Computing

Computational thinking

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

If you´ve been reading this blog for a while, you probably know that every now and then I like to use the metaphor of a computer (or a mobile phone, which is basically the same) to explain how the human mind works. That´s why I couldn't miss the opportunity to share with you what I learned this weekend.

On Saturday, I took my daughter Alicia to the Irish national final for Bebras, an initiative she was participating in through her secondary school. I had not heard of this before; I only knew that we had to be at Maynooth University at half past nine, and that while our kids were doing "the challenge" (a series of timed activities on a computer), the parents were going to attend an informational talk.

(Slightly blurry photo of the cover of one of my college books, from a subject called English for Computing.)

Bebras is an international initiative aiming to promote Informatics (Computer Science, or Computing) and computational thinking among primary and secondary school students. The informational talk was really interesting (thanks, Kim!), starting with this definition:

Computational thinking is the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions so that the solutions are represented in a form that can effectively be carried out by an information-processing agent.

This definition may seem a bit convoluted, but at the end of the day, it refers to problem resolution processes, utilizing skills like logical reasoning, abstraction, pattern recognition, decomposition of complex tasks into smaller steps, etc. These are skills that we all have: in fact, "the challenge" is made up of tasks that any person can solve; the challenging part is resolving them in a short period of time.

What I loved about the talk was how they explained the connection between these skills and life in general, not only in relation to academics. Abstraction allows us to eliminate unnecessary details and focus on the essence of a problem or a story (and depending on the context, the essence may involve different sets of details). Decomposition allows us to tackle a big, overwhelming task step by step, or to distribute the work and collaborate on projects, having each person do their part. And understanding and creating algorithms allow us to use them as tools to accomplish our desired results, with flexibility to adapt them to each circumstance or need.

You may have noticed that the definition above doesn´t specifically mention computers, only "information processing agents". This is because humans are also information processing agents (that´s why I like that metaphor so much). Even the word computer was initially used to refer to a person whose job consisted of making calculations (often women, by the way, and if you haven´t watched the movie Hidden figures, I recommend it).

Back to modern times: during the talk, it was mentioned multiple times how quickly technology is changing, and with it, the world. Our kids are preparing for jobs that don´t exist yet, and we don´t know exactly what those jobs will be. But we do know that we will need lots of people who can adapt and communicate effectively with other information processing agents, be it computers or people. Who can understand and make themselves understood. And above all, who can add the creativity that machines lack (despite what anyone says, and this particular comment is just my own), in order to find solutions to the problems of the future.

And the best part is that we can practice all these skills in a fun way, with challenges and exercises like the ones in Bebras. They reminded me of some of the activities they used to publish in magazines way back when, where you had to make deductions based on the clues you were given... Can you think of a better way to keep your mind active and at the same time prepare for the future?

Starting and finishing

/ binarybea / 2 Comments

OK, so I´m back home, getting back to the routine (if there ever was one). As I imagined, the week-long work trip was well worth it, both professionally and personally.

Photo of several trees with purple leaves in late evening lght

(Photo of some lovely trees just outside the office I visited).

Now, it´s time for me to resume a few other things I´m doing that I want to bring to a close. And while thinking about that, I remembered this quote:

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.

William James

Have you ever experienced that feeling of uneasiness when leaving tasks unfinished? Or maybe it was easier for you to notice the opposite: how good it feels to finally get them done. I read somewhere that each unfinished task we have takes away a small portion of our mental energy, as our brain is constantly remembering that it needs to finish it... Using the analogy of a computer or a mobile phone, it´s as if we had an open browser window for each pending task, consuming resources unnecessarily and slowing down the whole system.

In a way, it´s like an extended version of multitasking, which, as we already know, doesn´t really work.

And they don´t have to be big things, or even important ones. For example, today, I realized again that I have several unfinished books (due to reasons that are not relevant right now); I challenged myself to finish one of them (even if it was the shortest one), and I felt great when I accomplished that. Our unconscious mind doesn´t differentiate between big or small, important or trivial: each task we add to the list is one more burden, and each task we can tick off, an accomplishment.

By the way, you may be wondering: why do I have several unfinished books? Well, obviously, because I started reading them and never came around to finishing them, which brings me to the proposal I´d like to share with you today:

Stop starting, and start finishing.

I learned this phrase from an Agile coach a few years ago (thanks, Chris!). It´s a basic principle in certain work methodologies like Lean and Kanban, and it also works very well for Scrum (if you´re getting confused by all these strange words, don´t worry; you don´t need them to understand the idea).

