Learn less, do more

I don't really have an idea for this post. I suppose this time of the year it should be about evaluating the year, pondering good and bad things that happened.

I made a lot of progress with my work. Not the amount I would consider ideal, though - I've procrastinated an awful lot this year. I'm also running late with my dissertation - I should have it almost complete by now if I had really begun writing it several months ago, like I was telling myself over and over.

I also made a lot of mistakes. I do not complain about them, though, because I tend to see mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow. But I really wish I could "learn" a bit less in 2008...

I failed (again) to begin some serious running. I also failed to get my driver's license.

However, despite this year's less than satisfying progress, I am satisfied with other things I accomplished this year. The first and foremost is swimming. I finally overcame years and years of apathy and learned how to swim with a minimal level of decency.

All in all, I don't think 2007 has been too kind to me. I had a LOT of problems with banks. I procrastinated too much. I failed to exercise my discipline.

Looking at the bright side, when I look back there's a lot of good results to gather, and it actually looks like I've been produtive this year. I just wish I were more efficient.

For 2008, there's a lot to be done. For starters, my dissertation and defense, which I want to happen before April. I need to get a PhD going, after that. I want to get my driver's license. I also want to be able to show my friends how much I appreciate them.

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Serious people are rare around here.

Today's distance: 0 meters.
Yesterday's distance: 0 meters.

Yesterday the heavens fell apart, and it rained all the day. It wasn't even nearly possible to swim, so I didn't go.

Today, with an awful lot of stuff to do, I didn't go either. Although I'm thinking about going later, since my work for the day is done, I'll post 0 meters now since I have the tendency to postpone everything.

A piece of advice to you kids: never depend on people you don't trust if you want to work near the holidays. Especially around here, where everyone goes to incredible lengths to avoid working. I was supposed to still have a lot of work to do today, but I'll have to do it tomorrow because someone decided it was a good moment to party.

Parties are strange things around here. With all the bickering that goes on between the six departments on the Institute, each one traditionally decides to make its own end-of-the-year party - the direction of the institute, of course, obliviously arranges for a general party as well. As a result, everyone attends two parties: one on each department and another for the whole Institute.

The serious people keep working. But, I'm sad to say, they are few.

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Following Dory's advice

Today's distance: 1500 meters.

I decided several days ago to write here the distance I swam in the day. Obviously, I failed to do that until now.

Also, I am aware that this may not be the perfect time to begin doing this, since I'm only going to be able to swim until next friday - after that, I leave for the holidays and come back only in january. Still, it's better to begin at all than continue to endlessly postpone this.

I'm still convinced that this will also help me maintain a higher frequency of posts here, even if they are not very enlightening.

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VT8233 on Linux - making S/PDIF work

I'm making this post hoping it might be useful in case someone googles for something related.

A long time ago when I bought the parts for my current desktop at home I chose Asus' excellent A7V600-X motherboard. It comes with a fancy S/PDIF output RCA jack, and I thought to myself, 'sometime I should get this thing working'. I never got around to it because I didn't have access to a decoder which would be able to process the signal.

Recently Daniel brought the old home theater from his home, and so I get the opportunity. I bought the cables today and set out to the task.

The good thing is that the chipset which comes onboard is supported by Debian GNU/Linux out-of-the-box. I suppose that remains true for other distributions, since it's really a matter of ALSA and kernel compatibility, which is reasonably homogeneous.

Anyway, after a lot of searching (and very few useful answers from almost everywhere, including Alsa's own wiki), I found out that all you have to do is (assuming you run GNOME):

1. In Volume Control, under Edit/Preferences, check 'IEC958 Output' and 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA'.
2. In the Switches tab, check 'IEC958 Output'
3. Back in the Playback tab, set the slider for 'IEC958 Playback AC97-SPSA' to ZERO.
4. That's it, you're done.

This is actually quite strange, since I don't have any kind of control over S/PDIF's volume output this way; anything different than zero simply kills any sound coming from the home theater set.

I hope this helps anyone who happens to stumble with this post.

Next step: to make my FX 5200's S-Video output talk to the television set.

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Stairway to Heaven

Had I been there yesterday, I don't know what could have happened. One thing is certain: there were no other place I'd rather be.

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Contradiction or hyprocrisy?

Interesting thing I saw on the way home: some guy to whom a mohawk is not enough. He decided to make dreadlocks on it, too. What can I say? He was the ugliest thing I've seen these days. I do not argue with taste, though. With 6 billion people in the planet, there's a taste for every thing - and bad taste for even more.

He didn't stop there, though. What really caught my eye was his t-shirt: "No more torture - boycott to everything from animal exploration". So far, so good. That's the guy's point of view, and I respect that. And then I saw his wallet, which was visible in the pocket of his pants. A leather wallet...

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Briefly brief briefing.

This is not going to be a real update. This is going to be a shamelessly brief account of what happened in the last 43 days.

I'm doing good in swimming. Although there are a lot of ways I can improve, things are going ok; 2000 meters and counting. Maybe I'll begin to post here how long I swim every day.

My advisor got promoted. I'm not sure what's the english word for it, but she's now a titular professor in my department.

I'm beginning to get paranoid with my dissertation. It's about time, since I have to admit I'm far (too far) from finishing it.

Christmas is getting close - OMG it's that time of the year already?!?!

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Update.

This is not really an update, but a manifestation of my acknowledgement of the fact that it's been 43 days since my last post.

So many things have happened during this time that is seems a lot longer. Hopefully later this weekend I'll manage to write something about it.

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Spooky

My advisor has just scared the shit out of me. She sent me an email asking me to write an abstract for a meeting I didn't remember about. 

The good thing is, I did know about it and I did make my registration. And I did send my abstract - exactly the one my advisor asked me to write. Actually, I'm not sure why my advisor asked me to do that, I think she's probably under some stress and didn't remember us submitting it more than a month ago. Actually, it was even a troublesome submission. 

I sent her my answer, telling her that we have already made the registration and submitted the abstract. This actually makes me feel a bit odd, since usually it's me who doesn't remember stuff.

Actually, I've been feeling a lot more confident about my work. In part, it's because my advisor has been praising my work recently. But it's also because I'm much more self-assured about things I have to know and do. I am feeling a bit guilty, however, mostly because I haven't done a lot of productive work in the past few weeks. I do have to work on my dissertation - I have been claiming to be writing for some time now. It's time I make it true.

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Where are you from?

So I was checking traffic statistics for this blog and a few curious facts came to my attention.

