almost 6 year ago (on the first of january 2007) i started taking an interest in the use of Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) as exterior lightening. I first noticed this use of this type op lightbulbs on a new years day stroll to the recently bombed out southern suburbs of Beirut. A large number shops [...]

the New York Times has a longish article portraying the Operations Center of the City of Rio that has been build by IBM’s smarter cities unit. In the article both the city of Rio de Janeiro and IBM portray the operations center as some kind of magic wand that enables the benevolent city government to [...]

one of the more notorious/famous places in São Paulo is the boutique department store (Villa) Daslu. According to wikipedia ‘the boutique is known as the ‘fashion designers mecca’ of Brazil as it houses more than 60 labels plus 30 store-in-stores and is the place where Brazilian socialites, ranging from multi-millionaire soccer players to conglomerate bigwigs [...]

the PiratbyrÃ¥n’s Rasmus Fleischer has a an extremely interesting essay titled ‘the future of copyright‘ in the current issue of CATO unbound (a monthly web-journal by the ‘we love limited government, individual liberty, free markets, and peace’ CATO institute). In ‘the future of copyright’ he argues that ‘neither the stabilization nor the abolition of the [...]

love this picture which i found when i was going through reports from the submidalogia#2 conference this morning: picture by criscabello. from what i can make up from his tags the picture was taken in Olinda in brazil and shows a mobile sound system used to campaign in the presidential elections (see the ‘lula e [...]

when i was in Argentinean Patagonia in january our host at the Estancia Monte Leon (by the way one of the most gorgeous places i have ever stayed in my life, totally worth the hefty price tag) told us that the penguins who hang out at the beach there in order to raise their kids [...]

I have blogged about public transport in São Paulo before and i have made some observations while traveling on the subway (called metrô by the locals) but being back in town i have realized that i have not really given enough credits to the metrô system itself. The system is absolutely amazing. at the moment [...]

i am in Rio right now, which is anything else than a shrinking city. i have no figures ready but i guess there is a table which shows Rio’s growth in the last decades somewhere in Mike Davis’ excellent ‘Planet of Slums‘ which i finished reading just before coming here. Now the lonely planet for [...]

this time in Rio de Janeiro but as much connected to football (or ‘futchibol’ – as the locals pronounce it, but the also call Michael Ballack ‘Ballaki’) as last time. brazil just lots the quarter final match against france and that led to an atmosphere of intense sadness in the streets (against the backdrop of [...]

one of the strange things here at the iSummit 2006 in Rio de Janeiro are the excessive amounts of hotel staff that seem to have no other function than to stand around and smile. seems like that after 2 days of conference somebody finally found something more useful for them to do and made them [...]