Posts filed under 'Personal'
The ant, the grashopper and the interest rates
I sincerely wished I could write about something else, but these days I’ve been spending a great deal of the time I don’t have absorbed by the financial markets.
And I’ve come to think of Aesop’s fable (click here for the Wikipedia entry): the ants and the grasshoppers, and the way they would have related to interest rates.
Since the ants are the hard-working ones in the fable. They are the ones that build the real economy, the ones that have their savings in the bank, in the safest financial products. On the other hand the grasshoppers don’t really worry about working hard, they are prone to risk and they aim for quick profits, regardless of the consequences.
Okay, now with the interest rates. Reasonably low interest rates benefit the ants because they can access funding with a reasonable price and still get a basic return for their savings while keeping them safe for the future. After all they are risk-averse creatures.
But if the interest rates go too low, close to nil, then it’s the time for the grasshoppers. Who cares about saving, who cares about the long term while short term is cheaper and you can still carry-trade. Short-term benefits are in order, even castles in the sand if they can be sold somehow, and when there’s no limit to the castles in the sand you can build, there’s no limit to growth. Screw Kondratiev!
In the end, it seems that the ants will end up saving the grasshoppers, just like in the fables. Lesson learned… or is it not? 
4 comments 3 October, 2008
The holidays are over (still here after a busy summer)
Another year is over, and I’m left cold sober. That’s how a song from Queen begins. In my case it has been an interesting but feverish year. I’ve done so many things that I can’t recall them all.
My first year in the Henley MBA is over. I have passed all three exams and I feel relieved, I had my doubts that I’d pass them all. Henley Management College has just become Henley Business School in the University of Reading. That means a lot for the future prospects of the school as it will make new additional resources available to reach new heights. It’s good news.
We had a workshop about global business environment and strategic marketing. I especially liked the first part, reflecting about the global economy and how the different economic areas in the world compare, and the current macroeconomic trends.
Later, reflecting about it, I envisioned myself as an agent of globalisation. After all I had been a few days earlier seeking business in Delhi. I can’t write much about it but Spanish companies do need to go out and compete, and who is going to do that if it is not ourselves?
Yes, that’s the Taj Mahal as captured by my mobile phone. That was one outstanding moment of the summer. I will never forget this image.
In the meantime things are on track for Barcelona’s new terminal. The building is almost complete and we are testing the first systems. The last sneak peek is from one of the busiest commercial areas. A few systems are already installed and the first system trials will begin in one month. Below is an image of the first screen ever working there, still on the floor although the support structures are already installed.
The bottom line: I’m still here. I’ll keep you appraised 
Add comment 18 August, 2008
Upgrading my MacBookPro’s hard drive (tweaking some hardware)
Yes, I’ve been busy lately. I know. Building an airport and acting as a globalisation agent is hard sometimes. If you also need to find time to study, things even get trickier. And then your loyal ally tells you that its hard drive is full… well, you get the picture.
Don’t ask me how I managed to fill my 160 gigs hard drive. I just did. And while I was away I realised I wanted a windows emulator at hand because interchanging files between Mac’s Office 2008 and PC’s Office 2004 is not that easy. Sometimes weird things happen (thank-you Microsoft) and you need a bridge inbetween.
Yes, I do need to carry most of my music with me wherever I go. And I like watching StarGate and Yes Minister from the computer while I’m flying somewhere. I am not ashamed of that!
The thing is that I needed a bigger hard drive. And instead of going to the closest Apple center and paying 300€ for the operation I decided to buy a 60€ Fujitsu drive, the same quality that Apple offers of course, and do it myself. The tools: a torque 6 screwdriver, a Philips ++ screwdriver and a sound methodology not to mix and lose the screws.
The first two you can find in any hardware store. The latter at this website: www.ifixit.com, as well as any accessories you might need.
First of all I made a copy of my hard drive. SuperDuper is the application to use. You can find it here. Encase your new hard drive in an external USB or Firewire unit, format in GUID, copy the whole drive and you are done. After you have an external copy verify it by booting from it holding the “Option” key at boot.
Opening a MacBook Pro to change the hard drive is trickier than one might think. Thanks again to ifixit for this comprehensive foolproof guide. I won’t bother you with the procedure, some highlights may suffice:
Opening the case after removing almost every screw, scary, huh?
The guts of a MacBook Pro. The hard drive is on the left. That’s the moment when you have to detach the wires connecting the keyboard (top center) and hard drive (left). Will they ever work again?
The final moment of glory: when you swap the old 160 gigs Hitachi for the new 320 gigs Fujitsu. In any case the hard drive is still Japanese.
