It’s HUGE

I’m in the air now, about an hour and some from landing in Seattle,
where I’ll see my lovely wife and daughter after almost two weeks. Man
this has been hard!

Before I forget, I wanted to put down some observations about Brasil.
These aren’t in any particular order, but maybe you’ll find them useful
someday.

• Brazil is big, and thus you can’t stereotype the people or a place.
  It’s like saying all Americans are the same, but people from Seattle and
  Little Rock are wildly different.
• People in Bahia are poor but content and happy. They don’t need tons
  of money to be happy… they have music, friendship, and gorgeous
  beaches everywhere. And they seem OK with not trying to get into the rat
  race. Good for them.
• Lots of parents exploit their kids as beggars. Kids make great
  beggars, and parents know this. So they send out their kids, who are
  wearing reasonable clothes and good sneakers, to beg. This just seems
  like something that’d be easy to outlaw and police, but I’m sure I’m
  missing something — for example, the legitimate cases where the kids
  have to help because there isn’t enough money to go around.
• There are lots of beautiful people in Brazil, but it isn’t like
  everyone is. Sure, you’ll see a lot of women who look amazing in bikins
  at the beach, but you’ll also see ordinary women in bikins at the beach.
  People are different, it’s OK. Although the speedo-like tighty-whities
  the men wear are still kinda too revealing.
• Panhandlers are a lot more aggressive in Brazil.
• Merchants and souvenier sellers are the same — they’re hucksters,
  but they’re the same kind of huckster in every country.
• There’s a lot of English in Brasilia and São Paulo, probably Rio too.
  Not much anywhere else.
• In São Paulo, buiding security is tight. You need a card to get in AND
  out, and the receptionist will take down your info and take a digital
  picture of you before she lets you up. This happened at both the MS
  building and Amanda’s.
• When you greet someone of the opposite sex, at least in São Paulo, the
  man kisses the left and then right cheek of the woman. Jean-Francios
  said that in France it’s also like this, except in Paris where it’s
  left-right-left-right. But only in Paris. I guess ‘cuz they like kissing
  there.
• Bahia is like almost any other near-the-beach place…. 5 minutes is,
  well, 5 or 10 or 15, whatever.
• People in general are very friendly and inviting.
• Looks seem to be more important in Brazil. I’m not talking about how
  many women have plastic surgery (they do), but it seems to be more
  acceptable to do things based on looks. For example, Amanda mentioned
  that a firm she once worked at apparently only hired pretty people (she
  picked up that pattern after some good people were rejected), and at the
  company dinner one year all the female players had to play a soccer
  game…. apparently so all the men could see pretty girls running around
  in short shorts. They probably don’t have much in the way of sexual
  harassment laws there yet, either.
• Local cell phones are key… although the international rates on them
  can kinda eat your minutes quickly.
• They’re pretty open about sex. In fact, one channel (MultiShow, which
  shows a lot of US content, such as South Park) has “SexyTime” which is
  an hour of (usually American-made and subtitled) softcore porn. Flipping
  channels at the Hilton, it appears there’s some other channel that also
  shows softcore movies late at night.
• You can still smoke indoors (although I heard a rumor that there was
  some law that made it illegal… maybe they’re all just ignoring it).
• Mosquitoes, even those that don’t carry malaria, still suck.
• Brazil has a ton of different fruits, and they’re good. Bananas taste
  better, and they have a couple different varieties. There’s also a ton
  of different citrus fruits that you don’t see in Seattle. All good stuff.
• Brazil has better beef. Free range organic is simply better.
• Brazil is very Catholic. I saw lots of crosses, and in Manaus all the
  busses had a big “JESUS” sign. Also, decent number of people who had a
  religious saying on their back window — like in the US we’d see a
  company ad / contact info. But they don’t appear to be obnioxious about
  it… e.g. I don’t know anyone who started off with the Portugeuse
  equivalent of, “Well, I’m a Christian, so……”

I think that’s about it…. welp, I’m seeing some volcano out the left
side of the plane… I think Shasta, but I’d swear we’re too far north
for that. Maybe Mt. St. Helens from a weird angle, as the peak is rather
pointy at the top. But, it’s almost time to land, so I’ll end this part
of the travel journal. Until the next blog entry then, cheers!

