scratch that, africans are diasporic. We are more like locust uglying up the place. One yellow t-shirt, ‘mochila’ and ‘vueltiao’ at a time.

4 millones militantes regados como chips de chocolate acido por todo el mundo, somas los auto-exiliados, somas los nuevos diásporicos.

No… tachen eso. Los Africanos son disaporicos. Somos mas como plaga biblica enfeando todo sitio por donde pasamos. Una camiseta amarilla, mochila y sombrero vueltiao a la vez.

]]> http://www.piterwilson.com/personal/2009/10/20/nation-in-exile/feed/ 0 http://www.piterwilson.com/personal/2009/10/19/perdiendo-el-tiempo-como-colombiano/ http://www.piterwilson.com/personal/2009/10/19/perdiendo-el-tiempo-como-colombiano/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:49:26 +0000 Piterwilson http://www.piterwilson.com/personal/?p=289 Today i only lost 3 hours of my life in the odor full, ermetic, bureaucratic, deteriorated, thronged, vociferous, disorganized, harsh, cumbersome, bureaucratic and immovable quarters of the Argentine migration office. Another 180 minutes gone, that i can add up to the nearly 2 years i have spent next to the other brothers in nationality disgrace: Bolivians, Ecuatorians, Peruvians, Central Americans, Chinese and that have been spent  in vane, because my papers are not ready yet, and this is a fact i cannot be made aware of by phone or e-mail, even thou we happen to live in the XXI century. I am very harsh towards the bad mother i was given for a nation and once more i curse the day i was born on it’s territory, because this is the reason i must be an eternal beggar of papers, permits, visas, judicial pasts, certificates, apostils, official translations, duplicates, triplicates, seals, photocopies, and fingerprints as i were a criminal, whether i am inside or outside it’s borders. Thanks to her i have to come begging for asylum to an adoptive mother who never asked or wanted me in her custody and whom is completely overridden by all of us, children of lesser nationalities of Latin America, when she herself doesn’t even want or has the desire to feed her own.

Esta vez, solo perdí 3 horas de mi vida en el odorífero, encerrado, asfixiante, pétreo, engorroso, ineficiente,  deteriorado, atiborrado, ruidoso, desorganizado, burocrático e indolente oficio de la dirección de migraciones Argentinas en Buenos aires. Otros 180 minutos que le puedo sumar a los casi 2 años que he pasado al lado de otros hermanos en desgracia nacional: Bolivianos, Ecuatorianos, Peruanos,Centro Americanos en dos filas diferentes que me hicieron hacer, fueron en vano porque al final, mis papeles todavía no están listos, cosa que, en pleno siglo XXI no se pueden congraciar a informarme por teléfono o Internet. Yo le doy muy duro a la mala madre que me toco por patria y una vez mas maldigo el día que me hicieron nacer allí, porque por ello me toca ser un eterno mendigo de papeles, permisos, visas, pasados judiciales, certificados, apostillas, traducciones, duplicados, triplicados, sellos, fotocopias, tomas de huellas dactilares como si fuera criminal, así este fuera o dentro de su territorio. Gracias a ella tengo que venir a pedirle arrimada a una mamá adoptiva que nunca pidió, ni quiere tener mi custodia y que esta encartada por completo con todos nosotros, los de nacionalidades inferiores en America Latina, cuando ella misma ni siquiera puede ni quiere amamantar a los propios.

I went trough exercise 5, which introduced the concept of a tactile button (basically just a switch). I had a bit of trouble as the diagram on the manual seems to be layed out incorrectly, i could never get it to work the way it was drawn there. It would seem that the digital pin that goes to the ground (in yellow wire in the graphic bellow), is positioned just after the resistor and connected directly to it (am i missing something?)

It was only until i did some googling and found other examples, ( this one was very useful ), where i found the correct wiring that made the tactile button work.

After this it was not hard to understand how the button worked and i moved on to project #6 on the manual, which introduces an analog input playing together with a bunch of shinny LEDS. You turn the knob and you can read it’s value and use that on your circuits. In this case, it makes the lights go faster.

