Free way to back up pictures while on the road

After a bit of fiddling around I found a good way to back up pictures while travelling, using a memory stick and a internet connection.
The idea was to create a free system of backing up pictures online; one of the biggest problems travellers face is the extremely unreliable internet connection of lots of countries making the process of uploading a bunch of pictures an endless and frustrating task, so to avoid those disappointments the images would need to be converted into smaller sizes before uploading. This idea may not appeal to lots of people but this way of backing up is a last resource in case you loss all your pictures and your backed up cd's get lost in the post. It is also useful for people back home to check your pictures.

- Put Firefox portable in a memory stick. Add the fireuploader add on to it, so the importing process is done quicker.
- Also put in the memory stick the portable version of image magick.

CAUTION. The following procedure WILL modify the original images, so make sure you are using copies of them.

Put the images in the computer (or memory stick if it has enough capacity) and use the following command to convert the images.
D:\ImageMagick-6.5.4-2\mogrify.exe -resize 640x480">" D:\magick\*.jpg
Providing the Image Magick is in the D drive and the images are in D:\magick\

This command will resize all jpg images in the folder to 640x480 keeping the aspect ration and not increasing the resolution in case there are small images. On average the images are of 100kb

Once this is finished, proceed to upload the images.

I tested the 2 major providers, flickr and picasa.

Each of them have different advantages and disadvantages.
In terms of upload speed I found their speeds were very similar.
The main advantage of picasa is that it allows you to upload as many pictures as you want and will display them all but it has got a size limit of 1gb.
The main advantage of flickr is that you can upload as many pictures as you want and there is no storage limit but it will only show the latest 200 pictures.

I really liked the flickr's interface but the 200 pictures limit made go for picasa.

Alternatively you can just pay the annual membership and get over those limits.

To upload the images I used the fire Uploader add on for firefox. It is quite quick and efficient. There are other tools to upload images into flickr and picasa, but they will have to be install in every internet cafe visited so that is why I prefer the portable version that has got every thing install.

Hope this is helpful information. I am writing this as I am about to start a long trip and need to remember the instructions in case I forget them :D

A couple of spare hours and want to feel down?

Watch a British film.

I have become averse towards British films. They are great films, cleverly made, interesting ideas put in the screen but what I never get is why they are so depressing!! It seems to me like the directors always picture a grey and dull Britain filled with racism, gangsters and social injustice.

These is just a short list from the top of my head to prove my point:

Let him have it
London to Brighton
Trainspotting
Secrets and Lies
Vera Drake
Last Orders
East is east
Love + hate
This is England
Letter to Brezhnev
Withnail and I
A clockwork orange.

101

Este post también disponible en español más abajo.

Well I can not believe it myself. I have reached 101 posts in this blog. I also take advantage of this post and celebrate the second (late) birthday of this blog. What started on the 22nd of June of 2007 as a way of expressing my feelings towards a very undesirable situation has become the place where I gossip and keep records of my thoughts of specific aspects of my life.

Why did I choose the 101 post to celebrate it?

For different reasons.

1. 101 is a prime number :D (idea taken from the book "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time")
2. Room 101.
3. Tendency to have itemised lists with an extra 1, like 101 dalmatians, 1001 places to see before you die,...

I thought I should explain why I named the blog "De libertador a robot" (From liberator to robot). It all dates back from Uni where people had lots of ideas of sticking out and being different and not being one more in the big pile; in addition there were lots of people with strong political ideologies, all of this together kind of made us feel like Liberators. A few years later when you managed to finish your degree being sick of mediocre teachers and being broke for so long plus the sad reality of unemployment and day to day struggle slaps you in the face, most of idealistic people give up the idea of being a liberator and become robots that work in factories. Get up early to go to work, put up with disgusting bosses,stressful jobs and annoying colleagues and then 9/10/11/n hours later rush back in heavy traffic to return home. Next day is the same routine again and again and again till the weekend comes. Those two short days slip from hours hands like oil and we are at the beginning of the robot like life.

So the blog was named to narrate my own transformation. I have tried to keep away from becoming a total robot. I try to get involve in charity events and other types of events,I hate wearing a suit and I still find it weird that people can believe so much in some work project they are working on.

