Stop and Say Hello | latest entries

The Wall

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:56:02 +0100

Watch this in full screen and with the sound as loud as possible.

via O Insurgente

Interesting Places in Pisa

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:36:09 +0100

Lately

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:03:21 +0100

Stop complaining that I never post things about myself and what I'm doing. Here goes a photolog.

Work

Rome

Sailing

Lynx

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:06:54 +0100

To my surprise, I found out that myxomatosis, the greatest responsible for the extinction of Iberian Lynx in Portugal, was initially deliberately introduced in Australia. It was an insignificant disease in Uruguay and because Australians had too many rabits, they decided to infect rabbits there. It then spread through out the world. When the fuck do we learn not to mess with the ecosystem????

Name the Blog!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:58:54 +0100

Still with Penny Lane in my ears and in my eyes, I decided to give a name to the blog. Better late than never.

The Day I Met Penny Lane

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:20:57 +0100

This weekend I went to Portugal but lost the flight on Friday. Really stupid because I thought that the flight was at 4pm and arrived to the airport at 2pm with a lot of time to waste. I started reading on the coffee shop until the flight time neared and then went in line to do the boarding area. I looked at the board and there wasn't my flight in there - uh-oh. Apparently the flight was at 1.40pm. Upss. Fortunately I found another cheap flight early morning in Bergamo, close to Milan. I had to do a 5 hour train trip and then sleep in the airport which reminded me of another story.

A couple of years back, I was going from Porto to Stockholm to meet some friends. I had a stopover in Liverpool so I arrived there around 9pm but my flight was in the next morning therefore I was going to sleep in the airport. I went out to catch some "fresh", ahem, air and was trying to return to the boarding area when the officer there tells me, - Sorry sire, your flight is tomorrow, and he looked at me like I was a lunatic. What would any Beatles fan do in this situation? A Beatles night tour with minus something degrees. Obviously.

It was a Friday night so the city was quite lively. I ate dinner somewhere, tried some pubs, had some beers, practiced the art of talking with strangers. I also went to The Cavern, looked around, saw the pictures but it was almost empty and I was very disappointed. At 2am, everyone was leaving to their homes and I was stuck in Liverpool, without buses to the airport and with a coat for Portuguese weather, I had left the warm clothes in the luggage deposit with my bag.

I decided to walk to warm up a bit and started going in the direction to the airport. The bus from the airport had taken 15 minutes to the city center and I though that wouldn't be a long time walking. I hesitated a bit but then I looked in the bus stop and I noticed two things. There were only 3 or 4 bus stops before the airport and one of them was in Penny Lane! I started walking, following the bus route. Who needs a map? The problem was that the streets were really long and there were many bus stops in each street, all numbered 1,2,...,7. After a long walk I arrived to Penny Lane, indeed there is a barber shop with photographs but, other than that, it's just a normal street. I don't know what I was expecting. I then tried to steal the street sign but someone thought of that before and they were very well stuck. No luck.

Kept walking to the airport and a few hours later I arrived there. Cold as hell, I crashed on the floor and slept. Don't listen to anything I say about tourism by osmosis.

Math Overflow

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:37:36 +0100

This can be a really big time waster! That's why we like it, right?

By Osmosis

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:50:27 +0100

I've reached the conclusion that the best way to do anything is doing it by osmosis.

Tourism by Osmosis

I don't understand how people can stand visiting continents, countries or cities by going trough every little sight of interest, trying to do every possible activity. Sometimes seems that people travel just to put little checks on their travel book.

I know that, if you are some place where you've never been and probably are not ever going to be again, it seems like a crime not visiting that museum or that famous building. Why would you be in Paris and not Visit the Eiffel tower? In London and skip the Big Ben? In Rome and not go to the Colosseum? You would have to be crazy.