The first of them is that the major source of traffic is not Brazil, but the United States. Brazil is second and the UK comes third.

The second curious thing I found out that the major referrer site is not other than phdcomics's forum. This is really surprising, since I've been away from the phorums for some time (not by choice, mind you).

I'm glad this thing has so many visitors from other countries (like Germany, the UK, Canada, Argentina, even Philippines and New Zealand!), despite the nauseating lack of worthy content. I wish I could be able to write more interesting posts so your visits wouldn't be a total waste of time.

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Sound Juicer Sucks

Sound Juicer looks like a pretty good application for encoding audio tracks. To bad it doesn't work the way it should.

I have never had problems with it before, because I always used its default profiles. When I friend came by and saw a CD he liked and asked for a copy, I said ok. The problem is, he wanted it to be in the mp3 format.

After sometime trying to make it understand that I wanted if to encode mp3 files, I finally gave up. Apparently, there are no workarounds to make Sound Juicer to use custom made profiles.

I guess I'll stick with abcde, or maybe grip. Both of them never failed me before.

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I hate banks. Apparently, the feeling in mutual.

So banks hate me. Or, at least, Santander does. For some obscure reason I'm not aware of, every single time I need something out of the ordinary from them, it's excruciatingly painful to get it. Somehow they find a way to keep annoying me with endless, random problems.

For the last whole month I've been trying to get myself a cheque-book to pay for my driving lessons and overdue rent. I ordered in through netbanking, that little thingy that supposedly makes life easier for everyone. However, after the 5 weekdays it asked for delivery, it still hadn't arrived. I went to the ATM terminal (here in Brazil, due to overall high usage of cheque for almost everything, they are quite common), and it refused to give me some single cheque forms. Then, I went to the manager, in order to ask why this problem was occurring. She answered that, for some reason, there were two books that were ordered that went to the postal service's limbo - four years ago. Assuming that this was the issue, she cancelled those and told me she would order another one the next day, so I wouldn't have to worry about anything, and in 6 weekdays I would receive the book at home.

Approximately twenty days later (that's today), I went again to the ATM to try and get some single cheque forms, which I needed desperately for today - no room for any more delays. However, as expected, the ATM refused to print them. Rage began to accumulate inside. I went straight to the manager, asked what the hell was wrong and demanded five cheque forms today - no discussion.

After several minutes, a crash in the computer (which runs Windoze), and two more people from the neighboring tables helping out, she finally discovered that, due to a R$ 2,70 (about US$ 1,35) tax that SOMEHOW wasn't paid - BACK IN 2003. FOUR years ago! FOUR. YEARS.

The real catch is, their "system" only allows for "negotiation" of values above R$ 10,00 (about US$ 5,00) - which means that, since it wasn't paid, and wasn't enough for "negotiation", it went nowhere else than the limbo. Until, after three managers digging thoroughly the records in their "system", it finally arose to haunt me.

This was the last time I cut them some slack for their incompetence. I finally lost my patience with this crappy hell-hole they claim to be a bank, As soon as I get my stipend for this month (which is tomorrow) I'll pay the goddamn money and close the account.

And to think that they've IMPROVED after privatization.

P.S.: I wish I could swear better in english. Since I can't, I'll do it in portuguese anyway.

Malditos filhos da puta, cuspidos do rabo de uma porca fedida no pântano do Rio Tietê! Incompetentes do caralho, como esses animais de teta conseguiram aprender a usar um computador?? COMO esses débeis mentais aprenderam a FALAR?? Façam um favor ao mundo e se matem.

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The bright side

Now, for some good news. At least, there are some.

I'm finally free from M$ Windows. The last bastion has fallen - Microcal Origin now runs on my Debian GNU/Linux. Last night I removed the NTFS partition from my computer and relocated my root partition there, creating a huge home directory. I don't even have any M$ partitions on my hard disk any more. 

In other news, I'll begin swimming next monday. Already spoken to who I had to speak to, and now everything is set. I've been looking for something like this for some time. I need some discipline for doing some exercise - I've been too much sedentary recently, and I'm beginning to get fat. I will do my best to make this work - I need a change of habits. Hopefully, this will help me get more focused on my work.

In still other news, I'll begin to attend the undergrad classes on Solid State Physics. This has a twice-folded purpose - helping out a friend who needs to really crack it down and learning a few things that went right through me when I did this course in my last semester as an undergrad.

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I don't have bad luck, bad luck has me.

I'll write it down in  one sentence: I haven't done almost any productive work in the last two weeks, because I wasn't motivated or because I was sick - sometimes both.

That said, I came to the conclusion (once again!) that I'm the elemental of bad luck. I just can't believe how things can go so wrong sometimes. In the last weeks I've had serious problems with the TWO banks where I have accounts - incompetent managers, lazy clerks, stupid strikes. One of the problems is actually secondary - I needed something from one of the banks so I could pay for my driver license. But, since I do not own a car, that's not really a big deal.

The other problem, however, was a bit more serious. I needed to set up an account to receive the salary from my T.A. activites during this semester. When I finally had it all solved - after numerous problems and a LOT of stress - I found out that, due to some ridiculous university regulation, I cannot receive the salary. The bastards waited until OCTOBER to say that. Obviously, they couldn't have said that when my application form went to them for their approval. 

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. I had been counting on that money for various things I had pending. Now, it seems, I'll have to pass without it.

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Deathly Hallows

I've finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night (there are spoilers in this post; select the text to see them).

I dare say that it's the best of the seven books in the series. J. K. Rowling was able to fit everything together in a nice way and, most importantly, adding new elements only when necessary - mostly everything that solved the mystery was already in the previous books. It was also pretty good to see Dumbledore as a human being, who has made a lot of mistakes in life (like the friendship with Grindelwald and his search of the Deathly Hallows), as opposed to the perfect picture everyone had of him before.

It's a dark, captivating story. I could barely stop reading at all from the moment I started. I believe these characteristics of the book emanate primarily from the sensation of constant pursuit - there's hardly a moment of peace for Harry, Hermione and Ron. Also, the many deaths of well known characters make the reader want to keep going to see what's the outcome. The deaths of Mad-Eye Moody in the beginning and of Fred, Lupin and Tonks near the end are particularly shocking. Also, when a friend told me that Voldemort killed Harry and then Harry killed Voldemort, I was curious - I expected the fact to have something to do with that mirror from the first book and with that portal thing Sirius fell into, but the way it happens is way better - it seems the kind of stuff I'd come up with.

