Ay­er se quedó mi tren yen­do al tra­ba­jo. Co­mo no me ten­go que hac­er mala san­gre me ba­jé, me fui a pasear, saqué unas fo­to­s, cam­iné un poco, y llegué jus­to antes que ar­ranque el tren de vuelta.

Los grafi­tis y mu­rales son de las pare­des del hos­pi­tal Pirovano, los fla­men­cos de hi­er­ro son in­ex­pli­ca­bles.

When it comes to phones I am a cheap guy. I don't buy ex­pen­sive phones, I don't buy flag­ship phones, I don't even buy "cheap flag­ship-­like phones". I don't buy un­known chi­nese brands that make amaz­ing­ly cheap but awe­some phones, I don't buy mid-range phones, I don't buy mis­tery phones. I buy cheap phones. Or at least that is the plan from now on.

My pre­vi­ous phone was a for­mer flag­ship, a LG G4 which had awe­some specs ... for 2015. Of course I bought it in 2017, but stil­l, it was like, nice? The cam­era took good pic­tures, and all the apps ran smooth­ly and the bat­tery sucked and dropped to 50% be­fore I had fin­ished my com­mute.

I hat­ed that phone's bat­tery life. It made my life 10% more an­noy­ing. So I de­cid­ed to try an ex­per­i­men­t. I con­sid­ered what the hell I want­ed of my phone. And here is the full list, not in pri­or­i­ty or­der:

1. I want it to have In­­ter­net

2. I want it to play FM ra­­dio (no da­­ta us­age!)

3. I want it to take pic­­tures, but not nec­es­sar­i­­ly awe­­some pic­­tures. I am more in­­­clined to do things like tak­ing a pic­­ture of a fun­ny street sign than any­thing else.

4. I want a large-ish screen be­­cause I watch Net­flix on the train some­­times, or read books in the Kin­­dle ap­p. No need for su­per-high res­o­lu­­tion. Hon­est­­ly, 720p is just fine. I know be­­cause I checked.

5. I don't want to wor­ry if some­one steals it. In­­­sur­ance here is to­­tal­­ly worth­­less. I had it on a pre­vi­ous phone: it was more ex­pen­­sive to use the in­­­sur­ance than to just buy a new phone (re­al­­ly).

6. I wan­t­ed a met­al back. Why? I like how met­al backs feel. Glass backs are id­i­ot­ic.

7. I want apps to run. I don't mind at all if there is an oc­­ca­­sion­al slow­­down.

8. I want a bat­tery that does­n't ag­­gra­­vate me

So I took those pa­ram­e­ters and con­sid­ered all the phones avail­able. And I bought a phone most peo­ple con­sid­er a piece of crap. And I love it.

Let me in­tro­duce you to the glo­ry that is the Mo­to E4 Plus (by Lenovo)

Let's cov­er all the items in my list.

I want it to have Internet

Be­cause this phone comes in a "world ver­sion"­by de­fault, it sup­ports pret­ty much ev­ery band out there. I get 4G and it's plen­ty fast. Or, fast enough? It does have a small prob­lem in that for some rea­son it does­n't see my of­fice's WiFi net­work but who cares. I have enough da­ta.

I want it to play FM radio

It does! It suck­s, but it work­s. Good for emer­gen­cies?

I want it to take pictures

It has a cam­er­a. That is about as much as you can say about it. It even has two cam­eras! Front cam­era has flash! They are both hot garbage! It's bare­ly good enough for me.

I want a large-ish screen

Maybe 5.5 inch­es is not a large screen for you, but it is large for me. It is, in fac­t, about as large as I can use sin­gle-hand­ed. So, yay. It's bright, and it's 720p res­o­lu­tion is not awe­some but who cares? I can see what's in it even in di­rect sun­light, so all good. A bit of a fin­ger­print mag­net.

I can read fine, Net­flix pics look good. That's it.

I don't want to worry if someone steals it

This thing costs $120 (US) or so. Do I mind if some­one steals it? Yes. Do I just walk to the next store and buy an­oth­er one if it hap­pen­s? Yes too. So, yes yes yes. In fac­t, con­sid­er­ing it's last year's mod­el it's prob­a­bly worth even less now. So I may just buy a E5 plus now that it ex­ists and give this one to my son. Or not, since it works fine.

