There's a new public transport system in Barcelona called Bicing (it's "cool" and "hip" to anglicise words by adding an English suffix to the Spanish stem). It's a great system. It involves a network of bicycle "stations", which are essentially long racks of bikes. A user, who has paid an annual subscription for the service, swipes a card on a terminal and is assigned a bike. Simple, cheap and effective.
But that's not what I wanted to write about here (although I could spend a long time listing positive aspects of this new scheme, I will refrain). I noticed an interesting thing today when I went to get a bike from my local station.
The terminal has a display screen which displays the status of the station, instructions to the user, and error messages, all in three languages: Catalán, Castilian (also known simply as "Spanish" to non-Catalán people) and English. These three languages are each assigned a third of the screen, so all languages are displayed simultaneously and the user doesn't have to select a language.
The local "Catalanista" movement varies from seeking all-out independence from Spain to simply having special provisions made for Catalán culture. As a result, most things are presented in Catalán and things that aren't, for example some advertising at bus stops, tends to fall victim to graffiti claiming that the message would be more effective in the local language (which, one has to admit, makes sense!).
Anyway, the point is that this station had the middle third of the screen - the Castilian section - blanked out with a permanent marker, but the English section was intact. The message is clear: Foreign languages welcome, except Castilian!
EDIT: The last time I was in Barcelona (October 2008) I noticed that English has been removed from the Bicing stations. I believe this is ostensibly because the service is only being made available to residents, with no plans to offer short-term cards for tourists. If anybody knows differently, let me know.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Classified Interview
As some of you may know, I have been trying to get a job with Google for the last couple of months (yes, it actually takes that long). I had what I hope will be my final interviews in Dublin yesterday.
Before they interview you, they make you sign a non-disclosure agreement, because they are uber-secretive, so I hope I'm not revealing anything here which would ruin my employment chances...
Anyway, the point is that I was interviewing for a position as a software engineer. This is a broad term, at the best of times, and so I asked the recruiter to be more specific. The reply was that I would be working on "Internal Systems", which comprises a multiplicity of different things, among them finance & billing software. No more information was forthcoming.
I went to the interviews with a distinct feeling that I should be more prepared than simply knowing that it is IS and some finance&billing. As it turns out, this lack of knowledge on my part turned out not to be a problem. I was asked to write Java code to do a series of different things (my favourite was to find the smallest element in a stack in constant time), and there was no real mention of what the job would entail until I asked the second interviewer.
The second interviewer seemed unable to answer my questions, due to the Google culture of secrecy (which just makes it all the more enticing!). He was able to tell me that they do deal with some finance & billing, but that they mostly work on other things. Unfortunately, he was not at liberty to discuss any of those other things! He was able to tell me that they code in python, a lot and that they use Bayesian methods for one of their projects, but other than that, I am still completely in the dark.
So if Google call me in two weeks to offer me a job (fingers crossed), I will accept it on the basis that they hire programmers to work on cool problems, but I won't know anything about these cool problems until I show up for work! (and once they let me in on the secrets, I will, of course, not be telling anybody who reads this blog! :P)
Before they interview you, they make you sign a non-disclosure agreement, because they are uber-secretive, so I hope I'm not revealing anything here which would ruin my employment chances...
Anyway, the point is that I was interviewing for a position as a software engineer. This is a broad term, at the best of times, and so I asked the recruiter to be more specific. The reply was that I would be working on "Internal Systems", which comprises a multiplicity of different things, among them finance & billing software. No more information was forthcoming.
I went to the interviews with a distinct feeling that I should be more prepared than simply knowing that it is IS and some finance&billing. As it turns out, this lack of knowledge on my part turned out not to be a problem. I was asked to write Java code to do a series of different things (my favourite was to find the smallest element in a stack in constant time), and there was no real mention of what the job would entail until I asked the second interviewer.
The second interviewer seemed unable to answer my questions, due to the Google culture of secrecy (which just makes it all the more enticing!). He was able to tell me that they do deal with some finance & billing, but that they mostly work on other things. Unfortunately, he was not at liberty to discuss any of those other things! He was able to tell me that they code in python, a lot and that they use Bayesian methods for one of their projects, but other than that, I am still completely in the dark.
