This piece of glass was embedded in my flip-flop

The pen cap is there for size comparison. It was in a place that I only noticed when I was pushing on the bike pedal, otherwise my foot didn't press on that part of the shoe. It was hard to get out! Luckily, my foot is just fine.

Valparaiso (Long weekend part 1)

Last weekend we went to Valparaiso and Vina del Mar, as we mentioned.  We took the bus from Santiago after moving on Thursday afternoon, because it was a long weekend.  We went to Valparaiso first, where we stayed for Thursday night and most of the day on Friday.  Valpo, as Chileans call it, is quite hilly.  At the top of one of the hills, we encountered this weird sidewalk situation.  The sidewalk was very tall, at least up to my knees, but the "road" was so narrow that no way could anything except a skinny motorcycle drive through it.  Not sure what is up with that.

We think these decorations were related to the Day of the Dead celebrations:

 We walked around and found a beautiful viewpoint (mirador) over the water:

Then we went to dinner and I had delicious gnocchi with, among other things, avocado:

Sam had salad and a local Chilean beer that turned out to be quite tasty:

Let's get a closeup of that salad:

Our hostel was relatively nice, but breakfast was especially nice.  There was breakfast set out when we woke up, including chunks of fruit on toothpicks!  Much nicer than in our hostel in Mendoza, when we had to ask for breakfast and the hostel guy grudgingly went and got us some bread with nothing to put on it.  Here we had butter and jam:

There were so many power lines in Valpo, and they were all very messy:

Pretty buildings adjacent to one of the parks:

This weird sculpture reminded me of the tripods in the book The White Mountains.  Plus there's a great view of one of the hills in the background:

Along that main street, there was also a flea market sort of thing going on.  People say things like you can get anything there, but that's not really the best way to describe it.  You can get a really strange variety of stuff there, but most of the vendors are selling clothes or cheap junk or food.  Some of the more interesting things I saw were tail lights for cars:

and bathroom components, including toilets:

More pretty-colored buildings:

When we were there, there was also a graffiti festival going on.  Graffiti is a pretty big deal in Valpo, in the art sense, not in the vandalism sense.  We met a Swedish girl in our hostel and wandered around with her for the morning.  Here she is with Sam outside of one of the ascensores that take you up the hill.

There is a long tunnel you have to walk through, and it feels kind of dank.  I thought this was going to be more like a funicular, but when we got to the end it was actually just a regular elevator.  Here's the tunnel:

When you get to the top, you are actually in a tower and have this amazing view:

You can see all the pretty houses on the hill:

And this weird building with a square missing in the middle, plus notice that church in front of it, very pretty:

And when you look down, you can see a horizontal mural:

The point of taking the acensor up the hill was to then wander down the hill where all the graffiti artists were working as part of the festival.  Here is one working on something that looks like the tower we had just gotten out of:

You can see the actual tower in the background of this picture:

Here's the first woman artist we saw.  Most of the artists were men, but there were a few women:

Here's a better view of her thing.  I wish we had been there to see her do the eyelashes, they were so precise!

The one in the middle of this picture was probably my favorite.  

And here's a picture of me under what I termed the "quad-pod":

Not sure if this is the same church that we saw from the tower:

Some really pretty flowers that were for sale at a street stand:

The end for now!  Part 2 will be the next 2 days in Vina del Mar.

Bird update

We moved apartments last week, but before we moved, we took a video of the birds.

Unfortunately, when we went back to return the keys and pick up our bikes, Sam found that one of the baby birds had died and told me not to look.  So that was really sad, because I had been so fond of those birds.  But I guess that's nature, and at least we didn't have to deal with the dead bird.  That would have been really unpleasant.  For Sam, obviously, because no way would I have done that.

Chilean money is pretty

Chilean money is all different colors.  Here is a picture of the different money, as high as we've encountered.  The rate is currently 477 Chilean pesos to the dollar, so the 20,000 peso note is about $40, the 1,000 peso note is about $2, and we treat the 100 peso coins more or less like quarters (there are 2 different ones, the bigger one is the older version, but they are both still in circulation).  There is also a 500 peso coin that we didn't have when I took this picture.  The weird thing is that the money goes all the way down to 1 peso, which is worth about 0.2 cents.  That's not 2 cents, that's 1/5 of a penny.  And you thought pennies were worthless!

I am not good at listening to headphones on the metro

Normally when I'm commuting on the metro to work, I have the kindle.  Sam has very generously let me have it almost all the time, and I've been reading like crazy.  Right now I'm reading Cloud Atlas, which is very strange.  I'm not too far in, so don't ruin it for me.

But today, Sam wanted a turn with the kindle.  And how could I say no, after having approximately a gazillion turns myself?  Plus, I had to do my homework of listening to all the Lady Gaga songs for the concert we're going to in a couple of weeks, because it's always more fun at a concert when you know all the songs.

So that is how I found myself listening to music on my commute.  I barely ever listen to music because I am terrible at multitasking, so if I am listening to music I am completely unable to do anything else, like read or think.  But that goes perfectly with commuting, on the metro at least.  (I strongly discourage listening to headphones while biking!)