Anyway, I'm not particularly good at writing book reviews, so I'll stop here. There's only one more thing I'd like to say, and it's that I liked very much the outcome of the story. Mostly it's because it's pretty much what I would have done - J. K. Rowling's style pleased me very much because it's very similar to my own. I like to use several elements already present in the story to build the end - it's the best way to do it, because I see a story as a group of such elements whose purpose it just that: build the end of the story. The end of a story is the purpose of the whole thing, because it is what carries its true meaning.

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Finally!

I finally convinced compiz that is would be a good idea if it worked here. Now it's doing great. There are a few more tweaks I want to make, like changing gdm's theme, adding a graphical interface to grub and a graphical progress bar for the boot, but the basics are covered.

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A lot done.

Work. Work-work-work. A bit more of work.

That's what it took for me to get a decent desktop running. After a lot of things I had to go through, including a fresh install, a huge amount of bizarre errors, a reinstall, an upgrade to lenny, a driver compilation and lots and lots and lots of installed packages, I finally have a minimally decent desktop.

The best part is, it's Debian. This may seem a completely moot point, but I actually missed all the stuff I had to go through to get things begin to work the way I want them too.

It's not finished, yet. For example, I still wasn't able to make compiz work here. And I still haven't got my gnome configurations how they should be. But gnome settings are the last thing I'm worrying about right now; first I want everything just working. When I get that I'll worry about how I want everything to be.

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Back to origins.

I've been using Ubuntu for some time, now. And, I must say, it is a good distribution. Works well, is easy to use, and all that.

But some things keep bugging me. For example, despite its big user base, it's not easy at all to get some answers sometimes. The usual things are very straightforward, like getting gstreamer codecs for proprietary formats, but others simply seem to be unanswerable. There are problems which do not seem to have solutions. And this is what really annoys me.

Originally I chose Ubuntu because it needed little or no effort to make things work. But I can't live with it anymore.

I'm moving back to Debian.

It was the first Linux distribution I used and experimented with - so there's an emotional side to this decision, too. I see this as a bit of a comeback - one I'm looking forward to.

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365

Tomorrow we complete one year together.

It passed so quickly I almost didn't realize it. Almost.

Thinking back to one year ago, and remembering everything - the good and the bad - that I've been through since then, I'm truly happy to say I'm probably in one of the happiest moments I ever lived.

I guess there's little more I can say here. What really matters is to be said only to her.

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Theo Jansen - Kinetic Sculptor

"The walls between engineering and art exist only in our minds"

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Selton

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Jinxed

I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm jinxed somehow.

Now seriously, I don't know what happens that something always goes wrong for me. Maybe I'm doing something the wrong way, or perhaps I'm failing to notice some obvious detail that makes everything go out of control.

The fact is, Murphy's Law seems to be stronger around me lately. A lot of things that shouldn't go wrong to terribly wrong.

This is not a kind of generic post - it's actually about something that happened to me very recently, although I'm keeping that to myself.

But what really bugs me is that, although everything is going to be alright, I'm still feeling a bit nervous about the whole thing. Something is out of place.

Besides that, there's a lot of things going on. Not only there are new and exciting experiments to run, but now I'm going to do some programming, too (electronic density maps, your time is about to come!). Also, I finally began to understand a lot of things about my work, and all of a sudden everything started to make much more sense.

There's nothing like following references...

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The Rain Song

This is the springtime of my loving-
the second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing-
so little warmth I felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing-
I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles-
flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes
It is to you I give this tune.
It isnt' hard to recognise-
these things are clear to all from
time to time.

Talk talk-
I felt the coldness of the winter
I never thought it would ever go
I cursed the gloom that set upon us
but I know that I love you so
but I know that I love you so.

These are the seasons of emotion
And like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion-
I see the torch we all must hold.
This is the mystery of the quotient-
Upon us all a little rain
must fall.

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Changes

This template is about to change - just like the title just did.

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The Matrix Goggles

Russian artists from Moscow presented in London the totally useless but somehow cool device - goggles that you can put on and feel yourself like a robot from a Terminator movie or like somebody else from “the cyberspace”.

read more | digg story

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Moving On

So an aunt of mine died last monday.

I have to be honest, it was kind of expected. But something like that brings you down anyway.

Still, I see something very odd in the way I react to stuff like this. The last time I actually cried because of someone else's death was some 13 years ago, when my grandfather died. Even nowadays, when I remember him, tears to my eyes almost instantly. Since then I've lost my two grandmothers (both of whom I loved very much). I was crushed by both - but I didn't cry.

My perspective on death has changed a lot, that's for sure. I began to find egoism in the attitude some people have about it - it's as if they wanted the person to stay alive no matter what, only to have them around - even if they don't give much value to that person. On the other hand, a part of me envies that - the ability of showing you're upset for losing someone you love.

In the end, however, I do grieve the departed loved ones, but in my own way. I talk less, laugh less - in a way, live less. For one day only. After that, I want to enjoy life as much as I can, be it playing around, working hard, or whatever else. That's a much better way to remember someone.

In the end, I think it's useless to dwell on negative stuff like death and illness - it's much better to remember the good things about the people we love.

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Guitar Villain

Finally I started learning to play the guitar.

I borrowed an electric guitar from Pivo yesterday and I'm already training chord switching. With time, I hope, I'll gain calluses and start making some noise!

It's going to be a while until then, though. Music has a very slow learning curve. At least, that's what it seems to me right now.

One thing is for sure: as soon as I can get some pŕactice, I'll start playing around with some songs I'm looking forward to playing.

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Gotta earn it.

Yesterday was Yoshi's birthday. To celebrate, Red Five performed their first public appearance - Yoshi is one of the guitar players in the band.

It was so cool. It was the first time I went to a *ahem* concert and knew some members of the band. Their setlist is good, everyone enjoyed it.

Sometimes I wish I had a band. But, since I don't know how to play any instrument, that tends to be a bit difficult. Every now and then I feel a kind of need to learn to play an instrument - there were times when I wanted to learn piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, flute, drums...

That makes me wonder how cool would it be if it were possible to learn things like in The Matrix, where all you needed to do was to plug a stick to your brain and the operator would download all you needed to know directly into your brain.

Wouldn't be the same, I think. Things only are worth it if you fight for them. People should earn everything they have - but then again, who said the world had to be fair?

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Still looking for answers.

I honestly don't know what to write about here. I guess it's because so many things have been happening in the last few weeks I haven't had the time to sort it all out.