To finish this cheesy post, I would like to thank the people that encourage me to carry on writing, despite sometimes having a great lack of something to write about. I know this blog will die at some point and I know that you people out there reading me have a better idea of my life that people I share a house or even a desk with, but in the meantime I enjoy it a lot! thanks a lot for reading and commenting.

/*----------------------*/

Pues no lo puedo creer. He alcanzado a escribir 101 posts en este blog. Aprovecho también para celebrar el tardío cumpleaños número 2 de este blog. Lo que comenzó el 22 de Junio del 2007 como una forma de expresar mis sentimientos hacia una situación muy indeseada se ha convertido en un lugar donde se chismosea y se mantienen registros de pensamientos y aspectos específicos de mi vida.

Porque el post 101?

Distintas razones.

1. 101 es un número primo :D (idea tomada del libro "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time")
2. Cuarto 101.
3. Tendencia a encontrar listas con un 1 extra, como 101 dalmatas, 1001 lugares que ver antes de morir,...

Voy a explicar el nombre del blog "De libertador a robot". Todo viene desde mis épocas universitarias donde muchas personas tenian ideas de marcar la diferencia y no ser uno mas del montón, eso sumado a otras personas con ideologias politicas fuertes nos hizo sentirnos como Libertadores. Pero luego cuando se logra terminar la carrera con un asco hacia profesores mediocres, a estar vaciado todo el tiempo, sumado a la triste realidad del desempleo y la lucha del día a día somos abofeteados y la mayoria de los idealistas renuncian a la idea de ser libertadores y se convierten en robots que trabajan en fabricas. Levantarse temprano, aguantarse a jefes desgraciados, trabajos estresantes, colegas fastidiosos y después de 9/10/11/n horas retornar a casa en medio del trafico. El siguiente día es lo mismo, y lo mismo y lo mismo hasta que llega el fin de semana. Esos dos días se nos escapan como aceite de las manos y comenzamos la vida robotica otra vez.

Por eso nombre el blog como parte de mi propia transformación. He tratado de no convertirme en un robot totalmente. Trato de involucrarme en actividades de caridad, odio ponerme traje y aún me parece extraño que la gente se sienta tan apasionada por un proyecto del trabajo.

Para finalizar este post, agradezco a la gente que me animo a seguir escribiendo, a pesar de que a veces no tenia nada de que escribir. Se que este blog morirá y que los que me leen saben más de mi vida que la gente con la que comparto vivienda o escritorio, mientras tanto disfruto escribiendo. Gracias por leer y dejar comentarios.

I'm going slightly mad

He looks the plot, he talks the plot, he acts the plot, but when it comes to the killing . . .

are all decisions made based on selfishness?

scared of solitude, scared of the unknown, scare of autoritarian unfair power

fear of failure or fear of the act of failing

common mistake, not picturing the reality of words, and thoughts.

Make the thought come to reality or make reality adjust to the thought? the system should adapt to people or people should adapt to the system.

I only dream in black and white.

Hay que empezar despacio a deshacer el mundo.

The first step has been taken.

Live your own dream or a paper one.

The joys of a night out in London

Paying overpriced drinks who are supposed to make you feel important but make you feel you've been assaulted.

Queuing for ages in the lovely British weather to get in the ultra cool club.

All the chit chat that has to be made up with people you will never see in your life again: talking about which club is better or has got a new show, fitter girls, better feeling, great vibe.

The philosophical thoughts that come to mind when you see people all over the place pretending to have a good time. Can all this people be enjoying themselves at the same time as much as they seem to?

Men trying to rub their bodies against women's ones without realising that they are stroking other men.

The disgustingly rude bouncers (generally big, fat and bald), sad people that take any advantage to make use of their pathetic power.

Q to the toilet to find a guy who is trying to put perfume on you in exchange of a quid. Q to take a cigarette (fresh air in my case) break, oh it is getting even colder out here. Q to go back inside. Q to get to the dance floor, q to escape the latter. Q for everything you can think of.

People shouting like maniacs at songs they never heard, after all, alcohol gives a license to behave beyond the unexpected.

Groups of men that keep checking out every single girl and disapproving immediately as they are not good enough for them.

The tons of rickshaw boys attacking anyone for a quick ride and a big tip. Targeting women in mini skirts for an exchange of a close contact of third type or a bunch of repressed guys who want a ride to a place where the night ladies are less surly and more friendly.

