Open Kosmaczewski

This is probably one of the most mysterious and beautiful videos on the web. Enjoy.

Kuroshio Sea – 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world – (song is Please don’t go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

Moments from Everynone on Vimeo.

Many people have asked me why, when I was an employee, I used to change jobs so often. The answer stands in between my own curiosity to take on new challenges, and the various assholes I had to deal with through the ages. Just as an example of this last case, here goes a true story, one that stands between being a candidate story for The Daily WTF, or as sample material for The No Asshole Rule book by Bob Sutton. You decide.

Prologue

A couple of years ago I found a job as a PHP + JavaScript developer in a small company in Geneva, Switzerland. I remember going to their offices two or three times, and having several interviews with various people there; one of them was the lead PHP developer of the company, the other being the CEO, a relatively well-known person in the tech area in Geneva; both shall remain nameless. The last interview I had was with the CTO, who would be my direct boss, as I was told.

They finally chose me, and very happily I signed the contract. I handed my resignation for my current job at the time, but had a couple of months of work to do before leaving (this is usual practice in Switzerland, one that I despise deeply, but that you are legally forced to follow). All in all, three months passed between me signing the contract and the first day of my new job.

The First Day

So one day, I headed to Geneva to start my new job. I arrive at around 9am to the address where the interviews had taken place, and, oh surprise… there was nothing. Stay with me: there was nothing. Not a sign in the wall indicating that the company used to be there, not a single desk, not a phone plugged on the wall. Nothing.
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I’ll watch you when you say
What you are
And when you blame
Everyone, you broken king

I’ll watch you change the frame
I’ll watch you
When you take your aim
At the sum of everything

You and your heart
Shouldn’t feel so far apart
You can’t choose what you take
Why you gotta break and
Make it feel so hard

You lay there in the street
Like broken glass
Reflecting pieces of the sun
You’re not the flame

You cut the people passing by
Because you know what you don’t like
It’s just so easy
It’s just so easy

You and your heart
Shouldn’t feel so far apart
You can’t choose
What you take
Why you gotta break and
Make it feel so hard
You and your heart
Shouldn’t feel so far apart
You can’t choose What you take
Why you gotta break and
Make it feel so hard

You draw so many lines in the sand
Lost the fingernails on your hands
How you gonna scratch any backs
Better hope the tide
Will take our lines away
Take all our lines and….

Hope the tide will take our lines a…
Hope the tide will take our lines away
Take all our lines away

During my flight to WWDC this year I could not really sleep, and the 12 hour flight was the source of memorable tweets that will never make it to Twitter. Because of timing and context, and also because of the inexcusable lack of wifi network in some major airlines.

Anyway.

I used Pages during the flight to keep track of all those insomniac, bilingual tweets, while the plane was a going through the Atlantic and Canada towards San Francisco. Some are about the flight itself, others about the Argentine film “El Secreto de sus Ojos”, and finally some about the Football World Cup. Project yourself in the situation, and enjoy the rants. I certainly did :) Following →

Siento quenas que en el viento huyen
trayendo amores y silencios de las peñas
que encierran el sol en su corazón.
Entre airampos de luna
samponias que en el viento huyen
en viaje buscando el cielo un cóndor va
como mi ser resucitará buscando la luz.

Siento quenas que en el viento huyen
trayendo amores y silencios de las peñas
que encierran el sol en su corazón.
Entre airampos de luna
samponias que en el viento huyen
en viaje buscando el cielo un cóndor va
como mi ser resucitará buscando la luz.

Agua, cómo te deseo,
agua, te miro y te quiero.
Agua, corriendo en el tiempo,
agua, bailando en manos del sol.
Agua, sal de mi canilla,
quiero que me hagas cosquillas.
Siempre, sonido sonriente dame,
que es grande mi confusión.

