Sem objetivo todo é precário

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Distriubiçao do PIB em Sergipe

O estado da educação no Brasil

Ché

Ciência e erros

A importânica de erros

by Adam Frank

Enlarge Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images It takes a lot of cabling to make the Oscillation Project with Emulsion-Racking Apparatus (OPERA) run at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory (LNGS) in Italy.

How do people handle the discovery of their own mistake? Some folks might shrug it off. Some folks might minimize its effect. Some folks might even step in with a lie. Most people, we hope, would admit the mistake. But how often do we expect them to announce it to the world from a hilltop. How often do we expect them to tell us — in the clearest language possible — that they screwed up, providing every detail possible about the nature of the mistake?
That's exactly what's required in science. As embarrassing as it might seem to most people, admitting a mistake is really the essence of scientific heroism.
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O novo totalitarismo nas escolas públicas americanas

11 Reasons To Get Your Kids Out Of The Government Schools
It should be painfully obvious to everyone by now that it is time to get all of our kids out of the government schools. The public school system in the United States has been dramatically declining for a long time, and in most areas of the country the public schools are open sewers at this point. Yes, there are some U.S. public schools that are still very good and that do a decent job of preparing our young people for their adult lives. But those good schools are the exception to the rule...
Drugs, sex and violence are rampant in American public schools today. The "teachers" are endlessly pushing specific political and social agendas down the throats of our kids, and the skills that our children really need such as reading, writing and mathematics are often badly neglected. Hopefully we can get more parents educated about what is really going on in these schools. After all, why would any parents want to send their children into an environment that is going to be highly destructive for them for six to eight hours a day?
Sadly, "destructive" is not too hard a word to use for the environment in these public schools...
The following are 11 reasons to get your kids out of the government schools....:
1. ....
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Mau produto vendido requer compensação

Bacharéis sem trabalho processam faculdades nos EUA

Por João Ozorio de Melo

Nos Estados Unidos, estudantes de Direito que se formam mas não encontram trabalho, já têm o que fazer nos tribunais: processar as faculdades de direito. Apenas neste mês, um grupo de sete firmas de advocacia, que representa bacharéis desempregados, já moveu ações coletivas contra 12 faculdades de direito e está pronto para processar mais 20. O grupo promete transformar 2012 no "ano do contencioso contra faculdades de direito". Essa é a nova onda de ações judiciais no país, diz o site Above the Law.
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Produção acadêmica

Mecanismos de incentivos, produtividade acadêmica e o “mercado das ideias”

Por Fabio Barbieri

"... as universidades e governos deveriam adotar mecanismos de incentivos desenhados com o propósito de estimular a produtividade acadêmica. Em essência, tais mecanismos atribuem “pontos” as diversas atividades do pesquisador, de acordo com o valor que se atribua a cada uma delas. Supondo que os professores pautem suas escolhas apenas pelos incentivos monetários atrelados aos pontos, eles competiriam entre si pelos mesmos, aumentando desse modo sua produção, na direção desejada...

George Stigler, da Universidade de Chicago, satirizou a tentativa de desenhar mecanismos de incentivos já na década de sessenta. Em sua sátira, nos fala de um reitor de uma universidade latino-americana que pretendia estimular a produtividade de seus pesquisadores. Para tal, decretou que os professores poderiam desafiar em exames outros com um cargo superior, cuja banca seria composta de professores americanos. Caso ganhasse, o professor trocaria de posto e salário com o perdedor. Ocorreu então uma corrida à biblioteca e professores mais velhos anteciparam a aposentadoria. Porém, surgiu o entesouramento do conhecimento: os especialistas não discutiam com pessoas que soubessem menos que eles e ensinavam assuntos irrelevantes em seus cursos, com medo de perder o cargo. Diante dessa distorção, o reitor passou a conferir 5 pontos para o professor cujo aluno vencesse um desafio. Certo professor foi vencido por 7 alunos, mas manteve o cargo pelos 35 pontos conquistados… Os cursos de pós-graduação ficaram vazios, pois os candidatos foram estudar nos EUA, terra dos examinadores. De fato, brilhantes professores foram substituídos por alunos que fizeram cursos com examinadores. Além disso, a atividade de pesquisa cessou e todos se concentravam nos estudos para os exames. Diante disso, o reitor conferiu 2 pontos por artigo e 7 por livro produzido. Os professores passaram a preferir preparar um aluno bom por ano (5 pontos) a produzir um livro que demora 3 anos. Outro publicou como artigos os 19 capítulos do seu livro, enquanto outro publicou uma transcrição de conferências.
No relato de Stigler, cada regra desencadeava uma reação inesperada e indesejável, o que convidava a reformulação do conjunto de regras. O processo nunca resultava no aumento de produtividade propriamente dita, mas em desvios dos esforços para a busca dos indicadores objetivos de produtividade. Esse fenômeno, poderíamos perguntar, seria parte de um processo de calibragem ...
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Uma vez quande se começa tem no fim

