Marcelo's Thoughts

Why Iran should have a Nuclear Weapon

2010-12-04T20:27:00.000-08:00

Well, the title should actually have been “why every country should have a nuclear bomb”, but I wanted to draw some attention to this post (yeah, marketing trick!). Back to the post, why should every country possess a nuclear weapon? If you stop to think, you’ll see that this is a reasonable and natural evolutionary step, and you yourself will come up with a bunch of reasons. To facilitate your thought process, I came up with 5:

1. Self-Respect. Whenever I hear national anthems from different countries claiming that “we’ll make sure that no one ever invades us”, I think to myself: “this is only true in the case of USA, Israel, Russia, France, England, China, North Korea, Pakistan and India”. Yes, unless you have a nuclear weapon (NW), I’m sorry but you can have your ass kicked at any time, and you can try to fight with conventional weapon, but every punch from the invader will erase 100K folks from your population. So to some degree, any country can only obtain self-respect when they can truly defend themselves. Think about it: what countries get invaded today? Well, only countries without a NW. And who are the invaders? Only countries with NW. And if you have a NW, you can mess around as much as you want with countries that don’t have NW. Example: USA, Israel, China, England, Pakistan, North Korea, and the list goes one. It is just the reality: no NW, no self-respect.
2. Cost. Suppose you have an arsenal of 10 nuclear warheads. That’s good enough to annihilate 1,000,000 people easily. That’s all you need! Conventional weapons cost a lot of money: their development in mass scale is expensive, maintenance is expensive, and all the logistics around them cost billions and billions of dollars per year. Since most of the conventional weapons are used for self-protection and intimidation (so that countries think twice before invading you), this is a high fixed cost that will never go away. On the other hand, you can store 10 nuclear weapons in a nice, fancy and highly secure facility, advertise to the world that you have them (just explode a “test” one in a desert and post the video on YouTube), and you’re good to go! Your fixed cost will probably be cut by 10-fold.
3. Free up resources. Yes, this is very tied to #2: since the cost is reduced, the people (millions) working on those conventional weapons can be freed up to do something more beneficial and interesting to society.
4. Evolution. Wartimes are the periods in history where human beings reach their full potential when it comes to technological evolution. The fact that you know that you’re no better off than any other country from a military standpoint will force scientist and the academic society to push themselves and work on better, innovative technologies. There is a bad side to this: most likely someone will come up with a more powerful and simple weapon which can kill 10,000,000 people in one punch, which would certainly give them an advantage over those who can kill "only" 100K people in one punch, but the good thing is that any significant milestone in engineering can only be accomplished thru a lot of hard work, and this work always generates important and positive "side effects” in their way thru reaching their goal. What I’m saying is that yes, a NW was an evil discovery, but the path to get there led to a lot of important benign discoveries, such as nuclear energy. Therefore, if we level the game field and everybody plays on the same turf, same conditions, technological progress will kick in again. NW is a technology from the 1940’s, we need to move on and discover other benefic things along the way.
5. Peace! Yes, Peace!!! Think about it, suppose that all the countries out there were capable of defending themselves properly. That would be the end of the wars! North Korea would not be messing with their brothers in the south. Iraq and Afghanistan wars would never have happened. Even terrorism would probably reduce a lot. Why? Well, if you’re a country, and you let terrorism crop up in your land, and if these terrorists strike somebody, that somebody will have the total rights to attack you using NW, and not only that, they will ally themselves with other 4-5 countries that also possess NW’s, and now you have 6 against 1, and your solitary country will be evaporated from the map (yes, you’ll kill 200K to 300K people, let’s say, but that would just mean the total end of your country). Therefore, you’ll do your best to prevent that other countries have any reason whatsoever to invade you. Countries would not fight anymore, and diplomacy would be the first and only weapon. So it is an irony that for us to achieve total peace, we should advocate that every country must have a NW.

Reading this you may think that I’m senseless and unemotional, proposing something that’s absurd and using “100K people dead” here and there as something too casual. I’m not, believe me, I’m being very rational, and if you are rational too, you’ll see that today millions of people are dying due to conventional wars, and the way to prevent conventional wars, or actually any war, is to make sure that there isn’t military superpowers anymore.

Peace out!!
M-Barros.

The current situation in Afghanistan is unsolvable

2010-08-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

Definitions:
^ : this is a “friendship” relationship. One can express the relationship “A loves B” by A ^ B
!^ : this is the “animosity” relationship. One can express the relationship “A does not love B” by A !^ B
India: I
United States: U
Afghanistan: A
Pakistan: P
Taliban: T

Transitivity Rules:
a) Transitivity rule of “friends of my friends are my friends too”: if X ^ Y and Y ^ Z then X ^ Z
b) Transitivity rule of “friends of my enemies are my enemies too”: if X !^ Y and Y ^ Z then X !^ Z
c) Transitivity rule of “enemies of my friends are my enemies too”: if X ^ Y and Y !^ Z then X !^ Z

Axioms:
1. I ^ U (India has always been a great ally of US, just look at all the historical facts)
2. U ^ A (otherwise they wouldn’t be there forever trying to help them to rebuild)
3. U !^ T (otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to kill them all)
4. P !^ I (from the many incidents in the past few years)
5. P ^ T (otherwise they wouldn’t be housing them)
6. T ^ A (otherwise they wouldn’t stay there)
7. T !^ U (from the 9/11 attacks)

Theorem A: Everybody else loves Afghanistan.
Proof:
- From (2): U ^ A
- From (6): T ^ A
- From (1) and (2): I ^ U ^ A, using transitivity rule (a): I ^ A
- From (5) and (6): P ^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (a): P ^ A

Theorem B: Everybody else does not love Afghanistan.
Proof:
- From (3) and (6): U !^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): U !^ A
- From (7) and (2): T !^ U ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): T !^ A
- From (1) and (3): I ^ U !^ T, using transitivity rule (c): I !^ T. With this result, and from (6): I !^ T ^ A, using transitivity rule (b): I !^ A
- From (5) and the result that T !^ A: P ^ T !^ A, using transitivity rule (C): P !^ A

Theorem C: The situation in Afghanistan is impossible to resolve as long as the Taliban, Pakistan, United States and India are involved.
Proof:
For the situation in Afghanistan to be resolved, we cannot have all parties involved loving and hating Afghanistan at the same time. But we have just proved that all parties involved love and hate Afghanistan at the same time (Theorems A and B). Therefore, we conclude that the situation is unsolvable as long as all the parties are involved.

What did Teresa want?

2009-02-15T20:18:00.001-08:00

Teresa wanted to feel pretty. She wanted some perfumes, nice cloths. She wanted to feel pretty.
Teresa wanted a good pizza, full of cheese.
Teresa wanted new pair of boots. The old ones hurt her sore feet too much.
Teresa wanted some makeup, as any girl she liked to spend time in front of the mirror taking care of herself.
Teresa wanted to find her ex-boyfriend, someone who vanished and disappeared forever, for no specific reason.
Teresa wanted to laugh, Teresa always liked a good joke.
Teresa wanted to talk. Teresa wanted to talk about her life, about her problems.
Teresa wanted attention. Well, and who doesn’t want it?
Teresa wanted to be healthy. She may not have sounded this way, but deep inside she wanted to be healthy.
Teresa wanted Regina back.
Teresa wanted to save money for an emergency. The emergency never came.
Teresa wanted a friendly hand.
Teresa wanted a family. She had one. Not from blood, not always happy. But she had one.
All Teresa ever wanted was love.
And that, she found today.
Be in peace.