The entertainment on the bus back (luckily 24h bus service exist here). Drunken guys trying to chat up girls. A bunch of under the age of consent girls taking the piss off each other, describing loudly BJs, balls, comparison between E and weed and something about head. And then mentioning that all their decency was left in the night club (that was in fact the most entertaining part of the night). Also the idiots who took superman tonic in the shape of beer bottles and want to start up a fight to prove their gained super powers.

Feeling guilty ethically as the chips and 2 piece battery chicken you are eating to kill the alcohol effect never saw live outside the 30cm x 30cm cage it was confined to live.

Dumping your clothes wherever and tripping over everything on your way. The endless spinning of the room that is stopped by grounding yourself back to earth.

The headache in your head, thousands of neurons taking revenge for the suffering they had to go to for your pleasure and a big hole in your pocket that will ensure you eat a generous portion of pasta al oleo for the rest of the week.

These are some of the myriad of joys of "having a good night out", not just in London.

Pig Flu attacks London

Pardon me. I meant Pink Floyd. And to be precise Australian Pink Floyd. Perhaps the closest the people from my generation will ever be to see the real thing. Damn I should have been born 20 years earlier.



And one of my favourites songs of Pink Floyd, Eclipse:

Happiness when the train gains speed

The train going to Brighton stopped at East Croydon station where a very particular character boarded the carriage we were in. This nice fellow sat in front of us and started speaking out loud and talking to himself. He was worried that the train was very slow and he didn't like that. He kept quiet for some time but then he couldn't stop himself speaking out loud to himself, repeating how the train was slow and then contradicting that statement of worry by saying that it was fine, it is not a big problem. At some moment he started speaking to us and told us a great deal of his life. He was autistic and often gets very depressed with knob head idiots that take the piss off him, rude neighbours or impatient people that are nasty to him.

Also he cries a lot and he thinks that is good. Sometimes he was excited with his conversation and bits of saliva flew over the air. He enjoys karaoke and confessed that lots of times he pretends to be happy in front of other people when he isn't really happy. Near the end of the journey the train speed up quite a lot and I could see a truthful joy drawing in his face. He kept apologising in the middle of his sentences as I assume he usually gets into trouble and people have taught him to apologise for his mistakes.

It is not very often we get a chance to talk to an autistic person, it was amazing to hear the sincere expression of his mind that in a lot of cases is our own thoughts, thoughts that we bury in the "normal" conduct code.

Branston Pickle

Addicted to it. Inmersing myself more and more in the British culture.

Toy country

It is a legal requirement to make an oath.
How do you make it?
Well, you should at least look like you are trying really hard to say the words.

2030 beginning of freedom.
1418 What are we doing?
1216 Return.

yu espik inglis?

Después de pasar un año viviendo en el Reino Unido regresé a Colombia a terminar la universidad. Recuerdo una de las primeras preguntas que un amigo me hizo: entonces ya tenemos acento británico? Es algo complicado responder esa pregunta ya que hay muchos acentos en el Reino Unido, supongo mi amigo se refería al famoso "BBC English" que es como el estándar.
Aprender un acento es algo muy complicado, primero porque no hay una definición concreta de que es un acento. Yo lo defino como ciertas características en la forma de hablar de un grupo de personas en una zona geográfica. Pero no se limita a esto, también puede variar mucho de acuerdo al entorno donde se crezca, la edad que se tenga y otras razones psicológicas.

En todo el tiempo que llevo viviendo aquí he conocido gente de muchos lugares del mundo y de todos ellos solo he conocido dos personas las cuales me "engañaron" con su acento. Curiosamente fueron dos chicas españolas las cuales aprendieron inglés desde que eran bien chiquillas. Al contrario he conocido gente que ha vivido acá 30 años, habla inglés sin ningún error gramatical pero nunca pasarían por ser nativos al decir un par de frases.

Creo hay varios factores que influyen en el dominio de un acento. La pronunciación, la entonación y saber que decir en el momento apropiado.

Con la gran ayuda y paciencia de Tanya he logrado compilar cuales son mis problemas en la pronunciación con respecto al inglés haciendo uso del alfabeto fonético (desconocido por muchos hablantes de español).
Los problemas están divididos en "serios", "medio serios", "poco serios" y "nada o casi nada". Algunos están bastante ligados a los errores que cometen las personas cuya primera lengua es el español latinoamericano, otro gran número esta basado a mi pereza mental de hacer un esfuerzo y pronunciar adecuadamente. Los que me conocen pueden dar fe de que muchas veces hablo muy enredado.

