Strategy, development and knowledge
Rio de Janeiro thoroughly deserves its nickname, “Cidade Maravilhosa”. It truly is a wonderful city, where I spent two incredible months. It feels much cleaner and greener than São Paulo, with hills and mountains covered in dense vegetation everywhere, and a coastline of white sand and blue-green sea. As soon as I arrived in Rio, I felt a certain familiarity with the city that I could not explain.
This happened to me more than twenty years ago, when I visited Brazil. I have never told anyone and have tried to forget it, but I cannot. I suppose writing it down, describing it in as much detail as possible, might at least help me get it off my chest and make sense of it, even if that is impossible.
It was a Thursday, and my wife and I decided to visit Sugarloaf Mountain, which is a hill on the bay of Rio de Janeiro. The way to get there is by cable car from the Bondinho Park. From there, the cable car takes you to the first station on Morro da Urca, a smaller hill right next to Sugarloaf.
São Paulo welcomed us with cold weather, drizzle and darkness. For me, that is already an idyllic beginning to the story. I have a gothic streak. We did not technically arrive at night—it was 5:30 p.m.—but by then it is already dark during the austral winter.
Nydia and I are about to begin a New Era in our lives. That may sound overly dramatic; I could simply say that we are starting a new chapter in our story. I like to think of my personal history as divided into chapters, with the cities where I have lived marking distinct stages, each with its own character.
I'm writing to share my experience using local LLMs (Large Language Models) on a Mac, in case someone is wondering about their practicality, usability and if it's worth the hassle.
This happened in 1995, when I was seventeen. It was an ordinary Friday afternoon, and it was also Halloween. That was precisely why Felipe called: to invite me to a costume party that night.
The neurotic driver is the principal affliction of our cities. It is an undeniable, pervasive, everyday phenomenon. Judging by observation alone, I would venture that most people driving on the streets at any given moment are neurotic drivers.
I have come to the following realization. Life is a river, always moving, flowing, and changing. Inevitably, the river carries me along; it is impossible to swim against the current.
This explains the rise of idiots. How can people who are clearly idiots reach the top of companies, governments, and other fields? How did they get there? They arrived exactly as probability predicts—by chance.
I believe one of the greatest problems most people face is having little or no capacity for analysis. This does not necessarily stem from a low IQ but, in most cases, from simple mental laziness about questioning (1) the available information…
Bitcoin is many things—a cryptocurrency, a protocol, a network and a monetary system. Perhaps the easiest way to approach the subject is to describe briefly how it began and what purpose it was intended to serve.