Rwanda

2008-12-18T14:29:00.000-08:00

Reading the news today, I stumbled upon the judgment and further condemnation of one of the responsible for the Rwanda genocide in 1994, where Hutus slaughtered 1,000,000 Tutsis in a period of no more than 100 days. Now, put the ethnics aside: what happened in Rwanda after some thought was worse than what happened during the Second World War. Here is the reasoning: during the Second World War, 50,000,000 people died, with about 20% to 25% of them being militaries, in a conflict spanning several countries. Now, think about Rwanda: 1,000,000 murders in 100 days is the equivalent to 10,000 murders/day. The Second World War lasted 6 years, thus the rate was 23,000 murders/day. Fine, mathematically Rwanda accounts for ~50% of what happened during the Second World War. Now comes the data that makes things in Rwanda frightening: the killed and the killers were all neighbors. They were all parents whose children played together. They were all people attending the same church. They all at some point talked to each other, had fun with each other, helped each other. And one day everything turned up-side-down and the killings begun. Unlike the Second World War, where most of the killings happened thru bombs dropped from thousands of yards up high, the killings in Rwanda took place with knives, machetes, with bare hands, with the victims looking inside the eyes of those who were killing them. Brothers killing brothers. All in the same country, same town, same neighborhood.

Ethnicity as a concept/label should be completely and permanently obliterated from the face of the earth. A human being is a human being – why label it based on color, language, religion, shape? We’re light-years away from achieving this dream, I bet you must be filling out a questionnaire which is asking you to label yourself as one of these: African-American, Latino, White, Asian, etc. What does it matter, really? Ethnicity divides people, generates segregation, and segregation leads to hate, and hate leads to genocides, like the Rwanda massacre. Ironically and sadly, Rwanda was a German colony prior to its independence, and the Germans were the ones who institutionalized and imposed the official use of the Hutu/Tutsi labels across the population.

As I said, long live Barack Hussein Obama: a guy whose father was African, mother was White, a guy who is almost native-Hawaiian, who lived in Asia for a long time (thus half-Asian), with an Arabic name. Well, I couldn’t find a Latino connection in him. Hell: “Admired by a Latino dude”. There you go! :)

My girls:

Shoes

2008-12-18T09:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry guys, I know I closed the blog but I just couldn't resist writing about this incident. 5 years of a shameful war, tens of thousands of people killed for nothing. No goals, no target, nothing. Just like Dire Straits wrote, this would be the "Lives for Nothing" song. 5 freaking years in this mess, transforming a country and thousands and thousands of families in pure misery. 5 years of horror, and you still go there to say "bye, bye"?! This is what u get, a pair of shoes in the head!
Long live Barack Hussein Obama! Long live freedom of speech!

The End

2008-10-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

This is the end of my blog.
I decided to leave this blog and go to a better place (this sentence didn’t quite come out right). It’s been great to be part of the blogsphere where I could write to the world my most inner thoughts, and by now you should have a pretty good picture of me and my thoughts: yes, they are very random. But it is time to say farewell – but before the farewell I want to give a tribute to my mother by eternizing a sweet song (author: unknown) she used to sing to me during my childhood (sorry, you’ll have to translate):

“Ele gosta dela,
Nao maltrata ela,
Nao desfaz dela,
Os defeitos que tem

Foi aa Capela,
E casou com ela,
Nao reparou nela,
Os defeitos que tem

Tem uma perna torta,
Isso nao eh defeito,
Ja perdeu um peito,
Numa operacao

Ela eh banguela,
Ela eh careca,
Nao repare nela,
Nao repare nao”

I’ll leave you with the words from the great Einstein: “Life is like riding a bicycle – you got to keep moving to keep your balance”

So long!!!

Marcelo Medeiros De Barros

Tennis

2008-07-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

27th Annual Pac Asian Tournament
Registration for the tournament: $30 (net: -30)
Parking at the UW campus: $6 (net: -36)
Soda from a vending machine: $1 (net: -37)
Prize for the champion: $37 (net: 0)
Victory: PRICELESS!

Godfather

2008-03-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my Godfather, Doctor Alcindo, passed away.
A fighter, life lover, struggled with an untreatable disease and unbearable pain for over 15 years. But never gave up. Found in simple things, like gardening, reading a good book or just chatting with friends, the joy of living. As a doctor, knew exactly what was going on inside his ever weaken body, and although under unimaginable pain, would explain me step by step how the disease worked, how the body counter attacked it, in a way that, for a split of a second, I'd completely forget that that he was an ill person, and rather see him as a teacher. Life decided that he had enough.
Some of his words ought to be immortalized: "Being healthy is a state of mind when you're not conscious that certain parts of your body, like your left hand or right foot, are even there. They are there, but you don't even realize or think about it. That's when your body is working like a charm".
Rest in peace, uncle Alcindo (left in the picture below).

Gift Card

2007-12-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas to y’all! You might have gotten a gift card from someone you know. Most likely it came without any message card (just your friend’s signature). To educate you, I’m herein jotting down what such a message would look like – enjoy!

“Dear Friend,

You’re receiving a $25 gift card from me. First of, the reason I’m giving you this gift is one (or more) of the followings:
a) I don’t know you. Let’s be honest, we just meet in these lame parties, twice a year at the most, how the hell am I supposed to know what you like or dislike?!
b) I don’t have time to buy you anything decent. Life is busy-busy-busy, buddy, do you think I really got the time to go out and “research” a present to you? I barely have the time to “research” anything for myself!!
c) I don’t have any motivation to buy you anything decent. Remember that lousy, cheap gift you gave me last time we met? You don’t?! Well, I do. Payback…
d) Frankly, I don’t care about you. Apologies, bro, but I’m being honest with you. I just have too many things to worry about, and you’re not in my “10,000 things to worry about” list.

Oh, by the way, I really hope that this party has some good food/drinks to be worthy your gift so I can at least break even.
On a more serious note, my colleague: I really wished I had the time/money/motivation to choose a nice gift to you, but I just don’t. But I did pick the nicest gift card in the store – give me some credit for that!

Merry Christmas"

Below, me and my sister, in the Big Apple (Dec 2007)

