Brunosan 2013-12-04T22:35:35-05:00 / Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño Copyright (c) 2004-2012, Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño ; some rights reserved. Managing work/personal Calendars 2013-10-24T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/10/24/managing-work-personal-calendars <p><a href="/media/cal-cover.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/cal-cover.png " class="center" /></a></p> <blockquote><p>Lately I have been asked about how do I manage my Calendars. My system is far from ideal, but turns out to be much better than what many people seem to use.</p></blockquote> <h3>The problem</h3> <ul> <li>I want to have separate calendars for personal stuff and work stuff.</li> <li>I don´t want my coworkers to see my personal details but I want to let them know I´ll be busy.</li> <li>I want to let someone else manage my work calendar if needed.</li> <li>I want to have an updated calendar across all my devices. That also means to see/edit/add events using the Cal App on my Mac or my phones (Android and iPhone).</li> </ul> <h3>The solution</h3> <p>Tools: Google Calendar for personal use, using Google Apps at work.</p> <p>TL;DR: Make a work calendar and a personal calendar. Share your personal calendar with your work colleagues as &ldquo;free/busy&rdquo;. Share work calendar with your personal email with full access so you can transfer event between calendars.</p> <!--more--> <ol> <li><strong>Personal calendar</strong>: Go to the calendar on your personal Google account and make a calendar called &ldquo;Bruno personal&rdquo;. Then go to sharing and share it: <ul> <li>Share with full rights with your work email.</li> <li>Share as &ldquo;free/busy&rdquo; with the coworkers you need. This is the part that scales bad, you need to add them one by one.</li> </ul> </li> <li><p><strong>Work calendar</strong>: Got to the Google Calendar on your work account, create a calendar called &ldquo;Bruno MapBox&rdquo;. Go to settings to share it:</p> <ul> <li>Share it with your personal email with full rights.</li> <li>Select the option to share full details with all your coworkers.</li> <li>Add whoever should have edit access.</li> <li>Pro tip: The <em>admin</em> of the domain can change the default option across all coworkers to share all details with everyone within the organization.</li> </ul> <p> <a href="/media/cal-share.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/cal-share.png " class="center" /></a></p></li> <li><p><strong>On your Mac</strong>: Set up the accounts, and then go to settings and add, under delegates, the extra accounts you have access to (do not include your personal account on the work calendar or the personal calendar on your work account to avoid duplication). Use consistent colors (in my case I choose red for my stuff and blue tones for work colleagues and team calendars)</p></li> </ol> <p> <a href="/media/cal-mac-app.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/cal-mac-app.png " class="center" /></a></p> <ol> <li><p><strong>On your iPhone/Android</strong>: Probably you don´t need to do anything since the settings are mostly inherited from Mac to the iTunes and from Google to Android. Make sure you use the same colors and avoid duplications.</p></li> <li><p><strong>On the web</strong>: I like to activate, under labs a few extra options. You can also activate &ldquo;Tasks&rdquo; and your (Google) tasks will show up and if they have a deadline they will appear on the calendar. Use consistent colors. If you want you can add the calendars from any colleagues (the <em>admin</em> can activate the option company-wide for work calendars. If not they need to add you manually). Make sure to check the tool &ldquo;Find a time&rdquo; under &ldquo;New appointment&rdquo;. It allows you add participants and, if you have access to their calendar, you will see if they can make it or not.</p></li> </ol> <p> <a href="/media/cal-find-time.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/cal-find-time.png " class="center" /></a></p> <ol> <li>If you use <a href="">Tripit</a> (you should) add it as another calendar to see all your flights, reservations and information from any device.</li> </ol> <p>Done.</p> <p>Now, wherever you are you can create an event on either calendar (directly from your devices or from the web). You´ll see personal and work stuff in different colors. Coworkers will see your work stuff and busy slots when busy with personal events.</p> <p><em>[Cover image from <a href="">t_trace</a> ]</em></p> Running an Olympic triathlon 2013-09-08T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/09/08/running-an-olympic-triathlon <p><a href="/media/tri-finish.JPG "> <img width="100%" src="/media/tri-finish.JPG " class="center" /></a></p> <p>One day, I will not be lucky, fit and crazy enough to do a triathlon. That day was not today. I did the <a href="">Nation´s triathlon</a> which is an Olympic tri: 1.5 km swimming, 40 Km on the bike and 10 Km running.</p> <!--more--> <p>&ldquo;That day is not today&rdquo; is what I was thinking when I woke up at 4am. I committed to this back in January and since then I had racked up around 500 running miles, 700 miles riding the bike and 60 miles swimming. Far below from any online plan. I was relying on just finishing and having done 2 marathons last year.</p> <p>7:10 am and I´m eagerly waiting in line on the platform over the Potomac for the whistle to jump into an unknown experience. Was my training enough?, Can I finish this?, Should I start slow, like a marathon?, Will the other swimmers kick me?&hellip; As the whistle sounds I jump mechanically into the void. For a moment everything is mute. No sounds from the loudspeaker, nothing to see but brown water. I wait to surface and the race is on.