Here´s to a great book (with a very good online preview).
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Wednesday, 11 June 2008
What a concept!
What a cool concept. It really goes beyond what has been designed so far. I wonder now what kind of fuel it will receive if it comes to be mass-produced. It is nevertheless a huge shift in the way of thinking and making a car and I find this shift to be fundamental in the design process. They just proved a car can be made different.
Found via 37 signals.
*
Que ideia fabulosa! Realmente, para quê chapa? A única dúvida que tenho é que tipo de combustível irá este carro usar, caso venha a ser produzido em massa.
A mudança do paradigma da construção de um carro é para mim uma das novidades mais importantes que este projecto traz ao mercado: as coisas podem fazer-se de maneira diferente e, acima de tudo, inovar é possível.
Via 37 signals.
Friday, 6 June 2008
Bolivia part II: Lake Titicaca
Blue skies like these? I´ve only seen them in Portugal. Really, there are no blue skies like in my home country but the ones in Lake Titicaca can come pretty close. I wonder if it is because there´s so little moisture in the air (the same happens in Portugal during the summer) or because the air is so thin. I don´t know but it just reminded me of home. But a cold, cold home.
The trip to Lake Titicaca started early. In the non-heated bus they gave us huge blankets to cover ourselves, which was a very good idea. We saw the break of dawn during our trip from La Paz and the sunrise behind the mountains was beautiful.
Falling asleep and waking up again we would have a different landscape. At a certain point, among all the dryness that describes the Andes in this place, there´s a huge sea. We know it´s a lake, but it is so big you cannot see its opposite shore.
The arrival point is Copacabana, a small town that serves those tourists that are travelling to or coming from Isla del Sol, the island in the middle of the lake.
In Copacabana there´s a beach that, albeit beautiful, smells like urine. Ant then there´s the strange (for this latitude and longitude) mudéjar-style church. If it weren´t for the sharp temperatures and the lack of oxygen in the air, I´d say - by looking at these pictures - that I was somewhere in the south or Portugal. But I guess I´m mentioning Portugal way more often than Copacabana or Bolivia, so I´ll stop comparing.
The main attraction of the church is the "Vírgen de Copacabana", but what I really liked the most is the beautifully sculpted wooden doors. They tell the story of the Vírgen´s sculptor in a way that looks like a cartoon. It touched my illustrator´s heart.
Isn´t the blue sky something special?
The clouds were what struck me the most - I felt like squeezing them.
We then took a boat to the island.
The landscapes were beautiful and, once again, reminded me of home. But I won´t get into that. The island was beautiful and the series of snowed peaks were visible in the distance, as a background to the crystal clean lake waters and the smaller hills on the lake´s shores. But not everything was perfect because we had to leave the island sooner than we would have wanted. That was something both of us didn´t enjoy much about the tour: we spent such a long time travelling and waiting for other travellers just be a couple of hours on the island. It felt too little time to actually see something.
It gave us enough time for this, though:
The trip to Lake Titicaca started early. In the non-heated bus they gave us huge blankets to cover ourselves, which was a very good idea. We saw the break of dawn during our trip from La Paz and the sunrise behind the mountains was beautiful.
Falling asleep and waking up again we would have a different landscape. At a certain point, among all the dryness that describes the Andes in this place, there´s a huge sea. We know it´s a lake, but it is so big you cannot see its opposite shore.
The arrival point is Copacabana, a small town that serves those tourists that are travelling to or coming from Isla del Sol, the island in the middle of the lake.
In Copacabana there´s a beach that, albeit beautiful, smells like urine. Ant then there´s the strange (for this latitude and longitude) mudéjar-style church. If it weren´t for the sharp temperatures and the lack of oxygen in the air, I´d say - by looking at these pictures - that I was somewhere in the south or Portugal. But I guess I´m mentioning Portugal way more often than Copacabana or Bolivia, so I´ll stop comparing.
The main attraction of the church is the "Vírgen de Copacabana", but what I really liked the most is the beautifully sculpted wooden doors. They tell the story of the Vírgen´s sculptor in a way that looks like a cartoon. It touched my illustrator´s heart.
Isn´t the blue sky something special?
The clouds were what struck me the most - I felt like squeezing them.We then took a boat to the island.
The landscapes were beautiful and, once again, reminded me of home. But I won´t get into that. The island was beautiful and the series of snowed peaks were visible in the distance, as a background to the crystal clean lake waters and the smaller hills on the lake´s shores. But not everything was perfect because we had to leave the island sooner than we would have wanted. That was something both of us didn´t enjoy much about the tour: we spent such a long time travelling and waiting for other travellers just be a couple of hours on the island. It felt too little time to actually see something.
It gave us enough time for this, though:
Thursday, 5 June 2008
Bolivia part I: La Paz
**
Para ler um relato da viagem em português, aqui está uma ligação para o meu outro blog.
**
Although this is more of a work blog, I cannot resist posting about it here because this trip to Bolivia was such an eye opening experience. I realise this is no touristic paradise for my fellow argentines but for us, europeans, Bolivia is an exotic treasure. It´s not "undiscovered" - but it certainly isn´t full of people covering the same beaten track. I´m sure there´s a lot more to Bolivia than what we saw in ten days - and certainly a huge amount of more "virgin" places, but the places we visited felt pretty unspoilt to us (specially compared to Argentina).
We flew from Buenos Aires to La Paz. The airport sits on a 4000m high plateau and the lack of oxigen is quite asphyxiating to people - like us - who just landed from sea level. You don´t notice it in the first few minutes, but once you try to lift your luggage from the luggage belt - then you know it. Heart racing, slight chest pain, heavy headache - that´s it.
