We down 2-3 cups of coffee a day at Gizmodo Midwest HQ (my tiny apartment consisting of just me), but rarely do we put thought in the labour that brings us beans (fair trade, I swear!). Luckily, BoingBoing corresponded with the 2008 US World Barista Champion to take a look at coffee harvesting in Brazil. Because otherwise, we'd never have known about giant harvesting vehicles that engulf whole trees or the juxtaposition of automated and traditional drying, roasting and packing techniques that follow collection. If you like coffee, you'll enjoy the 6-minute clip. [boingboing]

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Get ready to fight to the death for this one, Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks: More than a thousand penguins have suddenly appeared on the beaches of Brazil. The scientists can't explain why this is happening. Some say they are somehow confused. Knowing the views in Brazil's beaches, I personally think they are not confused at all. Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climatologist Jose Marengo thinks the penguins--who are being airlifted back to its origin by the air force--got lost because of changes in the ocean circulation in the South Atlantic:

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A music aficionado/engineering genius has created this wonderful musical piece using just electromagnetic solenoids--devices that convert electricity into linear motion--placed next to different objects around the office, and a computer control program. The result is so good that it makes me want to drink caipirinhas, dance samba, or move to Rio do Janeiro. But since I just moved to New York and it's 11:30PM already, I will just do myself a caipirinha and watch the episode 1 season 2 of Californication.

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Between the tech culture and vibrant sense of life, Brazil is one country that should have a native version of Gizmodo. And now they're live, with a combination of Gizmodo US posts translated into Portuguese and their own local news. I took this shot with a camera phone on the beach several months back. But Rio is so beautiful a city, I wish I'd brought the capable Nikon D300 DSLR along for the ride. Not sure where I'd tuck that 18-200mm in my speedo, though. [Gizmodo Brazil in Portugese and translated into English]

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Father de Carli, the flying priest who got lost last April, has been found deceased in the middle of the Atlantic. In an effort to raise funds for a local charity organisation, De Carli planned to stay for more than 19 hours up in the air using a thousand party balloons, taking a GPS with him to communicate his position in case emergency. Unfortunately for the generous man, the trip ended in disaster.

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Genilson Lins da Silva was arrested an thrown in prison after being sentenced to 28 years for robbery and murder. However, it appears that some of the prisons in Brazil aren't as bad as they are made out to be considering the fact that a plasma TV, refrigerator, gym equipment, two .38-calibre pistols and $173,000 in cash was recently discovered in da Silva's cell. The items were uncovered during a raid that was part of a statewide crackdown on drug trafficking, and they are now investigating how he managed to live the high life while being incarcerated. Uh...bribes maybe?[Star Telegram]

I'm still travelling, and today on the beach in Ipanema, I got into a bit of an argument with the tide, which swept me out a bit. I waved to friends for a bit of help and they just waved back, I think. (Had already lost both contacts at this point, so couldn't see.) I made it back to shore by swimming parallel to the beach to weaker currents and planting my tippy toes in the sand when the tide pulled back out, and making it back in slowly. The Sea is mighty, even on a leisurely beach day! I'm not supposed to be posting, but I figured I'd pop in to do my usual birthday wishes.

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On my last day in São Paulo, the good people we were working with on an upcoming Portuguese version of Giz with took us to some nightclub with an open roof and lots of beautiful younger people dancing and making out. Anyhow, here's the gadget party of this story: There was a band there playing called Inimigos da HP, or Enemies of HP. Yes, that HP. Apparently the members started playing together in college, but are mostly former engineers and industrial designers who were forced in their previously not-rockstar life to use HP calcs every day. I like their music. Now I'm in Rio, taking a long weekend. Going to the beach. I should have played more Wii Fit. [Wiki, Amazon]

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Hi there. I'm in Brazil, so you won't see a lot of me this week. Not at the normal hours, that is. You know what's annoying? There's no way to turn on iPhone international data plans from the iPhone, once you're in the foreign country. Also, the rules for international dialing need to be standardised. I'm useless trying to call anyone outside of the US. See you guys a bit later.

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When he was a boy, Father de Carli had the same dream that most kids have: jump off the ground and reach for the sky. But when he grew up, instead of taking flight lessons, he literally did that. He jumped and flew with the help of a thousand party balloons. His first try was a success, travelling 110 km for 4 hours and 15 minutes. His second, however, has probably ended in disaster—after he took off with a GPS that he didn't know how to use.

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