Then I did the same steps in opposite order to put back every single screw in its right place, crossed my fingers and voilà, the thing simply worked. I love my Mac. Even with a virtual PC inside it, that I only needed to copy from my other computer. Right now my virtual PC is upgrading to XP service pack 3… and I’ll need an antivirus…
2 comments 29 July, 2008
Back from India (and from a cultural impact)
I’ve just arrived from Delhi. In fact it has been 24 hours but, in the meantime, my mind kept wandering inbetween all kinds of different landscapes, smells and tastes until it settled back again. So many different faces, so many different paces: our hectic effort of preparing a presentation on the club lounge of a five-star hotel, the five-year-old child making his frenzied small monkey shout and dance to attract our attention and a few coins, the slow-moving cow trying to take a nap in the middle of the street and the agitated drivers trying to pass as close as possible. Definitely distances are measured differently in this huge place.
The billion cattle estimated to be alive today are more less one sixth of the estimated human population on Earth. The lucky ones live here, where they are revered and spoiled, where they can live tranquil and blissful lives, where they can thrive and be loved. It’s a wonder that there is no cow immigration process to this beautifully colored lands. If the other cows knew!
Humanity. This word takes new meaning here. So many people. We Europeans have tended to grow aseptic, almost inhumans. We hide within huge buildings of concrete, glass and steel, like the new terminal I’ve nurtured along with my peers, and we become insignificant below our not-so-functional monuments. We want them to serve as a rule to measure our cities and civilisation, instead of ourselves, our little selves.
In India you see so many people, so many happy -and not so happy- faces. The wonder is that it’s not easy to infer which faces will be happy and which won’t. Usually you won’t see that in the colours -or cost- of the robes. Humans… sometimes so happy owning nothing but conceiving nice thoughts… you never know.
This column, blog, page -whatever this is- wouldn’t be complete without the management reflection. And today it comes from Professor Geert Hofstede, of Maastricht University: “Culture is more often a source of conflict than of synergy. Cultural differences are a nuisance at best and often a disaster.”
Are they? I’m personally a cock-eyed optimist and I tend to see the positive side to it. If we kept narrow mindedly to our own culture and background, the learning process would surely be impaired. Nonetheless cultural divergences must be managed.
As a reference, it is very interesting to examine Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, built from a handful of parameters:
- Power distance or the degree of acceptance of the less favoured members of one society of the inequalities they are subjected to.
- Individualism versus collectivism, or the degree to which the members of a society are integrated into groups.
- Masculinity versus femininity, or the degree of distribution of roles between genders.
- Uncertainty avoidance or degree of tolerance to uncertainty or ambiguity.
- Long-term orientation versus short-termism.
As an example, the former dimensions applied to the Indian, Spanish and British cultural dimensions, according to the available data by Hofstede. Of course generalisations are unfair, and the Spanish profile was never actually completed, but the exercise is still interesting.
4 comments 22 July, 2008
Operating Systems strategies (why Windows and Mac OS are going in opposite directions)
Vista has not accomplished its expectations. Albeit more than 140 million copies sold, that only represents around 13% of the installed base. And if you take into account that Vista has been around since november 2006 and an average lifespan of five years for any computer, only because of natural growth that figure should be around 20%. What’s happening?
When a company has such a great market share as Microsoft, and a killer and omnipresent product like Windows, it wouldn’t be fair to say that those figures mean trouble. Not really, only unfulfiled expectations, that’s all.
But users are not massively upgrading to Vista. Many prefer their new computers with XP (and still get counted as new Vista licensees) because it’s simpler, faster, and you already know your way around. I myself like the aqua, sorry aero, look in Vista, but still struggle to find my way to simple things. I’d rather use a simpler system: I get tired of so many questions and confirmations and having to navigate tortuous paths.
Simplicity gets its reward in speed. Ask any Linux geek and he will tell you how he manages without lots of small utilities incorporated in your software that you use daily. The good thing is that he also manages without hundreds of utilities that you seldom or never use, and without hundreds more that you never knew they existed and, if you ever had needed them, you wouldn’t have even sought. (Do you really know how to insert an horisontal line in Microsoft Word or how to query an ODBC source in Windows?)
Then, there’s us, people that use MacOS. A sometimes despised and bashed minority (around 3%) that happens to be growing above average with a dangerous tendency to be self-conscious. In a mass consumption society, isn’t it great to be special in something? More stable than Windows, more usable, a better user experience (yes, that is completely subjective, but believe me in this one) but still not bomb-proof in its latest version: Leopard. And more visible than ever because of iPods, iPhones and, of course, the incumbent’s spoofs.