However I have been doing a lot of thinking. I've been thinking mostly about the way I live and the way I want to live in the future; and I made some decisions concerning my own habits that are very difficult to implement, because they need a lot of discipline - and that's a quality I have less of than I would like to.

Many people may call it paranoia, but what actually catalyzed the change in the way I see the world were two movies I watched only recently.

The first was 'Super Size Me'. I'm not sure if everything shown in the movie is actually true, but it scared the crap out of me. I was already concerned about my eating habits, but after that I completely stopped drinking soda, for example. I'm trying to eat less junk food, and to reach a better balanced diet.

I'm also trying (not very successfully until now) to make some exercise. I'm still not sure what, but I'm doing something.

The other movie that caused this change was Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". Until watching it I didn't have an opinion about Global Warming. After that, although I still feel that I need to learn more about it, my habits did change - I'm trying to do my part, and I'm encouraging other people to do so.

I've been giving a lot of though to my future, too. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do after I finish grad school. I guess this is because there are too many variables involved. One thing I know for sure: what I want the most is to raise a family. There are a lot of things that have a weight on making such a decision, such as, 'is it worth it to bring a child to this wrecked world?'.

I'm still looking for answers.

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Criatividade

Aconteceu realmente na semana passada na rádio TUPI FM 104,1 em São Paulo:

Locutor: - Quem fala?

Ouvinte: - É o Vicente.

Locutor: - De onde, Vicente?

Ouvinte: - Lapa!

Locutor: - Olha aí, Vicente da Lapa! Valendo o kit com camiseta e CD do Edson e Hudson. Presta atenção! Qual é o país que tem duas sílabas e se pode comer uma delas? Prestou bem atenção? Há um país com 2 sílabas e 1 delas é muito boa para se comer.
Dez segundos para responder.

Ouvinte: - CUBA!

Locutor: (mudo por alguns segundos e algumas risadas no fundo) – Tá certo, senhor Vicente! Vai levar o prêmio pela criatividade. Mas aqui na minha ficha estava escrito JAPÃO...

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Dammit.

I hate RUMP. A LOT.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual.

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Oh boy.

It's cold. COLD. Too cold. But this is cool (!), people tend to get more elegant when it's cold - a lot of clothing is the main reason, I think.

Anyway, there's been a LOT happening lately, and I've had no chance to post about them, mostly because my home's connection is broken - again.

Anyway, the most important thing is that now I have data - lots of data - to analyze. And hopefully there are more on the way, since a considerable portion of my original data was lost - thanks to someone else's mistake. How can a person BLATANTLY IGNORE a warning that there's no disk space when saving experimental data??

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Today is THE day.

Hello everyone.

After a long, long, long while I've logged in to blogger once again to write another post. It's been a while, although there is no good reason whatsoever for me to have taken so long to do this.

There's a lot of things I want to write about, but unfortunately they will have to wait. Right now I'm making measurements that comprise almost all the data I need for the work in my masters degree. After this, I will be left only with some data analysis and writing my d**********n.

I only hope that the worst problems that could have appeared already did so. The ones I faced earlier this morning trying to set up the experiment were already almost unrecoverable... all I want right now is to have a long, nice day of productive work, without any further problems.

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Guitar Hero, R.I.P.

Hey Activision, you guys decided to take Harmonix out of Guitar Hero III? Too bad for you. People love Guitar Hero, but they will sell their souls for this.

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Copy-Pasta.

Now that I'm done with one of the crappiest courses I've ever had, I can even begin to think about studying classical electrodynamics for real. It is a very interesting subject, after all, despite the ugly math involved.

In other news, I can never cease to be amazed by the lack of ethics of some people. The director of the Physics Institute, where I study, has been accused of plagiarism. Regardless of his and his colleages' ethically questionable attitude, what really pissed me off is the fact that this case is most likely going to be left behind, with no punishment and, even worse, no memory of what happened. This seems to be the greatest problem around here: people seem to have no long term memory. In fact, most people seem not even to care.

I wonder what happened to these people to make them so unethical. Of all the reasons I can think of, not a single one seems reasonable.

Sometimes it's very difficult to like the place where I've studied for the last 8 years...

My only hope is that these people are just a minor portion of the whole.

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All is well that ends well...

...too bad it ain't over yet.

It's tomorrow - hopefully - that I'll get over with the due credits for my graduation. All I need is to do well in tomorrow's test - too bad the teacher is not exactly what I would call a good teacher... or a good role model for that matter. But I'm not getting into that specific matter here - at least, not yet.

The point is that I foresee a very unpleasant all-nighter tonight. The fault is, of course, mine, as usual - after last test's complete failure I actually tried taking the studies more seriously, but something happened along the way and here I am - clueless about half the topics I should know all about. But right now all I want is for it to be over. That way I can get away with it and keep being only a regular student...

When am I going to break the vicious cycle?

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'cause pi is good.

Sometimes I can't help but feel overwhelmed by the way some things happen in life. I think about people I knew years ago, and then wonder where they are now. Among these people there are friends I wish I had more contact with, and there are people I wish I got to know better.

But life follows its own path and the best one can do is to try and follow it however possible.

It's an odd feeling, though, when I begin to think how different my life would be if I had met people in other circumstances...

Things happen so quickly sometimes I just wish the world would stop for a minute...

Oh well. I must say, though, that despite the apparent depressive tone of this post, I am very happy. A bit worried - mostly because my deadline is beginning to show its ugly face on the horizon - but happy.

---

Last post was the 100th post on this blog. I wish it were about something more worth the time I took to type the words, but unfortunately I didn't realize that until now, when I logged in to write something else.

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Isso é que é diálogo

Comunicado CRUESP nº 04/2007

O Cruesp e o Fórum das Seis se reuniram nesta segunda-feira para dar continuidade à discussão da pauta de reivindicações formulada pelas entidades, na qual o ponto central era a política de assistência estudantil, tema do mais alto interesse dos alunos das três Universidades (USP, Unicamp e Unesp), cujo investimento na área já é, de longe, o maior entre as universidades brasileiras.

O Cruesp lamenta informar que a referida reunião foi suspensa em razão de nova tentativa de ocupação, por um grupo de estudantes, do prédio da Reitoria da Unicamp, onde os reitores e os representantes das entidades estavam reunidos.

Não se consumando a ocupação da Reitoria, os estudantes invadiram, no final da tarde, o prédio da Diretoria Acadêmica da Universidade, um órgão da Pró-Reitoria de Graduação cuja finalidade é prestar serviços aos próprios estudantes, zelando por sua vida acadêmica.

