Random thoughts

Flash Talk is live at the app store

2009-09-12T00:18:00.000-07:00

My friend Zeki and I wrote an iPhone application: Flash Talk. It was approved today by Apple. Check it out in our website at http://www.benchplay.com.

Green Monday...

2008-03-17T23:19:00.000-07:00

After 1739 days the wait is over. It was a green Monday, after all.

DRM stops innovation

2008-01-15T21:53:00.000-08:00

This time the predictions have turned into reality. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is stopping innovation.

The RIAA and the big music industries have been fighting a big fight against consumers, and the music companies have been realizing that fighting the consumers is not a good idea. Aligning themselves with the consumers will make everyone happy. Capitalism rules apply: if nobody wants to buy it, then there will be no product to sell.

This fight will now move to the TV realm. In one year the entire broadcast will switch to HDTV. This is being forced on us, consumers, but, unfortunately, we're not going to benefit from it.

Dozens of appliances will cease to work, or will not work correctly, and we're forced to upgrade if we want to get "any" TV. The HDTV Converter costs more than the voucher we're getting, and it doesn't allow our older appliances to work. Cable TV companies will force you to upgrade to their digital services, which are more expensive than the regular services.

In essence, we're paying, and paying a lot, for what? Many say there's an advantage to HDTV, the picture is better, etc; but at what cost?

HDTV comes with heavy DRM. Current TVs and devices will not work without a conversion box, or they have to be fitted with the CableCard. CableCard will only be installed in "select" devices, and those devices have to be approved by both the CableCard consortium and by your Cable company.

That's where the DRM comes to light. Today, with regular TVs you have your VCR, you have DVRs, and lots of flexibility with those. Many DVRs allow for you to burn your programs to DVD or even to transfer it to your computer or iPod for portability.

None of this is possible with HDTV. Just look at the Tivo HD specs. It does not support a fraction of the features of the regular Tivo. Also, the broadcast companies can lock a program from being recorded, copied, etc, adding even more DRM to it.

In essence, HDTV brings loss to all our TV watching freedom. We cannot record our shows to watch later, unless we "pay the fee" of the certified device we can use; we lose the freedom to take the TV show to other devices for watching on the road. It took us so long to get to where we are, and now we lose it all again. Watching TV in 2009 will feel like 1980's again...

So, tell me, why should I switch? In the end, I would be paying more, to have less...

Sweetwater Saloon is closing

2007-09-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

It's very unfortunate that The SweetWater Saloon is closing down. This past weekend I saw the James Moseley Band. It was a great show, and I'm really going to miss this great place!

Fortune Pond

2007-09-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

My friend Zeki makes great cellphone video games and he also has some great Flash games on his website. Here's Fortune Pond.
Try it out!

Air Safety compromised in Brazil

2007-07-23T09:45:00.000-07:00

The International Federation of Air Traffic Controllers' Association has declared Air Safety is compromised in Brazil. Read more...
Here's a post describing the problem in detail, way ahead of its time...

Brazilian government inefficiency

2007-07-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday there was a tragedy in Brazil. An Airplane with 186 people crashed while trying to land in the downtown airport in São Paulo, killing everyone on board and several people on the ground.

This accident was predicted. The government continues filled with corruption, is motionless and as usual, everything ends in Pizza (a common Brazilian joke).

The SF Chronicle, through the AP finally published a very nice article about how bad the Brazilian government is. CNN Money also has another great article.

As Folha says, what's next in Brazil? An Energy Crisis? A crisis in the Ports? That won't be news, that will be, again, "I told you so" scenarios.

Open letter in favor of Net Neutrality

2007-06-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

Competition is at the heart of all our telecommunications. It's what brings innovation, lowers prices and ensures quality of service.

This is failing lately. In my residence I only have access to one cable television provider and one telephone provider. This means there is no competition for these services, and I have to take the current market options, without a chance to bargain or even request better services.

Net neutrality is not different, except that it moves the competition from my house to a couple iterations below. But it will affect me, the customer, directly, and more importantly, monetarily.

For instance, without net neutrality, my ISP may opt to charge the services I use a fee for the availability of the data, or a fee for faster access to that data. This means that if I choose to access certain type of information I may have to pay for it, even directly to the ISP or to the content provider.

I for instance work from home eventually, and would have to pay a premium price for accessing the VPN at my work, or my company would have to pay a premium to allow us to work from home, more than they already pay today.

What's interesting in the Net Neutrality discussions is that the ISPs do not consider the fact that the content providers already are paying a premium for their backbones - in most cases, the backbones or the fiber optics connections are owned by the same telecoms who own the ISPs. Why would a company need to pay twice? Once for a large backbone with large capacity to be connected to the Internet, and second, for the ability to reach their customers who are on the other side of the fence.

I'm more afraid that the lack of choice in competition is what is going to affect us users in the future. Today there are a few options in DSL, but only 1 cable modem provider. The DSL options rely on a "land" line, which makes DSL competition harder, given that I only have access to 1 phone provider. If I compare the prices between the options I have, there's no competition between the telecom DSL and the others, given that they have to pay a premium to the telecom already. And instead of seeing more providers appearing in the market we actually are seeing less and less providers, either due to merges, or due to the fact that many have to rely on the few telecoms in order to reach us, the customer.