After being delivered to our hotel our first stop was the chemist´s: "soroche" pills to counteract the effects of the very thin air. Then, food:
This ceviche was devoured way too fast for my camera, a bit like Lucky Luke. Then, the necessary mate de cocato help us breathe:
The next day we strolled down El Prado for a bit of the Sunday morning La Paz action. There was a fair with lots of kids playing and singing and people dancing. The ambiance was perfect. Nobody seemed to be suffering from "soroche" apart of us.
Then we started touring the city and went to the Valle de la Luna as well.
This last spot is a place where the andean rock is eroded in such a way that it feels like you´re on the moon, not on an earthly landscape. The cactuses bring us back to the earth but the lack of oxygen always makes you wonder where you really are.
No visit to La Paz is complete without a stop at Mercado de las Brujas, "Witches´ Market", where amazing things are available: silver and bolivianita - a local semi-precious stone - jewelry, alpaca sweaters and ponchos, fake-alpaca sweaters and ponchos, different souvenirs and, of course, lucky charms, llama foetuses and other goods that serve the adoration of Mother-Earth, Pachamama.
By the end of the day we were a bit more acclimatised. Still, the feeling of exhaustion sent us to bed early every single day.
Para ler um relato da viagem em português, aqui está uma ligação para o meu outro blog.
**
Although this is more of a work blog, I cannot resist posting about it here because this trip to Bolivia was such an eye opening experience. I realise this is no touristic paradise for my fellow argentines but for us, europeans, Bolivia is an exotic treasure. It´s not "undiscovered" - but it certainly isn´t full of people covering the same beaten track. I´m sure there´s a lot more to Bolivia than what we saw in ten days - and certainly a huge amount of more "virgin" places, but the places we visited felt pretty unspoilt to us (specially compared to Argentina).
We flew from Buenos Aires to La Paz. The airport sits on a 4000m high plateau and the lack of oxigen is quite asphyxiating to people - like us - who just landed from sea level. You don´t notice it in the first few minutes, but once you try to lift your luggage from the luggage belt - then you know it. Heart racing, slight chest pain, heavy headache - that´s it.
After being delivered to our hotel our first stop was the chemist´s: "soroche" pills to counteract the effects of the very thin air. Then, food:
This ceviche was devoured way too fast for my camera, a bit like Lucky Luke. Then, the necessary mate de cocato help us breathe:
The next day we strolled down El Prado for a bit of the Sunday morning La Paz action. There was a fair with lots of kids playing and singing and people dancing. The ambiance was perfect. Nobody seemed to be suffering from "soroche" apart of us.
Then we started touring the city and went to the Valle de la Luna as well.
This last spot is a place where the andean rock is eroded in such a way that it feels like you´re on the moon, not on an earthly landscape. The cactuses bring us back to the earth but the lack of oxygen always makes you wonder where you really are.
No visit to La Paz is complete without a stop at Mercado de las Brujas, "Witches´ Market", where amazing things are available: silver and bolivianita - a local semi-precious stone - jewelry, alpaca sweaters and ponchos, fake-alpaca sweaters and ponchos, different souvenirs and, of course, lucky charms, llama foetuses and other goods that serve the adoration of Mother-Earth, Pachamama.
By the end of the day we were a bit more acclimatised. Still, the feeling of exhaustion sent us to bed early every single day.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
On my desk today
On my desk today? Tea! I don´t know what I´d do without it. Well, it´s a rooibos infusion with orange and cinammon, but to keep it simple I just say "tea". I love to drink it all year round but when it´s cold outside it tastes better.
Also on my desk: my week planner. After coming back from Bolvia on Monday I´ve had too much to do and too little time to actually plan - it now works as a "to-do list". And I still prefer to write things down than having a little computer application with little noises. There´s nothing like ticking (with a real pencil) a done item, right? (Yes, I´m old-fashioned and tecnhology-impaired...)
Some quick sketches made in Bolivia and german class exercises. I had an oral presentation today and somehow feel that I am in "post-presentation" mode: I feel that rush of having accomplished a mission. I´m happy about it.
The rest of the work I´m on right now is basically computer based. Some doodles will be necessary in the next few minutes. I just love the doodling part.
Visit more desks through kootoyoo.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Back indeed
We´re back from Bolivia. So far I´ve managed to download photos and go through emails, answer the most urgent ones and reassure my parents about making it safely home (they weren´t concerned, really, they were at the movies when I called them).
More about Bolivia later this week. For now, a suitcase is still waiting for me. And dinner. And bed.
*
Voltámos da Bolívia. Correu tudo bem mas só vou conseguir escrever algum post sobre o assunto amanhã ou depois. Por agora, descarreguei as fotografias (muitas) e li e respondi aos emails mais urgentes. Ali no corredor, a meio caminho entre o daqui a pouco e o já vai, está uma mala para ser desfeita e arrumada.
Falta fazer o jantar. E ir dormir, porque hoje a alvorada foi cedo.
More about Bolivia later this week. For now, a suitcase is still waiting for me. And dinner. And bed.
*
Voltámos da Bolívia. Correu tudo bem mas só vou conseguir escrever algum post sobre o assunto amanhã ou depois. Por agora, descarreguei as fotografias (muitas) e li e respondi aos emails mais urgentes. Ali no corredor, a meio caminho entre o daqui a pouco e o já vai, está uma mala para ser desfeita e arrumada.
Falta fazer o jantar. E ir dormir, porque hoje a alvorada foi cedo.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
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