At this point, i have made a couple of notes to make wiring the physical prototype easier:

• The holes in the breadboard are stiff the first time you use them. This is really annoying when you are trying to connect a resistor because its legs are very weak and will bend out of shape trying to go into the stiff hole. Also the legs are way too long and start to get in the way if you are connecting things next to them.
• The best way to prevent this is by pre-opening the breadboard holes with the tip of the jump wire before attempting to connect the resistors.
• Also it helps to cut the legs of the resistors to about half the length so they are bit sturdier and don’t bend so easily.
• Talking about jumper wires, i have separated them by length so that it’s easy to use the shorter ones whenever possible and not end up with a mess of wires all over the place.

• The solder-less board that came with my kit is not the same as the one drawn on the diagrams. Mine only has one row on each of the opposite ends, instead of the two shown on the board on the diagrams. It’s not a big deal now, but perhaps this is gonna make things a bit harder at some point as i will have to re-interpret and adapt the wiring slightly to get the same effect as the diagram on the manual.
• To no surprise the latest project i had worked on was still loaded on the Arduino until i replaced it with the new one. This is the intended behavior, but the old program started to run in the moment before i uploaded the new one (with the new wiring on the board). It was not a problem now, but maybe in the future i can damage the parts if the board is trying to run a old program and the wiring is set differently for the new project. That’s why i decided to create a “reset” program to empty the board of any programs in between projects.

This is what the traffic lights look like when completed. Now my skill level is equivalent to lights on a christmas tree!

The next project introduces a switch to make things interactive. I hope to get some time to work on it soon.

I have been picked for “random” checks at Italian airports and being taken to the “small room” to be searched. For no reason other than being the only non white on the plane (me and the poor african dude who also got “randomly” searched)

When i was in the airport in Germany, right off the airplane door, in the little tunnel that connects the plane to the airport, there was a big mean looking police officer waiting for me. He picked me from the crowd, asked for my documents, took out a magnifying glass and stared at them for some minutes. Ok, so that one was kind of funny.

There was even a time, when there was in Interpol arrest warrant for a guy with my same name. I would get stopped and my passport taken until they could rule me out.

It’s logical for me at this point to feel nervous at airports, embassies and consul offices.

I guess what hits me the hardest is not that every aspect of my life is questioned by every foreign nation i visit, but that in some cases i don’t get a fair chance to “defend” myself (what did i do wrong in the first place?). I don’t want a free ride, im not a freeloader and i certainly understand each country’s right to oversee who and why visit their territory.

I want to be treated the same as someone not born in Colombia, because I didn’t choose to be born were i was born. I had no control over that.

Judging someone based on their nationality is called racism, last time i checked. And no matter how many other Colombians are caught in the airport with coke, that shouldn’t be a reason to treat EVERY Colombian like this. because:

• I’m not those Colombians. It’s not me. Furthermore i had nothing to do with the fact that i was born in Colombia.
• It’s the same thing as any other racial minority getting singled out because of their race. With this, you are saying that all Colombians are the same, which is the same as saying all asians are the same, or all black people are the same.
• If the above are true, this is effectively, government sponsored racism, and people, regular people, agree with it.

In my life i have never been guilty of any crime. Im not a drug dealer or a needy poor inmigrant. I work for a Eropean company and make a good enough salary (even by European standars). I’m pretty much like any other western guy.

I’ll explain the reasons why i think Holland it’s not just unfair to someone in my position but it’s also very unethical with the migrant candidate (myself), the migrant’s spouse and their children, who in our case don’t exist, but would be 100% dutch citizens.

This is my situation : Im a Colombian and i have been married to a Dutch woman for a year now. We met in 2004 while i was in studying in Italy and have been together since. This is not a marriage by convenience and if asked to proove it , i gladly would. Seriously. Challenge my marriage. I will show you this is not that kind of thing.

