UberNoggin

No it’s not a new Brazilian rock band. Last night we were treated to an amazing dinner at a traditional Brazilian BBQ. We went with two of our hosts, both named Fabio and neither anything like the “I can’t believe it’s not butter”-Fabio. They both work for the Institute of International Economic Studies here in Sao Paulo. With us was another speaker from the conference, Bill Thompson, who writes for the Guardian in the Uk among other things. He’s a super-techy-chuck-wearing guy after my own heart. However, as a vegetarian in a Brazilian BBQ restaurant (hence the no-buffalo in the title) watching him repeatedly have to refuse the meat-pushers last night at the restaurant was quite amusing. If you’ve never been to one of these places you’re really missing out. The onslaught of waiters with huge kabobs of meat was constant. One second they’re offering you slices from a huge side of Argentinian beef and the next minute they have chicken hearts on a stick whizzing around your head.

In addition to the great company and wonderful food we were also introduced to a drink that the devil himself must have invented…the caipirinha. It’s kind of like a mohito but without mint and made with a rum-like liquor called cachaça. Each glass has a tablespoon of sugar on the bottom, ice, and about half a lime thinly sliced. The the waiter pours either vodka or cachaça over it and you stir it with a tiny spoon. My face was numb before I finished the first one and by the time I was half way through the second one I was considering dancing around with the meat pushers.

It was a great night and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s conference to hear more from Bill and from the other great folks who will be speaking.

Today we explore the city a bit. We’ll walk to an area they call “Greenwich village” here with lots of little shops and restaurants. Should be fun!

This is a video I shot with my Small Wonder from the roof of our hotel last night. The quality doesn’t do the view justice but you’ll get the idea.

I’ve been reading too much David Sedaris lately. He makes me want to write. I guess it’s not a bad thing.

After getting married last week, giving two talks, and nearly being flooded out of our house, Mark and I left for Sao Paulo last night. A second round of severe thunderstorms pushed our flight from Indianapolis to Newark back by about 90 minutes but we still got there in time to make our overnight flight to Sao Paulo. No matter how much I fly, which is a lot, I never really get used to the “OMG! Get me out of this suffocating flying metal tube!” feeling and long flights make it worse. Mark, who knows me well and has been the unfortunate person sitting next to me during a couple of these knew-bouncing, willing the plane to go faster, pacing in the aisles, freak-outs ensured that we were well prepared for the ten hour flight from Newark to south of the equator. In my carry-on I had snacks (I’m hypoglycemic), new Nintendo DSs with games to play, socks to knit, a book to read, and my ipod with books and music. More than enough to keep me busy. I placed my bets on sleeping meds that did the trick. Turns out that I slept eight of the ten hours while poor Mark, who didn’t take a sleeping pill, coulnd’t sleep and is now napping in our hotel room.

When we got to Sao Paulo we were supposed to meet a grad student from the university for a ride to the hotel. We looked for a while but didn’t see anyone with a “Bell” sign so we got a taxi. Wow! I’ve experienced some crazy cab rides but this one took the cake. Even the amazing off-roading-taxi in Jamaica a couple of years ago had nothing on Fabio, today’s driver. Driving in Sao Paulo is kind of a mix between a well-choreographed ballet and a demolition derby. Thousands of tiny cars and even more motorcycles all sharing a few lanes of highway without ever using a turn signal. I thought I was going to break Mark’s hand I was holding on so tight. What really amazed me though was the city. It sprawls on for what seems like fifty or sixty miles. Bigger than L.A. Bigger than NYC. Every other block switched from high rise apartments and shack-filled ghettos. One on block there were Gucci-suit clad businessmen and on the next block barefoot kids played in dirt-paved alleys. Even more suprising was the way the neighborhoods meet the highway. They aren’t just visible from the 60 mile an hour traffic, these alleys end on the highway’s shoulder. Kids playing just feet away from fast moving traffic.

When we finally got to the hotel I resisted the impulse to bow down and kiss the pavement. It’s a beautiful hotel with really kind English-speaking staff who only stared at my hair for a few minutes. I forget that pink hair might shock people, I guess because most of the folks I meet know about my hair before-hand.

