RSS feedBCE Aperta
Esta é a notícia mais importante da semana, em termos económicos:
Funcionários Públicos
Na série graçolas de oportunidade (roubada ao 31 da Armada):
Incrível o número de pessoas que argumenta que um dia de funcionários públicos a trabalhar não faz diferença absolutamente nenhuma para a produção nacional.
Nem eu acho que os funcionários públicos trabalham tão mal.
Sentence of the Day/Frase do Dia
Whoever said "all P.R. is good P.R." probably never had dozens of protesters gathered in front of the office calling them "Hitler."
H.T.: Radley Balko
República das Bananas
Na série já chegámos a Cuba?
Uns oficiais militares ameaçam o Ministro da Defesa. Dizem que não serão submissos.
Num país decente, estes senhores estariam despedidos antes do fim do programa de televisão em que fizeram estas ameaças. Talvez antes mesmo da publicidade.
Que República das Bananas!
Banana Republic
From the ongoing series is this Cuba yet?
Military officers threaten the defense minister on radio and television. They say that they see no reason to be submissive.
In a decent country, these gentlemen would now be out of a job.
What a fucking Banana Republic!
Prediction
From the ongoing series it's not them, it's us:
Over the next year or two, most countries will exit the crisis. Southern Europe will be left behind.
Previsão
Na série não são eles, somos nós:
Neste ano ou no próximo, a maioria dos países sairá da crise. A Europa do Sul ficará para traz.
Greve
O Metro está em greve. Eu paguei um passe de 30 dias, mas hoje não o posso usar porque não há Metro. Acho que devia ter direito a reembolso ou a mais um dia no final do prazo para compensar (aliás, devia ter mais do que um dia para compensar, eu não comprei um passe "30 dias à escolha da Metro de Lisboa").
Imagine-se que uma outra empresa me cobrava um serviço adiantado, mas depois não cumpria por causa de greve e não me reembolsava o dinheiro.
Acordos
Nos EUA, há um consenso base portanto a discussão política pode ser acesa e até destrutiva. Na UE, há diferenças fundamentais entre as partes, portanto é necessário afirmar que estamos todos de acordo.
Agreement
In the US, political players are in broad agreement, therefore disagreements can be vicious. In EU, there are fundamental disagreements, therefore it becomes necessary to repeat that we all agree.
O João Galamba Não Sabe Francês?
Um post estranho no jugular:
Hoje, Eva Gaspar diz que Krugman terá dado uma entrevista ao Le Monde onde defendeu que os chamados periféricos devem cortar os salários em 20%, uma solução que, assegura a jornalista do Negócios, este economista tem vindo a defender nos últimos dois anos. Qualquer pessoa minimamente familiarizada com o que Krugman escreve sabe que este nunca poderia defender tal coisa
Porquê estranho? Porque aqui está Krugman:
Pour restaurer la compétitivité en Europe, il faudrait que, disons d'ici les cinq prochaines années, les salaires baissent, dans les pays européens moins compétitifs, de 20 % par rapport à l'Allemagne. Avec un peu d'inflation, cet ajustement est plus facile à réaliser (en laissant filer les prix sans faire grimper les salaires en conséquence).
Claro que Krugman tem absoluta e completa razão. Não percebo porque é que o João Galamba está a estranhar, achar que os custos laborais portugueses são demasiado elevados e era preciso um pouco de inflacção para corrigir é Keynesianismo puro.
Neste caso, eu estou em perfeita concordância com Krugman, sobretudo quando ele diz coisas como Une politique monétaire moins stricte avec une inflation plus élevée - autour de 4 % - offrirait une part de la flexibilité qui manque à la zone euro.
Há um fenómeno engraçado que, quando se trata do estrangeiro estamos todos mais de acordo sobre os problemas e as soluções.
Frase do Dia/Sentence of the Day
"L'inflation n'est pas le problème, c'est la solution"
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Task 2 — Who are your learners
This is Task 2 from my online course on How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students . The question is to describe who the learners are.
Again, my answers are focused on my Programming for scientists course.
Who are my learners?