But, following the initial reasoning, which are the strategies behind the operating systems? Which should be next move? Apple has recently uncovered a few words about their new version of MacOS: from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Doesn’t sound very different, does it? What’s behind it and why is it important? It’s not easy to deny that Apple knows a lot about emerging trends that tend to be imitated by the rest of the market.
I’ve drawn the following model thinking about operating systems in two axis:
- on the horizontal axis the sophistication of the operating system, measured in terms of “eye candy”, as it is easy to observe and doesn’t focus on the utility of that eye candy (that would increase the analysis’ complexity and introduce a lot of interpretation), but it’s obviously correlated with the utilities offered to the user.
- on the vertical axis is the complexity and size of the code what counts: the system weight.
First of all, the dangerous zone is on the top level: heavy systems. Heavy systems tend to be unstable, usually because they build on foundations laid out many years ago by legacy systems that don’t exist anymore but that they need to preserve. This is the case increasingly both by Windows and MacOS: the first because it has compatibility with a sheer list of devices and still with good old MSDOS, the second because, albeit being much more selective with hardware, still hasn’t recovered from the trauma of having two very distinct CPU platforms: the PowerPC and the Intel platform. Vista still is far higher in this classifications making a very heavy system, to the point that requires the latest hardware to fully function while still being compatible with everything else. That’s why many prefer XP.
The massive side for an operating system is not that good either. XP was clearly short of functionality, while with Vista the effort has been made to try to compensate, but jumping too far away, adding cumbersomeness to the menu. Vista is only a street away of being annoying, and that’s another reason to still prefer XP. In any case it’s also a proof that with XP you’re going to miss things too.
MacOS stays in a comfortable middle position. Still, Leopard increased functionality and usability, as well as eye-candy, but paying a price for it: increased system sophistication and weight. That means, of course, instability issues.
Linux users sit in a comfortable corner table: a simpler system that is lighter than anything else, with good and bad consequences.
Where is the future going to be?
This is the part that is supposed to be explained in Nostradamus’ prophecies, but I think I have a clue to offer. Many Vista users are still downgrading to XP, and there must be a reason for that: the seeking of simplicity. We need more stable operating systems, not nicer ones. Don’t get me wrong, we like eye candy, but we are ready to trade some off in exchange for better performance. Windows should aim back, somewhere in between Vista and XP, going down in the stability road… and down the chart back to the safe green zone, still losing some screens and complexity in its way.
That’s what Snow Leopard is all about. The same animal, only changed by a couple of colours, but ready to live in a much hostile environment. Trimming the OS, making it more hardware selective, only optimised for the newest hardware platforms. No human-machine interface overhaul but a lot of kernel and essential applications rewriting. That’s, in my humble opinion, the way to go. And the way Microsoft should follow too.
Because, when with a laptop, energy consumption depends on CPU consumption, and thus in the cleanliness of the code, and the megabytes taken by programs to run. After all, those bytes need to be read from the hard disk, paged in and out of the memory, and can potentially make your computer run out of fuel faster.
Taken from Roughly Drafted, a web you cannot miss if you want to know more about Apple, this is what the apple folks have been doing to the Snow Leopard basic programs:
Interesting backoffice work, don’t you think?
2 comments 24 June, 2008
Kobayashi Maru (a no-win situation)
Star Trek is not the encyclopedia of life. Even though it contains so many interesting ideas about leadership and management, with different styles depending on the series, that is worth knowing about.
One of the scenarios that is a reference in the Star Trek world is the Kobayashi Maru scenario, which is a “lose-lose” or “no-win” scenario. Regardless of what you do, you’re doomed. We can see this kind of scenarios in everyday life: from organisations that have a couple of conflicting objectives to pursue at all costs, pyrrhic victories or military victories that are so costly to win that are not worth-it (ring a bell?), or the kinked curve of demand for oligopolies, that can only begin competing between itselves bearing huge losses. Even the Spanish Inquisition’s confessions were like that: torture until pleaded guilty and then executed: every move made it worse.
The original Kobayashi Maru scenario was a test for Star Trek commanders. In the simulator they received a distress call: a ship had been stranded on the other side of the border. They were subsequently faced with the decision of whether or not entering into enemy zone, underpowered, to try to rescue the crew of the Kobayashi Maru.
There was no escape, the only option was not to try the rescue.
One briskly student devised a solution: cheating. Cadet Kirk did in his third attempt. Strangely enough, tweaking the simulator was considered original thinking. Probably that was only because it had not been attempted before. In time Cadet Kirk became the infamous Captain Kirk.