O Cruesp condena mais esse ato de violência praticado contra a universidade pública, sobretudo num momento em que, através do diálogo democrático e construtivo, se buscava consolidar programas de apoio fundamentais para os estudantes (em particular aqueles oriundos da escola pública) e para a vida acadêmica das três instituições.

A seqüência das negociações entre o Cruesp e o Fórum das Seis ocorrerá tão logo as atividades sejam normalizadas.

Campinas, 18 de junho de 2007.

CRUESP

E esse bando de delinqüentes, marginais e desocupados ainda diz que quer o diálogo.

Diálogo é o cacete! Eles querem é causar. Não passam de massa de manobra de partidos nanicos, irresponsáveis e extremistas.

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Ideas are bullet-proof

So I've finally watched V for Vendetta. And I'm wondering what the hell kept me from watching this movie for so long.

I have absolutely no idea whether it respects the comics, but I really liked it - V's character is absolutely fascinating - and his lines are without a doubt the best.

However, I cannot help but feel that the story was under-explored. Everything seems to happen so quickly it becomes a bit difficult to keep up. And I want to see more of V-action.

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On the vicissitudes of using a PC

Today I've reinstalled Windows on my PC.

It's one of those things you have to do now and then, since it seems to periodically and inexorably degrade to a point where anything you do triggers some error.

The good thing is, at least this forces me to do backups, software updates and not-useful-anymore software removal. All in all, even if I didn't have to I probably would still do these periodic reinstalls.

This time, though, I reserved some space for installing Ubuntu - it's been a while since I last had linux installed here, and I'm willing to use it at home again. The reason? I don't know, but probably it's just because I want it...

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Trying out Safari

So Firefox has been getting on my nerves a lot recently. I still can't understand how it got so bad. I mean, I've been using Firefox for a very long time, and I had never have any problems with it.

Until recently, that is. All of a sudden, it became highly unstable, prone to stupid problems like freezing completely, disabling tab navigation, and other stuff like that. I got so annoyed I even considered switching to Interner Explorer. Honest.

Fortunately, another option has just appeared. I'm trying out Safari, Apple's gecko-based browser. It seems promising, and my first impression is good, despite the bugs (which are just bound to exist in a beta version such as this). Also, it has some pretty cool things, like a good bookmark system, an easy-to-use rss reader, a very useful history, and is visibly more lightweight than Firefox.

There are still some pretty annoying problems, though. For one, I still can't use gmail with it - there's some problem with accentuation that truncates the message... also, I can't type in anything in the Post Title field on blogger's posting system, because that triggers Safari to immediately die.

It seems promising, though. While Firefox continues to disappoint me, I'm feeling more and more inclined to make the switch.

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Cidade Limpa

A Lei Cidade Limpa entrou em vigor em 1º de janeiro deste ano, proibindo a maioria das formas de publicidade externa na cidade. Não só foram banidos os outdoors e anúncios gigantes (familiares de quem passava na Rua da Consolação, por exemplo), mas também os anúncios em ônibus e táxis.

A iniciativa é boa - apesar de as agências publicitárias terem esperneado até não poder mais contra a nova lei. Ela ajuda a diminuir a poluição visual na cidade, o que às vezes parece algo irrelevante em meio à agitada vida paulistana, mas que no fundo contribui para aumentar o estresse de quem vive numa cidade tão agitada.

No entanto, fico me perguntando qual vai acabar sendo o real efeito dessa lei na vida do paulistano. Nos últimos tempos eu venho percebendo a mudança significativa na paisagem da cidade por causa da remoção de toda a publicidade externa, e sou forçado a dizer que é bem provável que essa lei possa acabar tendo o efeito oposto do esperado.

Isso porque, no lugar dos anúncios, em muitos lugares ficaram os "esqueletos" abandonados das estruturas em que eles costumavam ficar afixados - postes de outdoor, pra citar um exemplo mais evidente. Quem passa na Marginal Pinheiros na região da Cidade Universitária ainda pode ver uma fila imensa deles, ainda ali, como fantasmas.

Mas o pior disso não são essas estruturas abandonadas - que, mais dia menos dia, vão acabar saindo. São as pixações e outras depredações visuais, tão comuns hoje em dia. Elas estão por todo lugar - evidência de que existe gente sem noção de que as idiotices que eles escrevem podem não agradar aos outros. Se a Prefeitura pretende ser minimamente coerente, ela deve tomar providências para limpar as fachadas da cidade e evitar que elas voltem a ser vítimas de vandalismo.

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Why I hate crowded places

Today was the Gay Pride Parade in São Paulo. The city's most prominent avenue, the Paulista Avenue, was completely taken by about 3,5 million people (according to the people who organized the parade). My girlfriend wanted to see it, and it was on the way home from her granny's house, so we would have to go there anyway.

First of all, I'd like to say I don't hold anything against other people's sexual options. Everyone should be free to decide about their own lives.

My problem is with crowds. For one, it's an experimental fact that people's intelligence decreases with the number of people in a crowd. Usually it's the lowesst individual IQ divided by the number of people. And so, people in crowds do a lot of stupid things. Like pushing other people like there's no tomorrow, just to walk from point A to point B.

And they drink a lot. A LOT. And drunk people are among the most annoying people in the universe. Not to mention when they throw up because they don't know how to drink.

Finally, there are those who don't go anywhere without wanting to pick a fight. All these people want is some uproar, tumult, chaos, disturbance, and stuff like that. And these are the worst, I might add - they are the ones who end up showing up in the newspaper when they spank another person, get arrested, or do some other stupid thing like that. Obviously, though, the fame goes for everyone who has anything to do with the event these Nature Mistakes were in.

All of these factors really have the power to make me really angry. In occasions like these I get so upset my stomach hurts, my head hurts, my whole organism gets upset.

But what really upsets me is that, being angry like that, I fail to take into account what other people want or think. I get obnoxious, stubborn, even stupid (after all, I'm another element of the crowd, and the intelligence decrease applies to me as well). My girlfriend was really looking forward to this particular parade, and in the end we didn't stop even for a minute to look around and see the good things that happen there - after all, and this I have to say in favor of gay people, they are usually more true to themselves, and more honest with other people, and in being so they become really interesting people because they are genuine.

Anyway, the point of all this gibberish(?) is that I hate crowded places because they bring forth the worst parts of my personality, aspects of myself that I don't like at all.

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Nothing really new.