The idea is very simple, yet very powerful: limiting the amount of work in progress at any given moment, so that you can focus your energy better and finish tasks more efficiently.

As I said, it´s a very simple idea; what´s not so simple is putting it into practice, among other reasons, because the motivation that often pushes us to get something started tends to dissipate afterwards and is no longer enough... (I´ll tell you more about motivation in a future article).

This is not a new idea; there´s a popular saying in Spanish that reads "quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta" ("if you hold on to too much, you lose your grip"), and in English we can convey a similar idea with "don´t spread yourself too thin".

What about you? Are there many things you have started and not finished? What can you tick off today so that your list gets lighter?

Untranslatable words: overwhelm

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

Today we´re resuming the category of untranslatable words and phrases, dedicated to interesting terms that are difficult to translate from Spanish into English and vice-versa, with a concept that´s very close to my heart: overwhelm, which could be translated into Spanish as "la sensación de sentirse abrumado o sobrepasado".

Well, technically, this is only untranslatable in relative terms, given that we do have a direct translation for the verb and the adjective; what´s difficult to convey is the feeling itself, mostly because that word is missing in Spanish:

  • To overwhelm = abrumar
  • Overwhelmed = abrumado
  • Overwhelming = abrumador
  • A feeling of overwhelm = ???

The answer given by the Spanish Language Royal Academy seems to be that both "abrumamiento" and "abrumación" are somewhat used as nouns related to "overwhelming" (meaning "act and effect of overwhelming or being overwhelmed"); even though well constructed and valid, they´re not consolidated words, and therefore, they´re not present in the Spanish Dictionary..

To me, both "abrumamiento" and "abrumación" sound horrible, so, even if it takes longer to say it, I´m going to keep referring to it as the feeling of being overwhelmed ("sentirse abrumado")...

So, why am I talking about this topic today? Because this week, to be honest, I´ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed coming back from vacation: getting back to work, the house, the girls, etc., etc., etc. Does this ring a bell? Have you ever felt this way?

Photo of a person lying on the floor. Only the legs are visible, the rest is covered by a pile of cardboard boxes of different sizes

Luckily, I was able to identify how revved up I was early on, so I was able to slow down a bit, pause to take stock and then begin to take things in differently, partly thanks to a mindfulness course I started precisely this week (thanks Fernando!), and partly because I know myself and this is not the first time this happens to me... I often feel under pressure trying to do everything and then realizing I can´t.

Interestingly, I hadn´t really named that sensation until this morning when (by coincidence?) I listened to a podcast by Owen Fitzpatrick who was explaining the psychology behind it: the psychology of overwhelm. If you can (it´s in English), I recommend listening to the whole podcast (or rather two, the first part and the second part); for the moment, here´s the main idea, for starters:

Overwhelm happens when we feel like we have to do more than what we can do..

It makes sense, doesn´t it? It´s one of those moments when everything piles up for us: so much to do and so little time... And what happens, usually? One of two things: either we try to do more things faster and end up running around like a headless chicken, or we collapse and become unable to do anything, not knowing where to start.

If we analyze the sentence above, we can see two different aspects being compared: what we believe we have to do and what we can realistically do. The to-do list in our head is always longer, way longer, than what can be done in a day, a week, a month, a year or even a lifetime. Owen explains that the majority of people focus mostly on the second part of the sentence, looking for ways to be able to do more, when the key is also on the first part: do we really need to do it all?

Te podcast proposes a specific technique to manage tasks, and as I was listening to it, my mind immediately found the parallel with how workload is managed within my work environment. For a software development team, the tasks list is also potentially infinite: new features to implement, bugs to fix, application upgrades... Let´s see what steps are involved, and how my team at work handles it (using Scrumas an Agile methodology, and Jira as a tool):

  • Write down all tasks, absolutely everything. This doesn´t mean they´re all going to get done; what we want is to get them together in a place that´s outside our heads. In Scrum each task is represented by a story, and they all get listed in the backlog.
  • Sort them into different categories, so that they can be better organized. In Scrum, a set of related stories constitutes an epic, a work unit that once finished, delivers some specific value or benefit.
  • Break them into manageable chunks, if needed, so that they´re easier to handle. This is done through a refinement process, getting specific about what needs to be done for each task. It´s also important to estimate the time and effort involved for each one.
  • Analyze them and connect them to your main goals, what specific objective is each task counting towards? And to what extent? In a professional environment, each story is linked to a predefined project or initiative.
  • Prioritize the most important ones: now that we know what the tasks are, how they contribute to making progress towards what goals, and the time and effort associated with each one, we can make sure we do the most important things first and postpone (or directly cancel) the least important ones. In Scrum, the stories are sorted in order of priority, and the team works on them in that order.