What happens when the content providers are also the owners of the large broadband companies and they then decide that any traffic from a competitor will be submitted to a premium charge? How is that democratic? How different is that from totalitarian regimes which censor the content available to their citizens?

Since the FCC and those against Net Neutrality are considering the broadband competition as a way to ensure Net neutrality is not needed, then there's something wrong, because there isn't "open" competition.

All that we can do is try to educate and hope that those making the decisions are able to do so with enough information and without the bias of those who would benefit from the changes in the system.

How can Doctors and Dentists get by with so bad service?

2007-04-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

You schedule an appointment for 11am. The receptionist grabs your credit card number because if you do not show up you are charged 75$ for a no-show. She tells you nothing about the appointment - nothing about what is going to be done, no pre-requisites, nothing.
You show up 10-15 mins early because you already know (nobody told you) that you have to fill in this LONG questionnaire about yourself. The 10-15 min early is "common knowledge" about doctors.
Once you fill the questionnaire it's 11.05 and you think you're doing good for a on-time appointment.
That's where you're soooo wrong. You sit and wait - and you also understand why they have such a large collection of diverse magazines there. You read one, two, three from head to tail, and when it's 12.30 they call you in. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, you wonder. No, it's just a service light in the middle of the tunnel.
They take your vitals, and the doctor spends no more than 10 mins with you and sends you back to the waiting room.
That's already 12.45 and the nurse who was going to take your blood and give you your shots goes for lunch. But before going she tells you she needs a urine sample. BTW, nowhere nobody said that, so of course you're not ready for it. Plus, it's almost 1pm and you didn't have lunch. It's OK, though, you're healthy, so you drink 4-6 glasses of water in the 30 mins she was out for lunch.
Before she's back, they realize you've been there for 2+ hours and send the other nurse to attend you. It's 1.15 and you're back in the room again, and now you desperately need to go to the bathroom, but you wait - the new nurse goes over your file and starts reading it to find out what you need. You tell her what you need - can't afford to wait longer.
You get your first shot and the other nurse comes back from lunch and sends the one that was taking care of you to lunch - another 5 mins lost. She draws your blood and gives you the 2nd shot. You finally make it to the bathroom, collect the sample, and you're back at the reception. It's now 1.45, and after 15 more minutes you pay them and you're ready to go.
No, wait, you have to come back on Monday to get the paperwork and the results - nobody told you that either. At least you now know how long it takes, so you ask them what's the best time - 8.45, and that's when you'll show up on Monday.
So, you leave their office at 2pm, when you go grab lunch and now face 45 mins traffic to get back to work.
Total time spent: 10.40am to 3pm.
Now, do you get 75$ per hour of "delay" in your appointment? A regular company would have discounted the regular salary pay per hour of work lost, but your company is good and does not do it.
But seriously, why can doctors get by with such lousy behavior? They could at least have told you they were 1 hour or so late so you could have grabbed lunch and come back later. Or even rescheduled some people.
If you had such behavior in your job you'd probably get fired or you would lose your clients.

Panoramic Pictures

2007-04-22T14:01:00.000-07:00

I took a small cheap tripod on my picture. This tripod allowed me to take sequential pictures using the same point of view just rotating the camera head. Using Autostitch, a panorama stitching software, I was able to stitch them together creating very cool panoramas, like the one you see here.

Key West and Miami

2007-04-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

Key West was relaxing. It's a small city and I saw all the key points in a couple hours. I had a few beers at some bars w/ live music, and saw the sunset with all the street vendors that come around in the sunset plaza (Mallory Square). On the way back I found a secret Florida park in one of the keys with this most amazing beach - you walk 300 ft into the ocean and the water is still below your knees. Amazing. I'll post pictures later.
Now I'm going back to the basic things in life: eat, sleep, go to the pool, have a drink, eat, have another drink at the beach, etc :-)

National Parks trip is over

2007-04-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

I'm finally finished with my first leg of my trip. I drove 1265 miles through 5 national parks in 4 days. What a feat! I took 1.2GB of pictures and several panoramas. I'll have a lot of homework to do stitching them up and getting some nicer prints.
Here's a map of my trip.

4 days, 5 parks

2007-04-16T21:08:00.000-07:00

Today I visited 2 parks: The Petrified Forest and Canyon de Chelly. The Petrified Forest was OK. Nothing super special, although the colors of the cliffs and canyons were amazing. I never thought I would see purple ground. Almost exiting the park there's the Painted Desert, which is surely interesting. The pictures are a bit washed out because the weather was a bit damp, but I'll be able to adjust the color afterwards.
The Canyon de Chelly was the highlight of the day. It was absolutely amazing. Insane. I'm leaving you with a picture of it, and I took many panoramas too. I got really lucky there today, there was a big thunderstorm and it cleared out as I was leaving the first stop I did at the end of the park - I even got snowflakes there! Then on the way back I got the sun shining clearly in the canyon, which gave me awesome pictures at each viewpoint I stopped at.
What's next? I'll probably be away from blogging tomorrow since I will be flying Eastbound, and on Wednesday I will be in Key West. You'll likely hear back from me here on Thursday!

