Ramón Calderón

Yet another video of a little trip of mine. This one’s...

Tue, 08 May 2012 22:55:00 +0200

Yet another video of a little trip of mine. This one’s from September last year, when I went to Sweden with a bunch of friends. It shows images of Stockholm mainly, but also of Sigtuna and Uppsala.

"Yours is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life."

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:47:10 +0200

“Yours is the most terrible crime a human being can commit. I accuse you of a wasted life.”

- Judge in Papillon’s dream in Papillon (1973)

Another panoramic picture from a trip I did to Norway —I already...

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:16:00 +0100

Another panoramic picture from a trip I did to Norway —I already posted this one before—. This time it’s a bird’s eye view photo of Bergen, taken from the mountains that surround the city.

Tips for improving your English

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:27:00 +0100

I think it should be obvious by reading this post, but just in case, a disclaimer: I’m not an English teacher.

I was taught English as a second language at school, for many years. Of course, I learned all the basic grammar. But due to the way I was taught, I ended up having serious problems to understand spoken English and, needless to say, to speak it. A few years ago, I started trying to improve my English by myself. Now I want to share some of the things I did —and still do today— to dramatically increase my level, hoping they’ll work for others.

Watch videos with English subtitles on a regular basis, never less than two or three hours a week (ideally more). Any kind of videos will work: movies, TV shows, documentaries, recorded talks… The more diverse, the better. Watching videos with subtitles might be a bit tough at first —especially with subtitles that are not in your mother tongue—, but don’t give up. After some time you’ll notice that you won’t need to read the subtitles all the time. It’s also a good idea to watch some videos without subtitles from time to time, to test your listening skills and push them further.

Read in English every day. You don’t need to read a lot, but you do need to get used to reading every day. Besides reading books, you can read stuff on the Internet, such as blogs, news or social network updates. You might find that easier, because books are long, and sometimes dense and complicated —this is often the case of novels and literary texts—, whereas Internet texts are generally shorter, lighter and more informal. Changing the language of your computer to English can help as well.

Listen to audio in English for half an hour a week at the very least. It can be a weekly podcast, or an audiobook, for example. One could argue that you already listen to audio if you watch videos, but it’s not the same thing: even if you do so without subtitles, images provide contextual information and all sort of clues that help you understand what’s happening. Understanding audio alone is usually more challenging. Exactly what you need to make progress.

Consume real content, made for and by native English speakers. This applies to the three points above. I’m not saying that you should avoid the so-called learning material altogether —you know, those dumbed-down novels made for English students and that sort of things—, but make sure that it isn’t the only content you consume. If you want to take your English to the next level, you need to read, watch and listen to the contents native speakers are exposed to.

Focus on the general meaning. This again applies to all of the above. Looking up every single word you don’t understand in the dictionary can sometimes be pretty bothering and eventually lead to frustration. That’s why I think it’s fine to let an unknown word pass you by from time to time. Many times, in fact, you’ll be able to guess what it means by context or repetition. Pay special attention when you see a word used a number of times in different situations: that’ll help you figure out its nuances and connotations.

Write something in English once or twice a week. Make sure to put quality —understood as minimizing mistakes and using new words and expressions whenever possible— over quantity. In other words, write carefully rather than a lot. A few lines are enough. It is key that you write your own thoughts, feelings, opinions and ideas, instead of descriptive texts. It’s not that the latter won’t help you, but you won’t learn as much. Try to think and write in English right from the start, as opposed to thinking in your mother tongue and then translating to English. The former won’t work: you’ll probably end up with a too literal translation. Social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook are great for this task, because they encourage you to write short texts regularly, but of course you can just use a good old notebook.

Speak out loud in English as much as you can. Language exchange over Skype is a pretty convenient option. You can also find out if there are language exchange meetings at bars and cafes in your city. If or when you can’t talk to someone, talk to yourself. It might sound a bit silly, but it’s a great exercise. Say what you’re thinking out loud or try to describe what you’re doing —e.g., the steps you follow when cooking, as if you were giving a recipe—.

