I’ve been in California for the past week and a half; things are mostly the same as last time I’ve been here, but it’s nice to meet my american coworkers in person again. Haven’t done much yet besides work and a tour at Fry’s (mandatory for every Valley visit).

I spent most of my free time last week going through old data and backups. I now have all my old email archives cleaned up and imported into Gmail. The oldest message I have is from March 1999, and reading some of them feels like taking a trip in the time machine.

If I manage to dig up old blog archives, I’ll try to import them into the current blog.

• Infocare: transformare in foca
• Ghinioane: varianta moldoveneasca pentru ardelenescul “Bine, Ioane”
• Imprastiere: rezultatul procesului prin care betivii se fac prastie
• Bizar: zar dublu
• Macel: mac mic
• Microscop: scop marunt
• Inviorat: prevazut cu vioara
• Lesina: pe unde merge “le tren”
• Meritoriu: teritoriul ocupat de livada de meri
• Rateu: pateu din carne de ratza
• Scarabeu: cetatean ce locuieste la bloc, la scara a doua; din aceeasi familie de cuvinte se cunosc scaraceu si scaradeu
• Tractor: actor cu mult trac
• Tutun: a-a-arma de-de-de a-a-artilerie
• Tzurtzur: sunetul soneriei, iarna
• Batalion: fratele mai mic al plutonierului Batal Gheorghe

This is how Google search really works

Update: well, it looks like the video got taken down for some reason. It was funny while it lasted, though.

• The good: hope
• The bad: distance
• The ugly: bitterness
• The plan: carry on.

It would appear that I overestimated the amount of support Romanian people give to teaching religion in schools. Noise is being made to oppose it, and an (as of right now) unknown group is starting to lobby for the teaching of astrology and alchemy in highschools (article in Romanian). Very articulate, well argumented, and poking loads of fun at the official church position. It’s been covered by at least one big media outlet, trolling a bunch of their readers. Awesome!

… where by “there’s no place like” we mean “OMG WTF is going on” and by “home” we mean “in Romania”.

Fun facts:

• The Ministry of Education and Research removed evolutionist theory from the biology curriculum, starting with the 2007-2008 academic year. Along with it, the philosophy curriculum stopped covering the religious views of heathens such as Voltaire and Nietzsche
• Romania is now the only EU country that doesn’t teach evolutionist theory in schools. This is in spite of EC resolution 1580 (2007) outlining the dangers of creationism in education
• Religion is currently taught in schools for the first 10 years. Attendance is mandatory unless the parents submit a written request otherwise
• The church is lobbying to make religion a mandatory class in high schools, too
• In a poll, 73% of the 7th to 12th graders interviewed believed that god created man

This situation isn’t just some power-grabbing attempt by the church (they’re state funded, anyway) – it has significant popular support. It’s not even a case of intelligent design versus pastafarians: there’s no effort to “scientify” the creationism taught in schools, and the feeble attempts at protesting are mostly covered by press in an ironic, “look at these wannabe disturbers of our holy tradition” tone (and viciously flamed down by the general public).

A picture is worth a thousand words:

Well, a bit more than that – I started on January 23, 2006, but I forgot to post on the exact anniversary.

It’s scary how quickly time passed. It’s even scarier to realize that I don’t really have a long-term plan (or a short term one or, for that matter, any plan) and thus I risk making a “10 years of Google” post sooner that I might realize.

Do I still like it? You bet. Sure, the honeymoon is long over and not everything is perfect (some people might call that an euphemism) but I have a hard time imagining a better place of employment right now. I guess the biggest challenge is trying to fit in the culture of apparent hyperproductivity: being a smart slacker just doesn’t cut it (because everybody else is just as – and usually more – smart than you).

What now? I don’t know. I guess it’s just a matter of keeping at it, and making a plan for the future. Yeah.

28

I found this again a couple days ago: http://marc.info/?l=djbdns&m=99055803519517&w=2

• Last Friday: took the train up to Belfast. Didn’t stay very long (though I did get to see the most bombed hotel in Europe). It looks fairly similar to Dublin, except that it’s smaller, it has a slightly darker shade of grey, they use those funny British money, and their accent is funny as well (although I like it a bit better than ye aulde dubspeak).
• After Belfast, the next destination was Rathlin – this small, rainy island in the middle of nowhere – home of the Jigs and Rigs 2007 music festival (no link for that, but it was pretty cool). When I first heard about it I somehow compared it with Sziget, but this this was much smaller and retreated. Fun, friendly people, and so much rain that the Dublin weather now seems completely reasonable.
• I took a late speedboat back from Rathlin on Sunday, and this put me in the novel position of being stuck in Ballycastle with no way to leave (until the morning when the buses were running again) and nowhere to sleep (every single B&B, hotel, hostel, motel, whatever in the city was completely booked out). It all worked out when the owner of one of the B&B’s I tried took pity on me (thanks again, Ms. Jennifer :) ) and let me sleep on a couch for a tenner and the promise that I’ll have breakfast at 8:00 then fuck off (because “I’ve got the place full of guests”).
• I’m writing all this from Mountain View, CA – I just arrived after what has probably been my longest and least precise Atlantic crossing ever. I could rant forever about Delta Airlines, the wisdom of setting up US Immigration & Border Control in Ireland (!) or the various other things that made the trip last more than 6 hours longer than intended, but hey, I made it into one piece and I have all my luggage with me :) I’ll be staying here until the 27th of this month.