Personal stuff

The first text I am including here is the talk titled "You and Your Research" given by Richard Hamming at Bellcore, 7 March 1986. From time to time, other scientists look at this problem with their own perspective, like Uri Alon who recently wrote "How to choose a good scientific problem?"

The second text is the poem titled "Do not stand at my grave and weep" written by Mary Elizabeth Frye.

The third text is an excerpt of the book titled "The basic laws of human stupidity" written by Carlo M. Cipolla.

If you like famous quotes let's start by this one provided by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) in his "Discours de métaphysique": "Dieu a choisi celuy qui est le plus parfait, c'est a dire celuy qui est en même temps le plus simple en hypotheses et le plus riche en phenomenes" . An electronic version of the original "Discours de métaphysique" can be found, free of charge, at gallica or here.

Pythagoras of Samos: Everything is number, god is a mathematician.

Gregory Chaitin: Everything is a software, god is computer programmer; Understanding is compressing.

Saul Griffith: The universe is a compiler ... what are the programs?

Oliver Sacks said: To imagine is to see with our brain.

Liev Tolstoi said: Paint your village and you will paint the whole world.

In year 2008, the world has celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights has been accepted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 10, 1948. Here in Brazil we celebrate the 20th anniversary of our Citizen Constitution. The Citizen Constitution is the seventh brazilian constitution and has been promulgated October 5, 1988.

Occasionally, it is good to read caustic point of views like the one expressed by Arnaldo Jabor in one of his chronicles titled "Brasileiro é um povo solidário. Mentira. Brasileiro é babaca." or some good ironic texts like the one written by Clarice Zeitel Vianna Silva titled "Pátria Madastra Vil".

The poem titled "La Marioneta" has been fasely attributed to Gabriel Garcia Márquez. It seems that such poem was written by the Johnny Welch a mexican ventriloquist who wrote it for his puppet sidekick "Mofles". There are some criticisms about the poem itself as well as to its writer. However, independently who authored the poem we can read it to have our own opinion about it; I like it very much!

Song lyrics is also a form of poetry. One of my favorites songs is My Way which has been made famous worldwide by Frank Sinatra. Other very good songs are Why Try To Change Me Now and Blowin' in the wind. Occasionally, I write some texts that may be considered of some kind of raw poetry like the one I titled Eu quero as minhas.

By freely thinking about our current era one may come to the conclusion that "everything was better in the old days". Discardable electronic equipments, ephemeral song hits and the like contribute to the impression that what is modern does not last. Indeed this is fundamentally true since the future is inexorably ahead of us and transforms modern stuff into fusty and obsolete things.

Although using english in this page I value very much my native language. Here you may find a list of some texts I like

Good quotes help us to pay attention to what is really important. Here follows some quite good quotes from Albert Einstein, Dom Helder Câmara, Haniel Long, Washington Irving and others of unknown authorship.

I like reading very much. Here follows a list of some books I read.