NerdTV

I don't program in my free time but I still found the first interview interesting. You won't find any love for Microsoft here... BTW I am downloading Linux, which contrary to what I thought a year ago, does not make me a nerd... as evidenced by



Addendum: I just watched interview 2, it was also great.

My little corner of Rio

Should have used Google Earth instead of Google Maps for better resolution, but this will do...


Notable Locations marked on map:

• 686 (say: Meia-Oito-Meia) is the restaurant I eat at nearly day.
• Speed Queen is a convenient full-service laundry, though used only when absolutely necessary. Since I started running, socks run out faster than underwear.
  
• Vem Q Tem is a great little Kiosk (ou quiosque). I met more diverse peoples here than anywhere else in Rio. It is owned by Dudu (an unfortunate nickname that everyone named Eduardo uses). Dudu is also in the band Quilocura, is in law school, has two kids, and is learning English. He either is lying or doesn't sleep or both.
  

Getting your customers to work for you

The van to Fundão that I take several times a week is an example where the customers' interests are in line with the owner's. Once the van is full we can take a direct route to Fundão. The sooner the van fills up on the route, the quicker I get to school and the owner can make another loop. However here my desire to help fill up the van is not nearly large enough to compel me to advertise its use, such as screaming "Quatro-Oito-Cinco até Fundão diret" out the window.

The nature of some businesses is such that some of your customers' interests conflict with the owner's. Consider an amusement park. As a customer you want it to be empty so you can get on rides easier. But the desire is not nearly large enough to compel the customer to try and drive people away.

I can think of a couple examples where the customer's desires, in or not in the owner's favor, is strong enough to compel direct action:

1. Reconsidering the amusement park, the desire to hang out with friends will likely overwhelm the emptiness desire and they will end up drawing more customers and increasing the owner's revenue instead of decreasing it.
2. Network services such as instant-messaging and e-mail have at times compelled me to encourage others to set-up accounts. BTW, get Skype.
3. Whenever you discourage somebody you dislike from going with your group (to the movies, a restraunt, etc).

Taking your pulse in the City

I'm sitting in one of thousands of cabs in Rio. The meter clicks up a notch and that's another 30 centavos in the cabbie's pocket. But wait, we weren't moving! How does that work? I pay for going and I pay for staying. Rio has been my first taxi experience, so I think I can be forgiven my ignorance of the "Time and Distance" charging scheme.

You are charge based on Pulses. Whatever comes first: 265 meter pulses or 265, .226s pulses.

Apparently, you are charged for time or distance and not both at the same time (check link for details). So what is the incentive of the taxi driver under this scheme? Well common sense says the taxi driver wants to drive as far as possible in as short a time as possible, hence recording tons of meter clicks. However, it also allows for compensation during a traffic jam (or any speed less than about 16 km/h), which may alleviate sidewalk driving and the such.

So what would happen if you raised the fee of the time rate or lowered that of the distance rate? Well, driving slowly would be less costly, so you may not get to your destination as fast, but perhaps you'd get there in one piece.

Question: Can anyone find accident statistics on Taxis relative to other types of Drivers?

The transformation

Riddle of the Weekend: What is great to have a lot of, none of, but not some of?

This enty provides an answer to that riddle!

We started innocent and näive.


But we were not to stay this way for long... Behold, the tranformation.


And now for the Amerioca Punk Rocker (plus groupie) album shot


Now I'm bald.


More mohawk madness here. I have been told this is exactly the type of thing not to blog about. In a sense I agree -- it's seems more fitting in one of those tell-all (show-all) online journals. But I'm going to justify it by making liberal use of the blog's title, Second Glance. That is, we got a lot of second glances, and you might say "they should have taken a second glance before doing that!"

As for me, I thought we looked pretty good.