Grand Canyon

2007-04-15T21:33:00.000-07:00

The Grand Canyon is, well, gigantic. It's like a super sized big mac version of canyons. Comparing it with the two previous canyons, there's no measurement for size, but the Grand Canyon was not, to my surprise, all that exciting. Bryce had way more "wow" factor than the Grand Canyon. It maybe that I am tired, or also that the weather was not so nice today.
Tomorrow is sort of an open day. We'll see where I end up.

Saturday the 14th

2007-04-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

Saturday went as planned, and that extra hour from the timezone worked in my favor! I was able to take the scenic route instead of the planned shorter route and it was worth it. There are so many great canyons and landscapes in Arizona. It's incredible. I took so many pictures today that my camera's battery died and the card was full. I'm glad I have the laptop with me. Onto the big canyon tomorrow!

Friday the 13th

2007-04-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

My vacation started well. The highlight of the day was the fact that I arrived at Zion around 1:30hrs late. I didn't account for one thing: the timezone difference! How smart of me... :-)
Apart from that little "vacation" glitch, Zion was an amazing place - I'm probably coming back with more time, and hopefully able to see the canyon in the morning too.
I'll leave you with a picture of a landscape that could very well look like Terraformed Mars.

The "New"

2007-04-12T12:21:00.000-07:00

The new bothers.
Why?
Because it defies.
But, want it or not, the new always comes.
And, for our happiness,
The new usually wins,
And when the new wins
The machine of the world turns better.
New projects leave sadness
To an agenda that doesn't exist anymore.
New children always show up to give us a hand.
New steps require courage from us.
The new is beautiful because it changes us.
It takes us to new seasons.
The new makes us better people.
Because it makes us new people.
The new is beautiful.
Just like the dreams,
The new does not grow older.

Another one of those internet things that keeps spreading. This text is part of a campaign for a Brazilian auto maker. If you want the original version in portuguese, check it here.

I'm Yelping!

2007-04-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

Check my reviews:

Alex' page @ Yelp

My goal is to review at least 1 place per week this year.

April Fools

2007-04-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

I am not leaving, I am not planning to leave, and I wouldn't become a politician.

Thanks for your love and support. I've got so many e-mails and calls from my friends and I still think some friends are still thinking I am leaving.

Cheers!

Things change when you least think about it

2007-04-01T01:43:00.000-07:00

Dear friends,

It's with great sadness and at the same time great joy that I share this with you. After 6 years and 2 months in the US, I decided to quit my job and change careers. I'm leaving the US and I am running for a State office position in Brazil.

I am greatful for having had a chance to live in the US, where I made great friends; matured as a person and learned so much about (office) politics that I now think I am ready to do something that might change the world positively.

This decision was made after I got home from dinner and one single Vodka drink at a random bar in the Marina, but I think it's the right thing to do, given the fact that life here in the US has given me pretty much everything it could so far, and there's nothing I haven't done in this city yet (except for visiting Alcatraz).

In any case, I appreciate the support of all my friends, family and colleagues who will be helping me in the next few steps in my life.

Some of you maybe surprised at this decision, but some will remember one of my great friend's dream of becoming a dictator of his own island - Florianopolis is an Island, running for State office is just one step towards the dictatorial takeover which will come a couple years after.

If you'd like to support my running for office, log onto my website: http://www.origamy.com.br/alexforstate.htm

God bless us all,

-Alex

March Birthdays

2007-03-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

It's interesting that end of Feb, March and beginning April is where almost half of my friends' birthdays are. Just in March I had 14 birthdays! It's fairly interesting...

A nice Autodesk Impression review

2007-02-26T16:09:00.001-08:00

Check it out:

http://www.3dallusions.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=241&Itemid=72

Happy Valentines day!

2007-02-14T13:31:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines day!

Brazilian congressmen double their own salaries

2006-12-14T22:10:00.000-08:00

In a country where the minimum wage was just raised to R$ 350,00 per month with fierce fight, the congressmen raise their salaries from R$12847,00 to R$24500,00.

This is INSANE! ABSURD! Brazilians, reunite and go on strike, start a revolution, stop everything you are doing, because this is absolutely insane!

More information, in portuguese, here:

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/brasil/ult96u87753.shtml

Rudy and Heather Wedding - Pictures

2006-12-13T22:42:00.000-08:00

Pictures from Dinner with Rudy and Heather's families and friends.

Heather's mom (left) and Rudy's sister (right).