</p> <p>Forward, pushing always forward. I mentally focus on the training I´ve done, <em>this is the same thing, just not in the pool</em>. The turnaround of the swim is below the bridge far away but I focus on each 100m buoy. It is not easy to sight your bearings and avoid other people. As I am breathing towards the turnaround I get a glimpse of the sunrise over the river waters. Beautiful. Life is beautiful, and I´m so lucky, and crazy. Hopefully fit too. I can feel my body tunning into swimming mode, so I focus on keeping it, reaching out, long strokes, just like the pool. I start to see people from previous waves (another color cap), feels great. I know I´m not a good swimmer, but I´m holding good. Getting to shore feels amazing. Swimming is my hardest leg, and it´s done.</p> <p><a href="/media/tri-swim.JPG "> <img width="100%" src="/media/tri-swim.JPG " class="center" /></a></p> <p>I run to the transition zone, but my body commands to slow down. I just can´t run. Too tired. I walk a bit, get to the bike, gulp some water, some dates, and I´m out with the bike. I´ve only done 2 long rides while training, it is not my bike and I don´t have clip pedals, (so I´m riding with my running shoes). Still I have aerobars that you can lean forward and be aerodynamic. This is going to be interesting. 2 loops of 20 Km each.</p> <p>Right on the start a guy with a fancy white bike passes me in a swoosh, and without thinking I push to get him. These bikes can be 10.000$ but I´m ready to challenge myself and try my best with the gear I borrowed from a friend 2 days before. Drafting is not allowed, but I speed up to get him because I want to push myself, I need to or I´ll be too slow. I pass him back and another guy with another fancy swoosshy red bike passes me. And I go again. The three of us spent the whole 40K passing each other, every 5 minutes at most. I think this was the key to make an awesome bike leg. I <em>averaged</em> 22 mph (35 km/h). I could hardly push further. We were not the first, but only a handful other riders passed us. I had to force myself to drink and eat energy gels. As we were cruising the city I got glimpses of the landmarks, the river, the monuments, the sun. I felt lucky, fit, and great. Suffering and enjoying it at the same time.</p> <p><a href="/media/tri-bike.JPG "> <img width="100%" src="/media/tri-bike.JPG " class="center" /></a></p> <p>Back to the transition zone. On my forearm I had written my row number. It is hard enought to run but the transition zone is like an beehive of people getting out of the swim and the bike. Drop the bike. Get a bite of an energy bar, and off to the run. No thinking. It was hard to mentally deal with running one more hour, but I had no pain, just tired. No excuses, you´ve done a great job so far. The running movements felt uneasy, forced and new. Can I do this after the swim and the bike? Yes, this is just a 10K run. i<em>You´ve done many of these runs training!</em> I tried to recreate the feeling of my long training runs or the end part of a marathon, hoping I would find my running state soon. I also saw a guy running slightly faster than me ahead, so I focused on him. Humans evolved hunting as persistence runners, and it also makes it easy to empty your mind. I need to keep the distance to him. It was hard, I could hardly push more, and I had to keep it for one hour more. After 15 minutes or so, they guy ahead saw his family, he sped up, so I was loosing him. But then he slowed down a few feet later. He was mine. I passed him and tried to look for another moving target. I started feeling better so I pushed more (run listening to your body they say). Only 4 miles to go. I was going to do it.</p> <p>At this point your ups and downs swing quickly. The sun is shinning, a few runners are now passing me super fast, but I focus on my body. It´s hard, challenging, but I can do this, and I enjoy that. Again this weird feeling of suffer and joy at once. No pains at all. The track deviates and it´s very hard to turn when the end line was just straight ahead. The only thing keeping me running now is the body inertia of the pace. If I stop it´s over.</p> <p>As I turn the last bend and I see the arch at the finish line, I start to smile. I can barely sprint as I had wanted, but I can hold this pace (which turned out to be faster than most of my trainings). Every step feels me with joy, pride and the feeling of <em>completing</em> and triathlon. No idea of the time, but it´s here. I cannot resist to smile, throwing the hands up in victory, and people cheer for me. I´m coming alone. The guy with the loudspeaker reads my number, checks the name and he is cheering me by name. Also Antonio and Aniceto are shouting but I didn´t hear them. The last steps are pure joy, pure challenge but knowing it´s done. Pretty tired, but no pain anywhere, and feeling absolutely amazing.</p> <p><a href="/media/tri-run.JPG "> <img width="100%" src="/media/tri-run.JPG " class="center" /></a></p> <p>Turns out my estimate of 3 hours was way off. <a href=";AthleteSearch=397&amp;Division=All:1378680178590">My official time</a> is 2 hours 34 minutes, an incredible time to me. The swimming was just on par to my best trainings in the pool, the bike was the best of my legs, where I <em>averaged</em> 35 km/h on a mostly flat course. The run was 47 minutes, 7:35 minutes per mile (my record in 10K -only running- is 44:15 minutes). Many things could have gone wrong today, but few could have gone better. I can´t say being vegan helps or not, but I lost a few Kg in this training (again, like for the marathon, I´m around 145 pounds/ 65kg) and I feel great.</p> <p><a href="/media/tri-medal.JPG "> <img width="100%" src="/media/tri-medal.JPG " class="center" /></a></p> <p>Overall I really enjoyed this challenge, but the training is just too hard. Just like I felt training for a marathon, the training is worse than the race, more so on a triathlon. Swimming is hard, and bike is both dangerous and time consuming. Training often, training several sports in one day, gathering the gear, &hellip; Crossing the line is an amazing feeling, and the most visible step of a huge challenge. Kudos to everyone who raced today, or is currently training.