Sins

2007-10-18T01:09:00.000-07:00

This is a true story.
The year was 1947. The world was still healing from its wounds left by the World War II. In a remote village in the country side of North Carolina, an 83-year old man lies down on a hospital bed. He is four days away from dying. A kind nurse is looking after the old man. He’s a man of few words, but that day he wanted to talk. “I have something to confess – I need to say this to someone before I die”. The nurse listened. “I am a man with no sins”. “I believe in you”, says the inattentive nurse. “Listen to me!”, his expression changing rapidly to anger and desperate, “I never committed a single sin in my entire life! This was the whole reason of my life!!”. The nurse decides to listen closely to what the man had to say. His story would deeply astonish the young lady.
He went on to describe his life. When he was 10, his parents, who were actively involved with the Catholic Church, had a long conversation with him. They explained that the young man was gifted with purity, and preserving that gift ought to be the most important thing of his life. A life with no sins. Never, in any plausible or conceivable way. A life were obeying the 10 amendments was not only mandatory – it was vital. The boy was trained by his parents and local church members (priests and volunteers) to avoid committing any sin at any cost. Every day he would have a conversation with his father in the morning about how he should go about living that day sin-free. At 5pm, he would talk to a priest or minister who would double check that the little boy was living according the rules. Day in, day out, the routine would be the same: long prays, conversations about how to keep the mind free from “bad” thoughts, and chats with a priest. Every day, for 73 years. He got married when he was 21. He had 3 children, but the routine remained the same. Priests would change over the time, but not his routine. Even after his parents passed away, a group of church members took over the duties of his parents. After all, he was gifted. He never committed a single sin. He only had sex eight times in his whole life. Always with his wife. Always aiming the conception of a child. He never lied. Never. He worked as a salesman of custom bags for 42 years. He was a mediocre salesman, but his parents left him enough money so he could provide a decent life to his family. He would go thru moments of depression, for which psychologists (volunteers from the church) would be there to always help him out. He never had a bad feeling about anyone – he never developed hate. He did not know what was to hate something or somebody.
The young nurse listened careful to that story, and it would mark her life forever. Many years later, her grandson would also be fascinated for that story. He ended up joining the church in 1995 at the age of 22. Inside the catholic realm, the young priest developed an intricate network of friendship, and thru that network he got in touch with somebody who knew that old man. He actually knew much more than that.
Apparently the church had sponsored a research codenamed “Pure Stone”. It consisted of investigating the effects of unquestionable, rigorous obedience to the catholic amendments by normal individuals. It was carried out over a time span of more than 300 years, where about 1,000 families were selected to participate in the program. Needless to say, the entire research was as secret as the most hidden secrets kept by the church. Families who agreed to adhere to this program would have one of their children trained to be “free of sins” for his/her entire life. In retribution, the church would cover any financial expense –anything, from the day the program started ‘till the child’s death. Apparently over 900 million dollars was spent in the project. A final dossier was written with the results of the research. When Pope Paul VI (1963-78) reviewed the results of the project, he was shocked. It is unknown what the results were, but it was ordered the immediate destruction of any material related to project Pure Store. It is believed that only a handful of people still know the contents of that dossier inside the church today. Unfortunately the young priest died suddenly from a fatal heart disease at the early age of 27. He left no written document about how he obtained most of this information. I’ll refrain from passing along how this information reached my ears. I also could not find any information on the web about project Pure Stone.

Problems

2007-09-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

Life is all about solving problems. From the moment you’re born, ‘till when you die, you will always have problems to solve. First, they seem trivial, like how to eat. Later, they become not so trivial, like how not to eat… But this blog is about problems in general. Few observations about problems: first and foremost, don’t complain about having them, as I said, solving them is the reason you’re alive. Second, the hardness of a problem is not measurable – what is measurable is how people face them. An issue can become a life threatening issue for some, but a mere routinely minor problem for others. A lot of it has to do with the personality of the person subjected to the problem, as well as his/her previous experience in handling other issues. Third, problems have to be taken in context: if I say “he ended up without one of his limbs”, you may have completely different views of the situation if I say that this was a result of a plane crash where the individual survived, instead of saying it was the result of a foolish and reckless act. And finally, whenever in face of a problem, do worry. Worriness is a kind of alert system developed by living beings which can trigger proactive reactions towards dealing with the problem. Don’t abuse that worrisome feeling, though – it can backfire and prevent you from moving ahead. As a segway to my last point, if you are a listener of that famous song “don’t worry, be happy”, stop listening to it. You must worry – and be happy. Below: me, my princess, and my shiny skull.

Missing Bone

2007-02-24T11:10:00.000-08:00

That's freaking weird - a bone just vanished from my left ankle. That happened few months back when I was playing soccer and twisted my foot. Since I was playing with Brazilians, it is possible that one of them ripped the bone off to sell in the black market (jk!). Anyways, if you have a spare bone, let me know.

Bumpy Ride

2007-02-18T01:26:00.000-08:00

Few days ago, I had the weirdest dream:

God: God speaking?
Me: Whassup my man?
God: Heeey, Marcelo Boy, what's going on, bro'?
Me: Hey, nothing much same old, same old…
God: I know, I know. Hey, what's up man?
Me: Got a few minutes?
God: Oh yeah, sure, what's up?
Me: Hey, you know, just want to have a quick chat about what's happening, you know…
God: Absolutely
Me: You know man, things are OK down here but, you know, last few years have been kind of, you know, little too tough on us…
God: Bumpy ride, uh?
Me (surprised): "bumpy ride"?! Dude, that has been a really rough, turbulent flight!! I mean, look at some of the things that happened and one would say that there has been one catastrophe after another!
God: Well, it's a matter of perspective
Me: What do you mean?
God (clearing his throat): Ok, let me put this way: the rules that govern the universe are complicated, but they do tend to, most of the time, lead to more, how shall I say, "happiness" rather than "unhappiness".
Me: Hasn’t been the case lately, though...
God: That's where I disagree. I think a better way to explain this is by using math. I challenge you to plot a chart for me. In this chart, the x-axis represents time, but in seconds, and the y-axis represents degree of happiness. If one were to really plot this chart, you'd see that the sudden drops are relatively negligible compared to the overall "happiness". But why don't you guys see that?
Me: (silence)
God: Well, that's because the seconds that don't belong to the "unhappiness" category, in your minds, do not necessarily belong to the "happiness" category. What I'm trying to say is that if you guys were to realize that each time you breathe, eat, talk to a friend, have a good night of sleep (sometimes even dreaming with God (smiles)), hug a friend, call a relative, watch a movie, say a positive word, etc, you're actually living a unique moment of happiness, then you'd see the world in a different way. The problem is that you guys take for granted these moments, but from a universe perspective these moments have the same magnitude of importance as any other moment in your life. Makes sense, bro'?
Me: I guess so… But why the turbulences in the first place?
God: The equations are complicated, and the universe keeps balancing itself out all the time. That leads to some "adjustments" here and there.
Me: Why everything then, what's the purpose?
God: Hard to explain, but tell me, do you like math, bro'?
Me: I do!
God: So do I!!! (laughs)
Me: Alright man, I think I got it. How's everyone who left us doing?
God (relaxed): They are all doing fine, man, trust me, no worries
Me: K. Hey, have you seen my little princess yet?
God: Yeap, yeap, had a 1-1 with her just few months back - just standard 1-1s that I have, you know. But yes, have to agree, she's a princess indeed!! (smiles)
Me: Alright my man, don't want to take too much of your time. I'll leave you with a picture of my sweetheart
God: So kind of you, dude. And hey, just keep it up, remember that one of the inputs to the "equations" is not only your actions, but your thoughts and energy!
Me: Got it, man. Hey, can I ask you a quick question, just for the sake of it?
God: Go for it, man
Me: Have to be fast, as fast as you can be, alright? Tell me, how much is 4321 x 4567? (smiles)
God: 19734007
Me: Yeap, you got it!!!
God (silence):
Me (silence):
God (more silence...):
Me (embarrassed): Alright man, I'll catch up with you later, ok?
God: No worries, see you around!
Me: Bye now

Isabella

2007-01-11T21:51:00.000-08:00

Isabella: Devoted to God, The Promise of God!
My little baby girl is coming soon to complete our lives and to bring more happiness to this planet. Since I don't have a picture of her yet, I'm adding my younger picture to this blog for future comparison with my little princess. Interesting observations about the picture below:
- Notice the large and deep plate. The habit came from the cradle
- Eyes wide open of happiness (of course, I was eating!)
- No interruption to take the picture. It was time to eat

Cheers all, Happy 2007!!!

