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From the desk of Samy,

Four years ago, when I started University (by the way, I was so innocent… haha), I found out that school was nothing compared to University; however, till then, I thought I had worked as hard as possible. It wasn’t true, though. It turned out that University was very hard because of its teaching mode: the main difference was that teachers talked and wrote problems/theory in the blackboard without taking care of their students. It was your problem if you didn’t understand anything and it was your problem as well if you wanted to stop them in order to ask questions (I have to remark that ask questions to the teachers was, and is, never a problem). They got to the point and the time for practising exercises was your responsability, at home. In my case, it was like trying to jump a precipice without knowing it was there… haha I did like the degree but I had been going to a private school since I was a little one and I couldn’t play hooky, ever… So you can imagine what happened. I just thought: the average of my degree is 7-8 years, I can lie around one year and then, start seriously (and I meant it). But I got wind that I would have to repeat almost aaaall my first year… and I, deep down, didn’t want it. So I studied on June, quite hours. At the end, I passed half my exams. I’m still asking some teachers why they didn’t let me pass because I did the exam quite well… But it no longer matters, time has gone by since then. That year, I had 2-3 labs maximum and 5 subjects per year. Aprox. mark average: 4.2 out of 10.

I started my second course and I had to retake some subjects so I did half of the first year and half of the second year. I didn’t lie around so much but I still didn’t study much hard (well, with this I mean that I studied a standard time, that’s to say, kind of the same as most of the people, even though my degree could be more difficult, like all the engineerings). But I started to have the feeling that the third course was gonna be hard because I met some people who already was at 3rd course (they were older than me) and I always saw them working till late at night and so on. Furthermore, I used to train at nights, 9 hours per week (+ matches…) so I started to reconsider my life. Waw, it sounds really strong, doesn’t it? It’s not exactly this way but computing was catching me and the more I learnt, the more I liked it. I also fell in love with electronics and economics, I don’t exactly know why but it was just this way. So, I started to backtracking all my future possibilities: what about another degree? a master? study two degrees at the same time? I was confused! Finally, after backtracking and analyze all the possibilities I arrived at the conclusion that electronic engineering would be a very good option… And study an MBA as soon as possible too. This last option will depend on my income money at the time, of course. At the end of my 2nd year, I gave up basketball (I really loved it, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I used to and University asked for a lot of time). I passed all my exams but one… We were improving! Aprox. mark average: 5.5 out of 10.

My third year was a radical change: if I thought that from the school to the university was a huge difference, this year wouldn’t be less than a universe difference. Seven subjects the first semester (6 on the second) and each one had labs/projects… but one… that turned out to be the most difficult one of my degree. And labs/projects were no longer superfitial or easy ones but quite difficult. Well, I can assure I was working really hard, specially in exams period! I missed basketball but I didn’t regret to give it up because otherwise it would have been impossible to pass EVERYTHING! first time at university, ever Aprox average: 6.8 out of 10!!

Fourth year: it’s been a nightmare! I hardly can go out someday! There is no day I don’t have work to do, we spend almost all the day at university (where is that famous university life? I don’t see it!), I’m programming, designing, building, calculating… WAIT! I’ve just find out what university life is!

If nothing changes, I’ll study electronic eng. (it’s 5 years more but after studying science computers and choosing the right subjects there, I will only need a year and a half to have it) and if I can, an MBA, in a near future. I didn’t like to study much when I was at the school, but once you start to study stuff you like, the things you enjoy to experiment with… Everything is different. As a sample, the subjects I like most I don’t have much problems with them, but the ones that either the teacher is boring or the subject is horrible… bff! Anyway, I’m expecting kind of the same qualifications as the 3rd course because even though it’s becoming more and more interesting, its difficulty is directly proportional to it! So, I hope I’ll pass every subject, or at least, I’ll attempt it! but with a 7 average mark aprox.

Somebody may think that I’m crazy and that I expect too much of myself. Well, I’ve learnt it playing basketball. It’s not a fantasy. A few years ago, when I was 1′90m and I played VS Barcelona, Badalona, Manresa, Valencia… (ACB teams), I had to play against monsters of 2′03-2′07m. Of course I was in disadvantage, but it didn’t mean I had to give up! I had a really good trainer: he always told me that even though they were bigger, I had to go ahead playing as damn good as I can. And it turned out that most of the times, I played better than them, and because of this, I was quite a good player. Even when my opponent played well, I was satisfied because I had tried as hard as possible. So, if you try and fail, you won’t never regret it and you will have achieved the best result possible. On the other hand, if you don’t even try it, either you will get always nothing in return or you will get less than what you expected. This is why I always try the maximum, and if I can’t get it, I’ll have tried my best. Let’s let the time goes by and see if I was right or not. I used to say a sentence that I liked a lot…

The harder, the better. You have to try to climb as high as you can ever dream.