-e

No, not Paris Hilton. She’s just a shining example that you can be filty
rich and yet still be po’ white trash. No, I’m talking about where she
gets her money - Hilton Hotels.

Hilton Hotels are your standard business hotel. They cater to the
business traveler who is spending his or her company’s money. The rooms
are all very nice and comfortable, and there’s a good work environment
with a desk and a phone and all the things you like. There’s a nice TV
with many channels and may pay-per-view movies, all of which will show
up as “Guest Services” or something on the bill so your employer won’t
know you’re expensing your porn watching (although in Brazil, they
actually just have softcore on TV normally, but we’ll get to that later).

The problem I have with Hilton is that you pay extra for Every. Last.
Little. Thing. OK, the $10 mini-bottle from the mini-bar, fine. We all
know that the mini-bar is stupidly overpriced, but occasionally we need
it, so fine, extort your $5 more from us. Whatever. However, local calls
should not be metered *by the minute*. We’re calling across the street,
not a 976 number. And don’t tell me that everyone in Brazil has calls
metered by the minute, as they didn’t have them metered in Salvador or
Manaus.

Of course, they meter local calls, because people like me can dial into
a local modem and check mail. And they’d much rather I pay $30 a day for
a 128k connection. or I can pay $40 for 256K, on up to 1M. Gee, I get to
pay more for a faster pipe… lovely. Didn’t that go out when Compuserve
stopped the surcharge for 1200 baud modems vs 300 baud?

Random tourist hotels usually have free wireless, or at least free
broadband, and local calls are cheap. Even hotels in Japan have this,
and you breath out money in that country. So, yeah, a nice staff and
pretty room is fine, but really, if I’m in a place to get work done, I
really don’t want to have to keep adding on to the tab to get work done.
Just increase the price of the room by a few bucks and include it. And
if that causes people to go to other hotels? Well, then maybe perhaps
competition is doing what it’s supposed to do — drive prices down to
where they’re fair.

One of MK’s friends, Amanda, is a family law lawyer in São Paolo, and we
managed to get together for lunch at a nearby sushi place she likes.
Even though I’m not a 3WA’er, I suspect I may be an honorary one and
thus get Amanda’s count of 3WA people she’s met up to two. Hey, we don’t
often get down to Brazil!

Anyway, Amanda is great. She’s doing well for herself in the Alameda
Lorne district? area? of São Paulo, which is where there are a number of
nicer restaurants and shops and whatnot. We had a lovely conversation
where I learned a lot about life in Brazil and São Paulo, and I think I
scared her a bit by telling her about what I do at Microsoft. However,
the trips to Beijing to meet with MSRA certainly piqued her interest!

Amanda took me to a lovely chocolate shop, which she thinks is the best
in São Paulo. It was great… we had some passionfruit truffles that
were to die for. I picked up a small (heh) gift for MK there — her
name, in 3″ chocolate letters! It should travel well, and I’m sure
she’ll enjoy it over the weeks to come. Sadly, no truffles, as they
wouldn’t travel well without a cooler or something to put them in.

Amanda and I parted company after sipping cafe briefly at a bistro near
her office, and then I headed back to Microsoft Brazil to pack up and
head to the airport. São Paulo, being a small city of only 15 million
people, has very well designed roadways and a wonderful mass
transportation system. That’s why we left for my 10 PM flight at 6 PM,
as it normally takes 2 hours to go 40 km (that’s like 24 miles) — the
distance to the airport. Yeah…. traffic was light that day, and my cab
driver familiar with the area, so we made it in an hour and a half. Hey,
16 miles per hour, not bad!