Change

2006-11-25T11:02:00.000-08:00

Changes in life can be faced as new problems, or new opportunities, depending on the angle that you see them. One thing is universal: changes will happen, don’t try to fool yourself, they do happen. Of course, as any other rule there are exceptions for this one too – there are those whose lives keep going on and on in the exact way that they want, with absolutely no ups and downs. But the percentage of these individuals is negligible compared to the rest of us. Thus, you got to be open-minded to face changes from all angles, until you can see the opportunity.
Let’s illustrate with a radical example, but an example nonetheless: an average professional cyclist has been living his life by the book. The guy isn’t rich, but has a decent life. He’s ranked around number 200 in the world, not mediocre but not great either. One day, after a rough day biking on the roads, he gets home with a strong pain in his testicules, so he decided to see a doctor, but back in his mind he was sure the problem was just too much pressure down there after sitting on the saddle for over 10h in a row. The doctor, a friendly gentleman in his 60s comes back after few exams with the following dialogue that would change the life of the cyclist forever:
Doctor: “You have cancer in your testicules”
Cyclist: “Hmmm…ok?”
Doctor: “It has spread thru your body”
Cyclist: ”Hmmm…I see…?”
Doctor: ”We have to remove your balls, today”
Cyclist: ”My balls?!”
Doctor: “Yes, but before doing that we have to remove the 2 tumors that have grown in your brain”
Cyclist: silence…
Doctor: “Btw, I’m afraid your insurance won’t cover any of these. I hope you have $200,000 in your bank”
Cyclist: still silence…
Doctor: “Ok, to get started, go to that toilet and put your good stuff here so that you’ll have some chance to conceive a child in the future”
Cyclist: silence…"sure…"
Ok, even today after seeing so many things happen in my life and in the lives of those who surround me, I just can’t imagine someone having such a dialogue out of the blue. The vast majority of human beings would see these events as a death penalty. Somehow (don’t know how) this guy did not see it like that. He survived the cancer, he managed to cycle again, he managed to become professional again, and eventually he became the biggest cyclist in the history of humankind. Oh, and he celebrated that with his two beautiful kids.
Of course, this is very extreme, but still reminds us that things can change in a blink of an eye, but the changes can be a window to a better life – we just need to search for it.
A side note from this philosophy: I can’t stop wondering what this guy was thinking when he entered into that toilet to get a sample of his “good stuff”. Here is a possibility:
Cyclist (on a bed in the hospital, alone): “I’m screwed…”
Hot Nurse (entering the room): “How’s my boy?”
Cyclist: “Very screwed…”
Hot Nurse (taking off her clothes): “Let me help you then!”
Hotter Nurse (entering the room, seeing both on the bed): “What’s going on here?!”
Cyclist: “I’m very screwed…”
Hot Nurse: “He is indeed…”
Hotter Nurse (taking off her clothes): “I’ll show you guys what this really means!”
C’mon, give the guy a break, he had to push the envelope of his imagination!!!! :-)
Peace out, buddies! Here it is me at the University of Illinois, in Urbana, Illinois.

Stereotype

2006-09-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

If you've ever been stereotyped before, most likely you were "outraged by such a ignorance!". Well, you shouldn’t be, for two reasons:
1. Stereotype is nothing but the image broadcasted by the communication means of a certain group of people, and the image gets so much brainwashed into everybody's head that it makes it pretty hard to disassociate it from the people themselves. Tell me, when I say to you the name "Somalia", does it come to your head the image of a white dude in his mid 30's driving a nice BMW going to work in the morning? I bet it does not, but rather an image with several little starving children comes up right away, doesn't it? Is this your fault? Well, not completely because those are the most common images from that country that you see and hear on TV.
2. And quite honestly, there is a good amount of truth behind stereotypes. Explanation by a concrete example:
Few weeks ago I was listening to KUOW (http://www.kuow.org/) and the news was that a Brazilian soccer team was filing a formal complaint with FIFA regarding a discrimination episode that took place in Poland: Polish fans started shouting "anti-racial statements" against Brazilian players, and one specifically sounded extremely racist to me: "Hey Brazilian dudes, why don't you guys go feed your monkeys now!!!". I never felt to pissed - this is ridiculous!!! I felt deeply offended - I'm a scientist, almost a Geek, how could they dare throw out such an insult!? And my 20min long drive became an eternity of negative and furious thoughts. But suddenly, a frightful thought stroke me like a stingray tail directly into my heart (bad joke, I know) - oh boy, don't tell me it is real! But unfortunately, digging up from my personal pictures archive, I found the real proof that from time to time, a stereotype can be justified by concrete evidences: two monkeys being fed in the backyard of my house in Brazil, in 2005:

So next time someone asks you if you're good in ping-pong just because you're Chinese, take a deep breath and reply: "you damn right I'm good!!!".

Who does the math?

2006-09-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

There is a fascinating book about Fermat's Last Theorem called "Fermat's Last Theorem" (duh!). This theorem is recognized around the world as the longest math conjecture to be proved ever: it took nothing less than 400 years for someone to finally come up with a proof for it. Throughout these years, many amazing stories popped up related to the quest of tackling this problem: people died, faked identities, even an "all ready to go" suicider changed his mind at the very last minute because of this theorem. In 1995 a PhD finally came up with the final proof: an incredible 150 pages long, only understandable by two dozens human beings.
Is nature really that complicated that only 25 out of 6,000,000,000 people can understand it? I say it is not - but math is really complicated! Let me explain:
A human being is an incredible math machine. I really don't know how we developed to be such beasts, but the reality is that we're good in math. Notice that I'm referring to the species here, not to an average student on fifth grade who is struggling with math homework. And because we're good in doing calculations, we always try to map events occurring in nature to math formulas, and once this mapping is done, then everything is within our realm and we can then try to understand how nature works.
There isn't a problem with math per say - I love math, it is part of my day by day job, and everything related to it is logical and correct. But there is a problem when we try to map nature to math. There is a flaw somewhere: how would one explain for instance the existence of square root of -1? How come math can't give me a precise and definitive answer for even the simpler square root of 2? Math gives us an approximation, but nature gives us the precise length. Thus square root of 2 exists in the nature (just do Pythagoras with few sticks) but it does not exist in math.
Therefore, either we're not mapping events occurring in nature to math properly, or… there is something beyond math that can be used more simplistically (perhaps) to explain nature. And maybe using this new methodology (beyond the scope of this blog), Fermat's Last Theorem can be proved with a single phrase rather than an entire book.

Path to India - Part I

2006-07-22T22:24:00.000-07:00

It took years for Vasco Da Gama to find the path to India. Took me only 18h.
Hyderabad is a fascinating place. With a population of ~6.5 million people and situated in the middle of the country, Hyderabad is a unique mix of cultures, religions (1/2 of the population is Muslim), traditions and high-tech companies. This was what mostly caught my attention: one hour you're talking to a local about how the culture works and she explains you a lot of the tradition of the people and the land, history that dates back to thousands of years ago, and in the following hour she's explaining you how to write state-of-the-art, highly advanced computer software. A contrast that I feel lucky to have had a chance to experience. The hospitality and friendship of folks in the city made me feel like home. Which speaking about home, there are several similarities between Hyderabad and Recife: same distance to the equator (therefore same climate, vegetation, temperature), similar infrastructure problems and an interesting traffic that deserves some comments (I shall go back to the traffic topic shortly). Regarding infrastructure, yes, there are problems in Hyderabad, and there is poverty on the outskirts of the city too; but, I also come from a developing country which suffers from similar issues that I saw here - so that did not surprise nor shock me at all. Moreover, it would be silly from my part to compare Hyderabad to US or any other "developed" country. I admire the perseverance of the people, their easy smile, and their spiritual stronghold that transcends the boundaries of religions, and unites the country based on a simple though powerful principle: have faith in God (no matter what God means to you: Brahma, Christ, Mohammed, Buddha, Santa Claus, Nothing, an Old Fisher, a light, no light, a soccer team, me, etc), and try to help others. Family attachments here are also very strong, which reminds me of my place. But back to the traffic, that was the best!! Rules are simple - here they are:

If your car has a broken horn, don't drive. Horns are required
If someone behind you blows the horn, move to your left. You'll have 0.02 seconds to do it, so be fast
If you want to speed up, this is what you do:
There will be a lot of things in front of you: cars, animals, people, bikes, yellow tiny cabs, and more
No worries. Blow the horn. Twice, with a 0.5 second interval in between
Speed up. Don’t be afraid
Suddenly, from nowhere, right in front of you a space big enough to fit only (and only) your car will emerge
Place the car into that space (do not use side mirrors, the space is not that big). Repeat the process

Cricket here is the bomb! I watched a couple of matches, and you know what, it is fun. Of course, watching a 5 days long match may be too much for me. But I still got a chance to play and I scored few runs, with a good 4-runs hit, hehe. Soccer is also big here. Did you know that India was invited to play the World Cup in 1950 in Brazil, but in the last minute they declined the invitation because they wanted to play barefoot, which wasn’t allowed? Another big sport here in hockey (not ice hockey - any clue why?).
Overall, it was an all-good experience: business, new friends, incredible food, historical places. Towards the end, I got food poisoning but drinking fresh coconut water is healing my body fast (honey, thx for the idea! :))

To hell with France!!!

2006-07-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

France sucks. I've been there before, and I can't stress enough how much I disliked that place: terrible food, extremely impolite people, no places to visit at all, everything is expensive, the people are ugly, dumb and smelly, and the list keeps growing.
Fuck, I'm such a bad loser…
France is a nice place, and all said above is not true (well, almost all).
We lost again to the same guys in a world cup, but this time it was different. This time we lost because… we simply did not try to score a goal! Maybe they just forgot that the game was QUARTER FINALS OF A WORLD CUP, for Christ's sake !!! Maybe Ronaldo was busy, eating the grass around him. Maybe Kaka, Juninho and Adriano drunk too much wine the day before and were feeling too sleepy to play. What's wrong with you guys?!?
And Ronaldinho!! What happened to you, man!? Close to one billion people were watching you, waiting for the magic assistances, or for the disconcerting dribbles. But no, you decided to spoil everybody's expectation and decided to appear as a mediocre player. Perhaps you felt sorry for all the mediocre players in the world and said: "on behalf of all my buddies who are below-the-average-nobody-notices players, I'll join you guys!". Oh c'mon, man, c'mon, what the heck was going on your mind! Where is the so famous Joga Bonito?! Joga Bonito my ass!!! You guys should go on public radio/television and apologize to everybody who spent valuable hours watching that joke. And Ronaldo: please get in shape, damn it!!! You’re a professional player, you cannot afford not being in shape! If you were me, then that would be ok since you'd be sitting your fat ass on a chair for 12h every single day, but you're a professional soccer player, keep buzzing that in your hear until one of your (only) two brain cells picks up the info! So STOP EATING LIKE A PIG!!!
I'm sorry, readers, but if you're Brazilian you know how I'm feeling, and I had to get this frustration out of me. I promise that upcoming blogs will be much more moderated. And in case Brazil does not learn in the next few years, here is a picture of me preparing for 2010:

Version 3.0

2006-06-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

New version 3.0!!!
Faster, more agile, even more balder!!!
New features include:
- Active sports player (Note: may need an Advil or two afterwards to work properly next time)
- Soccer fan: can watch up to 6h of soccer a day (Note: please do not disturb it during this time - results may be unexpected)
- Salad eater (due to lack of better option)
- Joker (it knows life is too short to take it too seriously)
- And always thankful to everyone that somehow contributed positively to my life (too many people to mention) - that probably include you too.

Me and friends, during my graduation:

Not tired of Marcelo yet? Then check out this video:
http://www.cs.washington.edu/info/videos/asx/PMPpreview.asx
That should make you pretty tired...:)

PS: today died Bussunda (http://casseta.globo.com/), one of the greatest humorists in Brazil's history. We'll miss you, buddy.

1K-100K-100MM

2006-06-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Would you be happier if you had 100MM dollars? The answer is yes. How much happier would you be if you had 100MM dollars? The answer may surprise you - and that's what this blog is about.
I was reading a book by Daniel Gilbert called "Stumbling on Happiness", and one of the topics he addresses in this book is how money affects people's happiness. His studies showed that, if you could quantify happiness somehow, then the formula describing how happiness varies as the amount of money increases would be logarithmic. It means that: if you have vey little money, then getting a significant amount of money will significantly increase how happy you are. However, if you already have certain quantity of money, increasing it will have a negligible impact on how happy you are. And where should we draw the line? Here is how you draw the line: if you have concerns about whether you'll have enough money to eat tomorrow or next week, or whether you have enough money to go to a doctor tomorrow, or whether you'll have enough money to pay for your rent this month, then adding more money into your life will make a significant difference. That's because all these concerns about the basics of a day-to-day life are directly precluding you from focusing on other things that could give you satisfaction. However, suppose that you have some money, you have a job, you have some reserve, that you're middle class, let's say. In this case, more money would have very little to add into how happy you're are - even if we're talking about lots and lots of money. And why is that?
Think about this: if your family earns a total of 80K/year, you will be able to do almost everything that a millionaire can do, but of course, with some limitations. For instance, a millionaire can travel to the Caribbean, and so can you. Granted, you won't be traveling first class, you won't stay in a 5 star spa, and you won't get a helicopter tour. But, if you get organized, if you save some money, yes - you can visit the Caribbean. In the same fashion you can do many other things that they can. Therefore, it makes total sense that your level of comfort will definitely increase with more money, but very soon you'll be used to that level of comfort, and it will become routinely just like when you did not have that money.
When I talk to people about this subject, I get some responses that I want to demystify right here. Here are the common replies from folks seeking money desperately: "If I had 100MM dollars, then:"
1. "I could retire and spend my time with my kids"
[Marcelo] Wrong. Your kids will get fed up of you being around all the time - they wake up, you're there; they come back from school, you're there; they want to start dating, and you're there. I'm not saying you should not spend time with your kids - I'm saying that there is a healthy limit regarding how much time you should be spending with them. They need some space and time for themselves too.
2. "I could retire and spend more time with my friends"
[Marcelo] Wrong. Your friends are all working, don't forget that. Worse, they will see you as the lazy ass of the group.
3. "I could work on personal projects for a long time"
[Marcelo] Wrong again. You won't spend the rest of your life remodeling your house, or gardening. At some point, and sooner than you think, you'll feel a need to contribute to society again. This is an intrinsic necessity of our race (humans). Why do you think Oprah, Gates and Bin Laden are still actively working? Because they feel a need to contribute to society.
4. "I could work for myself, and I wouldn’t have a boss"
[Marcelo] So wrong. Work for yourself, and you'll probably open your own business/start-up. And who will be your boss? Bingo: you customers!! And believe me, they can be much worse than your current boss.

Lots of information on this blog, so I need to summarize it up:
a) If you are having concerns regarding whether you'll have money to survive tomorrow, your priority is to find a job and add some cash to your bank account. You will be much happier when you accomplish that.
b) If you're not in case (a), don't think a lot of money will make you much happier. If you're not happy and believe that the source of your problems is money, you're wrong my friend.
c) If you're not in case (b), meaning that you have some money and you're quite happy now, then you can definitely work towards getting more money - remember, it will bring more comfort, which is always good!!
d) Forget about retirement, and forget about all the erroneous believes about retirement. Studies show that folks that retire soon (around 45y old), either die sooner, or go back to work by their 50's.

