apple world

Today I sold my soul to the devil…. again

collected stuff

Returned from Lisbon yesterday. These 4-hour long train trips can get really boring after a while. If only my battery could last more then 5 minutes… Anyway, not all is bad. Having to stare for 4 hours to a blank piece of paper can really help to brainstorm and do very efficient mind-sweeps. My GTD next-actions list grew by 2 pages

Some weeks ago I blogged about the start of a new project about alternative news. I feel frustrated that after so long I still could not dedicate enough time to follow it up and kick-start it. Yesterday while looking to all my tasks and responsibilities I just realized that it is really going to be difficult to do it the way I wanted it to be done. So, I’m changing the vision a little bit and I will do something along those lines but in a more simple way, which allows me to keep it alive and updated without taking me much time and energy. Expect a new blog soon

Some randomly collected interesting stuff from the last few days

• For those who keep asking why I use fluroide-free toothpaste: Fluoride Causes Premature Births, Brain Degradation, Bone Loss, Cancer and Hormone Disruption
• Beautiful and inspiring TED Talk: Benjamin Zendar on Music and Passion (learn to love classical music)

a little help, goes a long way

Today is a special day for AMURT Portugal. In 2006, in a very casual and simple way, we started a sponsorship-at-distance program, for orphans and poor children in India. We called it SOS India. It has been growing steadily, and recently this year we started helping 6 other schools in Bangladesh.

Today is a special day because we are taking this project and our commitment one step further. In a few hours I’ll introduce to the public our SOS Africa program, which is going to start by sponsoring children in Mozambique and Ghana. I’m very happy that we are extending our program to have a broader reach, and I hope we will find many generous people who will be willing to participate and help us.

Interesting stuff of the day

• Britain’s “Big Brother” surveillance program getting even more 1984-ish. Cash prizes for catching criminals on CCTVs.
• Eye Tracking study – a guideline for web forms design

“stuff” of the day

Story of the day

Store owner feels pity of a bat-wielding robber and gives him 40$ because he said he needed it to support his family. Sometime later, the owner receives a letter by mail with 50$ and a thank you note from that same robber. He now has a job and his child is out of trouble.

Source: News24.com (reddit).

This just to show that we should not judge people and their actions just by looking at a very superficial level. Many people do many wrong things because their lives force them to. It is our collective responsibility, as one human society, to take care of everyone so that nobody is forced to commit wrong acts.

GTD quote of the day

“There is never enough time to do what you really don’t want to do. Time management is really value management.” ~~ David Allen

Scientific moment of the day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhAgzIVHvo
Yes, you CAN try it at home

In case you are wondering, no, it’s not a fake, it’s called the Leidenfrost effect.

smells like Xmas

Christmas spirit is spreading everywhere. If you live in the US check out “Happy holidays from Gmail“, which allows you to send some really cool snail-mail postcards to your friends, for free
This year I want to give Gimp a try and do my own christmas and new year postcards and emails to send to family and friends. I’ll post it here and in deviantART when its ready

Speaking about computer graphics, I’m kind of frustrated that I can’t have my ATI X1250 working properly with Ubuntu 9.10. Seems its too old for ATI to release proper drivers.. so I can’t get my 3d skills trained :’( Would really love to get back into 3d, and participate in the CG Sphere contest. Oh well… waiting for a Mac to come… someday

Totally unrelated, but still very cool, check out “Wolfram Alpha Teaches You Math, One Step at a Time“.

By the way, I’m adopting tags for the posts from now on. Makes more sense than using categories. I’ll try and make the transition nice and smooth =)

comic of the day

Source: http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/

that’s 2 points for the dog house diaries!

sneak peak at gimp 2.8

Following some simple steps as indicated in WebUpd8’s “How To Install GIMP 2.7 in Ubuntu Jaunty and Karmic From a Launchpad PPA“, I just installed Gimp 2.7.3 and have been trying out the new features.

There are some cool new features like the on-canvas text editing, brush tagging, layer groups, improved brush dynamics (now called paint dynamics and has its own separate dialog) and a first preview of the new single-window mode (although it warns you that it is far from being complete I find it quite usable).

Its shaping up to be a very nice release… still waiting for CMYK though :/

daily update (1st december – yay)

Quick weekend in Porto, quick weekstart in Lisbon (yay for holidays) and now back to Covilhã to resume my work.

Interesting stuff for today:

• Script to download all the gorgeous 2008 and 2009 National Geographic wallpapers. (by the way, my cousin told me that this month’s magazine has some really nice videos in the DVD. I’m thinking of buying it tomorrow).
• Eko: A Traffic Light Augmented by Progress Bars
• Google Zeitgeist 2009

tired of wp.com

Getting tired of WordPress.com

Why can’t they add new & cool themes more often? I can’t seem to find out that fits my taste, either because they have awful colors or are too narrow. Sometimes I just feel like moving the blog to my own domain.. at least I could customize it and add embed videos from youtube!

What stops me? Because I was the first one to get nuno.wordpress.com , and I just feel like using it somehow

Edit: just changed the theme again, found one with liquid-width ^_^

weekend report

Weekend spent in Porto. Gave a nice talk on the 7 secrets of success, as taught by Shiva 7000 years ago. 15 people attended, nice flow

Just got my Google Wave account, its cute… but I find it kind of useless… still waiting to see the light Btw, invites anyone? I have 7 left – leave a comment or email me (First Come, First Served)

Tomorrow morning before going home I’ll take walk on the streets of Porto, just to check if the Xmas spirit has arrived or not