Here in Pisa I always wondered how come there are so many Japanese people by the tower but you never see them around the city, in restaurants and ice cream shops. A while ago, someone explained it to me. In Japan, it's so uncommon that you have vacations lasting enough time to travel that they only do it once in their lives. So, when they do it, they buy these "Visit Europe in 10 Days" packages where everything is organised and they only spend a few hours in each place. They fly to Pisa. Stop for 30 minutes by the tower. The bus takes them to see the Ufizzi in Florence. Off they go to Paris. Crazy. Also, their idea of visiting a museum is going through every painting or sculpture in the museum and taking 3 pictures. One for the label. One for the painting. And finally, one of them in front of the painting. All this without even looking at the painting. They are pretty good at this and can "visit" a museum in an hour or so.

I'm just giving this example for you to see how far this can go. This is not what normal people do but it's not so different. When I have to do visit a city in one or two days in fast mode, usually with someone that makes me do it, I arrive home and I don't even know where I've been, what I've seen and I'm dead tired. I don't meet anyone, I don't learn anything new and after the first five minutes I can't really appreciate what I'm seeing. It's like watching the best 10 movies ever made in the the same day. No one would try to do that.

That's why tourism by osmosis is a great idea. You just randomly walk the streets, turn wherever you feel like. You're tired? Stop at the coffee shop and watch the people go by. After lunch? Nap in the park! That shop or museum looks cool? Go inside. Read a book by the river or the sea. Talk with people!

Learning by Osmosis

When we first learn how to speak, we learn from being around other people and simply picking it up by repetition - by osmosis. We don't go to school to learn our native language. We simply pick it up because it is all around us. It doesn't matter what the language is: Chinese, Maths, Music. If it is what everyone else is speaking, we automatically pick up the basics. Did you ever learn language in school without going to the country where they speak it before? Without seeing why it's useful? That's the best way to hate that language.

Everything

This is a mindset and it takes a while to get used to it. The point is: if I'm not enjoying something that I was supposed to enjoy, I'm definitely not doing it the right way and maybe it can be done without really making an effort to do it.

Lobo Antunes

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:03:16 +0100

The New Yorker Review of António Lobo Antunes.

"Writing, as he practices it, can be creepily close to vivisection, and his novels conduct an autopsy that is both personal and political."

As últimas

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:30:35 +0100

Um blog sobre viagens ao fundo do mar dos Açores.
As únicas imagens de Anne Frank em video.
Mais bossa nova da Noruega com o novo álbum dos Kings of Convenience.

Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:51:17 +0100

It's a bit premature but the good news is that now he has to live up to it. I'm guessing that was the point all along in giving him the prize. Let's see what happens in Copenhagen in December!

National Poetry Day

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:27:17 +0100

Only in the UK but I'm adopting it anyway. Here are some TED Talks about poetry.

Anna Maltkz's Naked Suits

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:32:54 +0100

So funny that they censor the suits :-) I'm guessing that was the irony she was going after in doing this!

Agora

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:17:38 +0100

I didn't watch "Agora" but it seems to be a nice movie, rated 8.6 in IMDB. It was screened in Cannes earlier this year and it's causing some controversy in (fundamentalist) religious circles. Namely in some country inside Rome. I'm not sure what's their problem with it but reading the synopsis I think they probably have issues with every combination of adjectives you can imagine to describe the people in the love relation.

Also, as the main character is a scientist (she invented the hydrometer and the astrolabe), I'm looking forward to watch it because it's yet to come a movie that portraits how scientists work - No! A beautiful mind is not a good counterexample, daydreaming of patterns is not how cryptographers break codes!

Thanks to Alessio for pointing this out.

The Yes Men Fix the World

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:20:02 +0100

I've seen The Yes Men Fix the World and it's just hilarious. I'm also feeling pretty rebellious right now.

Mafalda

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:24:46 +0100

Today Mafaldinha turns 45. When I was young I spent more time reading it over and over again than doing anything else. I still like to think that I have a bit of Mafalda, Felipe and Miguelito in me.