Serious

ɪ	ship
i:	sheep
z	zoo
ŋ	ring
dʒ	january
ʒ	television
j	yellow

Middle

u:	boot
ʊ	book
ə	camera
ʌ	cup
ɑ:	carp
æ	cap
ɜ:	work, word
d	door, card
l	ball
tʃ	chop
ʃ	shop
g	egg

Little

ɔ:	cork
ɒ	cock
aʊ	phone
b	baby
v	van
r	rain
l	leopard
w	window
θ	thin
ð	feather

Nothing/Almost nothing

e	pen
eɪ	male
aɪ	fine
ɔɪ	boy
ɪə	year
eə	chair
aʊ	house
p	pen
t	table
f	fan
s	sun
m	mouth
n	nose
h	hat
ts	bats

Fue divertido realizar este ejercicio, ya que me di cuenta de muchas cosas que hago por haberlas aprendido mal hace mucho tiempo, otras por pensar en como están escritas y como deberían sonar. Descubrí sonidos que ni siquiera sabia que existían y observe que hay muchas palabras que aprendí a oído y suenan muy bien. Curiosamente esas mismas palabras aprendidas a oído usan sonidos que me cuestan pronunciar en otras palabras, lo cual ratifica que el problema esta ligado al pensar como debe sonar una palabra basándome en su escritura.

Problemas serios.

• El famoso cuarteto de ship sheep chip ship es uno que le causa problemas a mucho gente por muchos años....

• La diferencia entre z y s es muy sutil para mis desafinados oídos.

• ŋ no es lo mismo que ng.

• Otros de los sonidos en esta categoría están allí porque hace unas semanas no tenia ni idea que existían.

Medio serios.

• La vocal en boot no es igual a book.

• las muchas combinaciones de las vocales que se encuentran en bat but bart.

• work, word. Por mucho tiempo pronuncie estas palabras de la forma americana, ya que allí se pronuncia la r, en inglés británico esa r después de vocal es muda lo cual me hacia pronunciar work como wok que no es lo mismo.

• d. Se preguntaran porque tienes problema con d. Mi problema esta en que mi d es muy suave, tiene que ser mas fuerte.

• l y g son un problema cuando están al final de una palabra, al igual que la d las pronuncio muy suave.

• La diferencia entre ch y sh me cuesta trabajo escuchar algunas veces. La palabra action debería ser escrita ac shən, este es un ejemplo de las palabras que aprendí a oído.

Poco serios.
La mayoría de estos problemas esta en que hago los sonidos muy suaves o que no puedo diferenciar dos sonidos muy bien cuando son similares.
Caso especial esta el sonido en feather o that que están influenciados por la pereza de decirlos bien. That es una de las palabras mas usadas en inglés asi que son años que llevo diciéndola mal.

Ahora bien, si han leído todo esto se estarán preguntando como me comunico con la gente, todo a señas todavía?. Pues no. Es increíble darse cuenta como el cerebro hace asociaciones internas por medio del contexto en el que se este hablando. Esto va en ambos sentidos, a la gente a la que le hablo y la gente a la que escucho.

Por ejemplo,
I would like some chips. Podría ser ship pero seria una frase muy rara. Realmente no puede ser sheep y menos cheap!
I would like something cheap. Ninguna de las otras tres palabras puede ser usada aquí.
Look at the sheep. Esta frase generalmente sera dicha en un lugar donde se puedan ver ovejas. Supongo se puede usar ship, pero se tendría que estar al lado de un barco. En este caso seria look at the ship.

Hay sonidos que pronuncio bien pero me cuesta trabajo diferenciar al escuchar, por ejemplo V/B SH/CH. V me toco aprender rápidamente ya que al deletrear mi apellido por teléfono siempre estaba diciendo V de vampiro no de burro. digo donkey, digo, ...
Otros al contrario puedo escuchar pero no pronunciar completamente bien: cut, cat, cart.

Voy a parar aquí ya que podría seguir escribiendo sobre esto por mucho tiempo. Para finalizar quiero recalcar que este ejercicio fue echo en palabras individuales, no en frases completas donde el cerebro ayuda a darle sentido a los sonidos ajenos.

Antes de criticar mi escasez de capacidad mental hagan este ejercicio y verán a lo que me refiero.

