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SmartyFella Michael Zack Bike Blog Post from South America

August 27, 2015 by Michael Zack Leave a Comment

A special thank you to SmartyFella Eric Hamaoui for the previous travel guest post from Europe.

While our indie production team attended the Silicon Valley Bike Summit for part 2 of our Emerging Transportation documentary, our South America bike correspondent gives us another travel narrative. Welcome back, SmartyFella Michael Zack! In honor of National Dog Day, here’s a puppy picture first.

South America Bicycle Blog Michael Zack

Photo Credit: Michael Zack’s Bike “Wolf” and dog “Tara”

My Wolf, carrying the “Moça Dourada” statue, makes it home safely; welcomed by Tara, our Pastor Alemão.  “Tara will never be hungry again!”
My friend Renee asked me to send some bike photos for her blog.  If only I had a camera there would be so much to send; I see cool bike things daily.

 

I was once an aspiring photographer, going so far as spending a year at junior college photography school.  But my temperament was very restless at the time; and by the time I had moved my photography equipment into the Washington Heights apartment of an actress who was about to premier her one-woman Broadway bound musical, a Jewish female version of Charles Bukowski’s Bar Fly, my cameras were seeing little use, (although I did capture Lady Bunny at Wigstock, when it was still in Tompkins Square Park), and I was downtown all day expediting building permits for Helen Frankenthaler’s remodel of her Carnegie Hill brownstone, I had lost my creative drive.

 

New York, it’s often described as the concrete jungle where you see stars in the street, but not in the sky.  I never did meet Helen Frankenthaler, the great Abstract Expressionist, but years later I did walk past her secret unmarked grave on a Bennington College hillside.  She is as abstract in death as in her art, I guess we could say.

 

However bright my hopes for a new NYC life were burning, with my roommate’s  decade-long gestation about to sparkle off-off-Broadway (the “Plan B” after a lifetime gig on Tina & Tony’s Wedding didn’t pan out, as I always recall when I see it STILL advertised in the NYTimes), I was making my home one day, walking past the carcasses of the cars lining the streets upper Manhattan in random degrees of dismemberment (greasy men where always leaning under the hoods “collecting” parts), I found the apartment door ajar, the place ransacked for anything worth taking, and my one-ticket out of Miss Bar Fly’s apartment stamped.  It was official, I was not going to be a photographer.

 

Being two middle-class kids making it in the city there was stuff to take, digital alarm clocks, a blender, her luggage, my cameras.  I was blamed for the robbery, because I had brought a trick home the previous week. But I still think it was the building superintendent, because SHE gave him the keys to do something in the apartment that week, too.  But I did put a suspicion over my head (he told me he was a Dr. from New Jersey, but who really knows), and I moved to the unfashionable side of Williamsburg, the Italian side.

 

I’m a fatalist, so that ended my interest in photography.

 

Actually, this was 1989 and at that time, all of Williamsburg was unfashionable.  No self-respecting Italians would live there, but I was endlessly fascinated seeing the neighborhood white women rounding up the all the kids in the afternoon, grabbing a baseball bat, and go around marauding through the neighborhood scaring someone (I never did see) out of “nostra” neighborhood. It was kind of like a Mickey Mouse Club for the Misguided. Our African-American friends were always attacked coming to visit us in that neighborhood.

 

I didn’t miss those cameras, but I really should have photographed those women, now that I think of it.

 

I have had no camera, since 1989. I do remember in the mid-nineties buying those plastic disposable 35mm cameras though.  I like those.

 

Coupled to that, I lost my cell phone and have been cell-free since last Carnival Tuesday when I jumped into a cab with a friend to go visit her friend, who runs a bar in front of her house, who took some time during our visit to do lines of coke on the counter.  Counter, not the Bar, I guess you have to wait until after closing to see that.

 

I’m nervous around coke, I associate it with impending bankruptcy.

 

I’m nervous enough without coke, so it’s nothing I want to try a 2nd time. The first time I tried it, a very cool Hep Cat Jazz Bass Player at one of the cooler Michigan State Co-Op Houses shared a line.  My heart beat so fast I thought I was going to die.  I was really concerned, for a minute or two.
I don’t know, the next day my cell phone was gone, I didn’t bother to look for it.  It was a sign of fate.

 

So I went cell-free.

 

I hope to buy a tablet some day.

So when Renee told me about her bicycle blog, I immediately wanted to share photos of all the cool bicycling people, the bicycle things I see in Goiânia, Brazil, a city where the 1st world meets the 5th, a tropical Dallas where millionaire farmers live in penthouses, where bicycles are great cheap transportation for people and cargo.

