"In early May 2008, the newly elected Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced that drinking of alcohol would be banned on public transport from the start of the next month. Many people then thought up the idea of a Circle Line Party to be held at the end of the month to celebrate the last night of legal drinking on the London Underground, and spread the idea on the social networking website Facebook. The plan quickly received media attention and was mentioned in several newspapers. [1]
On 31 May 2008, the night itself, thousands of people attended, the largest Circle Line Party ever. Some had come in costumes ranging from 1920s prohibition to dressing up as Boris Johnson himself. Although mostly peaceful, seventeen people were arrested by police due to disorderly behaviour, six tube stations were closed and eventually the entire Circle Line was suspended for the rest of the night. [2]
Hatred for London's new mayor was rife along the Circle Line as partygoers jumped up and down singing "Boris is a wanker" in unison." from Wikipedia
Check the party video here on the top yellow box and this tackle
Monday, September 29, 2008
The not so untrue story...
I soon understood that the consultancy business was not for me...
That happened when I started to be fed up of being alone with my computer programming while avoiding at any cost to lunch alone...
I started to make my moves on the professional world. Firstly, I got accepted to Shanghai. Secondly, I postponed for, maybe, California. Thirdly, I abandoned France and ended up setting all my life, including, house, refundable tickets and parties at Shanghai again.
At last, London called, in 3 weeks time I finished an internship, flew to Tampere, wrote a kind of thesis, presented it without any enthusiasm, cancelled Shanghai and set up my life around a tennis court.
And therefore, my faithful 3 readers I present you this video...
that means: I don't have any fucking idea about tomorrow!...and it is nice!
That happened when I started to be fed up of being alone with my computer programming while avoiding at any cost to lunch alone...
I started to make my moves on the professional world. Firstly, I got accepted to Shanghai. Secondly, I postponed for, maybe, California. Thirdly, I abandoned France and ended up setting all my life, including, house, refundable tickets and parties at Shanghai again.
At last, London called, in 3 weeks time I finished an internship, flew to Tampere, wrote a kind of thesis, presented it without any enthusiasm, cancelled Shanghai and set up my life around a tennis court.
And therefore, my faithful 3 readers I present you this video...
that means: I don't have any fucking idea about tomorrow!...and it is nice!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
To Kika and Becky...
Not so long time ago I had two Americans guests. I truly found by Americans and, even here in UK, two of my closest friends are Americans.
Nevertheless, a discussion erupted, especially with Becky, after just some words about the Twin Towers.
I could not change their mind to see the world as I do and they could no do the same.
Kika, was one the sweetest people I ever met. Unfortunately, we could never come to an agreement on many occasions. One of the last time we spoke, tears were rolling over her face while airport staff were calling her to board her transatlantic trip, and she said to me:"I learned a lot with you".
Nevertheless, I feel I learnt much more with her...
Nevertheless, a discussion erupted, especially with Becky, after just some words about the Twin Towers.
I could not change their mind to see the world as I do and they could no do the same.
Kika, was one the sweetest people I ever met. Unfortunately, we could never come to an agreement on many occasions. One of the last time we spoke, tears were rolling over her face while airport staff were calling her to board her transatlantic trip, and she said to me:"I learned a lot with you".
Nevertheless, I feel I learnt much more with her...
Garbage bins...
Update:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jKU3jm4sjZE
London is a city were you can feel the fear...
It's the "do not leave your luggage unattended", "if you see something suspicious, please report", the continuous "fatalities" announcements around the Tube or Railways and, of course, the 500.000 CCTV.
One of the most famous cases concerns the death of a fellow Brazilian called Menezes by a the police.
On this way, garbage bins are scarce and most of times locked by their owners.
Rubbish is all across the main streets and gets bigger during all day...
The Tube is always full of rubbish, from old newspapers to McDonalds take-away bags.
At least it is a good idea for reducing costs on garbage collection...
London is a city were you can feel the fear...
It's the "do not leave your luggage unattended", "if you see something suspicious, please report", the continuous "fatalities" announcements around the Tube or Railways and, of course, the 500.000 CCTV.