</p> Joining MapBox as Chief Scientist 2013-08-12T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/08/12/joining-mapbox-as-chief-scientist <p><a href="/media/mapboxlogo.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/mapboxlogo.png " class="center" /></a></p> <p>I´ve joined <a href="">MapBox</a> as <a href="">Chief Scientist</a>! This is a long coming love story, possible thanks to my recent <a href="/2013/07/22/alien-with-extraordinary-ability/"><em>extraordinary</em> visa</a>. An amazing next stop on my journey to bridge Science and Technology with Society at large. I am very excited to join this awesome team.</p> <p>Think of MapBox as a mix of Wikipedia for maps (leveraging the power of open data and crowds) and Apple style to master a product that is beautiful, fast and breaks beyond convention. Faster, better, open maps for anything that has a location.</p> <p>Opening the <em>geo</em> space&hellip; What is MapBox doing?</p> <ul> <li>A <a href="">cloudless Satellite map</a> of the whole world.</li> <li>Maps provider for Github, Foursquare, Financial Time, Le Monde, USA Today, &hellip; See <a href="">Showcase</a></li> <li>Street level satellite image <a href="">fresh from space</a> (this was my first blog post, on my first week here) .</li> <li>Monitoring <a href="">deforestation in the Amazonas</a>.</li> <li><a href="">Map of Mars</a>.</li> <li><a href="">TileMill</a>, a free app to style your map data.</li> <li>An incredibly huge <a href="">code repository</a>, and guidelines to process your data using only open source software (<a href="">e.g.</a>). &hellip;</li> </ul> <p>And this is just a sneak peak of what has already shipped in <a href="">less than 3 years</a>. Btw, <a href="">we are hiring</a>.</p> <p>A real garage start-up&hellip; Well, a garage with glass doors that we open on summer days, couches, fossball, free food and drinks, computers hanging on the walls, a bar space, bike rack, meeting rooms that actually are <em>hanging out</em> rooms since there are virtually no meetings &hellip;</p> <p><a href="/media/mapboxgarage.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/mapboxgarage.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>MapBox, <strong>let´s dance.</strong></p> <p> <iframe width="100%" height="400" frameborder="0" src=""></iframe></p> Alien with extraordinary Abilities 2013-07-22T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/07/22/alien-with-extraordinary-ability <p>It´s official: I´m an &ldquo;<a href=";vgnextchannel=b9930b89284a3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD">Alien with Extraordinary Ability</a>&rdquo;. Today I have received official notice of my <a href="">O1 visa</a>.</p> <p><a href="/media/visaO1.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/visaO1.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p><em>Can I use this as a pick up line?</em></p> Mi vida en el Max Planck 2013-06-17T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/06/17/mi-vida-en-el-max-planck <p><em>-Last week it was announced that <a href=";anio=2013&amp;especifica=0&amp;idCategoria=0">The 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation has gone to the Max Planck Society</a>. The Asturias newspaper &ldquo;<a href="">El comercio</a>&rdquo; asked me to tell their readers how is it to make a PhD at the Max Planck. This is what I sent. &ndash;</em></p> <p><a href="/media/max-planck-comercio.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/max-planck-comercio.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>Todavía me quedaban ocho asignaturas de la carrera de Física, cuando en febrero solicité mi beca de doctorado al Max Planck. Mi profesor de Física Estelar II me lo recomendó.Yo acababa de llegar de Oviedo a La Laguna para terminar la carrera con la especialidad de Astrofísica y me pareció una locura. Los pocos compañeros a los que se lo dije me dijeron que me olvidase. Imposible. No me lo podía creer cuando en junio me invitaron a ir a dar una charla al comité de selección para la última fase. Nunca me olvidaré de que al acabar la misma todos los asistentes, investigadores de alto rango, se pusieron a dar golpes en las mesas, como llamando a la puerta. Luego supe que esa es la forma de aplaudir en academia en Alemania. Sólo aceptarían a nueve de los veinte candidatos, de entre los más de 500 que se habían presentado. Todos tenían excepcionales cualidades.</p> <!--more--> <p>Mis tres últimos exámenes de septiembre los pase con la presión y el orgullo de tener una beca en el Max Planck esperándome. En enero de 2005 me mudé a Alemania para empezar mi doctorado en física solar con el Max Planck y la Universidad de Goettingen. En mi caso era el Instituto Max Planck para el Estudio del Sistema Solar y Mas Allá. Mi contrato era de tres años para estudiar la atmósfera solar, con un director de tesis muy experimentado, instalaciones y recursos punteros, acceso a los mejores telescopios solares del mundo (volviendo a Tenerife), un salario de unos 1000 € netos al mes y un despacho. Además, Goettingen resultó ser una ciudad universitaria con mucho ambiente, y situada en el centro de Europa. No sabía decir ni “hola” en alemán, pero no pude ir con más ganas y menos dudas.</p> <p>El Max Planck es un centro muy competitivo donde se trabaja duro. Reúnen a los mejores investigadores y les ofrecen buenas condiciones, pero también esperan mucho de ellos. Fueron tres años muy intensos aprendiendo con los mejores profesionales. Mi doctorado obtuvo un “magna cum laude”, pero además publiqué tres artículos en revistas académicas -uno de ellos portada- asistí a cuatro conferencias internacionales presentando pósters o charlas. Pasé en total unos 100 días en el telescopio VTT en Tenerife . Publiqué artículos de divulgación dentro y fuera de España. La NASA publicó mis datos de divulgación un par de veces. En el Max Planck participé en unos catorce cursos y seminarios sobre temas avanzados para que obtuviésemos la mejor visión posible de campos similares al nuestro y de lo que nuestros compañeros hacían. Además, cada uno de nosotros teníamos que presentar su trabajo y se incentivaba el cruce de colaboraciones dentro y fuera del Instituto. Para el eclipse solar de 2006 en Turquía nos organizaron un viaje para verlo y que todo el Instituto aprendiese sobre física solar.