24 outubro 2008

The Kind of Woman I Love


  • Love and cares about her family

  • Love her kids above anything in the world, and would do anything to protect them, and suffers with everything that her kids suffer

  • Care about friends, worry about them and always is there when they need. A kind of person that you know you can count on when you need.

  • Responsible and committed to her work. Always wants to do the best job possible, even when tired/annoyed/stressed she will be perfectionist, will worry about the quality of her work and the overall quality of the project.

  • Loves to teach and it's not affraid to transmit her knowledge, and will go way above the average-professor effort to help her students to really learn.

  • Has ambition without been greedy. She wants to grow, wants to go beyond the average-person-who-lives-an-average-life.

  • Is generous, will do her best to support others (be they friends or strangers)

  • Loves to travel, to know other cultures... to see that the world doesn't reduces itself to only this or that place, but to a myriad of cultures and mentalities

  • Loves to read.... believes that books can take you on a journey of mind and soul... and she won't discriminate a book, be it a bestseller or kids-book or anything... what matters is the story and how it's told

  • Loves music... feels that music makes a connection to a part in yourself deeper and profound, be it through its lyrics or through its music

  • Has character, values (which is something that it's really not that usual these days)

  • Is intelligent, a person with whom you can have conversations about many topics (from politics, to movies, to music, to books, to life, etc.)

  • Has a good sense of humor (and that doesn't come by easily, let me tell you)

  • Has integrity, wouldn't do anything against her principles, be it for money, for success, for a position, for anything

  • She is a heart-person, a romantic... one of those that will send small messages during the day just to make you feel better... that will send you letters of love... that will send you meaningful quotes to make you realize some truths that sometimes are upon your face but you can't see them.... that will go to a place, think about you and get something there to make you feel like you were there with her

  • She is sincere and won't tell you something just to please you (and that takes a lot of gut)... This is really important, because if one day you are blessed to hear she saying that she loves you, you will know it's true to the deepest of her heart

  • She can craft her gifts! It's not something that you just go out and buy without even really thinking about the person to whom you are buying it.... it takes heart, care and love to spend hours crafting a present to someone



Now tell me, wouldn't you love a person with these virtues too?


"I really dig how she walks around. It's like she doesn't care how she looks or what she projects and it's not that she doesn't care it's just, she's not affected I guess, and that gives her grace. And five; she does this thing in bed when she can't get to sleep, she kinda half moans and then rubs her feet together an equal number of times... it just kills me. Believe me, I mean, I could do a top five things about her that drive me crazy but it's just your garden variety women you know, schizo stuff and that's the kind of thing that got me here." (Rob Gordon in High Fidelity)

19 outubro 2008

Corcovado / Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars

Os que me conhecem bem sabem que um dos estilos musicais que mais me encanta é a bossa nova, com seu estilo "voz e violão". E quem melhor para representá-la do que o mestre Tom Jobim?

Dessa vez há uma pequena mudança no que normalmente faço com minhas "traduções", pois essa música já possuía uma versão em Inglês feita pelo próprio Tom Jobim, então eu nem ousaria tentar fazer uma tradução minha.


(English translation)
Those who know me well know that that one of the musical genres that most enchant me is bossa nova, with its voice-and-guitar style. And who better to represent it than the master Tom Jobim?

This time there is a little change on what I usually do with my "translations", because this song already had an English version written by Tom Jobim itself, then I wouldn't dare to try to make a translation of my own.



(Português)
Corcovado

Compositor: Antonio Carlos Jobim (Tom Jobim)


Um cantinho e um violão
Este amor, uma canção
Pra fazer feliz a quem se ama

Muita calma pra pensar
E ter tempo pra sonhar

Da janela vê-se o Corcovado
O Redentor que lindo

Quero a vida sempre assim com você perto de mim
Até o apagar da velha chama

E eu que era triste
Descrente deste mundo
Ao encontrar você eu conheci
O que é felicidade meu amor

O que é felicidade, o que é felicidade


(English)
Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)

Writer: Antonio Carlos Jobim (Tom Jobim)

Quiet nights of quiet stars
Quiet chords from my guitar
Floating on the silence that surrounds us.

