crackers, adding multiple layers, and making the whole alfajor thicker. I love it, but it is not for everyone.

The alfajor de maicena goes in a completely different direction, having a tasty cookie that can hardly hold any dulce de leche because it's too friable. Somehow that works wonderfully as well.

Then there is the covering. Chocolate, frosting, coconut, or nothing. Chocolate is bad in summer, melting and making you eat the alfajor from the wrapper as if it were a banana.

But if you have no idea what an alfajor is, which one should you have? I could point you to the most sublime alfajores, which would be life-changing experiences, but I will not. If you tried those, which you can only get in out of the way places, known only to initiates, where could you go from there? It's like your first date being with Sofía Vergara. That would be just leading you into a life of disappointment.

So get a chocolate Havanna. Get a Cachafaz. Get a Capitán del Espacio. Get a tube of Jorgitos. And when you have done your apprenticeship, when you are an alfajorman, when you are ready. Then you will know.

PS: Thanks to Juan Rodriguez Monti for the idea for this post.

I have a confession to make. For the last year or so, my main operating system has been Windows 7. Yes, I know, it may come as a shock to some, specially if you have read this which is my post that had most hits in a day ever.

How did that happen? What happened to me? What was I thinking? It's a boring and uninteresting story.

I joined Canonical. My old notebook wouldn't cut it. My new one would not take Ubuntu without a fight. I said "hey, I will live in a VM!". The VM was deadly slow. I had to develop windows software (yes). Some stuff would not work right on the VM. And slowly, things just started piling up in the bare-metal OS, which was, yes Windows 7 Home Premium.

As a whole, Windows 7 is not horrible. Most things work well. What it is, is a desert for a developer. Sure, you can get a plant to grow there, but you have to put a lot of effort into it.

So, today I installed Kubuntu Oneiric (absolutely no problem now!), gathered all the data from the old notebook, the VM, the windows installation, deleted windows, and moved into Linux again, and made Windows the VM.

I missed it.

If you have read Coffee and I ... well, let's say the 70s filter is proper, and that this was a happy evening for me.

Stories don't repeat themselves if you don't let them.

Sorry, spanish only today!

Debo haber dado, en los últimos 15 años, unas 80 charlas. O tal vez 50. Qué se yo, no las ando contando. Desde hace unos cinco años a esta parte, me dicen que vienen saliendo buenas (con altibajos, por supuesto).

Entonces, inspirado por How to be a PyCon speaker and do it well acá van una serie de consejitos para que los que no se animan a dar charlas se animen.

Este es el más importante: el público no muerde. En serio, lo peor que vas a escuchar es algo del nivel de "se ve que estaba nervioso" o "se perdió un poco en tal parte" o "el tema no me interesó mucho". En la gran mayoría de los eventos que he estado, no hay ningún ánimo de agredir al orador. Nadie te va a tirar tomates. Y al día siguiente nadie se va a acordar si estabas nervioso.

Tenés que saber a quién le estás hablando. Hacéte un modelo de como es tu espectador ideal. Hacé una charla que le pueda interesar a ese modelo. Si tratás de hacer que le guste "a cualquiera" entonces no le va a gustar a nadie.

Pensá mucho el título. Si tu charla es para principiantes que quieran aprender flask, ponele de nombre algo como "Introducción para los que no saben nada nada nada de Flask pero quieran aprender un poquitito de como usar un microframework web que está buenísimo". No le pongas "Flask: un microframework web". Ok, no le pongas ninguno de los dos, ponele "Flask desde cero". Yo le pondría "Flaska, no me claves, los puñales, por la espalda" pero eso es porque me gusta Bottle.

No pienses los slides. Pensá lo que querés decir. Una vez que lo sabés, partílo en, ponele, 10 pedacitos de 3 minutos, y hacé un slide para cada uno. Si no podés hacer un slide, hacé dos.

