Militant Research

Militant research is a concept-tool that works on the premise that all interpretation of the world is linked to some kind of action. Related to practices of co-research and institutional analysis, militant research proposes that all new knowledge production affects and modifies the bodies and subjectivities of those who have participated. Rather than use research as a tool to categorise and separate knowledge from practice, militant research operates transversally, becoming part of the process that organises relationships between bodies, knowledge, social practices and fields of action.

Marta Malo de Molina:
Common notions, part 1: workers-inquiry, co-research, consciousness-raising
Common Notions, Part 2: Institutional Analysis, Participatory Action-Research, Militant Research

Stéphanie, 11 de Setembro, 23ª

Paris Match

Michel D., 13 de Julho

Merci de diffuser
cette lettre à mes collègues de travail
et aux délégués du personnel

Je me suicide à cause de mon travail à France Télécom. C’est la seule cause. Urgence permanente, surcharge de travail, absence de formation, désorganisation totale de l’entreprise. Management par la terreur !

Cela m’a totalement désorganisé et perturbé. Je suis devenu une épave, il vaut mieux en finir. (...) J’insiste là-dessus, c’est bien le travail qui a provoqué ça et donc c’est France Télécom qui est responsable de mon suicide.

Michel D.*

PS : Je sais que beaucoup de personnes vont dire qu’il y a d’autres causes que le travail (je suis seul, non marié, sans enfant, etc.). Certains sous-entendent aussi que je n’acceptais pas de vieillir. Mais non, avec tout ça je me suis toujours bien débrouillé. C’est bien le travail l’unique cause.

La Provence

canal

Waterways Code

Margarita com chili e gengibre

1 1/2 oz chili tequila
1/2 oz triple sec
1 oz lime or lemon juice
slice of ginger

Rub glass rim with citrus juice and then dip in fine granulated salt.

Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake 30 seconds and pour into glasses.

failure

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Becket, Worstward Ho

Kafka's good

Reading Kafka 'enhances cognitive mechanisms', claims study
Alison Flood
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 September 2009

Subjects who had just read Kafka's The Country Doctor were better at recognising patterns in grammar test, psychologists found

Forget Sudokus and crosswords: if you want to sharpen up your thinking, immerse yourself in Kafka's stories of the surreal.
Research from psychologists at the University of California in Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia claims to show that exposure to surrealism enhances the cognitive mechanisms which oversee implicit learning functions. The psychologists showed a group of subjects Kafka's story The Country Doctor, a disturbing and surreal tale in which a doctor travels by "unearthly horses" to an ill patient, only to climb into bed naked with him and then escape through the window "naked, exposed to the frost of this most unhappy of ages"...

Crise

Britishness

Skye

Right Where it Belongs, NIN

See the animal in it's cage that you built
Are you sure what side you're on?
Better not look him too closely in the eye
Are you sure what side of the glass you are on?
See the safety of the life you have built
Everything where it belongs
Feel the hollowness inside of your heart
And it's all
Right where it belongs

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you think you know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks?
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

What if all the world's inside of your head
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your gods
All the living and the dead
And you really are alone
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can't find the woods
While you're hiding in the trees

What if everything around you
Isn't quite as it seems?
What if all the world you used to know
Is an elaborate dream?
And if you look at your reflection
Is it all you wanted to be?
What if you could look right through the cracks
Would you find yourself
Find yourself afraid to see?

Subtitles

A Mula da Cooperativa, Max, 1959

Portugal foi assim.

oui, luv

Tory controlled borough of Barnet adopts budget airline model

in The Guardian
by Robert Booth
27/08/09

A leading Conservative council is using the business model of budget airlines, Ryanair and easyJet, to inspire a radical reform of public service provision which is being seen as a blueprint for Tory government.

The practices of the no-frills airlines, who charge customers extra for services which were once considered part of the standard fare, are being emulated by the London borough of Barnet as it embarks on "a relentless drive for efficiency". A spokesman for the council has unofficially dubbed the project "easyCouncil".

Barnet wants householders to pay extra to jump the queue for planning consents, in the way budget airlines charge extra for priority boarding. And as budget airline passengers choose to spend their budget on either flying at peaktime or having an in-flight meal, recipients of adult social care in Barnet will choose to spend a limited budget on whether to have a cleaner or a respite carer or even a holiday to Eastbourne. Other examples of proposed reforms include reducing the size of waste bins to minimise the cost of council rubbish collections...

A letter from a victim of jounal reviewers

Journal of Systems and Software, Volume 54, Issue 1, 30 September 2000, Page 1.

*Editor’s Note:* It seems appropriate, in this issue of JSS containing the findings of our annual Top Scholars/Institutions study, to pay tribute to the persistent authors who make a journal like this, and a study like that, possible. In their honor, we dedicate the following humorous, anonymously-authored, letter!

Dear Sir, Madame, or Other:

Enclosed is our latest version of Ms. #1996-02-22-RRRRR, that is the re-re-re-revised revision of our paper. Choke on it. We have again rewritten the entire manuscript from start to finish. We even changed the g-d-running head! Hopefully, we have suffered enough now to satisfy even you and the bloodthirsty reviewers.