Quiet thoughts and quiet dreams
Quiet walks by quiet streams
And a window that looks out on the mountains and the sea, how lovely

This is where I want to be
Here with you so close to me
Until the final flicker of life's ember.

I who was lost and lonely
Believing life was only
A bitter tragic joke,
Have found with you,
The meaning of existence, oh my love



Para finalizar, deixo-os com dois titãs da música de todos os tempos: Frank Sinatra e Tom Jobim.

To finish, I leave you with two music titans of all times: Frank Sinatra and Tom Jobim.



P.s.: Quer ouvir a música inteira (o Sinatra só canta metade dela)? Assista esse outro vídeo com o Marvin Gaye cantando-a. :)


P.s.: Do you want to hear the full song (Sinatra only sings half of it)? Watch this other video with Marvin Gaye singing it. :)

18 outubro 2008

Noites de Tormenta / Nights in Rodanthe

I thought I had seen pretty girls in my time
That was before I met you
I never saw one that I wanted for mine
That was before I met you
I thought I was swinging the world by its tail
And I thought that I could never be blue
I thought I'd been kissed and I thought I'd been loved
That was before I met you
They tell me that I must reap what I've sown
But I hope that that isn't true
For once I made plans for living alone
That was before I met you


"Before I Met You", performed by Jule Garrish, from the album "Nights In Rodanthe (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"


Tell me, a movie with Richard Gere and Diane Lane, based on a book by Nicholas Sparks and including this beautiful song that opens this post, how can it not be good?

This was supposed to be "São Paulo International Film Festival" week, but considering that the main sessions were already sold out a few days ago, Paulo and I decided that we would just ignore it and decided to go watch "Nights in Rodanthe".

Given the film's plot and lead actors (as mentioned above), the theater was composed by three kinds of groups:

  • Bunches of girlfriends

  • Happy couples

  • Paulo and I


I know, a movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, the same guy that wrote "The Notebook", "A Walk to Remember" and "Message in a Bottle", its a recipe for happy-sweet-and-life-changing moments alternated with damn-he-made-me-cry-again moments. And boy, he didn't disappoint us at all.

I won't say more about the movie because I don't want to spoil anyone's experience with it. The only thing I'll say is that if you saw other movies based on his novels and liked, then you should definitely go watch this one too.

Considering that I opened the post with a song, it's just fair that I also end it talking about the film's soundtrack, which is really good and can make you feel the movie. (I already bought the soundtrack and I'm enjoying it while I write this post)

Well, that's it for now. I hope you enjoy the movie if you go watch it, and if you already watched it or read the book, you're more than welcome to comment here. :)

P.s.: Sorry for the "English-only" post, but I was thinking too much in English today and was to lazy to translate it to Portuguese.

11 outubro 2008

Coração Vagabundo / Bum Heart

It's been a long time since my last lyrics "translation" (which means that is just me trying to adapt the lyrics of a song to English)

I really love this version of the song with Ana Cañas




So here goes the lyrics:


Bum Heart

My heart never tires
On having hope
Of one day been all it wants

My heart of child
Isn't only the memory
Of a happy woman figure

That passed through my dreams
Without saying goodbye
And has made of my eyes
An endless cry

My bum heart
Wants to keep the world
In me

My bum heart
Wants to keep the world
In me



Essa é a versão original da música (This is the original version of the song)

Meu coração não se cansa
De ter esperança
De um dia ser tudo o que quer

Meu coração de criança
Não é só a lembrança
De um vulto feliz de mulher

Que passou por meus sonhos
Sem dizer adeus
E fez dos olhos meus
Um chorar mais sem fim

Meu coração vagabundo
Quer guardar o mundo
Em mim

Meu coração vagabundo
Quer guardar o mundo
Em mim

07 outubro 2008

TED Talks For All (Update!) / Palestras do TED Para Todos (Atualização!)