So if Google call me in two weeks to offer me a job (fingers crossed), I will accept it on the basis that they hire programmers to work on cool problems, but I won't know anything about these cool problems until I show up for work! (and once they let me in on the secrets, I will, of course, not be telling anybody who reads this blog! :P)
Monday, June 18, 2007
Night in Barcelona
The actual catalyst event for starting this blog was that something happened to me last night and I had to resist the urge to spam the CDB forum with details of it.
I went to the Gran Casino to play some poker. I like poker. I'm not terrible at it, like most people, so I like it more than most people. I don't get to play it enough. Anyway, I cycled down to the casino and marched in, looking forward to a pleasant night of taking money off drunken English tourists. Unfortunately, they refused to accept my ID. That's where the trouble began. I'm somewhat argumentative, to put it mildly.
They said that I would have to present a passport, which is their policy for non-European Union citizens. I was a bit annoyed at being inconvenienced in this way, and so I explained to them (somewhat indignantly) that Ireland joined the EU in 1973, a full 13 years before Spain did. The woman I spoke to received this remark with a degree of skepticism and then asked me if I was sure I was Irish (the problem for the average Spaniard being that when they are confronted with somebody speaking to them in a non-mainland Spanish accent, they assume the speaker is South American - possibly from Argentina! - and Spaniards are often, and historically, very racist towards their oppressed cousins in Latin America). After assuring her that I was, in fact, as Irish as my pink complexion suggested, she said she would not be able to let me in without a passport anyway.
At this stage, I should probably point out that I had proffered my Garda age card as proof of identification. For those of you not familiar with this particular accreditation, it is a simple ID that includes a photo, a full name and a date of birth. It is clearly marked with the logo of the Department of Justice and a hologram with a harp (not Guinness). It is primarily a proof of age, but it is as close as we have to a national identity card in Ireland, not including passports (I don't carry mine on me when I'm out and about) and driving licenses (I don't have one). It is reasonable identification in that it is clearly a state-issued document and it has a name and a photo on it. I made these points to the woman at reception and she looked at it with disdain and announced that she still couldn't accept it as it was not "official".
To a Spaniard, an official identity document contains a photo, full name, date of birth, current address, state identification number, details of current or past affiliations with the communist party (this is a lie), etc. and so they are not accustomed to dealing with people who don't consider this to be normal. Nonetheless, they asked me for proof of identification and I offered a document which identifies me in exactly the same way as my passport (except my passport also sates that I was born in Co. Down and gives a passport number (NOT a state identification number)). I made all these points to the woman, who simply said "No". Customer service is a non-existent art form in Spain, unfortunately. I insisted that my ID was as valid as anything else, according to the requirements they had stated, and she offered to bring the manager in.
The manager came over, didn't look at the ID and announced that it was not acceptable. I explained myself again. He asked me if I was sure I was Irish (what is with casino workers in Barcelona??) and then announced that he had seen the official Irish Identification document and that this was not it. Aha!, I thought. This man is clearly bullshitting me as he could not possibly have seen a non-existent document! I announced that he had seen no such thing, to which he took offence. He said that he had facsimiles of all the valid IDs in the European Union and that, if Ireland really was in the EU, which he doubted, he had an ID for it. I invited him to bring said ID out to compare it to mine, but he declined, citing "procedure".
At this stage, I asked him to give me a single reason why my ID was not valid and he answered that it did not have a state identification number. I told him that my PRSI number, which is probably what he wanted, was ********** and offered to show him my EHIC card, on which it is printed, along with my name, but not my photo. He then said "Aha! Another ID document" and announced that he doubted the legitimacy of either of them. I made the point that he could call the Irish embassy in the morning and ask them what they thought of the matter. He then asked me why an ID card issued by a state body wouldn't include an address and a state ID number. I replied that in Ireland we didn't have problems with fascist dictators who try to assign a number to each citizen and control them, as was the case in Spain.