Michael & Thiago

Photo Credit: Odilon Vasconcelos Writer Michael Zack & Downhill Bicyclist Thiago

 

The way Critical Mass and SF Bike Coalition parties made bicycling an ethnic/gang thing in San Francisco, I can see the same increase here in camaraderie amongst bicyclists, and with our friend riding inside cars.  I can see that happening here.  Sunday Streets is here, too.

 

Goiânia used to be a motorcycle city, and it still is (as you see lots of people limping around with metal cages with pins drilled into their legs to show it), but more and more people have either cars or bicycles.  I think the percentage of Motorcycles to cars is going down, and motorcycles to bicycles is way down.    Bicycling has exploded in the last 10 years, with so many good bike shops opening.  A front-page newspaper article I saw the other day read (I think, my Portuguese is weak) that by cycling you can save 500 bucks a month, and that is the reason bicycling is becoming practically the only good option a lot of people have. If you have to take 3 or 4 buses to get to work and pay $3.30 each ride, with no free transfer except at terminals, and no monthly discount pass, riding a bike starts to make a lot of sense.  The buses are a private thing, who knows where the money goes.  Brazilians don’t know how anything works, they just know it works badly, so what’re you going to do?  So that’s the way it is; co-incidentally similar to the arrangement Catholics have with The Church, “Who’s to know, who’s to say?”

 

Folks will transport almost anything on a bicycle here; including a whole family if need be, or it’s Sunday.  Yesterday, I pedaled past a guy carrying tall wood cabinet strapped on the back, vertically. That’s very top heavy.  He looked very proud, “bummer, no camera”, I was thinking to myself, but gave him a Goiano thumbs up,   “bem feito cara”

 

Groceries are delivered by bicycle; grocery cargo bikes are very cool and I am  saving up for one.

 

I have been living without a car, doing my daily commuting across the city by bicycle (or by bus when it’s raining) and transporting almost everything on the back of my bike, in orange panniers. People ask me where I get my panniers, ALL THE TIME.

 

As Renee is a long time friend I first met in MBA class I know she will indulge and appreciate the following. A tip for all you entrepreneurs out there, a word for you Kid – “Panniers”.

 

I might not have a hot body, but I’ve got some great Panniers, orange and old (like The Donald), and they get a lot of positive attention, and people ask where I got them, and I tell them I think they made it here from Os Estados Unidos.   If I was going to start a bike line, I would start with a great bike bag/pannier. Maybe in denim.  The bike messenger bag will never go out of style. Denim too, for that matter.

 

This past month, I carried 8 foot lengths of steel rebar to build a stone wall, a 20 kilo bag of dog food, and a golden statue of a woman, on my bike
I love bicycling, riding through the balmy air; but in truth it’s an economic necessity, and it’s also often faster than driving would be, because I weave through traffic, go through red-lights, jump on the sidewalk when need be.

 

My favorite bike advantage: riding against one-way traffic.

 

I’m cool because I am a cell-phone free, iWatch free Bicyclist. When I’m out in the city, nobody can F’in call me -to paraphrase Faye Dunaway in Barfly.

 

 
 
Moca DouradaPhoto: Odilon Vasconcelos Golden Lady – The “Moça Dourada”

Tour of Europe Guide by Eric Hamaoui in Gelato Travel Photos

August 21, 2015 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

SmartyFella Eric Hamaoui contributed these travel photos of his recent trip to Europe. What makes these photos uncommon? Much like SmartyFella Phillip Tau, Eric shares an uncommon habit when on travel.

 

Phillip suggested breaking away from your phone to make friends while on business travel.

 

Eric suggests a radically refreshing way to get to know a city: get lost and eat gelato. It’s the SmartyFella way to Tour Europe!

 

Editor-in-Chief Renee Marchol met Eric Hamaoui the same way she met Intern Blaine Brount. They were colleagues working promotional campaigns for video game launches.

 

Here’s some life advice through 5 editor-picked travel photos:

 

Madrid Spain Tour Guide Travel

Photo Credit: Eric Hamoui Madrid Spain

 

 

Don’t sweat it when you miss the connection to a tour, join hostel friends see the city on foot. Create your own self-directed tour with new friends.

 

Vatican Europe Travel

Photo Credit: Eric Hamaoui Vatican

 

 

When lost, find food. Some of the best gelato can be found within the walls of the Vatican city.