Sabah is a trained microbiologist who is doing pharmaceutical research. She picked up a bit of Matlab in a two day workshop a year back and has been writing some code to analyse her results. She is surprised at herself for enjoying it, but does not use any version control, has no experience writing anything longer than 100 lines of code, and, generally, her code is spaghetti like.
Maria works on material sciences for her PhD. She has been forced to learn how to write a bit of Fortran code. She learned it back in undergraduate in a formal university course and others in the lab have developed a big solid state simulator library that she must use for her work. She doesn't like it very much and it takes her a very long time to get anything done. Her advisor or supervised recommended that she take a few more courses so that she can improve. She is not enthusiastic, but thinks that programming is something that, unfortunately, has become a required lab skill.
Naturally, I prefer the enthusiastic student, but I have seen both attitudes and every thing in between.
Who are not my learners?
I also decided to list people that would probably not benefit from the course I want to teach.
Anna is a biochemist. She does not know any programming and uses Excel for everything now. She has seen other people in the lab do simple scripts and it seems to help them. She would like to learn. I think Anna does not have the background for the course.
Rita is a computer programmer who wants to learn Python. She is also interested in learning about bioinformatics, so she thought that a for scientists course would help. Rita could probably benefit from the first module, where students are, in fact, taught Python, and she is welcome to sit through those sessions. But we do not really go over any bioinformatics as such and much of the rest of the course might be a repetitiion of what she already knows.
Hugo Chavez
Evolução do discurso esquerda-caviar em relação ao Hugo Chavez
- Não é maravilhoso o que ele faz? O teu cinismo é medo que ele mostre os falhanços do capitalismo.
- Não apoio tudo o que ele faz, claro; mas no global é um grande passo em frente para um modelo alternativo.
- Sim, há coisas más no sistema, mas ele não é um ditador (vocês os direitosos chamam ditadores aos que estão pelo povo). Ele faz coisas boa. No global, acho que o balanço é positivo.
- Tudo o que eu digo é que nem tudo é mau na Venezuela.
- Como é que te atreves a falar no Hugo Chavez? Eu nunca defendi o Hugo Chavez. Eu defendo uma coisa completamente diferente.
Estamos agora entre o 4 e o 5.
Hugo Chavez
Evolution of caviar-left speech on Hugo Chavez
- Isn't it wonderful what he is doing? Your skepticism is hidden fear that he'll actually succeed and make capitalism look bad.
- I don't support everything he's doing, of course; but overall it's a big step towards an alternative model.
- Yes, there are bad things in his regime, but he is not a dictator (you right-wing people always use the word dictator for men of the people). He is doing some good things too. On balance good.
- All I'm saying is that not everything is bad in Venezuela.
- How dare you bring up Hugo Chavez? I have always denounced him as a dictator. He is not at all what I defend.
We are now between 4 and 5.
Paragraph of the Day/Parágrafo do Dia
Using data from a national survey, it is shown that intelligence tends to be positively related to the probabilities of having tried alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and several other recreational drugs. Evidence is also presented that those relationships typically disappear or change sign at high levels of intelligence.
From Intelligence and past use of recreational drugs
The "reversing signs" phenomenom is stronger for cigarettes.
(Plots need error bars)
Assorted Links/Linques Mistos
- How conference calls can be free
- How I ended up Non-Ambitious by a woman of above-average ambition
- Guardian on a captain's responsibility (the captain of the Costa Concordia deserves the shame of cowardice)
- Matt Yglesias on SOTU
R(T|D)P e a Censura
Anda aí muita gente chocada porque os meios de comunicação do Estado seguem as políticas definidas pelo governo. Acham que se lhe chamarmos controlo democrático das fontes de informação já pode ser?
Por falar nisso: comparar o governo actual português aos Khmers vermelhos devia ser, por si só, motivo de despedir o jornalista; por estupidez. Portanto, em termos jornalísticos, acho que o ouvinte até fica a ganhar.
Leite Grátis
Na série uma posta um bocado à João Miranda:
Uma malvada organização religiosa tem andado da prometer leite grátis para pessoas com poucas posses.
Não sabem que é ilegal?
Alguém que os denuncie à ASAE!
Free Milk
Some evil religious organisation has been giving milk to poor people.
Don't they know that it's illegal (Portuguese supermarkets were fined for selling milk too cheaply)? Someone should stop this!