I wanted a metal back

Yes, it has a nice curved alu­minum back. It's a bluish grey and I think it's pret­ty.

I want apps to run

They do run! Ok! Most of the time! Some­times (once ev­ery cou­ple of days) things get slow for a sec­ond. Then it fix­es it­self. Sure, the Kin­dle app takes a sec­ond or two to start if I have not used it in a while. So? What can pos­si­bly be the prob­lem with hav­ing a app that con­tains ev­ery book I bought in the past 6 years (and that's sev­er­al hun­dred book­s) avail­able in my pock­et to read and reread at any mo­ment tak­ing 2 sec­onds to open?

I want a battery that doesn't aggravate me

Be­hold my bat­tery graph a while ago. I had a heart at­tack and was in a hos­pi­tal por 3 days, which means charg­ing the phone was pret­ty hard (no USB ports on ICU bed­s) but the phone was the on­ly way to be con­nect­ed to peo­ple or not be bored out of my skul­l, so on 4G net­work and us­ing it most of the time.

Si al­gu­na vez te in­ter­nan, ll­e­va un telé­fono con bue­na batería. El gap es cuan­do lo apagué porque me es­ta­ban operan­do. pic.twit­ter.­com/O­HbubXxRbB

— Rober­to H. Alsi­na (@ralsi­na) August 30, 2018

It says I have 6 hours of bat­tery left. It's ac­tu­al­ly un­der­es­ti­mat­ing it a lit­tle. On nor­mal us­age it lasts two days. Two whole days. TWO DAYS. Not two work­ing days, not two days on stand­by, but two whole days of just us­ing it nor­mal­ly for smart­phone-­like nor­mal ac­tiv­i­ties like one does, play­ing games, us­ing twit­ter, tak­ing a pic­ture of two, watch­ing a movie on Net­flix, read­ing on Kindle, check­ing email, stream­ing mu­sic to a blue­tooth head­set, mak­ing call­s, and so on. TWO. Not one, but two days.

Did I for­get to plug it at night? Who cares, I will plug it to­mor­row.

The charg­er even lets you get 4 or 5 hours of us­age by charg­ing it for 15 freak­ing min­utes.

I am in love with this phone's bat­tery. I want to mar­ry this bat­tery and have lit­tle elec­tric chil­dren that will run and run and run and nev­er shut­down.

You don't know how much your phone's crap­py bat­tery (and yes, your phone's bat­tery is prob­a­bly crap­py) stress­es you un­til you are re­lieved of the con­cern.

Random Nice things

• It's wa­ter re­­sis­­tan­t!

• I dropped it on the floor a few times and noth­ing hap­pened!

• It has a fin­ger­print sen­­sor that works well!

• It can use the fin­ger­print sen­­sor for con­trols and then you don't need on-screen but­­ton­s, so your screen is "big­ger"!

• It has pret­­ty much stock An­­droid, even though it's a ver­­sion that is now a bit out­­­dat­ed.

• Even though it's a bit thick, it's thinnest than your fan­­cy thin phone af­ter you put it in a sleeve be­­cause you care about it.

Random Not Nice Things

• The speak­er is garbage

• The FM ra­­dio tuner is garbage

• The cam­eras are garbage (yes, I al­ready said it, but they re­al­­ly are)

Implications

I ab­so­lute­ly love this phone even though sev­er­al of its com­po­nents are garbage. It gives me peace. The bat­tery gives me peace that it will work. The price gives me peace that I don't need to wor­ry about it much. It does what it has to do. It feels good in the hand.

But why do peo­ple buy ex­pen­sive phones, or new phones? If I were to buy an Iphone X, that costs about 8 times as much as this one, what would it give me that this one does­n't? Nicer pic­tures. Pret­ti­er screen. Not much else.

But it would make me feel like I spent a sub­stan­tial amount of mon­ey on just that. Sure, one spends a lot of time us­ing the phone, so it makes sense to spend mon­ey on mak­ing that time more pleas­an­t, but ... the iPhone X is more ex­pen­sive than my bed. And I spend 9 hours a day there.

And I would wor­ry about that phone.

And I would care about that phone.

What can it give me that pays back even 2 min­utes of wor­ry­ing?