Solve your own doubts. Not having a teacher to answer your questions doesn’t mean you’re doomed to failure. You can solve a lot of doubts by making smart use of Internet search engines, like Google: the number of results that a certain expression returns —don’t forget to put quotes around it— is a clue for whether it’s right or not. Search engines also suggest the correct spelling of a word if you misspelled it. More specific online language resources include dictionaries —both regular and specialized, like Urban Dictionary for slang and colloquial language—, forums like WordReference —particularly useful for idioms, sayings and set phrases, most of which you won’t find in a dictionary—, pronunciation guides like Forvo —that lets you hear the pronunciation of words, even in different accents— and translators —Google Translator is the best by far—. Although not essential, it’s nice to have a grammar reference book. For me, English Grammar in Use is a fantastic choice, because it’s very comprehensive, yet concise in its explanations. It covers all the basic grammar and includes exercises.

That’s it. Thanks for reading this far and my apologies if some of these things sounded obvious to you. I thought it was worth pointing them out anyway. I really hope that this has been of interest to you and that it’ll serve you in some way.

If you have any comments, you can reach me on Twitter or through the contact page. Please feel free to share this post if you think it could help somebody.

A photo of The National Gallery that I took a few years ago...

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:23:14 +0100

A photo of The National Gallery that I took a few years ago during a trip to London. In fact, I already posted another picture from that same trip.

"Better call Saul!"

Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:19:25 +0100

“Better call Saul!”

- Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad (2008 - present)

A video summary of a trip around Norway I did last summer with...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:45:00 +0200

A video summary of a trip around Norway I did last summer with some friends. The footage has been lying around in my computer for a while and now I thought it was time to make something with it.

A love story coming to an end

Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:40:00 +0200

It’s very sad to say this, since I’ve been an Ubuntu user and supporter for five years, but the truth is that in recent times Ubuntu has gotten worse with each design iteration.

Ubuntu’s new interface, so-called Unity, has been surrounded by controversy from the very beginning. With a brand new interface being developed for GNOME —the desktop environment upon which is built Ubuntu—, the Ubuntu team decided to use a custom interface —the aforementioned Unity— rather than sticking with GNOME’s new one. At that moment I personally wasn’t sure that was going to be a wise move. However, a few months later GNOME still looked a bit messy, unpolished and not particularly beautiful, whereas Unity offered a simpler, more streamlined and refined interface. So it didn’t seem such a bad decision after all.

But then the Ubuntu team started messing around with their initial design. They not only added a number of supposed improvements that were actually to the detriment of the user experience in my opinion —such as a global menu that remains hidden until you hover the mouse over the top of the screen—, but also moved Unity towards a more futuristic and allegedly impressive look, turning a reasonably sober desktop into some sort of videogame. Ubuntu’s most confusing and ridiculously cluttered interface ever had landed. Meanwhile, GNOME’s new interface showed an incredible amount of progress since its initial state and got much, much better. Nowadays it sports a clean and beautiful interface that is a wonder to use and makes managing windows and workspaces a real pleasure.

So I don’t know if I’ll stick with Ubuntu and just install GNOME Shell to replace Unity or —more probably— move to another distribution that ships with GNOME Shell by default, like Fedora, for which I’ve developed a certain sympathy lately. What I do know is that I won’t be using Unity after my next clean installation of a Linux distribution.

I hope you prove me wrong with your next iteration, Ubuntu. Because if not, I’ll probably end up saying that it was nice while it lasted.

"He never grew up. The world grew up around him, that’s all."

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:18:48 +0200

“He never grew up. The world grew up around him, that’s all.”

- Anna Schmidt in The Third Man (1949)

The last iteration of this very website. I’ve revamped the...

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 +0200

The last iteration of this very website. I’ve revamped the design and added some features, such as endless scrolling —so older posts load automatically when you reach the bottom of the page—, links to different categories of posts in the sidebar, a contact form and a few other nifty details —try clicking on an image, for example—. The new design has been inspired by the wonderful Vostok theme.

"If you think that this is all there is, that our planet exists in magnificent isolation, then..."

Fri, 13 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

“If you think that this is all there is, that our planet exists in magnificent isolation, then you’re wrong.”

- Brian Cox in Wonders of the Solar System (2010)

A panoramic picture taken on board of a boat in Oslo, during a...

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 +0200

A panoramic picture taken on board of a boat in Oslo, during a little tour around Norway I did in September last year. Cold, beautiful country.

Beauty at 5 centimeters per second

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0200

I’m no anime expert —in fact, I haven’t seen more than a few anime films in my life— but I’ve watched Byôsoku 5 senchimêtoru (5 Centimeters Per Second) this weekend and found it visually overwhelming.