Update: As I promised earlier, I just got this comment from Marconi that I'll translate here

Léo,

I have contacts inside TED and I forwarded this to them. They loved it and are developing the 2009 website with this functionality.

A big hug!
Marconi



Atualização: Como prometido, acabei de receber o seguinte comentário do Marconi

Léo,
eu tenho contatos dentro do TED e dei forward para eles. Eles ficaram amarradões e estão preparando o website para 2009 com essa facilidade.

Forte abraço!
Marconi



Cheers! Aeeee! Yaaay! Gracias! Obrigado! Thank you! Danke! Merci! Grazie!

TED Talks For All / Palestras do TED Para Todos

(Inglês)
Bellow you'll find the email that I sent to TED.com about adding subtitles to their videos and the importance of this. After the English (original) version, comes the Portuguese (translated) version. I would love to hear your opinion on this after you read the email.


(Portuguese)
Abaixo vocês podem ver o email que eu enviei para o TED.com sobre adicionar legendas aos seus vídeos e a importância disso. Depois da versão em Inglês (original), vem a versão em Português (traduzida). Adoraria ouvir a opinião de vocês sobre isso após lerem o email.



(Inglês)
Hi guys!

First of all, congratulations on this amazing conference and, above all, on making all this extraordinary content available to everyone through TED.com.

And since we're talking about the "available to everyone" subject, I've given some thought about it recently and realized that so far what this really means is "available to everyone that speaks English".

I started to think about this when I was discussing with my parents about some of the talks that I had watched on my way to their house (thanks for the podcasts, btw!), and my mom got really interested on them, specially on the possibility to use some of these talks at her classes (she teaches teenagers that come mostly from poor families about Personal Marketing, Finance, etc - but most of all, she teaches them about "life"). But one thing that prevents her from doing this nowadays is that all this content is available only in English, while both my mom and her students speak only Portuguese.

I strongly believe that all these talks would be of immense help/support across all world, and it would be much easier to disseminate this ideas if the content was available also in other languages.

My idea is that you enable on TED.com the possibility for people (could be just registered users) to add subtitles to the videos, in a very web 2.0/collaborative way. I mean, with just one person doing the English transcript + sync, all the others could just translate it to dozen other languages very quickly and easily. I mean, if a Heroes/Lost/24 episode can have transcript/sync + translations for dozen languages in less than 24 hours after the episode was aired on US tv, why couldn't TED talks have the same feverish users/supporters?

In fact, when I saw this post here today (http://blog.ted.com/2008/10/james_nachtweys_1.php), for me it just confirmed that this is a current need that would be very well received by the users, and at the same time enabling more people to get in contact with this amazing content.

So, to sum up everything, my ideal world of "features" would be:

- have the ability to create/edit an English transcript of any talk (with some history/version control, allowing you to go back to a previous version, pretty much like in a wiki page)
- have the ability to sync/edit any English transcript available
- have the ability to create/edit a translation from any "synced" English transcript to another language (there should be only one "main" translation for each language)
- have the ability to choose subtitles, when watching the video, in any of the translated languages created by the users
- have the ability to download the video + its subtitle in different languages (even if it was in a separate file, like a .srt file, for example)


I work with technology and know that things like this don't get done overnight, but I can promise you that with a feature like this, the site would increase its reach immensely.

Thank you very much for your time (and sorry for the really long message, I've a hard time to be concise sometimes).

Best,
Leo



(Portuguese)
Olá pessoal!

Primeiramente, parabéns por essa conferência incrível e, acima de tudo, por tornar todo esse conteúdo extraordinário disponível para todos através do TED.com.

