Saturday, August 14, 2010

Wind! At last

At last some wind!

Yesterday was a great day! North wind blew in the Ria de Aveiro again and I could go and play with my board and my 5.4 m² sail. I was a bit overpowered at the beginning but as the wind dropped to the evening I think it was just fine.

Let's hope today the wind will come again.

Sorry for the lack of any photographic evidence. Everyone was inside the water enjoying, no one wanted to stay in dry land to take pictures.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Nonsense!

Today someone at work strongly suggested that SQL interfaces to a database are hard to keep and we should only use XML interfaces... (It doesn't even make any sense!)

SQL is a language for querying (as the name implies) information and XML is defined for structuring information. SQL interfaces are the norm for RDBMS. All other interfaces always (as far as I can tell) use the SQL interface to query and retrieve data from the database. Using XML would simple add another layer of complexity, another layer of latency, another nail in the performance's coffin.

Reminded me of when Dilbert asked the Pointy Hair Boss what colour the proposed database should be. Or the story of a "software architect" insisting that using Corba would be faster than TCP for data transfer...

...save us from such knowledge people,

Monday, August 02, 2010

BEST-UC Summer Course Weekend

Part of the events organized for the BEST Coimbra LBG Summer Course was a weekend at Foz do Arelho with accommodation at the Volunteer Firemen gymnasium at Caldas da RaĆ­nha.

As you can see by the photo above the weather was not that great at the seaside. The sun was blocked by low clouds. It tricked lots of people into just falling asleep without any sun protection, waking up some hours after with patches of burned, red skin.

Dinner was a nice barbecue, with lots of food for everyone, some beer and juice. Rather calm as you can see.

It was the birthday of one of the participants, Martin, so we sang him a "Happy Birthday" song and gave him a cake to kiss. The next photo shows that it was a passionate kiss...

Some girls we making really weird faces when on camera but still manage to look good.

The place were everyone was staying was really a nice place. The Firemen were friendly and fun, the gymnasium had stuff for us to play and huge mattresses were people could lay down for sleep, and even a football table.

BEST-UC Summer Course International Dinner

At every international BEST event there is always one dinner that is dedicated to the sharing of what the countries better/stranger have to offer in terms of drinks and food.

The organizing team usually have the advantage of easy supply of goods...

... but the participants make it up with sheer number and drink power.

For me it was a great change to be with friends that I didn't see for a long time and to get to know more people.

For example the Coimbra LBG Summer Course main organizer, a girl filled with energy and spirit.

All in all it was a very good party. A great way to end a tiring and upsetting week (sometimes work just isn't fun at all...).