I can't say I have something really new to post here - I'm posting really to simply not let the blog stay too long without being updated.

I began carrying lunch today - I mean, I cook it the day after at home, and take it on tupperwares to Physics. My hope is that this procedure will help me increase the quality of my meals. By the way, I'm feeling guilty because it's almost three weeks without sending Ju my "food diary". I should be more responsible.

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Electrodynamics revisited

Yesterday I began reviewing Classical Electrodynamics. One of the things I regret about my undergrad life is that I never got to actually learn anything about electromagnetism. The teachers for both courses I took were... incompetent, in the lack of a better term. All they did was recite the book and use slideshows to talk about the subject... exams were just as crappy, to say the least.

Of course, much of the blame is to be taken on me, too. I did not take the initiative to study it for myself... and now I'm having to catch up.

The funny part is, I actually like studying electrodynamics.

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Agora todos estão felizes

Já tiveram o que queriam. Agora deixem as pessoas sérias EM PAZ.

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Scary face

A friend has told me that I get scary when I'm angry. Scary.

That took me by surprise, I must say. I know I make it obvious when I'm not happy about something (after all, I do rant a lot). However when I get really angry at something or someone I don't rant, nor yell or anything - I just remain silent. And with a scary look on my face that, it seems, insists on showing herself even when I'm not that angry.

That's a double-edged knife. Except when I am pissed off, that is when I choose not to speak to anyone, I do want people to come and talk to me, so I can get it out of my system and let it go, even if sometimes "exploding" at people, which really does not mean much, except that I trust that person enough to know it's just temporary. It seems bizarre, I know, and by most perspectives it really is, but that's the way I deal with that - it's part of who I am.

That's a bit different when I really get pissed off, because I withdraw from wherever I am and try to isolate myself, deliberately avoiding contact with other people, especially friends and loved ones, to prevent going really mad. Fortunately, very few people have ever seen it happen. The main reason I isolate myself is because I'm afraid of that trait of my personality - I'm afraid I might do or say soem pretty nasty things to people I really care about. This is the kind of stuff I don't want to get out, absorbing them and using the introspective moments I get from isolation to meditate about many things, which means that it tends to fade away.

As I like to think, that which is not solved by Time is made smoother by it. It means that even the most bitter fight between two friends can be put to an end given time and a good dialogue.

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Nice new toys

I have acquired new toys.

The first and foremost is my new set of speakers. Now I have a reasonable set of speakers with a sub-woofer, which means I finally can listen to music in a minimally decent way since early 2002, when a robbery at home took that away from me. I just hope my neighbors don't get too mad at me... =P

The other toy is my (finally acquired) pendrive. I've been needing one of these for some time now.

And, finally, the most useless of them, the new addition to this blog, which can be seen to the right. I really like last.fm - for some reason I like to know what I'm listening to. I mean, I like to know what kinds of music I listen to more often. I is a way of knowing myself better through the tracking of tunes I listen to, although that varies wildly accordingly to my moods. The point is also that I like to keep my playlist as eclectic as possible, and last.fm helps me make sure that it stays so.

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Towel Day!

Happy Towel Day, boys and girls.

I heard in the Phorums that today (actually, yesterday) was also the Star Wars day - the 30th anniversary of the first movie's premiere. Truly a remarkable day, wasn't it?

It was also remarkable due to the fact of a few of us productive members of the Physics Institute finally found a reporter willing to give us attention, and show people the other side of an important matter.

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Sometimes... I don't like being me.

Probably I shouldn't take it so seriously - to be honest, I think I'm being really harsh on myself since yesterday.

I almost messed up my girlfriend's life - she's on another country and was counting on me to run some errands that would assure her safe stay there.

I know why I'm making it so difficult for myself to just let it go. I just love her too much, and the thought that I've let her down is almost unbearable. The worst part is that, as always, when we read or hear something our brain makes it sound like a good thing or a bad thing, depending on our humor and its own strange criteria. And, in this mind state, everything I read only makes me remember the fact that she was counting on me - and I don't enjoy being myself that way.

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Misturas

Dia estressante (incluindo delegacia) + pisar na bola com a namorada que tá longe + vinho = tontura bem doida

=/

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Covardia é uma merda.

Um sujeito que agride uma pessoa porque esta está filmando a merda que ele e os amiguinhos "revolucionários" dele estão fazendo, e em seguida agride uma estudante absolutamente sem motivo nenhum - exceto o fato de ela ter estado na aula - escondendo-se em seguida por trás do "movimento" não passa de um covarde. Um cagão que não tem bolas no meio das pernas para assumir a merda que fez.

Piores ainda, no entanto, são os "líderes" desse "movimento", que ao invés de honrar seu discurso de "manifestação pacífica", ajudam a proteger esse sem-vergonha.

Seria cômico se não fosse patético.

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Self-inflicted brainwash

A esta altura do campeonato muita gente já deve ter idéia do que aconteceu no IFUSP hoje. Não vou ficar enchendo a paciência do leitor com mais um relato daquela zona - até mesmo porque a grande maioria de quem lê este blog é de lá também.

Só queria fazer alguns comentários. Como eu disse no post anterior, bixo = "massa de manobra". O dia de hoje só me confirmou ainda mais esse fato. O lado bom dessa coisa toda é que, como o instituto hoje amanheceu "bloqueado" pelos grevistas, não tive prova - uma chance pra me preparar melhor.

Enfim. Hoje fiz algo que não fazia há anos - junto com o Dudu, fizemos tricô com um deles. Aquele que apareceu por último, falando bosta no SPTV. Falo que fizemos tricô com ele porque o número de nós que demos nos argumentos furados dele foi bem grande.

Essa gente não entende o que faz, não tem a menor idéia das conseqüências de seus atos, e age como se fosse dona da razão e tivesse o direito de fazer o que quiser, enquanto os outros têm apenas o direito de concordar com eles. Discordar ou até mesmo tentar argumentar é egoísmo, anti-patriotismo, é "ir contra o movimento", é ser "contra uma universidade pública, gratuita e de qualidade". E, obviamente, muitas outras coisas...

A conclusão a que chego é a de que esse povo imagina que ler um resumo de uma resenha de uma obra de Marx é ser comunista. Imagina que é suficiente ler uma notícia sobre o que quer que seja, sem procurar maiores informações ou referências, e basear suas ações nisso. E repete tanto os bordões que aprende por aí que acaba acreditando.

Termino este post com uma pequena citação, de origem desconhecida:

As crianças que assistiam TeleTubbies cresceram…

Pois é, aquilo deu nisso!!!