</p> <p>Básicamente mi tesis consistía en ayudar a entender por qué la atmósfera del Sol esta más caliente que su superficie. Parece contradictorio si el calor viene de dentro del Sol. Mi trabajo era usar los mejores instrumentos en los telescopios solares de Canarias para registrar la dinámica de las nubes de plasma de la atmósfera solar. Procesar los datos para extraer la mejor señal e información posible, y luego usar las teorías del momento para ver si podían explicar las observaciones. Un largo proceso que involucraba aprender desde Óptica, para entender el funcionamiento del telescopio, hasta magnetohidrodinámica, para entender las ondas de plasma que veía en los datos.</p> <p>Más de cuatro años después, mantengo contacto con muchos de mis compañeros de entonces. Están los que siguen trabajando en el Max Planck, los que trabajan para la NASA, los que se han vuelto a su país para trabajar en la universidad en puestos relevantes, los que se han pasado a otros campos de la ciencia, divulgación o temas completamente diferentes.</p> <p>Mi tiempo en el Max Planck terminó cuando tuve la posibilidad de trabajar con cohetes y satélites de la NASA en Washington DC. Pero por encima del honroso título y el paso a mi siguiente capítulo, me formé como científico y persona. Aprendí sobre la física solar, la ciencia en general y la vida; junto con mis compañeros, con quien muchos de ellos aún mantengo un buen contacto. Cada dos años el Instituto organiza conferencias para reunir a los antiguos doctorandos y mantener un grupo unido.</p> <p>He tenido el honor de comprobar el alto nivel de prestigio que ostenta esta institución, lo mucho que cuida a sus trabajadores y las relaciones dentro y fuera de sus paredes, durante y después de trabajar con ellos. Es por eso que me enorgullece leer sobre el premio que la Fundación Príncipe de Asturias otorga al Max Planck, más que justificado en el apartado de cooperación.</p> <p>Mi agradecimiento al Instituto Max Planck, que me dio la oportunidad de recibir una sólida formación. Bien me hubiera gustado haber podido realizar o continuar mi trabajo en España, país donde tenemos grandes talentos pero en el que triste y equivocadamente, a mi juicio, la política de inversión en investigación y ciencia no es una prioridad.</p> <p>Después de dos años en el laboratorio de cohetes, pasé a la Academia de Ciencias de EEUU para hacer política científica. Actualmente soy Director de Ciencia y Tecnología de una ONG sobre cambio climático. Soy “Joven Líder Mundial” del Foro Económico Mundial y asesoro a varias empresas y ONGs sobre asuntos científicos y tecnológicos.</p> My Impact Journey to rural Myanmar 2013-06-16T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/06/16/my-impact-journey-to-rural-myanmar <p><em>&ndash; During my recent trip to Myanmar (or Burma, or Birmania) we had the chance to visit a rural village. This was part of the <a href="">World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders</a> meeting. This is a little report about the experience.&ndash;</em></p> <p><a href="" title="Myanmar by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="500" height="375" alt="Myanmar"></a></p> <p>Kungyangon Township is roughly 3 hours southwest of Yangon. I write &ldquo;roughly&rdquo; because the drivers of our 4 SUV parade, with police, lost their way. Not much to blame since some of the roads, bridges or even the village itself are not on the map. Oddly enough I could still spot the missed turn with my GPS and the data I had downloaded on the hotel Wifi. We also had, as I was told by our local translator, a group of 30 police that the government sent to &ldquo;protect us&rdquo;. Problem is they sent it to another village with a similar name, so we never saw them.</p> <!--more--> <p>Leaving Yangon itself took 40 minutes, as the roads are flooded with cars. On our way back a police motorbike tried to open the parade with lights and sounds, with much despair. The road infrastructure is not prepared to the boom of cars that is flooding the streets after the government suddenly eased the licenses to buy cars. This move also devalued previous cars by 90% as a local told us. Construction to build overpasses, similar to Bangkok and other cities, is underway which also complicates traffic around the city. In the outskirts of the city we saw new factories surrounded by rapidly growing slums literally built over the swamp waters.</p> <p><a href="" title="Myanmar by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="500" height="279" alt="Myanmar"></a></p> <p>Once in the countryside we saw beautiful scenery of inundated crop lands, other fields and green vegetation. Along the route there was a constant trickle of illegal traders and motorbikers which set up a inter-village transportation system. As we arrived to Taungone village inside Kungyangon township, with barely paved roads, we split into 3 groups to optimize our time. Some went to villages close by lucky enough to have electricity and schools, some not. Our visit was arranged by <a href="">Proximity Designs</a>, an NGO which basically manufactures low-cost versions of agricultural technology to help local farmers save time and increase productivity. For example, a raised water reservoir filled using a pedal-pump to later irrigate with a gravity assisted drop system. They sell those products together with some money to buy seeds, and they let them repay over time when the harvest comes.