Every shot is carefully crafted: colors, lights, framing, camera movement… The movie mimics real cameras behavior so there’s depth of field and even lens flares, and they’re wisely utilized to create beautiful images. There are tons of details everywhere. Everything is exquisitely arranged. It’s really surprising.

Of course I’m only talking about the images here; the narrative —a bit plain and oversweetened for me— would be a different discussion. But even if one don’t find the plot especially compelling, this film is still very worth watching. Sixty minutes of visual delightfulness are guaranteed.

"The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster."

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0200

“The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.”

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1943 - present)

A visual effects breakdown of my own that shows how...

Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:00:00 +0200

A visual effects breakdown of my own that shows how post-production work can help creating a shot. It’s been all made inside Adobe After Effects.

Facebook, privacy and security

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100

Tuenti is a very popular Spanish social network similar to Facebook. I use the example of Tuenti in this text, but the underlying reasoning is valid in general terms and applies to another web services.

I know Facebook and Tuenti quite well. I’ve got a Facebook account that I use almost everyday and I’ve also been on Tuenti until recently. I’m the kind of user that goes through all the configuration options when joining a new service and tweaks everything to its liking. That’s why it surprises me so much when I know of people that own a Tuenti account but stay away from Facebook due to security and privacy concerns. They should know their behavior doesn’t make any sense.

The relatively widespread thought that since Tuenti is an invitation-only website, personal data is hence “more private”, better protected or more safely stored, is just wrong. Not only Facebook implements some specific security features such as secure browsing (HTTPS) or account activity logs —whereas Tuenti doesn’t—, but also a huge amount of privacy settings that let you fine-tune every aspect of how all your data is shared with others, from personal information such as name or studies to tagged photos or status updates.

Let me put one simple example that illustrates these differences between Facebook and Tuenti. Do you want to hide the pictures in which you’ve been tagged from everybody, including your friends, so you’re the only one who can see them? Well, you can do that on Facebook, but not on Tuenti: your friends will inevitably be able to look at every picture in which you have been or will be tagged, no matter what you do.

So in conclusion, Facebook is as safe as most social networks —or even safer— and offers way more control over privacy than many of them, including Tuenti. You just need to go to your account settings, take some time to read all the options and adjust them to your taste. If you’re not willing to spend half an hour doing so, perhaps you’re actually not that concerned about your privacy.

Finally, the obvious solution: if you really are that worried about privacy and security of your personal information, don’t join this kind of websites in the first place —or do it with a false name—. It’s that simple.

"He’s not a serial killer. At least he didn’t mention it."

Fri, 11 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100

“He’s not a serial killer. At least he didn’t mention it.”

- Melodie St. Ann Celestine in Whatever Works (2009)

A video I’ve made with footage taken during a recent 4-day...

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 00:00:00 +0100

A video I’ve made with footage taken during a recent 4-day trip to the north of England, covering Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. I went there to represent The Cosmonaut in a filmmaking event hosted by Screen Yorkshire.

The kids are all right, and so is the movie

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0100

This text contains minor spoilers. Read it at your own discretion.

I didn’t have high hopes for The Kids Are All Right but —maybe because of that— it’s turned out to be a surprisingly good film. One of those nice little movies, not a masterpiece but a pleasant amusement. Funny and entertaining for the most part, it’s got the right amount of bitterness.

We’ve seen the same story many times before: a middle-aged married couple with kids that seems perfect until problems arise, which finally lead to an infidelity. However, the introduction of a gay couple gives some originality and freshness to this old idea, renewing it in a quite interesting way and allowing some unusual situations to happen.

A lot of work has been put into dialogues, which seem to have been carefully written. They sound rather natural and you can really feel the awkwardness of some situations. The remarkable performance of the actors obviously helps make the story feel real and believable, although there’s always a touch of unreality floating around: the movie definitely got an indie feeling. You know, this layer of positivism and happiness, this sense of warmth, that some people love and others hate —I’d say I kind of like it when it’s appropriately handled—.

Speaking of which, I think the film could have used a less complacent ending, but it’s all right. This is an indie-ish dramedy at the end, you can’t expect anything different in that regard.

"Machete don’t text. Machete improvise."

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 00:00:00 +0200

“Machete don’t text. Machete improvise.”

- Machete in Machete (2010)