Sometimes, regardless of what you do, defeat is unavoidable.
Yes, I’m exagerating a little, but this has been a hell of a Kobashi Maru week. And to you all there that have Kobayashi Maru weeks once in a while, there’s still a message of hope. The Kobayashi Maru scenario had a meaning and purpose.
Because it wasn’t an intelligence or ability test. It was a character test. How do we face odds and specifically unsurmuntable odds? After all managing death is a way to learn to manage life.
Paraphrasing another Star Trek classic, Mr. Spock, “fear is the mind killer”. Sometimes the worst might simply happen, and what’s important then is how to handle the situation, how to keep your own control and integrity under adverse or inauspicious circumstances.
Making the most out of it. That’s how you learn to be better, and how to bounce back and subdue the next possibly conquerable odd. Don’t let circumstances drag you down, because you need to keep fit for the next, possibly unforseeable, challenge. And it may well be one you can cope with.
5 comments 20 June, 2008
After the final exam (aka after the storm)
The exam was really stressful. More than three hours writing like crazy. At the end I was rather confused, not really sure of what to expect. Fortunately, it was over.
I sat the exam at Barcelona’s British Council. I thought it would be a better experience than taking a plane and driving to Henley. It was a good idea. The place is just ten minutes from home.
On the other hand it was rather weird to be the only one taking the exam. The invigilator was there only for me. At least he was nice and had a thick book to read so he didn’t spend three hours glancing at me in suspicion. That would have been awkward.
Half full or half empty, who knows. I hope I pass. In the meantime I just need some time to relax. And that’s what I did on the weekend. The garden needed my attention so I just focused on trimming the bushes and getting tired. Oh my, my arms got so bruised!
The view from home is rather relaxing. The weather wasn’t perfect. It was the fourth rainy weekend after the most severe draught that I can recall. From scarcity to the most rainy May in 25 years. Our water reserves have tripled and reservoirs have reached 60% capacity. It looks like we’ll have enough water for the time being.
I like it when the beach is almost empty, and the showers scare the tourists. The calm seems to envelope everything, the air is fresher, the plants greener. This spring the plants are blooming like never before. Let’s forget about the price of oil, the high interest rates, the lack of liquidity and the forthcoming stagflation. It’s time to enjoy… at least for a while…
The garden this year is full of Mediterranean roses. The plants grow by the hour. A good omen? I hope so.
4 comments 10 June, 2008
The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain (rainy day at the beach)
It’s been too long without blogging. Some weeks at an hectic pace. Good things, bum things and a grain of salt. In this learning journey I don’t especially like posting about me. But here I am again, the worst draught we have ever suffered in Barcelona and I am at the beach and it’s raining! A few days ago I was in rainy England reflecting, trying to finish my assignment -dismissed as too reflective by the way-. Can it be that I’ve started to believe my own lies? Do people really expect you to reflect or talking about reflection in personal development is paying lip service to a new god while still worshipping the old one? Who knows.
I don’t want to further bore you with my own ramblings. The thing is that, if you ever face finance, think about the bottom line! There’s absolutely nothing else. No corporate social responsibility, no carbon footprint, just budgets, margins and ratios. The stake-holders are simply unavoidable, and the customers necessary. And if they care about those things, we’ll have to convince them that we care too. Nothing more.
My macbook just took this picture of me. I know I should have moved to avoid the direct light from behind, but I thought I could put something natural and improvised here. And that’s what I did. It’s raining outside. The fireplace is the only heat around, and the air is a bit smoky. Huge waves from the storm are splashing on the beach a few metres from here. Some dogs are howling while mine lay wet on the floor next to me. The recently established neighbouring bees are completely quiet inside their hive: they do not dare to go out. Next picture I’ll try to show you more of this. But not today.
The blog has just surpassed its 30.000 visits. Not bad, huh? Fairly surprising in fact. I’m still amazed that people find these pages floating in this coarse soup that the internet is. Maybe that’s why I decided to show my face and my nonsense, all at once.
What else happened these days? Another workshop, and, seeing the big picture, I’m straightly headed for the final exam. The first year will soon be gone. But first I need to study, I need to pass the exam. And another year will be gone, one year and a half of blogging, and I will still be here.
Sorry for the babbling. That’s what I felt like doing today. That’s what my 3.5G modem is for. And thanks for reading.
