comemorando 200k...

é isso aí!!: a wikipédia ja quase tem 200.000 artigos en Português!!.. ou para ser mais exatos 198 474 artigos às 13:55 UTC de hoje sábado, 25 de Novembro. Parece ser questão de aguardar só(ate quarta feira, eu acho).

A língua portuguesa, com mais de 230 milhões de falantes nativos, tem crescido na wikipédia com 10 mil artigos novos cada mes (perto de trezentos e pouco artigos diarios).. dá vontade de ser quem escreve o artigo 200k, né?

E mais uma coisa, hoje se comemora com cachaça, é não com sangría: O que ainda escapa o meu entendimento é... como é possivel que a wikipédia tenha menos artigos em castelhano com tantos falantes da língua espanhola que andam por aí?!

Levitt unfiltered, and blunt...

TEDTalks : Steven Levitt (2004) When I read freakonomics, I loved the book overall, but didn't particularly like Chapter 3: "Why do Drug Dealers Still Live with their Moms? ".. but now after removing the censure, I find the topic quite interesting. Levitt is certainly a good presenter, but what made it for me this is how he managed in this video of the TED'04 conferences to do an R-rated version of his pitch: He does pronounce the F*** word, and even dares to say that passing from flipping burgers in McDonalds to dealing drugs in a gang, is a "good thing". I can't help but be amazed on how cool it is to get a more direct communication with the source of the information (not filtered anymore by book editors, or content producers). Don't miss the gang-speak for economic terms, in particular the Nash-equilibrium of gangs when having the option to do shooting and generating turmoil on their neighbors, they choose not to do it. Video caption: (from Google Video) Steven Levitt is an economics professor at the University of Chicago and the best-selling author of Freakonomics. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he goes inside an inner-city gang to examine economic principles at work in the real world. (Recorded February 2004 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 22:00) - More TEDTalks at http://www.ted.com

It's me, Júlio Cesar...

More than 2M books sold, and 55 editions to date on the native tongue of his author. Malba Tahan's "The man who counted (A collection of mathematical adventures" was a hit by pretty much any metric; it fed the abstract fantasies on math of thousands of teenagers.

But Malba Tahan didn't exist. He was a product of the imagination of Júlio César de Mello e Souza, native of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At age 23, when Júlio Cesar was a frequent writer at O imparcial newspaper, he gave to his editor five short tales with the hope of those making the printed edition. The stories remained on his editor's desk several days without any reaction, and then Julio took the manuscripts back, only to bring them in some days later (after deciding to attribute those to a ficticious american writer named R.S. Slade). The cherry on the pie was claiming that the stories were being quite succesful in New York. It took only one day to have "The Jew's revenge" published, with some other stories getting published using the same trick.

Once Julio learned how to operate in that 1918 Brazil, he was able to get his masterwork published using the pseudonym Malba Tahan.. and the rest is history.

I have to wonder, how much is this cloud of low self-respect still present over the heads of latins in today's world? Somehow Guillermo Puertas Nieto, Lorenzo Elizondo, Jorge Arbusto doen't sound quite as impactful as Bill Gates, Larry Elison and George Bush.

On your marks, set, Go, go, go!!

Today is black friday, then flocks of people will head to their closest consumption temples (malls are around america) since as early as 5am, and start shopping as if there were no tomorrow.

If you sell to a retailer, and you haven't launched your key produce (and even more, ensure that it is on shelf, and promoted), forget about it... you've missed the key window.. 'coz the Holiday season already started, and the retail engines are tuned to perfection to maximize sales for the remainder of the year.

and they don't even have an extra boost in the form of an extra salary like brazil's 13th salary (decimoterceiro salario) or mexico's Aguinaldo (Xmas bonus), or colombia's "prima navideña".. but they don't need it.. the shopping olympics are on, starting today!

A gallery of [the best?] some curious photos from Google Earth...

I receive [argh.. daily] the Silicon newsletter (from CNET UK), and found something there today that i'd like to share: a gallery of what Will Sturgeon considers the best of google earth. Start here

Some of the ones I liked the most are The Hollywood Sign, the 'is that a shark in the pool?' one, and the shadow of a man next to his car in Las Vegas

I got a weird sensation when the prisoners in San Quentin look like small fire ants here.. scary stuff!... and less gut-wrenching (but still in the "we're all ants in the universe" category) look at the people gathering at London's Trafalgar Square
.. and the intrigue section of the post features the UFO question on area 51

tbc... (as I need to work and stop watching pictures for now)...

Learning the case for small government.. from one of the masters..

Jurassic Park(1993) stamped on my mind the image of a mosquito conserved on a piece of amber.. and that memory came up when I found Milton Friedman on this interview, making the case for small government. This seems to come from an interview circa ~1975, given the reference to Friedman's 1973 public debate with Wilbur Cohen, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under LBJ. (there's a good nugget on SS paid by the employee). enjoy! Video: Milton Friedman on Limited Government The best case for limited government ever made.

Can't blame a mediocre teacher for not learning how to graph a linear function...

[no, I won't say that teachers don't matter... but..] I was wandering on Google Video when I found this post from today, and I can't help wonder that for this generation there are alternatives. At least some alternatives for those cases when a mediocre teacher is not up to the job. Imagine learning how to plot a linear function. I am not praising this particular teacher, but imagine being able to check out 10 different teachers on how they deliver their "magic" (teaching), being able to rank them, and choosing the best one.. all on a daily basis. How fast will the generation of the recently born kids learn if we can remove a bunch of the barriers that we faced when learning? It seems to me that they will learn pretty darn fast!! video: Solving Linear Systems by Graphing (5th period) Mrs. O'Flynn's 5th period Algebra students explain how to solve a linear system in two variables by graphing.

iTunes Latino?... te falta.. te falta...

with some fanfarre apple announced few hours ago a specific "iTunes Latino" section. My enthusiasm was short lived, it only took me two searches to get dissappointed:

- La Planta, from KAOS ("y te pareces tanto, a una enredadera en cualquier tronco te atoras y le das vueltas con tus ramitas que se enredan donde quiera") was the first strike to my excitement
- not finding Pedro Navajas was an embarassing miss also

As I like these fellas (Apple), I rather give them another shot b4 strike three.. but I'll hold for a while (about 1 week) to see if their catalog really gets some of the core latin songs. we'll see then.

Who reads this blog? ..or at least where from?...

Google analytics is so cool! Registering is a snap.. and the reports are quite interesting IMHO.

for instance, here the map of where the last 200 visits to this blog came from:


I didn't even know that there was a place called La Laguna off the west coast of Africa!