ILiveIn Southern Brazil [2-year AMA anniversary]

LaurelQuade · 2012-05-24T19:10:26.414348+00:00

I almost wrote an essay on the Brazilian internet laugh here once.

Especially on politics, I feel like Brazil is Portugal's son who moved out long ago, but still cares deeply about his mother and visits her every once in a while.

LaurelQuade · 2012-05-24T16:35:15.447958+00:00

I really had a hard time to understand what that guy was saying. It's hard for us to understand your accent! (The acoustics of the recording didn't help either.) But I got the general meaning.

Maybe you're aware that the stereotypical Portuguese person, for Brazilians, is a middle-aged, bald man with a mustache, who wears always a pencil on his ear and owns a bakery (or, in Rio, is a taxicab driver), and especially, not very intelligent. (This article written by a translator says that the "dumb Portuguese" stereotype started because of different approaches on how speakers of both countries use the language to express logic.)

But of course, that's just a caricature to be the butt of some jokes, and only idiots take a stereotype like that as a fact. Any mildy informed person is aware of how you guys actually live (just like you of course know that not all Brazilians are thieves and prostitutes.)

I think, though, that what hinders our judgement of Portugal is you guys know alot more about us than we know of you, especially because Portuguese media isn't as succesful in Brazil as the opposite (I blame the accent, don't get offended! :P)

But Portugal is also seen as a great tourist destination, with lost of culture, history and good wine. E eu te digo, se me oferecessem umas férias aí, eu aceitaria na hora.

LaurelQuade · 2012-05-24T16:13:38.745786+00:00

Hm, that's interesting. In the Brazilian political spectrum, PT (Lula and Dilm's party) is considered the major pary of the left, and PSDB, the major party of the right. This, actually is an oversimplification, since both parties are pretty much liberal (the "SD" stands for social-democrat). So, they're not so different, and the similarity between their economical approaches was essential to help create the good economic situation we're living.

PSDB already had a president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002). Their winning chances on 2014, I think, depend especially on whether or not Brazilians want 16 years of PT, reelecting Dilma.

Peppe22 · 3 days

Very related

Drunken_Economist · 3 days

I just made a similar suggestion to Drunken_Economist.

Drunken_Economist · 3 days

I'd like to suggest a piece of advice to prevent another Rampart fiasco:

"It's fine if you want to do an AMA to plug your new book/movie/album/project, but remeber that AMA means "ask me anything". You will receive questions concerning various topics; don't answer only those that suit your commercial interests."

mattchinima · 3 days

Finally I understand where the Brick Joke trope took its name from. (Warning: TVTropes)

SnappyTofu · 7 days

There are much more. It's a series of 'shops made by Brazilian Matheus Cândido.

ChadMartin14 · 7 days

Auto-Tune is a piece of software meant to be used inside a music-making program that corrects pitch of voices and instruments.

Voice has a pitch (measured in KHz), and when singing, we modulate the pitch to create musical notes. Each of the 12 notes we use in Western music has a specific pitch, and in order to be in tune, you have to hit the pitch of the note you want to sing. When someone sings off-key, that means there is a large variation of the pitch.

So, Auto-Tune identifies the pitch of your voice, and makes a chart. In this image the gray horizontal lines mark notes, and the red squiggly line is the pitch of the voice captured. As you can see no one can render absolutely perfect pitch. There's always a variation. But Auto-Tune can correct that variation, by changing the pitch. The green line is the pitch after Auto-Tune corrects it. As you can see, it is a straighter line than the red one, and closer to the gray lines (the notes). This magic is what made Auto-Tune popular among music producers.

So, you may ask, in that image, why couldn't Auto-Tune make a perfect straight line, aligned inside the gray lines? Can't Auto-Tune make the voice pitch-perfect? Yes, it can. But, as I said before, no one can render absolutely perfect pitch. In this example, the producer just wanted to correct imperfections. In the o ther hand, this is the sound of a baby crying pitch-perfected by Auto-Tune. Can you see how the voice just switches flat from one note to another? A normal voice doesn't do that, it makes a smooth transition. This is why an absolutely pitch-perfect voice does not sound natural.