One of the most famous cases concerns the death of a fellow Brazilian called Menezes by a the police.
On this way, garbage bins are scarce and most of times locked by their owners.
Rubbish is all across the main streets and gets bigger during all day...
The Tube is always full of rubbish, from old newspapers to McDonalds take-away bags.
At least it is a good idea for reducing costs on garbage collection...
My sister on the Internet
I still remember the first day I connected to the Internet and I remember how difficult it was.
The first computer I ever had was my fathers' Amstrad. It would run MS-DOS and read Floppy Disks of the size of my hand. I disassembled it and assembled it again several times and I am already wondering if one day I will take out from the garage and it will still be able to run its only application: Lotus.
My father had a Compaq using Win 3.1 which he was not keen on let me use it. The only thing he would let me do for many years was playing Solitaire and make drawings on the Paintbrush, someday he would let me print these drawings on the magnetic printer in black and white. I just hope someone kept one of this master pieces.
I finally convinced my father to buy me a personal computer, it was meant to come in Christmas Day but it did not arrived. Finally, by the end of February we bought it. A brand new Pentium II 300Mhz, what a blast! It even had a Voodoo Banshee VGA board to play The Sims I ou GTA II.
My home did not had a land line phone, so I had to install one on my name as no one at home wanted it, and so I did it.
I bought the famous Diamond Supra 56K and in the late 90's as you can imagine the internet was not very similar to what it is now. This modem was so good that one day I sold it for the same price I bought it but that's another story...
I did not bought my sister but eventually one day she showed up at home, she is smaller than the table kitchen but already owns a Centrino with Windows XP, which she uses to play her +4 rated games, while learning by try-and-error, to match letters with objects and all this amusing stuff made for her age.
I had to start with Alex Kid in the Miraculous World on my Master System which was far less didactic.
She doesn't know, by far, how to write down her name but we wrote her name in a board in capital letters and she copies it to log in her games because they need an user name. It is funny to see her struggling to enter her username by franticly search the keyboard for "F", "I", "L" and so on, till writing her name "Filipa".
Even funnier was that after she log I tried to play her game, eventually showing off her how to do it. Fool of me. I could barely understand how to browse all those vivid color and objects in the screen: red balloons for the balloon game, black door for exiting, etc.
Our progenitor told me later that she had already completed all the assignments available on that game and she was waiting for me to install something new.
It seems new time I will have to install her something more difficult maybe some endless RPG or just give her the admin password for her to install whatever she likes...
This is to say, the world had changed and the big web is one of its reasons. Either you believe it or not.
Imagining how the future is a very creative mental exercise. You imagine things that do not exist and then put all the existing pieces together in order to make it happen.
I believe on internet and the browser. I do not believe on the hardware and its OS.
From my point of view (and not only), Internet will over take all other applications. We are/will edit our documents, store our music, use maps, contacts online. But not only: we will massify the use of heavy applications like ERPs, graphic and video editor programs.
The reason is simple: if we can have the same usability, look-n-feel and performance that a fat client can provide us on the most lightweigthed client that exists, the browser, why the well will I have to bother with installations, memory and hard drive problems and other technical problems.
The future of software applications is being twisted because of the massive internet infrastructure and by now nobody needs to wonder himself why Google was so keen on MS Office Engineers, or do you?
Happy comments,
TM
Update: During one of my reads on the FT I came across the gadget column. Check this Web OS : http://g.ho.st
The first computer I ever had was my fathers' Amstrad. It would run MS-DOS and read Floppy Disks of the size of my hand. I disassembled it and assembled it again several times and I am already wondering if one day I will take out from the garage and it will still be able to run its only application: Lotus.
My father had a Compaq using Win 3.1 which he was not keen on let me use it. The only thing he would let me do for many years was playing Solitaire and make drawings on the Paintbrush, someday he would let me print these drawings on the magnetic printer in black and white. I just hope someone kept one of this master pieces.
