Ojo de la Cerradura

MADAGASCAR

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:59:23 +0000

EL CANTANTE DE BODAS

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:25:04 +0000

Pedro hizo su primera aparición en una obra de teatro, “El Cantante de Bodas” presentada el viernes pasado en el teatro Santa Isabel por el Saint Trineans Drama Club.

Para los que hacen mucho que no lo ven es el “novio de blanco”!

Ya tenía un hijo artista, ahora tengo otro; y no puedo decir que lo heredaron del padre!

BEIJING 2008

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:24:51 +0000

Imágenes capturadas de Google Earth (todas en la misma escala): Aeropuerto de Beijing, centro de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, area donde estan aconteciendo los Juegos Olímpicos en Beijing, area alrededor de la Plaza Tiananmen en Beijing y Aeropuerto de Ezeiza. [Cliquear en las imágenes para ampliar]

PRIMER HAZ EN EL LHC!

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:23:56 +0000

Via US LHC Blog, hoy Augosto 8/2008 el primer haz fue inyectado en un pequeño tramo del LHC.

[9-ago-2008] Breve información adicional en el mismo blog.

[11-ago-2008] Via Gordon Watt bog Life as a Physics llegué al site LHC First Bean con información sobre el primer haz inyectado el 8 de Agosto pasado que recorrió 3 km dentro del acelerador. Tiene también un contador que registra la cuenta final hasta el 10 de Septiembre!

PINE TAPPING VIDEOS

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:54:15 +0000

These are some videos taken in Brazil and China, that show how pines are curently tapped.

1) Brazilian “bark chipping” horizontal steak with paste stimulant. The cut is applied over a Pinus elliottii in Angatuba, São Paulo, Brazil; with a frequency of 15 to 21 days depending on the paste stimulant applied. The widht of the cut is of 2/3 of the diameter of the tree and the high is about 2.5 cm.

2) Brazilian “bark chipping” V shape is applied in a Pinus elliottii. This type of cut is prefered when the face has attained a considerable high over the ground. The frequency and widht is similar to the horizontal steak.

3) Chinese “wood chipping” method with a Guangxi Dao on a Pinus caribeae in Hainan, China: The streak is cut every day during 6 or 7 months per year. No stimulant is used.

4) Chinese “wood chipping” method with a V knife on a Pinus elliottii near Nanchang, Jiangxi Province inChina: The streak is cut every day during 5 or 6 months per year. No stimulant is used.

5) Pine tapping in Spain. In this post in my blog you can asist two videos that show how the Pinus pinaster was tapped in Spain. In the first video it is shown the very old Hugues way of tapping a pine tree (this method is currently used in Indonesia). In the second video is shown the bark chipping method with aplication of stimulant in spray and paste form.

RESINACION EN ESPAÑA

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:52:53 +0000

Alfonso Criado me trajo este video hace unos años atrás en una visita que hizo a Brasil. Después de perderlo en alguna mudanza, lo volví a encontrar en Google Videos via el Blog de Forestman:

En la primera parte se ve el afilado de las herramientas y el uso del tripode. En el minuto 5:20 se ve como se resina según el sistema Hugues.

En la segunda parte no bien comienza el video se ve el corte de una estria con el sistema de “pica de corteza” (”bark chipping”) primero estimulada com acido sulfúrico diluido en spray y después en forma de pasta. El video continua mostrando la colecta de la miera y la fabricación de colofonia.

A ROTA DE BRASIL A CHINA

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 02:27:27 +0000

Via el blog China Comment,

Em 2007 Brasil finalmente experimentou un deficit na balança comecial com a China. “Las figuras oficiais Brasileiras mostram que as exportações direcionadas a China alcanzarão $ 12.62 bi, “ de acordo com Xinhua. ” 6 por cento de todas as exportações Brasileiras foram para China no ulitmo ano, mientras que 10 por cento de todas las importações vem de China,” de acuerdo a NPR. O negócio Bilateral Bilateral cresceu 71.7% em 2007. O comercio entre os dois decolou entre 2000 y 2003, quando cresceu cinco veces, e novamente desde 2004-2007 quando mais que duplicou (BBC).