Why can't we cycle in front of City Hall?

I know why, it is a "pavement" and it is illegal. So I guess I have been breaking the law. This law exists for pedestrians safety, as none wants granny's hip fractured by some crazy cyclist.
But the law seems to be enforced mainly in this area as it is private property, rich company "more London"* hires lots of people and give them the annoying task to forbid cyclists from cycling in this private land. I don't really get how it would work legally on this case. As it is private property, the police can't fine people, but can the employees stop you from cycling as we are not in public area? First of all I don't think the pavement next to one of the most famous bridges in the world should be private. Secondly if it is private area, they should put fences around so people don't get in! but I don't think they should invite people to go inside and then take the law on their hands.
I am particularly upset about this today as I generally ignore these "self-made-police" but this morning one of them shouted at me trying to stop me, I still didn't stop; why do they bother so much? I wouldn't do it if I were them. One thing is certain: it is very demoralising and every time I have to go through that zone I am in a pre-stress mood, trying to spot these people in blue coats, so I guess they are wining this battle.
The alternative would be to go on a horrible road packed with buses, taxis or taking a very boring route through back streets and obviously dealing with lorries and taxis.
I noticed that the situation got a lot worse since last April when the bigoted Boris Johnson got to be the mayor of London. Funny enough he has been spotted doing worse things on his bike. Way to go Boris.

*The company that outrageously owns the pedestrian area next to Tower Bridge.
**Picture taken from here.

Move out, again!

One of the worst problems of this over populated small island is the housing, specially in a monocephalic country like Britain where hordes of people flood the main labour centre: London.
London being the biggest city in area and population in western Europe makes it vast concrete titan where one does not want to rot away hoping for the tube to be working nicely just to return to the match box size place called home.
Landlords are nasty creatures every where you go and with a high demand for a place to live they can be quite picky and nasty. Our Landlady is not the exception and for different circumstances we have decided that it is best to leave. Now we have got two months to find a new place to live. Flat hunting is a tiring, boring and frustrating business but I have decided I am not going to get stress about it; not yet, maybe in mid January but not yet.

What should I think when...

I got news that now all my ex girl friends (all the ones I have kept in touch with) are mothers, married or both!! Most of them belong to the first category apart from one of them which kind of does anyway!
What is the rush?

Learn Languages London site is running

http://www.learnlanguageslondon.co.uk/

Easy and fun way of learning languages.
Hebrew and English native speaker.
Also tailored top classes in German, French and Spanish.

If more info is required...

You know you have been way too long in Britain when...

...you understand and believe in the concept of fund-raising for charities, volunteer work and charity organizations.
Even more, when you are able to explain this ideology to the sceptic non-British fellows.

The Old Grey Island

After taking a flight that got longer due to the spoiled brats that kept screaming and the increasing otitis pain, I managed to get to Madrid airport where I had to wait for a few hours next to excited young Colombians that were going to Britain to learn English. Their emotions remind me of the time when I was in the same situation full of expectations of my fore coming time.
After the expressionless immigration officer I picked up my bags and got on the tube, not before realising that due to planned engineering works 'lets glue this old piece of junk' I would have to take two extra trains plus a bus replacement service to get home.
The next day I woke up a bit late, when I tried to cycle to work I noticed I had a puncture. So decided to take the bus. The bus stop was unusually packed and after seeing 4 buses going by and not stopping I went for the underground. Only then I understood why there were so many people on the buses, the tube was closed because of something. Last resource, walked all the way to work in the middle of the most annoying drizzle ever. Got to work two hours late to face the eternal silence of my colleagues.

And now I just found out that one of my closest friends here in the UK has had enough of the bad food, worse weather, London* and is coming back home to start up a business. You lucky bastard, I will miss you.

Welcome back to the Old Grey Island.

*Taken from the film Snatch.

Wallis Bird

Arriving late to an appointment with a friend of mine, I noticed that he had already arrived at the entrance of the venue and was chatting to the main gig performer and the official photographer. I approached them, said hi, got introduced and started chatting with them too. Suddenly out of the blue some random guy got close to us and said, hey, are you interested in buying tickets for this concert? The artist replied, no thanks, I am the one who is playing tonight.
The guy put an 'eat-me-earth' face and we couldn't help but laugh. 5 minutes later he managed to get rid of the tickets and best of all he gave a story for Wallis to tell at the concert.