Los slides son el menú, no la comida. Los slides no son la charla. Si puedo entender la charla viendo los slides, entonces o tu charla está estirada, o tenés muchos slides. Asegurate que se lean. No importa tanto que sean lindos: que se lean. Regla: poné los slides en tu notebook, poné el brillo en mínimo, y miralo desde 3 metros. Si no lo ves, no se vé.

Cuanto ensayar, depende de cada uno. Yo no ensayo, pero es porque soy un tarado. Si ensayás demasiado sale medio sin espontaneidad, tal vez. Pero si no ensayás nada, a veces ni sale. O sea, ensayá hasta que te sientas cómodo, y ahí pará.

Hablá como hablás vos. No trates de hablar como otro, aunque te guste mucho mucho mucho como habla. No trates de ser gracioso, si sos gracioso va a salir natural. No trates de ser interesante, si la charla es interesante alcanza.

No hagas cosas interactivas a menos que estés segurísimo que no te vas a trabar.

No hables de cosas que no te interesen "porque son importantes" o o "porque alguien debería hablar de eso".

Hablá fuerte, aunque tengas micrófono. Cuando hablás fuerte hablás más claro y pausado.

Tenés que saber cuanto tiempo te queda. Todo el tiempo.

Tenés que tener dos o tres puntos para terminar la charla. Cuando se te va acabando el tiempo, la terminás en el que mejor te quede.

"Decíles lo que les vas a decir, decílo, y decíles que les dijiste"

Si no sabés, admitílo. Si guitarreás, decí "estoy guitarreando, pero...". Si estás nervioso decí "me estoy meando", si te perdiste tirá todo a la mierda y uníte al circo Rodas (o pedí un segundo para ordenarte).

Ponéle onda a la parte de preguntas y respuestas. No pongas cara de "no entendiste una goma de lo que dije", porque capaz que es culpa tuya.

Rompé todas las recomendaciones que te dí si te parece que va a funcionar mejor. Por ejemplo, capaz que querés tener 100 slides y pasar uno cada 10 segundos. O no querés tener slides. O querés tener slides que hablan de otra cosa. O querés tener slides que pasen solos. O querés tener slides interactivos y actuar Mingo y Aníbal contra los fantasmas.

Y la más importante (si, ya sé que dije que la otra era lo más importante, no jodas): followup. Invitálos a charlar cuando te vean en el pasillo. Dejá tu mail, blog, twitter o lo que sea. Invitá una cerveza. La charla en sí sirve hasta ahí, es mejor si de la charla sacás un amigo.

Just a quick followup to The problem is is, is it not? This is not mine, I got it from reddit

This should really not surprise you:

>>> a = [1,2]
>>> b = [3,4]
>>> a is b
False
>>> a == b
False
>>> id(a) == id(b)
False

After all, a and b are completely different things. However:

>>> [1,2] is [3,4]
False
>>> [1,2] == [3,4]
False
>>> id([1,2]) == id([3,4])
True

Turns out that using literals, one of those things is not like the others.

First, the explanation so you understand why this happens. When you don't have any more references to a piece of data, it will get garbage collected, the memory will be freed, so it can be reused for other things.

In the first case, I am keeping references to both lists in the variables a and b. That means the lists have to exist at all times, since I can always say print a and python has to know what's in it.

In the second case, I am using literals, which means there is no reference to the lists after they are used. When python evaluates id([1,2]) == id([3,4]) it first evaluates the left side of the ==. After that is done, there is no need to keep [1,2] available, so it's deleted. Then, when evaluating the right side, it creates [3,4].

By pure chance, it will use the exact same place for it as it was using for [1,2]. So id will return the same value. This is just to remind you of a couple of things:

1. a is b is usually (but not always) the same as id(a) == id(b)
2. garbage collection can cause side effects you may not be expecting

Sorry: english only because my kbd is acting up an typing is a chore.

Here I am, writing in a place of evil so deep they charge you $56 (that's pesos) for a tiny sandwich and a bottle of water: the Gianni & Vittorio café at Córdoba Airport.