O post continua fazendo as seguintes referências:

Em 2007 a USA, o parceiro comecial #1 do Brasil, exportou $ 24.6 bi a Brasil e importou $ 25.6 bi; aunque China pode suplantar a USA e Argentina en importacia comercial com Brasil.
96% das importações Brasileiras da China são produtos manufaturados de alto valor, 74% das exportações a China são comodities de baixo valor como soja e ferro gusa.
Brazil espera aumentar a suas exportações em 619 lineas de produtos, incluindo “produtos farmaceuticos, quimicos, plasticos, zapatos y metais Brasileiros”.

A atual barreira comercial e a distancia e a dificultad dos navios Chineses de alcançar Brasil. Tem tres caminhos posiveis: via o canal de Panama, pela Terra do Fogo, o pela posivel rota maritima/terrestre (muito costosa) cruzando Sul América. Das treis opções a mais factivel e a do canal de Panamá em vistas a sua expanção para server grandes navios a ser completada em 2014. (Panama Canal Expansion Proposal)

Esta situação va a demorar o crescimento do comerico mutuo que pode crescer em forma exponencial depois de 2014, segundo o autor do post.

Ele tambem faz referencia a um interesante blog post de Martin Weiss em MarketOracle sobre el comercio entre Brazil-China (crica, Feb 2007).

Martin Weiss se pregunta por que China a tomado ao mundo por sorpresa no seu caminho hacia Sul America (e Africa). A resposta e triplice:

China esta operando praticamente sem superpotencias concorrentes.
Para China es só negócio, no como acontece com outras potencias mundiais.
E não segue os lineamentos da USA como oportunamente fiz o Japão.

Verificando en Aliceweb pude observar que en la primera mitad de 2008 la China superó a Argentina como “parceiro” comercial de Brasil:

	EXPORT	IMPORT	SURPLUS	TRADEFLOW
2007
USA	25,065	18,724	6,340	43,789
ARGENTINA	14,416	10,405	4,011	24,822
CHINA	10,748	12,620	(1,871)	23,369

2008 (JAN-JUN)
USA	12,866	11,323	1,541	24,191
CHINA	7,107	8,947	(1,540)	16,355
ARGENTINA	8,588	6,237	2,351	14,826

LHC: TODOS LOS SECTORES POR ABAJO DE LOS 4.5°K!

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:34:43 +0000

Via LHC The Large Hadron Collider Homepage.

Via The Reference Frame Blog of Lubos Motl visitamos el post de ayer de The Boston Globe con una serie de imagenes de alta resolución de LHC. Como por ejemplo la siguiente foto de Maximilien Brice del detector CMS,

Via el blog The Quantum Diaries Survivor de Tomasso Dorrigo o via The Reference Frame de Lubos Motl (o viceversa) nos enteramos que la masa del Higgs puede estar entre 115 y 135 GeV.

VISUALIZACIÓN DE LA INFORMACIÓN

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Via el blog Ordenando Mi Entropia de Francisco García de Sola,

“… Debajo de la mesa de mi despacho, en la oficina, tengo un taco de papel reciclado. Cada vez que alguien entra preguntando por algo, enseguida echo mano al taco y cojo un par de hojas. A los técnicos se nos suele acusar (con razón, muchas veces) de que no explicamos los temas técnicos de forma lo suficientemente clara como para que lo entiendan los que se dedican a otras áreas del negocio. Seguramente se debe a que intentamos explicarles sólo con palabras las imágenes que nosotros vemos con claridad en nuestro cerebro, no consiguiendo que ellos se formen, partiendo de esas palabras las mismas nítidas imágenes, o visualizaciones. Por eso yo, a la vez que hablo, voy dibujando sobre el papel recuadros, círculos, nubes, flechas y abreviaturas que hacen más visuales mis explicaciones. Es un recurso que uso tan a menudo, que cuando la necesidad de dar explicaciones me surge en una mesa ajena, lo que más echo en falta es mi taquito de papel reciclado… ”

HOW CHINA THINKS

Alex CUNNINGHAM — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:36:00 +0000

Via New Economist blog,

How China thinks

We know a lot about the Chinese economy - but how do the Chinese think? What do they discuss? Are they all Maoist automatons, or is there a lively debate occurring which Western observors are barely aware of? Veteran think tanker Mark Leonard favours the latter view, which he puts forward at some length in his new book, What does China think?