Rudy and his dad

Heather and her friends Olga (left) and Michelle (right)

Rudy and Heather's Wedding - Part 3 - "EXCITEMENT"

2006-12-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

So it's Saturday morning and it's the real deal - they're getting married. After just a few hours of sleep, Heather takes off to the salon to have her hair done, while Rudy and his Dad pack up everything and check out of the hotel. We then packed the car with all their bags and waited for the hotel shuttle to pick us all up to drive to the pier.
Everybody is well dressed carrying tons of bags which made it somewhat interesting, but we all managed to get things done in time and board the boat OK.
I was not able to attend the ceremony at the boat due to immigration constraints, but I will post pictures as soon as they get back from their honeymoon (which happens to be a cruise!).
Congratulations both Rudy and Heather!

Rudy and Heather's Wedding - Part 2 - "STORIES"

2006-12-11T10:07:00.000-08:00

So there was the famous dinner event before the wedding. Once all the guests have been accounted for and were in the hotel we got together at 7.45pm and went to the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City, Tampa. Columbia is a Spanish restaurant and they had a live flamenco presentation for the patrons. The food was awesome, and so was the presentation.
Rudy and Heather's family was both there, as well as their closer friends.
The highlights of the night were their friends asking both of them in separate moments when and how was their first date, and checking to see if their answer was the same. The friends also told funny embarrassing stories about them, which just makes the dinner richer :-)
Pictures are coming soon.

Rudy and Heather's Wedding - Part 1 - "DRIVEN"

2006-12-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Rudy and Heather are getting married this weekend! The wedding is in Tampa, FL in a cruise ship on Saturday morning. I arrived this morning at 9.20 and Rudy and Heather picked me up in the airport. They had already started the day by driving arround to the courthouse to pick up the papers for the wedding.
After picking me up we came to the hotel and dropped our luggage. The hotel rooms were still not ready, so we left for more errands. We bought licquor and drove Heather and her mom to the salon so they could get their hair done. Then we drove to the airport for two pick ups.
The Tampa airport has a GREAT concept: a Cell Phone parking lot. We got there and there's a huge billboard with the arrival times for the flights, as well as free wireless internet. It's a great way to avoid traffic and allows guests to wait before heading into the arrival area to pick up guests.
We easily realized one of the flights was late, so we left for lunch. Back to the airport we met the two guests and drove them to the airport. After that, there were three more trips driving from the airport to the hotel. It's now 6pm and Rudy is picking up the last 4 guests in the airport and everybody has now been driven to the hotel.
So that was the day today - "Driven" through the freeways of Tampa.
More updates as the weekend progresses.

AU 2006

2006-12-03T15:58:00.000-08:00

I was in Vegas this week for Autodesk University. I taught a class about Lighting in AutoCAD 2007 and attended several others. I also showed Impression at the show floor for a couple hours.

Here's proof I was there: AU 2006 Pictures

Autodesk Impression!

2006-10-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since the last blog, but this is good news. Autodesk Impression is now available for download here:
http://labs.autodesk.com/
It's a great product for those doing presentations with AutoCAD. There are also other uses for it, so I'll let you be creative!
Enjoy it!

Never ask a small car to move because it's taking too much space

2006-09-11T19:26:00.000-07:00

My "neighbor" placed a note on my windshield asking me to move my "legally" parked car back. The note just said "MOVE YOUR CAR BACK", no polite words, no please, etc.
In San Francisco there are tight parking spots and this was one of them. A Civic barely fits, but I did fit perfectly. I was over 3 or 4 inches over the "red" paint, but was not blocking the driveway, but that was enough for their note. If I moved back, I would be blocking the other driveway and that would be bad.
Well, since I am a "nice" guy (grin) I decided to move my car - there were other spots that were larger and I took one of them.
Now, the irony is that the Civic is one of the smaller cars... right now there's an SUV parked there taking 1.5 foot over the red paint and effectively blocking 5-6 inches of their driveway.
Life lesson: think about it when you write a dry note on someone's car who is *not* blocking you. The "next" car maybe bigger than the one you asked to be moved and might effectivelly block you.

Hotmail Spam Filter problems

2006-08-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a month now and I do not see this anywhere on the Media. My Hotmail Spam filter now seems to think that anything with the word "Pharmacy", "Viagra", "Rx" are not Spam messages.
In 2 days I got 8 Spam messages. That's incredible. I'm getting more and more as time goes, and I may have to, again, shut down an account.
What's up with Spam Filters? What's up with Spammers? Do people really read Spam?

Top 10 Ways to Motivate Geeks

2006-07-18T09:18:00.000-07:00

Pretty cool list: Top 10 Ways to Motivate Geeks

Gmail way of tracking who sent the e-mail

2006-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Cali Lewis sent me this information and I thought it was important to share.
Take a look at this blog entry: Google Operating System: Delete All Spam In Gmail. The most important feature is not how to delete the Spam, but instead how to add "+something" to your e-mail account when you give it out to someone else. This allows you to track who has sold your e-mail address to Spammers.
For instance, when you sign up to amazon use youremail+amazon@gmail.com. If Amazon sells this address you will know where it's coming from.
I'm now renaming all my accounts like that so I can see who's the company selling my info away.