</p> <p>The house our group visited belongs to the neighbor of the village who serves as the contact and first-user of the NGO services. In his house, a 3 foot raised palm-tree cube where they live, sleep and socialize, we were greeted also by his family and a few neighbors excited and honoured to get to know us. They had also prepared plenty of food and drinks, that we respectfully had to decline. Primarily we wanted to learn from them, answer any question they might have for us, and see what they wanted for their future and how we could help.</p> <p><a href="" title="Myanmar by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="500" height="375" alt="Myanmar"></a></p> <p>They greatly appreciate the innovations Proximity provides, as they save time to do other things and get better harvest. They sell most of their harvest. They had to build everything after the Cyclone Nargis in 2008 yet they were not focusing in building better resilience or moving out. They don´t have a mindset of using the profit to invest, to build a better house or to move to a better place. Their profits had other priorities, which left nothing more. They use the money for two things: send kids to school, and &ldquo;donate to the poor&rdquo;. Struck by their compassion by wanted to know more. It seems that compassion and community caring are strong parts of their culture (mostly <a href="">buddhist</a>). In their words, “making full use of what is given, and giving more to what is taken. It doesn´t matter if you are poor or rich, dumb or Noble prize winner. What you take is your standard of living, what you give shows your character.”</p> <p>When the kids go, too early, to the city, the panorama is not easy. Their salary, at the factories, is roughly 70$/month, they have living expenses of around 45$/month, and they send back to their parents around 20$/month. As they say, this is not a favorable long term solutions, and they seek local jobs. They wanted factories closeby so their kids don´t need to leave and collectively improve as a community.</p> <p>One of their actions is to sustain a local school for orphans and kids whose parents are too poor to send them to the public school. That school in particular was created by a Chinese Grammy or Nobel prize winner (they could not tell which one). This year they were struggling to fund it, but they were proud of making their best to help. Total cost of education per each of the 80 kids was around 20$/year. At that point my wallet with 40$ felt really heavy. We asked to visit the school if possible and we were heart struck by the school.</p> <p><a href="" title="Myanmar by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="375" height="500" alt="Myanmar"></a></p> <p>Driven purely by our empathy and compassion we shared our experience with fellow YGLs on later days and we raised over 1300$ for that school. But at the same time we also debated about this action. Why even that school and not others that are even less served? Should you give them the money, as easy as it is for us to provide great help? Or should you better enable them to better sustain themselves? It is hard for me to conceptualize a market mechanism to sustain an orphanage school. Moreover donations is what the locals do here, so why not pitch in? Furthermore, our unsolicited donation of most of their yearly budget in advance and no plans could be very disruptive and might incentivize unsustainable growth, misuse or corruption. It is our moral urge to help, but also our responsibility to avoid hurting them. After some debate, we finally talked to Proximity Labs, who are locally trusted and knowledgeable, to serve as stewards of the money for that school to ensure our wish to help them actually makes the best positive impact.</p> <p>After our visit all three groups gathered to have lunch and share experiences. Our lunch was prepared by the <a href="">Yangon Bakehouse</a> back in Yangon city, who provides disadvantaged Myanmar with job skills and experience, life skills training and opportunities for future employment. They prepared 750 lunch boxes for all our <a href="">Impact Journeys that day</a>.</p> <p>One of the other groups met a similar household as the one we got to know. In their case, the electricity is only 3 Km away so they need to get do without it. For example education with candle lights. The investment to extend the electricity grid I believe was around a few thousand dollars, but the are also thinking about solar panels. They are closer to the river which provides better lands and other sources of food like frogs but also dangerous snake bites. Moreover, the overflow of the tides occasionally inundates their crops with salty water, for which they have no way of protection. They also have a community project where they built a local library from a donated 2 story building. In their case Proximity Labs is also helping them improve their agricultural capacity, but they emphasized on the finance help and the reduced operating expenses (e.g. pedal pumps vs petrol pumps).</p> <p>Our last group found a very entrepreneurial community with many ideas and motivation to build their own jobs via co-ops but they needed finance to kickstart. Their main struggle comes from the ongoing poverty cycle. Roughly 70% of the jobs, working the crops, comes from 30% of the people who are landowners (not legally as the government owns the land). The loans these owners need to cultivate at the same time prevents them from surplus accumulation to avoid increasing interest fees. As the land owners struggle with a harder climate and other challenges, they end up forced to sell their lands and become part of the growing seasonal workers which themselves struggle to find work from the remaining landowners, and when they do is around 3$/day. Since there were no labor animals, agricultural innovation was technological for which help like Proximity Labs is instrumental to find better finance and save time.