I shall skip the usual point-by-point description of every single change we made in response to the critiques. After all, it is fairly clear that your anonymous reviewers are less interested in the details of scientific procedure than in working out their personality problems and sexual frustrations by seeking some kind of demented glee in the sadistic and arbitrary exercise of tyrannical power over hapless authors like ourselves who happen to fall into their clutches. We do understand that, in view of the misanthropic psychopaths you have on your editorial board, you need to keep sending them papers, for if they were not reviewing manuscripts they would probably be out mugging little old ladies or clubbing baby seals to death. Still, from this batch of reviewers, C was clearly the most hostile, and we request that you not ask him to review this revision. Indeed, we have mailed letter bombs to four or five people we suspected of being reviewer C, so if you send the manuscript back to them, the review process could be unduly delayed.

Some of the reviewers’ comments we could not do anything about. For example, if (as C suggested) several of my recent ancestors were indeed drawn from other species, it is too late to change that. Other suggestions were implemented, however, and the paper has been improved and benefited. Plus, you suggested that we shorten the manuscript by five pages, and we were able to accomplish this very effectively by altering the margins and printing the paper in a different font with a smaller typeface. We agree with you that the paper is much better this way.

One perplexing problem was dealing with suggestions 13–28 by reviewer B. As you may recall (that is, if you even bother reading the reviews before sending your decision letter), that reviewer listed 16 works that he/she felt we should cite in this paper. These were on a variety of different topics, none of which had any relevance to our work that we could see. Indeed, one was an essay on the Spanish–American war from a high school literary magazine. The only common thread was that all 16 were by the same author, presumably someone whom reviewer B greatly admires and feels should be more widely cited. To handle this, we have modified the Introduction and added, after the review of the relevant literature, a subsection entitled “Review of Irrelevant Literature” that discusses these articles and also duly addresses some of the more asinine suggestions from other reviewers.

We hope you will be pleased with this revision and will finally recognize how urgently deserving of publication this work is. If not, then you are an unscrupulous, depraved monster with no shred of human decency. You ought to be in a cage. May whatever heritage you come from be the butt of the next round of ethnic jokes. If you do accept it, however, we wish to thank you for your patience and wisdom throughout this process, and to express our appreciation for your scholarly insights. To repay you, we would be happy to review some manuscripts for you; please send us the next manuscript that any of these reviewers submits to this journal.

Assuming you accept this paper, we would also like to add a footnote acknowledging your help with this manuscript and to point out that we liked the paper much better the way we originally submitted it, but you held the editorial shotgun to our heads and forced us to chop, reshuffle, hedge, expand, shorten, and in general convert a meaty paper into stir-fried vegetables. We could not – or would not – have done it without your input.

Shame IKEA

...In 2004, the last year that the INGKA Holding group filed accounts, the company reported profits of €1.4 billion on sales of €12.8 billion, a margin of nearly 11 percent. Because INGKA Holding is owned by the nonprofit INGKA Foundation, none of this profit is taxed. The foundation's nonprofit status also means that the Kamprad family cannot reap these profits directly, but the Kamprads do collect a portion of IKEA sales profits through the franchising relationship between INGKA Holding and Inter IKEA Systems.

Inter IKEA Systems collected €631 million of franchise fees in 2004, but reported pre-tax profits of only €225 million in 2004. One of the major pre-tax expenses that Inter IKEA systems reported was €590 million of “other operating charges.” IKEA has refused to explain these charges, but Inter IKEA Systems appears to make large payments to I.I. Holding, another Luxembourg-registered group that, according to The Economist, “is almost certain to be controlled by the Kamprad family.” I.I. Holding made a profit of €328 million in 2004.

In 2004, the Inter IKEA group of companies and I.I. Holding reported combined profits of €553m and paid €19m in taxes, or approximately 3.5 percent.[22]

The Berne Declaration, a non-profit organization in Switzerland that promotes corporate responsibility, has formally criticized IKEA for its tax avoidance strategies. In 2007, the Berne Declaration nominated IKEA for one of its Public Eye “awards,” which highlight corporate irresponsibility and are announced during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland...

in Wikipedia

Ubuntu

Conceito africano que significa:

Human generosity, interconnectedness, community, bringing people together to work together on issues of common interest, toward a higher good. People, objects and events are all connected.
Everything is in an ongoing state of relatedness. Dynamics of cooperation support system. The interconnected web holds and honors all equally. Everything affects everything else. If I shortchange you, I shortchange myself.

(citação de um post de email mas desenvolvido aqui)

Enfim, teoria dos sistemas...

muito bem dito

... Num país de gente normal, os avisos de "perigo" deveriam bastar para que qualquer pessoa se afastasse com segurança da sombra das falésias (sendo que é de facto muito difícil estimar o grau de iminência de perigo nestes casos). Pessoas responsáveis não diriam (como disse numa entrevista um veraneante encostado à sombra de uma falésia sinalizada como perigosa, já após o acidente da Praia Maria Luisa) que a culpa era do Estado, que não o impedia fisicamente de se sentar na sombra tentadora das falésias, no areal junto ao mar.

