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Originally from Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil

Saturday, December 13, 2014

Help children in China during winter!

I'm partnering up with a NGO in China that is sending 'Winter Bags' to poor children in western China. More details to follow. Please donate to this worthy cause:








Sunday, November 02, 2014

Lembranças

Um poema/texto de autoria de Adalberto José dos Santos, meu pai. Eu sei que não sou imparcial, mas esse texto me cairam lágrimas dos olhos.

Lembranças

Quando eu era menino, bem pequeno, talvez a mais antiga lembrança que tenho, eu me vi sentado em um pequeno banco de madeira, onde ao chão as formigas, carregavam folhas verdes, recortadas de uma árvore próxima.

E naquele trabalho, elas seguiam silenciosas, tocando de vez em quando, com suas antenas, talvez estivessem conversando entre si, pensava eu.

E naquela infância eu certa vez pensei como eu seria quando estivesse mais velho, em um tempo futuro, que hoje é meu presente.

Hoje com os cabelos brancos fico a pensar que aquele menino, jamais iria imaginar tudo que sei, que vivi e sonhei.

Quando menino, o futuro era apenas algo que estava além da minha imaginação, mas que eu me perguntava... Como seria eu... 

Agora sei.

Mas também continuo, igual aquele menino, pensando no futuro que ainda não sei.

O futuro nunca é conhecido, pode até ser imaginado, sonhado ou como uma meta, e ao chegar em um determinado ponto, pensar no que se fez...

Mas nunca imaginei que, mesmo menino, ou mais velho, teria sempre estas perguntas de como seria no futuro...

Pois o futuro não existe, esta é a grande verdade. Só temos o presente, como um 'presente' dado para que não perguntássemos nunca, o porque das coisas, de tudo, tudo mesmo.

Mas o que existia naquele menino era uma enorme curiosidade, e hoje ainda está presente em meus cabelos brancos, em meu andar vagaroso, mas a curiosidade ainda é jovem, vigorosa e valente.

Procurei saber tudo que podia em conhecimentos, mas descobri que esse não é o caminho...

Não existe caminho...

Apenas navegamos no rio do tempo... sem volta e para sempre.

Depois de um tempo, ninguém mais vai lembrar do menino ou do velho...

É a vida que assim pede...

Friday, March 08, 2013

Monday, January 18, 2010

For my friend

Friends are like poems
Waiting to be read

They have beautiful rhythms
and a message within

If you read like a theorem
you'll be superficial and thin

But if you look through a prism
You'll see amazing things
Flowers, rainbows, and esteem
All their hopes and dreams
And you're forever charmed-in

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Mini city

http://elisbeth.myminicity.com/

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Not black and white

Music continues to be one of people's favorite forms of entertainment. We listen to it on the radio, computer, MP3 players; go to concerts and so on. With the advent of broadband or fast Internet, file sharing softwares grew in popularity everywhere. In spite of their several legal uses, users started sharing copyrighted material, and that was how Napster, Grokster, StreamCast's Morpheus, Limewire and many other peer-to-peer (P2P) software companies became the target of numerous lawsuits from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Are these companies to blame for users copyright infringements? They don't think so, often citing the Betamax case. Napster and Grokster, however, along with other companies, no longer exist. Napster has become an eMusic Store, selling digital music; and Grokster web-site has become an anti-P2P technology campaign holder, shamelessly threatening whoever goes to the website with the message: "The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners. There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them. YOUR IP ADDRESS IS XX.XX.XX.XX AND HAS BEEN LOGGED. Don't think you can't get caught. You are not anonymous."

This strategy, known as Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) is aimed to prevent users from downloading illegal material. But don't worry, you are still anonymous. Website owners can utilize a simple computer command to discover the IP address of anyone accessing it. However, only a subpoenaing of your ISP provider can find out who owns that IP address.

I do not have an opinion on whether these companies are guilty of helping copyright infringement. On the one hand it is easy for the user to do it using their software; on the other hand, it is also a legal business model. I guess it depends on the original intentions of the owners, but who is to know?

My problem with RIAA, MPAA, and record labels is that, now that their business model is being threatened by another kind of model-the (legal) online music stores-they try to apply their FUD tactics so that consumers keep giving them money. They spent millions of dollars trying to implement Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology onto their CDs and DVDs, increasing the price of their products, just to realize that computer savvy people, encouraged by the raise in prices, still found a way to bypass the technology. Also, what is the cost of a digital music file? Close to zero, since it can easily be copied.

Then I ask, why does each song have to be so expensive? (Yes, I consider $1 per song expensive. I currently have a list of more than 300 songs that I heard on the radio (and also Internet radio) that I would like to download. I am definitely not paying $300 for those. I would not mind though, paying $10 or even $20 for a bundle of 50 songs). In addition, why invest so much in DRM technology? If I am paying for my music, that means that I chose not to download illegally and most probably I am not going to share it illegally.

If you think that when downloading cheap music from the internet is hurting the artist, you are misinformed. An article from Rolling Stone demonstrates how the artist gets only $1.60 for a $15.99 CD. If you want to support your band, buy a ticket to their show!

Although I know that buying a CD from my favorite band doesn't necessarily mean that I'm helping the band, I still enjoy buying CDs from these bands over downloading them. Why, people ask me, don't I download their songs (as in, get it from free on the web)? To put simply: It's a different medium! I get a cover art, I get lyrics, I get something to hold to when listening to their songs, and something to bring to their concerts to try and get their autographs! :) Also I found out that I get more into the band if I actually have their CD rather than having all the album songs downloaded. But again, I'm not gonna buy the CDs of all 100 (random number) bands I enjoy, cause then I'd have to sell my car.

Luckily, nowadays there are many options: Internet radio, Youtube, and many song services popping up all over the web (although I'm not sure of the legality of many of them). My favorite internet radio these days is Pandora.com, where you can seed it with a song or artist you like, and it will not only play songs from that artist, but also from other artists whose sound is similar to your original seeded artist or song. I already discovered many other artists I like because of it. On the flip side, Pandora is only available in the US. Once in a while, though, I wanna listen to a particular song (something you can't do in Pandora), then I resource to one of those places that I’m not sure of the legality to listen to it a couple of times.

Some other times, I wanna burn a CD with some of these songs that I like best, to listen to it on a trip, for example. Then again, I resource to some other means of getting MP3s, that RIAA wouldn't be happy about. But, don't worry RIAA, you can't add these 20 bucks to your calculations of how many dollars you are using, cause even if I couldn't find them for free (or with friends) I wouldn't buy them (and once in a while, I'll buy the CD one of these bands whose songs I downloaded, for the reasons I explained above. After listening to it for several times and enjoying it, I wanna get more stuff from them).

Some e-music stores are now starting to sell DRM free mp3s, which is a step towards the right direction, in my opinion, such as Amazon, emusic.com, and iTunes. Start offering songs for 10 to 50 cents in a clean MP3 format and I'll start paying for my downloaded songs. Maybe when I get a real job, I'll be able to afford the 1 dollar a song...

So yeah, this is not a black and white world.


Andre

Ps: By the way, last year, one of my favorite bands came to town. I bought their latest CD, took the CD cover to the show, and had it autographed by all band members. Now that is an investment!

Pps: Just to be clear: downloading copyrighted material is illegal, whether you get caught or not.

Monday, December 17, 2007

More on crazy weather



That's me, by the way