</p> <p>It was truly an Impact Journey for us and we hope we were also able to help them. We came and learnt, but at least we also share so that their reality is more visible. Our gratitude to the YGL Staff and Proximity Labs for enabling us to visit this village and learn about their work. As we were discussing about their services and network of operations, we realized we could easily help with communications. As part of the YGL conference welcome package we had local SIM cards with 10$, many of which went unused. Other people bought cheap local phones to use the SIM cards. Turns out getting access to a GSM SIM card is done by lottery and is still in the $60 range. Our idea was to request to fellow YGLs to consider donating their SIM cards and bought phones before leaving the country. Again I was impressed by the response of this awesome group when we collected more than 50 SIM cards and several phones. I was thrilled to give these to their CEO and visit the offices where I also trained their staff to put the villages and roads on the map.</p> <p><a href="" title="SIM cards donated by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="375" height="500" alt="SIM cards donated"></a></p> <p>This impromptu idea of gathering SIM cards to reuse and share led to this other one: Why don´t we push this initiative? On every conference, set up a box where anyone can leave relevant, unwanted or unused conference items and hotel toiletries to be given to a local social organization. Interested? Drop an email and let´s talk.</p> <p><a href="" title="Myanmar by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="500" height="486" alt="Myanmar"></a></p> Why is the mirror of the Google Glass inverted? 2013-05-06T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/05/06/mirror-google-glass-inverted <p><a href="/media/glass-intro.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/glass-intro.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>These past days I have had the chance to play for the first time with the Google Glass from <a href="">Silica Labs</a>. This post is not about the experience, you can find about that online. What drove my interest is the hardware, in particular the eyepiece. If Google Glass is to become popularized, the eyepiece needs to be as small and invisible as possible. I´m pretty sure they have invested a lot of time on that. Upon close inspection I think they have decided to ship a first option, but they continue to work on that. Perhaps as an &ldquo;innovation slack&rdquo; to keep ahead of copycats, or because the main audience for now are developers to build apps for the consumer market later on. And developers don´t mind the geeky aspect that much.</p> <!--more--> <p>If you look closely you´ll see that the eyepiece is a nanoprojector inside the bulk piece. The little image is sent sideways to a 50% mirror that directs half the light to the eye. This is done to also allow 50% of the light from the outside reach the eye, thus making the image superimposed over the real world.</p> <p><a href="/media/glass-concept.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/glass-concept.png " class="center" /></a></p> <p>But if you think about it, the mirror on the Google Glass is inclined in the opposite direction. Why?</p> <p><a href="/media/slanted.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/slanted.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>On the first option (as the first diagram above) the image gets 50% of the light. With the opposite direction (as the Google Glass), you only get 25% of the light: the beam goes twice over the half-mirror, once through and once reflected. The second option also needs a mirror at the end of the eyepiece to reflect back the light. On the image below I´m taking a picture of the outside of the mirror, along the axis of the eyepiece.</p> <p><a href="/media/outside-mirror.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/outside-mirror.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>Why the second option, with a double pass? I think the reason is augmentation. The mirror at the end is not flat, but slightly spherical (or parabolic). A concave mirror creates an augmented virtual image if the object is before the focus. On the side image you can see the piece is nearly flat but no quite so. Thus the image you see on the outside (convex mirror) is smaller. The radius is much bigger than the distance to the eye. The virtual image if the screen is therefore then bigger than it would be with a flat mirror.</p> <p>This means that the overall light path on the eyepiece of the Google Glass looks like this:</p> <p><a href="/media/glass-path.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/glass-path.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>After playing with the Glasses for a weekend and letting anyone use them, they all love it, but agree that it looks too&hellip; geeky, too bulky. I believe there must be better options, smaller and less visible when you wear them. Perhaps:</p> <ul> <li><p>A single non-flat semi-transparent mirror instead of the flat one. This what we use on a special type of telescopes. They are called asymmetrical or <em><a href="">off-axis</a></em>. They come with their own set of problems (like chromatic aberrations), but in such a small light path I would still argue to try it, with some combination of software to correct these problems. Still, that option would probably introduce strange field aberrations on the transmitted background image.</p></li> <li><p>Direct projection from the side of the glass into the lens. Problem here would be to place inside the lens and yet outside the normal field of vision, so it´s only available on the corner, not in the middle of your normal view.</p></li> </ul> <h3>Ideas for Apps for the Google Glass</h3> <p>After using them for a weekend, talking about them with colleagues at <a href="">Silica Labs</a>, and wear them at various situations, I got a few ideas for apps:</p> <ul> <li><p><em>Climb app</em>. Save videos and pictures of your climbs. At any climbing place, make a picture of the route to help you flash tricky points, locate best places for hooks and save videos as you make your way up. If the route is long, the belayer can talk and see the climber and videochat to give support without releasing the rope.