What do you think about this approach? You may say it´s not rocket science; it´s not sophisticated, just basically common sense. But it is true that we often forget to use common sense when we feel absorbed by worry, and a simple method like this can help a lot, starting with freeing our head up from having to try and constantly remember everything that still needs to be done.

Another thing that´s liberating is knowing that we´re giving priority to the most important task at each moment, by the way also including things like rest, a good diet, physical exercise, etc. Self-care is what´s going to give us the energy and health that we need to face everything else.

And finally, for bonus points, we can also set free from those terrible thoughts beginning with "I have to..." - we can stop being victims of our self-demands. Stop beating ourselves up for not living up to those unrealistic expectations, and begin to spend our time as we consciously choose so that we can make progress in the direction we truly want.

In Scrum, the team member who sets the priorities and takes ownership of the overall product development is called Product Owner. Are you ready to become the Product Owner of your own life?

Reprogram your life, episode 0: Introduction

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

Today we´re starting a series of articles where I´ll be showing you the content of my ebook first steps to reprogram your life, linking IT and computer science concepts with the world of personal development (typical me!). I hope you like it and find it helpful.

Mobile phone on a dark wooden surface, showing a white screen with the word "Hello" written in black

Very often in our life, we want to make a change, achieve a goal, make a dream come true... But we don't know where to start.

The truth is, it all begins in our minds. The human mind is an amazing artifact, a lot more powerful than any computer ever manufactured, and it can generate endless possibilities for our life. But for those possibilities to go in the direction that we want, we need to learn to make our minds work in our favour and not against us, which is what it unconsciously does sometimes.

Through these pages, I'm inviting you, by using a mobile phone as a metaphor, to explore how to reprogram your mind, and your life, to get closer to the results you want to obtain. Please, feel free to question any of the ideas you read here, try out the suggestions that resonate with you, and give yourself permission to not pay attention to the ones you don't find appropriate. At the end of the day, it's all about being curious and keeping an open mind, and experimenting in order to find what works best for each of us.

Enjoy the adventure! And if you would like to share your experience with me, feel free to email me at binarybea@binarywords.com, and I'll be delighted to read you.

Would you like to get as much out of your life as you get out of your phone?

Do you ever feel that you wouldn't be able to live without your phone? Isn't it amazing the amount of things we do on our phones every day? So many different apps that make our lives easier, from sending messages to paying at the supermarket, finding our way without getting lost, watching our favourite series...

A mobile phone is a wonderful tool, a really easy-to-use superpowerful computer compressed in a pocket-size format. And best of all, we can configure it in whichever way we like: we can set up a personalized background screen, install and uninstall apps as we see fit... We can greatly benefit from having a mobile phone, provided that we know how to use it correctly.

If only we had a similar thing for real life, right? Having the ability to press a button and make things happen magically, exactly how we want them to happen... Because, let's be honest, the benefits of mobile phones are great, but we all know that the best things in life happen outside the screen..

It is outside the screen where we really get to live, where we are faced with the joys, surprises and challenges that life puts in front of us. Where we want to change the things we don't like or the things we know could be a lot better than they are right now.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to install an app in our head to be able to make all those changes we want, to be able to configure our life in our own way?

Interestingly, the human mind is a lot more similar to a mobile phone or a computer than we may think: it's also "programmed" to work in a specific way, and those "programs" it uses (language and behaviour patterns, either inherited or learned) can be changed to enable whatever changes we want in our life.

OK, and how can we do that? Well, it may not be as simple and quick as pressing a button, but once you learn how to do it and start putting it into practice, you may be surprised by the results. You will need to be patient, though, and give it time and attention, because those old patterns have probably been installed there for a really long time, and initially, our brain finds it much more difficult to "execute" new programs than old ones.

Are you ready to start the adventure of reprogramming your life? Over the next few weeks, I'll give you eight tips to help you to take your first steps; let's go!

Sharpening the saw

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

If you´re into topics like productivity, time management or personal development, I´m sure that more than once you will have read or heard the idea that one must pause to sharpen the saw.

