From the progressive surfing series…

TECH from thegoods:CJ and Damien Hobgood on Vimeo.

Progressive Surfing

Happy 2010!

Happy 2010!

Quote of 2009

“If you can’t spare one hour of your day to do something you love, there really is something wrong in your life”

Bruno Fernandes

The Black Swan and the so-called specialists

If there’s one thing I really believe is that some “analysts” are very overrated.

In a discussion with a friend a few years ago, after he complained about some journalists who publish without being assured the information is correct and how it implies in sometimes hazardous consequences, I replied with the following question (he is an economist):

“What about those bunch of economists that annually wrongly predict GDP, value of a certain currency, inflation etc?”

Their accuracy record shows those are nothing but simply guesses. And wrong guesses that sometimes have great influence in our society behavior, the most of times in a bad way (panic).

Well, someone smarter and more articulated than I am had it written in a form of a briliant book, The Black Swan.

Read Nassim Taleb on his best on the following small excerpt:

“Our inability to predict in environments subjected to the Black Swan, coupled with a general lack of the awareness of this state of affairs, means that certain professionals, while believing they are experts, are in fact not. Based on their empirical record, they do not know more about theirs subject matter than the general population, but they are much better at narrating – or worse, at smoking you with complicated mathematical models. They are also more likely to wear a tie.”

Of course Taleb’s book is not only about that, is about randomness. Or, if you prefer, destiny, miracle, God or simply luck. Not matter what you call it, fact is that the Black Swan does exist.

Picture of the day

After 17 years without a National title, Flamengo is again the champion and Julia was able to catch it. Thanks to Maria Dunlop for the custom.

Sartre’s finest interpretation

Kind of old but remarkable anyways:

Or, if you want to listen this message renewed by young guns, there will go:

Adapt yourself

Jiu-Jitsu is so wonderful because it gives everyone, with different body constitution, speed, coordination, skills, strength etc the chance of developing the proper game for his own characteristics.

More than that, what makes Jiu-Jitsu even more amazing is that proper training for long time results in a development of a capacity of adaption in real time very needed in the real world and seldom found in any other “lab” of life.

As Rickson once compared it is like surfing a wave which doesn’t obey any pattern. It breaks without notice, it raises suddenly or it flats abruptly. To ride it would require a tremendous instantaneous adaptability. That’s what good Jiu-Jitsu is about.

The trick is how to take advantage of this ability Jiu-Jitsu gives to you on our daily basis. Such skill would prevent many problems in our society, especially in our times, in which a few years without adaption is capable to take a profit business into garbage.

Well, it seems that Time, Inc has a good Jiu-Jitsu teacher. Take a look into that:

Guavas again

I’ve already written that: My diet misses guavas. It is one of my favorites sweet fruits, and I blend it with watermelon juice or coconut water.

The problem is that it was really hard to find them here in the US.

Until I figured that it’s not that hard, at least at this season (Nov – Feb). Somehow I found this farm which sells fruits online. Today, after some inquires, and a very friendly customer service, my first order arrived.

I bought 5lbs of Mexican guavas and 5lbs of Asian guavas, just to try. They are delicious, specially the white ones (Asian, I guess). Eventually I will order much more and freeze it. And then I can hibernate without any fear of starving

Taking two I've eaten already, these are what left of my 5lbs of white guavas.

Julia

Julia. 6.78lbs. 18.5in