sweet.
I don’t have time to do a full post, so this is going to be more along the lines of a random collection of thoughts.
1. Fulbright seminar = way cooler than I was expecting. Cool projects, supercool people. And oh yeah, definitely already planning my next set of trips. Salvador. Recife. Fortaleza. Sao Paulo. Buenos Aires?
2. Sanjaya = finally gone from American Idol. Too bad — headlines like “Sanjaya’s Idol run not India’s fault” are some of the better ones I’ve seen recently.
3. Cheddarvision. Deserves its own post.
4. Montevideo: absolutely adorable city. A smaller, cuter, less crazy version of Buenos Aires (only unfortunate thing is also fewer places to hang out at night). They have mate. They have the Rio de la Plata. They have reasonable prices. They have dulce de leche. They “sh” their “ll’s”. They mullet their hair. Need I say more?
Categories: random
Welcome to Porto Alegre and the 8th Foro Internacional de Software Livre, or FISL (pronounced FEEZ-lee), a gathering of thousands of free software enthusiasts, the ultimate geek networking event, and one of only two places I’ve been anywhere in the world where there’s never a line for the ladies’ room. (in case you were wondering, the other was Phoenix Landing in Boston during Sunday morning Arsenal games). I’ve spent the last three days attending talks, running into old free culture contacts, meeting tons of new people, and trying not to let anyone see that my computer still runs on *gasp* Windows 2000 Office.
Porto Alegre is a nice city, seemingly laid-back and big into gaucho (cowboy) culture, with enough german (meaning blond) immigration that I might almost be able to pass for Brazilian, as long as I don’t open my mouth. It’s a smallish city, with gently rolling hills, rivers but no real beaches, and lots of brightly colored buildings that remind me of the way I think Miami might look, if I remembered it at all. But it got me thinking about how badly I need to get out of the cities in general. Not because I don’t like them — living in big metropoli has definitely grown on me — but because in a place like this, or on the tiled sidewalks of Rio de Janeiro’s Zona Sul, it’s too easy to completely forget that paved streets and tidy apartment buildings are nowhere near the reality for much of Brazil’s population. Strangely, when I’m in Rio, going to Rocinha is a way for me to escape the hype — seedy, tourist-infested Copacabana, self-consciously hip Ipanema, and classy and exclusive Leblon (maybe that was harsh — I like Zona Sul, I swear!). But the only time I’ve ever seen the Brazilian countryside is on the bus between Rio to Sao Paulo the first time I visited. And technically, I slept for almost the entire bus ride.
But back to Porto Alegre: partially because I was feeling adventurous and partially because I was feeling cheap (bizarrely, hotels aren’t counted as “travel expenses” for my stipend) I took the Hospitality Club plunge and at the last minute decided to ditch my hotel and stay with a girl and her family who I met through the site. I admit that I was a little nervous, but it’s been a really good experience — the family is great and it’s been a blast getting to hang out with locals instead of haunting the hotel restaurant (well, okay — I’ve been at the conference from early til late every day except the first day I was here. But still). The only thing is that I forgot how “cold” 73 degrees feels when you haven’t had a day below 82 in almost 2 months.
Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to be braving even more extreme temperatures — I hear it’s gotten down to the low 60s(!) in Montevideo, Uruguay, where I’ll be spending the next week at a meetup of Latin American Fulbrighters. I’m excited to go to Uruguay, even though I’m not thrilled about the format of the meeting: a solid week of 20-minute PowerPoint presentations is not something I tend to look forward to. But on the bright side, it will be awesome to meet other people doing work in the region, I’ll get to talk some espanol (or try), and you can be absolutely sure I’ll take full advantage of the opportunity to drink some real, non-Parmalat milk.
I admit that when I first heard about Gmail I was as creeped out as these people. Little bots combing through everything I wrote or received so they could figure out what ads I would actually click on? Having Google being able to keep my information indefinitely on its servers? No, I’m not part of any evil plot, and I’m not planning to join one anytime soon. I don’t have any desire to run for political office. (Although that’s the kind of thing that people claim right up to the minute they announce their candidacy. If I do an about-face like that, I give you blanket permission to remix that last sentence into whatever form you feel is appropriate to mock me. Or just hit me on the head and spare me years of politics-induced misery.) But I do know how fundamentally naive it is to assume that “if you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about.”