Agua, cayendo del cielo
agua, con furia y sin freno,
lava todos mis recuerdos,
dame en tus hojas la bendición.
Guerras, amores y juegos
fuegos, relámpagos, truenos
barcos, montañas y sueños
todo descansa en tu corazón.
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La Jetée is the classic short by Chris Marker that inspired Terry Gilliam’s “12 Monkeys”. Absolutely amazing, brilliant, mysterious, captivating. Masterpiece.

If there’s only one good thing we could take from the global grounding of planes all over Europe, it might as well be the possibility to enjoy traveling again. Even recognizing that the airline industry has been able to dramatically cut costs and times of travel, one can’t deny the fact that it has done nothing to increase the pleasure of traveling. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.

To put it elegantly, traveling by plane is a pain in the neck. In the 90′s it wasn’t better, but at least the Twin Towers were still standing in their place and there wasn’t a new “terrorist threat” every year or so, making the life of the rest of the travelers an ongoing misery.

Taking a plane exposes you to a staggering amount of things that can go wrong, from the most complex to the most ridiculous. They keep on telling us that traveling is the most secure way to travel, but they say nothing about the ever smaller and more uncomfortable seats, about the shitty food they keep on serving and the increasing number of destinations they keep on sending our luggage, more often than not exactly the opposite one we are going to. Without mentioning the amount of cancelled flights without warning, the non-guaranteed connections, the unbelievably ridiculous schemes of ticket pricing (why a return ticket is cheaper than a one-way is beyond me) and the oh so many other things that make air travel an utterly miserable experience.

Oh, but it is the most secure way of traveling. Yeah, right.
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viejita,

te fuiste durante la mañana del 15 de marzo del 2010.

seguramente la noche anterior cenaste, miraste la television, tomaste tus medicamentos, despues te acostaste mirando la foto de tu hermano charles, y te quedaste dormida.

te quedaste dormida, mama, sin dolor.

creo que fue la mejor muerte que a uno le puede tocar. y cuando miro para atras, y veo el kilometraje que tenias, creo que fue la mejor. mucho dolor hubo, mucho.

tu cara tenia paz, no se como describirlo. cuando te vimos estabas tranquila, tenias incluso ese guiño en el ojo izquierdo que tenias cuando dormias. te fuiste soñando, probablemente con tu hermano charles, con tu perra brigitte, tal vez la abuela herta estaba ahi. quizas tu viejo, buscando un perdon que solo alla arriba se puede obtener. por ahi estara d’agosto, rini, walter, el tata kazimierz tambien. incluso la negra sosa, que canto en tu honor durante la ceremonia.

claudia te maquillo, y yo puse entre tus manos un crucifijo. tu fe te ayudo a dejar este mundo en paz. tambien puse entre tus manos cartitas y dibujos que te hice cuando era nene. todo eso se fue con vos. tenias tu pulover preferido, el negro y rojo, te quedaba bien.

aca quedo el dolor. como siempre, los que la pasamos peor en estas situaciones son los que nos quedamos. el viejo estaba destrozado. el te queria mucho, a pesar de los años y de la distancia.

rezamos mucho, y no solo aqui en suiza. hubo rezos para vos en argentina, bolivia, inglaterra, uruguay, incluso en suecia. la gente se movilizo. vos ya lo sabes, quizas; el mundo es un poco mas triste desde que te fuiste. pero si la oracion sirve, entonces quiere decir que no te fuiste sola, sino acompañada.

yo, al menos, veo un mundo con otro color, con otro dolor. no se como explicarlo, pero las cosas tienen otro sabor, otra textura. no es mas gris, no es mas colorido, es simplemente diferente. paradojicamente, yo tambien estoy mas en paz.

no fui un hijo perfecto, vieja, pero siempre quise que seas feliz.

es lo que te susurre al oido la ultima vez que te vimos, antes de la ceremonia, te dije que seas feliz. donde quiera que estes, quiero que dejes esa mochila de dolor y la reemplaces por una de color.
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