Mana Lisa

Uma das recentes aquisições do MOBA

community

Excerto de entrevista
com ajuda do Wordle

crise

Intervenção do Primeiro-Ministro no debate sobre o Estado da Nação em 2009-07-02
parte "Responder à crise"
a partir do Wordle

posse

Ainda o Bernardo Soares, mas desta vez com o Wordle

Cheat Neutral

What is Cheat Offsetting?

When you cheat on your partner you add to the heartbreak, pain and jealousy in the atmosphere.

Cheatneutral offsets your cheating by funding someone else to be faithful and NOT cheat. This neutralises the pain and unhappy emotion and leaves you with a clear conscience.
Can I offset all my cheating?

First you should look at ways of reducing your cheating. Once you've done this you can use Cheatneutral to offset the remaining, unavoidable cheating

o paradoxo do amor

Nós não podemos amar, filho. O amor é a mais carnal das ilusões. Amar é possuir, escuta. E o que possui quem ama? O corpo? Para o possuir seria preciso tornar nossa a sua matéria, comê-lo, incluí-lo em nós... E essa impossibilidade seria temporária, porque o nosso próprio corpo passa e se transforma, porque nós não possuímos o nosso corpo (possuímos apenas a nossa sensação dele), e porque, uma vez possuído esse corpo amado, tornar-se-ia nosso, dei­xaria de ser outro, e o amor, por isso, com o desaparecimento do outro ente, desapareceria...

Possuímos a alma? — ouve-me em silêncio — Nós não a possuímos. Nem a nossa alma é nossa sequer. Como, de resto, possuir uma alma? Entre alma e alma há o abismo de serem almas.

Que possuímos? Que possuímos? Que nos leva a amar? A beleza? E nós possuímo-la amando? A mais feroz e dominadora posse de um corpo o que possui dele? Nem o corpo, nem a alma, nem a beleza sequer. A posse de um corpo lindo não abraça a beleza, abraça a carne celulada e gordurosa; o beijo não toca na beleza da boca, mas na carne húmida dos lábios perecíveis em mucosas; a própria cópula é um contacto apenas, um contacto esfregado e próximo, mas não uma penetração real, sequer, de um corpo por outro corpo... que possuímos nós? Que possuímos?

As nossas sensações, ao menos? Ao menos o amor é um meio de nos possuirmos, a nós, nas nossas sensações? e, ao menos, um modo de sonharmos nitidamente, e mais gloriosamente portanto, o sonho de existirmos? e, ao menos, desaparecida a sensação, fica a memória dela connosco sempre, e assim, realmente possuímos...

Desenganemos até disto. Nós nem as nossas sensações possuímos. Não fales. A memória, afinal, é a sensação do passado... E toda a sensação é uma ilusão...

— Escuta-me, escuta-me sempre. Escuta-me e não olhes pela janela aberta a plana outra margem do rio, nem o crepúsculo (...), nem esse silvo de um comboio que corta o longe vago (...) — Escuta-me em silêncio...

Nós não possuímos as nossas sensações... Nós não nos possuímos nelas.

in Bernardo Soares, Livro do Desassossego

autopoiese

Nunca amamos alguém. Amamos, tão-somente, a ideia que fazemos de alguém. É a um conceito nosso - em suma, é a nós mesmos - que amamos.

Isto é verdade em toda a escala do amor. No amor sexual buscamos um prazer nosso por intermédio de um corpo estranho. No amor diferente do sexual, buscamos um prazer nosso dado por intermédio de uma ideia nossa. O onanista é objecto, mas, em exacta verdade, o onanista é a perfeita expressão lógica do amoroso. É o único que não disfarça nem se engana.

As relações entre uma alma e outra, através de coisas tão incertas e divergentes como as palavras comuns e os gestos que se empreendem, são matéria de estranha complexidade. No próprio ato em que nos conhecemos, nos desconhecemos. Dizem os dois «amo-te» ou pensam-no e sentem-no por troca, e cada um quer dizer uma ideia diferente, uma vida diferente, até, porventura, uma cor ou um aroma diferente, na soma abstracta de impressões que constitui a actividade da alma.

in Bernardo Soares, O Livro do Desassossego.

sem nada

Sempre geniais

Congress Deadlocked Over How To Not Provide Health Care

WASHINGTON—After months of committee meetings and hundreds of hours of heated debate, the United States Congress remained deadlocked this week over the best possible way to deny Americans health care.

"Both parties understand that the current system is broken," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Monday. "But what we can't seem to agree upon is how to best keep it broken, while still ensuring that no elected official takes any political risk whatsoever. It’s a very complicated issue."

"Ultimately, though, it's our responsibility as lawmakers to put these differences aside and focus on refusing Americans the health care they deserve," Pelosi added.

The legislative stalemate largely stems from competing ideologies deeply rooted along party lines. Democrats want to create a government-run system for not providing health care, while Republicans say coverage is best denied by allowing private insurers to make it unaffordable for as many citizens as possible.