I finally convinced my father to buy me a personal computer, it was meant to come in Christmas Day but it did not arrived. Finally, by the end of February we bought it. A brand new Pentium II 300Mhz, what a blast! It even had a Voodoo Banshee VGA board to play The Sims I ou GTA II.
My home did not had a land line phone, so I had to install one on my name as no one at home wanted it, and so I did it.
I bought the famous Diamond Supra 56K and in the late 90's as you can imagine the internet was not very similar to what it is now. This modem was so good that one day I sold it for the same price I bought it but that's another story...
I did not bought my sister but eventually one day she showed up at home, she is smaller than the table kitchen but already owns a Centrino with Windows XP, which she uses to play her +4 rated games, while learning by try-and-error, to match letters with objects and all this amusing stuff made for her age.
I had to start with Alex Kid in the Miraculous World on my Master System which was far less didactic.
She doesn't know, by far, how to write down her name but we wrote her name in a board in capital letters and she copies it to log in her games because they need an user name. It is funny to see her struggling to enter her username by franticly search the keyboard for "F", "I", "L" and so on, till writing her name "Filipa".
Even funnier was that after she log I tried to play her game, eventually showing off her how to do it. Fool of me. I could barely understand how to browse all those vivid color and objects in the screen: red balloons for the balloon game, black door for exiting, etc.
Our progenitor told me later that she had already completed all the assignments available on that game and she was waiting for me to install something new.
It seems new time I will have to install her something more difficult maybe some endless RPG or just give her the admin password for her to install whatever she likes...
This is to say, the world had changed and the big web is one of its reasons. Either you believe it or not.
Imagining how the future is a very creative mental exercise. You imagine things that do not exist and then put all the existing pieces together in order to make it happen.
I believe on internet and the browser. I do not believe on the hardware and its OS.
From my point of view (and not only), Internet will over take all other applications. We are/will edit our documents, store our music, use maps, contacts online. But not only: we will massify the use of heavy applications like ERPs, graphic and video editor programs.
The reason is simple: if we can have the same usability, look-n-feel and performance that a fat client can provide us on the most lightweigthed client that exists, the browser, why the well will I have to bother with installations, memory and hard drive problems and other technical problems.
The future of software applications is being twisted because of the massive internet infrastructure and by now nobody needs to wonder himself why Google was so keen on MS Office Engineers, or do you?
Happy comments,
TM
Update: During one of my reads on the FT I came across the gadget column. Check this Web OS : http://g.ho.st
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Leisure time...
Whenever I have free time I spend it organizing my life...
That includes, most of the times, organizing my email accounts.
My GMail is so organized that it scares me a bit.
I will give this statistics:
10 Distinct Email Accounts :: bombing my default GMail account with emails;
14 Active Filters :: They automate and facilitate my control over my mailbox;
4 GTD Buckets :: A more complex approach for a To-Do list
IMAP Enabled :: Thunderbird as my email client to process emails when I am offline
800+ Contacts :: Over 800 different contacts gathered for a couple of years
20+ Mailing List Member :: I am an active member/admin on over 20 ML especially Google and Yahoo Groups
Right now: 18669 is the total numbers of emails and 1833 MB is the size of all that.
There is a lot of Spam / Social Networks / Whatever websites making my mailbox bigger everyday... but that is another story.
Cheers,
TM
That includes, most of the times, organizing my email accounts.
My GMail is so organized that it scares me a bit.
I will give this statistics:
10 Distinct Email Accounts :: bombing my default GMail account with emails;
14 Active Filters :: They automate and facilitate my control over my mailbox;
4 GTD Buckets :: A more complex approach for a To-Do list
IMAP Enabled :: Thunderbird as my email client to process emails when I am offline
800+ Contacts :: Over 800 different contacts gathered for a couple of years
20+ Mailing List Member :: I am an active member/admin on over 20 ML especially Google and Yahoo Groups
Right now: 18669 is the total numbers of emails and 1833 MB is the size of all that.
There is a lot of Spam / Social Networks / Whatever websites making my mailbox bigger everyday... but that is another story.
Cheers,
TM
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