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About Mind the Post

As it happens, it all started with a simple idea:

Mind the post is my own particular cure for what Garcia Marquez described as an insomnia plague in Cien Años de Soledad (One hundred years of solitude): A collection of tagged hunting trophies, brilliant ideas I have found along the way, and many sparks of half-baked genius and stupidity that once called my attention. It is an absolutely non-partisan effort, where I make no concessions to doctrines, conventionalities and platitudes.

I write mainly about Technology —not about technologies. Technologies are fun and funny for a while, but they are like Ulysses’ Sirens for the curious man or woman. When you fall prey to technologies’ songs, you can’t see the forest for the trees any more. Technology is an untamed uncanny mystery, worth exploring because it is so deeply tied to evolution on Earth.

I write about what I find along my journey, what I don’t understand yet, what seems to be at a hand’s reach but is, alas, unattainable. Hence my themes and my writings may surely seem chaotic and arbitrary most of the time. I have no time to write about what I know, or I think I know. I wish I had. Maybe someday.

Fortunately many great people do write about the known every single day. I quote other authors extensively, blogs, papers and all kind of written material which I find enlightening or in support of a view or an argument. I prefer to quote verbatim, but I also freely summarize. I use images in my posts to suggest and stimulate imagination, to better convey the emotion of understanding, as a way of ellipsis, to avoid unnecessary words. I indulge in ambiguity in a deliberate way.

I always do my best to acknowledge every author and the origin of every quote, every image and/or the data I use. I try to rely free un-copyrighted material and open data as much as possible, and I strive to respect the limits of Fair Use. However, if you understand that I am violating your rights, please do contact me. There is no single piece of text or image in this blog that cannot be changed without affecting the overall picture and intention.

I also encourage you to contact me if you are curious about something, or just happen to be a soul mate striving for the same inaccessible summit.

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About Me

My name is Francisco J. Jariego, but everybody calls me “Paco” Jariego. I am an independent author, blogger, researcher, and…  If you just want to know the bare facts, you can find my professional profile here.

I studied physics because I wanted to know and I thought that theoretical physics would be the steepest ascent method to the summit of knowledge. I wanted to learn the fastest way and I was ready to do it the hard way. Physics was deeply engaging but it opened up more questions than the ones it managed to get answered. With the powerful toolset of physics you seemed to have supernatural powers to penetrate into the mysteries hidden deep down inside the matter or beyond the confines of the visible universe. However physics provided no clue as to the functioning of the mind, the economy or the society. You could use physics to send a probe to a far removed planet, but it was useless to settle an argument over a trifle among a group of friends. I have never regretted having chosen physics as study matter, but I decided I had to start a longer and more uncertain journey.

Knowledge has been the single most enduring intellectual passion in my life: the desire to see beyond what I have in front of my eyes. Pursuing knowledge is not a rational decision or a self-imposition. I long for knowledge. It comes naturally to me, out of the gut, as the desire to travel in explorers. Many people today enumerate the countries where they have lived and the places they have visited as a way of presentation. I have also spent my time in many different places: I was born in Literature and I used to visit the neighbouring countries of Painting and Music when I was a child. Then I decided I wanted to live in Physics and Mathematics, and then I moved to Economics, and further to many other places in the universe of knowledge. I have seen things you wouldn’t believe…

Somewhere along the way I understood that almost everything we think we know about almost everything we study is wrong. I understood that the fundamental quest is not for knowledge itself, it is for thinking. It is the journey not the destination that really matters. We do not know what thinking is, but I think it is what makes us human. And this also is probably wrong.

And yes, it seems I am now lost in an unknown jungle or a remote island in the middle of nowhere down my own particular Odyssey. My search does not follow the traced paths any more. I don’t believe in academic curricula or methodology. Curricula are like military insignia, medals or embroidered patches. Methodology is the religion of scientists and technologists. I only believe in exceptional people. I do my best to follow in the footsteps of great people.

Francisco J. (Paco) Jariego, Ph.D.

Twitter: @fjjariego
LinkedIn: franciscojariego