The Polis

Agia Sofia Temple [1].
In my opinion, it is the most impressing architectural creation all over the world.

29^th of May 1453. 558 years ago. The Capital of the great Byzantine Empire was captured by the Ottoman Turks. Constantinople (or Istanbul, or Polis) became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. After 8 weeks of siege, the last emperor, Constantine the XI was killed and Sultan Mehmed II conquered the City. According to historians, Constantine said the following marvelous phrase to Sultan Mehmed II: “Delivering you the City, is not my decision and it is not a decision of anyone of its citizens as we all unsolicited decide that we will die*” [2].  Leaders like him should be an exemplar of the politicians of the new era. Do not sell your nations to brutal financial killers. Resist and fight until death.

Read here more about Constantinople, one of the best Greek achievements!

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[1]: Image taken from http://www.citypictures.org/
[2]: http://www.blog.gr/article.php?id=33646&category_id=23
* The translation is mine and I believe that it represents the original meaning of the phrase.

Angry vs Angry Birds

Well, well. The previous post created some objections, a lot of discussions (that's probably the best outcome of that blog - for me). After the whole financial situation in Greece, the last thing that we should care about (right now, I mean right now) is who is responsible for creation of the problem. The only thing that we should think now is how we can get out safely from that situation. Then it would be easier to identify and punish the real guilty people (politicians, bankers, brokers or whatever). As I said the previous article was published after the creation through Facebook of a "motion" that it is cleverly called "Angry" (or "The angry people").

But, wait a minute... I talked about a movement called "Angry". Who are them? The answer is easy: They are people, pure people from my point of view, that are really angry about what is now happening in Greece. As they say, and I believe them, they don't belong to any political party and they have no leaders from political parties. Cool. What are their goals? The answer is easier than expected: They have NO goals. Honestly, what's the goal of that? Do you "Angry" people want the prime minister to leave the country? Do you want our country to leave the eurozone? Do you want our country to declare bankruptcy? Do you want to receive double salaries from tomorrow? I strongly believe that if we ask them, we will receive different answers which cover the whole range of the above questions. So, until they reach a final decision (basically, start discussing about that) on what are their goals, they are simply a group of confused people. 

So, I apologize for my terrible approach to your really acceptable protest, but I prefer another group of angry. Yeah, the angry birds! They have different colors, different skills but these cheering, funky birds, have at least a clear goal: Destroy the barriers and kill the ugly green pigs.

Angry birds is free for Android phones/tablets (link)

Viva la revolution

Did you ever hear the name Theodoros Pagkalos? Greeks say "Of course we know him", all the others "No, not at all". For all the others, T. Pagkalos is a Greek politician and he is elected from 1981 since now a member of the Greek parliament. Everyone admits that he is a very active politician. However he became famous in January 1996, when he was the Greek foreign minister. That period Greeks and Turks were almost came in war when the Turkish army stepped on a small Greek island and remove the Greek flag. T. Pagkalos became famous because it is claimed that he said that in order to avoid the war we can say to Greeks that the flag was removed not by the Turkish army but by the strong wind. 

The last 2 years he is the vice president of the Greek government. A second phrase that he said a year ago brought himself against the Greek citizens. While people were trying to convince themselves that the politicians are responsible for the dead-end in the Greek economy, he said "We ate them together" which means that you are responsible, too. This phrase will accompanying him for a long long time.

From my point of view that phrase is the biggest true word that this person ever said. The problem is that Greeks are still trying to convince themselves that it is not correct. The list of proofs that confirm that phrase is so big. The best proof is that almost every family in Greece has a member who works as a public servant. 

As the alcoholics say, "the best way to fight against it, is to admit it". So Greek people, we ate them together. You know that. Now try to solve the problem, not by protesting (really against whom? the people that we voted for?), but by simply being citizens that obey to the law, pay their taxes and not trying to befool the public financial mechanism. 

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*All the above are personal thoughts of the writer and should be addressed like personal opinion and nothing more.

** The above was written a couple of weeks ago and it is published now as a result of the following 2 images. 

Young protesters in Spain are fighting against the socialist party and their prime minister, Jose Luis Zapatero.

Young protesters in Greece are fighting against the socialist party and their prime minister, George A. Papandreou. [through Facebook - Viva la revolution] 

Run to catch the bus

480 pages assessment delivered.

After a long long time I am back to express myself in this blog. To be honest, during this period I’d written two articles but I postpone their publication because I am not sure if they are offensive or they can create some uncomfortable situation to some friends of mine. Eventually, taking an MSc course isn’t the easiest situation you can deal with. Hours of study, countdown to deadlines and… running to catch the bus (for people who doesn’t know that, my principle “never run to catch a bus, another one will arrive shortly” was busted here in York, twice!).

Finally, the Practical Software Engineering & Management of Software Engineering module ended yesterday followed by a fest in the local pubs. 4 months working with 4 people from 4 different countries. Deal with 4 different cultures. A lot of 4s or a lot of lessons learnt? I strongly believe the second one. Let’s do some maths:

• 7.648,42 are the kilometers between Athens and Beijing.
• 5.009,51 kilometers from Athens to New Delhi.
• 2.481,57 kilometers from Athens to Tehran.
• 2.422,30 kilometers from Athens to London.
• 1500+ hours of team working. 841 hours spent on defined project tasks.
• More than 100 liters of coffee (= 300 pounds spent in vending machines)

What about culture?

• Capital punishment is the penalty to Iranians if they declare that they are not religious.
• In contrast, English people really don’t care about God.
• Chinese boys have to buy a house to their girlfriends.
• Indians smoke a lot, like Greeks.
• Never bet against Iranians.
• In China, you have to work at the place that you were born.
• If an English man wants to speak real “everyday” English you cannot understand him, even if you hold a PhD in English language from the Cambridge University with the title “Understanding everyday English from English university students”.
• ...

And finally, general stuff:

• Conversation between two Greek boys is very sexy (yes, someone told that. WTF?).
• Greeks can speak for boring things very passionate.
• Democracy in software engineering sucks.
• after 4 months Gu Zi became Gu Zili and got his glory back (sorry Steve ).

That’s all. It’s time to start my final project. Another 4-months experience starts from now. For the previous one, I want to thank Lyla, Steve, Ehsan and Vipin.