E já que nós estamos falando sobre o assunto "disponível para todos", eu andei pensando sobre isso recentemente e percebi que até o momento o que isso significa realmente é "disponível para todos que falam Inglês".

Comecei a pensar sobre isso quando estava discutindo com meus pais sobre algumas das palestras que eu havia assistido a caminho da casa deles (a propósito, obrigado pelos podcasts!), e minha mãe ficou realmente interessada nelas, especialmente na possibilidade de usar algumas dessas palestras em suas aulas (ela ensina adolescentes oriundos principalmente de famílias pobres sobre Marketing Pessoal, Finanças, etc - mas acima de tudo, ela ensina-os sobre a "vida"). Mas uma coisa que a impede de fazer isso atualmente é o fato de que todo esse conteúdo está disponível somente em Inglês, enquanto que tanto a minha mãe quanto seus estudantes falam somente Português.

Eu realmente acredito que todas essas palestras seriam de imensa ajuda/apoio ao redor do mundo, e que seria muito mais fácil disseminar essas idéias se o conteúdo estivesse disponível também em outros idiomas.

Minha idéia é de que seja habilitada no TED.com a possibilidade para as pessoas (poderia ser somente para usuários registrados) de adicionar legendas para os vídeos, de uma maneira bem web 2.0/colaborativa. O que quero dizer é, se um episódio de Heroes/Lost/24Horas pode ter uma transcrição/sincronização + traduções em diversos idiomas em menos de 24 horas depois do episódio ter ido ao ar na tv americana, por que as palestras do TED não podem ter o mesmo tipo de usuários/apoiadores febris?

De fato, quando vi esse post aqui hoje (http://blog.ted.com/2008/10/james_nachtweys_1.php), para mim ele apenas confirmou que essa é uma necessidade atual que seria muito bem recebida pelos usuários, e ao mesmo tempo possibilitaria mais pessoas a entrar em contato com esse conteúdo incrível.

Sendo assim, para resumir tudo, meu mundo ideal de "funcionalidades" seria:

- ter a possibilidade de criar/editar uma transcrição em Inglês de qualquer palestra (com algum controle de histórico/versão, possibilitando vocês a voltar para uma versão anterior, da mesma maneira que ocorre em uma página wiki)
- ter a possibilidade de fazer a sincronização/edição de qualquer transcrição em Inglês disponível
- ter a possibilidade de criar/editar uma tradução para outro idioma a partir de qualquer transcrição em Inglês já sincronizada (deveria haver somente uma tradução "principal" para cada idioma)
- ter a possibilidade de escolher legendas, quando estiver assistindo aos vídeos, em qualquer um dos idiomas traduzidos pelos usuários
- ter a possibilidade de baixar o vídeo + sua legenda em diferentes idiomas (mesmo que seja em um arquivo separado, como um arquivo .srt, por exemplo)


Eu trabalho com tecnologia e sei que coisas assim não são feitas de um dia pro outro, mas garanto a vocês que com uma funcionalidade como essa, o site aumentaria seu alcance imensamente.

Muito obrigado pelo seu tempo (e desculpe pela mensagem realmente longa, eu tenho uma certa dificuldade para ser conciso algumas vezes).

Obrigado,
Leo




Note: As soon as I get any reply from TED.com I'll post it here at the blog.

Nota: Assim que eu tiver alguma resposta do TED.com colocarei-a aqui no blog.


Update: As I promised earlier, I just got this comment from Marconi that I'll translate here

Léo,

I have contacts inside TED and I forwarded this to them. They loved it and are developing the 2009 website with this functionality.

A big hug!
Marconi



Atualização: Como prometido, acabei de receber o seguinte comentário do Marconi

Léo,
eu tenho contatos dentro do TED e dei forward para eles. Eles ficaram amarradões e estão preparando o website para 2009 com essa facilidade.

Forte abraço!
Marconi



Cheers! Aeeee! Yaaay! Gracias! Obrigado! Thank you! Danke! Merci! Grazie!