Bart Simpson's chalkboard

And this is the site where you can have Bart Simpson's chalkboard, instead.

Einstein's chalkboard

This is a site where you can create your own customized picture of Einstein's chalkboard, such as the one below:

Klagenfurt

I was in Innsbruck, Austria last month to present a tutorial (and two students' papers) at EuroIMSA 2008 conference. During that conference, I had the privilege of interacting with  Prof. Laszlo Böszörmenyi (who was the Keynote speaker) from Klagenfurt University, Austria, who invited me to spend a month teaching and working on research topics of common interest with his colleagues.

So, I'll be in beautiful Klagenfurt, from early May until some time in June, attending the 9th International Workshop on Image Analysis for Multimedia Interactive Services (WIAMIS 2008), teaching a guest course on Visual Information Retrieval, interacting with researchers and professors, and (hopefully) blogging from there...

VSS annual meeting

The annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society is coming up soon... and with it the the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest.

I had plans to attend it (for the first time) this year, but they changed (for very good reasons, see next post...).

50,000 coaches

WARNING: this post contains 75% recycled contents (from my old blog). 

As I work on populating this blog, I'm revisiting the posts from my older one that I believe would make sense here, and bringing them to this forum.

In this case, the post was about the movie "Akeelah and the Bee", which I've seen twice so far (once in theaters, later in DVD), and whose connections with teachers, students, and their achievements is quite self-evident.

One of my favorite parts is the scene where Akeelah’s mother tells her that she has 50,000 coaches to count on to prepare for her final challenge (the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.), and everyone around Akeelah starts acting accordingly, teaching, coaching, and encouraging her.

Among many other precious nuggets, a powerful quotation (read aloud by the main character, 11-year old Akeelah) comes from the book “A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles” by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? . . . We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

And, no, the final word she spelled was not “Frappuccino” (as Stephen Colbert — always faithful to truthiness as opposed to truth – suggested in his show, in a humorous reference to this movie being the first one heavily promoted by Starbucks)…

Campeonato de futebol de pelada

Meses após minha contratação como professor, o "Didi Pipoqueiro" (figura folclórica e querida do CEFET-PR) resolveu me convidar para jogar pelo time dele no Campeonato Interno de Futebol de Pelada. O raciocínio dele ao me convidar foi: "este menino tem 18-19 anos, fala o tempo todo de futebol (na época eu fazia parte da equipe do programa "Viva o Futebol" do saudoso Dirceu Graeser), é magrinho (acreditem...), portanto deve ser 'liso de bola' ".

Pois bem... Veio o primeiro jogo, entrei de titular, e depois de 3 ou 4 jogadas o Didi me chamou num canto do campo, me substituiu, e eu nunca mais joguei... A história durou anos, pois o Didi sempre que podia dizia para quem quisesse ouvir: "este aqui, fala um bolão, mas joga menos que o Anibal (inspetor de alunos, outra figura querida do CEFET, e no folclore do Didi, um notório 'perna-de-pau')."