Saturday 14 December 2013

The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man

The Rise and Fall of the Ad Man is an interesting documentary from the BBC that puts the profession of marketeer in a historical perspective. Worth watching!


Travel Impressions of Curitiba


Central "Botanical Garden" Park



Ukrainian monument

Mosque in Curitiba


Praça do Japão

Praça do Gaucho, probably the first skatepark of Curitiba, since 1978
The Zoo might be a little far, but it's free!
The all-seeing eye of Niemeyer (Oscar Niemeyer Museum)

Haha, yeah Ray, the centre of Curitiba is funny
If the city is getting to you, go to Morretes (by train)

Read also: Going out in Curitiba

Thursday 29 August 2013

Netshoes Click, The App that Recognizes Shoes

Netshoes,  online retailer of sports shoes and apparel in Brazil, launched today an app that recognizes shoes. When you take a picture of a shoe with the Netshoes Click app, it will search for the identical or similar shoes in the database. Of course with a handy link to immediately buy that great sneaker you just spotted on a hipster in your local coffee bar.

The app mainly recognizes the +5000 sneakers and sport shoes Netshoes sells and is meant to boost mobile sales from 5% to 10% of total revenue. Although Amazon previously had some go's at visual recognition apps, the company said it's a one of a kind in the current market.

I did a little test of the app and guess what....it works!

The white All Star seemed like an easy one to me and the app did indeed easily spot it, with an exact match on n°1 and 3 very similar recommendations.

The DC also did well with a match on n°1, although I'm not sure why the other Gatsby 2 is on the last place instead of the second. As these shoes were out of stock, I was also not able to find them back when searching on their full website, which is a bit annoying.


The Nike Cortez is a doubtful case. The picture is taken while wearing the shoe which might make it more difficult to recognize, but they do have a female Nike Cortez on sale which is not featuring in the list. It did recommend grey nike shoes though,  so fair enough.


Fascinating technology, that will be refined "as more people use the service", their CTO said.



Saturday 8 June 2013

A Magia de Escher

The exhibition "The Magic of Escher" is currently on display in the Oscar Niemayer museum in Curitiba, Brazil.

Besides 85 original works of the Dutch artist, it features some fun 'do it your self' mirror plays, a 3D movie and plenty of photo opportunities.

Worth a visit on a rainy day, entrance is R$ 6, until august 2013.







Friday 7 June 2013

Saturday 23 March 2013

Pigeon

Oiseau à la grise robe
dans l'enfers des villes
à mon regard tu te dérobes
tu es vraiment le plus agile

- Benoît Poelvoorde, in 'C'est Arrivé Près de Chez Vous'

Tuesday 29 January 2013

Django Unchained

Lang geleden dat ik nog zo enthousiast was over een film. De nieuwe van Tarantino, Django Unchained, is een pareltje dat je bijna 3 uur aan je stoel gekluisterd houd. Een Western, zoveel is zeker, maar ook grappig, brutaal en bloederig.