Lille and the French

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 03:06:34 +0100

Last week, in my way home, I did a stop over in Lille. Don't ask. There are only direct flights twice a week and, irony, going to the north of France is just a slight detour from Italy to Portugal. One day I shall write about the hidden sins of low cost flights. Guilty. Anyway, I had time to go to the city center and have bread with raisins for breakfast in a "boulangerie". Very fancy. I was quite surprised with this cool city and shock, people were nice!

I'm totally against stereotypes but I've been a few times to Paris and I know very well how the french people are! Joking, I actually like Paris, with 10 million people the darkest hobby has its place and it's just fun to go inside a store of a calligrapher and origami maker or the like. Also, I have some friends there and obviously this makes cities much more interesting. By the way Sarah, if you're reading this, thanks for you couch. My point: Parisians, hem, are not the nicest people in world.

In Lille I was ordering breakfast and the waitress, who was very nice (and cute), double checked every thing I ordered and gave advices such as "you should take the bread with pine nuts and raisins and not the sweet bread with raisins, it's much better" or "we don't have dark chocolate for your cappuccino, do you mind the organic-fair-trade-even-better one?". Sure this became complicated after I run out of the 5 different sentences I can say in french so, shock again, she changed to not-so-good-but-with-effort english! It was just this girl! - you say. No, people were generally very nice, giving indications of where the buses were and so on. I'm not really sure what's it all about with those people doing street polls in every corner, though.

All this to say that I must twist my arm and visit some other places in France with a bit more time. On other news I heard that Belgium is claiming French Flanders back.

The Northern Clemency

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 22:40:01 +0100

For those of you (us!) who despise Dan Brown and don't want to read his late(st) crap, here is a great book I've just finished. In the beginning I was a bit weary of the decadent industrial setting but the characters are brilliant. So is the book.

People Have the Power!

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:02:09 +0100

Onde é que este gajo foi?

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:15:56 +0100

Para não serem sempre os mesmos a fazer estes desafios e aproveitando que o vencedor do costume está de férias, aqui fica a pergunta: Onde é que este gajo foi?

Como prémio, o vencedor tem direito a uma garrafa de vinho :-)

Como dica, posso já dizer que não é o Douro nem o Napa Valley.

English version on the comments.

Worldview Manager

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 02:12:35 +0100

Scott Aaronson from Shtetl-Optimized announced that his project Worldview Manager is now live. The objective of the project is to show inconsistencies in the beliefs of each person on several topics. I think it's a very interesting idea.

SODA'10 listing

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:51:40 +0100

in http://soda10.cs.princeton.edu/SODA10-accepted.html

The Virtual Paintout

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:03:03 +0100

The artist Bill Guffey has a Virtual Paintout project where each month people gather in one area of the world, virtually, to paint or draw a scene and composition, within a predetermined area. This month the selected place is Lisbon. This is a cool way of artists to organize and make their work known to the public. It works very well and here are the results from Florence, Paris and Seattle.

via Nuno Salvaterra

3 cool bands

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:53:47 +0100

Gaspare's, Erik's and Caitria's.

Indie businesses in Pisa

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:22:51 +0100

A few cool small stores, coffee shops and bars in Pisa:

De Coltelli; Easily the best gelateria, mham. Noce (nuts) is the way to go.
Orzo Bruno; They brew their own beer. Go for the Montemagno.
La 56 Strada; Movie bookstore that is just amazing.
Fumettando; Comics store. Although it's not my thing, they say it's very good. I prefer the books for grownups.
Numero 11; There are two, but the one on via Battichiodi only has organic food. The other one is for tourists.
Dr Jazz; Mainly jazz jam sessions but also Blues. Closed during the summer because the owner has a club by the beach. He says, and I believe, that's the only time of the year he makes money.
Gap Record Store; Record store that just sells vinyl. You have to admire the commitment of the owner.

I'll try to update this post as I find new places.

I don't have a TV!

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 05:37:35 +0100

Although I do watch the news and some other tv shows online, I managed to substitute the TV for a few websites with things much more interesting than what's usually on the air. Here's the list, hope it's useful for you as well.