Shocking reminder that eugenicist beliefs underpin medical establishment
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, February 28, 2012

A paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics argues that abortion should be extended to make the killing of newborn babies permissible, even if the baby is perfectly healthy, in a shocking example of how the medical establishment is still dominated by a eugenicist mindset.

The paper is authored by Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne.

The authors argue that “both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons,” and that because abortion is allowed even when there is no problem with the fetus’ health, “killing a newborn should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

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Antes dos indios

New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America

David Keys 

  New archaeological evidence suggests that America was first discovered by Stone Age people from Europe – 10,000 years before the Siberian-originating ancestors of the American Indians set foot in the New World.

A remarkable series of several dozen European-style stone tools, dating back between 19,000 and 26,000 years, have been discovered at six locations along the US east coast. Three of the sites are on the Delmarva Peninsular in Maryland, discovered by archaeologist Dr Darrin Lowery of the University of Delaware. One is in Pennsylvania and another in Virginia. A sixth was discovered by scallop-dredging fishermen on the seabed 60 miles from the Virginian coast on what, in prehistoric times, would have been dry land.
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Hayek: Direito, Legislação e Liberdade está online em Português

Os três volumes da obra prima Direito, Legislação e Liberdade, de F. A. Hayek foram escaneados e estão disponíveis online para download.
A disponibilização dos três volumes, traduzidos pelo Instituto Liberal e publicados em 1985, é mais um golaço do Portal Libertarianismo.
* Direito, Legislação e Liberdade – Volume 1: Normas e Ordem
* Direito, Legislação e Liberdade – Volume 2: A Miragem da Justiça Social
* Direito, Legislação e Liberdade – Volume 3: A Ordem Política de Um Povo Livre

A tragédia e comédia do Império Britânico

The influence of the British Empire is everywhere, from the very existence of the United Kingdom to the ethnic composition of our cities. It affects everything, from Prime Ministers' decisions to send troops to war to the adventurers we admire. From the sports we think we're good at to the architecture of our buildings; the way we travel to the way we trade; the hopeless losers we will on, and the food we hunger for, the empire is never very far away.

In this acute and witty analysis, Jeremy Paxman goes to the very heart of empire. As he describes the selection process for colonial officers ('intended to weed out the cad, the feeble and the too clever') the importance of sport, the sweating domestic life of the colonial officer's wife ('the challenge with cooking meat was "to grasp the fleeting moment between toughness and putrefaction when the joint may possibly prove eatable"') and the crazed end for General Gordon of Khartoum, Paxman brings brilliantly to life the tragedy and comedy of Empire and reveals its profound and lasting effect on our nation and ourselves.

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A realidade por trás do Império Britânico

Paxo Britannica

DAVID BLACKBURN

Paxman’s thesis can be reduced into a string of his trademark soundbites. British imperialism was a ‘protection racket’, based on the conceit that a handful of well-equipped soldiers and well-educated officials could provide stable government for the feckless potentates of India, Africa and the Middle East. Any challenge to British interests was ‘met with savage retaliation’, which invariably resulted in expansion.

The answer, then, to the problem of imperial security was deeper and further subjugation. (This was indiscriminate of race or creed. The Boer War and the concentration camps into which non-combatant Boers were interned is the most compelling riposte to those who say that British conquest was a racist endeavour.) Paxman is scathing of a lust for 'power’ for its own sake...

The policy failed. Historians from A.J.P. Taylor to Judith Brown have argued, to varying degrees, that the British Empire collapsed because it ran out of money. Ruinously expensive (in every sense of the term) world wars hastened the process, but the root cause was that the workshop of the world had moved.

Economic decline remains the predominant feature in British politics, and a major foreign policy consideration...

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Retrato da Alemanha de hoje

A vida na Alemanha: um retrato vivo do (quase) oásis europeu

Seis relatos pessoais sobre a economia, o mercado de trabalho e os desafios do país que desponta como motor de um continente em crise
Padrão de vida
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Mais complexo o mundo, mais simples precisam ser as regras

Simple Rules for a Complex World

In this Exploring Liberty lecture, Richard Epstein gives a quick outline of his “simple rules”— six conditions that he says provide the groundwork for the emergence of a civilized society.
Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University as well as an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute. He is the author of Simple Rules for a Complex World (1995) and Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (2004), among many other books.
Produced by Evan Banks.