APOD: 2006 July 12 - A Manhattan Sunset

2006-07-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

Awesome picture: APOD: 2006 July 12 - A Manhattan Sunset

Back home

2006-07-04T20:00:00.000-07:00

The past 10 days were pretty good. Even though I checked e-mail and got close to a computer I managed to relax and get a sun tan.

Flying Jetblue was fun. The flight back was good, although it was quite bumpy. I could see the storms we were circling around. We were at 39000ft and the clouds were higher than we were!

Flying back home 2 days before going back to work was a good idea. I was able to run my errands, do laundry, meet with friends and get some rest from the timezone change. It was pretty nice.

Back to work tomorrow, and then flying to Seattle on Sunday evening. Things never stop!

:-)

Ashamed of being Brazilian

2006-07-01T16:40:00.000-07:00

Our team played so badly today against France that I'm ashamed of being Brazilian. Congratulations to France. They won on merit, not on some referee call or something like that (like the Ita x Aus penalty).
Go Portugal with Scollari's team!

Vacation - Tuesday

2006-06-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

Keywords of the day: Sun, Thunderstorm, Soccer, World Cup, Brazil, France, Cheese bread and "coxinha"

Vacation Monday thoughts

2006-06-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

Keywords of the day: Sun, Shop, Swimming Pool, TV, Souvenirs

I regressed to my baby years: (eat, sleep, play, poop, repeat)

Crazy thought: If I ask a friend in CA to buy a lotto ticket for me and the ticket wins, is the money mine or theirs?

Note to self: always take the camera with you when on vacation - you never know when the oportunity for a good picture arives...

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning and the iPod Video

2006-06-26T07:29:00.000-07:00

I know it's old news, but I just finished watching Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning - it's hilarious! If you like Babylon 5 and Star Trek it's a must watch.

I watched it in my iPod on my way to my vacation. It fits perfectly well, but heck, the battery runs out in 5 seconds... oh well, not 5 seconds, but it's barely enough to watch 2 hours of video. That seems useless... My flight was 5 hours, and iPod lasted for 2... makes me wonder who Apple is getting as "Beta testers" or what type of users their "survey" is targeted to...

More politicians in the news

2006-06-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

Another proof that politicians are the same everywhere:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/22/MNGMQJIL8F3.DTL

This same story has happened in Sao Paulo, with one difference. The mayor and his assistant were never arrested - I take that back - there were some lawsuits and arrests but way after the fact.

Again, another proof that Politicians are all the same, everywhere. The justice system maybe a little bit different...

Unite against raises for politician's salaries

2006-06-21T19:25:00.000-07:00

One thinks it's only something that happens in 3rd world countries, but no, it happens in America.

Here's the CNN.COM article:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/06/20/dobbs.june21/index.html

We should unite and complain about abusive politician salaries and self-assigned pay raises. This is absolutely ridiculous!

Global warming or body fat?

2006-02-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

This year has been odd. It's not the world which has been facing Global warming. Everyone around me has been feeling cold, but I don't feel cold. What's happening with me? I was always the wimp one who would feel cold and would dress in 20 layers all the time, but not this year. Feels strange. I wonder what has changed? Maybe I'm building body fat... it could be. I was always the skinny one at home and when I sent a picture to my parents they said I was fat. Maybe that's it. Who knows...

Saturdundays are good sometimes...

2006-02-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

I've been working a lot lately. Way too much. The typical day is a 10 hour day, stretching up to 12-13 in some cases. It's not even as close as how much cyt works, but it's a lot. And to top that we're also working Saturdays. So that leaves me with what I call a "Saturdunday" - it's a 2 in one day. Until 2pm it's Saturday and from then on it's Sunday.
It's been stressful at work, and without being able to rest well I'm also very tired. So today I went to the beach. It started sunny and warm, and ended "San Franciscan": cold and windy. But it was worth it. It was all spur of the moment, which is also cool.

It's been 5 years

2006-01-29T19:41:00.001-08:00

5 years (and 1 week). So much changed and so much stayed the same. How could I guess how things would turn out?
Looking at it, chance took over in many places, and the course of things turned out to be different?
For better or worse? Neither. Just different. Different and better, I would have to say, as I always look at things positively (most of the time anyway).
If I really look deep down, I didn't do anything to get here. I just let life take its course. Sounds very irresponsible, looking at it.
Note to self: need to do those things you always set yourself to and never do - write goals, work towards them, etc. Those silly things people call "new year resolutions" :-)
Now looking ahead, will I again let chance rule? Or will I at least steer the course of my life this time? Am I happy with where I am? What do I need to change so I can be where I want to be in the next 5 years.
There's one thing I know for sure - this is THE year. The main question is will February be THE month (Jan is already over) or will I wait until December?

Happy 2006!

2006-01-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Comcast is "Comcastic!" - NOT!

2005-10-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

Hi there,

Here I come, "computer years" after my last blog, to talk about the amazing service of one company: Comcast.

I have their service because it's amazingly cheap for good broadband internet and also save money because this way I do not need a phone line for DSL and I also have Cable TV.