Normal people, when they are listening to headphones, just sort of sit there, and maybe play a game on their phone or something.  Mostly, they are pretty much acting normal.  Not so for me.  I don't seem to be able to hold still while listening to music on the metro.  I mostly restrained myself to bopping my head or tapping my foot (just a little, I know how annoying that can be!).  It was really hard not to dance!

Also on the metro today, I saw a super-gringo, which I am just now going to define as a guy with red hair and freckles.  Sometimes I pretend that I can blend in as a Chilean, at least until I open my mouth.  Some of the upper class/richer Chileans are pretty fair-skinned and light-haired.  But this guy, not a chance.  No one here has red hair!  Also, no one here is black or Asian or Indian or anything other than light-to-medium skin and dark hair.  It really emphasizes how diverse the US is.  Another place that does that is Denmark (and Iceland), one of the most homogeneous places ever.

So anyway, if you saw me on the metro listening to headphones, you would probably laugh.

Things I’m learning from learning Python

While I am very busy balancing my different jobs during certain times of day and week, I also have some nice open time built into my schedule, especially during the workdays when Caroline is at MIM and I am not going to Bici Verde. I thought a good way to make use of this time is by trying out one of these new free online courses that a lot of universities are offering.

 

For my first course, I decided to take 6.00x from MIT, which is the online version of 6.00 – Introduction to Comp Sci and Programming. The class covers some conceptual stuff, but mostly it is serving as a good introduction to the language Python. So far I’m about half-way through the class, and just took the mid-term. I’ve learned about programming, but beyond that I’ve also learned some more general useful things:

 

I do much better at sticking with something when I have some outside accountability.
The class has automatic grading of assignments (has to be automatic since there are 9,000+ people in the class!), and also gives you an ongoing grade in the class. The grade doesn’t really count for anything, but it sure helps keep me on track! I do my problem set every week, and even set aside time on a weekend to do the mid-term. I don’t think I would be this dedicated without some sort of grade. As a person who has trouble holding myself individually accountable for getting things done, this is useful to know about myself.

 

Algorithmic thinking is something I really enjoy.
I’ve always really enjoyed working in Microsoft Excel at previous jobs, so I guess it should come as no surprise that I’m finding that I really enjoy writing code. So far, the assignments have been pretty small and simple, so I haven’t had to deal with the headaches of QA or all the other things that real developers face, but on this small scale I’m really enjoying the type of problem solving needed to write code that works.

 

Programs in Python require waaaay less code than I thought.
Previously, my only coding experience was with LogoWriter, the language we learned back in like 3rd grade to move a little turtle around the screen. It’s very similar to BASIC. Well, programming languages have progressed a lot since then, and now I can’t believe how few lines of code are often needed to accomplish quite a lot. I imagined there would be all these IFs and FORs, but often just single clever loop or recursion does the trick. It’s very satisfying!

 

There is still a huge gap between knowing the basics and knowing how to make software.
I have always felt like I didn’t really understand how a pile of code becomes a full-fledged program, and even as I’m learning more about coding, I find that I’m still mystified. I realize this is partly because I haven’t done anything with graphics yet, but it is still totally a mystery for me how a bunch of code adds up to even something simple like…well, I don’t even know what qualifies as a simple program!

 

This whole process has definitely made me gain respect for my friends who write software for a living. While solving a little problem set question has been very satisfying, it has also given me a glimpse into how complex coding can be. It’s especially tricky to read through a sample function that doesn’t have good comments to explain what it does – I can only imagine how tough that is if the code is pages and pages long!

 

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the learning process a lot, and I’d highly recommend taking an edX course to anyone who has time for it.

Human vs. HAL: Metro cards

This post is part of a series “Human vs. HAL” highlighting a peculiar trend we’ve noticed in Chile. There are many jobs here that are done by people that would be done by machines in the US. We are trying to take photos and notice as many as possible to document here!

For a long time I was calling this a bip card, before I realized it was pronounced BEEP, like the sound it makes when you use it!

In many ways, Santiago seems like part of a completely first-world country. The city is clean, with good infrastructure, very modern shops and supermarkets, and tons of people on smartphones (caveat: obviously this only applies to some parts of Santiago. There are also slums and shantytowns, but we haven’t explored those areas. And even still, this is different than some developing countries because there are at least huge areas that are completely modern).

However, we have noticed that there are some aspects of life here that seem a little different from the US. Specifically, there are quite a lot of jobs here that are done by people, whereas in the US (or at least in Boston) the same job is done by machine. I suspect this is simply because labor is much cheaper here and technology is more expensive – though there could be other reasons as well.

The first example is one that we encounter quite frequently: recharging your public transit card. Of course, in the US we often have little cashier booths with a clerk who can help you re-charge your card, but this is certainly not the common way to do it. In Boston, Chicago, NY and many other places, this transaction now takes place between you and a machine.

This isn't even close to a busy time!

In Santiago, the clerks at the windows still have jobs, and they are very busy too! There are no monthly passes for the metro here, so even if you ride every day you still have to fill your card up every so often. The lines at the booths during rush hour can be very long, even with 3 or more clerks working at once.
As far as I can tell, there seem to be some machines for recharging your BIP! card (as it’s called), but they are never used. I tried to use it once, but I think you need to have a special credit card from Banco de Chile to use it.

So that’s our first example, many more to come! Please chime in with a comment – when you fill your public transit pass in your city, is the transaction with a person or machine?