Noth­ing.

A us­er asked in the niko­la-dis­cuss if there was a way to use Niko­la to doc­u­ment APIs. Well, there was­n't and now there is. I took pdoc and wrote a wrap­per as a plug­in for Niko­la.

And now you can just doc­u­ment python mod­ules us­ing it in a cou­ple of min­utes.

Here is the doc­u­men­ta­tion for the re mod­ule from stdlib as an ex­am­ple.

Yes, the out­put is not great, and it needs CSS, and many oth­er fix­es, but it's easy to im­prove now that it's there, as long as there is in­ter­est.

Tl; DR: Si, tu­ve un in­far­to, pe­ro es­toy bien.

Un po­co de ba­ck­groun­d:

• Soy go­r­­do (~130 kg ha­­ce po­­­co)

• Ha­­ce mu­­cho que soy hi­­pe­r­­ten­­so

• Ten­­go si­n­­dro­­­me de hí­­ga­­do gra­­so

• Ten­­go re­­sis­­ten­­cia a la in­­su­­li­­na

Por to­do eso, un in­far­to no era exac­ta­men­te al­go ines­pe­ra­do, pe­ro bue­no, vi­ví pa­ra con­tar el cuen­to, así que a con­tar­lo.

Ca­mino to­dos los días yen­do y vol­vien­do del tra­ba­jo, unas 20 cua­dras pa­ra ca­da la­do. Eso es bue­no, y ne­ce­si­to acer­lo. Sin em­bar­go, al­re­de­dor del 23 de agos­to em­pe­cé a te­ner do­lo­res en el pe­cho al ha­cer­lo. Ca­mi­na­ba unas cua­dra­s, me do­lía. Pa­ra­ba, de­ja­ba de do­le­r. No era un do­lor ho­rri­ble, co­mo mu­cho un 4 en una es­ca­la de 1 a 10.

Por­que soy muy bue­no ig­no­ran­do men­sa­jes que no quie­ro re­ci­bi­r, cul­pé a una in­di­ges­tión o lo que se. Era un po­co de in­co­mo­di­da­d, no era na­da, no?

Re­sul­ta que en al­gún mo­men­to an­te­ror tu­ve un pu­to in­far­to, y lo que sen­tía era fal­ta de oxí­geno en mi co­ra­zón por fal­ta de irri­ga­ción san­guí­nea. Nun­ca sen­tí el in­far­to, sen­tía las se­cue­la­s.

BTW: com­pa­ñe­ros de tra­ba­jo! Eso sig­ni­fi­ca que esa se­ma­na fui a tra­ba­jar in­far­ta­do! :-)

De to­dos mo­do­s: re­sul­ta que al­go así co­mo en­tre el 30 y el 45% de los que tie­nen in­far­tos no se dan cuen­ta, y se en­te­ran cuan­do se mue­ren re­pen­ti­na­men­te (si, en se­rio­), o cuan­do se ha­cen un che­queo de ru­ti­na y el doc­tor les di­ce "cha­bó­n, tu­vis­te un in­far­to y no­te dis­te cuen­ta".

Así que lo ig­no­ré, pe­ro ese fin de se­ma­na my pre­són es­ta­ba al­ta. ¿Có­mo de al­ta? Al­ta co­mo pa­ra co­rrer a la guar­dia, 190/120.

Me to­mé mis pas­ti­lla­s, ba­ja­ba un po­co, pe­ro en la si­guien­te to­ma su­bía de nue­vo. To­ma­ba las pas­ti­llas de nue­vo, ba­ja­ba, sbu­bía.

El lu­nes fui a la guar­dia. Me hi­cie­ron un elec­tro y aná­li­sis de en­zi­mas car­día­cas y ... "es­te ... no se preo­cu­pe pe­ro va­mos a lla­mar una am­bu­lan­cia y lle­var­te a un hos­pi­tal que ten­ga sa­la de te­ra­pia in­ten­si­va car­día­ca, por­que tu­vis­te un in­far­to. Mien­tras tan­to, acá te­nés ni­tro­gli­ce­ri­na en­do­ve­no­sa."