Add comment 9 May, 2008
Doggie jumping on my MacBook (a.k.a. a moment of truth)
Last Sunday my doggie decided to jump on my MacBook. Doggies have the ability to change from a quiet and relaxed mood to an excessive joy in a matter of seconds. I can’t describe the sensation I had seeing my middle-to-large sized beloved dog on my highly-priced adored computer. But she did.
Guess what happened? The computer withstood valiantly the assault. The momentum wasn’t able to join forces with gravity. It never fell down. But one of the keys jumped in revenge and tried to catch the doggie. Utterly broken, there was no way to reattach it.
A broken key. I felt like possessed by a sudden illness. Now it was my time to change into a gloomy mood.
The worst thing a patient can do is try to impersonate a doctor and use the world-wide-vademecum, that’s the internet and its information about hundreds of patients that have gone through the same illness. Why is that that the bad experiences get blogged far more often?
I encountered dozens of stories about broken keyboards, computers kidnapped at the technical service for weeks or even months, and then returned scratched to their unfortunate proprietors, about huge repair bills, bad and worse experiences, voided guarantees or even frauds.
So my mood went from gloomy to desperately depressive, collecting the dismal, dreary and dispiriting tonalities all in one.
I even tried to investigate how to solve the problem. I found a couple of websites that sold individual keys. That was the first good news. The bad news was that the gone-missing key is not standard but from the Spanish keyboard. My computer is in English but of course with a Spanish keyboard: I need a few more symbols to be able to write Spanish or Catalan.
The missing key was the one with both the symbols < and >. The English (both American and European) keyboards, have those symbols in two separate keys. That meant that they probably didn’t have my key in stock. The cost wasn’t that important, but the expected delay was significant. What should I do?
Well. Monday came and I went to the nearest Apple service centre in Barcelona. Only 300m from home there is that nice place… Microgestio. Let me tell you about my experience with them.
There were no queues. Just a nice couple at the counter. They called a technician that was with me in a matter of seconds. Then he left with my hapless computer. And I was there left waiting… I felt naked… it felt like a long wait… but it was only for a couple of minutes. Then he came back. The key was there. Everything was covered, no questions asked. Just a nice, emphatic smile. Just what I needed: no delays, no retreats, only an efficient solution.
That was like a moment of truth, a defining moment. I enjoyed and experimented good service… a rare and elusive taste. For Apple it was a small expense: the cost of a key. But what they got in return was loyalty. Immediate pay-back, and a greater, by far, net present value.
One key for another apostle. Is there a better deal?
3 comments 22 April, 2008
Green reflections from the Greenlands (Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire)
One of the best sensations of studying at Henley are the procrastinating moments at the Greenlands. You only have to find some stairs to sit on, and then just look around and stare at the Thames.
If you are lucky you’ll see rowers practising for the Henley Regatta, due in June. But they are just a few spots on a landslide made up of greens and blues coming in all tones.
Being a Spanish born in Catalonia, I can’t help losing myself into the amazing greens that England has to offer. Yes, I’ve seen so many blues in my life, as well as reds and yellows, and some greens too… but not this variety, from light to dark, a chromatic variety that depends on the time of the day, the temperature, humidity… If it is dark and foggy, as it has been these mornings, they even turn into greenish greys.
I know that my mobile phone is not the best camera to capture them, and then the computer screen doesn’t help either. In fact the colours look slightly different in each of my two screens. And although I’ve tried to correct that with my Mac OS, I’ve never experimented success yet. It’s so difficult to get something as incorporeal as a colour right.
One might wonder how this piece of landscape in a highly priced zone may have survived. It wouldn’t if it had been only subject to the forces of the market, but this part of land facing the Thames is thoroughly protected. Construction has been restricted, old buildings must be respected. Time has ceased to pass here.
I like this feeling of isolation, of being apart of the world. It’s like a retreat, an emotional escape.
Yesterday morning I couldn’t help staring with awe both the cow and the bull that enjoyed licking the entrance barrier and didn’t let me make it on time for class. I could have complained or horn them… but that would have been pointless. They were so happy that the barrier was so tasty. And I was so happy to see them that close… and to share their mouth-watering feeling.
But this kind of feelings are increasingly scarce in a mass-marketed world. And small schools will become bigger with time, to survive the ruthless competition. That includes Henley: it must grow to keep up with a fiercer competition.
Henley Management College won’t be able to grow much more here, though. Future Henley MBAs will probably be studying in other modern and expensive buildings, away from here (who knows, maybe in Reading). It’s a sign of the times.
In the meanwhile I just try to savour the moment. Moments by themselves are just an unintended consequence of the flow of time, of the increase of entropy in the universe. But we can make them special… as this one.
Add comment 21 February, 2008