"We have over 40 million people without insurance in this country today, and that is unacceptable," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "If we would just quit squabbling so much, we could get that number up to 50 or even 100 million. Why, there's no reason we can't work together to deny health care to everyone but the richest 1 percent of the population."

"That's what America is all about," he added...

OMG!!!

Esta é a campanha dos Conservadores, extrema direita e sabe-se lá mais quem contra a proposta do sistema de saúde nos EUA. Nem é preciso ir ao Dennys.

The Waves

What should I do with you, waves, you who can never decide
whether you’re the first or the last?
You think you can define the coast with your constant wish-wash,
grind it down with your coming and going.
And yet no one knows how long the coastline really is,
where land stops, where land begins, and you’re forever changing
the line, length, lay, with the moon and unpredictable.

Consistent alone is your inconsistency.

Ultimately victorious since, as so often evoked, this wears away
the stones, grinds the sand down as fine as needed for
hourglasses and egg-timers, as required for calibrating time,
for telling the difference between hard and soft.

Victorious also because, never tiring, you win the contest who of us
will be the first to fall asleep, or you, being the ocean still,
because you never sleep.

Although colourless yourself, you seem blue
when the sky is gently mirrored on your surface, the ideal course
for being strolled upon by the carpenter’s son, the most changeable element.

And inversely, when you are wild and loud and your breakers thunder,
I listen between the peaks of your rollers, and from the highest waves,
from breaking spume, a thousand voices break away, mine,
yesterday’s ones that I didn’t know, that otherwise just whisper,
and all the others too, and in their midst the Nazarene.
Over and over again those stupendous five final words:
Why have you left me?

I hold my own, shout at each single wave:
Are you staying?
Are you staying?
Are you staying, or what?

Die Wellen (The Waves) , Einsturzende Neubauten

Mankind is no Island

Alentejo

outro tempo e espaço

praia da Zambujeira

no monte é que eu estou bem


formação

fora do mapa

terra seca

vale de Odesseixe

praia do carvalhal

por mim pode ficar tudo como está

havia um pessegueiro na ilha

sair da paisagem

comida

a beleza industrial de S.Torpes

Beauty

You see half the moon, its crescent, and one of the planets, maybe Saturn, maybe Jupiter, in the early night sky over Berlin, through the windows of a taxicab, near Potsdamer Platz.
You think: Beauty

No, this is not beauty, maybe not, maybe, this is the rest of it, maybe not, maybe, the rest of beauty, maybe not, maybe, what remains of beauty, maybe not, maybe, what is visible, certainly, uncertain.
Your arms would not be able to strech as far as necessary to form an adequate gesture for beauty (You know that, don't you?)
So, beauty remains in the impossibilities of the body.


"Beauty", Einsturzende Neubauten

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny's

Liechtenstein Successfully Tests Teeny Tiny Nuclear Bomb

Police Still Searching For Missing Productive, Obedient Woman

U.S. Government Stages Fake Coup To Wipe Out National Debt

nham

disgusting

Quantum walk

Quantum walks were first proposed by physicist Richard Feynman and are, in terms of probability, the opposite of a random walk. A random walk might be modeled by a person flipping a coin, and for each flip he steps left for heads and right for tails. In this case, his most probable location is the center, with the probability distribution tapering off in either direction. A quantum walk involves the use of internal states and superpositions, and results in the hypothetical person "exploring" every possible position simultaneously.

When a quantum walker flips a coin, it directs him to move one way, but he maintains an "internal state" that moves the other way, making him a superposition of both directions of movement. During a quantum walk, as the quantum object takes more steps, it becomes "delocalized" over all available positions, as if its presence is blurred.

A second feature of quantum walking is matter-wave interference, as when the person flips heads and next flips tails. The second step makes the new superposition overlap the old one, and the new superposition can either amplify the old position or remove it. After all this occurs and the desired number of steps have been taken, an attempted observation will collapse the superposition and "resolve" the object to a single position.

As previously mentioned, a random walk's probability distribution has a single peak tapering off in either direction. A quantum walk's probability distribution generally has two peaks placed evenly on either side of the starting position. However, this distribution can vary depending on the initial internal state of the particle doing the walking, which can cause the final position to strongly favor one side or the other.

in Ars Technica

Miseries of Scholars

Now because they are commonly subject to such hazards and inconveniences as dotage, madness, simplicity, &c. Jo. Voschius would have good scholars to be highly rewarded, and had in some extraordinary respect above other men, "to have greater [2000]privileges than the rest, that adventure themselves and abbreviate their lives for the public good." But our patrons of learning are so far nowadays from respecting the muses, and giving that honour to scholars, or reward which they deserve, and are allowed by those indulgent privileges of many noble princes, that after all their pains taken in the universities, cost and charge, expenses, irksome hours, laborious tasks, wearisome days, dangers, hazards, (barred interim from all pleasures which other men have, mewed up like hawks all their lives) if they chance to wade through them, they shall in the end be rejected, contemned, and which is their greatest misery, driven to their shifts, exposed to want, poverty, and beggary. Their familiar attendants are,

[2001]Pallentes morbi, luctus, curaeque laborque
Et metus, et malesuada fames, et turpis egestas,
Terribiles visu formae———

Grief, labour, care, pale sickness, miseries,
Fear, filthy poverty, hunger that cries,
Terrible monsters to be seen with eyes.