Well, it happens that they're a very well organized company. I scheduled an appointment to install the system in my new apartment between 8am and 12pm. I get a phone call at 11:00 saying they'll be late, and will arrive after 1pm. The guy shows up 10 min after the call. He didn't bring the necessary equipment to install the service, even though the "pink" slip clearly explains all he needed. He then calls another crew who then finish the job.

I then go to work and around 3pm I get another phone call from Comcast saying the crew would be late!?

OK. We understand they have communication problems. I tell her he already came by, etc. Around 6pm I get another phone call because the operator forgot to write down one number from my cable modem and they cannot activate it without that number. I don't have it so I call them when I get home. I then call them and they tell me I cannot call until I have the computer on, which I didn't. Once it's on (the day after) I call them and they tell me I didn't need to call (make up your minds!).

15 days later I get my bill and they're charging me for an internal installation of a secondary point, which I do not have. I again call them to ask what's going on.

Last I go online to pay my bill and they say the balance is 0$. In fact I have a credit!?

I call them again and once the system picks up my account they tell me I have an 18$ balance due in 1 week. I speak to a representative and he tells me there were credits on my account due to the move and the previous address/service, so he doesn't actually know why I got the first bill.

In essense, they like to talk to me on the phone. That's the only explanation I have.

Oh well...

Bossa Nova in the Bay Area

2005-08-29T13:32:00.000-07:00

What does Brazil and Palo Alto have in common? There's a great band that plays Brazilian Bossa Nova and other latin rythms in Palo Alto. They're the Sambosseros.

I went there and saw their weekly presentation on Thursdays at Trader Vics.

On the same note, Bebel Gilberto will be playing in San Francisco on Sept 11 at Bimbo's 365.

SF Muni: Muni fare changes to absurdity

2005-08-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

As incredible as it may seem, San Francisco raised its fares to absurd amounts. It'll now cost US$ 5.00 for each Cable Car ride, and US$ 1.50 for each bus ride.

We should boicot the Cable Cars and let them stop. It's absurd.

There are also no more incentives in buying bulk passes (tokens). Let's simply walk or ride our bikes everywhere.

I hope they learn that hiking prices will NOT add more people to the service, but will instead reduce it.

Damn, I'm mad... :(

So much to do...

2005-08-12T12:32:00.000-07:00

I wish I could have invented a time machine. Not one of those where you go back in the past, but one of those that slows time as it passes. Kinda like "Star Trek" or kinda like the kids movie "Time something". Man, I'm even lazy to search...

Or I wish I could invent teletransport. Commuting now is making me spend more time on the road (1 hr/day at least). If I could teletransport, it'd be easier...

Oh well, time to go back to work. Wishing, dreaming...

Great Cartoons!

2005-07-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

Fantastic 4
War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds? Get it on DVD

2005-07-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I rarely do this, but don't bother with War of the Worlds on the theaters. Get it on DVD. And skip the last 5 minutes...
Even Alien x Predators had a better ending...
I'm disappointed...

New Collapse radiosity to Vertex Colors Script

2005-06-27T21:20:00.000-07:00

Collapse radiosity to Vertex Colors Script.

What it does:
- grabs the meshing from the radiosity engine along with the lighting data for each vertex
- replaces the existing object mesh, modifiers, etc with a collapsed Editable mesh object
- assigns a shell material moving assigning a Vertex Color map to the Renderable material (optional)
- Operates on selection or the entire scene

What it does not do:
- use diffusemap color information or anything that's not part of the radiosity information
- Split direct or indirect lighting, allow you to turn on/off shadows

It has only been lightly tested, so please report issues if you see any and I'll fix them as soon as I can.

Random Lyrics

2005-06-15T12:56:00.000-07:00

...
Minha dor é perceber
Que apesar de termos feito tudo que fizemos
Ainda somos os mesmos e vivemos
Como nossos pais
...

Elis Regina

That is soooo true, and it hurts.

San Francisco

2005-06-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

I had an awesome Sunday. 20 min driving and I was out of town, in the wilderness, at a beach, gorgeous weather, great company, what else can you ask for?
Then at night I went to a surprise birthday party where the birthday boy did not show up - but who cares, we just had so much fun making the party ourselves that it was worth it.
It was a great Sunday.

Blockback (aka retrospective blogging)

2005-06-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

It's been 2 months without blogging. 2 very busy months, where lots of things happened. To start, I changed my job. I'm still in the same company, but I am now working for a different department.
I had to get used to the new commute, new processes and the new environment. Meanwhile, I was still involved with my old job, but that phased out fortunately. Nonetheless I still cruise through webboards collecting user feedback and I send it to my old co-workers.

I went to Bay to Breakers, which is a pretty cool run/walk event around the city, and took a ton of pictures. Then it was Star Wars Episode III, which I watched, of course, at 12am with Dave and John, and then saw again with another friend.

2 weeks ago was Carnival here in SF, and I went to a pre-carnival party with some friends on Saturday, coming back to the parade on Sunday. It's not Brazil's carnival, but it's still fun.

