a story--

["Aldo Solari [APS]" <SOLARIS@cicei.ulpgc.es>]

A personal story and a conclusion. OK, here we go:

My first computer was a Mac SE30.  I bought it when  I  received  my
basic  training  at  Lund  University (Sweden).  It cost me over 5 K
USD.  I had  to  work  at  night,  distributing newspapers, during a
year, to afford it.  This meant I had to wake up  at  02.00  in  the
middle  of  the night and get totally wet, day after day, week after
week.  I even  distributed  newspapers  with  a -54ºC cooling effect
(i.e.  -30ºC+80 Km/h winds), got  (slightly)  frozen  legs&arms  and
lost over 15 kilos of weight during that winter.  But I could get my
first  computer,  it  let  me  do a million things (simulations) and
contributed so I received a phd scolarship to come to these islands.

Once I was doing real  number  crunching,  my old mac didn't hold no
longer.  It took me over a week of CPU time to run data analyses  on
the  oceanographic  data  base I had received from the International
Council for the Exploration  of  the  Sea.   I  requested funds at a
million instances to buy a somehow powerful box but nobody  gave  me
anything.  And, then, I couldn't take an extra job.  Hence, I had to
live  in  a totally empty flat during 18 months to afford the P5 out
of my for-food scolarship.   During  those  days,  I stayed about 18
hours/day at college and went home just to sleep.  But I  bought  my
P5  with  which  I developed a new mathematical model for fish stock
dynamics.  Now, I  got  an  award  from  the  European Union and get
letters from very important  scientists  from  all  over  the  world
praising  my job.  At the end of this month, several scientists from
Iceland, Sweden, France, UK and Spain will come over here to discuss
my work.

I for one believe I have to fight to make ideas come thru.  In SEUL,
we have to climb a huge mountain.   It'll  take  time  and  efforts.
There's  no  hurry.   We will have to fight and once over the top of
the mountain (any mountain),  we  will  be  able  to watch the world
around with all it's beauty.

People  who by some reason 'leave the ship' may be due to not having
sufficiently clear ideas or will  power.   Many people quit and will
quit as difficulties arise.  So, these recent developments are  good
in some way: those who didn't stand the slightest difficulty quited.
And they would have done so sooner or later, now or in the future.

This  is  my  position  towards  SEUL  and  everything else.  I have
decided to be in here and will remain as long as the rest don't kick
me or everyone quits.

I will end this  communication  with  some  phrases a friend of mine
(Viet Nam veteran) uses to say:

    Whatever shit is just chicken shit.

    Say what you mean
    Mean what you say
    and fuck'em if they cann't take a joke.

Later,

    Aldo


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