Manual saw making its way through a wooden block

This is how Stephen Covey explains it in his book, Seven habits of highly effective people:

Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.

– What are you doing? – you ask.

– Can´t you see? – comes the impatient reply. – I´m sawing down this tree.

– You look exhausted! – you exclaim. – How long have you been at it?

– Over five hours – he returns – and I´m beat! This is hard work.

– Well, why don´t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw? – you inquire – I´m sure it would go a lot faster.

– I don´t have time to sharpen the saw! – the man says emphatically – I´m too busy sawing!

This metaphor illustrates really well how we often get too deep into the weeds of our day to day tasks and forget to stop every once in a while, first of all to rest, but beyond that, to be able to take a step back, gain some perspective and find more efficient (and more enjoyable) ways to achieve our goals.

Another great example along the same lines is one of those quotes that appear printed on geeky T-shirts, especially dedicated to IT people: Six hours of debugging can save you five minutes of reading documentation.

It´s that well known adage, work smarter, not harder, which we know so well in theory, and we find soooo difficult to put into practice... Maybe it´s partly because our society values super busy people; we associate being busy with being productive, so consciously or unconsciously, we keep looking for ways to stay busy (and then we love complaining about how busy we are, it makes us feel important), Or maybe it´s because it´s easier to stay in the momentum we have created for ourselves (which deep down is nothing more than a comfort zone) than to question the way we´ve always done things, even if there is a benefit hiding behind that.

This habit of sharpen the saw can be adopted at multiple levels and in different formats. For example, this past week at work, I had the opportunity to get together with my team (in person, bonus points!) to take a moment, celebrate what we´ve achieved in the last quarter, and plan the work for the next quarter. This is usual practice in Agile methodologies, and it´s been proven to work really well.

And at a more individual level, we can schedule time every week or month to sharpen our very own saw, and that time will be well invested for sure, I remember that one of my very first managers here in Ireland suggested this to me (thanks David!), and for years I kept a time slot booked for myself every Friday afternoon, when the work of the week was already done, and I would sit down in the canteen/cafeteria with my notebook, look at the trees outside the window, and do lots of reflection and planning, getting my ideas in order... I have to say that I used to get a lot of benefit from that little habit, and now I´m in the process of restarting it again, be it on Friday afternoons or at a different time during the week.

And, given that it´s actually impossible to separate our work self from the rest of our being, this principle goes beyond the concepts of work and personal life, because at the end of the day, each person is a whole self. Stephen Covey proposes four areas where we must sharpen our saw: physical, mental, social/emotional and spiritual.

What about you? How do you sharpen your saw? And now that I think of it, wouldn´t it be easier to explain the metaphor with an axe, instead of a saw? Because I´m not sure how a toothed saw like the one in the photo can be sharpened...

Change of plans

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

How good are you at planning? And how well do you cope when there´s a change of plans?'

Tablet device showing a weekly planner page, and a hand holding an electronic pen, hovering over the screen

Yo no es que lo planifique todo al detalle precisamente, pero sí que me gusta saber a grandes rasgos lo que voy a hacer en un determinado día, o en una determinada semana, y así poder ir «tachando tareas» de mi lista, y sentirme útil. Pues bien, este fin de semana, tanto el sábado como el domingo, han surgido cosas que me han cambiado los planes sobre la marcha.

OK, truth be told, at least one of those things was due to my own forgetfulness: I had agreed to meet some friends for lunch and a walk today, and I had completely forgotten, because I never added the event to my calendar. When I say calendar I mean Google Calendar, which in the last couple of years has become my best friend, I use it all the time, And I'm not sure whether I should be thankful or put the blame on it, because nowadays, if something is not on the calendar... It simply slips my mind, as it happened today.

Thankfully (and maybe thanks to telepathy), today I happened to check my phone at around the time we had agreed to meet, and thanks to seeing messages from my friends, I remembered and was able to join them. But on the other hand, several of the tasks I had lined up for this weekend ended up not being done, so I'm going to have to squeeze them into the next few days. What was of course not negotiable was this weekly post, which, once again and despite all my good intentions, I'm writing in the middle of the night 😀

Anyway, I could give you multiple explanations (a.k.a., excuses) of how those sudden events altered my plans, and how I wasn't able to achieve everything I wanted to get done... Or I could admit that the to-do list I had to begin with was not realistic for a single weekend, as it often happens to me.

And that reminds me of a quote I heard or read somewhere, years ago, which also came up the other day as I was talking to a friend: we human beings tend to overestimate what we can achieve in the short term, and in contrast, underestimate what we can achieve in the long term.