It's like Mordor, except the water is kinda-sorta-slightly-cold, and I carry no rings. And there is very little lava. But the evil... the evil is dense, as it can only be at airports, Minas Morgul, and perhaps the choripán place near Lisandro de la Torre station (which I strongly recommend).

But why do I do it? Because I have already failed. I will not post everyday this year. I may not even be close. But I will post as much as I can. And I promise it won't be filler about why I did not do a real post.

So, onto the meat of this post we go.

It's inevitable that airports will have expensive and bad food. It will be expensive because there are a limited number of sellers, and getting to be one of them is expensive. Since they can charge whatever they want, they have no incentives to provide quality or service.

Plus, they own a captive customer base, since you are locked there, and there is no place to go outside the airport etiher.

That is classic government-mandated market distortion, with the airport management as the government, and you playing the role of you. This kind of clear examples are good because they show capitalism and free market advocates actually have a decent point when they remark on the defects of imperfect markets.

OTOH, I don't see any communists around here oppressing me, I see only happy capitalists taking my money.

PS: it seems there was a tornado here today.

This has been a repeated discussion in the Python Argentina mailing list. Since it has not come up in a while, why not recap it, so the next time it happens people can just link here.

Some people for some reason do this:

>>> a = 2
>>> b = 2
>>> a == b
True
>>> a is b
True

And then, when they do this, they are surprised:

>>> a = 1000
>>> b = 1000
>>> a == b
True
>>> a is b
False

They are surprised because "2 is 2" makes more intuitive sense than "1000 is not 1000". This could be attributed to an inclination towards platonism, but really, it's because they don't know what is is.

The is operator is (on CPython) simply a memory address comparison. if objects a and b are the same exact chunk of memory, then they "are" each other. Since python pre-creates a bunch of small integers, then every 2 you create is really not a new 2, but the same 2 of last time.

This works because of two things:

1. Integers are read-only objects. You can have as many variables "holding" the same 2, because they can't break it.
2. In python, assignment is just aliasing. You are not making a copy of 2 when you do a = 2, you are just saying "a is another name for this 2 here".

This is surprising for people coming from other languages, like, say, C or C++. In those languages, a variable int a will never use the same memory space as another variable int b because a and b are names for specific bytes of memory, and you can change the contents of those bytes. On C and C++, integers are a mutable type. This 2 is not that 2, unless you do it intentionally using pointers.

In fact, the way assignment works on Python also leads to other surprises, more interesting in real life. For example, look at this session:

>>> def f(s=""):
...     s+='x'
...     return s
...
>>> f()
'x'
>>> f()
'x'
>>> f()
'x'

That is really not surprising. Now, let's make a very small change:

>>> def f(l=[]):
...     l.append('x')
...     return l
...
>>> f()
['x']
>>> f()
['x', 'x']
>>> f()
['x', 'x', 'x']

And that is, for someone who has not seen it before, surprising. It happens because lists are a mutable type. The default argument is defined when the function is parsed, and every time you call f() you are using and returning the same l. Before, you were also using always the same s but since strings are immutable, it never changed, and you were returning a new string each time.

You could check that I am telling you the truth, using is, of course. And BTW, this is not a problem just for lists. It's a problem for objects of every class you create yourself, unless you bother making it immutable somehow. So let's be careful with default arguments, ok?

But the main problem about finding the original 1000 is not 1000 thing surprising is that, in truth, it's uninteresting. Integers are fungible. You don't care if they are the same integer, you only really care that they are equal.

Testing for integer identity is like worrying, after you loan me $1, about whether I return you a different or the same $1 coin. It just doesn't matter. What you want is just a $1 coin, or a 2, or a 1000.

Also, the result of 2 is 2 is implementation dependent. There is no reason, beyond an optimization, for that to be True.

Hoping this was clear, let me give you a last snippet:

>>> a = float('NaN')
>>> a is a
True
>>> a == a
False

UPDATE: lots of fun and interesting comments about this post at reddit and a small followup here