I was invited to take part in a Press Conference announcing the new MSN
Search in Brasil, which we launched Aug. 3rd. Turns out I was in for a
bit of a treat — I got my picture taken with Osvaldo Barbosa de
Oliveira, the head of MSN Brasil, which appeared in Valor, a local Sao
Paulo economic magazine. Still trying to figure out if I need a
subscription to see the content or just fill out the form….

Anyway, we had a good press conference (about 10 local reporters) and
MSN Search was received pretty well. Like in most places, people in
Brazil tend to use Google or Yahoo, but they’re starting to see what
we’re doing and take some interesst. It’ll take time, certainly, but
it’s coming.

Some other fun facts about Brazil… some 70% of Orkut, Google’s
social-networking thing, are Brazilians. That’s about 6 million of the 8
million people on Orkut (which, in the grand scheme of things, makes
Orkut one of the smaller networks, but hey, Google doesn’t get it right
all the time!). Also, MSN Messenger is the #1 messenger there —
Yahoo’s a distant third, and AOL (AIM) really has no presence in Brazil.
ICQ (also owned by AOL) is also small now, as that product really hasn’t
done much in about 8 years.

What does this mean? Turns out Brazilians like networking and talking to
one another, a lot more so than I’ve seen elsewhere. Huh. Learn
something new every day.

That evening, my hosts Guillherme and Tiago took me to a nice dinner at
the Valermo (?) Grill, where I had a lovely picanha-cut (a local cut,
not sure exactly how it compares to any US cut) steak along with some
lovely sides. Mmm… Brazilian beef is just yummy.

Andrew, Julie, and I talked that evening for some time, all lying in our
hammocks listening to the frogs and crickets, drinking our cervejas.
Then we finally succumbed to the night. The next morning, it was early
to rise, and then hop on the boat for the ride back.

However, once we got to the bus stop, things started to get a bit dicey.
The bus was an hour late, and while the pastry-covered cheese and fried
cheese sticks were awesome, we were still a bit panicked about making
our flight — 3 PM. So, 10 AM, we’re on the bus to Manaus.

Fortunately, we made good time, arriving in Manaus at 12:45. Antonio was
there, and we booked it to the Hotel Ideal, the youth hostel where
Andrew and Julie stayed, to get their stuff, and then to the Hotel
Tropical for me to check out and get my stuff. Then, over to the
airport, were we arrived at 1:55. Plenty of time. We then stood in line
for quite some time and eventually got on the flight to Sao Paulo.

We parted at São Paulo… I was staying for a few days to visit MS
Brasil, and Andrew and Julie were heading home on American and
Continental, respectively. We didn’t have a long stay in the Amazon, and
we were all wishing we had 3-4 more days up there, but it was still an
amazing experience that we’ll treasure for many, many years.

One thing about the Amazon… it turns out that some tributaries are
acidic, like the one we were on. 5% acidity means no mosquitoes — they
can’t breed in water that acidic. So we were walking around in shorts
and T-shirts, and didn’t need mosquito netting when we slept. OK, this
doesn’t suck.

Andrew, Julie, and the other camp-mates had gone on a 3-hour
bushwhacking hike earlier that day, and so we were taking it easy when I
arrived. Along the way, they had picked up some bamboo, so the guides
there taught us to make blowguns! Basically, you hollow out a section of
bamboo using a thinner piece of bamboo. You then shave off the bark with
a knife. You affix a mouthpiece to one end (the guides made ours, as you
have to ensure that there isn’t air coming out where the tube connects
to the mouthpiece), and you make a dart using a thin piece of bamboo and
this hair-like plant material that’s commonly available in the jungle.
The hair acts as initially the sail — you blow against it and it
launches the dart — as well as the feature in flight, keeping the
dart’s trajectory stable.

This was tons of fun, and now I have my own blowgun with two darts, all
made in Brazil!

About 3:30, we went piranha fishing. It’s pretty simple… you take a
single fishhook, put a big chunk o’ chicken on it, toss a line (no pole,
just line tied to a stick), and wait for the piranha to bite. Then you
pull the line in.

