history of a man

The haiku is a kind of short poem, without rhyme, usually organized in 3 lines. This poetic form has it’s origin in Japan hundreds of years ago, although the term “haiko” was not used until the XIX century.

This short poems use to capture a moment, situation or event, usually trivial, which inspires the autor, providing it with a special transcendence or spirituality. Already in the XVII century japanese poets said “haikai is just what it’s happening in this place, at this moment”.

You can find more information about haiku here.

Yesterday I met a friend for teaching him how to play Go (囲碁 or 碁 in Japanese). It is a two-player strategic board game, originating in China thousands of years ago, and very popular in East ASia.

The is played in a 18x18 cell board, but unlike more “occidental” games like chess or draughts, the “stones” (game pieces) are placed in the intersections of the board lines, so there’s 19x19 posible points.

My Go board

The rules are very simple, and the basics of the game can be learnt in less than 15-30 minutes. The strategic complexity and game posibilities are, however, great, and it is said that you’ll never play two times the same game.

The game consists of placing your stones in the board, seeking to surround the biggest amount of territory possible. Once placed in the board, the stones stay at the same point and could not be moved for the rest of the game, unless they are captured.

Beginning of a game

The opponent stones can be captured by surrounding all the points around them. The stones so captured are removed from the board, and kept appart for the final point count. It is also possible to capture groups of stones, surrounding them with your own.

How to capture stones

One basic concept of Go are the “eyes”. One eye is a free point inside one of your groups. It is said that a group is “alive” if it has at least two eyes, making it impossible to be captured because the opponent could never completely surround it.

White group has two “eyes”, it can not be captured

The game ends when both players agree that there’s no more free territory to battle for. Then they count the free points controlled by each player. Each captured stone worths one point, that is substracted from the opponent points. The player with more points, wins the game.

White controls most of the board

That’s all, this post was just a short introduction to this wonderful game, unfortunately almost unknown in the West. For more information about it you could visit the following links:

Wikipedia: Go.
The Interactive Way to Go.
How To Play Go.

This is a poem i like very much, I hope you like it…

I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods;

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘T is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

I wanted to talk about what it’s going to be my life from September of this year.

One month ago more or less, I was informed that I had been one of the 29 european students selected to take part in the Vulcanus Programme 2005-2006. This programme, organized by theEU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation, selects every year a group of europena engineering students for a one year trainee in Japan, in technology innovation projects.

The programme has two parts: the first one, four month long, I’ll learn Japanese and attend to seminars about Japanese culture in Tokio. The second part, eight month long, will be the trainee, that I will do in NTT Data Corporation.

You are maybe wandering why I had choose to go to Japan… :P Apart from being a very good opportunity in all aspects, the true is that Japan is a country that has always attracted me, and living in Japan for some time has always been one of my biggest dreams, that it seems i will achieve. And as my dear Barb always says “Is just the posibility of making one dream come true, what makes life interesting”… ;)

When I got the email telling me I had been selected, I could hardly believe it. Last year more that 800 students from all the EU asked for the 30 places of the programme, and last year the EU had ten countries less. I still don’t believe it, and I think that I will not get used to the idea until I am there… :P

I will tell you more about the programme and my arrangements for one year in Japan soon.

This morning I went to my university to deposit my final term project, and I also did all the mm requiered. Now I only have to wait for the presentation (around two weeks), and after that I will have finished my degree!!! :P

About my project, the official title is “Web Applications Generation System”, and in a few words is a module for the Apache web server which, from a set of XML configuration files (”the application”), carries out all the actions usually expected from a web application, like for example database queries, formularies generation for data introduction or presentation, users authentication, reports and charts generation, email sending, etc.

The XML configuration files are loaded by the system, and each time the web server gets a request, the system execs all the actions required in order to attend it as defined in the application configuration. The syntax of the files is very simple, you only has to tell the system what do you want to do (query tables a and b, show the results in a formular 20 each time), and the system does everything else.

But the important thing is that it’s almost over, and in a few weeks I’ll be free! I almost can not believe it :P