Yo me ma­reo an­dan­do en au­to. Via­jar en am­bu­lan­cia, acos­ta­do y mi­ran­do pa­ra atrás ... no es­tu­vo bue­no. De to­das for­ma­s, me lle­va­ron al Sa­na­to­rio de la Tri­ni­dad en San Isi­dro.

Me hi­cie­ron mas elec­tro­s, más aná­li­sis, y sí, ha­bía te­ni­do un in­far­to, así que me iban a ha­cer un ca­te­te­ris­mo "no es ci­ru­gía, es un pro­ce­di­mien­to" ... y me pu­sie­ron el do­ble de ni­tro­gli­ce­ri­na.

Du­da: quien fue el pri­me­ro que de­ci­dió ver si in­yec­tar­se ex­plo­si­vos ines­ta­bles en as ve­nas te­nía un la­do bue­no? Por­que lo tie­ne! Te di­la­ta las ar­te­rias y dis­mi­nu­ye el ries­go de que te mue­ras ahí mis­mo. Tam­bién te da unos do­lo­res de ca­be­za asom­bro­sos.

Me lle­va­ron a una lin­da ha­bi­ta­ció­n, me co­nec­ta­ron a mo­ni­to­res, me­di­dor de pre­sió­n, en­do­ve­no­sa. A Ro­sa­rio le to­có un si­llón y a es­pe­ra­r.

Si hu­bie­ra es­ta­do te­nien­do un in­far­to en ese mo­men­to me hu­bie­ran he­cho el ca­te­te­ris­mo in­me­dia­ta­men­te, pe­ro no era el ca­so, así que po­día es­pe­rar un día o do­s. No voy a ha­blar de las in­dig­ni­da­des del ma­ne­jo de fun­cio­nes cor­po­ra­les cuan­do no te po­dés mo­ve­r, pe­ro hay mu­cha­s.

Te­nía un do­lor de ca­be­za ma­ta­do­r, me in­yec­ta­ban anti­coa­gu­lan­tes en la pan­za, mi ma­no te­nía una vía col­gan­do (due­le) y me sa­ca­ban san­gre ca­da 4 ho­ras asi que mi otro bra­zo do­lía y el me­di­dor de pre­sión se in­fla­ba ca­da 15 mi­nu­tos ... no des­can­sé mu­cho.

Al día si­guien­te me di­je­ron que me to­ca­ba "el pro­ce­di­mien­to­". Me abrri­rían la ar­te­ria ra­dial de la mu­ñe­ca, me­ten una man­gue­ri­ta, la em­pu­jan has­ta que lle­ga al co­ra­zó­n, in­yec­tan un lí­qui­do pa­ra ha­cer que mi san­gre sea opa­ca a los ra­yos X, mi­ran y ven que on­da. Si ha­bía obs­truc­cio­nes que se pu­die­ran tra­ta­r, lo ha­cían en ese mo­men­to.

Una en­fer­me­ra me dió un ba­ño (ha­bía una po­si­bi­li­dad de que tu­vie­ran que en­trar por la in­gle, así que era lo ama­ble).

Es­pe­ré unas ho­ras y me lle­va­ron a he­mo­di­na­mia. Mo­ni­to­res col­gan­do de bra­zos ro­bo­t, char­la con el anes­te­sió­lo­go y me dan los pa­pe­le­s.

Los pa­pe­les son una lar­ga lis­ta de ma­las no­ti­cia­s:

• El pro­­­ce­­di­­mien­­to in­­vo­­­lu­­cra ra­­yos X co­n­­ti­­nuo­­s, y tal vez ha­­ya que usar­­los en al­­ta in­­ten­­si­­da­­d.

• To­­­da esa ra­­dia­­ción tie­­ne efe­c­­tos co­­­la­­te­­ra­­le­s, hay que au­­to­­­ri­­za­r­­la

• Po­­­si­­bles efe­c­­tos co­­­la­­te­­ra­­les in­­clu­­yen de­­pi­­la­­ción pe­r­­ma­­nen­­te del pe­­cho (en se­­rio)

Los fir­mo por­que por­qué no, me di­cen que me mue­va a la iz­quier­da "por las du­das si te dor­mís pa­ra que no te cai­ga­s" por­que sí, es­tás des­pier­to. Mas o me­no­s, es­tás re dro­ga­do.

