In 1998-1999, I was the organizer for a Bioinformatics course in Sao Paulo Brazil, funded in some indirect way by the National Academy of Sciences (as I recall). In addition to paying for the faculty (about 6 people) to spend a week teaching, the budget also paid to purchase an SGI server, which was a standard machine to run the bioinformatics software. The course ran for a week in January, 1999, and we had ordered (and paid for) the machine by July, 1998.

A group of us arrived in Sao Paulo on Thursday (before the course was scheduled to start on Monday) to begin configuring the machine -- downloading/transferring software and databases. We did not trust the internet, so we brought the stuff we needed on a laptop.

We got there thursday, to find out that despite a 6 month lead-time, the machine had not been delivered. Not only that, the weekend we planned to configure the machine, the power to the campus was scheduled to be shut off so that some of the 60+ year old infrastructure could be replaced (our host got a special dispensation to keep the power on in the building we were using). After many frantic calls, the machine was delivered around 5:00 pm on Friday. We worked frantically through the weekend, and managed to get a few things working, a few hours before our first computer lab. Fun times.

Its actually inherited from portugese and spanish culture, where protestant puntuality is sort of viewd as a "slave" or servant mentality (which in protestant culture where "you" are equal with all before god is just not a thing). A nobleman is the lord of his own time and sets his own appointment, can be found in all spanish colonies and in the morher countries.

Gosh, what a badly written article, despite the theme being interesting

Also worth noting that Brazil was under a dictatorship at the time

ha FidoNet, wow that takes me back, world has changed SO much