But that gives a cool robotic effect to the voice, and on 1998, Cher's "Believe" was the first hit single to use Auto-Tune to give that explicit robotic effect. And that effect became popular through the 2000s between people who did not have perfect pitch, like, as evidenced by the title of that first video, T-Pain, who exclusively sings through Auto-Tune.

So, that robotic effect Auto-Tune gives became so immensely popular, especially in electronic music, hip-hop and R&B, that many people now hate it because it takes away the personality and humanization of a true singer, and filling the radio stations with soulless uncanny-valley-esque voices that lack the natural imperfections of a true singer.

TL;DR: Auto-Tune corrects pitch, but it became hugely popular to render absolutely perfect pitch, causing controversy among people who claim that this dehumanizes the singer.

GlueBoy · 8 days

Just glad to be here. Many milestones are yet to come, é nóis!

sophalope · 8 days

Yup.

sophalope · 8 days

Y-vaan Eht Ni-ooooj...

natonio95 · 9 days

t.A.T.u. may have been a PR stunt, but had some really good songs: Show me Love, and a cover of How Soon Is Now? (which you won't like if you're a Smiths fan), and my favorite, Clowns (Can You See Me Now?).

jojojok · 10 days

This may vary according to some language versions, e.g., if you have Firefox installed in Brazilian Portuguese, Ctrl+Enter adds ".com.br".

Qualitysweater · 13 days

As far as Brazilian accents go, the Rio de Janiiieeeiro accent is quite close to European Portuguese, bródehhhrr.

(Fun fact: It's been said that the Rio accent as we know was only developed after 1808, with he arrival of the Portuguese Royal Family to the city. The locals started imitating the royals' accent because they thought it was classy. As you can tell, it's not a perfect imitation, but some patterns were developed, like the final S (i.e.: in brasileiros becoming [ʃ], like the "ch" in cheiro, while most non-coastal Brazilians, like me, pronounce it [s], like in sala.

And do you know why most coastal areas speak [ʃ] while others speak [s]? That's right, greater Portuguese influence.)

Kamige · 14 days

That is the correct answer.

shampoo_my_crotch · 14 days

Sacha Baron Cohen's Golden Globe acceptance speech:

I want to thank the Hollywood Foreign Press. And I just want to say that this movie was a life-changing experience. I saw some amazing, beautiful, invigorating parts of America. But I saw some dark parts of America, an ugly side of America. A side of America that rarely sees the light of day.

I refer, of course, to the anus and testicles of my co-star, Ken Davitian.

Ken, when I was in that scene and I stared down and saw your two wrinkled golden globes on my chin, I thought to myself, ‘I better win a bloody award for this.’

And then when my 300-pound co-star decided to sit on my face and squeeze the oxygen from my lungs, I was faced with a choice: Death or to breathe in the air that had been trapped in a small pocket between his buttocks for 30 years.

Kenneth, if it was not for that rancid bubble, I would not be here today.

DiffeNOR · 14 days

I recognize that it sounds horrible if you think it's all real.

Actually, if you really catched a glimpse of an alternate reality, it's even more terrifying.

DiffeNOR · 14 days

I would like to have this dream one night.

ShabbySheik · 15 days

http://flowingdata.com/wp-content/uploads/yapb_cache/lisa_simpson_graph.3d8grz11ynokc4cksggw4gcwc.2xne1totli0w8s8k0o44cs0wc.th.png

furnaceofambition · 15 days

That movie was just like Not Another Teen Movie, except that it wasn't a parody.

MSuSbro · 15 days

You should align them correctly, whether through the left, right, or center, but you should align for only one side, and not resizing text so it aligns on the other side too, especially when these numbers are so far apart.

People are already aware that different pieces of text have different lenghts. In order to create a pattern, it's the same font size you should worry about.

coyotecarl · 16 days

In your defense, it's really hard to explain what a meme is for people who are not familiarized with the internet, but I'll try an explanation:

"Well, they used a photo of me to create a character who has ridiculously bad luck, and then create jokes about what would happen to that character in diverse situations, and make images containing my photo and these phrases and share them through the internet. So, they made a meme out of me."

(Fun fact: while I typed this, I stepped on the internet cable and disconnected myself. I'm afraid bad luck is contagious...)

LaurelQuade

TROPHY CASE

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