If there were nothing else to trouble them, the conceit of this alone were enough to make them all melancholy. Most other trades and professions, after some seven years' apprenticeship, are enabled by their craft to live of themselves. A merchant adventures his goods at sea, and though his hazard be great, yet if one ship return of four, he likely makes a saving voyage. An husbandman's gains are almost certain; quibus ipse Jupiter nocere non potest (whom Jove himself can't harm) ('tis [2002]Cato's hyperbole, a great husband himself); only scholars methinks are most uncertain, unrespected, subject to all casualties, and hazards. For first, not one of a many proves to be a scholar, all are not capable and docile, [2003]ex omniligno non fit Mercurius: we can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars: kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed; universities can give degrees; and Tu quod es, e populo quilibet esse potest; but he nor they, nor all the world, can give learning, make philosophers, artists, orators, poets; we can soon say, as Seneca well notes, O virum bonum, o divitem, point at a rich man, a good, a happy man, a prosperous man, sumptuose vestitum, Calamistratum, bene olentem, magno temporis impendio constat haec laudatio, o virum literarum, but 'tis not so easily performed to find out a learned man. Learning is not so quickly got, though they may be willing to take pains, to that end sufficiently informed, and liberally maintained by their patrons and parents, yet few can compass it. Or if they be docile, yet all men's wills are not answerable to their wits, they can apprehend, but will not take pains; they are either seduced by bad companions, vel in puellam impingunt, vel in poculum (they fall in with women or wine) and so spend their time to their friends' grief and their own undoings. Or put case they be studious, industrious, of ripe wits, and perhaps good capacities, then how many diseases of body and mind must they encounter? No labour in the world like unto study. It may be, their temperature will not endure it, but striving to be excellent to know all, they lose health, wealth, wit, life and all.

excerpt from The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Robert Burton, (first edition 1621).
full book in the Project Gutenberg Library

30

thirty are better than one

Reclamação

Ideia genial. Agora a companhia anda atrás dele para lhe pagar. E a música... fantástica!...

future

Projects for the future becoming projects for projecting the future.

1 futures toolkit

The Great American Bubble Machine

The Great American Bubble Machine
Matt Taibbi on how Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression
MATT TAIBBI
in Rolling Stone
Posted Jul 02, 2009 8:38 Am

In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" — investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good." Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it." Here, now, are excerpts from Matt Taibbi's piece and video of Taibbi exploring the key issues.

ele mandou

"I ain't proud of anything except being alive."

receita para o sucesso

Self study
A little self-promotion goes a long way
Marc Abrahams
The Guardian, Tuesday 30 June 2009

Scientists who struggle to get their reports published, or to get anyone to pay attention to them, might consider the path blazed by Dr Mohamed El Naschie. El Naschie found an appreciative science journal editor. The editor subsequently published hundreds of El Naschie's studies, and also made El Naschie a glamorous figure - featuring him in lavish photo-spreads in the company of famous scientists and powerful world leaders.

The science journal is called Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. Its founding editor-in-chief is Dr Mohamed El Naschie.

A 19-page pictorial in the August 2005 issue shows El Naschie in the company of numerous Nobel laureates, and also of many medals, plaques, certificates and floral arrangements....

au revoir et merci

Transparência II

Transparência na AP

Site da Associação Nacional para o Software Livre (ANSOL) para apoiar a transparência na administração pública portuguesa.

Foi desenvolvido para resolver as muitas dificuldades com a pesquisa e navegação no sítio oficial Base - Contratos Públicos Online. A informação aqui presente é uma cópia da informação oficial actualizada periodicamente e disponibilizada através de um interface que facilita e incentiva a procura. De momento apenas pesquisa pelo objecto e nomes das entidades envolvidas nos Ajustes Directos lá publicados.
Tecnologias utilizadas

Na sua elaboração foram utilizados os programas Apache httpd (web server), WordPress (gestor de conteúdos) e a base de dados MySQL; todos são Software Livre.
Custos

Estes foram os custos de implementação deste sítio (unidades: euros e tempo-homem, para uma pessoa que nunca programou em PHP antes):

1. Registo do domínio: 18€
2. Configuração do webserver, BD do sítio e instalação do WordPress: 3min
3. Escolher um tema gráfico: 15min
4. Ajustes de configuração: 30min
5. Imagens de instituições públicas: 15min
6. Ajustes de conteúdos: 27min
7. Motor de pesquisa: 10h45min

Custo total: 18€ + 12h15 min

Foi ainda doado a este serviço:

* 6 horas de stress testing

Transparência I

Portal da transparência adjudicado sem concurso

A Microsoft ganhou a adjudicação de um serviço do Estado em que foi consultora, sem concurso público. O mais curioso é que o serviço tinha por objectivo a transparência.