That's it pretty much. Besides that, I've been hanging out with friends doing pretty much all sorts of things. There are a ton of new movies coming out in the next few weeks, so I believe I'll be hanging out in the theaters pretty frequently.

When was the last time...

2005-06-12T01:31:00.000-07:00

Tonight (late at night) I was coming back home on the bus and there was this girl in her early twenties standing up. She was coming back home with a couple friends. They were coming back from the 'Black and White Ball' which is a nice event that happens every year here in SF. She was happy and upbeat. She looked down and said to herself "I'm so happy".

This made me wonder, when was the last time I told myself "I'm so happy"? How long has it been since I felt that way?

The world is not a perfect dream, but are we happy? Are we working towards making ourselves happy or are we just kidding ourselves? We often call ourselves 'realists', but is that worth it? Isn't it better to look at things from the positive angle, and stop with all the "crap" that goes around us?

Is the glass half empty or half full, or completely full?

Think about it...

Autodesk VIZ 2006 starts shipping today!

2005-04-19T08:17:00.000-07:00

VIZ 2006 starts shipping today and it's an awesome product. It features many new features compared to MAX 7, which is different than VIZ 2005 and MAX 6.
VIZ 2006 has the following new features:

Radiosity Adaptive Subdivision - now we can do what we did in Lightscape, the mesh is only subdivided where needed.
Scene State - users can now save a state, which contains lighting, materials, object properties and much more. Then they can restore it later quickly swapping lighting schemas, materials, etc.
Batch Render - ever needed to render dozens of cameras at different resolutions, with different rendering parameters or even different lighting? Now you can do it with Batch Render.
mental ray 3.3 - Global Illumination was never that easy. Just setup your scene with Photometric Lights, just like you would do for Radiosity, and you're done. Either Radiosity or GI will give you the exact same results. And now you do not need to tweak dozens of parameters in GI. Just one or two and you'll be set. Besides GI, mental ray 3.3 now offers a couple Sub Surface Scattering shader, and it also supports IES Sun.
Sweep Modifier - This modifier allows you to do a quick loft with any number of paths, pre-built cross sections, and even allows you to align the cross sections on screen.
Renderable Splines - Now renderable splines can have non circular cross sections
Ortho and Polar are back!
File Link enhancements - There were several enhancements to File Link to give users better and faster workflow, and also allow users to be able to achieve workflows from previous releases. Revit DWGs also can be linked into VIZ and the materials will be imported correctly.
Inventor Import - users can now import inventor files directly into VIZ
DWF Export - VIZ now exports 3D DWF files
Content Browser and Tool Palettes - with the tool palettes, it's now very easy for the user to create and assign materials. Besides materials, the new tool palettes also offer studios, lights and cameras. With the Content Browser, users can now share content between each other and it works as your main content library.
Walkthrough Assistant - After 2 releases, the walkthrough assistant is back on steroids. It supports multiple cameras, free and target cameras, and allows you to choose a path not only for the camera but also for the target.

In a nutshell, VIZ 2006 is worth it. You know I'm biased to talk about it, so don't simply take my word - just talk to an Autodesk Reseller, get a demo copy and try it out!

High School Reunion

2005-04-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

My friends from high school got together this weekend after more than 13 years! Too bad I couldn't be there, but they sent me pictures.
Here's one of them:

Legiao Urbana rules

2005-03-24T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've been in a certain nostalgic moment in my life. Now it's Legiao Urbana. For those who do not know, Legiao is a Brazilian rock band. I was a teenager when they were out there, and they were the first band I saw in a live concert.
It's a different type of rock, but I think what it does is bring me the good memories from those times. Good times...

Where are the good old bands?

2005-02-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

I'm having a Dire Straits moment - I always had their CDs, and their music is in my prefered list of songs, but it sorta struck me - everybody from the 80's is coming back, Duran Duran was here in the Bay Area recently, Journey performs next Sunday, U2 in a month or so, Erasure and Depeche Mode are hip in clubs again, but where is Dire Straits?

Oh well, maybe it's a good thing that they aren't back. At least we've got their good music and their CDs to listen to.

Hitchhiker's movie good or bad?

2005-02-16T09:23:00.000-08:00

The trailer was released today. After watching it I see distortions in the plot... wasn't Zaphod supposed to have 2 heads? Hm... Even BBC was able to make it that way, why can't a movie studio do it?

Oh well. Let's wait till April and watch the movie. For more information on the movie, go to IMDB.

Super Bowl commercials

2005-02-07T22:47:00.000-08:00

This year, as usual, I watched the Super Bowl because of the commercials. What a disappointment. They were very weak compared to previous years, but nonetheless a couple of them were able to get some laughs and make us remember the brand and talk about it the day after.

MSN News has an interesting story on the commercials and allows you to view them.

Have fun!

Donating Blood is harmless and helps a lot!

2005-02-02T09:20:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought this would be a nice thing to talk about.
I've been donating blood on a regular basis for more than a year now, and I intend to keep on doing it as long as I am healthy and I'm allowed to do so.
There aren't many pre-requisites for donating blood, and here are some facts about blood donation.
So take an hour off, contact your local hospital, red cross or blood bank and pay them a visit. If you or someone you know ever need blood, you'll depend on a volunteer who donated blood.
Become that volunteer today by donating. Your help may save a life.