Mundo Moderno
Dois grandes artigos sobre o mundo moderno:
Acho pena que nenhum dos artigos sequer sinta a necessidade de justificar moralmente porque é que devemos "proteger" o trabalhador Americano que ganha $13/h se isso prejudica o trabalhador chinês a ganhar $2/h. Aliás, porque quem ganha $13/h está no 10% de topo mundial.
(Portugal está mais próximo de $2 do que $13 para uma hora de trabalho não qualificado; muitas vezes se ouve um discurso anti-china importado de países mais ricos que não faz tanto sentido no contexto português).
Modern World
Two great articles on modern manufacturing:
I do find it a bit grating that none of the articles found a need to address the underlying moral question of why we should accept policies that make the $13/hour American worker better off and hurt the $2/hr Chinese worker. At $13/hr, you are in the top 10% worldwide.
(Note to Portuguese readers: we often have an anti-China speech imported from the US or France, but Portugal is much closer to $2 than to $13 for unskilled labour).
Mudanças na Era Ikea
Mudanças de A para B:
- Em A, livre-se das suas coisas.
- Vá de A para B.
- Em B, compre exactamente as mesmas coisas que tinha anteriormente.
Moving in an Ikea Age
Here's how you get furniture from point A to point B:
- While at A, get rid of your things (sell, donate, trash...)
- Move from A to B.
- Once you get to B, buy exactly the same things you had.
Teaching Webcraft to Free Range Students, Task I
I am taking Greg Wilson's online course on How to Teach Webcraft and Programming to Free-Range Students.
The first task is to relate the recommendations in this education study guide to our experience (as teachers and students).
I will talk about what I did for my Programming for scientists course and how it relates to the recommendations.
Space learning over time. I did a good job with the programming part of the course where Python examples kept coming up and being reviewed, but a lousy one with other aspects. In particular, some of the tools that I wanted the students to learn (the shell and version control) were only mentioned in their respective sections.
Interleave worked example solutions with problem-solving exercises I think I did some of this, going through code examples. I also used to review the homeworks (after they were due) in class and go through the solutions. The major reason was for efficiency, but it might get me some cookie points here.
Combine graphics with verbal descriptions I would like to have done a bit more slides (if I had the time), but I did most of the verbal communication orally.
Connect and integrate abstract and concrete representations of concepts I certainly tried to do this, but I am going to refrain from evaluating whether I did it well. I had a lecture class and a practical class. They had the same format (lecture), but I tried to do more worked-out examples in the practical and more concepts in the lecture.
Use quizzing to promote learning There was a multiple choice homework every week (plus a single long-answer question or coding problem) and at the end of the first module (which was an introduction to Python), I had a full in-class quizz. This was done by show of hands, ungraded, with discussions. I mostly did this for expediency as the class was not worth enough credits for me to assign time-consuming homeworks, but I think it worked out very well.
Use pre-questions to introduce a new topic Other than as rhetorical devices, I did none of this.
Use quizzes to re-expose students to key content As I said, I did a lot of short quizzes as homework. I could have been a bit more pro-active in class, though.
Help students allocate study time efficiently Nope, I did none of this.
Ask deep explanatory questions Unfortunately, I refrained from assigning questions that were too deep as homework as it was a low-credit class. In this context, it might be programming that is most important, in the sense that I want the students to be better programmers (i.e., a skill) and not verbal or conceptual knowledge (I'm sure that there are educational science words for these concepts, but I don't know what they are).
O Público é um bom jornal
Reparem como a manchete é exactamente ao contrário do que diz a notícia:
Manchete: Médicos portugueses procuram emprego em França
Notícia: [Uma] associação de recrutamento está em Lisboa até quinta-feira à procura de médicos e técnicos de saúde que queiram um posto de trabalho em França. Isto é, empregos em França procuram médicos portugueses (o contrário do título).
Estacionar em Lisboa
Uma coisa que tem melhorado em Lisboa é que finalmente o estacionamento é suficientemente caro.
Parking in Lisbon
One thing that has improved in Lisbon is that parking is finally getting pricy enough.
Moview Review of the Day
Stilted acting, cliche ridden in word and image and without a single honest emotion. Some people will love it.