O portal Base – Contratos Públicos On Line é uma iniciativa levada a cabo pelo Instituto da Construção e Imobiliário (ICI), que tem por objectivo a publicação dos ajustes directos e derrapagens de contratos celebrados entre o Estado e respectivos fornecedores.

Segundo notícia do Público, o ICI não tardou muito a incorrer nas falas que pretendia contrariar, ao adjudicar à Microsoft a produção do portal sem concurso e numa altura (a 27 de Junho de 2008) em que as portarias que regulamentam a criação do Base ainda não tinham sido publicadas.

O Público refere mesmo que a Microsoft, que presta serviços de consultoria para o Ministério das Obras Públicas, Transportes e Comunicações (a tutela do ICI), terá começado a trabalhar no Base ainda antes de ter celebrado o contrato.

A urgência em terminar o portal terá determinado a celebração de um contrato que, alegadamente, não seguiu todos os trâmites legais.

Há ainda a suspeita de atrasos no lançamento de ferramentas, dificuldade de inserção de funcionalidades de pesquisa ou a duplicação de facturação relativa aos serviços prestados pela Microsoft durante a produção do Base.

A Microsoft nega qualquer atraso no serviço, apesar de admitir que o projecto se mantém em curso. A companhia não fornece quaisquer detalhes sobre o contrato.
in Exame Informática

Scientists' sense of fun

teens' sense of humour

o som da comida

Charles Spence, Oxford University, UK: Vencedor do IgNobel de 2008 de Nutrição, entrevistado pela BBC

When you play the sound of crisps when people bite into Pringles - if we change the sound as they eat, we can actually change how fresh, or how crisp, the Pringle tastes to people.

We've used [a bacon sizzling] sound to flip the flavour of bacon and egg ice cream. If we play that sound over the loudspeakers in the room, the ice cream will taste more 'bacony' than if you play the sound of, say, farmyard chickens.

Ouvir http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7650584.stm

sandes de peixe

Hospitals Begin to Move Into Supermarkets

Hospitals Begin to Move Into Supermarkets
By MILT FREUDENHEIM
Published: May 11, 2009
New York Times

As walk-in clinics at stores like CVS and Wal-Mart offer convenient alternatives to doctors’ offices and hospital emergency rooms, some hospitals are fighting back — with walk-in clinics at some of those same retailers.
round the country, hospitals are now affiliated with more than 25 Wal-Mart clinics. The Cleveland Clinic has lent its name and backup services to a string of CVS drugstore clinics in northeastern Ohio. And the Mayo Clinic is in the game, operating one Express Care clinic at a supermarket in Rochester, Minn., and a second one across town at a shopping mall.

Many primary-care doctors still denigrate the retail clinics as cheap, unworthy competitors. But hospitals see the clinics as a way to reach more patients and expand their business. And they argue that as President Obama and Congress warn of a shortage of primary-care physicians, the hospital-linked retail clinics are filling a vital public need.

The walk-in centers help clear hospital emergency rooms of people seeking only basic medical care, like antibiotics for strep throat. But in contrast to E.R.’s, which in many states cannot legally turn away those unable to pay, the retail clinics typically serve only patients with insurance or money.

And even if $77 throat cultures or $30 physicals do not represent a vast new source of profit for hospitals, retail clinics can play a marketing role, helping establish relationships with customers who may eventually need more lucrative in-hospital care. .......

A Pobreza dos Ricos

*Cristovam Buarque*
Professor da UNB Autor do livro "A desordem do Progresso".

Em nenhum outro país os ricos demonstraram mais ostentação que no Brasil. Apesar disso, os brasileiros ricos são pobres. São pobres porque compram sofisticados automóveis importados, com todos os exagerados equipamentos da modernidade, mas ficam horas engarrafados ao lado dos ônibus de subúrbio. E, às vezes, são assaltados, seqüestrados ou mortos nos sinais de trânsito.
Presenteiam belos carros a seus filhos e não voltam a dormir tranqüilos enquanto eles não chegam em casa. Pagam fortunas para construir modernas mansões, desenhadas por arquitetos de renome, e são obrigados a escondê-las atrás de muralhas, como se vivessem nos tempos dos castelos medievais, dependendo de guardas que se revezam em turnos.

Os ricos brasileiros usufruem privadamente tudo o que a riqueza lhes oferece, mas vivem encalacrados na pobreza social. Na sexta-feira, saem de noite para jantar em restaurantes tão caros que os ricos da Europa não conseguiriam freqüentar, mas perdem o apetite diante da pobreza que ali por perto arregala os olhos pedindo um pouco de pão; ou são obrigados a ir a restaurantes fechados, cercados e protegidos por policiais privados. Quando terminam de comer escondidos, são obrigados a tomar o carro à porta, trazido por um manobrista, sem o prazer de caminhar pela rua, ir a um cinema ou teatro, depois continuar até um bar para conversar sobre o que viram. Mesmo assim, não é raro que o pobre rico seja assaltado antes de terminar o jantar, ou depois, na estrada a caminho de casa. Felizmente isso nem sempre acontece, mas certamente, a viagem é um susto durante todo o caminho. E, às vezes, o sobressalto continua, mesmo dentro de casa.

