• Travel blog – Day 14

    I think I am falling apart 🙂 Yesterday, while helping the dive master push the boat, I seriously cut my foot. I am now limping. My back is seriously sunburned. And my legs are full of itching spots. My guess is that it’s the aftermath of the bug situation. To be on the safe side,…

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  • Travel blog – Day 13

    An amazing scuba diving day 🙂 I had arranged to go diving today. The weather was gorgeous… sunny and blue sky. It was a 30 min boat ride to the Laughingbird Cay, one of those islands we see in films… very small, few palm trees, soft sandy beach, green waters. It was a dream. Unfortunately…

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  • Travel blog – Day 12

    A very very relaxing day, full of reading. The day was cloudy so I didn’t feel like jumping into the water. Instead, I walked on the beach for a while, then found a palm tree and read philosophy. It’s amazing how much Aristotle, Patlo, and the rest of the gang had figured about the world…

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  • Travel blog – Day 11

    Travelled today. I settled my bill with John at the Trek Stop, said my goodbyes, and I was on the road again. I’ll miss that place. I had an excellent time there. From San Ignacio, I picked up Lisa and Michelle, the two students who are on a tour of central America and on their…

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  • Travel blog – Day 10

    Today was “Tikal day”. The previous night I had arranged to join a group, an organized tour, for a day-long trip to Tikal in Guatemala. A number of reasons lead me to decide to leave Julio, the car, behind: I found out that for almost half the distance the road was pretty bad; there were…

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  • Travel blog – Day 9

    Last night I slept for 11 hours. Hmmm… I think my body is telling me to take it easy or it’s just that the Trek Stop is the best place to relax and my body is taking the opportunity to make up for all the months of hard work 🙂 I am not complaining! No…

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  • Travel blog – Day 8

    After I posted the “day 7” entry, I went to my little cabin (see below) and tried to write for few hours but didn’t manage to. It’s soooo peaceful here. You can only hear the sounds of the jungle (and infrequently some annoying dogs… I have nothing against dogs… It’s just that they spoil the…

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  • Travel blog – Day 7

    No sign of bugs this morning and throughout the day. My “attack” on them yesterday seems to have paid off. Let’s see tomorrow. The heavy metal band across the street was playing into the early hours of the morning. As a result, I didn’t get much sleep 🙂 I was soooo tempted to go to…

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  • Travel blog – Day 6

    (this was supposed to be a boring driving day… little I knew 🙂 After yesterday’s problems with Julio, the car, the night ended quiet with lots of book-related writing. In the morning, the bedbugs were back 🙁 This time I took more drastic action. I threw away all clothes that might had been exposed to…

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  • 1TB sort done in 68 seconds by Google

    This 3 times faster than the previous known record. For those who don’t know, Jim Gray et al established a series of tests, including the 1TB sort, in order to give database vendors a playground for honest comparisons. The results are maintained online. Here are the two related papers: “A Measure of Transaction Processing”. Note…

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