 

Take it easy. Don’t let your vacation or a conventional tour guide hurry you.

 

When you walk you’ll  find hidden gems.

 

 

Eric Hamaoui Travel Florence Italy

Photo Credit: Eric Hamaoui Florence Italy Lemon Gelato Ice Travel

 

Europe Travel Pisa Tower Eric Hamoui

Photo Credit: Travel Pisa Tower Europe Eric Hamaoui

 

Tour Guide Europe Switzerland Gelato

Photo Credit: Eric Hamaoui Switzerland Travel

Treat yourself to gelato when visiting Lago de Luganu even if it costs 7 Euros.

For a review of the best, hidden hostels for travelers who love gelato try your luck and send a Facebook friend request to SmartyFella Eric Hamaoui here.

 

europe travel guide smartyfella

Photo Credit: Cousins Eric & Michael Hamoui in Europe

Women in Tech Interactive Artist Regina Larre Campuzano Part 1 of 2

August 19, 2015 by Renee Marchol Leave a Comment

Our Editor-in-Chief Renee Marchol comes from a musical family. Well more accurately a music and medical lineage. That could be why Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) resonates with her as a technology journalist. The same did for her Futurist great grandpa who was a surgeon and conductor in China. Earlier this summer Cannes-recognized Documentary Filmmaker Shanice Johnson interviewed Renee about her interest in technology, diversity and social justice and her great grandfather’s “hardcoding” resurfaced. Advocacy with technical expertise might be in her DNA.

It follows that our blog would send Renee to ask fine arts and interactive media Women in Technology. Exactly! This week, Regina Larre Campuzano met with us via Skype.

The Mexico City born artist took the video conference first on an outdoor patio of a coffee place at our Editor-in-Chief’s homebase in Seattle. That way our reporter could hear abstractions and imagine visual soundscapes. That’s not sarcasm. The Skype call only moved indoors when the call dropped. Then it was a live object lesson of SmartyGirl Regina’s training on microphones and the difficulty of some mono-directional mics picking up a few feet of weirdness because of the bounce back from walls.

Where did we hear about Regina Larre Campuzano? The previous week we spoke with Alan Chatham of the Spokane Washington fine arts and tech Laboratory. Regina is one of the selected artists-in-residence at this one-of-a-kind effort to blend fine arts with high tech to develop and nurture professional artists in this new field. Think a field of lasers or virtual reality (VR) used to create an inner journey for the museum visitor. Trippy, yeah?

This expectation has become a common one since the Internet of Things and Wearable Technology became more than just Google glass. As Regina Larre Campuzano explains museum docents are rethinking programming of exhibits because the public is so eager to consume a “walk through the mind of the artist in a 3D interactive experience” at a faster turnaround. Our rate of consuming memes might translate to our appetite for fine art using the latest technology to express a human feeling or constellation of emotional stories. Regina Larre Campuzano gave artist Yayoi Kusama as a primary example of women artists who are earning the attention of men and women who seek an immersive interactive experience. Like the male and female readership of SGL, Regina cares about egalitarian futures for careers for all genders.

The most common barriers for women artists, as experienced by storyteller Regina Larre Campuzano?

  • the societal burden of being the “first” and therefore beginner mistakes being a condemnation of the perceived incompetence of a gender rather than the natural learning curve of an individual getting up to speed. In short, the unfair pressure of not being allowed to fail fast and frequently to improve but having “one shot” to justify belonging with first-time out perfection
  • the internalized pressure of wanting to be respected that one fears delegating resulting in the exhausting responsibility of trying to perfect what goes on behind-the-scenes and public-facing performance. In brief, a woman has to do-it-all (100% self-reliant for all technical aspects) or be perceived as merely decorative

Regina Larre Campuzano uses the following analogy: 

Flower painted by women assumed to be about gender, a flower painted by black artists assumed to be about slavery, but the same flower painted by a white male artist is free of those assumptions, and can be seen as simply a flower.

In other words, bias assumes there is only one story for an individual from an underrepresented minority to tell and that the public has already heard it.

As our reporter listened, talked and laughed with SmartyGirl Regina Larre Campuzo to ask about her upcoming visit to San Francisco as animator for her work for the nonprofit benefitting prisoners of conscience in China it’s clear Regina has many less often heard narratives to share. Stories that are funny, universally relatable and fresh. Need an example? She describes her faux phobia of this business trip while she meets with her client because her partner, a lovingly-described tech geek, might come back transformed from Burning Man. Her partner willingly experiences demonstrations about makeup to develop empathy for choices that Regina makes as an individual who enjoys her femininity as much as she relishes her right to express violence (not towards her partner) as a human emotion in her art. As Regina Larre Campuzo says so well: I can think about bombs while wearing a dress. Preconceived notions about faux biology limitations of women is another barrier. Women have the capacity. The willingness to learn technical aspects of creating interactive art won’t change if Regina decides to become pregnant. Embracing femininity as a feminist interpreted by Regina does not preclude professional development in sound engineering.