This is also the lead story in the March 2008 issue of Prospect magazine. Leonard makes some inteersting points in his cover piece, China’s new intelligentsia. He documents the shift away from Deng’s ‘growth at any price’ approach, as ‘new left’ views gain ground. Here are some excerpts from the article:

I had imagined that China’s intellectual life consisted of a few unbending ideologues in the back rooms of the Communist party or the country’s top universities. Instead, I stumbled on a hidden world of intellectuals, think-tankers and activists, all engaged in intense debate about the future of their country. I soon realised that it would take more than a few visits to Beijing and Shanghai to grasp the scale and ambition of China’s internal debates. Even on that first trip my mind was made up—I wanted to devote the next few years of my life to understanding the living history that was unfolding before me.

Over a three-year period, I have spoken with dozens of Chinese thinkers, watching their views develop in line with the breathtaking changes in their country. Some were party members; others were outside the party and suffering from a more awkward relationship with the authorities. Yet to some degree, they are all insiders. They have chosen to live and work in mainland China, and thus to cope with the often capricious demands of the one-party state.

We are used to China’s growing influence on the world economy—but could it also reshape our ideas about politics and power? This story of China’s intellectual awakening is less well documented. We closely follow the twists and turns in America’s intellectual life, but how many of us can name a contemporary Chinese writer or thinker? Inside China—in party forums, but also in universities, in semi-independent think tanks, in journals and on the internet—debate rages about the direction of the country: “new left” economists argue with the “new right” about inequality; political theorists argue about the relative importance of elections and the rule of law; and in the foreign policy realm, China’s neocons argue with liberal internationalists about grand strategy. Chinese thinkers are trying to reconcile competing goals, exploring how they can enjoy the benefits of global markets while protecting China from the creative destruction they could unleash in its political and economic system. Some others are trying to challenge the flat world of US globalisation with a “walled world” Chinese version.

Paradoxically, the power of the Chinese intellectual is amplified by China’s repressive political system, where there are no opposition parties, no independent trade unions, no public disagreements between politicians and a media that exists to underpin social control rather than promote political accountability. Intellectual debate in this world can become a surrogate for politics—if only because it is more personal, aggressive and emotive than anything that formal politics can muster. While it is true there is no free discussion about ending the Communist party’s rule, independence for Tibet or the events of Tiananmen Square, there is a relatively open debate in leading newspapers and academic journals about China’s economic model, how to clean up corruption or deal with foreign policy issues like Japan or North Korea.

Although the internet is heavily policed, debate is freer here than in the printed word (although one of the most free-thinking bloggers, Hu Jia, was recently arrested). And behind closed doors, academics and thinkers will often talk freely about even the most sensitive topics, such as political reform.

The Chinese like to argue about whether it is the intellectuals that influence decision-makers, or whether groups of decision-makers use pet intellectuals as informal mouthpieces to advance their own views. Either way, these debates have become part of the political process, and are used to put ideas in play and expand the options available to Chinese decision-makers. Intellectuals are, for example, regularly asked to brief the politburo in “study sessions”; they prepare reports that feed into the party’s five-year plans; and they advise on the government’s white papers.

So is the Chinese intelligentsia becoming increasingly open and western? Many of the concepts it argues over—including, of course, communism itself—are western imports. And a more independent-minded, western style of discourse may be emerging as a result of the 1m students who have studied outside China—many in the west—since 1978; fewer than half have returned, but that number is rising.

However, one should not forget that the formation of an “intellectual” in China remains very different from in the west. Education is still focused on practical contributions to national life, and despite a big expansion of higher education (around 20 per cent of 18-30 year olds now enrol at university), teaching methods rely heavily on rote learning. Moreover, all of these people will be closely monitored for political dissent, with “political education” classes still compulsory…

And there’s plenty more in his piece. Fascinating.