Among other things, the “privacy worries are for bad guys” argument assumes that you can count on the government to be the good guy — that even if the giant, profit-driven corporation makes a bad (or un-Google-motto-like, a.k.a. “evil”) decision, someone will have your back. Hanging out in places where that protective mechanism has gone horribly, frighteningly wrong in the not-so-distant past is a wake up call. Call me paranoid, but there’s a lot to be said for privacy, anonymity, and having ways to communicate that aren’t permanently archived, easily searchable, and can’t be re-posted with a simple cut-and-paste. (or worse, posted on YouTube — and yes, the link goes to the “Impossible is Nothing” video, not because it proves my point but because I had to put it up somewhere…)
But… I caved. I like Gmail. Storage capacity? good to go. Tags? check. And I have to admit that the ads are off-the-mark enough that they are actually more amusing than creepy. That’s actually the reason for this seemingly random post — I got to thinking this morning, when trying to check my email and noticing some pretty funny ad-email combinations. My email’s down right now, so I can’t find the best examples (are we sensing a recent theme?). But it gives me hope that even Google, which has the best ad-matching system on the web, still thinks that the word “holly” in my email means that I’m interested in Holly Springs Real Estate.
The only reason I’m not already sick of the 2008 presidential campaign is because it is becoming clear that the smart use of interactive technology will matter here like never before. Yes, I know we had Dean in 2004, and there were those “This Land is Your Land”-style parodies floating around. But internet capers this year have moved from the exception to the rule. In the past couple of months we’ve seen John Edwards trying (maybe too hard?) to establish a hip online presence, John McCain’s Myspace page get embarassingly hacked, the anti-Hillary 1984 remix ad, and many more examples of candidates, political groups, and grassroots activists engaging (or trying to engage) new technologies. One of the most interesting things happening online in that regard, I think, is a series of 3 ‘virtual town hall meetings’ from MoveOn.org: the first is tomorrow evening (April 10th), with some huge names — Clinton, Obama, Edwards, Richardson, Kucinich, and Biden — talking about Iraq.
This was intended to be a post with lots of hyperlinks, but that will have to wait — I’ll put the linked version up when my internet connection improves enough to let me write two consecutive sentences without re-entering my password. Ah, the bittersweet reminders that you don’t realize how amazing it is to be able to talk about the content rather than the functionality of the internet, until you don’t have that functionality anymore…
[update: hyperlinks added 04/10]
If there’s one thing that sold me on this apartment, it was that I’d be able to do what I’m doing now: typing this while looking out on Rio by night. I’m 13 stories up, one more if you count the last rickety metal staircase that leads from our veranda to the roof deck, facing the calm lights of Santa Teresa (a picturesque, bohemian, very un-Rio-like neighborhood) and watching the cars roll down Largo do Machado.
Rio is not quiet, even by night and several stories up from the street. This is true at any time, but especially true early on a Saturday evening, when people are gearing up to go out and bars blare music to attract the first early patrons. There’s street noise, and sky noise from the airplanes landing somewhere around. There’s music, funny unidentified noises (I swear I keep hallucinating that my cellphone is ringing), and I just heard a few sharp pops that could have been a car backfiring, or hidden firecrackers, or gunshots — hard to be sure. I still haven’t gotten used to the hours here, and since I’m not planning on spending my entire day tomorrow baking in the sun (silly me…), I’ll probably end up wishing I had taken a siesta (sesta) instead of writing this.
For the first time in almost a year I am no longer living out of a suitcase. It’s a little strange to think that I’ll be here for 9 months — until December. It seems like such a long time to spend in one place. But Rio is fascinating, and complex, and every time I think I understand how things work here something happens to remind me that there’s still more stuff worth knowing. I’ve been here a bit over a month now, and I know I’m just getting started.
And I love the apartment, in spite of the fact that parts of it are a little run-down, the walls are a rather awful peachy color, and the only light switch in my bedroom is located across the room from the door and exactly 14 inches from the ground. This view is why. The Christ on my left, weirdly white as always, hills and apartment buildings all around, Sugar Loaf behind me if I bothered to turn around to look, and the rabbit scurrying across a nearly full mooon. 9 months? Bring it on.