</p></li> <li><p><em>Talking queues</em>. When you meet someone and start talking, start flashing cards of his/her interest, pictures, notes. Content could come from the CV if it´s a work interview, OkCupid profile if it´s a first date, live speech assistance from someone who is listening and watching what you see, &hellip;</p></li> <li><p><em>Buffer record</em>. Continuously save video or frames every few seconds, and overwrite them in a continuous loop. This can be important in case of accident if you are on the road, you are a police officer, or you think you saw something worth saving when it already started.</p></li> <li><p><em>Glass Notifier</em>. An app that just pushes notifications to your Glass. I´m thinking of any app that currently flashes notification on your phone. Just taking them and pushing them as a card to the glass. (Agenda, Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Google Now, Email)</p></li> </ul> <p><a href="/media/glass-capitol.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/glass-capitol.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> [Idea] Apple patent to protect your phone screen 2013-04-08T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/04/08/apple-patent-protects-screen <p>How to avoid breaking your glass screen when you drop your phone? Phones fall down, and sometimes nothing happens and sometime the screen shatters. Can it be avoided? Making the glass thicker is a solution but increases the weight. I got an idea to fix that.</p> <!--more--> <p> Today I was attending a talk by <a href="">Mark P Mills</a> on Patent Law at the Notre Dame Law School. He mentioned that Apple had just patented a way to prevent shattered iPhone screens, but he didn´t go to the details, just that he thought it was difficult.</p> <p>Apple indeed <a href="">has a patent to protect the hard disk</a> when your laptop falls. They do so by detecting a free fall via accelerometers. When the laptop detects it has been dropped it will park the read/write heads of the hard disk, thus avoiding those heads scratching the surface of the disk when it hits the ground.</p> <p>But how do they protect the screen? The idea would then be to detect a free fall, and quickly orient the phone in the air so that it touches ground on the back, or on the side, or whatever position is deemed most likely to help survive the phone with minimal damage.</p> <p>When I wrote this post I didn´t look at the patent, but I thought about it and this my idea: Drop the battery.</p> <p>Rotating the phone mid air requires a burst of energy. You could get there using puffs of air, but that would take space for the hardware. You could also use gyroscopes (like satellites use) but they are not that quick. You need to move a significant portion of the phone mass to rotate the thing quickly&hellip;. the battery.</p> <p>The idea is then to insert 4 special screws on each corner of the battery. When the accelerometers detect that the phone is falling, it would calculate the momentum of inertia (how exactly is the phone is rotating) and carefully release 2 of the screws to create a counter momentum of inertia that compensates that rotation. As the battery unwinds the rotation is compensated. If the rotation needed is less than the full 90˚ turn, the other 2 screws will also be released, letting the battery separate at the exact moment the phone is properly oriented ( thus reducing also the weight on impact).</p> <p>To gain more momentum of inertia of the rotation of the battery, one could increase the angular speed using screws with small springs. Here is a quick sketch of the whole thing:</p> <p><a href="/media/phone-battery.jpg "> <img width="100%" src="/media/phone-battery.jpg " class="center" /></a></p> <p>No idea is that is what Apple thought of, but may be there is a chance Apple would finally make replaceable batteries in the end. :)</p> <p>Update: For reference, as I upload this, I find the <a href="">Apple patent online</a>. I still thing my solution is better and simpler :)</p> How a tweet led to a rocket factory 2013-03-14T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/03/14/how-a-tweet-lead-to-a-rocket-factory <p>This is the little story of how Foursquare and Twitter led to a VIP visit to <a href="">Space X</a>, the rocket factory, back in 2010.</p> <p><a href="" title="A spaniard enters a commercial rocket factory by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="320" height="213" alt="A spaniard enters a commercial rocket factory"></a></p> <!--more--> <p>I was at a conference in Irvine, CA. This is when I worked as a <a href="">fellow of the Space Studies Board of the National Academies</a>. The sessions were great but I had no plans the evening of the first day. After I was done with work I went to the bar for a quick bite. It occurred to me that may be they had a Foursquare deal, so I used my mobile to <em>check in</em>. Indeed they had a <a href="">free appetizer</a> if you ordered a beer. Cool.</p> <p>I also noticed someone else had checked-in there 10 minutes before. Out of curiosity I clicked her profile and <a href="">she had a linked Twitter account</a>. She was a science journalist that was also participating on the conference. Few minutes before she had <a href="">tweeted about the same appetizer</a> I had ordered. She had done a great presentation earlier that day and I was dying to know more about her work. I tweeted her and waited for her phone to ping to make sure she would tie that random connection when I introduced myself:</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>@<a href="">christienic</a> funny, we were actually sitting next to each other at the bar, and I also got the offer. Btw, good points on the panel.