October 2011
2 posts
“um dom é um dever”
“God is the ultimate equation”
August 2011
1 post
3 tags
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
Gamification
Regarding my previous post:
http://plassen.tumblr.com/post/667099109/social-badges
here is an interesting presentation:
http://j.mp/dontplay
May 2011
5 posts
1 tag
“The happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they just make the...”
1 tag
“Humour is the intuition of perception”
– Plassen
4 tags
“In nature there is no good and no bad”
– Baruch de Spinoza
2 tags
2 tags
crappy business idea of the Day
Richter Soundsystems™
models:
- Murcia 5.1 dolby surround
- Tohoku 9.0 wave projector
yet-to-be-released:
- California Big One 9.X full demolition bass
April 2011
1 post
4 tags
Tale of a Speculator
A dead oil prospector gets stopped at the pearly gates and is told by St Peter that Heaven’s allocation of miners is full up. The speculator leans through the gates and yells “Hey, boys! Oil discovered in Hell”. A stampede of men with picks and shovels duly streams out of Heaven and an impressed St Peter waves the speculator through.
“No thanks,” says the sage....
March 2011
1 post
5 tags
take matters into hands
Regarding my last post - Something to worry about - I’ve decided to do something about it: make some money with it.
Several managed funds based on agricultural and livestock market indexes such as BNP Paribas World Agriculture fund and the Deutsch Bank Platinum Agriculture Euro are providing 40%-50% yearly returns.
Capitalism, sweet, capitalism.
February 2011
2 posts
1 tag
“One man’s death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic.”
– Joseph Stalin
4 tags
Something to worry about
Each day we are regularly bombarded with news of economic crisis, unemployment, bleak job growth perspectives and similar subjects which, naturally, are motives of great concern for most of us.
But among this turmoil, some news have been cropping up, which taken into consideration as a whole, raise some serious concerns.
The first, announces this year we will be 7 billion living on this...
August 2010
2 posts
4 tags
“Human beings are little more than sex organs of the machine world”
– Marshall McLuhan (love the idea that Humankind, unconsciously, is nurturing technology into Consciousness/Self-replication and, consequently, into our demise as dominating species)
3 tags
June 2010
2 posts
7 tags
Ambient Energy
More than a century later, the concept of transmitting electricity through air, developed by Nikola Tesla in the 1880’s, is starting to take its first commercial steps. Heralded as new miracles, mobile phone re-chargers as Powermat or wireless home electricity distribution suggested by WiTricity promise the consumer the prospect of cable-free energy.
Now this is being pushed further. Not...
4 tags
Social Badges
Lately I have come to notice a great technique to keep users in a social web site and, better, drive them to provide more input.
As it is tradition in Web 2.0, people like to share stuff that reflects their way of thinking; show personal tastes, etc. Even better, is to be recognized by it. In this case, the badges concept comes into play. Sites like Blip.fm, Foursquare have implemented a way of...
May 2010
1 post
“Spherical Bastards - those who are bastards any way you look at them”
– Fritz Zwicky
April 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Essentials for present web applications
Some key concepts presented by Amazon CTO Werner Vogels at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam for what web applications should support:
Rich Media experience
Multi-device access
Location context awareness
Real-Time presence
Social-Graph based
User-generated content
Virtual goods economy
Recommendations
Integration w/ Social Networks
Advertisement/ premium support
What next, Social Printing? →
“Why is there so much month left at the end of money?”
– (via cheaperthanacupofjoe)
3 tags
“Em toda a terra portuguesa se ouvem unidas numa voz milhões de chamas bem acesas...”
– Grito do Benfica
March 2010
7 posts
7 tags
LHC Syndrome
LHC Syndrome is a condition marked by frequent anxiety attacks caused by the awareness of the prospect the world ending at any moment by an unforceable Black Hole or Big Bang generated by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
First identified by Marcelo Machado and Pedro Plassen after CERN’s anouncement LHC had started regular operations at 7TeV on March, 30th 2010.
1 tag
“Lies are neither bad nor good. Like a fire they can either keep you warm or burn...”
2 tags
2 tags
Slow media
It is time for bands to pick up
the lost tradition of making the album
a 40 minute story.
2 tags
Music Industry
Vinyl - premium collectable
CD -what!?
mp3 - Big Mac
2 tags
“Don’t blame the mirror for your ugly face”
– (aptly applied on several occasions of our lives)
5 tags
Next step for Information
WWW is to Web 2.0 as Twitter is to …
Somehow it will become meaningful
February 2010
5 posts
3 tags
How to react to Natural Disaster
Setup the Media Circus
Send reporters to the spot right away
Make around-the-clock live transmissions even if nothing new is added
Promote yourself by posting videos and photos to main TV channels
Tweet it, Facebook it.
Setup the Aid Circus
Open a Bank account to accept donations
Setup gathering points for that extra-clothing,food,electronics you don’t need
Gather artists...
1 tag
“Time is an effect of our ignorance of the details of the world. If we had...”
– Carlo Rovelli (right on!)
“iPad is just a good replacement for netbooks. nothing else.”
– me
“Once a network effect has gone into reverse it rarely returns to form”
– social network wisdom
4 tags
How to become a Social Media Tycoon
1. Think of a personal trait people might like to boast about and setup the site for it
2. Allow users to compare themselves
3. Allow the site to post to main social sites
4. Use lively/springtime colours and a roundish/eco-friendly design
5. Call it a silly, but catchy name like Bloing, Zbunk, etc
6. Find feature that heavy users will be willing to pay for to differentiate themselves
7....
January 2010
6 posts
2 tags
Surf @ Portugal
After finishing my weekly run at Lisbon’s nearby Guincho, I decided to go down to the beach to take a look how the sea was and watch the young (and old) surfers showing their prowess on the board.
After 15 minutes, I concluded that surfing, at least on these parts, is not a sport but a social event. A pretext to show how good-looking they are in their suit, how flashy the board is and,...
“If I can’t picture it, I can’t understand it”
– Albert Einstein
5 tags
Traffic based technologies
All technologies - software, devices integrated or not with cars, motocycles, et al - that produce, communicate and share driving-related information among users: how do I classify the traffic where I presently am; listen to my radio station; who is in the traffic jam near me and wants to talk about it.
Car as a Smartcar.
…just for future reference.
3 tags
death of Kindle (or not)
On January 27, Apple will be (probably) announcing its tablet product. Many argue this will be the demise of Kindle.
The ideia is partially correct. It depends on the context Kindle is being used for.
As an eBook reader, at the moment, there are no viable alternatives for a display as eye friendly as the e-ink technology. To read for long periods on a back-lit display (as the iTablet probably...
7 tags
Time
Some months ago, after reading this book - Physics of the Impossible - it dawned on me the possibility that Time simply might not exist; it is an explanation for the (coherent) “evolution” of matter and everything else in our known Universe. We don’t born and die, we simply go through a pattern of changes, defined by some rules we’re yet to discover (something beyond...
1 tag
Alone
This month’s edition of Scientific American presents an article about what might lie beyond our Universe. One of the theories considers that our Universe is just one among many that appear (and disappear), which fortunately got it just right (the Multiverse).
Now trying to imagine our solar system among billions of others on the Milky Way, our galaxy lost between hundreds of billions of...