I would like to go and join my family in Holland for some time. Is not clear to me at this point if i even want to become a Dutch citizen but i would like the right to come and go, visit my family and stay as normal resident for the time i do.

Under the Dutch law, first off, my marriage counts for nothing. As the spouse of a Dutch citizen, because i am from Colombia, i get absolutely no rights. Unlike most (about every other) country in the world, marriage does not help an immigrant (from the 3rd world that is….).

Most notably, i met a Colombian friend who married a Spanish and was granted a resident visa instantly. I heard her story with disbelief after a couple of frustrating experiences trying to get a TOURIST visa to go to Holland and visit my wife in Christmas. They were giving me a hard time even for that last year.

Moving on…

To be able to be a resident, my Dutch spouse has to live in Holland, have a one year contract signed making X amount of money and i have to learn to speak Dutch and pass an oral exam over the phone with consulate personnel.

This conditions mean to proove that i have valid reason to go there, that we have enough income to sustain ourselves and that i’ll at least integrate to the point of learning dutch.

This seems logical enough but in reality is extremely unethical and these are the reasons why:

The contract my spouse has to have means to proove means of income. But it assumes immediately that the immigrant is poor and has no money to sustain himself/herself. In my case, i have a good job and i make enough money to sustain myself and would be enough in Europe too. We have sufficient savings in the bank. But for the Dutch law, it doesn’t matter. My spouse is the one who has to have the job. It doesn’t matter what i do, or if i have a job or savings. It’s infuriating to be treated like i am an imported bride that goes to Holland to live off my Dutch spouse. Im self sufficient. But i get no chance to proove that. None whatsoever. I’m an immigrant from Colombia, therefore im poor and unable to sustain myself. Period.

So what does that mean for my spouse and I?

She has to interrupt her studies and go off to find a job, in economic recession times. This can take some time. Then after she finds the job, the procedure can start but the procedure itself takes months. Months in which we would have to be separated.

So… my wife has to drop her studies to get a job and we have to be separated. Despite us having a good living with my salary.

In my case this is an extreme annoyance and a total disrespect towards my nationality if we consider the easy treatment people from other countries get.

But let’s say my wife and I had children. The children would be Dutch citizens. Their mum would be forced to work and live on her own without a father despite the fact that the Colombian father makes more money than the Dutch mother.

Does this seem fair?

Furthermore, it seems the policy at the consulate, not surprisingly, is to try and discourage all the applicants. My wife tells me that the officials are very rude on the phone. Yes Dutch Consulate in Bogotá that means you.

One time they gave us very bad information saying our case was special enough to bypass some requirements. We submitted our request and were told it would take 3 months. Almost 3 months later, some lady called and said that the request had “just gotten to her desk” (3 months later) and that there was no way it would work.

I know Holland has had their problems with immigrants. I know all about Vincent van Gogh and i know how unsafe it is to go on the metro train late at night in cities like Rotterdam. I know lots of second and third generation immigrants have not integrated into the Dutch society and can turn violent against the free society they see as sinful.

Still i don’t approve of discriminating minorities for the greater good, i mean, this is Holland we are talking about. Its supposed to be a progressive country.

And i don’t see how keeping me out of the Netherlands helps this situation. If anything they should encourage positive immigration. I don’t need a Dutch job, cause i already have a job from abroad. If anything im going to spend my money with them, pay taxes and sustain my Dutch wife while she does her studies. Im a total treat to national security.

After the installation of the Arduino board, exercise number 1 dictates the easiest of tasks : make those damn sexy lights turn on and off on command.

The lesson i followed can be found on this manual under project 1 “LED FLASHER” (By the way, what’s up with that font they use in the beginning of each project? Why are Arduino boards all “street like” all of the sudden? ). This project is just a variation of the test you do to confirm that your Arduino board is in correct working order, The “Blink” example. The only difference is that you are using a different pin number for your digital output and that you are involving the solderless breadboard included with the kit and you are introduced to the idea that you have to use resistors in front of your LEDs to keep them from blowing up. The concept seems easy enough but honestly im having some trouble with the color coding on the resistors.