Os ricos brasileiros são pobres de tanto medo. Por mais riquezas que acumulem no presente, são pobres na falta de segurança para usufruir o patrimônio no futuro. E vivem no susto permanente diante das incertezas em que os filhos crescerão. Os ricos brasileiros continuam pobres de tanto gastar dinheiro apenas para corrigir os desacertos criados pela desigualdade que suas riquezas provocam: em insegurança e ineficiência.

No lugar de usufruir tudo aquilo com que gastam, uma parte considerável do dinheiro nada adquire, serve apenas para evitar perdas. Por causa da pobreza ao redor, os brasileiros ricos vivem um paradoxo: para ficarem mais ricos têm de perder dinheiro, gastando cada vez mais apenas para se proteger da realidade hostil e ineficiente. Quando viajam ao exterior, os ricos sabem que no hotel onde se hospedarão serão vistos como assassinos de crianças na Candelária, destruidores da Floresta Amazônica, usurpadores da maior concentração de renda do planeta, portadores de malária, de dengue e de verminoses. São ricos empobrecidos pela vergonha que sentem ao serem vistos pelos olhos estrangeiros.

Na verdade, a maior pobreza dos ricos brasileiros está na incapacidade de verem a riqueza que há nos pobres. Foi esta pobreza de visão que impediu os ricos brasileiros de perceberem, cem anos atrás, a riqueza que havia nos braços dos escravos libertos se lhes fosse dado direito de trabalhar a imensa quantidade de terra ociosa de que o país dispunha. Se tivesse percebido essa riqueza e libertado a terra junto com os escravos, os ricos brasileiros teriam abolido a pobreza que os acompanha ao longo de mais de um século. Se os latifúndios tivessem sido colocados à disposição dos braços dos ex-escravos, a riqueza criada teria chegado aos ricos de
hoje, que viveriam em cidades sem o peso da imigração descontrolada e com uma população sem miséria.

A pobreza de visão dos ricos impediu também de verem a riqueza que há na cabeça de um povo educado. Ao longo de toda a nossa história, os nossos ricos abandonaram a educação do povo, desviaram os recursos para criar a riqueza que seria só deles,
e ficaram pobres: contratam trabalhadores com baixa produtividade, investem em modernos equipamentos e não encontram quem os saiba manejar, vivem rodeados de compatriotas que não sabem ler o mundo ao redor, não sabem mudar o mundo, não sabem construir um novo país que beneficie a todos. Muito mais rico seriam os ricos se
vivessem em uma sociedade onde todos fossem educados.

Para poderem usar os seus caros automóveis, os ricos construíram viadutos com dinheiro de colocar água e esgoto nas cidades, achando que, ao comprar água mineral, se protegiam das doenças dos pobres. Esqueceram-se de que precisam desses pobres e não podem contar com eles todos os dias e com toda saúde, porque eles (os pobres) vivem sem água e sem esgoto. Montam modernos hospitais, mas tem dificuldades em evitar infecções porque os pobres trazem de casa os germes que os contaminam. Com a pobreza de achar que poderiam ficar ricos sozinhos, construíram um país doente e vivem no meio da doença.

Há um grave quadro de pobreza entre os ricos brasileiros. E esta pobreza é tão grave que a maior parte deles não percebe. Por isso a pobreza de espírito tem sido o maior inspirador das decisões das decisões governamentais das pobres ricas elites brasileiras. Se percebessem a riqueza potencial que há nos braços e nos cérebros dos
pobres, os ricos brasileiros poderiam reorientar o modelo de desenvolvimento em direção aos interesses de nossas massas populares.
Liberariam a terra para os trabalhadores rurais, realizariam um programa de construção de casas e implantação de redes de água e esgoto, contratariam centenas de milhares de professores e colocariam o povo para produzir para o próprio povo. Esta seria uma decisão que enriqueceria o Brasil inteiro? Os pobres que sairiam da pobreza e os ricos que sairiam da vergonha, da insegurança e da insensatez.

Mas isso é esperar demais. Os ricos são tão pobres que não percebem a triste pobreza em que usufruem suas malditas riquezas.

Oxalá os veja

no helping hand out here

from European Social Survey

pestinha

porque não?

on the future

At any moment we are free to act toward the future we desire.

in Heinz Von Foerster, 1971, "Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception", Twenty-fourth Annual Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

