mvalente.eu/mv.* Heavy Mental Stuff

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mfvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: Ferias e Leituras
Date: Thu, 02 Jul 09 00:32:21 GMT

Grandes ferias. Ha mais de 20 anos que nao tinha umas
ferias em que me sentisse tao bem e me divertisse tanto.
Nem as ferias que tirei da Esoterica em 1997 batem estes
ultimos 15 dias. As grandes melhorias na minha saude e
nas perspectivas futuras tambem devem ter ajudado…

Como e habitual levei, para alem do MP3 (nao, nao e um
iPhod), varios livros. Nao os li todos. Ja nao tenho o
mesmo andamento e tambem ja nao tenho problemas em dormir
ou adormecer, o que diminui o tempo de leitura.

Entre os que li, vale a pena referir tres. Sao livros
esclarecedores, geniais, com uma perspectiva seria e
realista das coisas, do que se passa no mundo, em Portugal
e na politica. Sem grandes comentarios, aqui vao:

“Salazar: pensamento e doutrina politica”
http://is.gd/1kVWX
http://www.wook.pt/ficha/salazar/a/id/192829

“Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fortune-Bottom-Pyramid-Eradicating-Poverty/dp/0131877291/

“Supercapitalism: The Battle for Democracy in an Age of Big Business”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Supercapitalism-Battle-Democracy-Age-Business/dp/1848310463/

Vale a pena um caricato excerto do primeiro:

“Vi num estudo que a ponte tinha o meu nome, e isso nao pode ser
Se nao ha melhor e chamar-lhe Ponte de Lisboa.

As letras estao fundidas no bronze ou aparafusadas?
E que se estao fundidas vao dar mais trabalho a arrancar.

Os nomes de politicos so devem ser dados a monumentos e obras
publicas cem ou duzentos anos depois da sua morte.

O meu nome ainda ha-de ser retirado da ponte e, por causa do que
agora se fez, os senhores vao ter problemas.”

Agosto, 1966

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mfvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: I Need a Holiday
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 09 00:42:21 GMT

After more than a year at home, doing nothing except playing Open
Arena (oh, and doing a Master thesis, a business plan and some fun
consulting gigs), I’m looking forward to go on holiday. I’m not the
“beach-and-sun” sort of guy, but I can remember another summer 12
years ago where all I wanted was to leave the previous gig behind and
go and charge batteries for the upcoming 3-5 year battle. This time I
hope to make it at least a 10 year stint.

http://maverick.pt/
http://seedcapital.pt/

Things are coming along (although no cheques were written yet :) and
I expect to have everything in place in the first 2 weeks of July so I
can start kickin ass and takin names.

Just an hour ago I came across yet another article validating where
I’m heading for the years ahead:

http://www.qrimp.com/blog/blog.How-Venture-Capital-will-change—and-Soon.html

I especially liked this paragraph:

“In the past, Venture capital relied on ideas bubbling up from the entrepreneurs,
but this is the wrong approach. The Venture Capitalists are the ones with their
eyes on the market. What venture capitalists need are small teams of 5 to 10 people
who can take an idea, implement it, push it out to the world, and see what happens.
If it doesn’t take off, move on to the next idea — with the same team — immediately.”

So, like I said before http://ff.im/3WOFI , lets hope the weather is nice
during next week somewhere http://is.gd/11bJi close http://is.gd/C0B5 and the
week after http://is.gd/11byy further away http://is.gd/C0C4

I’m taking my guitar with me to see if I can learn to play this song,
this version, which seems strangely (or not) adequate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efZzYBMDxv0

(even the nose profile at the end…)

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mfvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: CoffeePie, Python to Javascript Converter… Sort Of…
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 09 00:47:21 GMT

And while scavenging for the TwitTV hack, I also found last
summer’s “convert Python to Javascript” hack, named CoffeePie…

http://mv.asterisco.pt/Projects/CoffeePie/

I might just get to it during the coming 2 weeks at the beach,
I was always into parsers and compilers.

— MV

Path: mv.asterisco.pt!mvalente
From: mfvale…@gmail.com (Mario Valente)
Newsgroups: mv
Subject: TwitTV
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 09 23:47:21 GMT

The recent fight between http://twitvid.io/ and http://www.twitvid.com/
reminded me that during summer last year (2008) me and a couple of
geeks hacked something similar and put it up within 1 or 2 weeks.

I got some time free before going on holiday so I took the time to
find the sources and put it up online again.

Without further ado:

http://mv.asterisco.pt/Projects/twittv/

— MV