Maybe im getting old and my eyes are starting to fail me, but the first problem i had is that the “lines” that note the capacity of the resistors are too small. Maybe i need to add a magnifying glass to my Arduino hobby kit. The second problem, or confusion i have, is that i have used the 150ohm resistor that comes clearly marked and included with the kit, just like the manual says, and that ,according to the color coding chart and these google image results, should have brown-green-brown lines plus the quality and tolerance lines. Instead this little guy, seems to have brown-green-black-black-brown lines.

I know this is the right one because the plastic bag said so and because this worked and the LED didn’t blow up, but from what i can tell, the shades of the colors and even the distribution of these lines are not really that standardized, which would beat the whole porpoise of having a color code system. Maybe it would have been better to just write down the actual numbers on the resistors?

In any case the whole project took just a couple of minutes to complete and there i had an LED blinking 1 second on and 1 second off. Because i was bored but didn’t feel confident enough to start project 2 i decided that i would do something a bit more exciting with this first skill of making happy shinny lights go on and off. I thought about making a morse code machine to broadcast my SOS distress signal of confusion regarding the resistor to make myself feel better about the whole thing. Using the info on the morse code wikipedia page it wasn’t long before i had my red little LED asking for help with little bursts of light going on into the Buenos Aires night.

The code i ended up with looks like this:

// SOS I'm a n00b
int ledPin = 10;
int unitLength = 100;
void setup(){
  pinMode(ledPin,OUTPUT);
}
/*short mark, dot or 'dit' (·) — one unit long*/
void shortMark(){
  digitalWrite(ledPin,HIGH);
  delay(unitLength);
}
/*longer mark, dash or 'dah' (–) — three units long*/
void longMark(){
  digitalWrite(ledPin,HIGH);
  delay(unitLength*3);
}
/*intra-character gap (between the dots and dashes within a character) — one unit long*/
void intraCharGap(){
  digitalWrite(ledPin,LOW);
  delay(unitLength);
}
/*short gap (between letters) — three units long*/
void shortGap(){
  digitalWrite(ledPin,LOW);
  delay(unitLength*3);
}
/*medium gap (between words) — seven units long*/
void medGap(){
  digitalWrite(ledPin,LOW);
  delay(unitLength*7);
}
void sayS(){
  shortMark();
  intraCharGap();
  shortMark();
  intraCharGap();
  shortMark();
}
void sayO(){
  longMark();
  intraCharGap();
  longMark();
  intraCharGap();
  longMark();
}
void loop(){
  sayS();
  shortGap();
  sayO();
  shortGap();
  sayS();
  medGap();
}

So on my recent trip to London this august, i decided to take advantage of the availability of digital bits and pieces enjoyed there (now i believe every city in the world should have something like maplin electronics, those stores are FUUUUNNN), to get my hands on different pre-made-assemble-youself kits soldering equipment and start learning the basics of physical computing as a hobby and perhaps as a future addition to my semi-nerd skills arsenal.

My friends always played around with Arduino boards, which can be programmed in an IDE similar to processing (easy-piecy), so i figure that was a safe bet, and I ordered online one of those “Arduino Starter kits”, in my case i got this one offered by Robotik in the UK and after a long anxious week, it finally arrived and i have given myself the mission to make some time around my work schedule (and other stuff i have to do),  to go trough the exercises that accompany my new starter kit. I hope to at least do a project each week.

The first thing i did once i had the time was to do the whole setup and installation of the environment, and i had no problem with that. I was setup within minutes of getting started using the instructions found online. The process to load a program seems to be as easy as plugging the board, coding something in the IDE, then hitting the play button and then uploading that to the board. I somehow expected more steps but hey! i’m not complaining.

And so i venture off as a total novice and hope not to fry my board too soon into this learning process…

Project 1 is here for those wishing to read on…