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Some things never change.

Bixo sempre foi, e sempre será, massa de manobra. Faz anos que deixei de me importar com isso - bixo é BURRO mesmo. Não é preconceito, é meramente a constatação de um fato.

Merece destaque o post do Reinaldo Azevedo na VEJA on-line. Ressalto uma pequena passagem:

A questão não é saber se uma seita marxista cabe ou não numa universidade (não sendo a universidade chinesa, cabe, claro...). Patético é que marxistas brasileiros acreditem que podem fazer na USP o que Noam Chomsky faz no MIT. Com a notável diferença de que, lá, seus súditos não vão à luta para inviabilizar a estrutura que lhes garante a existência. Aqui, eles vão. Porque Chomsky exerce o marxismo na sociedade da abastança; e nós brincamos de marxismo numa ilha de abastança que é USP, porém cercada pela miséria dos que a financiam. Sim, também esse viés quase aristocrático dos nossos esquerdistas, que não aceitam ser povo, ficou claro aqui.

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Please yell if you're paying attention

I wonder how many people still visit this blog. Since there's seldom any comment to my posts, I cannot say if people read this or not. Of course, I have ShinyStat reports, but then again they show me only how many visits the blog has, and not how many people actually read it.

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Programming C++

Years ago, I was an employee at the Veterinary School of my university. Sometime around the end of 2003 I decided that was not what I wanted to do for a living; what I really wanted was to do research, to find new things.

I got that job because, in my first undergrad years, I loved computers; I actually spent more time programming than I spent studying physics. That changed with time, as I grew more and more tired of the everyday routine of solving trivial problems and not having the support from the people I worked for to grow up in terms of knowledge. Before that, I used to program for fun, and after that, it made me sick.

That was true until recently. For some reason, the "sickness" that programming gave me went away, and for some time now I've been wanting to do some programming. That would be cool. But the really cool part of this is that I want to program to help my life in the lab - I'm applying something I liked doing to something I also like doing.

So for a few days now I've been learning a new language, and I'm reviewing some programming concepts so I can take on the task. I will write this program, and the best part is that other people who usually perform experiments similar to mine want to use it as well. In other words, not only will I be doing something I really like, but I'll be applying it to my work and it is going to make other people's lives easier, too. I'm loving it.

Briefly, it's a program to help data treatment for small-angle x-ray scattering/diffraction. It will perform the necessary corrections for data interpretation and a limited data treatment as well.

I haven't felt this excited about writing code in a very long time.

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A Reitoria e o Leopardo

Este post do Super no Stoa me fez pensar um pouco a respeito de alguns assuntos aos quais não venho dando muita atenção há tempos. Ultimamente, quando alguém começava a falar de manifestações, passeatas, invasões e todo esse tipo de baboseira de revolucionários de fim de semana, eu vinha dando o mínimo de atenção e simplesmente não me envolvia na conversa.

Só pra esclarecer, continuo assim.

O pensamento que o post incitou na minha mente foi a respeito de como certas coisas não mudam e me faz questionar a diferença que a invasão da reitoria da USP vai fazer.

Ao mesmo tempo, eu tento justificar para mim mesmo as minhas posições a respeito. Afinal de contas, por mais equivocados que sejam os esforços do "Movimento Estudantil", as intenções que as suas reivindicações aparentam ter são boas. No entanto, a história parece não cansar de se repetir: invariavelmente, o bandejão e o circular são os primeiros a parar de funcionar, seguidos por "manifestações democráticas" por parte dos estudantes(?): estardalhaço, cartazes de extremo mau gosto (e não raro mal escritos também) feitos de papel kraft, invasões de prédios da universidade, batucada (que atrapalha as aulas), carros de som para a "companheirada", et cetera. A lista não acaba mais. O ponto é que de democráticas essas manifestações não têm nada: invariavelmente trata-se de uma minoria atrapalhando a vida da maioria. E depois, quando ninguém vai com a cara do "movimento", seus integrantes dizem que as pessoas são "doutrinadas", "autoritárias", "anti-democráticas", e outros adjetivos não tão educados.


Cada vez eu tenho mais certeza de que tentar mudar as coisas na marra não funciona. Para quê ser um lemingue se se pode ser um leopardo?

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It's Alive!!

Some things never cease to amaze me.

Months ago my computer simply stopped functioning. It wouldn't start up for anything. I was afraid it was some problem with the motherboard and that I would have to buy a new one. After giving it some thought, I realized that it was much more likely that it was a problem with the power supply, since the problem was related to it.

And then I spent a few months procrastinating the acquisition of a new one so I could once again use my computer at home.

Last thursday I got access to a multimeter so I could test it and be sure - I didn't want to buy a new power supply for nothing.

So, last night I did the testing. I tested the supply, and - for my own surprise - there was nothing wrong with it. And so I went into testing other things, only to find that everything was fine. I tried, then, the AC stabilizer. Nothing wrong with it, either.

I looked at the power cable, wondered if Murphy had been that evil with me, and tested it. Heh. That was it. A malfunctioning (?!) power cable had made me spend more than three months without using my PC.

I replaced the cable, and turned the computer on. Didn't take more than a few seconds for it to boot and ask me for my password.

And so, here I am now, posting this from my own PC again.

PS: There was another little problem with memory, but it turned out to be just a bad contact, I hope. I just switched the slot and it worked...

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About the Mega-Rant

The Mega-Rant I started days ago should have been a triple post. However, laziness and other minor details kept me from posting here, and so it probably is going to stay just a single poster.

In other news, oh well, the Stairway to Heaven post was about me not knowing well enough what the heck my research project is about... =/

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Stairway to Heaven

Theres a lady whos sure
All that glitters is gold
And shes buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and shes buying a stairway to heaven.

Theres a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
Theres a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

Theres a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And its whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If theres a bustle in your hedgerow
Dont be alarmed now,
Its just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
Theres still time to change the road youre on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it wont go
In case you dont know,
The pipers calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How evrything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And shes buying a stairway to heaven.

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The Mega-Rant, pt. 1

As I talk to more and more people I get the feeling that I'm not even near what I want to believe I am doing. I keep saying to myself that I'm doing my best in my studies, but I'm just a slacking bastard. Of course, I have to take into account that almost everyone here are either accomplished professionals or very advanced students. But, then again, I feel a tendency to depreciate my own work, not because of a question of merit, but because I have this annoying sensation that I'm not dedicating myself to this work as much as I should, and this worries me. A lot.
It worries me because in the last few years I've been nothing more than an average student. I'm not comparing myself to others, but rather to what I wanted for myself when I was in first year.