Sticking with the tradition, a picture of me, skateboarding in Vancouver, CA!

Jesus

2006-05-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

So I bet you're going to see "The Da Vinci Code" (the movie) tomorrow, aren't you? No worries my friend, I'm also going, so we're on the same page. It is a nice story, nice entertainment. However, I've noticed that lately people have been talking a lot about Jesus in a (how should I say) not very positive way, let me put this way. Well, you may not know who Jesus was to begin with, so let me give you a quick overview of Jesus' life:

Jesus was a guy born about 2000 years ago (roughly)
As soon as he was born, we tried to kill him
To do so we killed about 300 babies in a single night
Jesus survived
The guy went to live somewhere (unknown) for about 30 years
He then comes back and notices that people were living such miserable lives
And then he realizes the key for a better life
Is to take care of each other, as we take care of ourselves
Then we did not believe him
And we got the guy
And we beat the crap out of him
And we killed him
Few years later, we realized: "hum, I think he was right after all…"
And then we decided to worship him
And then we created complicated rules, hierarchies and processes in his name
And we made a lot of money in his name
And we killed a lot of people in his name
And 2000 years have then gone by…

Ok, now we're again disturbing the guy by gossiping about his life: "oh my god, was he married? Was he a cheater? Was he gay?" And people are saying, "well, I think my faith is taking a hit after all these stories"
OH PLEASE, GIVE ME A BREAK!!!
You want to investigate Jesus' life, fine. You want to know more from a historical standpoint, fine, go for it. But all of this has absolutely nothing to do with faith. Regardless of who Jesus was, try to think of him as this guy who tried to pass along this message: take care of each other, as we take care of ourselves. And more important, try to put in practice this message, in your day to day life. Try to be a better human being by helping others, that was his message, and that's what you should get stuck in your mind. Therefore, here is my message to you:
- Go see the movie, have fun
- Stop praying for Jesus to come back - the guy knows we're crazy enough to kill him again, so he won't do it
- Instead, send an email to that old friend who dropped the ball on you and you never forgave him, and say: "dude, what's up my friend, has been a while!!!"
- Send an email to that guy that you dropped the ball on and say: "hey man, I just want to say sorry for what happened, I dropped the ball, my bad, hope I can still make it up for it"

And now, a picture of me in Whistler. You may be asking: "what does this have to do with this blog?". Absolutely nothing, but that's my blog and I do what I want. And here it is:

"It is necessary to love each other
As if there was no tomorrow
Because if you think for a moment
You will soon realize
There is no tomorrow"
Renato Russo (1960-1996)

Second

2006-04-16T01:52:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought about how much stressful and/or boring must be the lives of “number ones”? People always dream about one day becoming the number one on something: the top one player, the top one worker, the top one winner, the top one lover, etc. But, they don’t realize the price paid when you achieve that status. First of all, number ones don’t have any motivation whatsoever to get better – “why should I try to get better? There is no one better than me anyways?”. So they get bored. Number two, on the other hand, has a very clear goal: to beat the number one! Back to the number one, a second problem is the fact that number ones are broadly and deeply hated by all the other numbers – yes, they do envy the number one, and for that reason they keep planning behind their back to “bring that sucker down, who the hell does he think he is?! Just because he got to the top does not mean anything, and we’ll show him!”. Number two, on the other hand, is that cool guy who people admire for constantly fighting for the first spot. Similar facts regarding number ones can occur in other occasions in life. For instance, suppose some lottery first prize has reached 2 billion dollars, and the second prize is just a mediocre 200 thousand dollars. Which one would you rather win? Well, let’s go with the assumption you want to go with the first prize, what would happen? First, you’ll get tons of new friends with high expectations on your money; you’ll also be surrounded by beautiful women again with a peculiar interest in your assets. People will sue you left and right, lawyers will be your best friends; terrorists, assassins and mundane thieves will be watching your steps no matter where you go… If you’d have chosen the second prize, you’d have taken your 100 thousand bucks (don’t forget about the taxes…), and everyone would be thinking: “poor creature, almost got the first prize, but ended up with a consolation one – I wish him all the good luck next time!”. Meanwhile you’ll be enjoying life with your prize, while everyone else’s eyes are on the winner. Hopefully you got my point by now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that if you are number one bad things will happen to you. All I’m saying is that if you are number one, it is very likely that bad things will happen to you.
Therefore, I present you the second place of the Squash Seattle City League 2005-2006, division C, receiving his prize at the Space Needle!!!

Hair

2006-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

So you're getting bald!? Welcome to the club! I know exactly how you must be feeling. In fact, I know exactly what's on your mind now:
"Oh my God, I'm really getting bald!!
Will people make fun of me?
Will I look older?
Will I look uglier?
Will I start envying hairy guys?"
There are some bad news and good news, my friend. I'll be straight on the bad news: the bad news is that the answer is yes to all the questions above. But no worries, there are good news. Well, I'll get back to the good news shortly.
I'm convinced, though, that hair, or I should say lack of it, is a sign of evolution: tell me, what is the purpose of hair other than esthetical? Some say that "the purpose of hair is to protect the head!". Sure, as you've ever seen news like this one:

--------------------------------
CNN Online News - 04/12/06
Young boy's hair saves his life
By Wally Olecram

A fourteen year old boy from Missouri had his life spared thanks to his dense, fluffy hair. John "globetrotter" Guy Junior was victim of an auto accident when coming back from a party in downtown Seattle, last Friday night. He lost control of the vehicle which smashed against a concrete wall at about 140 mph. At the time of the accident, the seat belt of his Mercedes Bens broke instantaneously, and John was launched head first against the concrete wall. "I felt as if someone had just given me an unfriendly pat on my head", said the boy, who miraculously only suffered minor scratches, thanks to his dense hair. "I never imagined it would save my life one day", says John. "I only thought it was kind of cool, you know". John is expected to patent this hair-bag idea, will appear in Oprah and Larry King Live, and he is thinking about writing a book about the incident. "The book will be called 'It is not about the Hair - a story of a survivor'", says John's lawyer McClaim, who told CNN that his client is filing a lawsuit against Mercedes Bens on the seat belt issue. Mercedes Bens has not issued any official note regarding the incident yet.
--------------------------------

Yeah, right…
Some claim bald guys are smarter than hairy ones. Honestly, I don’t have at hand any concrete scientific evidence to prove or disprove this claim. The most I could do was randomly search the net for bald and non-bald folks. My completely random search produced the following results:
Bald Guys: http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/2004/index.html
Non Bald Guys: http://www.cfo.doe.gov/me70/history/images/Bush062003.jpg
But again, it is hard to come up with any conclusion. Well, I know I haven’t told you yet the good news about being bald, but I’ll keep thinking. If you’re still frustrated about your upcoming baldness, however, here is my advice: shave it off, buy a nice, expensive leather jacket, exchange your car by a neat motorcycle, and in a blink of an eye you’ll go from this “old, bald guy…” to a “cool, awesome dude!! “
Peace out!

Funny story

2006-03-12T23:01:00.000-08:00

http://spaces.msn.com/flavia/
Oh well, that happens in the best non-English speaker families...:)

First beer after the finals!

2006-03-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

That was such a good beer! King Fisher, I recommend!