on information and knowledge

The primordial and most proprietary processes in any man and, in fact, in any organism, namely “information and “knowledge,” are now persistently taken as commodities, that is as substance. Information is, of course, the process by which knowledge is acquired, and knowledge is the processes that integrate past and present experiences to form new activities, either as nervous activity internally perceived as thought and will, or externally perceivable as speech and movement (Maturana, 1970, 1971; Von Foerster, 1969,1971).
Neither of these processes can be “passed on” as we are told in phrases like “. . . Universities are depositories of Knowledge which is passed on from generation to generation,” etc., for your nervous activity is just your nervous activity and, alas, not mine.
No wonder that an educational system that confuses the process of creating new processes with the dispensing of goods called “knowledge” may cause some disappointment in the hypothetical receivers, for the goods are just not coming: there are no goods.
Historically, I believe, the confusion by which knowledge is taken as substance comes from a witty broadsheet printed in Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century. It shows a seated student with a hole on top of his head into which a funnel is inserted. Next to him stands the teacher who pours into this funnel a bucket full of “knowledge,” that is, letters of the alphabet, numbers and simple equations. It seems to me that what the wheel did for mankind, the Nuremberg Funnel did for education: we can now roll faster down the hill.
Is there a remedy? Of course, there is one! We only have to perceive lectures, books, slides and films, etc., not as information but as vehicles for potential information. Then we shall see that in giving lectures, writing books, showing slides and films, etc., we have not solved a problem, we just created one, namely, to find out in which context can these things be seen so that they create in their perceivers new insights, thoughts, and actions.

in Heinz Von Foerster, 1971, "Perception of the Future and the Future of Perception", Twenty-fourth Annual Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

OqueStrada

Amor à primeira vista:



nas lojas e no Myspace

campanha eleitoral na sociedade da informação

Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:51:55 +0100
From:
To:
Subject: Fwd: o que Vital Moreira pensa dos professores


----- Mensagem encaminhada de -----
Data: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:16:49 +0100
De:
Assunto: o que Vital Moreira pensa dos professores


"ele é" cada um melhor que o outro! :P

(mas é para votar nele e o mandar para fora do país??) ;)


From: info.maceira-owner@prof2000.pt [mailto:info.maceira-owner@prof2000.pt] On Behalf Of Nuno Silva
Sent: quinta-feira, 23 de Abril de 2009 19:39
To: info.maceira@prof2000.pt
Subject: o que Vital Moreira pensa dos professores
Divulguem junto de todos os professores que conhecem o que Vital Moreira pensa dos professores Vital Moreira, reputado professor de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra, foi, este fim-de-semana, no Congresso do Partido Socialista, dado a conhecer como cabeça de lista deste partido nas próximas eleições para o Parlamento Europeu.
Vital Moreira é uma personalidade com um passado e um presente político conhecido de boa parte dos portugueses. O que, talvez, nem todos saibam é que este mestre de Direito nutre um profundo desprezo pela classe docente, só comparável ao da actual Ministra da Educação.
De facto, em 18 de Novembro de 2008, no jornal "Público", Vital Moreira faz um dos ataques mais rasteiros e mais odiosos que me foi dado ler em todo este processo de luta dos professores contra o actual sistema de avaliação. Que diz aí Vital Moreira? Básicamente quatro coisas, a saber:
a) Que não existe qualquer razão para que os professores não sejam avaliados para efeitos de progressão na carreira,
b) Que os professores não gozam de direito de veto em relação às leis do país, nem podem auto-isentarem-se do seu cumprimento, pelo que não é aceitável qualquer posição que implique resistência à aplicação do actual modelo de avaliação;
c) Que o governo não pode ceder às exigências dos professores, devendo antes abrir processos disciplinares a todos aqueles que ponham em causa a concretização da avaliação dos docentes tal como foi congeminada pelo Ministério da Educação;
d) Que o governo, na batalha contra os professores, deve esforçar-se por chamar a si a opinião pública, isolando, desta forma, a classe docente.
Este é o pensamento de Vital Moreira, onde a sua veia caceteira surge bem expressa. Mas, mais do que isso, este texto, publicado no "Público", revela-nos um verdadeiro guia político da acção do Ministério da Educação contra os professores.
Que cada colega não perca a memória e dê a devida resposta a este senhor nas eleições para o Parlamente Europeu, é o mínimo que está ao nosso alcance.


----- Finalizar mensagem encaminhada -----

Haveria movimento dos professores se não tivesse havido Plano Tecnológico?

Every Day is Exactly the Same

I believe I can see the future
'Cause I repeat the same routine
I think I used to have a purpose
And then again that might have been a dream
I think I used to have a voice
Now I never make a sound
I just do what I've been told
I really don't want them to come around, oh no

Every day is exactly the same
Every day is exactly the same
There is no love here and there is no pain
Every day is exactly the same

I can feel their eyes are watching
In case I lose myself again
Sometimes I think I'm happy here
Sometimes - yeah - I still pretend
I can't remember how this all got started
But I can tell you - exactly - how it will end

Every day is exactly the same
Every day is exactly the same
There is no love here and there is no pain
Every day is exactly the same

I'm writing on a little piece of paper
I'm hoping someday you might find
I'll hide it behind something
They don't look behind
I am still inside here
A little bit comes bleeding through
I wish this could have been any other way
I just don't know what else I can do

Every day is exactly the same
Every day is exactly the same
There is no love here and there is no pain
Every day is exactly the same

And I've rehearsed my lines
And I know what's coming next

Nine Inch Nails
With Teeth

Trabalho de casa

Ficha de tpc, 1º ano do 1º ciclo:

Ordena as palavras e forma frases:

- vai de O mota Gaspar até vila à

- duas horas. A acabou festa às

- Paulino. fisga é do Esta

- está Neste bosque escuro. muito

- Houve rusga uma bairro. no

Reality Show