Download MP3 version

Video

Inovador e empreendedor - quem cria o valor?

Pros: Ideas Don’t Equal Value

by Daniel Isenberg, Babson Global

If you had one dollar to invest, would you invest it in an innovator or an entrepreneur? Innovation is crucial to social advancement, but the entrepreneur gets my buck every time. Innovation is about the manifestation of novel ideas, but entrepreneurship is about value creation. Ideas help, but the sine qua non for entrepreneurs—hard work, ambition, resourcefulness, unconventional thinking, salesmanship, and leadership—will always trump brilliant ideas.
I know who and where the entrepreneurs are, but who is an “innovator?” Is it anybody tinkering with a grand idea or just a mystical few? Is it a group of people or a lone inventor? I might spend my buck on an innovator if I could find one; I suspect if I did, lurking behind the innovation get-up would be an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, innovation without an entrepreneur is like a car without a driver. Entrepreneurs will navigate the road to value creation and growth, with or without innovation.
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Obrigado, governo

Obrigado, governo pelos buracos nas estradas. Mais buracos menos lombada se precisa, sim?
Quer trocar o seu heli com o meu carro? Pois não?

Motoristas pagam mais de R$ 25 bilhões de IPVA em 2011

Em segunda-feira 27/2/2012, às 17:26

SÃO PAULO – Durante o ano passado, os mais de 66 milhões de proprietários de veículos em todo o País pagaram R$ 25,1 bilhões de IPVA (Imposto sobre Propriedade de Veículos e Automotores).
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Como criar emprego e prosperidade

"... During the January 16th debates in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Presidential candidate Ron Paul laid down a bombshell by advocating his goal of gradually lowering the personal income tax to 0%, while at the same time shrinking government and finding new sources of revenue for Washington to use to perform its duties. In response to this, economist and Senior editor for the Wall Street Journal not only agreed that Congressman Paul's plan was feasible, but it would also be the greatest job creator for a nation in the history of the world.

Continue reading on Examiner.com WSJ economist: Ron Paul's 0% income tax would be world's greatest job creator - National Finance Examiner | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/finance-examiner-in-national/wsj-economist-ron-paul-s-0-income-tax-would-be-world-s-greatest-job-creator#ixzz1ndGZ3bJ0

Ciência, tecnologia e "world view" (Weltanschauung)

“[T]he main influence of science on modern man has not been, as is often supposed, through the advancement of technology; it has come, rather, through the imaginative effects of science on our world view. . . . During the past eighty years or so the progress of science has become a mainspring of technical progress, and this has changed many of our habits, improved our material welfare, and brough...t us certain special problems; but it has not had anything like the profound effect upon our conception of ourselves as human beings that Darwinism has had, and Darwinism has been responsible for no technical progress.” -- Michael Polanyi and Harry Prosch, Meaning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 104-05.

“We have no strict proofs for any parts of science. The radical import of this fact is usually blunted by contentions that the statements of science are only probable and merely tentative; but this is an exaggeration and is in any case irrelevant. The fact is that not only do we accept and vitally rely on scientific observations (we do not really treat them as only probable or tentative), but we d...o so on the ground of nonstrict criteria. Our reliance on the validity of a scientific conclusion depends ultimately on a judgment of coherence; and as there can exist no strict criterion for coherence, our judgment of it must always remain a qualitative, nonformal, tacit, personal judgment.” -- – Michael Polanyi and Harry Prosch, Meaning (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975), p. 100.

O animal social

With unequaled insight and brio, New York Times columnist David Brooks has long explored and explained the way we live. Now Brooks turns to the building blocks of human flourishing in a multilayered, profoundly illuminating work grounded in everyday life. This is the story of how success happens, told through the lives of one composite American couple, Harold and Erica. Drawing on a wealth of current research from numerous disciplines, Brooks takes Harold and Erica from infancy to old age, illustrating a fundamental new understanding of human nature along the way: The unconscious mind, it turns out, is not a dark, vestigial place, but a creative one, where most of the brain’s work gets done. This is the realm where character is formed and where our most important life decisions are made—the natural habitat of The Social Animal. Brooks reveals the deeply social aspect of our minds and exposes the bias in modern culture that overemphasizes rationalism, individualism, and IQ. He demolishes conventional definitions of success and looks toward a culture based on trust and humility. The Social Animal is a moving intellectual adventure, a story of achievement and a defense of progress. It is an essential book for our time—one that will have broad social impact and will change the way we see ourselves and the world.
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O caminho do sucesso

