H. Mijail's Blog

No recuerdo las palabras exactas, pero me preguntó cuándo venía el autobús 111. Hasta hoy siempre que me dirigían la palabra directamente decía "lo siento, no hablo polaco". Pero ya me había propuesto intentar responder algo útil la próxima vez... así que respondí. — Przypraszam... sto jedenasty? ( perdón, ¿111? ) — Tak — pareció sorprendida. Quizás notó mi pronunciación o hice la pregunta de forma rara... Consulté el horario. — O... szóstej.... jeden. ( a las 6:01 ) Me miraba atenta, quizás algo divertida. — Parlez vous français? — Do you speak english? — Deutsche? — Español? — Aaah, nie, nie... Nos sonreímos. Suspiré y lo volví a intentar. — O szóstej jeden. ( a las 6:01 ) — Jeden? ( 1? ) — Tak, jeden. ( Si, 1 ) — Dzękuje. ( Gracias ) — Proszę. ( De nada ) Me alejé un par de pasos, para mirar si llegaba el autobús (¡ya eran las 6:03!). Y oí que la mujer hablaba con otra, diciendo algo de " es que es español ", " ah, español... y habla polaco? ", ... so

Empezó resultándome difícil de entender y de acertar la pronunciación del polaco. Pero ahora los polacos con los que intento hablar me dicen que pronuncio muy bien... y todo se debe a un pequeño truco que se me ocurrió para simplificar las normas que me daban en clase. Es muy simple, así que a ver si le sirve a alguien más (y con esto comienzo mi contribución a la mente global ;P). Se aplica a las palabras con sz, dz, rz y sus "equivalentes" (ż,ź, que habrá que "desdoblar" mentalmente). Y es tan simple como intentar pronunciar (¡con pronunciación polaca!) TODAS las letras individuales que están escritas, pero sin esforzarse demasiado. No tienen que llegar a sonar: basta con hacer el esfuerzo inicial y dejar cada letra a mitad, pasando a la siguiente. Por ejemplo: drożdżówka -> drorzdrzuwka. Terrible, ¿eh? Pues lo dicho, empiezas a pronunciar la r, y antes de que llegue a sonar una r bien formada, te olvidas de ella y empiezas a pronunciar la z (polaca!). De nu

Resulta interesante que, sin intentarlo demasiado (el argumento es más un cuentecito que otra cosa), Wall-E acabe siendo realista (e interesante) de sobra como para olvidarse de los trocitos más simplones. E incluso se puede decir que lleva mensaje. He tenido que leer alguna crítica para darme cuenta de que Wall-E no habla en toda la película. Aunque claro, la he visto en polaco, y los trozos en que se hablaba apenas los podía seguir. Y por cierto, ahora tendré que buscar algún subtítulo para ver si entendí bien qué pasaba en algún momento clave. Me encantaron los créditos finales. Una optimista visión de un nuevo comienzo para la humanidad... con robots... a través de la historia del arte... con música de Peter Grabriel. Chapeau . Y una bonita alternativa a la nueva humanidad de "Canciones de la Lejana Tierra", de Clarke (por qué no tenían robots?? no lo había pensado antes!), o a la Tierra habitada por los inútiles golganfrinchans de Douglas Adams . Pero no nos engañemo

Interesting how without trying too hard to be realistic (the argument is more of a little fairy tale without much pretenses) it gets realistic and interesting and funny enough to forget the most simplistic parts. And to pack some message, too. I loved the final credits. A beautiful and optimistic alternative to the new human society of Clarke's Songs of Distant Earth, or the one in Douglas Adams' Golganfrinchans-inhabited Earth . Lovely quick recount of human art history - with robots. To the sound of Peter Gabriel. The Filthy Critic nails it again. ( Wall-E is a robot, yet he has way more personality than Hollywood's other robot, Tom Cruise. I love you, man.) Oh, and he seems to think that I shouldn't see Batman. Which is what I was suspecting after seeing the ads in the cinema, anyway. The short Presto was also nice; looks like more people are looking for its connection with Portal. The carrot should have been a cake... a delicious and moist

Half-assed regurgitation of whatever anyone said before. "Hey, but I heard someone said…". People turning into instant experts and talking out of their asses and wild-guessing and pontificating, even when (or because?) no one knows yet what really happened. It's SO easy to want to change things a posteriori. "Periodists" that know no better than asking familiars of the dead about their feelings - while they are in their way to the corpse recognition rounds. News casters in the fucking national TV asking pilots and aeronautical engineers things like "why don't they make the airplanes harder?". Maybe the real newscaster was on holidays and this was some kind of retarded placeholder?  Imbeciles coming out of the woodwork to explain why they prefer travelling by car.  Overwhelming.

I started the blog at wikyblog.com , since I had some plans about the wiky part... although mostly in a single-writer way. But there were some problems (as a matter of fact, this weekend the whole domain has gone offline!, as in "domain-expired-offline"...), so let's see what happens here. The other option would be a WordPress blog, maybe even in my own hosting, but... I have more pressing things to do with my time/money/dedication. We'll see.

About 3 weeks ago, I had to buy the 3G modem Toshiba G450 because Polish operator Play would not let me get the plan I wanted without it. A few hours later, I had to accept that there are no Mac OS X drivers for it! Which would have made me, say, unhappy, had I not had my trusty Huawei E220. The only information I have been able to come up with are amazed reviews from gadget websites. Not even a driver for Linux... And this happens when I was thinking about polishing my low-level development powers (there is more to life than Java and C#, you know!)... so, why not take the chance to learn about what is needed to make a driver? The modem uses the ZeroCD "trick" of appearing as a USB drive to the OS, until it receives an existent-but-generally-unused-in-USB-drives command; at that moment, the drive is "unplugged" and a new device appears in the bus: the modem. So in the USB drive that appears first, there is a driver installer (for Windows, of course). The use

I never thought I would begin a blog talking about a movie, but so be it. After all, it has been a long time since a film didn't hit me like this one (maybe "Solaris", about 5 years ago?). And what the hell, I should start one way or another. And am missing a good debate. Let's see how this goes. "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it" Those who cannot remember the past, but are informed of it (not too vividly, maybe)... can accept it? Even have a 2nd chance? (I would love that branch to be explored with the same guts) "External memories": the sore fist after the punch in Memento, the attraction in ESotSM, ... (though the first is a consequence, the second a cause). Anyway, for some reason, I was (so!) thankful that the word "predestination" didn't pop up. Would have been too cheap, I guess. (I was now looking for the word "predestination" in the english subtitles now just to be sure... but no