</p>&mdash; Bruno Sánchez-A Nuño (@brunosan) <a href="">November 8, 2010</a></blockquote> <script async src="//" charset="utf-8"></script> <p>We started chatting about Twitter and Foursquare which were fairly unknown services back then. Really nice conversation. Then we talked about the conference, our common background interest in space and what not. I must have had a poker face when she asked If I knew Space X. Turns out she is a good friend of <a href="">Elon Musk</a>, and she was going to visit the rocket factory the next day. She then offered me to come along.</p> <p>Elon was somewhere else taking care of some &ldquo;Tesla&rdquo; thing that day, but his personal assistant Mary Beth and the astronaut <a href="">Ken Bowersox</a> gave us an awesome tour around the rocket factory. I had many technical questions, and Jeff was very keen to answer all of them. Had I been american I would have quit my job at NAS to work there (<a href="">ITAR</a> regulations prohibit us foreigners to do so, or even see some types of hardware. My previous work at Department of Defense calibrating a rocket camera was borderline, so I knew well about it. For my work at NRL and visits at the NASA JPL and the Pentagon I was kind of used to that. Very annoying). Still with the ITAR restriction Ken and Mary Beth were very accommodating to make sure we stayed on ITAR limits but make it a great experience.</p> <p><a href="" title="Space X by brunosan, on Flickr"><img src="" width="500" height="284" alt="Space X"></a></p> <p>And that´s how I got a personalized visit to Space X, by the hand of an astronaut. You can see all the pictures <a href="">here on Flickr</a>. Surely it was not <em>only</em> a tweet, but a combination of really awesome people like Christie, Mary Beth and Ken, my professional interest on space and being so proactive. But still, like in <a href="">this story</a> where <a href="">Charlie Loyd</a> landed a job at <a href="">Mapbox</a> it was the flapping of the <a href="">butterfly wings</a>.</p> <object width="500" height="375"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnasonurb%2Fsets%2F72157625359251768%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnasonurb%2Fsets%2F72157625359251768%2F&set_id=72157625359251768&jump_to="></param> <param name="movie" value=""></param> <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnasonurb%2Fsets%2F72157625359251768%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fnasonurb%2Fsets%2F72157625359251768%2F&set_id=72157625359251768&jump_to=" width="500" height="375"></embed></object> <p>Thank you Christie, Mary Beth and Ken. You are <strong>awesome</strong>.</p> Young Global Leader 2013 2013-03-12T00:00:00-04:00 //2013/03/12/young-global-leader-2013 <p>Today the <em>World Economic Forum</em> (<a href="">WEF</a>) <a href="">announces</a> this year awards of &ldquo;Young Global Leaders&rdquo; (<a href="">YGL</a>). I am one of them.</p> <p>According to the website:</p> <blockquote><p>&ldquo;Young Global Leaders represent the future of leadership, coming from all regions of the world and representing business, government, civil society, arts &amp; culture, academia and media, as well as social entrepreneurs.</p> <p>Nominated under 40, these young leaders are proposed through a qualified nomination process and assessed according to rigorous selection criteria accepting only the very best leaders who have already demonstrated their commitment to serving society at large."</p></blockquote> <!--more--> <p>Back in May 2012 I was asked by a work colleague who was interested in <a href="">our work</a> if I minded to be <a href="">proposed to be YGL</a>. I didn&rsquo;t know what that was, but we then talked about my life, and the motivation behind my perhaps peculiar professional path. Plain honest conversation.</p> <p> I then read a bit about the <a href="">YGL</a>, and I was highly impressed. Nominations go through a internal and external evaluation and screening <a href="">process</a>. Some of the previous awardees include Sergey Brin (Google), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Marissa Mayer (Yahoo), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), and countless other successful CEOs, ministers, athletes, &hellip; I found a wonderful Youtube Channel with short videos to &ldquo;<a href="">Meet the YGL</a>&rdquo;. Very motivational and impressive.</p> <p>And so I forgot about my nomination.</p> <p>To my surprise, just few weeks ago, I received an email with this Subject:</p> <blockquote><p>&ldquo;You Have Been Honored as a Young Global Leader 2013&rdquo;</p></blockquote> <p>And so I started receiving information about the group, activities, a fellow &ldquo;mentor&rdquo;, events, &hellip; Turns out I am the only spaniard this year.</p> <p>Since then I have spent some time back on that YouTube channel, reading information provided, talking with fellow YGLs, interacting with the YGL headquarters in Geneva and hunting tweets and blog posts of other YGLs.</p> <p>I don´t know yet what really <em>is</em> the YGL, but I am certain this is an amazing opportunity and an honor. I am truly humbled and thankful for this nomination. Reading the roster of fellow YGLs, I can only take this as an acknowledgement of a trajectory that is still very short. It has not been easy, and the passion that drives me rejoices with this opportunity: a clear motivation to help bring Science and Technology closer to Society.</p> <p>Being a YGL, I am told, is a transformational experience. Certainly, having the chance to get to know such a <em>Forum</em> of <em>doers</em> will be motivating.</p> <p>For now, I´m planning to squeeze as much time as possible to take the most of this opportunity WEF is offering. Let´s do it.</p> <blockquote><p>&ldquo;I don´t know where is the limit, but I know where the limit is not&rdquo; @josefajram</p></blockquote> <iframe width="420" height="315" src=" " frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><em>Update</em>: Yahoo Spain has run an interview, <a href="">in spanish</a>. At some point it was on the <a href="">front page of Yahoo</a>. Crazy day.</p> <p><a href="/media/yahoo-ygl.png "> <img width="100%" src="/media/yahoo-ygl.png " class="center" /></a></p>