Gabriel Pita

I test stuff

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Preocupação com dinheiro custa ~13 pontos de QI — o mesmo que virar a noite ou estar bêbado. Medido, estudo de 2013.

Toda decisão financeira tomada no aperto é tomada com o cérebro comprometido.

O primeiro trabalho do dinheiro não é riqueza. É devolver seu cérebro.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Money stress costs you ~13 IQ points — same as pulling an all-nighter or being drunk. Measured, 2013 study.

Every financial decision made while broke is made impaired.

The first job of money isn't wealth. It's getting your brain back.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Switched to Apple TV and it quietly upgraded my whole living room. After years of clunky smart-TV interfaces, this just works — remote pairing, AirPlay, iPhone integration, tvOS updates for years. The best products aren't the ones with the most features, just the ones that work.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Mouse wheel scrolling like crazy in the Claude Code CLI this week? Not your mouse.

Recent updates added wheel scroll acceleration in fullscreen mode. Fix — one line in ~/.claude/settings.json:

"wheelScrollAccelerationEnabled": false

I found this by asking Claude Code to read its own changelog and fix its own config. It did.
Mouse wheel going crazy in the Claude Code CLI? Not your mouse. A recent update enabled wheel-scroll acceleration in fullscreen. Fix: set wheelScrollAccelerationEnabled to false in ~/.claude/settings.json. I had Claude Code read its changelog and patch its config — it worked. #ClaudeCode #CLI

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

$289,000 in an index fund = ~$960/month passive income at 4% withdrawal.

In Brazil, that's retirement.

I live in Brazil. I know the cost.

I also spent 20 years buying beers instead.

The math doesn't care about your excuses. It just runs.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

What if instead of buying beers at 20, you'd invested that money in an S&P 500 index fund?

$5/day. The price of one beer.

22 years at 10% average return.

Let's do the math.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

$5/day → $144,500 today
$10/day → $289,000 today
$30/day (one night out) → $866,000 today

Total you put in at $10/day: $80,300
What compound interest turned it into: $289,000

You didn't need to be rich. You needed to be boring.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

I stopped drinking 1.5 years ago.

That was the start of seeing clearly.

I'm not saying don't live. I'm saying don't confuse spending with living.

The bill comes. Just later. And it's bigger than you think.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Watching young people in Portugal spend every weekend on alcohol and parties.

I know that story. I lived it.

At 42 I have no house. No big savings. Nothing to show for the money that passed through my hands.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

I have friends barely 6 years older than me who are already retired.

Same starting point. Different choices.

If I had invested what I spent on drinks and nonsense, I'd be done by now — especially with Brazil's cost of living, where your money stretches 3x.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Here's the thing — I'm Portuguese.

And I've seen my own mother get mistreated here. By her own people.

It's not about where you're from.

Portugal is building a new identity with the world. The attitude hasn't caught up yet.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

I'm traveling Portugal and asking immigrants how they feel about living here.

Brazilians. Indians. Pakistanis. Bangladeshis. People who've been here 8, 10 years.

Same answer every time: "Love Portugal. Can't stand the Portuguese."

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

They describe the same thing: cold, dismissive, sometimes openly aggressive. Shops, offices, bureaucracy.

Not every person. But enough to leave a mark after a decade.

The country is beautiful. The welcome? Rough.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Meanwhile I use Claude to write my tests, run my work, draft my posts, and remind me daily to post on social media.

The AI taking my job?

It's me. I hired it.

The Uber plan is not going well. 😅

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Every week I check electric car prices.

Not because I want one.

Because if AI takes my job, I need a backup plan.

I'm going to drive for Uber.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

I'm a QA engineer. I watch AI automate testing. I read the papers. I see the graphs.

So yes. Weekly BYD price checks. Just in case.

Last week I almost pulled the trigger.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Sometimes you just have to trust the rooster. 🐓

Working remotely from Portugal this week. The story hit different.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Standing in front of the Galo de Barcelos in Portugal.

The legend: a man was condemned to death. His last act — he bet his innocence on a cooked rooster crowing.

It crowed. He lived.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

The rooster became Portugal's symbol of faith, justice, and the courage to bet on yourself when the odds say don't.

Every big decision I've made lately has felt exactly like that.

Lots of bets on the table.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

I'm waiting.

The kind of advice a savvy friend gives you at 11pm when you're browsing deals.

Except this friend is always available.

[Gabriel Pita @dvpita]

Answer: FIFA World Cup surge. Retailers raise prices on big screens every 4 years. Classic demand spike.

Claude gave me 2 options:
→ Buy now, overpay
→ Set a price tracker, wait it out, save 30%