Esquerda
Sem comentários, só o linque: Obrigado, não quero recibo
Not in Portugal
Marxists did lose a big argument, one we now know as "the 20th century."
In Portugal, they are still taken seriously.
Não em Portugal
Marxists did lose a big argument, one we now know as "the 20th century."
Em Portugal, ainda são levados a sério.
Milk
Thank god we have the government to stops us from buying milk that is too cheap.
Preços Baixos
Ainda bem que temos a ASAE para nos proteger contra os preço baixos.
Precaridade
If this were to become law (that after 18 months a temporary employment contract needs to become a permanent one), how many people would be fired after 18 months?
People who have more specialised jobs would probably make the transition to a permanent position, people which are more easily replaceable would be easily replaced.
Precaridade
Se isto fosse lei, quantas pessoas seriam despedidas ao fim de 18 meses?
Pessoas com empregos mais especializados provavelmente fariam a transição para posições permanentes, aqueles que podem ser facilmente substituídas, seriam substituídas, facilmente.
By Paying
If I don't pay for my food, I don't eat; I'll die. I'm not even 70 years old.
Related to this
Pagando
Na série tudo é um escândalo:
Eu só como se pagar e nem sequer tenho 70 anos. Para quando a comida toda gratuíta?
Em resposta a isto
Posta Ridícula do Dia
É esta
(Eu costumo pagar 3.50 pelo almoço, incluindo sopa; mas o vinho é à parte).
Paragraph of the Day
If you are a democrat you want to gerrymander districts and have an electoral college. This vastly reduces the number of votes a president needs to win an election. Then tax very highly. It’s much better to decide who gets to eat than to let the people feed themselves. If you lower taxes people will do more work, but then people will get rewards that aren’t coming through you. Everything good must come through you. Look at African farm subsidies. The government buys crops at below market price by force. This is a tax on farmers who then can’t make a profit. So, how do you reward people? The government subsidises fertilisers and hands it back that way.
Leia o texto todo.
Paragraph of the Day
If you are a democrat you want to gerrymander districts and have an electoral college. This vastly reduces the number of votes a president needs to win an election. Then tax very highly. It’s much better to decide who gets to eat than to let the people feed themselves. If you lower taxes people will do more work, but then people will get rewards that aren’t coming through you. Everything good must come through you. Look at African farm subsidies. The government buys crops at below market price by force. This is a tax on farmers who then can’t make a profit. So, how do you reward people? The government subsidises fertilisers and hands it back that way.
Read the whole thing.
Becoming Portuguese
Having been gone so long, I needed a strong re-culturisation. Today, I went out and bought a fancy mobile phone and a Nespresso machine. I am writing from a shopping centre (alas, it has internet). Now, I feel Portuguese again.
Naturalização
Tendo estado fora tanto tempo, precisa de um programa de reculturação. Hoje, comprei um telefone com imensas mariquices e uma máquina Nespresso. Estou a escrever dum centro comercial (alás, tem internete). Agora, sim, sou outra vez português.
Fiscal Havens
Yesterday, I filled up on petrol in Spain.
Paraísos Fiscais
Ontem, pus gasolina em Espanha.
Regresso
Voltei. Estive fora mais de cinco anos, ganhei umas letras a seguir ao meu nome e, apesar dos conselhos amigos, voltei. Arquivei o blogue antigo (em breve estará online, mas noutro endereço).
Este blogue agora publicará uma crónica ao Domingo, às nove horas. Os artigos serão mais editados do que anteriormente (que muitas vezes eram escritos e publicados sem qualquer revisão) e estarão disponíveis em Português e Inglês.
Sem horário, escreverei algumas críticas de restaurante e, na categoria, l'écume des jours algumas notas aleatórias (quando me der na telha).
Back
I'm back. I was gone over five years, earned a few letters to place after my name and, despite the friendly warnings, I'm back. I archived the old blog (which will soon reappear online, in a new archive address).
This blog will now follow a strict schedule of an article every Sunday at 9am (Portugal time). The articles will be more thought out than previously (where it was often a spur of the moment, no-revision kind of deal) and they will be available both in Portuguese and English.
I will also write a few restaurant reviews without schedule. Finally, the category l'écume des jours is reserved for random blogging.