If you need another example of Regina’s optimism despite barriers, take a peek at her team collaboration with men and women to produce Impotence: A Love Story written, filmed and edited in three weeks. Note: Without spoilers, this is respectful and winsome

Photo Credit: impotence, a love story from Gabriel Maxwell Freed on Vimeo.

For more of Regina Larre Campuzano’s work, you must hear and see it for yourself at http://www.reginalarrecampuzano.com

 

 

August 13, 2015 by smartygirl Leave a Comment

Photo Credit: Knowyourmeme.com Rubix cube Batman Joker reference

Photo Credit: Knowyourmeme.com Rubix cube Batman Joker reference

ddd

How to run a Block Party for Internet Security

 

Thank you, SmartyFella TopherEllis for his request for more, practical, everyday tutorials. This is the first of a series leading into autumn.

 

If you’ve ever been online, you’ve likely met a troll. Many readers have worked as corporate brand ambassadors and hired out their social media networks for a season for marketing. So a cyberstalker can harm your client network as well as your personal circles.

 

This can be a barrage by quickly-made fake Twitter accounts giving you advice on how to end your life. Maybe it takes the form of unwanted (is there any other kind?) dickpicks. And it can be an IRL stalker where a blocked person on Facebook creates new fake accounts weekly to comment on your Facebook posts through an a friend who is less careful about his/her privacy settings.

 

First when it happens don’t victim-blame yourself. Second, don’t try to solve the broken Rubik’s cube of the troll’s mean-creature psyche. You’ve got better things to do rather than be his/her therapist. Third, remind yourself that you have the smarts to outwit Voldemort and his Deatheaters.

 

Note: It’s normal to feel disillusioned that not everyone subscribes to the voluntary agreement of human decency.

 

In summary

  1. Advocate for yourself as early adopter consumer. The worst a company can say is that they are unwilling to build in such an option or that they have a competency difficulty and don’t know how.
  2. Google yourself once per month. Block and report as needed. Don’t go toe to toe with the troll and allow him/her to infect your personal email accounts and your computer.
  3. Ask a few of your friends to tighten their privacy settings for shares of your shares on social networks. If they are unwilling or unable, limit the information you share with these individuals.
  4. Disable location apps.
  5. Time Travel. No, not really. Be deliberate in posting your whereabouts out of sync with real time. For example, why not post a share of your day-outing after you’ve left (or even weeks later) rather than announce to the general public that you can be found at booth 12 next to the sunflower paper sculpture at the vegan pancake house in the Haight in real-time?

 

Since this new media blog with video and podcasts preps readers how to lead well, care for others, and complete new items on bucket lists this tutorial is the first of five episodes to respond to the hurdles that trolls create.

 

Case Study

 

Take for instance if you are adding word count to your NanoWrimo through a service like Tabl.io.

Tabl.io self publishing

Photo Credit: Tabl.io self publishing

 

 

Besides freshening your password monthly, you can make a special request to the Chief Technology Officer if someone added himself/herself to your followers list who is a cyberstalker. As an early adopter of many nifty self-publish, promote-as-you-are-writing you give the developers feedback about their open source tool. In this case, many small businesses have undeveloped protocol for privacy, remove follower and block follower options. Before you wipe out those 50,000 words on How My Dog Became My Life Coach, you might be able to set your book back to an invisible setting while IT removes the follower making comments how he/she would eviscerate your Minpin and how he/she has moved closer to your Minpin’s groomer to do so.

 

Steps for Problem-solving the MBA Way

 

Identify the problem.

Describe the options. What are the pros/cons of each option?

Make a choice. Which is the best course of action? Which one has the right risk/reward that matches your personality?

Develop a contingency plan. You already know the weaknesses of a certain option. How will you plug that leak? How will you fortify it? Create backup protocol to handle it.

Take action and get allies to help.

 

You got this, SmartyFriend. This is not legal advice so if you choose to request a protective order from the court, please note that it can take as long as 5 months for it to be granted.

 

 

http://smartygirlleadership.com/2015/08/2419.html

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