Mastering VIZ Render for Autodesk ADT

2005-01-20T10:20:00.000-08:00

I just got my copy of Mastering VIZ Render for Autodesk ADT Users and all I can say is that it's a great tool for VIZ Render users! The cool part of the book is the color pages - they have Awesome images there!

If you're a VIZ Render user, make sure you get your copy!

The Aliens are arriving!

2005-01-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

That's most likely what the "Titanians" will be saying this evening. Huygens will descend into Titan completing the first part of the Cassini mission. Tomorrow morning, 7am Pacific we'll have the first broadcast of the data live on Nasa TV. Here's their schedule.
Go Nasa!

Battlestar Galactica week

2005-01-11T20:22:00.000-08:00

This Friday the Sci-Fi channel starts the new Battlestar Galactica series. And better than that, from Wednesday Jan 12, to Friday Jan 14 they'll be showing the original series along with the Pilot movie of the new series.

Don't forget to setup your VCR's and Tivos - this will be a great Sci-Fi week.

Building a PVR

2005-01-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

After a long time thinking about it and after failing last summer I decided to build myself a PVR. It's not a TIVO replacement as I originally intended it to be, but since my new computer is pretty fast and I have a flat screen, I thought I would give it a try.

To build it, all I needed were these:

WinTV PVR-150

Beyond TV 3

I tried several softwares before I made a decision on Beyond TV. I tried Sage TV, MediaPortal and GB-PVR.

Sage is better than Beyond TV in features, but it has a small problem when displaying LiveTV. It assumes I always want to record TV when watching it, so if all I want to do is watch TV I'm filling my HD at the same time. Beyond TV does the same, but writes it to a temporary buffer and wipes it out when done.

MediaPortal worked fine but was super slow. It would take 5 seconds to display Live video. Then it wouldn't switch tv channels, remaining stuck on whatever channel it was.

GB-PVR was able to record TV, but when I tried to play what it recorded, the application would hang.

I'm still going to keep on researching these apps in the time I have available for their trials, but I'm definitelly steering away from the free ones since they're not keeping up on speed or stability.

From now on there's no missing TV shows - all I need to do is tell the softwares which shows I like and it records all new episodes, etc. I can watch them on my flat screen, or I can burn them on DVD to watch on TV.

I'm finally free from TV Schedules and Commercial breaks!

Vaporware 2004 list

2005-01-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

A MUST read! Highly recommended. You'll laugh quite a lot:
Wired News: Vaporware Phantom Haunts Us All

Welcome to the world, Julia!

2005-01-06T10:48:00.000-08:00

Alexandre and Ana's daughter Julia was born on Jan 4 at 8:10am in Sao Paulo, weighting 3.2kg and measuring 49cm. Both Julia and Ana are healthy and doing very well.

Here is a picture of Julia:

Deck Building with AutoCAD

2005-01-05T15:52:00.000-08:00

Last December I helped my friend Dave build his deck. We only got as far as the frame goes, but we both believe it was a lot for only 2 guys with no previous experience on building decks. The process went very smooth simply because we used AutoCAD.

Dave had a very nice AutoCAD plan of the deck and we measured every single piece of wood we had to cut. Knowing every piece's length, we then marked all the places where the boards would meet each other and we just nailed them one after another. It may seem easy for the savvy deck builder, but were newbies and we were handling 25' long planks with all the joints at 45 degree angles. To add to the confusion, Dave only knows how to measure things in Feet and Inches! It takes me a while to think in feet and inches.

Anyway, it was a very fun project, and a very good workout too. Here are the time lapse pictures.

I'll try to post step by step DWFs later.

Vray Problem solved

2005-01-03T13:44:00.000-08:00

Our Product support guy contacted the VRay folks and got the solution:

Customers need to download the latest version of VRAY @ http://www.vrayrender.com/slogin/

This is for MAX 6, 7 and VIZ 2005.

Working...

2005-01-03T08:27:00.000-08:00

Back to work... Saw a funny problem @ CGArchitect - users cannot launch VIZ anymore after 2005. The problem started with VRay, and I think they maybe doing something funny in the TCP/IP sockets that makes mental ray not work... Very weird.

Also, I got 5 more moderator points @ Slashdot! Woohoo!

Back to the grind.

Filled my profile

2005-01-02T22:03:00.000-08:00

The profile is ready to go!

2005 is here!!!

2005-01-02T21:40:00.000-08:00

Yohoo!!! 2005 is here, soaking wet and freezing, but it's here.

I'm back to work tomorrow after two weeks of rest. That shall be good - I'm getting tired to stay inside because of all this rain. Let's hope the rain stops soon, so we can go out again.

Here are my 2005 wishes: http://www.origamy.com.br/xmas2005

Started Blogging

2005-01-02T21:23:00.000-08:00

This is the beginning of a Blog... Hello! Is anybody there? :o)