…SaMy*^60

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From the desk of Samy,

It’s awesome how little things can change you so much. Some years ago, when I was just 15 or so, I saw a picture at my old English school. It was a mountain, full of snow, and it seemed to be very cold out there. In the middle, a man, climbing it. The perspective was huge: it seemed that the man couldn’t go back but, at the same time, he would need ages to climb to the top and be safe. There was a sentence at the bottom:

You have to climb as high as you can ever dream

…SaMy*^59

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From the desk of Samy,

Sometimes there are just some things you wouldn’t ever imagine. One of them, that makes me freak out the other day, was that I didn’t know Shaq O’neal was physics PhD … It caught my by surprise. But after have reviewed what happened, I’m blaming myself because it was so obvious…! Shaq has been playing basketball for ages and there are stuff that, unalterably, he knows. And by extension, he must be some kind of PhD, because this is real knowledge…

The laws of physics say that a body in motion stays in motion,” Professor Shaq stated. “So if you have two objects meet in the air, the smaller object is going to fall much harder. I’ve never been the type of player to take anybody out, so I obviously went to the ball. The little guy ran into a brick wall.

Do you think he was right? You can judge by yourself

Uuuhhh… Shaq is the best. Maybe he was a bit hard, yeah… But he’s the best! He stands for many feelings in Basketball such as courage, common sense, effort, dedication… Uh, I’m becoming melancholic, sorry…

To finalize, while I was looking for some information in order to write and complement this post I came across a funny video of Shaq, LeBron, Dwight Howard dancing in an NBA match… they can be whatever you want, but you can’t deny that they have, at least, a good sense of humour!

…SaMy*^58

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From the desk of Samy,

I keep my promises and as I told you, Dra. E. Valderrama gave us a conference about micro systems. This is the summary, I hope you’ll like it.

First of all, in order to understand what a micro system is, we have to go back in time a few years. In 1904, Electronic bore with the invention of the triode. It’s an object quite bigger (10cm. or so) made by 3 electrodes. When a signal came in from one side, it came out amplified by the other side.

This triode is the father of what we currently know as a transistor (much smaller).

To have an idea of what it means, a Pentium has about 2.000.000 transistors (and a dual core, much more).

Most of us perfectly know what ENIAC was: one of the first computers. It incorporated 18.000 triodes and had a total of 100m. just for itself. It weighted 40.000 Kg. and needed a total of 13kW/h ! And had an average of 3 minutes/failure. Let’s compare with a current laptop now, a Pentium IV: 3.300.000 transistors and consuming less than 100w/h. A huge improvement in about 50 years! When did the transistor appear? in 1947. It’s said to be the birth of the microelectronics because we changed from a big object (triode) to a little one (transistor, about 100Micras). Then, in 1958 Jack Kilby achieved a better use of the transistors: he created the first integrated circuit, combining some elements.

From microelectronic to microsystems was quite easy: combining the components scientists started to create great things for the human being. And the medical world, by extension, started to be able to work against some impossible problems before all of this started. 

Thank to microelectronics, improving really fast, we could use pacemakers, we could treat epilepsy, and other diseases. But the most significant step is when we go from just a simple circuit to the ability of working with electrodes, creating sensors and actuators that in front of some stimuli they respond with an electric signal (well, when electrodes move, a electric signal is created) that are able to stimulate the nerves, improving the quality of life of those people who need this mechanism to survive (partial paralytics, blinds can see a very little bit (it’s better than nothing!), deafs can heard something,…).

Now, this technology is still improving very fast and the most advanced investigations are not trying to create a better circuits but to be able to move a single electrode, that’s to say, to work at molecular level!

If at microelectronic level we can proporcionate a better life to deafs, blinds and so on, can you imagine how far we can go with nanosystems instead of microsystems?

Personally, about the conference, it was really good. It lasted just an hour and it was a pitty because the topic was really extensive and I would have liked to learn/know more, but well, even though it would have to be larger, we understood the importance of microsystems and how the nanosystems could revolutionize the world in a near future.

…SaMy*^57

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Ganar dinero online es algo que todos hemos pensado. Incluso probado. Pero pocos hemos sido los que realmente hemos ganado algo, además del miedo que supone que luego al final no te paguen. Pero para eso, algunos ya hemos pasado estas fronteras y nos hemos podido llevar dinero de verdad (en mi caso 440€, 7 cobros, al final añado prueba;)). Paso a explicarte en qué consiste, para ayudarte a ganar algo de dinero de forma fiable y, no voy a negarlo, me ayudas a mi tambien.

La empresa en cuestión se llama es-facil, totalmente fiable, por qué? Porque la he probado y sí pagan. Es la típica PTR (paid-to-read, pagar por leer), con la diferencia de qué pagan hasta 5 niveles de referidos, lo que la hace una de las mejor pagadas. Para no dar el tocho, voy a ir directamente al grano. Sólo decir que datos de pago no hace falta ponerlos hasta que vas a cobrar (información para los pesimistas) y que no se permiten multicuentas.
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From the desk of Samy,

As promised before, I’m starting the new course and I have new stuff to post :). One of my subjects is Integrated Circuits Design. The first day, as usual, teacher gave us a presentation about the subject and I liked it. Why? Because we will have 6 conferences along the course, and they do sound interesting! And you all know I love conferences and I always let you know what the speaker tell us so, here I advance you which are gonna be my posts during this semester (among others, of course!):

1. From micro to nano systems - by Dra. E. Valderrama
2. Computing architectures in reconfigurable systems - by B. Martínez
3. Sensors and actuators applied to personal autonomy for handiccaped persons and the old age - by Dr. V. Soler
4. Micro and nanotechnology for spacial applications - by Dr. C. Ferrer
5. Multi-robot systems applied to biomedicine - by Dr. L. Ribas
6. The microtechnology’s market - by Dr. J. Agulló

Notice that each speaker is highly qualified: most of them are doctors!