Meanwhile, the only SD memory card I packed for my digital camera seems to be permanently locked, our iPhones don’t work here, and I forgot my swim suit. Ah well. So I’ll be blogging when I can, uploading pics from my phone, and using my little video camera to do a few interviews that I’ll post here over the next few days. Tomorrow Mark will be speaking at the conference and participating in a debate. Thursday we’re going to be a bit crazy and actually head out on our own to do a bit of shopping and see an art museum. On Friday we’re doing a half-day workshop on Second Life and Web 2.0. Stay tuned!

NEWS FLASH!!!
INTELLAGIRL GETS MARRIED!

Tuesday morning, June 3, at 9:35 am Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins and Mark Bell were married at the Monroe County courthouse, Bloomington IN. Mark Bell was quoted as saying “I may have gained an amazing wife but I lost a sweet sugar momma.” Witnesses told us that the ceremony was recorded via Twitter, TwitPic, and with several digital cameras and will be blogged soon at ubernoggin.com. Robbins, now Robbins-Bell, said “We had to get married on a Tuesday morning. We both have meetings this afternoon” then rushed off to Twitter something from her iPhone.
The bride and groom will be honeymooning in Sao Paulo, Brazil and Las Vegas, Nevada over the next two weeks between conference presentations.

Yes, you read the title right. Hello Kitty, that cute little kitten with the pink bow, may just kick the butts of all the green skinned warriors of Ogrimar. How? With some of the most innovative game mechanics I’ve ever seen.

Before I got into detail about the mechanics let me put my flag in the sand with a bold prediction. I think that within six months of release, Hello Kitty Online will have as many players as World of Warcraft. Don’t scoff! They won’t be the same players. I don’t think that hardcore gamers with level 70 mages are going to abandone WoW as the Lich King expansion is released to go play with anime kittens and puppies. But listen…across Asia and North America, every kid under 14 is going to be jumping on Hello Kitty with both feet. Let me tell you why.

When I first heard about Hello Kitty Online (HKO) I fully expected it to be as simplistic as the wonder of intellectualism that is Barbie GIrls. But ten minutes watching the tutorials on the Hello Kitty site changed my mind. Not only does HKO have real resource gathering, crafting, and battle…it has collaborative content creation! Yes, you can build a house and ask your friends to help you. That’s huge! No other MMO has crafting and building in which two players can simultaneously work on the same object. There are also guilds and mini-games.

The creators of HKO aren’t kidding around when they call this thing an MMORPG. This is way more than a side-scrolling promotional site for little kids. This is a full fledged virtual world.

HKO may not be your cup of tea but I think this is a sign that MMO games are moving out of the gamer-geek fringe and into mainstream which makes me very excited.

A colleague just emailed to ask me what Web 2.0 tools I thought should be on the list of “apps higher ed folks should know about.” When I’d written it I figured it worth while to just post it somewhere for everyone so here you go! It’s a rough…what free, seemingly non-education purposed apps would you add to the list?

• Flickr: www.flickr.com Useful for posting images and short videos. Allows for privacy settings, tagging, and easy aggregation to other sites
• Twitter: www.twitter.com Microblog (kind of a mashup between a social network, instant message and blog) huge for collaboration, asking questions, sharing links and info. Easy to aggregate into other tools like Facebook etc. There are other microblogs too….Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk also worth a look
• BlackBoard Facebook app: This is a huge deal for instructors who use Bb. I think we’ll see lots more students actually using Bb if they can access it easily through Fb
• Remember the milk: Rememberthemilk.com  A to do list app that plugs into Fb as well as Gmail. You can send items to it from a mobile phone, web, and voice
• Jott: jott.com Free voice to text service that’s useful for taking field notes, sending voice emails, and even blogging from your phone
• Second LIfe: Duh!
• Google docs: These are huge in business and should be bigger in education. They make collaboration much easier and document sharing super simple. Plus they overcome all the “i left it on my computer at home” excuses for submitting homework
• Twitpic: twitpic.com easily sends pics from a mobile phone to twitter. Alternative to uploading to Flickr or another image hosting site and really simple to use
• Igoogle, pagevines, Yahoo Pipes: All aggregators that help pull information to you rather than you having to look for them. Handy little widgets for news, blogs and other feeds
• RSS: I like the google reader RSS service but there are lots. The bonus of google reader is that i can export the .opml file and share it within someone else. They upload it into their RSS reader and they’re suddenly subscribed to all the blogs I am. Great for sharing sites with students all at once