The concert was fantastic. I haven't seen anyone in my life that has so much energy like this little, big smile girl. Unbelievable, she was constantly jumping up and down, connecting with the audience, transmitting such a good energy that by the end of the performance every body was singing and/or clapping with a few bunch of women ready to execute a streap tease by the blink of Wallis. I can tell you she is going to go far, very far.

Wallis Bird is another great Irish singer that plays the guitar in an extraordinary and particular way. When she was a child she had an accident and lost her left hand fingers, they got re-placed but they lost some mobility, so she decided to turn around her guitar and play the other way round, not exactly like a left handed person, but literally by holding the guitar in the wrong different way.

The way it works with the guitar is that the bass string are up (to make it easy to explain) and the high pitch strings are down. But the way she plays it is the other way around, bass strings are down and high pitch strings are up. So she had to re learn all the chords with very exotic shapes, the strumming was the same, but as it starts from the high pitch strings it gives a very delicious uncommon sound; also a lot of her riffs are in bass strings which is also not very common.

This picture may give you an idea of the energy that I am referring.
Last but not least this is the site of Andy, the friendly photographer that was fascinated with the hundreds of Latin American women that shouted papito at Juanes' concert.

Communism through humour

Waiting for the tube I found a newspaper on the floor and as I had still six fifteen painful minutes for the next train to come (to have an accurate estimate the number that appears in the screen needs to be multiplied 2.5 times) I decided to have a glance at the dusty piece of paper.
It was a scruffy edition of semi right winged FT. The title of the article was, communism through humour, it was about a collection of jokes that people had in ex communist countries as a way of complaining of their situation and also hoping that those minor problems will get solved to reach the real ultimate communist dream.

These are the ones that made me burst out laughing at the tube station looking like the weird eccentric that people walk away from:

How do Russians visit their friends?

In tanks.

This one was said by the same Gorbachev in an interview for the BBC.

There is a line queuing to buy vodka in Moscow; it is two or three kilometres long and the men are really blaming Gorbachev.
One of them says, " I will go to the Kremlin and kill Gorbachev." and he goes. An hour later he comes back. The line has moved on a bit but it is still far from its goal, so they ask him: "did you kill Gorbachev?"
He says, "No, there is a longer queue over there."

And this is the one that made people move 20 metres away from my side:


What is colder in Romania than cold water?

The hot water

Kal Lavelle

Last night I went to a gig (sadly quite empty) of the Irish artist Kal Lavelle. She is one of this very talented people that have a part time job in something and the rest of their time are immersed in their music. A lovely girl to talk to who is trying hard to record an E. P.
The emotion that she put on the performance was unbelievable and I really loved her song called Disaster.
The song can be found here.

Secret Societies

Have you ever wondered what happened to all those freaks and weird people you knew when you were at school? Last summer I found out a possible solution to that problem.
It was a disgusting rainy dumpy summer evening and I had no plans, so I decided to attend a random conference whose title was 'Secret Societies'.
When I got to the conference place (pub) I found a complete freak show and I was very close to turn back and go home but my curiosity made me stay to see what was going to happen.
They are a big bunch of people that are free thinkers and know a lot about politics, economics, history and everything in general, so it is very difficult to have a conversation rather than a monologue.
One of the event organisers has written several books, including 'A brief History of Secret Societies'. From his conference it seemed that he wasn't going to attack or defend any particular sect or group but describe and analise their origin and their current status.
I got his book and soon I confirmed my guess. It was a non bias piece of information that turn out to be quite interesting in some parts and a bit dull in other ones.
Several aspects caught my eye in this book. I'm describing here 4 of them:

1. Early versions of Egyptian mythology says the creator god Atum-Re masturbated to create life. In fact there is a broad amount of sexuality in Egyptian mythology. When Christianity saw this, they took a complete radical opposite reaction that could have evolved ot the current point of view that Christianity has towards sexuality.
2. The fact that most of the sects, cults and religions believe that there is only one truth and that they alone have the truth.
3. The concept of equality between men and women has existed in some cults since the middle ages.
4. It seems that humans have a constant search to stick out and be unique somehow, this leads to the creation of sects and different groups. Some of them quite hidden and sealed.

It was worth going to the conference and in fact I would like assist to more but I never manage to remember on time to go.