I have to attend 3 conferences at least in order to pass the course so, I’ll post, at minimum, 3 conferences. However, I’ll try to assist as many as I can. But don’t blame me if I don’t post a conference which you like, conferences are on Friday, it’s a difficult day;)!

…SaMy*^55

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From the desk of Samy,

One of the most common mistakes of fishes/newbies poker players is to play outside of their own economic possibilities. Either for not wanting to drop down a limit or for pride, a lot of people stay when they have to stop playing that limit because they don’t have enough bankroll for it. The most common causes are the fact of wanting more money faster or the fact of being tilt, meaning that you become more looser, damaging your game and consequently, your winnings.

What is the consequence of playing outside your possibilities? Bankrupt. We want to avoid this, but how can we know we are playing in an appropiate limit according to our bankroll? I’m talking about cash games, specially Texas Hold’em No Limit. First of all, you have to get familiarized with the word buy-in. Let’s better see an example: we are playing NL10, and blinds are 0.05/0.1$, and you want to join a table. Which how much stack are you going to join a table? It will be between 2 and 10$. If you enter with 2$, your buy-in means 2$. If you enter with 10$, then, your buy-in means 10$. Now, we can calculate which should be our limit depending on our bankroll.

First, calculate your bankroll in buy-ins. For instance, if your buy-in is 2$ and you’ve got 200$, you’ve got 100 buy-ins. Easy, isn’t it? if your buy-in is 10$ and you’ve got 200$, you’ve got 20 buy-ins.

Once we know this, the rule is:

You need, at least, 25 buy-ins in order to play a determinate limit. So, calculate it.

Examples:
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From the desk of Samy,

The most common topic these days is the LHC, is this gonna work? Are we all dead once it starts colliding particles? How secure is it? What about if something goes wrong? Well, I’m not physicist nor an expert but I don’t understand why so many people are so worried about the possible end of the world or a global disaster. Well, I do know why. The reason is the misinformation. Two scientist have claimed the worst possible end basing their claims on air. And the 99% of the other scientists are really expecting the results of LHC. Don’t let them frighten you, an experiment of 6000 millions € is not a we-can-try-this-and-see-what-happens! If you do believe this experiment is gonna creak us, then, clear your mind up and try to think as if you are Sarah Palin… She thinks God is the creator and that dinosaurs existed 4000 years ago (remember that 5000 years ago God created the earth and so on) so you won’t be concerned any more, because this experiment will fail for sure, it’s science. If you haven’t notice, I’m being sarcastic.

Either way, here you have a video about how LHC works, very interesting, I think everybody should take a look at this, LHC could be an authentic revolution…

…SaMy*^53

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From the desk of Samy,

Ok, it’s a bit nazi, but I think I’ve laughed so loud that anybody within 5miles has listened to me. I’m really sorry but I couldn’t contain myself. You’ll agree with me, I’m totally positive! Here’s the image (click to enlarge).
(more…)

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From the desk of Samy,

Oh oh oh, I need help right away! I don’t have any ideas nor inspiration! I need them so that I can go ahead blogging, this is tormenting me! I’m sorry but I will use my only available ace right now, poker.

I started to play poker on July 2008, about 25th aprox. ‘cos I was really bored at home (see my holidays 2008) I signed up through a website: pokerstrategy.com (this is my referral link, I don’t hide it, but if you join, it doesn’t cost you anything and I can earn a little bit, it’s fair, isn’t it?;))

Why do I started to play poker and besides, through PS (Pokerstrategy)? The answer is because PS gives you an initial bonus of 50$ so that you can start playing without spending any money! It’s a bit unbelievable, isn’t it? I’ll explain you how it works.

When you play poker online, each hand has a rake. This is a fee imposed by the casino (if not, casinos wouldn’t earn anything). Normally fees are between 2-5% of the pot. It means if we gotta a pot of 1$, casino will earn 0.03$ and the winner 0.97$. If we join through PS, casino will earn 1-3% instead of 2-5%. Why? Because the difference will ended up at PS! So, PS earns money when you play and generate rake if you are its referral and the way to achieve that is giving you 50$ so that you can start to play poker. You can read the whole explanation and details here.

This bonus was the main reason but PS has a lot of other things to consider such as good forums (where professional players value your hands 24/7), strategies based on statistics (really, really good) and much more things that you should take a look at if you wanna start playing real money poker for free. In the following posts I’ll explain how my evolution is going on. One fact: 130$ in my bankroll ;).

…SaMy*^51

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