Now, researching this online, I found similar quotes attributed to both Bill Gates and Tony Robbins, referring to what one can achieve in one year as opposed to ten or twenty years... I'd say the same can also be applied to shorter timelines, like a week or two as opposed to a whole year.

Y curiosamente, también he encontrado una ley paralela para la tecnología, la ley de Amara, que sostiene que «en la mayoría de los casos, los seres humanos tendemos a sobrestimar los efectos de una nueva tecnología a corto plazo, mientras que subestimamos su efecto a largo plazo».

So it's clear that, in general, estimating in the short term is not something we as people are good at, even if we think we are. And anyone who works in software development or any related field will be able to confirm how difficult it is to determine in advance the effort and duration of a certain task.

I believe this is also very relevant to any personal development or coaching process: quite often we define a goal for ourselves to achieve in a certain period of time, come up with an action plan that's too optimistic, and then feel down for not being able to stick to it, or for not achieving the goal as it was defined at the start. But all of that in reality is part of the process: the important thing is that thanks to the goal we get to make progress (even if it's not at the speed we would like), and we also get to learn, for everything that happens along the way are results that give us new information. And once we have that information, we can adjust the plan in order to achieve the goal, or sometimes we may realize that the goal itself is what needs to change.

Otra frase bastante famosa, esta vez de Woody Allen, dice que «si quieres hacer reír a Dios, cuéntale tus planes», y yo me identifico totalmente con ella, seguro que muchos de vosotros también. Así que, sabiendo ya que así es como funciona la vida, propongo que disfrutemos haciendo planes y averiguando adónde nos llevan 🙂

Updating version history

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

If you´ve been following this blog for some time, you will have seen me using IT related concepts every now and then. This is partially due to my professional bias: it´s a world that I´m pretty familiar with, having studied Computer Engineering at college, and having worked for many years as a software developer and systems analyst.

But also, I believe that comparing the human mind with a computer (or a mobile phone, which is probably easier to understand) is a really useful metaphor, keeping in mind the differences, of course.

A couple of years ago I wrote a post talking about the concept of version history, which is used for applications and operating systems, and how it can be applied to people as a self reflection exercise that can turn out to be really interesting. It helps us to realize how much we have changed along the years, and above all and most importantly, it reminds us of everything we have achieved.

And the best part is that we can keep it up to date as we overcome new challenges and achieve new goals (my updated version history is available in the about page).

Today I´m adding a new version, one that I feel really proud of: during the past few months, I´ve been training in enneagram, a tool for studying human personality that I´ve found simply amazing; and one that´s been incredibly helpful in getting me to understand myself much better and begin to understand others as well. It´s a very interesting and practical tool, it fits well as a complement to other self-discovery and personal development disciplines, and it can also be applied to a workplace environment. What attracted me, in particular, was its potential in combination with coaching, to facilitate much more personalized coaching processes according to the client´s enneatype.

But please be mindful that it´s really important to learn the enneagram well, as unfortunately there´s a lot of confusion and misinformation on this topic, either due to not going beyond its most superficial aspects and only looking at external behaviours, or due to not fully understanding the key points that are characteristic of each enneatype. I myself spent two years wrongly identified, thinking I was of a certain enneatype when in reality it was a different one... And I´m not the only one, on the contrary, it´s a story that´s often repeated.

The idea of taking a shortcut in the form of a test that tells us our enneatype is very tempting, but at the end of the day, there´s no learning in that, we´ll end up with a number without really knowing what that means... As it always happens in the world of personal development, the learnings come gradually, along the way. And this is a piece of work that nobody can do for us. So if this has piqued your curiosity and you want to start learning about enneagram, I encourage you to search for materials from Alberto Peña Chavarino (in Spanish) or Mario Sikora (in English).

And if you decide to give the version history exercise a try, feel free to let me know how it went 🙂

Sustainable pace

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

Has it ever happened to you that, after a period of really intense work or study, once you finish that critical project or exam, or maybe at the start of a holiday, your body says “that´s it” and you fall exhausted or ill?

That´s how life lets us know when our current pace is not sustainable.

