Locoluis

Let's examinate the top 16 teams.

1. Spain

2. Germany

3. Brazil

All those three deserve to be on the top, though I expect Spain to drop a few places after its elimination. No question because of its humbling defeat; Netherlands are just that good now.

4. Portugal

A marketing move to please CR7 fangirls. An undeserving team who was effortless defeated by a lazy Germany. At least Spain tried.

5. Argentina

No opinion.

6. Switzerland

Another overrated team. Struggled to defeat an unexceptional Ecuador.

7. Uruguay.

Costa Rica was a surprise, but if England manages to defeat them, they'll prove themselves much more overrated than the above. But I don't expect England to improve so much in so little time.

8. Colombia

It would be unfair to rate them now, as its best player is injured. Still, they're doing fine without him.

9. Italy

10. England

Are those teams even on the same tier!? Okay, so Sturridge took a lucky chance, but Italy is decidedly superior.

11. Belgium

Another overrated European team. Struggled to defeat a soulless Algeria.

12. Greece

Probably the most overrated team in this list.

13. USA

14. Chile

No opinion.

15. Netherlands

Most underrated team in this list. If Belgium, Greece, Switzerland and Portugal took their best players and made a combined team, they'd still be nowhere near as close.

16. Ukraine

They're not even in the World Cup!!!

What do you think of my analysis? Too many overrated teams, huh?

Strengths:

- Decades of experience overall.

- Experience in various environments, most notably game, web and mobile development.

- Willingness to learn and to adapt to new environments.

- Obsession with international standards and other boring technical details.

- Lots of patience, particularly when dealing with menial tasks.

- Rather cheap labour.

Weaknesses:

- Fairly old.

- Very shy and avoiding of contact with other people.

- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Attenti...

- Prone to get lost in the details while missing the big picture.

- Bad at understanding real world problems, particularly those about money and business.

- Impractical and unquestioning of motives and goals. He'll just do what he's asked to do, often quite literally, yielding technically-correct applications that may not be adequate at solving the problem in question.

- Bad at expressing himself in layman terms.

- Talking to him is a waste of time. He'll just answer with a blank stare. Better write him an e-mail.

Would you hire someone with these quirks? What kind of position would you offer him?

Now that Ribéry is out, will Les Bleus still be able to make a stand against Ecuador and Switzerland, or they'll just be another Colombia and suffer the lack of their top player?

P.D: Any other decent player of non-African descent, besides Lloris?

¿Qué podría significar que un desconocido deje un marco de fotos en la cabecera de tu cama...

... CON EL VIDRIO QUEBRADO?

No hay una foto en el marco, sólo el papel con que viene de fábrica. No hay un papel con mensaje ni nada más sospechoso. Sólo eso.

Which match(es) did you see? How did it go for you? Any favourite player of the match?

What was your experience at the place? Would you recommend it?

Did you drink any booze? What kind?

Do you have a favourite on.line community about football (besides Yahoo! Answers)?

Just curious.

Some authors like their characters to have meaningful names, but I'm not one of them.

I only use special names to convey ancestry, nationality or ethnicity.

Maybe I'm missing out a narrative device, but I usually follow realistic naming rules in my stories.

How important is the name of a fictional character? Do you think it matters to choose a good name for a character, or any name will do?

Yes, I saw the episode of Highlander when that girl lost her artistic ability when she became immortal. So let's specifically avoid that in the spell. :P

One artist, singer, musician, composer, etc. Who will be eternally young. Not invulnerable, but still unable to die through old age.

He or she will constantly improve, albeit at a slower rate. Give him/her enough time, and s/he will become the greatest ever.

This also means that s/he will outlive you. You will never be able to see him/her reach his/her full potential.

One catch: if he or she ever gets tired of it all, the spell will be undone and s/he will return to his/her age as of today, and will continue aging as normal.

So. Who will be the artist you want to live forever?

Only artists born BEFORE 1990, please. If you're an artist, sorry but you can't do this to yourself.

Just go there. They've gone crazy. Possibly a bot who hacked or mass-created multiple accounts.

Please do something about it.

Mine is now mid-back length. I have no idea what to do with it, but I don't feel like cutting it short.

Please use this chart: http://www.hairfinder.com/info/hair-length-chart.g...

I was expecting better from a serious candidate to win the World Cup. They didn't do much besides a goal against a reserve goalkeeper.

I'm ashamed because we missed way too many chances. It doesn't matter if Manuel Neuer is the best goalkeeper of the world. We deserved a draw at the very least.