At this point, he announced I was never getting in (Spain is sensitive about its dark past - when they wrote the constitution after Franco died, they included a clause which basically said that everybody would agree never to talk about the fascist dictatorship years. They are only getting round to amending that now) and so I said I would like to make a formal complaint to the body which governs casinos in Cataluña. He said that I would have to make a "denuncia" to the local police and that he would be happy to call them to eject me from the premises.
It was at this point that I felt it would be prudent to leave, as the Spanish police is notoriously heavy-handed, especially with foreigners, and especially with foreigners who have referred to the fascist aspect of Spain.
So I left, and went for a cycle around the port, which is very nice at night time. My brother called me as I arrived home and told me to come and meet him outside his house for a street concert.
This is the opposite end of the Spanish spectrum, away from the bureaucracy and the uptight, prudish upper class. There was a stage erected in a "plaza", which was really just an area with some trees and some benches. A ska band was blasting out tunes until 3am, in the middle of a residential area. There was a bar with cheap drink, run by grungy looking people in dreadlocks openly smoking joints and enjoying their night. Up at the stage, people were skanking away to music which was not the ubiquitous Hip-hop/RnB/DrumnBass pop disco-bar bullshit. There was no apparent reason for this concert. Presumably there was some sort of feast day, but these things are quite regular in Barcelona.
You just don't see either of these things in Ireland, and that is both good (less fascism) and bad (less fun).
I went to the Gran Casino to play some poker. I like poker. I'm not terrible at it, like most people, so I like it more than most people. I don't get to play it enough. Anyway, I cycled down to the casino and marched in, looking forward to a pleasant night of taking money off drunken English tourists. Unfortunately, they refused to accept my ID. That's where the trouble began. I'm somewhat argumentative, to put it mildly.
They said that I would have to present a passport, which is their policy for non-European Union citizens. I was a bit annoyed at being inconvenienced in this way, and so I explained to them (somewhat indignantly) that Ireland joined the EU in 1973, a full 13 years before Spain did. The woman I spoke to received this remark with a degree of skepticism and then asked me if I was sure I was Irish (the problem for the average Spaniard being that when they are confronted with somebody speaking to them in a non-mainland Spanish accent, they assume the speaker is South American - possibly from Argentina! - and Spaniards are often, and historically, very racist towards their oppressed cousins in Latin America). After assuring her that I was, in fact, as Irish as my pink complexion suggested, she said she would not be able to let me in without a passport anyway.
At this stage, I should probably point out that I had proffered my Garda age card as proof of identification. For those of you not familiar with this particular accreditation, it is a simple ID that includes a photo, a full name and a date of birth. It is clearly marked with the logo of the Department of Justice and a hologram with a harp (not Guinness). It is primarily a proof of age, but it is as close as we have to a national identity card in Ireland, not including passports (I don't carry mine on me when I'm out and about) and driving licenses (I don't have one). It is reasonable identification in that it is clearly a state-issued document and it has a name and a photo on it. I made these points to the woman at reception and she looked at it with disdain and announced that she still couldn't accept it as it was not "official".
To a Spaniard, an official identity document contains a photo, full name, date of birth, current address, state identification number, details of current or past affiliations with the communist party (this is a lie), etc. and so they are not accustomed to dealing with people who don't consider this to be normal. Nonetheless, they asked me for proof of identification and I offered a document which identifies me in exactly the same way as my passport (except my passport also sates that I was born in Co. Down and gives a passport number (NOT a state identification number)). I made all these points to the woman, who simply said "No". Customer service is a non-existent art form in Spain, unfortunately. I insisted that my ID was as valid as anything else, according to the requirements they had stated, and she offered to bring the manager in.
The manager came over, didn't look at the ID and announced that it was not acceptable. I explained myself again. He asked me if I was sure I was Irish (what is with casino workers in Barcelona??) and then announced that he had seen the official Irish Identification document and that this was not it. Aha!, I thought. This man is clearly bullshitting me as he could not possibly have seen a non-existent document! I announced that he had seen no such thing, to which he took offence. He said that he had facsimiles of all the valid IDs in the European Union and that, if Ireland really was in the EU, which he doubted, he had an ID for it. I invited him to bring said ID out to compare it to mine, but he declined, citing "procedure".