Video

Audio

Note that even on the websites that have more technical classes such as Academic Earth and others, there are loads lighter talks that are really great even if you're tired and don't want to think. If you have more goodies like these leave a link on the comments, pleaseeee!

Chance of Rain?

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 19:09:56 +0100

What the hell do meteorologists mean when they say 20% chance of rain?

a) 20% probability of being raining all the time?

b) The probability of raining once is 20%?

c) At each moment there is a 20% probability of being rainy? (expected rain during 20% of the day)

Not to talk about the "feels like". It's not 27º feels like 28º. It's 27º feels like freakin' 45º inside my house. Although, when I put my head inside the freezer it feels like "a lot better".

How to explain to your mom what an algorithm is?

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 03:12:59 +0100

I'm still not convinced with the answers at stackoverflow.com. I also don't have a good one and, the last time I explained what I do, both her and my sister told me a pity lie. I'm guessing the real problem is the transition from the algorithm to the computing machine but I'm not really sure.

Torrent heuristics

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:30:12 +0100

Does anyone knows if torrents use any kind of heuristics to decide which chunk they transfer? It would make sense to transfer the least available chunk first (although this might not be straight forward to calculate). This comes up because I'm downloading a (perfectly-legal-recently-released-remindful-of-my-youth, ahem) piece of data where there are 10 seeders and almost 20000! leachers. I would say that about 90% of the people have roughly 81% of the file and it was extremely fast to get to this point. The rest of the file is taking ages and everyone is still synchronized on the same amount. I'm suspecting that the seeders are sending the file in order to other peers... this sucks!

Crash Course on Portuguese Music

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:04:09 +0100

Portugal is known in the music scene for its traditions of fado, but there's a bit more to it than only that. To the request of many people here it goes.

Amália Rodrigues is the most important figure of traditional fado (that roughly translates to nostalgia) and sings some of the most iconic songs such as Tudo Isto é Fado, Uma Casa Portuguesa and Nem as Paredes Confesso. In the last few years there's been a new wave of fado singers that modernized the sound, introducing new instruments like Cello or Piano. The most known examples are Mariza, Camané and Mísia with songs like Transparente, Há uma Música do Povo, Sei de um Rio or Duas luas. One of the original things about fado is the use of the Portuguese guitar notably mastered by Carlos Paredes (Verdes Anos, Melodia nº2)

Keeping the topic on traditional music, there are other groups and artists like Dulce Pontes, Tereza Salgueiro, Vitorino or more recently Deolinda that are inspired by fado but that differ significantly from the genre. Examples of cool songs are: Cancão do Mar, O Pastor, Queda do Império and Fado Toninho.

During the reign of the fascist regime music was widely used by the left-wing resistance as a way to say what could not be said, singing about freedom, equality and democracy, mainly through metaphors and symbols. My personal favorites are Zeca Afonso and Sérgio Godinho with songs like Indíos da Meia-Praia, Canção de Embalar, Vampiros, Com um Brilhozinho nos Olhos, A Noite Passada, Liberdade.

In the last two decades of the last century rock artists and bands like Rui Veloso, Jorge Palma, Xutos & Pontapés started and changed the musical panorama with songs that left a mark on the portuguese youth (as in, me): Não Há Estrelas no Céu, Chico Fininho, Estrela do Mar, Cara de Anjo Mau, À Minha Maneira, Casinha.

Currently most groups have a big influence from international musicians and all the artists stated above, including traditional music. Interesting bands and artists are The Girt (Something Simple), Mesa (Luz Vaga), Clã (Problema de Expressão), Belle Chase Hotel (Sunset Boulevard, Fossanova).

Different kinds of sound also exist, from the Primitive Reason's Ska (Seven Fingered Friend) to Da Weasel's Hip-Hop (Re-Tratamento) and Moonspell's Heavy Metal (Scorpion Flower) or the Jazz of Maria João (Há Gente Aqui).