Well, Team Microsoft got completely skunked, although I did get some
nibbles. Jean-Francios pulled in the most, 4 I think, and the guides
also pulled in about 4 total. So, we were having piranha for dinner
tonight! The guides were showing us how tough the teeth were on the
piranha — they were snapping down hard on rope or anything else in
front of them, even though they were out of the water and gasping a bit.
Wow.

We went back to camp and the staff made us dinner, including piranha
with onions. Yumm….. there are few things better than fish that was
caught mere hours ago. It’s just good, and the piranha was tasty. A bit
tough to eat as they’re a small fish and not tons of meat on them, but
still yummy. The rainbow trout of the Amazon, or so it would be.

We then went gator spotting. This is like deer spotting on a boat. You
cruise around the river, shining a flashlight into the shallows by the
shore, and look for the reflection of the gator’s eyes. Then, if it
looks small enough, you cut the engine, paddle over, and catch it so the
tourists can touch a real live gator. Welp, we found a couple (including
a 1.5m - 2m one), and eventually found a baby (maybe a foot and a half)
that we passed around and posed with. I know I know, but it was still
pretty cool. And look, we treated the gator better than we did the piranha!

That night was the night after the full moon, and it rose as we were
going to bed. I got some great shots of the river in the moonlight; I’ll
post them as soon as I return to upload them to the server. Suffice to
say, this was simply amazing.

Andrew, Julie, and I decided to take a side trip up to see the Amazon
over the weekend. Now, saying, “Let’s go see the Amazon” when you’re in
Salvador is just like saying, “Let’s go see the Empire State Building”
when you’re in Seattle. It’s across the country, and the country is
*big!* Nevertheless, if your choice is visting the Amazon for 0 days or
2 days with long flights, well, go for 2. Totally worth it. But I get
ahead of myself.

Andrew and Julie had taken off Thursday to get things settled. I needed
to stay for the morning at a workshop, but left Friday afternoon. The
plan (and I know this will sound monumentally stupid) was for me to go
to Manaus (via a lovely stopover in Brasilia), and the next day in
Manaus, a guide would pick me up from the hotel. We’d then go to a bus
stop, where we’d go 3 hours by bus to somewhere, and then by boat for 30
minutes or so to the camp on the Amazon and meet Andrew and Julie who
were going up the day earlier. I found out later that they gave me a
50-50 chance of actually making it. Thanks guys!

As it turns out, aside from a 5 hour layover in Brasilia instead of a 3
hour one (where I met a great guy from Greece on his way home after
bumming around Brazil for 3 months, and a lovely lady who works for the
Brazil equivalent of the FBI on her way home as well), everything
actually worked out exactly as planned. I got to the hotel (the Hotel
Tropical, which is really nice, very old (like 20s construction, but
with lots of old Brazilian dark hardwood, even on the floors) and
crashed, and the next morning at 7:30 the guide showed up. It was Kris
Gomes, the son of the owner of the tour shop (Jungle Experience, owned
by Christopher Gomes. Apparently, he gets a lot of business from the
write-up in Lonely Planet, and seems to earn it well!). We then went to
the bus station where Antonio (our cab driver) dropped us off, and let
me know he’d be there to pick us up tomorrow afternoon. We hopped on the
bus and trucked up 3 hours to somewhere. The buses were these MarcoPolo
busses by Mercedes-Benz; air-conditioned tour buses, really.

By the way… using the toilet on these things is one of the more
challenging things you can do. I don’t recommend it unless you really,
really need to use it.

We made it up to some small town where Kris handed me off to a local
guide, and then we were on a boat (just a small dingy with an outboard
motor) cruising up the Amazon. Well, the Rio Urubu, which is a
good-sized tributary. 30 minutes later, I met up with Andrew, Julie, and
some other camp-mates (Rebecca from London, there with Federico, an
Italian, and Jean-Francios, a Frenchman who was spending 3 months
traveling randomly on holiday.