Yeah, I know. You win with goals, not merits, blah blah blah. We're still going to get our asses handed to us by Spain and the Netherlands in the group stage. All they have to do is park the bus, too.

And Germany is still going to win the World Cup, even if they only win all matches by 1-0.

Boring tactical pragmatism is in vogue these days, isn't it?

Chile está viviendo una de sus mejores épocas. Los años desde el retorno de la democracia han sido particularmente buenos en cuanto a crecimiento, y el país se ha sabido recuperar de la Crisis Asiática, la Crisis de 2008-2009 y el Terremoto de 2010.

La Fiebre del Salitre marcó el otro gran auge de la economía chilena, aunque los mayores beneficios sólo llegaron a unos pocos. La depresión de los años 30s fueron los peores años de Chile, así como el boicot al gobierno de Allende y la dictadura de Pinochet (1972-1990).

Muchos países pueden decir que están viviendo sus mejores años, pero Argentina no es uno de ellos. Otrora el país más desarrollado de Latinoamérica. Su época de oro terminó en el año 1975, y las consecuencias del “Rodrigazo” aún persisten en estos días.

Muchos objetos relacionados con la medicina y la odontología, incluyendo uniformes y muebles, tienden a ser ya sea blancos o de tonalidades cian, turquesa y celeste.

¿A qué se debe esto? ¿Es un color que inspira confianza y seriedad? ¿Es un color antiséptico o relacionado con el color del agua? ¿Es un color que contrasta con la sangre y la piel humana?

Por una situación de urgencia, hubo que utilizar gran parte de una vivienda como bodega para almacenar pertenencias varias. Lamentablemente, la situación de urgencia se alargó durante cuatro años, durante los cuales esos espacios quedaron abandonados a merced de los roedores y las arañas.

Hoy los elementos están siendo retirados del lugar, de modo de poder reacondicionarlo para que el dueño de la vivienda pueda utilizarla como Dios manda.

El lavaplatos / fregadero está hecho un desastre, tras años de abandono. Suciedad, pudrición y telarañas que podrían sin embargo ser limpiadas con poco esfuerzo... en teoría.

¿Pero y qué hay de la llave / canilla / pluma / grifo? ¿Cómo saldrá el agua? ¿Será apta para el consumo?

¿De qué habría que preocuparse? ¿Es simplemente llegar y limpiar, o hay que evaluar el uso de algún producto especial o reemplazar algunas partes o todo el lavaplatos? ¿O debería llamar a un gásfiter / plomero / fontanero?

List as many national teams as you can.

Only from the 32 teams qualified to the World Cup finals.

BQ: Which teams are "one-man teams"?

One day, you wake up on the ground, covered in leaves, dressed in a long white robe.

You look around. It's the same landscape where your home used to be. The same hills, the same vegetation, the same courses of water. Everything around you looks so familiar.

Except that there's a lot of things missings. All of your belongings, for instance. And all houses, buildings, streets and other manmade elements.

All of it gone. The air is clean, the water is clear of pollution and full of life. You hear the songs of birds and the scream-howling of foxes.

A few other humans wake up around you, including everyone in your nuclear family, but no one from your extended family. They're all dressed like you.

You talk to those people, and you realize that everyone has something in common. A very rare trait, belief system or set of ideals, that SOMEONE decided it was worth keeping after the end.

But what happened to everyone else? What happened to civilization? How are you all supposed to survive after this point? Who did this?

One of THEM suddenly appears among you all. She looks like a very elderly cleaning staff from Japan Railways ( http://www.pakwheels.com/forums/attachments/aircra... ), yet she doesn't look quite human if you look at her closely.

She hands you a geographical globe and asks you the following question:

“ Where do you think is the best land for you humans to start settling in the planet again? WE want to move all remaining humans to a single location in the planet, in order to give time to the rest of the planet to heal after what you've done to it. ”

Please think about it thoroughly. Either you will find wildlife going rampant and unchecked, or the place will be too barren to settle. You most certainly want to settle in a place with plenty of fertile land and not too many natural dangers, right next to a river or another source of fresh water.

Also, please realize that you're all back to the Stone Age. No tools whatsoever. Build one by breaking a stone or falling a tree. Make a fire and create pottery. It's going to be a while until you can build a single house...

1. A loyal and yielding minion who was not quite competent?

Extremely loyal, patient and tolerant to mistreatment. S/he will do anything you want to the best of his/her abilities. Which are, unfortunately often insufficient. You keep him/her around because nobody else is willing to be so obedient, and because s/he works for peanuts.