In the end, I'm not that sure anymore about my own dedication to my work. I mean, it's my work, dammit! I should care more about it!
Back when I was an undergrad student doing my scientific initiation work, I used to have this wonderful enthusiasm about what I was doing. Nowadays I miss that sometimes. I still feel motivated, but it is a different kind of motivation: what I'm going to do next. And I feel awkward about it, because I see other people here at the Workshop who seem to love their work in a way I wish I did, too. They always feel eager to share what they know and to find new things. And I envy that enthusiasm very much.
I think that now I can have some idea about how Einstein felt when he finished ETH and spent a year after that avoiding anything related to Physics.
I just hope that this workshop has the sort of effect on me that could make me regain the enthusiasm I once had.

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Congress Attendance Discipline

So It's been another big period without posts. I decided to just give up worrying too much about this and just post whenever I feel like it. Sorry people. I'll try to arrange a rss feed so people don't need to come here and simply not find anything new.

I've been in a congress since last monday, and will be here until friday. It's my first real congress, in the sense that it's the first one that's not hosted at my school, and that it's the first time thatI brought a poster to present.

It's being an unique experience, since many of the top scientists in the area are here, and most of the talks are very instigating. It's quite an tiresome activity, but I'm kind of getting used to it and, to be honest, I can't wait to get back home and start playing around withthe new things I'm learning here.

Gotta go now, another talk is about to start. I hope I can post something more detailed about the great stuff I found out here sometime soon.

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Surprise!

I guess there's a first time for everything.

Today, for the first time, I got a surprise birthday party. Somehow in the past 25 years, when someone tried to arrange that I ended up being in the wrong place in the wrong time, and caught them. This time, though, it was they who caught me. The funny part is, I did get them when my girlfriend called Daniel - but she was clever and gave me a false clue, getting me totally off-guard today (my b-day is tomorrow, which is when I expected something was going to happen).

I am very glad this has happened. I think everyone should get a surprise party sometime. It feels really good - and I'm glad it happened to me.

Thanks everyone - I loved it.

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Long time, huh?

Yeah, I know. It's always the same thing. I try to keep up with this blog, but end up posting only sporadically and people stop visiting. In fact I'm even used to it.

The point is, I often forget to post here. There are thing's I'd like to talk about, but I just don't have the time or patience to do it.

And then I make a post like this. Probably posts where I talk about the lack of posts in the blog are the most common here...

Anyway. Recently I've been thinking of trying to get my PhD in Europe. But I don't know where to start or get information about it. To be honest, I'm much more worried about my project, which is beginning to get to its final stage already - and I still don't have much to show.

Hopefully things will work out in the next few months and I'll get a lot more done.

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I love you.

She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that special place
And if I'd stare too long
I'd probably break down and cry


Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine


She's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain
Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by


Sweet child o' mine
Sweet love of mine


Where do we go
Where do we go now
Where do we go
Sweet child o' mine

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Hello All

Hello everyone,

sorry for the lack of updates here in the past few days. It's been quite busy here. I left for the beach on last saturday, and returned only yesterday. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to show: I don't have a camera. Well, I do have one, but it's an old one, it needs film to work. And I don't like to use it, mostly because I prefer digital pictures.

The next few days are going to be... interesting. I've got a lot of experiments to run and almost no time to analyze data, because my report has to be ready in the next six days. Oh boy.

Finally the year is going to begin. In this damned country, nothing really works until after the carnival...

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One more.

Proceeding with the series "cute nerd jokes", here's another one, taken from today's issue of phdcomics:



As usual, previous knowledge is needed to fully understand it. I won't explain it, though. I hate to explain jokes.

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Ice cream!

There was something I wanted to write about today, but I ended up forgetting what it was during the day. Good thing is that I could retrieve my samples from the Chemistry Institute today, and already scheduled the equipment for my experiments next week.

Also, there's a wonderfully cute comic strip I took from XKCD a few days ago:


It's the first time I've seen physics being used in such a nice way for romance. I loved it.



That's it for today. See ya people.

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Mentiras

É impressionante. Ninguém consegue uma informação decente nessa merda de país. Em todo lugar que eu perguntei, o tempo de bloqueio do FGTS quando se pede demissão era de 3 anos.

Pois bem. Fui no banco hoje pra resgatar a grana, da qual preciso para quitar dívidas e voltar a ser um homem livre. E descobri que a coisa não é bem assim. Só se pode dar entrada do FGTS no seu mês de aniversário. O que significa que, se uma pessoa é suficientemente azarada, ela tem que esperar QUATRO anos ao invés de TRÊS. É um absurdo. Nunca fiquei tão feliz de fazer aniversário em março, mas continuo revoltado.

Fico me perguntando se em países sérios a coisa é assim, tosca.

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Frustration

One of the worst things a person can do to me is to build up my expectations and then just don't do anything about them.

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They will dominate the world

Google is going to dominate the world. That's the truth. They're gonna buy everything and rule everyone.

Well, to be honest, I don't know about the world, but their share on the internet is really going to grow for a long time, I think. That's quite deserved, in fact. They are quite ingenious in what they do.

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Going Hybrid

Hello everyone. I'd like to say that I like the fact that people from other countries occasionally visit my blog, and I thank everyone for that.

However, sometimes I feel more comfortable writing my posts in portuguese. The reason for that is simple: it's my mother language, so I'm much more used to expressing myself in portuguese than I'm to doing so in english. Also, I'm very aware of the fact that my english is far from what I would consider satisfatory, especially when it comes to vocabulary. So, I'd like to ask everyone who visits here to please be patient, because a few posts from now on will be in portuguese. I will try to keep writing most of them in english, because it's a good way of practicing my written english.

That'll be all for now. B seein ya!

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A7V600-X, R.I.P.

My motherboard has died, but I feel fine. And that's... odd. The usual reaction would be not to stop yelling for a few weeks.

I think maybe I've changed more than I thought, because not only don't I feel upset, but neither do I feel the urge to fix it. Eventually I will buy another mobo to replace the dead one, but that's not one of the first items on my to-do list.

To be honest, it's quite relieving. I don't like being upset like I used to be about things like this. As everything in my life goes forward, I am acquiring new interests and more important things to worry about - things that I believe deserve my attention much more than a computer.

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So what?

There's a lot going on, actually.

I just don't feel compelled to write about it.

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