Poza Rica
Last Tuesday I went to Poza Rica, as the people at Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Poza Rica had their Tercer Congreso Estatal de Ingenieria en sistemas Computacionales. And quite a strange conference this was. First of all… Well, this was a conference organized by the institute’s profesors, not the students, so it was all formal, even sometimes rigid. The conference’s opening had representatives from all over the Veracruz state bureaucracy (a representative for Poza Rica’s mayor, another one for the state’s Education and Culture ministery, etc. - Some 10 people). Funnily, it seems nobody knew who was attending the opening. Well, after a long opening ceremony (complete with a very official flag salutation and everything!), with ~1hr of speeches, and without any other warnings, we got two groups of dancing girls. And then the talks started. I was at five talks - One promoting technological development poles (polos de desarrollo tecnológico - Poles as in the North pole, not as in coming from Poland), another about the Intel history and perspective towards the future, the third about neural networks, one from Oracle promoting their Jdeveloper environment, and my talk about QA in Free Software development. Poza Rica is a relatively small city in our country, which flourished due to the petroleum that lies there during the 1950s. Right now, there is not much technological development going on there, and most people seem to want to leave for any other place. My friend Markuz lives there, he even formed a LUG some time ago, and was a bit disappointed as it disgregated. Right now, the Poza Rica LUG is three people. Well, to my surprise, before the second talk had begun, people knew I was there to talk about Linux (maybe because of my Debian shirt? Doubt so, as I didn’t even look like a speaker, they were all dressed in a suit and with a tie - at over 30 Celsius!). I got this note, which by itself is well worth the trip: Three people interested in learning Linux, in forming a LUG… I promptly introduced them, and some other guys that later came to me, to Markuz. And Markuz was one of the happiest people I could see ;-) I hope their LUG grows again. There is much to do over there. Just as a final funny note: I don’t know if this is a pavlovian experiment. I really hesitated before washing my hair in the hotel.
Comments
markuz 2005-06-02 20:09:03
RE: Poza Rica
Thank you so much to help the Free Software and with that help, help me :-). I will make everything I can to give a new breath to GULPR. Seems to be a new generation.
Rodrigo 2005-06-11 08:03:06
Joke
This one requires complex analysis. Hope you get it.
We’re in Poland, in the times before the Berlin Wall fell, and we’re following three mathematicians as they’re trying to flee the country. They’ve successfully managed to get to an airport, and right there on the landing strip there’s an empty plane. They get inside, hoping to fly away in it and, as they begin to fiddle with the controls a siren sounds off in the distance. From the other side of the strip they see a vehicle approaching, and they begin to get nervous. Two of them start yelling at the third, who had a little experience in flying and so is the one trying to get this thing started. As the tension increases the yelling gets louder, until the one at the controls screams at the other two: "Give me a break, I’m just a simple pole in a complex plane!"