Me de­bo ha­ber que­da­do dor­mi­do, pe­ro me des­per­té y di­je "mi bra­zo y mi pe­cho due­len mu­cho­!" a lo que me res­pon­die­ron "bue­no, es­ta­mos me­tien­do­te co­sas en el co­ra­zó­n, es es­pe­ra­ble" y su­pon­go que al­gún ges­to al anes­te­sis­ta de "dor­mí al hin­cha­pe­lo­tas es­te" por­que lo si­guien­te que re­cuer­do es es­tar en mi ha­bi­ta­ció­n.

Me pu­sie­ron tres sten­ts en el co­ra­zó­n, por­que te­nía una canti­dad de obs­truc­cio­nes, in­clu­yen­do uno en la ar­te­ria car­día­ca prin­ci­pa­l, así que bien por el que los in­ven­tó.

Vuel­vo a la ha­bi­ta­ció­n, me sien­to ge­nia­l. Cul­po a las dro­ga­s.

De a po­co me cor­tan la ni­tro­gli­ce­ri­na, así que se aca­ba el do­lor de ca­be­za.

Esa no­che me sien­to bien co­mo pa­ra ju­gar a la ca­nas­ta con Ro­sa­rio (u­san­do una app An­droi­d: no ha­ce fal­ta te­ner las car­ta­s, no se pue­de ha­cer tram­pas in­ven­tan­do re­gla­s, gar­pa), me ví un par de epi­so­dios de De­sa­fío so­bre Fue­go, y dor­mí de a ra­to­s.

Miérco­le­s, abu­rri­do.

Jue­ve­s, me pue­do ba­ña­r! Pue­do ca­mi­nar has­ta el so­fá y sen­tar­me! Me pue­do po­ner cal­zon­ci­llo­s! Ca­si ci­vi­li­za­do.

Jue­ves a la tar­de me dan el al­ta. El dó­lar su­bió 30 % mien­tras no es­ta­ba mi­ran­do.

Me fuí a com­prar los re­me­dios nue­vos (12 pas­ti­llas al día).

Hay una pas­ti­lla anti­coa­gu­lan­te que ten­go que to­mar por un año y si me la sal­teo me mue­ro. Hay píl­do­ras pa­ra con­tro­lar la pre­sió­n, que si me la sal­teo me pue­do mo­ri­r, y hay una píl­do­ra pa­ra el do­lor que si la mez­clo con otra píl­do­ra me mue­ro y hay as­pi­ri­na por­que no pue­de ser to­do dra­má­ti­co.

Me fui a ca­sa y en el si­guien­te par de días tu­ve un par de con­trols con el car­dió­lo­go del hos­pi­tal y con mi car­dió­lo­ga de ca­be­ce­ra, una bue­na y sa­bia mu­jer a la que de­be­ría ha­ber­le he­cho más ca­so.

A lo lar­go de to­do es­to mi es­po­sa es­tu­vo a mi la­do, una ami­ga cui­dó a Ta­to, y to­do el mun­do en el tra­ba­jo me ban­có, se preo­cu­pa­ron por mí y es­tu­vie­ron ge­nia­le­s.

Así que esa es la his­to­ria. ¿Que pa­sa aho­ra?

Ne­ce­si­to no es­tar gor­do, así que su­pon­go que lo in­ten­ta­ré.

Es­toy en la si­tua­ción de Es­qui­lo. Le ha­bían pro­fe­ti­za­do que lo ma­ta­ría un ob­je­to que le cae­ría en la ca­be­za, y por ese mo­ti­vo no en­tra­ba a las ca­sas, que­dán­do­se afue­ra. En­ton­ces un águi­la cre­yó que su pe­la­da era una pie­dra y le arro­jó una tor­tu­ga, ma­tán­do­lo en el ac­to.

Yo sé que pro­ba­ble­men­te me voy a mo­rir de es­to, pe­ro no hay apu­ro, y voy a ha­cer mi me­jor es­fuer­zo pa­ra evi­tar­lo por bas­tan­te año­s. Es­qui­va­ré las ma­ne­ras ob­via­s, co­mo Es­qui­lo, y si el des­tino ha­ce que un águi­la me ti­re con una tor­tu­ga, por lo me­nos se­rá una his­to­ria gra­cio­sa.