At this stage, I asked him to give me a single reason why my ID was not valid and he answered that it did not have a state identification number. I told him that my PRSI number, which is probably what he wanted, was ********** and offered to show him my EHIC card, on which it is printed, along with my name, but not my photo. He then said "Aha! Another ID document" and announced that he doubted the legitimacy of either of them. I made the point that he could call the Irish embassy in the morning and ask them what they thought of the matter. He then asked me why an ID card issued by a state body wouldn't include an address and a state ID number. I replied that in Ireland we didn't have problems with fascist dictators who try to assign a number to each citizen and control them, as was the case in Spain.
At this point, he announced I was never getting in (Spain is sensitive about its dark past - when they wrote the constitution after Franco died, they included a clause which basically said that everybody would agree never to talk about the fascist dictatorship years. They are only getting round to amending that now) and so I said I would like to make a formal complaint to the body which governs casinos in Cataluña. He said that I would have to make a "denuncia" to the local police and that he would be happy to call them to eject me from the premises.
It was at this point that I felt it would be prudent to leave, as the Spanish police is notoriously heavy-handed, especially with foreigners, and especially with foreigners who have referred to the fascist aspect of Spain.
So I left, and went for a cycle around the port, which is very nice at night time. My brother called me as I arrived home and told me to come and meet him outside his house for a street concert.
This is the opposite end of the Spanish spectrum, away from the bureaucracy and the uptight, prudish upper class. There was a stage erected in a "plaza", which was really just an area with some trees and some benches. A ska band was blasting out tunes until 3am, in the middle of a residential area. There was a bar with cheap drink, run by grungy looking people in dreadlocks openly smoking joints and enjoying their night. Up at the stage, people were skanking away to music which was not the ubiquitous Hip-hop/RnB/DrumnBass pop disco-bar bullshit. There was no apparent reason for this concert. Presumably there was some sort of feast day, but these things are quite regular in Barcelona.
You just don't see either of these things in Ireland, and that is both good (less fascism) and bad (less fun).
My First Blog
What the internet really, truly needs right now is another blogger. I am the very cove who can fulfill that need. All I need to do is get me some goggles, a red cape and a hot air balloon (?).
Up until very recently, I was under the mistaken impression that Blogs are glorified personal diaries kept by losers and emo kids. As it turns out, this is only true of most blogs. As for my blog, it will fit into the loser category (death to emo kids!).
My raison du blogging, if you'll pardon my French and my pretentiousness, is that I like to write stupid junk about things. I have written a few pieces for my ultimate team, Captain Drinking Binge, and I also post too much random stuff on the forum there. I get a kick out of reading things I've written in the past, so I thought I might as well archive them for more efficient narcissism. Hence, this blog.
So this blog isn't really for your benefit at all, dear reader. My ego is just that big. It's a blog for me, by me! But just in case you are a genuine reader and are confused by my ramblings, let me say that a lot of the posts here will probably mention stuff like the fact that I am a computer nerd, I live in Barcelona, I'm a translator, I play ultimate, I'm Irish (and have a love/hate relationship with the country), etc.
And that is my introduction. Coming up next: a genuine post!
Up until very recently, I was under the mistaken impression that Blogs are glorified personal diaries kept by losers and emo kids. As it turns out, this is only true of most blogs. As for my blog, it will fit into the loser category (death to emo kids!).
My raison du blogging, if you'll pardon my French and my pretentiousness, is that I like to write stupid junk about things. I have written a few pieces for my ultimate team, Captain Drinking Binge, and I also post too much random stuff on the forum there. I get a kick out of reading things I've written in the past, so I thought I might as well archive them for more efficient narcissism. Hence, this blog.
So this blog isn't really for your benefit at all, dear reader. My ego is just that big. It's a blog for me, by me! But just in case you are a genuine reader and are confused by my ramblings, let me say that a lot of the posts here will probably mention stuff like the fact that I am a computer nerd, I live in Barcelona, I'm a translator, I play ultimate, I'm Irish (and have a love/hate relationship with the country), etc.
And that is my introduction. Coming up next: a genuine post!
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