Done

2006-03-09T01:12:00.000-08:00

After 4 years, I'm finally done with my Masters at UW. Don't have much to say in this blog, just that these last 4 years have been fun and very sad at the same time, lots of things have happened that turned my life upside down. The Masters program kept my mind busy. I'll miss it. Lots of people contributed enormously for this, including my friends, coworkers, my wife, my family. My Mom is not amongst us anymore, but I'm sure she is proud now. I'll slow down the pace a bit, my energy level is not the same as it used to be. But I have big plans for the future - and it is not a PhD or any other academic stuff. It was fun, it was really fun, but it is time to invest on things that are more important in life. So long y'all.

Filling the Gaps!

2006-02-10T20:19:00.000-08:00

Coming back from school one of these days, a friend of mine brought up the topic of how we (foreigners) sometimes get ourselves looking for things to do in our spare time: hobbies, courses, books, etc. Nothing wrong with that, but if we think for a second we’ll realize that this never happened before we came here – life in our hometowns was lived day by day, and things “just happened” there - it was intense. Now why do we behave like that here? Why do we feel loneliness to a point that we have to make an effort to keep ourselves occupied somehow? I’ve been thinking about that, and the reason may lie on the culture in which we created for ourselves here. We created a culture that praises 2 things:
- Auto Sufficiency. People here are smart, bright people, independent, and as such are never supposed to “seek for help”. No, you never seek for help – you don’t need to, you’re smart enough to figure things out on your own. Why call a friend for assistance? What will your friend think of you? You just don’t do it. You “do it yourself!”
- Winners. The society we live in praises winners, not losers. The consequence of this is the following:
o Hide your problems. You are not supposed to express your problems to your friends. No, you hang out with your friends so that you can share your victories, your accomplishments, all the good things that you’re earning in life due solely to your fantastic competency. About your problems, well, you can take care of them by yourself, can’t you? And do not disclosure them!
o Competition. In a society where winners are the only ones that survive, anyone is your competitor. Including…your friends!! And when you start seeing your friends as competitors, an interesting thing happens: they’re no longer your friends – they are downgraded to your colleagues. Why hang out with someone who may be a “threat” for you? Why share your secrets? No, not at all! At most you have a couple of coffee here and there with them, and that’s it!
It is sad. But don’t get me wrong, I myself sometimes act like that, even being conscious of this situation. Also, keep in mind that different places have different cultures, and each culture has its own pros and cons – there is no such “perfect” culture. But, what we all need to do is to be conscious of this and realize that time is flying much faster than we imagine, and that the most important things you build in life is not your career, or your house, or your Resume. The most important things you build in life are your family and your friends. Eventually you’ll realize that, and hopefully won’t be too late.

The Power of Melanin

2006-01-17T00:53:00.000-08:00

Thirty eight years ago someone shot dead Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The guy who one day has an inspiring dream of eradicating from Earth any sort of racial segregation was silent forever, but his words and thoughts remain alive more than ever. I truly believe the humankind is making progress towards unifying the races, but I think we’re still at least 500 years far from the ideal. Why? Well, just about 150 years ago we still had black slaves all over the world. And what is 150 years in history? It is absolutely nothing, it is just like 5 minutes ago. The damage was made and it takes time (in historical scale) to heal up. Personally, I love everything that comes from the black community. Most of my friends when I was a boy were black (Pingo, Edson, Manoel), most of my best friends today are black (Dija, Najin), several people that raised me were black (Nice, Bi, Maria Preta, Carlinhos), I love Blues music, Capoeira, Hip Hop, the best athletes in the world are black, and the list keeps going on and on. But, there is a scientific aspect that says it all: melanin. It is well known that the planet is heating up, and within few more thousands of years, if you don’t have enough melanin you will be in dire straits my friend. Therefore, melanin is synonymous of… yes, evolution! It is the way the human beings will evolve!!! Therefore, if you never had a dream like the one Dr. King had, you should at least start dreaming of one day having more melanin in your body than what you’ve got know – or start planning to live your life in the north (or south) pole.

Munich: well made movie, but biased

2006-01-09T00:21:00.000-08:00

Today I watched Munich, the latest movie from Spielberg (http://www.munichmovie.com/). Well, first of all, I'm glad my wife did not come with me - if it was too much blood for me, who can stay up for hours watching History Channel (aka, “World War I and II” channel), can't imagine how it would be for her. But anyways, back to the movie, very well made. However, when I read the review in Time Magazine prior to watching it, it surprised me when the critics said the movie wasn't biased to any side - I had to see it to believe. And sure enough, the movie IS biased to one side. I won't be expressing here my thoughts about the Israel/Palestine conflict, it wouldn’t be politically correct, but please do not portrait one side as being the good/poor guys, and the other as being the tyrannies. I don’t mind people telling any (I mean, any) true story that happened in the past thru movies, but please stop spreading this erroneous and hypocritical ideology – we all know what really happens down there.

2005 Summary Report

2006-01-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

Lowlights
o Farewell to Nena
o Farewell to John Paul II
o Family issues
o Surgery (that hurt!)
o First full year without my Mom
o Natural disasters on Earth (Tsunami, Katrina)
o Artificial disasters on Earth (Iraq War, Mensalao)
Highlights
o Family issues slowly being resolved
o My wife
o New house!
o Good health
o UW
o Squash
o My MS Team
o My sister’s new life
o Fernando de Noronha
o My friends
Red Flags
o UW – Operating Systems coming
o Uneasy mind – need to relax more
Next Steps
o Invest on family union
o Invest on family expansion
o Invest on education
o Invest on charity
o Invest on existing and new friendships
o Invest on work
o Invest on my house
o Invest on relaxation
In a Nutshell
o 2005: not the best, not the worst. But not the best for sure!
o 2006: full of promises!
Final Message
o Very, very, very happy New Year!! May God bless you all, and give you a very solid health, happiness, peace, love, forgiveness, courage, friendship, determination, faith, wealth, and that 2006 be the best year of your lives, at least until 2007…
Oh, and One More Thing
o …And may Brazil be Soccer World Champion for the sixth time! Go Brazil!!!

Is your mind free?

2005-12-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

The second best movie for me ever is “The Shawshank Redemption” (http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/2857/shawshank.html) – the first one is a Brazilian movie that does not fit well in this subject, so I’ll talk about it in another blog. But back to “The Shawshank Redemption”, it is a great movie – it shows how hope and freedom play an important role in the lives of human beings. I want to talk about Freedom here. Not the one used by politician to come up with artificial excuses for wars, nor the one worshiped by young fellows to justify having a purposeless life, where you can do whatever you want without a clear goal of where you want to be. No. I want talk about the inner Freedom which dwells in each one of us. Freedom of mind, Freedom of thoughts. Our mind is a fantastic machine, capable of producing marvelous things and horrible tragedies. But it sometimes can also be locked down in a prison. Negative thoughts can definitely become the walls of your mind. We all have been (or will go) thru bad experiences in our lives, and these experiences sometimes tend to crystallize around our brains making impossible for our minds to go beyond what happened, and achieving the truly Freedom. Bad experiences should never be forgotten, I agree, but they can’t preclude us from moving forward. What’s happened is past, and it does not exist anymore, it is all rooted in the tangled electromagnetic connections in your brain. Put them aside, keep them in a folder called “Past”, train your brain with that experience, and move on, move forward. One great book that is somewhat related to this subject is “The Endurance” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264578/): Captain Shackleton has just lost his ship in the middle of the Antarctic continent, without the proper equipment/food, and responsible for the lives of his entire crew. It does not get much worse than that, and this bad experience could have created an instantaneous wall around his brain which would result in a complete disaster. His aptitude, however, was memorable: “Friends, we lost our ship. Let’s now go back home”. And indeed, after 2 ½ years surviving in the worst conditions ever sustainable by human beings, not a single life was lost. Can we do the same? Can we say to ourselves: “Something bad happened in our lives. Let’s learn from it. Keep it aside – and now let’s move on!”. As Andy Dufresne says in one of the classic passages of The Shawshank Redemption: “Salvation lies within”. And so does Freedom.