Wow, things can actually work!

SIGIR Day 3 brought the paper session to a close, but we had some of the
best papers for the end. In fact, the best paper of the conference from
IBM’s Haifa lab (which won the $1000 award sponsored by IBM… go team!)
was the very last one, but a very good paper nonetheless. They were
finally able to get some results on predicting query difficulty — e.g.
predicting whether the query would answered with high confidence, or
determining if the results were likely not to satisfy the user. Good stuff.

Xing Xie, one of our researchers from MSRA, put together a trip to the
Pelhourinha for 30 of us (turns out there were about 30 MS people, not
20 like I estimated!) to see a show and then go to a churasscara, which
is Brazilian BBQ. The show was similar to the one we saw at the banquet,
with the difference being some of the dances. No group samba at the end
(ah well), but the second dance was this guy with a big (~24″ diameter)
bowl of burning sterno on his head and two smaller (~6″) bowls with
burning sterno in each hand. And naturally, there was fire moving
everywhere… fire! fire! heh heh… fire!

Ok, I like it when people dance around with fire. It’s a crowd-pleaser.

They also had the best capoeirha that I’d seen… about twelve guys, all
of whom were amazingly built. And I found out why — they were doing
one-handed handstands, high back flips (like you see 14 yr old gymnists
do in th Olympics, but these guys are 6′ tall and they’re on a hard
stage, not a springy mat), and all sorts of other moves to warm things
up. Then, the capoeirha, which again was fantastic.

Fantastic.

We then went to Sal E Brasa Churrascaria, which as I mentioned is
Brazilian BBQ. There’s a buffet for not-meat, where they have fish,
fruit and veggies, salad and pasta, a fair bit of sushi (apparently
sushi is big in Brazil), and some other stuff like wild rabbit. I didn’t
try that. Then, at your table, waiters come by with meat on a skewer and
offer it to you. If you say, “Si, por favor” then they slice off a hunk
o’ meat — such as a thin steak of filet mignon, rump roast, or
whatever they happen to have.

You eat a lot of meat here. I mean, a lot of meat. And it’s really,
really good. Turns out Brazilian beef (and Argentinian) is much better
than the US stuff, unless you’re talking the US organic. Beef in South
America is free-range and apparently hormone free, so it’s not as fatty
and doesn’t have some of those weird tastes you occasionally get. Turns
out that a Big Mac in Brazil has fewer calories than a Big Mac in the
USA, purely because of the quality of the meat. go figure.

Anyway, we ate. And ate. And ate some more. Mmmmmmm…. protein!

We then piled into the tour bus and returned to the conference, totally
stuffed. Brazil is just great.

The second full day of papers went well, with a number of very good
presentations. I know most of you aren’t terribly interested in the
contents of an academic conference on search, so I’ll skip those
details. Once again, we met a number of great people and saw some
top-notch talent in action.

That evening was the annual SIGIR banquet. This year, the food was OK…
it was actually almost identical to the lunch we had the day previous
— guess the hotel has a standard buffet service they do. However, the
banquet entertainment was the best I’ve ever seen… it was a Bahian
folk dance troupe that did a number of different local dances, including
a capoeirha number and an amazing samba number at the end where the
troupe came out and got the crowd dancing. It was just a ton of fun —
very enjoyable!

Just a side note… the banquest was sponsored this year by Google, who
was once again conspicuously absent. Amit Singhal and his family were
there, as were the Google Brazil folks (aka Akwan, the company that
Google bought), although the Google Brazil guys were still a bit unsure
of themselves as Google Brazil — getting acquired is always tough if
you’re who is acquired. However, I didn’t see the usual cadre of
Googlers or even some recruiters, which was surprising. Rumor has it
that a number of them stayed home to work on a response to Yahoo’s
announcement of a 20B doc index, but as I said, that was just a rumor
(although a fun one, I must say!).