Porcine truths
November 6, 2009
Something scary is going on in Italy
February 7, 2009
You probably read in your newspapers about the clash between prime minister Berlusconi and head of state Napolitano on Eluana Englaro’s case.
The details of the case are not important. Stop listening to the clowns of media who point to the moon but, too weak or complacent, repeat hysterically: “Look at the finger! Look at the finger!”
I will give you a little background to really understand what is at stake here.
Interesting video on geopolitical military strategy
November 13, 2008
I find intersting the part about bridging the gap between the UN security council, military action and the reconstruction phase by creating international bodies controlled by G20 countries, to manage the decision process that leads to war and the reconstruction phase with an organism loosely based on the IMF.
Good ideas, we may be getting a step closer to this vision this weekend at the G20 meeting. The world can’t afford too many failed states with the current economic crisis. We’ll need global stability to kick start and speed up economic recovery.
Interesting video on climate change
November 10, 2008
Via my brother. Here’s an interesting video on climiate change.
It got a good explanation of local equilibrium, feedback loops and attractors in layman terms.
Holograms used for
November 28, 2007
Peak Oil?
November 9, 2007
From Rising global demand for oil provoking new energy crisis – International Herald Tribune:
For most of the 20th century, as it transformed the modern world, oil was cheap and abundant. Throughout the 1990s, for example, oil prices averaged $20 a barrel. Even at today’s highs, oil is cheaper than imported bottled water, which would cost $180 a barrel, or milk, at $150 a barrel.
Non-oil related note: I wonder how it is possible that milk costs less than water. We make milk by putting water and other things into a chemical process, called Cow, and we get milk and poop (which – by the way – is underutilized, it could be used to produce methane, the main component of natural gas, which can be used to run cars like the one I own: a 10 years old Opel, adapted to run on both gasoline and natural gas).
Cows for milk are generally of a different race than those raised for meat, I don’t think that one process can’t subsidize the other one.
Are we just being stupid? What’s the value in water that makes it more expensive than milk? Are just bottled water advertisers so much better than those working for the milk industry?
“The concern today is over how will the energy sector meet the anticipated growth in demand over the longer term,” said Linda Cook, a board member of Royal Dutch Shell, the big oil company. “Energy demand is increasing at a rate we’ve not seen before. On the supply side, we’re seeing it is struggling to keep up. That’s the energy challenge.”
We’re approaching the point where oil supply can’t increase production to match oil demand, prices will continue to grow. The fact is that we are running out of cheap-to-extract oil and the constant turmoil in the middle east just raise the price of the cheap oil reserves that are left to exploit.
The problem is that we rely very much on oil for a lot of our basic needs. When we think about oil, we think about transport, electricity or plastics.
We should think about agriculture. Today’s intensive agriculture is very reliant on oil, for diesel fuel for tractors and machines, for fertilizers and other chemical products.
Corn costs recently soared as well. Pushed up both by oil prices and by a boom in ethanol, expected to be used as an oil substitute. World’s corn reserves are smaller than usual, with shortages around the world that fueled protests in Mexico and in some developing nations. We have about one month worth of corn reserves, two months if we count strategic reserves.
Isn’t it the perfect storm?
Blogged with Flock
» How to Learn (But Not Master) Any Language in 1 Hour (Plus: A Favor)
Interesting article on how to approach language learning from a neuroscience and linguistics point of view, by deconstructing a language and comparing it to the ones you know, thus estimating how hard it will be to grasp.
Interestingly, it matches my experience with German and Russian, I studied the former for four semesters at the beginning of my high school years and I briefly used the latter when visiting Moscow for a month before going to college. I don’t remember much of either but I do remember that they didn’t “stick” naturally.
On the other hand, I found English and Portuguese easy to grasp. While I have many years of formal education with the former, I picked up the latter in a rather unorthodox way: listening to my Brazilian girlfriend talking to me in a mixture of Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, she’s particularly fond of using her own language when she’s mad at me for some reason and is starting a verbal fight.
Blogged with Flock
Interesting video: Confessions of an Economic Hitman
October 28, 2007
Blogged with Flock
Worst EU Lobbying Awards 2007
October 18, 2007
End the war / 2
October 12, 2007
In a comment to a previous article, I promised to clarify my thoughts about the situation in Iraq. My arguments will be clearer if I discuss beforehand about some of my longer term concerns and their relationship with the current state of the world.
We live in exponential time. Have you heard this phrase before? The fact is that a revolution is coming in our lives, with biotech and nanotech reaching maturity faster and faster. Bundled with infotech (Information Technology), they will become key enablers in other disciplines – including neurosciences.
By the end of this century, human cognition and control on our brains will be so pervasive that 2100’s drugs compared to today’s ones will make the latter look like hitting a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Tomorrow’s drugs will not be passive compounds, they will interact with us – the experience will be much closer to using today’s computer than to use today’s drugs.
Our cognitive and emotional processes, our intelligence will be in our hand. This poses great perils but can also lead to great rewards.
Can you imaging a world without rape? I think we’ll be able to consciously decide to remove our ability to commit such vicious crimes.
On the other hand, the perils are literally mind-blowing. If totalitarian forces prevail over freedom and liberties, we’ll live in a world that will make Stalin’s USSR feel like a five star Club Med resort.
It’s difficult to make previsions with hard dates. Nonetheless, I expect even the most isolated regimes to acquire crowd control devices – the grandsons of Raytheon’s pain beam – within 10 years from now. Protests by oppressed people will be increasingly hard.
Peace is important for personal liberties. When we are scared, when we are or believe that we are in danger, we are willing to trade personal liberties for security. This slippery slope leads democracies into totalitarian control in the previous century. We shouldn’t be blind and let it happen again, unfortunately the cruel years of totalitarian control and war often prevail on the milder – but crucial – years that preceded them.
Emotional scars, ethnical or religious cleansing, genocides take generations to heal. Can we afford to have traumatized people among tomorrow’s global ruling class, who will be called to make decisions that will shape the very essence of future mankind? Today’s children will be tomorrow’s decision makers.
A wise man said that our grandsons at the end of the century will resemble us as much as a butterfly resemble a caterpillar. I do agree.
Do you think that my vision of future technology is too far from the mainstream one? Well, look at this car:
It doesn’t have a fixed, rigid chassis. It is just a suite that “contains millions of microscopic actuators functioning as a haptic envelope. This allows the driver to experience the road psycho-somatically, while receiving electrical stimulation to specific muscle groups.” It is Mazda’s concept car for 2057.
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