This has happened to me several times, thankfully in a much less dramatic way, as I´ve been learning to read the signs. Signs like, for example, a head cold or a sore throat that interestingly start showing on a Friday evening, when the work week is over and my body knows it´s allowed…

Gray newtons cradle (perpetual motion device) in close up photogaphy

In the software development world, and increasingly in other work environments, many companies follow Agile methodologies, which are based on moving forward and getting results quickly by leveraging an iterative work process, while continuously adapting to change. And a key success factor for those methodologies is that the “moving forward” happens at a pace that can be maintained in the long term, in other words, that is sustainable, in theory indefinitely. Because it has become clear that moving too fast for too long ends up negatively impacting the team.

This sustainable pace that companies seek for their employees also applies to each person individually, and it´s our own responsibility to achieve it for ourselves. At the end of the day, at work as well as in life, the to-do list is infinite, it never ends… In reality, it´s a long-distance race, more like a marathon than a 100-metre sprint, so the best strategy is to economize our energy, and if at one point we need to run faster for a little while, then later on we´ll have to slow down for another while, or even stop so that we can properly recover.

But even though this seems pretty easy to understand, we often forget about it. Why? Maybe because we don´t realize it´s a long-distance race, and we only see the 100 metres in front of us. Or maybe because we´re so engrossed in the race that we forget to stop for a moment and listen to ourselves, pay attention to how we feel, and what our body is trying to tell us.

I love this quote that says that life first whispers to you, if you don´t listen, it talks to you, and if you still don´t listen, it screams at you. Setting aside a little time for ourselves every day, without distractions, and really listening to ourselves, will help us to identify those whispers before they become screams.

What about you? How are you making sure you maintain a sustainable pace?

Movie or video game?

/ binarybea / Leave a comment

Do you like video games?

My general answer, as of today, would probably be a no. But there was a time in my younger years when I used to play some video games.

Well, Tetris, mostly. I used to looooooooooooooove Tetris.

I played on a Nintendo Game Boy, which back then was the coolest pocket video game device ever. The games came in removable cartridges, and I had a few cartridges apart from Tetris , including Super Mario Land, which I also used to play quite a lot.

I liked those games (and I was more or less good at them) because they came with very clear instructions: fitting pieces together in order to complete horizontal lines, or running from left to right, jumping around, and catching as many gold coins as possible. But later on, when more sophisticated computer and console games came along, like graphic adventures and so on, I lost interest.

Hands holding a videogame remote control

Because the instructions for those games were not nearly as clear: there was much more freedom of movement, which also meant a much bigger need for quick decisions, adventure, and exploration… I felt lost, not knowing what to do or where to go, and I found it overwhelming. So I got to the point where I preferred not to play.

I preferred watching a movie for example, which was much easier and more comfortable.

So, why am I telling you all this? Because today I´d like to share with you some thoughts on two ways to see life: as a movie or as a video game..

If we choose to see life as a movie, it looks like everything is easier: we don´t have to do anything, just sit down comfortably on the sofa and watch life go by. But the thing is, if for some reason we don´t like the way the story is unfolding, there´s nothing we can do to change it, or to change how it ends, because we cannot interact with a movie. At most, we can complain, shut down the TV, or get up and leave the room. But the movie stays the same.

On the contrary, if we choose to see life as a video game, then that means more work: it´s time to get up from the sofa, take the controls, and start moving, exploring, and making decisions. And yes, we may make mistakes along the way. But in exchange, we get the opportunity to live our own adventure, influencing the course of the game and the results we progressively obtain. We can experiment, discover, get surprised, get it right, get it wrong, learn, course correct, and try again, as many times as we need (for as long as we have lives left!). We can change the game, and as the game changes, we also get to change.

What do you think about these two ways of looking at life? And which one do you choose for yourself today? I recently realized that I´ve already spent many years watching movies, so I´m starting to take up the video game controls, would you like to play as well?

101100

/ binarybea / 4 Comments

It´s been my birthday this week, this is how old I am now: 101100.

Written in binary format, of course, honoring my training as a computer scientist, and the title of this blog 😊

But given that a person is way, way more than just one single identity, and given that I never liked that division between “people of science” and “people of letters” (which was very much in fashion, at least in Spain, a few years ago), I´m telling you with letters as well:

It´s been my birthday this week, this is how old I am now: XLIV, in Roman numerals.

Then, if we want to go into “geek” land (which is a term that I do identify with, because if you think about it, deep down we are all “geeks” for something), we can express it in hexadecimal code as well: 0x2C.

My only regret is that I haven´t been able to write it in a particular code that I really like, but that unfortunately only contains symbols for letters, and not numbers… Maybe one day I´ll take my geekiness to a whole new level, and invent Dada Urka numbers 😊