Lecture, How Success Happens (by New York Times columnist and author, David Brooks) :
http://feeds.tvo.org/~r/tvobigideasVideo/~5/8giERghI8eQ/012276_480x270_512k.mp4

The Conversation, with Allan Gregg:
http://feeds.tvo.org/~r/podcasts/video/AllanGreggInConversation/~5/RNb1bRQaQZk/011795_480x270_512k.mp4

"In this discussion, he talks about the power of the unconscious mind and its impact on our lives, also that the type of relationship a child forms with its mother is indicative of future relations a child will form. He also believes in the value of emotional, rather than logical, decisions, which be ascertains, form the foundation of who we are."

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David Brooks on 'The Social Animal'' ['TVO . 1.14.2012]

onebigtorrent.org

David Brooks, draws from the research in his latest book The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character and Achievement. His lecture was delivered at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

A crescente divisão moral entre os ricos e pobres no EUA

‎1) The Interview: Charles Murray: Coming Apart :
http://feeds.tvo.org/~r/tvo/TxZN/~5/lg0-3e8mcfw/1997905_480x270_512k.mp4

2) The Debate: The Great American Divide :
http://feeds.tvo.org/~r/tvo/TxZN/~5/Yss-RhPg1t0/1997715_480x270_512k.mp4
...
3) Your Agenda Insight: Jordan Peterson on The Growing Divide :
http://feeds.tvo.org/~r/tvo/TxZN/~5/qcsZOT5WCWY/1999128_480x270_512k.mp4 Ver mais

Ver tradução

Charles Murray and Jordan Peterson on the Growing Divide [TVO . 2.24.2012]

onebigtorrent.org

Charles Murray's new book "Coming Apart: The State of White America" looks at a divided America. He joins The Agenda to discuss why the cultural divide is more significant than the economic divide in America society.

Dinheiro que evaporou

Bolsas no mundo todo perdem US$ 50 tri em quatro anos de crise

Segundo pesquisa do Instituto Assaf, queda das ações no período foi de 12%. Apesar da alta nos emergentes, Brasil amarga perda de 12,55%

SÃO PAULO - O prejuízo dos mercados financeiros com a crise nos últimos quatro anos não foi pouco. Segundo um estudo do Instituto Assaf, entre 2008 e 2011 a crise deixou um rastro de perdas de US$ 50,4 trilhões nas bolsas de todo o mundo. Em média, o valor das bolsas mundiais em dezembro de 2011 ficou 12% inferior em relação a 2007.

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Como ganhar felicidade

Video presenting a path to abiding happiness.
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Recorde de graduados nos Estados Unidos

Education Issues

February 27, 2012

Number of U.S. Adults with College Degrees Hits Historic High

College attainment has crept upward, slowly but steadily, says the Washington Post.

• In 1947, just 5 percent of Americans age 25 and older held degrees from four-year colleges.
• As recently as 1998, fewer than one-quarter of the adult population held college degrees.
• In 2011, three in 10 adult Americans held bachelor's degrees, representing a historic high.

...
But in terms of future earnings, education level matters less these days than in previous generations, and field of study matters more.

• Census data show that an associate's degree in engineering or computers is worth as much or more, on average, than a bachelor's in education or the liberal arts.
• An associate's degree in engineering yielded $4,257 in monthly earnings in 2009, compared with $4,000 for a bachelor's in the liberal arts and $3,417 for a bachelor's in education.
• A two-year degree in computers fetched $4,000 a month, the same median earnings as a four-year degree in the humanities.
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Udemy - plataforma para educação online

Udemy, Inc. operates Udemy, a Website that enables to create online courses. It provides various tools for educators, such as content platform to publish videos, presentations, and articles, as well as presentation/video mashup tools; and live virtual classes to interact live with instructors through Udemy Live! presentation-sharing, multiple live videos, chatroom, and whiteboarding. The company also enables for marketing, public relations, and search engine optimization by integrating with social networks and connecting with blogs. It enables to create courses in various categories, such as academics, business and professional, creative and performing arts, health and fitness, language, lifestyle, music, technology and Internet, test preparation, and hobbies and crafts; and subjects, including anthropology, architecture, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, communications, economics, engineering, entrepreneurship, environmental studies, finance, foreign language, history, international relations, law, literature, mathematics, media studies, medicine, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, and science. Udemy is based in San Francisco, California.
 http://www.udemy.com/