Happiness

2005-12-17T10:47:00.000-08:00

Do you have any secret to achieve fully happiness? I bet you do. Work hard, be a family guy, treat others fairly, help others here and there, have some wealth so you can buy things you ever wanted. Yeah, that may work. I think the secret for happiness, though, is to make others happier every day, and that’s it. I wish I could live every single day of my life based on this principle. Perhaps, that’s why I’m jotting it down now so I won’t forget it.

Blues and Soul

2005-09-30T00:55:00.000-07:00

Most of the songs follow the same path: they come out from the instruments, go thru your ears, reach your brain, you feel some joy, and then they die short after. But with Blues is different. Blues has an interesting characteristic that it can bypass not only your ears, but also your brain, and go straight to your soul. That’s right, it will touch your soul. Some people may like it, others may feel that their privacy has been compromised. But make no mistake: it will touch your soul. Very feel things in life will touch your soul. Blues will.
If you haven’t been to a Buddy Guy’s show, most likely you haven’t experienced this feeling to its deepest magnitude. Let me try to describe you what a Buddy Guy’s show looks like. Going to a Buddy Guy’s show is like going to a massage house. But instead of taking of your cloths, you take off your whole body, and your whole brain, and just leave your naked soul. Then you lie down your naked soul on this relaxing bed, and then this powerful energy will massage your soul, for 2 ½ long hours. That’s the closest that one can describe his show. Therefore, if you haven’t been to one yet, please hurry – the guy is almost 70 years old. After you’ve been to his show, you’ll understand when someone suddenly stop you and say: “you damn right I’ve got the Blues!!!”.

To all my Indian and Pakistani friends, Namaste!

2005-09-13T23:30:00.000-07:00

I decided to dedicate my blog today to all my Indian and Pakistani friends. After all, the reason I’m here today is directly related to India. Why? Simple:
- At around 1,500 A.C. people in Europe were badly searching for ways to get to India (understandable – that food is just unbelievable!)
- They got so out of their mind that they started randomly sending ships all over the places to find India
- In one of these journeys, they found a nice place with some naked folks who have nothing to do with India at all. And yet, they were so blind that they called those individuals Indians
- And then Brazil was officially discovered. Came the Portuguese, came the King, came Collor (you don’t want to know who this guy was…), and here I ended up coming.
So that’s how I own my existence to the Indian spices. Lately I was even counting the number of Brazilians and Indians/Pakistanis friends that I have, and for the first time ever it is exactly half-n-half. I never thought that one day 50% of my personal friends would be from the south Asia. Before coming to Microsoft the only Indian I had heard about was Indira Gandhi. As an irony of the destiny, my wife’s best friend is called Indira. Even funnier, she is not even Indian, but very Brazilian. Oh well, to all my Indian/Pakistani friends, a huge Namaste and regards from this northeastern Brazilian who admires a lot your life style, culture, sense of humor, friendship, and especially your food!!!

Trip to Phily, Labor Day, 2005

2005-09-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Got a late flight
To Seattle said Good Bye

Even with all those blisters
Was very happy to see my sister

Very nice apartment, there I got some rest
For that price, my friend, it better be the best!

Met Kyle, Terry and Pat, nice folks
Got a beer, got dinner, went early to bed, too much work

Got a car, went to DC, watched IMAX
On the way there, met the police, met Bush, had good Laughs

Had nice dinner, helped my sister with her living room
Worked all next day – everything was done by the afternoon

Drove around, saw nice places, old stuff everywhere, I should say
Ended up eating Brazilian Food, not the best one, but was OK

Finally, had some hilarious moments, you won't believe it!
A dude stopped us on the street: “hey, is this NY or Phily?”

Got back on an early flight, and this short story comes to an end
Thank God for this awesome weekend!

Blogs and Politics

2005-08-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

They say if you don't talk about politics in your blog, then it is not a real blog. Ok, I really don't enjoy talking about politics but for the sake of the blog ideology, I'll do this now. Let's talk about the war in Iraq. First of all, I’m totally against it. But one of the things that bothers me with this war is the lack of objectivity. What is the goal? To say that the goal is to get rid of Evil, that’s too vague. Besides, God and the good folks have been trying that already for awhile, I don’t think it will be an easy task. But back to my point, if we had measurable goals it would be much easier for the community to understand where we are with the war. Examples of measurable goals:
- Have only 200 civil casualties/month, for 3 months in a row
- Have zero US/Iraq casualties/month, for 3 months in a row
- Stay there until the gasoline price drops to $1/galoon
Something along these lines. Even Hitler (which was a monster, did terrible things and was responsible for several million deaths - *disclaimer*) had a measurable goal: he wanted to dominate the world. That’s measurable: you can keep track of where he is at with his commitments. So that would be my taken on politics: they need to be more specific. Whether they really want to be more specific is a different story…

Dan Simon beat me in and out of the court :(

2005-08-29T21:47:00.000-07:00

Today I had the opportunity to play squash with Dan Simon. Dan Simon (http://research.microsoft.com/crypto/dansimon/me.htm) was the first one to prove that Quantum Computers can do things that Classical Computers can't. Last summer I studied Quantum Computing at UW - boy, it is just heavy math, believe me, heavy stuff. In this course I learned about the algorithm the Simon invented. It gave me a lot of headaches... Today for the first time we played squash at Pro Club. I thought with myself: "Ok Sir, payback time!". I wish... He got me 9x3 and 9x7.

What the hell/heaven happens on the other side?

2005-08-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

Religion is something very interesting: although all religions praise love, peace, honesty, etc, which is kind of cool, when it comes to predicting or I should say prophesizing what happens after death they all diverge. Some claim there will be a paradise and a hell – basically if you did well on earth you’ll get all the good stuff, otherwise you’ll be punished endlessly for the bad things you’ve done (in other words, you’re screwed...). Ok, that’s fair. Others claim that you’ll come back to earth incarnated in some another animal (or plant perhaps?). And the list of religions and post-life theories keep going on and on. Thinking about this when I was taking a shower, I came to the following conclusion:
There are only two valid scenarios:
a) One and only one of these religions is correct
b) None of these religions is correct
Notice that the current existing religions have post-life theories that do not overlap with each other, so the possibility that two or more religions are correct is not valid.
Therefore, if (a) is correct, when we die someone on the other side will say: “ok, for those of you who followed religion abc, please take the stairways to heaven. Everyone else, please go straight to hell”. If (b) is the correct answer then that’s even worse: “ok folks, getting down please, everybody down”. Hum, kind of interesting and scary. Oh well, I think I had a long day today.

Being Young

2005-08-25T22:59:00.000-07:00

If you can swim 2,000 yards today...
There will be a day that if you can swim 1,000 yards, you'll still be young
And there will be a day that if you can swim 200 yards, you'll still be young
And there will be a day that if you can swim only 50 yards, you'll still be young
And then...
There will be this day
That if you can just feel the wind blowing on your face
And the smoothness of the water touching your hands
You will feel as young
As you've never been before...

Well, welcome to my thoughts!

2005-08-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all, glad you're reading this, that means you want to know what's on my mind. Right now there isn't much of interesting :-), but just want to welcome you to this space.