2. A very competent minion who was very stubborn and/or opinionated?

S/he's an expert at what s/he does, but s/he's also very hard to work with. S/he loves his/her job but doesn't quite tolerate your presence, and will often drop subtle but not at all flattering hints. You keep him/her around because you won't find someone so good for so cheap.

3. An unreliable, batshit-insane minion who is even crazier than you?

S/he's both very loyal and very good at what s/he does, but unlike the other two it's very hard to reason with this freak. When s/he gets carried away by something, s/he tends to further it until it no longer makes sense to you, often with disastrous results. You keep him/her because you recognize the genius beneath the madman.

4. A muse?

Unlike the other three, the sole true purpose of this person is to be your inspiration and companion. S/he may be more expensive to keep than all the other three combined, but you like to be around this person, you feel motivated, rejuvenated and much more creative. If only s/he reciprocated your affection...

BQ: Any extra requisites that your minion should meet? (And that won't contradict your choice).

... only to chicken out of the job interview or examination?

All we want to know is what kind of skills they already have so we can get them started in our systems. We have a selection system after all, but it doesn't mean that we're only interested in the very best.

I'm talking about people who fail to attend a scheduled interview or exam. Some people attend the exam, only to leave it blank over the table and walk away without saying anything.

Does this happen in your work environment? Is the shortage of skilled technicians a global problem or something that only affects specific countries or fields?

Is it worse in third world countries like mine (Chile) or do developed countries also face a similar problem?

Faryd Mondragón from Colombia is 42 years old, though he's second goalkeeper to the much younger David Ospina.

Is there anyone older than him among the teams that may qualify for the World Cup?

B.Q.: Who is the oldest first choice goalkeeper who may qualify?

What would happen if the Queen somehow became rejuvenated and ended up stuck in her mid-twenties?

Read the story below at your own risk. It's not part of the question; just a bonus.

-----

A mad scientist discovers the secret for eternal youth. But there's a catch: for this to work, the victim must be both very old and still healthy enough to walk on his/her own.

His magical potion must be applied directly to the forehead, from where it will act all over the victim's body and divide his/her physical age by π.

At first, he ponders whether it would be worth it trying to sell the potion and make millions through it. But he doesn't want all this publicity. Besides, most people don't deserve such a blessing. Yes, he's a control freak.

He walks around his old English town in order to buy some groceries. He instead stops at a pub, sees a lot of ugly faces, and becomes reassured that putting his discovery to market is an awful idea. He downs a pint of Hobgoblin and goes back to his lab.

On the way there, he sees a magazine's front page, with Prince Charles in it. He explodes in rage, but quickly he realizes that he's holding the key that will forever prevent this clown from ever becoming King.

By whatever means. Impersonate the press, infiltrate the parliament, anything. Apply the potion directly over Queen Elizabeth II's head. Yell " BEHOLD! LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! "

He's detained, but is allowed long enough inside to watch as the Queen's wrinkles fade away, her hair darkened, her silhouette narrowed around the waist, until she looked as young as in Coronation Day.

Upon seeing the result of his work, the Mad Scientist says “ My work here is done. I plead guilty. Send me to the gallows. ”

The Queen instead ordered the scientist's immediate release, but the Mad Scientist replied. " No. Your fate is to reign alone forever. No one else deserves eternal youth. Not your husband, not your son. You will be the last Monarch of the United Kingdom. If you abdicate or somehow manage to get killed, your kingdom will go down with you. ”

¿Mis tiempos? Quizás entre las edades de 16 y 24 años.

Antes de esa edad no había desarrollado bien mi personalidad, cuando tenía 13-15 todavía era medio pavo y recién me estaba dando cuenta de las cosas y buscando mi rumbo. Por otra parte, después de los 24 ya se me estaba yendo el tren, y ya nada era lo mismo.

Desde que cumplí 30 que estoy viviendo un "reflorecimiento", pero no es al mismo ritmo de mis años mozos, y de todos modos tengo claro que igual hay algunas cosas que no se pueden hacer a mi edad, ya que a estas alturas la mayoría de las personas ya han hecho su vida.

P.D.: ¿Cuál es tu "generación"?

- Generación Z: nacidos desde 1995 hasta hoy.

- Generación Y (o del Milenio): nacidos entre 1981 y 2001.

- Generación X: nacidos entre 1965 y 1984.

- Baby Boomers: nacidos entre 1940 y 1969.

- Otra (nacidos hasta 1942).

Aunque nací dentro de la Generación X (1978), me identifico más con la Generación Y ya que mi periodo formativo ha sido un poco más largo de lo habitual. Quizás el ser hermano mayor de una familia numerosa también ha sido factor para integrarme más dentro de la generación siguiente...